To quote or not to quote

[Wizard]

Moderator Message:
Split from topic on HYP. To discuss the "quote" function. Raptor.

The fault I suggest is tinkering.

Pyad, you can suggest away but unless someone does a detailed study on TJH's HYP from that time and runs it forward, we will never know if your suggestion is correct. And running his HYP forward might well include making decisions which can only be guesses as to what he might have done at that time.

It would be an interesting exercise to support your case, so are you up for it? Otherwise, it's all just "hand-waving" with no basis in fact.

Arb.

Arb

If you quoted him so that he got a notification of being quoted he may be more likely to respond. I really don't understand your refusal to reference who you are quoting in posts.

Terry.

[PinkDalek]

If you quoted him so that he got a notification of being quoted he may be more likely to respond. I really don't understand your refusal to reference who you are quoting in posts.

Terry.

Yes, this has been mentioned before, but it does depend, inter alia, on how how others have set up their Notifications:

ucp.php?i=ucp_notifications&mode=notification_options

[Gengulphus]

If you quoted him so that he got a notification of being quoted he may be more likely to respond. I really don't understand your refusal to reference who you are quoting in posts.

Yes, this has been mentioned before, but it does depend, inter alia, on how how others have set up their Notifications:

ucp.php?i=ucp_notifications&mode=notification_options

It also depends on people either quoting the entirety of a long post to respond to just one point in it, which is a cure worse than the disease IMHO, or using the quote button and editing the quote down, which can be quite a bit of somewhat error-prone work (*), or copying the bit they want to quote and inserting the quote tags by hand, which is fine for those with good memories for computer-required character sequences (and username spellings) but that doesn't include everyone...

(*) If you do it, I strongly recommend previewing the post and checking that the quote has come out right. One particular trap I encounter quite frequently is that I click-and-drag to select the start of the quote - and Windows decides for reasons best known to itself that I'm incapable of clicking accurately and need to have my selection extended back to the start of a word and that the '"]' at the end of the initial quote tag is the start of a word... Grrr!

Gengulphus

[DiamondEcho]

Agree with Gen^ when people quote and requote and we end up with chains of posts, replying to salient points whilst editing out what's not relevant and maintaining the integrity of 'who said what' is pretty easy to lose IME.
In such cases I also use preview to check the integrity of the editing, but I also seem to spend quite a lot of time trying to figure out how to repair the broken nesting of multiple previous comments.
I appreciate that editing is perhaps harder on some devices; mobiles and tablets than desktops [?], but if people are able to edit down the previous discussion to focus on the salient points they are addressing I think it would be appreciated quite widely.

[richfool]

I often quote just the part of the post that I am actually responding to, and then highlight it and put it into quotes, before then manually inserting the name of the poster who I am quoting. It avoids the clutter of quoting multiple posts and makes it clear what exactly I am responding or referring to.

[grimer]

I often quote just the part of the post that I am actually responding to, and then highlight it and put it into quotes

Like this? It does make it a lot easier to read, than just clicking the quote button and reposting the entire comment.

[richfool]

Like this?

Yep.

[Arborbridge]

The fault I suggest is tinkering.

Pyad, you can suggest away but unless someone does a detailed study on TJH's HYP from that time and runs it forward, we will never know if your suggestion is correct. And running his HYP forward might well include making decisions which can only be guesses as to what he might have done at that time.

It would be an interesting exercise to support your case, so are you up for it? Otherwise, it's all just "hand-waving" with no basis in fact.

Arb.

Arb

If you quoted him so that he got a notification of being quoted he may be more likely to respond. I really don't understand your refusal to reference who you are quoting in posts.

Terry.

It's not a refusal. I just don't often do it, probably because we didn't need to on TMF. If Pyad reads the threads, he'll comment if he wants to. If not, he won't.

Arb.

[Arborbridge]

I often quote just the part of the post that I am actually responding to, and then highlight it and put it into quotes, before then manually inserting the name of the poster who I am quoting. It avoids the clutter of quoting multiple posts and makes it clear what exactly I am responding or referring to.

Exactly, me too - most of the time!

[Arborbridge]

Strange how this new facility of "quoting" has caused its own difficulties, when on TMF we all managed perfectly well without it! Now I'm being taken to task for not using something I find a bit of an unecessary add-on.

It's there to be used if one wants to, but I'm not using it just because someone told me too

Arb

[grimer]

It's there to be used if one wants to, but I'm not using it just because someone told me too

I don't think anybody is trying to force you to do it, it's just a suggestion to help the flow of comments and readability of the thread.

[Arborbridge]

I don't think anybody is trying to force you to do it

Grimer - force, coerce, whatever - but that was the tone implied by a couple of posts and it's nothing to do with being helpful. I am certain not cow-towing to that. I shall use the quoting system when it seems quickest and most appropriate, but if I misjudge it, well that's life. As I said, we managed to live without it for ten years or more.

It seems I am not alone in abstemiousness with the system.

Arb.

[cat5]

I don't think anybody is trying to force you to do it

Grimer - force, coerce, whatever - ...

Arb.

Or beg, even?

I don't understand the issue. All I did was start by hitting the button with the quote mark on it, the one above and to the right of your post. What could be easier than that?

Are you laboriously typing [quote] manually, perhaps? In which case I can understand that the additional work of typing the original poster's name would be OTT. But hitting a single button, easy peasy. Maybe you don't have a mouse/trackpad?

There must be something the rest of us aren't understanding.

[CryptoPlankton]

I don't think anybody is trying to force you to do it

Grimer - force, coerce, whatever - but that was the tone implied by a couple of posts and it's nothing to do with being helpful. I am certain not cow-towing to that. I shall use the quoting system when it seems quickest and most appropriate, but if I misjudge it, well that's life. As I said, we managed to live without it for ten years or more.

It seems I am not alone in abstemiousness with the system.

Arb.

On TMF, posts linked back to the ones they were replying to. Here, it isn't so easy to tell who you are answering if you don't provide the information in your post. I think people have just been pointing out the helpfulness of using the feature. But, obviously, it's entirely up to each individual whether they're interested in trying to improve other people's experience of the forum...

[Arborbridge]

I don't think anybody is trying to force you to do it

Grimer - force, coerce, whatever - ...

Arb.

Or beg, even?

I don't understand the issue. All I did was start by hitting the button with the quote mark on it, the one above and to the right of your post. What could be easier than that?

Are you laboriously typing

manually, perhaps? In which case I can understand that the additional work of typing the original poster's name would be OTT. But hitting a single button, easy peasy. Maybe you don't have a mouse/trackpad?

There must be something the rest of us aren't understanding.

Then see previous posts including the one by Gen.

[Arborbridge]

Grimer - force, coerce, whatever - ...

Arb.

Or beg, even?

I don't understand the issue. All I did was start by hitting the button with the quote mark on it, the one above and to the right of your post. What could be easier than that?

Are you laboriously typing

manually, perhaps? In which case I can understand that the additional work of typing the original poster's name would be OTT. But hitting a single button, easy peasy. Maybe you don't have a mouse/trackpad?

There must be something the rest of us aren't understanding.

Then see previous posts including the one by Gen.

You can perfectly well see the above is a complete waste of space, can give a false impression of who wrote what and/or needs a deal of editing. I've frequently been trown by people apparently quoting me when they are not. This comes about by using the quote system. And one does not have to type

quote

- just press the quote format tab above.

[csearle]

I'm with Arb on this. Not quoting like on TMF can lead to unnecessary confusion. Quoting the whole of a post can detract from the pithiness of your response.

I use the quote button then delete the unnecessary bit.

Chris

[PinkDalek]

... Quoting the whole of a post can detract from the pithiness of your response. ...

The point is it is not necessary to quote the entirety (see above). The point relates to seeing the original author and ensuring that author is correctly notified, if that author has set up the notification procedure appropriately. When a thread moves into a second page it becomes more relevant.

One of Arb's points are that sometimes others effectively misquote him/her. That does happen but it is a learning process. Unfortunately some have yet to find the Preview option.

In addition, unless I'm mistaken, there was more on this issue on the original thread which hasn't been moved over here or maybe it was on an earlier one over at HYP Practical.

[Arborbridge]

On TMF, posts linked back to the ones they were replying to. Here, it isn't so easy to tell who you are answering if you don't provide the information in your post.

Cryptoplankton made this point, and it is something I am guilty of overlooking.


Arb.

[melonfool]

I think it's just very bad manners to quote someone without saying who it is (as the posts don't link back).

You don't need to quote the whole post, I take out bits I'm not replying to, or split it up and put my replies beneath each point.

Mel