While I can’t say I had that particular thread in mind, absolutely that qualifies.
When I say the xkcd forums are intelligent, I mean that they advocate intelligent and forward-thinking ideology. Like intolerance of hate speech and the idea that minorities deserve equal rights. It’s kinda tough to find a board that meets these bare qualifications.
But yes, some of their rules are insular, manufactured, and picky, which comes about when the moderators there are not ever taken to task for poor decisions or shitty attitudes. Straightdope is much better than xkcd for those reasons, as well as the larger community.
Quote parsing – or sniping, if you will – seems perfectly reasonable when responding to a long post that makes several points or to several different people.
I much prefer to see the specific comment being responded to right before the response. It’s a helpful guide.
And I absolutely hate it when huge blocks of text are quoted and then responded to at the end.
People can be annoying or jerks using any method of response. Quote parsing is a useful tool in a long, complicated, or wide-ranging discussion. I see no reason to disfavour it, discourage it, or dislike it at all.
So, I’d have to say I entirely disagree with the OP.
Og, yes. Bottom-quoting should be a bannable offense.
I agree.
Wonder where they got that idea?
What? I don’t get to use smileys that often. But I don’t understand what you mean here.
Intolerance of hate speech and the idea that minorities (whatever the hell that means) deserve equal rights is “foward thinking?”
I presumed it was fundamental.
Let me introduce you to the internet…
Well, I mean, fundamental for posters on an “intellegent forum.”
Yes, it is forward-thinking. Compared to the dregs (meaning majority of forum communities) out there who either actively use or silently condone the use of “gay” as a pejorative.
If you’re really not clear on what constitutes a minority, a good rule of thumb is any person who is not white and male.
Hey, how come everybody gets to be a minority but me?
Only when they get a first hand taste of how much it sucks to be a minority will white men be one.
Disagree.
Disagree.
Agree. 
I think that “quote sniping” is annoying if taken to extremes. It makes the post unreadable.
Of course, I manage to screw up snipping other dudes posts half the time!:smack:
Hey, now, you must be pretty close to AARP territory.
So that’s what it was. (I thought I might be suffering from a virus. :smack: )
Why did “we” abandon the “automatic nested quotes” anyway? Any way to make them optional ?
Well, I guess that just leaves you, huh, puppy?
Because people were too goddamn dumb to properly edit their posts which resulted in a lot of misquoting.
And misquoting, even when obvious, is teh evils around here.
Not that I liked nested quotes–I just find box in box hurts my eyes.