My impression is that use of the quote feature is, if not discouraged, kept to a minimum. At least it seems to me that I’m quoting a lot more than others (but I’m coming from a Usenet background where you’re supposed to quote two levels back. That would clearly be a waste of space, since messages don’t scroll off, it’s unnecessary). I find it easier to keep track of the “sub-threads” under a particular topic with the judicious use of quotes, but I’m clearly in the minority.
Anyone have any guidelines for when to quote here? (And yes, I know better than to quote the whole message to respond to one line :D)
Well, one guideline I use is that if it’s a really long thread, and you’re responding to part of the OP rather than the other responses, it’s usually worth quoting. But if you are within the first 4 or 5 posts, it’s unnecessary.
Another thing to keep in mind is that even a single line of quoting will take up a lot of vertical screen space. So if you quote 5 different lines in your post (separately) and respond to each one, your one post might take up 3 or 4 screens worth of space! Which is not appreciated…
The judicious use of quotes is GOOD. Quoting the whole frigging post to add one or two lines is not good (but you say you already know that, I’m just repeating this for the ones who apparently DON’T know it). Fenris, from what I’ve seen of your posts, you’re doing very well.
