Quoting Posts

[fj1200]

There is of course no rule over this, and we know it's still going to happen here and there. But hopefully with a little better understanding we can minimize how often this happens and make threads more fluid for everyone.

And there is always the edit button after noticing a quoting mishap.

[jimnyc]

And there is always the edit button after noticing a quoting mishap.

Yeppers, but rarely utilized.

[SassyLady]

Yeppers, but rarely utilized.

Jim, I very rarely post without utilizing the "preview post" function ... precisely because I want to make sure my post makes sense. I think the reason the edit is very rarely used is because people are in such a hurry to post what they say they don't reread it. I think a lot of board wars could be avoided if people read what they type before they post.

[jimnyc]

A lot of posts of late are coming up with the quote tags screwed up and making threads more difficult to read. When the quote tags are over applied, or missing, the reader now has a jumbled bit of text to go through with multiple posts all put together as one, and it becomes difficult to tell who wrote what.

Here is a screenshot of what it should look like when you are making a post and having had quoted someone. Notice the opening quote AND closing quote:



The opening quote must have the word QUOTE of course, and it MUST be surrounded by an opening and closing bracket. Once the persons words you are quoting is completed, the word QUOTE must be at the end of the text. This ending quote MUST also have the opening and closing brackets surrounding the word - and just as important, the ending quote tage MUST have a backslash just prior to the word QUOTE. This means BOTH words have to be surrounded by opening and closing brackets, and the closing bracket must always contain the backslash, which is telling the code that this is the end of what needs to be quoted.

Another common mistake is when someone tries to make some of the quoted posts words as bold. What this does when you put some of the words in bold is the same as quoting, except now it puts the letter B in opening brackets and then at the end of what you would like bold should be another B, but just like when quoting, and the closing bracket must contain the backslash. This is how a typical bold statement should appear:



And lastly, using them together. Many times people want to quote a member and then highlight some of their post in bold. These codes MUST remain independent. Here is an example of what I find many sometimes doing wrong, which is mixing the codes:



And this is how it should appear, with all opening tags and closing tags independent of one another. All tags need an opening "statement" and a closing statement, which all need to be cleanly by themselves.



There is of course no rule over this, and we know it's still going to happen here and there. But hopefully with a little better understanding we can minimize how often this happens and make threads more fluid for everyone.

Btw, the idea of opening and closing tags applies the same for all of the others, for example: Italics, underline, centering, code, IMG...

Bumping this post as I see some are still unsure how to use the quote feature. Please read this thread and see if we can get the option working better, as some threads are nearly impossible to read with the quote function butchered, or not even used.

[tailfins]

There is a bug causing everything posted below a hyperlink to be part of that hyperlink.

[Marcus Aurelius]

There is a bug causing everything posted below a hyperlink to be part of that hyperlink.

you sure> I posted a few links today, and everything seems fine.

[tailfins]

you sure> I posted a few links today, and everything seems fine.

When I get time, I will go through the exact steps to replicate the bug.

[jimnyc]

There is a bug causing everything posted below a hyperlink to be part of that hyperlink.

http://www.yahoo.com/

I would look at the code of what is being posted. Generally this would only happen if someone copy and pastes something from a website and not the URL bar, and then the tags are off, or no closing tag present, so the following text stays as part of the URL. But there's no bug as tons and tons of links are posted and it's not happening to me or anyone else.

[Marcus Aurelius]

http://www.yahoo.com/

I would look at the code of what is being posted. Generally this would only happen if someone copy and pastes something from a website and not the URL bar, and then the tags are off, or no closing tag present, so the following text stays as part of the URL. But there's no bug as tons and tons of links are posted and it's not happening to me or anyone else.

Your 140 is showing...

[jimnyc]

Your 140 is showing...

Maybe 'someone' will come in and give us some lessons, help out the less fortunate who aren't exactly up to par on this here quotey quotey thing.