

RFR: Does blockquoting lead to nastier discussions? - pg

(RFR = Request for Research)<p>I mentioned I was thinking of adding support for blockquotes, but boredguy8 pointed out that, while more convenient, this might actually make comment threads worse:<p>http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=248035<p>This brought back some alarming memories.  I can remember some really nasty arguments on reddit that included a lot of blockquoting.<p>So this would be an interesting question to know the answer to, if anyone wants to try a quick test.  Is blockquoting correlated with a nastier style of arguing?  E.g. is there any correlation between the amount of blockquoting and the use of insults, comments beginning with "Um," etc?  Scraping randomly chosen reddit comment threads might help answer this.  Are there any statistical differences (esp in word frequencies) between threads/comments with lots of blockquoting, and those with little?
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mechanical_fish
I often open my posts with a quote pulled from the comment that I'm responding
to, just so that the post will make more sense when pulled out of context;
e.g. on searchyc.com or when someone is scanning down the page.

But I think that not having formal blockquote formatting subtly encourages me
to avoid sprinkling blockquotes throughout my posts -- or, worse, sprinking my
words throughout an endless series of blockquotes. Instead I generally
restrict myself to one big blockquote, in italics, at the _start_ of my own
writing, and I think _very_ carefully before I try to insert a blockquote in
the middle of a post. Such mid-post quoting requires careful wording and
formatting to make the change in author clear, which is appropriate because it
encourages me to just write in my own words and leave other people's words
alone. :) I think that's a useful constraint.

The lack of blockquote formatting also encourages us to keep the blockquotes
as short as possible. And it helps the flow of comments and responses to flow
nicely down the page -- it's easy to see if a block of text is part of a post
or part of a response to that post, because (with the exception of code
blocks) only responses change the indentation.

In short, I think the missing blockquote formatting is a feature, not a bug.

~~~
hugh
_I often open my posts with a quote pulled from the comment that I'm
responding to, just so that the post will make more sense when pulled out of
context; e.g. on searchyc.com or when someone is scanning down the page._

Me too.

 _But I think that not having formal blockquote formatting subtly encourages
me to avoid sprinkling blockquotes throughout my posts -- or, worse, sprinking
my words throughout an endless series of blockquotes. Instead I generally
restrict myself to one big blockquote, in italics, at the start of my own
writing, and I think very carefully before I try to insert a blockquote in the
middle of a post. Such mid-post quoting requires careful wording and
formatting to make the change in author clear, which is appropriate because it
encourages me to just write in my own words and leave other people's words
alone. :) I think that's a useful constraint._

Totally. Needless blockquoting is really annoying.

 _The lack of blockquote formatting also encourages us to keep the blockquotes
as short as possible. And it helps the flow of comments and responses to flow
nicely down the page -- it's easy to see if a block of text is part of a post
or part of a response to that post, because (with the exception of code
blocks) only responses change the indentation._

I agree with this bit, too.

 _In short, I think the missing blockquote formatting is a feature, not a
bug._

Also, blockquoting just clutters up the page needlessly, with the same text
twice.

~~~
aston
But at least it wouldn't all be italicized.

------
thaumaturgy
I initally intended to read 100 random Reddit threads, counting posts
containing blockquotes with those not, and counting total inflammatory posts
in either case.

I've done four now and I'm getting really antsy.

I'd love to come up with an algorithm to automate this, but discerning a troll
post from an inflammatory post from an informative post algorithmically is an
Engineering-Very-Hard problem
[[http://fishbowl.pastiche.org/2007/07/17/understanding_engine...](http://fishbowl.pastiche.org/2007/07/17/understanding_engineers_feasibility)].

Anyway, of the four, so far the results have been surprising: Out of 457 total
read comments, there were only 25 blockquotes. Of the 25 blockquotes, there
were 5 that I (totally subjectively) considered "inflammatory", either because
of a strong personal attack, or because of a deliberate misquote of the author
("FTFY"). I only counted 15 inflammatory posts not containing a blockquote --
clearly, I wasn't counting comments that were just lame, tired repetitions of
a meme, lacking content, etc.

Because the sample set's so small, there isn't enough information for
statistical significance one way or the other. However, in
[<http://www.reddit.com/info/6s09o/comments/>], I did notice that there was a
pattern where posts containing blockquotes in a thread tended to be longer,
better written, more precise responses to the previous comment. The thread
might devolve into a pedantic debate between two people, but it was still more
of a discussion than many of the other threads that didn't contain blockquotes
at all.

~~~
ars
I quite agree with this. People will be nasty with or without blockquoting.

But with blockquoting you'll sometimes have very detailed line by line
replies/discussions. And compared to what's usually on reddit that's a big
improvement.

I assume the same will happen here. (Although you're starting with a better
base, so either you'll get a better result, or you'll revert to the median,
i.e. make it worse. No way to find out but to try.)

------
dhotson
I personally don't like the kind of arguments where each person responds by
splitting up the post and arguing paragraph by paragraph. I've found that it
often devolves into nitpicking of spelling and grammar, which I could care
less about.

I think arguments can sometimes be useful discussion, but I'd prefer that
people respond to a post as a whole rather than respond to each paragraph of a
post separately.

~~~
Hexstream
What about restrictions for the number of characters per blockquote and the
number of blockquotes per post? Say, 2 blockquotes per post and 512 characters
per blockquote.

------
mattmaroon
Wouldn't it be much easier to just implement it and see how it goes than to
start writing code to sift through redddit? You can always just pull the plug
on it if you feel it's having that effect.

I personally am comfortable with the fact that this place isn't really a
democracy when it comes to stuff like that.

------
aston
Seems kinda odd to _speculate_ about what would happen when we could just _do
it_ and find out. Especially for something so minor as a change from <i> to
<blockquote>.

If a post is bad, that's what the downvote arrow's for...

------
tdoggette
I know it sounds crazy, but something like *chan-style "threading" could be
useful. Each post on that software has a number in its header, and saying
">>123456" provides an anchor link to the above post. Clicking on the number
in the header of a post the link to it in the reply box automatically to save
copy/pasting. Also, ">text" makes the text green and italic, often used to
quote people.

It's simpler than blockquoting while still allowing people to be clear who
they're talking to and what about.

~~~
mechanical_fish
But... we have a system of indented replies! And I think it works great!

The best thing about the nifty indented reply system is that flame wars have a
characteristic shape on the screen that we all learn to fear: the Downward
Slope of Doom. It really makes skimming the page easier.

And you can always find a post's parent by clicking the "parent" tag.

------
attack
I believe this is called "Fisking".

