Template talk:Qq

Italicization disputed

Regardless of the impending TfD of this template, I move that it stop italicizing quotations immediately, and have edited it to stop doing so. MOS specifically says not to do this. While this template is not primarily intended for use in articles, most of the pull quotation templates are not either, yet still get used there regularly. There is no way to stop people from using them in articles an in templates that are used in articles. Italicization of quotations because they are quotations is a made up style that came from no where. There is no style guide anywhere in the world, as far as I can tell (and I have a large collection of them), that recommends italicizing quotations. Yet this template does it, and people keep doing it all over WP articles, no matter what MOS says, no matter what reliable sources do. A reasonable conclusion, then, is that the pointless italicization imposed by this template and probably a couple of other similar ones also up at TfD, are being mistaken for "Wikipedia style" and inspiring the cancer-like italicization of quotations in articles. MOS gnomes have been trying for over 5 years to get people to stop doing this, but they're still doing it, regularly. This and related templates appear to be ground zero for this stupid-style-that-will-not-die infection. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 21:49, 13 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@SMcCandlish: First off, the template wasn't broken at all, but another template that used this one was. Sorry about that... Anyway, if you feel people using it in the mainspace is/will be a problem, this is easily preventable by making use of the {{NAMESPACE}} variable, which apparently the template already uses. I don't think anyone is arguing that quotations should be italicized anyways, but rather it's a simple preference that in such situations this template serves useful. My use of it has been in good article reviews, where I am not quoting people but prose. I thought it just looked nicer, is all – simple as that. The general acceptance that quotations shouldn't be italicized does not necessarily need to apply in a more informal environment such as talk pages. It is understandable how seeing this formatting could influence an editor's behaviour in the mainspace, however. I think that's a great point, but boldly removing formatting all over the place should require a more broad consensus. Looking at this template alone, by removing the colouring and italicization you are left with only the double quotes and the much more uncommonly used attribution feature. The template then in my opinion hardly serves any special purpose beyond {{tq}}. — MusikAnimal ^talk 00:49, 14 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Just quickly poking around, I see that {{gi}} is a shorthand to {{tq|i=y}}, where the i=y option adds italics. It removes the sans-serif font, however, which I think is I why I started using {{qq}}. Surely there are many other templates with italic options, so again before removing all of them I think you should start up a discussion. I'm not sure where the proper venue would be, but it would not be WT:MOS as that pertains to the mainspace. Maybe WP:VP/PR would be best. — MusikAnimal ^talk 01:02, 14 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The concern isn't just direct use of the template in mainspace, it's templates like this constantly encouraging the use of italicization, for no reason, of quotations. If you don't do much MOS gnoming, you'd probably be unaware how widespread and constant the problem is. People think it's "Wikipedia style", because templates like this encourage that view, and more people see them than read the details of MOS:TEXT. The italicization serves no legitimate purpose in this template anyway; it's just excessive emphasis for the sake of excessive emphasis, one of VARIOUS WAYS OF SHOUTING in readers' faces, like all of these. There is virtually never a reason to do this with an entire quotation; for any rare exceptions, just do it manually. You can use {{tq}} to quote prose from articles in GA review. If you also need to quote individuals in the same paragraphs and want to use tq for that, you can use {{tq|i=y|1=text here}} or {{tq|1=''text here''}}, but it would probably be better to make a {{gfq}} (for "good/featured quote") clone of {{tq}}, that does exactly what tq does (w/o italics) but in a different color and/or font. Italicizing quoted material from an article is going to be confusing if the material being quoted already contains italicization for one or more reason. Here's code you can just copy-paste:

{{#ifeq:{{NAMESPACE}}|{{ns:0}}|{{FormattingError|Template:gfq is only for quoting in talk and project pages. Do not use it in actual articles.}}|<!--
--><span <!--
-->{{#if: {{{title|}}} | title="{{{title}}}"}}<!--
--> class="inline-quote-talk" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; color: #D2691E;"<!--	
-->>{{{1|Example text}}}</span><!--
-->}}<noinclude>
{{Documentation}}
</noinclude>

Or a cleaner version without all the excessive HTML-comment tricks to wrap lines:

{{#ifeq:{{NAMESPACE}}|{{ns:0}}
    |{{FormattingError|Template:gfq is only for quoting in talk and project pages. Do not use it in actual articles.}}
    |<span {{#if: {{{title|}}} | title="{{{title}}}"}} class="inline-quote-talk" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; color: #D2691E;">{{{1|Example text}}}</span>
}}<noinclude>
{{Documentation}}
</noinclude>

That should do the trick. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 11:18, 14 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

PS: I've opened an RfC at Template talk:Tq#Removing the italics option. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 11:34, 14 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]