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I've been on HN for years and I still can't figure out how to format text as a quote

I don't think there is a way comparable to markdown, since the formatting options are limited: https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc

So your options are literal quotes, "code" formatting like you've done, italics like I've done, or the '>' convention, but that doesn't actually apply formatting. Would be nice if it were added.




And the "code" formatting for quotes is generally a bad choice because people read on a variety of screen sizes, and "code" formatting can screw that up (try reading the quote with a really narrow window).


I couldn't get any of the others work and I lost patience. I really do disline using Markdown variants as they never behave the same and "being surprised" is not really what I want when trying to post a comment.


Convention is to quote like this:

> This is my quote.

It's much better than using a code block for your readers.


> or the '>' convention, but that doesn't actually apply formatting

Personally, I prefer to combine the '>' convention with italics. Still, I'd agree that proper quote formatting would be a welcome improvement.


If you're interested, the HNES extension formats it

https://github.com/etcet/HNES




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