You have to copy/paste each one into a single reply box, one at a time. And if you are grouping more than one individual, it makes it harder for each of them to respond back to you. Its a lame work-around for the 5 consecutive post limit.
I reply to posts as I read down the page. To lump post together, one would have to read all of the unread posts first. That is fine if there are only a few to go through, but when there are scores (or even hundreds in an active thread) that simply is not practical. Furthermore, if there are only a few unread posts when you enter the thread, the five post limit is rarely an issue. But it can easily become a problem when there are scores of new posts since your last visit.
I got that, but it still requires prior planning which can only be accomplished if you read through the unread posts before you begin to respond to them.
Here’s a solution, so take it or leave it. As you are reading and you find a post you’d like to respond to, you highlight it and select quote. The reply box at the bottom will appear and you type your response there. Now, instead of hitting reply, you minimize the reply box and then continue reading and when you come up to another post worthy of your thoughts, you highlight and quote again, which will add the quote to your “reply-in-progress”, like magic! I know, pretty cool stuff. Do this until you have satisfactorily reached the end of posts you’d like to respond to and then hit reply. Again, not rocket science.
And if I don’t find another post from that person to combine it with before I find another post that is addressed to me, I have to dump the quote and start over. That’s not viable solution. Raising the consecutive post limit resolves it completely. As I said before, the limit is intended to stop flooding, but as we all know, flooding can be addressed directly by the Mods if and when it occurs. I don’t understand why there is so much resistance to making a change. It serves all of us legitimate users equally and hurts no one. Why defend it?
I don’t hit reply on every single thing. I probably don’t reply to 95-98% of posts in a thread. And why should we have to plan ahead as to how we address posts in a thread just in the eventuality that nobody else will make a post before I have replied to five people? That is not how conversations work. Conversation is spontaneous. Having to follow a plan to compensate for something that usually does not happen is ridiculous.
There’s equal chance of someone else making a post (or multiple posts) either while if you’re using the multi-quote feature or while you’re in the middle of individually replying to each.
To me, multi-quote appears as a more spontaneous/easier option. You just highlight the posts you wish to reply to as you browse down and then reply to them in one post.
A lot less scrolling for yourself and others that are reading afterwards.