dang, if you are reading this, can you let us know if there are any plans to fix this long standing mobile UX problem?

Horizontal scrolling is great some times, ex. when you don’t want the text to be broken on mobile.

I like when quotes are italicized by using quotes.

Guide: https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc

> I like when quotes are italicized by using quotes.

I tend to do both the standard email syntax (>) and italics, but it breaks down when you want to preserve italics from the original text.

My bad I tried that at first but it didn't seem to work. I'll use them in the future.

Angle brackets don't actually create block quotes here, but if you just put one in front of the long wrapping text people will get the idea. The indent formatting works best for code, as it doesn't wrap and preserves newlines, but on mobile it will cause scrollbars within the comment for the same reason, making it very hard to read. It feels weird to use a single angle bracket for it all because we're conditioned by mail clients to do one per line, but that just doesn't work well here.

Alternatively, italicizing quoted text with asterisks around the block usually works, since the core of what you usually want is just to visually distinguish something you are repeating for context and your own comments on it.

> Alternatively, italicizing quoted text with asterisks around the block usually works, since the core of what you usually want is just to visually distinguish something you are repeating for context and your own comments on it.

Yep, I've found that combining the two works well. Start with an angle bracket, then use the asterisks to italicize and it's readable on mobile/PC and it's clear that you're quoting someone and it's clear what the quoted content is.

Even so, it’s silly that people have to invent their own formatting to represent blockquotes when HTML has an element already built into it specifically for that purpose.

Heh, I've seen enough people do this that I assumed the angle bracket actually did something, formatting wise. Now my original post sounds a bit silly. It's very effective. :)

" Start with an angle bracket, then use the asterisks to italicize and it's readable on mobile/PC and it's clear that you're quoting someone and it's clear what the quoted content is. "

What's wrong with quotation marks?

"" Start with an angle bracket, then use the asterisks to italicize and it's readable on mobile/PC and it's clear that you're quoting someone and it's clear what the quoted content is. ""

"What's wrong with quotation marks?"

They get messy, quick.

    ----- BEGIN QUOTATION -----

They get messy quick.

    -----  END QUOTATION  -----

How about this?

That doesn't solve the problem of quoting multiple levels of the thread.

>> This is a time-honored way of identifying a grandparent comment.

    ----- BEGIN QUOTATION: macintux -----

    ----- BEGIN QUOTATION: yellowapple -----

How about this?

    -----  END QUOTATION: yellowapple  -----

That doesn't solve the problem of quoting multiple levels of the thread.

    -----  END QUOTATION: macintux  -----

Hold my beer :)

    ----- BEGIN QUOTATION: macintux -----

>> This is a time-honored way of identifying a grandparent comment.

    -----  END QUOTATION: macintux  -----

Indeed it is, at least in email and Markdown. However, email quotations also usually include the "On $timestamp macintux wrote:" blurb in front to designate who wrote the quotation.

My eyes hurt now.

lol, so do mine. I wouldn't suggest this as an actual quoting method, needless to say. More of a thought experiment around what elements we'd need in a well-designed quoting method.