It would be helpful to know which post prompted your response.
The one immediately before it.
For people who read these posts via email, that is meaningless. By the time the response comes in, I’ve read and deleted the original and don’t know what the response is referring to – which is why everyone, when replying, should quote a small relevant section of the previous message to show context.
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When that happens to me I simply hit “Visit Topic” button where the site makes it very clear what is being replied to. It’s also where I always go to reply, as I am right now, so you’ll get a quote automagically.
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Sorry, what comment are you replying to?
PS Your original comment (before you edited) quoted me. Why did you delete that?
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I didn’t edit or delete that!
Does the discord system delete auto-quotes or something?!?
Update: Apparently it does!
Now that’s ironic!
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Right. Don’t quote the whole post. Just the section you’re replying to.
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Indeed! How bizarre. I see a reason that Discord might do that (longer and longer quoted bits as people don’t bother to edit) but it might have a minimum length of quote before it does it.
Discourse has fine-grained quoting rules and capabilities, but if you read and reply primarily by email, you will lose much of the nuance. The Web interface is the truth.
A few notes:
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Clicking the gray Reply button under a specific post replies to that post and links the two. Clicking the blue button at the bottom of the entire topic replies generally, such that there is no linking.
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Selecting a small amount of text in a message and clicking the Quote button (or pressing q) creates a reply that is linked.
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When there is a link based on a simple reply, the person making the original message is linked in the upper right corner. If you click their name, you jump to the original message.
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When there is a link based on a quoted reply, there is a two-part control that looks like a down-pointing caret and an up-pointing arrow in the right corner.
- Click the down-point caret to see more context for the quoted text.
- Click the up-pointing arrow to move up to the original message.
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I never reply via email (that feature is pretty much broken), but if I waited to read on the web, it would be like having to drive to the post office to get your mail. It’d be such a hassle I’d get the posts a month late and all at once!
Most of the time if I read an incomprehensible message because someone hasn’t quoted the context, I just delete it. It’s not worth my time to open it on the web to see what the person was talking about.
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I think the people who read TidBITS Talk on the Web consider it a near-daily visit. I gave up on the email notifications myself since I read literally everything that’s posted—it’s part of the job—and I don’t want to see things twice.
For my Finger Lakes Runners Club Discourse forum, I do leave email notifications on so I see what’s being said more quickly. The volume is also a lot lower. But I still reply to everything on the Web.
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Yeah, TidBITS Talk is in the Quick Access at the top of a new tab in Safari. It formats well on both phone and desktop, so much easier to read than the old mailing list which I struggled to keep on top of in the final years of its existence.
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Definitely my usage pattern. I have the main Talk page bookmarked. I open it at least once a day. All threads with new content are presented in boldface. For each such topic, I wheel-click it to open the new content in a new tab - which I read and then close the tab to go back to the list. I also use the avatar-menu in the upper-right corner to see notifications (mostly when someone likes or replies to something I posted).
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On macOS I have Talk saved to dock as it’s own little app (thanks Safari).
And on iOS I have Talk, and several other forums, in the Discourse Hub app.
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I read TidBits via email, where it comes to me, and RSS, where it comes to me. If I have to go get it, I’d forget.
I must be too old-fashioned or stuck in my groove. My main business is xDev Magazine, which is all about how to use Xojo for programming. They had a mailing list decades ago and I was an active poster, reading and responding nearly every day. Then they switched to a web forum and even though it would greatly benefit my business to be more involved, I only post there a few times a year. I just can’t work it into my workflow. My metaphor of having to go to the post office to get my mail is apt. It’s too much work and too out of sync with how I think.
Mail I keep open 24/7 and read it constantly. It’s simple and natural. I can read it on any device, any time. Keeping a certain webpage up and running and checking it constantly for updates that I may or may not care about is exhausting and feels like tedious work.
BTW, I am the same with TV. I’ve “time-shifted” TV shows since the 80s with VCRs to record and watch my shows when I want, not when they air. I later switched to DVRs and still use those extensively. I have all the streaming services and I just can’t get into using them. It takes me years to remember to watch a single season of a series – even ones I really like. I have a ton of “new” shows on my Netflix queue that I haven’t even started yet and the shows have already finished their run and been canceled years ago!
The bottom line: if it doesn’t come to me, it’s off my radar.
I can’t believe I’m alone in feeling this way.
It’s all just a matter of your daily habits.
For myself, I have a folder of bookmarks (mostly web comics) that I open into tabs and read every morning while having my coffee.
And another “frequently used” bookmark folder, containing stuff I check at least once a day. Mostly web-mail, but also a few forums (MacRumors and Apple Insider) where I check for replies to my comments and TidBITS Talk. I quickly skim through that folder a few times a day, usually when I’m taking a break from work.
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I do that via RSS. But again, that’s a “come to me” tech. It’s very similar in feel to email.