# Nested quotes have been discontinued **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [October 18, 2010, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nested-quotes-have-been-discontinued/557502 "2010-10-18T01:12:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heffalump_and_roo/32/7691_2.png) [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heffalump_and_Roo)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2010, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nested-quotes-have-been-discontinued/557502/61 "2010-10-19T00:46:34Z")
Yes! Thank you. I’m happy about the change going back to posting without nested quotes. ---
**Author:** ![Yookeroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yookeroo/32/323_2.png) [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2010, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nested-quotes-have-been-discontinued/557502/62 "2010-10-19T00:51:28Z")
> [@Rhythmdvl](#): > > Non-nested quotes are more work: Not if you don’t want the nested quote to begin with. It was annoying to always have to edit out the quote I didn’t need. Now you can include all the quotes you want. And leave out the ones you don’t. Including more than one post when you click a quote button is actually pretty poor default behavior. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2010, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nested-quotes-have-been-discontinued/557502/63 "2010-10-19T03:49:51Z")
Everybody here makes an occasional mistake. We make typos, or write “it’s” for “its” even when we know perfectly well what the difference is. But making an occasional error like this isn’t important; it rarely affects the meaning of a post. Nested quotes are different in that a single small coding error can completely garble what is being said. All you have to do is to accidentally delete a single bracket, and the quote will be misattributed, or the entire quote will be garbled. So the room for error is much greater than with regular typos. ---
**Author:** ![Manduck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manduck/32/256_2.png) [@Manduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manduck)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2010, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nested-quotes-have-been-discontinued/557502/64 "2010-10-19T04:44:25Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Everybody here makes an occasional mistake. We make typos, or write “it’s” for “its” even when we know perfectly well what the difference is. But making an occasional error like this isn’t important; it rarely affects the meaning of a post. > > Nested quotes are different in that a single small coding error can completely garble what is being said. All you have to do is to accidentally delete a single bracket, and the quote will be misattributed, or the entire quote will be garbled. So the room for error is much greater than with regular typos. … and then the CHUDs come. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2010, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nested-quotes-have-been-discontinued/557502/65 "2010-10-19T05:14:29Z")
I’m happy they’re gone. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2010, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nested-quotes-have-been-discontinued/557502/66 "2010-10-19T12:01:23Z")
I liked the nested quotes, but I can live without them. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2010, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nested-quotes-have-been-discontinued/557502/67 "2010-10-19T17:34:22Z")
> [@Manduck](#): > > So this is being discontinued because of the occasional accidental misattribution? That seems like a non-problem to me. It wasn’t just a few cases. It’s been an epidemic since we enabled multiquote. It seems like half the time someone quoted a post that contained a post, the quote was mistakenly attributed to the nested quote rather than the intended quote. I liked the multiquote feature, but it’s pretty clear that it caused a lot of trouble while providing only a slight improvement in ease of use. And it’s not like you can’t multiquote anymore, you just have to take an extra minute. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2010, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nested-quotes-have-been-discontinued/557502/68 "2010-10-19T18:22:20Z")
I will point out another “feature” that helps to create coding and attribution errors - “select entire word”. Look at the following string: [Lemur866] [/quote] Now attempt to select part of that string - the highlight doesn’t go exactly where you put it, it jumps around characters. Select from the back, it will jump from in front of the q all the way to right after the 6, and not stop between the brackets. So if I start to highlight the quote, instead of just removing the quote tag and leaving the attribution tag, it breaks the preceding tag. Boom - quoting error, coding error, fucked up attribution. (I know the above coding doesn’t do anything - just needed an example to show behavior.) It’s not as simple as not being able to copy and paste right, it’s the fact that the board actively creates possible mistakes with automatic features. That’s why I say the burden should be on the one who wants to add content. You want to nest your quotes, add it manually. You’ll be much more likely to attribute the nesting properly, and somebody else who doesn’t want a nested quote doesn’t have to fight to properly delete something they didn’t want in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Manduck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manduck/32/256_2.png) [@Manduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manduck)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2010, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nested-quotes-have-been-discontinued/557502/69 "2010-10-19T19:18:42Z")
I’m not having a problem selecting arbitrary parts of that string. Maybe it’s a browser dependant issue? (I’m using Firefox 3.6.10) ---
**Author:** ![Rysto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecccb3/32.png) [@Rysto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysto)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2010, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nested-quotes-have-been-discontinued/557502/70 "2010-10-19T19:23:32Z")
I’m not sure why, but disabling nested quotes has led to a rash of quote misattributions in the Mafia game: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=580082&page=38](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=580082&page=38) ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2010, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nested-quotes-have-been-discontinued/557502/71 "2010-10-19T19:50:46Z")
Yes, it’s killing us in Evil Dead Mafia. We’re not happy campers there. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2010, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nested-quotes-have-been-discontinued/557502/72 "2010-10-19T19:56:42Z")
Is it because posts, that used to appear correctly, are now appearing incorrectly? Or do you mean that people are doing the coding wrong? ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2010, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nested-quotes-have-been-discontinued/557502/73 "2010-10-19T20:02:13Z")
If you’re asking me, **Arnold** , it’s because people keep posting responses that assume nested quotes without the nested quotes functioning. This is leading to misattributions, etc. No back posts have been affected. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2010, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nested-quotes-have-been-discontinued/557502/74 "2010-10-19T20:31:58Z")
So is this something that could be resolved by people previewing their posts? ---
**Author:** ![Giraffe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giraffe/32/129_2.png) [@Giraffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giraffe)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2010, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nested-quotes-have-been-discontinued/557502/75 "2010-10-19T20:34:45Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > So is this something that could be resolved by people previewing their posts? No, that would never work. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2010, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nested-quotes-have-been-discontinued/557502/76 "2010-10-19T20:50:54Z")
God, what was I thinking? :smack: ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2010, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nested-quotes-have-been-discontinued/557502/77 "2010-10-19T21:33:54Z")
Couldn’t you automatically direct a “new post” to preview before someone is able to post ? ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2010, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nested-quotes-have-been-discontinued/557502/78 "2010-10-19T21:35:52Z")
> [@Oy](#): > > If you’re asking me, **Arnold** , it’s because people keep posting responses that assume nested quotes without the nested quotes functioning. Ok, but I don’t see how one could make that mistake, because when you reply to a post, there’s only one quote in there. 😕 ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2010, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nested-quotes-have-been-discontinued/557502/79 "2010-10-19T21:56:10Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > You were far from the only one. I never thought I was, I just wouldn’t have added to it. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nested-quotes-have-been-discontinued/557502/80 "2010-10-20T01:17:17Z")
> [@Rhythmdvl](#): > > Whiny incompetents have ruled the day. As they usually do. And my thoughts exactly. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nested-quotes-have-been-discontinued/557502.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nested-quotes-have-been-discontinued/557502.md?page=5)