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Old 4th Dec 2007, 9:31 am   #16
Paul Stenning
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Default Re: Quotes - how do I do them?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul Stenning View Post
Also there is normally no point in quoting the post immediately above your reply, as it would be assumed that you are responding to that to anyone reading the thread.

Quoting is useful when responding to a comment in an earlier post, as it shows what you are replying to.
I am bumping this again as certain people seem to quote the thread above far too often.

This is causing the archivists considerable extra work in tidying up the threads for the archive, and in some cases has resulted in otherwise useful threads not being archived because they would take a disproportionate amount of time to sort out.

You do NOT need to quote the whole of the post immediately above as a single chunk - ever!

You may need to quote part of it however if you are responding to a specific point rather than the whole thread.

Sometimes it is useful to quote the post above but to break it into sections with your responses after each section.

If you are answering something further up the thread it is often useful to quote that post. However you often do not need to quote the whole post; just the part you are replying to.

If you reply to the post above then find someone has got in before you, you can edit your post (within the time limit) and add a quote. See whether it's needed though, as often it is clear what you are responding to anyway.
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