You should do away with it. I understand your motivation, but it is a bad idea- I _want_ to follow the basic netiquette, as established by decades of usenet... top posting is bad, bottom posting is only a little better. Best is to intersperse replies with what they reply to (really best is to thread, as well). The truncation makes good netiquette impossible. Further, it penalizes it- I spend an hour writing a post, and it dissappears, with no warning. 'Cause I know how to quote properly- seems unfair.
It is tempting to substitute tech for moderation, when moderation is beyond your means (as it is for most sites without large budgets), but it tends to work badly... put pressure on people to trim, but don't trim with a regex- a regex is not capable of doing it correctly, and the cure is worse than the disease. Much, much worse, imho.
And I should add that what will inevitably happen is that people will top quote, and copy and paste what they refer to into their message, since replies are not trunated.
mitiege wrote:
"You should do away with it. I understand your motivation, but it is a bad idea- I _want_ to follow the basic netiquette, as established by decades of usenet... top posting is bad, bottom posting is only a little better. Best is to intersperse replies with what they reply to (really best is to thread, as well). The truncation makes good netiquette impossible. Further, it penalizes it- I spend an hour writing a post, and it dissappears, with no warning. 'Cause I know how to quote properly- seems unfair.
It is tempting to substitute tech for moderation, when moderation is beyond your means (as it is for most sites without large budgets), but it tends to work badly... put pressure on people to trim, but don't trim with a regex- a regex is not capable of doing it correctly, and the cure is worse than the disease. Much, much worse, imho. "
Not much savings, really.