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Author Topic: Etiquette for quoting from earlier posts  (Read 3759 times)

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Theo

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Etiquette for quoting from earlier posts
« on: December 19, 2018, 07:53:56 AM »

I posted this on a topic where several posts quoted the entire preceding post.  This seems to me to use up screen space tovery little purpose, and is especially problematic when reading the forum on a mobile.

[[ADMIN]]

I have a request - please don’t quote the entire previous post when replying,  it just fills up the space for no purpose.  Quoting is very useful if you want to highlight just a particular point,  or if your reply follows directly from an earlier post.  To just quote the whole of the  immediately previous post is not helpful.

Please share you views on quoting etiquette in this topic.
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Graham Spencer

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Re: Etiquette for quoting from earlier posts
« Reply #1 on: December 19, 2018, 08:35:40 AM »

I agree; it's a bit more work to quote just the relevant phrase, sentence or paragraph, but it makes it much easier to follow the thread of a discussion as well as reducing the amount of scrolling up & down you have to do.

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Helena Handcart

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Re: Etiquette for quoting from earlier posts
« Reply #2 on: December 19, 2018, 08:57:38 AM »

Agreed - I try to restrict my quote posts to simply quoting the salient parts but it is evident that some users on this forum are less technically able than others and may struggle to use the quote function at all, let alone to use it selectively - in which case a little tolerance wouldn't go amiss.  Equally, there is a risk of effectively misquoting someone by selectively quoting them which should be borne in mind when selecting parts to quote.
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Clive Williams

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Re: Etiquette for quoting from earlier posts
« Reply #3 on: December 19, 2018, 09:14:53 AM »

I love that you quoted it :-)

Theo

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Re: Etiquette for quoting from earlier posts
« Reply #4 on: December 19, 2018, 09:24:41 AM »

Leading by example!

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Theo Gibb - Gateshead UK

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Steve_freereeder

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Re: Etiquette for quoting from earlier posts
« Reply #5 on: December 19, 2018, 09:58:26 AM »

I agree with Theo. Quoting large chunks of a previous post is usually unnecessary, especially when the new post only contains a few words.

I try to use the quote function economically and if there is a particular part which I want especially to respond to, I find it useful to highlight that part in a different colour within the quote. Here's an example.

In addition to Theo's plea, I would add a request of my own: that people learn to use the quote facilities properly and avoid chunks of text escaping the quote box and often followed by a broken quote command such as "/quote]". It's not hard to get it right; the menu strip is just above each text entry box and it is also good practice to use the 'Preview' button (lower right) to check that your post is appearing properly. If it is not, then amend it before clicking on the 'Post' button. Even after posting, you have the option to check what you have just posted and correcting it if necessary by using the 'Modify' function towards the upper right of the window.

I can't comment on what the forum looks like on a mobile phone. I don't have one.

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Lester

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Re: Etiquette for quoting from earlier posts
« Reply #6 on: December 19, 2018, 10:14:19 AM »

It's not hard to get it right;


Yes it is unless you are computer literate which I am sure more than a few members aren't. BB coding is less than intuitive and really hard to edit if you are using a tablet rather than a computer with a keyboard as the control characters [ etc are invariably on a different page of the keyboard.


Like everything else in this world things are not hard if you can do them and they are hard if you can't, not everyone will want/need to put in the effort to learn a fairly fringe topic.

John MacKenzie (Cugiok)

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Re: Etiquette for quoting from earlier posts
« Reply #7 on: December 19, 2018, 10:44:28 AM »


"Like everything else in this world things are not hard if you can do them and they are hard if you can't, not everyone will want/need to put in the effort to learn a fairly fringe topic"

Wot Lester said.

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Lyra

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Re: Etiquette for quoting from earlier posts
« Reply #8 on: December 19, 2018, 11:14:13 AM »

Musicians should get bbcode - it's very like music. You can think of the pair of commands as the repeat markings in a musical score/set of dots. You need one to start and one to end - simples! or in this case as the long running radio show has it, quote unquote.
Once you get the fact that the button that looks like a postit note above the lady melodeonist player with the longer hair gives you the tags and you just pop your text (using cut and paste) between them the world is your lobster. Much easier than using the insert quote on the post you want to quote then deleting the bits you don't want, along inevitably with something you did want that you have to find and put back in.
And preview is our friend :)
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Helena Handcart

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Re: Etiquette for quoting from earlier posts
« Reply #9 on: December 19, 2018, 11:21:19 AM »

Once you get the fact that the button that looks like a postit note above the lady melodeonist   player with the longer hair gives you the tags

'cept it doesn't tell you who the quote is from which can be useful in some of the long, convoluted and somewhat drifty threads that occur here.

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Lyra

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Re: Etiquette for quoting from earlier posts
« Reply #10 on: December 19, 2018, 11:28:39 AM »

Once you get the fact that the button that looks like a postit note [snip]

'cept it doesn't tell you who the quote is from which can be useful in some of the long, convoluted and somewhat drifty threads that occur here.
Heh nested quotes. No it doesn't, but that is often not needed so for quick quotes it's just the ticket.
My bugbear is people who quote a whole post (often with photos) which is just the entirety of the immediate previous post. Fortunately Melnet doesn't go in for that in a big way, unlike another forum I moderate.
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Steve_freereeder

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Re: Etiquette for quoting from earlier posts
« Reply #11 on: December 19, 2018, 11:46:36 AM »

Like everything else in this world things are not hard if you can do them and they are hard if you can't, not everyone will want/need to put in the effort to learn a fairly fringe topic.
Except that I don't think it is a 'fairly fringe topic'. The very reason for this thread at all shows that it is more than just that.
Anyway - I'm with Lyra. It doesn't take much to do it properly. The menu icons are there to help you; there are several ways of making a quote: (i) use the quote option directly when replying to a post, (ii) use the 'insert quote' option below the reply window, and (iii) highlight some text with the mouse/cursor and use the 'quote' icon as Lyra says, just above the melodeon player with curly hair. And for the BB code literate, if you really want to, you can type in the commands directly:
Code: [Select]
[quote] quoted text goes here [/quote]But no-one needs to do that if they don't want to, the previous three options work very well indeed.
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Theo

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Re: Etiquette for quoting from earlier posts
« Reply #12 on: December 19, 2018, 12:05:56 PM »

That’s true Lester,  but it’s easy to *not* insert an unnecessary quote,  that was my main point.
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malcolmbebb

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Re: Etiquette for quoting from earlier posts
« Reply #13 on: December 19, 2018, 12:50:24 PM »

The number of times I've seen this on mailing lists, both as member and admin... this remains one of the better places. However, I'm with Lester - it's easy, if you know how.
In addition some people get their new text inside the quoted text, requiring some interpretation.

Perhaps a small sticky tutorial - can the forum support in-line screenshots? or a pdf? 

And some guidelines about depth of nesting  >:E
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Winston Smith

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Re: Etiquette for quoting from earlier posts
« Reply #14 on: December 19, 2018, 01:55:07 PM »

As a self-confessed technophobic old fart, I really don't understand all these things. I'm sure that someone explained to me just how simple it is to insert an emoticon into a post, but I still find it impossible.

I cannot fathom why the forum has this "quote" facility at all. After all, surely it's easier to just use those inverted comma thingies which are commonly referred to as "speech marks" (or even [well b****r me!] "quotation marks") around a piece of text which has been copied and pasted?

The only drawback I can envisage to this is that which Ms Handcart has highlighted; "it doesn't tell you who the quote is from", which, in most instances, doesn't really matter anyway.
« Last Edit: December 19, 2018, 05:34:22 PM by Winston Smith »
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Re: Etiquette for quoting from earlier posts
« Reply #15 on: December 19, 2018, 02:00:45 PM »

The only drawback I can envisage to this is that which Ms Handcart has highlighted; "it doesn't tell you who the quote is from", which, in most instances, doesn't really matter anyway.


The other advantage of using proper quotes is that by clicking on the "Quote from xxxx on yyyy" above the quote it takes yo back to the originating post so it is easier to see the context in which it was posted.

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Re: Etiquette for quoting from earlier posts
« Reply #16 on: December 19, 2018, 03:02:52 PM »

I'm sure that someone explained to me just how simple it is to insert an emoticon into a post, but (I) still find it impossible.

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Re: Etiquette for quoting from earlier posts
« Reply #17 on: December 19, 2018, 03:23:18 PM »

[Don't fall for it girls, Edward just wants the attention. The mantle of self-deprecating dodderiness he affects is very charming, but he's really a rocket scientist!

I know Winston and can state that he is rarely ballistic.
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Re: Etiquette for quoting from earlier posts
« Reply #18 on: December 19, 2018, 05:49:36 PM »

It can be handy because it's possible to quote posts in entirely different threads that will link back to the thread in question, for example as in the first post of this topic, but also here:

[[ADMIN]]

I have a request - please don’t quote the entire previous post when replying,


Appologies Theo, I'll try to do better.

^^ This is my new favourite post. Hopefully it was tongue in cheek, certainly no offence is intended by my favouritism.

But also: if you go to this thread and quote Pat, I found that I actually received what would effectively be the same malformed quote tags, with only a single /quote tag to close the two open quote blocks. Fun times, at the very least - presumably it's because Pat's post does not include an end quote tag and the system just adds a tag at the start and end like a sandwich. When it comes to slightly wonky post formatting, I suppose one must always be on ones guard.
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Re: Etiquette for quoting from earlier posts
« Reply #19 on: December 19, 2018, 06:04:04 PM »

Obviously it would be nice if everybody quoted correctly and didn't fill too much space with unnecessary quoted material.

I'd not object if anyone with admin rights, in their copious free time (  ;) ), fixed incorrectly formatted quotes or deleted excessive  quote-bloat. Would anyone?

Incidentally I've long been in the habit of quoting in a similar style in emails. It helps to have software that expects you to do it that way; I have to admit that if I'm using a phone or tablet I revert to the (now) more usual style of reply followed by "original message" because it's really hard to do it the other way.

Also Lester is right that quoting anything on Melnet or similar BBS-coded forums is a nightmare on a tablet or phone.
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