Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style

MOSBIO proposal needs more participation

Seeking more participation for my proposal at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biographies#A slight expansion of MOS:JR.

The proposal has been quiet for 10 days, stalemated around a relatively minor detail. To wit: After considering the recent changes to MOS:JR, which established a default of no comma in John Doe Jr., which of the following surname-first forms should be preferred: Doe, John Jr. or Doe, John, Jr.?

Your participation is needed. If you !vote, please first read all of the discussion, including that in the "Extended discussion" subsection. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:40, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

Restored this from archive since the proposal is still quiet after 39 days. Using Template:Do not archive until to prevent re-archive for 90 days, but that can removed if and when the proposal archives without resolution. It would be a shame to fail to make the main improvement, which has consensus, because of the stalemate on this minor issue. ―Mandruss ☎ 07:46, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

RfC: What (if anything) to do about quotations, and the quotation templates?

Statement of the issues

There's no "Survey" section in this RfC and no up/down vote on an action item. That can come later. There's a lot to chew on here, so let's just have a threaded discussion(s). Maybe we can generate an action item(s) to "vote" on further down the road.

It's a complicated question covering a decade of use of some half-dozen templates which are transcluded over some half a million articles, with documentation in several places. So I apologize in advance for the length of the material.

The basic questions of this RfC

The basic question is "How should quotes be handled in articles" A legitimate answer, of course, is "exactly as they have been". (We are referring in this RfC to typical quotes from a general source, not specialized situations handled by specialized templates such as {{Quote hadith}} etc.)

So some more detailed questions that arise from this might be:

• Is it OK to continue to have three different templates used for general quotes, or not? Why or why not?
• The WP:MOS specifies to use {{Quote}} for quotes, and doesn't mention {{Quote box}} one way or the other, but {{Quote box}} itself says to not use it for regular quotes -- yet {{Quote box}} is used for quotes far more often than {{Quote}}; ought this situation be addressed, or not, and if so how?
• {{Cquote}} is used a fair amount for quotations, even though this MOS strictly forbids this; ought this situation be addressed, or not, and if so how?
• This MOS by inference supports pull quotes ("the {{pull quote}}... template, which [is] reserved for pull quotes"). Should this MOS discourage or even forbid pull quotes, or is it OK like this?

And there are probably lots of other questions. Possible solutions are many, including

• Doing nothing, leave the present situation as is.
• Functionally deleting two of {{Quote}} / {{Quote box}} / {{Cquote}} (by just making two of them a redirect to the remaining one? or whatever would be the best way technically to achieve this function).
• Changing the documentation to overtly permit use of all three (or: some two) templates for quotes at editors' discretion.
• Designing a new template which is better than any of the existing ones and deprecating the old ones.
• Writing a new protocol which carves out separate uses for {{quote}} and {{quote box}} and/or {{cquote}}.

And certainly there are many other good ideas to be had. That's the purpose of this RfC, to think about these and various other possibilities, and maybe we can find some that seem worthy of being presented as action items, down the road. Herostratus (talk) 20:56, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

Reference: examples of the three templates commonly used for generic quotes

Below is {{Quote}}, the MOS officially sanctioned template, which formats quotations with only indentation:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

— Anonymous, Sad Sack Goes to College

Below is {{Quote box}}, which is supposed to be for pull quotes, but is not specifically forbidden in the MOS for normal quotes, and is sometimes used for normal quotes. It adds a box around the quotation:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

Anonymous, Jr., My First Book of Complete Nonsense

Below is {{Cquote}} (which is actually a redirect to {{Pull quote}}), and which is specifically forbidden for normal quotes by the MOS, but is sometimes used for normal quotes. It adds large pastel quote marks around the quotation:

“ Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. ” — Anonymous III, Big Book of Quotes

They're basically identical otherwise (each also has a scheme for short quotes spanning just part of the page width; they take a parameter for this, while {{Cquote}} also has a variation template, {{Rquote}}). Note that all of these may present a bit differently in more complicated layouts, such as when among many images.

Herostratus (talk) 20:56, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

While the above examples illustrate the default use of these templates, they can also be used to make sidebars (as shown below). A large number of uses of these templates are such, which can present issues that do not occur with default-mode inline use of the templates. Disputes over these templates at articles are often about this type of usage, not the default inline use.

Left, right, and center

A big title here Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Anonymous III, Big Book of Quotes “ Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. ” — Anonymous III, Big Book of Quotes “ Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. ” — Anonymous III, Big Book of Quotes

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  00:16, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Reference: additional material

A "pull quote" is a layout device used by magazines: a piece of text is "pulled" from the article and repeated in a box or a large or color font. This to break up the page layout and attract the eye to the material. We aren't a magazine and we don't use pull quotes -- almost never, and most editors appear to agree that they are appropriate very rarely or never for an encyclopedia article. {{Quote box}} and {{Cquote}} are (supposedly) just for pull quotes, but they are very very rarely if ever actually used for that.

Here's usage numbers:

• {{Quote}}, {{Blockquote}}, and raw <blockquote>...</blockquote> (which are basically identical) are used in about 119,000 articles.
• {{Cquote}} is used in about 18,000 articles. {{Rquote}} adds 1,400 more.
• {{Quote box}} (and {{Quotebox}}) are used in about 8,000 articles.

Refs for "Quote" usage:[1][2][3][4][5]. [6][7][8][9][10]. Refs for "Cquote" usage:[11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]. Refs for "Quote box" usage:[19][20][21][22].

The main operative section of this MOS is WP:BLOCKQUOTE (WP:MOS#Block quotations), most specifically the second and fourth sentences which read:

Block quotations can be enclosed in the {{quote}} template, or between a pair of <blockquote>...</blockquote> HTML tags... Do not enclose block quotations in quotation marks (and especially avoid decorative quotation marks in normal use, such as those provided by the {{pull quote}} a.k.a. {{cquote}} template, which are reserved for pull quotes).

Herostratus (talk) 20:56, 20 August 2016 (UTC) [revised, 21:21, 21 August 2016‎ (UTC), with data from SMcCandlish]

Here are more specific usage numbers, in case anyone wants to "check our work", comparing the transclusion counts (which can be misleading by themselves) from an external tool, followed by insource:/regex/i code search results showing actual total page counts, and article counts more specifically:

Usage statistics in more detail

Fair warning: most of these search links are quite slow, and they're hard on the server. {{Quote}}, the prescribed template, has 85,609 transclusions [23], in 48,234 pages [24], including 40,201 articles [25] at that name. Its {{Blockquote}} alias adds 3,476 pages [26] and 2,143 articles [27]. Redirects of merged templates add many more: {{Quotation}} adds 14,395 pages [28] and 8,480 articles [29], and {{"}} adds 304 pages & 111 articles [30]. The total is around 60,500 paged plus several hundred more from other aliases, and about 51,000 articles plus a few hundred more from aliases. Raw <blockquote>...</blockquote> markup – functionally equivalent to {{Quote}} in most cases – is used in 169,349 pages [31], of which 67,157 are articles [32]. It is the most common block quotation formatting in our articles, though any of its instances that have no custom CSS can be immediately replaced with {{Quote}}. {{Quote box}} has an amazing 540,985 transclusions [33], but in "only" 89,066 pages [34], of which a mere 7,466 are articles [35]. Another 485 articles are added by its {{Quotebox}} alias [36], plus a few dozen more from other redirects, for a total of about 8,000 articles. The bulk of the usage is multiple transclusions on talk pages. {{Pull quote}} (despite being the favorite of those who advocate for a decorative style) has only 36,934 total transclusions [37], of which 35,081 are of its {{Cquote}}} alias [38]. The latter appears in 33,818 pages [39], including 17,269 articles [40], plus 555 pages using its "canonical" name {{Pull quote}} [41], of which 251 are in articles [42], and 608 more pages [43] and 415 more articles [44] from the {{Centered pull quote}} alias, and about 100 more pages and 50 more articles from other redirects. The totals are approximately 35,000 pages and 18,000 articles. The {{Reduced pull quote}} variant has 1,760 transclusions [45] in 101 pages [46] and 69 articles [47] at that name. Of the total 1,760 transclusions, its long-standing shortcut {{Rquote}} accounts for 1,672 [48], and adds 1,664 pages to the page count [49], and 1,306 articles [50], with very few more from other redirects. The totals are about 1,800 pages, 1,400 articles at most. The rare {{Quote frame}} has 227 transclusions [51], and only 42 are in articles [52]. The page and article counts have a small margin of error, due to minor redirects being ignored, possibly other templates transcluding one of these templates, and references to the template in code markup, e.g. in template documentation, but overall they are a solid overview of the deployment of these templates. Several of these templates, along with bare <blockquote>, are incorrectly being used as block-indentation markup for non-quotations, a violation of the HTML specs. Instances of such misuse should be replaced with {{Block indent}}.

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  00:16, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

General threaded discussion

(If you have a specific proposal (which might perhaps be an action item in a later RfC), you might want to consider stating it in a separate section below, so it can be discussed separately? Or not... just a suggestion.) Herostratus (talk) 20:56, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

• Certainly there is a problem here, but it seems to me that it is not so much with the MOS or the templates (which appear to be in agreement -- although strengthening and clarifying restrictions on {{Quote box}} and {{pull quote}} would be helpful), nor with general practice (which, if we could include <blockquote>...</blockquote> in the counts would, I expect, be mostly consistent with MOS) -- rather this is a simple case of editor error. If this is correct, the solution involves not guideline or template development, but just work -- some wikignome martyr would have to review every instance of templated "luxury" quotes and reformat correctly, where appropriate. Clearly I am against a mix of styles for the display of vanilla quotes... but I don't think that fuctional deletion via redirect is the correct path to uniformity, as this would bulldoze legitimate uses of (what should be) the rarer "luxury" templates and potentially somewhat alter their current sense. A case-in-point would be  William Shakespeare#London and theatrical career which has (I think) correctly used <blockquote>...</blockquote> and {{Box quote}} right next to each other. Phil wink (talk) 23:01, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

Well, 578,101 27,500 transclusions is an awful lot of editor errors.

My personal opinion is, {{quote}} is a poor template on the merits. It is very important that readers quickly comprehend when we are switching to a quote. {{quote}} lets them down and slows them down. It is insufficiently different from regular text to signal the switch to a quote.

That's my opinion. Maybe I'm wrong. But its an opinion shared by a lot of editors, I guess. I believe this a better explanation than error for half a million transclusions use in about 20% of cases even though it is expressly forbidden. I don't think our editors are that error-prone. I myself certainly don't use {{quote}}, on purpose, for the simple reason that to my mind it's not of sufficiently professional quality for the information design I want to achieve in the articles I am creating or building. I usually use {{cquote}}, most people use {{quote box}} I guess. And that's fine by the way. We don't need a bed of Procrustes approach to our editors. If we absolutely must have one template, I guess {{quote box}} would be the best choice, though. I don't think {{quote}} should be it. Herostratus (talk) 01:27, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

• Answering the four RfC questions in order, with detailed rationales:
  1. No, it is not OK to have multiple templates (in mainspace) for quotation pesentation. The decorative ones are several kinds of policy problem.
     • The decorative ones were kept, narrowly, at TfD (and few templates have been TfDed this many times – the community has long had serious concerns about them), only with the understanding that they would be reserved for non-mainspace use, or for rare instances of pull quotes in mainspace.
     • But, as I predicted, they have been rampantly abused to violate multiple policies – chiefly WP:NPOV (especially WP:UNDUE), but also WP:NOR and WP:NOT, as detailed below – to bludgeon readers with particular individuals' or organizations' statements, and to insert quotes that are irrelevant and non-encyclopedic, and to lazily slap quotes into articles at random locations as design "filler" without any regard at all for whether they make any sense in the contexts into which they've been jammed (or for the fact that much WP:REUSE will simply lose them).
     • Case study 1: Just the other day, I fixed all three of these problems at once in a single article, the first one I picked to do quote template cleanup on (and one which someone had pointed to as what they thought of as good use of the templates!). See edit history of Thorpe affair from this edit onward, or see all the cleanup in one diff here, including some other copyedits. User talk:SMcCandlish#Quote box [53] gives a detailed analysis of why all three quote templates in that article were "reader-hateful". They are not unusual in any way, but directly reprsentative of the three broad types of quote template abuse on Wikipedia: PoV-pushing, context-free decoration, and indiscriminate trivia-mongering.
  2. MoS and template docs are only read in detail by gnomes; most editors just copy what they see in older articles. This has lead to memetic propagation of a terrible style idea from WP's olden times faster than gnomes can clean it up. We thus need a technical solution.
     • MoS gives a specific template for block quotations, explains what a pull quote is and why we almost never use them, and says not to use pul-quote templates like Pull quote (which some refer to by its redirect "{{Cquote}}" as if to disguise the fact that they're misusing a pull-quote template) for block quotes. The other templates' documentation indicates they're pull-quote templates, too, so every single time someone is using them for non-pullquotes, they're either copy-catting old articles the template abuse has not been cleaned up in yet, or they're intentionally ignoring documentation, guidelines, and policies to force their design sense on Wikipedia.
     • I know for a fact that it's most often copy-catting; I've asked people why they inserted a decorative quote template, and they've told me it's because they saw it in another article and thought it was WP's official style! It's a memetic virus, pure and simple, just like capitalization of common names of species was in 2008 (which we're still cleaning up in August 2016).
     • Defense of decorative quotes in an article is almost invariably a WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS affair; people usually literally cannot think of any other rationale but "I saw it at [Article X], and that's an FA, so it must be the right way to do it", not understanding that the FA dates to before we had rules about this stuff and hasn't been fixed yet. Another favorite is the "WP:OWN policy doesn't exist" game: "I wrote almost all of this article, so it should be decorated if I wanted it that way." Mainly, though, it's just that most editors do not actually read MoS, or any more template docs than they have to figure out some parameters.
  3. The solution is to install a namespace switch in the decorative templates that changes their output to that of the standard {{Quote}} template if they are used in mainspace, then for editors to adjust their placement and contextualization over time, where necessary. It really doesn't matter if we have three or a dozen decorative quote templates as long as none of them work in articles.
     • Keeping them functional outside of mainspace would still permit the "screaming with decorations" effect of these templates in wikiproject pages, etc., where we don't care.
     • I proposed this obvious solution over two years ago, but TfD said "let's wait and see if that's really necessary". The result of that delay has been a tsunami of tacky picture frames and giant quotation marks shoving PoV-pushing, confusing, and pointless quotes in readers' faces.
     • The idea that there's a consensus to decorate quotations is demonstrably false. See stats above. The MoS rule has been around for years. No exceptions have been made to WP:NPOV policy, etc., for quotations. No one objects when those templates' scopes are repeatedly narrowed, and when half a dozen variations of them are merged right out of existence. When they are TfDed, hardly anyone defends them (usually the same handful, and usually for entirely unclear rationales).
     • Case study 2: I spent several days converting decorative quotes to standard {{Quote}} templates in 100 articles, and not once was I reverted or challenged on it. Basically, no one cares except about half a dozen "décor defenders" (you can find them also in the WT:MOSICONS archives as the lonely advocates of plastering pages with flag icons all over the place, etc.). Editors just copy-paste and customize the templates they see in other articles.
     • As with another large mess of this sort – the capitalization and linking of dates that we cleaned up in the early 2010s – this will probably require bot cleanup (see below).
     • To the extent that some editors think the default style isn't quite enough visual distinction, see #Slight display adjustments for how to address that.
  4. MoS should simply deprecate pull quotes. Less that 1% of the uses of the pull-quote templates are for actual pull quotes, and in every single case of one that I've found, it can be safely removed and will improve the article in its passage into the WikiAfterlife.
     • Pull quotes are a heavy-handed "teaser" news style. We have a Wikipedia is not news policy, with numerous implications, including that WP does not serve the purposes of a news publication, is not written in the same register as one, does not follow journalism style guides, has completely different reader expectations of it, and has no use for attention-seeking mechanisms to try to entice readers into zooming to particular sections, much less "walking away with a key message" that some editor wants to drill into their brain with a huge, decorated quotation.
     • These templates are a serious WP:CCPOL problem, and this is much more than a trivial style matter. We have tried pull quotes and they've failed dismally, both by doing nothing useful here themselves, and (much worse) by the templates for them being massively abused in article after article as excuses to violate neutrality policy (among others, like WP:NOR's prohibitions against steering/leading/manipulating the readers into drawing particular conclusions, and against over-reliance on primary source material, etc.). This has to end, and it should have ended years ago. (This "screaming for attention" quotations matter, by the way, is a great illustration of why "MoS is just a bunch of style nitpicks we don't need" is a wrongheaded viewpoint. Many aspects of MoS, from MOS:WTW to MOS:ACCESS to MOS:IDENTITY, are important content guidelines with deep connections to Wikipedia policy and mission, and aren't just "style" advice.)

  Recommended cleanup path: All instances of the noncompliant templates in mainspace should first be replaced, via bot, with a specific template redirect for each template e.g. {{Quote-Cquote}}, etc., to isolate these cases. The code can then be temporarily forked, making these redirects into copies of the templates. The original decorative templates, now expunged from transclusion in mainspace all get fitted with namespace detectors, such that their non-mainspace deployment is unaffected, but use in mainspace outputs {{Quote}} code or even a visible error message. The disused ones can also be merged into {{Quote box}}. In mainspace, the templates with compatible parameters can just be redirected to {{Quote}}; the one or two that do not will have to be replaced with template wrappers that call it and convert the parameters. Then we can finally have a bot replace them with calls to the main template by adjusting the parameters. All that would remain (and would already be underway in the interim) is working the former "sidebar" quotes into the content where they belong, and removing redundant or unencyclopedic ones.
   — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:03, 21 August 2016 (UTC) Updated 06:44, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

OK, here're my answers:

• Sure, it's OK to have more than one quote template. (The question of whether the three existing quote templates are all OK (I think they are) is a different question). People are way too much into micromanaging other editors sometimes. Trust the editor to do the right thing, given reasonable restrictions. Reasonable levels of empowerment is how you build a successful volunteer organization. If the editors do the wrong thing, educate them. We are not the Army where everything not mandatory is forbidden and can't thrive with that mindset. I have just described one large and important objective benefit of allowing editors some leeway here. (there are others). Look a lot of this comes down to opinion. I invite editors to show me the objective benefit of allowing just a single template and you will win me over, but not before.
• Change the documentation of {{Quote box}} documentation to bring it in line with practice. People use it for quotes (for the good and sufficient reason that's a it's better than {{quote}} at letting the reader know that she's entering a quotation). Rules should describe practice. The current situation is dysfunctional, and going on a crusade against (what is certainly at least arguably) good layout and good information design, in order to make practice fit an ancient rule, is probably not the best answer.
• Change the documentation of {{Cquote}} and one sentence in this MOS to bring it in line with practice, same argument as above.
• Should not encourage pull quotes. Best would be to just not mention them at all, I think. They're very rare. Here is an example: Philippe I, Duke of Orléans #Homosexuality. I wouldn't do that, but it doesn't make me claw the draperies either. I not particularly bossy or certain that I'm the world's genius of information design or page layout, so I wouldn't be inclined to tell that editor "I order you to remove that". Just remove mention of pull quotes, everywhere, per WP:BEANS. Herostratus (talk) 22:01, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
  • @Herostratus: Asserting all these templates are fine when gross abuses of them are rampant, without addressing any of the reasons why they're problematic from a policy perspective, is basically a non-argument, though. Why would we change the documentation and MoS itself when the numbers show most editors comply, there's no consensus to undo MOS:BQ, none of the policy and other issues have been addressed, and there's a proposal on the table to adjust the default style mildly to obviate most if not all desire to use decorative quotation boxes that go so far they cause NPoV problems? There's very little (in the nature of discrete rules, rather than sometimes verbosity within one) that isn't there for a reason. WP:TFD's primary function (probably 75% of its activity) is getting rid of redundant templates (the rest mostly being deletion of unused or one-use templates), so we have an entire XfD standing against the idea of "Sure, it's OK to have more than one quote template", absent a really clearly justifiable reason to have more than one (e.g. for a specific technical need, that cannot be addressed with a parameter option) and without them causing more trouble than they're worth. It's also a speedy deletion criterion to delete templates that misrepresent policy. WP:POLICY includes guidelines, so a "defy MOS:BQ" template is a speedy deletion candidate; even if it were not, it would still be a regular deletion candidate, because the way to change policies and guidelines is not WP:FAITACCOMPLI defiance until the opposition is worn down. That's just tendentiousness. I don't think you're being tendentious; your proposed solution seems to be offered in good faith, but is simply not addressing anything in the debate at all other than the "I wanna decorate" urge that some editors have, which is a WP:NOT matter, really. Agreed WP doesn't need pull quotes, but we discourage them because people insert them willy-nilly if we don't.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  11:00, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Proposals

Pastel line on the left

An editor, User:Waldir, just recently at Template_talk:Quote#Styling suggested that {{quote}} have a pastel line on the left, like this:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Sed ultricies nisi eu lectus egestas scelerisque. Etiam vitae ante vel lorem efficitur fermentum at quis nisi. Nulla et augue eget arcu scelerisque malesuada. Maecenas porta vestibulum libero eget varius. Donec lacus magna, fermentum vel ante vitae, malesuada posuere magna. Aenean scelerisque in neque ut semper. Donec eleifend tortor justo, ut ullamcorper tortor dictum at.

on the grounds that it makes quotes more readily identifiable, and since (he says) many stylesheets are doing this now it might be recognizable to many readers. He might be right. Perhaps an updated quote box like this would combine the best of the three templates now being used. (There might be technical issues though.) Herostratus (talk) 21:08, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

• Because {{Quote}} is (mostly) fuctionally equivalent to <blockquote>...</blockquote> -- if greater consistency is desired in generic quotations -- adopting a pastel line for {{Quote}} would necessitate either 1) applying the same formatting to <blockquote>...</blockquote> or 2) systematically repackaging all generic blockquotes with {{Quote}}. Phil wink (talk) 23:11, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
• Already rejected: This was proposed a year or two ago in a Village Pump RfC and shot down. It looks far too much like our cleanup/dispute templates, and there was a clear sense that it's some random blog style, and already a dated one at that, and not appropriate here. Others also felt it was heavy-handed and visually disruptive in general, serving to draw WP:UNDUE emphasis to quoted material, when what WP wants to do is minimize the amount and impact of quotations (see WP:OVERQUOTE and WP:NPOV). Another problem with it is that it will not improve, only worsen, the problem of block quotations being "squeezed" between left and right images, by further reducing the horizontal space available. In such a layout, it will look like a broken partial border for the right side of the lefthand image.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:08, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

  PS: This style was also made available as an option in one of the templates, and no one used it. I would think it's been removed by now. If not, should be, as dead code.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:05, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

  • Oh. BTW One thing I've never understood is our documeentation "Hey, we have {{quote}}, but using the raw HTML is fine too". What's the advantage? I can see the disadvantage, one being just the situation described -- we can't globally alter quotes done in raw HTML, or even know how many there are. Sure I get that the software supports HTML and some people are going to use it whatever we say, but why do we actively recommended it? Anybody know? Herostratus (talk) 01:12, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
    • Not sure how that relates to this "pastel line" thing, but the reason that's in there is that some editors historically have objected to "forcing" (LOL) people to use wrapper templates for HTML elements, even when we have good reason to prefer that people use them (e.g. application of CSS classes), so we tended to always also mention the raw HTML behind the template. I would just as soon we did not and deprecated using the raw HTML.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:25, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
    • Well, maybe it's worth trying again, maybe the objectors have gone away. If not, we could offer a pointer down into the "Notes" section where we say "or you can also use raw HTML" in small text, that way not being so recommendy about it. Herostratus (talk) 21:26, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
      • @Herostratus: Agreed, and we should probably do this generally, in the various places in MoS where we say "you can use this template or this HTML code". It smacks too much of "you can use this template or this template or this template ...".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  10:45, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
      • As I recall there is something somewhere deprecating HTML style mark-up where it can be avoided. I would certainly support a guideline to that effect. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 19:08, 26 August 2016 (UTC).
        
        • If it's buried on some MOS subpage, we should highlight it on the main one, too. Any idea where you saw that, Rich Farmbrough. It rings a bell to me, too, but my eyes hurt right now. Been at screen too long. 20:05, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
• This pastel bar thing is absolutely ghastly. EEng 17:32, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
  • I agree with EEng on this one I'm afraid. Midnightblueowl (talk) 10:09, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
    • Well! Since you bring it up, I'm startled to find myself agreeing with you, too! EEng 02:52, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Slight display adjustments

We should do what most style guides that address the matter recommend: Slightly reduce the font size (e.g. to 95%) to make a lengthy quotation better set-off from the surrounding text, as well as indenting it the way we already do. This would also offset the incidental emphasis effect that putting it its own block (paragraph) and indenting it has. The purpose of block quotations is not the SCREAM AT THE READER but simply to indicate "this is an extended quotation". Given the nature of the medium, we might also consider a very faint background color (e.g. a very light grey) that does not impact readability (see the colors section of MOS:ACCESS). This would help to still distinguish the quotation block in browser/display/layout situations where the content is squeeze so much the indentation is unclear or even eliminated. This would cost us no additional horizontal space at all, unlike the vertical bar proposal above.

The fact that so many people do not understand what block quotations are for, and mistakenly believe that the purpose of them is to greatly emphasize material, is the #1 reason that multiple templates have proliferated all over Wikipedia drawing enormous amounts of visual attention to quotations (against WP:NPOV in general, WP:UNDUE in particular, WP:NOR because leads/steers the reader's interpretation of the material, WP:SOAPBOX, MOS:BQ, etc.). It's time to put this to bed, just like we've put to bed date linking, and about 20 kinds of Rampant Over-Capitalization, and italicization of quotations, and use of boldface as emphasis in article text, and a many, many other things that were formerly common on Wikipedia.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:25, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

This seems quite reasonable (the first paragraph). We do want some kind of increased emphasis without over-doing it, so we're both on the same page here. Herostratus (talk) 01:33, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more. Graham (talk) 02:17, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

My personal opinion is that we already have a template for increased emphasis without overdoing it: {{cquote}}. Without using a 95% font or a faint background, it signals to the reader that he is entering a quotation with the English universal symbol this: quotation marks. They're large, but they're faint, so the overall effect is subdued, at the same time making for an attractive layout.

However,  there's the political angle to consider. At least one editor hates {{cquote}} with a dark and burning fury and will never slacken in the battle against it, and there are other editors who also consider it overly twee. So whatever works reasonably well that can get passed is what we are looking for here. Herostratus (talk) 22:14, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

I am against any reduced font size. I have my screen set to the smallest font size I can reasonably read. Many other readers wil have the same set-up. (And please do not offer me advice on custom css that will fix this for me, it's the general accessibility issue that I am interested in.)

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 19:12, 26 August 2016 (UTC).

@Rich Farmbrough: Noted. Perhaps just a faint background would do it. Some other styles involve a font-face change, but we'd have to at least also retain the indentation, since the CSS font trick will coincide with some user's custom CSS here or their browser-side font choices, making, e.g., serif-formatted quotations indistinguishable from the rest of the prose if they use serif for all of it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  11:03, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Much ado about not much

The minutiae of what is/is not acceptable to the "commuity" when formatting quotes in articles is hardly the burning issue that some editors imagine it to be, but it has the capacity to be used as a warmongering device on countless talkpages, so it would be good to come to an agreed conclusion and codify this into the MoS. My standpoint is that of a content editor who understands the value of quotes in terms both of content and presentation. Briefly:

• I agree that in-text quotations would be improved by a reduction in the text size (perhaps to 90% rather than 95%) which, combined with indenting should distinguish them from the text
• I remember Cquotes being very popular ten-plus years ago when I first edited, but they seem terribly ugly, dated and unencyclopaedic now. I haven't encountered them on peer review or FAC for a long while—I don't think they are used much now, at least in quality articles, and I suggest that this format could be withdrawn without too much loss.
• Quote boxes I see as as an alternative to images. We generally accept images when they illustrate an aspect of the text, without seeing them as placing undue emphasis on that aspect of the text. We also use images as an aid to readability, by breaking up slabs of text and by careful positioning. In some topics, particularly those of recent history, copyright law makes it hard to find relevant images, in which case carefully composed quote boxes can often be a useful substitute, provided their content is selected carefully. The argument that they distort readers' understanding by drawing the eye away from the context is an assumption for which I haven't seen any convincing evidence; in any event, this aspect can be dealt with on an article-by-article basis. In short, I would like MoS to recognise that in some cases the quote box provides a useful presentational tool—this has been widely accepted informally for some years now—and I don't think this should be overturned at the behest of the Savonarolas amongst us. Brianboulton (talk) 15:21, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

While this discussion does interest me, I'm not going to pretend that I've read even 5 per cent of the text dedicated to it above … Brianboulton's comments on Cquotes and Quote boxes summarise the situation perfectly, as far as I'm concerned, as someone who writes articles. Cquotes are unencyclopaedic and, I suggest, draw far too much emphasis to the quote. Boxed quotes/quote boxes are very useful and informative, not to mention popular with many GA and FA writers. The point about using them to break up slabs of text, particularly given the paucity of free images, is an important one. JG66 (talk) 15:52, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Echoing the above on breaking up what can seem for readers as dense walls of text. I'm unswayed by the opinion of one editor that they are "PoV-pushing, context-free decoration, and indiscriminate trivia-mongering": if that is the case on individual articles, then those individual articles should be re-worked. But to get rid of using the entire format because they are sometimes misused is doing our readers a disservice. – SchroCat (talk) 20:39, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

• I haven't read more than 5% either, but my thinking is:

• I'd prefer to see blockquotes reduced to 90% whatever size refs and notes are.
• WP:Manual of Style/Captions#Drawing_the_reader_into_the_article says,

The caption should lead the reader into the article. For example, in History of the Peerage, a caption for Image:William I of England.jpg might say 'William of Normandy overthrew the Anglo-Saxon monarchs, bringing a new style of government.' Then the reader gets curious about that new form of government and reads text to learn what it is.

There's no reason a well-chosen quote (not necessarily repeating something in the article text proper) highlighted in some way (whether boxed, shaded, big-quoted, whatever -- I'll leave that to others) shouldn't be allowed to serve the same purpose, though of course only in situations well away from any possibility of POV. I'm probably going to regret pointing this out, but I think this works well at Memorial_Hall_(Harvard_University)#Conception_and_construction. (Those weird shaded rectangles didn't used to be there -- yuck!) EEng 20:49, 22 August 2016 (UTC) Edited to use boxed quote instead of bigquotes -- weird shaded rectangles no longer there. EEng 02:56, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

EEng 20:49, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

You are right on the shaded rectangles – horrible! I would also add to the list of things to avoid the use of the over-size quote marks. I've never seen a proper pull quote on WP (as in the correct definition of an excerpt of article text repeated as a stand alone quote), and the sooner the go, the better. The use of quote boxes, on the other hand, carefully and correctly used (as with an image to sit alongside a relevant piece of text, that enhances not just the readability of the text, but also the reader's understanding of a topic) has a lot to be said for it. – SchroCat (talk) 16:46, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

I used the bigquote template back when I added those quotes because I got lost in the vast selection of quote templates, and back then the shaded rectangles weren't there -- someone's changed something in the template. Anyway, I've redone it with a shaded quote box. EEng 17:35, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

If you want to see the only example of pull quotes that I've ever come across, SchroCat, take a look at Philippe I, Duke of Orléans #Homosexuality. Ironically, it doesn't use a quote template, but a customised table acting as a container! --RexxS (talk) 20:29, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

• FYI: On the mobile frontend, {{quote}} and <blockquote>...</blockquote> set off quotations not only with indentation but also with oversize quotation marks - exactly like {{cquote}}, but black instead of blue. Abuse of <blockquote>...</blockquote> for indentation is thus immediately visible on mobile and really looks ridiculous. It also actually increases the font size, which I think is a very strange design choice - the indentation already reduces the available horizontal space, and increasing the font size further compounds this. I have no idea why the decision was made to imitate a deprecated template, but I've become accustomed to it (and it has the virtue of making quotations marked up by semantic abuse of the leading colon trivial to spot). At any rate, people discussing {{quote}} vs {{cquote}} seem unaware that they look almost the same on mobile.

Additionally {{quote box}} is not shoved off to the side like an image, but is put in the centre of the page... funnily enough, exactly as images are. My main objection to {{quote box}} is that it's a lazy way of getting a quotation in: the quotation appears totally devoid of context or motivation. Stylistically such isolated quotations are a train wreck. If there's no way to integrate such a quotation into the article text, it probably doesn't belong there. From what I understand the term to mean, they are not technically pull quotes - in fact, I don't believe I've ever seen a true pull quote on Wikipedia, and I would immediately remove one if I did because it's a journalistic style totally inappropriate for an encyclopedia. Hairy Dude (talk) 03:24, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

I beg to differ: if used properly and responsibly, quote boxes are not some "lazy way of getting a quotation in". They can provide a very good means for displaying certain types of quoted text, a letter, say, or a poem, or a piece of text which while not central to the direct narrative, provides a useful illustrative comment. Such boxes are not isolated if they adjoin the text to which they relate – the same rule applies to images. And you shouldn't rule out the presentational advantages of quote boxes, in terms of making blocks of text look more appealing to the reader – my years as a magazine editor taught me the importance of presentation, in particular the turn-off potential of walls of uninterrupted text. I agree that quote boxes should be used sparingly and with care, particularly when other options are available, but to withdraw altogether this useful tool would be an unnecessary mistake. Brianboulton (talk) 10:00, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

What some people think reading an article should feel like to the reader - "it was tedious to write, it should be tedious to read" — Preceding unsigned comment added by EEng (talk • contribs)

Very well said. The problem we're up against, Bb, is the some editors think that anything betraying any kind of care for the reader's pleasure or interest in reading the article is "unencyclopedic" (a vague term encompassing anything the speaker hasn't run into before). Savonarolas is right! EEng 14:54, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. I don't think there is one right answer to the question "what is the best quote template". It a matter of taste, opinion, one's personal concept of page design, and what is needed for that page environment (many images, no images, etc.) My inclination is to trust the editor, and correct-and-educate when the editor goes too far into the weeds (whether it's too long a quote, too many images, sections too long, etc. etc.) Crowdsourcing page design works! Herostratus (talk) 15:06, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Wisely summarised. We should resist all tendency to over-regulate when common sense can easily be applied. Brianboulton (talk) 19:04, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

I agree with the points made by Brianboulton, but would add: Quote boxes, certainly at the FA level, are not used for no purpose, and not merely to break up text. They serve to illustrate points to the reader, selected by savvy writers. A quote box with a random quote would probably face scrutiny at FAC, with suggestions the nominator not miss the opportunity presented by a quote box to highlight text more likely to be read by the reader than were it to be buried in a paragraph somewhere.-- an alternative to images (talk) 04:32, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

I highly support Brianboulton's and Wehwalt's position above. Briefly, we should

1. Reduce the text-size in block quotes to about 90%.
2. Change the documentation for Quote box to reflect it's use as illustrative text – similar to how images are used.
3. Deprecate the use of Cquote; it should be replaced with either Quote or Quotebox, depending on use.

LK (talk) 23:35, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

It appears to me that Brianboulton's points are primarily made just to justify keeping the way he sensationalized bits of stuff in the Thorpe affair article, one that SMcCandlish uses to illustrate the main problem with these fancy boxes: they give the editor a soapbox to display a POV. In this case, it does not look like they "serve to illustrate points to the reader, selected by savvy writers." Dicklyon (talk) 15:10, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

• Your judgement on that point is as ill-advised as your sub-standard edits to the article. Perhaps if you are unable to comment without pretending to read someone's mind, it would be best not to comment at all. - SchroCat (talk) 17:16, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
  • I don't understand your objection to my point. If you look at Thorpe affair, it's clear that Brianboulton decorated it with sensational quotes that are not discussed or contextualized in the text; if you look at the edit history, it's clear that he defends those strongly (with your help). His points here appear to be designed to support that. Is that observation too much of a stretch? What does that have to do with you reverting my edits there, calling them sub-standard? I'm sorry if my phrasing sounded too much like reading someone's mind, but your retort was much worse. This stuff is real. Dicklyon (talk) 05:27, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

OK, sounds like this particular case is a fair difference of opinion. About 2% of the article text is in the quotes... at least one of the images is decorative ("The village of Talybont, North Wales, where Scott lived in 1971"... really?) more than the quotes. Without the quotes and the "village of Talybont" image, though, you have quite an arid wall of text facing the reader. Do you see this as a problem, or not? Would the use of {{Quote}} (no borders, no background color) improve the page? Or made a lot of difference to your objection? Or are you maybe arguing for quashing quotations generally? (Which is a legitimate position, but not likely to be passed.) Herostratus (talk) 17:18, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

I note Dicklyon's comments above. I won't answer them here, because this discussion should not be about the use or misuse of quote boxes on any one article, but about the issue in principle: to what extent if any, the community wishes formally to approve of a usage of quote boxes that, while not currently supported by the letter of MoS, has become widely adopted in many articles. It shouldn't be about the use or misuse of quote boxes on any one article, about which opinions may differ. So, Dick, please put aside for a moment your obsessions with the Thorpe affair (that "excellent article" as you call it) and concentrate on the general point. Or at least, show you are not obsessed by commenting on the use of these boxes in some of the many other articles that use them in much the way I have done. Brianboulton (talk) 22:27, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Permit Template:Quote box for regular quotes

As was noted at the start of this thread, {{Quote box}} is widely used for regular quotes throughout Wikipedia, including on a great many FAs and GAs. However, Template:Quote box suggests that {{Quote box}} should not be used for this purpose. Thus we have a disconnect between a regulation and reality. Reading through the discussions above, it appears that there is some significant support for bringing about a change that officially permits {{Quote box}} for regular quotes, so can we get more support for this course of action? It would only require a very quick alteration to Template:Quote box and would solve a lot of problems. Midnightblueowl (talk) 09:18, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

• Support as per comments. Midnightblueowl (talk) 09:18, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
• Support. I don't think we can get a decision out of this RfC, but I'm starting to think that a regular upvote-downvote RfC on overtly allowing {{Quote box}} as alternative to {{quote}} might be worthwhile. I can see two sources of opposition though: 1) those who don't like {{Quote box}}, and 2) those with maybe no opinion on that but who feel we should have just one active quote template. (One counter would be, horse is out of the barn lets now change the rule to describe practice.) For my part, I would like {{Cquote}} also allowed, but that might not garner as much support? and would complicate an RfC. Herostratus (talk) 16:47, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Note: An editor has expressed a concern that Herostratus (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)

• Strong Support but according to Brianboulton's viewpoint as above. Quoteboxes should not be used as an alternative to {{Quote}} for regular in-text quotes. Instead, {{Quote box}} (and {{Cquote}}) should be reserved for illustrative text, and used in a way similar to illustrations and photos (which complement the text of the article). LK (talk) 23:33, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Note: An editor has expressed a concern that Lawrencekhoo (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)

• Procedural matter – @Midnightblueowl: I hope it wasn't your intention to selectively notify participants in the above discussion of this proposal, was it? Because there seems to be a correlation when looking at the four people you notified ([54] [55] [56] [57]) and WP:CANVASS clearly states that it is impermissible to send notifications based on the user's known opinions. On what basis were these notifications delivered? Graham (talk) 23:37, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
  • I tried to keep the wording that I sent to those four individuals as neutral as possible. However, I can see the concern here and as a means of correcting it I'm happy to inform everyone who has posted in the above discussion about the new support/oppose sub-section. Everyone who has previously posted in this discussion has now received the same message. That should hopefully deal with any concerns that people have about a particular bias in selection. I just wanted to get participation rolling here, to avoid this sub-section languishing in neglect. Midnightblueowl (talk) 10:16, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
    • Notifying everyone would certainly help at this stage. But you still haven't explained on what basis those four individuals were selected. Was it completely at random – and the opinions that they hold are just a complete coincidence? Graham (talk) 17:43, 1 September 2016 (UTC) I forgot to ping Midnightblueowl. Graham (talk) 18:25, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Pinging Midnightblueowl in case my question slipped under the radar. Graham (talk) 06:42, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

• Support Summoned by bot. I would also like to know why these particular people were invited, but I have confidence it was all done in good faith. I think that this should be allowed, partly because it is fairly common, and partly because it just looks better. Tamwin (talk) 04:58, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose, and procedurally object to hijacking the RfC in a misleading manner. The RfC already asked specific questions, and this !voting section goes off in left field to propose favoritism toward one particular template, when the RfC already makes it clear that it is a distant minority usage in mainspace. It's also already being proposed to adjust the style of the default quotation template to find a compromise between the stable and mostly complied-with MoS consensus for non-decorative quotation formatting, and reasonable concerns that the current default style is a bit too plain. This !voting section serves as an anti-RfC disrupting ongoing attempts to hammer out a consensus solution, by short-circuiting the discussion, whatever the intent for this move might have been.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  10:38, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

  An earlier comment by EEng vividly highlights exactly why these decorative quote templates are by their very nature serious PoV problems. He states that the intent of their use is to "draw the reader in and spark interest". Doing that to one particular party's quoted viewpoint is a blatant policy violation (WP:UNDUE), and the main reason MOS:BQ has for years said to avoid pull quotes and this sort of abuse of pull-quote templates to single out certain quotations as "special". There are other and more appropriate ways to attract reader interest, without favoring particular viewpoints. But doing so at the intra-article content level is not a WP goal anyway, per WP:NOT#MAGAZINE. Grabbing reader eyeballs for as long as possible, much less precisely steering them to what one editor wants to brow-beat them with, is not WP's job. Neutrally providing information readers actually want, arranging it logically and contextually, and backing it up with reliable sources, is WP's job, and the result is not going to look much like Rolling Stone or the Huffington Post blog. This is not an advertising-funded site, and we have no incentive to use psychological tricks to try to keep people here longer than they need to be here to get what they came for and get on with their lives (much of what WP:NOT policy is about is grounded in this fact). Life is short, and WP is not escapist entertainment in Web form, it's a a particular kind of information source that does note ape every gee-whiz marketing technique of other publication types.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:57, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

There are plenty of opportunities to use quotes that don't represent any "one particular party's quoted viewpoint", so the rest of what you say is nonsense. EEng 03:00, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) Support This will bring documentation more into line with widespread use. The use of quote boxes should be allowable if the circumstances of individual articles provide a need. By breaking walls of text they aid reader usability and can explain and highlight in the same way as an image. Someone in the thread above (EEng, I think) suggested the same rationale as an image caption—to draw the reader into the text—and the similarities in use are paralleled here. There is also no "procedural hijack" here, despite the handwaving: the discussion thread above was showing enough of a consensus of opinion toward this option that it's a sensible place to include a vote, unless you really want to pointlessly wikilawyer to force this into a separate proposal. (And before anyone asks, this page is still on my watchlist following my comments in the thread above). To somehow suggest that to draw readers by sparking their interest is "a blatant policy violation" is so far beyond hyperbole it's laughable (It's one of the criteria for a good caption, so an accepted standard on WP). The use of quotes in this way should be in line with other guidelines (such as the caption guideline, as well as weight, NPOV, etc, but it seems crass to do,such a disservice to our readers by denying the use of quote boxes in this way. - Gavin (talk) 06:50, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose—Has anyone read WP:RFC on the do's and don't's of starting and running an RFC? Agree with SMcCandlish. Tony (talk) 10:47, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
• Support, quote boxes are often used to accent a page's information with quoted data which doesn't necessarily appear verbatim elsewhere on the page. Seems a reasonable use of presenting information to the public. Randy Kryn 11:35, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
• Comment: Every single support comment here amounts to "Support because WP:ILIKEIT, and ignore all of the policy and other issues raised in the real RfC above, because I can't think of an answer to them. The way to WP:WIN on WP is to avoid discussion and instead engage in just-a-vote until you get what you want." This anti-RfC is essentially nonsensical; you can't invalidate policies and guidelines by canvassing up a WP:FALSECONSENSUS to change some template's documentation.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  13:06, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
  • Please don't try to dismiss everyone's opinions just because they (shock horror) run counter to yours. There is a feeling of dissatisfaction with the existing strictures of the MoS (a set of guidelines, not something religiously set in stone) I this point, and this is a perfectly valid method of addressing what is a widely ignored flaw in its formation. You accuse participants of "ignor[ing] all of the policy and other issues raised in the real RfC above": that's just not true. Absolutely no-one is ignoring it, its just that people disagree with you. I'm sorry you don't like the emerging consensus to be against you, but that is no reason to besmirch everyone else's opinion. – Gavin (talk) 13:24, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
    • If people "disagree" about the clearly highlighted policy problems of using these templates to draw undue attention to, and blatantly promote, particular quoted viewpoints, then they can actually explain this alleged disagreement, in discussion, which is what the RfC above is for. WP is not a vote, and simply declaring on behalf of others that they "disagree" with something they have not even addressed at all is not an argument. Nor is presuming to speak for them your job. What "emerging" consensus? As of this writing, it's about an even split numerically, the supports have no policy-supportable basis at all, and that's without counting three multiple [the count keeps going up] canvassing complaints. This should be speedily closed as a waste of time and against WP:RFC instructions.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:57, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
• Support, although I'm slightly confused by the meaning of "regular quotes". To clarify: I strongly favour the use of block quotes (where necessary) and quote boxes (for a particularly informative or pertinent quote). Could be wrong but I believe that's in line with what editors such as Lawrencekhoo and Randy Kryn have said above. JG66 (talk) 14:40, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose – first procedurally, since this kind of tangent within an RFC is likely to confuse and miss those who think they have already responded to the RFC. Second, due to the canvassing that's noted above; 4 editors in favor were notified on 31 Aug, and the rest the next day after this canvassing was noted; I was notified in a very misleading way, with "you may wish to reiterate your opinion in a 'support/oppose' format", but this question was not even asked before. Third, the question seems contradictory on its face: how does "regular quote" relate to a quote displayed in a box? Not in any meaning of "regular" that I know of. Isn't a regular quote one that fits into the prose of an article, in a textual order, as opposed to being pulled out by placement or boxing? Dicklyon (talk) 15:29, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
• Slightly reluctant oppose - I don't think they fit the look and feel of an encyclopaedia article, at least not one targeted at adults. As usual I would advocate kid gloves in dealing with cases where they have been used. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 17:07, 1 September 2016 (UTC).
  

• Interestingly the Encyclopaedia Britannica break their walls of text with "Read more" and "Test your Knowledge" graphic inserts (along with the ads, which I think are removed if you subscribe). – Gavin (talk) 17:47, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose per SMcCandlish's remarks in the above sections. This is an encyclopedia, not a magazine or a textbook, and in most any case in which these quotations are as important to the article as some have suggested they are, the quotation should be included in the text of the article itself. I imagine that there are exceptional circumstances that could warrant an exception to this, but I tried looking for an example to use and came up short, which speaks to the rarity of these situations. And I know that these rare situations are not the motivation for the opening of this section – the instigator of this discussion is currently trying to get an article passed FAC that has more than a dozen of these quote boxes.
  I should also note that it seems questionable that this section was opened while the issue was being looked at holistically and consensus was being built in the above sections – especially when the individual who began this discussion appears to have improperly canvassed her supporters here. Graham (talk) 22:56, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
• Comment: I made my views plain in the discussion above this thread and I presume I am not required to repeat them. There seems to be some confusion about the validity of this part of the process, announced as "not a vote", then followed by a list of supports and opposes, and I won't increase the confusion by adding mine. If the consensus is against him, McLandish and/or others will, I am sure, make a procedural objection, so I don't think the matter will end here, alas. Brianboulton (talk) 22:57, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Note: An editor has expressed a concern that Brianboulton (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)
Somewhat unnecessary concern since I was a principal contributor to the main discussion and have not voted here! Brianboulton (talk) 23:25, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, there is that. Heh. 20:07, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

• • As this is not a vote, the fact that you did not format your opinion in bold text does not make a difference. And while you contributed to the main discussion, only certain contributors to that discussion were notified of this one for some reason (though the canvasser still won't explain on what basis those people were selected). Graham (talk) 23:49, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
    • I did not ask to be canvassed, and I had stated my views long before. Is this a procedural excuse to taint or disqualify my views, even though I had absolutely no hand in the process to which you object? Brianboulton (talk) 14:32, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
      • I did not suggest that your views were wholly disqualified. I'm merely making appropriate use of {{canvassed}} to assist the closer in taking these circumstances into account. Graham (talk) 15:18, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
        • I think you are misusing the template, by giving the impression that I and other prior contributors were brought to the discussion by a canvass, and that is false. The template should not be used to cast doubt on the views of of existing contributors who had no means of knowing that the canvass was selective. Brianboulton (talk) 21:30, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
• I have always thought that the objections against using this kind of template are overblown (I have seen them repeated for a long time). There is no reason to think that an encyclopedia cannot have this kind of quote in its articles, and the fact that the template is used in thousands of articles suggests that others think the template is OK. The MOS should reflect this kind of practice, rather than trying to over-rule it. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:48, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
• Comment -- Agree with Carl, Brian, the thrust of MidnightBlueOwl's argument at the top. Quote boxes are a useful way of breaking up walls of text, of adding quotes that may not fit into the general flow of a paragraph or section. Every content creator on WP makes decisions about how to organise material, and this includes deciding what images to use and where to place them; the same holds true for quotes, whether they be within the general flow of the text, like a block quote, or in the form of quote box. I too am surprised that there is such a fuss about it, I recall years ago when it was recommended to me to use them as an alternative to block quotes in certain circumstances, and have never seen it raised as a concern until recently. I think we all have better things to do with our time. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 02:04, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
• There seems to be some confusion about what is actually being !voted on here. I will assume the most obvious meaning is intended: I weakly oppose using {{Quote box}} with align=none as a template for regular quotations, i.e. quotations integrated into article text, introduced in proper context, because {{Quote}} does the same thing, using the semantically meaningful <blockquote>...</blockquote> element, and because I prefer its style (and I would like stylistic consistency within Wikipedia). I was "canvassed" by talk page comment but I also participated in the discussion above. Hairy Dude (talk) 13:49, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
• Comment. If anyone objects to my closing this discussion after 30 days, let me know. I'm neutral on the issue; I don't remember ever taking a position for or against blockquotes or quoteboxes in general. I'm offering because I know most of you here, and you know me. That may come in handy; there's a lot to sort out here. I have no objection to multiple closers, although they're hard to come by for these discussions. - Dank (push to talk) 01:13, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
  • Yeah no one likes style disputes, right? I don't have any objection, as long as we're talking about the entire thing not just this "anti-RfC" poll. 20:10, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
• Strong support as an editor who writes about language I know better than most that some topics are best illustrated not by images but by text quotes - quote boxes are essential for making quotes that illustrate lingiustic topics by giving examples of language use. QUote boxes can also illustrate an authors style in the same way that an image illustrates a painter's style. Moreover this is one of the places were absolutely nothing is won by having rules so detailed and restrictive that editors are being micromanaged in their usage of wikipedias functions.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 06:39, 4 September 2016 (UTC)
• Support Block quotes are useful. It should be up to the article writer as to whether to use them in a certain circumstance or not. We really need to cut the MOS back. The WP:CREEP is getting out of control. Hawkeye7 (talk) 08:55, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Let's look at some external sources on this

Much of this can be re-used to improve articles like Pull quote. While I believe "source the MoS!" campaigning is disruptive – our guidelines are determined by consensus, are not articles, and are not dictated by off-WP parties – sources are used to inform that consensus, and we really need some on this matter.

As just one example, here's several statements from a magazine's [see WP:NOT#MAGAZINE] house style guide [58]:

• "Quotes are used to emphasize excerpts of text." ["Emphasis" is anti-NPoV, especially with a quotation, i.e. with presentation of one person/organization's own viewpoint.]
• "we need to provide [our readers] with some focus anchors to fix their attention to the most important parts of our articles." ["Steering" readers and trying to make them accept the editor's view of what is important is directly against NOR policy.]
• "They are used to pull a text passage out of the reader’s flow and give it a more dominant position in the post or the article." [Do I even need to comment? This is anti-encyclopedic on both counts.]
• But this contrasts very sharply with what they say about block quotes (the kind MOS:BQ calls for): "Just like a pull quote ... block quotations ... are also set off from the main text as a distinct paragraph or block. ...[but] are usually placed within the reader’s flow." [This is exactly what MoS says to do.]

Here's a source for the fact the the style is an explicit "lure", in an definition of the pull quote style, from one of the most reputable publishers in the entire field of online copy and content presentation, SitePoint [59]:

• "It’s a device designed to isolate and visually highlight a particularly interesting sentence within the body copy. It’s a 'lure' intended to draw skimmers into the content." [Hard to get any clearer than that this is a PoV and NOR problem.]

National Geographic Style Guide, on not misusing pull-quote style for block quotations or sidebars:

• "pull quotes [should] be just that, material pulled [i.e., repeated] from the text and not stand-alone information." [60]

Just a few examples from a couple of minutes on Google. I haven't even delved into things like The Chicago Manual of Style on this question yet.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  18:49, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Spacing amendment for numbers

I would like to suggest a slight amendment to Wikipedia spacing. In the event that a reference follows a number, that a space or a comma (comma for main article, space for side info box where nothing follows e.g. membership figures) should be used to show the number and the reference number are not one and the same. It can be easy for people to become confused, especially people with reading difficulties such as dyslexia and this seems a small and simple change that can add clarity and help avoid confusion. -- (preceding by User:Helper201 at 4:21, 21 August 2016‎, restored from page rollback)

I'm not sure I exactly follow. Could you give an example? --Trovatore (talk) 20:16, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

It sounds like she's saying we should not have, say in an infobox, "Population: 187^[8]" (no space after the number 187) but rather "Population:187 ^[8]" (space after the number 187).

We can do this by hand now and people probably do, but since we do proscribe a space before a ref generally, it might be that we need to say "but not here!" somewhere. I would hope not though. Herostratus (talk) 20:46, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Ah, I see. I guess I don't have much to add (but will anyway). Right, it seems perfectly reasonable to add a space in that situation, but I prefer not to clutter up the MoS with a million commonsense exceptions for unusual cases. The MoS says it's a guideline that allows for occasional exceptions. If there's evidence that people are being overly rigid about the no-space rule, then I suppose we might have to add an exception. --Trovatore (talk) 21:53, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

IF we agree that's a common-sense exception, we will in fact need to have a rule about it, otherwise people will remove that space on the strength of the general no-space rule (proof: it is happening today, ergo not everyone agrees that having the space there is obvious common sense). The rule need not be in the main MOS page, just in WP:MOSNUM where all the other nit-picks about numbers are. FWIW, I agree we should have this spacing exception, as long as the ref or other superscripted number is directly contiguous with a preceding numeral or other numerical construction (e.g. a formula), though not with numbers spelled out, like "seven".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  00:34, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

This is probably worst after a superscript: Area of a circle is πr² (although I guess this particular example would be set as math) Kendall-K1 (talk) 01:51, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

• For everyday numbers in normal text, no -- the superscripting and brackets make it clear what's going on, and even if a new user is momentarily confused, once you've read even just one article you'll get the hang of it and never be confused again. Math is a different matter, and as already noted that would be typeset anyway -- we could say something like "In the case of mathematical formulas, a space may be added where confusion [etc etc etc]". And to the extent anything like this is done, it should be a {{thinsp}}, not a regular space i.e. the first of the following, not the second

πr²  (thinsp)

πr²  (regular space)

(Yes, there's a difference, and yes it matters.) EEng 02:36, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

References

Agreed it should be a thin-space; I'd meant to make the same point and [ahem] spaced it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  12:56, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Hello everyone. Thank you for your responses. I didn't have ideas about aspects such as mathematical equations, so I'm glad this discussion has been able to develop further. The initial aspect that brought me to this was number information in the info box on the right hand side of the page, where you would have say, 'population 567^[1]', rather I'd propose 'population 567 ^[1]'. Instead of no space between the number and the reference number where it may become confused.

This then lead me to observing in text references too, although they aren't always as applicable because sometimes the reference is placed at the end of the sentence, after the full stop, so the divide is clear and this would be unnecessary. I think for in text references a comma would be most applicable (unless as stated a full stop already divides where a sentence ends) because it would look neater than a space and there wouldn't be unnecessary gaps, e.g. 'town ABC has seen a population increase of approximately 500,^[2] people per year'. Whereas a space would be used for the info box as there is less information. Also if a bracket follows the number then in this instance I don't think the change is necessary; for example 'population increased (567)^[3]', would be fine. The reference could then directly follow as it could not be confused with the number.

Can't agree with a spurious comma. We would not write "...of 500, people per year." so we should not use a comma when we add a ref. Of course in this case "...of 500, people per year.^[3]" would be the thing anyway. It is unusual that a reference doesn't follow a comma or fullstop.

I would have some sympathy for a special layout for maths, where a typical text would put an equation or expression on its own line.

But even then we could just as well say:

By Euclid's theorem^[3]

${\begin{aligned}1+\sum _{i}\left\lfloor {\frac {x}{p_{i}}}\right\rfloor -\sum _{i<j}\left\lfloor {\frac {x}{p_{i}p_{j}}}\right\rfloor &+\sum _{i<j<k}\left\lfloor {\frac {x}{p_{i}p_{j}p_{k}}}\right\rfloor -\cdots \\\end{aligned}}$

rather than conflate the maths and the footnotes.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 21:30, 24 August 2016 (UTC).

Yes, the idea of adding a comma is a complete nonstarter. And I'll say again that the brackets, the superscripting, and the difference in color make it so no one can reasonably be confused for long. I appreciate the OP's concern about dyslexia and so on but I just don't see it. EEng 21:52, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

How about the addition of a space between a number and a reference in the info box on the right hand side? I can't see any negative aspect to this small change and I haven't seen anyone present one. I know some people may think its obvious but if it could help people and it doesn't have a negative impact I don't see any reason not to allow this.

• I don't have a strong opinion about permitting a space or some other separator. However, if we add a special case for this, let's also suggest that the situation should simply be avoided wherever possible. Something like: "When possible, avoid placing a reference directly adjacent to a numeral, as it may confuse readers. Consider rewording the sentence, replacing the numeral with a written number, or moving the reference to a different part of the sentence." Pburka (talk) 23:34, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but for simple standalone numbers (i.e. a string of Arabic numerals, not a mathematical formula that maybe ends with a numeric constant) I just don't see how anyone can reasonably be confused. I think we're worrying over nothing, at least for the case I've described, which comes up frequently in e.g. infoboxes. EEng 03:21, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

I agree with the idea of advising that people rewrite to avoid when possible; this is standard MoS advice about any potentially confusing construction.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  12:56, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
PS: ALso agree that adding a comm is a no-go; that's semantically nonsensical.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:11, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Sandwiching

I believe the rule relating to sandwiching on the Wikipedia:Manual of Style needs to be amended. The current rule is immediately below.

• Avoid sandwiching text between two images that face each other, and between an image and an infobox or similar.

I would like it replaced with something along the lines of the following.

• Avoid sandwiching text between two images that face each other, and between an image and an infobox or similar, except when none of the images is wider than 220px and adding the additional image is desirable because it highlights a quote that sums up the essence of the information about the page.

Guerrillero Heroico

"For us there is no valid definition of socialism other than the abolition of the exploitation of one human being by another." - Che Guevara

This is in relation to my wish to place a 220px wide image of Che Guevara at the top left hand side of the Socialism page with a notable quote that sums up the essence and appeal of socialism: "For us there is no valid definition of socialism other than the abolition of the exploitation of one human being by another." I believe this improves the page. In my opinion this modestly sized image does not cause any aesthetic harm to the page and if anything improves the appearance, as you can judge by pasting the code used to create the image in this section onto the Socialism page just below the header and sidebar code and hitting the ‘Show preview' button. The default 220px thumbnail width allows this quote to fit well underneath it whereas anything much smaller would not look good.

You might not think it necessary to change the sandwiching rule, but you might believe this image of Che Guevara and the quote is of sufficient import to invoke the Wikipedia:Ignore all rules rule and support the use of this image/quote on this page in said manner on the grounds that doing so improves this page. If so please say so on theTalk:Socialism#Sandwiching images in lead page so a consensus can be reached that favors the addition of this image/quote on this page in this manner. Thank you for taking the time to read this comment. CodeBadger (talk) 05:50, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

• The problem (or one of many, anyway) with this proposal is the inherent difficulty in settling on the "quote that sums up the essence of the information about the page". In the case at hand, for example, I always felt that this was the quote that best sums of socialism:

The difference between capitalism and socialism is that under capitalism man exploits man, while under socialism it's just the opposite.

EEng 06:26, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

An excellent quote I have to say. It would be up to the editors who are interested in a particular article to reach a consensus as to what is the best quote. CodeBadger (talk) 05:41, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Gave me a chuckle. Good one.  Rules of enpagement Paine  20:09, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

• No, we're not going to amend MOS to enable you to do something very silly and unorthodox in one – or heaven forbid, more – articles. Even good intentions can cause sandwiching and this is a very good rationale for the present catch-all wording that makes no exceptions. Sandwiching is undesirable and if that conflicts with a "desirable" idea you had in mind, then you need to think of something else. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 22:58, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Um, that's a pretty harsh response to a new editor (500 edits) who maybe doesn't have a big-picture perspective yet. EEng 04:34, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Doesn't seem silly to me, while if we never challenged the prevailing orthodoxy we would never have progressed from the Dark Ages. Did you paste the code into the Socialism page and hit the 'Show preview' button as suggested to see what it looks like? If so what do you think it looks like? You seem to think sandwiching is inherently bad, but why is that? So long as the image is not too big (sensibly limited to a width of 220px) the text is not sandwiched enough to cause a problem. In fact it is easier to read a page which has narrow columns rather than wide columns. It seems to me that the rule relating to sandwiching is too restrictive and needs to be amended as suggested in order to improve Wikipedia. CodeBadger (talk) 05:41, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

• No, I don't agree that a change is needed. Sandwiching text is even less desirable in these days of very variable screen sizes on mobile devices, whose owners don't always want to view the mobile version. There's far too much sandwiching in articles. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:02, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
• The motivating example actually seems like an attempt to add a pull quote by other means. An image that "highlights a quote that sums up the essence of the ... page" is just a pull quote masquerading as an illustration. Pull quotes are generally discouraged in main space articles. Hiding a pull quote in an image caption does not improve the article. Pburka (talk) 15:43, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
• Looking at the version of the article with the image added, the article's introductory text is squished to an awkward column 2 or 3 words wide. I think the style advice to avoid sandwiching is good advice. While the quote is certainly evocative, I don't think it is very helpful as a starting point for the article. While there may be instances where sandwiching is warranted, I can't imagine it would ever be appropriate for the lead sentence.--Trystan (talk) 18:51, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
  • Fully concur with Finnusertop, Trystan, and Pburka. The issue of no pull quotes on Wikipedia has been long settled. It is the longstanding policy of the Wikipedia community that Wikipedia is not a textbook. Please read Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. --Coolcaesar (talk) 20:30, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Thank you all for your comments. I don't think it is a pull quote as this quote is not in the main article. I don't think the squeezing of the text at the top of the article is a problem so long as the image is not wider than 220px, while narrowing the text column near the top of the article makes it easier for people to get into reading it as it's easier to read narrow columns than wide columns. As for people who want to view a Wikipedia article on a small mobile they can use the mobile version of the Wikipedia article, while mobile devices now allow one to easily enlarge the non-mobile version of the article and move it around. It seems to me that if the quote sums up the essence of the article or a key point then it's ok if it leads the article. The current restriction on sandwiching seems too restrictive. We can limit the proposed sandwiching to the top of articles for one image/quote. The new rule could read as follows:

• Avoid sandwiching text between two images that face each other, and between an image and an infobox or similar, except when none of the images is wider than 220px and adding the additional image to the top left corner of the article is desirable because it highlights a quote that sums up the essence of the information about the article or a key point.

Perhaps we could add the Che image/quote to the top of the Socialism article for a week and get other people to have a look and see what they think? That would include other editors as well as our friends and relatives. It seems to me that we have nothing to lose by doing so and much to gain. CodeBadger (talk) 06:00, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

OK, look, your enthusiasm is admirable, but there's not going to be a special exception written into the rules for the very narrow situation of essential-quote-as-image-caption-at-top-of-article-opposite-infobox, and anyway there's a more fundamental problem here, which is that you're never going to get agreement on an "essential" quotation on a subject like socialism. EEng 06:29, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

• If the quote is really essential to the article, is should be in the article text. WP:CAPTION indicates that captions should identify the subject of the image, which a quote does not do. If you feel that this quote is critical to understanding socialism, you should try to incorporate it into the text instead of an image caption. Pburka (talk) 18:44, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your replies guys. It seems that the consensus is that my sandwiching idea sucks. Thank you Pburka for your idea about incorporating the quote into the text. Cheers. CodeBadger (talk) 08:38, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose, and I object to the WP:FORUMSHOPPING. This is just another attempt to do an end run around the RfC above about decorative quotation boxes. Address to WP:NPOV and other policy concerns about them in the RfC. Until you can do that, there is no basis whatsoever to try to wedge in "gimme quote boxes" stuff, much less under the guise of technical adjustments to the image-sandwiching section. It may well be that something needs to be said there about image sizes, but that has nothing to do with framing of out-of-context quotations, against MOS:BQ.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  11:24, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Oh, FFS calm down. The OP is a new user with a naive idea. There's no forum shopping or end run or anything else. And the OP's withdrawn the proposal, so why are you chiming in with all this gesticulation and hyperbole? Must you hold forth on everything? Did someone swap in regular for your decaf? Crickey! EEng 14:44, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

@Stanton: As the person who initially objected to the addition of the Che photo and quotation at Talk:Socialism § Sandwiching images in lead (which is what led to this discussion), I can assure you that CodeBadger had no intention of getting caught up in the {{quote box}} controversy. As EEng said, this is just a new user with a naïve idea (and no one here has suggested otherwise). That being said, this was an inadvertent demonstration of some of the problems caused by these quote boxes. Graham (talk) 15:38, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm entirely calm, and it's minced "for fuck's sake" exclamations that seem un-calm to me. As I said, we might needs to adjust the wording about image sizes, but doing so does not involve any rider about quote boxes.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:15, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Merger discussion

The bot archived /Archive_182#Composition_titles_advice_consolidation before it got any response. For the record, "Yes, please!" Scattering this all over the place doesn't help anyone. While at it, there might be value in separating the "whether" from the "how": there are various places and reasons to use italics, or title case, or sentence case; these reasons could be given independently from examples showing what these are and what markup creates them. LeadSongDog come howl! 19:41, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

@LeadSongDog: Right. There were no objections raised, so I was just going to continue doing it (carefully) as time permits. It's rather painstaking.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  11:29, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Happy to see it being addressed. I've elsewhere expressed my reasons for preferring sentence case over title case in citing such minor works as news articles, so I won't repeat those arguments here. Whether one agrees, disagrees, or maintains neutrality on that question, it can only be an improvement to have the MOS guidance rendered coherent. Discussion of guidance changes should likely be deferred until that effort is done. Thank you. LeadSongDog come howl! 18:50, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Understood. The consolidation would just be a consolidation without substantive changes, or fits would be pitched.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:13, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

About "MOS:NOTUSA"

(Clarify: I am talking about the paragraph linked by the MOS:NOTUSA shortcut.)

This paragraph claims: "US is more common in most other national forms of English." Is there any evidence for this? To me, as a Brit, "you-ess" sounds utterly American, and it is much more natural to call it USA. I am, of course not arguing with the situation for AmE, but the fact even that this shortcut (NOTUSA) had to be invented rather suggests that "USA" is indeed what it is called by many (at least non-American) people. Imaginatorium (talk) 19:32, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

I needed to read the paragraph of this section of the talk page to find out what it was talking about. When I simply read the heading, I thought the subject was whether WP:NOTUSA should re-direct to WP:WORLDVIEW because I thought it meant don't treat Wikipedia like it's a primary American encyclopedia, not don't use the USA abbreviation. Georgia guy (talk) 19:43, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Imaginatorium: Lots of Americans use "USA" also. But mostly in relatively informal contexts — patriotic songs, sporting events, things of that nature. The "US" abbreviation better fits the formal tone of an encyclopedia. --Trovatore (talk) 20:00, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for comments: I just clarified above (I hope). My point is that to me, it's the other way round: "US" is an American informality, whereas the full name of the country is "United States of America", abbreviated USA, and distinguished from various other sets of united states. I can see an argument that the Americans want it to be referred to without the 'A', and people should be able to decide their own names, but I think this should be clarified, or backed up by some evidence (e.g. a British style guide). Imaginatorium (talk) 04:50, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

I agree with Imaginatorium; there's nothing "informal" about the use of "USA" or "U.S.A." outside the United States. As just two examples, it's the standard abbreviation in the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families and World Spider Catalog, which is why you'll find this form all over Wikipedia in lists of plant and spider species. The MOS guidance on this subject is not neutral with regard to ENGVAR, as it should be. Peter coxhead (talk) 05:32, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

"US" is far preferable; "USA" is starting to sound distinctly old-fashioned ("USA Today"). Tony (talk) 06:47, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

"United States" is the standard form in Australia, required by our style guides. Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:32, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Which "styleguides" are those? If you're referring what is disparagingly known as the "Snook Book", the federal govt thing, it's contemptible. Tony (talk) 06:47, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

In the past, I think "the US" would have been considered an informal shortened form of "the USA", but I'll have to agree with Tony that "the USA" is now becoming old-fashioned. As an American, what strikes me as odd is the lack of periods/full-stops after "U" and "S" [and "A"]. We always write, "the U.S." or "the U.S.A."  – Corinne (talk) 18:14, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Who's "we"? That's something my father did, sure. It's more prevalent in the South, and among military, government and law people, but in great decline otherwise, probably because most US newspapers have abandoned it in headlines (except publishers those that use all-caps for headlines). I agree that it has changed within living memory; I remember a time when "the U.S." (with or without periods) was considered a little informal, but I'm going back to the early 1980s for that.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  12:27, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

That's a good example of the influence of ENGVAR on what seems old-fashioned. The full stops in "U.S.A." are very old-fashioned to me, being British, whereas "USA" merely seems more formal than "US". I'm in favour of allowing all four forms, so long as there is consistency within an article. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:17, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Here in Yankeeland, "USA" is what cowboy-hat-wearing yokels chant when they hear we bombed someone again. Not exactly unrelated, it's also used in a sporting context. Its use as an abbreviation in general, formal writing verges on an exonym at this point, the way Germans feel about being called "German", I think. Heh.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  12:27, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Style guides very commonly say to use "United States" as a noun, and "US" only in an adjectival construction ("US-based company", etc.), a rule WP should consider since it is so frequent and serves the purpose of clarity and avoidance of informal tone (or at least consider a version of it, e.g. "as an adjective, in tables, [etc. – whatever we think is needed for WP]"). Far too often, articles start with something like "JoeCo is a US weasel-shaving company...".

I've never seen a style guide outside the US say to spell it "U.S.", other than one newspaper's (maybe The Economist, I forget off the top of my head, and I have those books inaccessible right now due to some wall construction). An increasing number of American style guides have abandoned "U.S." for "US". Even the strongest bastion of that usage, outside the "U.S." government itself – American journalism – has turned radically inconsistent on the matter in the last decade, with the AP Sylebook abandoning the dots in headlines but retaining it in regular text, and some non-AP publishers doing the exact opposite, others using "US" exclusively, others "U.S." exclusively, and many (especially online) news sources being internally inconsistent on the matter. Many academic guides still favor "U.S.", except in the sciences, but they have slow update schedules (e.g. the last Chicago Manual of Style came out in 2010, and we're not likely to see a new one until at least 2018 but all accounts, possibly 2020). Even so, the very conservative Chicago itself now prefers "US". I've ever seen any style guide, anywhere, newer than the first half of the 20th century say to use "USA" or "U.S.A.", and even those that favor "U.S." and admit of "USA" ins some contexts say to avoid "U.S.A.", on the principle that conventional English practice is to drop the points from acronyms (anyone seen "N.A.T.O." since ca. 1984?); many specifically advise against the TLA version as archaic or colloquial. Its near-extinct use as an abbreviation in running prose should not be confused with its use a symbol in tabular data, like Olympic sports scores (IOC, FIFA, etc. use TLA country codes), the compressed data of field guides in which "US" might mean something else, in documents that use the three-letter ISO standard for all countries, etc.

As I indicated about a year go, we should eventually revisit whether to continue to permit "U.S." except in specific contexts (like U.S. government ones: "U.S. Secret Service", "U.S. Air Force", "U.S. Supreme Court", when these are abbreviated at all). We should reconsider whether consensus may change on this, maybe in another year or so, because of the rapidity with which real world usage has been shifting, the frequency with which people use "U.S." and "UK" side-by-side despite MoS saying not to, the countervailing infrequency with which anyone reverts a change of "U.S." to "US" in AmEng articles, etc. Per WP:CREEP we should eliminate rule-making that does not serve a clear purpose, and per common sense, a rule that amounts to "do whatever you want" in many circumstances isn't kind of pointless. We have the wording we have now as a hold-over from a 2000s, wishy-washy period in MoS's development when it was full of a lot of "meh, whatever" un-rule verbiage, and was prone to a lot more "my way the only way" editwarring. More editors understand today that MoS's purpose is a "pick something and stick with it instead of fighting about it forever" guideline for consistency, stability and dispute prevention, rather than a pseudo-article codifying what is "right" according to nationalist prescriptivism, or a descriptive-linguistics listing of every possible variation.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  12:27, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

I'd like to point out that the full official name of the United Kingdom is the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". I haven't seen the unwieldy abbreviations "U.K.G.B.N.I." or "UKGBNI" used anywhere; Wikipedia editors seem happy with the simple abbreviation "UK". Similarly, the "United States of America" can be abbreviated as "US" without much confusion. Reify-tech (talk) 19:42, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

"MOS:IE"

Filpro, what does the the IE in the new shortcut MOS:IE stand for? EEng 06:03, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

I was planning on it for being used for "Indian English" because of User:Filpro/script/IE. Would this shortcut be okay to use? Filpro (talk) 06:06, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Without commenting on whether the shortcut itself is okay, I wouldn't advertise it in the MoS as it's not terribly intuitive. Graham (talk) 06:10, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Now removed from MoS. Filpro (talk) 06:14, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Bill Gates thanks you. EEng 06:21, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, I thought this had something to do with working around Internet Explorer bugs.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  12:28, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Be kind to those blind

Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Do not use capitals for emphasis Is woefully incomplete in my opinion. It only reflects the aesthetic effect of italic text opposed to the functional effect intended by emphasis. As of this posting, the entire section currently reads as follows:

Do not use capitals for emphasis

Use italics, not capitals, to denote emphasis.

Incorrect: It is not only a LITTLE learning that is dangerous.

Correct: It is not only a little learning that is dangerous.

I propose modifying the section to mention the functional effect of italic emphasis, with included links, as follows:

Do not use capitals for emphasis

Further information: MOS:EMPHASIS

Instead of capitals, use italics for emphasis, generated by the <em>...</em> element in HTML (see HTML in wikitext) or template {{em|...}} in wiki markup (see template's documentation).

Incorrect: It is not only a LITTLE learning that is dangerous.

Correct: It is not only a little learning that is dangerous.

Thank you for considering these changes.--John Cline (talk) 22:51, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

John is right to bring attention to the difference between <i>...</i> and <em>...</em>. It's not just an issue for screen readers, either. There's a fuller exposition of why it's a good idea to properly mark up text that has more meaning than just presentation at:

• "Using <b> and <i> elements (W3C internationalization)"

for those interested. --RexxS (talk) 23:38, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

User:Graham87 may wish to comment.—Wavelength (talk) 23:38, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

This is irrelevant to the majority of screen reader users, as the most widely used screen readers don't take font attributes (e.g. bold, underlining, italic) into account at all. Also, Wavelength, your attempt to ping me didn't work; I suspect you had an edit conflict when you composed your message. I only found out about this thread because of an offwiki notification by Tony1. Graham87 13:20, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, User:Graham87, for alerting me. I received both alerts.

—Wavelength (talk) 13:38, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, User:Tony1, for your assistance.

—Wavelength (talk) 14:41, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

As nobody seems to be disagreeing with the thrust of John's suggestion I've gone ahead and updated the section on "Do not use capitals for emphasis" to use {{em}}. Taking into account Graham's comments above, I've also updated the section on "Emphasis" to more accurately explain the reasons for using <em>...</em>. --RexxS (talk) 17:17, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

I belatedly very strongly support this; I'd meant to fix that years ago, when I created the {{em}} template, and just forgot.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:15, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

In ranges that might otherwise be expressed with to or through

"The en dash in a range is always unspaced, except when at least one endpoint of the range includes at least one space." - erm, why?! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Turkeyphant (talk • contribs) 12:34, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Turkeyphant See MOS:DATERANGE.  – Corinne (talk) 00:37, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Well, that link just repeats the same rule in a different way. The reason for the rule is aesthetic. (And in fact that's the reason for a lot of formatting rules -- not something about "correctness", but rather what reads well and looks good.) For example:

Charles Robert Darwin (1809–1882) was an English naturalist

looks fine. But if you add the full dates:

Charles Robert Darwin (12 February 1809–19 April 1882) was an English naturalist

with no space around the dash you see how the "1809–19" are pulled together by the dash, as if they're the two things being related to each other -- the other stuff to the left and right is marginalized. But adding a space

Charles Robert Darwin (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist

makes it look much more balanced. EEng 20:06, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

A similar (but not identical) procedure is applied in the order of operations in mathematics and computer programming.

—Wavelength (talk) 20:34, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Most style, grammar, spelling, punctuation and other usage matters are arbitrary. WP does it it because other academic style guides do it (Chicago, Oxford, Scientific Style and Format, etc., etc.). The ones that do not are journalistic (or for school children). In virtually all news house style manuals, the very existence itself of the en dash is denied; they'll tell you there is "a" dash, and show you an em dash, after which they all part ways and recommend conflicting usage, because they pride themselves on being distinctive from their competition. The historical background is that the careful, methodical typesetting of book (including encyclopedia) printing has had en, em and other dashes (3-em, etc.) for ages, but the news printers (especially in the days of manual type) were all about expediency, often having to produce multiple editions per day, so they eliminated whatever they could get away with. This is also why journalism style tends to write things like "On 2 July 2017 the sun will explode" instead of "On 2 July 2017, the Sun will explode", and drops many other commas that are found in a more formal, deliberate register that is meant to be read in depth, not scanned for a few seconds. But we can actually thank them for one thing: the dropping of the unnecessary dots in upper-case acronyms and initialisms; the last time you saw "U.S.S.R." was probably long before the USSR ceased to exist as such. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:26, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

5.9 Ampersand

There are a couple of cases listed in the main article on ampersand which are not mentioned in MOS:AMP

° In film credits for stories, screenplays, etc., & indicates a closer collaboration than and. The ampersand is used by the Writers Guild of America to denote two writers collaborating on a specific script, rather than one writer rewriting another's work. In screenplays, two authors joined with & collaborated on the script, while two authors joined with and worked on the script at different times and may not have consulted each other at all. In the latter case, they both contributed enough significant material to the screenplay to receive credit but did not work together.

° The ampersand can be used to indicate that the "and" in a listed item is a part of the item's name and not a separator (e.g. "Rock, pop, rhythm & blues, and hip hop").

I could be WP:BOLD and just add them in, but I wasn't sure if this applied to policies (as opposed to general articles). Almonaster (talk) 03:13, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for asking. Yes, bold (but careful and thoughtful) editing even of policies and guidelines is OK; just don't be miffed if someone disagrees, reverts, and wants to see it discussed more first. It wouldn't hurt to pause and see if you get more reactions here though. Dicklyon (talk) 04:10, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

@Almonaster: I would be surprised if such a change went uncontested. I for one might question whether such fine distinctions, meaningful to perhaps one percent of readers, would be worth the increase in complexity and decrease in consistency, which are often overlooked or dismissed. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:45, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Paragraph 2 of the introduction says: "Any new content added to the body of this page should directly address a style issue that has occurred in a significant number of instances."

—Wavelength (talk) 05:15, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

I agree about adding complexity and overly subtle distinctions, and that it's only worth making changes that actually address a significant problem. Now if only that approach had been taken re hyphens and dashes. N-HH talk/edits 11:29, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

I will readily concede that the R&B case can be dropped - if it arises then an editor would probably be aware of it and find a solution.

The film credits case, I think is more serious, particularly because it is not readily apparent unlesss you are familiar with the distinction. Would it be a "significant" problem when an editor who is unaware of this inadvertently changes the meaning of an article by blindly applying consistency rules?

Almonaster (talk) 22:36, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia uses semicolons for such distinctions, as described at MOS:SEMICOLON.

° Semicolons are used in addition to commas to separate items in a listing, when commas alone would result in confusion.

Confusing:	Sales offices are located in Boston, Massachusetts, San Francisco, California, Singapore, and Millbank, London, England.
Clear:	Sales offices are located in Boston, Massachusetts; San Francisco, California; Singapore; and Millbank, London, England.

—Wavelength (talk) 15:55, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

I was aware of that use of semicolons, but I fail to see how it assists in either of the two cases I was concerned about. Almonaster (talk) 22:36, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

"Rock; pop; rhythm and blues; and hip hop". Does that help you see? --RexxS (talk) 23:20, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Yes, thanks. It seems unnatural to me, but it is a valid solution, and I would agree there is no need to change things just for this.

Do you have any suggestions for the accreditation case (see my reply to others above)?Almonaster (talk) 01:35, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Do you have any suggestions for the accreditation case - Give us a real-life case, and we might have suggestions. Per Wavelength's first comment, we shouldn't add guidelines to address problems that haven't been demonstrated to a significant degree in actual article content. The dismissive/glib term (which I dislike) is "a solution in search of a problem". ―Mandruss ☎ 02:25, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Serial comma works for me: "Rock, pop, rhythm and blues, and hip hop". All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 17:16, 1 September 2016 (UTC).

Stick with the semicolon usage infoboxes, and use "and" in running prose. If the collaboration was especially close, or someone rewrote someone else's script, these are facts WP would tell readers in plain English, not cagily hint at with typographic tricks almost no one would notice or understand. Wikipedia is not film credits, and is not written in the style of film credits. We shouldn't add such extremely topical nitpicks, since every other field may have different and conflicting "oh so special" uses for ampersands or whatever; see WP:SSF for an detailed explanation of why. We cannot account for them all since they conflict, and we should not try to, per WP:CREEP, since there could be hundreds of them for "&" alone. It's more important that WP be written consistently for a general audience that try to exactly parrot a specialist usage that is meaningless to anyone but specialists steeped in it. Attempts to do things like this very frequently erupt into protracted, productivity-sucking battlegrounds; there have been many of these, including attempts to capitalize the vernacular names of species of certain things (and then of all organisms) because journals in a few fields like to do it that way; many years of insistence on using a comma before "Jr." or "Sr." as the "only" "American" way to do it, when sources did not support such a notion after around the late 1980s; still-ongoing squabbles over pop-music orthography (& vs. "and", and "The" vs. "the" in names like "George Thorogood [and|&] [the|The] Destroyers"; capitalization of short prepositions and even "a", "and", etc., in song titles); and a zillion others. If it's not the way something from Oxford University Press or the University of California Press or some other major, high-end nonfiction publisher would do it, in a work for a general audience, it's probably a poor idea on Wikipedia. PS: Even for "close collaborations" that are notable and have articles as collaborations, we already almost entirely use "and" not "&" and this seems to be well-accepted and stable; e.g. Gilbert and Sullivan, Currier and Ives, and many, many others. There are a few "&" holdouts, like Simon & Garfunkel, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, but these could be normalized via WP:RM. The problem with retaining them is they inspire more "&" everywhere; people will mistake it for "the Wikipedia style", exactly the problem that lead to trying to capitalize all species common names, and the current problem of people converting block quotations into decorative quote boxes (see RfC above).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  12:49, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

I quite often change "&" to "and", probably on a daily basis, and certainly prefer the "and". Yet I've never changed, nor think we should, a real world name of something which already includes the "&" (Dungeons & Dragons, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young & such). That was, and still is, the problem found in the Jr. comma debates - since Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and not a press or style guide, it should reflect the name rather than change it for style purposes. I would love to see all the "&"'s be gone, but not when they are part of an actual name of a film, group, song, or ice cream bar. As for Simon &and Garfunkel (I prefer Garfunkel and Oates), two of their studio album covers, Bridge over Troubled Water and Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, contain "and", as do most of their collection including Simon and Garfunkel's Greatest Hits. Randy Kryn 23:08, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Then we should definitely change that one to Simon and Garfunkel; per MOS:TM we don't retain a marketing stylization unless it's used consistently by the subject and by the RS (e.g. M&M's, where we also retain the questionable apostrophe since it's in the official name and virtually all RS retain it, unlike the ! in Pink (singer)'s P!nk logo or the caps in Sony's SONY logo. Dungeons & Dragons is a different case; we don't change & in the title of published works (and pretty much no one else does, off-WP, either). For bands, people are going to argue about this until the end of time. Bands are very often self-inconsistent, either generally, after a label change, or whatever. E.g. Siouxsie and the Banshees is spelled at least four different ways (and The, & the, & The on their albums, and not at all consistent in sources. While a few are consistent on albums, even in exact logos sometimes, they usually are not in sources, but are more consistent in RS than bands that aren't self-consistent. For my own playlists, I use & The as a convention consistently, just to distinguish cases that are not of the form "Name & The Somethings" but are phrases that happen to have "and the" in them, like "The Earth and the Starry Sky" or whatever. Then you have character substitution complications like Florence + The Machine (or is it + the?) It's headache inducing. I would rather we settled on exact thing, and used the standard "stylized as" parenthetical. It makes it easier for editors, for reader who figure out we have a standard a approach after seeing a few band articles, reflects actual sources usage (some do use the stylization, some don't), obeys MOS:TM (since some don't, default to non-stylized), yet preserves the official name in the lead sentence. An all-win situation. It's just a matter of what to standardized on. I think the most WP-consistent would be and the. Could also apply this by default (don't we already) to company names, again with MOS:TM exception that if almost all the sources consistently "honor" and & or + or whatever, we should too. The one thing we don't do is just say "WP:OFFICIALNAME always wins; the whole point of that page is that it's often a lower-rung concern at all.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:45, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Why not just "%" across all pages?

In the section on numbers, it says "Write 3%, three percent, or three per cent..." Why don't we use "%" by default? There are three good reasons: (1) It's a simple symbol that is recognized easily and globally. (2) It saves 6 (!) characters. (3) It solves the dilemma of having to choose between "percent" and "per cent". Since Wikipedia is all about finding common ground, I think that adopting "%" is an obvious case. Let me know if you support this. If not, I would love to hear reasons against "%" by default. EngvarB consistency (talk) 19:40, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Because consistency isn't everything, and unless there's evidence MOS needs a rule on something, then it needs to not have a rule on that thing, because it's huge and clumsy enough as it is. Is there any evidence editors are wasting time arguing over this? (Saving characters is, of course, an absurd argument, except maybe in infoboxes and tables, where the guideline encourages use of % already.) EEng 20:07, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

But there is a rule already, it says: "Write 3%, three percent, or three per cent." What I'm saying is that it could just be "Write 3%". I have seen many articles with a "percent" here and a "per cent" there, and a "%" in between. It's less distracting for readers if there is one uniform style. That's the whole point of a Manual of Style. EngvarB consistency (talk) 20:58, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

For the same reason that we don't have the 'rule' say just "Write three percent". We don't force a style preference when there are multiple equally valid alternatives. The consistency issue is a different problem, and one for which we already have guidance. The opening section of Manual of Style states Style and formatting should be consistent within an article, though not necessarily throughout Wikipedia. Where more than one style is acceptable under the Manual of Style, editors should not change an article from one of those styles to another without a good reason. Edit warring over optional styles is unacceptable.[b] If discussion cannot determine which style to use in an article, defer to the style used by the first major contributor. If a style or similar debate becomes intractable, see if a rewrite can render the issue irrelevant. You can change articles with a "percent" here and a "per cent" there, and a "%" in between to use a consistent format without needing any more 'rules' than we already have. --RexxS (talk) 21:30, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

I think many would agree that the encyclopedia would be better if we settled on one choice or another (for this and many issues), but it would likely be impossible to settle on which choice that should be. We have accepted the compromise that individual articles should be consistent even if Wikipedia is not.  SchreiberBike | ⌨  21:45, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the answers. It makes more sense to me now. So the general rule is: always consistency within articles, in some cases across articles. I'm a bit surprised though that (if I understand the manual correctly) the default for quotations is "logical style", not typographical. I would have thought that quotation style would be a much more controversial issue to be standardized than for example "%"... EngvarB consistency (talk) 22:43, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

It was, trust me. EEng 22:46, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

The "3 percent" or "3 per cent" style, like "three%", is a sloppy mix-and-match of numeric versus spelled-out styles (cf. "a 3 cm worm" or a "three-cenitmeter worm" or "three-cenitmetre worm"). The divergent spellings per permitted per WP:ENGVAR; it's somewhat conventional though not universal to use per cent in British and some other forms of Commonwealth English dialects (I don't recall seeing it in Canada when I lived there, though).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:50, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

We can often go either way in Canada. See, eg, this directive for federal government translators, though I couldn't say with confidence that the "two-word spelling is more common in Canada" as it does. Graham (talk) 22:19, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

General rule of thumb with Canadian English: We can usually go either way with most spelling differences – we're too polite to correct anyone. Graham (talk) 22:23, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Use curly apostrophes and quotes

I think Wikipedia should follow using curly/smart quotation marks and apostrophes. Possibly in VisualEditor would convert to smart/curly ones ("Text" would convert to “Text” automatically, and for apostrophes, it will convert from 'Text' to ‘Text’ (“smart” quotation marks and “smart” apostrophes). I think straight/dumb quotes and apostrophes look so weird, so curly/smart ones would be better. Also in WP a bot would convert straight to curly quotes. If you use VE, if you type ' and " whey will be converted to smart ones automatically. Thanks. 46.130.146.196 (talk) 16:08, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

that you think straight QMs and As "look so weird" is hardly a sufficient counter to the arguments given for the use of straight marks. (And I think straight marks look fine, particularly in the small-size san serif font that's the default here.) Jeh (talk) 16:21, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Be nice. I think curlies look better too, but I know enough to know that ship sailed long ago. The OP has no way of knowing that. EEng 16:31, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

My ship sailed long ago too. Randy Kryn 19:02, 3 September, 2016

Dang, Randy... and I thought I was old! (j/k) Jeh (talk) 06:41, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Double spaces after period?

I have recently been removing double spaces after periods on various articles and than another editor came to my page and told me that it wasn't a good idea. I have never seen or heard about the use of "double spaces" in this day of age, and most of Google agrees with me, since when you search up "Should you put two spaces after a period?", most of the search results are against double spaces. The article Sentence spacing also says that "The desired or correct sentence spacing is often debated but many sources now say additional space is not necessary or desirable." I'd just like to get everyone's opinion, thanks. Hawkeye75 (talk) 06:22, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Please don't edit to remove double spaces. All you do is make their defenders (I'm one, for full disclosure) angry, without actually making any visible change whatsoever to the rendered page. HTML already collapses multiple spaces, unless you use a "hard space" (for example, &nbsp;). I wish it didn't, but it does, so your edits don't make any difference except when viewing the source. --Trovatore (talk) 06:26, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

See no one explained to me that HTML removes double spaces automatically... I always use visual editing, so now I understand that it doesn't translate to the actual article. Hawkeye75 (talk) 06:30, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Excuse me, but I absolutely did explain that in my first comment to you on this subject. I said that those edits of yours "do not affect the rendered text", and I also gave you an example to look at: "For example, the previous sentence has two spaces after it, while this one has just one. You'll notice that they render the same". (And they did, and do.) I also wrote there (again, in my original cmt to you) "While such edits do not affect the text seen by the reader..." (emph. added). I'm not sure how I could have been more clear. Jeh (talk) 06:38, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

A space takes one byte, so removing extra spaces reduces an article's size, and then it loads quicker. The benefits are more easily recognized when loading large articles. Because the extra space isn't rendered, as mentioned above, I'm not sure why people advocate its use within Wikipedia: All it does it take up more server space, unless I'm grossly mistaken. When push comes to shove, Hawkeye75, AutoWikiBrowser will be the tool to use to remove them all. Fdssdf (talk) 06:53, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Correct imho. Not a huge difference, but they're a waste of bandwidth and server space. Just eliminate them. Using regex on AWB would be fairly easy. EvergreenFir (talk) 06:57, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

No, not correct, and Fdssdf is indeed "grossly mistaken". Anyone who thinks this has anything to do with performance, "server space", or anything else has no idea at all how any of this works. Stop tinkering and do something to actually contribute. EEng 07:11, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Oh, please. The extra spaces won't make a noticeable difference in page load time because a) they are not sent to the client's web browser anyway. The renderer converts the wikitext to HTML and excludes them in that step (you can verify this with the "view source" feature of your browser). And b) disk read time and rendering time at the server is far from the limiting factor in "page load time". Re disk space, removing them, in most cases I've seen, takes far more server space (for the entry in the edit history) than the removed spaces used up! The reason many people (including myself) like them is the same reason they're commonly used and even recommended in typescript: they make sentence boundaries in the edit window easier to see.

And re AWB, please see WP:AutoWikiBrowser#Rules_of_use, rule 4. You're not supposed to do that. Jeh (talk) 07:25, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

It's a pity there's no way of enforcing Rule 4. I checked my overnight watchlist changes and about a quarter of the edits were of the same level of pointlessness – adding/removing spaces, capitalizing wikilinked text, re-ordering template parameters, etc. More important than server resources, this wastes editor time. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:44, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Guideline against inconsequential edits?

I think there should be a guideline somewhere discouraging the making of inconsequential edits (defined as those that don't affect the rendered text). This would include space-twiddling of almost all sorts, don't use newlines/do use newlines, etc.

This is already stated for users of AWB but I see no reason why it shouldn't apply to all edits. A common response to complaints about such edits is "there's no rule against it!" Maybe there should be. Such edits clutter up the edit history, increase editor workload, and annoy some other editors (like @Trovatore: above, and me), all for no benefit to the reader.

Such a guideline probably doesn't belong at MOS - I just put it here because the preceding section suggests it. Jeh (talk) 06:51, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

While this idea may reduce "clutter", it would put a chilling effect on editors, and that would be harmful to the project. Also, do you include link-piping in this "inconsequential" definition? Fdssdf (talk) 07:03, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Every rule or even guideline has a "chilling effect" on editors; it is something to consider, but not a reason to reject any idea out of hand. Personally I don't see why "Don't fix what isn't broken", with a list of fewer than a dozen examples of things often fixed but not broken, would be terribly chilling.

A "chilling effect" on editors who seem to spend most of their time making such edits would be a very good thing in my view. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:48, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

(It's amazing how many people keep arguing that there's something wrong with advice to not do "work" that does not improve Wikipedia one iota for the reader, but which adds to the workload of other editors, in some cases annoyingly so.)

I'm not sure what you mean by the second. I know what link-piping is, but what sort of change are you asking about? If you mean changing a word or phrase to make it a WL, no, that's not inconsequential - besides the fact that the link renders in blue, the behavior of the page is changed. If you're just changing the code for a WL to a different form, for example changing [[Example|examples]] to [[example]]s, yes, that's inconsequential and "fixing what isn't broken". But at least the change will be plainly obvious in the diff display. "fixed" double-spaces, not so much. Jeh (talk) 07:28, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Opinion needed on a possible page move

Please visit and comment here:

• Talk:List of tallest buildings in the world#Opinions welcome

Many thanks.

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 06:55, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Proposed revision: links within quotes

As much as possible, avoid linking from within quotes, which may clutter the quotation, violate the principle of leaving quotations unchanged, and mislead or confuse the reader.

Despite being called into question time and again, the above rule remains essentially the same as when it was added in Oct 2006 following a discussion. When I look at these conversations, it doesn't even look like the rule was ever built upon a clear, unanimous consensus in the first place, or has ever since been firmly supported, established or enforced. I think this obscures its overall validity as a WP:POLICY as well, as expressed in the last comment at this discussion by Pmanderson.

I also couldn't agree more with the last comment about this issue on this talk, by SMcCandlish: "it's more helpful to say 'do this' than just 'don't do that'." So here's my proposed revision, in which I attempt to elaborate on the current rule rather than to alter it:

Wikilinks within quotations must be kept to a bare minimum. Only link a word or phrase that is unequivocally referring to a unique and specific entity or notion—that is, usually a proper name or technical jargon—except when it is universally recognized and therefore easily understood by most readers (see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Linking § Overlinking).

Excessive:	Smith wrote, "The [[1990s]] [[German]] [[film]], [[Cinematography|shot]] on [[70 mm film|70 mm]], is [[Epic film|bigger]] and more [[Film budgeting|expensive]] than ''[[Ben-Hur (1959 film)|Ben-Hur]]''."
Modest:	Smith wrote, "The 1990s German film, shot on [[70 mm film|70 mm]], is bigger and more expensive than ''[[Ben-Hur (1959 film)|Ben-Hur]]''."

If such a subject is mentioned somewhere else in the article, however, then link those instead of the one inside the quote (see also Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Linking § Repeated links). And even if not, consider adding or moving a mention of the subject to the surrounding encyclopedic passage.

Confusing:	"[[Paris, Texas|Paris]] still has the best", food critic John Smith said in 2007. (Reader must click on link to discover that the obvious interpretation of "Paris" is incorrect.)
Acceptable:	"[[Paris, Texas|Paris[, Texas]]] still has the best", food critic John Smith said in 2007.
Better:	"Paris still has the best", food critic John Smith said in 2007, referring to [[Paris, Texas]].

Most importantly, never give links to words that are remotely semantically ambiguous or use piped links to direct to articles whose subject is significantly broader or narrower than the displayed text (Easter egg links). This is to avoid leaving any room for original research or violation of text–source integrity.

Bad:	[[United States Declaration of Independence|Four score and seven years ago]] our [[Founding Fathers of the United States|fathers]] brought forth on [[North America|this continent]] a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that [[all men are created equal]].
OK:	Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Clunky (?) examples aside, I think this generally sums up the points discussed in this talk before (as cited). What I would love to find out is if people think this is overall in the right direction or not, whether they might agree or disagree about some minutiae. Nardog (talk) 08:14, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Notes

• It's about time we tackled this idiotic provision. Without mulling it carefully (bedtime!) the above is a great start; subject to the OP's permission of course, I added a note to one of the examples.

• Re "Only link a word or phrase that is unequivocally referring to a unique and specific entity or notion—that is, usually a proper name or technical jargon": Too strong, I think. There's no difference between linking within a quote and linking in a paraphrase of that quote: we need to be sure that what we're linking to reflects what the source was referring to; beyond that, if the link helps the reader understand the quote, that's no different from a link that helps the reader understand a paraphrase.
• Re "except when it is universally recognized and therefore easily understood by most readers": Isn't this just trying to say what WP:OVERLINK says, and (I say again) the guiding principles for linking don't need to be any different inside quotes than they are outside quotes, so they don't need to be restated here in different ways.
• Here's another example that might be useful:

The outer of the two rooms is of Alabama marble, with fluted columns and Ionic capitals.

EEng 08:45, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

• I definitely support this change, whether or not the above word is perfect or eventually changed. (It's a #honour to have inspired something.) To be honest, I completely forgot this policy existed. I linked something in a quote the other day. That's just one example of how this policy is widely ignored and not supported by consensus. It definitely needs to be changed, whether or not it's changed to the above specifically. McLerristarr | Mclay1 08:49, 4 September 2016 (UTC)