Martin wrote:

Was sure we've been through this on here, but I'll use the reply I've used elsewhere to explain why it's a pain:

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It's mainly a question of tidiness and readability of the site. There is a smaller related factor of site speed, and I will explain both in detail.

When replying to the final, or even the penultimate, post in a thread, it is unnecessary to quote the whole post before adding further comments. The sorting of the thread is in time order, so the flow of the conversation is self-evident from what is above the post you are reading.

With the problematic quoting, you read a post, then have to read it all again (sometimes nested many levels deep) before you can read what the poster has to add - which can often be a word or two but he has quoted many paragraphs to do so.

Quoting is repeating, and is unnecessary as what is being replied to is above what you're adding to the thread.

Think about it - if you're down the pub you don't repeat everything your fellow drinkers have just said when you have something to add? But when you have to recall something said a while ago, you might have to say "you know you said .... "..

Where necessary, quoting is absolutely fine, to recall something earlier on in the thread where the conversation flow hasn't talked about it or to pick out a specific comment within a post.

Constant (and it is constant) use of the "quote" button as a "reply" button means that thread fill up with repeated content, and it makes reading threads more difficult than it needs to be. In the overwhelming majority of cases, the quote is the entire previous post (or nested posts).

The side issue is that with excessive quoting, the amount of database storage required to hold a post is many times greater than it should be, and it is therefore slower to load threads.

For example, a comment of a few words is, say, 50 characters of storage. But if a long previous post has been quoted, it could be up to 1000. So 20 times the necessary storage, and 20 times as long to load that comment.

Can you see where I'm coming from?

This works really well on DISCO3 and fullfatrr and threads are much easier to read than over here because of it.

GUM97 wrote:

Very good idea Martin If only there was a button to stop people duplicating threads!

Sorry Martin,

Had to quote the above as it is the best quote ever posted on this forum and one I personally agree 100% with. Gum you hide your light under a bushell. Not only did you help me out with my photo request in an instant but you come out with such a sensible suggestion, both within a couple of hours. You're either having a brainstorm or you're on something. Can I have some as long as it's not addictive?

 If you go through life with your head in the sand....all people will see is an ar5e!!

Treat every day as if it is your last....one day you will be right!!