User talk:Chris Day

the importance of adding an asterisk

Thanks, Chris! I still baffled by all this, however. And how that single asterisk turns everything right, is a pure mystery to me! But thanks again! (Did you see my "cri de coeur" the Forum?) Hayford Peirce 19:38, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

On the wiki one line break is not seen as a line break at all. However any type of indent will then force a line break. If you want a line break without an indent you will need to have two line breaks. I suspect this strange arrangement is to allow code, such as </ref> to exist on its own line (for clarity) without actually causing line breaks in the text. Chris Day 19:44, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for all your help in various places. I have printed your Forum reply and will study it; will also study your various moves on the various article pages and try to figure out what has been done and why. Eventually, if I can grasp things for myself, I'll see if maybe I can make the Related Articles instructions clearer. (I remember when I got my first MS-DOS computer in 1984 and it came with an enormous binder from Microsoft with so-called instructions in it -- I was literally reduced to tears at one point. Even a year or so later, when I had become pretty adept at using DOS, the friggin' book was *still* a mystery!) Hayford Peirce 20:42, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Are those to be earnest asterisks? Howard C. Berkowitz 20:44, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

An example of why one line break alone does not interrupt the text on a wiki:

If I write:

Organic chemicals<ref>An important reference here</ref> are the basis for life as we know it.

or

Organic chemicals
<ref>An important reference here
</ref>
are the basis for life as we know it.

They will both appear like the following text in the wiki:

Organic chemicals are the basis for life as we know it.