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Unfortunately then we'd probably get the spam in existing threads where it wouldn't be so easy for us to spot it.

 

I guess that depends on how that spam is being posted, but probably true. Technically you could set it so that the first post of a member has to get mod-approved, but that isn't entirely unproblematic either. Hmm...

 

Tapatalk is saying there's no feed available from the JCC

 

Has the aminds considered not allowing huge chains of quotes? I post on several XenForo forums in which you can only quote one answer of other member, instead of the whole conversation. It would make things much easier IMO. Specially when reading the forum with your phone.

 

We actually do have a limit of five, we find that that works for most conventional monitors.

 

And sometimes a chain of quotes is needed for proper context, which IIRC was one of the reasons the limit was changed from the default of one back when we were on the temp boards during the move to XenForo.

 

It still looks ugly when the text is, say, 200 pixels wide. Perhaps there should be no enormous margins in such a case?

 

See THIS POST for an easy solution to that.

Incidentally, putting that bit of CSS into the sitewide CSS files (in place of the current CSS that generates the huge margins) would be awesome. Ramza? Grimby?

 

I didn't see that post somehow...but wow, an add-on that allows me to fix other people's bad code? SWEET. Thanks.

Despite that, I hereby echo your request that this bit is added into the sitewide CSS.

 

Okay, the forums just had a MySQL issue. It lasted a few minutes. Looked to be some issue with the server, according to the error message.

 

Same here.

 

Make that three of us. It happened to PMs, too.

I have it on pastebin:
http://pastebin.com/9FCH79LC

 

Yeah, I saw the errors in the Server Error Log. It's stopped now but I've emailed Grahame and Philip to let them know.

 

This is really a problem in the spoiler forums, although I can't speak for how it looks on the other boards since I don't really visit them.

Also, the "chain of quotes is needed for proper context" reason doesn't really work all that well when any single quote includes a link back to the full post in question. In theory, it *sounds* good, having 5 different quotes available in one post, but in practice, all that's largely happening is that a rolling katamari ball of quotes keeps picking up steam for the sake of a bunch of single sentence questions and answers, none of which ever really NEED any previous context beyond the most recent previous post that's being directly responded to. It's building in unneccessary, unhelpful, unsightly redundancy into threads that are should be pretty easy to follow what with the 25 posts per page limit compressing page-by-page conversation. I'd argue the large number of people who hit reply arent' even looking at any of the posts that precede the one they're directly responding to, making that "functionality" of including up to 5 previous posts largely useless in practice. If someone is actually needing the extra context to understand the conversation they're currently in to that level, I don't think the added quotes are actually going to help, because it's either fairly obvious they know what they just read, or they're not reading anything they're quoting anyway.

Basically - limiting quotes to just one post encourages posters to *pay attention* to what they're reading AND what they're posting, and prevents the forum from looking ugly as sin without putting the onus on users having to apply CSS or Chrome extensions. Context isn't lost if people can't quote themselves up to three times in a single exchange with two other people, and I'd find it hard to argue that community members are honestly getting lost in conversation without cascading quote trees falling down around their ears.

If the software was originally set to only quote on post at a time, I'm requesting you guys consider resetting that option and making the boards eminently more readable.

 

So the way the software works does not actually stop people from quoting the way some boards do - they'll still quote the old posts, and you'll see broken code. If anything limiting the quote levels too severely will make posts a hodgepodge of broken BB strings. That includes destroying older posts that aren't truncated, as we didn't used to limit quotations (Indeed, the embedded quotes were enabled to emulate the old feature). It's not going to happen.

 

I'm unclear as to why broken code/bb strings would appear, but nevertheless, if there isn't a technical solution, there should be some means for preventing the forums from quickly degenerating into auto-generated clumps of quote trees repeating the same 4 or 5 messages in succession with no real utility to it. Not only are people obviously just hitting 'reply' for the sake of answering the most recent post only (and the other automatically included posts are simply extra baggage) but it promotes MORE scrolling, causing posts to be missed.

Essentially, this functionality tends to increase out-of-context issues and unclear communication. When you have 25 posts a page, and in the middle of a fast moving conversation about 15 of them are simply 3 or 4 of the same posts being auto-quoted and requoted in concentric nests with the single click of one "reply" button, you're reducing readability, and promoting an atmosphere where people are better off not even trying to read what anyone else is saying, and just trying to effectively "shout" over the echoing.

I don't see how limiting automatic quotes to a single previous post (in large part the only quote that's all that relevant) is "severe" in any way. A user who chooses to go back and multiquote *on their own* is obviously going to be much more selective about what they're grabbing and why they're grabbing it, and that won't lead to the text shower that the current system promotes.

Again: The current system inhibits readable discussion, it doesn't assist it.

 

Because when you click "Reply" the software is simply pulling the raw BBCode of the post and sticking it inside quote tags, it doesn't cut out old quotes. Consequently you aren't going to see "shorter" replies if you truncate the number of quotes, you're going to see posts of the same length with nonfunctiong [quote]yadda yadda[/quote] tags in the middle of it. You think it's not readable now? Disabling will exacerbate the problem, inhibiting discussion further.

Again: not changing.

 

Why doesn't it cut out old quotes? And how is there not a fix to prevent that? You're describing a busted feature, not something working correctly to make usability a priority.

I know it's not readable now. There are too many other forums out there that don't have a hint of this problem to make me believe there is no backend workaround to make your forums much more receptive to readers/contributors.

And again, if you're not going to implement said workarounds/patches into the software, there's gotta be a means to at least let readers know that quoting four or five posts solely to respond to just one of them, and typically only with a single sentence, makes the board look and read terribly, and isn't functionally any different from triple/quadruple posting and/or spamming.

Because it isn't. Your "working" automatic quote function is more disruptive to the readability of the boards than any string of triple posts from a spammer or an over-excited forum user. The fact the limit was decided upon based on "monitor width" as opposed to actual conversational practices was a mistake, it seems.

 

To play devil's advocate, when we first started on XenForo, the default setting of one quote actually meant that clicking reply stripped out any quotes in the post you were quoting. And in fact, it still does the same in large "chains": any quote tags that would be more than five levels deep are stripped out upon clicking reply.

That's all it does, though; it doesn't actually cause manual nesting beyond the limit to break. As proof, I can still assemble this manually and have it work despite the current limit of five (placed inside spoiler tags to conserve vertical space):

Spoiler

Yes, that's eight levels of nesting, which is a bit ridiculous, but it makes my point, which is that the limit can be safely decreased without breaking existing posts.

 

I assume that the software simply wasn't programmed properly vis a vis the reply function to adequately accommodate both nested quotes (Which despite your multiple protestations there is a desire for) and prohibiting excessive nested quotes, leading to BBCode disparities. You seem to be laboring under the incorrect assumption that our software is house developed.

In my experience this has proven untrue as I have seen it result in fragmented code. There may be a nuance here related to mixing automatic and manual quoting, I'm not entirely sure.

 

I'd be willing to bet money that any such fragmented code that you've see resulted from a botched attempt by the user to manually edit out portions of the quote (such as what's not relevant, as I did here), which can be a bit tricky if you're not really familiar with BBCode and/or HTML/XML.

FWIW, you can test out this "rule" that quote tags more than five levels deep are stripped out by clicking reply on my demonstration post above.

 

Thanks.

I also think, aside from the demonstration of jcgoble3's proving the quote function can strip out quotes without breaking the bbcode, that the board software shows it can handle that sort of automation without breaking by way of how the ignore function operates, which seems to also do just that with no real problem, including automatic quotes. Nothing breaks, code doesn't show up.

I'm not arguing that there might be a desire on the part of *some* forum users for automatically nested quote trees, but I would argue those users are in a *very significant* minority, and most users would prefer not to have the board software essentially QUINTUPLE post a single post through simply hitting the "reply" button in a back & forth conversation, as jcgoble3 just demonstrated. If a user did that on their own, they would be reprimanded and/or banned (maybe) for "spamming." But if a user simply hits reply, they end up causing more clutter and confusion thanks to the automatic quoting function put in place here. The automatic quote function here is worse than any chronic double or triple poster here has ever been with regards to inhibiting readability.

I'm also not laboring under the assumption that you guys built the board software at all. It's the maintenance and use of it I'm asking about, e.g. your assumption you can't do a thing with the software that is then proven to be do-able.

 

Anything further on this?

 

I'm mulling over whether to reduce it and to what extent. Wanted to get a few days observation in on quoting trends.

 

Cool, thanks for the response.