Glancing over the boards in the last few days I have noticed a few instances of people quoting other posts and adding emphasis via bold or italics to certain words to make a make a point. Has the rule against doing that been relaxed?
No, I’m not going to specify a poster or post. Fuck the police and all that.
As far as I know, there’s never been a rule against it but there’s a gentleman’s agreement to note when the formatting has been introduced by the quoter.
I don’t think we’ve ever moderated it when people for doing that. When you add editorial comments or change the actual text, that can change its meaning and mislead people, but if you add bolding or italics or underlining to clarify what part of the quote you are responding to I don’t think it has the same effect. In most instances people will add something like “my italics” when they do that anyway, and that reduces the chances of confusion.
“Snitches get stitches” has you worried?
I have been mod-noted for that. I don’t remember by whom, though, so I can’t prove it. But I was en-fucking-raged.
That’s typically what I do, and what I had done earlier in the same thread, only to forget in one post, which is why I was en-fucking-raged at the mod-note-but-not-warning.
:: idly toys with honey-badger cannon remote control::
:: sighs & puts it away for now ::
That’s one.
ETA: Thanks for answering the question, Marley.
I’ll see if I can figure it out. But I can’t remember moderating anybody just for adding italics or bolding for emphasis as opposed to making changes or adding snarky comments to the quoted text. We also allow the use of ellipses and non-editorial comments like “[snipped].”
You needn’t bother. I wasn’t complaining, just wondering.
I’ve done all of those, though I prefer <snipped> to ellipses. Ellipses are for Etruscans.
What about the rule that all Skald posts must contain a poll and a bizarre hypothetical? :dubious:
Yah, he almost never gets called on that.
That rule only refers to OP’s. However, he’s clearly broken it in this case.
I’m sure the mods are giving him a break because it’s been a while. And they don’t want killer bees chasing them.
The overall approach to quote-boxes is that they need to be treated the same way that quotes are in any research paper: changes must be clearly identified. The use of … or [snip] to indicate text is omitted, the use of [sic] to indicate the text is unchanged, the annotation “bolding mine” and so forth.
When the violation is minor grammatical, we don’t usually care much. When the alteration of the quoted text is significant, we do care.