When you post a comment on Gabriolan.ca, you might want to add a bit of formatting now and then: bold or italics, say. Or quotation marks, or a link to a web site you’ve mentioned. It’s totally optional, of course – regular ol’ unformatted comments are just fine!

In case you do wish to add formatting, this page explains:

How to italicise text

What you type:
The <em>Quinsam</em> ferry serves Gabriola.

What you get:
The Quinsam ferry serves Gabriola.

What you type:
That’s a <strong>crazy</strong> idea.

What you get:
That’s a crazy idea.

How to add quotation marks

What you type:
She has <q>special snowflake</q> syndrome.

What you get:
She has special snowflake syndrome.

How to create a blockquote

Blockquotes are for indenting several lines of quoted text, like this:

Every line of this paragraph will be indented to indicate that it’s part of a quotation. This technique is useful for longer quotations, like when you’re including a paragraph of text from a book or website.

To create a blockquote, you type:

<blockquote>
For a minute or two she stood looking at the house, and wondering what to do next, when suddenly a footman in livery came running out of the wood–(she considered him to be a footman because he was in livery: otherwise, judging by his face only, she would have called him a fish)–and rapped loudly at the door with his knuckles. It was opened by another footman in livery, with a round face, and large eyes like a frog; and both footmen, Alice noticed, had powdered hair that curled all over their heads. She felt very curious to know what it was all about, and crept a little way out of the wood to listen.
</blockquote>

The result will look like this:

For a minute or two she stood looking at the house, and wondering what to do next, when suddenly a footman in livery came running out of the wood–(she considered him to be a footman because he was in livery: otherwise, judging by his face only, she would have called him a fish)–and rapped loudly at the door with his knuckles. It was opened by another footman in livery, with a round face, and large eyes like a frog; and both footmen, Alice noticed, had powdered hair that curled all over their heads. She felt very curious to know what it was all about, and crept a little way out of the wood to listen.

(That sample text is from Alice in Wonderland, by the way.)

How to add a link

What you type:
I read <a href="http://gabriolan.ca">Gabriolan.ca</a> most mornings.

What you get:
I read Gabriolan.ca most mornings.

Some URLs (website addresses) are longer, like this one:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2011/10/17/bc-surfers-rescue-fishermen.html .
The length of the website address doesn’t matter — the technique is the same.

What you type:
Here’s a CBC story about <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2011/10/17/bc-surfers-rescue-fishermen.html">surfers who rescued fishermen</a> after the fishermens’ boat capsized.

What you get:
Here’s a CBC story about surfers who rescued fishermen after the fishermens’ boat capsized.

Summary

I hope you’ve found this page to be helpful. Remember that all this is optional, so don’t worry about any of this stuff if it doesn’t appeal to you. Please ask if you’ve got any questions. And don’t worry too much about getting it wrong if you try to add a link or italics or something – a moderator will help out and fix any formatting errors.