Ontological Disproof of God

[negatio]

@negatio. Since you've asked above... The = (equals sign) in an opening tag is used for supplying (optional) parameters of the tag in question, that control/affect its behaviour, in this case, for the quote tag, there are three possible parameters; quote=, pid=, and dateline=, and they determine what will be shown above the quoted text:

If you leave them blank (since they are optional) you'll get a quote box that only says 'Quote:' eg:

Code:

[quote]
This quote has no = (equals signs) in its opening tag, so here the tag is being used without supplying any parameters. As such, when displayed it will not show any author or date information above the quoted text.
[/quote]

The above quote displayed:

This quote has no = (equals signs) in its opening tag, so here the tag is being used without supplying any parameters. As such, when displayed it will not show any author or date information above the quoted text.

Notice it only says 'Quote:' at the top, not 'Author Wrote:', since no author parameter was supplied, nor does it say on the right hand side any date information such as an actual date or 'x mins/hours ago', since no date parameter was supplied. So this, without parameters, is basically the use of the quote tag pared to the bone.

When you press Reply on the other hand, all of those parameters are automatically filled in for you and most of the time you should not have to mess with them, for instance (just showing one of my previous posts for the sake of this demonstration):

Code:

[quote='emjay' pid='1804881' dateline='1535082316']
That's serendipitous ;) negatio, meet the guy I was suggesting you'd probably get on like a house on fire with; Kernel Sohcahtoa. Imo you both have a very similar writing style/manner.

Anyway, I think you've got me mixed up with Lucanus... he's the one who said he's doing exams and about to graduate, not me. I've never set foot inside a university. But thanks for the thought :)
[/quote]

The above quote displayed:

That's serendipitous negatio, meet the guy I was suggesting you'd probably get on like a house on fire with; Kernel Sohcahtoa. Imo you both have a very similar writing style/manner.

Anyway, I think you've got me mixed up with Lucanus... he's the one who said he's doing exams and about to graduate, not me. I've never set foot inside a university. But thanks for the thought

Note that all three parameters were automatically supplied when the Reply button was pressed, and in the output it says 'emjay Wrote:' above the text on the left, using the supplied author parameter, and the datetime information above the text on the right, using the supplied 'dateline' parameter.

So that's the difference in syntax and appearance between a quote tag supplied with no parameters... as you might if you want to construct a quote from scratch, rather than replying to a specific post on the site... and one with parameters, as for instance supplied automatically when you press the Reply button. As a user you shouldn't ever realistically need to manually supply the latter two parameters - pid and dateline - because they are specific to replying to a particular post on the site, so they should always be supplied automatically when you press the Reply button to do that. But the first one, quote='author', you might do manually from time to time, for instance to quote some famous author.

Hope this is helpful.

Wow, thanks a million emjay, you really know your stuff.  I am not so inept at responding to posts that my whole thread looks horrid, and it is giving people headaches to spend time here !  I just now recently figured out how and where to write in the space I am typing in right now, but, I am not even sure if it is proper to type now, without entering some special code...

Moderator Notice
Removed accidental extra quote