[Mashiro]

Dear Post4VPS Staff

I would like to propose a new rule to improve the post quality of this post and the readability of the forum overall.

What is the background of this rule proposal? In the last days I've made some rather large posts or threads that contained information to either solve a issue a member has had or it was a tutorial thread for a server application requested by a user. And whenever someone replied they quoted the whole thing immediately under the post or thread that I made just to reply to me.

Two examples:
- https://post4vps.com/thread-2256-post-21...l#pid21212 (quote deleted by staff today @Vuluts already)
- https://post4vps.com/thread-2273-post-21...l#pid21218 (quote deleted by staff today @Vuluts already)

This is a huge problem because it clutters the forum with big quotes all over the place. You have to scroll a lot to get somewhere. And on the mobile phone it is a hell because you really have to scroll a lot lot lot more than on a computer. It also makes reading posts/threads and following the actual context really hard.

I can't stress this enough. This forum has the mention plugin installed for a reason. It can be perfectly used to reply to a post by a certain user without quoting the whole huge thing. And if people really need to quota they could quota the relevant thing they talk about instead of everything. The worst are people who quota such posts and reply with a few words or a single sentence.


So my proposal is to add a rule against huge and totally unnecessary quotes. In addition I would like to suggest that you turn off nested quotes. I have seen people who quote a huge message and added a single sentence reply. Then someone different came around and quoted their reply with the huge quote to the other reply and added something more. And then another person came and quoted the whole thing with the two other quotes. At the end you have a huge quote that is a single reply to something one user said and is taking away 90% of the whole thread page.

Nested quotes can be disabled in the MyBB Admin Control Panel. Open the MyBB Admin CP and login. Go to "Configuration" where the board settings are. Open the "Posting" settings. Set the entry "Maximum Nested Quote Tags" to the value of 1.

The rule could sound something like this: "Do not quote big threads or replies. Reduce quotes to cases where really necessary." or "Don't create unnecessary and big quotes. Quote only the relevant content to that you want to reply".


What do you think of this proposal? What does the community think?

[tiwil]

The second one of the example already deleted too, I don't see what I see yesterday.

But, I fully agree. As a mobile users, it's really awful to scroll down so long. And also, I really confused why people quoting TS (thread starter) post, when we post, I would assume any kind of users that post is going to answer/help TS.

If you're confused, like HR said, only quote which part you confused of. Not all of them.

[Mashiro]

Yes, @Vuluts has removed the huge quote from my second example already it seems.

Atleast he and you are two people who can confirm that this issue exists as you have seen what I have seen. And I have reported huge posts in the past already. I therefore assume a bit that the staff knows that there is a problem with them.

[Vuluts]

@tiwil Nahh even in browser it's too annoying to scroll down.

@Hidden Refuge Agreed about this! It is fine to quote but do not quote all post specially long post. Quoting is really helpful only to point out, not to help longer your post.

Example:

This is a huge problem because it clutters the forum with big quotes all over the place.

[deanhills]

I don't think one can have a rule that is universally applied as all quotes are used differently - all one can ask of members it to use quotes minimally and only if necessary. If you come across a quote in the Forum that is too long we have some great Moderators here. All you need to do as a member is to hit the Report button and then complain about it and it will be fixed as it has been fixed now.

Another suggestion as a guide line only, is to only quote a section of the quote that you are replying to. Instead of quoting the whole post you can use brackets - like [....] to indicate that you have removed sections of the post that are not relevant to your reply.

[tryp4vps]

I agree with @"Hidden Refuge" 200%. Unnecessary long quotes do hurt forum readability very much.

In fact, the first example also indicates another problem. Very long outputs of an "apt-get update" error have been posted multiple times in the thread. The poster must have earned lots of credits just because of it. This is so crazy.

[Mashiro]

That is indeed another problem @try4vps.

This clearly needs to be addressed, too. Maybe a guideline or rule can be added for that, too. At FreeVPS we had a NoPoints plugin that added tags which could be/should be used for such things as log output so that the points for it were not counted and usage of that nopoints tag was a must per rules.

At some point it stopped working however due to MyBB updates and also due to the NewPoints plugin changes during updates.

[arsalahmed786]

First of all sorry i was inactive these days and goodjob @Vuluts. @"Hidden Refuge" I agree with you.

I really confused why people quoting TS (thread starter) post, when we post, I would assume any kind of users that post is going to answer/help TS.

i think we should disable quoting option for thread (starter) if someone replied on it then other guy can quote him/her also limited character words for quote.

OR

we can use Nested quotes as @HR explained about it. I haven't check this before nor heard about it but it sounds great.

[deanhills]

@arsalahmed786  Removing the ability to quote is not the answer.  But if you can limit the size of the quote then that should solve the problem.  If someone could figure out how to program it that a quote can only be X length then it should solve all of the problem.  Also if they can program it with a friendly pop up message with a nice warning that only X words in a quote are allowed that will make it user-friendly.  

Remember.  We want to have happy members posting in the Forum.  We don't want to become too restrictive with Hitler type rules and regulations. Quotes are allowed at all other Forums.  If you turn it off that would just be another restriction that is counter productive for having a happy and relaxed community here.  You want them to post.  And you want them to come back and make more posts.  The more restrictions there are the less they will feel like making posts.

One of the reasons I came here is because you're relaxed and have just the right amount of rules for your average community member to be comfortable in making his/her posts. You also have the appearance of respecting your members regardless of the quality content of their posts.  I liked that as it made good sense for me.  I really thought that @Dynamo and his staff had found just the right recipe for a successful community. They were humble and saw things in realistic perspective. I don't want freevps.us to happen all over again.    The more rules that were created at FreeVPS Forum the more the staff began to see members as a growing source of annoyance to them. Like it was a given for that to happen - criticism attracts more criticism and you naturally grow into that moment when the staff see themselves completely removed from the members.   In the end it created an environment of "us - the great and very hard working unappreciated staff" vs "the members - who for the bigger part are a nuisance and difficult to manage".  Don't let that happen to post4vps.com.  

This is a good Forum.  Keep it as it is and if changes need to be made to the quotes, program them in.  Don't take things away.  The effect it had on me when you took my ability away to see the number of posts has already been negative.  Like I felt diminished by that.  What made it worse was when I didn't receive a formal response to my suggestion to enable that for hosted members only.  So my comment isn't valued either.  I'm the "public" and not a valued member of post4vps.  

We, Staff of Post4VPS Forum has decided to restrict the access of this list
since it comsumes very much resources of the Forum Host,
Thats why it won't be available for the Public use for now.

[arsalahmed786]

@deanhills yeah i agree with you but there is only nested quotes option i searched about length of quote but didn't got success but it possible with plugin.

By the way i have found something that can help us click here. The content automatically will be quoted if you select it as i can see on the example photos but it can make more spam content, I think it can be limited character words.