# How do I quote other members? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [November 11, 2002, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-quote-other-members/136270 "2002-11-11T10:53:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Dunmurry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d2c977/32.png) [@Dunmurry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunmurry)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2002, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-quote-other-members/136270/1 "2002-11-11T10:53:19Z")
Can someone explain how to use the Quote function to quote what another person has said. ---
**Author:** ![Crusoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/49beb7/32.png) [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2002, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-quote-other-members/136270/2 "2002-11-11T11:04:42Z")
Use the tags below (replace the curly brackets with square ones: {quote} put the text here {/quote} ---
**Author:** ![Dunmurry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d2c977/32.png) [@Dunmurry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunmurry)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2002, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-quote-other-members/136270/3 "2002-11-11T11:09:07Z")
Thanks, **Crusoe** I meant How do I quote like this: (Horizontal Line) _Originally posted by Crusoe_ **Straight Dope Message Board** (Horizontal Line) Does anyone know how to do this? ---
**Author:** ![Crusoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/49beb7/32.png) [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2002, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-quote-other-members/136270/4 "2002-11-11T11:11:57Z")
The same way. {i}Originally posted by xxx{/i}{quote} text here {/quote} Or put the bit in italics inside the quote tags. It works either way. The only time it happens “automatically” is when you use the ‘Reply with Quote’ button underneath another post. ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2002, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-quote-other-members/136270/5 "2002-11-11T12:19:25Z")
It’s probably safe to say that 98% of the time, when you see a quote box with “Originally posted by…” at the top, it was done by hitting the “Reply with Quote” button. ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2002, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-quote-other-members/136270/6 "2002-11-11T13:00:59Z")
Also, **Dunmurry** , any time you want to know how someone did something in a post, just hit the “Reply with Quote” button at the bottom of that particular post, and you’ll see whatver coding they used to get the formatting they wished. ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2002, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-quote-other-members/136270/7 "2002-11-11T13:18:48Z")
That is a good tip, **dantheman** , but ironically, it would not have worked in this case, because picking “Reply with Quote” does not give you nested quotes anymore. ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2002, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-quote-other-members/136270/8 "2002-11-11T13:47:02Z")
That’s true; I’d forgotten about it. But which case are you talking about? The OP was only asking about quotes in general - did I miss a specific example? I might need more coffee. ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2002, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-quote-other-members/136270/9 "2002-11-11T19:58:13Z")
Your tip is great; I was just trying to be clever. If you didn’t know what the Quote button did, but you knew that you could use it to see how someone else did a trick, and you used in on a post where someone quoted someone else, you wouldn’t figure it out. ---
**Author:** ![Algernon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a183cd/32.png) [@Algernon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algernon)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2002, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-quote-other-members/136270/10 "2002-11-12T14:20:59Z")
**Dunmurry** , here is some information that might be helpful… it’s hints and tips that I’ve accumulated over my short time here that I have found helpful. For All Features Great And Small / All Things Bright And Beautiful, check out **Arnold Winkelried** ’s thread in ATMB: [FAQ - technical issues](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=103503). The FAQ thread contains the following, and more… **For fairly comprehensive lists of abbreviations…** [A SDMB thread re: acronyms (abbreviations?)](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2528) [A netlingo website](http://www.netlingo.com/emailsh.cfm) **For help on how to do vB coding…** Read the [vBcode page](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/misc.php?action=bbcode) for how to post links, make bold, underlined, italicized, colour text, etc… (Note that images and HTML are currently disabled at this message board.) Go to the [smilies page](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/misc.php?action=showsmilies) to see which smilies are available. There is a link to the vBcode and smilies page at the bottom of a thread display, and underneath the “Reply” box used when adding a thread/post. **"Escaping" vB codes…** To include a vBcode in your post **without** having it interpreted by vBulletin, use the HTML number codes for the square brackets: [ = [ ] = ] e.g. type in [b] to see the string “\*\*” in your post. **Quoting another user…** Quoting another user can be done in two ways. You can click on the “Quote” button located in the lower right under the post you want to quote and the system will take you to the composition window where you can edit the post in question. Leaving the entire post in your quote is considered bad form. The second way to quote is to do it manually. Copy the text you wish to quote and then click on the “Post Reply” button located in the lower right at the end of the thread. In the composition window you can paste the text you copied, placing > [@](#): > > in front of the text and at the end of the text. If you do this, it is helpful to readers if you either refer to the poster in your response, or indicate in some way at the start of the quote who the author is. Note that you can do the copying and pasting after you click the “Post Reply” button instead if you wish (unless the thread is _really_ long). **Special Characters…** For special characters, you can use the [HTML Name codes or Number codes](http://home.earthlink.net/~awinkelried/keyboard_shortcuts.html), or use the method appropriate for your operating system. On the Windows operating system, you can copy and paste special characters from Character Map (one of the items in the start menu). Character Map will also show you the ASCII value for that character, and you can create the character by holding down the ALT key and typing in the ASCII value on your numeric keypad. For mathematical symbols / greek letters, use the custom vBcode tag _symbol_, added by the SDMB staff. [symbol]symbol[/symbol] is replaced with [symbol]symbol[/symbol] For a list of the symbol codes, see [this post](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?postid=1959311#post1959311). \*\*Linking directly to a post within a thread… \*\* To link directly to a post within a thread, modify appropriately the following URL by replacing NNN with the postid: ```auto http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?postid=NNN#postNNN ``` Links to specific posts take the form **[url=http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?postid=1127953#post1127953]Link[**/url\*\*]\*\* You can get the post number (inserted after both “postid” and “#post”) by holding your mouse over the quote button at the bottom of that post; it will be at the end of the URL displayed in the status bar at the bottom of your browser. Like so: [Link to a post in which Alphagene discusses how to link to a specific post in a thread.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?postid=1127953#post1127953) Here’s how you find the postid for a post: If you position your mouse button over the “quote” button at the bottom of the post, you should see a link appear in the “status bar” of your browser (usually at the bottom of the browser window), and the link will show the postid for that post. If that doesn’t work, you can press the quote button, and a new reply window will open. The URL for that reply window should show in the URL field at the top of your browser window, and the URL contains the postid for the post. Example: …postid=1684541#post1684541