As far as I can tell, if I have opened a string of replies to a comment (“downarrow reply” box after a comment with multiple replies):
from that time, until I have collapsed that series of comments, in that thread, my replies will go to the original comment and commenter when I “quote reply” to one of the children, or to any other comment in any other thread.
I was in that other thread and my first thought was that melizmatic had plagiarized millie since the quote box was attributed to millie in a thread from yesterday, implying millie said it first. “That just doesn’t make sense, why the hell would she be plagiarizing, and something so trivial, too?” Acer had quoted melizmatic from within the thread I was reading and it was completely misattributed. really a WTF moment.
I’ll try and see what additional steps were involved. definitely under 2a I might be selecting text from one of the X Replies, and 'quote reply’ing with the floating gray box. I’m not sure if completing a reply is part of it or not. I discard a lot of comments unpublished.
Sometime after that ther are times that replies from anywhere get sticky to a particular post in a particular thread, and it’s always one I’ve interacted with more or less in that way.