# Can we have the old Markdown for quoting paragraphs please?
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-we-have-the-old-markdown-for-quoting-paragraphs-please/95335
**Category:** Feature
**Created:** [August 21, 2018, 5:15pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-we-have-the-old-markdown-for-quoting-paragraphs-please/95335 "2018-08-21T17:15:07Z")
**Posts on this page:** 18
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@AstonJ](https://meta.discourse.org/u/AstonJ)
#### Post date: [August 21, 2018, 5:15pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-we-have-the-old-markdown-for-quoting-paragraphs-please/95335/1 "2018-08-21T17:15:07Z")
In older version of Discourse we could put a `>` on the line above a paragraph for it to be quoted, now it requires one on each line to be quoted.
Alternatively, you can use the quote tags [quote] paragraph/s [/quote] (without the spaces) to quote several paragraphs, however, neither of these are ideal or as easy as a single `>` on the line above each paragraph.
Many users are now putting quoted text inside code backticks - which is annoying as you need to scroll horizontally to view the text.
Are there any other ways to quote text? Anyone else wish we still had the old way?
---
### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [August 21, 2018, 6:23pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-we-have-the-old-markdown-for-quoting-paragraphs-please/95335/2 "2018-08-21T18:23:10Z")
This works as you expect:
```plaintext
> Many users are now putting quoted text inside code backticks - which is annoying as you need to scroll horizontally to view the text.
```
renders as:
> Many users are now putting quoted text inside code backticks - which is annoying as you need to scroll horizontally to view the text.
You’re saying that at one time
```plaintext
> one
two
three
```
would render as
> one two three
?
That’s surprising.
You might check out the site setting `traditional markdown linebreaks`. It might yield the behavior you seek (but I don’t know and didn’t try).
---
### Author:  [@Sailsman63](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Sailsman63)
#### Post date: [August 21, 2018, 6:28pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-we-have-the-old-markdown-for-quoting-paragraphs-please/95335/3 "2018-08-21T18:28:39Z")
I suspect that something has changed about the source of the text that your users are quoting. It sounds like the paragraphs are being pasted in with actual line breaks, instead of being a series of sentences separated by non-breaking spaces.
---
### Author:  [@Falco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Falco)
#### Post date: [August 21, 2018, 6:29pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-we-have-the-old-markdown-for-quoting-paragraphs-please/95335/4 "2018-08-21T18:29:25Z")
```
> this
is
a
quote
```
becomes:
> this
> is
> a
> quote
So it works for me.
---
### Author:  [@AstonJ](https://meta.discourse.org/u/AstonJ)
#### Post date: [August 21, 2018, 7:01pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-we-have-the-old-markdown-for-quoting-paragraphs-please/95335/5 "2018-08-21T19:01:49Z")
Hmmmm… let me try!
Here is an exact copy of a post which previously rendered as a single quote:
* * *
> by Benjamin Tan Wei Hao
## The Little Elixir & OTP Guidebook gets you started programming applications with Elixir and OTP. You begin with a quick overview of the Elixir language syntax, along with just enough functional programming to use it effectively. Then, you’ll dive straight into OTP and learn how it helps you build scalable, fault-tolerant and distributed applications through several fun examples.
> ###About the technology
> Elixir is an elegant programming language that combines the expressiveness of Ruby with the concurrency and fault-tolerance of Erlang. It makes full use of Erlang?s BEAM VM and OTP library, so you get two decades? worth of maturity and reliability right out of the gate. Elixir?s support for functional programming makes it perfect for modern event-driven applications.
> ###About the book
> The Little Elixir & OTP Guidebook gets you started writing applications with Elixir and OTP. You?ll begin with the immediately comfortable Elixir language syntax, along with just enough functional programming to use it effectively. Then, you?ll dive straight into several lighthearted examples that teach you to take advantage of the incredible functionality built into the OTP library.
> ###What’s inside
- Covers Elixir 1.2 and 1.3
- Introduction to functional concurrency with actors
- Experience the awesome power of Erlang and OTP
- About the reader
- Written for readers comfortable with a standard programming language like Ruby, Java, or Python. FP experience is helpful but not required.
> ###About the author
> Benjamin Tan Wei Hao is a software engineer at Pivotal Labs, Singapore. He is also an author, a speaker, and an early adopter of Elixir.
* * *
The input looks like this:
To get it working now we have to do:
* * *
> by Benjamin Tan Wei Hao
>
> The Little Elixir & OTP Guidebook gets you started programming applications with Elixir and OTP. You begin with a quick overview of the Elixir language syntax, along with just enough functional programming to use it effectively. Then, you’ll dive straight into OTP and learn how it helps you build scalable, fault-tolerant and distributed applications through several fun examples.
* * *
> ###About the technology
> Elixir is an elegant programming language that combines the expressiveness of Ruby with the concurrency and fault-tolerance of Erlang. It makes full use of Erlang?s BEAM VM and OTP library, so you get two decades? worth of maturity and reliability right out of the gate. Elixir?s support for functional programming makes it perfect for modern event-driven applications.
>
> ###About the book
> The Little Elixir & OTP Guidebook gets you started writing applications with Elixir and OTP. You?ll begin with the immediately comfortable Elixir language syntax, along with just enough functional programming to use it effectively. Then, you?ll dive straight into several lighthearted examples that teach you to take advantage of the incredible functionality built into the OTP library.
>
> ###What’s inside
>
> - Covers Elixir 1.2 and 1.3
> - Introduction to functional concurrency with actors
> - Experience the awesome power of Erlang and OTP
> - About the reader
> - Written for readers comfortable with a standard programming language like Ruby, Java, or Python. FP experience is helpful but not required.
>
> ###About the author
> Benjamin Tan Wei Hao is a software engineer at Pivotal Labs, Singapore. He is also an author, a speaker, and an early adopter of Elixir.
* * *
Here is the input:
That is quite a few extra `>`'s. You can see the original thread (which hasn’t been updated yet, [here](https://elixirforum.com/t/the-little-elixir-otp-guidebook-manning/5885)).
I suppose something the new way fixes is that if you don’t want two paragraphs quoted as one ‘quote’ then there is a break between them (though in that case with the older method you could maybe just add to line breaks or write something in-between them).
I am not sure what is the best solution, but I do know that I frequently have to fix posts because the user is opting to use backticks. I think Jeff may have even fixed some of mine here too because it’s much easier.
Could we add something like the following?
‘’'quote
Paragraph
P2
P3
P4
‘’’
(backticks instead of `'''`)
That seems like the easiest route 🙂
---
### Author:  [@Falco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Falco)
#### Post date: [August 21, 2018, 7:09pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-we-have-the-old-markdown-for-quoting-paragraphs-please/95335/6 "2018-08-21T19:09:41Z")
> [@AstonJ](#):
>
> Could we add something like the following?
We follow the [https://commonmark.org/](https://commonmark.org/) spec now. Requesting a change should be sent upstream.
---
### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [August 21, 2018, 8:48pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-we-have-the-old-markdown-for-quoting-paragraphs-please/95335/7 "2018-08-21T20:48:37Z")
Looking at [https://elixirforum.com/raw/5885](https://elixirforum.com/raw/5885) it appears that you have a newline before the start of each paragraph.
Actually, none of the paragraphs starts with a `>`.
You really want to put a space after all of those `####`s to make them headers.
---
### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [August 21, 2018, 9:28pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-we-have-the-old-markdown-for-quoting-paragraphs-please/95335/8 "2018-08-21T21:28:37Z")
You already have bbcode quote 👐 just use that
> [@](#):
>
> 1
>
> 2
>
> 3
```plaintext
[quote]
1
2
3
[/quote]
```
---
### Author:  [@AstonJ](https://meta.discourse.org/u/AstonJ)
#### Post date: [August 21, 2018, 9:45pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-we-have-the-old-markdown-for-quoting-paragraphs-please/95335/9 "2018-08-21T21:45:51Z")
> [@Falco](#):
>
> We follow the [https://commonmark.org/](https://commonmark.org/) spec now. Requesting a change should be sent upstream.
I will try that, but am concerned that they might not really care about forum use. From what I remember MD was created by Daring Fireball for his blog and is mostly used for blogging and CMS software? I will try tho.
> [@pfaffman](#):
>
> Looking at [https://elixirforum.com/raw/5885](https://elixirforum.com/raw/5885) it appears that you have a newline before the start of each paragraph.
>
> Actually, none of the paragraphs starts with a `>` .
>
> You really want to put a space after all of those `####` s to make them headers.
That’s how it used to work 🙂 same with headers. Formatting of lots of posts broke after Discourse introduced the new standard.
> [@sam](#):
>
> You already have bbcode quote 👐 just use that
I know Sam 😛 the problem is people don’t.
I must admit, that despite having used(/admin’d) forums daily for over 15 years myself (where that was the only way to quote text) even I myself begrudgingly use the quote tags now - it’s so much easier to do something like the three backticks…
---
### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [August 21, 2018, 9:52pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-we-have-the-old-markdown-for-quoting-paragraphs-please/95335/10 "2018-08-21T21:52:40Z")
I am pretty adamant not to mess with the spec, not happy at all with the idea of turning fenced code blocks into optional quotes.
Historically our old markdown engine became hack central because of special cases, I do not want to enter this world
---
### Author:  [@AstonJ](https://meta.discourse.org/u/AstonJ)
#### Post date: [August 21, 2018, 10:03pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-we-have-the-old-markdown-for-quoting-paragraphs-please/95335/11 "2018-08-21T22:03:00Z")
Quoting from within Discourse isn’t a problem at all - because it’s so easy - just highlight and click 😃
The problem we are facing is when users quote text from an external resource. [Here](https://elixirforum.com/t/bdd-tdd-criticized/759/62?u=astonj) is an example that I haven’t edited yet.
Some users have been made aware of how to quote properly - but they either forget or are finding it too much of a chore. Should we keep editing? Warn them if they persist? Or give them an alternative?
If I thought they were being unreasonable I’d opt for one of the former two, but as I mentioned even I find it a chore now after having got used to all the other easier ways of doing things in Discourse..
---
### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [August 21, 2018, 10:13pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-we-have-the-old-markdown-for-quoting-paragraphs-please/95335/12 "2018-08-21T22:13:26Z")
Sorry… now that I am on desktop and not on mobile I am SUPER confused about this request.
Why can’t these users highlight the desired text and then click this button?
---
### Author:  [@AstonJ](https://meta.discourse.org/u/AstonJ)
#### Post date: [August 21, 2018, 11:02pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-we-have-the-old-markdown-for-quoting-paragraphs-please/95335/13 "2018-08-21T23:02:52Z")
As far as I’m aware - that only lets you quote one paragraph? So you’d have to copy one paragraph, click that, then paste - then go back to your other tab and repeat for each paragraph.
---
### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [August 21, 2018, 11:03pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-we-have-the-old-markdown-for-quoting-paragraphs-please/95335/14 "2018-08-21T23:03:55Z")
> para 1
>
> para 2
>
> para 3
Works great for me ⏫
---
### Author:  [@AstonJ](https://meta.discourse.org/u/AstonJ)
#### Post date: [August 21, 2018, 11:08pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-we-have-the-old-markdown-for-quoting-paragraphs-please/95335/15 "2018-08-21T23:08:04Z")
Does not work for me Sam.
Copied multiple paragraphs to clipboard, came here, clicked on that icon, double clicked on the word `Blockquote` and pasted. Resulted in this:
* * *
> Cyberpunk dystopias and one-armed ninjas are among the highlights from this year’s Gamescom games fair, which opened on Tuesday in Cologne.
The biggest show of its kind in Europe, Gamescom attracts thousands of visitors to see the latest games every year.
Next-generation graphics were teased by Nvidia, while a full Xbox One release for the popular shooter PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) was announced.
The latest game from the creator of Dark Souls was also revealed.
* * *
Should have resulted in:
> [@](#):
>
> Cyberpunk dystopias and one-armed ninjas are among the highlights from this year’s Gamescom games fair, which opened on Tuesday in Cologne.
>
> The biggest show of its kind in Europe, Gamescom attracts thousands of visitors to see the latest games every year.
>
> Next-generation graphics were teased by Nvidia, while a full Xbox One release for the popular shooter PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) was announced.
>
> The latest game from the creator of Dark Souls was also revealed.
---
### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [August 21, 2018, 11:24pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-we-have-the-old-markdown-for-quoting-paragraphs-please/95335/16 "2018-08-21T23:24:46Z")
> Cyberpunk dystopias and one-armed ninjas are among the highlights from this year’s Gamescom games fair, which opened on Tuesday in Cologne.
>
> The biggest show of its kind in Europe, Gamescom attracts thousands of visitors to see the latest games every year.
>
> Next-generation graphics were teased by Nvidia, while a full Xbox One release for the popular shooter PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) was announced.
>
> The latest game from the creator of Dark Souls was also revealed.
I am not following at all, you got to have all the text you want block quoted… selected…
---
### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [August 21, 2018, 11:27pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-we-have-the-old-markdown-for-quoting-paragraphs-please/95335/17 "2018-08-21T23:27:54Z")
> [@AstonJ](#):
>
> Copied multiple paragraphs to clipboard, came here, clicked on that icon, double clicked on the word `Blockquote` and pasted.
Instead, you need to
1. copy multiple paragraphs
2. paste
3. select the paragraphs
4. click the icon
---
### Author:  [@AstonJ](https://meta.discourse.org/u/AstonJ)
#### Post date: [August 22, 2018, 12:02am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-we-have-the-old-markdown-for-quoting-paragraphs-please/95335/18 "2018-08-22T00:02:51Z")
Ah right I got it. Paste ALL the text first, then select it, then click on the icon.
I’m guessing other people may have tried it the way I did - select all text, click the icon and paste - as this is what I’ve always done with traditional forums.
This should definitely be added to the DiscourseBot if it isn’t already 😌
Thanks for your replies 🙂 although I wonder, would it be possible to change it slightly, so that if no text is selected and that icon is pressed, it inserts [quote][/quote] into the post and puts the cursor in the middle? So people who are used to copying text, clicking that icon and pasting could still do so?