Quoting guidelines

[Gijs]

Hi,

Guidelines
Please note that these are just guidelines. We won't punish anyone for mistakes and in certain situations it might be even advised to deviate from these guidelines.

• if someone uses inappropriate language, report this to the moderators, but do not respond in the thread itself and especially not with a quote of the specific text.
• if you reply to something, place the quote above your reply.
• reading the same thing twice gets boring, for all of us. Therefore:
  
  • do not quote entire messages. Only quote the sentences that you reply to. If you reply to a whole post, just quote the key sentences. We'll all know what post you reply to. This also means, that you should omit "non-contributing" things like greetings. Please note that it might be better to post multiple quote-blocks instead of just one, when a post covers multiple sub-subjects.
  • try to avoid quoting quotes. In e-mails, it is common to attach the previous mails, but on a forum the previous posts are automatically displayed when replying to a thread.
  • never quote images, unless they were posted a few pages back, or posted a while ago.
  • if you reply to the post directly above you, do not quote at all, unless it is a long post where you may apply #1 to

How to quote?
Beside each post, you will find a couple of buttons. One of which is this one . Clicking this button will bring you to the reply-form, where you will find the entire post between quote tags. You can edit the quote block (deleting sentences, following the guidelines above) as you edit any other text. If you would like to create a quote yourself (e.g.. if you quote from some external website/book), you can click the Quote button above the write-field. An example of a quote block:

Code: Select all

[quote="Gijs"]Beside each post, you will find a couple of buttons.[/quote]

shows up as:

Beside each post, you will find a couple of buttons.

When attaching a name to the quote, make sure there are " around the name! Optionally you can add a link to the respective post by appending the post id, like this (happens automatically when clicking ):

Code: Select all

[quote="Gijs";p=92471]Optionally you can add a link to the respective post[/quote]

which shows up as:

Optionally you can add a link to the respective post

You are encouraged to use the Preview button to check your message before posting it.

Thanks a lot for your cooperation! Together we make this forum a pleasant place for all of us.

[Gijs]

A small reminder for those that didn't see this yet, or forgot it already

[Oliver]

if you reply to the post directly above you, do not quote at all.

In my opinion it makes more sense to quote if the post directly above is very large.
It's better if you're able to show the users on what part exactly of the very large posting above you are answering.

[Gijs]

Thanks Oliver, I've adjusted the guidelines to be more clear on that part

[Gijs]

A little bump for this one, as some of you still seem to forget it every now and then...

Summary: use less quoting rather than useless quoting

[VicMar]

Hi Gijs,

I think you misunderstood. I am saying I cannot get the field for quotes to appear by clicking on the 'Quote' box.

Neither can I get Smilies to appear in my posts.

Vic

[gooneybird]

You can get the quote etc. working by doing it longhand.
If you rest the mouse pointer over the quote etc. box you will get a pop-up showing the correct syntax, smilies can be done by typing the text equivalent.

Hopefully this will be corrected soon It's confusing my little old brain

[VicMar]

Thanks Brett,
I already knew that. I thought I was reporting something new.
DOH!

[gooneybird]

Yeah, I assumed that, but not everyone is as wise as us older buggers

[VicMar]

not everyone is as wise as us older buggers

I suppose I should read EVERY post on the forum before thinking I can start a new thread.

[Lydiot]

There should be something in the guidelines about quoting and keeping the original context. Or at least moderators having the capacity to do so.

[Hooray]

actually, most regular users are already doing this, i.e. either linking back to the original posting, or retaining the phpBB part of the PM quote to accomplish the same thing - personally, I tend to do it whenever I am quoting something/someone that is not to be found on the same of page of the thread I am responding to.

And in fact, bugman has been doing that quite religiously in the recent debate, too: viewtopic.php?f=85&t=29559&start=240#p285609

(In fact if you missed it, the date part is an actual link linking back to the original discussion)

But then again, I am not exactly known around here for using quotes too sparingly ...

[Lydiot]

The problem isn't what you linked to, it's when people - like Bugman - quote without context, and moderators let that stand. Taking quotes out of context to attribute views to others is very shady, especially for a moderator.

Unfortunately we users who have a different opinion about that can't insist on moderators to actually defend that, because then moderators here characterize that as "bickering" or whatever, and close the thread.

It's quite disingenuous.

[curt]

Guidelines can be helpful, but we can't write guidelines for everything. And guidelines don't solve underlying problems. People should know how to interact in a community and speak and act respectfully to each other. When someone chooses to argue or launch personal attacks, they will ignore guidelines (or contest the guidelines as being unfair or targeting one group more than another) on their way to saying whatever they want to say anyway. Sometimes we just need to let arguments drop and move on. Those people who can't let a few things shed off their backs or feel like they have to respond to every perceived offense will be stuck fighting old battles forever.

Thanks,

Curt.

[Hooray]

Agreed, also it makes sense to omit the surrounding context and just provide a link to it, so that people can refer to it if needed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_s ... om-posting

As most of you will have noticed by now, I have automated the whole process using a userscript addon, where I can basically turn a copy/paste-style selection into a properly-attributed quote for the forum or the wiki. I think it's an effective compromise; however, I have also been told that I am quoting out-of-context sometimes - which is why attributed quotes work best, so that people can look up the context of all statements.

Besides, I agree with Curt - it does not make sense to quote debates ad absurdum, which is why the aforementioned script is primarily used to quote technical discussions instead of community debates - for instance, the recent "Getting started with Canvas" thread on the devel list, and the responses that Thorsten and Richard posted, were turned into a wiki article without much/any manual work involved: http://wiki.flightgear.org/Canvas_Introduction

However, it is obvious that sometimes people may need to refer back to the context of the original discussion, which is why providing references, and an appendix, works pretty well, even 10+ years from now: http://wiki.flightgear.org/Canvas_Intro ... _Framework