Disaster in Motion: Considerations of formatting and presentation
Once upon a time, our prior administrator, Dave, actually came out and said something like, "There's a reason you have the quote tag, please use it."
At the time, some of us had just discovered the indent tag. Others were using strings of asterisks at either end of a quote, or simply italicizing quoted text. There were many ways people were quoting text. I've always wondered if it was an individuality thing, a stand against "conformity".
Conformity: In the 1990s, Levi Strauss ran a campaign about being an individual ... by wearing the same jeans everyone else wore. I believe the campaign was called "Be Original".
.left to right words my writing start should I maybe, conformist pansy a be to want don't I if So
The form of quote Sisyphus has asserted involves either typing or copying and pasting the last edit note, italic tags, and font tags. Now, I, personally, use a tedious tag system when quoting, but nobody else is expected to. Thus, I would suggest that using the tag "quote=" would be at once easier for the poster and more readily understood by the reader.
To each their own. We've tried over the years to not be ironclad about how tags are used. I don't expect that we're suddenly going to drop that hammer, but members should realize that if they choose to present a nonstandard format for their posts, they might well be misinterpreted. And, frankly, in my opinion, the presentation of the topic post is something of a mess.
Furthermore, I would point out that the topic post is tagged inaccurately. Sisyphus noted, in his later post, "You do not understand that I had simply quoted lixlukes post, and then wrote in my commentary in the bold?" This is not how it appears on the screen. What appears to be Sisyphus' commentary—e.g., "What the heck is his point anyway? ... To make matters worse here is metakrons post."—is written in the same font as what is apparently quoted. And that second quote, from MetaKron? I think I finally have figured out, judging by content compared to the asserted differentiation, that the whole thing is a quote.
A few notes, if they aren't too demanding of conformity, intended as suggestions to help both author and reader in presenting material:
Thus, in the first place, I don't think it's the death of individuality to use the quote tag. To the other, if one must use unique presentation formats, I hope the points above will be helpful in that endeavor.
Once upon a time, our prior administrator, Dave, actually came out and said something like, "There's a reason you have the quote tag, please use it."
At the time, some of us had just discovered the indent tag. Others were using strings of asterisks at either end of a quote, or simply italicizing quoted text. There were many ways people were quoting text. I've always wondered if it was an individuality thing, a stand against "conformity".
Conformity: In the 1990s, Levi Strauss ran a campaign about being an individual ... by wearing the same jeans everyone else wore. I believe the campaign was called "Be Original".
.left to right words my writing start should I maybe, conformist pansy a be to want don't I if So
The form of quote Sisyphus has asserted involves either typing or copying and pasting the last edit note, italic tags, and font tags. Now, I, personally, use a tedious tag system when quoting, but nobody else is expected to. Thus, I would suggest that using the tag "quote=" would be at once easier for the poster and more readily understood by the reader.
To each their own. We've tried over the years to not be ironclad about how tags are used. I don't expect that we're suddenly going to drop that hammer, but members should realize that if they choose to present a nonstandard format for their posts, they might well be misinterpreted. And, frankly, in my opinion, the presentation of the topic post is something of a mess.
Furthermore, I would point out that the topic post is tagged inaccurately. Sisyphus noted, in his later post, "You do not understand that I had simply quoted lixlukes post, and then wrote in my commentary in the bold?" This is not how it appears on the screen. What appears to be Sisyphus' commentary—e.g., "What the heck is his point anyway? ... To make matters worse here is metakrons post."—is written in the same font as what is apparently quoted. And that second quote, from MetaKron? I think I finally have figured out, judging by content compared to the asserted differentiation, that the whole thing is a quote.
A few notes, if they aren't too demanding of conformity, intended as suggestions to help both author and reader in presenting material:
• Tagging quote=username seems much simpler than trying to tag various fonts while copying edit information.
• Each post is assigned a unique, sequential number. If you look at the gray bar containing the username, avatar, and motto, all the way to the right is a hyperlinked number. This link launches a showpost display; that is, it allows one to "view single post" Click this link for an example. I would suggest that it is far easier to copy this hyperlink and paste it into a post than to copy, paste, and tag the last-edit information. Additionally, such a link is considerably more helpful to a reader who might wish to read through the original post. In this case, they aren't left trying to track down a post according to its edit date.
• Font tags do not require quotation marks in UBB, e.g., font=arial. It's just extra keystrokes to put the quotes in, although if you do a lot of hypertext markup, well, I understand that habits persist.
• Fonts tagged according to your own font set will not necessarily display properly on other people's systems. For instance, I have a number of fonts that I've never heard of otherwise, including Raanana and Plantagenet Cherokee. I've acquired a different computer than I had two weeks ago, and I have yet to figure what these are for. (To the other, I've lost Palatino, which is of no real consequence here, but a tragedy to me, as I adore that one; indeed, this post now displays a different font because I originally tagged it in Palatino.) There are plenty of cross-platform fonts—Arial, Courier, Courier New, Georgia, Times, Times New Roman, Trebuchet MS, Verdana, and at least a few others—that will display on diverse systems. If a computer lacks a certain font, the post will display according to a default; in the case of Apples, it's usually Lucida Grande, which font I am about as sick of as Charcoal prior to OSX.
• Each post is assigned a unique, sequential number. If you look at the gray bar containing the username, avatar, and motto, all the way to the right is a hyperlinked number. This link launches a showpost display; that is, it allows one to "view single post" Click this link for an example. I would suggest that it is far easier to copy this hyperlink and paste it into a post than to copy, paste, and tag the last-edit information. Additionally, such a link is considerably more helpful to a reader who might wish to read through the original post. In this case, they aren't left trying to track down a post according to its edit date.
• Font tags do not require quotation marks in UBB, e.g., font=arial. It's just extra keystrokes to put the quotes in, although if you do a lot of hypertext markup, well, I understand that habits persist.
• Fonts tagged according to your own font set will not necessarily display properly on other people's systems. For instance, I have a number of fonts that I've never heard of otherwise, including Raanana and Plantagenet Cherokee. I've acquired a different computer than I had two weeks ago, and I have yet to figure what these are for. (To the other, I've lost Palatino, which is of no real consequence here, but a tragedy to me, as I adore that one; indeed, this post now displays a different font because I originally tagged it in Palatino.) There are plenty of cross-platform fonts—Arial, Courier, Courier New, Georgia, Times, Times New Roman, Trebuchet MS, Verdana, and at least a few others—that will display on diverse systems. If a computer lacks a certain font, the post will display according to a default; in the case of Apples, it's usually Lucida Grande, which font I am about as sick of as Charcoal prior to OSX.
Thus, in the first place, I don't think it's the death of individuality to use the quote tag. To the other, if one must use unique presentation formats, I hope the points above will be helpful in that endeavor.