Swift wrote:Some people insist on quoting the previous reply in it's entirety when just answering it as the next poster would suffice.
Quoting is only useful if you want to highlight a particular point or a post that is further back.
Why quote what is there to be read immediately above??
On the contrary, I find it useful to know exactly what a post is 'answering'. Since posts can be edited or deleted at any time, some time in the future the context may not be there. That is to say, one may not always be able to read what is directly above. It gets more complicated when many people post in one thread at a time and posts are submitted in the time it takes you to write your reply - then your answer has no context at all because the post "immediately above" is not what you thought you were replying to.
You will find successful forums elsewhere on the internet do not prohibit quoting the post directly above. I do agree that excessively large quotes, either with lots of text or big images, is annoying.