[mortenjorck]

  Facebook has grown so big, and become so totalizing, that we 
  can’t really grasp it all at once. Like a four-dimensional 
  object, we catch slices of it when it passes through the 
  three-dimensional world we recognize.

This is an incredible bit of prose. It reads like a description of some kind of future mega-corporation from a Gibson novel, and it's mind-bending to contemplate that we really do live in that universe.

[Stratoscope]

Mobile friendly:

> Facebook has grown so big, and become so totalizing, that we can’t really grasp it all at once. Like a four-dimensional object, we catch slices of it when it passes through the three-dimensional world we recognize.

[bobwaycott]

> Facebook has grown so big, and become so totalizing, that we can’t really grasp it all at once. Like a four-dimensional object, we catch slices of it when it passes through the three-dimensional world we recognize.

Formatted for mobile readers.

[xkcd-sucks]

Global companies have operated outside the bounds of meaningful communication for hundreds of hears at least. For example, the owners of the East India company or the Hudson's bay company didn't really know what was going on in the colonies

[__MatrixMan__]

He elaborates a bit later on the properties of this object. What a sentence:

    But what had been presented as a democratic town hall was
    revealed to be a densely interwoven collection of parallel
    media ecosystems and political infrastructures outside the
    control of mainstream media outlets and major political 
    parties and moving like a wrecking ball through both.

[Stratoscope]

Oh my, do I have to do yet another "mobile friendly" reply? Maybe I should write a Mobile Quote Bot. :-)

> But what had been presented as a democratic town hall was revealed to be a densely interwoven collection of parallel media ecosystems and political infrastructures outside the control of mainstream media outlets and major political parties and moving like a wrecking ball through both.

Tip to HN commenters: don't indent block quotes and break them up into lines. That is for code formatting, and it makes the quote hard to read on a mobile device.

Instead, put the quote all on one line in this format without indenting it:

  > *Quote here.*

Or the quote can be on multiple lines (newlines and spaces are interchangeable), as long as the lines are not indented. Just add the > and * at the beginning, and another * at the end. This will put the quote in a reasonable format that works both on desktop and mobile browsers.

If the quote consists of multiple paragraphs, I like to follow the above formatting for each paragraph separately. Put a blank line between each paragraph so they don't run together.

And then be sure to check the format after commenting. It should look like the quote near the beginning of this comment. If it doesn't look right, edit to fix it. And no, you do not need to add an "Edit: fixed formatting" note. That would be silly, just fix the thing.

HN's comment formatting options are rather meager, so this is about the best we can do.

Thanks!

[dredmorbius]

I've just requested that HN formalise this as a specific guideline.

I'd rather see either the CSS fixed (to pre-wrap or whatever the directive is), or actually have real motherlovin' blockquote support. But I'm not holding my breath.

(Lists would be another nice add. Markdown...)

[__MatrixMan__]

Sorry about that. I figured that the post I was replying to had done it for a reason that I didn't understand, so I mimicked it. I'll keep your advice in mind in the future.

[Stratoscope]

No worries, and no apology needed! It gave me an excuse to post some general advice on quoting, so that's all good.