It was a dark and stormy night, full of pull quotes. March 9, 2011 2:13 PM   Subscribe

What is a "pull quote" in Mefispeak and why is it bad form?

In the explanation for why an FPP was deleted, one of the points was: "and the massive pull quotes that accompany them" as an objection. I'd ask the mod in question, but their MefiMail is disabled.

I'm honestly at a loss to understand why "pull quotes" are some kind of boogeyman. According to wikipedia:

"A pull quote (also known as a lift-out quote) is a quotation or excerpt from an article that is typically placed in a larger or distinctive typeface on the same page, serving to entice readers into an article or to highlight a key topic. The term is principally used in journalism and publishing.

Placement of a pull quote on a page may be defined in a publication's or website's style guide. Such a typographic device may or may not be aligned with a column on the page: Some designers choose not to align the quote; in that case, the quotation cuts into two or more columns, as in the example shown at right."

Sum total.

The quotes I used were not in any special graphic or formatting, and were identifiable only by quotation marks, so I don't think the visual aspect of "pull quotes" is objectionable in this case.

That leaves the issue of quoting in general.

When is a quote just a quote vs a pull quote on MF? It can't be the size of the quote, because that's not part of a definition of what a pull quote is, and there have been massive quotes in many, many FPPs with no objection.

I assume when people use quotes in FPPs, it's to highlight key passages. What's wrong with that?

Is quoting text from an article in the FPP a bad idea? Why can't they just be called "quotes"? What's up with the scary "oh noes, pull quotes!"?

Obviously, I'm not understanding what a pull quote is for the purposes of MF FPPs. Anyone want to enlighten me, so I don't commit scary pull quotes in the future?

And to emphasize: this is not a complaint or call-out wrt. the FPP deletion itself, so no need to discuss that, thanks.
posted by VikingSword to Etiquette/Policy at 2:13 PM (66 comments total)

In this context, I take it to be a quote which encapsulates the most controversial part of the article thus encouraging people to not even bother reading the article and just start spewing their already formed opinions.
posted by Rumple at 2:16 PM on March 9, 2011


This is the thread VikingSword is talking about.

I am not sure that jessamyn was correct in using "pull quotes." They really were just massive quotes, and I suspect that's what she was responding to. The Treaty of Westhphalia consumes less space than some of those quotes.
posted by Astro Zombie at 2:18 PM on March 9, 2011


I think you are sort of focusing on the wrong bit of the deletion reason, which was, in full, we're getting into GYOB territory with these hot button topic posts and the massive pullkquotes that accompany them. If you're trying to share something neat on the web, great. If you're trying to start an argument, please do that someplace else. I don't think that 'massive pullquote' is the deletion reason so much as an extra bit of description of the trend that Team Mod would like to discourage from your corner.

In other words, the post wasn't deleted because of massive pullquotes, the post was deleted because it looks like you're using MeFi as your own blog, as evidenced by X, Y, and Z. Y is the massive pullquotes.
posted by shakespeherian at 2:20 PM on March 9, 2011 [5 favorites]


I think the emphasis was on "massive," not "pull quotes."
posted by Zozo at 2:20 PM on March 9, 2011 [9 favorites]


Hmm. I assumed that the purpose of posting FPPs is to have the links read. Therefore there would be no reason to encourage people to NOT read. Of course, many people don't read as we well know, but there's a thin line between quoting an article in order to inform without being accused of trying to inflame. The reason to resort to quotes and try NOT to put in stuff from yourself is precisely in order to avoid the other danger "you're editorializing!". This way, it comes from the FPP itself, so no such danger.
posted by VikingSword at 2:21 PM on March 9, 2011


Also when/why did Jessamyn disable her MeMail?
posted by shakespeherian at 2:22 PM on March 9, 2011


Maybe it's the amount of quotes? You could, you know, let people RTFA.
posted by deborah at 2:23 PM on March 9, 2011 [1 favorite]


In other words, the post wasn't deleted because of massive pullquotes, the post was deleted because it looks like you're using MeFi as your own blog, as evidenced by X, Y, and Z. Y is the massive pullquotes.

Well again, I'm not talking about the reasons for the deletion. I'm strictly talking about the use of pull quotes which strike me as non-standard and therefore unclear.
posted by VikingSword at 2:24 PM on March 9, 2011


I assumed that the purpose of posting FPPs is to have the links read.

Well, considering the wall of text that was that deleted post, it looked more like the purpose of that FPP was to have the FPP read, not the links.
posted by shakespeherian at 2:24 PM on March 9, 2011 [2 favorites]


You probably already know this, but you can also contact the mods via the Contact form. The link is at the bottom right of every page.
posted by juliplease at 2:25 PM on March 9, 2011


You probably already know this, but you can also contact the mods via the Contact form. The link is at the bottom right of every page.

Yes, but this was one specific mod who uses the phrase "pull quotes", and the Contact form is generic and addresses all mods. I didn't want to puzzle all mods, I wanted to know how to understand how one mod uses that term. Alternatively, I thought maybe everyone knows what this means, but me, so maybe I should address MF readership at large, instead of singling out that one mod.
posted by VikingSword at 2:27 PM on March 9, 2011


Pullquote may have been me using that word incorrectly, I just mean those big quotes you pull out. Didn't know it was a term of art. Oh well. Your posts are usually links to articles, often on subjects that are fairly touchy here [obesity, parenting Catholic scandals, sexual harassment, US politics]. They then reproduce hundreds of words from those articles using a confusing quotation style where it's difficult to tell what you are saying and what comes from which articles. Most people here will pull out or blockquote a few sentences. In your last post [which we all discussed] you used this style then when people responded in what I would consider predictable ways to a provocative post, you then requoted, in bold, the quotes you pulled out originally in your post. I feel like if your post is going to be a reading assignment, you may want to consider making it somewhere that isn't MetaFilter.

MetaFilter is for sharing links to interesting things on the web. If you'd like people to read and discuss your links, trust them to read them. Pull out a few sentences and then let the post develop however it's going to.

My MefiMail is just disabled because I'm going to SXSW and people ignore the "don't use this for mod stuff" note so I figured I'd just turn it off so that i can respond to people more usefully either here or via the Contact form.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 2:31 PM on March 9, 2011 [4 favorites]


Your "more inside" links are like massive walls of text, and your last two posts are about Catholic priest sex abuse and "Can diet soda be addictive?" So it kind of has this MSN front page feel to it, combined with an essay based on quotes.

You've had some great posts, so I wouldn't take it personally. The phrasing was just kind of like opening up a huge kids are awesome no they aren't kids suck debate.
posted by geoff. at 2:35 PM on March 9, 2011


To answer your question, pull quotes are not bad form, but they're supposed to be illustrative or enticing, they're not supposed to form the entirety of your — wow, massive — post. I could be wrong, but I have a feeling a small post framed around that survey with less editorialising might have survived.
posted by londonmark at 2:36 PM on March 9, 2011


VikingSword: Hmm. I assumed that the purpose of posting FPPs is to have the links read.

Purpose and practice are different. Plus, you posted three links in over 700 words, enough to fill a page and a half.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:37 PM on March 9, 2011


Contact form is generic and addresses all mods. I didn't want to puzzle all mods,

Well, the other mods read MeTa too. All you've done is addressed this to thousands of other people in addition to the mods.

Also, as long as you've brought this up, I'd just like to tell you: your haphazard use of double and single quotation marks is very confusing.
posted by John Cohen at 2:37 PM on March 9, 2011 [1 favorite]


Oh, OK, thanks for that. I'm satisfied.

Just so it's not left hanging, or it doesn't seem like I'm avoiding anything: the reason I don't want to discuss the reasons for the deletion is that it makes absolutely no sense to discuss such things and might simply result in random grar. Mods - rightly - have the final word, so whatever I say is not going to make a difference.

As far as I'm concerned, we have the answer to my question, and this thread can be locked. Up to the mods.
posted by VikingSword at 2:38 PM on March 9, 2011


This way, it comes from the FPP itself, so no such danger.

People taking juicy comments and using the words from them instead of their own words can still be editorializing, for what it's worth. On topics that are known to be touchy here, using the most button pushing sentences is still a pretty editorializing move. Not referring to your post directly, but we'll see people posting links to politics or newsish stories where they'll take the three sentences about the graphic rape or the kicked puppy or the shitty thing the cop said put them as the main text of the FPP. It's still editorializing and framing the post to be provocative. This sort of thing is rarely a good choice if the intent is to encourage good discussion, though it sure does get people riled up.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 2:38 PM on March 9, 2011 [2 favorites]


I think she mis-used a bit of technical jargon to refer to the GIANT WALL OF TEXT YOU EXCERPTED FROM THE ARTICLES. Which, combined with the hot buttonness, GYOBness and general 'you seem to be trying to start a fight'ness of your post, made it a problem.

This seems like a really lame attempt to play gotcha with a mod, as if it's like a speeding ticket where writing down your license plate number wrong is enough of a technicality to get it overturned. You're not going to get the post back even if you get Jessamyn to admit to a vocabulary fail.
posted by jacquilynne at 2:38 PM on March 9, 2011 [1 favorite]


And now I will admit to a preview fail.
posted by jacquilynne at 2:40 PM on March 9, 2011


My MefiMail is just disabled because I'm going to SXSW and people ignore the "don't use this for mod stuff" note so I figured I'd just turn it off so that i can respond to people more usefully either here or via the Contact form.

But it would be really weird if I sent you this Petrarchan love sonnet via the contact form.
posted by shakespeherian at 2:41 PM on March 9, 2011 [1 favorite]


the reason I don't want to discuss the reasons for the deletion is that it makes absolutely no sense to discuss such things and might simply result in random grar.

It's not random grar. It was an inflammatory post, that right out of the gate pissed people off. Why people keep posting that crap like that is mystifying.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:46 PM on March 9, 2011


According to wikipedia:

According to Merriam-Webster, a pull quote is "a significant passage in an article, story, book, or speech that is quoted and used for drawing attention to its source." Which is how I understood it, and how Jessamyn appears to have used it. That it has a more specific technical meaning in some fields does not negate its common meaning.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 2:54 PM on March 9, 2011 [1 favorite]


But it would be really weird if I sent you this Petrarchan love sonnet via the contact form.

Stalking jokes aren't funny to me.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 3:00 PM on March 9, 2011 [2 favorites]


Brandon Blatcher: " It's not random grar. It was an inflammatory post, that right out of the gate pissed people off. Why people keep posting that crap like that is mystifying."

To expand upon this, I bet it still would have been possible to create a non-editorializing post on the topic which would have survived and turned into a productive discussion. Look, we all know there is no FPP subject so innocuous that it won't piss someone off. But the way this particular post was made, it seemed designed to start an argument.
posted by zarq at 3:36 PM on March 9, 2011


" ' ' " = correct
' " " ' = incorrect

/punctuation troll
posted by Sys Rq at 3:41 PM on March 9, 2011 [1 favorite]


P.S. The objection was to "pullkquotes," not "pullquotes," the latter of which are therefore obviously fine.
posted by Sys Rq at 3:44 PM on March 9, 2011


MeTa! That's where I'm a viking! And fall on my sword!

(j/k, glad this didn't end in flames)
posted by Eideteker at 3:47 PM on March 9, 2011


For what it's worth, I have occasionally used the contact form to contact a specific mod - I just put their name in the subject line ("bug report for pb" for example).
posted by rtha at 3:56 PM on March 9, 2011


" ' ' " = correct
' " " ' = incorrect


This holds true in the US but not everywhere, no?
posted by amro at 4:32 PM on March 9, 2011


However you nest your single and double quotation marks, a closing quote with no opening quote (as in the first paragraph of the FPP in question) is never a good idea.
posted by mbrubeck at 4:49 PM on March 9, 2011


/punctuation troll

Huh?
posted by cjorgensen at 5:04 PM on March 9, 2011


pull qoutes should be used when citing Dick Cheney and french race car drivers.
posted by clavdivs at 5:24 PM on March 9, 2011


jessamyn:

Stalking jokes aren't funny to me.


I can't even begin to imagine what kinds of bizarre or scary encounters you've had with overenthusiastic and misguided Mefites over the years.

posted by double block and bleed at 5:25 PM on March 9, 2011


I thought I closed that tag!
posted by double block and bleed at 5:27 PM on March 9, 2011


VikingSword, you're being incredibly disingenuous here.

You claimed that the reason your post was deleted was because it contained pullquotes, when the actual deletion reason was given as:

we're getting into GYOB territory with these hot button topic posts and the massive pullkquotes that accompany them

You didn't link to the post in question. Why not? Did really think no one would recognize the post you were referring to and link to it?

You claim you had to post this here because you couldn't MeMail the mod who deleted your post, but you also claim you're just asking about site policy about a certain type of quotation. The contact form would have worked fine for that if you actually just wanted ask about that.

Formating: Pull quotes are usually formated as block quotes. (The HTML syntax is <blockquote> </blockquote> where the text you're quoting goes in between the beginning and ending blockquote tags.) But that's not why your post was deleted.

And to emphasize: this is not a complaint or call-out wrt. the FPP deletion itself, so no need to discuss that, thanks.

WTF are you complaining about then? You've been on MeFi long enough to realize that pull quotes are common in FPP's. Nobody, including the mods, has a problem with them. They're usually used as teasers though. We don't need really long pull quotes because we can actually read articles for ourselves.

I'll tack my own pet peeve onto the end. You linked two articles in the popular news media that were based on an article in academic journal, without linking to the original article, or at least the abstract if that's unavailable. Popular news sources always sensationalize science news stories and frequently just flat-out make up shit. Personally, I think such FPP's should be deleted on sight. Yes, I am one of those annoying people who will find the original article, or a blog by somebody who has read it, and tell you it doesn't mean what you said it means.
posted by nangar at 5:41 PM on March 9, 2011 [1 favorite]


Mods - rightly - have the final word, so whatever I say is not going to make a difference.

Yet you went ahead and said it anyway.
posted by dg at 5:54 PM on March 9, 2011


Re: Pullquotes

See: y2karl.
posted by klangklangston at 6:08 PM on March 9, 2011


Stalking jokes aren't funny to me.

I apologize.
posted by shakespeherian at 6:39 PM on March 9, 2011 [2 favorites]


Wow. I really thought the issue was resolved, and the thread could die, but no, some people feel they need to get their digs in.

To quickly address the few last ones, because they are just so bizarre:

Me: "Mods - rightly - have the final word, so whatever I say is not going to make a difference."

dg: "Yet you went ahead and said it anyway."

Holy insanity - said what "anyway"? What did I say about the reasons for the deletion? I asked for clarification about one point. Not objection, not complaint, not anything. I thought that I may have misunderstood something that's a convention on MF about how a certain term is used. That's all. So I asked about that. Sheesh.

nangar - long rant. This is just garden variety stupid. You are unable to read, and unable to reason and based on your inabilities you rant.

"You claimed that the reason your post was deleted was because it contained pullquotes, when the actual deletion reason was given as[...]"

No. I didn't. What I did, and quote, this time with the bold part which you apparently missed: "In the explanation for why an FPP was deleted, one of the points was[...]". One. Of. I'm was not interested in discussing various reasons given for the deletion, because I was not complaining about the deletion - a point I made and emphasized. So it would be pretty stupid to then go ahead and claim, as you say I did "that the reason your post was deleted was because it contained" - no, I don't give a damn about the deletion. I just want to understand ONE point made in that statement. Not all reasons, or any reasons. I. Just. Want. To. Know. What pull quotes means in this context. It's not a complaint or exploration of the FPP or all the reasons given or not for the deletion. Capisce? The rest of your rant is a mess of idiocy I'm not going to dissect further, because that's again trying to discuss the reasons for the deletion or the quality of the FPP itself and your opinion of it, which was not the subject of this MeTa. And before you rant, try to up your reading comprehension.

According to Merriam-Webster, a pull quote is "a significant passage in an article, story, book, or speech that is quoted and used for drawing attention to its source." Which is how I understood it, and how Jessamyn appears to have used it. That it has a more specific technical meaning in some fields does not negate its common meaning.

And that is different from the wikipedia definition how? Certainly Jessamyn's objection was not - as I understand it - the fact that a passage was quoted to direct attention to the source, according to the MW definition (which point, incidentally is contained in the wikipedia definition "serving to entice readers into an article or to highlight a key topic"). Because that's why you quote in the FPP - to draw attention to the FPP; that's how it is supposed to work. The objection - was the size of it, the amount of the quoting (as I understand it). But that has nothing to do with the meaning of 'pull quote' as size is not part of the definition of a pull quote. Pull quotes are not extra long or extra short.

Anyhow, I again affirm: I have no interest in discussing the reasons for the deletion, and I will continue not to engage anyone who tries to direct the discussion that way. This is not because I don't have a well-formed opinion, but because it cannot possibly be productive. The only point I was interested in establishing was whether there was a special MF meaning behind the term "pull quotes" that I was unaware of (as there are many such terms, f.ex. "beanplating" - which this MeTa is rapidly turning into). That question has been answered. I'm done.
posted by VikingSword at 7:00 PM on March 9, 2011


Re: Jerk

See: Klang Klangston
posted by y2karl at 7:30 PM on March 9, 2011


Heh. I only meant that you were pretty much the posterboy for the pull-quote posting style and that the pull quote thing had been hashed out ad infinitum in your name.

But congrats on that old chestnut of a Meta. I kinda miss tkchrist.
posted by klangklangston at 7:47 PM on March 9, 2011


I know nothing about pull quotes, also don't care that the thread was deleted, but for some reason I found it interesting that Mathowie was one of the commenters and Jessamyn (star) deleted it. I am sure that happens more frequently than I notice, but how ofter does one mod tacitly approve of a post by making a comment and then another happens on by to delete?
posted by JohnnyGunn at 7:58 PM on March 9, 2011


but how ofter does one mod tacitly approve of a post by making a comment and then another happens on by to delete?

Dude. The mods delete stuff posted by the other mods like, not rarely. The point of having more than one mod is that there's more than one mod.
posted by jeb at 8:30 PM on March 9, 2011


I think the bigger picture is, pullquotes are a subset of editorializing, and sort of prima facie evidence that the OP is trying to control the thread. The link(s) should be the main point, not one building block of a discussion you hope to create.

It's occasionally OK to pull a quote, if short and for some reason you can't summarize and if you're fairly representing all facets of the link, but it's at least as OK to mystery meat it and just let people decide for themselves.
posted by msalt at 8:50 PM on March 9, 2011


but how ofter does one mod tacitly approve of a post by making a comment and then another happens on by to delete?

I think there tends to be a lot of backroom discussion and/or response to the flag queue when it comes to thread deletion. I think it's pretty rarely that one of the mods comes around and goes 'Nahhh, I choose to kill that thread' just cuz.
posted by shakespeherian at 9:08 PM on March 9, 2011


" ' ' " = correct
' " " ' = incorrect

This holds true in the US but not everywhere, no?


Right, I know at least in the London Review of Books (and in a lot of British books) they swap. As long as you're consistent, it's supposed to be ok. Example:
Fish explains: ‘He’s willing to talk, but he says that he must continue to mow because “we’ve got a dinner date at the country club and she’ll blow her stack if I don’t finish the lawn.” “She” turns out to be his new wife … who, he says, is a bit of a shrew and “a little plump”.’
Strange, just noticed that the punctuation is inside the quotation marks. Coulda sworn they did it the other way around.

/punctuation pedantry

The nesting of the quotes is about all I'm willing to defend here though (and not really, my eyes hurt trying to figure out if they were closed properly and then hurt some more figuring out what was a quote and what was the commentary).
posted by jng at 10:29 PM on March 9, 2011 [1 favorite]


*laughs maniacally*

*eats billy goat*

posted by Sys Rq at 10:36 PM on March 9, 2011


*waits for someone to object to primes as quotes*
posted by Sys Rq at 10:41 PM on March 9, 2011


Is there a difference between an obliqued foot mark and a prime, technically? I mean there's gotta be a symbol for this crap, right?

' Foot mark or dumb apostrophe
" Inch mark or dumb quote
' Obliqued foot mark
" Obliqued Inch mark
′ Prime
″ Double prime
‘ ’ Single quotes
“ ” Double quotes


Yeah those look different to me.
posted by girih knot at 11:51 PM on March 9, 2011 [1 favorite]


The mods delete stuff posted by the other mods like, not rarely.

Is that true?
posted by amro at 5:49 AM on March 10, 2011


It's more like rarely, but we'll sometimes do it. This thread fell into a thing we sometimes do where we're looking at a thread we think might be problematic for some reason. We'll look at it, check out the flags and if it's not an insta-delete sometimes one of us will comment just to show "hey we've seen this" and also to get it into our recent activity [at least that's what I do] and maybe calm the thread down a little if it's already starting to go badly. Sometimes this doesn't do the trick and/or we'll talk more about it and decide it's better off deleted after all.

So the "one mod comments, another mod deletes" isn't totally out of left field, but we generally know it's happening it's not something that happens accidentally.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:00 AM on March 10, 2011


Thanks Jessamyn for the response.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 6:29 AM on March 10, 2011


" ' ' " = correct
' " " ' = incorrect


Language log has no problem with it. I also think it just plain makes more sense to start counting with 1 instead of 2, but it's clearly a stylistic choice.
posted by shakespeherian at 6:33 AM on March 10, 2011


VikingSword, I made some very uncharitable assumptions about your motivations for the post, and I was unnecessarily aggressive about it. I can read, believe it or not, but I did miss this bit:

... the reason I don't want to discuss the reasons for the deletion is that it makes absolutely no sense to discuss such things and might simply result in random grar.

And I went and did some random grar. I apologize.
posted by nangar at 7:49 AM on March 10, 2011 [3 favorites]


Oh, God. Now I've been nesting my quotes wrong, too? Why do I come here.
posted by santaslittlehelper at 8:11 AM on March 10, 2011 [1 favorite]


You can pull your friends, and you can pull your quotes, but you still can't pull your friends' quotes.
posted by Sir Cholmondeley at 9:16 AM on March 10, 2011


"'"'"'" "'"'"'" = typical dialogue from Wuthering Heights
posted by kyrademon at 9:29 AM on March 10, 2011


And like half of Frankenstein begins every paragraph with three or four sets of nested quotation marks. The monster relaying dialog to Frankenstein who tells it to the ship's captain who is writing a letter to his wife.
posted by shakespeherian at 9:46 AM on March 10, 2011


Shakespeherian-
Walton, the ship's captain, is writing to his sister not his wife.
posted by miss-lapin at 10:13 AM on March 10, 2011 [1 favorite]


TWIST ENDING TO FRANKENSTEIN
posted by shakespeherian at 10:31 AM on March 10, 2011 [1 favorite]


Man, I had forgotten about how ploddingly circumspect Frankenstein was until I got a bad rewrite idea a while back and went looking to refamiliarize myself with the original. Captain writes to sister about plans for Arctic voyage! Captain writes to sister about commencement of Arctic voyage! Captain writes to sister about discovering a stranger on the ice! Captain writes to sister about stranger's strange story! Captain writes to sister about stranger's strange monster's strange version of strange story!

It's like late 19th century horror authors had never even seen a well-paced horror flick. Sheesh.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:43 AM on March 10, 2011 [1 favorite]


Taking Shakespeare in Love as the model for all great works of fiction, I like to imagine that Mary Shelly was sittin' around with Percy and everyone and was telling a like Call of the Wild-type story about arctic exploration and then Lord Byron was all like 'BOOOOO-RING' and she's like 'Oh okay but then he sees this crazy guy running around on the ice and there's a slightly larger guy following him slowly!' and then Percy was like 'It's cold outside, Jesus, this is the Year Without A Summer, why are you telling me cold stories' and so she's like 'OKAY FINE so then he told a story about Switzerland can I just fucking talk already.'
posted by shakespeherian at 10:50 AM on March 10, 2011 [2 favorites]


Where is Kate Beaton when we need her?
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:00 AM on March 10, 2011


Canada, probably.
posted by shakespeherian at 11:09 AM on March 10, 2011


She lives in New York now IIRC.
posted by girih knot at 11:36 AM on March 10, 2011


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