an open book-
what happened to the gallows?
-even when using backticks, the first character following the first backtick is left-justified (put in the first position on the line).
That’s why a period(.) follows the first backtick – so the next line can begin wherever it’s supposed to, instead of column 1.
If your first line already has a non-blank character in it (such as the math equations in the riddle thread) the period following the backtick isn’t necessary.
Please see this and other formatting tips in the HTML and formatting thread: http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/the-laboratory-ii-try-your-html-and-ascii-art-experiments-here