Is there now a "minimum OP length" that pads OPs with space if they're short? (Likely cause thought of)

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. Now I've come back to this, the padding is now pretty much half the length.

I think you're right that it was ads that were blocked (I do the minimum blocking - when the loading of pages are delayed enough for me to be able to see the URL of which ad page is slowing things down, I add it to an effective list of "do not visit" URLs). Maybe it had switched briefly to 2 (blocked ads), and now it's back to 1, so half the length, which isn't so obvious.

And then, when the page reloaded after I made that post, its back to full length. it must be the number of side ads on the right, and they're all from some useless ad firm, so I have them blocked.