Why quote long posts?
 

Is it me... or does it bug others when people feel/think they always have to quote long paragraphs and/or entire long posts.

This escalates to being out of hand when other members do the same thing in reply thread and it becomes a scrolling game just to get past it all.

Sorry for the micro-rant, but I just came across one after the other and I just had to say something :)

Hi Bill..............
 

Hear, hear.

I think CH should do a "DVinfo Posting Etiquette" page that gets sent to every new member just before they're made "live".

Either that or a "Breaking Etiquette" button you can click on when someones losing the plot and quoting everything in sight for no other reason than they think it looks (insert appropriate description here).

That said, in most cases, a gentle reminder to the person responsible usually (not always) seems to reign them in.

Whilst on the subject of buttons, any chance of one that says

"Please contact Admin and update your address details with at least a city. Pretty please".

I cannot believe how many people here seem to be of "no fixed abode".


CS

Sometimes it is necessary to quote a prior post, so the current post makes sense. Other wise, readers are constantly scrolling back to try to match the post.

There's right ways and wrong ways to quote.

Right: quoting a post which is *not* immediately preceding yours but is farther back in the thread.

Wrong: quoting the post that immediately preceded yours. That's just useless clutter.

Right: selectively quoting only the relevant portion of an otherwise long post.

Wrong: quoting an entire lengthy post just to address a small part of it... or
worse, just to say "I agree." That doesn't add anything to the conversation.

Part of the problem is my fault for not swapping the positions of the Quote button
and Reply button. Doing so will help to cut down on some of the needless quoting.

Exactly - and it's not hard to do, just take care to leave the prefix & sufix complete (anything within and including the square brackets)

Quotes
 

I can't help it. It can drive me to distraction, but I try not to let it.

I'm talking about the ridiculous use of quotes.

Why must so many people quote long passages in their comments?

Why must they quote the post that immediatley precedes their post?

Is it to prove they know how to use the quote feature?

The questions I ask are rhetorical. I really don't care why they do it. I just wish they would stop.

Does anyone else feel the same way?

As far as I'm concerned, you're preaching to the choir -- we should probably post some general quoting guidelines, and I need to make the quote button harder to get to... have been thinking about swapping its position with the post reply button.

Or maybe relegate it to the Advanced Options area???

Then all it needs is a windows like idiot proof message after you click the Quote button....something like "Are you really, really, really sure you want to quote THIS!"

:-)

One of DV Info's greatest strengths is its guidelines and policies. It helps make it my favorite board on the net. So I'm definitely going to volunteer my 2 cents worth before Chris makes his final decision about any changes to the posting of quotes.

I personally like to use a selective quote (meaning a one-line excerpt and not the entire post) when I feel it will help highlight or make it easier for others to follow the specific point I am talking about. But that's just me.

However, there are two main "sins" (that I can currently see) with the use of quotes.

Too much information or too little information.

An example of "too much info" is someone who just has to quote, in its entirety, the other person's post in each one of his/her replies.

Too little info is someone who doesn't give enough context for others to know what they are talking about or to whom it is even addressed.

The over-use of quotes doesn't seem too bad on the JVC ProHD or Mac boards which I mostly frequent. But I did a quick search and found a thread on another board from earlier today which epitomizes both extremes of too much and too little info (and I mean absolutely no offense to the participants in that thread, but I wanted to show a real-life example of the pendulum swinging both ways, neither of them really optimum):

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/wedding-e...-you-back.html

Sure enough, there is one member who made 3 posts in that thread and each one had the full quotation of another person's post. So I can see Jeff's point. Totally.

But post #16 of that thread does not use the quote function (which automatically adds the name of the person being quoted) at all - yet it begins with the statement, "Think about what you said in your post. You said that the quality of your work is suffering in order to keep up."

My immediate thought was that he must be referring to the previous poster (#15) by "you". But I found no mention of suffering work quality. So I then checked post #14, then #13, etc., only to eventually find that poster #16 was referring to post #1.

I guess the use of quotes could be considered like metadata. Sometimes it can be like timecode, really useful to quickly find the clip you are looking for (rather than scouring through every single take). But when the metadata starts to overwhelm the data, you've got a big problem.

I'm with David on this one (and probably most of the rest here). I quote a fair bit but I TRY to use just the segment I'm MOST directly responding to.

As well, when I first started quoting I didn't realize all I had to do to "select" what I was quoting is hit the quote button and DELETE everything within the body of quoted text that I DIDN'T want to quote.

I think the quote ability is CRUCIAL especially on hot topics where 20 people may respond in an hour and I mean to quote someone 18 posts back for context.

I hope the wisdom of CH and the Keepers of the Forum prevails and we get a workable solution, quite possibly lashing offenders with a length of CAT5 cable.

Finally, about a year later -- I've now removed the "quote" function from the very last post of a
thread and have replaced it with "reply." Hopefully this will eliminate a lot of unnecessary quoting!

Weee! Chris... You are THE MAN! :D

So CH, when do the lashings begin?

As soon as I can find a Flash developer to code me up a virtual CAT5 cable lashings app.

This is weird. I just tried to quote a small section of Shaun's post, and it added yours as well, Chris from a different post! I didn't quote it all just to annoy you, I swear. I left it so you can see what happened.

This is what I meant to do. Strangely, I went back and hit quote again, and it worked right this time. A temporary glitch?

Anyway, quoting a small section I find quite useful. I understand why you removed 'quote' on the last post, but sometimes people are responding so quickly that by the time you hit 'submit' there can be a few replies already, and your non-quoted reply in now out of context.

You might have inadvertantly clicked the "Multi-Quote" button, which is the smaller icon to the right down there.

Sure, but that's an exception, not the norm, and in my opinion that's a minor annoyance which is worth having the freedom from all the folks who use the Quote button just to post a reply, which has been happening around here far too often. Most people are reading the entire thread, or at least the last several posts anyway, so they'll get the context -- making it a non-issue as far as I'm concerned.

I'll be darned! I just looked up the Multiquote feature, and it looks quite useful. You're right, I probably selected your post without knowing it.

Thanks again.

That's the way, Chris. Now, if we can only get everyone to stop misusing apostrophes (it's for its and so forth)...

Confused homonyms and contractions vs. possessives are my next major battle... to / two / too, duel / dual, weather / whether, you're / your / yore, its / it's, etc. We are after all in the communication business, and spelling and grammar are the fundamental building blocks of effective communication. Onward!

I second those sentiments, Chris!

It's about time someone stepped up to the plate concerning grammar and spelling. Perhaps you could set up a dedicated thread listing out correct usage of these points and others.

One thing (a pet peeve) which I've noticed spreading via internet boards is the misuse of the word "of" (could of, should of, would of).

Perhaps they hear something like, "I should've gone yesterday," and then think, "I should of gone yesterday," was said. Then they sit down and type it on the internet.

Incorrect: should of, could of, would of.

Correct: should have, could have, would have (or should've, could've, would've).

You could go on forever with this. My favourite (note correct spelling where I come from) is "lose" and "loose".

How many threads do we see with questions like "will I loose quality if I downconvert?"

Drives me batty.

I like Isle and Aisle. Guys, an Isle is in the ocean. An Aisle is an open area between 2 (two not too or to) set of seats or chairs. Weddings have Aisles although the B&G might go to an Isle afterwards.

Also is it ironic or just me that we have 23 posts about quoting other posts and most of them have quotes from other posts?! :-)

Just kidding a bit here but we all need to spell check before posting. It really can help old guys like me-sometimes I really would like to help with and answer but don't because I'm not sure of the exact question because some of the spelling and some of the context in the post and I talking about folks from North America not other countries. Please lets all take a minute and check our posts to make sure they make sense (not sence)and at least MOST of the words are spelled right before posting.

Thanks from an OLD GUY-Yes I'm most lucid in the morning before my senior moments kick in ;-)

I wondered why this went away. Honestly, I disagree with it. I try to take care in only quoting the necessary point I am commenting on, and when the person before you makes a long post, it is now impossible to selectively point out a part of it and comment on it.

I understand your reasoning (I think) but I am not sure this is going to solve the issue.

Actually it's never been easier. Previously when you clicked "quote" to reply to the previous post, you had to prune away all but the relevant line (if you're one of the good guys who takes the time to do that, which you are). But now all you have to do is copy and paste the relevant text into your reply and add the code on either side of it -- in this case, the code is:

[ quote ] and [ /quote ] (except for the spaces in between the brackets)

So no, it's not impossible. In fact it's pretty simple to do, and it's exactly how I've quoted you in this reply.

And by adding =Poster Name after the first QUOTE but before the closing bracket, you can even show who originally posted that quote (as I have done here).

OK, fair enough.

Thanks guys.

And by adding a semicolon and the post ID after the =Poster Name, you can even show a direct link to the original post of that quote (as I have done here).

I believe Mr. Browning wins the vBulletin Quote System Geek Award. :)

That will go very nicely with my other geek awards. :)

Chris,

I'm glad to have ignited a tiny flame of annoyance and it would be a terrible shame to see this sub-sub-thread go away. It seems like you have sufficient ire bubbling under: so how about David's idea of a sticky dedicated to proper English like-wot-she-is-spoke? Gentle, informative and not at all condescending, of course.

I'm far from sure it would make any difference -- but at least we'd be able to vent.

Onward indeed!

Of course all the while being respectful of those contributors to the forums for whom English is a second (or third or fourth) language...

No problem with folks that English is not the primary language. It's the folks that English IS the first language that frankly drives me batty with mis-spellings that honestly just shouldn't be.
Just a grumpy old man ventin'! ;-)

Don't get me wrong Don, I agree wholeheartedly BUT before the grammar police go on a wild were/where/we're hunt, I just wanted to remind people that this forum draws a large crowd from outside of North America.

For example: my pet peeve is "orientated". As discussed elsewhere, it turns out that the British version is in fact "orientated" whilst the North American is "oriented".

I'll make sure to notate that. Oh, sorry, "note."

Either is much better than "notationed"... <tongue planted firmly in cheek>

Duly notationated.

To those who object to the removal of the quote function of the last post, I just discovered that if you click on the "multiquote" button just to the right of "reply", then click "reply", it lets you quote the last post.

I just did this now as a test.

This seems to be the best of both worlds, as it cuts down on needless quoting, but lets those who want to quote the last post do so by taking an extra step.

Much better! I think this is a GREAT workaround and SHOULD minimize the needless quoting of long messages.