Anyone know the answer to these two?

1) What do the player indicators (underneath the player name) mean? When I play I can see I have a skull underneath my name, while I see up to 5 for others.

2) How can I reduce the size of the message scroll while in-game? Joining a level from the lobby, often I see the lobby messages take up nearly a third or half of my screen, which usually block the real action taking place since I have to play a distance from the mob.

Thanks in advance.