Please don't modify the look and appearance of the template without consensus. If you think it's ugly, remove it from articles you don't want it in. If you want to remove it entirely, then put it up for VfD. -- Stbalbach 22:58, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is a reason I created this template, and that was to create a style editors may choose to use for quotations. It's not perfect, but it's everyone's preference to the style they use, however. — CuaHL ☺ 23:02, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Right. Editors choose to use the template because they assume it won't change, or will have a say if it does. -- Stbalbach 01:14, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think this template is being used in the wrong places: it is fine for pullout quotes (also called drop quotes), an editorial device used mostly in magazines to give prominent exposure to a key phrase in an article; but people are using it for block (extended) quotes in encyclopedic articles. There, the enlarged quotation marks look out of place; the situation gets worse when editors use redundant quotating devices like setting the whole quotation in italics or adding quotation marks, or even both.

The customary way to set such quotations, especially in a scholarly work, is to offset the quoted material by setting it in one or two ems from the left margin while using the same typeface (albeit sometimes one point smaller) and linespacing as the body text.

The Wiki formatting command <blockquote> does all of this well, though it does not reduce the type size. Is there no Wikipedia template for this sort of block quote? I think one would be very useful. Jim_Lockhart 11:07, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

We had this discussion about {{quotation}} already. They should be the same style as each other. Using a style on only a few articles, or creating a fork template that only people who like it use, is bad. ("If you don't like it, don't use it", is not a solution.) What does this template do that is different from {{quotation}}? — Omegatron 16:55, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. As I've commented below, having different types of quotes for articles is bad policy. It detracts from the article itself and serves no purpose other than to make the encyclopedia seem disorganized and hodge-podged. I mean, seriously, soon we'll have categories for quotes: Category: Articles that use cquote template, Category: Articles that use quotation template, Category: Articles that use italics quotes. Bad, bad, bad. 66.229.182.113 17:36, 17 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

On the Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd., each usage of this cquote leves a large blank space at the top, which IMO looks ugly. How/why is this happening and how can it be fixed?

It does not leave any particularly large amount of space to me on Firefox. it's the same amount of space as appear under it. Circeus 00:45, 29 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah I also get an extra line space at the top. I just get around it by not having a blank line between the cquote and the line before it. -- Stbalbach 00:55, 29 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Of course! Putting extra line breaks generate a paragraph, which mean extra whitespace.Circeus

Well, for example with Template:Main we didn't have that problem. Actually see the old version of template main here: which is more similar to how cquote is coded (I think). -- Stbalbach 01:11, 29 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Everything OK for me. BTW, I'm using WebKit nightly from May 7 '06. --M1ss1ontomars2k4 02:04, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I just wondered if this template may look better if the quotation marks were black rather than blue? Just a stylisitc point, of course. Adasta 08:54, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Light blue looks good in younger-folks articles, while Black would look good in more serious articles. Perhaps we need cquote-black and cquote-blue; or, a pass a command-line parameter for the color {cquote|color|quote} -- Stbalbach 21:23, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, but what the hell does that mean? This is an encyclopedia. To make distinctions between "younger-folk" articles and "serious" articles is a slippery slope. While the idea of having a color parameter seems reasonable, it only leads to inconsistencies between articles, which in my opinion, isn't beneficial. 66.229.182.113 17:24, 17 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If the purpose of Wikipedia was to look exactly the same we wouldn't have this template. There are over a million articles and this template is used by less than two-thousand, this template is an extreme abnormality. In fact, most templates are abnormalities. Wikipedia is not consistent. Style issues are decided by editors in article talk pages. It sounds like you don't what multiple colors and want to enforce that on other people if they like it or not. I suggest if that's the case you establish consensus and make it a part of the Manual of Style. Good luck on your style wars, I can think of better ways to spend time at Wikipedia. -- Stbalbach 01:01, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The reason we don't use multiple styles for different areas of the encyclopedia is to avoid stupid style wars and concentrate on writing an encyclopedia. The style should be set site-wide and should look good in all articles. This template shouldn't even exist. We already have one for {{quotation}}s. — Omegatron 04:13, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have a link to back this up? Sounds like this template and Category:Quotation templates should be speedily TfD'd -- in fact, having no style (or one style) is a style (like the Amish dress code) and those who say that {{quotation}} should be the only quote template are engaging in a style war. That is the paradox of style (for an excellent treatment on this topic see The Economics of Attention : Style and Substance in the Age of Information) - discussions of style on Wikipedia are never going away and the MoS recognizes that there will always be style issues on a per-article basis to deal with. -- Stbalbach 12:28, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For small quotes and large resolutions, this template looks a bit unwieldy. I think it would look better if aligned to the left, so that all copies of the left quotation mark image line up.  -- Run!  15:03, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think that there should be another parameter with alignment choice. Jake95 19:19, 28 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is it possible to make the quotation marks non-clickable? As they are released into the Public Domain (they are quotation marks), they needen't be linked, and in fact distract from the text should someone try to copy them. Would it be better to perhaps use colored and different fonts, perhaps through a <div> style? I looked at the possiblity of using {{click}}, but found that the only way to make an image not link to something else would be to link it to the same page, which is just annoying and pointless. There really is no reason for these to be images, so if anyone knows a CSS hack to make the images non-clickable or thinks that they should be text, it'd be great. Thanks, Mysekurity ^[m!] 02:20, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Wow, I took a shot at it before (not remembering I had used only {{PAGENAME}} as opposed to {{FULLPAGENAME}}, making it not work in the Template: namespace), and gave up. I tried again, and I think it works perfectly. The images have been graciously released into the Public Domain by Cuahl, and therefore don't need to be linked to the image description page. This makes it much more usable, and doesn't treat text decoration as an image. YAY! -Mysekurity ^[m!] 02:50, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

It's possible with CSS. I started doing it at {{quotation}}, but the quote marks were removed. — Omegatron 13:19, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure {{click}} is a CSS hack. If you have any suggestions to improve the template, by all means, please do. Thanks, Mysekurity ^[m!] 00:44, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

It's possible to do with legit CSS, as demonstrated over at Template talk:quotation. — Omegatron 23:39, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Would it be possible to use a large-sized text span containing the quote characters, rather than an image at all? Then you could avoid the image linking issue. -- Bovineone 06:02, 4 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

See Template:CquoteTxt. heqs 15:21, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

When printing an article with these quotes, the images will look very pixelated. Please use SVG for these kind of things. 82.139.85.48 13:15, 13 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Would it be possible to get an optional field for attribution of quotes? The extra line space looks rather unwieldy when giving authors of quotes.

-- Sasuke Sarutobi 22:59, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Seconded. I found that I had the template had broken a page because I attributed a quote in the third option space. Because the parameters are undefined, the template broke. I propose that it should be modeled in the style of Template:Rquote. —Down10 ^T / C 23:06, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Generally quotations are set in a blockquote, or are italicized, or are set off with quotation marks. To use all three is overkill. Why isn't it enough to simply use a blockquote? -Will Beback 22:40, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like there are undocumented second and third parameters. Maybe having to do with width and height? Someone who understands the template should document them. --teb728 05:45, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah. Like, if I want to use the 4th and 5th parameters, but keep the 2nd and 3rd parameters as "default", what are the defaults? In other words, how do I use the 4th and 5th parameters without mucking around with the 2nd and 3rd? -- Stbalbach 14:27, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You could always use {{cquote|Quote Text|4=Origin of Quote|5=Cited Source}}, as I've done in Edgefest. Hopefully the template won't be changed or else that'll break. Of course, it'd be better if named parameters were used... –Dvandersluis 13:43, 4 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

After recent edits to the template, it seems to produce an extra blank space below each inclusion (with Firefox, but not with IE). My knowledge of template coding is too scarce to figure out what's causing it. heqs 20:30, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It does this in Safari, as well. — BrianSmithson 18:00, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think I fixed it. Kirill Lokshin 03:00, 1 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

{{cquote|{{IAST|Vivekacūḍāmaṇi}}}} = {{cquote| Vivekacūḍāmaṇi}} doesn't work. --Babub^{(Talk|Contribs)} 09:27, 19 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yikes!

  <table cellpadding="10" align="center" style="border-collapse:collapse; background-color:transparent; border-style:none;">
  <tr>
  <td width="20" valign="top">
  <div style="position: relative; width: 20px; height: 20px; overflow: hidden">
  <div style="position: absolute; top: 0px; left: 0px; font-size: 100px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 100px; z-index: 3"><strong class="selflink">   </strong></div>
  <div style="position: absolute; top: 0px; left: 0px; z-index: 2"><a href="/wiki/Image:Cquote1.png" class="image" title="Battle of Smolensk (1943)"><img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/6b/Cquote1.png/20px-Cquote1.png" alt="Battle of Smolensk (1943)" width="20" height="15" longdesc="/wiki/Image:Cquote1.png" /></a></div>
  </div>
  </td>
  <td>[QUOTATION]</td>
  <td width="20" valign="bottom">
  <div style="position: relative; width: 20px; height: 20px; overflow: hidden">
  <div style="position: absolute; top: 0px; left: 0px; font-size: 100px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 100px; z-index: 3"><strong class="selflink">   </strong></div>
  <div style="position: absolute; top: 0px; left: 0px; z-index: 2"><a href="/wiki/Image:Cquote2.png" class="image" title="Battle of Smolensk (1943)"><img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/33/Cquote2.png/20px-Cquote2.png" alt="Battle of Smolensk (1943)" width="20" height="15" longdesc="/wiki/Image:Cquote2.png" /></a></div>
  </div>
  </td>
  </tr>
  </table>

Couldn't the code for this simply consist of something like the following?

  <blockquote class="cquote">
  [QUOTATION]
  </blockquote>

The styling could be applied in a style attribute, or better yet, in monobook.css. At the very most, this might require an additional div nested inside the blockquote, so that the two quotation mark images can be applied as non-tiling background images to the two different block elements. —Michael Z. 2006-07-28 02:52 Z

What is the purpose of the following parameters. When should they be used? (why on earth pixel dimensions!?) What is the difference between "origin" and "source"—does origin refer to place, author, publication, or something else? Can we see examples of the template with the various parameters in use? —Michael Z. 2006-07-28 03:01 Z

• quote width in pixels
• quote height in pixels
• Origin of quote
• Cited source

Please, does anyone know how to really use the other parameters? I just came here looking for the same thing. —Mets501 (talk) 12:09, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've tried, as best I can to document what's there. Catherine\^talk 18:26, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm playing with a new version as well, that has the options in a different order, uses named parameters, and some other tweaks. — Catherine\^talk 18:26, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I think I've got it working nicely now -- see {{Cquote2}} and its talk page. It's very similar to this one, except it allows named parameters (so order of parameters doesn't matter), and moves the width/height params to the end where they can be easily omitted. Didn't make the tweaks here since I didn't want to break existing uses. Do you think the new one's better? Worth migrating to? — Catherine\^talk 19:17, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I like it! I think we should migrate to the new one. What do you think about changing the author and source of the quote to a larger font (so that it's the same size as the quote)? It gets hard to see and is often important. —Mets501 (talk) 12:05, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, format is easily changed; I adopted the small from {{rquote}}. So what's the best way to migrate? If the new one were to become the standard, should it become "cquote" (instead of "cquote2"?) And if so, what's the best/quickest way to update all the existing uses? — Catherine\^talk 18:29, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Best way to migrate is using the new name for the new template forever (cquote2 — or whatever you like for the new name), because during the transition phase you need to have the two templates anyway and some uses of the old template are best kept forever (talk pages, archives and the like). I have some experience in migrating templates: I did the settings for AWB for the big move from {{book reference}} to {{cite book}} et al. Once there is consensus for the move, I would be willing to help with my AWB fork. This migration here is a bit more tricky than the book reference → cite book move because here are unnamed parameters involved, which are generally a pain to maintain. But this might be a good occasion to expand the MWB code as needed :-). cquote is currently included on 1,798 pages. --Ligulem 14:04, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd welcome some bot help; < 2000 is not too bad and I think the new template will be much easier for people who encounter it in articles to decipher. "Cquote2" is kind of awkward to remember. Anyone have a better suggestion? "Squote" for "simple quote"? "Fquote" for "fancy quote"? "Aquote" for "a quote"?  ;) — Catherine\^talk 18:22, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. Names, names... How about "marked quote"? "quote in marks"? "quotemarked"? "in quote marks"? "mquote" :). Does anyone know what the "c" in "cquote" stands for? However, "fquote" looks like a good candidate. --Ligulem 21:35, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I believe the "cquote" is for "centered quote", compared to "rquote" which is aligned to the right. I think "fquote" or even "fancyquote" -- or both, with the right redirects -- is probably my favorite, but I'd wait for others to weigh in. — Catherine\^talk 22:48, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Width and height in px? There is no reason that should ever be used. We already have a template for quotations with parameters: {{quotation}}. — Omegatron 15:31, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I don't think they're used very often, and I'm not sure why they were put there in the first place. Since the "big quotation marks" is a very graphic-designy look, I guess it's nice to be able to scale the size of the marks to the size of the quote, but it hardly seems necessary for a standard template. That's why I moved them to the end in the new version, since in almost all cases they can just be left off. — Catherine\^talk 18:29, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please change the first line from

{| cellpadding="10" align="center" style="border-collapse:collapse; background-color:transparent; border-style:none;"

to

{| cellpadding="10" align="center" style="border-collapse:collapse; background-color:transparent; border-style:none;" class="cquote"

. Since the class hasn't been defined anywhere, this will do absolutely nothing for anyone who doesn't want it to do something (and thus should be completely uncontroversial), but it will allow custom CSS and JS to modify the quotes for their own personal viewing. Thanks. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 02:50, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Good idea. As a side note: would it be useful to think about listing such CSS classes somewhere to make sure there won't be any name clashes? I know there is Wikipedia:Catalogue of CSS classes, but is that the right place? As I understand it, it currently contains only classes that are defined in one of the official style sheets. --Ligulem 05:46, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think the best bet would be to get a tool to parse the stylesheets and collect them automatically. I doubt people are willing to manually maintain a list. But you never know, I guess. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 23:33, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Edit made.--Konstable 06:44, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The following CSS rules will now turn cquotes into regular blockquotes, to all appearances. (A browser supporting CSS 2.1 selectors, namely anything but IE/Windows, is required.) To use them, add them to Special:Mypage/Monobook.css, or whatever skin's page is appropriate.

 /* Die, cquote! Die! */
 table.cquote {
   text-align: left !important;
   display: block;
   border-collapse: separate;
   border-spacing: 0;
   padding: 0;
   margin: 0;
   border: 0;
 }
 table.cquote > tbody > tr,
 table.cquote > tr {
   display: block;
 }
 table.cquote > tbody > tr > td[valign],
 table.cquote > tr > td[valign] { /* Curly things */ display: none; }
 table.cquote > tbody > tr > td,
 table.cquote > tr > td {
   /* Look like blockquote */
   display: block;
   margin: 1em 1.6em;
   font-size: 93.75%;
   padding: 0;
 }

Unfortunately, the reverse will require lots of JavaScript to make the <blockquote> into a table, at the very least, with nested tags. (The current design can't be adequately represented by anything but a table in current CSS: only tables squash and stretch. For short quotes, a block-based box using will place the quote marks at the edges of the screen, when they should be close to the text.) It should be doable, though, if anyone's so inclined. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 00:10, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Making it look pretty with CSS doesn't change the fact that a table is for tabular data, and a blockquote is for long quotations. The same appearance, plus a properly accessible block quotation instead of 1997 state-of-the-art layout tables (see tag soup), can probably be achieved by nesting a span or two inside a blockquote and playing with the margins and background-images. Lots of weblogs do it this way for their comments; here's one tutorial.

But what is the point of making a call-out quotation look like a regular long quotation? This template is meant just for pull-quotes. Although I think the big cartoon quotation marks are much too goofy for an encyclopedia, the default rendering for a pull-quote should visually pull it out of the flow of the document (larger font size and italics is probably enough, in my opinion).

Remember, the format for actual in-text long quotations is dictated in the Manual of Style.  —Michael Z. 2006-09-27 02:28 Z

Agreed, I was just saying that those who find cquotes unsightly can make them appear as blockquotes if desired.

I see. But it doesn't bother me that I can easily spot them and turn them into <blockquotes> where appropriate. It does bother me that readers are coming to Wikipedia, and finding articles with Mickey-Mouse quotation marks in them. —Michael Z. 2006-09-28 20:40 Z

This should be a blockquote, not a table. — Omegatron 03:58, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I tried to make it a blockquote, but it didn't work. My impression is that the "squishiness" is table-specific in CSS 2.1: tables squish to fit their content, blocks expand to the greatest width possible. This makes the current layout very difficult to do without either using actual tables or using display: table;, which IE doesn't understand. If you can put together something that works, go ahead; I couldn't figure out a way. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 05:15, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think I understand: you're trying to make the width shrink down if there is less than one full line of text. I can see how that would be difficult. You might try a nested element with the display:table or display:inline-block property, but I suspect that important browsers don't support that.

Another approach might be to style actual quotation marks with CSS and position them. Good luck. —Michael Z. 2006-09-28 20:40 Z

I personally detest the cquote style and would never use it. I agree with the comments above that, what with the quotation template (producing a box), the blockquote function, and simple indentation with colons, we really don't need another option for long quotations. (Italicizing an entire quotation is not a good option.)

At a minimum, though, we shouldn't waste time changing quotations to the cquote style. I recently made this edit of a long quotation that used quotation marks and italics; I changed it to the blockquote style. Thereafter, another editor switched it to cquote, expressing a personal preference. My preference is that Wikipedia be consistent in never using cquote, but if its supporters prevail, they should at least be curbed in a way analogous to our rule about American spelling and English spelling: The first approved style that's used for a long quotation in a particular article should be the standard for that article. Editors shouldn't change a quotation style based on personal preference, but subsequent quotations should use the same style so that the article is consistent. JamesMLane t c 06:55, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Aaaagh! My eyes, they burn. 'Tis an abomination. But, I agree with your position about consistency. However, a Talk page consensus should be sufficient to change the standard for an article. Derex 07:19, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, and in your situation I would have reverted "me likey cquote". I thought the documentation for this template clearly said it was meant for call-out quotes, and not for normal block quotations, but I can't find that now (perhaps it was one of the other variant templates). In the meantime, add your vote for bug 4827 and bug 6200, so blockquotes can get fully implemented in wikitext. —Michael Z. 2006-09-26 07:26 Z

Instead of reverting or discussing the specific edit to Chris Wallace (journalist), I wanted to try to get consensus that styles should never be mixed in an article. Confining cquote to call-out quotes was suggested in a comment above (in #Look and appearance of template). There seems to be substantial sentiment for so restricting the template, or indeed for never using it at all, but there's apparently been no formal attempt to ascertain consensus. Perhaps such an attempt should be made before this plague spreads any further. JamesMLane t c 08:14, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No need for a vote on this template's usage: the intent is already stated at template talk:Rquote. I'll copy that to this one. The right way to do block quotations is set out clearly in the Manual of Style. Consensus is clear.

But I'd certainly vote to completely delete this and the "related templates". Perhaps an issue which affects the general appearance of Wikipedia ought to be discussed or promoted at the style sheet pages: MediaWiki talk:Common.css and MediaWiki talk:Monobook.css.  —Michael Z. 2006-09-26 15:46 Z

• Delete this template. ;-) — Omegatron 16:00, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to take a moment to apologize sincerely from the bottom of my heart. As the editor who engaged in an "edit war" by making the latest edit Mr. Lane has referenced to, I seemingly have deeply offended people here. I just liked it because it functioned like a blockquote but it had graphics of quotations. Apparently I am going to hell now for such blasphemous thoughts. I hope Mr. Lane continues his important crusade, as I can't possibly think of a better use of my time than to wage a global war against such a vile enemy as a quotation mark made into a graphic. --kizzle 21:38, 26 September 2006 (UTC) (disclaimer: there might have been some playful sarcasm in this last post, JML and I are mostly kids at heart, though he started it!)[reply]

The current color used on the quote marks is complete inappropriate to the Wikipedia style. Can we please use gray? ☆ CieloEstrellado 05:09, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That would be an improvement. The current colour is similar to link colours, for some reason. —Michael Z. 2006-10-16 22:29 Z

How about changing:

cellpadding="10"

to "5" so the quote marks are a bit closer. ADH 14:09, 16 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please do. The foramtting of this template is still too overwhelming, especially for articles with multiple quotes. -Will Beback 22:01, 16 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What is wrong with normal block quotation style. Why do there need to be flashy graphics in an encyclopedia article. What is going to be done with this template with regard to the print edition? —Centrx→talk • 04:15, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. It tends to make quotes far too prominent. -Will Beback · † · 09:18, 18 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Some religious editors are using it to make Wikipedia a Qur'anic QUOTE FARM. When theyre done all you see is the Qur'an verses not the text and thats seeming to be the point.Opiner 09:21, 18 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Template should either be deleted or changed to simply use the html blockquote tags. I read through the discussion above, almost everyone hates it. I think it's time for the motion to be put on the floor. Anyone want start a debate on killing this thing? Derex 09:33, 18 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes PLEASE. Itd be okay if only used when appropriate but hey you know Wikipedia.Opiner 09:45, 18 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The debate is already here. Are you asking for a vote? A vote on this page will be inherently biased. — Omegatron 20:28, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This template is being badly abused. No one following the instructions about longer quotes. Its only helping make Wikipedia the quote farm.Opiner 08:57, 18 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It seems like you disagree people adding too many quotes, not necessarily with the use of this template in general. Cacophony 06:01, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is a request to please restore the template. Please use the WP:TfD Template for Deletion procedure if you want to remove this option. I personally don't entirely disagree that it has been abused in some cases but this is not the way to go about it. -- Stbalbach 21:38, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Templates for quote formatting already exist. People using this template in place of them are the ones "style warring". Articles should all be consistent in style with each other. You can't create a POV fork of an article because you dislike the consensus viewpoint. You shouldn't be able to fork a style template because you dislike the consensus viewpoint, either.

{{Rquote}} should get the same treatment, by the way. — Omegatron 21:41, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's a great argument you can make at WP:TfD. Put it up for deletion if you want, and see what the consensus says. In the mean time, please restore the template. -- Stbalbach 21:45, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is not a deletion, either technically or effectively. Discussion about changes to templates occurs on the template talk page. There is discussion agreeing to do this. Please explain why you disagree with the change, in light of that discussion. —Centrx→talk • 21:52, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Your playing games and not operating in good faith. You removed the graphic quotes which is the sole reason for this templates existence effectively deleting it. To say you didn't delete it is true only in a very literal and technical sense, it's like something a 2 year old would say. I would ask that you please restore the template and follow the proper TfD procedures. The kind of discussion your asking for is a stylistic one (color or placement of the graphic quotes) - a discussion about the templates existence or not would be handled on the TfD page. -- Stbalbach 22:04, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, please restore the template to its original form. Seriously, this is an attempt to decide dictatorially what quotes should look like in all articles. Why not just let the editors in the relevant articles decide? If you don't like how this template is being used in an article, post on that article's talk page and have it changed to blockquote - why force everyone to follow your tastes?? Besides, Stbalbach has a point: if you don't like it, take it to TfD, don't just in effect delete it. Mikker ^(...) 22:19, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This change merely removes the cartoon quotes. This is an encyclopedia; please explain how this template has a use with regard to that and with regard to the discussion above. It is much more effective to deal with an issue centrally, rather than making thousands of minute changes, and anyone is welcome to discuss the matter. I have reverted the change, on thy request, but countervailing reasons or new options are necessary in order to override the previous consensus, which you can read above. —Centrx→talk • 22:42, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Merely? It is the only reason for the templates existence. As for "previous consensus", you might want to consider the thousands of Wikipedia editors who have chosen to use this template because they happen to like it. Wikipedia operates according to procedure, and the procedure for templates is the WP:TfD process. You've already acknowledged your intention was to effectively delete the template in a central location. So, follow the TfD procedure. Everyone else does. A little tag is added so everyone can see its up for vote and weigh in. Certainly a lot more democratic, don't you think? -- Stbalbach 22:54, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The other templates have boxes and backgrounds and other formatting, they are different. Regarding its usage, there appear to be about 5,000 uses of this template; many of them are added by the same people, and others are added simply because it was the "best pick" out of the quotation templates, or because the user does not know about other templates. Anyone who wants can come here and discuss the matter. WP:TFD is the process for template deletion; this is not a deletion, and if this change were brought up there it would likely be quickly closed as not related to the WP:TFD process. If you think this template should be deleted, you can nominate it for that but I don't think that is necessary; this template serves a particular function, but there might be good reasons for making quotation uniform with one template. (Separate note: Wikipedia is not a democracy. Deletion discussions are for deciding whether something is appropriate for the encyclopedia with reference to policy and fundamental principles. Votes without reasoning or authority behind them are discounted.) —Centrx→talk • 23:05, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the rv Centrx. I realise your change simply removed the "cartoon quotes" but I happen to like them. De gustibus non est disputandum most certainly applies here methinks. I also realise deciding things centrally is more efficient but that doesn't mean it is necessarily better. I mean, isn't that the glory of Wikipedia? That we're not centralised? If all the editors on a particular article want to use cquote in its original form, surely they ought to be allowed to do so? (Wouldn't WP:CONSENSUS require that?) Additionally, cquote serves a function no other quote template does. Take, for example, United States Constitution: on the one hand, you want to set the quotes apart from the text but, on the other, you want to preserve the flow. A simple blockquote doesn't do the former, Template:Quotation, Template:Quote box, and Template:Epigraph fail to do the latter. And Template:Rquote makes the quote too elongated and is more appropriate for a "side note" of sorts. Furthermore, cquote allows the use of footnote refs - check out how I've used it in Richard Dawkins. Mikker ^(...) 23:04, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia article editing is decentralized, but there are central policies and guidelines, and once you start using a template you are using a centralized system that propagates a certain style or method. The nature of such a system is that many people are using this quote system because they see it is common and there is no other option besides using boxes and backgrounds, which are substantially different. That is, the system makes it so that these people are not necessarily choosing the blue quote marks, but they keep multiplying anyway. One could quite effectively go through each article individually and change its formatting to remove the images—and random article editors would think it better and be thankful, but it would be tedious and would, in contrast, be ignoring the wisdom of a consensus decision that can be reached centrally, which could also come up with better options for distinguishing the quote. —Centrx→talk • 23:23, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

While I see what you are saying, I think my point stands. If well informed editors want to use cquote why can't they? Ultimately, this is a matter of taste. You don't like the cartoon quotes, I do - there's no use in arguing about it. Besides, there is a very good reason why we make a distinction between policies (like NPOV) and guidelines (like MOS): the former are mostly (in Jimbo's words) "non-negotiable" while the latter "are not set in stone and should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception" (see WP:RULES). Moreover, guidelines like MOS allow a fairly wide scope to decide things in particular cases simply because (1) uniformity is not all that important and (2) there is usually no consensus on certain rules (like American vs. British date notations etc.). Questions like whether quotes should have "cartoon quotes" around them are purely aesthetic and consensus on something like that is simply never gonna happen. Besides, what harm does this template do? Also, please read: WP:MOS#Disputes_over_style_issues. Mikker ^(...) 00:10, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It unduly emphasizes the quote. It is no more a matter of taste than requiring that editors not select favorite sentences in an article and bold them randomly strewn throughout AN ARTICLE. —Centrx→talk • 00:55, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that removing the cartoon quotes is not sensible. If the template is required to do anything else, it may be better to start a new template, or introduce tweak parameters, keeping the traditional behaviour as default if no parameters are given. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 23:06, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't a cartoon; it's an encyclopedia. Forking templates because editors don't agree on what they should look like is not the way things are done here. Same as forking other content because some people don't like the way it's written. This template should be merged with the other quote templates or deleted. — Omegatron 15:23, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"It unduly emphasizes the quote" from your point of view. I happen to disagree. When (a) the quote isn't a "side note" that should be read seperately (e.g. Mount Tambora), (b) it is desirable to preserve flow but (c) the quote is important enough to be emphasised, cquote is entirely appropriate. Again, consensus on this will never be achieved so I fail to see the point of arguing further. We might as well discuss the merits and demerits of British vs. American spelling or argue over whether pink is the new black. Mikker ^(...) 18:43, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There are cases where it is appropriate and looks good, just as in bold. And there are cases where it doesn't look good. We need some style guidelines to help the thousands of editors who use this template. -- Stbalbach 13:26, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, there are not. There are no cases where it is appropriate to make sentences randomly bold, or randomly change font size because it looks better to the editor making that change. In fact, it's against our style guidelines to do so. This isn't a graphic design site where people show off their skills on each article; it's an encyclopedia. Styles should be used to make the content look good and more readable, but should be used consistently for the whole site. Setting a different style for only some articles is bad. — Omegatron 15:23, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There are arguably cases where cquote is stylistically appropriate to the article and looks good. You may disagree but I suspect because you want to delete it on grounds of "consistency" - which has never been the case on Wikipedia, nor probably never will be. We have multiple ways of quoting, that is a good thing, not bad. What is needed is a guideline on when to use cquote - obviously it adds extra attention to the quote, above the norm, so it needs to be justified by the user. This can be done if we create a set of guidelines based on cases where it looks good. If you or others are unwilling to even acknowledge its aesthetic merits and compromise in certain cases, then this who thing is dead center and going no where. -- Stbalbach 15:58, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Omegatron, Wikipedia is not (and should not be) centralised. Indeed, your argument that style has to be "consisten[t] for the whole site" [emphasis removed] is manifestly false. That is why we have style guidelines not style policies (see WP:RULES for the difference}. It is also why in several cases MOS and other guidelines leave it up to particular editors to decide. BC vs BCE, American vs British spelling, the style of the date notation, and numerous other stylistic issues are simply left optional in guidelines and a purely aesthetic matter like whether "cartoon quotes" should be used or not is exactly the same. Mikker ^(...) 18:57, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong. Style is very much centralized, and it should be. It should not be changed from article to article or from paragraph to paragraph.

The articles are shared by everyone. Just because anyone can edit a page doesn't mean that they have free reign to do whatever they want with them. Wikipedia is not your personal website. — Omegatron 18:51, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

All of the examples you gave are writing style, which doesn't apply to changing the presentation style of the website from article to article. Not the same concept.

This is the same concept:Formatting issues such as font size, blank space and color are issues for the Wikipedia site-wide style sheet and should not be dealt with in articles except in special cases.

How far do you think I would get if I started putting whole articles into a large cartoon font because I particularly liked it? — Omegatron 19:33, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's clearly a straw man. My point is not that there are no rules whatsoever (i.e. anyone can change the presentation of articles to anything they like) my point is that some stylistic issues are optional. Like, say, BC vs. BCE. And the reason it's optional to pick one or the other is because (1) uniformity in these cases is not that important, (2) no consensus exists and (3) there is no harm done by one or the other. The WP:POINT you are making with your colour coded posts is completely different - it's not merely an aesthetic issue. Colour-blind people, for example, would not be able to access articles that had coloured text.

Besides, what actual harm does the cquote template do? Why should you get to decide for everyone whether it can be used? In some cases blockquote is appropriate, in other cases quote box is appropriate, in yet others rquote and in some cquote. Your preference for blockquote to the exclusion of all the others is quite simply your arbitrary taste and I see no reason why your preferences in this regard should be allowed to over-ride article-level consensus. When something is merely a matter of taste (as opposed to questions around accessibility, readability, neutrality etc.) it is simply not appropriate to make a centralised decision.

If you can give me a sound argument why cquote vs blockquote is not merely a matter of taste, I'll gladly change my mind. Mikker ^(...) 20:53, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As I already said, your arguments about BC vs BCE and British vs American spelling are not relevant. You're arguing that because writing style is allowed to vary from article to article, the presentation style of the articles should be allowed to vary, too. But this is obviously not the case. If it were, each article would have a different background color, be written in a different font, use a different layout, have different borders and frames around images with different float and caption styles, be broken up into different types of sections with different methods of linking to other articles. But that's simply, obviously, not how we do it here. All of the articles have a common structure defined by Wikipedia:Guide to layout. They all have a common TOC style, image formatting style, and page presentation style defined by the site-wide CSS. Presentation style is decided by consensus for the entire site at once. We don't allow "style forking" to make one article look different from another.

You're exactly right; it is a matter of taste. This template enforces the aesthetic tastes of a small number of users on the entire encyclopedia. Your preference for cquote to the exclusion of all the others is quite simply your arbitrary taste and there is no reason why your preferences in this regard should be allowed to over-ride encyclopedia-wide consensus.

(And yes, it's poor HTML, too. We shouldn't sacrifice accessibility and adherence to web standards for the sake of a visual style that most people don't even like.) — Omegatron 14:57, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cquote breaks accessibility and laughs in the face of good HTML authoring practices after eating a sardine sandwich. It replaces a normal semantic text element, <blockquote>, with an ignorant layout table containing three cells and lacking a table summary or headers. Two of the table cells each contain a span with a misleading title attribute, in turn containing a meaningless image with misleading alt text, enclosed in a link to an irrelevant image page. For a screen-reader user, this yields a signal-to-noise ratio of about 500%, in my estimation.

While reducing utility for disadvantaged readers, this template also adds over a kilobyte of unnecessary source code to the page. Can you imagine the frustration of a user who's already saddled with having to use a screen reader encountering this crap half a dozen times while trying to read an article?

All that so you can see your cutesie purple cartoon quotes in the free encyclopedia. —Michael Z. 2006-12-12 02:47 Z

Hmmm... I hadn't thought about that. Two questions: can the bad HTML authoring be fixed whilst keeping the basic point of cquote (i.e. in my view, to place more emphasis on the quote than blockquote and less than quote box)? Secondly, as I am unfamiliar with screen readers, what exactly is the problem here? Won't it just read "cquote" or will it read the actual code contained at Template:Cquote? If the latter, is there a way around this? Furthermore, what are the accessibility impacts of the other quotation styles (quotation; rquote; epigraph; quote box)? If these are indeed serious problems I suggest it be discussed over at Wikipedia:WikiProject Usability as well as here. Mikker ^(...) 03:13, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I can't tell you exactly what a screen reader will make of it: the most common one, JAWS, is very expensive. The cquote HTML output also has a totally kludgey wikitext/HTML/CSS hack to make the quotation marks unclickable in visual browsers, and its impossible to predict how a screen reader will interpret it. I bet each one will make something different out of it, but I'm sure they won't hide it, because that depends on visual elements overlapping in the z-axis.

In the Lynx text-only browser, the quotation marks appear as links above and below the quotation, with the title of the current page as link text, but linking to the quotation marks' image pages! Whoever built the code didn't care about users of alternate browsing devices, and screwed it right up for them. Shamefully lame for an "open" encyclopedia.

The source code of a block quotation should be

 <blockquote>
 quote text
 </blockquote>

But instead, cquote makes it the following (this is without anything in cquote's optional citation parameter, which will add another table row containing a properly-formatted paragraph and cite element)

 <table cellpadding="10" align="center" style="border-collapse:collapse; background-color:transparent; border-style:none;" class="cquote">
 <tr>
 <td width="20" valign="top">
 <div style="position:relative; width:20px; height:20px; overflow:hidden;">
 <div style="position:absolute; font-size:20px; overflow:hidden; line-height:20px; letter-spacing:20px;"><strong class="selflink"><span title="Template talk:Cquote" style="text-decoration:none;">   </span></strong></div>
 <a href="/wiki/Image:Cquote1.png" class="image" title="Template talk:Cquote"><img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6b/Cquote1.png/20px-Cquote1.png" alt="Template talk:Cquote" width="20" height="15" longdesc="/wiki/Image:Cquote1.png" /></a></div>
 </td>
 <td>quote text</td>
 <td width="20" valign="bottom">
 <div style="position:relative; width:20px; height:20px; overflow:hidden;">
 <div style="position:absolute; font-size:20px; overflow:hidden; line-height:20px; letter-spacing:20px;"><strong class="selflink"><span title="Template talk:Cquote" style="text-decoration:none;">   </span></strong></div>
 <a href="/wiki/Image:Cquote2.png" class="image" title="Template talk:Cquote"><img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/33/Cquote2.png/20px-Cquote2.png" alt="Template talk:Cquote" width="20" height="15" longdesc="/wiki/Image:Cquote2.png" /></a></div>
 </td>
 </tr>
 </table>

An accessible version which looked the same could be built, but I suspect it would take a lot of work and debugging in different browsers to make sure it works right. I think it would require a blockquote with a div element nested inside it. One of these block elements would have a left margin and background image aligned left applied with CSS, the other would have them on the right. Because wikitext breaks CSS URL declarations required for background images, the CSS would have to be applied in one of Wikipedia's style sheets. As far as the web browser/screen reader is concerned, it would be identical to just a plain blockquote, but could look exactly like the current cquote. The source HTML code would look like the following, and all of the good bits would be in the style sheet:

 <blockquote class="cquote"><span>
 quote text
 </span></blockquote>

It could be done a couple of other ways using simple HTML and complicated CSS, too.

Actual quotation mark characters could be floated in the left and right margins and formatted to be big and pink. The problem with this is that in professional typography, block quotations don't have quotation marks.

Another way would be to add the quotation marks using the CSS before: and after: properties, but MSIE doesn't support them.

For a different approach altogether, see template:Epigraph, which I created and used in T-26. —Michael Z. 2006-12-12 05:18 Z

We have editors who use screen readers. Just ask them. I have a feeling it's not the end of the world, but if we formatted it correctly, it would be easier for them to read.

Regardless of whether it really bothers them, we should use semantically-correct markup. It's necessary for viewing properly on non-computers, like cell phones or PDAs, for instance. (Currently, they'll display the images alongside the quote, making it very difficult to read on a narrow screen. If we used proper syntax, the images wouldn't be displayed at all on screens that couldn't handle them.)

Regardless of markup problems, we still shouldn't be using this template, because it's a "visual style fork" and gives the encyclopedia an unprofessional, unorganized appearance, enforcing a disliked visual style on many articles and encouraging edit wars over differences in taste. — Omegatron 15:08, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I just noticed it uses the kludgy, accessibility-breaking {{click}} template for the images. This template is a total mess of garbage code and should not be used anywhere. We should change it to a plain blockquote version during this discussion just for the sake of the site's markup. — Omegatron 15:23, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't realise this template was the source of the images with the misleading descriptions; I'd learnt to mentally filter them out while reading. No-one should have to do that. {{Click}} should not be used because its output is ugly with a screen reader and the graphics are distracting anyway; there's no point in having a layout table for a single quote; and blockquote should be used so a screen reader user can get feedback when they've entered a quote and also move between quotes with quick navigation keys. You can't guarantee what a screen reader will do to CSS; certain versions of JAWS, for example, only take into account a site's top-level CSS for performance reasons. Therefore Wikipedia should be easy-to-use without CSS support. Graham87 05:33, 13 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There has been a long debate about the (ab)use of this template on talk:MOS; since this template itself states that it's only intended to be used for pullquotes, I won't go into the abuse issue, since we all should be on the same line regarding that.

As for the template itself, pullquotes should be formatted using CSS (and perhaps JS). A quotation, pullquote or not, should be in an HTML blockquote element with a suitable class, say "pullquote". That will enable the look of the pullquote to be dependent on the skin, user styling, display medium, etc., which is difficult to do with the current table layout. Also the W3C discourages the use of layout tables, mainly because they are bad for accessibility.

Apart from that, the desirability of having weblog-like quote graphics in an encyclopaedia has been drawn into question. People on talk:MOS seem to dislike the the quote graphics, so it is questionable if the blockquote.pullquote CSS selector (and/or JS code working on pullquote nodes) should provide them. However, it should be noted that when a blockquote tag with a CSS class is used, it is easy for users to change their user CSS, enabling everyone to get what he/she wants, so fans of the graphics could include them in their use CSS and/or JS, depending on what implentation works best. Shinobu 03:16, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

See WT:MOS#Quotation_marks_using_Cquote_tag. —Centrx→talk •

What exactly would this entail? Using <blockquote> and defining its properties in CSS? —Centrx→talk • 00:56, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. This template is bad both because it's ugly and because it uses a table to display non-tabular data. It should use a blockquote tag. It is, after all, a blockquote. — Omegatron 15:08, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The text in the quote template shows up as black on black, overriding my preferences set in my monobook.css. Is there a way to correct this? -Ste|vertigo 01:36, 10 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly. I'm not an expert in CSS, but I think that emending your CSS from <tagname> {<property>: <attribute>;} to <tagname> {<property>: <attribute>!important;} will override any local css styling that isn't denoted as important. Karl Dickman ^talk 17:38, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Im not sure what you mean precisely. What on here would I change? -Ste|vertigo 06:40, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If other text looks right with your own style sheet, then this template is the problem, perhaps because it defines a background-color without defining a corresponding color for text. Is there a reason this template's style has "background-color: transparent"? Either that should be removed, or "color:inherit" should be added. —Michael Z. 2006-12-12 07:31 Z

I should state that by other text looking "right", it means other text is light-colored on a dark background: (screenshots). An unusual case, but one which is perfectly useful with all other templates. -Ste|vertigo 18:27, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I was looking at how this template works, and noticed that it doesnt handle the attribution line. This template should handle the formatting of who the quote is by, as a second element. -Ste|vertigo 18:33, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Cquote has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. — Omegatron 15:44, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Added {{editprotected}} to request addition of TFD tag. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 14:13, 13 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I added it, and the defenders flooded in, as expected. — Omegatron 19:08, 13 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Most of whom appeared to think it should be kept because the TFD tag made the template look ugly! Oddly also, when I made changes to this, the major argument against it was that TFD was the proper place to discuss it; as expected, since sheer deletion is what TFD is good for, and I don't think anyone was advocating sheer deletion, the deletion was opposed, while other options were generally ignored. —Centrx→talk • 19:43, 13 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The close was definitely premature, and most voters just said it should be kept becuase they personally thought it looked good, completely disregarding other editors' opinions and the inherent problems with the template. — Omegatron 20:47, 13 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, that went down in flames. Let's fix it. As far as I understand, the main technical issue is the use of the {{click}} template? I see {{cquotetxt}} doesn't use it. Then there's the "cartoony" style criticisms, but that's POV. Let's not throw out the good with the bad. What would be the remaining objections if we redid this in the style of {{cquotetxt}}, just using blue as the color, and the height and width params as far as possible? AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 19:49, 13 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not happy that the vote was closed prematurely, before most readers of Wikipedia:WikiProject Usability and Wikipedia:Accessibility had a chance to participate. On the other hand, I am quite encouraged that 21 of 33 voters, including half of the editors voting to keep this template, expressed the desire to fix the accessibility issues. I see it as a clear mandate to do what it takes to transform this template's code. —Michael Z. 2006-12-13 20:00 Z

Subjectivness notwthstanding, I understand that one of the issues at tfd was the lack of an alternate text for the quote drawing (for accessibility/screen readers). If I read the source right, {{Click}} uses such a parameter, called "title", but it is not invoked in {{Cquote}}. Wouldn't this issue be solved by inluding |title=start quotation and |title=end quotation in the template code, at cquote parameters? As in:

"{{Click|image = cquote1.png | title = start quote | link = {{FULLPAGENAME}}| width = {{{size|{{{2|{{{quotewidth|{{{width|20px}}}}}}}}}}}}"

and "{{Click|image = cquote2.png | title = end quote | link = {{FULLPAGENAME}}| width = {{{size|{{{2|{{{quotewidth|{{{width|20px}}}}}}}}}}}}" --Qyd 20:36, 13 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I just added title=“ and title=” to the template (adding the words "start quote" and "end quote" before and after a quotation doesn't make sense). This yields the following in a text-only browser (Lynx):

“
[quoted text]
”

The two quotation marks are linked to the current page. Low-vision users of screen readers will probably have the quotation mark read out to them, and the existence of a link noted. In Safari, the graphical quotation marks now have a tooltip which contains the quotation mark character. —Michael Z. 2006-12-13 20:21 Z

RE "start quote" and "end quote", I was thinking screen readers, I supposed (wrong?) that they read the actual alt text, but I can't test one right now. --Qyd 20:53, 13 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Any screen reader reads words, letters, numbers, and punctuation marks whatever way it reads them. There's no point in us second-guessing how they all work, when we don't use any of them, and there's no reason to believe they all work the same way. The text is not

start quote This text is quoted end quote.

It is

“This text is quoted”.

We should let our code represent this, and let screen readers do their thing. If an image represents an opening quotation mark, then suitable alt text would be an opening quotation mark. —Michael Z. 2006-12-13 21:37 Z

Most screen readers read the alt text of an image by default. When JAWS encounters a graphic, it separates it from the text when it virtualises the webpage. Therefore when I encounter the quotes on this page I get 'graphic "', which, because the quote isn't normally read in the punctuation mode I use, becomes "graphic?" In the default punctuation mode, it's read as "graphic quote". However, I'd prefer a change of this template to the version below. Graham87 02:01, 14 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any objection to switching this template to the technique used in template:cquotetxt? The visual results are identical (the quotation marks can be made blue with "color:#B2B7F2;"), and at least it doesn't have image links to deal with.

In a text-only browser, that template appears as a three-cell table with quotation mark characters:

“ [quoted text] ”

Not ideal, but an improvement. —Michael Z. 2006-12-13 20:27 Z

Surely there this can be done with CSS positioning/floats rather than resorting to an unncessary table. I'd do it except I suck at CSS positioning. Koweja 20:43, 13 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What a great idea! Support. :-). I'm playing with just that idea at User:AnonEMouse/Test. Note that the size measurements need tweaking. 40px for Cquotetxt seems to make much smaller quotes than for Cquote. AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 20:47, 13 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know whether that's the best option (I'm not a web developer), but I also believe this template should be fixed: it presents very serious accessibility problems. I tried to participate in the proposal for deletion, but it was too late because the discussion was closed prematurely. Best regards --surueña 22:44, 13 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is it worth putting the premature closure on Deletion review? — Omegatron 14:25, 19 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

CSS would fix the accessibility problems, because for non-visual browsers (screen readers, lynx, and the like) it would just be interpreted as quoted text. This is one of the reasons we shouldn't use images (though you can use alt tags which sort of helps). Using a table would make it even less accessible because of how alternative browsers interpret tables. Koweja 23:04, 13 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There was a table in the original template so the removal of the graphics is an improvement. The rows of the table are read separately by JAWS, and because of the use of extended ASCII characters, they are read in a non-standard way. The opening quote is read as "quote" because it is defined in the dictionary manager (the pronunciation dictionary); however, the character for the closing quote is not defined in the JAWS dictionary manager and is therefore read as silence. I still think this is an improvement on using {{click}} because there are no unnecessary links. Graham87 02:14, 14 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If I undestand the intended use of this template, the Amy Tan example is extremely misleading. In fact, it encourages precisely the wrong use of this template. The template how-to implies that you shouldn't use this for article text, but when would you ever preface the quote with, "As Amy Tan once said," except as part of the article? - PhilipR 10:01, 18 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Quite right. I also question the editorial judgment which chooses to put a long mathematical equation in a pithy epigraph. —Michael Z. 2006-12-18 17:34 Z

Agreed. I have yet to see a legitimate use of this template in article space. In fact, the only legitimate use I have ever seen is an example of a pull quote in the Project namespace. — Omegatron 14:25, 19 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Once again, the cartoon quote functionality has been deleted from Wikipedia, despite a recent TfD which showed wide support to keep it. I searched on "bquote" in this talk page, and could find no match - where is the discussion to replace this template with Bquote? Can someone please outline why the cartoon quote functionality has been made unavailable, despite the recent TfD vote, and thousands of users who have chosen to use Cquote? -- Stbalbach 02:10, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The TfD voted to keep the template page rather than send it to delete land; that's not a referendum on its content and the discussion was centered on Bquote and other alternatives. See also the above discussions about accessibility and the outcome of the TfD, which you should read. The style preferences of a minority of users does not over-ride the education purpose of Wikipedia. Template:Cquotetxt may be a better alternative. —Centrx→talk • 02:26, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The style preferences of a minority of users does not over-ride the education purpose of Wikipedia.

— Centrx (via Cquotetxt)

Well, since we have Cquotetxt, I'm willing to switch the few cases where I think it's appropriate. But I think it's presumptuous to think that the majority of users don't like or want Cquote or something like it, when you consider the results of the TfD, and that thousands of people who use it - pull out quotes are commonly used in educational resources. It seems like the minority who want to delete it. -- Stbalbach 04:10, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No. Most people are using them for blockquotes in article text, which it is not meant for. — Omegatron 04:26, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

TfD is misleading because it is clearly apparent that most of the voters who showed up after the TfD tag was added into the template did not even read the reasons given in the nomination for deletion, or recognize that there were alternative templates (which is a good reason to think they did not choose Cquote over the alternatives). Regardless of any other problems with Cquote, no one gets to decide that blind users can't read Wikipedia just because they prefer tear-drop quotation marks. Textbooks have braille editions, and no textbook used pull out quotes (or mascots, or technicolor diagrams,...) before they tried to popularize and funnify education. —Centrx→talk • 04:33, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I object to this unilateral overriding of the clear results of an afd. --Striver 10:56, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The consensus of the TfD was to fix it. We could do the same thing just by copying the current temporary text at Template:Bquote here, instead of a redirect, but this is not a deletion of the template. —Centrx→talk • 10:58, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like it's Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss time. We're all administrators here, let's set a good example. User:Omegatron has been BOLD, by making this a redirect. I'm Reverting. Let's Discuss. AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 14:58, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'll start. The objections from the Deletion nomination were

1. Breaks web standards and accessibility.
2. Not helpful, or encyclopedic, cartoonish.
3. Redundant.

The accessibility issue, the most important, can fixed by removing the {{click}}. As to whether it breaks web standards by using tables for layout, I disagree - the web is full of pages using tables for layout. Cartoonish is a matter of taste. Since it is widely used, and passionately defended, I would argue that the community has shown that it is helpful. In the TfD, Omegatron tried to argue that most people don't like it, and was immediately met by many, many people explicitly writing that they do -- "I happen to love the way this template makes quotes look.", for example. Redundant is clearly untrue, since it has an effect not achieved in any other way.

Your turn. AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 15:10, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't revert war. — Omegatron 15:31, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

copying comment from my talk page, since it seems to be more explanatory than the one above AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 20:56, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please revert yourself so that cquote redirects to bquote. It cannot be used in articles until it has been fixed. The template uses the click template and a table in place of a blockquote, which is unacceptable. Please discuss changes in the future instead of revert warring. — Omegatron 16:45, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for replying in more detail. I'm not sure what you mean by "cannot be used", since, as far as I know, it is being used regularly, and still works. Do you mean "should not"? Well, that was basically the proposal at the TfD which was roundly shot down.

I entirely agree the {{click}} template should be removed - barring any better ideas, I propose to do so the way the {{Cquotetxt}} template does it, using text instead of graphical images. I'm not great at template hacking, so if it's left to me, it will take me a few days, but I will do it if no one else does it.

I addressed the table above - "unacceptable" is a rather strong word for a style issue. We are not the W3C.

Discussing changes is what we are doing here. A revert war would be repeated reversions, which does not seem to be happening. One revert does not a revert war make. Thanks for discussing instead. AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 20:56, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

AnonEMouse, I appreciate your rational and mature approach to solving this problem and summarizing the debate. I believe Omegatron has made some good points above, that people are using Cquote not as a pull quote as it was designed, but as a standard replacement for blockquote. Since the majority of cases of Cquote should actually just be blockquote, it makes sense to start over by redirecting Cquote to Bquote, and then making available alternative pull quote options such as {{Cquotetxt}} for those who really need and want a pull quote. In a way, Cquote was poorly designed from the start, it's more than a blockquote but less than a pull quote. So long as the alternative pull quote templates are available, it solves most of the problems both sides have expressed. My only concern is that there may still be some who want to rid Wikipedia of all tear-drop quotes, including the alternatives, and this is just the first step in that direction. Can anyone provide assurance that is not the case?-- Stbalbach 19:47, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much. I believe the TfD comments indicated that people who used Cquote as a replacement for blockquote did so intentionally, to make the quote stand out more than Bquote did. I don't know if just a few of us can tell them they shouldn't do that - there are clearly many of them, including some very experienced users. AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 20:56, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Most of the discussion is "fix it", and some people who obviously didn't read the nomination saying "don't delete it, it's real!". There are only a couple of people saying "I like it", and subjective preferences are irrelevant; this is an encyclopedia, and the people who "like" it do not own the articles they like it in. If they personally like it, they can use a skin that shows it with the blockquote tag, something which is not currently possible for the many people who do not "like" it. —Centrx→talk • 10:02, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Once someone used Cquote in an article, other quotes are then "upgraded" by well-meaning users to keep it consistent throughout (or to get equal attention) -- if articles have more Cquotes then block quotes, then there is a problem, and that is the case the majority of time with Cquote. Users have other options for pull quotes - that are real pull quotes like {{Cquotetxt}} - and not a hybrid block+pull Frankenstein like Cquote that is being mis-used. -- Stbalbach 15:41, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, putting money where mouth is. I've hacked around a bit, and have a proposed replacement. It keeps the cartoon quotes, but makes them text, rather than images, and removes the dreaded {{click}} template.

The actual quotes are slightly different in shape, but fairly similar. I've done my best to make the spacing and sizing as close to the original {{cquote}} as possible, but, unfortunately, can't get all possible varieties, since the sizes don't map exactly, and I can't do real math on them since string parsing in templates is apparently disabled here. I put in switches for what I hope are the most common sizes, and a reasonable default. Also only one font-size measurement is relevant for text, so I can't use different width and heights like you can with images.

Please take a look, and say whether this is:

1. an improvement over the previous cquote
2. worse then the previous cquote
3. irrelevant, since what you really hate are the cartoon quotes. AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 18:08, 27 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There's already a template for this; {{cquotetxt}}. Don't duplicate templates. — Omegatron 19:10, 27 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not quite, cquotetxt is narrower, and has very different appearing defaults. I did try just redirecting to cquotetxt, but that lost too much in the translation. AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 19:20, 27 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The templates perform the same function. They should be combined. We can't have 500 different templates performing the same function just because people can't agree on a style. — Omegatron 19:36, 27 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good. I have no objection in principle. How do you suggest going about it? AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 19:39, 27 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This approach seem to overcome the technical complaints of the previous version, while keeping the overall appearance. Too bad that string parsing doesn't work, a transclusion of {{cquotetxt}} with modified parameter names would have pleased everyone. As far as I can see though, this version works. --Qyd 20:11, 27 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for fixing the technical problem. Do we need to update the instructions at all? -- Stbalbach 15:35, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A bit, mainly about the font-size issues. I was waiting for the fallout, but it looks like this went reasonably smoothly, so if no one else does it before then, I'll update them in a few days. AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 16:10, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The current version looks terrible to me, because my browser (Firefox, Windows) is rendering it in my default font (Verdana) instead of with something of the recommended serif style. Can we add a default font of Times New Roman, with a fallback to serif? (e.g. font-family:'Times New Roman',serif;, demo implementation on right) ~ Booya ^Bazooka 23:02, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Done. AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 17:10, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Since this is a pull-quote, and not meant to replace {{quote}} (blockquote), would it be possible to modify the default margins so they are more indented on the sides, like the default of {{cquotetxt}}? This would make the template like a real pull-quote, and not a hybrid between a pull-quote and blockquote. Indeed, per the instructions, this template is meant to be used with short quotes, to help them stand or "pull" form the page, short quotes benefit from bigger margins on the sides. Long quotes benefit from smaller margins, and this template is not meant to be used with long quotes. -- Stbalbach 13:41, 1 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure that we have consensus over how this is supposed to be used. Many of the people most intent on emphasizing that it is for pull-quotes are also the ones who want to get rid of it altogether, and I'm not convinced that was the intent of the original creators of the template. It is used as a simple, if emphasized, quote in all the Wikipedia:Featured articles that it appears in, and there are a lot of them: Apollo 8; AK-47; Buffy the Vampire Slayer; Byzantine Empire ... -- AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 17:22, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think we do have consensus. By definition the large cartoon quotes are pull quotes. The template instructions say so, just about everyone on this page has said so - if it's *not* a pull quote, what is it? As for "the original authors intention", the original author is no longer around, he left a long time ago because he made this template on a whim for his own personal use and didn't like all the controversy around it. Being in a FA doesn't give it special powers. Finally, I'm not one who wants to delete it, just correct the mis-use of it and conform to the MoS. -- Stbalbach 14:07, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The template instructions say so because no one has cared enough to fight over them, and were only changed to say that relatively recently. They didn't say so when the template was created. There are fewer than ten people who say these should not be used for quotes, there are a hundred people who actually use them for quotes; and they do care enough to fight for that, just look at the TfD landslide. The featured articles are supposed to be the finest work we have on this encyclopedia, and are gone over by expert reviewers; while I didn't count, the fact that I found 4 starting with just the first two letters of the alphabet implies to me there are tens of our finest articles that use this template as such. AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 14:27, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why not just use {{cquotetxt}} when larger margins are wanted?--Qyd 17:38, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Practically speaking yes, but it doesn't address the problem with this template being mis-used as a blockquote. The MoS is clear that normal long quotes should be blockquotes. -- Stbalbach 14:07, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why on earth is this template protected? — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 17:39, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Cquotetxt seems to do a better job. Proposing merge. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 18:09, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A better job of a job that shouldn't be done. Cartoon quotes are beginning to infest the whole encyclopedia. If anyone actually has a legitimate need for such a thing, and there are a few rare such cases, they ought to just insert them directly. I object to anything being changed on this template other than a change to a simple blockquote tag insertion, i.e. a merge with Template:Blockquote Derex 20:22, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Deja Vu. See extensive previous discussions above (and elsewhere). This is very controversial. I am of the opinion that cartoon quotes (pull quotes) are fine, but the text should have its margins severely indented to enforce its use on short quotes only. Basically, there should be no lengthy pull-quotes, it overly dominates the article. The way to do that is make the margins indented more than a normal blockquote. -- Stbalbach 14:36, 30 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would support that. Derex 19:27, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Your opinions seem to be outweighed by the sheer number of people using them, including in recent Wikipedia:Featured articles, which are, by consensus, our best work (for example, Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster, displayed on the front page just two days ago, Battle of Cannae displayed eight days ago, and so forth). And are purple cartoon curly quotes that much different from yellow background quotes in History_of_saffron (featured on the front page four days ago)? Style is a matter of opinion and consensus, and consensus seems to be clearly that it does not diminish an article to use them when needed. -- AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 15:07, 30 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

AnonEMouse, I think you misunderstand. I'm not advocating the deletion of the template, rather a modification so it doesn't directly compete with blockquote. While you have pointed out the best-case use of the template in its current form, you have not recognized that this template is very often being mis-used (abused) by editors instead of using blockquote as the default action. The sentiments expressed by the many editors above are not going away and it will continue to get worse with time as cquote "takes over" and becomes even more common than blockquotes (which is the case in most articles where cquote is employed). There is a simple solution: create a MoS policy that pull quotes (such as cquote) are only for short quotes and that the margins be heavily indented to make them "stand out from the crowd". This is easily supportable in any number of style guidelines external to Wikipedia and is more than just a matter of opinion. I have watched this template grow from the day it was created - the creator has left long ago in fear of the monster he created and wants nothing to do with it, this is not some kind of consensus created template, it was made without much thought or design skill. -- Stbalbach 16:36, 30 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I guess I do misunderstand. To clarify, can you point out examples of what you consider correct usage, preferably in FAs (becausee that would show that consensus agrees that this is correct usage)? AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 18:42, 30 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that is what we would need to do, create guidance (probably in the MoS) on where it's appropriate to use pull-quotes. Right now there is no MoS guidance on pull quotes. Do you think it is appropriate that we have guidance on quoting? -- Stbalbach 15:54, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I am afraid I will continue to misunderstand then. My misunderstanding is that it still seems to me you think that everyone who wrote or reviewed all those featured articles - maybe ten editors per article, approving it as the best example of Wikipedia article writing, and dozens, if not a hundred featured articles using Cquote - was wrong in this usage being acceptable. See, if that is actually your contention, you will need to get an awful lot of people to agree before you can issue authoritative guidance. I'm not saying that you can't, I'm just saying you can't do it from just the five-six people who participate on this talk page. Probably a good start would be going in to some featured article reviews for articles using Cquote, and saying that Cquote should not be used this way, and getting the FA reviewers to consistently agree to this for ten or twenty articles. Yes, I think it is very appropriate that we have guidance on quoting, I just don't think we can issue it without taking actual usage - either by the community as a whole, or at least on what are generally considered to be our finest articles - into account. -- AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 17:23, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously Cquote can be used well in some places and you can point to those and say "see, it works", but that ignores that majority of cases where it is used poorly, which is the problem people have with Cquote. There are simple technical solutions that will help mitigate the problem that doesn't involve deleting the template or changing its use in FAs. I have suggested some solutions and am trying to start dialog about those solutions. Your position seems to be nothing is broke because it works in FAs and therefore there is nothing to discuss, which I think totally ignores the reality that Cquote is being employed too often in places where a normal blockquote is more appropriate, such as long quotes or articles that have many quotes.-- Stbalbach 17:59, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's the whole point of my question, which, (no offense, as I am probably misunderstanding again) but you seem to keep avoiding actually answering. Please list some specific cases - preferably on FAs - where you do believe it is used well, and explain why. Then contrast some (hopefully not on FAs) where it is used poorly. Otherwise I will keep misunderstanding. AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 21:53, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I just went over to the FAC page to register my objections. I looked at half a dozen and saw some proper blockquotes, but no cartoon quotes. What FA's use these? I'd like to go fix them. Derex 19:32, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Half a dozen are listed above on this very talk page, but they weren't hard to find, I just looked at "what links here" for Cquote, many many uses were Wikipedia:Featured articles. Boston, Massachusetts, Blaise Pascal, Bahai Faith, ... AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 21:53, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, that's handy. Didn't realize that worked for templates. Thanks. Derex 22:37, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I can't find the relevant code at either Template:Cquote or Template:Cquote/doc, but at Template:Cquote, the Mergefrom note's link to Template:Cquotetxt is broken; it links to Template:Template:Cquotetxt instead. (The same problem also exists, in reverse, at Template:Cquotetxt.) --zenohockey 22:08, 30 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. --CBD 22:35, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]