Nodes sources, and a quote tag/button

[blazar]

Ok, I know that at least some of this must have come out before, and I can even vaguely remember a particular instance or two... but I would like to put it straight: some forums, and I mean even phpBB(-like) ones allow quoting of posts by means of special tags. Personally the style I prefer most is the same as that applied by some mail clients when displaying HTML formatted mail: with a css-built thick line on the left and some amount of indentation. Granted, often those other forums are not hierarchical and they benefit from such a beast - and quite funnily often people there don't use it at all! But even here people, who generally put much more care in their writings, like to quote relevant parts of posts they're replying to. Personally I like to use <blockquote><i>...</i></blockquote> for this. But then I'm sometimes in difficulty when I have to also insert a random quotation for which I don't see many alternatives to using <blockquote> tags again...

Again, when quoting, whatever style you choose, you have the original node to copy from: I just do so, and if the amount of ad hoc formatting is not too much, I reproduce it by hand, e.g. by inserting a bunch of <c> tags or a pair of square parens around a monk's name. Alternatively one can select the text and use FF's "view selection source"... however in that case one would find e.g. links rendered in HTML rather than in PM's (internal) shortcut form. OTOH to overcome this one can switch to the XML view of the original node, which actually exposes the source of it, with the only disadvantage of being a few clicks away.

Now I wonder if:

1. the source of the node being replied to could be displayed in addition or instead of the rendered one, upon a user preference, of course - this could be a problem only if such a source were considered "private", but it is in fact available from the XML view mentioned above;
2. an official tag for quoting could be implemented, with a reasonable default, but customizable via css, like quite about everything at the monastery.
3. a quote button could be also/alternatively implemented, that would put the whole node source in between such quote tags.

Incidentally, in use Perl; which is based on slashcode and is in many ways poorer than PerlMonks e.g. wrt internal and external linking shortcuts, the last two features are now available if you accept to try the new experimental slashdot discussion system, with a nice quoting style of the type hinted to above.

[jdporter]

...one can switch to the XML view of the original node, which actually exposes the source of it...

Well, for that, you could simply put the following in your Free Nodelet:

[href://?node_id=`parent_id`;displaytype=xml|parent as xml]

then use your browser's "open in new window" function on that link to view the parent's source during reply/preview.

[blazar]

Well, for that, you could simply put the following in your Free Nodelet:

[href://?node_id=`parent_id`;displaytype=xml|parent as xml]

then use your browser's "open in new window" function on that link to view the parent's source during reply/preview.

Well, you know, for one thing as intrigued as I am by the Free Nodelet, up until this evening I had not been able to use it due to... well long story made brief: just me being somewhat of an idiot - I overlooked, well a bunch of things... and I complained to myself: why doesn't the damn thing work? Indeed I was tempted to ask first or later, and I had resolved to do so now, but instead of doing so in a new thread, in this very reply. Before posting, I tried once again and I found out what was wrong. Now I have the thing up and runnin sitting there.

Said this, your suggestion partially solves part of the problem. "Partially" because it takes one click away, but still a view of the source would be better than the xml rendering (I don't know other browsers, but FF doesn't show newlines) of it inside a particular tag... "Part" of the problem because a <quote> tag although not strictly necessarily would be very nice and useful: I still want <quote>, and perhaps a pony. Now, where's <quote>, and where's my pony?

[mr_mischief]

I know lots of people hate hearing "because Joel said so". I'm not going to say that. What I am going to say is that Joel Spolsky has some pretty good reasons for not doing quotations in software on his site, and I think they apply pretty well to PM as well. He starts from the arguments of Dave Winer, and continues from there.

Quoting being supported in the software does help in some situations. It also leads to people quoting more and writing responses which do not stand as well on their own. I'm not sure which side of the fence I'm on, but if forced to choose I'd probably go with ad-hoc quoting over supporting it in software.