diff --git a/include/bb2diaspora.php b/include/bb2diaspora.php
index d0cb60302..b5feacea8 100644
--- a/include/bb2diaspora.php
+++ b/include/bb2diaspora.php
@@ -7,6 +7,66 @@ require_once("include/html2bbcode.php");
 require_once("include/bbcode.php");
 require_once("include/markdownify/markdownify.php");
 
+
+function get_bb_tag_pos($s, $name, $occurance = 1) {
+
+	if($occurance < 1)
+		$occurance = 1;
+
+	$start_open = -1;
+	for($i = 1; $i <= $occurance; $i++) {
+		if( $start_open !== false)
+			$start_open = strpos($s, '[' . $name, $start_open + 1); // allow [name= type tags
+	}
+
+	if( $start_open === false)
+		return false;
+
+	$start_equal = strpos($s, '=', $start_open);
+	$start_close = strpos($s, ']', $start_open);
+
+	if( $start_close === false)
+		return false;
+
+	$start_close++;
+
+	$end_open = strpos($s, '[/' . $name . ']', $start_close);
+
+	if( $end_open === false)
+		return false;
+
+	$res = array( 'start' => array('open' => $start_open, 'close' => $start_close),
+	              'end' => array('open' => $end_open, 'close' => $end_open + strlen('[/' . $name . ']')) );
+	if( $start_equal !== false)
+		$res['start']['equal'] = $start_equal + 1;
+
+	return $res;
+}
+
+function bb_tag_preg_replace($pattern, $replace, $name, $s) {
+
+	$string = $s;
+
+	$occurance = 1;
+	$pos = get_bb_tag_pos($string, $name, $occurance);
+	while($pos !== false && $occurance < 1000) {
+
+		$start = substr($string, 0, $pos['start']['open']);
+		$subject = substr($string, $pos['start']['open'], $pos['end']['close'] - $pos['start']['open']);
+		$end = substr($string, $pos['end']['close']);
+		if($end === false)
+			$end = '';
+
+		$subject = preg_replace($pattern, $replace, $subject);
+		$string = $start . $subject . $end;
+
+		$occurance++;
+		$pos = get_bb_tag_pos($string, $name, $occurance);
+	}
+
+	return $string;
+}
+
 // we don't want to support a bbcode specific markdown interpreter
 // and the markdown library we have is pretty good, but provides HTML output.
 // So we'll use that to convert to HTML, then convert the HTML back to bbcode,
@@ -51,10 +111,10 @@ function diaspora2bb($s) {
 	$s = preg_replace("/([^\]\=]|^)(https?\:\/\/)([a-zA-Z0-9\:\/\-\?\&\;\.\=\_\~\#\%\$\!\+\,]+)/ism", '$1[url=$2$3]$2$3[/url]',$s);
 
 	//$s = preg_replace("/([^\]\=]|^)(https?\:\/\/)(vimeo|youtu|www\.youtube|soundcloud)([a-zA-Z0-9\:\/\-\?\&\;\.\=\_\~\#\%\$\!\+\,]+)/ism", '$1[url=$2$3$4]$2$3$4[/url]',$s);
-	$s = preg_replace("/\[url\=?(.*?)\]https?:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch\?v\=(.*?)\[\/url\]/ism",'[youtube]$2[/youtube]',$s);
-	$s = preg_replace("/\[url\=https?:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch\?v\=(.*?)\].*?\[\/url\]/ism",'[youtube]$1[/youtube]',$s);
-	$s = preg_replace("/\[url\=?(.*?)\]https?:\/\/vimeo.com\/([0-9]+)(.*?)\[\/url\]/ism",'[vimeo]$2[/vimeo]',$s);
-	$s = preg_replace("/\[url\=https?:\/\/vimeo.com\/([0-9]+)\](.*?)\[\/url\]/ism",'[vimeo]$1[/vimeo]',$s);
+	$s = bb_tag_preg_replace("/\[url\=?(.*?)\]https?:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch\?v\=(.*?)\[\/url\]/ism",'[youtube]$2[/youtube]','url',$s);
+	$s = bb_tag_preg_replace("/\[url\=https?:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch\?v\=(.*?)\].*?\[\/url\]/ism",'[youtube]$1[/youtube]','url',$s);
+	$s = bb_tag_preg_replace("/\[url\=?(.*?)\]https?:\/	\/vimeo.com\/([0-9]+)(.*?)\[\/url\]/ism",'[vimeo]$2[/vimeo]','url',$s);
+	$s = bb_tag_preg_replace("/\[url\=https?:\/\/vimeo.com\/([0-9]+)\](.*?)\[\/url\]/ism",'[vimeo]$1[/vimeo]','url',$s);
 	// remove duplicate adjacent code tags
 	$s = preg_replace("/(\[code\])+(.*?)(\[\/code\])+/ism","[code]$2[/code]", $s);
 
diff --git a/mod/babel.php b/mod/babel.php
index 1c881a5bd..ca2c068f8 100644
--- a/mod/babel.php
+++ b/mod/babel.php
@@ -19,6 +19,12 @@ function babel_content(&$a) {
 
 	$o .= '<br /><br />';
 
+	$o .= '<form action="babel" method="post">';
+	$o .= t('Source (Diaspora) text to convert to BBcode:') . EOL . '<textarea name="d2bbtext" >' . htmlspecialchars($_REQUEST['d2bbtext']) .'</textarea>' . EOL;
+	$o .= '<input type="submit" name="submit" value="Submit" /></form>'; 
+
+	$o .= '<br /><br />';
+
 	if(x($_REQUEST,'text')) {
 
 		$text = trim($_REQUEST['text']);
@@ -52,5 +58,18 @@ function babel_content(&$a) {
 
 
 	}
+
+	if(x($_REQUEST,'d2bbtext')) {
+
+		$d2bbtext = trim($_REQUEST['d2bbtext']);
+		$o .= t("Source input (Diaspora format): ") . EOL. EOL; 
+		$o .= visible_lf($d2bbtext) . EOL. EOL; 
+
+
+		$bb = diaspora2bb($d2bbtext);
+		$o .= t("diaspora2bb: ") . EOL. EOL; 
+		$o .= visible_lf($bb) . EOL. EOL; 
+	}
+
 	return $o;
 }