Quoting First Post In A Topic

[Richard W]

Can you please remove the hack that prevents people quoting the first post of a thread, it's annoying and I'm yet to hear a valid reason for it being there.

There is a legitimate reason. Moderators have recently being imploring people not to quote the first post in the first few replies in a topic.

However, if the topic has been derailed and someone wishes to reply to the original post point-by-point (up to four points) , it is indeed annoying. There is a partial solution - one can cut and paste and insert a 'quote' tag oneself, but including redirection to the original post is not so easy, and I have not attempted it.

[zzdocxx]

Dunno where the rest of this thread got to, but IMHO there is way too much mindless quoting of previous posts, OP and otherwise. Just wastes space and makes the thread difficult to follow.

But some may not be tech savvy enough to do it in an elegant fashion.

Personally I prefer to do the reply quote thing and then delete out most of the quoted part, just leaving enough to show to what I am responding.

There, I feel so much better now that I have got that off my chest.

Also, Happy New Year everyone! ! !

[Richard W]

Dunno where the rest of this thread got to,...

The issue was raised as an incidental remark on another thread in this topic - click on the arrow in the header of the quotation for its larger but irrelevant context.

[Mossfinn]

click on the arrow in the header of the quotation for its larger but irrelevant context.

Wow, how did you do that?

Moss

[webfact]

Over a period of several month we asked and advised our members not to qoute OP early in a thread but use fast reply instead.

To no avail.

So we disabled the ability to quote the OP.

[dantilley]

Over a period of several month we asked and advised our members not to qoute OP early in a thread but use fast reply instead.

To no avail.

So we disabled the ability to quote the OP.

But anyone can still quote the OP if they feel it's needed, but they have to go through this rigmarole:

one can cut and paste and insert a 'quote' tag oneself, but including redirection to the original post is not so easy, and I have not attempted it.

And if it's such a pain to have posts needlessly quoted, why not get rid of the quote function altogether? What's so special about the OP that it has to have its quote functions removed?

[PeaceBlondie]

And if it's such a pain to have posts needlessly quoted, why not get rid of the quote function altogether? What's so special about the OP that it has to have its quote functions removed?

Too many posters didn't follow common sense. So after months, we disabled the 'quote OP' function. Elsewhere it works fine. Note I'm only copying part of your post.

[dantilley]

Too many posters didn't follow common sense. So after months, we disabled the 'quote OP' function. Elsewhere it works fine. Note I'm only copying part of your post.

Probably just that people were in the habit of clicking the first "Reply" link that scrolled into view as they were reading a topic. What is common sense and good etiquette to regular forum users may not be second nature for everyone.

How about leaving the links in there but have Quote set to "off" (i.e. like this: ) by default for the OP? That way people who do want to use the quote function properly still can just by clicking this first quote link to be "on" , but those who just automatically click Reply quickly still can do so, but without the topic filling up with unecessary OP quotes.

Edited January 4, 2010 by dantilley

[Curt1591]

What's so special about the OP that it has to have its quote functions removed?

Nothing, really, but many will use the add quote or reply with quote buttons for a simple reply. Then, as others quote the replies, the original post is quoted ad nauseam.

I think a better fix might be to have a simple reply button precede the other two on the outside chance that the OP actually needs quoting.