` commands for bold and cursive text, so those could still be used in this position. I don’t know, how much of this forum is under admin control and how much is coming from a third party, so I can’t tell, if this could be changed by Kafka. Also not sure, if anyone is typing out the text commands instead of using the buttons on top and would be affected in a negative way by this change.
But if I was able to write something as simple as, let’s say, `*g*`, without having to switch to the odd preformat font (if there is any different noparse command available here, I have not found it) or having it end up as _g_, it would seem like a tiny improvement to me.
I know, this is as an irrelevant detail to type about, as it gets. Didn’t mean to waste forum space for it, but could not reach Kafka through PM about it.
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### Author:  [@SilverStream](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/SilverStream)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2022, 1:45am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/tiny-forum-suggestion-dont-connect-asterisks-to-text-effects/78129/2 "2022-12-18T01:45:31Z")
hmm this is true but I’m using \*\* for my stories I write in the off topic section.
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### Author:  [@Rockwell](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Rockwell)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2022, 2:03am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/tiny-forum-suggestion-dont-connect-asterisks-to-text-effects/78129/3 "2022-12-18T02:03:10Z")
I’ve been using forums for over 30 years, since the old days of Usenet and Fidonet Dial-up Bulletin Board Services and asterisks were always used for \* emphasis \*
(I have to put in spaces because, without them, this forum software turns that into _italics_ which, really should be /italics/ )
When Internet Relay Chat became a thing, actions were described as:
/me points at this as an example
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### Author:  [@Jerry\_the\_skunk](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Jerry_the_skunk)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2022, 9:29am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/tiny-forum-suggestion-dont-connect-asterisks-to-text-effects/78129/4 "2022-12-18T09:29:25Z")
Rockwell: I remember reading about the emphasis version several times, but never experienced it myself. I thought, it maybe fell out of fashion after the 90s and was replaced with /this/ or `_this_` variant.
And the mentioned examples of `*lol*`, `*g*` and all their variations do hint towards a description of actions.
Also the /me command does of course only work at the beginning of a statement and looks very odd, when interjected into text.
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### Author:  [@sls](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/sls)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2022, 11:06am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/tiny-forum-suggestion-dont-connect-asterisks-to-text-effects/78129/5 "2022-12-18T11:06:55Z")
You’re asking too much.
They haven’t even managed to fix the green colour on the forums.
Anyway. Forums usually use [Markdown](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown) or something very similar for text styling.
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### Author:  [@Rockwell](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Rockwell)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2022, 12:42pm UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/tiny-forum-suggestion-dont-connect-asterisks-to-text-effects/78129/6 "2022-12-18T12:42:47Z")
> [@Jerry\_the\_skunk](#):
>
> /this/ or `_this_` variant
Putting text in /text/ indicated italics, _text_ indicated underscore.
Asterisks around \* text \* indicated bold.
It depended on what form you wanted your emphasis to take.
Personally I still use asterisks, because it’s a lot quicker to type than adding BBCode or selecting text and then clicking on the Bold button or other forms of markup.
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### Author:  [@Stratelier](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Stratelier)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2022, 8:44pm UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/tiny-forum-suggestion-dont-connect-asterisks-to-text-effects/78129/7 "2022-12-18T20:44:53Z")
Asterisk markup is actually standard to Discourse forum software (and also several wikis).