Why do people post with whole paragraphs crossed out?

[PineappleSeahorse]

I keep seeing this and it's very annoying to read. Does anyone know what the purpose is? There must be some reason. I've seen people use it for one sentence when they put their real thoughts but paragraph after paragraph? There's obviously a reason but I don't know what it is.

Maybe they think it makes the post more amusing, more quirky? I find lots of crossings out in a post really irritating.

I bet every reply you get will have crossings out now

I’ve not seen this on MN. Seen it on other fora where you’re allowed to edit, so people go back and do extensive corrections when they learn more. On MN Paragraph after paragraph surely must be some kind of typo.

I'm with you, it's incredibly annoying

I think a lot of the really long strike through are accidental

It's really annoying op. Yanbu

No idea but I bet loads of people will come along to tell you they think it's hilarious and a jolly good, passive aggressive way of say what they mean, in the same way you do a stage whisper to convey your real feelings in a play

I think it's because people uses dashes in lieu of punctuation, my boss does, and then whole paragraphs get crossed out.

Or they have no idea how this works--.

I don't think it's a typo. They usually have a few paragraphs without then several with. I've seen quite a few posters do this. I'll have to ask them next time because it's very odd.

I agree that crossing out is a passive aggressive way of saying what you really think, and can be witty if it is used properly. But entire paragraphs? Nah, that's daft.

when people use the strikeout feature I think its very 70s bad comedy sitcom

Probably Vladimir writes another sentence purely to use the strike through function

Sometimes it's a wardrobe punctuation malfunction.

Sometimes they're doing it for comedic effect.

You can generally use context to work out which.

YANBU

They think they're being funny. It a bit like adding 'not' to the end of a statement in a frantic signalling of irony. Not funny.

I saw a thread recently where a few people were complaining that there were entire paragraphs crossed out but to others (including me) it was normal text. MN gremlins?

Opinions of humour vary murderess. But that’s not what the OP aid talking about.

The commonest cause is when someone c&ps some text which is using paired hyphens instead of brackets or commas. Depending on whether you do it and/or view in browser or app (I'm not sure of the combination but I see the 'crossings out' a lot in the app) then the hyphens are interpreted as the MN 'strike out' markup. Sometimes the effect doesn't show up while you're writing the post, and the app has no preview. Things can also go wrong if there's some combinations of markup characters and using the font style button in the app, I think.

Similar strange effects occur on threads discussing exam grades and uni offers where using more than one asterisk to denote 'star' causes bolding. (At least this should become less prevalent on gcse threads now they're numbers, but still afflicts a level grades.

I saw a thread recently where a few people were complaining that there were entire paragraphs crossed out but to others (including me) it was normal text. MN gremlins?

Ah. That'll be it, then.

I saw a thread recently where a few people were complaining that there were entire paragraphs crossed out but to others (including me) it was normal text. MN gremlins?

Browser versus app would be my guess.

because they can

Thank you all for the possible explanations. I appreciate it.

Sometimes a paragraph that looks fine on a PC when you type it ends up looking stricken out on a phone or iPad if you have used hyphens.

SkydivingKittyCat yes, definitely MN gremlins.

I've not seen this - can you link an example?

Because they're fucking stupid.