Quote Tags

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Now that I think about it, I think the existence of the quote tags in vBulletin has degraded the quality of discussions on SFN. Instead of constructing a well-reasoned response to another user's post, you can merely take it apart sentence by sentence without having to construct a solid cohesive thought of your own.

 

Think about how "proper" debates -- the ones you'd have in a debate competition -- work. Instead of stopping your opponent every three sentences to correct him, you think about his statements for a while, determine the best response, and deliver one well-reasoned speech that refutes it. (Ideally.) But the quote tags make it easy to just say "no, you're wrong" for every single little niggling detail. And I have a feeling that it feels less confrontational when you don't pull apart a post piece by piece.

 

Does anyone agree? I think some of our discussions might be made better if we all make less liberal use of the quote tags.

 

(Note: Quoting individual sentences of this post to respond to is totally not creative.)

[Phi for All]

I disagree. Many people are right most of the time but have a few bits wrong, or they use good reasoning in most places but fall to fallacy at a weak moment. The quote tags allow you to support and add to good arguments without giving that support to the bad parts.

 

Given the human inclination to key on the negative, I think many posters would look less favorably on posts that held a few negative comments among the positive. With tags, you can single out the parts that you object to.

Edited January 25, 2009 by Phi for All
thought this was in Mods

[Daecon]

"Now that I think about it, I think the existence of the quote tags in vBulletin has degraded the quality of discussions on SFN. Instead of constructing a well-reasoned response to another user's post, you can merely take it apart sentence by sentence without having to construct a solid cohesive thought of your own."

 

That's assuming people would always use the tags. Would removing the tags themselves actually solve the problem?

[Sayonara]

Now that I think about it,

So you'd have us believe.

 

I think

Ha, right.

 

the existence of the quote tags in vBulletin has degraded the quality of discussions on SFN.

That's just a hypothesis. Show us the evidence!

 

Instead of constructing a well-reasoned response

Can't you do that with the use of

?

 

to another user's post,

Redundant this bit. Occam's razor my friend!

 

you can merely

Emphasis mine. "Merely" only applies if you don't come up with anything to go between the quotes.

 

take it apart sentence by sentence without having to construct a solid cohesive thought of your own.

Criticism requires solid cohesive thought. You can't know something is wrong by comparing it to "nothing".

 

Think about how "proper" debates -- the ones you'd have in a debate competition -- work.

The ones we'd have in a debate competition, i.e. not on a web forum.

 

Instead of stopping your opponent every three sentences to correct him,

Which would be funny, but never mind...

 

you think about his statements for a while, determine the best response, and deliver one well-reasoned speech that refutes it. (Ideally.)

Yeah, we tried that.

 

But the quote tags make it easy to just say "no, you're wrong" for every single little niggling detail.

Which we like.

 

And I have a feeling that it feels less confrontational when you don't pull apart a post piece by piece.

It's less confrontational because it's less read. People specifically look for direct responses to their own posts and skim the paragraph-posts which don't seem to be aimed at anyone in particular.

 

Does anyone agree?

No. Or do I? Is this post just satire?

 

I think

LIES!

 

some of our discussions might be made butter

Comedy misquote option.

 

if we all make less liberal use of the quote tags.

You had to bring politics into it didn't you?

 

(Note: Quoting individual sentences of this post to respond to is totally not creative.)

Shut it.

[swansont]

I disagree. The medium here is writing, and you're trying to apply the rules for a spoken debate. I think the bulk of the areas in the forum do not normally contain debate-style discussions. That's not how most scientific discussion proceed — there isn't really a case for something and a case against it; if a theory fails, it fails. It's in discussions like this, where you have stated a position and tried to make a case to support it, where this might apply.

 

If the poster is wrong — has cited something factually incorrect or has used a logical fallacy — why is it necessary to form a cohesive counter-argument? The quote tags, properly used, reduce confusion because everyone knows to whom you are responding.

[D H]

No. Or do I? Is this post just satire?

 

Nicely done.

[iNow]

I can easily see both sides of this, and I completely understand the motivation for Cap'ns thread. I cannot tell you how many times I've simply ignored a response because it used to the quote tags to chop every single sentence and nit pick it. I've seen this used countless times in discussions on evolution v. creationism, and on other forums where religion is allowed to be discussed.

 

The challenge, as noted by several already above, is that sometimes individual comments or errors really warrant focused and special correction. I refer specifically to the comments by both Phi and Swansont. When you are dealing with mature and intelligent members like those two then you need not worry about the "non-argument through over-zealous parsing of words" approach. You know when you read their posts that there is an overall message being delivered, and the parsing is for good reason.

 

However, there are a lot of folks who use this over-parsing technique to essentially snipe an opponents position without ever actually addressing it. I had this happen to me a lot in the gay marriage thread. I'd make a long and (what I consider to be) well-reasoned post with links to supporting information and supplements from our constitution, citing precedent and showing parallels to other progressive issues, and I'd get a few one word or one sentence replies to minimal quotes which really had nothing to do with the overall points being made. Yet, in fairness, I've also done this over-parsing of quotes myself when the post to which I was responding was so absolutely incoherent that it was jibberish... a lot of "what does this even mean?" and "huh?" and "no, this is simply false" responses, so I'm culpible myself.

 

Regardless, as I said... I tend to ignore those types of responses as fruitless and non-helpful. It would be nice if the people who fall into that group would devote more time to organizing their opinion and sharing explanations as a larger story being told, but it's a case-by-case thing, and many people who over-parse probably aren't the types to read suggestion threads like this anyway, so you may be already preaching to the choir.

 

Sorry. I'm still on my first cup of coffee today. I'm being too verbose. In short, I agree Cap'n, but I also think it's person specific and depends on the context of the thread, not some community wide issue which warrants special protocols or rules.

[Mokele]

I'd also like the point out that we should be attempting to emulate scientific debate here, not political debate, and in the former, such line-by-line comments are frequent (and indeed, every review I've gotten of a paper submitted to a peer-review journal came in point-by-point format, with a sort of 'summary' at the beginning).

[Phi for All]

In short, I agree Cap'n, but I also think it's person specific and depends on the context of the thread, not some community wide issue which warrants special protocols or rules.

This is a good point. Some people can use the tags to (seem to) destroy an argument peicemeal, like tearing a tapestry thread by thread because it's too strong when whole. It's usually a lot of little straw men designed to hold little bits up to ridicule.

 

But, as in the case of this post, I chose to highlight the part of iNow's post I wished to agree with and elaborate on. He can safely assume I agreed with the rest but had nothing to add. It's as clear why I did this as it is when someone misuses it when you're paying attention. I actually think it makes spotting fallacious arguments easier because the fallacies are applied to specific bits and not the whole post.

[Baby Astronaut]

I think people would have to get in the habit of mentioning who they're responding to, what page on the thread, and what part of the conversation. Plus, what about short references from other threads or even a website source?

[Mr Skeptic]

Now that I think about it, I think the existence of the quote tags in vBulletin has degraded the quality of discussions on SFN. Instead of constructing a well-reasoned response to another user's post, you can merely take it apart sentence by sentence without having to construct a solid cohesive thought of your own.

 

Its possible, but I think quotes are better than the alternative. They ensure that people know who is talking to whom and about what. I think part of the problem is that people might start responding to something without even reading the whole post or even paragraph. In many cases an argument is good even if some of the details are wrong, and the use of quotes makes nitpicking too easy.

 

Think about how "proper" debates -- the ones you'd have in a debate competition -- work.

 

They have two clearly marked sides and a moderator, right? But here we have lots of people talking to lots of other people across large time frames, with the occasional tangent. And the mods are here more to prevent anarchy than to guide the discussion.

 

Instead of stopping your opponent every three sentences to correct him, you think about his statements for a while, determine the best response, and deliver one well-reasoned speech that refutes it. (Ideally.) But the quote tags make it easy to just say "no, you're wrong" for every single little niggling detail. And I have a feeling that it feels less confrontational when you don't pull apart a post piece by piece.

 

Does anyone agree? I think some of our discussions might be made better if we all make less liberal use of the quote tags.

 

Part of the problem is the danger of splitting a thought to criticize each part independently, which like Phi for all says is like an army of little strawmen. Such "point by point rebuttals" are long and uninteresting, and sometimes the only thing they really say is that the poster disagrees and is good at nitpicking.

 

On the other hand, sometimes splitting things up is necessary or at least clearer. Some people write one giant paragraph, and sometimes people ramble with many separate thoughts close together. I usually ignore these, but if I answer them I need to split things up to remain clear. On the other hand, responding to larger portions allows people to disregard someone's argument without pointing out a specific flaw, or for someone to disregard a counterargument because it did not point out a specific flaw.

 

(Note: Quoting individual sentences of this post to respond to is totally not creative.)

 

So non-creative that you beat me to it yourself All in all, I think quote tags are better than the alternative, and I'll just ignore posts where they seem to be abused (eg when most of the quotes are single sentences or less, and the replies for the first few are just nitpicking). Perhaps a caution not to overuse quotes should be included in the netiquette.

[iNow]

Think about how "proper" debates -- the ones you'd have in a debate competition -- work. Instead of stopping your opponent every three sentences to correct him, you think about his statements for a while, determine the best response, and deliver one well-reasoned speech that refutes it. (Ideally.) But the quote tags make it easy to just say "no, you're wrong" for every single little niggling detail. And I have a feeling that it feels less confrontational when you don't pull apart a post piece by piece.

 

Just an observation here, and it's little more than personal anecdote, but I've noticed that those on the site here who have been arguing in favor of Prop 8 and those who argue that we should not allow the word marriage to be used for same sex couples (that it should only be called a marriage if it applies to "one man and one woman") tend to parse every sentence and respond in isolation (picking tiny nits), instead of forming larger, more referenced and supported cases for their position.

 

Just an observation that I thought I'd share while it was on my mind...

 

 

EDIT: Looking back, it appears I already said this same thing in post #7. Sorry all. I guess it's just still happening 2 months later, and I'd forgotten that I'd already brought it up.

Edited March 14, 2009 by iNow