Template talk:Quote

Explanation of purpose

I believe this template is useful as it allows for an easy way to quote bits of an article in its talk page. It can also be used to quote texts or travel guides inside an article.

There is an example of usage in this talk page.

Tiago Dias (talk) 17:29, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

I could take it or leave it. Personally I prefer to indent and italicize. What do others think? Texugo (talk) 20:20, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Could be useful. We can use it inside the guides to quote famous sayings about the destination. And yes me too prefer it to be indented and italicised. --Saqib (talk) 10:10, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Based on the linked example, it doesn't seem very useful to me, but I'm pretty tolerant about these things - if you like it, that's fine with me, but I wouldn't use it, for the same reason Texugo and Saqib state. Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:25, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Ikan - this template is not something I'd be likely use, but it does no harm and it would be good to have a standard format for quotations for those that do want to use it. Let's keep this. -- Ryan • (talk) • 15:40, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

The template is useful but was not perfect. I've made significant changes to it. See it in action at Karachi#Understand. --Saqib (talk) 16:07, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

If we're using w:Template:Pull quote as the basis for the template here we should probably import it rather than copying and pasting so that we're doing as much attribution as possible. -- Ryan • (talk) • 16:53, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

I plunged forward and deleted the new template and then imported w:Template:Pull quote with full history so that we're providing proper attribution to the original authors. -- Ryan • (talk) • 01:38, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Quote style

(swept here from the pub)

User:Yvwv (perhaps others?) has been changing the style of quotes in multiple articles. For example, Retiring abroad now has:

“ Now more than ever do I realize that I will never be content with a sedentary life, that I will always be haunted by thoughts of a sun-drenched elsewhere. ”

—Isabelle Eberhard

If find that both wasteful of screen real estate and distinctly ugly. In particular, I find the (blue on my system) quotation marks revolting. I'd much rather use simpler markup to get:

Now more than ever do I realize that I will never be content with a sedentary life, that I will always be haunted by thoughts of a sun-drenched elsewhere. - Isabelle Eberhard

What was there before the recent change used more markup & looked like this:

Now more than ever do I realize that I will never be content with a sedentary life, that I will always be haunted by thoughts of a sun-drenched elsewhere. - Isabelle Eberhard

Other opinions?

Can this be fixed by changing the template definition? If so, what changes would people recommend? Pashley (talk) 22:31, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Since it is a template I assumed that it was according to Wikivoyage:Manual of style. If the template is poorly formated, let us change the template. /Yvwv (talk) 03:09, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

It would be better to keep using the template and just to get the template modified. I've done a few quick changes in the sandbox version at Template:Quote/sandbox so that some testing can before before the change are made to the main template. -- WOSlinker (talk) 07:21, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

“ Now more than ever do I realize that I will never be content with a sedentary life, that I will always be haunted by thoughts of a sun-drenched elsewhere. ”

—Isabelle Eberhard

That looks better. /Yvwv (talk) 18:21, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

• On this issue in particular and in general: I say if the content is good, let it stand on its own merits rather than tarting it up with templates and oversized quotation marks and other bells and whistles. Substance over style, not the other way around. If you're starting a section off with a quote, italicize it, use regular quotation marks, and otherwise let it be. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 22:18, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

I agree with AndreCarrotflower's point. My understanding was that the "quote" template was for pull quotes, not for block quotes. Pull quotes are meant to duplicate content that's already there, but in a way that highlights them so as to be eye-catching. I find pull quotes irritating, but I guess they're useful in combatting readers' short attention spans. QuartierLatin1968 (talk) 02:47, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

I would also agree. Either type of quote described (pull quotes or block quotes) are rarely so crucially important to justify the massive highlighting and space the special "quoting" systems provide/take. It would be interesting to know where and to what purpose most of the quotes like this have been used in WV and how much the additional highlighting and space added to the usefulness of the page. PsamatheM (talk) 08:43, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

Quite a few articles use quotes & all the ones I've noticed seem appropriate to me. e.g. Cold weather has Amudsen's line "There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing." & two city articles have

Heaven has paradise; Earth has Hangzhou and Suzhou. — Chinese proverb

A few articles like Retiring abroad, which I wrote most of, have a quote at the head of every section. That's arguably excessive but I'd say not. Some of those quotes are fine, others were added just to have one per section & might be improved.

As for "how much the additional highlighting and space added to the usefulness of the page", I'd say they detract. My preferred format would be as shown for the Hangzhou/Suzhou quote. Pashley (talk) 12:06, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

Neither the terms pull quote nor block quote are appropriate for these quotes. Maybe we should use the term "adage" or "saying", with an appropriate template? /Yvwv (talk) 15:56, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

I don't see any value in duplicating (or nearly so) templates just so we can type {{saying|whatever}} in the wikitext instead of typing {{quote|whatever}} in the wikitext. One of Wikivoyage's many virtues is its resistance to creating a multitude of templates. (In fact, I'd be content to replace all of these templates with <blockquote> tags, and have no template for this formatting style at all, even though the formatting for the author/originator's name is rather nice.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:51, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

See also Talk:Retiring_abroad#Excessive_use_of_quotes Pashley (talk) 17:57, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure about pull quotes, a term I'd never encountered until this discussion. For block quotes, I'd definitely prefer to just use <blockquote> tags but have no strong objection to a template provided we can simplify the format it imposes. Pashley (talk) 18:10, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

I'd say {{quote|quote|author}} is easier to type and remember than <blockquote>''quote'' &mdash; author</blockquote> (for those not acquainted to HTML), and probably easy enough that using it scares nobody. And yes, I also prefer the simple layout of the city example. --LPfi (talk) 16:44, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

There is no need to type the HTML code for an em dash. If you don't know how to type an em dash on your computer (it's ⌘⇧- on a Mac), then you can get it from the Special Characters menu (or copy it from another page). <blockquote>"quote" –author</blockquote> is not that hard (and works on all the wikis without needing any changes, which cannot be said for templates). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:19, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Yes, but we already have several uses of the quote template, and using it allows us to make wholesale formatting changes en masse if we decide it's necessary (as we seem to have now). Powers ^(talk) 00:37, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Change it now?

I think the template should now be changed per the above discussion. I'm still of the opinion that this is the best format:

Heaven has paradise; Earth has Hangzhou and Suzhou. — Chinese proverb

I do not know how to edit templates, though, & am therefore reluctant to mess with something that will have site-wide consequences.

Can someone with a better understanding of templates please make the changes? Or should we start another discussion here on the details? Pashley (talk) 19:18, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

Bump! As I see it, the format that <quote> uses for output has always been awful. It has been several years since the discussion above, but the formatting still sucks. Can someone please fix it. Pashley (talk) 06:08, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

I prefer the existing style. It's smaller, less obtrusive, and is clearly with quotation marks rather than an ugly line running the height of the quote.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 09:50, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

No - first of all, the current one looks fine, and I agree with TT here. Plus, this new one just seems like nicking the idea off reddit. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 09:53, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

I'm not a big fan of the present style, nor of this version with a line. I would suggest either using the version with smaller quotation marks, by WOSlinker in their comment in the discussion right above (timestamped 07:21, 10 June 2017 (UTC)) or going back to the version before the current one, ie. Quote here-Author. --Ypsilon (talk) 10:00, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

The line is an artifact of the blockquote template & should not be present in a revised quote template. I agree it is ugly, but do not think it is nearly as bad as the big quote marks in the present version. Pashley (talk) 10:17, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

I'd be reasonably happy with either of Ypsilon's suggestions, though I much prefer italicising quoted text to using quotation marks. Pashley (talk) 10:25, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Also I prefer the unobtrusive quotation cited by Ypsilon (I suppose the one attributed to WOSlinker is the current sandbox version). This is one of the template uses I find worthwhile – otherwise we'll have people implementing the pull quote inline, and several versions of the plain styles. {{quote|quote|author}} is easy enough for anybody to parse mentally, and for most people to remember, especially for anybody used to wikitext.

One thing that bothers me is how the quote and a {{see also}} (and an image) are supposed to be combined in the section lead. I suppose it works in some cases, but sometimes the whitespece distribution gets odd or the two get looking too similar. Some experimentation is needed, with see also rows and quotes of different lengths.

–LPfi (talk) 07:09, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

And again

I think the current formatting is completely appalling.

“ Heaven has paradise; Earth has Hangzhou and Suzhou. ”

—Chinese proverb

There are arguments both ways on putting the author/source information on a separate line. However, adding a spurious blank line before it just wastes space.

As for the quotation marks, they are arguably unnecessary, since you could just italicize the text instead. The current formatting has them:

• oversized
• coloured
• separated from the text

To me, those are all mistakes. The three together are positively awful.

Any of the following would work (ordered by my preference):

Heaven has paradise; Earth has Hangzhou and Suzhou.
Chinese proverb

Heaven has paradise; Earth has Hangzhou and Suzhou. — Chinese proverb

"Heaven has paradise; Earth has Hangzhou and Suzhou."
Chinese proverb

"Heaven has paradise; Earth has Hangzhou and Suzhou." — Chinese proverb

I could fix the articles I care about by removing the template and manually applying better formatting, or I could try to fix the template with no relevant experience. Neither seem like a good idea.

Can someone please fix the template! Pashley (talk) 11:17, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

I could live with your last two suggestions. Quote marks of some description are necessary, because Italics are already used on WV for words in foreign languages, titles of works of fiction, directions, alt names, etc. I would also caution against Italics in the quote itself, because then you'll end up with stuff like this:

Sheffield, I suppose, could justly claim to be called the ugliest town in the Old World.
George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier

But, I still don't mind the existing format.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 14:48, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

I like the last one, given that the quote is short enough. The author should probably be on a line by itself, to the right and with a dash for multiline quotes, and I don't think having it like that also for one-line quotes would be a problem. –LPfi (talk) 15:56, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

Bump. Almost two years have gone by with no change. As I see it, this has urgently needed fixing all that time. Pashley (talk) 16:41, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

I disagree - if it was so urgently needed, it would have been done by now. Two of your suggestions are fine, two don't work, and none are better than the current format.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 18:53, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Ditto. If you so insist on having the others in a separate template. (edit: I've struck this out since it made zero sense; in my defence, my internet did die just after I hit reply) --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 00:52, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

? ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 08:48, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

I agree with Pashley, but I haven't found this important enough to unilaterally change the format. We don't need a new alternative template, as that won't solve anything, but for "my" articles – and there should be no such thing. Consistency in this kind of layout issues lets readers concentrate on substance. –LPfi (talk) 09:10, 9 July 2023 (UTC)