Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 184

While I understand there were several questions in the various headed discussions, there was much overlap, so I'm closing this all together.

A few things to note:

First, as this is a style question of format of quoting (which template to use, whether templates should be used, etc.), much of the discussion concerns ILIKETIT/IDONTLIKEIT comments.

Second, albeit with some clear exceptions, guidelines are generally to reflect consensus and common practice, not the other way round.

So while keeping the above in mind, use of quotes in articles using some form of template has consensus. Though there was discussion concerning what the appropriate styling should be (and whether more than one style - such as with or without a border-box, oversized quotation marks, shading, adjusted font size, etc.), and whether the templates should be merged or to remain separate - none had overall consensus. This close does not prevent a follow-up RFC on such styling. Once that is determined, then a followup to that would be implementation of how to address the current styistic usage in articles.

There is consensus that "pull quotes" should be avoided in most cases, but should be left to editorial discretion. So the templates' "intended usage" should be edited to remove that usage as a suggested general example, as necessary. - jc37 00:40, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

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

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:

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:

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.


 * — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  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: Refs for "Quote" usage:. . Refs for "Cquote" usage:. Refs for "Quote box" usage:.
 * Quote, Blockquote, and raw "..." (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.

The main operative section of this MOS is WP:BLOCKQUOTE (WP:MOS), most specifically the second and fourth sentences which read:
 * Block quotations can be enclosed in the quote template, or between a pair of "..." 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  code search results showing actual total page counts, and article counts more specifically:

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, in 48,234 pages , including 40,201 articles at that name. Its Blockquote alias adds 3,476 pages  and 2,143 articles . Redirects of merged templates add many more: Quotation adds 14,395 pages  and 8,480 articles , and " adds 304 pages & 111 articles . 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  markup – functionally equivalent to Quote in most cases – is used in 169,349 pages, of which 67,157 are articles . 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, but in "only" 89,066 pages , of which . Another 485 articles are added by its Quotebox alias , 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, of which 35,081 are of its Cquote} alias . The latter appears in 33,818 pages , including 17,269 articles , plus 555 pages using its "canonical" name Pull quote , of which 251 are in articles , and 608 more pages and 415 more articles  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 in 101 pages  and 69 articles  at that name. Of the total 1,760 transclusions, its long-standing shortcut Rquote accounts for 1,672 , and adds 1,664 pages to the page count , and 1,306 articles , 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, and only 42 are in articles.

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, 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 ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  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  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 which has (I think) correctly used  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)

— SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  03:03, 21 August 2016 (UTC) Updated 06:44, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Answering the four RfC questions in order, with detailed rationales:
 * 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  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.
 * 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 (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.
 * 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 was I reverted or challenged on it.  Basically,  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 enough visual distinction, see  for how to address that.
 * 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 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  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., 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 ; 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.

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 . 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)
 * 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  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 ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:00, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

, provided the code support for that is in place. The few cases where is used for a pull quote can be replaced with, say, &hellip;. Sorry to duck the prickly question of which presentation options to prefer or keep, but if semantics and accessibility are fixed first, the presentation issues should be easier to approach. Matt Fitzpatrick (talk) 11:26, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
 * 1) One core template should suffice for simple blockquotes, because HTML only has one way of marking up a blockquote. Whether the community decides on one visual presentation or hundreds, the output follows the same pattern: a &lt;blockquote> element containing the quoted text and maybe a &lt;cite>. If different presentations are desired, just use parameters and maybe wrapper templates to adjust the class (or in a pinch, style) attribute. Maintenance is easier, skins can tweak the appearance, and user CSS can override as needed.  would need some changes to serve as such a core template, but the changes wouldn't be difficult.
 * 2)  for blockquotes is an accessibility error. This puts a blockquote inside a &lt;div>, making it impossible for some users to tell that it's quoted text, and should be addressed if only for that reason. One possibility:  could be rewritten as a wrapper, something like "&hellip;"
 * 1) Ditto for . Code copy-and-pasted from  is responsible for every blockquote I've ever seen rendered as a &lt;table> on a wiki. I've started to imagine the "C" stands for something unpleasant and fast-spreading.
 * 2) Headings do the job of pull quotes better. In loosely structured or inverted-pyramid writing, like blog posts and news articles, pull quotes are a nice visual break in a long page. Wikipedia articles already get visual breaks from headings, with added benefits for organization and accessibility. So while pull quotes may be fine for a WP:Essay, etc., they are largely decorative in a Wikipedia article.

Pastel line on the left
An editor, User:Waldir, just recently at Template_talk:Quote 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  -- if greater consistency is desired in generic quotations -- adopting a pastel line for Quote would necessitate either 1) applying the same formatting to  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 ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  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 ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  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 ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  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)
 * 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 ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  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, . It rings a bell to me, too, but my eyes hurt right now. Been at screen too long.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  17:27, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
 * You're probably thinking of MOS:DEVIATIONS. And I agree: raw HTML should be actively and strongly discouraged in mainspace for both a11y and maintainability reasons (but, obviously, subject to the same WP:IAR exception as everything else; and might be worthwhile to call out explicitly too.). --Xover (talk) 17:32, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
 * This pastel bar thing is absolutely ghastly.  E Eng  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!  E Eng  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 as emphasis in article text, and a many, many other things that were formerly common on Wikipedia. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  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).


 * 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 ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:03, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I also can not easily see reduced font sizes. Font size is an accessibility issue,which over-rides most all other format concerns. The great majority of users are just readers, without accounts to use  preference settings. We organize WP primarily for our readers, not just for us   DGG ( talk ) 14:24, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Test of background shading
Here's a sandbox (Template:Quote/sandbox) test of slight shading of the background (easily adjustable; I made it visible without being dramatic, nor so faint it was hard to tell it was there, on my monitor anyway.)



So, it seems to me that this would address the need to make block quotations stand out a more from regular text without introducing POV and accessibility concerns.

— SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  06:40, 11 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 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). (Those weird shaded rectangles didn't used to be there -- yuck!)  E Eng  20:49, 22 August 2016 (UTC) Edited to use boxed quote instead of bigquotes -- weird shaded rectangles no longer there.  E  Eng  02:56, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
 *  E Eng  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.  E Eng  17:35, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
 * If you want to see the only example of pull quotes that I've ever come across,, take a look at Philippe I, Duke of Orléans . 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  set off quotations not only with indentation but also with oversize quotation marks - exactly like cquote, but black instead of blue. Abuse of  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)


 * 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!  E Eng  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
 * Reduce the text-size in block quotes to about 90%.
 * Change the documentation for Quote box to reflect it's use as illustrative text – similar to how images are used.
 * 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)


 * I essentially agree that they are mainly used for improper emphasis. They're a common trick of polemical or promotional articles. We normally have no need for this sort of emphasis, and making it easily available is an undue temptation. There are a few legitimate uses, but this is hard to control. Far better to remove all temptations to editorializing. As for reduced size, it's an accessibility issue. Since they're part of the main text, the ordinary reader without using preferences must be able to see all material even with diminished vision. WP is an encyclopedia meant for use by readers, and considerations of use and NPOV  are more important that looking like conventional publications.   DGG ( talk ) 14:24, 6 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)

Survey

 * 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 for regular in-text quotes. Instead,  (and  ) 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)
 * Procedural matter – 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  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 . Graham (talk) 18:25, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Pinging 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 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 ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:38, 1 September 2016 (UTC) An earlier comment by  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  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.  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 ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  22:57, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
 * There are plenty of opportunities to use quotes that don't represent any "", so the rest of what you say is nonsense.  E Eng  03:00, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
 * If it's a quotation, it is either one person, organization, publisher, etc.'s statement, or it's quoting a documentary source (biblical text, Justin Bieber song lyrics, etc). Neither of these needs to be presented in a decorative box. If we had consensus that documentary source quotes should be in decorative boxes (unlikely), we could have a special template for that, limited to such use and not allowed to unduly promote particular viewpoints. Unless and until we do, these template are a policy problem.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:50, 5 September 2016 (UTC)


 * 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 ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  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 ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  22:57, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
 * And every single oppose here is based on "IDONTLIKEIT" - the main difference is that no one is going around to article's written by those who dont like quote boxing trying to strongarm and wikilawyer quoteboxes into those articles. In a collaborative encyclopedia there will always be differing aesthetic viewpoints on issues such as this and we should be able and willing to accommodate this diversity whereever it is not clearly detrimental to some other goal of the project. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 13:10, 4 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Clearly they are not, and are grounded largely in WP:NPOV policy.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  19:21, 6 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)

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)
 * Oppose per '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.
 * Your lack of imagination is hardly an argument. I can think of many very good reasons to use illustrative quotes in quote boxes, and no good reasons to oppose them across the board and on principle.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 13:15, 4 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.
 * 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. &mdash; 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  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> 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)
 * 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)
 * Strong support, pretty much per Maunus. There are numerous instances where block quotes are useful but one doesn't want the quoted material in the body text. In addition to those Maunus cites, one that comes up regularly on visual arts articles is when an artwork is intended to illustrate a particular passage from literature or mythology and one needs to provide the original text from which the artist worked, but doesn't want to drop a big chunk of Middle English into the body text. I agree entirely with those above that the purpose of the MOS is to provide a broad framework in which Wikipedia operates, not to micromanage the individual writing style of each editor to conform with how the authors of the MOS think they ought to be writing. &#8209; Iridescent 10:24, 4 September 2016 (UTC)
 * To illustrate Iridescent's work-of-art point, it's worth taking a look at Freedom_from_Want_(painting), which has three quote boxes. The first (the Roosevelt quote) is a classic example of appropriate use. The second (quote from the artist) is also fully appropriate, and a great example of a boxed quote adding interest to the article -- it speaks for itself, needs no introduction, and would be awkward and forced if given in the main text (introduced by something like "Speaking of the circumstances of the painting's composition, Rockwell stated..."). The third (quote from an art critic) seems to me the sort of questionable use worries about: I'm not sure this one commentator's observation (though interesting -- "No one's giving thanks") is appropriate to highlight in this way.  E  Eng  22:16, 5 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Support per Iridescent. Any POV problems that occur can be handled on an article level. We don't throw out the baby with the bathwater when there are occasional issues. Ealdgyth - Talk 11:58, 4 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Support per Maunus and Iridescent. When to use a quote box and what they can contain is something that shouldn't be regulated at a broad level like this. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 12:14, 4 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Support, per Maunus and others about how quote boxes are useful, and also about micromanaging. SarahSV (talk) 03:26, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Support, per Maunus, Iridescent, and BrianBoulton. Johnbod (talk) 03:32, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Support per Maunus, Iridescent, BrianBoulton, SarahSV, and Johnbod, and Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and all the Saints and Apostles. Boxed quotes must be used with care, but they have their uses. They shouldn't be banned just because some people misuse them.  E Eng  03:49, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose Is quoting within normal prose flow insufficient? I'm unconvinced that quote templates are necessary — ever. Fdssdf (talk) 06:28, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Note: An editor has expressed a concern that participants at Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates have been canvassed directly to this section to vote. 
 * Neutrally notifying communities that are stakeholders in specific debates is not canvassing and suggesting it is is dishonest.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 10:57, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Agreed. A discussion is taking place here that is of concern to numerous FAC editors – why should they not be told about it? Do we really want to suppress opinion is this way? I would remind "an editor" that canvassing means the soliciting of votes in favour of a certain person or position: giving notice of a discussion does not fall within this definition. Mike's note at FAC talk was entirely neutral and responsible. Please stop these efforts to downgrade or neutralise expressions of opinion you don't like.  Brianboulton (talk) 13:35, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Hardly a neutral action. It was soliciting a bloc vote, directly to the "voting" section, from a tight concentration of the few editors likely to support this style at this particular moment on the basis of emotion instead of reason. As is clear from discussion on that page, the "local consensus" over there is to just oppose any MoS-related "interference" with FAs and stick it hard to all those "MoS obsessives" (insert 10 other anti-MoS-editor incivilities here). There is clearly no regard at all for any of the policy concerns raised in the RfC, which this anti-RfC poll has been engineered to encourage people to not read or participate in, and to instead try to change guidelines by changing one template's documentation to defy them.  WP doesn't work that way, and you all know it. This is WP:FACTION and WP:POINT at its worst.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  22:57, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Since I was the editor who posted the note to WT:FAC, I suppose I should respond here for the benefit of whoever closes this RfC. First, if this is determined to be an invalid RfC, as you assert, then these supports and opposes are irrelevant; it seems sensible to proceed as if this is going to be accepted as valid, since clearly many other editors are participating on that basis.  Second, is there any reason not to notify editors at WT:FAC, regardless of what the local consensus is there?  Surely editors who do a lot of content creation should be notified?  You're right that I hoped they would agree with my position, but that's what any editor hopes when they notify any group -- you always hope everyone agrees with you.  And believe it or not, I did not know for sure how people would !vote here.  I singled out WT:FAC because that's the only community on WP that I have any significant interaction with; you can check my contributions if you like.  One thing you'll find is that I almost never edit MoS or MoS talk pages; none are on my watchlist and I rarely read them.  I had no idea of the history of all of this till it spilled onto the FAC talk page recently.  I'd never seen anything to do with the Arbcom case on infoboxes, and still haven't (though I've commented on the recent request); frankly, I consider myself uninvolved (though of course I have opinions).  If you think that bringing FAC editors in is one-sided, please go ahead and leave notices in other forums.  I'm willing to assume that you will do so neutrally, and without cherry-picking.  And I'm curious to know why you removed the unsigned template that SarahSV put under the canvas notice; in a discussion this contentious, wouldn't it be natural for editors to want to know that you were the one who posted that notice?  I would think so, and I mention it explicitly here partly for that reason.  Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 23:50, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
 * It is not appropriate to declare that opinions contrary to yours are "on the basis of emotion instead of reason", and to infer that they should be disregarded on those grounds. That is a personal opinion, not a factual statement. I differ from you profoundly on this issue, but fully accept that your views are based on your honest convictions. May I request that you do likewise, with those that disagree with your position? Brianboulton (talk) 13:46, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Whether to put quotations in huge boxes has nothing whatsoever to do with content creation. If I only ever spent much time at WikiProject Science Fiction, would it be okay for me to solicit their votes on random subjects? Of course.  I did not suggest any particular post here was based on emotion. The FAC view of this is demonstrably dominated by it right now, though. Just go read the WT:FAC discussion. Here's the précis: Two FA editors are quitting under a cloud  [I don't know about the third] after  of constant, undeniable, and inexcusable incivility toward everyone but other FA editors, over many unrelated matters that have in common only one thing: FA territorialism. Because FA people don't want them to leave, they are looking for a scapegoat, instead of accepting that some editors go off the rails and need a wikibreak. The dparting editors are said to have erred but hat this should be ignored because of their past contributions and because they're frustrated by disputes ... which they choose to participate negatively in. The scapegoat is, obviously, MoS and any editor who cares that an FA complies with anything in such WP guidelines (plus anyone who wants to argue about citation style, but that's "style", so blame MoS for that, too).  Never mind that what these two editors are doing is a behavioral policy problem leading to multiple ANI requests, multiple ARCA requests, etc.  Never mind that several content policies are also at issue.  Never mind that the primary locus of this disputation is actually infoboxes which are not an MoS matter at all (MoS is  on them, and ArbCom, AE, and the dispute participants all insist that they're a content not style dispute). No, the only thing to do is blame MoS, blame MoS, blame MoS, and label anyone who cares about it "style obsessives" and other denigrating names, as if we're on a elementary school playground.  No, I'm not going to attract other "votes" to this, because the RfC is up top, and people are still  the matters raised in it. This side-topic  is a waste of time, an attempt to short-circuit discussion by a needlessly polarized red herring. Trying to change the template's documentation to say you can use it any time you want for anything isn't going to magically undo the fact that we have years of consensus against using pull-quote templates to make block quotations leap out in the face of readers, as a WP:POLICY matter, and that nearly all editors comply with this; the only ones who don't seem to feel that they'e above the rules at "their" articles (see comment immediately below declaring the existence of a separate "FAC community"). It is not an arbitrary "style" rule; like much else in MoS, it's an inevitable interpretation of core content policy. If we want some neutral framing device for documentary sources (the Magna Carta, lyrics from an operetta, the opening of MLK's "I have a dream" speech), we can have a  template for that probably (though people are not at all in agreement that decorative sidebars are the best approach); one that does not use giant quotation mark icons (see MOS:ICONS – more than one guideline is implicated here), and which is strictly limited to such materials, not permitted for usual quotations especially if they represent one side of issue with multiple sides (including from documents, like press releases); then add to NPOV policy an explicit rule to not abuse the template in such a way.  But that sort of thing requires a mature discussion, not a "down with MoS!" voting party.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  19:20, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
 * If you could possibly try not to lie quite so blatantly. I have spun through a couple of your posts today, and they really are full of the most utter tosh of divisive nonsense. "Two FA editors are quitting under a cloud" is, I'm afraid untrue. I am neither an "FA editor", nor am I leaving under a cloud (and despite your ramblings elsewhere, although I suspected you were stalking my edits, I did not know (or care) that you were planning on some ridiculous fishing trip to ArbCom by way of further harassment—feel free to file it: it all says much more about you than me). "The scapegoat [for leaving] is, obviously, MoS and any editor who cares that an FA complies with anything in such WP guidelines": yet another deeply untrue claim, I'm afraid. I have said elsewhere why I am leaving: it is the behaviour of a small number of individuals, not something as abstract as a flexible guideline. Your numerous deeply divisive postings over several talk pages are indicative of many things, but a collegiate spirit is not one of them. And no, a malformed and one-sided request is not under a cloud (and the two former Arbs who have contacted me directly don't consider it so: I'll take their word over yours, I think). Again, it may be best of you focused on your own actions, rather than try and smear me over three? four? five? different talk pages: it really does say an awful lot more about you than me. – Gavin (talk) 21:40, 6 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Support Policy needs to conform to reality. This style is well-accepted in the FAC community and people who seldom create quality content need to stop dictating to those of us who do.  Montanabw (talk) 20:53, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
 * That's unbelievably insulting to millions of editors over the course of WP's history, and over 100,000 currently acive ones. It neatly sums up what this really is: nothing but a territory dispute.  At least we're clear that the idea that certain FA authors believe their are a separate "community" not subject to WP-wide consensus is not an illusion, nor is their perception than the only content of worth on WP is their own articles, some tiny fraction of 1% of our actual content.  What amuses me about this is that not everyone is interested in FA and GA badge collecting. Many of us just write articles with no regard to these labels. There is lots of GA and FA-quality content on WP that doesn't have these approval stickers.  If these processes generate this sort of factionalism, they should be adjusted to not do so, or replaced with something that does not. Cf. ongoing RFARB about our mainpage processes (ITN, DYK, etc.) raising problems for similar reasons.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  19:20, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Strong Oppose Pull quotes are evil; boxes nearly so. I am working drip by drip on rewriting Bengal famine of i943 in a sandbox. If pull quotes are allowed, every valued editor who thinks he's saving the world by bashing someone on Wikipedia will have the Churchill "Why hasn't Gandhi died?" quote in huge freaking neon pull quotes, preferably very prominently displayed. Three problems with that: WP:UNDUE,WP:UNDUE, and WP:UNDUE.  Lingzhi &diams; (talk) 23:54, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
 * That is an amazingly stupid reason to oppose LingZhi, first of al because the proposal has nothing to do with allowing or prohibiting pullquotes, but to allow editorial discretion in the use of quote boxes. Now the fact that quote boxes may be used to there lend undue weight to things is completely irrelevant because so may literally any other part of an article from pictures to infoboxes to prose. But there are thousands of ways in which quote boxes may be used for purposes that cause no editorial problems of the sort you worry about. Basing a general restriction on editors abilities to determine how to organize articles because the feature might hypothetically be abused in an article you are working on is just not an acceptable form of argumentation. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 05:33, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
 * It's not helpful to engage in name-calling, especially when the reason DS is being considered is all the name-calling.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  21:14, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Come off your hihg horse McCandlish you are about the least civil editor here - with or without namecalling. I happen to consider myself on very good terms with LngZhi who generally is not stupid. BUt that does not mean that this particular argument isnt stupid because it is.<·maunus · snunɐɯ· 07:22, 7 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Well, aside from the issue at hand, I'm now concerned about the article Bengal famine of 1943. We can read this page's edit history, so we know you originally wrote "dickhead" where you now have "valued editor" -- and you know we can. It sounds like your intent is to turn the article into a paen to Churchill, and the unfortunate fact that this complicated man did say "If food is so scarce, why hasn’t Gandhi died yet?" and that there is a template to display this stands in your way. But we not inclined to delete our useful templates to comfit culture warriors, so your argument is quite weak. Herostratus (talk) 01:13, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Every time I see your username, the text that precedes it baffles me completely. Seriuosly. Stumped. Compuzzled. But for your reading pleasure, do see if there is a paen to Churchil in User:Lingzhi/sandbox. And as for weak arguments...... well...  Lingzhi &diams; (talk) 01:23, 6 September 2016 (UTC)


 * I'm in agreement with your position, but what exactly does a comfit ("a candy consisting of a piece of fruit, a root (as licorice), a nut, or a seed coated and preserved with sugar") have to do with anything?
 * If seriuosly and compuzzled aren't words, they should be.
 *  E Eng  01:28, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, "comfit" is formed by back formation from "discomfit". Similar to "gruntled", "kempt", "descript", etc. I am plussed by your remembering the candy (rather high-tone for my crowd, I'm afraid.) Herostratus (talk) 01:54, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
 * A Google Books search makes me think there's something to Lingzhi's concerns re: WP:UNDUE. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 01:49, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, off topic for here, so take it over to that article's talk page I guess. Speaking as a dickhead who is apparently unable to string two meaningful words together, I'm not sure how much I can contribute. Herostratus (talk) 01:54, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks, both of you. I'm completely gruntled by your responses. Excuse me while I go get sheveled for dinner.  E Eng  02:55, 6 September 2016 (UTC)


 * It is always a mistake to try and resolve a broad, general issue on the basis of an example drawn from one article. The Gandhi box may well be an example of misuse, but to call for a site-wide prohibition on quote boxes on that basis is irrational. Brianboulton (talk) 13:46, 6 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Speedy close (and strong oppose) – This RFC is not written in a neutral manner and should be speedily closed. As to the issue, our house style is clear per WP:BQ that the template should only be used for pull quotes. Pull quotes are generally unencyclopedic and almost never warranted, so I therefore strongly oppose allowing their unfettered use, especially once an article reaches the Good Article or Featured Article vetting level. Cheers!   06:56, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Abstain (is this the bottom of the Survey section, it's hard to tell any more). Quote boxes can enhance reader engagement. It might depend on the topic? But I don't really see why quote boxes should be seen as (quote) "psychological tricks". And I don't see why, if there is a majority in favour of some style change, the MoS guideline can't be changed. Or do we have to check the Chicago Manual of Style before we can breathe around here? Martinevans123 (talk) 21:32, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
 * The ironic and sad thing is that this farcical section has distracted everyone from the section higher up, about adjusting the default block quotation template so that it obviates most of the desire to use the more excessive quotation templates, which really shouldn't be used in mainspace. This is the kind of case that WP:SPITE was written about.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:33, 11 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Ah yes, there may be a touch of irony. But I don't see much sadness. I guess folks must think this is a more important topic to discuss. In fact, one doesn't often see such strong agreement in discussions, does one? Let's hope no-one starts building fences, eh? Martinevans123 (talk) 16:19, 11 September 2016 (UTC) The RFC begins "There's no "Survey" section in this RfC". What a relief, eh?
 * Support - frankly if we all started putting pictures of cucumbers in every article, we could start an RfC saying "cucumbers are normally put in articles" and it should be accepted. As a non-notable philosopher once said, the MoS describes what is, not what we'd like to be. <b style="color:#7F007F">Ritchie333</b> <sup style="color:#7F007F">(talk) <sup style="color:#7F007F">(cont)  10:30, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
 * See the stats above in the RfC proper. What : nearly everyone is using block quotations correctly. The sum total of those who "just don't wanna" have probably all already "voted" here (notably failing to address any of the concerns raised in the real RfC – this is why WP:NOTAVOTE was written). The bulk of uses of the "look at me! look at me!" quote boxes in mainspace are simply due to people copy-pasting them from other articles (they're found in some old FAs, because people resist bringing the FAs into guideline compliance). I know for a fact that users are almost never choosing to use them instead of the Quote template on purpose, because as an experiment about a year ago I changed 100 articles to use that standard template instead of decorative ones, and was not reverted or challenge even once.  The only time it raises any fuss is when it's done to an FA or GA that that is "stewarded" against others' influence by someone who doesn't like MOS:BQ.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:33, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

Discussion

 * [moved from survey section by SV]


 * 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.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  20:10, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
 * First, I really appreciate that McCandlish and others were willing to let me close this, especially in light of my long involvement with MOS and FAC ... it would have been easy to see me as too biased, and I'm glad people don't. Second: I'm going to have to pull out as a closer, because I'm concerned enough about the back-and-forth between MOS and FAC regulars that, even before we get to the end of this RfC, it might be best to at least start a discussion about some appropriate discretionary sanctions. There was a request to consider it, and I'm considering it. My initial post is at WT:FAC. If there is some kind of enforcement, I'm going to do everything in my power to make it as painless as possible ... hopefully, 100% painless. - Dank (push to talk) 13:09, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Dank has decided not to close it, so I'll ask for a closer on AN/RFC. SarahSV (talk) 19:54, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Noting that I asked for a closer on AN/RFC. SMcCandlish then merged my request into an earlier post of his where he was trying to shut this down. I restored the request that this be closed as a separate RfC. SMcCandlish, do not edit other people's posts, especially in situations like this. SarahSV (talk) 23:27, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
 * See WP:REFACTOR; merging redundant requests is routine. You should consider not refactoring  page any further if you want your opposition to refactoring to be taken seriously.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  20:49, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Ouch. Sarah, can we get you a  really tiny tin of paint?   Martinevans123 (talk) 21:12, 7 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 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] house style guide :
 * "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 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 :
 * "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."

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 ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  18:49, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
 * All of this is irrelevant because the entire point is that the quote box can and is used for quotes that are not pull quotes. I have never added a pull quote to any article but I have frequently used the quote box.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 05:35, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Re-read it, please, and think about what it says, not about what result you demand. The entire point of this material (other than the very last item) is that it's about aggrandizing quotation style and its known effects on readers. The last point, about  pull quotes and their content is there, and clearly identified as a separate matter, because part of this discussion has also been about whether WP should ever allow reall pull quotes in articles at all. You would also have already known this if you'd actually read the RfC and what it's about, not just the "voting" section on a side issue.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  21:11, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
 * It ridiculous to state that emphasis is inherently anti-NPOV. Writing an article is all about selectively emphasizing information that is most likely to educate a reader about a given topic - teaching requires emphasis. Like everything else in an article from images to the text in each paragraph quotes can be used to unduly emphasize a single viewpoint, and we have rules in place for dealing with POV issues for that reason. You would of course know all of this if you actually wrote articles instead of just pontificating about how others ought to do it. Article writers need flexible tools to present information as best as possible to the reader in a near infinite number of different possible context. This is not done by restricting everyone's tool box so that all must use the same tools that you personally happen to like.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 07:19, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Could all parties dial it down a little? We should be collaborating, not fighting. Let's find more common ground, yes? Tony   (talk)  07:22, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Kill the moderator!  E Eng  07:26, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
 * WP:NOT a classroom, and it is not the editor's job to try to "steer" readers into accepting an interpretation. Doing so violates both WP:NOR and WP:NPOV policies simultaneously. I'm sure we have common ground on not wanting to do that, yes?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  20:49, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Any encyclopedia is an educational tool and it always has been - it is its raison d'etre to educate readers about topics. And of course for the same reason the job of any article is exactly to steer the readers towards and increased knowledge and understanding of the topic - which includes streering them towrads the interpretatoin that is most widely considered to be the correct one. To deny this is basic fact about encyclopedia writing absurd, and your doing so suggests that you lack the most basic understanding of the two policies that you are citing. Again if you actually wrote articles you might have a more clear understanding of the process through which encyclopedic knowledge is selected and represented. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 06:22, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Returning to the discussion after an interval, and with malice towards none and with charity to all, may I respectfully point out to SMcCandlish that although WP:NOT says: "The purpose of Wikipedia is to present facts, not to teach subject matter" it also says, in WP:BURO: "Do not follow an overly strict interpretation of the letter of policy without consideration for the principles of policies. If the rules truly prevent you from improving the encyclopedia, ignore them. Disagreements are resolved through consensus-based discussion, not by tightly sticking to rules and procedures." That seems to me to a pretty good principle that content creators  could follow  and MoS guardians respect. Brianboulton (talk) 16:09, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
 * sure, but it needs to be shown why ignoring the MoS actually does improve the encyclopedia. Exactly what part of the MoS is preventing you from improving the encyclopedia? Peter coxhead (talk) 19:16, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
 * He just said it: an overly strict interpretation of NOT ("present facts, don't teach") should not prevent the judicious use of boxed quotes which improve the reader's experience.  E Eng  21:38, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
 * yes, he said it, but I asked for it to be shown as improving the encyclopedia, not the reader's experience. From a teaching point of view, visual variety, whether through images or boxed quotes, is good, and of course I understand an editor's desire to make articles "attractive". I know only too well the need to keep students' attention when teaching. But an encyclopedia is a repository of information, not a teaching device. The key point of difference here relates to the nature of an encyclopedia, and it seems to me that this is a matter of settled policy (e.g. WP:NOTTEXTBOOK). So the question is whether boxed quotes make an article more encyclopedic. I've seen no convincing argument that this is the case. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:06, 18 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Good examples have already been given e.g. Freedom_from_Want_(painting).  E Eng  08:30, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

If we are going to look at outside precedents for guidance, we should look at encyclopedias, because Wikipedia is one, not magazines or newspapers, which Wikipedia isn't. In an encyclopedia, calling special attention to a quotation should occur rarely because of the nature of an encyclopedia. On the other hand, blocking long quotations, using  Wiki markup, is conventional throughout publishing for convenience, not for calling special attention to the quotation. Among other virtues, blocking long quotations makes it easy for the reader to find the quotation's beginning and end and eliminates the need to "flip" single quotation marks to double and double to single.—Finell 18:49, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure I get what you're saying (or maybe I just don't agree): Using  just indents a section of text. It doesn't really indicate that the text within the tags is a quote (unless you're reading the HTML), but the assumption is that the reader will know this (I'm not sure I agree with that assumption).


 * I think that if you're going to have quotations separated out from the mainline text at all then you need some way to signal to the reader that it's a quotation. (A valid position would be "No, all quotations should be inline, like this", but I doubt you could win the day (that is, get an MfD to delete all the quote templates and the MOS to deprecate the use of )). So then we are down to discussing the details of how to signal to the reader that its a quote. It's a fine line. What you're suggesting is, just use a slight indent. I don't think that's enough, particularly in some layouts. I just don't equate "slight indent" with "universal signal the we are entering a quotation".


 * SMcCandlish's suggestion (somewhere above) of using slightly smaller text and a slightly darkened background for quote might be the best compromise we've seen so far. Herostratus (talk) 12:51, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

Summary to date, and thinking about next steps
OK, so this has been open a while, so let's think about where we stand and where to go from here. Here's my take.

1) There's clearly no love for pull quotes. I suggest we open a RfC on, and (to avoid getting bogged down in other issues) only on, simply removing all reference to pull quotes, which IIRC are in three places: This WP:MOS, Quote box, and cquote and rquote. I'm looking for things which will offend the fewest and thus have a chance of being passed, what I'd suggest is simply removing all refs to pull quotes with just the minimum other changes required to makes sentences be grammatical and logical. (This would leave Quote box with just the message "This template should not be used for block quotations in article text" and little else, which is a little bit odd, but better than what we have now... and then #3 below might take care of that.) This would be a welcome and overdue cleanup of that section of the MOS I think.

2) I'd like to test how much love there really is for our suggesting that editors use the raw HTML of . I'm thinking an RfC on (and only on) removing suggestions to use   in the various places it occurs (without deprecating the HTML either -- we just stop mentioning it). This is an RfC that might well fail but worth finding out maybe.

3) There seems to be a fair amount of love for using quote box as an alternative to quote. At I see 20 support against 9 oppose. (Support: User:Midnightblueowl, User:Herostratus, User:Lawrencekhoo), User:Tamwin, User:SchroCat, User:Randy Kryn, User:JG66, User talk:CBM, User:Ian Rose, User:Maunus, User:Hawkeye7, User:Iridescent, User:Ealdgyth, User:Mike Christie, User:SlimVirgin, User:Johnbod, User talk:EEng, User:Brianboulton, User:Montanabw, User:Ritchie333; Oppose: User:SMcCandlish, User:Tony1, User:Rich Farmbrough, User:Graham11, User:Hairy Dude, User:DicklyonUser:Fdssdf, User:Lingzhi, User:Checkingfax; Abstain: User:Martinevans123)

Not only that, but trying to be as honest and fair-minded as possible, TBH some of the Oppose arguments are kind of weak. User:Lingzhi seems to be mad about something else, User:Fdssdf is opposed to all non-inline quotes including those using quote and User:Graham11 nearly so (and this is a non-starter: we are not going to start requiring all quotations be only inline because this would be quite unpopular), User:Checkingfax either thinks the RfC was about pull quotes and/or opposes changing the house style because that would entail changing the house style (or something; not clear) and most of the other oppose rest partly on procedural grounds -- that the RfC was malformed or canvassed. Whereas the Support arguments -- that rules should follow practice in particular -- are objectively stronger in my view.

I mean, I've seen lots of RfC where both sides have good arguments, and this isn't one of them. However, better Oppose arguments could possibly be developed. And since the Oppose people feel they were ill-treated here, perhaps a fresh RfC (pointing, of course, to this one and including the comments and votes so far) is called for. I'll leave it to someone else to decide this. They could say "2-1 headcount and stronger argument, the motion is passed" or they could say "requires a full new RfC".

4) There quite a bit of love for User:SMcCandlish's suggestion to add a light background as the default to Quote and reduce the font size a bit (or, instead, make a new template like that). The light-color background was quite popular, the smaller font size more controversial. The question of whether this should be the one true quote template and the others deprecated would need answering also. But it'd certainly be worth trying a full RfC on the matter. Herostratus (talk) 02:16, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

So that's what I get, four decisions to be made. Possibly, then, four full RfCs. There's not much love for Cquote so I'd let that lie for now. There was no love for the vertical-bar-on-the-left suggestion so that seems dead. There wasn't enough input I don't think on the question "should there be only quote template" so nothing going forward there at this time. There were a couple-few editors who were against any and all quote templates (or using ) but I don't see a real popular movement in that direction. It's been a sprawling RfC, I may have missed other good points opportunities for forward movement. Herostratus (talk) 02:16, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
 * #3 is patently misleading because the "anti-RfC" on this was a canvassing farm, and is just a bloc-voting party, not a proper discussion.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  21:37, 21 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Your opinion about "weak arguments" seems premature. Forex, I am not "mad about something else". I am mad about pullquotes and quoteboxes (though I can envision some restricted use for the latter, especially in literature article, where images may be difficult to find, and quotes from the text of the work itself are quite legitimate). So i hope I can explain (again) why I hate both pullquotes and quoteboxes. I have one particular case in mind at the moment, but I am speaking from experience with more than a few similar cases I've encountered (and argued against) in FACs and other forums. So go to Bengal famine of 1943 and search for the words "why hasn't". Hey, look, it's in a big blue box! That's the ONLY quote on the page in a blue box. This is massive WP:UNDUE, even though it employs visual cues rather than explicit text. The message that is foregrounded is obvious: "Blame Churchill". it completely elides the fact that the issue at hand is massively complex (skim User:Lingzhi/sandbox, which is very very far from finished, and already complex). It privileges one view. The quotebox is the tool for privileging that view. I have encountered similar cases many times before...In this case, I wouldn't suggest "make it fair and balanced by using more quoteboxes" (hideously ugly headache-inducing method, no thanks). Instead I would suggest "no quoteboxes allowed, thanks!" Lingzhi &diams; (talk) 04:56, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I completely agree that quote is nothing like the kind that's appropriate to box. That says nothing about whether there are quotes which are appropriate to box. For the nth time I point to Freedom_from_Want_(painting).  E Eng  05:07, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I mentioned acceptable cases (e,g,, literature) in the opening of that post (. I think pullquotes should be outright banned from article space, and we should have meaningful guidelines for use of quoteboxes. Tks  Lingzhi &diams; (talk) 06:32, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Then what are we arguing about?  E Eng  06:43, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
 * It seems that Lingzhi is arguing against the inappropriate use of quote boxes (citing one example in particular), while accepting their use in certain articles. I think that is in line with the general position on the "support" side, so the "vote" is actually 21–8. Brianboulton (talk) 08:36, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

I would like to point out, once again, that the discussion here is confused over terminology: I support removing references to "pull quotes" in template documentation - but probably not the MoS - because they don't seem to be an actual problem and mentioning them just causes confusion. Hairy Dude (talk) 08:15, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
 * "pull quote" means an extract from the article text. Virtually no one does this and it seems to be universally acknowledged to be bad style for an encyclopedia due to WP:UNDUE, etc.
 * "non-inline quote" (for want of a better term) means a quotation, not from article text but from somewhere else, that isn't integrated into the flow of article text. These are more contentious and are what Lingzhi is railing against.
 * Please allow me to clarify my position. There is an imperfect overlap between form (i.e., template) and function (use). I am in favor of banning the cartoon quote format (template) from article space. I am in favor of banning the pullquote function (repeating text in the article) from article space reagardless of format/ template used. I in favor of very sharply/clearly defining when the quotebox template may be used, to avoid abuse as in bengal famine. Iam in favor of altering that hideous Geocities Blue color to something more discreet.  Lingzhi &diams; (talk) 10:49, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Just pointing out that "that hideous Geocities Blue color" is only there because someone has added the "bgcolor=#c6dbf7" html element to the text on that article, and that it's nothing remotely like the actual background color for quote boxes as they appear everywhere else. &#8209; Iridescent 18:02, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Aside from Iridescent's clarification, I agree with Lingzhi entirely as far as that editor's comments go. The problem we have, however, is that a small contingent, mostly of FAC people, are convinced that the answer to "when may the quotebox template may be used to decorate a block quotation?" is "any damned time I want to, and I will fight unto the ends of the earth for my right to use it, or just quit the project if I don't get my way, and anyone who stands in my way is a detriment to Wikipedia." This has not been a rational discussion, it's been a massively canvassed exercise in WP:SOAPBOX and WP:GREATWRONGS campaigning against the applicability of guidelines to a self-selecting set of "no rules apply to me, and IAR means 'ignore any rule you don't like for no reason at all editors who want total personal control over articles.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  07:11, 3 October 2016 (UTC)


 * My take is that we need to get rid of the phrase "pull quotes" and let people use whichever existing quote template they want; some people may use pull quotes (but apparently very few) a lot of people use quotes as a standalone in various ways. The primary uses are for formatting blockquotes in the article body itself and the quote box that sets something off, often with a contrasting background, sometimes as something of a design element.  Different designs have suitability for different needs.  I do think the "cartoon quotes" are kind of clunky, but that's just my own style preference. We probably only really need a blockquote and a quotebox with customizable parameters.  Most other designs could be incorporated into these.   Montanabw (talk) 17:56, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
 * There are still lots and lots of actual pull quotes. Approx. 1-2% of uses of these decorative quote templates in mainspace are pull quotes, which adds up to a large number articles site-wide, and virtually none of them are appropriate uses of the technique. It's just not encyclopedic, but reeks of journo and PR style.  No justification has been presented for having a quote box template in mainspace, just a bunch of ILIKEIT, and weird excuses like "we need it to break up large blocks of text" which is what headings are for, and without ever addressing the policy issues inherent in the approach, especially UNDUE and other POV concerns, but also frequently NOR, and various NOT triggers.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  21:37, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
 * "Approx. 1-2% of uses of these decorative quote templates in mainspace are pull quotes" -- where did you get that figure? I'd never seen a pull quote in my ten years here, until a single instance was pointed out in this course of this discussion. Herostratus (talk) 21:13, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Empirically, by picking 100 articles at random using the pull quote templates and seeing what they're doing with them, finding that two out of 100 were actual pull quotes, and all the reset were excessive decoration of non-pull-quote quotations that should have been integrated into the text as regular block quotes. I've actually said this already several times in the course of this discussion and its discussion-fork over at WT:FAC.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  07:11, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

Close
I believe we've had enough discussion, and that it's time to close. Could someone please close and write up consensus. Thanks! LK (talk) 03:27, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Ideally someone with a bulletproof vest.  E Eng  03:34, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Actually, I thought that Herostratus' Summary to date, and thinking about next steps would, with a bit of editing, make a perfectly fine close. What if we nominate Herostratus to write the close. Would anyone object? Is he too 'involved'? LK (talk) 14:24, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm too involved. Herostratus (talk) 19:48, 1 October 2016 (UTC)