Something happened to Reply


Website Feedback


I just tried to reply to this post, and all I got in my Reply screen was

Mythril DM wrote:
FYI: I reward players who make choices on what the character would do.

Have you done something to remove nested quotes or something? Because it just quoted what came after the quoted text.


Here as well; when I try to reply to my own post, the Reply begins after the end quote-tag. We just got the cool nesting quotes, and now they're not working? Also, no way to quote anything before a quote in a post.

I'm using Chrome 15.0.874.121, in case it's just my browser.

And while I'm here complaining, I'll point out that something you've done over the past several weeks seems to have completely eradicated that annoying bug that didn't display edits made to posts after you'd already viewed the unedited version. So good job! :)


Another example to keep this on the main page. Note how everything before the end-quote isn't quoted.


Joana wrote:
Have you done something to remove nested quotes or something? Because it just quoted what came after the quoted text.

Same here. Using Firefox 8.0


Also, the thing where spoilers don't show up in the mouse-over text? Now, if there's a quote inside the spoiler tags, the part after the end-quote tag shows up in the mouse-over.


Also tried with Opera 11.52

Both under Win 7, by the way.

Then I tried my Android Pad.
Opera Mobile does the same.
So does the stock browser.

With 3 (or 4, if you count Opera and Opera Mobile as two) plus Joana's chrome all doing this, I don't think it's the browsers.

I also noticed that the paizo_ignore script stopped working properly about an hour or so ago, which points towards some changes in the code.

Paizo Employee Senior Software Developer

The behavior you're seeing is actually how the quoting feature has been supposed to work for some time now—it's supposed to remove quoted material and only include new text. Last week I had some time and tweaked the code a bit to make it do what it's supposed to do.

Personally I have a very difficult time reading conversations on our messageboards where there's a lot of nested quoting and find myself having to go back and re-read posts that I had skipped previously because they were lost in a sea of nested grey. But maybe that's just me.

In general I think quoting a quote of a quote of a quote is something that people have been doing not because it's the best way to express themselves but rather because it's been the default behavior of the reply button. And clicking "reply" is the easiest way to join a conversation here since it's on the page up to fifty more times than "add new post." So I think this is a pretty good example of a default behavior actually hindering the very thing it's intended to enhance—good conversation.

I would like to keep this new behavior around for at least a few days to see how it affects thread readability and the quality of the conversation rather than just knee-jerk reverting it because it's different.

Liberty's Edge

I'm not sure I'm a fan at this point, but that may be a knee-jerk reaction. If it still bothers me after a few days I'll let you know for what it's worth.


Bad for play-by-posts, where someone responds to several posts with one and is liable to have several quotes from different characters in his posts, as there is no way to "get to" the original material above the last quoted material. Examples here and here. Also, in PbPs, you very often want to quote more than one PC's part of a conversation to join in. Now it's going to take several windows open and a lot of copy-pasting to do so.

Bad also, for any time someone writes something, quotes another post as an example, and then writes something else, like is about to happen a million times in the RPG Superstar forums, for the same reason. Example here and every following one of Neil Spicer's very popular posts. I think the forum looks nicer with one large post referring to several things than with a sequence of smaller posts from the same person each responding to a different post.

And replying to a post like this would just give you a blank window.

I'm not that bothered by already-quoted material being removed, but you ought to be able to do it without removing what comes before the quote tags. You can't assume that there's nothing but requoted material above the last end-quote tag.

Paizo Employee Senior Software Developer

Joana wrote:
Bad for play-by-posts, where someone responds to several posts with one and is liable to have several quotes from different characters in his posts, as there is no way to "get to" the original material above the last quoted material.

Yeah as soon as I saw this thread I realized that play-by-posters might want the old behavior and have a good reason for that. It's possible we can make this an individual preference (less likely) or a campaign-threads-default-to-old-behavior default.

Joana wrote:
Bad also, for any time someone writes something, quotes another post as an example, and then writes something else, like is about to happen a million times in the RPG Superstar forums, for the same reason.

I think I want to see more evidence of this being problematic in practice before saying it's a real problem. People can still scroll up and copy & paste, and if they're quoting multiple posts in a single post, they have to anyway.

Joana wrote:
And replying to a post like this would just give you a blank window.

That would actually be considered a bug, what it's supposed to do is extract the text that's outside the quoted material, not just that following it. Even if we keep the new behavior I'd want it to properly handle quoting posts like the one linked.

Paizo Employee Senior Software Developer

I just realized that I misunderstood the point you were trying to make. You can ignore most of my previous post and skip to the part about using only everything after the last quote mark being a bug. My apologies.


In general I like the new way just fine in most threads, but not being able to include two (or at most three) quotes back has already become an annoyance in the pbp. I don't like longerquote strings than that in general, but I often have three or four groups doing different things in different places so providing context is important to keep gameplay flowing smoothly.

Sovereign Court

I don't like it but I can understand it for general purpose. Can we keep it the old way for PbP? That would be my preference, lets see what others think :).


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I do like that you can quote stuff that is a spoiler now (for pbp).

I don't like that if there is a:

quote 1

response 1

quote 2

response 2

When you hit reply you only get response 2.


While I'm not fond of the change, if the bug gets cleared up, I can learn to live with it.

What would really be great is if there were a way to quote multiple posts without copy/pasting. A Doctor Who board I read has the option to select multiple posts before hitting reply. Then when you hit reply, it quotes all the selected posts. I have no idea how difficult it would be to add such a function here, but it would be a useful addition for pbp.


Another vote in favour of the old-style nested quotes.


Gary Teter wrote:

The behavior you're seeing is actually how the quoting feature has been supposed to work for some time now—it's supposed to remove quoted material and only include new text. Last week I had some time and tweaked the code a bit to make it do what it's supposed to do.

Personally I have a very difficult time reading conversations on our messageboards where there's a lot of nested quoting and find myself having to go back and re-read posts that I had skipped previously because they were lost in a sea of nested grey. But maybe that's just me.

It's just you. Or, at least, it's definitely not me.

I edit my posts. I cut away what I don't need, which is a lot easier than putting things in that are not included per default (by which I not just mean the original content the bug is cutting away, but also quotes-in-quotes).

On a similar vein, the post cut-off is extremely annoying, too: I rarely quote an entire post, but often, the stuff I do want to quote is way at the bottom of a long, long post, and so I have to go and copy and paste it because it was in the part that was cut off.

Gary Teter wrote:


In general I think quoting a quote of a quote of a quote is something that people have been doing not because it's the best way to express themselves but rather because it's been the default behavior of the reply button. And clicking "reply" is the easiest way to join a conversation here since it's on the page up to fifty more times than "add new post." So I think this is a pretty good example of a default behavior actually hindering the very thing it's intended to enhance—good conversation.

I know that when I hit reply instead of add new post to put in something new, I always clear out the text box.

Gary Teter wrote:


I would like to keep this new behavior around for at least a few days to see how it affects thread readability and the quality of the conversation rather than just knee-jerk reverting it because it's different.

There's not just readability to consider , but also "writability"

Paizo Employee Senior Software Developer

KaeYoss wrote:
Gary Teter wrote:

The behavior you're seeing is actually how the quoting feature has been supposed to work for some time now—it's supposed to remove quoted material and only include new text. Last week I had some time and tweaked the code a bit to make it do what it's supposed to do.

Personally I have a very difficult time reading conversations on our messageboards where there's a lot of nested quoting and find myself having to go back and re-read posts that I had skipped previously because they were lost in a sea of nested grey. But maybe that's just me.

It's just you. Or, at least, it's definitely not me.

I edit my posts. I cut away what I don't need, which is a lot easier than putting things in that are not included per default (by which I not just mean the original content the bug is cutting away, but also quotes-in-quotes).

On a similar vein, the post cut-off is extremely annoying, too: I rarely quote an entire post, but often, the stuff I do want to quote is way at the bottom of a long, long post, and so I have to go and copy and paste it because it was in the part that was cut off.

Gary Teter wrote:


In general I think quoting a quote of a quote of a quote is something that people have been doing not because it's the best way to express themselves but rather because it's been the default behavior of the reply button. And clicking "reply" is the easiest way to join a conversation here since it's on the page up to fifty more times than "add new post." So I think this is a pretty good example of a default behavior actually hindering the very thing it's intended to enhance—good conversation.

I know that when I hit reply instead of add new post to put in something new, I always clear out the text box.

Gary Teter wrote:


I would like to keep this new behavior around for at least a few days to see how it affects thread readability and the quality of the conversation rather than just knee-jerk reverting it because it's different.
There's not just...

As you can see from this obnoxious wall of quoted text, the old behavior has been brought back.

The Exchange

Gary Teter wrote:
As you can see from this obnoxious wall of quoted text, the old behavior has been brought back.

But why?

Paizo Employee Senior Software Developer

Long story. Let's just say I was made an offer I couldn't refuse.

Liberty's Edge

Say no more Gary, say no more.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Woot!

However... can we have the old behavior AND text in spoilers not be dropped? (replaced by *spoiler omitted* to be clear about what i mean by dropped.)

I'm probably asking for something hard though....


Aha! New quick-reply window so you have to quote on purpose rather than by default. Very crafty, Gary. :)

Paizo Employee Senior Software Developer

Hehehe...


As we are at it - quick reply feature always sets "post as" as initial profile instead of default alias which is irritating.

When it comes to it - is it possible to make my default alias the main profile? The forum offers me option to change avatar name but it won't accept alias name as it is (obviously) occupied and won't switch my 1399 or something posts to the new avatar.

Paizo Employee Senior Software Developer

We don't have any way for you to switch profiles like that.


Joana wrote:
Aha! New quick-reply window so you have to quote on purpose rather than by default. Very crafty, Gary. :)

Actually I would prefer to get rid of the quick-reply window - until it learn to use my default alias rather than unused one.

It also requires me to scroll up jumping to the end of thread with <end> key to read what actually happened since I last peeked.

EDIT: Uh, quick-reply sets my "post as" to my unused profile while the reply button correctly sets to default alias. This certainly qualifies as a bug...

Gary Teter wrote:
We don't have any way for you to switch profiles like that.

A pitty. (Certainly it is possibly but I understand it would require tweaking the forum database manually which would lots of specially trained monkeys or IT-section interns ;)

Community / Forums / Paizo / Website Feedback / Something happened to Reply All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in Website Feedback