I don't believe there's a formal way to do so. I do it like this:

<blockquote>"How do I quote a post when replying to it?"</blockquote>
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That is to say, I put an opening <blockquote>, a double-quote character, a copy/paste of the text I want to quote, a closing double-quote char, then a closing </blockquote> tag. It renders like this:

"How do I quote a post when replying to it?"

...and now you can respond to the quote.

You can also use bold, italic etc tags to make it stand out more:

"How do I quote a post when replying to it?"

"How do I quote a post when replying to it?"

I use your second variation, except without the double-quotes:

How do I quote a post when replying to it?

I agree that there doesn't seem to be a standard convention for this; just some way to set the text apart. (Standards are important; everyone should have one.)

---

Give a man a fish:  <%-{-{-{-<

This approach (blockquote/italics, no quotes) sticks in my head as the most common way that quoting tends to be done around here... but it also just happens to be the method I use, so that may skew my perception.

My standard reply has this at the top:

<ul><i>
</i></ul>
<p>
</p>
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This lets me quote something from the post I'm replying to (so it's italicized and indented)‚ followed by my own response after that.

Alex / talexb / Toronto

Thanks PJ. We owe you so much. Groklaw -- RIP -- 2003 to 2013.

a double-quote character

The q element exists.

<q>The q element exists.</q>

... but is not in Perl Monks Approved HTML tags, so renders as above.

Do you mean to link another node/post? Use [id://NODEID]

Examples:
[id://11103240] → Quote another post
or with alternate text
[id://11103240|alternate text] → alternate text

> My personal style are lines with leading > and italics.

I wrote a nodelet-hack facilitating this and other things, choroba and discipulus are among the users.

You'll find it linked in my signature down here named as "Wikisyntax"

update

... and pasting the URL of a local node will automatically transform into it's the proper [id://123456789] format.)

so https://www.perlmonks.com/?node_id=11103184 will become [ID://11103184] and display as Missing error under strict

> I wrote a nodelet-hack facilitating this

I installed it at https://www.perlmonks.com/?node_id=492700 but it doesn't seem to have done anything with the above.

> > I wrote a nodelet-hack facilitating this

> I installed it at Free Nodelet Settings but it doesn't seem to have done anything with the above.

do you have JS activated?

update

And the "Free Nodelet" must be activated at Nodelet Settings (updated the main post)

Cheers Rolf
_{(addicted to the Perl Programming Language :)
Wikisyntax for the Monastery FootballPerl is like chess, only without the dice}

<blockquote><i>
</i></blockquote>
<code>
</code>
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