5

When a post uses a blockquote, the preview of that post obviously doesn't retain that formatting, but this means that the text runs together like it is one sentence. For a concrete example, here is an actual question:

A screenshot of the question

And here is the preview of the question:

A screenshot of the preview of the question

This preview states:

The first few words in Community's profile page are Hi, I'm not really a person. Should these be removed? Arguments I can think of for removing. It's redundant, the [bot] label is quite visible, and ...

There is no indication of when the blockquote actually ends, so I'm writing this to request that blockquotes actually be enclosed in quotes in previews. The text of the preview would then instead read:

The first few words in Community's profile page are "Hi, I'm not really a person." Should these be removed? Arguments I can think of for removing. It's redundant, the [bot] label is quite visible, and ...

If there is a better, alternative way to indicate that a blockquote is being used, I would, of course, rather use that than throwing in actual quotation marks.

Improve this question
8
  • It would also be useful to do something semantically correct with code-formatted text. It isn't particularly useful to use up all of the preview space with an excerpt of code.
    – ColleenV
    Sep 27, 2021 at 15:55
  • 2
    @ColleenV That is already a request and I'm debating opening another request myself to format images and videos with something like this: [IMAGE]. Currently they don't appear at all in the preview, which can be confusing when the text before and after run together
    – Exempt-Medic
    Sep 27, 2021 at 15:58
  • We need to detect if it's already in quotes, which is often the case and correct to do to properly show attribution (as is rigidly required on many sites), otherwise we'll end up with doubled quoting: "... profile page are ""Hi, I'm not really a person."" Should these be ...".
    – Rob
    Sep 27, 2021 at 16:43
  • 2
    @Rob Perhaps I'm just ignorant as to what and an apparently large number of sites require, but the sites that I spend my time on here do not use quotation marks when using blockquotes. Do you have any non-anecdotal data on the number of blockquotes that start with " or the number of sites that actually require this?
    – Exempt-Medic
    Sep 27, 2021 at 16:58
  • Medix2, One site: physics.meta.stackexchange.com/a/7495/170832 and the example: physics.meta.stackexchange.com/a/7574/170832 - you'll need to find more yourself.
    – Rob
    Sep 27, 2021 at 17:21
  • 1
    @Rob Honestly, I'm not convinced that "Following our plagiarism guidelines requires that you identify the quoted comment as a quote" means you must use quotation marks and blockquotes, especially when there is no link to said plagiarism guidelines. The following is anecdotal, but browsing the site, I've found numerous posts with people quoting without using quotation marks and none where people use quotation marks inside blockquotes, so even if it is a rule, I could not call it enforced
    – Exempt-Medic
    Sep 27, 2021 at 19:40
  • Having asked for "non-anecdotal" your reply is anecdotal. You've been here half as long and frequent one site - that's probably why our results aren't the same. --- Sites where people have been brought up to be rigorous (academic sciences) are rigorous, even where it's not the rule a flag can still be made, site-wide plagiarism isn't condoned and could result in network suspension.
    – Rob
    Sep 27, 2021 at 19:54
  • 1
    @Rob And I'm going to be baffled if a post says "To quote so and so: [blockquote] text [blockquote] (link and citation) From this, we can conclude that...." and somebody calls that plagiarism. I'm done talking about this though as you clearly have your own ideas about the site and about myself that I have no means of changing or approaching
    – Exempt-Medic
    Sep 27, 2021 at 20:05

0

Reset to default

You must log in to answer this question.

Browse other questions tagged .