Tangled threads (was Just curious...)

[davewitley]

jujube wrote:

> I say this with a good deal of humility, as I'm a very new member 
to 
> HPFGU, but what has struck me about that list is the incredible 
> amount of posts with very involved quoting.  I've never seen a 
list 
> where so many quotes from so many other people are regularly 
> consolidated into responses.  Has this always been a feature of 
the 
> culture of this list?  I will admit it's quite daunting to me to 
read 
> a long post which quotes the arguments of several different 
people, 
> instead of just replying to one (or maybe two) people.

I think it has been.

Are you thinking of the long multiple-subject posts where a number 
of unrelated topics are dealt with in a single post with a title 
such as 'Farmer Hagrid; metathinking; Sinistra's gender; why I hate 
OOP', or those which draw together a number of posts from a single 
thread?

I like the latter, because they generally indicate that the poster 
has taken a big-picture view of the entire thread and is trying to 
advance the topic.  I find the multiple quotations helpful because 
they mean I don't have to go back to other posts to check what views 
are being addressed.

David