Website Change, "Rollover Quote Box" -- Yea or Nay

[jephthah]

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>> I don't like the way the quotes are rendered, you shouldn't have to mouse over them to see it.

i also dislike the rollover quote box that hides the quote. if i'm making the effort to quote someone, then their quote is an integral part of my response, not some tangential fluff, and it needs to be considered inline.

and what about the times where you often have to quote multiple people and address multiple points? this will quickly get ridiculous. for instance, see this recent example.

as for the argument that everyone merely re-posts long quotes of unnecessary stuff from the previous post, I disagree and in my experience here I don't believe this is even true. occasionally this happens with noobs, but by and large the most people use quotes thoughtfully and carefully to address specific points raised by a previous poster, often from several posts (or even pages) back.

until this is corrected, i suggest we quote people in the manner demonstrated with iamthwee, above. just put some spaces or dots between the quote tags, and italicize the quote in question. I think it works out pretty nice.

[Dani]

It is being changed to click to toggle it on or off, as opposed to rollover. It will remain hidden by default though.

[jephthah]

but that doesn't change the fact that it's still hidden and a nuisance to have to see what's being discussed.

whether you have to rollover or click, it interrupts the flow of the discussion, and diminishes the point of both the OP and the responder.

I mean, go look at the discussion going on in this forum about the changes. probably every third post is quoting a previous poster on one point or another. at some points, an entire page may be one long string of responses to previous responses.

I cant just roll down and read what is being discussed at all. I can't browse and look for comments of interest. I have to physically mouse over (roll or click, whatever) each and every quoted text just so i can cipher out what the context of the response is about?

it's a mess.

So are you trying to stifle the flow of discussion? because breaking it up with having to mouse-click every third post is a sure way to put the damper on it.

I see that this is one of your cherished ideas, one of the nifty little programmatic bells and whistles that are so fun to implement. But can you show me a discussion forum of any consequence that, by default, forces inline quotes to be hidden?

how does this even make sense?

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[anonymous alias]

I am afraid I have voted for the wrong vote. I mean to vote Yea! because I am very much liking this new webpages.

The purple color makes me feel happy and healthy.

Please visit my site, thank you and God Bless.

[WaltP]

Talk about a signature spammer!!!!

[colweb]

Based on the replies in several threads in this forum daniweb is going to loose it trusty long term members and goes on with newbies. It seems only the newbie posters are happy with the changes.

Queen of DaniWeb, a real Queen listens to the people and acts accordingly.

I have written a lot of programs and web-sites and have had a lot of criticism about it. I still find it hard to acknowledge if what I made needs to be changed. But I change it if things don't work out the way I thought it should be.

It's also really bad if you quote something that's really long.

Then you have to move your mouse to scroll down which collapses the quote, then quickly mouse over the quote again = FAIL. . . And this could quite easily happen if you intend to quote someone's code.

Sorry but this a DEFINITE no.

For the sake of 'neatness' you're taking away the functionality that a lot of members have grown used to.

It is extra work for the users to have the quote automatically hidden, then for them to have to roll-over it. Period.

When I'm browsing through a thread, it's real quick. . .I've got my mouse on the scroll bar and I'm scrolling down.With the old system, I could peruse the entire (quoted content) in one go. Now it's a chore.

Plus it is another example of mystery meat navigation. . . It was only by chance that happened to mouse-over the quote box to discover the quote. Assuming someone didn't know this the thread would make no sense.

[Sodabread]

I don't mind that the quotes are hidden, but what bothers me is when the rollover occurs accidentally, it completely throws of my train of thought. I wouldn't be so bothered about a click to view style, but I think I still like the always there version the best. We'll have to see as I continue getting used to the new site.

[blud]

Personally, I think this thread is uncalled for. She said she was going to look into alternatives for the rollover thing. This is a compromise for people like me who HATE seeing a quote that is 1-2 pages long that is something I've already read and have to skip over it. Providing solutions rather than complaints would go a long way, and a solution of put it back the way it was, just isn't a good solution. I'm sure she's trying to make progress and not make all of you hate her, so lets help her, help us.

[Dani]

Thank you for the support. I actually posted in the other thread that I have made a change to the way that quotes are handled.

Now, if you use the Post Reply button and it automatically quotes the post, it puts a little flag into the quote bbcode with the postid that is quoted. If this is the case, the post will be hidden unless rolled over. But if you manually do

then the quote will always show up.

The idea behind this is that if you're just directly quoting another post, it gets hidden by default, because it adds no new value to your post. But if you're manually entering a quote, it is considered more of a contribution to your post, and therefore shows up.

[VernonDozier]

The idea behind this is that if you're just directly quoting another post, it gets hidden by default, because it adds no new value to your post.

It does add new value to your post and possibly their post because it can emphasize a particular point that you are responding to. The reader does not have to read the entire original quote to know what is being responded to. They can also go to the original post and see that post in its entirety for more context.

The can't do that here:

[QUOTE=cscgal] ... [/QUOTE]

They know I am responding to you, but how do they know which post? (easy to figure out here, but what if it was fifty posts earlier)? It's like a footnote that gives the author, but not the source. My feeling, and I have expressed it before, is that posters should be given the tools to construct the post as they feel it will be used best. A lot of us put considerable time and effort into posts and there needs to be someway to override these automated defaults (just like with the code tags).

Someone (forget who) quoted something like "99% of quotes are the full quotes of the post directly above". That's not even close to true in my experience. I'm with colweb and jephtah on this one. This is something that only newbies do.

[BestJewSinceJC]

The idea behind this is that if you're just directly quoting another post, it gets hidden by default, because it adds no new value to your post.

And again, since nobody has responded to my complaint: if it "adds no new value to your post", why not disallow its use altogether? It would seem that you have just stated that your feature is useless, yet you refuse to get rid of it: a contradiction.

[jephthah]

I think this thread is uncalled for

says you. I think it's very important, and shapes the direction that this site may take. apparently a number of others agree enough to comment on it, or at least vote on it.

Providing solutions rather than complaints would go a long way

I've given a solution: Remove this "feature".

and my 'complaints' are valid nonetheless. Because if a user feels the need to quote someone's previous post, whether it's selected context from the post just prior, or an entire paragraph from 10 pages back, then by all means let them do so.

When we take the pains to quote someone in our response, it MAKES NO SENSE to auto-hide the entire context to which we am responding.

as others have pointed out, it adds no value and only serves to make browsing threads more difficult.

Someone (forget who) quoted something like "99% of quotes are the full quotes of the post directly above".

that was CSCgal. and i think she said "99.9999%". I surely don't know where she gets this.

That's not even close to true in my experience... This is something that only newbies do.

Completely agree. I rarely ever see anyone post a reply with a fully-quoted repetition of the previous post. the few times i do, it's some noob who invariably gets fussed at and they don't do it again.

Like you and others have noted: when some topic, programming or otherwise, is important to us, we spend extra time crafting replies with careful use of the quote feature to make certain that the response to the issues are as clear and in context as possible.

by defaulting these forumws to force-hide integral parts of our replies to everyone who might read it... that is effectively telling us to dumb down the level of our responses, because no one really gives a damn.

this site is increasingly becoming a haven for signature-spammers and Second World homework/code-beggars. If you really want to continue to shoot for the lowest common denominator.... well then, carry on, I guess.

[jephthah]

and another thing. that the quotes are dimmed and in tiny font only serves to make them just that much more unreadable.

I mean seriously, you've reduced the quotes to the level of importance as signature links and "last edited by..." notations. is this intentional?

You know, i don't consider myself old. I dont have vision problems. but when i look at this site now, generally speaking, i find it very difficult to read.

I agree the jephthah and co.

The polling results should speak for itself.

I mean the only two that have voted for it is blud (no dis-respect buddy but you hardly post in the forums where most of the activity takes place, additionally you would have a strong allegiance with Dani as you manage the servers/databases??) and Paul Thompson (which i can't speak for).

"The 99% of all quotes are the ones directly above" is a statistic pulled out of thin air in my opinion. . . Prove it to me if I'm wrong.

The way I see it is as always:- Dani wants her site to conform to neatness. . . Pages and pages of quotes, look bad. Just like when everyone had full access to the text colour palette, it looked bad so she restricted it to just red and green.

This is all done, in order to give an air of professionalism and hence increase traffic (or spam which way you look at it) and thus revenue. . . Which to be fair, is a valid point. Everyone needs to eat.

A compromise has been made, sure. But it's still inconsistent and is going to take longer to multi-quote a whole list of people. Something which was easy in the past.

I'm all for change. . . But hey, you can call me a troll, or say that I'm getting heated up for nothing. . . That's fine. It's just my opinion.

I think the collapsed quote should have a message saying 'click to expand.'

Otherwise who is to know what to do apart from the regular members.

[Dani]

> I think the collapsed quote should have a message saying 'click to expand.'
Waiting for the designer to come back tome with a little +/- Click to Expand/Collapse button.

Oh right cool :)

[jephthah]

"the designer" .... you mean it's not you ?

who is this person?

give us their name!

[Dani]

http://jess3.com

[Ezzaral]

So they do have more colors than purple! :P

[BestJewSinceJC]

So they do have more colors than purple! :P

I noticed that the quotes now have an 'expand/contract' type button on them. I'm not sure if they show by default yet, though..

(edit: nope .. and sometimes when I click expand/contract it won't do so until I reload the page.)

[colweb]

http://jess3.com

Looking at that site, it no wonder some text here is enormous and other text unreadable.

[Biker920]

Just the entry to that site makes my head hurt. I still haven't gotten the hang of this multi quote system? copy/paste is less hassle for now. how about a little more contrast in the quote field.Later---

Although I miss the multi-quote option, which I guess was deliberately removed to prevent threads with huge amounts of repetitive quotes I'm learning to live with the collapsible option.

However, it would be really really good, if we had an option at the top of the thread to auto expand ALL quotes in the thread.

That way I can flick through like I used to without it being a chore?

Any other takers??

[jephthah]

...

>> However, it would be really really good, if we had an option at the top of the thread to auto expand ALL quotes in the thread... That way I can flick through like I used to without it being a chore?

I'm going to spend a few extra seconds to circumvent the default process and format it in a way that's sensible and readable.

like this. just add a space or dot after the open quote tag, move the close quote tag immediately after, then italicize the original quote snippet.

i recommend anyone else who thinks it's important to have readable inline quotes do the same thing.

Funny that even when the new system was brought in, some senior members of the site still quoted like this:

>And you said that he said that she said...

Even the Boss methinks. I will be using this from now on as looking at a grey bar REALLY annoys me. If it is going to be a permanent feature, please can we have the default as OPEN. I'd rather choose to hide than ponce about to see what was said on the previous page of posts.

[Dani]

> Even the Boss methinks.
Narue got me started using this newsgroup style of quoting over a year ago. Blame her.

[WaltP]

>> However, it would be really really good, if we had an option at the top of the thread to auto expand ALL quotes in the thread... That way I can flick through like I used to without it being a chore?

I'm going to spend a few extra seconds to circumvent the default process and format it in a way that's sensible and readable.

like this. just add a space or dot after the open quote tag, move the close quote tag immediately after, then italicize the original quote snippet.

i recommend anyone else who thinks it's important to have readable inline quotes do the same thing.

Just leave out the quote tags. Why do all that extra work?

[jephthah]

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>> Just leave out the quote tags. Why do all that extra work?

because i actually do like the grey bar with Username as a sort of frame for the quote.

and it really only takes about 10 seconds.

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