# Coding for quoting **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [September 11, 2004, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coding-for-quoting/264029 "2004-09-11T11:25:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ageless6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@ageless6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ageless6)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coding-for-quoting/264029/1 "2004-09-11T11:25:14Z")
Okay,I understand how to quote someone,and that’s fine for a short sentence or paragraph. But if I only want to quote a portion of a long paragraph,I can’t figure out how to separate one or two sentences in it. Yes,I’ve been to vB coding,and still don’t get it. Or maybe it’s a feature(or non-feature) of my webtv. Anyway I need someone to take me through it step by step,and give me an example quote post.I’m on tenterhooks,whatever that means. ---
**Author:** ![hawthorne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@hawthorne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawthorne)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coding-for-quoting/264029/2 "2004-09-11T13:48:31Z")
A tip: when you want to see how some coding has been done, you can often click the “reply” button under a post instead of the “post reply” button at the bottom of the thread. If you do that for your post, the text of your post is preceded by the word QUOTE in square brackets and at the end of your post there is another “tag”, this time /QUOTE (again in square brackets). As well as that there is an =AGELESS6 inside the first “tag”, which gives you the “originally posted by Ageless5” bit). So any text you want to appear quoted, you just tell the computer “start quoted text” by typing QUOTE in square brackets at the start of the text, then “end quoted text” by typing /QUOTE in square brackets. So to get > [@Bucko](#): > > Oh no he said > [@](#): > > It’s only a wee bunny I typed: {quote=Bucko}Oh no{/quote}he said{quote}It’s only a wee bunny{/quote} only with square brackets instead of curly ones. Try one, and use “preview post” to check how you’re going. ---
**Author:** ![ageless6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@ageless6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ageless6)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coding-for-quoting/264029/3 "2004-09-11T16:43:30Z")
[QUOTE=hawthorne] A tip: when you want to see how some coding has been done, you can often click the “reply” button under a post instead of the “post reply” button at the bottom of the thread. If you do that for your post, the text of your post is preceded by the word QUOTE in square brackets and at the end of your post there is another “tag”, this time /QUOTE (again in square brackets). As well as that there is an =AGELESS6 inside the first “tag”, which gives you the “originally posted by Ageless5” bit). > [@hawthorn](#): > > So any text you want to appear quoted, you just tell the computer “start quoted text” by typing QUOTE in square brackets at the start of the text, then “end quoted text” by typing /QUOTE in square brackets. So to get he saidI typed: {quote=Bucko}Oh no{/quote}he said{quote}It’s only a wee bunny{/quote} only with square brackets instead of curly ones. So I tried it and gotthis on preview,when all I wanted was the [quote=hawthorn] sentence. What did I do wrong? ---
**Author:** ![ageless6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@ageless6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ageless6)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coding-for-quoting/264029/4 "2004-09-11T16:47:49Z")
Damn,I didn’t mean to send that.I was sure I had added [/quote] at the end, but I guss not.I’ll try again. ---
**Author:** ![ageless6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@ageless6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ageless6)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coding-for-quoting/264029/5 "2004-09-11T17:26:27Z")
[QUOTE=hawthorne] A tip: when you want to see how some coding has been done, you can often click the “reply” button under a post instead of the “post reply” button at the bottom of the thread. If you do that for your post, the text of your post is preceded by the word QUOTE in square brackets and at the end of your post there is another “tag”, this time /QUOTE (again in square brackets). As well as that there is an =AGELESS6 inside the first “tag”, which gives you the “originally posted by Ageless5” bit). > [@hawthorn](#): > > So any text you want to appear quoted, you just tell the computer “start quoted text” by typing QUOTE in square brackets at the start of the text, then “end quoted text” by typing /QUOTE in square brackets.Will this work? I give up.Maybe it’s me or maybe it’s a failure between webtv and vB coding,but I can’t wipe out everything but the [quote=hawthorn] part,and I can’t get rid of the visible vB coding in the post.If anyone can tell me the mistakes I made,please do,but I’ve been up all night and I’m exhausted. Oh,yeah. I see that when I preview, the end quote tag just disappears. WTF! ---
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coding-for-quoting/264029/6 "2004-09-11T17:33:57Z")
> [@Bob](#): > > stuff and > [@](#): > > things produces. > [@Bob](#): > > stuff and > [@](#): > > things not sure if that’s what you’re looking for but thought it would be nice to see the code exactly as it should b. ---
**Author:** ![Ruby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/13edae/32.png) [@Ruby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruby)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coding-for-quoting/264029/7 "2004-09-11T17:42:51Z")
> [@ageless6](#): > > Anyway I need someone to take me through it step by step,and give me an example quote post.I’m on tenterhooks,whatever that means. What I do is simply “reply w/ quote” and delete the text that I don’t want to appear in my post. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coding-for-quoting/264029/8 "2004-09-11T17:46:22Z")
You can use the “quote” button in a previous post to quote **that entire post in full**. But if you want only a portion of it, you have two options: 1. Use the “quote” button in the post, then edit the quote as formatted in your reply window down to just the portion you want to reference. OR 1. Use the “reply” button at the bottom of the thread, and cut and paste the particular phrase you want to quote, putting it inside [quote] Stuff you want to quote [/ quote] brackets as noted. (It’s usually a good idea to use the “quote=Username” variant on this to indicate whom you’re quoting, at least for the first of multiple elements being quoted; it’s automatically supplied when you use the “quote” button.) This second method is also useful if you want to quote two or more people, to give short responses to each, in a single post. Also, there is nothing stopping you from quoting all or part of a full previous post, and embedding quote and end-quote coding in it so that you can address separate elements of it with distinct responses. Some people do this often, where a number of issues have been raised in a previous post and they want to address each separately. In other words: > [@Cecil Adams](#): > > Point one: Blah blah blah My response to point one. > [@](#): > > Point two: More words of wisdom. My response to point two …and so on ---
**Author:** ![ageless6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@ageless6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ageless6)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coding-for-quoting/264029/9 "2004-09-11T18:19:00Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > You can use the “quote” button in a previous post to quote **that entire post in full**. But if you want only a portion of it, you have two options: > > 1. Use the “quote” button in the post, then edit the quote as formatted in your reply window down to just the portion you want to reference. > > OR > > 1. Use the “reply” button at the bottom of the thread, and cut and paste the particular phrase you want to quote, putting it inside [quote] Stuff you want to quote [/ quote] brackets as noted. (It’s usually a good idea to use the “quote=Username” variant on this to indicate whom you’re quoting, at least for the first of multiple elements being quoted; it’s automatically supplied when you use the “quote” button.) > > This second method is also useful if you want to quote two or more people, to give short responses to each, in a single post. > > Also, there is nothing stopping you from quoting all or part of a full previous post, and embedding quote and end-quote coding in it so that you can address separate elements of it with distinct responses. Some people do this often, where a number of issues have been raised in a previous post and they want to address each separately. > > In other words: > > My response to point one. > > My response to point two > > …and so on As I said,when I preview it somehow deletes the [/quote] tag from the sentence I want to separate from the rest of the post,and I suppose that’s the problem,but I just can’t get it to not delete it. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coding-for-quoting/264029/10 "2004-09-11T22:34:05Z")
Strange – I’m presuming it’s a product of what “Preview” does and going to make a wild guess that it’s your browser interacting with the preview function (which has been glitchy in the past). I don’t know browsers – I’ve always used MSIE – but if you mention what you’re using, maybe someone who has tech. expertise in browsers can help diagnose this. ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coding-for-quoting/264029/11 "2004-09-11T23:12:51Z")
> [@Easter Bunny](#): > > I luv eggs, but I hates chickens. lol ---
**Author:** ![ageless6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@ageless6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ageless6)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2004, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coding-for-quoting/264029/12 "2004-09-12T03:40:59Z")
> [@ageless6](#): > > As I said,when I preview it somehow deletes the tag from the sentence I want to separate from the rest of the post,and I suppose that’s the problem,but I just can’t get it to not delete it. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![ageless6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@ageless6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ageless6)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2004, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coding-for-quoting/264029/13 "2004-09-12T03:54:04Z")
Well, this is weird. I posted the above by by-passing preview and directly sending it, but it still came out showing the end quote tag. Can anyone tell me why that might be? And **Poly,** Or anyone else… I’m running WEBTV+;client version 2.9 if that’s what you meant. I’m going to continue testing. ---
**Author:** ![ageless6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@ageless6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ageless6)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2004, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coding-for-quoting/264029/14 "2004-09-12T04:34:23Z")
I typed a short sentence to **ouryl** and I got a notice that the message I entered was too short and had to have at least 2 characters in it. I had surrounded it with the quote and unquote tags. The message had 24 characters.What the hell do they mean by too short? ---
**Author:** ![ageless6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@ageless6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ageless6)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2004, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coding-for-quoting/264029/15 "2004-09-12T04:41:57Z")
> [@ouryL](#): > > lol Hello **ouryl** ,how’s your sister? ---
**Author:** ![TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tellmei_mnotcrazy/32/3419_2.png) [@TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TellMeI_mNotCrazy)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2004, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coding-for-quoting/264029/16 "2004-09-12T04:46:39Z")
You have two sets of [/Quote] in the above posts, one directly after the other - why, I don’t know; I don’t know if you put them there accidentally, or if the second set appeared on its own for some strange reason. But that’s where the problem there is. As to your other question, simply quoting someone doesn’t count towards your character minimum. > [@I'mNotCrazy](#): > > So only having text in here, but nothing outside of quote tags appears to the software as “empty” ---
**Author:** ![ageless6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@ageless6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ageless6)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2004, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coding-for-quoting/264029/17 "2004-09-12T04:47:04Z")
Okay,that time I didn’t use > [@](#): > > , ,so I understand that but I still can’t separate one paragraph from a long post. ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2004, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coding-for-quoting/264029/18 "2004-09-12T07:19:39Z")
> [@ageless6](#): > > I typed a short sentence to **ouryl** and I got a notice that the message I entered was too short and had to have at least 2 characters in it. I had surrounded it with the quote and unquote tags. > > The message had 24 characters.What the hell do they mean by too short? You discovered what I discovered: Anything inclosed in [/] don’t count in the minimum character count, hence the “lol”. :eek: 😃 ---
**Author:** ![ageless6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@ageless6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ageless6)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2004, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coding-for-quoting/264029/19 "2004-09-12T08:56:39Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > You can use the “quote” button in a previous post to quote **that entire post in full**. But if you want only a portion of it, you have two options: 1. Use the “quote” button in the post, then edit the quote as formatted in your reply window down to just the portion you want to reference. Thanks,Poly.If you were here,I’d hug you.I never heard of the u /u thing before.It came out underlined on preview,but at this point I don’t…wait a minute,it just occurred to me that U MEANS underline.Multiple shocking curses,this thing has made me too berserk to think! ---
**Author:** ![ageless6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@ageless6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ageless6)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2004, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coding-for-quoting/264029/20 "2004-09-13T07:27:56Z")
Okay,where exactly is the QUOTE button in the post? I hit reply,go to the post,and see nothing that looks like a quote button. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coding-for-quoting/264029.md?page=2)