Please Quote Sparingly

[Ed Hansberry]

<a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=116513#116513">http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=116513#116513</a><br /><br />The "Quote" feature is a great tool on the Pocket PC Thoughts board, but please use it responsibly. I have linked above to an example of what we shouldn't do. I don't do this to pick on the two involved, both of whom are valued members of the Pocket PC Thoughts community, but only because I just ran across this one a few minutes ago. I am guilty of it as well at times, so this is a reminder to me too. :) <br /><br />Why does it matter? Well, those of us on broadband could care less. It is just a bit of screen real estate. Those on modems though might appreciate a bit of a faster download, and those of us on GPRS connections are paying for every letter that comes across! :evil: This really hit me over the weekend when I was using my iPAQ and Nokia to access these boards.<br /><br />So please, quote what is necessary to put your reply in context. You don't need to quote the entire sub-discussion nor do you need to quote a 40 line post and append a one line reply. :way to go:

[JonnoB]

Quoting relevant parts of a conversation thread make sense at time.... such as including the question being answered. I can definately see how it is abused.

[gorkon280]

On the web, you usually will read the whole forum in a clip and once you have done that once, you just go to the last page and read the new stuff. On USENET, you load each message individually. It's a good practice on USNET because that way you don't have to load more than the message your currently reading and it's taken as the whole message. On a web forum, the post your referring to or replying to is sometimes even on the same page. Quoting it is redundant. I propose instead of quoting.....linking. Make it so every post has a bookmark (indicated by it's number) and then instead of quote, do something like a quotelink. It reduces the amount of redundancy on the same page and it provides an easy way to pop to that comment. To pop back to where you were, just cick the back button. If you don't want/need to reread the posters comments, then you don't. Everyone is happy.

[JackTheTripper]

I say this only as constructive criticism... Part of it is the software.

This is the only board I've ever seen that quotes a quoted quote. On most boards, if you quote someone who has quoted someone, it removes the quote that the person you're quoting quoted. (Confused yet? :lol:)

I know this isn't your only issue, but that's part of the problem.

[Kaber]

Use the code, Luke.

You can always edit the quote down at least.

[cherring]

lol, I think it's funny what was being done there. I like to truncate my quotes with just a few of the first words of the original quotes even if is a couple of sentences long. One could typically use the "quote somebody 'lol, I think it's funny...' end quote" or "qoute somebody 'lol, I think it's funny blah blah blah' end quote" if you don't particularly care for the statement.

[FredMurphy]

Seen this intentionally abused on my own website. It was pretty funny though. The thread went off topic and was about how annoying quotes can be. The screen ended up looking all 60s and psychadelic and it was mostly people quoting the whole thread and adding "I agree nested quotes are annoying."

:idea: Maybe I'll change the (custom written) software to remove nested quotes.

[Qman]

Thanks for the heads-ups Ed I know I'm guilty of it! :devilboy:

[PeterLake]

I didn't know nested quotes could look so cool! Thanks for the tip, Ed! :wink:

[Pony99CA]

Here are some more tips on quoting with this software (and in general).

Remove any salutations and closings. Use

How do I hard reset my iPAQ 3970?
not

Hi folks:

How do I hard reset my iPAQ 3970?

Thanks in advance,
Someone who feels they need a salutation and doesn't realize that "thanks in advance" is poor usage (an implied obligation on the reader)

Put the first line of the quoted material on the same line as the open QUOTE tag. It will save screen space.

First line of text on a new line:


How do I hard reset my iPAQ 3970?

First line of text on same line as QUOTE tag:

How do I hard reset my iPAQ 3970?
Notice the extra white space at the top of the first example.

Do not put a blank line after a closing QUOTE tag. The board software tends to insert a blank line after any closing BBCode block tag (QUOTE, CODE, LIST, etc.).

With blanks:


How do I hard reset my iPAQ 3970?

Very carefully!

Without blanks:


How do I hard reset my iPAQ 3970?
Very carefully!

I think that looks better. (Note that I didn't put a blank line after the QUOTE close tag, yet there's still a space.)

Do put a blank line before the opening QUOTE tag, though, or the quote will be jammed against your text.

Without a blank line:
How do I hard reset my iPAQ 3970?
With a blank line:

How do I hard reset my iPAQ 3970?

Yes, I use this site way too much. :-)

Steve

[Janak Parekh]

Yes, I use this site way too much. :-)
You're not the only one -- I do all of what you say more-or-less automatically. ;) The worst part is when I go back to a vBulletin board, which prefers not even one newline after the "quote" statement -- I'm always having to think about how to do it right.

--janak

[ricksfiona]

I've been making a conscious effort not to over-use the quote feature. I usually just grab the part of the quote that I need to reference.

You don't even need to use quotes if people read through all the postings leading up to your reply. A reply will make sense without the quotes. If someone skips to the 5th page of a topic and see's your reply and it doesn't make sense to him/her, it's their problem.

[hdsalinas]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=116513#116513

The "Quote" feature is a great tool on the Pocket PC Thoughts board, but please use it responsibly. I have linked above to an example of what we shouldn't do. I don't do this to pick on the two involved, both of whom are valued members of the Pocket PC Thoughts community, but only because I just ran across this one a few minutes ago. I am guilty of it as well at times, so this is a reminder to me too.

Why does it matter? Well, those of us on broadband could care less. It is just a bit of screen real estate. Those on modems though might appreciate a bit of a faster download, and those of us on GPRS connections are paying for every letter that comes across! This really hit me over the weekend when I was using my iPAQ and Nokia to access these boards.

So please, quote what is necessary to put your reply in context. You don't need to quote the entire sub-discussion nor do you need to quote a 40 line post and append a one line reply.
_________________
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Ok, :lol:

[Kati Compton]

A reply will make sense without the quotes. If someone skips to the 5th page of a topic and see's your reply and it doesn't make sense to him/her, it's their problem.
Well, in some cases there's a few different thoughts in the thread, so without quoting it might be difficult to understand which thought is being responded to. Also, for people that visit somewhat frequently :silly: quotes can be helpful. I mean, I may read pages 1-3 in one visit, page 4 another visit, and page 5 yet another visit. It's extremely inconvenient to have to reread the thread from the beginning to understand what's going on. I don't think Ed meant that quoting in itself was bad, but that it can be overdone. I like having a refresher sentence quoted....

I might agree that quoting isn't necessary if you're responding to the post immediately above you, but sometimes posts can be added so quickly that by the time you hit "submit", two other people have posted, so I tend to play it safe and quote.

[Will T Smith]

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=116513#116513


Why does it matter? Well, those of us on broadband could care less. It is just a bit of screen real estate. Those on modems though might appreciate a bit of a faster download, and those of us on GPRS connections are paying for every letter that comes across! :evil: This really hit me over the weekend when I was using my iPAQ and Nokia to access these boards.

So please, quote what is necessary to put your reply in context. You don't need to quote the entire sub-discussion nor do you need to quote a 40 line post and append a one line reply. :way to go:

From a standpoint of increased readability, I think this is an excellent suggestion.

However, the idea that an extra bit of text is going to seriously affect your download times is kinda a bit overboard. If one was using a 1200Baud modem instead of a 56k modem, then you'd have a point.

Most of the time taken in fullfilling an http request is:
1) Graphics
2) network latency.
3) ascii text.

You could quote sixteen layers deep, it's really not going to affect a 56k connection in human recognizable way.

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

However, the idea that an extra bit of text is going to seriously affect your download times is kinda a bit overboard. If one was using a 1200Baud modem instead of a 56k modem, then you'd have a point.
Well, Ed specifically mentioned GPRS users as well, which I think is significant. Especially for those of us who have limits per month of 2MB / 4MB / etc. Those limits get met pretty fast, even with graphics turned off.

Most of the time taken in fullfilling an http request is:
1) Graphics
2) network latency.
3) ascii text.
Again, most everyone using GPRS are turning off their graphics in order to save the amount of bytes coming over the connection. So reading through a 16-level quote just to see a one sentence reply would be felt by a GPRS user.

[Ed Hansberry]

You could quote sixteen layers deep, it's really not going to affect a 56k connection in human recognizable way.
Connect to this site via GPRS, which is a claimed 56K, and load it in Pocket IE. Tell me a single quote and a 16 layer quote load in the same time - not to mention the per character charges.

[ctmagnus]

I'm sorry, the devil made me do it. :twisted:

[Abba Zabba]

Sorry for my contribution to the topic but hey I was just trying to defend my point. In anycase I'll try to truncate quotes more offten :werenotworthy:

[David Johnston]

Here's a site with the right idea:
http://csnation.counter-strike.net/

What they do with comments is not only restrict it to one-level of quoting, but also have some funky mechanism by which the whole quote is not displayed until the user clicks a hyperlink. Just uses a bit of JavaScript (urgh) and toggling visibility.

For example, go to comment #30 of this page:
http://csnation.counter-strike.net/comments.php?id=6110

Of course, this would really annoy the mobile users of the site... I think. I'm not sure how it looks when JS isn't enabled.

[Pony99CA]

A reply will make sense without the quotes. If someone skips to the 5th page of a topic and see's your reply and it doesn't make sense to him/her, it's their problem.
Well, in some cases there's a few different thoughts in the thread, so without quoting it might be difficult to understand which thought is being responded to. Also, for people that visit somewhat frequently :silly: quotes can be helpful. I mean, I may read pages 1-3 in one visit, page 4 another visit, and page 5 yet another visit. It's extremely inconvenient to have to reread the thread from the beginning to understand what's going on. I don't think Ed meant that quoting in itself was bad, but that it can be overdone. I like having a refresher sentence quoted....

Agreed -- many threads are not read all at once. Besides what you mentioned, if someone has read the entire thread and then makes a post (typically what I do), if they request an E-mail notification, clicking the hyperlink takes them to the first post after the one they made. This notification may be any time from a few seconds to months after a post is made, so the context of a quotation is very nice.

It's very annoying to see someone posting something like "I must disagree with you" and not being sure exactly who they're disagreeing with. At best, I have to scroll or page back to see the post that preceded theirs; at worst, I have no idea what they're talking about.


I might agree that quoting isn't necessary if you're responding to the post immediately above you, but sometimes posts can be added so quickly that by the time you hit "submit", two other people have posted, so I tend to play it safe and quote.
I agree here, too. I do feel silly sometimes quoting the post immediately preceding mine, but, besides intervening posts, the automatic notification reason may apply here, too.

Steve

[Scott R]

gorkon's crazy idea (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=116599#116599)

With all due respect, I think that's an awful idea.

Scott

[Scott R]

This is the only board I've ever seen that quotes a quoted quote. On most boards, if you quote someone who has quoted someone, it removes the quote that the person you're quoting quoted.While most of the time you would want to do that, there can be some occassions where you'd want to have multiple nested quotes.

The bottom line, IMO, is that I like the flexibility that these forum packages provide. Users just need to figure out how to use it properly.

Scott

[HummerX]

Wonderful article Ed :)

I see two seperate issue. First is that some user abuse the whole quoting concept all together. Second is for user that is on a pay per download connection.

For the first issue I think Ed have raise a valid concern and I also agree with Scott, it's the users responsibility to use the feature appropriately.

However for the second issue I think it's not that hard from a programmatic standpoint to add an extra option to turn off the Quote option all together for the mobile page. This could be a default option for a per user preference. It probably take anywhere from 15 mins to 2 hours to write a parser for the mobile page that strip out all the quote and replace them with hyperlink so user can click on. Of course this isn't as convenient but that's what we all have to live with, it's a trade off between convenient and cost. Plus it's just an extra option for the mobile user to choose from so they can always turn it off.

Hummy

[gorkon280]

gorkon's crazy idea (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=116599#116599)

With all due respect, I think that's an awful idea.

Scott

I think it worked rather well! ;) Only I like the Javascript thingy except this won't work on PIE....duh! :) One thing you did do was show that is was possible. The java idea is really cool. But you'd have to use netfront, or as I have heard PPC 2003. Guess we'll find out in a few weeks! :mrgreen: