As a side note, sadly, vBulletin’s whole quoting and bracketing system is ill-designed in general. There’s no proper “escaping” of unmatched tags inside quote blocks. For example, quoting Rhythmdvl’s post (or this one) will produce an erroneously displaying post, thanks to the part where he says “the [QUOTE= block”.
Well, this isn’t a problem, unlike your other examples: I click on the arrow to go to Post 1, click multi-quote, go back to the post I am responding to, click on the arrow to go to Post 2, click the multi-quote button, and voilà.
It was not a huge problem, but there was definitely super-quoted posts (and people complaining how they hated that), and threads with multi-quote coding errors before. The difference is that, before, the multi-quote solution wasn’t present, so there was no alternative. It just so happens that now there is a superior alternative.
I think where we diverge is that the box is an active link, not bookmarked within the page (and it would have to be if the quote is on another page). My perspective of the boxes is tainted by past experience with time-outs and other board issues (though thankfully the hamsters have been doing excellently lately).
I don’t think either solution (save installing a larger-than-practicable hack) is a panacea. But on balance, particularly within GQ and GD, the steps to forming a clear post are shorter and less risky crash-and-lost-post wise. IMHO, of course.
1.) If you’re tagging posts you want to respond to as you go, you don’t need to do this.
2.) If you want to include the post you’re responding to’s post it’s responding to, you have the blue button breadcrumbs.
At this point, I am quite sure that the posts where I have to remove extra nested quotes outnumber the posts where I keep all the nested quotes by at least a couple orders of magnitude.
I think that’s a terrible idea. IME, I’m equally as likely to require or not require nested quotes whether or not I’m using the multiquote feature. (If anything, I’d be *more *likely to need the nested quotes when I’m only quoting a single post from the thread.)
1.) Posters breaking board functionality (backlinking posts being replied to) due to ignorance or idiosyncrasy shouldn’t be a justification for an extra unnecessary “feature.” (NB, admins: This should also apply to that stupid “make an all-caps post all-lowercase” thing.)
2.) Any post that isn’t backlinked (i.e., can’t easily be multiquoted) can easily be highlighted, pasted in, and surrounded with quote tags.
3.) If you need to backtrack to more than one post, you can do so sequentially. There should be no need to open multiple tabs or browser windows. And I don’t think that any forum currently active should be designed around machines so ancient that opening more than a single browser window or tab gives them the vapors.
Crashing is not a normal browser function. Boards should not have to design around the assumption that a user’s browser is going to crash. If the user’s browser is crash-prone, it’s the user’s responsibility to take steps to ensure that their partial posts are saved (e.g., by composing them outside of the browser).
Taking your argument to the extreme, we should just have every reply to every thread automatically quote every previous post. That way, you have the absolute minimum amount of time spent re-collecting every post you intended to reply to after a crash.
Sorry, I’m not sure what you mean by ignorance or idiosyncrasy. I was referring to, say, the second quote box in AW’s post.
Crashing isn’t a normal funtion of the browser, but it’s a frequent occurrence for many members.
You don’t know who you want to reply to, particularly if you don’t know that the nested quotee is going to reply to that person first. And if that person edited the post down to just the relavant bit, finding that bit can be problematic. Not impossible, as I’ve said neither is a panacea, but comparatively speaking a quick drag and delete is much quicker, easier, and less loss-prone than hunting down and rebuilding a nested quote. Take your post #124 as an example. It’s the easiest to work with because the quoted posts are close together, but it’s still illustrative of the differences, freedom, and quicker clarity that automatic nested quoting allows.
Taking the argument to that extreme is extremely silly. Abusing the quote button would be trollish, and no one is seriously suggesting that should be done.
I agree. I prefer un-nesting being the default. Can we have 2 buttons? One for nested and one for un-nested? Then everyone’s happy! 
Admins, can you limit the number of nested quotes? I’m a member of a couple boards where any nested quotes past, I think, three just disappears when you post, keeping posters from spamming the board with nested quotes.
Understood. I was talking about the specific habit some posters here have of manually inserting all their quotes, such that none of them link back to other posts.
In the case of a post like AW’s, that second, unlinked quote is almost always the result of splitting a single post into multiple sections; i.e., multiquoting the single source post will give you all of the original material back (which, granted, you’d have to redistribute; but it’s not unreachable).
Speaking personally, I find it’s easier for me to build nested quotes manually, and that I introduce fewer errors, than it is for me to manually remove every unwanted nested quote. And yes, I used it in post #124 because it was there already, but it would have been a very simple thing for me to have either (a) built that nested quote manually or (b) simply edited the quote to indicate what it was in reply to (e.g., “[The blue arrow button] doesn’t work when a the poster isn’t included…”).
It’s silly, but I think it’s logically equivalent. I’m not talking about the abuse of the quote button–I’m talking about its reasonable use right now.
One of your arguments seems to be that nested quotes make it easier for people whose browsers frequently crash to build replies (i.e., because they can just quote the single post they’re responding to, versus having to also track down the posts to which that post was responding and quote them, which either gives more time for a crash to happen and/or places an additional load on the system). However, this also creates a bunch of extra work for anyone who’s quoting posts that include a bunch of un-nested quotes, people who would have to then cut those nested quotes out of their posts. So it would seem that the ultimate “time-saver” would be to simply quote every previous post in a thread with every thread you make. That way, the people with crash-prone browsers have *everything *at their fingertips and can just edit out what they don’t need.
See my point now?
While my personal preference would be for no automatic quote nesting, that might make a decent compromise.
There are vBulletin add-ons that do this, but they’re a bit more involved and in the past TPTB have been reluctant to make these types of changes. However, I do think limited nesting would be useful, so I’m going to test one of these out on my board and report back – if it’s relatively simple and I can demonstrate that it doesn’t cause any stability or performance problems, we may be able to talk xash into installing it.
What version of vBulletin are you running on your board? Does it give you an option for a nested quote or not? (The SDMB is a little behind the latest version, so I’m wondering if this is something we’d gain if they were to upgrade.)
We’re at version 3.8.4, with no nested quoting support. (Which is annoying – how hard would it be to have a toggle to let you set the level of nesting?) This is pretty much the last supported version before version 4, which also doesn’t support nested quotes. vBulletin doesn’t appear interested in having this feature in their standard releases, so that leaves only third party mods.
Ok, tried it, and decided, nested quotes are a goddamn pain in the ass.
I just multi-quoted two people in a certain thread. I selected each of their posts and hit reply. Only to be met by a bloody wall of text. Quote followed by /Quote followed by Quote followed by post I made myself earlier in the thread followed by Quote followed by god knows what!
I selected TWO posts using multi-post, and my compose message box was undecipherable. Oh sure I could have sorted it all out, but lets face it, this is a message board, not work. I just said fuck it and didnt bother posting.
This isnt a (poster name censored) style whinge. I just want to add my name to any list that starts with the words, “nested quotes suck donkey balls”. (You can quote me on that)
Can’t say as I’ve noticed a difference either way. Manual quote tags: for happier posting.
(I do hate the newfangled breadcrumb buttons, because now typing my own quote tags makes reading my posts more inconvenient for others whereas before it made no difference…but that’s my own problem and a whole 'nother can of worms anyway.)
I decided to do an opinion count on this thread so far.
Yes for nested quotes (27):
Giraffe
Rhythmdvl
Skammer
Tahssa
Pleonast
Musicat
Indistinguishable
Mtgman
xash
Sage Rat
Stink Fish Pot
MeanOldLady
Fenris
Gary “Wombat” Robson
hajario
Chronos
Frank
amanset
Cazzle
elfkin477
E-Sabbath
Eyebrows 0f Doom
Hades
NAF1138
needscoffee
TubaDiva
Dewey Finn
No for nested quotes (17):
BigT
Heffalump and Roo
cochrane
Arnold Winkelried
twickster
Fear Itself
AClockworkMelon
GuanoLad
Shot From Guns
samclem
MTCicero
MsWhatsit
blondebear
crowmanyclouds
John Mace
bucketybuck
Irishman*
neutral on nested quotes (3):
Cheshire Human
zut
Roland Orzabal
no opinion stated (8):
Munch
Lute Skywalker
Baron Greenback
Colibri
Achren
Autolycus
spark240
Electric Warrior
So far, no is only about 2/3 of yes, but I note that while yes got a lot of early support, the no vote is growing now that it has been implemented and people are trying it out.
I think the balance is figuring out how often nested quoting is useful (and thus it is easier to have it around and delete if not wanted) versus how often nested quotes are not necessary/desired (and thus the frequency of deleting leads to coding errors).
I’m a person who tends to do a lot of quoting. When I feel a multiquote is necessary to establish context, I typically unnest the quote anyway. Since I’m manually quoting, it isn’t really much different to nest or not nest, depending on if I’m quoting a nested response or not. However, I still feel that there are plenty of people who overquote. It is not necessary to repost someone else’s entire post. Especially if all you are adding is “this” or whatever term of support or condemnation (smiley face, dubious, etc). Also, given that every post has a unique post ID and a post number within the thread, there are plenty of ways to refer to a post without quoting in entirety.
To me, it seems far more likely to need to delete out nested quotes than the number of times keeping the extra nested quotes is actually required.
*Hadn’t actually stated opinion before this post, but including here now.
It’s possible some of the earlier yeses have changed their mind – you could always start a poll.
Just to clarify my position, I would actually consider the ideal to be to have nested quotes stripped by default, with a toggle or button available for retaining the nested quotes. However, if that is not possible, then I prefer having nested quotes to never having them.
It’s been my impression that the responses *since nesting was actually re-implemented *have been almost all negative, which I find telling.
ETA:
Before the change, we could still have nested quotes; we just had to do them manually. Worked exactly the same as the current functionality, except (a) it only happened when you actually needed it and (b) since you were dropping the new quote in yourself, there was less of a chance to screw it up.
I understand that. I prefer having automatic nested quotes to never having the option to automatically quote verbatim.
(I have no worries about my screwing things up, but I don’t see why you claim doing the coding yourself gave you less of a chance to screw it up than having it done automatically.)
Volume and intent.
1.) Most, if not all, posters on this board will quote many more posts with unnecessary multiquotes than they would manually enter nested quotes into a quotes post.
2.) An extra chunk of quote you’re deleting is one you didn’t enter yourself, so you aren’t always aware of where things start and end when you’re looking at raw markup. When you’re inserting a nested quote manually, it’s very easy to see where the new chunk should fit, because any other nesting is nesting you have just now created. Because you’re the one choosing to nest, you already have an idea of where things will go, and you have to look at them in order to figure out where to paste.