Can I quote you on that?
Quote sparingly, please: only as much as is needed to help others understand what your reply refers to. It follows from that that you should:
- Quote only the point or points you’re replying to;
- Quote a posting in its entirety only if it’s so short that to edit it would destroy the meaning;
- Quote from the directly preceding posting only if it’s a long one and you want to reply to a specific point or points (in which case, quote only those points).
If the immediately preceding posting is short, it will already be clear what you’re replying to. So quoting the immediately previous posting in its entirety serves no useful purpose and simply means that people reading the topic have to scroll through a lot of repeated material. Don’t do it. Ever.
On the other hand, don’t over-edit a quotation to the point where the original meaning is distorted; leave enough of the original words to keep the meaning clear, in fairness to the person whose words you’re quoting.
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