Users who don't "Quote" and "Reply"

[Mendalla]

So does anyone else have this problem? And if you do, how have you handled it?

I have a user, someone who has been with us since our predecessor board. She is a fairly strong Christian fundamentalist who frequently clashes with the mainstream of the board, who tend to be progressive Christians. She is not a totally terrible person, though, and we have never really had reason to discipline her save a couple times when she made questionable statements that she backed off quickly when confronted.

However, she either cannot, or will not, learn to use Quote and Reply and writes in a stream of consciousness, not especially grammatical style. As a consequence, separating her actual, original thoughts from things she quotes from either on or off site is next to impossible at times. I just got tripped up thinking I was responding to her when it was actually a sentence she quoted from someone else with no obvious attribution of the original source. (growl)

I and others have tried to explain how Reply works (Quote might be too much for them) without much success and we gave up a long time ago.

I hate to make it a moderation case because, frankly, we are often accused of being biased against religious conservatives and going after her for something relatively innocuous like this would be seen as evidence for that bias (in fact, only one religious conservative was ever banned and that was for harassment of other members and other behavioral issues, not their actual views or expression of them).

Thoughts?

 

[whynot]

Thoughts?

Visibly editing her posts might help.

 

[optrex]

I'm not sure visibly editing her posts would help when you can't determine where the content comes from.
You could try sending her a conversation outlining the exceptions point her to a topic or help page explaining with screenshots what needs to happen and why. Then put her in an approval queue and let her posts sit there for a while before you action them.
The "inconvenience" of her post becoming visible after 3 or 4 others have posted may prompt her to tow the line.

 

[Max Taxable]

we are often accused of being biased against religious conservatives

Might find one or more such, to put on staff. (if none already exist) Such staffer could then bridge the gulf in matters such as this. If your staff is not diverse, bias questions are natural.

 

[FTL]

Her inability to do something so basic and repeatedly smush everything together sounds to me like a sign of mental illness. I don't mean that as an insult, but as a genuine issue and I doubt that you can do anything to make her change her ways.

My suggestion might be a bit cruel / insensitive, but should help: use the Discourager on her and perhaps turn it up fairly high. She clearly doesn't contribute much of use and is giving everyone a headache, so quietly discouraging her from posting might be the best way to go about it. This is what I would do if it were my forum. Don't tell her you're doing it though, or she's likely to publically raise holy hell (pun intended) over it and give you an even bigger headache.

 

[beerForo]

If it really bothers you send a PM and offer helpful instruction. If it continues, move on.

 

[Forsaken]

While I don't do it for basic things like quote/replying, but for more technical thing like table of content/chapter usage in a thread, how to write guides in general and other things I just provide a guide in how to do things.

As @beerForo said, just send a PM and suggest how to structure their posts clearer and state it may help when they are discussing things, because you know yourself and others may have had a hard time following her posts.

Regarding worries about being accused of bias, you will almost always get those regardless of what you do, especially with something as divisive as religion beliefs. I do not think it's worth adding a staff member just to avoid accusation of bias, unless that staff member actually fits what you personally want as staff.

 

[Max Taxable]

unless that staff member actually fits what you personally want as staff.

Definitely.

 

[Kirby]

I'd ask myself a simple question:
Does that member make valuable contributions to the community and are those worth the effort?
If not I'd just send here a final notice to got her her stuff together and if it still doesn't work afterwards just ban the account; dealing with troublesome members that don't contribute much to the community IMHO just ain't worth it.

 

[tajhay]

Remove the quote button. Reply is sufficient in most cases. After all how many people use multi quote? Make it easy for users.

 

[Nicolas FR]

so @Mendalla complains that a user is not using the quote function and your solution is to remove the function?

 

[Mr Lucky]

so @Mendalla complains that a user is not using the quote function and your solution is to remove the function?

I agree, quote is very useful, especially as you may be referring to just one sentence out of a long post.

Multiquote is also very useful, but mostly for "power users" who can be bothered to find out what it actually does and use it as such.

 

[Kirby]

Reply is sufficient in most cases. After all how many people use multi quote? Make it easy for users.

Yes, reply is sufficient in many cases - except for those where cases multi-quote is really handy.
Multi-Quote isn't used often, but those who do use it are power users, eg. those that contribute hundreds or thousands of posts.

Personally, I'd not turn that feature off to make it easier for newcomers - but it might be worth considering to only offer this to experienced users (eg. after a certain amount of posts has been made).

 

[FTL]

Remove the quote button. Reply is sufficient in most cases. After all how many people use multi quote? Make it easy for users.

Terrible idea. Makes it harder not easier. I use it all the time.

 

[tajhay]

so @Mendalla complains that a user is not using the quote function and your solution is to remove the function?

There is a difference between the quote button (multi quote) and actually quoting.

Removing it simplifies the UX and removes a button that is rarely used. Users can still quote by using reply button and highlighting text to quote. Teaching users the difference between quote and reply can sometimes just cause confusion especially new members.

 

[Manna Central]

So does anyone else have this problem? And if you do, how have you handled it?

I have a user, someone who has been with us since our predecessor board. She is a fairly strong Christian fundamentalist who frequently clashes with the mainstream of the board, who tend to be progressive Christians. She is not a totally terrible person, though, and we have never really had reason to discipline her save a couple times when she made questionable statements that she backed off quickly when confronted.

However, she either cannot, or will not, learn to use Quote and Reply and writes in a stream of consciousness, not especially grammatical style. As a consequence, separating her actual, original thoughts from things she quotes from either on or off site is next to impossible at times. I just got tripped up thinking I was responding to her when it was actually a sentence she quoted from someone else with no obvious attribution of the original source. (growl)

I and others have tried to explain how Reply works (Quote might be too much for them) without much success and we gave up a long time ago.

I hate to make it a moderation case because, frankly, we are often accused of being biased against religious conservatives and going after her for something relatively innocuous like this would be seen as evidence for that bias (in fact, only one religious conservative was ever banned and that was for harassment of other members and other behavioral issues, not their actual views or expression of them).

Thoughts?

We have a lady in one of our small groups who can sometimes cause similar issues, we deal with this in a loving, directional and firm way.

So my suggestion would be to open a dialogue with her, explain the the situation as you see it, and ask her kindly for her help in resolving the issue.

When explaining things to her use graphics/videos as needed, give examples etc. - I find this helps.

Also be firm, but kind and loving at the same time, and let her know that you will be keeping an eye on her messages and if necessary also pre-moderating them until "she gets it" - work with her on this and offer further help and assistance as needed.

Our particular lady is still with us, she offers good insight and discourse during our meetings, occasionally old habits slip in but a gentle reminder usually gets her back on track - It takes time and effort but is worth it in the long run.

Also if I may suggest, pray into the situation

God bless,

Keith

 

[Mr Lucky]

Users can still quote by using reply button and highlighting text to quote.

That doesn't work if it's some text at the bottom of a long reply quote, because it won't be visible in the quote as the box hides the text after the firts 6 or 7 lines.

I am wondering though, we should clarify are we talking about the + Quote button (toggle) next to reply, or the tooltip quote you get when you highlight some text. I have to admit I just got a bit confused there.

 

[Mendalla]

I am wondering though, we should clarify are we talking about the + Quote button (toggle) next to reply, or the tooltip quote you get when you highlight some text. I have to admit I just got a bit confused there.

I am thinking of the buttons at the bottom myself. Highlighting to reply/quote by section is probably over this person's head if they won't even use the obvious buttons at the bottom of every message.

Thanks all. You've given me some things to mull over.

Remove the quote button. Reply is sufficient in most cases. After all how many people use multi quote? Make it easy for users.

Given that this user won't even use Reply, I doubt this is a solution here, but I definitely would consider if I was doing a "stripped down" interface for some reason. As you said in a subsequent post, you would still have +Quote available on highlighting tooltip.

 

[Forsaken]

There is a difference between the quote button (multi quote) and actually quoting.

Removing it simplifies the UX and removes a button that is rarely used. Users can still quote by using reply button and highlighting text to quote. Teaching users the difference between quote and reply can sometimes just cause confusion especially new members.

The only way it simplifies UX is by removing a button, whereas it decreases usability of replying by requiring you to click Reply (which forces you to scroll down) and then scroll back up to continue where you were if you were not at the end of the thread, effectively creating a worse user experience.