eye95
Well-known member
How to repair a quote.
This is not really about writing well. However, since breaking a quote makes the post (and future quotes of that post) hard to read, it might be useful to learn that they can be fixed.
Many times, in snipping posts, part of the closing tag (or the whole closing tag) is deleted. This will make the quote appear to be part of the post proper, instead of being set off in a quote box. If, at the end of the quote box, you see something like "/quote]", then you have accidentally deleted the open bracket in the closing tag. Edit your post and put it back. If you have corrected the tags, the quote should appear in its box when you view the post.
If the whole closing tag is gone, edit the post and put it back. The closing tag that should appear at the end of the quote is "[/quote]".
Sometimes the opening tag is damaged. It should look like this "
This is not really about writing well. However, since breaking a quote makes the post (and future quotes of that post) hard to read, it might be useful to learn that they can be fixed.
Many times, in snipping posts, part of the closing tag (or the whole closing tag) is deleted. This will make the quote appear to be part of the post proper, instead of being set off in a quote box. If, at the end of the quote box, you see something like "/quote]", then you have accidentally deleted the open bracket in the closing tag. Edit your post and put it back. If you have corrected the tags, the quote should appear in its box when you view the post.
If the whole closing tag is gone, edit the post and put it back. The closing tag that should appear at the end of the quote is "[/quote]".
Sometimes the opening tag is damaged. It should look like this "
name;post-number said:". The post number is not necessary and just allows tracking back to the quoted post. (This is actually a really nice feature for following sub-conversations. Repeatedly click on the track-backs of posts until you get to the first post in the sub-conversation. Then use the forward button in your browser to read those selected posts in order.)
You don't need to repair the track-back number for the quote tag to work properly. You can use "name said:" for the opening tag, and it will work just fine. (This also allows you to attribute non-site quotes. After copying quoted text into your post, select it and click the cartoon bubble icon. Then add the words "=James Madison" (or whoever) to the opening quote tag.
Don't be afraid to fix broken quote tags. It isn't that hard, and you can't crash OCDO if you make a mistake. Just edit the post again.
I hope this helps!