Removing nested quotes?

[Winchester]

I saw a moderator tell someone off for using excessive nested quotes in a thread the other day, and as a moderator on another Xenforo-based forum, I'm asking myself, "why are nested quotes a thing here in the first place?"

They're not required in order to follow the conversation because there's a linkback to the previous post in all quotes, with which you can go all the way back to the beginning; and I know for certain there's a setting to just remove containers from what is dropped into the reply box when you hit the quote button.

As I generally only want to quote the person I'm directly replying to (precisely to avoid pyramid quotes), I'd be perfectly okay with that setting being turned on for this site. It would also make things a bit more readable, I think?

 

[HoHun]

Hi,

As I generally only want to quote the person I'm directly replying to (precisely to avoid pyramid quotes), I'd be perfectly okay with that setting being turned on for this site. It would also make things a bit more readable, I think?

I guess that's right in the majority of the cases, but my standard operation procedure is to cut down quotes manually, and as I sometimes refer to content quoted by the quoted post too, it would really annoy me in the (admittedly few) cases I need that, as my ambition is to have each quote in proper message-referring quote tags, and that would become ridiculously complex to assemble.

Not that I enjoy scrolling through endless nested quotes, though ... don't some forums make those fold down to a few lines only? If that were possible, that would be my preferred option. That would things much neater without requiring a behaviour change from anyone.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[GTX]

An automated way to remove nested quotes would be nice. Please provide more info.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

The feature is turned off for new messages.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

The old forum software didn't link quotes, which made nested quotes a useful feature, which is why it was preserved after migration to Xenforo.

It didn't work as well since a subsequent update to Xenforo started leaving invisible quotes from people if you tried to delete their nested quotes in the GUI post editor.

Its always possible to sort out any issues by editing the post using the BBCode editor (press [ ] icon on toolbar and removing the orphaned quotes. The original poster or a moderator can do this.

Given the issues with the nested quotes functionality, I think its better turned off.

Note you can actually hit "reply" on multiple posts if you actually want to reply to multiple posts at once - each time it will add a new quote.

 

[Orionblamblam]

As I generally only want to quote the person I'm directly replying to (precisely to avoid pyramid quotes), I'd be perfectly okay with that setting being turned on for this site. It would also make things a bit more readable, I think?

It's easy enough to turn off the "BB Code" (the icon with the two square brackets at upper right, right next to the "Drafts" icon) and just chop out the unwanted excess.

 

[Arjen]

Its always possible to sort out any issues by editing the post using the BBCode editor (press [ ] icon on toolbar and removing the orphaned quotes. The original poster or a moderator can do this.

Too difficult and/or time consuming for some, resulting in unreadable threads.

Given the issues with the nested quotes functionality, I think its better turned off.

It can be useful, with the current misuse it's annoying. I selected the above two quotes on my phone by keeping a finger on the text I wanted to quote (works with a mouse too, nifty), a green selection bracket appears as well as a blue REPLY button. Press it, all you quote is the selected text.
Especially useful to clarify which part of a message you're replying to.

Pleasepleaseplease use the [ ] icon to clean up your messages. Please?

 

[Winchester]

The old forum software didn't link quotes, which made nested quotes a useful feature, which is why it was preserved after migration to Xenforo.

It didn't work as well since a subsequent update to Xenforo started leaving invisible quotes from people if you tried to delete their nested quotes in the GUI post editor.

Its always possible to sort out any issues by editing the post using the BBCode editor (press [ ] icon on toolbar and removing the orphaned quotes. The original poster or a moderator can do this.

Given the issues with the nested quotes functionality, I think its better turned off.

Note you can actually hit "reply" on multiple posts if you actually want to reply to multiple posts at once - each time it will add a new quote.

Yeah, Xenforo can be a bit of a pain on occasion. I post on at least four Xenforo forums in addition to the one I help moderate, and the setups on all of them are different. This was the only one to use nested quotes, and I can see why it became a thing back in the day...

Glad to see that my suggestion was adopted though, and I hope it helps cut down on the staff workload. No need to go policing something if the forum doesn't let you do it anymore.

 

[Maro.Kyo]

Its always possible to sort out any issues by editing the post using the BBCode editor (press [ ] icon on toolbar and removing the orphaned quotes. The original poster or a moderator can do this.

It's easy enough to turn off the "BB Code" (the icon with the two square brackets at upper right, right next to the "Drafts" icon) and just chop out the unwanted excess.

Too difficult and/or time consuming for some, resulting in unreadable threads.

Better yet, you could just simply drag and highlight the portion of the post you want to reply on and quote it.

 

[HoHun]

Hi,

Better yet, you could just simply drag and highlight the portion of the post you want to reply on and quote it.
View attachment 703490

But when I want to preserve several selected statements by different posters, which previously was easy in the editor, I have to go up and down the entire thread now and collect them manually. Worse, if I want to appear them in their logic quoting sequence as before, I'll have to recreate that manually too, which is a ridiculously complicated compared to the straightforward "mark and delete" workflow I used until recently.

Accordingly in the future, and starting with this post, some of my posts will not be as clear as they should be, and I'll be annoyed while I write them.

Not going to say that I don't understand Paul's decision - it's impossible to please everyone all the time anyway, and there are probably few people who care enough to work with quotes the way I did. However, for me the change brings an objective loss in user interface capability and convenience - no way around it.

Just for the record.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[Maro.Kyo]

Hi,

But when I want to preserve several selected statements by different posters, which previously was easy in the editor, I have to go up and down the entire thread now and collect them manually. Worse, if I want to appear them in their logic quoting sequence as before, I'll have to recreate that manually too, which is a ridiculously complicated compared to the straightforward "mark and delete" workflow I used until recently.

Accordingly in the future, and starting with this post, some of my posts will not be as clear as they should be, and I'll be annoyed while I write them.

Not going to say that I don't understand Paul's decision - it's impossible to please everyone all the time anyway, and there are probably few people who care enough to work with quotes the way I did. However, for me the change brings an objective loss in user interface capability and convenience - no way around it.

Just for the record.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

True, but that's more down to the lack of multi-quote function imo. As you've put, you can't please everyone with what is given. There are a lot of things you could hope for XenForo to be improved on but alas, here we are with what we have.

 

[HoHun]

Hi,

True, but that's more down to the lack of multi-quote function imo. As you've put, you can't please everyone with what is given. There are a lot of things you could hope for XenForo to be improved on but alas, here we are with what we have.

No, multi-quote is something entirely different that has nothing to do with what I did based on the nested quotes.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[TomS]

True, but that's more down to the lack of multi-quote function imo. As you've put, you can't please everyone with what is given. There are a lot of things you could hope for XenForo to be improved on but alas, here we are with what we have.

Worth noting that Multi-Quote does exist in Xenforo -- I am on another forum that enables it.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Accordingly in the future, and starting with this post, some of my posts will not be as clear as they should be, and I'll be annoyed while I write them.

Alternatively, you could make the process annoying for the *reader.*

.- -.-. -.-. --- .-. -.. .. -. --. .-.. -.-- / .. -. / - .... . / ..-. ..- - ..- .-. . --..-- / .- -. -.. / ... - .- .-. - .. -. --. / .-- .. - .... / - .... .. ... / .--. --- ... - --..-- / ... --- -- . / --- ..-. / -- -.-- / .--. --- ... - ... / .-- .. .-.. .-.. / -. --- - / -... . / .- ... / -.-. .-.. . .- .-. / .- ... / - .... . -.-- / ... .... --- ..- .-.. -.. / -... . --..-- / .- -. -.. / .. .----. .-.. .-.. / -... . / .- -. -. --- -.-- . -.. / .-- .... .. .-.. . / .. / .-- .-. .. - . / - .... . -- .-.-.-

See? That's fun for the whole family.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

I turned on multiquote. Never noticed this option before. You click quote on each person you want to quote and then click "insert quotes" on your reply.

 

[Orionblamblam]

˙ʎldǝɹ ɹnoʎ uo ,,sǝʇonb ʇɹǝsuᴉ,, ʞɔᴉlɔ uǝɥʇ puɐ ǝʇonb oʇ ʇuɐʍ noʎ uosɹǝd ɥɔɐǝ uo ǝʇonb ʞɔᴉlɔ no⅄ ˙ǝɹoɟǝq uoᴉʇdo sᴉɥʇ pǝɔᴉʇou ɹǝʌǝN ˙ǝʇonbᴉʇlnɯ uo pǝuɹnʇ I

It seems a little cumbersome. But, one adapts.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Well we could always turn on nested quotes again

 

[Arjen]

Ah. Errrrr...

 

[HoHun]

Hi Paul,

Well we could always turn on nested quotes again

I presume our Xenforo version doesn't have the "collapse long quotes by default" option I'm seeing in other forums?

If we had this, I'd be in favour for switching in on along with nested quotes, because the problem isn't really quote length but the length of redundant screen area one has to scroll through. And auto-collapsing solves that problem without affecting quote functionality.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

I specifically stopped that behaviour with CSS customisations. Personally, I hated having to expand out quotes.

I've removed that customisation now, for testing purposes.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

I might run some polls on the subject.

 

[Maro.Kyo]

No, multi-quote is something entirely different that has nothing to do with what I did based on the nested quotes.

I haven't realised that nested quoting was turned off so I've misinterpreted and was specifically replying to this:

But when I want to preserve several selected statements by different posters, which previously was easy in the editor, I have to go up and down the entire thread now and collect them manually.

Anyways, yes, you have a point there.

Worth noting that Multi-Quote does exist in Xenforo -- I am on another forum that enables it.

I don't know why I've thought that multi-quote doesn't exist in Xenforo if I also use another Xenforo based forum with the feature.

 

[HoHun]

Hi Paul,

I specifically stopped that behaviour with CSS customisations. Personally, I hated having to expand out quotes.

Ah, I see. I didn't consider that, but yes, it undeniably adds "friction" to the reading "workflow".

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[HoHun]

Hi Paul,

I turned on multiquote. Never noticed this option before. You click quote on each person you want to quote and then click "insert quotes" on your reply.

There's a new feature active now that pops up a menu whenever I mark text. That really adds friction for me because I often mark text to make poorly formatted text more easy to read (like stuff from people who don't do interpunctuation, or paragraphs), or highlight paragraphs I consider particularly interesting while looking around for other sources on the topic.

On my personal "Owl-to-Nightingale" scale, this one is far into the "owl" range.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[Winchester]

Hi Paul,



There's a new feature active now that pops up a menu whenever I mark text. That really adds friction for me because I often mark text to make poorly formatted text more easy to read (like stuff from people who don't do interpunctuation, or paragraphs), or highlight paragraphs I consider particularly interesting while looking around for other sources on the topic.

On my personal "Owl-to-Nightingale" scale, this one is far into the "owl" range.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

That's funny, it reduces a lot of friction for me, given that the buttons never cover the highlighting at all, and the functionality of the two buttons entirely replace the workflow. You just need to learn how to use them. (+quote adds either the whole post, or whatever is selected, to the quote stack, the whole stack is pasted into the new post where the cursor is when you click insert quotes. It should be *a lot* easier to do than messing with the text mode editor to strip out excessive material.)

The only reason I didn't ask about turning on multi-quotes in the first place is because I thought that was a custom addon, as the other Xenforo forums I frequent are heavily modified using a bunch of addons from one author, and the one that doesn't have it doesn't have his other addons.

 

[HoHun]

Hi,

You just need to learn how to use them.

Du mich auch.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

The new "popup buttons" when selecting text are part of the multiquote functionality. If you were highlighting text for some other purpose you can simply ignore them.

 

[HoHun]

Hi Paul,

The new "popup buttons" when selecting text are part of the multiquote functionality. If you were highlighting text for some other purpose you can simply ignore them.

Thanks, I understand that well. However, just as in the case the of the collapsing of long quotes, just because one understands a feature that doesn't mean that one automatically likes it.

I'm fine with being overruled, and I thank you very much for seriously considering my point of view!

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[Arjen]

collapsing of long quotes

I can live with that. In replies to other messages, a few sentences of the original is usually all I'm commenting on. To spare them from collapsing, long quotes from books I can mark by inserting them in italics, or other ways to set them apart from my own text.

 

[HoHun]

Hi Arjen,

I can live with that. In replies to other messages, a few sentences of the original is usually all I'm commenting on. To spare them from collapsing, long quotes from books I can mark by inserting them in italics, or other ways to set them apart from my own text.

Good points all of them!

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Yeah, I am probably going to redo the code to stop quotes being collapsed, as I have made hundreds or thousands of posts where I've quoted something from a book.