Intrigued and curious about Pprune quotation policy?

[Uplinker]

I am genuinely confused. For a while now Pprune has been routinely deleting quote boxes where these start a post, leaving just the quotee's name. I understand that we don't want people to routinely and lazily use quote boxes of entire posts when replying, and I only use short, cut-down quotes when necessary to aid understanding and conversation flow. Quote box deletion, weirdly, only seems to happen to some posters, while other posters are allowed to quote entire or very long passages.

I have just had a quote box within my post deleted, and what was left was just the other poster's name, then their paragraph in normal text, which looked like the rest of my post. There was no visible difference separating their words from mine, so as far as anyone could tell by looking, they were my words not somebody else's. So I went back and put their words in bold instead, to aid understanding. This bold too has been removed, back to normal text.

In another post of mine, I put in repeated exclamation and question marks to add emphasis to a particular point. These too were removed and just single marks left.

I am genuinely intrigued and curious about Pprune policy:

Why are some of us not allowed to use quote boxes any more? (even short, edited ones)
Why are we not allowed to use bold or italics to indicate a quoted passage within our own text?
Why are we not allowed to use multiple exclamation marks or question marks for emphasis?

I have read the terms and conditions, but cannot find any specific reference banning use of quotes - perhaps someone can guide me? The "quote" button still appears on the forum at the bottom of everyone's posts, so presumably quotes are still allowed to be used in some cases.

What is Pprune's policy regarding which quotes are allowed and which are not?

[Jetdriver]

In fairness, the default reply settings include a full quote which is unnecessary but obviously not the fault of the poster. When a thread is tidied up it is done so at specific periods when a reader can follow the thread without much contextual difficulty that might not have been apparent when the post was first made. There are a few posters who engage in “windbaggery” or puffery and nonsense that seems important to them but nobody else. Emboldening every other word for no particular purpose, multiple but unnecessary punctuation marks, stretching a post by misplacing a period mark 20 lines down, and more besides. Tidying up is intended to keep a thread readable and inviting to the majority rather than a select clique.

Same with profanity or personalisation nonsense. It simply tends to escalate as each successive and incensed poster feels the need to outdo their predecessor. The intention is to keep a thread alive, dynamic and inclusive rather than resulting in deletions and thread closures.

The quotation boxes are useful where they refer to a significantly out of sequence or old post. Similarly, where it seems necessary to follow the thread, more so when it is a specific excerpt rather than a complete repeat.

[Uplinker]

Hi Jetdriver, Yes, I understand that, and agree with it, but I follow exactly what you say in your last paragraph and personally don't use quote boxes or bold type unless they are strictly necessary for clarity and understanding.

Reading on a tablet or a phone, one can only see a couple of posts at a time, so sometimes a brief quote is useful to bring the thread back to the OP subject, or briefly mention what part of another's post one is replying about. I edit down any quote I use to the minimum, yet I do feel that I am being targeted sometimes, when other posters are allowed to quote very long sections.

I can imagine that hard pressed moderators, having to look after many threads each, can simply rapidly delete all the quote boxes, and - job done, the thread has been tidied up.

But please would all the moderators spare a thought for those of us who take time to think about it and edit things down to be as succinct as possible, only to see our careful editing deleted.

It is extremely aggravating !

[ShyTorque]

I think I recall seeing a recent post from a moderator about this, asking people to desist from posting long quotes to avoid lengthening/clogging up threads.

But don't quote me on that...