16 replies to this topic

[Geertos13]

Hello Fellow Eurobrickers,

   First of all, I want to say that I've looked through the forum, and I havn't found anything that looked liked this, Except something about it here and there. So that's why I permit myself to start this new Topic. I hope this is the right place to post it, if not, Eurobricks Staff, feel free to move it  
   I promised to try to help the Site Improve, so I'm going to give my opinion.  


Quotes Should have a 5 lines limit !

That's my Topic today. I know this is a quite radical restraint. I know you sometimes need to have read an entire comment to know what is going on, especially when the topic is updated/bumped after a very long time but still. I once posted a comment that was almost 20lines long ( I did a review about someone's MOC.) And the person, which I shall not name, (because it's unnecessary and because I don't remeber his name    ) replied to me by quoting my entire comment and adding something like " I agree". I can't remember it completely. But In anycase, I saw this several times. and once, If you need to respond to a part of a Topic, you can easely reach the ten lines.

To give an exemple. Today, I saw Shadows' Topic reminding some of the "posting standarts" , in this same Forum.
In my Topic, I'd like to quote this specific topic :

Quote

• When you reply to a post, it isn't necessary to quote the whole thing, just include the part you need to reply to, whether it be a sentence or an image.
If you're quoting the entire post complete with 500 words and 10 images just to say "that's nice", don't.

You see ? Quoting can be usefull, this gives us the opportunity to share a bit of the article without having to go back to the entire Topic and read it all. I'm not saying Quoting is bad, i'm not saying it's useless.
I'm not saying you shoudn't do it.
I'm just saying, you don't have to quote an entire TOPIC. First, because half of what you will quote might be off-topic, and the other half might be useless. If you want to say you agree with someone, just say I agree with USERNAME and you might add a few things to his/her words.

My question to the MODs : Is there a possibility to restrict of amount of lines in one Quote, and if so, Is there a chance to get a limit applied ?


Other members, what do you think ? Is my Idea complete nonsence ?   Then tell me why,     and give us a good reason why it is necesseray to have a quote bigger than 5lines, or an other limit.

Thanks alot.
     Geertos13

[Erik Leppen]

I think a universal and enforced limit doesn't work. There is not one fixed ultimate maximum that applies to all situations one will ever face.


Common sense is the best solution.


Edit: also, "line" is not well defined in a forum that scales to fill the browser window.

Edited by Erik Leppen, 03 December 2010 - 07:40 PM.

[Brickdoctor]

Erik Leppen, on 03 December 2010 - 07:38 PM, said:

I think a universal and enforced limit doesn't work. There is not one fixed ultimate maximum that applies to all situations one will ever face.


Common sense is the best solution.


Edit: also, "line" is not well defined in a forum that scales to fill the browser window.

Agreed. The number of lines basically doubles between my Mac and my iPod, and those with huge screens could indadvertedly quote a bunch of lines. Mostly, I think it depends on the situation. Sometimes you have to quote a huge block of text to make yourself understood, especially in a busy thread.

[Rick]

I agree with Erik. If as a member you're asked to not use quoting excessively, why does it have to be enforced by technology? We've had a similar discussion about the size of signatures and there were some members who stayed just within the limits but still had terribly annoying signatures. Excessive regulation tends to have these unintended consequences. Besides, there is a very common situation where you have many people commenting on a MOC or an idea and you'd like to reply to them all in one post or you'd like to reply to a number of arguments brought forward by one person. The unintended consequence of limiting the number of quoted lines in a post would be that you'd have to reply in multiple posts instead of one.

[vexorian]

Geertos13, on 03 December 2010 - 06:53 PM, said:

Hello Fellow Eurobrickers,

   First of all, I want to say that I've looked through the forum, and I havn't found anything that looked liked this, Except something about it here and there. So that's why I permit myself to start this new Topic. I hope this is the right place to post it, if not, Eurobricks Staff, feel free to

Quote

move it  
   I promised to try to help the Site Improve, so I'm going to give my opinion.  


Quotes Should have a 5 lines limit !

Quote

That's my Topic today. I know this is a quite radical restraint. I know you sometimes need to have read an entire comment to know what is going on, especially when the topic is updated/bumped after a very long time but still. I once posted a comment that was almost 20lines long ( I did a review about someone's MOC.) And the person, which I shall not name, (because it's unnecessary and because I don't remeber his name    ) replied to me by quoting my entire comment and adding

Quote

something like " I agree". I can't remember it completely. But In anycase, I saw this several times. and once, If you need to respond to a part of a Topic, you can easely reach the ten lines.

To give an exemple. Today, I saw Shadows' Topic reminding some of the "posting standarts" ,

Quote

in this same Forum.
In my Topic, I'd like to quote this specific topic :



You see ? Quoting can be usefull, this gives us the opportunity to share a bit of the article

Quote

without having to go back to the entire Topic and read it all. I'm not saying Quoting is bad, i'm not saying it's useless.
I'm not saying you shoudn't do it.
I'm just saying, you don't have to quote an entire TOPIC. First, because half of what you will

Quote

quote might be off-topic, and the other half might be useless. If you want to say you agree with someone, just say I agree with USERNAME and you might add a few things to his/her words.

My question to the MODs : Is there a possibility to restrict of amount of lines in one Quote, and if so, Is there a chance to get a limit applied ?

Quote

Other members, what do you think ? Is my Idea complete nonsence ?   Then tell me why,     and give us a good reason why it is necesseray to have a quote bigger than 5lines, or an other limit.

Thanks alot.
     Geertos13

I don't think it is that great of an idea. This sort of solution just call for the law of  unintended consequences...

[The Yellow Brick]

I have to say that this is a brilliant idea but, I think a limit could only be put in place for vassals and when you turn a citizen the limit is removed.
because by then I think the members would know that they shouldn't be quoting the who topic.

[Geertos13]

The Red Brick, on 03 December 2010 - 08:31 PM, said:

Ia limit could only be put in place for vassals and when you turn a citizen the limit is removed.

That is a great Idea, let's hope the MOD will listen to us  

[LuxorV]

My view is members of a community aimed at Adults Fans of LEGO should already be mature enough to limit their quotes to the essential.

Enforcing a quote limit by technology does not remove the problem. If, for eample, we limit the number of lines quoted by members below the Rank of Citizen, would it mean once they are Citizens and can quote how much they want they'll limit themselves to 5 lines again? Will it teach them how to quote properly?

And from another point of view, how do you think the limited quoting system would work? If I want to quote 5 lines from a 20 lines post, I choose the ones I want and delete the others. If an application does it for me, how would it know which ones I want to quote? And what can I do when what I want to quote to make my reply meaningful is more than 5 lines?

P.S.: vexorian, please let not turn this in a personal fight, ok? Thank you.

[Geertos13]

LuxorV, on 04 December 2010 - 10:11 AM, said:

And from another point of view, how do you think the limited quoting system would work? If I want to quote 5 lines from a 20 lines post, I choose the ones I want and delete the others. If an application does it for me, how would it know which ones I want to quote? And what can I do when what I want to quote to make my reply meaningful is more than 5 lines?

I know what you mean, but isn't there a way to limitthe quotes ? Maybe 5lines is too much, and depends on the size of your screen. But Seriously, quotes bigger than 10 lines start beeing really annoying. I'm trying to think of a way to limit it, but it seems quite impossible    I guess we'll have to face these long quotes and just ignore them...

[Captain Zuloo]

Geertos13, on 04 December 2010 - 10:52 AM, said:

I'm trying to think of a way to limit it, but it seems quite impossible I guess we'll have to face these long quotes and just ignore them...

It's not difficult to set a character limit, which would seem more logical than a line limit considering the browser scaling issue previously mentioned.

Although, I feel that Eurobricks is a community for mature people, and the immature ones get fished out eventually anyway. The mature people should read the guidelines and follow them (which means not over quoting), and the other mature people should appreciate that and just ignore the immature people when they aren't as courteous.

Nice idea, though we need a more universal solution.

[Big Cam]

Captain Zuloo, on 04 December 2010 - 12:57 PM, said:

It's not difficult to set a character limit, which would seem more logical than a line limit considering the browser scaling issue previously mention

Nice idea, though we need a more universal solution.

I Agree it would probably be really easy to implement a limit, the technology is there, but I disagree on the need.

Granted it is annoying when someone quotes a book, but after one reminder it shouldn't be a problem for that individual, and hopefully most new members read the rules and this never comes up.

Plus there are some instances when a larger quote might be justified, such as quoting someone from an entire page ago in a really active thread.  Some people quote a 100 line quote and break it up so They can reply to specific points.  You couldn't do that with a 10 line limit, also I know it was previously mentiones, but the forum does define things by lines very easily since the lines can be extended or shortened depending on browser size.  Limiting by characters would make more sense, but again in my opinion it is not needed in 98% of the cases.

[Geertos13]

Okay, I guess you guys are right... It just bothered me because On the other 2% left of the comments, It is really annoying  
But yeah, I guess a Character limit would have been more appropriate, But It is indeed quite unecessary  

[vexorian]

Quote

P.S.: vexorian, please let not turn this in a personal fight, ok? Thank you.

I didn't do anything personal in my post. I talked about the idea, mentioned that it will be affected by the law of unintended consequences and I made a clear example of how I think it will end. I don't see how exemplifying how would an idea have the complete opposite result of what it is intended to do would start a personal fight. A raw character limit has the same problem.

Edited by vexorian, 04 December 2010 - 03:36 PM.

[LuxorV]

vexorian, on 04 December 2010 - 03:35 PM, said:

I didn't do anything personal in my post. I talked about the idea, mentioned that it will be affected by the law of unintended consequences and I made a clear example of how I think it will end. I don't see how exemplifying how would an idea have the complete opposite result of what it is intended to do would start a personal fight. A raw character limit has the same problem.

As Staff my concern was to avoid possible quarrels and I am sure you were aware of the consequences your posting style could cause.

[Princess Storm]

It seems that people who regularly behave as described by the original poster tend to get warnings from moderators anyway. To me, at least, it seems that the problem is not the lengthy quotes, which can be legitimate and useful; rather it's the poster quoting expansively and then putting "I agree" at the end. These kinds of posts are against guidelines anyway, so a new rule is not really needed.

Also, it would be a pain for the mods to enforce, and a character limit would be really frustrating (if it cut you off mid-word, for example).

I do agree that it is really annoying when people do that, (especially when the post being quoted is just above!) but I personally feel that the mods already police this issue enough - we also wouldn't want the forum to become like a police state!

[Eskallon]

While there is the occasional annoying 'Quoter' I really think that this limit is unneeded. Quotes with over 5 or more lines can be used positively as-well, for instance, one may need to quote part of a specific article which may be embedded deep within a 100 line article to do with upcoming games, the poster may want to outline a section for a new lego game as I have seen done before. Then we also need quotes to make the Reviewer's Academy work when posting a review, a last reason is that longer quotes are needed to bring back an argument which may be slightly longer, for instance this happens a lot in Mafia games where there is a lot of posts in little time and people need to refresh opinions.

[BrickArtist]

No offense, but this would be a somewhat pointless rule. It's not a big problem right now, and you can't define a 'line', that changes by monitor. Is it necessary to start a topic, for a rule suggestion as well? wouldn't a PM to a MOD do the trick? Pointless topics are more of an issue than excessive quoting. Like in SW forum, there are a couple topics simply asking what your favorite minifig is. That type of thing is what I personally think should be addressed.