I have just been seeing some gaming sites because I was just thinking back to some of the old DOS games that I used to play. But what's up with all these gaming sites? Why do they have to keep having dark/black background with white text?

Is it a rule that all gaming/gamer sites must be dark in colour? So far I've seen three or four, but everyone of them has a black bg or a dark bg.

Makes one wonder who finds those colours so amusing? I certainly don't. Makes reading extraordinarily difficult. No wonder I keep coming back to LQ. The cool colours must have something to do with it.

Also notice the flashy graphics they use in the background? Can you believe it? Orange, yellow and all those things blaring out and insulting your eyesight? Can any half-decent web designer ever create those monstrosities?

Anyway. Point made. What do you think I should do when I visit such sites? Turn off the style-sheet? But that makes the tables and the fonts all go haywire...

I actually find white text on a black background easer to read than black text on a blinding white background. but i do alot of computer work at night by dim light. which is probably very bad for my eyes !

Oh...there's something much worser: light-green text on black background and small font. I've seen it on one security website - had to mark it with mouse to be able to read. Most websites with white on black are not that bad. And they're better for your eyes probably.

There are several damn good reasons , dark writing on light background is the norm through the ages.
Also ; why the traditional blackboard finally got replaced by the far superior whiteboard in classrooms.

And No: It's not because "dark on light" is easier than the other way around. Quite the contrary even...

Especially at larger distances , dark on light retains its readabillity far better.

You can test this with your own monitor : Move away from the screen 'till the text starts to blur for both formats , going with an identical font and size.
You'll find out , the dark on light screen can be discerned as separate writing at a much longer distance than the other way around.

And that's just one reason.

It's also easier on the eyes , when you have a lot of reading to do.

And no: It's NOT harmfull for the eyes to read under poor lighting-conditions ; just more tiresome.

Back text on white pages is like trying to read the label on a lit flourescent bulb
=/

I have to agree that light on dark is easier on my eyes. I do CAD for a living and the colored (generally light) lines on a black background is much easier to look at for hours on end.

I have a friend who has a Xanga site with a distracting background image that makes the text hard to read. He gave me about the stupidest excuse for it, telling me that I could just highlight it to read it. When I told him that I don't think you should have to highlight text just to read it, he argued that nerds were the only people that felt that way, and people enjoy flashy backgrounds and care about that just as much as the text. He also told me that sites without flashy background images were too boring! (Also implying that mine was boring) He also tried to "fix" it. Yikes.

I agree that black on white is better (also for keyboards!) But perhaps it also depends on the monitor? Perhaps some people use monitors with too much brightness? I know that when my monitor is too bright, my eyes tire much quicker and black backgrounds are a "sight for sore eyes". Or is it just me?