Quoting previous posters - can text be copied and highlighted?

[Limer]

On the recent Webchats I've been very impressed that the contributors have been able to quote the post they're answering with a copy/highlight feature.

Can this be introduced everywhere? Lots of forums already have this feature. It makes the threads so much more readable, and so much simpler to understand which comment people are responding to.

Nooooooo!

Copy and paste work just fine for Zombie when she wishes to quote a previous poster.

It makes the threads so much more readable

You can do that already - simples

No. Also no to the like button if you were about to suggests that too

You can even combine italics and bold:

It makes the threads so much more readable.

I know (didn't know about combining italics & bold though), but have you seen the glories of this thread ?

It's just soooooo clear!

Too many people make mistakes and don't preview. But I will shut up about it now as nobody agrees with me

I'd like this feature too but I know most people don't agree with me.

I know how to bold or italicise text. I see these as workarounds for a missing feature. If I quote someone I also want to attribute and get their name right. Occasionally I want to link back to the full post I'm quoting from. It's all doable but it takes a lot longer than just highlighting a bit of text and clicking a 'quote' button.

I also slightly resent that the feature is obviously there, MNHQ use it, and trust the people who come on to do webchats to use it, but we're not allowed. Why?

What are people worried will happen if we had embedded quotes? I can think of two things off the top of my head:

1. Giant messes of nested quotes.

I'm sure it would be very easy to make them non-nestable.

2. People quoting massively long posts and then just commenting 'I agree' at the bottom.

Peer pressure can deal with this. There's nothing technical to stop people using text speak or hunning but it doesn't happen too often because people just tell them they are posting like pillocks and they either stop or leave for somewhere that likes that sort of thing.

Nobody wanted images once upon a time but everybody seems to enjoy posting them now and the sky hasn't fallen.

I don't like those emojis though. I don't think they're 'in the spirit of MN'.