When one forum poster quotes another, the quoted text should not be editable

[Minnie 178]

We shouldn't be able to misrepresent what someone else has said by changing quoted material in forum posts.  Some may say it's "obvious" that the quoted writer didn't actually say the fake quote, but it's clear that this is not always the case.  Some readers have less of an ear for irony and sarcasm than others.  And even a sophisticated reader who is only casually browsing a thread might end up misinterpreting a misquote and wrongly attributing it to the OP.

 

But even in the most seemingly "obvious" or "innocent" of cases, the simple fact is that nobody should be able to put words in someone else's mouth, period.  Not to mention that the ability to misquote could potentially be used as a destructive tool by those with malicious intent.

 

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(I'm guessing this may not be the right forum for this suggestion, but I couldn't find a better one.  Please reposition the post if necessary.)

 

 

[Locath 533]

21 minutes ago, Minnie said:

(I'm guessing this may not be the right forum for this suggestion, but I don't care. Also, i eat my steak well done, from microwave, with ketchup.)

 

Like so? 😛

 

[Blazecraze 452]

6 minutes ago, Locath said:

My microwaved steak prefers Heinz ketchup only.

Jeez, and I thought Minniehs was bad!

[Minnie 178]

Ketchup is highly underrated and unfairly maligned.  Yeah I said it.

[Zundy 99]

I agree, most forums tend to allow it though, mainly for when you only want to quote part of the text.

[Locath 533]

1 minute ago, Zundy said:

I agree, most forums tend to allow it though, mainly for when you only want to quote part of the text.

 

Yes, it varies depending on the engine. On some forums quoted text remains after the original is edited, on other forums the quoted part is updated if the original is edited which leads to even more mess since people provide arguments for what they originally quoted but since was edited by the OP and makes them look foolish.

 

Editing the quoted parts is often useful to <snip> out super long posts in between the points being referred to by the person doing the quoting.

 

I understand what the issue is and it has happened recently and the person was called out on their lies.

Editing the quoted text does come in useful though. 

Because of that i don't have a solution for this issue but removing the option to trim quoted parts would make some posts super long and repeating the same original sections over and over. Often from few pages of the post before the last quotation.

 

I suppose common decency is not something to be considered here.

[Zexos 468]

I don't agree and more just because I edit quoted text so that I am replying to certain parts of it.  Otherwise if I couldn't edit the quote then it would sometimes be massive walls of text.

[Minnie 178]

You can quote a portion of a larger text block by selecting only that portion.  A popup with a "Quote selection" button will appear.   You may need to do this more than once if you need to quote more than one part of the larger block, which can be a bit of a PITA, but imo it would be worth it if it meant that misquoting others would no longer be a thing.

[Minnie 178]

26 minutes ago, Locath said:

I suppose common decency is not something to be considered here.

 

Even if decency is common, it's never universal, here or anywhere.

[Ekcin 2,417]

I must agree to Locath, though I understand Minnie's concerns (maybe even experiences). I often edit quoted content like the further, especially to avoid lengthy full quotes which are terrible.

 

If somebody is misquoting maliciously, it is so easy to nail it down and unmask the vile. On the other hand, a technical obligation to quote only unaltered content would lead to circumventions like 'Minnie wrote: "...." ' , and a forum rule could cause avoidance to quote at all just referring indirectly  e.g. 'as Minnie argued "..." ' .

[Minnie 178]

2 minutes ago, Ekcin said:

I must agree to Locath, though I understand Minnie's concerns (maybe even experiences)

 

Concerns yes, experiences no (not counting this thread lol).

 

2 minutes ago, Ekcin said:

I often edit quoted content like the further, especially to avoid lengthy full quotes which are terrible.

 

See my post above on how to avoid having to include huge text blocks in your post without editing the actual quote itself.  I'm writing this post using that technique. 

 

3 minutes ago, Ekcin said:

If somebody is misquoting maliciously, it is so easy to nail it down and unmask the vile.

 

Maybe, maybe not.  I think that those among us who read threads carefully tend to assume that everyone else does the same.  But there are probably people who don't thoroughly comb through every single post, and could entirely miss any unmasking-of-vile that goes on.

 

6 minutes ago, Ekcin said:

On the other hand, a technical obligation to quote only unaltered content would lead to circumventions like 'Minnie wrote: "...." ' , and a forum rule could cause avoidance to quote at all just referring indirectly  e.g. 'as Minnie argued "..." ' .

 

I have no problem if someone summarizes/paraphrases what they think (and/or want others to think) I've said, as long as it's clear it's not what I ACTUALLY said. 

 

Also I'm not looking for a rule on this issue.  In my ideal world, it's technically possible to make quotes un-alterable, and someone in authority puts that into effect.  Strangely, I am certain none of this will ever happen.  But I dunno, sometimes I feel like I just have to say a thing for the record.  Can't help myself.

[Coach 196]

I prefer to see people not misinterpreting any quotes than having a great irony. So people should not do what i did.

 

I understand some people might get confused by seeing the edited quotes that are not actually from the original writer. Like what i have said, i like things to be more precise although it might create walls of text.

 

On 6/7/2022 at 2:47 PM, Coach said:

Spoiler

On 6/7/2022 at 10:56 AM, Coach said:

On 6/7/2022 at 10:50 AM, Katrat said:

That's a huge leap. Stone circles are a far cry from God Mode.

 

On 6/7/2022 at 12:37 AM, Sheffie said:

Again, I'd like to stress that this(god mode teleport) is just one more way of travelling quickly from one point to the other. Wurm has numerous mechanisms of instant travel that have not "destroyed travel" and there's no reason to believe this one should be any different.

On 5/31/2022 at 4:49 AM, TheTrickster said:

I still don't understand the argument of "I don't want to use it(god mode teleport) so I don't want anybody else to have the choice." It is a sandbox and is different things to different people who want to play it in different ways.  Allowing fast travel for those who want it in no way has any effect at all on those who don't want to use it.

Put (god mode teleport) into their sentences. It sounds perfect to the people who oppose god mode teleport.

 

On 6/7/2022 at 12:37 AM, Sheffie said:

Again, I'd like to stress that this is just one more way of travelling quickly from one point to the other. Wurm has numerous mechanisms of instant travel that have not "destroyed travel" and there's no reason to believe this one should be any different.

On 5/31/2022 at 4:49 AM, TheTrickster said:

I still don't understand the argument of "I don't want to use it so I don't want anybody else to have the choice."  All of this "it's a core element" talk misses the essential "to me" part.  It is a sandbox and is different things to different people who want to play it in different ways.  Allowing fast travel for those who want it in no way has any effect at all on those who don't want to use it.

After reading their argument to support stone circles fast travel, i think they can apply to support god mode teleport in a certain way. Lets use them as references and learn from them.

 

Again, I'd like to stress that god mode teleport is just one more way of travelling quickly from one point to the other. Wurm has numerous mechanisms of instant travel that have not "destroyed travel" and there's no reason to believe this one should be any different.

I don't understand the argument of "I don't want to use god mode teleport so I don't want anybody else to have the choice."  It is a sandbox and is different things to different people who want to play it in different ways.  Allowing fast travel for those who want it in no way has any effect at all on those who don't want to use it.

 

Reason for edit:

On 6/7/2022 at 1:36 PM, TheTrickster said:

Please delete or re-edit that post of yours, to remove YOUR OWN WORDS from the quotes of others.  Just putting them it italics and braces does not excuse the misquotes.  What you have quoted is certainly not what I have said or think, and I am pretty confident the same would go for Sheffie.

 

 

Re-edit to be more precise.

 

[Madnath 3,113]

2 hours ago, Minnie said:

We shouldn't be able to misrepresent what someone else has said by changing quoted material in forum posts.  Some may say it's "obvious" that the quoted writer didn't actually say the fake quote, but it's clear that this is not always the case.  Some readers have less of an ear for irony and sarcasm than others.  And even a sophisticated reader who is only casually browsing a thread might end up misinterpreting a misquote and wrongly attributing it to the OP.

 

But even in the most seemingly "obvious" or "innocent" of cases, the simple fact is that nobody should be able to put words in someone else's mouth, period.  Not to mention that the ability to misquote could potentially be used as a destructive tool by those with malicious intent.

 

---

(I'm guessing this may not be the right forum for this suggestion, but I couldn't find a better one.  Please reposition the post if necessary.)

 

I'm mixed on this. Let me explain why it's both a good idea and a bad idea.

Good idea:

It's great to remove any chance of people misrepresenting posts or points made by people.

The forum software also honestly kinda sucks and is so old it makes IRC look almost hip and new. The forum profile picture upload size is tiny, forum search function sucks and is time restricted so if you make a typo, you've got to wait to correct the search. Changing what we're running on would be great.

 

Bad idea:

It's super handy to be able to make a summary of a post or snip parts of a larger post that aren't relevant to what you're replying to. If it's a long post and you want to pick at issues you could bulletpoint, you'd be hard set replying to the entire thing.

This point can go either way, but I also feel it's a powerful tool to be able to point out when someone is trying to misrepresent you in an argument. You let them show their hand in a sense, and you can flip it back to point out they're a bad actor and just trying to demean you and your argument.

 

[Pandalet 1,848]

I'm afraid this is not a feature supported by our forum software at this time.

[gnomegates 1,429]

3 hours ago, Pandalet said:

I'm afraid this is not a feature supported by our forum software at this time.

Should it be considered as a rule addition as a punishable offense if someone does edit a quote post to say something that was not said? To my knowledge this was just done the other day in the Bunny Ear suggestion post, by a community assistance member. Made a quote post and edited it to say what they wanted it to say, then claimed it was obvious mockery of the person.

 

In Wurm it has been said by staff and many players, that our reputations are our own to build or destroy, but if someone else is able to quote another player to say something that they did not say, with the possibility to hurt another's reputation, should that be an actionable offense? 

[Minnie 178]

18 hours ago, Pandalet said:

I'm afraid this is not a feature supported by our forum software at this time.

 

Okay, I appreciate the response.  I hope that if/when new software is considered, this issue will be part of the process.  Many thanks.

[wipeout 1,355]

On 4/15/2023 at 4:27 AM, Madnath said:

 

I'm mixed on this. Let me explain why it's both a good idea and a bad idea.

Good idea:

It's great to remove any chance of people misrepresenting posts or points made by people.

The forum software also honestly kinda sucks and is so old it makes IRC look almost hip and new. The forum profile picture upload size is tiny, forum search function sucks and is time restricted so if you make a typo, you've got to wait to correct the search. Changing what we're running on would be great.

 

And swap to what software to run the forums?  At the rate forums are disappearing its harder to find projects that actively maintain or even update their forum software(A few of the forums i handle for other things have gotten notices of this already and I hope that invision doesn't have this happen to them)
But yes it is a great idea so that people who want to quote my wall's of text will make us reach the next page faster

But there are quite a few things about the current forum that need tweaking next to some of the things you mentioned but hey atleast it supports stretching properly nowadays so thats a improvement