Many people have different methods of quoting - some use the standard “quote” function and some use their own preferred methods. Which is fine in most cases, but what I find somewhat annoying is when people quote someone without specifying exactly who it is that they are quoting. Particularly in GD, where there are lengthy exchanges back and forth, it is of paramount importance that one understand the specific context in which a statement was made, and this is heavily dependent on the statements that it in turn referred to. In short, knowing which poster made the statement makes it a lot easier to understand which exchange the statement was a part of, which points it was intended to address, and what it actually meant.
Also, many times the poster is quoting a small part of a longer paragraph - by specifying who is being quoted it makes it easier to go back and find the whole original statement.
I imagine that many people get caught up in their debates, and the exchange is so familiar and clear to them as participants that they simply don’t realize that it is not as clear to others who are less involved. So I’m just here to observe that a bit of extra effort in adding the quotee’s name to the quote could make things easier for others.
>Many people have different methods of quoting - some use the standard “quote” function and some use their own preferred methods. Which is fine in most cases
I disagree; in most cases it’s hard to tell which text is part of the quote and which part is a response - there’s a quote tag and people should just bloody use it if they want their post to be read and understood.
We had this discussion before and I explained then why I sometimes do it and sometimes not. My reasons remain valid today even though I can’t remember them.
Actually, there was a thread on this a couple of months ago. At that time, I saw myself in the complaint, agreed, and since then have made sure that I always attribute the quote. Sometimes it seems unnecessary when you’re responding to the last post in the thread, but what with board slowness and thousands of other members posting, your response often does not follow the post it was intended to answer.
The OP is being kind in his complaint. While there are many ways to quote, including copying and pasting, more often than not people just press the quote button. When that happens, the “originally posted by X” comes up automatically. To erase that isn’t an oversight, but rather a deliberate effort on the quoter’s part to confuse. What I can’t understand is why someone would want to intentionally make it harder for others to follow the conversation in the hopes of saving a single line from their reply.
Heck, I’ll bet sometimes the person who wrote what you’re quoting doesn’t get that a single sentence came from their post. If you want him or her to respond to your arguments, address them by name! It’s not difficult to do. The only thing you have to remember is not to purposely erase it when it comes up.
Many people (myself included) often don’t use the quote button, but type the quote tags (and ideally the attribution too) out by hand; this might seem pointless, but when you’re breaking a large post up into pieces to respond to each part in turn, or quoting and responding to multiple posts, you have to add the quote tags yourself anyway.
(although in the case of breaking up a single large quote, you can of course use the quote button to give you the first and last tag and the attribution, then insert new tags in the middle as appropriate).
why should it be so important who said it? if the reply is relevant to the quote in a discussion, should it be necessary to specify who?
I agree that if you expect an explicit response from one particular person, you should specify the author, but if it is to make a general observation, should it be necessary to add a name to it?
It’s just confusing, moreover in a debate, posts don’t stand in isolation, but rather form part of a bigger picture; the ‘position’ of the debater in question, of course one can scroll (or go back to a previous page) to check, but it’s much more helpful to know exactly who said what, particularly as lack of self-consistency is one of the attibutes of a poorly thought-out POV.
That’s why I rarely note who made the comment: I’m debating the topic, not the poster. But it doesn’t bother me so much to put the person’s name in. I do it sometimes already, just gotta try harder, remember more, or something.
I don’t agree that it’s a compelling point (“debate the subject, not the poster”), or at least it’s more important to me (and we can agree that’s of primary importance, right??) that I am able to see the item in context (and no, my preference is not for you to quote the entire 14 paragraph post to respond to the one sentence… )
Well, I don’t know, I read all the posts so I either recognize who said it or remember the context. But again, I don’t mind, if this is what people prefer then whatever, I’ll do my best.
If i’m taking an active part in what i consider to be a serious debate, or i want to specifically argue for or against someone’s postion, then i always attribute the quote.
If, on the hand, i’m making a flippant or throwaway comment that is just intended to be humorous or annoying, and that doesn’t really contribute much to the broader debate, i tend to leave out the attribution.
- seriously, yes, that makes things much easier when you know who’s being quoted)