User:HTGS/curly

Should Wikipedia, via the Manual of Style, recommend for or against “curly” quotes? Currently MOS:CURLY says no.

The Manual of Style’s guidance for straight quotes was begun in 2004. We are currently in a different era. The old issues of search engines, users’ display options, browsers’ find functions and even problems with typing these characters have largely disappeared. Searching for quote marks is a non-issue, on or off Wikipedia. Many people are editing from devices that automatically add curly quotes, and reverting to straight quotes can be more of a pain than typing curly is for other users.

Note on vocabulary
The marks that look like “this” or ‘that’ are variously called curly, smart, typographer’s or curved quotes. Those that look like "this" and 'that' are usually called straight, dumb or typewriter quotes. Beware the false friend, typesetter’s quotes, which refers to punctuation set inside of a quote. (See MOS:LOGICAL.)

For a neutral point of view, and to avoid confusion, it’s best to use curly and straight to discuss them.

Why should we use curly marks?
Many people who support curly marks say that these are the “correct” symbols. This is supported by style guides and the majority of sources that address the question. Arguments in favor of straight marks on Wikipedia do not typically suggest that straight marks are better per se; arguments around them usually focus on whether they are feasible.

The distinction between the two sets of marks can be distilled down to which is easier for the writer, and which is easier for the reader. Both can be found in the wild, so it’s worth exploring which set of marks is preferable, especially in the context of an editable encyclopedia, where we cater to both readers and writers (editors). Less serious reasons to support curly quotes include:
 * Aesthetics and typographic standard. Published documents use curly quotes and apostrophes, and as a result sophisticated readers treat these as the “correct” marks.
 * This standard is confirmed by design, publishing and typographic sources on the matter, who almost universally recommend typographer’s quotes over typewriter quotes. As we follow real-world standards and usage where we can, it would be unusual to avoid outside best-practices without good reason.
 * The two curly quote marks are directional, and therefore semantic. Like parentheses they provide information to the reader about where a quote is ending and beginning.
 * Similarly, apostrophes are used differently depending on context. Readers who might be unsure of how to typeset unusual contractions like Rock 'n' roll or Man o' war can check Wikipedia as they do for many other facts.
 * This directional nature gives an ease of readability, including for accessibility reasons. (For example, anecdotally, people with dyslexia say they benefit from asymmetric symbols).
 * Confirmation that while we are maintaining a living document meant to be edited, we are also putting out a published document meant to be read and one that should aspire to a finished standard. Philosophically this is also an assertion that the reader comes first.
 * The curly characters are always content characters, and are never used as part of MediaWiki markup, HTML markup or any other computer language.
 * Because of this, human editors are better able to visually distinguish curly quotes for content from straight quotes for code. This makes reading and editing source code easier.
 * Similarly, distinguishing content from code makes it easier for the MediaWiki interpreter to parse, removing the need for constructions like  or templates like `.
 * If the German Wikipedia can do it, so can we!
 * This is part of the gay agenda. We are here to remove all things straight.
 * More opportunities to describe stuff with sixes and nines.

Why do we not?
On the question of curly quotes and apostrophes the MOS currently recommends against them (Manual of Style), and gives two reasons to avoid them. A third reason: the difficulty or awkwardness of change, is often raised in talk page discussions.

Curly quotes are harder to type
In most editing environments curly quotes and curly apostrophe characters are difficult to type. A user must pull up the special character menu in the editing environment, be able to type the characters using their keyboard, or use a separate editing environment before copying text into their browser.

Curly quotes make searches unpredictable
While historically it seems that some people were concerned about the ability of readers to search out a given article using external search engines (eg, Google) or MediaWiki’s internal search function, this seems to be less of a concern at present. (Formerly it seems search engines also had trouble with dashes and other typographic marks.discussion I have not investigated further.)

The MOS currently puts emphasis on the ability to “find” within a browser:

This is now true for only one “major” browser: Internet Explorer, and year-to-date, IE has represented <1% of all traffic to desktop Wikimedia sites, and this appears to still be dropping. On Usage share of web browsers, IE is now lumped in with “other”. These stats are measured in part “to support decisions by our engineers and product owners”.

It seems likely that serious researchers will be using modern browsers, but even for those few users on IE whom this affects, the nature of this specific search type is so unusual that the number of people affected will not be significant enough to dictate MOS guidance.

Change is hard
A large portion of concern in previous discussions has been raised about the likelihood of inconsistency and messy articles using both styles of quote marks. Edit-warring between styles is a common concern, and one of the big reasons for the MOS to prefer one style, rather than allowing multiple.

A change of this magnitude can be off-putting in itself. In previous discussions, editors disliked the idea of articles being in disarray, mixing styles within a single document. But Wikipedia is not a place for people who hate change. So long as we can provide guidance for a clear and hippocratic mode of transition, it should be harmless. The best way to transition these marks is outlined below.

How to insert smart quotes
There are many ways to insert smart quote characters, and each might suit a different situation. For example a user on Windows might find that when creating a new article from scratch it is easiest to type it out in a word processor and then copy into Wikipedia’s. An editor adding a simple quote to an article might just copy and paste the symbols from elsewhere in the article. Someone wanting to change straight quotes to smart quotes throughout a lengthy article might use regex substitution but use substituted templates to ensure the changes are easy to see before publishing.

Most methods are listed here:
 * 1) Click to insert symbols in the menu bar. In Vector’s visual editor this is done by the symbol menu, under  , where double quote marks are insertable as a pair. These can easily be added to other editing tools by request following consensus here (eg, at MediaWiki talk:Edittools).
 * 2) Type characters in using keystrokes. This option is fairly accessible for Mac, much harder for Windows. See Keystrokes below.
 * 3) Type in the html code (eg:   for the ” symbol—the right double quote).
 * 4) Insert a template functioning as the same (eg: rdquo, with alias r" ).
 * 5) Use templates inline quote double and inline quote single which encompass a quote, creating curly quote marks around the text. (Aliases: in" and in' respectively.) For example:
 * 6) Copy and paste the symbols from other pages or places within a document.
 * 7) Edit in a secondary app, such as Microsoft Word, then copy in all changes at once.
 * 8) In future, an optional user tool can generate smart quotes as you write. These are relatively easy to implement as Javascript (see this existing plugin for Chrome). Obviously these tools would avoid correcting double and triple straight quotes  and could be turned on and off. Asking for a tool like this will be easier at the point that the MOS prefers curly quotes.
 * 9) This type of tool could later be implemented as back-end changes for all users. This would function similarly to typing content at Medium or Quora.
 * 1) Copy and paste the symbols from other pages or places within a document.
 * 2) Edit in a secondary app, such as Microsoft Word, then copy in all changes at once.
 * 3) In future, an optional user tool can generate smart quotes as you write. These are relatively easy to implement as Javascript (see this existing plugin for Chrome). Obviously these tools would avoid correcting double and triple straight quotes  and could be turned on and off. Asking for a tool like this will be easier at the point that the MOS prefers curly quotes.
 * 4) This type of tool could later be implemented as back-end changes for all users. This would function similarly to typing content at Medium or Quora.

Keystrokes
On Windows must be active. Hold the Alt key while typing the four-digit character code on the numeric keypad:


 * Alt produces a left single quote
 * Alt produces a right single quote
 * Alt produces a left double quote
 * Alt produces a right double quote

On Mac:

For Linux it will depend on the system, but many solutions are covered here:
 * option produces a left single quote
 * option produces a right single quote
 * option produces a left double quote
 * option produces a right double quote

How to transition Wikipedia from straight to curly quotes
Many people who might prefer curly quotes in a general sense are averse to the various modes of transition. While many editors are rightfully wary of options like “Allow both styles as a compromise”—which would lead to mixed styles and a much messier looking encyclopedia—and “Change all quotes using bots”—which could lead to messing up integral markup (italics and bold styles implemented using  and ' ).

A middle ground that plans for an unhasty but deliberate change is the best course. That is, guidance at WP:CURLY would read:

This allows the gnomes to do the work of changing articles as they wish, but maintaining an internal consistency to articles, while still unambiguously supporting one style over the other. The reader should be un-jarred (and probably won’t even notice), and editors should find the changes minimally intrusive to their watchlists.

Should we wish to allow bots, we can do so at a later point, with the full oversight that bots always require.

Users will no doubt ask questions like “if an article consistently uses straight quotes, should I use curly or straight to add a new quote?” or “A user just changed half the quotes in an article to straight quotes, should I revert them?”. These aren’t complicated problems though; at the end of the day, we have a clear outcome to aim for.

0. Require straight quotes, with bots and users correcting smart quotes wherever they pop up.

1. Allow both within an article, requiring consistency within a given sentence or paragraph.

2. Allow any article to use either, with no preference, similar to international spelling differences between articles

3. Allow either as a gentle transition, but recommend smart quotes.

4. Transition to smart quotes, but without bots or any major automation.

5. Transition with use of bots and automation (deliberately and with sensible precautions)

Previous discussions

 * Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 3 22 Sep 2004 For uniformity and to avoid complications use straight quotation marks and apostrophes, not curved (smart) ones or grave accents


 * Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 4 13 Oct 2004
 * Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 5 12 Nov 2004
 * (Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 12) 19 Mar 2005
 * Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 18 8 July 2005 when I stop seeing quotes that turn into "no such character" glyphs, then I'll be ready to change away from straight quotes


 * Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 19
 * Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 40 14 January 2006
 * Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 61 7 November 2006 "Jabberwocky" or “Jabberwocky” should both be fine. We tend mostly toward the former.


 * Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 78 28 May 2007
 * Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 83 21 June 2007
 * Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 94 12 November 2007
 * Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 101 7 June 2008
 * Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 100 1 July 2008 The “mature article” option
 * Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 103 16 August 2008
 * Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 104 21 September 2008
 * Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 104 29 October 2008
 * Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 108 23 February 2009 Which makes reference to this sub-topic: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 103 29 August 2008
 * Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 108#Punctuation: Quotation marks: “regular” vs. "straight" 21 July 2009
 * Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 110 13 November 2009
 * Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 116 20 July 2010
 * Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 118#Quotation marks: typewriter vs. typographical 3 December 2010 The main problem from allowing curly quotes would be the pointless edit countitis and back-and-forth trivial edits: proponents would eagerly convert articles, or add quotations using their favored format (irritating those editors with a different view).


 * Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 126  10 December 2011
 * Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 128 27 April 2012
 * Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 130 13 September 2012
 * Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 138 27 February 2013 Curly quotes (“”, ‘’) are not verbotten, merely not recommended.


 * Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 138 21 March 2013
 * (Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 142 25 July 2013)
 * Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 152 4 February 2014
 * Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 152 27 February 2014 The last time this came up, a few people said that readers in poorer countries might be using older browsers, but if that's no longer the case, then the time for this rule has passed and I would support removing it. See next discussion regarding WP searching:


 * Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 163 18 February 2015
 * Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 166 23 May 2015
 * Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 181#Revisiting curly quotes 28 March 2016
 * (Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 181 14 April 2016)
 * Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 183 3 September 2016
 * Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 187 26 September 2016
 * Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 188 18 December 2016
 * (Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 208 22 September 2018)
 * Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 213 10 April 2019
 * Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 215 4 June 2019
 * Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 219 11 February 2020
 * Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 219 17 May 2020 German Wikipedia uses curly quotes
 * (Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 220 19 July 2020)
 * Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 225 8 May 2022