26 Comments
тна Return to thread

Newbie question here: I'm not sure from the formating of these kinds of articles which passages are Steve QJ's and which are by commenters.

Expand full comment

Hi Erica, hmm, it should be pretty clear. is it just in your email that you're having trouble, are are you also unsure when you're reading them here on the website?

Expand full comment

I read it on the website. Is the italicized text you or the commenter?

Expand full comment

Hey Erica, sorry for the delay, Substack doesn't seem to be notifying me about new comments for some reason...

The italicised text is a quote from the previous reply. So when italicised text appears at the top of a comment, it's highlighting something the previous person said.

Medium's comment system formats it a little more clearly. This was the only way I could replicate it here.

If there's italicised text in the very first reply, it'll be a quote from the article the reader is replying to. I hope that's clear.

Expand full comment

At first, I had to think about it a bit. The format is as follows:

Stefan = who's talking

| The statement in Steves's story comment being commented on

Stefan's comment about Steve's story

Steve = who's talking

| The comment from Stefan being commented on

Steve's comment about the comment

Stefan = who's talking

| The comment from Steve being commented on

Stefan's comment about Steve's comment

etc.

Expand full comment

Thanks but I have to admit I still don't get it.

Expand full comment

It occurs to me that this is probably another consequence of you being less familiar with Medium's system than some of the other readers here. Please do keep pointing things like this out Erica. It's very helpful and you're clearly not alone.

I'll have a good think about how I can make this clearer. Any suggestions are very welcome.

Expand full comment

Thx Steve, what I'm referring to isn't in the comments section, it's your article, when you quote comments, your own or others -- I think the problem might be that both are italicized so the quote attribution isn't clear to me.

Expand full comment

Did you see the message I left you above? Is it still unclear?

Basically, italicised text is always a quote.

Expand full comment

A quote by you or a quote from a commenter?

Expand full comment

тАЬA quote by you or a quote from a commenter?тАЭ

A quote from the previous reply. The name, in bold, is the person whoтАЩs talking. The first bit of italicised text (if there is any) is a quote from the previous reply. The normally formatted text is the actual reply.

So, for example, if it were possible to italicise text in comments, IтАЩd have italicised the bit that IтАЩve put in quotation marks at the top of this reply. IтАЩm quoting you.

When the comments are long, sometimes itтАЩs useful to highlight a particular phrase that IтАЩm responding to.

Does that make sense?

Expand full comment

Well, you've def bent over backwards to try to explain this to me and I still don't follow, but at this point I'm gonna assume it's my problem, if your other readers are good to go, don't worry about it.

Expand full comment

ЁЯШБ I'll have a think. Maybe there's a way I can reformat it to make it clearer.

Expand full comment

Thank you. This helps a great deal!

Expand full comment

I am confused as well.

Expand full comment