# How do I quote someone? **URL:** \ **Category:** Site Feedback\ **Created:** [November 23, 2025, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-quote-someone/1025069 "2025-11-23T19:39:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![craft458](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@craft458](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/craft458)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2025, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-quote-someone/1025069/1 "2025-11-23T19:39:15Z")
When I hit reply to someone what they said does not pop up in my post. Am I missing something? ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2025, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-quote-someone/1025069/2 "2025-11-23T19:48:35Z")
Highlight what you want to quote and a box should pop up with “quote,” “copy quote,” and “share.” ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2025, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-quote-someone/1025069/3 "2025-11-23T19:49:59Z")
Animated GIF example, from the Discourse mothership: [![](https://blog.discourse.org/content/images/assets/2016/12/discourse-select-to-quote.gif) ](https://blog.discourse.org/content/images/assets/2016/12/discourse-select-to-quote.gif) ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2025, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-quote-someone/1025069/4 "2025-11-23T19:50:35Z")
> [@craft458](#): > > Am I missing something? Highlight the _portion_ you want to quote, then “quote” pops up as a choice. Hit it. The board software won’t allow you to quote the entire post without jumping through hoops - if you choose the entire post, it’ll disappear when you post. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2025, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-quote-someone/1025069/5 "2025-11-23T19:51:24Z")
> [@gnoitall](#): > > Animated GIF example Nice! ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2025, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-quote-someone/1025069/6 "2025-11-23T19:53:45Z")
> [@needscoffee](#): > > > [@craft458](#): > > > > Am I missing something? > > Highlight the _portion_ you want to quote, then “quote” pops up as a choice. Hit it. > > The board software won’t allow you to quote the entire post without jumping through hoops - if you choose the entire post, it’ll disappear when you post. Hit “reply” and then the plus sign to the right of the smiley and select “quote whole post,” like I did here. It seems to work fine for me. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2025, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-quote-someone/1025069/7 "2025-11-23T20:03:31Z")
It’ll let you quote the entire post as long as it isn’t the immediately previous post. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2025, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-quote-someone/1025069/8 "2025-11-23T20:04:26Z")
Like yours? Or do you mean something else by “immediately previous.” ETA: AH HA! I see now. It was there and disappeared. Weird glitch. It showed up in the preview. Showed up for a split second in the actual posted reply and then … poof … gone! With as old as Discourse is by now, I wonder why it hasn’t been patched. Seems like a rather obvious thing to patch immediately. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2025, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-quote-someone/1025069/9 "2025-11-23T20:08:17Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Hit “reply” and then the plus sign to the right of the smiley and select “quote whole post,” like I did here. I was going to also suggest this, but it seemed more complicated. And on my cell phone, that plus sign and the smiley aren’t visible - you have to scroll the row over to the right. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2025, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-quote-someone/1025069/10 "2025-11-23T20:10:45Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > With as old as Discourse is by now, I wonder why it hasn’t been patched. Seems like a rather obvious thing to patch immediately. They like it Iike that. We have threads about it. Discourse thinks it should be obvious who/what you’re replying to by context, so why allow the entire quote? Except they remove the arrow that _shows_ that you’re replying to someone in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2025, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-quote-someone/1025069/11 "2025-11-23T21:02:41Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Weird glitch. Officially, not a glitch. A feature. The designers were quite clear that quoting a full post immediately after the post is considered a waste of space and bad for the visual flow and appearance of the thread, so the system purges the quote. Unless you invisibly alter the quote (in a way that won’t violate our rules here), like adding a space after the last character. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2025, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-quote-someone/1025069/12 "2025-11-23T21:05:00Z")
The programmers of Discourse spent a lot of time and effort in creating features that most users would really rather they hadn’t. ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2025, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-quote-someone/1025069/13 "2025-11-24T03:57:51Z")
> [@gnoitall](#): > > Unless you invisibly alter the quote (in a way that won’t violate our rules here), like adding a space after the last character. When I want to quote the entire previous post (usually in a Botticelli game), I – do the quote – Ctrl-C the quote to copy it – post my message – edit the post to copy the deleted portion back into it – save the edit ---
**Author:** ![pjd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pjd/32/3009_2.png) [@pjd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pjd)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2025, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-quote-someone/1025069/14 "2025-11-24T12:47:32Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Seems like a rather obvious thing to patch It is a customizable feature. It could be turned off. I have complained about it many times, but it appears that we like it that way. 🙄 ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2025, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-quote-someone/1025069/15 "2025-11-24T14:41:02Z")
Actually, hearing the reasoning, it does make sense to me not to completely repost the immediately previous post for purposes of avoiding needless redundancy, but it would be nice to at least have some indication that the reply is to the previous post (didn’t we use to have an arrow or something?) instead of another standalone post. I mean, you can say “just use context,” but I know I’ve run across posts where I couldn’t tell if the post was a reply to the OP or the preceding post. ---
**Author:** ![pjd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pjd/32/3009_2.png) [@pjd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pjd)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2025, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-quote-someone/1025069/16 "2025-11-24T14:45:24Z")
That can be fixed too… > **[Replied post doesnt display as such](https://meta.discourse.org/t/replied-post-doesnt-display-as-such/214841)** > > Apparently replying to certain posts doesn’t create a “reply”-post but just a normal-looking post despite the fact that I even got a notification about a reply from someone. I cannot fully reproduce the behavior but it seems to happen more often... ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2025, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-quote-someone/1025069/17 "2025-11-24T19:41:28Z")
Moved to site feedback, as this is about the software that the board runs on. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2025, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-quote-someone/1025069/18 "2025-11-24T20:55:37Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The programmers of Discourse spent a lot of time and effort in creating features that most users would really rather they hadn’t. Heh, this so much. > [@pulykamell](#): > > I mean, you can say “just use context,” but I know I’ve run across posts where I couldn’t tell if the post was a reply to the OP or the preceding post. This is one of those deliberate anti-features Chronos mentions. It’s not an oversight, they are directly against having that sort of clarity: [Question/suggestion about arrow/icon referencing replied to post - Feature - Discourse Meta](https://meta.discourse.org/t/question-suggestion-about-arrow-icon-referencing-replied-to-post/117516?tl=en) (EDIT: But this setting can be changed, as @pjd already pointed out) ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2025, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-quote-someone/1025069/19 "2025-11-24T20:58:38Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I mean, you can say “just use context,” but I know I’ve run across posts where I couldn’t tell if the post was a reply to the OP or the preceding post. Exactly! ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2025, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-quote-someone/1025069/20 "2025-11-24T21:18:14Z")
A weird design choice, to be sure. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-quote-someone/1025069.md?page=2)