I wonder if had they taken the time to actually finish the game we'd have the ability to do this.

I'm so sick of the game being so mediocre and shallow because they didn't take the time to finish it properly.

You're throwing words in his mouth. He said that some things are sacrificed for the sake of being open world (more or less) and it's true in this case. I feel their attention was on environment and combat options. Thus, story and character depth were set aside

at least we can make quests active or inactive, that's enough for me

Bethesda didn't have to add editing the quest log to the game. What Bethesda needed to do was give us an option to say NO to a quest and pick it up later instead of just forcing the quest upon us when we talk to a stranger we don't know.

So sick of comments like this....

Especially when I start a new character, my quest log gets filled up way too quickly just by talking to people (even when I don't explicitly agree to do anything for them)...but these are quests that I've already done and/or choose not to do. And they take up so much space in my log, it's enough to actually bother me...it's like, I want to clear out my quest log, bad enough to the point that I start repeating these quests...my semi-OCD is making the game feel like work and it's starting to get boring...just because I can't drop quests.

We should at least be able to "hide" them.

This can be fixed with a mod, putting quests into two different categories. On the left, relevant fetch quests and on the right irrelevant fetch quests that get so repetitive you want to kill yourself and do nothing towards the games progression.

A mod that divides selected and deselected quests would do the job. Put them into two different windows and you would only have to see the quests that you are actively tracking. You could always go back to the deselected quests and select them if/when you wanted to do them.

I only recall a few situations where the game has forced a quest upon me, and even then it was usually for a good reason - something important happened and I was genuinely interested in knowing more about what happened.

In all the other situations, the quest was added because I chose dialogue options that would indicate I'm interested enough in the situation for the quest to be added to my quest log. When I'm not interested in a possible quest, I just finish the conversation. Simple as that.

This. Why is this not enough? Do you want them to come over and do the extra quests for you? How about the game pops a beer out of my computer too? Activate only the ones you want to do. Are you REALLY going to tell me it hurts peoples feelings that they are given quests they don't want when they have the ability to have them not show up on the map?

I swear the human race is deevolving.

Here's the thing. It's a http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWCMLfXbhfY. It's a book where your character writes his or her thoughts. Given the world of Skyrim, it's a substrate and marker system (book and pen for example).

If your character was carrying around a word processor, PDA, or tablet computer, then I think the inability to "delete" quests would carry significantly more weight.

Yep - shows a lack of attention to detail (and/or laziness)

I think the guards need tape on their mouths and it should fix most problems. I mean I usually dont even talk to any person who does not come up to me directly for help.
Thats why the redguards in whitefun are awesome.

Also, most quests can be declined in dialogue, its more so the option telling you in your journal *go here to do this quest* that bothers me more.

This thread can be summarized quite easily:

• Semi-OCD player complains about something that otherwise would not affect gameplay.
  
• 
  
• Another poster decides to trash the game overall, for no reason on the game's forum. Probably just trolling.
  
• 
  
• Argument ensues over generics of game.

So, to an actual response to the original post? I think the journal system works fine as it is, because the "active' quest feature is basically a hide/not-hide feature anyway. Just because you can see it doesn't mean you have to do anything even remotely related to it. Quests you don't do or aren't interested in (which, most quests you must agree to do anyway) will sink to the bottom and shouldn't be a problem. Hiding quests is a nice idea, but the game kind of has a feature like that in it's own way. The quest log system is definitely different from Oblivion and Morrowind, so you can't say it's something they didn't try to improve.

As for removing quests, that's just asking for crazy bugs. Quests in your log are the direct results of code in the game, caused by triggers (talking to someone, agreeing, stumbling into a place, etc). If you deleted a quest, you would be potentially screwing yourself over for the next step of the quest. You'd never know what it is, and quest items would be an issue. If you deleted a quest, would a related quest item no longer be a quest item? If it's one of a kind, it'd be a hell of a shame to try to do the quest later... only to find out you put the quest item in a non-permanent container. If you didn't make it so deleted quests didn't untrigger quest items for that, then you'd have a useless item stuck in your inventory (which already happens anyway).

So, then Bethesda would have to figure out a way to either have 1) quests restart from the very beginning (which seems somewhat dumb, to do something again for the hell of starting a quest again) or 2) revamping the quest item and trigger interface of the game. Sounds like a nightmare to me! It'd be easier to go with the hide function... and that's the point of the active quest indicator.

And... that's all I have to say about that. I'd ignore people who are just arguing the game is bad... they're on the forums for it in an irrevelant topic, so they're most likely trolling. Or just in a bad mood.

The Quest Log is not your Required Actions List

It's what people have offered to you. Take it or leave it, do it or don't- but the offer still stands.

This whole thing is a non-issue. There are plenty of actual issues with the game to complain about

MMO's don't count. You don't see a lot of one-shot quests in MMO's so accidently canceling one isn't an issue. They simply don't function by the same rules as single player games.

The problem is I CAN NOT LEAVE IT. I CAN NOT SAY NO. It I could say NO than it wouldn't be a problem.

You can say leave it but that means I have an option to decline it, I can't.

You're walking down the street in town. Two guys off to the side are talking about problems at the mine out East. You journal makes a note of this.

Take it: pay attention to that little mention in your journal, and go investigate.
Leave it: don't go investigate. Doesn't change the fact that you overheard that mention of trouble, and are aware of it. And the journal helpfully keeps note of that, in case you ever change your mind.

That's what he means by "you can take it or leave it". It's pretty simple.

You're walking down the street in town. Two guys off to the side are talking about problems at the mine out East. You journal makes a note of this.

Take it: pay attention to that little mention in your journal, and go investigate.
Leave it: don't go investigate. Doesn't change the fact that you overheard that mention of trouble, and are aware of it. And the journal helpfully keeps note of that, in case you ever change your mind.

That's what he means by "you can take it or leave it". It's pretty simple.