Bolding not mine, obviously.
Graping mine.
To me, the difference comes down to whether the bolding might misleadingly change the emphasis in the original quote. Then you should make clear that the emphasis is yours and not the author’s.
A specific link is beyond me at the moment. If my memory is right is was during a couple of the more heated exchanges in GD some years back. It was one of those things that caught my attention more than the subject/thread did.
Without a specific case, I’m going to express my skepticism that any warning was actually issued merely for failing to acknowledge adding emphasis. We have issued very very few warnings for violations of the quote tag rule in any case ever. I count around nine total.
Side question. What’s the most common reason for a warning? Insults?
Insults by a very wide margin.
Colibri, or other mods, again a real question of mine as to the tools of the mods: did you do a search for Warnings among users and a sort of fuzzy text-based AND with the word “insult?” in the search, or do you (the software or the mods’ setting up of it) have fields for infraction type?
The basic info when you call up a user on your Super Control Panel in your cockpit. Clearly it must have some info more than what we get when we hit the User info button (their name).
ETA: And yes, I expect it contains all sorts of damning secret info SD has surrepticiously obtained it can use to blackmail anybody if it feels like it.
Bone did a compilation of warnings a few months ago. There are a set of standard infractions, such as “Personal insults,” “Failure to follow a moderator’s instructions,” “Being a jerk,” “Trolling,” etc. It is also possible to issue a custom infraction (which would include multiple offenses in the same post). The standard “Personal Insults” covers almost half of all warnings. Some of the custom warnings also include insults as one of the offenses.
I’m just more worried about who authorized this and did the unmasking —
ANY editing of a quote, potentially distorts the meaning of the quote. Including snipping text around it, bolding, underlining, italicizing and inserting quote marks inside it.
For example, consider your sentence:
“If it’s required, I need to report myself because I forgot to add it and my 5 minutes is up.”
This is a simple statement of fact.
does that convey the same meaning as
“If it’s required, I need to report myself because I forgot to add it and my 5 minutes is up.”
Petulant response, do I really have to do this?
or how about
“If it’s required, I need to report myself because I forgot to add it and my 5 minutes is up.”
What, are you sure its required? I sure don’t think so!
or how about this doozy:
" I need to report myself "
That last one sounds like you have a confession to make?
And yet, each of these is a verbatim quote of your sentence.
So YES, modifying a quote is wrong.
Sometimes it doesn’t modify the quote though.
For example, someone says, “This paper says that all animals have webbed feet!”
Another poster responds, “No it doesn’t!” And for proof they offer this quote:
“Our study of web-footedness was restricted to waterfowl in the midwest.”
only they post it like this:
“Our study of web-footedness was restricted to waterfowl in the midwest.”
‘bolding mine’ in that case seems optional, because I don’t think it changes the meaning or emphasis at all. Also, in that context I think most readers would guess that the emphasis was added by the poster and not the original source.
But adding ‘bolding mine’ sure doesn’t hurt and is probably good form anyway. It also prevents you from being catfished by opponents ‘outraged’ that you LIED because you changed the quote.
How *does *it prevent catfish who lied?
I’m sure that if something as ridiculous as this ever actually happened and it was brought to the attention of the mods they would probably react to it.
We don’t mind bolding (or underlining) for emphasis since that helps to clarify what part of the quote you want to discuss.
As the above example illustrates, if you are creative enough, you can come up with some way of altering the meaning of the quote just through formatting. We don’t allow that.
This “catfishing” of which you speak Sam Stone, and everybody else who can follow. Can you elucidate?
ETA: ie, I wanna know how it relates to trolling, which I understand.
Getting to the root of this requires many, many hours of research, study and meditation.
or.
google catfishing:
USinformal
lure (someone) into a relationship by adopting a fictional online persona.
“he was being catfished by a cruel prankster”
Time elapsed: 3 seconds for query, 1.2 minutes to type this tripe.
I am firmly in the camp of noting quotes that I have in any way altered as follows:
–snip–
And/ Or
Bolding mine ( or, Bolding Mine )
Moderator Note
Telling someone how easy it is to google something comes across as a bit jerkish. It’s actually expressly against the rules in GQ. It’s not expressly against the rules here in ATMB, but it’s not productive either.
Try to treat others with respect in ATMB. If someone doesn’t know a particular term, they also don’t know if it is something that is easily found on google or if it’s a term specific to the SDMB or some other sub-culture, or if it has a particular meaning in this context. There’s nothing wrong with Leo asking about what was meant in this particular case.
I thnk I used the wrong term. Maybe it’s ‘spearfishing’? In any event, what I meant was the malicious use of constant demands for cites where they really aren’t needed, followed by rejecting the cite on specious grounds and demanding more. Cites are important when making factual claims, but the demand for them followed by ignoring them or intentionally misreading them as a distraction is a form of disingenuous argumentation that has been growing in popularity.