When replying to an OP, should one quote that OP? Especially if you’re the first to reply, it seems like a waste of electrons.
Peace,
mangeorge
I almost always do, although if it’s a long post, I’ll only quote a small relevant or representative portion of it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve posted a reply, only to find a few others have sneaked in behind me.
Don’t quote it unless your post makes zero sense otherwise. It esp. annoys me when the first response quotes the entire OP in full. :rolleyes:
Even if a few people click post before you do, it seems ridiculous to quote the OP. You may need to edit if someone stole your thunder or simulposted, but those first few posts are always in response to the OP. What else would someone be posting about?
Of course, aside from triggering my pet peeve response, there’s nothing wrong with it…
The best part about the quote function, imho, is the “back-arrow.” In a longish thread with fine distinctions or multiple tangents, it’s nice to be able to go back to a specific post to see the context. That post might be the OP.
If there is even a chance that your post will be post #2, skip the quote.
Err…sorry for the infantile question. Longtime lurker, first time poster, and I’m unsure as to how to properly do quotes.
I see the buttons for it, and have used said buttons for bolding and italics, but I notice that when people do quotes, they have the text italicized, the username bolded, and a little arrow - is this manually done by the poster themselves, or is there a method to the madness?
lindsaybluth, it’s automatic – it happens when you click the little blue Reply button in the bottom right corner of the post you’re responding to. That will automatically quote the whole thing. Then it’s up to you to leave it intact or do some editing.
I’m glad the newbie butted in ;). Welcome to the lightside, lindsaybluth, hope you hang around. You reminded me of a question:
Anyway, AuntiePam, what’s the etiquitte for editing a quote? Not simply the rules, but what’s nice.
Peace,
mangeorge
AuntiePam, thanks! I’ve just been hitting the general reply button so far, but now I see what you’re saying (and testing it).
PS, I’ve always enjoyed your posts. Trying to piece things together from the last 6 years of lurking, vaguely remembering who was nice/well versed/helpful. Thanks again 
mangeorge, I intend to stick around! It’s liberating to finally post after six years of lurking 
What’s nice is to quote only as much of the post you’re replying to as is necessary for your post to make sense. That might be as little as zero – but if it’s more than a paragraph, rethink your post, because most people will skip over huge blocks of quoted text because they’ve read the damn thing already.
If someone is making a series of points and you want to respond to each of them, break up the quoted text and intersperse your remarks – but only if you need to. You may be able to just summarize the points –
*Re: Whether Palin is an idiot – blah blah blah
Re: Whether Biden is a humble man of the people – blah blah blah
Re: Whether Fox News is accurate in saying whatever – blah blah blah*
This, rather than cutting and pasting a long paragraph on Palin, another long paragraph on Biden, and a third long paragraph on Fox News. Assume that people reading along have an attention span longer than a hamster’s – even a turbo-charged SDMB hamster.
Thanks, lindsaybluth and mangeorge! :: preens::
twickster, I wish people in my Yahoo e-mail group (BookCrazy) would follow your advice. Most of them just Reply and Send without deleting anything, or checking to see if two or three responses are attached to theirs.
Thanks to both twickster and AuntiePam.
No.
Aha, we have a poll!
Also, as a FTR, you can quote multiple posters by coding it yourself. You do it like this
[Quote=insert user name here]
quote something [\quote] (invert the slash when you do it)
If you cut and paste, it looks like this:
SSG Schwartz
You can also achieve the back-arrow yourself by using a semi-colon and the post number.
[ quote=mangeorge;10178155 ]Yep[\quote]
I get the post number by right clicking and viewing properties, but there are a number of ways to get it including hovering over the posters name as it appears in the reply version of the thread.
One small request:
If you have a quote from a CITE please do not use Quote blocks. “Originally Posted by Geo. Washington” is not correct. Use these funny little marks “”"" and italics.
And IMHO, if you cut only part of a Quote, then add “…” to show where you cut. I forget to do this myself, mind you.:smack:
Or you can use quote blocks with no ‘=’
So, instead of:
[quote=Dorthy Parker]
You can lead a horticluture but you can’t make her think[\quote]
Use
[quote]
So you’re the man who can’t spell fuck.[\quote]
Attributed to Dorthy Parker on Meeting Norman Mailer
[quote=“SiXSwordS, post:17, topic:462703”]
Use
Yeah, that works, too.