IMO it’s not bad that Wordpress auto-educates quotes, it’s that it does it even within code blocks. Which is inexcusable, for precisely the reason you mention.

IMO it’s not bad that Wordpress auto-educates quotes, it’s that it does it even within code blocks. Which is inexcusable, for precisely the reason you mention. Markdown + SmartyPants are a better solution IMO. (And you can install WP plugins that do this and that disable Wordpress’ default quote educator.)