Should the user commands be updated for this?

[jamail77]

So, I started a gaming related topic [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.863261-I-want-to-be-a-game-developer-nah#21529895] recently. I got quite a lot of responses considering how that thread hasn't even hit the 24 hour mark yet. If you look at the 2nd post I make in that thread it's literally a response to almost (can't respond to everyone, my god that'd take forever) every post. It's full of quotes everywhere, some snipped and some partially snipped to only include the relevant thing I want to address. It's really messy and really long. Should The Escapist update this, so we can respond to people without our posts turning into a messy conglomerate of a 1000 quote blocks and our response to each quote block.

I'm not adding a poll because there's no right answer for this. I'd rather a discussion be had on what could be done to make this better or, perhaps, just advice on how I could handle this better. Maybe I could make a separate post for every person I'm quoting...no god, that'd be worse. Not putting this under the advice forum topic though because this is primarily a discussion on this issue rather than advice for me to handle this better. While we're at it, anybody else have this dilemma from time to time?

 

[Lucem712]

[]|:{

Easiest way to keep a huge reply post simple and clean is to clean out the 'Quote' box and put in something like I did above or just: 'SNIP', The box will still keep their name intact with a link to the actual post[footnote]If you leave in the [...post="numbers here"] part[/footnote] That way anyone interested in reading the rest of the discussion can follow the link to the original post.

You can also put each reply under a spoiler tag, but I am not sure if that has problems with alerting the user that they have been quoted.

Spoiler: Reply to jamaill77

Jamail77[br]Things you said.

This is my reply.

[footnote]You can click 'Quote' to view the language I used.[/footnote]

 

[jamail77]

[post="18.863333.21530215"]

Like that? It doesn't really link to the actual post though. It's not like someone can click on that as if it were a physical link that redirects to the post being quoted. It just tells you a number tag for the post that most users probably can't interpret into English to find on their own. Unless I'm misunderstanding how to do it.

Unfortunately, neither that nor the spoiler tag (which I often use actually) solves my dilemma. I could snip every single person I quote and that would still be like 20 separately addressed quotes in my post, just for example. That's my issue: I want to address every person and let them know they're being addressed, but I don't want to have a really messy post with 60% of it just being taken up by the people I'm quoting. It's 1 thing when you're just quoting 1 person, but another when you're quoting enough people to fill a classroom in just a singe post you're making. Plus, snipping is sometimes counterproductive. I often want to only do a partial snip, so I can isolate the particular part of the quote I want to address. That way the person quoted knows specifically what part of their statement I am addressing.

 

[Lucem712]

[]|:{

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If you click on my name in the above quote box, it will redirect you to my post on another topic. The quoted user link should link to the previous post without any alterations. Just using the [user] tag will link you to their profile. Though, that method will not alert them. Ex: [user]Lucem712[/user]. So, that can be used to direct the flow of your post, but unless they are stalking the thread, they won't know you replied.

Apologies if I misunderstood your above issue.

Otherwise, I'm not sure there's a way with-in the current system to assist you. I don't usually have this problem as I don't get into discussions in threads all that frequently. Sorry I'm unable to assist you, friend.

 

[jamail77]

If you click on my name in the above quote box, it will redirect you to my post on another topic. The quoted user link should link to the previous post without any alterations. Just using the [user] tag will link you to their profile. Though, that method will not alert them. Ex: [user]Lucem712[/user]. So, that can be used to direct the flow of your post, but unless they are stalking the thread, they won't know you replied.

Oh yeah. I forgot that you can just click on the name in the quote box. Thanks for reminding me. Nonetheless, you're right that you can't help me. Thanks for trying though.

Like I said, the issue is that discussions can get really hectic and your post turns into you quoting 20 or more people. It looks really messy even with each person's entire individual quote snipped. You say you don't get into discussions in threads frequently, so it's no surprise you don't run into that problem too often. It's more of an issue with topics you started rather than topics you are just contributing to. One way I avoid it is if the person I'm responding to is literally one post before me, I just don't quote them. It's pretty obvious usually that I'm responding to the post right before me. They still often don't know I responded to them though because I never quoted them (so they never got a notification), but at least it cuts down on quote clutter. If they are active in the discussion they'll come back to check it out again and see I responded, so active users benefit at least even if inactive users miss out on the response.

 

[jamail77]

Actually, I just realized something. Why can't the site just add a reply function to forums? That way the person you're replying to will be notified you're replying to their post without you having to messily quote them. Plus, you'll still be able to quote when you want to isolate a particular statement.