Particularly recently, a number of posts -- many by newcomers to C.net, but even a few from "old hands" -- seem to be composed entirely of quotation of an earlier post.

It hasn't yet happened to me, so I don't know the cause, or whether the "fault" is the result of the poster making an error with keyboard or mouse, or whether it's caused by some bug in the forum software.

But it has happened often enough that I think it would be worthwhile for Invision to add a check that an attempted post contain more than just quoted text, and to refuse to register the post if it doesn't. (The best follow-on to such a refusal would be to return the poster to edit mode, so that (s)he can correct the text and try once again to post.)

If others agree, maybe Paul could pass on the recommendation to Invision?

It's really more a matter of netiquette. People are lazy and don't delete when replying. It's been a favourite bug bear of mine for years.

I don't mean a full quote with a reply that really relates only to a small bit of the quote. I'm talking about a quote with nothing at all added in reply.

Jim, I think it is a good idea and would cut down the "wasted" posts. Intuitive software is very unusual though. I have wondered for some time whether software programmes are made difficult on purpose just so a pile of training can be provided and sold.

And here is the latest example.

This is a good idea, but I have some fine tuning to suggest.

I can envision a situation where someone might want to make a point by quoting, without comment, excerpts of more than one post (or several excerpts from a single post) and let the juxtaposition speak for itself. This would get snagged in Jim's trap.

I would suggest that if a post contains nothing but a complete quote of a single post, then the posted is presented with a dialog box that says something like:
The third choice would be highlighted as the default.

I deliberately avoided suggesting any such fine tuning... for two reasons.
... 1) Greater complexity requires greater implementation effort, which inevitably reduces the likelihood of its being implemented.
... 2) I personally think that posting quotes completely without comment is inappropriate. At the very least, some indication of intent should be required, even if only "To summarize:" or "!". Either of those would escape my trap, so even if you don't agree with me on the etiquette of such an addition, would that really be an unreasonable requirement?

Another check/requirement I would like to see, though one which would be somewhat more complex to implement, is that all formatting tags -- or at least those that produce enclosure, such as "quote" and "code" -- are balanced. Being blalanced doesn't insure correct formatting, but being unbalanced guarantees that the formatting is not what was intended (unless the poster has a sicker sense of humor than my own), and results in a puzzle which may be difficult to "solve" correctly.

Oh Lor', we've been rumbled!

Chris

In general, they (we?) are not that smart. It might work for a really big company, with an organization that can provide such "services", but that doesn't explain why smaller companies' software displays the same faults. E.g., where are the training courses for Invision?

No, it's more often a kind of lazy arrogance. I remember suggesting to a former boss that we should consult our customer base about how they did a particular computation that we were going to include in our product. He said, "Why? We know what it's supposed to be." I pointed out that on questioning the members of our programming group I had discovered four conflicting versions of "what it's supposed to be." He changed the subject.

Hear, hear! As a former pro and now amateur programmer (I maintain my own music composition program, UltiMusE), I knwo full well that simple, direct fixes are something I do as soon as I or someone else sees the need. Fancy new features or complex fixes tend to keep getting deferred.

I second this. At least, the software that displays the completed reply on the Forum should try to do the best with the quotes as they are. The poster/viewer could then see which way his quotes are out of balance.

As it stands, the program seems to pre-check all quotes for balance, and if not, then the entire post is displayed literally (with the quote tags showing as regular text). Having solved these "puzzles" a few times already, I would much rather be discussing concertina issues in the time available
--Mike K.