I suppose this is a general question but if this is not the appropriate forum for it then please forgive me and move this or close it as you see fit.
I’m very curious why so many people quote an entire OP when they are responding to it? There are many examples and I could spend all day posting them here but this one is typical so I’ll just post it: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=312703
I just read the OP. I’m very aware of what the question was. So why the repeat? Seems to be that sort of thing would be frowned upon but it doesn’t appear to be. In fact it seems to be the norm. It also seems quite ignorant.
I think it is considered bad form to quote an entire post (unless it is just one or two lines) but generally not worth getting yourself into a twist over if someone does it.
It depends on the poster. Personally, it irks me. I never quote the entire OP, but I might quote a fragment of it if I can add my two cents for that particular peice. If you’re 30 posts down and want to get a word in on the original subject and not appear to be answering to post 29, then I’d quote the OP, or at least allude to it.
It’s not as bad as email messages with up to a dozen earlier messages embedded in rows of “>>>>>>>>>”, and the final “Me too!” hidden where you can’t find it.
But you want a factual answer? Laziness, as John Mace lazily suggested.
I find I do it a lot. I wouldn’t say laziness… more stupidity, at least on my part. Whenever I do it I do this after: :smack: Even worse I occasionally will do it as the first reply. That merits a number of extra whacks, I suppose.
I’ve done it a couple of times simply by accident/being in a hurry. Now it’s easier not to because I use the Quick Reply box and have to actually select “Quote Message in reply”, so it cuts down on my accidental quoting.
However, when I actually do I want to include the quote, I tend to forget to click the box, leaving me at the other end of the spectrum.
I’m using quick reply for this response, which gives me an all-or-nothing choice: either quote the entire message TEINC wrote, or no quote at all.
Ordinarily, if I want to address a particular point in a post, I will use the full reply form button within that post, and then edit it to the particular point I want to address.
It may also be carryover from the strict “no tampering with quotes” policy.
At what point does trimming a quote become tampering?
I often trim quotes down to the specific point I’m responding to, on another board I haunt, er… frequent, It’s a major sin not to, but I’m sure.
If someone got creative they could completely alter the meaning of a quote with ‘selective’ trimming, and I think posters are avoiding that by quoting completly, or not at all.
example.
I hate to be misunderstood, I’m white but, I grew up around mostly black people. It’s a shame someone thinks on me be badly for saying ‘my niggahs’ about my best friends. We’ve talked that way all our lives.
Without changing a word, just sniping, it becomes:
I hate black people. shame on niggahs.
That’s an extreme example, but it may be why people either quote entire, or don’t bother.
Quick reply gives you an option to quote or not quote? The deuce you say, I’ve never been given that option. If I click the quick reply icon it just allows me to access the QR window.
No, I didn’t not understand his post. It was just another way to point out the out-of-contexting that can be done by selectively quoting only certain parts of another’s post.
There is a difference between editing the quote, and quoting someone’s post. I agree with the OP that if someone quotes the entire post on this board it’s overkill. But if you are responding to something written, then a quote is useful for context.
I guess I’m saying that the context should, by default, be the entire post and quoting the entire post is redundant. No?
If it’s a short post, like a couple of sentences, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with quoting it entirely. For longer quotes, I try to include only the part of the quote I’m actually responding to. In the course of the editing that ensues, I find it all too easy to cut out one bracket in the "
[/quote]
" or "
[quote]
". For some reason, if I position the mouse just outside the bracket and begin selecting text, moving away from the bracket, the select operation always picks up that single bracket. This screws up the vB coding unless I remember to put it back.
That could be a reason why some people don’t bother editing their quotes.