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Posted (edited)

Bare with me here, because the reason for this suggested change likely does not happen on your own forum...this forum...because your users are highly biased--we're all more or less "experts" with how forums work, and especially Invision forums.

The Problem--too many users use "Quote & Reply", and then put their reply within the quote.

My forum has been running continuously for over 20 years now, and I am having a growing issue with the use of the "Quote & Reply"--the problem specifically is that most newer users, and even some older ones, always use this to respond--even if they reply to a post directly after it. A bigger problem, however, is that many users don't know how to deal with the quote that is copied into the reply. Around 25% of my posters now put their reply within that quote--either above the content or below it, but within it--they just don't get it. This makes finding their reply very difficult if they reply to long posts, which happens often on my forum. Some users reply properly outside the quote, but post it either above it or below it, there is no rhyme or reason.

I now have to edit many posts daily to extract someone's reply from within the quoted area, and put it outside the quoted area. This seems to be a growing issue for me, and perhaps it is due to the fact that more users, perhaps younger, from Facebook or other social platforms are now posting and they just don't get how to use this quote feature.

A Solution--Add a "Reply" link first

Instead of:

+(multi quote) | Quote & Reply | Mark as Solution

I propose:

Reply | Quote & Reply | +(multi quote) | Mark as Solution 

In this case clicking the Reply option would simply take them down to the "Reply to this Topic" field, preferably that field would be opened up, and their cursor would be flashing within it, so all they have to do is start typing. Most people should simply be replying within a topic, rather than quoting and replying.

+(multi quote)

Also, regarding the multi quote feature, I believe that at best, 1/100 to 1/200 people in my forum ever figure out how to use that correctly, and it is rarely used. It would make more sense to move this over rather than making it the first option.

Please let me know what you think.

Edited by sadams101
Posted

That's a rather unique problem, I've never heard this before. 😮

 

The quote javascript already moves the cursor after the quote, but maybe you could change it to add also some text like "REPLY HERE" or something similar?

However, it will require a custom modification since JS is not something you can edit directly like a template.

Posted (edited)

Since it literally happens several times a day on my forum from different users, so I would not say that I have a unique problem. Again, most people don't need to quote at all, but that is the only option they see to reply to a post they might be reading. Just a simple reply button that takes them to the reply field would solve this.

I actually just corrected a post where the user hit quote and reply, then erased all the quote and put in their own reply within the quote field area...very frustrating.

Edited by sadams101
Posted

Adding a button that says “Reply” within a post would mean inline replies to me. Seeing as our software doesn’t do that, that would lead to more confusion.

 

Posted

I'm not sure I would see any more confusion than I do now...again, it's getting to where I need to edit ~15-20% of the posts in my forum.

3 hours ago, Sonya* said:

Rename it back to Quote. If they do not see a wording “Reply” there, probably they do not use it to reply. 

I have experimented with using just "Quote" and still have the same issue. I added Quote & Reply a while back because of the number of people who would ask how they can reply. They had no idea you had to scroll to the bottom!

Posted

This sounds like a great solution, but it looks like there is no version 4.7, or a way to get it now that the Marketplace is closed. 

This would be a great addition to solve more than one issue I've mentioned here, I hope IPB will consider this upgrade.

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