This is going to be a mix of suggestion and rant.
I don't think I have ever encountered such a quote-happy bunch of people before. I am seeing plenty of quotes that are quoting the post right above the reply, which is unnecessary and just needlessly complicates the discussion and lengthens the thread pages. Worse still I see people quoting images without even having the decency to turn them into links first, and yes, that image was RIGHT ABOVE their post too.
What I want to propose is to add posting guidelines to the rules. Going against them would not result in punishments in most cases but would give the staff the formal right to edit away unnecessary stuff and write reminders to the "offenders". Only if a user completely and repeatedly ignores all the guidelines will s/he receive a user warning.
Examples of guidelines:
1. Do not needlessly quote a post, especially a large post (5+ lines). Maybe the post you are replying to is far away and/or on the previous page, or you want to focus on a specific part of the post that is right above yours; these situations are fine for using quotes, you are bringing attention to the text you are replying to as well as your own, a piece of text that is either far above your post or on the previous page. But there is no need to bring special attention to the post that is right above yours if you are replying to it as a whole. When people see a post without a quote and looks like a part of an ongoing discussion it is obvious that the post being replied to is right above or at the very least very close.
2. Make moderate use of nested quotes ("quotes-within-quotes"). Sometimes you need more context than the post you are replying to offers, in such situations nested quotes can come in handy. But when you end up with a nested quote and you don't need it for your reply, please take 5 seconds of your free time and remove the unnecessary quote(s) from within the one you are focusing on. It is not a lot of work for you but gives your fellow members a better reading experience.
3. Avoid quoting large images and other large embedded content. Clicking a link is not a lot of work, nor is rewriting img tags into url tags prior to submitting a post. Please consider your fellow members when you take the decision to put a big image into your quote, that one image will lengthen the thread page considerably, and needlessly so. There can be situations where quoting an image as-is is a more fluid approach than turning it into a link, such as if a thread has a lot of linked images, but when there is only one image people will hardly need to guess which one you are linking to in that quote of your post.
4. Trim down quotes when appropriate. With longer posts it is less likely that you are responding to the entire block of text, so try to remove text from the quote that does not concern your reply. Do not take this too far, however, it is possible to take a quote out of context and therefore change a person's text to a different meaning.
5. Do not needlessly multi-post. Posting a second post right after yours can be useful to bring attention to an old thread that has dropped down the forum pages if you happen to be the last poster, but there is no reason to post more than one post at a time within an active discussion. You have an Edit button at your service and the ability to multi-quote in a single post, use these features please, they are there for a reason.
Now is your turn. If you find anything (else) annoying about people's posting habits then write them down along with a good explanation of why.
I don't think I have ever encountered such a quote-happy bunch of people before. I am seeing plenty of quotes that are quoting the post right above the reply, which is unnecessary and just needlessly complicates the discussion and lengthens the thread pages. Worse still I see people quoting images without even having the decency to turn them into links first, and yes, that image was RIGHT ABOVE their post too.
What I want to propose is to add posting guidelines to the rules. Going against them would not result in punishments in most cases but would give the staff the formal right to edit away unnecessary stuff and write reminders to the "offenders". Only if a user completely and repeatedly ignores all the guidelines will s/he receive a user warning.
Examples of guidelines:
1. Do not needlessly quote a post, especially a large post (5+ lines). Maybe the post you are replying to is far away and/or on the previous page, or you want to focus on a specific part of the post that is right above yours; these situations are fine for using quotes, you are bringing attention to the text you are replying to as well as your own, a piece of text that is either far above your post or on the previous page. But there is no need to bring special attention to the post that is right above yours if you are replying to it as a whole. When people see a post without a quote and looks like a part of an ongoing discussion it is obvious that the post being replied to is right above or at the very least very close.
2. Make moderate use of nested quotes ("quotes-within-quotes"). Sometimes you need more context than the post you are replying to offers, in such situations nested quotes can come in handy. But when you end up with a nested quote and you don't need it for your reply, please take 5 seconds of your free time and remove the unnecessary quote(s) from within the one you are focusing on. It is not a lot of work for you but gives your fellow members a better reading experience.
3. Avoid quoting large images and other large embedded content. Clicking a link is not a lot of work, nor is rewriting img tags into url tags prior to submitting a post. Please consider your fellow members when you take the decision to put a big image into your quote, that one image will lengthen the thread page considerably, and needlessly so. There can be situations where quoting an image as-is is a more fluid approach than turning it into a link, such as if a thread has a lot of linked images, but when there is only one image people will hardly need to guess which one you are linking to in that quote of your post.
4. Trim down quotes when appropriate. With longer posts it is less likely that you are responding to the entire block of text, so try to remove text from the quote that does not concern your reply. Do not take this too far, however, it is possible to take a quote out of context and therefore change a person's text to a different meaning.
5. Do not needlessly multi-post. Posting a second post right after yours can be useful to bring attention to an old thread that has dropped down the forum pages if you happen to be the last poster, but there is no reason to post more than one post at a time within an active discussion. You have an Edit button at your service and the ability to multi-quote in a single post, use these features please, they are there for a reason.
Now is your turn. If you find anything (else) annoying about people's posting habits then write them down along with a good explanation of why.
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