1 That is very annoying. Do you want people to read your blog, or do you just want to piss them off?

And why the hell does Mozilla support the marquee tag?

2 Now don't take this the wrong way...

How annoying is it to log on to every site that has one of those Amber Alerts running across the screen. Does that piss everyone off? That is the most hideous ugly thing I've ever seen on otherwise asthetically appealing blogs. I don't not go back because they display them. I just ignore them and do what I came there to do - read the blog.

You can set the text to only scroll one time across the screen, then it disappears, never to return again (at least on that visit). Most scrolls are postioned at the top of the page and out of site the moment you leave the opening screen anyway. Surely this is not a reason a person elects to read or not read a blog!

3 I don't mind a marquee I just don't like the way the actual marquee looks with the regular tags. It's all jumpy and stuff.

There are some scripts that do the same thing in a nice, smooth fashion.

4 Having things zipping around the screen detracts from the readability of the web page.

Why do you want to do that?

How do you feel about those scrolling thingies they run across the top of [whatever TV program you might watch]?

5 I have to go with Pixy on this. Plus, having all the little "extras" can make a page take forever to load. Some of us are still on sad little dial-up connections...and I've lost patience waiting for some blogs to load and moved onto the next.

6 Jennifer has a good point. I always try to keep pages as clean as possible. Probably because my original experience in webwork was over my own 36K modem. This particular item wouldn't make any difference though. It's a common tag and interpretation is by the browser. No load lag.

7 Don't mind me. I'm just tired and cross with all the computer-related disasters I've had at home and work these last couple of weeks.

But I still think that the only reason Microsoft created the marquee tag is that they wanted something even more annoying that Netscape's blink.

8 All these are good comments and points.

I'm on dial up too and it doesn't make my page load any slower. The pictures and the scripts are what slows loading down.

It is a little jumpy and I would prefer to read something a little smootheer myself.

One of the points I made was that it is a way to emphasise something like a contest or make an announcement with. You don't have to leave it up 24/7/365. Use it sparingly and as a tool not a feature.

Use it or don't use it, it's all funny to me. I only posted because two people said something about it.

9 I kind of like it, if it scrolls around once or twice. But I've geegaw'd my blog enough already, it's beginning to look like Granny's parlor.
Perhaps later though... saving it.

10 How do you feel about those scrolling thingies they run across the top of [whatever TV program you might watch]?

TV is a totally different medium. TV has motion (and sound) already and any additional motion is distracting. Whereas a blog is a static picture until you scroll the page. It's just sitting there on it's ass not doing anything. So the scrolling text should not be that distracting. Unless of course you are easily distracted, in that case... well, I forgot what I was talking about

11 Actually, motion in a still medium is more distracting than motion in a moving medium.

Ask any cat or frog.

12 ...motion in a still medium is more distracting than motion in a moving medium.

I just asked Harold and he says you're full of crap. He likes the motion thingys and always watches TV, especially if it's one of those cat videos with the birdys and fishys.

13 Motion does indeed draw the eye, but it could also draw attention away from the real content. Tufte would not be pleased...

14 Harold misses my point. It's exactly the distraction offered by motion in a still field that keeps his interest in the birdies and fishies.

Daniel has it. Motion draws attention to itself. A scrolling thingy says Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!

Hmm... Kind of like this:

Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!
Tufte would not be pleased.

15 Who's Tufte and why do I want to please him?

16 Dare I ask if this new scrolling thing could be the reason why suddenly Mozilla can't see my blog?

17 You do dare. And no, that's not it.

18 Drawing attention to itself is the reason for the whole exercise. If you are trying to promote a special event or contest or voting for something, this is a better tool to use than static text. That is my point - use it for special things, you don't have to do this everyday, all day. Use it to announce something like Survivor or final voting for a Drink Recipe Contest, stuff like that. I think it is an effective tool for that type of thing.

19 Simon - if you cut and paster my the code in my index you may have this problem in one of my lables:
-- >
There is a space between the two dashes and the >.
There should be no space. It should look like this:
-->
I found one error like this and corected it and now Susie says she can read my blog fine. I hope that helps.

20 Ah ha! Bartender, you are a tricky one. I try and copy use your code, but it's really to ruin my blog for the Mozilla folk. That's just so wrong. And from a fellow Alliance member. I'm so sad right now my poor HK heart is breaking. I might need a Helen-esque rant now.

;-)

Will fix it now, and hopefully that will fix it.

21 I couldn't find the space but I found a more elegant solution. I just deleted the code. I don't want to make Pixy angry.

Please let me know if it works, o Mozilla fans.

22 That's got it.

Yeah, IE says "hey, that looks vaguely sort of like a close comment tag" - which means you're screwed if you have something like that in the comment.

Mozilla says "Nope, that's not a close comment tag" - which is fine as long as you get it right.

23 Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!

24 Susie - here's a link on Tufte - http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/

He's a text/graphics/design layout guru. Some interesting stuff. He's... like... the authority on this sort of stuff.

25 Not only that, but he knows what he's talking about.

26 If he designed that site, I'm not real impressed.

Biteme!Biteme!Biteme!Biteme!Biteme!Biteme!Biteme!Biteme!Biteme!Biteme!Biteme!Biteme!Biteme!Biteme!Biteme!Biteme!Biteme!Biteme!Biteme!

27 Ooh... thems fighting words. No, his whole point is usually that the message gets really lost when we use fancy display tactics like marquees and shadow effects for our title ;-)
The message should be the important part, not a persons HTML ability...

28

29 That got him quiet

30 First: Have you ever run a business? Have you ever tried to attract customers? Have you ever been responsible for driving sales and profits on shoestring budgets? If not, don't presume to tell me what works and what doesn't work!

Second: Use the fucking code or not! I don't give a shit!

Third: You don't know me well enough to be popping off!

31 Whoa - just kidding! just playing around!
I actually kind of like the marquee, it definitely draws attention.

32 Okay, kids, we're all friends here.

33 OK, I am a bit afraid to ask questions since it seems the testosterone levels are a wee bit high here, but I tried the scroll and it seemed to jump a lot-is that due to my settings and my very old and sad laptop?

And for God's sake, I am too uncouth to figure out how to do bold, italics and strike-throughs in comments. I wouldn't begin to be cool enough to know how to do banners in comments. Whew.

34 To all: Please excuse my behaviour above. No excuse for it.

Helen: There is a post over at The Alliance HQ that will tell you how to do bold and italics in the comments. The marquee will jump to some extent. A fellow munuvian informs me that it is from the HTML code but that there are javascripts that will smooth it out. If you have any other questions about the marquee, e-mail me and I'll be glad to help you.