I’ve been trimming down some forum messages, taking away quotes that simply repeat what was just said right above, but since this feels somewhat intrusive and it continues to happen, I’d like to clarify the point and open for discussion.
The practice of quoting is most useful when responding to a very specific point of a large message in a way that would be confusing otherwise, or when the topic has moved on and one wants to respond to point made earlier on that is now out of scope and again it would be confusing otherwise. When that’s not the case, let’s please refrain from quoting the points being responded to, as it offers no value and instead increases the amount of text and noise in the conversation.
If you click on the “Reply” button which is right below the message being replied to (or respond via email), Discourse (the forum software) even marks the exact message being responded to in your reply, and allows one to click on it to get the full context of your message.