If you had the option, and the feature only applied to you personally, would you choose to enable nested quoting?
Let’s say the SDMB staff figure out a way to give each of us our own toggle for nested quotes. So that the numbers aren’t skewed by lazy or indifferent people, let’s assume that as soon as this feature is enabled, you have to pick one or the other before you can post again, so you can’t just slide by on the default.
Note that this setting is tied to your account, not to each individual post. So at any given time it’s on or off–you can’t pick or choose individual posts to nested-quote.
Do you:
a.) Enable nested quoting. This will work exactly like current quotes: if the post you quote contains a quote, that quote will also be included in your reply, every time; any nested quote you dont’ want you have to manually delete. Current automatic quote depth limits apply.
b.) Disable nested quoting. Things go back to the way they were before the fix was suggested. If you want a nested quote, you have to build it manually yourself.
When reading threads, I find nested quotes useful for context in multi-page threads where someone quotes a response to a response from six pages ago (I detest backtracking to find out what someone is talking about), and unlike many here, the quote sandwich aesthetic doesn’t bother me in other situations.
But, after voting, I begin to think that you meant enabling nested quotes when composing your own posts, not that others’ quotes would be nested. I manually type quote tags anyway, so it’s not an issue for me. That said, I can see myself using it on the off-chance that I do want to quote an entire nested stack as-is, so guess I’m happy with my vote after all.
Correct. I thought I made that pretty explicit in the OP. I’ll see if a mod can add another sentence in bold or something for people who’re confused.
In the meantime:
This feature applies to YOUR COMPOSITION WINDOW. It does not affect the posts that anyone else has made or how you view them. All that changes is whether posts YOU QUOTE include posts that they quote automatically as you reply to them.
I think the divide here is going to be more among the type of poster and the type of thread they prefer more than anything else. I prefer the long threads with lots of detailed conversation(GD is my favorite). So nested quotes have a great function there because they allow exact replays of conversations I would otherwise have half-remembered. In MPSIMS they’re an annoyance because the half-remembered comment from a few scroll wheel movements ago is sufficient, I don’t need to read it again. It wasn’t making a nuanced point that every word counted. In CS I can see it being useful, and in IMHO I think it’s probably a net negative. The BBQ Pit is all over the place, as is its wont. So I picked enable, because in the slower-moving, and more detail-oriented forums, especially the ones which span weeks(as opposed to days) of conversation, it’s a huge plus.
That having been said, I preferred the old style where there was no right-hand boundry on the quote and it just trailed off. It helped keep them from standing out as much and being centered in their little box. I also think people should edit the quotes they inherit more than many currently do.
I’m sure everyone would like that option, but I’m also sure it would be almost impossible to implement. I just want to know if people, able to choose for themselves whether to have nested quoting on or off, would enable or disable them.
Yeah, thanks for that. As should be obvious, I answered before I read the OP, because the question seemed straightforward enough. Mea culpa and all that.
I find it much easier to delete them when I don’t need them to create them myself when I do. On the other hand, I wish people would delete them when they don’t need them.
Ah, gotcha. You’d think at this point I’d learn to explicitly state that my poll questions are usually abbreviated versions of more complex ones that I expand on in the OP.