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In a discussion @SorrelVesper suggested if it would be possible to add some spoilers!

The point is often answers become very long if we add all references (Quran Verses, ahadith/hadith texts etc.) so it would be fine to reduce the size for those who don't want to read those references explicitly and keep it for those who would like to have most necessary information in front of them.

On the other hand many people add comments like "could you please link only the hadith to make your answer more readable", so i think this could be a midway!

Would that be possible?

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    For reference, spoilers tags are supported and implemented on certain sites (see: meta.stackexchange.com/a/71396/132874); while we could possibly use the same markdown ( >! ), the way they implement it isn't quite what you're asking for here, which would mean you're asking for a significant overhaul of an existing system.
    – goldPseudo Mod
    Commented Feb 4, 2016 at 19:10
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    At the very least, it would very likely need to wait until we graduate and get our own custom CSS.
    – goldPseudo Mod
    Commented Feb 4, 2016 at 19:16
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    @goldPseudo will we ever reach the stage of graduation? Lately I'm a bit pessimistic about that!
    – Medi1Saif Mod
    Commented Feb 5, 2016 at 6:24
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    Graduation is entirely dependent on the community working together long enough to actually graduate. So the real question is, can you ever put a bunch of Muslims in the same room without them fighting?
    – goldPseudo Mod
    Commented Feb 5, 2016 at 6:31
  • An other point i might add to your last comment on the dependence of "Graduation" or ask is: are (we) Muslims to lazy to keep a community like this alive?
    – Medi1Saif Mod
    Commented Feb 5, 2016 at 7:06
  • I'd say apathetic more than lazy. People need to want to make a repository of high-quality Q&A, but too many of our regulars just want a regular forum and/or soapbox and still can't be bothered to learn how (and why) the Stack Exchange model works.
    – goldPseudo Mod
    Commented Feb 5, 2016 at 7:18

2 Answers 2

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I've long considered writing up a like this, making blockquoted text collapsable by default, but refrained because I worried it would open up too much opportunity for abuse.

The site has had a long history of users just blindly throwing around lists of evidences (not to mention blatant copy-paste of third-party articles) with little to no context, without the willingness (or apparently even the ability) to critically analyse them. And given that these are often posted in answers to questions that also don't demonstrate the willingness (or apparently even the ability) to critically analyse them, they rarely seem all that helpful to anyone.

Stack Exchange is geared toward focussed answers to focussed questions, and blind blanket-posts are anything but: As I see it, allowing one to hide such evidences to avoid distracting others is uncomfortably close to encouraging people to stuff their answers with evidences — which may be only tangentially relevant — just because they might be useful to someone (rather than take the effort to determine what actually is useful to the questioner and focus their post accordingly).

In almost every case where I recall actually wanting to collapse lengthy evidences, it's less because they were distracting and more because they plain weren't adding anything useful to the actual answer. In such cases, they shouldn't just be masked, they probably shouldn't be there at all.

Now I'm not saying that this is the case at all with your own linked post; it appears well-written both in its original form and with the added block-quotes (although I would've gone with inline quotes, that's just a stylistic preference). But there's the rub: Your answer seems perfectly fine in both forms. Since there is no significant improvement by having the quotes, nor a significant improvement by removing the quotes, I don't see any significant improvement to be gained by adding a new feature to collapse the quotes.

The "spoiler" idea definitely has some merit here, but given the potential for abuse I would prefer to see more concrete examples where implementing it would show a marked improvement that can't be obtained by just pruning a bunch of irrelevant text.

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    The idea was not to hide the 'irrelevant' text. The scenario that made this idea was this: We have references from Quran o Hadith that are constantly used in different answers/questions (they must be a copy-paste, for obvious reasons). We thought it would be more appropriate to hide the repeated references and just show what the answerer makes of them. That way we can have a short answer for those who just want to take the answerer's word for it and for others who want to fully analyze it, they can have the references. At first glance we don't discourage the users from reading the answer.
    – user14305
    Commented Feb 7, 2016 at 10:02
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    @SorrelVesper Again: A concrete example where this would actually show a marked improvement would be helpful. If the information in the answer is useful to the question, it should be visible without needing the extra clicks; if it's not useful, it shouldn't be there at all. What you're suggesting is that information might be useful for some people and not for others (which may or may not include the actual questioner); this to me just says it should be two separate questions entirely.
    – goldPseudo Mod
    Commented Feb 7, 2016 at 10:08
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    You partially understood my comment. What I am saying is that some people might care about the references from Quran o Hadith, while others would be fine if they could just get a short answer such as 'Yes' or 'No'. For example: Is Hijab an Islamic Obligation? So the summarized answer could come down to a simple 'Yes it is agreed upon that it is while still some differences are there.' And we can post the difference of opinions (which may or may not be what the questioner wants). But it may benefit someone who wants to know it with full references.
    – user14305
    Commented Feb 7, 2016 at 10:58
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    I just remembered one more perfect use case. Remember there are different Fiqh and different madhab and answerer can sometimes post references/fatwa/rulings from all of the fiqh/madhab and/or like 'Sunni/Shia' views and keep the view that is requested by questioner as open while hiding the other. I believe this site is not for questions that are specific to individual. The site purpose is to benefit as many people as it can and to keep a knowledge stack that can be referred to whenever we want to know about something that's here. Answers get updated years after posted and get improved.
    – user14305
    Commented Feb 7, 2016 at 11:03
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Current markdown already supports spoilers:

This is a spoiler than only appears when you move your mouse over it!

See this SE meta post for more information.

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    If these "spoilers" take the same space as the posted text, then I ask myself what is the use of them?
    – Medi1Saif Mod
    Commented Jun 23, 2016 at 7:50
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    @Medi1Saif, they hide the content from the viewer to avoid spoilers. The feature you are looking for is not spoiler but folding of the text. I don't think that is likely to be implemented by SE for two reasons: 1. they like readers to see all the text to catch any errors. 2. they don't implement features unless they are really required or asked for by a considerable number of sites (preferably launched sites).
    – Kaveh
    Commented Jun 23, 2016 at 8:40
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    @Medi1Saif, that said, it is possible to implement the folding as a userscript if someone really wants it enough to sit and write one (maybe someone has already done so?).
    – Kaveh
    Commented Jun 23, 2016 at 8:42
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    I think so. As a spoiler as you've shown doesn't make sense because if i wanted to keep the text that long i would just post it as is. And the problem we started from is that I wanted to avoid a "too long" post, so i linked some quran verses, while Sorrel Vesper wanted the linked quran verses displayed!
    – Medi1Saif Mod
    Commented Jun 23, 2016 at 8:44
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    @Medi1Saif, the spoiler features is rather useful, e.g. on some science sites people hide the full answer in a spoiler quote and put hints in plain text, on sites about movies, books, etc. they are used to hide the information which may spoil the movie, book, etc. for the reader, ... As I said what you are looking for is not spoilers but folding.
    – Kaveh
    Commented Jun 23, 2016 at 8:49
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    You can try to see if you can convince SE to use something like this.
    – Kaveh
    Commented Jun 23, 2016 at 8:50

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