I had feedback recently from someone who thought some of the forum quote strings we have in threads were far too long and cumbersome.
It was something that was slightly on my mind before. And the more I have thought about it and looked at the strings I am sure we could and should cut some of them down.
The more your post is making a fresh point and the less it is directly about the previous post(s) the more perhaps a fresh non-quoting post might be better.
Folk reading the relevant thread can still see your post in the context of the overall discussion but I would suggest it will all look better rather than long string followed by even longer string ...
One thing that has always confused me is the reply button - I think I expected a reply would reference the previous post you are replying to without giving the long quote string - maybe as a link? But in fact it doesnt do anything - it is just like a new post, it isnt replying to anything specific.
Is that what everyone else sees?
I guess it would have dealt with what you are mentioning above ie referencing but not repeating the original message, but guess that isnt possible?
I think the point is only quote if you need to directly reference a previous post - most of the time that post is the last one in the thread anyway. I try and use the Quick Reply option as much as possible.
Some of the quote vortices can be amusing to see, but you are right that they are difficult to read.
The issue for me is that it is often important to keep the particular posts that are being replied to in the reply (as often there are several different conversations going on in the thread) but it is really difficult to edit the vortex successfully without messing up the formatting, If the formatting gets messed up the whole thing goes from difficult to read to almost impossible.
