Users quoting one another

[SabrePrattler]

I'm finding it difficult to follow threads where people quote one another constantly. So, two posters start bickering and quoting one another and then messages contain 5/10/20 embedded messages. Makes threads unreadable.

A forum I used to spend time on had a quote function which was editable.

It meant you could quote the relevant part of someone else's post (ie with all the usual markers, formatting etc) without clogging the thread with irrelevant repetition.

A simple Copy Quote function is worse than useless.

I agree. On one thread there was a post with 14 quotes, bloody ridiculous.

It
Was
Like
One
Word
Per
Line
And
Took
Up
A
Whole
Page

Yes. I've seen other forums where only the most recent comment is quoted.

Can you do that @MNHQ

I'm delighted we finally have nested quoting. Much easier when posting, and if it's a sidebar argument I don't want to read I just scroll on by. It's long been the norm on other forums so it's really just MN getting with the two decades ago times.

Is this just available in the desktop version? As I use the app and I can't quote a post that has a quote in it?

It would be helpful if you could edit quotes to say only the bit that you want to respond to. You used to be able to do this but now you can’t.

I also hate the nested quotes-in-quotes-in-quotes. I agree that the facility to quote just the most recent post in the chain would be useful.

As to whether the quote-in-quote functionality is accessible, I tried it out just with the 'Read Aloud' function in Edge and it didn't seem particularly accessible, it just reads out a list of usernames and then reads the quotes from innermost to outer most. An actual screen reader may treat it differently? There's nothing very helpful in the HTML tags.

There are newer posters who don't seem to be aware that they're not replying to a single message but actually just posting at the bottom of the thread and so whose messages are indecipherable as they're referring to one post somewhere further up the thread with no indication as to which. I think this may be because on other forums (like Ravelry for example) you can 'reply to thread' (just post a message) or 'reply to post'. This creates a link in your post to the one you're replying to, with the option for an inline view of that post by clicking. I can progressively open up the chain of posts if I want to (i.e. post 75 that I've expanded here quotes post 73).

.. and in the spirit of accessibility since I can't add ALT text to the image, I will leave a description of it: screenshot from Ravelry where one post is a reply to another, showing the 'quoted' post embedded in the new post but collapsed until the user chooses to expand it.

This gets more annoying every day. Posts containing umpteen quotes clogging up threads. People quoting massively long opening posts to add 'I disagree'.

Argh!

HAAAAAAATE this feature. So poorly thought out.

I quote so people know what I’m talking about. Just @ a person means you have to go back and find them to see what they said previously.

Hi all

Just to say - we have seen this and appreciate the feedback. We'll have a chat about it.

Isn't this what people were asking for though? To make the site exactly the same as every other site?
I don't know why it's necessary.

I feel like they could fine tune it. People being able to copy and paste 10 previous responses with the click of a button seems so clunky.

@SabrePrattler I agree with you. I give up reading threads where I can't follow who has said what, or when. I detest this new feature.

@LilyMumsnet I hope your chat involves including an option for people to switch off that particular non-feature (as getting rid of it altogether would be too much to hope for). If anything would convince me to dump MN after 17 years, it would be this. It honestly does make threads unreadable.

Yes please. The quote function needs to be limited to the post that's being quoted, not allow for this impenetrable wall of text that ends up only one word per line by the time 15 posts have been quoted!!

It should truncate the quote ‘thread’ to the most recent comment, with the option to expand (in case anyone is interested to read the full context)

I can't stand it either. Especially since the re-platforming where it seems to be harder to see where the quotes end.

It takes away the conversational tone of the threads.

It drives me mad when three hundred messages in, posters are still quoting the whole OP and then saying something completely banal.

Glad MN are looking into it, but will anything change? As I (and many others have said,) seeing 15 different posts, from 10-15 different posters, all nested and running down the page is as irritating as fuck. I lose track of who has said what, and frankly I don't care.

I will skim by any post that has more than 3 or 4 other posts quoted in it .. They are tedious, difficult to read, and just stupid. Makes some threads impossible to read/navigate. I HATE this 'nesting!' As I said earlier, I have bailed on loads of threads this past few weeks because of this irritating-as-fuck feature.

Please, please do, @LilyMumsnet. Could MNHQ find a way to set a limit to the number of times something can be re-quoted (nested)? Personally I would set it at a limit of three or four.

We have threads running where, as a pp says, huge long tracts of re-quoted posts are

simply
one
word
per
line

They are a nightmare to follow (i.e. who said what to who), and to scroll through. No-one wants to re-read all of it time after time after time, or to have to scroll past for what seems like ages, repeatedly on a thread, just to see the addition of the actual new reply which can be just a few words. Usually not very polite ones.

I'd make it so you can't quote the original post. There can be absolutely no need for anyone to quote it, except basically in a long thread to show that they've only read that post and none of the replies (including any further replies from the OP). In other words - no need at all, just RTFT (or at least RTOP'sFP)

Yes, that makes sense where some OPs are massive essays.

I'd restrict the amount of nesting allowed too. I'm so sick of scrolling past reams of redundant text. My poor little arthritic hands cannae take it.

I agree
the lack of embedded quoting was one of the good points about mumsnet. Quoting one post was fine but the endless quotes is a PITA.

the lack of embedded quoting was one of the good points about mumsnet

Agreed!

I'd make it so you can't quote the original post.

Agree.

Often there's a long opening post with several paragraphs and people will continue to quote it 100/200 posts into the thread. It adds nothing.

Morning, everyone! Some good news - we've designed a fix for this now that we think is a good compromise and hopefully will keep everyone happy - we're just waiting for a developer to be available to build it. We've got a few slightly more urgent technical issues to get sorted first, but this is very much on The List and should be done soon.

What we're going to do is make it so that the most recent quoted post appears in the preview, but then you'll be able to click to expand and collapse the whole 'chain' of quoted posts. So those who want to read the whole thing can do so and those who don't will just see the last quoted post in the chain along with the post in reply. That should mean less scrolling for the majority but the option to read the whole chain remains.