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santalover123 -> Reply (6/25/2011 16:32:44)

When I am looking at a post and want to reply to/quote it, I have just been hitting the reply button towards the right of the post, (habit from another forum) expecting it to have the text box with the message already quoted. What I'm saying: pressing the "reply" button automatically quotes the message being replied to

Again, on the topic of quoting. If a message is replied to in the method described above, should it not be easily found? Maybe a button at the top that can be clicked and will bring you to the original message. It's very frustrating to see a quoted message and not be able to find out where it's from.


If these features were implemented, things would be much easier. Alright, thanks.



moneybags -> RE: Reply (6/25/2011 16:36:47)

Yeah, some time ago in the distant past, there was such feature. But it was abused in the way that people would keep quoting posts that had a quote in it which made ginormous quote pyramids, which slowed things down due to taking a while to load the page. Eventually it was removed to prevent said pyramids and super long pages.



santalover123 -> RE: Reply (6/25/2011 17:05:52)

In that case: only quote the last quoted message.

Example: Bob quotes Pat. If I wanted to quote bob, I'd only quote Bob and Pat's message would be entirely removed from my post.

Also, I don't see why it would take THAT long to load, unless the loader is using a very slow internet connection (understandable) or there are literally 1000's of quotes being loaded (unlikely). All that would have to be done would be some additional styling, adding a link, maybe adding something to the database or some backend work, and maybe a few other minor things. Shouldn't be to hard to implement this while preventing abuse.



Verlyrus -> RE: Reply (6/25/2011 17:55:55)

There are quote tags. They aren't too difficult to use.

Step one: click Fast Reply
Step two: click the quote tag button
Step three: Use your mouse to select the text you want to quote, copy, paste in quote tags.

Not too much more effort, and allows for precise quoting; for example if you only wanted to respond to a particular statement made by the person you're replying to.

Making the pages longer due to quote pyramids makes it very difficult to read and address the actual topic, since most of the page is material that already has been read. We don't need Q&A threads in which every post quotes the original, for example.

It's a lot easier to use the system in place now, in my opinion.



santalover123 -> RE: Reply (6/26/2011 8:05:20)

They aren't easy to use. Especially for someone who isn't very computer/bbcode (?) savvy. While it may be usable at this point, it would be much easier to just hit reply and have the whole process streamlined.

What sense does it make to have a reply button on every post if it doesn't even allow you to easily reply to what you clicked to reply on?



Stray Cat -> RE: Reply (6/26/2011 8:43:05)

To address your amended suggestion of having the "Reply" button quote only the last post for you: if you just want to indicate to whom you are replying, a simple @handle or similar is sufficient. More often than not, quote tags aren't actually needed. I find quote tags to be rarely necessary for anything other than referring to either a certain part of a post or an external source, and neither of these benefit from what you are proposing.

Even when, for instance, you are responding to a post on a previous page of a thread and you wish to quote the post so that others can properly understand what you are saying, you can follow the steps that Verlyrus has detailed. You can also try copy/pasting what you wish to quote, highlighting it and pressing the "quote" button.

It's really just a matter of spending a few extra seconds and, as stated more than once above, such a feature once existed but proved to be undesirable and was removed. I don't see its benefit of saving a miniscule amount of time and effort as outweighing the issues it brings.



santalover123 -> RE: Reply (6/26/2011 10:51:22)

I suppose this is true. But it would still speed things up for new forum users and those who enjoy having the posting process as easy as possible.



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