Yeah, I think if the font were black, it wouldn’t be an issue. At least on the computer the facebook font is actually smaller than this one, but because it is black not gray it’s more legible.
Yes
A cool thing would be to allow some setting of display preferences in the user profile section. Then each user could tweak the appearance somewhat.
But barring that, when a lot of users are complaining about legibility, that’s a good sign that some tweaking is needed. It doesn’t have to be a lot. Despite what @mathmom wrote – Facebook text is not black – but it is a darker shade of bluish-gray. The hex color value for Facebook text is #1d2129 – while on this site it’s #3e3f4b. Pure black would be #000000 – so basically Facebook is around 90% dark – while this site is about 75% dark. (The lower the numbers in the hex value, the darker the color – the hex value actually represents 3 separate settings for red, green, blue – so cc’s #3e 3f 4b is the same as rgb (62, 63, 65). Pure white would be #ffffff or rgb (255,255,255).
So the site designers here might try a font color in the 80-85% dark range.
Glad I’m not the only one who checked the hex code @calmom ! On my laptop the font color appears dark blue, not grey. #3E3F4B (R62,G63,B75)'s got a little more blue than red or green, but still grey. Funny how our eyes work 
Your device can make things look very different too. There was a thing going around with a picture of a sneaker - on my phone it looked one color on my laptop the other color. I did not know you could look up the hex code, but I did know on the old boards you could change font colors. No one ever did except on the acceptance/rejection threads. red Yep it still works! I wonder if I use color=black I’ll get something people like better. Here we go: how is that? Hm looks pretty close to the same.
There’s an “inspect page” option in most browsers that allows looking up the style codes; it’s also possible to use the “view source” option to locate the style sheets for any website. Just something that web designers need to know — but mostly useless info for anyone else.
This is BLUE
This is BLACK
No color here.
I see a difference in mathmom’s text when she did black vs the regular font.
Yes, so do I. It’s easier to read.
Personally, I think it’s the font chosen more than the color. I just adjust viewing size to accommodate my aging eyes.
I see no “black” difference in Mathmom’s post on 13325.
I’m on a laptop.
Whether you see it or not, there is color difference – the hex value on “black” is #3d3f4b (which equates to roughly 74% black)
But depending on your individual monitor settings it can be difficult to see.
Another issue the choices of font — the site uses the Montserrat font that you can see here:
https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Montserrat
Here are some other sans serif fonts you might compare:
Roboto: https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Roboto
Open Sans: https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Open+Sans
Raleway: https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Raleway
At first glance these different fonts probably all look the same to most people, but when you do side-by-side comparisons the differences become more apparent.
For anyone interested, Facebook’s text specification is the generic Helvetica or Arial rather than a specialized font. Sometimes it’s just a lot safer & easier to go with standard defaults rather than trying to get fancy.
sinners alley is now for font comparisons? When did they change the sign. on the door??
Barkeep- drinks for everyone.
Yeah I was surprised at how subtle the difference was, interesting that what you get when you put in color = black isn’t really black.
Three blind marmots walk into a bar… blinded by the banged ? idiotic font color scheme of CC…
I do need a real drink… this week was brutal.
I admit I did have to go get banana rum today for our Bananas Foster dessert we’re making for company Saturday. Assuming the plumber can get the sewer line cleared tomorrow (it’s leaking at the clean out). Otherwise I’ll have to drink all the rum swizzles myself if we need to cancel - promised our guests a crafted summer cocktail.
Gosh, Marilyn, that would be such a shame. 
We’re currently on vacation and have been enjoying fresh whiskey sours this week. Haven’t been on cc much, but this morning’s a bit cloudy.
But it IS black… that’s why I posted the color value after checking to verify that it was coded with a full black hex value. It might not look black because of the way your eyes see it in context with other colors on the page, or the very thin font, or your monitor settings, or whatever – but it can’t get any blacker than #000000,
So what we’ve probably learned from your experience is that the legibility issues many are complaining about might have more to do with font selection than color.
And if other’s in Sinner’s Alley want to turn this into a drinking game… fine by me. 
Thought I’d check in since it’s Happy Hour. Guess Font Fest is the entertainment! What’s on draft?