User talk:Brews ohare/Citations inside quotations

History

This article is an attempt at the topic of formatting footnotes. It was previously presented directly in WP:Project namespace as WP:Quoted citations. In that incarnation it was met with a storm of protest and was then userfied. The basis for objection was:

• Essays are usually kept in user space as part of Category:Wikipedia essays until they become the collaborative work of several authors. Hex (❝?!❞) 19:20, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
• If it's a personal essay, otherwise known as a user essay, then it should be userfied. As is written at that category:

An essay here may be moved categorically into the Wikipedia namespace, Category:Wikipedia essays, if it is frequently referenced, as evidenced by becoming an evolving expression of multiple editors.

so if and when other editors start using it it can be moved into the WP namespace.--JohnBlackburne 18:50, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

This argument is at least partially fallacious: A brief look at Category:Wikipedia guidance essays indicates very many of these essays began with a single author, and after a while others contributed to them. So the suggestion that a non-controversial piece about a technical WP-formatting issue should be "userfied" is not standard WP practice. The policy quoted by Blackburne and by Hex is policy for the entire broad general category of Essays, which may be on any topic, no matter how controversial the opinion. All essays in the sub-category of Guidance Essays contain the block header with the following text: {{Guidance essay}} Notice the wording:

This guidance essay contains comments and advice of one or more Wikipedia contributors.

On that basis an article on a narrow technical and uncontroversial topic like this one is well within the parameters for a guidance essay that can be placed either in Wikipedia:Main namespace or in Wikipedia:Project namespace, which allows contributions of essays.

Of course, if there are other approaches to this topic, any editor is entirely free to add them, or for that matter, to adjust the proposals already within this document. This article can be edited by anyone. Brews ohare (talk) 17:28, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

You may think the arguments 'fallacious' but others were persuaded by them, and other arguments, and the consensus arrived at was to userfy. That's how WP works: things are decided by consensus. If you disagree that's fine but you should accept the result of the discussion, and User:Coren's advice, and leave it in user space for now, not try to overturn the result of the MfD because you disagree with it (or if you do want to overturn a deletion outcome there are proper channels for it; the talk page of a copy of the essay is not one of them).--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 01:05, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

The "others persuaded" are yourself and Hex, one parroting the other. Coren counted two out of three. Brews ohare (talk) 01:16, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

The MfD is over. You may disagree with the outcome but you have a simple choice: accept the outcome or use the existing mechanisms to appeal the outcome.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 01:45, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Blackburne: You have some choices as well: One is to place your harassment of myself as a top priority, and the other is to keep the welfare of WP as a top priority. Banishing a very utilitarian guidance essay from project space shows just where your choice lies. Brews ohare (talk) 20:09, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

I didn't nominate it, I didn't close the discussion and move it. So how you think I am responsible for 'banishing' it I don't know.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 21:37, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Comments

• The way I would do a citation of a quote, is list the source after the quote, as was done, and then add a <ref> after that - nothing needs to be inside the quote. Apteva (talk) 06:27, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Apteva: Do I understand you are stating a preference for the last method presented in the article? Brews ohare (talk) 06:32, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

If it is a quote, it is a quote, and the only thing needed is to say where it came from. If it is an inline quote, like Foo said "Blah", then the reference comes after blah. If it is a {{quote}} then the source must be included after the quote, and the reference comes after that, like this:

Some philosophers insist that the very notion of psychological explanation turns on the intelligibility of mental causation. If your mind and its states, such as your beliefs and desires, were causally isolated from your bodily behavior, then what goes on in your mind could not explain what you do. ... If psychological explanation goes, so do the closely related notions of agency and moral responsibility. ...

— David Robb and John Heil, "Mental Causation" in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Footnotes

In my opinion, wikilinks inside quotes and references inside quotes are never appropriate. Saying "quotation from" is not needed, and is extraneous, and quotation marks are not used in block quotes. The page number is helpful. Apteva (talk) 20:25, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Apteva: You are suggesting that you prefer to drop all the sources cited by the author of the quotation and provided by this author within the text of the original quotation itself. While that can be done, of course, as pointed out in the article, omission of the references embedded by the author themselves detracts from the value of the quotation. Such deletion removes information the quoted author themselves felt was pertinent to their remarks. As a preferable alternative to deletion, the article suggests that the sources mentioned within the quote by the quoted author themselves be left intact, and footnoted outside the quotation so the WP reader can find these significant sources directly. That way, the WP reader is advised these sources have been mentioned in the original, and the WP reader is not forced to return to the original source of the quotation to search its bibliography.

If the proposals I've made in this article are so readily misunderstood, perhaps your suggestion would be to write the article more clearly? Brews ohare (talk) 01:08, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

I did misinterpret the purpose. But I see no reason for copying the references from the quote, and would recommend just copying the quote itself, stripped of all of the references, and just say where the quote came from. If some of the references from the quote are interesting, I would incorporate them into a separate sentence or paragraph. For example A said "blah blah" ref. B said "Blah" ref. Leaving out the fact that A also used B as a reference. Apteva (talk) 08:40, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Apteva: There is merit to retaining the citations provided by the authors in a quotation by those authors. Two come to mind: (i) the authors may have mentioned these sources as opportunities for the reader to expand their knowledge of the subject, and (ii) the authors may have intended to support their views with these sources, which provides a reader with the context within which the quotation makes sense. Whatever their intention in providing these sources, it is apparent that inclusion of the sources provided adds to the value of the quotation by setting it in a clearer perspective. These points are made in the article already. Brews ohare (talk) 19:59, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Pseudo-namespace is inappropriate

I have moved this page from its previous title. It's not appropriate to name subpages with pseudo-namespaces indicating a namespace where they are not, in fact, located, and especially inappropriate to link to them with a piped link that further obscures their actual location. Don't do that. — Hex (❝?!❞) 19:50, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

An extremely useful action, I am sure. Many WP readers might have become seriously confused by thinking a user essay clearly labelled with a title beginning Brews ohare/... was actually in namespace. Brews ohare (talk) 00:43, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Guidance essay template

I have disabled the guidance essay template on this and another talk page; as a template it should not be used on the talk page as that includes then in the category, Category:Wikipedia guidance essays. The category is only meant to include essays.

I also disabled it on User:Brews ohare/Quoted citations and User:Brews ohare/CITEinQUOTE, as they seemed to be old or draft versions of this essay, and it makes no sense to have all three versions listed in the category, especially as it would make it harder for editors to find this one, the one under discussion. It might be a good idea to tidy up those old versions, by redirecting them to this one to again help editors find it (redirecting is better than deletion as it preserves the history).--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 03:35, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Done. Brews ohare (talk) 20:03, 17 January 2013 (UTC)