FN is a copy of Art Station. Just saying. https://www.artstation.com/artwork/ZRx3w

BTW I did not suggest collapsing threads, I suggested the ability of collapsing the whole comment and descriptions sections respectively, if you don't want to read descriptions/comments at all.

Markdown by default allows HTML, yet this was turned off on FN. Why do they take more options away from us?

People please vote if you would like to have more options for formatting, or if you at least are willing to recognize others' need for it.

What people should finally understand it's not the question if you like Markdown or not, neither what formatting you personally feel like needing.

What matters is that the ability for complex formatting was taken away from us by disabling HTML which by default is supported by markdown itself. Even if you personally don't want more than Markdwon, why wouldn't you allow it to others?

Making something not possible is not a feature. Making things possible, and giving alternatives, those are features.

And you create more misunderstanding...

"With BBCode you always have an WYSIWYG-Editor or an HTML-Renderer"
- NOT true. And you do not need it. Sure it makes things more comfortable but there are several sites and platforms that do not give any WYSIWYG capabilities with BB/HTML code and people use it to great effect regardless.

"So what do you need for writing storys/journals"
- As much as possible. I personally would like to write full HTML with inline CSS... but at least either filtered HTML, or BB code. I personally vote for HTML.

I format with HTML on Weasyl, Picarto and DeviantArt, and with BB Code on Furaffinity. Picarto even allows CSS, and it's great! Weasyl has Markdown but I spent an hour trying to make it do what I want, until I found out you can actually use HTML there, and then I did in 5 minutes what I could not do with Markdown in an hour.

Any kind of editor is a second step, it only makes things easier, but before that you need to make things possible in the first place.

Summary of your post:

"Most people are too stupid to use good tools properly, so let's not give anyone access to any good tools."

Also:

"MD forces you to use proper paragraphs. Two line breaks = new paragraph, period."

BULLSHIT. MD forces you to give up hope on any spacing. Also, if you knew typography you would know that the space between paragraphs is NOT two line breaks - it a separate thing and it should always be less than an empty line.

Forcing something on 100% of users, with no ANY WAY to circumvent it, just because it is what works with stupid people is very VERY bad practice.

But since we don't have advanced editing tools, such as setting spacing before and after elements like you can do in a DTP app, we have to resort to using line breaks for spacing - just like I do here to separate my post script from the rest of the post (no idea of it will preserve though, I will only see after I send this).

P.s.: Using asterisk for footnote is 100% correct. Also, since I've never seen a keyboard that has a dash key, I think it's more than acceptable that people use hyphens instead for common things - yes it is incorrect, but we are talking about common people and hobbyist writers using a website (the few who are more serious will use dash but they are a minority).

Don't you think that trying to tell me what should I do, or assume what is common for me, it would be much cleaner to just give me the tools letting me do what the hell I want? Then if I don't need the extra tools I won't use them, I lost nothing, but if I need them and thy are not available, I am at lost.

"In my personal opinion users don't usually do this, so let's not even give them a chance!"
^ This is very bad logic.

Markdown was originally invented to turn text that was "formatted" with plain text elements into actual formatting. It was never designed to replace complex formatting methods that were already designed with processing in mind.

Did you miss that in the text age as well as today:

• You emote with asterisk pairs: *slaps you with a herring*
• It is common practice to use asterisks* to mark footnotes or marginals
  * Note: When you only have one note there is no reason to use numbers. Also this is what they teach us to do in handwriting.
• We use dashes to mark dialogues, which are totally not lists.
  - Right?
  - Right.

Also, while tags are 100% clear and precise on what should happen where, Markdown requires you to voodoo around with line breaks, spaces etc. to force it do what you want. Also, in most implementation I had the "fortune" having to use it fucks up many things you would normally use for organizing, such as multiple line breaks, non breaking spaces, etc.

P.s.: Do you realize that markdown supports inline HTML by default which was intentionally turned off here for no sane reason other than fucking us up?

Why do people downvote my addition about collapsing? I really don't get it.

Care to explain why you dislike this?

It's not just being used to, but it is the only logical layout if you consider comments and descriptions important content - and in this community, they are. Sidebars are for secondary things like navigation links, tags, and so on.