[csande17]

> Is there a better way to blockquote?

Personally, I just stick the > in front even though HN doesn't apply special formatting to it. Most people are familiar with that convention, either from Markdown or from stuff like emails.

[jefftk]

you can also do "asterisk greater-than text asterisk"

> like this

[tzs]

Same here. If quoting from more than one source, I've sometimes put an identifier in front of the >, like this:

knuth:> blah blah blah

wirth:> bläh bläh bläh