The Scienceblogs techies have fixed something I asked them to fix regarding how to quote what someone else wrote when answering it in a comment. You can now use the blockquote tag in your responses and I think this is the best way to organize a comment to make clear what is being responded to. To do this, you simply put tags around the quoted text. It's standard HTML code, for those familiar with it. You would write this:
{blockquote}quoted text you are replying to{/blockquote}
but replace the { with angle brackets < and >. That will slightly indent the text and add a vertical line in front of it to separate it from the rest of the text, like this:
This is how the quoted text would look. After you close the blockquote tag at the end of the quoted text, you simply move down a line and begin typing your reply to it.
It's that simple.
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Thanks Ed. I needed a simple lesson. Muchly appreciated. Now i just hope i got it right?
Ed- Check out the "It's A Simple Game" post on Uncertain Principals.... For a basketball fan it makes a lot of sense. I sent it to my son's feeder team coach - He's been telling the players and parents this all year. Occams Razor for the court.
Ah - so they listen to you. There are still a couple of blogs on SB (Dr.Free-ride, Cognitive Daily, Grrlscientist) that I have to go to IE to comment - it will not let me comment in Firefox. It erases the e-mail address, then tells me I need the e-mail address.
Off topic, but there is creationist activity happening in Michigan ---> A CHALLENGE TO EVOLUTION: Bill may stir Darwin issue.
Yep, I was just about to write about that. We're on it.
Ha, I got a better system on my blog. I wrote a MovableType plugin that automatically quotes comments for users.
Check it out.
Neat.
I preferred the old blockquote look -- the slight offset here doesn't seem to set the text off quite enough, so when I've quoted here I used italics as well.
I'm posting from the JREF TAM4 meeing in Las Vegas. Ed, I've been talking you up all coference, and not too may people here are aware of you. I just told James Randi that you should be a speaker next year, and he seemed quite interested.
Here's the info on this year's conference. The Amazing Meeting
Wow Pieter, thanks for the plug. I'm very jealous of you, I'd love to be at that conference right now. James Randi is one of my heroes. I sort of have low level connections all around that group but I doubt my name is well known at the top levels. For instance, Kim Scheinberg is Randi's biographer and is also the author of Tales from the Tiltboys, for which she used an essay I wrote in the book's marketing campaign. She's also a good friend of Penn Jillette (another of my heroes). And of course I've written for Michael Shermer's magazine. So I have some tangential connections with that whole inner circle, but I'd love to get more deeply involved with them. So thanks for speaking on my behalf. I really do have the coolest readers.