Pitting arrogant, ill-mannered and intellectually dishonest posters

[Atamasama]

@Stranger_On_A_Train

I personally think there should be a rule that when quoting to respond to a poster’s claim you need to include enough to have context of the argument without going back to the original post, or at least quote whole sentences instead of taking a sentence fragment out of context so as to alter the meaning.

I believe that is the rule. Look at this thread:

...I don't understand this guidance at all

…I do not understand this guidance at all. I don’t think I quoted them out of context. The post was immediately above mine so the context was there. The rest of the response didn’t address either of my questions, so I snipped the bits out that didn’t answer my questions and quoted the bit that did. How does this nearly rise to a warning?

Granted, the modnote was eventually rescinded because it was determined the rule wasn’t violated. But the rule exists and has been enforced before.

ETA: To clarify, here is where selective quoting is disallowed:

Terms of Service and FAQ

The first rule of the Straight Dope Message Board remains, “Don’t be a jerk”. While there are other rules covering posting behavior they derive from that one rule. Moderators in all forums are here to ensure the rules of the board and each forum are followed. Violating any of the board rules as outlined in ATMB and the various forum specific rules may result in various levels of sanctions. Context is critical when interpreting the rules and moderation will take such into account. If you suspect…

Specifically:

Do not modify another poster’s words inside the quote box. For SDMB posters, the quote must be accurate, whether displayed using [QUOTE] tags or ordinary quotation marks. Normal editorial rules apply: that is, you may indicate omitted portions of a quote by the use of ellipses “…” or devices such as [snip]. You may add text to clarify a word using square brackets (e.g., “her [the sister’s] friend”), but you may not add editorial comments or edit a quote so as to change the substantive meaning; nor may you substitute text such as “some blather” or “more nonsense” inside the [QUOTE] tags or quotation marks.

The part I bolded says you can’t “edit a quote so as to change its substantive meaning”. Removing content is a form of editing, and if you remove enough that the quote implies something the author didn’t mean, you’ve violated the rule.