Not quoting - why so anal?

[WebReaper]

I had a post in the forum earlier today like this:

WinKey+R > calc.exe Isn't that hard

I use a different method - it's called mental arithematic.

A moderator edited to say:

[useless quoting removed by moderator]

I use a different method - it's called mental arithematic.

Now, whilst I understand that removing huge sections of quoted stuff slims down threads and tidies them up, is there really any need for this anal quote-removal? Do you guys really have that much spare time!?!?

[silverfire]

Yes, I do, actually.

[WebReaper]

[Ultima]

Personally, I don't see any reason to be quoting if the post you're responding to is directly above yours, unless the post contains enough stuff in it that it'd be hard to follow what part of the previous post each part of your reply referred to.

[WebReaper]

There may not be any reason to quote, but what's the harm in doing so?

[Firon]

eats vertical space unnecessarily. Especially when the idiot doing it quotes 3 pages of text.

[WebReaper]

As I said, if somebody quoting quotes excessive context, then yes. But when somebody quotes the 5 words from a 10-line posts to indicate the precise part that they were replying to, removing that quote is stupid.

E.g., http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=12817

I was replying explicitly to the bit of the previous (6-8 line) post where the guy said "I'll miss it". Now the moderator has removed that, the point of my post isn't as clear.

This whole anti-quoting thing is getting totally out-of-hand now. Quoting is a specific feature on BBSes to allow you to precisely reply to a particular point within another post. Whilst I agree it gets abused (e.g., quoting 20 lines of content only part of which you're replying to) it's getting ridiculous if you guys are just removing it every time somebody quotes anything (even if they've followed board 'ettiquette' like I had in th above example - only quoting the precise part of the post to which I was replying.

When Ultima says

Personally, I don't see any reason to be quoting if the post you're responding to is directly above yours, unless the post contains enough stuff in it that it'd be hard to follow what part of the previous post each part of your reply referred to.

he's absolutely hit the nail on the head.

[Ultima]

Meh, to me, quoting 5 words out of a short post directly above yours is unnecessary, even if you're responding specifically to those 5 words only. If it's a short post, it normally isn't that hard to figure out what part of the post you're responding to.

Additionally, quote pyramids are extremely annoying.

[silverfire]

Whether you like the practice or not, these are generally the only conditions where I'd allow a quote from the previous post:

1. Chunks of unrelated text before addressing the previous post, including if you've quoted another post further back before addressing the previous post.

2. If the previous post was on the previous page, and quoted for easier reading.

3. If you're addressing individual points separately with their own quote boxes.

If it doesn't fall under these three categories, you can expect the quote to vanish.

Additionally, while we're on the subject of moderation policies, if you double post, it WILL be merged. If you double post enough even after reading the edit notes that I leave, expect your intelligence to be questioned. Leaving derogatory notes in your own post to encourage you to learn where/how to use the edit is, from my experience, the easiest way to help someone learn to do so.

Lastly, use PNG format for screenshots. For highly simplified screenshots such as GUI shots, PNG compresses extremely well and without compression artifacts. The same screenshot under JPEG format would be several kilobytes larger with less quality. Also remember that images over 50 kilobytes in size must be linked and not embedded (use url tags instead of img tags).

[Determination]

PNG use wins. If you have any questions on PNG use, feel free to ask in the UI forum.

[WebReaper]

I totally agree with both of you about 99% of the recommendations above. It just seems to be that the mods on here have got far better things to do that remove small, single-line, contextual and non-pyramid quotes which don't cause problems at all - particularly as the argument claim that such quotes take up 'unnecessary vertical space' is totally bogus when they're replaced with a line saying "[unnecessary quoting removed by moderator]" which takes up precisely the same amount of vertical space!!!!

[Ultima]

Same amount of space, but at least the person who did the quoting sees the edit. Didn't silverfire just get finished saying that it's the easiest way to make someone learn the rules?

[silverfire]

Actually, WebReaper, your argument doesn't hold water because even single line quotes generate a quote box that takes up the space of three lines of text with blank lines before and after. Additionally, I really don't have anything better to do at work than enforce the rules.

[DarkOwnage_]

I am going to have to go against the moderator's on this subject. Is this server so over loaded that you need to save so much bandwidth that you feel the need to delete 3 lines? Are you kidding me? I highly doubt the server used to run these forum's get even close to being over loaded lol. I mean you can't even have signature's with images like most of the forum's.

[Firon]

nothing to do with bandwidth or load, everything to do with wasted vertical space on the page.

And images in sigs are just plain irritating (and a pain to moderate because stupid people tend to use huge sigs).

[WebReaper]

Agree with Firon - images (and sigs) are a PITA and to my mind serve no purpose whatsoever (other than for people to attempt to project some image about how witty and clever they are (or, invariably, aren't).

Silverfire, sounds like you're in a similar position I was in about 3 years ago, where I was working as a developer on a trading floor and had about 2-3 hours of work a week, and the rest of the time was on 'maintenance' (aka 'surfing' ). Fun for the first few weeks but after 9 months got tiresome (although the hourly rate made it bearable ). There's more content on the internet now though, so a bit more to surf.

Nice pedantry about the quote box though, there's probably a good 8-10 pixels in it.

[DarkOwnage_]

And images in sigs are just plain irritating (and a pain to moderate because stupid people tend to use huge sigs).

True, but when you have good moderators like silver then you can easily be worry free because you know he is on the job =^).

[boo]

DarkOwnage_, or the forum could simply automaticlly enforce a certain resolution and

size of the sig image, but I guess that punBB doesn't have such function.

Just to be frank (no offense to the moderators), the excuse that mods remove quotes

because that they take vertical space is weak, I think people are just to lazy to scroll a bit.

If you reply to a post that is two or more posts above yours,

a qoute is then good because it gives readers a better understanding of the context of your reply.

[Determination]

another example... boo uses hard CRs when typing his reply! That's wasted vertical space!

[boo]

Ehm, what is "CRs"?

[Ultima]

Carriage returns. Line breaks.

@WebReaper: Actually, a single-line quotebox takes 62 pixels. A single line takes about 14 pixels. Sounds more like 48 pixels are wasted on a single-line quotebox alone But in all seriousness, a quotebox seems like overkill to respond to a short post.

[silverfire]

You guys really don't get it, do you? It's not explicitly about the vertical space, pixels, or server load. What we're trying to accomplish is to achieve general cleanliness, more uniformity, and some semblance of professionalism since this is a software forum and not a gaming one. Argue as much as you want about policies if you need typing practice of if you want to type faster, but they're not changing in the forseeable future. If they do change, they'll probably become stricter and not more relaxed.

[Determination]

have fun pushing that boulder up that hill Silverfailure, I know you have plenty of time

I think we should just ban users. Banning is always the answer.

[Firon]

Quoting a post that isn't directly before yours is perfectly fine and allowed. Quoting one directly before yours or doing quote pyramids is not.

[mrnunya]

this is why i always try and come up with my own words ...its hard at times but i keep plugging away ....