What is That -30- Thing?

WIth the new "read more" tags, I have moved portions of some of the longer posts off of the front page. This allows more items on the front, while keeping page load times down for the dial-up users. But in my template, the tags show up on every post, whether there is a jump portion or not. (Still looking for a workaround on that.)

If you click through, you will get the entire post, plus any comments that have been published. But if you are already at the end of a short post, you'll see a "-30-" which is a journalism convention signifying the end of a story. The origins of the symbol are not clear, but it dates back to the US Civil War. (If you are a journalist, you almost certainly know the term.)

Clicking through after seeing a "-30-" will still allow you to see the comments, if there are any. But you see a -30-, are already at the end of the post.

-30-