Wikiquote:Village pump

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Welcome, newcomers and baffled oldtimers! If you have a question about Wikiquote and how it works, please click the link below "create a new topic" , and then you can place your submission at the bottom of the list, and someone will attempt to answer it for you. (If you have a question about who said what, go to the reference desk instead.)

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Questions and answers will not remain on this page indefinitely (otherwise it would very soon become too long to be editable). After a period of time with no further activity, information will be moved to other relevant sections of Wikiquote, (such as the FAQ pages) or placed in one of the village pump archives if it is of general interest, or deleted. Please consider dating and titling your discussions so as to facilitate this.


Contents

[edit] Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Hey,

Just thought I'd let you now that Monty Python and the Holy Grail/temp, which is used "to resolve copyright concerns" hasn't been worked on in quite a while (June 2007). I'm not familiar with the proceedings regarding to copyright infringement, but shouldn't it be done as quickly as possible? and it's messing up the interwikis too :-)

chtit dracotalk 14:05, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

I love to replace it with the current version - but how? Deleting the current one and move? Or just copy and paste? --Aphaia 20:03, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Move and merge? BD2412 T 20:19, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Move and merge (once the former 60KB+, so double sized content deleted to make the way, and soon restored). --Aphaia 05:56, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Reading notes: where is it appropriate?

I read books. Typically copyrighted books. I take notes, of things I find surprising, or typical, and to which I may want to come back later or to relate to other books or ideas. I can see that there are already many similar case, e.g. Richard Dawkins. So, it is a priori appropriate to put them here? If so, good. Is there a procedure? Should one get an agreement? From the publisher? From the author? Has such an agreement been got already (since I find some existing quotes)? Can it be extended to new quotes? Why is that not in the FAQ? Where should I have looked for, then? Thanks. Marc Girod 19:54, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

It falls in fair use case unless your note is so huge to be an excerpt of the book. The latter is considered as copyvio without written permission of the copyright holder (unnecessarily same with the author: it can be transferred). The permission should be sent to the Wikimedia Foundation by email (see Wikiquote:Contact us) directly from the copyright holder thus the right person who issues such. Why not in FAQ ... uh, it is no frequently asked question. But regarding to the current cases (see just the above as the example what is no-no), it would be a good addition. Cheers, --Aphaia 20:01, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply. Now, let's take the example of Richard Dawkins (by "the example above", did you mean Monty Python and the Holy Grail? I miss the insight that should be retrieved from this). Has any permission been asked about it already? Where would it have been recorded, in a way that I (as a new potential contributor) could check? How to express limitations to its extensibility? I can guess that a copyright owner could grant publication rights on a precise excerpt, or quite liberally (I'd be suspicious about the latter, in fact). After they'd be approached several times, they might want to specify some restrictions which would cover possible extensions, so that one would not bother them every time. Marc Girod 09:18, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Panic At The Disco

I always band quote on band's or members respective pages and found that there is no Panic page. Anyone that wants to change that....just giving you a heads up.

[edit] Needs Catagorization template?

Does one exist? Checked the pump archives and see no mention of it. Checked categories and templates to no avail as well.

Of course the ancillary question is if there isn't one, should we have one?

I don't see the need for one, since the following are already available under "Special pages" in the left margin toolbox:
Hope this helps. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 20:36, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
[Burns]]Exxxxxcelllennnt[/Burns]. Thanks for the pointer. -- Greyed 20:40, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Scots and Category:Scottish people

The first comes under Category:Britons and the second under Category:Europeans. Is this intended to accommodate the different views our editors have on the political status of the Scottish people, or is it just a mistake? Antiquary 10:35, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

None of the linked words are visible on my server. Is it a fault of my server or is something else wrong? Odd. Antiquary 10:47, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm not seeing them in the title, either. They're here on the edit page but all I see on the page itself is the word "and". -- Greyed 10:59, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
There we go, forgot the leading colon so they were added at the bottom of the page and the Village Pump was added to those categories. -- Greyed 11:01, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

To return to the question, I can't see any reason for two categories unless someone is trying to distinguish ethnic Scots from people born or living in Scotland. Even so, they are Britons!Poetlister 13:18, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] VfD closure by non-admins

I have started a discussion at Wikiquote talk:Deletion policy.--Poetlister 15:12, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikiquote:Quotability

Further to the discussion on Quotability above, I have started a policy draft on this difficult topic. Comment would be most welcome at Wikiquote talk:Quotability. Cheers! BD2412 T 21:48, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I am continuing to work on this, but I feel like I'm stabbing a bit blindly. I would really appreciate more community input, particular in the form of proposed language that should be incorporated into (or taken out of) this proposal. Cheers! BD2412 T 21:55, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Username change

Hi. Grandmaster is my user name in en, ru and az:wikis, as well as commons, meta and wiki source. I wanted to register an account with the same name here, but found out that there's an account of User:Grand master, which has no edits, but judging from the content of his talk page made only one deleted edit back in August 2006, for which he was warned, and is inactive since then. I would like to change my username here to Grandmaster, since I use that name on other wikimedia projects, and considering that there's no established user with a similar name here, I hope this will be possible. Please see w:User:Grandmaster for the links to my accounts on other projects. Thank you. --Grand M 11:41, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

While logged in to Wikipedia, simply make a statement that you are requesting this name change here, and I will then rename your account as Grand M to "Grandmaster". ~ Kalki 17:33, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Done. Please see: [1] --Grand M 12:55, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Your account has now been renamed. ~ Kalki 17:44, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Thank you very much. --Grandmaster 05:38, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Official format policies

As much as I am adverse to making or enforcing needless rules about anything, I perceive a growing need for a stronger statement of official policy rejecting the use of multiple subject headings within pages for people, and a clear statement against their overuse on theme pages.

Against previous guidelines, there has been a growing use of "subject headings" within articles for people and sub-headings within "Theme" articles. In my experience this is almost always being employed by people seeking to promote attention to some narrow POV agenda, whether extremely hostile or extremely favorable to some subject. I have done some cleanup on a few pages, but some editors continue to use such formatting primarily.

Past policy discussions have always deprecated the use of such headings on people pages, but without much in the form of clear guidelines on their use on theme pages. Within pages on themes there can be some greater justification of use of sub-headings but there remains great potential for extreme overuse (often very long lists of "subjects" with only with a single quote) and POV abuse with much presumption and even deception used in describing what quotes are "about." I believe that if there are disputes and no clear consensus for the use of some particular section heading arises it should not be used. Currently there has been an insistence on placing quotes primarily against "zionism" and for "terrorism on the page for Allah. And after my initial removal of one of these quotes it has been replaced and the current section headings created (ALL with just a single quote):

1.1 Allah in the Quran
1.2 Allah and Jews opposing Islam
1.3 Allah in HAMAS constitution
1.4 Roots of faith in Allah

I intend to remove these sections as unnecessary and the quote presumptively titled "Allah and Jews opposing Islam" to shoehorn a quote that is plainly about supporting terrorism against Jews and Israel onto the page.

In all my years here I recall only 2 incidents where I created any non-chronological "subject" sections on the people pages, and I regret doing so as a bad precedent. Both were many years ago, the most significant one being where many quotes by Thomas Jefferson on religious matters were exported from Wikipedia to here; with rather limited time to deal with a massive import and recognizing that Jefferson's religious views were one of the most frequent subjects of contoversy about him I decided to simply create a section for quotes on religious matters on the page. With the frequent overuse and abuse of such sections I have long since come to the conclusion that sourced quotes and sections for specific works on the people pages should be entirely chronological, with perhaps a few exceptions where later quotes on the same subject are immediately referenced in the comment below them, or some where a series of works are placed within their own section, independent of other works. I have meant to do such cleanup on the the Jefferson page and a few others myself, but haven't yet had the time to actually do it (or many other things). Currently it has only 4 non-chronological headings:

1.5 On religious matters
1.6 On race
1.7 On the judiciary branch of government
1.8 On financial matters

I intend to remove these and organize all the quotes in standard chronological format, but it might be a few days more before I get around to it.

A quick review of policy pages and past discussions has revealed to me some confusing deficiencies and errors on some of the pages, and I will probably do some work on pointing out, discussing, and correcting these within the next month or so. ~ Kalki 16:44, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with Kalki on this, for the reasons above plus another. Most editors here don't seem to care whether quotes are sourced, and the articles that have these inescapably subjective headings are among the worst offenders in posting sourceless quotes. But sourcing is absolutely essential, not only for the reputation of accuracy we are trying to build, but also to the very survival of this project. Chronological order imposes an objective order to the quotes, points out their dated sources, reveals some of their source deficiences, and even provides an opportunity to see how quotees' views (or societies' views, for theme pages) change over time.
We cannot prevent agenda-pushers from trying to make arguments by loading articles with pointed statements (which are often memorable and can be reliably sourced) and then trying to "sell" them as a particular point of view instead just letting the words speak for themselves. But we can make it easier to fix or remove these efforts by discouraging these subjective groupings, instead encouraging the official scheme of grouping by sourced/unsourced and one of the two objective sub-schemes of chrono order (the other being alphabetical, which has its own problems in a multilingual compendium). Chronological order is also supported by its common use in printed compendiums. There remain problems for our collection, which can afford to exceed the books' limitations and therefore have additional organizational needs. But I suggest that they are not nearly as difficult as restraining agenda-pushers, especially given that the Wikimedia POV practices aren't as easy to implement when we cite many quotes by people made famous by their controversial POVs. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 17:45, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
I believe that subject headings for quotes are absolutely necessary for all articles. I know that it causes embarassments in some cases but it is also helpful in revealing things that people don't pay attention to.
At any rate, my 2006 Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia has sub-heading for quotes of people. For Machiavelli, the subject heading are "change," "church," "deception," "government,"..."self-interest"...It is the same for other people. Therefore, I am not a loner advocating outlandish ideas. In cases where the wording of subject headings cannot be agreed upon, those quotes should go under a ===Miscellaneous=== subject heading.
Lastly, concealing ideas can be part of an agenda.--Inesculent 18:23, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Concealing or denying an agenda can also be an idea many people have in their overuse and abuse of section headings. That an encyclopedia article has subheadings is entirely appropriate, but it was long ago determined here that, as much as possible, the use of non-POV chronological and alphabetical order should be used on the pages. I am stating that there should be an even stronger official policy statement of this, and guidelines developed to minimize the overuse and abuse that has occurred on many of the theme pages, where I concede they sometimes can be useful or even necessary. This means there will likely be disputes on the matter, but where disputes arise I am proposing that where the consensus does not clearly indicate that some particular section heading should be used, it should not be used. ~ Kalki 18:48, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

At first I agreed with you, Kalki. I dislike the agenda pushing that is evident on many contentious pages. However, after a little bit of thought I feel that this is the wrong way to go about it. I believe that section headers are a good thing on larger pages. Breaking down quotes from prolific figures in history by subject is, to me, a good thing. For example I would not want to read a page on Winston Churchill where his copious amounts of quotes are listed only in chronological order.
I feel that if we're going to have a policy which is admittedly provoked by agenda pushing then the policy should not address a symptom of the problem, it should address the problem. The sub-headings are a tool. Like any tool they can be used properly or abused. Why, then, worry about the tool if it is the abuse of the tool that is the problem? -- Greyed 19:33, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I feel there is no way to effectively and reliably constrain the overuse and abuse of section headings other than by such policies as actually have long been in use here, their more vigorous expression, and their extension to include some policies for the "Theme" pages, such as I am now proposing. The Winston Churchill page you point to actually uses no "subject" headings of sourced quotes but those dealing with chronological ordering of works or quotes. All of the section headings of the sourced quotes there are simply a sub-dividing of the standard chronological order of quotes, and chronological order of sections for works. That page is not one that would be affected at all. ~ Kalki 20:07, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Speaking of Agenda Pushing.

Over the past week or two I've been trying to get some meaningful discussion on the topic of agenda pushing as it relates to two editors that I believe are one, Cdorman2 & 68.38.199.0. The issue is that these editors have systematically and exclusively edited Wikiquote pages to post highly negative quotations about members of the political right. In one case it was to remove a highly negative quotation of a member of the political left. The main page of contention is Rush Limbaugh, Talk:Rush Limbaugh and Fox News Channel.

Let me start from the beginning. On Fox News Channel 68.38.199.0 posted several quotations which are clearly not in line with the page as stated not only on the page itself but on Talk:Fox News Channel by Kalki. In short they were quotations from Fox News and not about Fox News. It was those edits which got me to look further into the editing patterns of those two editors that in turn lead me to the large number of negative edits on the Rush Limbaugh page.

I reverted the edits of Fox News because it was a clear case. In fact one quotation which was added was one that had been previously removed by Kalki. However on the Rush Limbaugh page I figured that blanket reversions would not be the best course of action since it would probably result in an edit war. Because of that I sought advice from Aphaia on what to do. Aphaia suggested the NPOV tag with an appropriate mention on the talk page about why it was added. This I did.

The result is that two more IPs have joined in and basically created what I have sought to avoid, an edit war. Those IPs being 69.68.228.202 and 69.64.213.146. Both have repeatedly removed the NPOV tag without discussion on the talk page. I have readded the NPOV tag most times but Kalki did revert one and commented that it was appropriate even if with deficiencies. As I have noted on the talk page both of those IPs show the same pattern as the first two above. Exclusive edits to cast extremely negative comments on the political right.

Now, I know that there is going to be contention about these things. However I believe these are beyond the pale. Look at the diff histories of Cdorman2 & 68.38.199.0 and you will see extensive commentary about the quotations. For example this one from 68.38.199.0:

  • It‘s all coming from the haters on the far left. Just throw it in the garbage. But the regular folks who really enjoy this program, what we want you to ask, Laurie, is why do we do things? Why do we do them?
    • explaining to his ombudsman, Laurie Dhue, what to do about mail complaining about the low quality of Fox News Channel material; November 2007 [2]

And this one from Cdorman2:

  • There was no involvement whatsoever.
    • on WHAS-11, denying his office's spreading lies to the media about Graeme Logan, a brain-damaged recipient of S-CHIP funds, and his family, despite recovery of subject email (see below); October 19, 2007; Countdown

Hmm, just noticed that most, if not all, of their quotes are from MSNBC. I digress.

Now, my issue is not that there are negative things said about Rush Limbaugh or Fox News Channel or any other subject. My issue is that these editors are using Wikiquote in an obvious effort to push their agenda through the use of anti-right quotes. In fact in a [recent reversion] 69.86.228.202 stated "This page is not an adjunct of the Limbaugh fan club" which shows a misunderstanding of my position and certainly an unwillingness to discuss the issue. If anyone is curious as to why I say the above I encourage them to review my user page and contribution history, especially when it comes to talk pages and the village pump. For those who don't want to go digging let me just say that I am far from being a fan of Rush Limbaugh and have a history (albeit short, thus far) of opposing agenda pushing on pages where I would agree with the agenda being pushed!

Regardless astute readers will have figured out by now that I again had asked Aphaia for guidance on what to do. The two suggestions were to either take the discussion to a more public place, WQ:VP being that place, or to petition for the page to be protected. Since this whole mess started with me trying to avoid the adversarial approach I am appealing to the consensus here instead of attempting to force the issue on those pages through edit protection.

However, this is a larger issue than just 3-4 editors waging an ideological war on Wikiquote. I have attempted to find any policy which would inoculate Wikiquote from this abusive behavior. As I noted above in my reply to Kalki's thoughts on formatting tools can be used properly and abused. I will not deny that many of these quotes are properly sourced and fall within the letter of currently established Wikiquote policy. I, however, contend that most, if not all, of the quotes fall outside the scope of the pages they are on. Furthermore I think there should be some guidance on what to do with the hit-and-run agenda pushers who come to Wikiquote to post the latest negative commentary on people or policies they disagree with. It is clear that these people I have mentioned care not one whit about project as a whole. They have barely engaged in the discussions about NPOV, they habitually revert that which they don't agree with without commenting on why, and they post narrowly focused, ideologically driven quotations to ensure that their view and only their view is presented. I contend that behavior should be frowned upon, should be reacted to and should be clearly refuted by policy.

However why I am an enthusiastic editor on many different pages I am a recent editor and not completely immersed in established WQ culture. I take my lead from recent discussions by Jeff Q, Kalki, BD2142, Poetlister and Aphaia. What I perceive should be present may not jive with established culture. I am looking for clear guidance in these matters. Either some support for the position I have established and am defending or a reasoned argument on why I am incorrect and why I should back down. Hopefully in hashing that out it could dovetail into a broader policy on the issue or at least one hell of a page to direct new editors to when these things arise. -- Greyed 20:33, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

There is no such thing as a quote "by" Fox News. There are quotes about Fox News, some of which may be made on behalf of Fox News, or by Fox News spokespeople or employees. But the fact that something is said as part of a Fox News broadcast does not make it "by" Fox News any more than something said on The Tonight Show or My Name Is Earl is a quote "by" NBC. BD2412 T 20:59, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
You are correct that my language was a tad sloppy but I feel that it was understandable that the quotes removed were not about Fox News since they were broadcast on Fox News and uttered by Fox News employees for a Fox News program. Allow me to give one example...
  • Unidentified Fox Business News Reporter 1: "Let me just correct ourselves. It is not Apple. Apple Dubai?" Off camera: "Apple Dubai." Reporter 2: "Oh, oh, uh, the, uh, Arabs."
    • "correcting" themselves on their report that Apple had acquired 8% of AMD; actual purchaser: the Abu Dhabi government's investment branch; November 16, 2007 [3]
So thank you for correcting me on the distinction but I feel it is irrelevant to the larger issue I posed about agenda pushing and how regular Wikiquote editors or Wikiquote as a project should respond to it. -- Greyed 21:14, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I feel the questions we should be concerned with most are not whether people have any particular agenda which they are pushing, so much as whether they are unfairly ignoring established guidelines and rules which constrain them from being too aggressive in their attempts to do so.

I have weighed in that the NPOV tag is probably one that should probably remain on the Limbaugh page for the foreseeable future, as the imbalance of quotes that have been added there is obvious, and to some extent probably unavoidable. I do feel that the NPOV tag should perhaps also be amended to reflect that when there is an imbalance to be corrected it should usually be done by the addition of relevant quotes, not removal of them.

Even though I myself might prefer to keep them very limited in number, I am not against including some very offensive and very biased and unfair quotations. There are growing efforts being encountered to censor some remarks that are arguably on subject, as well as efforts to include remarks that are off subject. There are some quotes in contention on that page and others which I would personally much prefer not to be there, and which I would not have added, but now that someone has, I do not feel they should be removed merely because they are offensive. Others might disagree, and though I have but little desire to keep quotes I regard of low value, even when genuine, I feel that where contentions arise about the "notability" or "quotability" of particular quotes which are not likely to be settled by reasoned arguments between adversaries, there should be a polling of consensus on the matter. That is usually the last resort available to us when policies are not or sometimes cannot be precise enough upon some matters. This is one reason why I have been very little interested in arguing about defining "quotability" in some artificially precise terms. No matter how precise and absolute a definition or rule might seem, there will usually be some loophole which would permit some extreme abuse of it, and a general sense of what is appropriate once again would have to be appealed to. I truly feel this will always be the case. ~ Kalki 22:22, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

And in cases where some of the participants refuse to engage in honest discussion? I feel that is the case here. I purposely did not alter the content of that page precisely because of comments like yours above. However those IPs have thus far refused to engage in any discussion or debate on the matter. Take a look at the Talk page and notice that the sum total of the discussion from the most often reverter of the NPOV tag is, maybe, 4 lines. All of which are unsigned. All of them amount to "You're wrong!" with no explanation, no support, no discussion, no debate. -- Greyed 23:17, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Geolocation of IPs

Of the IPs Greyed mentions, 69.68.228.202 does not geolocate consistently but is in the US. 69.64.213.146 is in New York City, probably Brooklyn, and 68.38.199.0 is in Jersey City. This is not inconsistent with them all being the same person, but is far from conclusive.--Cato 23:12, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Cato. Of the participants the only ones I feel might be the same are Cdorman2 and 68.38.199.0. Even then, let me be perfectly clear, I am not making any accusations of sock puppetry. It could be that those two are the same and simply someone who forgot to log in. I've done it, others here have done it, nothing malicious about it at all. -- Greyed 23:17, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] (Almost) Empty Pages

Lately there has been a rash of empty or almost empty pages for people of unquestioned notability (mostly songwriters). Typically these pages will have no quotes, or a single (and to my eye not particularly notable) quote, such as "C I A R A ciara from unknown song album?" from a page about Ciara (admittedly, this is probably the worst example). They usually lack intros and are seriously in need of cleanup. One industrious editor at 72.87.57.201 (talk · contributions) created more than 20 of these pages in one day (more than half of which were speedied) in spite of several requests from both kalki (talk · contributions) and me to improve. My policy so far has been to speedy the ones with no quotes at all, to prod the ones with a single dubious quote, and to clean up and fix the ones where the single quote seems worthy. Would others agree this is the best way to deal with these pages? --Ubiquity 12:09, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

This is probably a good way to deal with them. I confess to some suspicions as to the intentions of this editor, and have considered the possibility that he or she might merely be a troll intent on pursuing the petty pastime of irritating others, rather than trying to significantly contributing to the project. Sometimes, though, what might seem the work of a vandal behaving like a young child with difficulties understanding many things, could actually be the work of someone having difficulty understanding, and not simply the work of someone retaining very immature aims. If edits do continue in a manner inconsiderate of the advice given some temporary blocks might be appropriate. ~ Kalki 14:37, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Kalki i'am not a troll i like stubs. --72.87.57.201 14:55, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Stubs are quite okay, but they should be properly formatted stubs, not merely rapidly created postings which leave others most of the work to do to get them up to standards. ~ Kalki 15:33, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
I just spotted two pages with no quotes, both by a brand new user. To avoid BITE, I PRODded both of them.--Cato 22:05, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
No quotes should equal speedy deletion. I don't dispute your decision to prod, but speedy deletion is certainly clearly warranted within our rules as well. BD2412 T 20:49, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Boldface?

How do you know to use boldface? What makes a quote so special that it has to be in bold? Va girl2468 17:54, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

This is a largely subjective matter. I have usually added bold to many of the most famous and significant statements of people, especially if they would otherwise be lost amidst a mass of text. It is never an absolutely necessary addition, though when I work on any large page, I usually prefer that there be some bolding of significant quotes, if only to provide some visual texture to it. Past comments I have made on the matter include this discussion, which I usually link to when the subject now comes up. ~ Kalki 18:53, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
I never use boldface myself, but I see the advantages. If there is a long passage of which one sentence is the best known, that sentence should be bolded.--Poetlister 22:07, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Same with Poetlister. Also I prefer to make a remark if I boldface something, as "the boldface is given by the contributor of this website and is therefore not original" or whatever. In an academic source, on decorative things like boldface or underline it should be distinct if the original author gave or the editor does. --Aphaia 02:43, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
I am generally against boldfacing quotes, but accede to the strong opinions of others on this matter. One case I find it quite useful is in emphasizing a very short passage — the essence — of a longer quote, where both the short and long versions are separately quoteworthy. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 02:54, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bill Hicks quote about Rush Limbaugh

There is a heated argument going on at Talk:Rush Limbaugh (under several topic headings) about whether we should include a particular quote about Limbaugh, by comedian Bill Hicks, in the Rush Limbaugh article. I believe the arguments have been made, rather thoroughly, and that we will not be able to close this matter without a call for a consensus. Therefore, I am calling for a vote to take place, starting sometime after 05:00, 1 February 2008 (UTC), and taking exactly 1 week. Please go to Talk:Rush Limbaugh#Call for consensus on Hicks quote for more details and to participate. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 04:26, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Titles with colons

I recently moved a page called "Hitman" to "Hitman: Blood Money" (because this is the name of the game the page documents), and then deleted the original page, instead of leaving it as a redirect, because I wanted to avoid confusion in the future when someone creates a page on one of the many novels or movies called "Hitman". But now I find that a search for "Hitman" doesn't bring up "Hitman: Blood Money." I assume this is because the colon in the title threw it into a "Hitman" namespace which is not being searched. Is there anyway to escape a colon in a page title so that it doesn't create a namespace? --Ubiquity 12:25, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

It can take a little time for MediaWiki's search to catch up to reality. And I don't think it's confusing a name-plus-colon with a namespace prefix. Searching for "caribbean" finds, among other things, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. Check it again in a few days. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 13:18, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
Long ago, there used to be issues with section headings and colons, but I have not seen any problems occurring lately. ~ Kalki 20:55, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Nec tecum possum vivere nec sine te"

This phrase is attributed both to Martial and to Ovid. At least one of these attributions must therefore be wrong. I have no idea which would be the wrong one, however. Neil 15:10, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Martial said it, but he may have borrowed from Ovid's "nec sine te nec tecum vivere possum". [4] --Ubiquity 15:54, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Deleting User Accounts

I would like to delete my user accoount here, as it was created accidentally and I do not want an account on WikiQuote. Leamarie411x2 17:08, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it is impossible to delete an account. Something we did very recently was to delete someone's user and talk pages and rename the account. Is that OK?--Poetlister 17:27, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

That's good, but if we re-name the account, it's still "mine" but under a different name right? If that's the case, then just delete the pages and don't re-name the account. Leamarie411x2 18:23, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I deleted your user page, and now the only edits of record by your account are these remarks to this page. ~ Kalki 20:54, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Innately one-sided Theme pages

Though various imbalances can arise on any page, I deplore all attempts to create innately one-sided pages as has recently occurred with the pages Criticism of the Bible‎, Criticism of Christianity, and Criticism of the Qur'an. I would have similar objections to pages created expressly for "Praise of the Bible", "Praise of Christianity", "Praise of the Qur'an", "Criticism of Atheism" or "Praise of Bigotry". I strongly feel that both criticism and praise of things should occur on pages devoted to a theme, and pages should not be created to separate out any specific attitude or stance.

I have as strong an antipathy towards the fanaticism and foolishness of those who are most inclined to collect criticisms of people or beliefs, as I have towards that which would absolutely censor everything but the praise of something. Though I have not had the time to even attempt to fix many of the imbalances and format messes that have occurred on some of the "theme" pages, I have never supported past moves to break up of theme pages into such artificially imbalanced pages. Though on some theme pages it might be appropriate to split the page into a few sections dealing with ranges of opinion, I long had a tendency to clench my teeth in frustration every time I saw the adjectives "Religious" and "Irreligious" rather absurdly retained as titles of pages. I have just renamed these with the slightly more sensible nouns "Religiousness" and "Irreligiousness", though I do not presently have the time to work much on the pages themselves. If these separate pages are retained, which initially were created in someone's (largely futile) attempt to split up the page on Religion, into "pro-religious" and "anti-religious" quotes, I believe they should include quotes both for and against the subject of their title.

I deplore the increasingly evident tendency of a few editors to primarily dredge up what muck they can on certain subjects or people, and have always found that there are few people more deserving of criticism, and of pity as narrow-minded and bigoted fools, than those who focus primarily on the criticism of other people, rather than the appreciation of them. Personally, I deplore all forms of fanatical condemnation of anyone or anything, even many of the worst of people and traditions, far more than I deplore even the most fanatical praises of even the least deserving. I feel that there are always far more dangers to human progress and happiness in fanatical condemnations than there are in sincere praises, even as there are always far more dangers to human understanding and wisdom from lies than there are from truths.

I propose there should be a policy against having such innately one-sided pages, as they would merely make us more of a magnet for the worst and most extreme agenda-pushers that can arise on the internet. ~ Kalki 10:23, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Total support for Kalki. Even if a page is filled with well-sourced quotes by notable people, it may fail a balance test. Anything called "Criticism" or "Praise" should be PRODded!--Yehudi 12:22, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
I agree that Criticism and Praise articles wouldn't bode well. Perhaps as much to the point, they would also be superfluous. Praise, dispraise and neutral comment ought to be made to share a single theme page. When so many shades of opinion exist on any important theme, it would merely lead to squabbles to decide whether a quote represents praise or condemnation. This is unnecessary when differing views are on one page; the only remaining problem would be with balance and proportion. It could also be argued that it is far more informative and interesting to see a good many views in one article.

At the risk of being a bit pedantic, I would also note that criticism as used in the titles of these pages is synonymous with condemnation (e.g., "Don't be so critical!") instead of the traditional meaning of analysis and opinion (e.g., "drama criticism"). I think that we should stick to the traditional meaning, which may no longer be as common in general society but is still fairly common in work involving the pursuit of knowledge; and Wikis are certainly a part of that pursuit.

Another problem suggested by the pages in question is that we are now getting duplicate or redundant themes. We have Faith, Religion and Religiousness. Although these themes are not identical in definition, they are close enough in usage to suggest that a merger might be in order. Likewise, I am not sure of the need for a page entitled Irreligiousness, which is defined in its introduction as meaning absence of religion, hostility to religion and failure to live according to religious demands. These are discrepant definitions and are therefore not useful in creating a single theme page. Why not just stick to the thematic divisions we already have — Atheism, Skepticism, Agnosticism, Deism, etc? - InvisibleSun 14:29, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I completely agree with Kalki's (and the others above) concerns, and once I saw these new pages I was planning to bring them up on the talk pages of the main theme pages (e.g. The Bible, etc.). I think such quotes should be placed on the general theme's page and not pulled onto their own page which becomes a one-sided page. This practice should definitely be discouraged. ~ UDScott 16:23, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
First let me oppose to ban all articles including criticism ... if it implies critic is also banned ... then we won't be able to have Critic of Pure Reason or New Criticism and it would be a shame. (joke)
Well seriously I agree with InvisibleSun, the common usage is criticism is somehow abused, and almost lost its original meaning. So we are better to avoid this usage from our naming convention of articles. Shortly,
Completely agreed. We won't have a single-side article like "praise" or "criticism" unless it is a part of work (e.g. CoPR) or a historic and technical term for a notable movement (e.g. New Criticism). --Aphaia 16:51, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Animals: singular or plural?

I have created articles on the hippopotamus and rhinoceros (singular). I see that the insect article is also singular but most others are plural, such as cats and dogs. Is there a policy?--Yehudi 12:48, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

As a general rule, the title of a Wikiquote page should be the same as the title of a Wikipedia article on the same subject, including capitalization and accented characters. Wikipedia uses the singular for the animals you mention, but they hedge their bets with redirects from the plural form in all cases. Perhaps that would make sense for us too? --Ubiquity 13:06, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
Excellent idea thanks. I'll do it.--Yehudi 21:47, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
Despite what Wikiquote:Manual of style says about titles in general (quote above), our specific practice for theme articles has been to make their titles plural when the noun is countable, which is why we have Emotions, Fathers, Rats, Libraries, Women, and hundreds of other plurals. Mass nouns are in their normal singular (uncountable, collective) form, like Medicine, Tea, Ecology, Acting, and hundreds of others. Of course, some nouns have both mass and countable forms, in which case we typically use the mass (singular) form unless there's a compelling reason not to.
The rationale is that our theme article titles follow the form "Quotes about X". In fact, before we started adding short descriptive intros to all articles, they almost always began with this exact phrase, if anything. The phrase "quotes about hippopotamus" is ungrammatical; thus, our practice of using plurals for such themes.
One problem is that WQ:MoS tends to be very much behind practices, as few regular editors (myself included, I must admit) take the time to ensure it's in synch with practices, many of which predate any meaningful version of MoS. I have no immediate recommendation one way or another right now; I'm just citing actual practice and the reasons. We can keep them or change them as the community desires. Either way, the redirection from one form to the other usually (maybe even always) makes sense. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 22:53, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
Oh! I'd nearly finished making them all singular. Still, all the redirects wil be there.--Yehudi 23:10, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Abortion

This is a tough nut to crack. It is an immense page (159kb) and has been the scene of revert wars in the past between passionate proponents of both sides. I have proposed in the past to divide the page up along some neutral line, particularly by date, and by creating a separate page for quotes originating in judicial decisions (see Abortion (pre-Reformation), Abortion (1500-1900), Abortion case law). However, my efforts to include these links on the Abortion page have been reverted. So, I would like greater community input on the handling this delicate topic. Cheers! BD2412 T 22:08, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

How about splitting it into Abortion A-D etc. like the List of people by name?--Yehudi 22:24, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
I concur with BD2412, it is clearly traceable and intuitive. Alphabetical order is less intuitive ... alphabet of which I have no idea (the top of the quotation? Would our readers remember the quote all in a same manner? Some quotation is remembered in a more longer or shorter veresion? Or by the author's name? If the author is known in several different names? Surname? Full name? Well I have no idea which you are proposing already) and not inclined to agree. And more over, the chronological order is generally applied for our theme quotes (see Christianity for example). --Aphaia 23:17, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
I think there are more reasonable divisions of quotes by date. Maybe also pre-Roe and post-Roe. Would we then eliminate the single "abortion" page in favor of a directory of sub-pages? BD2412 T 02:24, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
A simple portal-like page looks me fine. Inclusion can be technically made but it would be too slow to read comfortably, I'm afraid. As for the division, I have no specific preferences, besides that it should be clear and mechanically decisive like "sorted by date". It may give us a side effect: we may avoid unsourced chronologically obscure quotes from the pages ... --Aphaia 15:55, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

It's no easier to find a quote by date if you don't know the date than a quote by author if you don't know the author! Pre and post Roe is meaningless except to Americans.--Cato 22:38, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Virtually all of the quotes on the page are by Americans, and are about the practice as it takes place in America. There are probably magnitudes more abortions performed each year in China, but I don't see much ado about that in the quotes listed. BD2412 T 01:06, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
I really think the alphabetical order by author should remain, as it has been a long standing and somewhat uncontroversial compromise after many periods of much editing and reversion. I also wish to note that though chronologically ordered quotes and sections are standard on our pages for people, Aphaia is wrong to say that "chronological order is generally applied for our theme quotes" — the application of it to the page for Christianity is a rare, and perhaps solitary exception. Personally I would have preferred to stick to a standard alphabetical sortation by author, rather than breaking it up into largely culturally defined sections, but I simply accepted the format change, as I was simply too busy with other things to get into arguments about it when it was applied, let alone do much editing on the page myself. ~ Kalki 03:12, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
After reviewing Christmas I assume it would be your preference, and actually we have no communitywide convention. For your point, I would suggest another example at Eastern Orthodox Christianity. There sourced quotes are listed roughly chronological based on acme of authors, and it is based on the discussion and consensus on WQ:VP. --Aphaia 07:07, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Let me be clear that I am not advocating any reordering of quotes on the page, but the division of the page into subpages. So, a subpage on a particular era could still list quotes from that era in alphabetical order by name of speaker. Or, we could have one set of subpages divided by name and a second set divided by date. Duplicative, I know, but at least it would resolve any "either/or" controversy. BD2412 T 03:19, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
That is an even more drastic suggestion — I don't see any real advantage to breaking the page up into sub-pages of any type, nor any need for it. Despite the warnings given by the wiki software, I don't think there are many modern browsers that have problems editing over 32kb of text, and the currently 162 kb page is divided into 26 editable sections for anyone who doesn't turn off the section editing options. ~ Kalki 04:41, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes, but how do you find anything useful in a page that size (and which keeps growing)? BD2412 T 15:02, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
The implied question behind that question is, "What do people use Wikiquote articles for?" Unless we can comprehensively answer that complex question, it's hard to know the significance and import BD2412's basic (and very common) question. We can all come up with some quick answers to the larger question, but I think we need a comprehensive, written list of Wikiquote's uses (which can vary considerably between articles and genres, and include some uses we should or even must discourage) before we can properly address whether and how to change organizational practices. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 17:35, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

There is a US bias in this article and in many others, for understandable reasons. I'm tempted to suggest splitting it into US and non-US quotes. :-) --Cato 22:20, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Note that such a split would also effectively split out all "pre-reformation" quotes. BD2412 T 22:59, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] how can i get started? asap if can

Can someone please help me get started on a new page for quotes? I'am willing to learn thank you for your free time. --Coretega 07:27, 12 February 2008 (UTC) asap if can

I have now left a basic welcome message on this user's talk page, and the make the further comment : On the adding of quotes or the creation of new pages: simply examine a few of the pages which exist, and follow the recommended formats. If you do not have any you wish to add, simply read what is available. ~ Kalki 12:22, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Where is the page for Robert Novak?

Robert Novak seems like an important enough person that there would be a page on wikiquote for him. Even his article on wikipedia links to his non-existent quotes page. I've searched and searched, but I can't find the page for [Robert/Bob/Rob] Novak. Is it possible that this page may have been accidentally/maliciously removed? I find it hard to believe that no one has thought to create this page yet. 22:29, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

The link on Wikipedia is a general Sisterprojects template, which does not imply that he has a page here. Please feel free to start an article.--Cato 22:40, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Coming milestone

We are reaching 15,000 articles very soon (in this month, so I expect; 20K may be next year). Will we have something special for celebrating that archivement? Like a special celebration logo with the figure "15,000"? Just a thought. --Aphaia 11:49, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

  • I'm all for it! BD2412 T 05:45, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
I asked m:User talk:PatríciaR for the special logo, who made us Wikiquote banners for the latest fundraising. --Aphaia 20:34, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Aphaia and I discussed this on IRC and it should be easy to replace the current logo with the special logo with some quick changes to MediaWiki:Common.css that can be reverted after our milestone is over. :-) Cbrown1023 talk 03:20, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
The first draft is here. Give your feedback, if any. :) --Aphaia 17:54, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Neat! The stars are a nice touch. How do we match up to other language Wikiquotes? BD2412 T 18:53, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Size-wise? Check out m:Wikiquote. Cbrown1023 talk 17:30, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

We've got it! Thanks to all for working on it. See also WQ:VP#15,000th article. --Aphaia 07:08, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Stub types

A reminder to Wikiquotians: if you're creating new stub types for articles, please add them to the list of Category:Wikiquote stubs so that the rest of us will know what is already available. - InvisibleSun 15:38, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] I'd like a few lists.

If someone has the technical ability to generate them, I'd like:

  1. A list of all Wikiquote entries for which there is no corresponding Wikipedia article.
  2. A list of all Wikiquote entries for which the corresponding Wikipedia article is a disambiguation page.
  3. A list of all Wikiquote entries for which the corresponding Wikipedia article lacks a link to the Wikiquote entry.

Any takers? Cheers! BD2412 T 05:45, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Good idea. And how about a list of people not in the lists of people by name, or who do not have a DEFAULTSORT tag?--Yehudi 10:55, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Seconded. --Aphaia 11:12, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Hey, the more tools we have for figuring out where we need to tighten up the place, the better! BD2412 T 15:53, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Is anyone able to act on these suggestions? I would, but I don't know how. Cheers! BD2412 T 07:40, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Gadgets

Is there any gadgets we would like to have on Wikiquote? (cf. m:wikimedia site feedback/admin)--Aphaia 13:54, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Crash Bandicoot

Not as huge as our old "WH40K" daddy, it seems to be another "all in all" articles. At least I can hardly find it as a muster of quotability. It may be a good example why we need "no fan site" clause. Thought? --Aphaia 13:23, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Prod for having no notable quotes?--Yehudi 18:12, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Prod requested. --Aphaia 18:59, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Looks right - I'd certainly delete if the article isn't improved.--Cato 22:10, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] George H. W. Bush quote

A bit of an edit war has developed on the page for George Bush, Sr. A quote attributed to Bush (about atheists not being citizens) was in a section labeled Disputed. Context was included to show why the quote was unverifiable and doubtful. An IP editor removed this section, with an edit summary to the effect that the quote should not be included because it was the unproven remark of someone with a partisan agenda. I reverted this deletion on the grounds that, having labeled the quote Disputed, we had already declared it unreliable. The IP editor then reverted this action, citing BLP as a reason.

This raises an issue on which I would like some community input. The reason we have Misattributed and Disputed sections in the first place is to deal with quotes we have discovered to be mistakenly or doubtfully attributed. Likewise, if we were merely to delete all these quotes, it would only be a matter of time before they were added once again. If, however, the subject of a page is someone living, it could be argued that the inclusion of these quotes is defamatory. I don't happen to agree with this: if we have declared the quotes to be mistakenly or doubtfully attributed, we cannot be defaming the person in question. Aren't we, if anything, actually doing someone a service when we show that a frequently attributed quote is erroneous or unreliable? Any opinions? - InvisibleSun 18:00, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

It would be defamatory to intentionally misattribute a quote. But to report that a quote has been attributed to someone and include a disclaimer that the attribution is questionable would not be defamatory in the least, so long as we can cite the source for the attribution. BD2412 T 18:52, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Even sound extreme, I would like the community to consider to have more strict rules about QLP (Quotes of/about Living People). I have personally a great interest in German Wikiquote citation rules; basically they accept source-cited quotes only at their living people articles. (Their concerns are mainly copyright as far as I understand, though.) --Aphaia 20:17, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
It is clearly not defamatory to deny that Bush made this remark! On Aphaia's point, I must disagree. For example, I added unsourced quotes to Claus Moser, Baron Moser but nobody would regard them as defamatory and I am absolutely sure he said them.--Poetlister 20:36, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
A bit late reply (sorry), dewiki policy concerns mainly copyright issues, not for avoiding defamation. frwiki has also a similar policy - not to accept any non-sourced quotes. The idea is that if a contributor is sure he or she is absolutely sure the article ubject said those quotes, the contributor should give that, instead of saying "I know that, trust me". I think it is one of important lessons of disinformation of Essjay. --Aphaia 05:49, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
That's why we have "Sourced" and "Unsourced" sections. We should only put something in "Unsourced" if we are reasonably sure that the subject said them.--Poetlister 20:13, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
I wish that were the case, but how could it be so? If we were reasonably sure that a quote had been said by its subject, what point would there be in adding it unsourced — or, at any rate, in not trying to find its source? An unsourced quote, by its very nature, is no more than an allegation. It is a quote that has been neither verified nor falsified. It is there for no other reason than someone having placed it on a page. And there it will sit, in a sort of Wikiquote purgatory, until someone redeems or condemns it. Where do most of the Misattributed and Disputed quotes originate? From the heaps of Unsourced quotes. We have only to look at the Tom Stoppard page, for example, to see how many Misattributed quotes had once been Unsourced. Why had people thought Stoppard the source of these quotes? Did they know? Did they care? Why, then, would they place them on his page? Damned if I know.

I know that your premise was what people ought to do. They ought to cite quotes responsibly. But if they were responsible, why would they be adding unsourced quotes? What is the point, after all, of an unsourced quote? How would I make use of it? "As Tom Stoppard may or may not have said,..." Useless, n'est-ce pas?- InvisibleSun 21:57, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Famous people tend to attract misattributions; many aphorisms have been attributed to the likes of Mark Twain, Yogi Berra, and Samuel Goldwyn for no better reason that that 'it seems like something he would have said'. (I would like to argue, however, that disputed quotes should probably be moved to the talk page until the dispute is positively resolved.)
As for the unsourced quotes generally, these quotes are almost never unsourced (i.e., made up out of whole cloth); the editor may be working from memory, or may not know how to cite the source, or may be quoting fourteenth-hand from a source which does not provide rigorous citation. She or he may even be pressed for time, intended to research the source at a later date. These are all legitimate entries in the category of "attributed to so-and-so but not adequately sourced". (I would rather see such things in the "Unsourced" section—even when some minimal "heard it said" citation is provided—than in the "Sourced" section where its inadequacy may go unnoticed.) One hopes that the WQ community can resolve these issues in a helpful rather than a destructive way, by researching the proper sources. 121a0012 02:38, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
Spot on. I have tried to source a few quotes, sometimes successfully. Often, doing so establishes that the version on WQ was wrong, even if it is what "everyone knows". [5] However, what I often find is that the quote is all over the Internet but there is no reliable source. We should then record that the quote is widely attributed to the person but we can't prove it to our satisfaction. In the case of Claus Moser, Baron Moser, I have heard independently from two people I trust that they have heard him say those quotes. This is not verifiable (and would not be even if I asked him myself), so they are not in "Sourced".--Poetlister 11:19, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
We are much better about listing misattributed quotes than most quote-books I've seen. If we keep it up, we'll be Snopes for quotes. BD2412 T 15:57, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Progress report on Wikiquote:Bartlett's 1919 Index

To date, of the original 658 names listed in Wikiquote:Bartlett's 1919 Index, 264 have been cleared (one was eliminated as an error; for the rest either an article has been created or quotes have been added to an existing article). That means we are about 40% of the way done. In order to finish the list 148 articles need to be created (about half of which currently lack a Wikipedia entry), and 246 existing articles need to be checked to see if we include that content. Cheers! BD2412 T 23:47, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

On Wikiquote:Palgrave's Golden Treasury, I have checked the first 80 of 288 poems. Quite a high proportion (about 1/3) were not in WQ, and I have had to create a few article, most recently Thomas Percy.--Poetlister 18:27, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Could you provide a link on that page to a source for the poems? BD2412 T 21:10, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes, will do.--Poetlister 22:06, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. In the immortal words of Borat: very nice. BD2412 T 23:04, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] how to put up a pic

i just edited an article on my business . i need to put up some pics, how can i do that - —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bulletproof-d (talk • contribs) on February 24, 2008 at 11:31 (UTC)

Your article has been deleted. For the reason, please review Wikiquote's policy about advertising. - InvisibleSun 16:50, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Attempt to integrate, or lack of

How can we interact with a person who seems to avoid any attempt on his or her side to understand of, collaborate with and integrate to the community? The recent statement is symbolic I feel, that is, "I dont know how this site works but I do know my quotes ARE ok!". On the other hand, nothing of his postings to ns:0 have survived, as the consequence they weren't within the scope of this project, since this account was created last October. And we sure are convinced this person has been around from much earlier. --Aphaia 01:09, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Redirect jiggling

I did some jiggling with some double redirects earlier. Sorry if it was disruptive in any way. Will {talk) 00:19, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion

I was wondering, actor quotes from movies should be removed right?? should it be the same for musicians if their page consists of quotes from their music/albums--McNoddy 09:47, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Depends on whether the musician is the author of the lyrics. Most actors didn't write the words they are speaking, whereas lyrics are usually written by someone in the band. There are prominent exceptions both ways, of course, but a writer of lyrics is really no different than the writer of a poem. BD2412 T 10:18, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
I disagree. A poem is known mostly for its text, whereas lyrics are known mostly for the song in which they're performed. While some lyricist work is well-documented, and nearly all of it can be accurately determined if one has access to the Library of Congress or equivalent, I suspect that most people are not aware of who writes their favorite songs' lyrics, and they're the ones who must choose where to place quotes. This adds yet another level of sourcing problems to the existing challenge of getting any sources for our quotes. (And that doesn't begin to consider how to organize quotes by writing teams like Lennon & McCartney.) I recommend that we generally favor lyrics listed under the performing artist or group who first made them famous, with source lines that indicate lyricists where they aren't clearly tied (either because it's the same person or because it can be stated in the intro that "all lyrics were written by so-and-so except where noted"). ~ Jeff Q (talk) 11:11, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
I don't like disagreeing with Jeff, but I will. There are many famous songs written in the last 100 years where people won't recall who first made them famous. Who even remembers Adèle Astaire say? And people often remember the composer rather than the lyricist, but we'd have protests of we attributed Ol' Man River to Kern rather than Hammerstein. Jeff may be on stronger ground with pop songs of the last 40 years, but even in the example he quotes, people often talk of Lennon & McCartney songs rather than Beatles ones.--Poetlister 13:16, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Disagree away, Poetlister! How else can we thrash out these challenging questions? ☺ Whatever we do, we probably can't make any absolute rules because different songs and even genres are often handled differently, and age does affect the awareness of who did what. I would agree that the lyricists should be credited in some manner wherever possible, as they did indeed create the textual work. Where they may have an article, like Oscar Hammerstein II, it's an easy call. But I'm not sure that creating separate articles for Dewey Bunnell, Gerry Buckley, and Dan Peek serves Wikiquote as well as one article for America (band) that lists which of the band members wrote which song. It may be a bit subjective, but I think we can be flexible here and try to follow what people might expect to be looking for, as long as we have the facts somewhere. (And we can always add redirects where useful.) ~ Jeff Q (talk) 18:48, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Dispute on remarks about Jews" (above)

Is the above discussion of this topic resolved? I'd like to archive the discussion (it takes up a huge proportion of this page). BD2412 T 10:20, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, please, archive.--Poetlister 13:10, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Done. Cheers! BD2412 T 05:06, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Stubs

Should you only put one stub on an article, e.g Dick Armey page. Should you just class it under one certain stub--McNoddy 12:39, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it hurts to have more than one, when a subject fits into more than one category. The idea is that editors interested in certain subjects might want to look through the list of stubs for that category to find places where they can help out. --Ubiquity 13:21, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Yea I was thinking along the same lines--McNoddy 13:44, 5 March 2008 (UTC)