Replying to topics with "Quote"

[sovereignsteve]

I have often thought that topics with several images can get very overblown after a few replies that quote the original post. It makes scrolling to the bottom a chore and also reading the replies buried among the miriad of images.

On a PC this is but an inconvenience that I live with but on a metered mobile connection, it is a definite problem.

I discovered this over the weekend when I was browsing t'internet and scanning the forum for new posts. I was away from home and had to do with an ipad using internet sharing on my phone. In a very short time, i had used several hundred megs af data, approx half my monthly allowance.

Now when I am replying to such posts at home, I tend to delete the images from my reply. This is a PITA and I notice very few other people do this.

Would it be possible to have a reply option alongside "quote" along the lines of "Quote without images" or similar?

This would make browsing the site a lot quicker, save data (which would also benefit the site's download bandwidth and save money) and make reading these posts a lot easier and pleasurable.

[ChrisSilver]

On 24/03/2019 at 23:55, sovereignsteve said:

I have often thought that topics with several images can get very overblown after a few replies that quote the original post. It makes scrolling to the bottom a chore and also reading the replies buried among the miriad of images.

Yes I agree, and although there are some instances where the images specifically needed to be quoted, I also believe it is more beneficial when a member only quotes specific text they wish to reference, and not just excluding the photos, but also only including the specific part of the text they wish to reference. It is very easy to highly text and only quote specific text, or to hit the quote button then delete out the part not needed. You will find most members are using the quote feature very effectively. More user awareness would increase this, perhaps some user guides with tips on using the quote feature etc.
 

On 24/03/2019 at 23:55, sovereignsteve said:

This would make browsing the site a lot quicker, save data (which would also benefit the site's download bandwidth and save money) and make reading these posts a lot easier and pleasurable.

I don't think it would, I may be wrong but I think the same image is only downloaded once as I know for sure that when you quote an image, the image seen is the same image (not a copy of it in a different location) also even if it wasn't the amount of data your 4G phone uses to look at a photo is relatively extremely small, it is watching video content that eats up data, followed by streaming music (which isn't that bad but way more than photos) I browse the forum all the time and 
 

On 24/03/2019 at 23:55, sovereignsteve said:

Would it be possible to have a reply option alongside "quote" along the lines of "Quote without images" or similar?

Thank you for the suggestion, in theory it is a very good suggestion either implementing it like this or to simply avoid images being quoted when someone hits the quote button. Unfortunately though it is a native setting in the forum software, and although it may seem simple to do it would require extensive custom work which may need to be be redone each time the forum software is updated to a later version, it would also require a search of the text to search for the images and to remove them, this would increase server load significantly.

So in conclusion I believe that the best solution to the problem would be to increase awareness of effectively using the quoting feature for the best viewing pleasure for all.