The practice of post dissection - good or bad?

[Memnoch]

Post dissection. No, I'm not talking about looking a frog's body parts after we've slit it open, but of the practice of taking a forum/bulletin board post and quoting and replying to each point in isolation, in consecutive rather than concurrent order, for whatever reason. Also known as post shredding, all of us have done it at some point or another - we've taken a large post and broken it up into itty bitty pieces and replied to each point that was raised.

Something like this. And to show that I've done it myself, the below example is a discussion between myself and someone else (an Indian cricket fan named Idare) on a cricket website I visit now and then (this took place some time ago - my posts are in silver, his are in green). You don't have to read it all or follow the specific arguments, you'll get the point I'm trying to make soon enough - and it's not related to the topic discussed in the example. . You can skip to the bottom of my post if you like.

My opening post:

G'day Idare. We beat Zimbabwe by an innings and 197 runs. The minimum expectation Australia would have had would be to beat Zim by an innings at least. As for Zimbabwe being pisspoor, we can only play who is in front of us, and we certainly won't be doing anyone any favours, be they India, England, Zim or Bangladesh. But I'm confused as to how you may have arrived at the conclusion that individual interests were placed before team interests? You may be getting confused here, Idare - it wasn't Ponting who said that, it was Inzamam. What I can say with a considerable degree of assurance is that it would be un-Australian to chase a personal record at the cost of victory. One final thing - OZ just love playing mind games...

His reply to me, shredding my post (he's the green one)

quote: G'day Idare. We beat Zimbabwe by an innings and 197 runs. The minimum expectation Australia >would have had would be to beat Zim by an innings at least.

hm?so Aussies played below the expectations in the other games?Actually there was no team goal to go for 700,evident from the fact that as soon as Hayden got out,the innings was declared.One thing I agree,it did not endanger the rsult of the game.

As for Zimbabwe being pisspoor, we can only play who is in front of us, and we certainly won't be doing anyone any favours, be they India, England, Zim or Bangladesh.

so mean of you!

But I'm confused as to how you may have arrived at the conclusion that individual interests were placed before team interests?

Don't we all know that Steve was picked in the team on the condition that he retire after the series?Almost everyone in Australlia was for sacking him even before the last Ashes.

You may be getting confused here, Idare - it wasn't Ponting who said that, it was Inzamam.

Are you sure I am the one who is confused?Read this
http://www.cricketnext.com/news1/nex...002.htm</font>

What I can say with a considerable degree of assurance is that it would be un-Australian to chase a personal record at the cost of victory.

well...that is breastbeating...every country will say so...

One final thing - OZ just love playing mind games...

don't we know!Buchanan and his leaked letters...

[/QUOTE]And then my reply to him, shredding his post:

quote: quote: G'day Idare. We beat Zimbabwe by an innings and 197 runs. The minimum expectation Australia would have had would be to beat Zim by an innings at least.

hm?so Aussies played below the expectations in the other games?Actually there was no team goal to go for 700,evident from the fact that as soon as Hayden got out,the innings was declared.One thing I agree,it did not endanger the rsult of the game.[/QUOTE]G'day Idare. Of course there was no team goal to go for a specific run target - we're not playing one-day cricket here. The point is to amass enough runs to not have to bat again. If someone is set and scoring at a good rate, then it's not unreasonable to try and get as high a first-innings total as possible. Once they get out then of course the scoring rate will drop. Seeing as the next player in after Hayden was Bichel there was little point in continuing. You're missing the point - the point is that personal records are fine as long as they don't detract from team goals. In this case Matty's getting the record did not detract from the team goal.

quote: As for Zimbabwe being pisspoor, we can only play who is in front of us, and we certainly won't be doing anyone any favours, be they India, England, Zim or Bangladesh.

so mean of you![/QUOTE]Course it's mean. You play Test cricket, you don't expect any favours. If you need favours then you don't deserve to play Test cricket. And losing builds character. I don't remember the Windies doing us any favours in the 70s and 80s. I don't see India doing Zimbabwe any favours (granted, you did draw your last series in Zim, but that's your prerogative to do that).

quote: But I'm confused as to how you may have arrived at the conclusion that individual interests were placed before team interests?

Don't we all know that Steve was picked in the team on the condition that he retire after the series?Almost everyone in Australlia was for sacking him even before the last Ashes.[/QUOTE]Hmm, this is a good point - if we'd picked Lehmann instead of Steve we may have well destroyed you guys instead of letting you escape with a draw - which was lucky for you. So from a short-term point of view perhaps the individual was placed before the team. But from a long term point of view we wanted Steve out of the team so from a long term point of view the team was actually put ahead of the individual. In any case, Lehmann was injured, so we had to make do with Steve.

quote: You may be getting confused here, Idare - it wasn't Ponting who said that, it was Inzamam.

Are you sure I am the one who is confused? Read this www.cricketnext.com/news1/next/ponting/interviews002.htm .
.
[/QUOTE]Hmm, so he did say it. That's pretty devious of Ricky - trying to sh!t-stir and drive a wedge between Sachin, Rahul and Sourav which might be exploited in August. Maybe I don't give Ricky enough credit for playing mind games like Inzi and Javed did. Talk about sticking the boot in, eh! I feel sorry for your poor captain Rahul now, the sweat must be beading on his brow, the poor bugger.

quote: One final thing - OZ just love playing mind games...

don't we know!Buchanan and his leaked letters...[/QUOTE]Well, it keeps people on their toes...[/QUOTE]This discussion went for about 15 posts before we got bored with it and both moved on to other things - in the end it was like a bit of "yes I did", "no I didn't".

I'm not saying that this is bad - I'm sure all of us have done this at one time or another, to ensure that ALL points are responded to in an orderly, sequential fashion. Sometimes people can post a huge mass of stuff and this can be the only way to sort through it all, and ensure that all points are covered - something that is unique to this particular medium of written communication.

On the other hand, it can also be used as a tool to drill the person you're having the discussion with, as you essentially take a point, shine a spotlight on it, and reply to it in isolation, while making it difficult for the other person to respond. It takes a lot of time as you then essentially end up having back-and-forth multi-debates about multiple subtopics within your topic, with multiple quotes, to the point where people not involved in the debate (such as you guys with my example above) can find it difficult, if not impossible, to follow it all. It's also used by some as a mechanism to land some cheap shots and make someone look like a fool (which concerns me, but I'm sure nobody does that here ).

Again, I'm not saying that post dissecting is good or bad - I will refrain from posting my views until I've had a bit of feedback so as not to influence opinions - but I'm curious as to what the group here thinks of it. Any comments?

[ 07-08-2004, 08:22 AM: Message edited by: Memnoch ]

[johnny]

It's in one word: annoying. Some people literally want to reply on every single sentence in a post, it hurts my eyes (not really, but you know what i mean ). It's so much easier to bring up certain mentioned issues yourself, and proceed from there on.

[philip]

It depends. I use it when people I want to respond make one statement and use different arguments to support it. I think it gives a better view than quoting a whole post at ones and dumping all your counter-arguments under it, or just quote and change the text in the quote to something like long story.

It's bad if you're taking things out of their context so that the meaning changes a lot and start to attack that.

[Mouse]

Personally, deconstructing posts on a regular basis leads to a situation where sentences, phrases and individual words can be taken out of context. I have far more respect for those who look at a post in it's totality, use their intelligence to look beyond individual lines and reply to the overall sentiment.

I'm not saying it's all bad, and sometimes part of a particular post must be quoted to enhance or clarify the reply, however, to do it all the time IMHO, leads to more misunderstanding than clarification.

[Grojlach]

Well, I guess I realise what triggered this topic.
Not surprisingly, I'm not much of a fan. Too often it's used to respond to sentences in isolation, paying no heed whatsoever to the actual point of the debate, or the context in which the statements were made in the first place.

I'm not a native speaker, yet I've adopted a somewhat frivolous (or, if you like, sloppy) writing style. If people start quoting fragments in isolation, this often leads to misunderstandings regarding the actual purpose and meaning of my words - misunderstandings that could easily have been avoided if they had just looked at the entire post as a whole.

[ 07-08-2004, 08:37 AM: Message edited by: Grojlach ]

[shadowhound]

I dont mind shredding, as long as it does not go overboard. Just the occasional shread to point out a few specific sentances.

[Cerek the Barbaric]

I think "dissecting" is a useful way to post your comments in sequence to the relevant points of the person you're quoting. It is especially useful for breaking up longer posts so as to address the points made individually.

I've rarely seen dissected quotes take the original posters comments out of context. Besides, the original post is usually on the same page or previous page, so it is simple enough to go back and check the proper context if necessary.

It can be used to attack the poster over isolated snippets, but such are attacks are terribly transparant and other members see through them immediately. I still feel these incidents are in the minority. Most members are just breaking up a post so as to interject their replies into the appropriate spot in regards to points made in the original post.

If a post is rather long, I see no reason to repeat the posters points myself when I can just quote what they said to begin with and then post my replies in the proper sequence.

I've had my own posts dissected and I've had members respond to only one particular comment from a post. It doesn't bother me and I don't recall any incidents where I felt my words were taken out of context.

So I fully support the practice of "dissecting quotes", but agree that it should be used somewhat sparingly.

[Davros]

Post shredding is a total pain in the ass, and perpetrators should receive a one week suspension and be forced to suffer an "I am a former post shredder" avatar - something that looks like the Donkey on Shrek would do [img]smile.gif[/img] .

[Timber Loftis]

Maybe people who regularly post one to two line pop-offs that either generalize too much, offer too little explanation, or contain vague or ambiguous references should also suffer a similar fate, Davros.

The main reason it's done is becuase the "quote" feature allows you to make a reponsive post, while at the same time keeping the post you're responding to on the screen for ease of reference. At that point, it's just easiest to go insert a few quote tags and take the thing point-by-point. At least it shows the respect of paying attention to the individual points made by the original author, perhaps helping to avoid the "that's not what I said" defense.

[ 07-08-2004, 11:09 AM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]

[Aerich]

Like some others here, I don't mind the practice if done in moderation. It can be quite helpful in multi-level and multi-participant discussions, as it enables us to respond easily to several different points of view on one topic, all in one post.

I personally don't quote section-by-section, and I won't ::crosses his fingers and hopes:: [img]smile.gif[/img] . It gets difficult to read if there's no transitions between points, and also boring if you've been following the thread the whole way through.

I prefer to quote the whole shebang at the start of my post and respond to the points as they come. That way, you have the previous post at the beginning for ease of reference. Admittedly, this technique breaks down when responding to several different posts.

The other consideration, which I'm sure is at the root of why this topic was posted, is how easily the technique can degenerate into nitpicking and name-calling. Where I don't like it is when two people have obviously contrary points of view and go back-and-forth denigrating each others' sources, political views, and personal opinions. A string of several long point-by-point responses between two people tends to be unproductive for other readers. Not only does the value of the responses (usually) dwindle due to endless restatement of entrenched positions, but my scrollbar wears out. [img]smile.gif[/img]

I tend not to read the lengthy blow-by-blow responses, unless I am passionately interested in the subject. Reasons? Formatting and/or childish nitpicking.