Quoted Text Formatting Errors: A Common Mistake in Online Communication?

[A.T.]

I sometimes notice that quoted text has inconsistent font size. When you look at the BB-code it's full of redundant SIZE and I (italic) tags. Recently one of those format tags wasn't even closed properly, which broke the QUOTE itself tag, splitting the quote in two.

Has anyone noticed this? I saw it in Chrome so far.

 

[Borek]

Can you point to the thread you have seen it? Could be the original post was already (mis)formatted.

Things people do to format their posts... keep me amused.

 

[A.T.]

Can you point to the thread you have seen it? Could be the original post was already (mis)formatted.

I think it happens when you have mismatched QUOTE-tags in the rich text editor and press PREVIEW. Try it on any post:
- Quote it
- In the rich text editor duplicate just the opening QUOTE-tag and place it somewhere in the middle of the quoted text
- Press PREVIEW
- Now delete the duplicate opening QUOTE-tag, or add a closing QUOTE tag before it (as if to split the quote in two)
- Press PREVIEW

What I sometimes observe is: The post is messed up even if you correct the QUOTE-tags. The QUOTE-tags (unlike the format tags) show up in the rich text editor. Which is good, because it allows to manually split a quote into parts. But if you make a mistake there, mess happens which is hard to undo.

 

[A.T.]

Here is an example:
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/galilean-relativity-kinetic-energy.779463/#post-4900066

Note the variable font size in the quoted text. The original post has consistent font size, but might have some redundant SIZE=4-tags, which have no visible effect (in the rich-text editor and the final post), because it's also the default font size. But when the text gets quoted, the font size is reduced, except within the tags. Such redundant SIZE are easily created unwittingly, when instead of using the QUOTE function you just copy & paste text from the a post (which is often quicker) .

Possible solutions:
- Disable the size reduction for quotes
- Clean up the redundant SIZE tags in quoted text.
- Clean up the redundant SIZE tags when pasting text into the rich-text editor

 

[Borek]

Unfortunately it is GIGO - garbage in, garbage out. People format their posts in a random way for no apparent reasons, then something fails. It was a problem already when we had only UBBC editor, now RTF adds new ways of of misusing formatting. No idea how easy it is to modify quoted text @Greg Bernhardt

 

[A.T.]

RTF adds new ways of of misusing formatting.

It's not deliberate misusing. Copy & pasting text around is a standard action that people are used to. The problem is that in the RT editor you don't see those tags, but they mess up the effect of tags put around the whole thing, by the software later.

Disabling the size reduction in quotes seems like the simplest solution. IMHO it's a bad idea anyway: When you set your browser to a certain font size that you are comfortable with, it's annoying when quoted text is smaller and harder to read.

 

[Borek]

It's not deliberate misusing.

I don't mean deliberate - in many cases it is an effect of people not knowing what they do and not understanding principles behind.

There was a time I worked preparing books and brochures for publication, typically from the text supplied as Microsoft Word/Office documents. Things people do to keep the text formatted more or less as they want it are incredible. Since then nothing surprises me.