FSC-0032 May 1, 1989 Uniform EchoMail Quoting Style A Proposal To The FidoNet Technical Standards Committee As more and more new software appears on the network, it has become evident that we need a universal method for quoting text of previous messages in replies. Because of the way quoted text must appear, it is necessary to format said text with "Hard" characters, in order to keep the block from drifting should the new text itself be quoted. The following method should allow current and future programs to properly identify and handle previously quoted material. Newly quoted text should be preceeded by the a single space, a greater than symbol ('>') and another space. Optionally a field of initials may appear in front of the greater than symbol, like this: " MR> ". If you allow the initials to be inserted, they should only be inserted into lines which have not been previously quoted. (in other words, don't add initials to anything already quoted) Successive quotes of previously quoted material should only add a single ">" in front of the existing text, which may eliminate the leading blank space. Blank lines in quotes should remain blank (no '>' or initials). Kludge lines, including tear lines and origins lines are not normally quoted, but when they are - they must never be quoted exactly - this definitely causes problems with other software!