Patch posting code to remove quoted text if it's the entire article, please

[CarlJ]

All too frequently, people hit "Reply" on the article itself, when they have a short comment to make, and leave the entire article quoted in. So you get 600 words of repetition followed by their 10 word contribution. It's a first world problem, to be sure, but it's annoying to scroll past.

I'm thinking it wouldn't be horribly difficult to add a test when a comment is posted, which says, "if the quoted content at the start of the post (if any) exactly matches the original posted story, just completely remove the quoted text." If you intentionally quote a sentence or a paragraph or some such, it wouldn't match the test, and it'd go through just fine.

 

[arn]

Arn’t quotes hidden behind an expand button?

arn

 

[CarlJ]

Arn’t quotes hidden behind an expand button?

Two answers: one, no not entirely, and two, not at all if that comment ends up displaying with the article on the main page (outside of the forums) - at that point it's an eyesore, because you'll invariably get a comment quoting the 100 line article to add a 2 line reply. Makes scrolling through the (highest rated) comments displayed below an article less compelling. At that point you end up with, say 150 lines of comments on the page, and 100 of that 150 is someone who clicked the wrong button and then didn't clean up after themselves.

I've pointed it out to people once or twice, hoping they'd clean it up. I think I got scolded by a mod once for doing so. If the system just trimmed it up-front, it wouldn't be a problem, and the website would look nicer.

 

[arn]

We can trim it on the article pages

 

[CarlJ]

We can trim it on the article pages

Thanks, that would be awesome.