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The way that markdown is implemented in the SE sites, starting a line with # makes it into an HTML <h1> heading:

#Heading, (<h1>)

This may be just me but I find the # heading too large. This means that I never use # because I feel it is too jarring and breaks the flow of an answer or question. I think that using a lower level heading is much nicer:

h2 Heading

blah blah blah blah blah because blah blah blah blah blah and since blah blah blah blah blah, therefore blah blah blah blah blah.

h3 Heading

blah blah blah blah blah because blah blah blah blah blah and since blah blah blah blah blah, therefore blah blah blah blah blah.

Could we change the implementation of # to map to <h2> or simply change the font size of <h1>so that # can be more useful?

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    SE is generally opposed to deviating from the Markdown standard. This would really be confusing. If you want a smaller headline, you can use ## nonetheless, and these should be used sparingly anyway. It'd rather make sense to use smaller heading font sizes in general. – slhck Jul 22 '13 at 17:08
  • @slhck I was not aware of ##, that's just about perfect. As for h2, I don't care which tag # is interpreted as, so if the font size changes, that would be perfect. I guess it is just a matter of changing a CSS font-size property for h1 somewhere. If others agree with me, it may be worth it. I often find that headings would be useful and end up just using bold text cause the # are too large. – terdon Jul 22 '13 at 17:11
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    I agree with @slhck that it would make a lot more sense to change the font size on <h1> than it would to always use <h2>. – nhinkle Jul 22 '13 at 17:58
  • @nhinkle changing the font size would be fine, I have updated my question accordingly. I just want the # to be more useful than it is at the moment. – terdon Jul 22 '13 at 18:00
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    Isn't the only reason it's too large that most posts are too short to actually use it? For example, h1 works pretty well in this long answer. – Daniel Beck♦ Jul 22 '13 at 19:07
  • @DanielBeck that's a good point. For longer posts, having a large <h1> does make sense. I don't think the font size should be changed, but I would rather it be changed than start messing around with the markdown syntax. The easy solution of course is to just use ## if one wants smaller headings. – nhinkle Jul 23 '13 at 18:16
  • This has come up before, a few times - part of the problem of getting them right in a way that everyone likes is subtle differences between site designs (you'll also notice diamonds next to a moderator's name are quite large in some places, as an example of another quirk). If we changed the font size, it would change on every site. I'll poke Jin to find out if we've tried that or why we can't. – Tim Post Jul 25 '13 at 9:35
  • @TimPost thanks but since I can use ## instead, I am quite satisfied. I did not know about ## when I posted the question. – terdon Jul 31 '13 at 14:56
  • @slhck Can you mark this as completed or whatever is appropriate? Your point about using ## renders my request irrelevant. – terdon Jul 31 '13 at 14:56
  • I also was unaware of ##. Thanks – Raystafarian Jul 31 '13 at 15:03
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I am answering just in order to close this. @slhck pointed out in the comments that ## instead of # gives an <h2> header. I was not aware of that but it is prety much exactly what I wanted. Since I can use ## instead of #, there is no reason to change the font size of # and I am a happy poster.

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