Quoting quotable quotes - a 'how to' guide.

FieldShunt74 · Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 4:23 pm

"Quoting in the forums" - a guide

Quoting other people's posts is something I often like to do, for a number of reasons. It allows you to address a particular point that someone has made. It keep your comments in context, even if the discussion moves in other directions. It stops you from looking silly if the person you are responding to edits or deletes their post (it happens, believe me). I like quoting and you may like to do it too, from time to time.

You've gotta do it right though, there are potential pitfalls. You should be very careful not to misquote, to not put words in someone's mouth that they didn't say. It's annoying to others if you quote excessively or when you really don't need to. It's also rude to leave out, change or misspell the name of the person you are quoting.

I'm going to give you some examples to guide you with your quoting. We'll start with the most basic method.

Quoting a whole post in your reply:

Let's say I've been reading through a thread, in this case it's New industrial rail hub for west Sydney, and I find a post in that thread that I want to reply to.

drwaddles has asked a question I find interesting and I want to respond. The discussion has moved on with other people posting after drwaddles so I'm going to quote his whole post, which isn't too large, in my reply.

To the left of each post is an oblong box with "post" on it. By clicking on that box the word "Quote" appears. Clicking on that "Quote" word takes us straight to the "Reply" page.

The text from drwaddles' whole post is there, enclosed in the BBcode quote tags. All I need to do is to type in my relpy. I need to start after the /quote tag. If I stray inside the tags it'll look like poor old drwaddles said all his stuff and all my reply as well. That's something to avoid.

Here we go, I've typed in my reply under the text I'm quoting. I could also have added something before the quoted text by starting above, before the opening quote tag. As long as I stay out of those tags, I'll be OK.

I've entered all the reply that I wanted to so I hit the "Preview" button, check the post looks how I want it to and that the BBcode has done the trick with the quoting. It all looks good on preview so I hit "Submit" and here we have it:

That's the desired result, I've got drwaddles' quoted text and my reply, all nice and clear so that anyone who reads it will know exactly what I'm on about. (now if only I knew what I was on about, the world would be a better place...) Wink

That worked well for quoting a short post but what about quoting a slightly more epic effort? The "Post" -> "Quote" method I just used will faithfully reproduce even the longest post as a quote, but does anyone really want to read all that text again? Not me! It's better for everyone if you can trim down the amount of the original you are quoting to the bare minimum.

Quoting a small part of a longer post:

I'll use as the example the source of inspiration for this 'how to' of mine. The idea came from 574M in a lengthy post about conduct on the forums.

Yeah, you can't see it all on the screen, and I only want one paragraph of it.

I'll take the lot of it and then discard the bits I'm not fussed about. Same deal as above, click on "Post" and then "Quote" below 574M's avatar.

Now I've got the whole thing in the reply window. There's all sorts of tags and quotes in there but we only want the first and last ones and the paragraph of interest.

I selected from just after the first quote tag and grabbed everything down to the start of what I wanted. Then I hit delete to get rid of all that selected text. In the view above I'm selecting everything after the bit I want up to the start of the last tag and I'll delete all that as well.

Now I've got it all down to just the essentials, 574M's quote and it's tags. If I was going to actually reply, I'd type away after that last tag. Seeing as I only did this as an example I'll just show the result here:

Raichase · Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 5:59 pm

FS74, that's an excellent, easy to follow guide. Thanks for taking the time to post it for the newer folks.

May I humbly suggest a "Quoting etiquette" section, for example:

Please don't quote images
Please don't overquote (I know you addressed this above, but pointing it out as a social faux pas might be better?)
Please don't quite posts just to "lol" at them, especially if they are longwinded...

etc etc?

Otherwise, bravo Smile

- Raichase.
My Flickr! and Website - Trackside

Comments made are not my own and may be complete rubbish.

newington · Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 7:13 am

Bwana · Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 8:48 am

No rule of ettiquete is iron clad, there are circumstances where they are not as essential. Copying the current Where Is It pic to the new page is one example.

I must admit I can't think of an example where it would be necessary to quote a post OF ANY SIZE just to add "lol" - in fact a post where all you say is "lol" is a faux pas, quote or do quote.

Might I also add, however (Again, FS explained how, but not really how annoying it is to not do so):

Quote only the relevant part of a post.

High on the irritating chart is a 2 screen quote, discussing in long detail something like the consist, timetable, storage and maintenance of a particular service, so that the quoter can point out, for example, that the train, as well as being a 442, 422, 44, 80 and 81 roster, was also for a period a 40 roster. You don't need to quote the timetable, storage or maintenance sections of the original quote (unless the timetable, storage and/or maintenance were different when it was a 40 roster and you have also explained how the timetable, storage and/or maintenance were different during that time).

I am SO moving to Victoria Street!!

Check out my pics at http://bwana.fotopic.net

Gwiwer · Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2008 9:48 pm

An excellent guide on the etiquette as well as the how-to of quoting.

I have one issue which is slightly relevant.

I recently converted from a PC running Windows ME to an iMac using OSX 10.5 and have found that on the Mac OS that the "Post Quote" and "Quote last post" buttons do not work; the BB code must be typed in full whether using the "Post Reply" button or the "Quick Reply" function.

Is this a problem for anyone else on a Mac? Is there a quick fix or a hidden check-box I've missed. Or is it like so many other things and the World revolves around Mr Gates' operating system and doesn't quite work with anything else?

One addition I might add is that it is normally considered taboo to "nest" quotes (particularly for artistic effect), and as far as I am aware there have been warnings issued for the gratuitous posting of nested quotes.

What is a "nested quote"?

Boxes within boxes, where post after post simply ticks "Quote last post" and (sometimes) adds a line of their own text.