There are a couple of rules I feel that should just be taken away.

Do Not Alter Your Text (forum titles and SB) Do Not Post Images

Instead of having these rules in place in the SB, why not just disable the ability to do so? I know images refer to the following:

[pet=] [outfit=] (the new share feature) [avatar=user name here]

And the font modifying codes we all know.

Also, there's also a rule about SB stretching. Isn't there a way to code text so that it wraps around somehow and prevent it from stretching the SB width-wise?

I've always found these rules to be unnecessary just because I'm sure there's a way of being able to code things to keep this from happening. I was on another pet site for a bit and they were able to code their shoutbox in such a way that font modifying was undoable by regular players. Only staff could do so. They also were able to, seeing as you couldn't use sCoding (or whatever the generic, non-Subeta term is for the kind of coding that's called sCode on here) wrap long words around in such a way that it didn't cause stretching. I'm sure things could be done here to prevent images, font modifying and stretching from being posted in the SB of any kind.

The rest of the rules are ones that can't be prevented with site coding, but these ones I know can be. It'd be great to see these rules become obsolete as I find getting warned for these particular offenses rather unfair when the site could be coded to prevent this from happening in the first place. I'm not a coder, but I know it's doable just because I've seen it been done elsewhere.

When it comes to stretching, that only happens if you have one really long word. The way things are coded, it breaks stuff up at spaces. No spaces, no breaks. If they change it to break mid-word, you will end up with short words getting broken too, which can be awkward and confusing. There's probably a way around it, but it requires code that's significantly more complex.

When it comes to making it impossible to post images and modify text in those places, again that's going to require some work. It's just a text area right now, but I'm pretty sure that disabling BBcode for the SB and not for the rest of the page would take some work. Especially since we still want to be able to use links and hovers! People just need to read the rules. I'm sure most mods understand if a person knows the rule and uses the wrong code -- such as messing up the user= tag and confusing it with someone else. If you didn't read the rules, though, they have no excuse.

I don't think that the staff should have to put more work into something just because it might be possible and people are constantly breaking the rule.

That being said, is there really a need for that restriction? Even if they are making their text bold or italic, or even a strange color, I don't seem the problem compared to a user on the forum doing the same thing. I could understand making text huge being an issue but that should fall under the stretching the SB rule.

It's not a matter of people constantly breaking the rule. Sometimes people just forget. It happens to everyone, even staff.

I always wondered if there was a way to code the SB so that all horizontal scrolling (due to long words, images, etc) was disabled.

There is a way of making a super long word wrap around with code. The other pet site I was on didn't allow any sCoding in their SB and site coding was used to be able to allow the link to wrap around so that it stayed within the constraints of the SB box.

Seeing as we're talking about ways to make the site friendlier, putting this coding into the site would really help with making it friendlier instead of issuing warnings for something that IS very preventable with the right coding.

Besides, seems to be on a 'let's make Subeta friendly for newbs' kick, and giving someone a warning for making a word bold seems kind of dicky to me..