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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.

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Text-only optional pages •

I know some people have objections to the use of images for various reasons, some I find very understandable and others less so, and since last year I was thinking of various ways text only versions of pages might be implemented.

I am beginning to test a concept I have had in mind for some time, but which has just crystalized into what I believe might be a workable form in the last couple of days. I actually began to think of ways to develop some kind of text-only version of pages with many graphics for the benefit of those on dial-up or other slow connections last year, but there were significant problems I foresaw with some of the options I had envisioned, and declined to bring them up.

I propose that on any page with graphics on them, but especially for those with 4 or more, we should make optional Text-only pages with the same title with a SPACE and BULLET mark after the normal name, and provide a link TO and FROM illustrated versions and Text-only versions of the pages, through such buttons as I have devised below for the Lin Yutang page:

—illustrated version

—text only version

The general form of such links could be THUS:

[[File:Sasha Kopf's Celtic knot ring.svg|14px|link=Lin Yutang]]<small>—illustrated version</small>

[[File:Yyjpg.svg|14px|link=Lin Yutang •]]<small>—text only version</small>

Other graphics than the ones I have suggested as a standard might of course be used — but I would suggest that it be recommended that only svg files be used, for speed of rendering.

This strategy would permit those with slower connections to find pages entirely free from graphics in the search bar, identified by the bulleted name ending — AND provide direct connections between the two pages for editors — so that upkeep to both versions could be more convenient.

IF no one objects I might begin testing the concept on a few more pages, and if it is sufficiently approved by most of us, within a short time, I will simply start creating such pages whatever chance I have, to provide "graphic-free zones" for those who prefer such pages, for whatever reasons they might have. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 04:44, 4 April 2013 (UTC) + tweaks

Perhaps a standard template with the suggested images could be developed, and If the idea is approved that would make it that much easier for the links between the pages to be created. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 04:54, 4 April 2013 (UTC) + tweaks

It has taken about a day for the new page to show up in the search box, but its now there, and unless anyone has strong objections, I will start creating at least a couple more text only versions of pages today. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 10:21, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi Kalki, I appreciate your effort to search for a solution, but I doubt that this is an enduring option. Those double pages also doubles the effort in maintaining and expanding the articles. Also it offers a solution (for people with slow computers), but not for the main "imago" problem. I do have a strong objection to proceeding with making more double pages right now. -- Mdd (talk) 11:02, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

All right, I will cease. There were no comments yesterday so once the listing showed up on Lin Yutang and I knew the concept was a valid one I proceeded. I have thus far done only another four:

James Branch Cabell •‎

Giordano Bruno •‎‎

Booker T. Washington •‎‎

Albert Einstein •‎

I recognized that there would be need for more upkeep on more pages, but I had figured it might be worth the bother to accommodate those with slower connections. I am willing to make further efforts to do so, but am against rigorously constraining the options on the standard pages as some have been inclined to mandate in ways I believe violate many aspects of the founding principles of the wikimedia wikis. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 11:23, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Mdd. I don't think it's practical to create a duplicate page for each existing article — for one thing, it would take too much time (and space). Besides, why should the article with no pictures be the "secondary" page? I preferred your previous idea (to "suggest an option to the software developers of turning off images"), even though it ain't gonna happen... And one more thing: I don't think you should be "stripping out 144px specifications" in so many pages, not because it bothers me — it doesn't — but because it may (and I suspect it does) bother other editors, since there is no consensus to support it (and indeed, if there is any consensus at all, it would be against it). Yours, DanielTom (talk) 12:10, 5 April 2013 (UTC) (Good effort though.) ~ DanielTom (talk) 16:46, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

I am just back here, and might be leaving again soon, but I can and do appreciate this idea involves complications and am thus quite ready to drop it if it proves unpopular. About the 144px specs I have been striping out, though — I believe that those who do not like having images as much as some of us do would actually like that — and it was actually suggested by one of them some time ago that that be done. I haven't tested it out lately myself, but what the 144px spec did was override any options in their preferences to reduce (or increase) the standard display of thumbnails. Thus by stripping them out, though the default size is now 180px, I believe, the OPTIONAL sizes for such displays could be as low as 120px. I know that even that will not make everyone happy — but I do believe it can help those who do wish to minimize the size of images displayed. I can agree with them though, being able to turn off the displays entirely in the local software would be a good option. I have in the past suggested that people use a second alternative browser to their normal one with settings not to display images if they truly are that bothersome to them, for any of various reasons, and believe that too is a good solution that could be immediately implemented by most. I used to have a browser set up in such a fashion, I believe it was usually "Camino", a mac-browser, which I set in such ways — but the speeds on the internet have usually been so good for me now that I haven't done that in years. As I said, I am quite willing to drop this particular idea if few people are all that eager to support it, and await a further indication of consensus. So it goes.... ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 14:51, 5 April 2013 (UTC) + tweaks

I don't think creating duplicate pages is really practical because there is no way to automatically keep them synchronized. I am also concerned that forking unsynchronized versions with different markup could lead to forking separate "virtual wikis" with different editorial standards. ~ Ningauble (talk) 16:32, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, if you don't like the idea, I probably will drop it at this point. I thought it a workable way to accommodate those with slower connections. I had a few previous ones that I didn't believe to be as workable. SO it goes... ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 16:37, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

One way to do it is to create a gadget which hides all the thumbnails. Only needs one line of css. -- WOSlinker (talk) 12:27, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

.thumb {display:none;}

Wow. Thanks for that observation. That certainly would be convenient for some people with slow connections, and any full advice on how to set those up on their pages would be very welcome. You seem very familiar with aspects of the display codes, and adept at improving deficient or flawed situations regarding them, but many people (including myself) rarely deal with the variant display styles possible with css, and some might be extremely unfamiliar with how to set up alternative options here, and need clear instructions on how to use them, and develop such solutions. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 15:41, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't do a lot of work on gadgets but I think if an admin creates MediaWiki:Gadget-hideimages.css and adds the line of css code as above to it. Then edits MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition and in the interface section, adds

* hideimages[ResourceLoader]|hideimages.css

And finally creates MediaWiki:Gadget-hideimages and adds "Hide all thumbnail images." Then hopefully that will do it. -- WOSlinker (talk) 17:21, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

• What are we doing with these? We still have these duplicate pages. BD2412 T 18:30, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

  Has someone tried WOSlinker's solution? ~ DanielTom (talk) 19:27, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

  I just created the gadget pages; it works like a charm. Let's kill all text-only/illustrated variants and direct anyone that can't load images to use that gadget. EVula // talk // ☯ // 23:20, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

• Start AFDs? They don't seem to offer an enduring solution. -- Mdd (talk) 23:21, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

  Nah; if Kalki is the only one that worked on them (and he appears to be), he can just give us a thumbs up and they can be speedily deleted as an author request. (they could also be prodded) No need to go thru the extra bureaucracy of an AfD. EVula // talk // ☯ // 23:24, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

I entirely accept that these are not necessary and can be speedy deleted as such, at my request. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 23:56, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Y Done Ok thanks. I have removed the articles and the links to these articles. -- Mdd (talk) 00:38, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Printing

When printing an article, currently any article notices, disambiguation hatnotes and stub notices are included in the printout. If the following was added to MediaWiki:Print.css then it would would stop them being included. -- WOSlinker (talk) 20:12, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

/* Do not print:
   1: When in mainspace: Article message boxes,
      disambig links, stub notices
      and items marked as metadata.
*/
.ns-0 .dablink, 
.ns-0 .metadata {
    display: none !important;
}

Hello, thank you WOSlinker, it seems neat to me. Is there anyone objects? --Aphaia (talk) 22:01, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

The epic Aphaia is back :))) DanielTom (talk) 22:05, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

There doesn't seem to have been any objections. -- WOSlinker (talk) 19:27, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Wikiquote:Bartlett's 1919 Index

Several years ago, I imported the contents of the 1919 Bartlett's Quotations (the last public domain version of this work) into Wikiquote project space. Since then, Bartlett's selections from over 600 authors have been incorporated into our pages. However, this work remains to be done for the last 39 authors on the Wikiquote:Bartlett's 1919 Index page. The quotes from these authors are contained in ten pages in project space linked at the top of the index page. Please help work through these quotes, deleting those that we already have and fully sourcing and adding those that are still missing from our collection. Cheers! BD2412 T 00:05, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

The number of quotes remaining in most sections is relatively small, so I am going to go ahead and copy these into the existing pages under a "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)" header. Cheers! BD2412 T 13:58, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Just go ahead, it seems you are in the best position to finish this job as you planned. -- Mdd (talk) 00:34, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Are you sure you want help, BD? Your 7-years project is almost completed now! (And Hercules must perform his labors alone.) ~ DanielTom (talk) 14:19, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

It only appears to be almost completed. I have moved many of the remaining quotes by section the pages of the individual authors. See, e.g., Henry Wadsworth Longfellow#Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Although citation to Bartlett's is sufficient to include these quotes on the pages of the authors, it would be preferable for the quotes to be fully cited to the original work, leaving no need to cite Bartlett's at all. BD2412 T 15:06, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Are Plutarch and Terence the only two missing? Where are the other quotes? ~ DanielTom (talk) 18:31, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

There are still several articles that have a Bartlett's section needing original source citations, or more complete ones. Note that in some cases Mr. Bartlett was wrong, so they need to be verified. ~ Ningauble (talk) 18:54, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

I am going to make a template to call the Bartlett's 1919 section header, which will also provide a category containing all pages with such sections. BD2412 T 19:23, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Categorization is a good use of templatizing, but remember that section headings within templates cause the "[edit]" link to go the template rather than the page in which it appears. (People have been asking the developers to provide an option to control this for years...) ~ Ningauble (talk) 20:20, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Actually, what I have in mind is a template that calls the small-text indented line below the section heading. BD2412 T 20:33, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Universal Language Selector will be enabled on 2013-07-09

On July 9, 2013, Universal Language Selector (ULS) will be enabled on this wiki. The ULS provides a flexible way to configure and deliver language settings like interface language, fonts, and input methods (keyboard mappings). Making it available here is the last phase of making ULS available on all Wikimedia wikis.

Please read the announcement on Meta-Wiki for more information. Siebrand 12:21, 4 July 2013 (UTC) (via Global message delivery).

Two Quote limit per episode?

I was going through some old edits on the M*A*S*H page after noticing the number of quotes from the pilot episode, because I remembered someone saying there was a two quote limit "per WQ rules". I just took a quick look through the guidelines and found nothing so I thought I'd better throw this to the Village Pump for a check. TLPG (talk) 03:51, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

The guideline in question is Wikiquote:Limits on quotations. EVula // talk // ☯ // 06:20, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Of course, that is merely a proposed policy. Since it has gone for years without garnering the support of the community, we might need to archive it and start again from scratch. BD2412 T 14:09, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks to all who supported my RfA and to Evula for promoting me. i hope to prove worthy of your faith in me.--Abramsky (talk) 09:02, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Congratulations Wikiquote!

I know Wikiquote is not a community social networking service, but someone must note that Eng Wikiquote is now ten years old! Thousands of Wiki sites has been created since Eng Wikiquote's inception, still Wikiquote stands out as the most successful yet ambititious Wiki ever seen. This we have to thank for a united community and ambitious contributors. I take this opportunity to especially praise Ningauble and BD2412 on their work on tracing quote origins respective adding quotations for the Theme pages. Let us hope and strive for that in ten years Wikiquote will not be a quotation page but the quotation page, having tentacles spreading everywhere like the barracuda conglomerations Google and Facebook. --Spannerjam (talk) 15:54, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

I forgot all about the anniversary of "quote.wikipedia.org" created 10 July 2003. Time flies when you are having fun. I have only been here for the last five years, but will likely be around for the next ten. We owe a debt of gratitude to many people who did a lot of heavy lifting in the early days but may have moved on to other things since.

I would like to especially thank the "Defenders of the Wiki" who resisted efforts to shut the project down when it was only five years old, and all those who worked on reforming Wikiquote's practices to address problems raised there. Wikiquote has become the quotation site that cites its sources as a result! The work goes on, and some of the policy initiatives begun in response to that incident have yet to be finalized.... ~ Ningauble (talk) 17:06, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Pywikipedia is migrating to git

Hello, Sorry for English but It's very important for bot operators so I hope someone translates this. Pywikipedia is migrating to Git so after July 26, SVN checkouts won't be updated If you're using Pywikipedia you have to switch to git, otherwise you will use out-dated framework and your bot might not work properly. There is a manual for doing that and a blog post explaining about this change in non-technical language. If you have question feel free to ask in mw:Manual talk:Pywikipediabot/Gerrit, mailing list, or in the IRC channel. Best Amir (via Global message delivery). 13:07, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

HTTPS for users with an account

Greetings. Starting on August 21 (tomorrow), all users with an account will be using HTTPS to access Wikimedia sites. HTTPS brings better security and improves your privacy. More information is available at m:HTTPS.

If HTTPS causes problems for you, tell us on bugzilla, on IRC (in the #wikimedia-operations channel) or on meta. If you can't use the other methods, you can also send an e-mail to https@wikimedia.org.

Greg Grossmeier (via the Global message delivery system). 18:59, 20 August 2013 (UTC) (wrong page? You can fix it.)

As I just updated on the meta page, we've delayed this rollout by one week. The change will now take place on August 28 at 1pm Pacific Time. Please take a look at gadgets or bots you maintain to make sure they'll continue to work; more information at meta. Sharihareswara (WMF) (talk) 21:24, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Disambiguating biographical pages to match Wikipedia

I was editing John Green (author), when I noticed that there were no other pages named John Green, yet the page was disambiguated. I brought it up on the talk page (You can see the discussion at Talk:John Green (author)#Article name). User:BD2412 defended the naming of the article, but encouraged me to raise the issue here.

The main reason that it is my opinion that the article should be located at John Green is that it makes the URL smaller. The URL also doesn't have any weird parenthesis in it. This makes it easier for a reader to directly type in the URL to get to the page, and for an external website (or, in fact, other Wikiquote articles) to link to the article. In addition, keeping the name non-disambiguated keeps it from having to be piped when linking from another article, and it doesn't imply that we have other articles for people named John Green.

The other argument states that it is Wikiquote practice to correspond biographical articles to what they are on Wikipedia. This kept linking cross-wiki (most notably using {{Wikipedia}}) simple. However, this provlem is usually fixed by piping {{Wikipedia}}.

What are everyone else's opinions on this? Nick1372 (talk) 04:21, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Directly typing in the url http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Green will take a user to this page, by redirect. I concede that there is some oddness to a title redirecting to a disambiguated title when it is our only entry, but I continue to prefer that we match Wikipedia titles. BD2412 T 11:30, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

I favor moving John Green (author) to John Green. The links should match Wikipedia (e.g., [[w:John Green (author)|John Green]]), but the titles should match Wikiquote contents. ~ DanielTom (talk) 13:55, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

m:Requests for comment/Global ban for Ottava Rima

Per the m:Global bans global policy, you are informed of the discussion above. Please comment there and feel free to appropriately distribute more widely in prominent community venues in order to «Inform the community on all wikis where the user has edited». Nemo 10:10, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Template_talk:Otherwiki#voy:_logo_change

Hi. Please do this request. PiRSquared17 (talk) 14:38, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Are tweets of notable person Quotes?

Politicians, Sports person and Celebrities express their views more via Twitter and Facebook nowadays. With the recent speeches or views given as tweets, are tweets eligible to have their place in the Wikiquote page of the concerned person? Do Tweets about particular incident stand as quotes? Many newspapers resort to quote the tweets of politicians and celebrities related to event that they are covering. So, Shall we consider important tweets to be quote of such person and enter it here in Wikiquote? - Vatsan34 (talk) 15:25, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

A quote is a quote, regardless of the medium. As long as the tweet is actually something quote-worthy (a Kardashian posting what they had for breakfast wouldn't be, for example), I'd say it would be fine. EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:51, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

It should be fine, as long as it's certain that the actual person tweeted it. Does Twitter verify accounts of famous people like Facebook does? Nick1372 (talk) 22:58, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Twitter does, but it has also been noted that many famous people have others write and send tweets for them. This has cropped up on a number of occasions when a famous politician or public figure has tweeted something untoward, and then disavowed the tweet with the claim that it was a low-level underling who wrote and sent it under the famous person's name. BD2412 T 15:55, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

I think the measure of whether it is an "important tweet" lies in whether and how widely it is quoted by noteworthy sources, and that it is those sources which should be cited to show it is quoteworthy. I commented about this at some length elsewhere. Twitter has its own "re-tweet" function, with which we do not need to compete. (As for people who employ ghostwriters, or claim they did, the problem is not unique to Twitter. There are a number of dead-tree books quoted on Wikiquote that were ghostwrittten.) ~ Ningauble (talk) 18:40, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

who does the music for the last season?

we love the back ground music and can't find out who it is can you help?

—This unsigned comment is by 67.216.137.180 (talk • contribs) .

Hello. You are on the wrong site for that information. Please try Wikipedia's Entertainment Reference Desk. Thank you. Nick1372 (talk) 20:12, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

maybe another person for the frontpage?

Hi! Firstly: Thank you all. On my screen's rendering, there's space for another person to be linked from the mainpage. I haven't found any policy on that (and who needs red-tape!), so if others also find there's space, perhaps we could have another woman in the list. Just off the top of my head, Eleanor Roosevelt would be one worthy nomination, though I don't claim much of a perspective and am not from the female user audience. I don't mean to re/open any un-fun contention, so feel free to ignore this suggestion. The first issue is simply whether there's enough space generally for another. Cheers anyway, best wishes and thank you again :) —This unsigned comment is by 118.210.209.43 (talk • contribs) .

Y Done - a fine suggestion that I've now implemented. ~ UDScott (talk) 15:37, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

"Fools Create. Wise Men Imitate." by Dennis Fitzgerald

The quotation, "Fools Create. Wise Men Imitate" was first said by Dennis Fitzgerald and succinctly describes the single most successful method of marketing, sales, writing, screen play, gamble, etc., etc. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.173.253.203 (talk)

It's time to reclaim the community logo

Hello community,
this is to inform you about the (re)start of a discussion in which you might be interested. In short, myself and a few other Wikimedia editors decided to oppose the registration of the community logo as a trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation.

The history of the logo, the intents behind our action and our hopes for the future are described in detail on this page; to keep the discussion in one place, please leave your comments the talk page. (And if you speak a language other than English, perhaps you can translate the page and bring it to the attention of your local Wikimedia community?) I’m looking forward to hearing from you! odder (talk) 10:00, 21 September 2013 (UTC) P.s.: You can check whether the WMF protects the logo of your project by seeing if it's listed as "registered trademark" on wmf:Wikimedia trademarks.

— Notwithstanding the inclusion of a different signature, the preceding comments were added by Nemo bis (talk • contribs), 10:20, 21 September 2013‎

Talk:Alan Rusbridger

Additional opinions are invited on a question of quotability at Talk:Alan Rusbridger, where two contributors have reached an impasse. Thank you. ~ Ningauble (talk) 13:53, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

I've entered my opinion on that page. ~ UDScott (talk) 15:27, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Request for consultation on community logo

Request for consultation on this community logo

First, I’d like to apologize for the English. If you can, please help to translate this for other members of your community.

The legal team at the Wikimedia Foundation would greatly appreciate your input on the best way to manage the "community logo" (pictured here) to best balance protection of the projects with community support. Accordingly, they have created a “request for consultation” on Meta where they set out briefly some of the issues to be considered and the options that they perceive. Your input would be invaluable in helping guide them in how best to serve our mission.

Thank you! --Mdennis (talk) (via the Global message delivery system). 02:19, 24 September 2013 (UTC) (wrong page? You can fix it.)

I am not sure anyone here is qualified to translate from English to Quotish, but if somebody wants to give it a try... ~ Ningauble (talk) 20:16, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Misattributed?

Misattribution of quotes seems to me to be a major activity on the web.

If I find on the web a dubious sounding quote attributed to (famous person A), I may look it up in Wikiquote and find it listed as "misattributed to (famous person A), actually from (lesser known author B)". Since it was suspicion that led me to look it up in Wikiquote, I am inclined to believe that it really was misattributed.

But how does one know this for sure? Perhaps author B actually extracted the quote from the writings of famous person A.

In Wikiquote, what degree of certainty is supposed to be behind the labelling of a quote as either attributed or misattributed?

Thanks, WhenceThis Quote? (talk) 16:36, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

If the entry is well cited then it should be quite evident which author has priority. If it is not well cited, with publication dates or with reference to reliable independent analysis, then it needs to be fixed. ~ Ningauble (talk) 17:17, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. For example, "There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing and be nothing." is listed in the Aristotle article as misattributed to Aristotle but actually from Elbert Hubbard, early 20th century. Is the possibility that the thought was translated from something Aristotle wrote discounted because there is a (relatively) recent source? WhenceThis Quote? (talk) 18:03, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Not because there is a recent source, but because there are only recent sources:  I find no print attributions of anything like this to Aristotle prior to the 21st century. For someone who has been studied so widely and so long, un-cited modern attributions have no credibility. ~ Ningauble (talk) 20:13, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. Very clear. WhenceThis Quote? (talk) 22:23, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Notifications

Notifications inform you of new activity that affects you -- and let you take quick action.

(This message is in English, please translate as needed)

Greetings!

Notifications will inform users about new activity that affects them on this wiki in a unified way: for example, this new tool will let you know when you have new talk page messages, edit reverts, mentions or links -- and is designed to augment (rather than replace) the watchlist. The Wikimedia Foundation's editor engagement team developed this tool (code-named 'Echo') earlier this year, to help users contribute more productively to MediaWiki projects.

We're now getting ready to bring Notifications to almost all other Wikimedia sites, and are aiming for a 22 October deployment, as outlined in this release plan. It is important that notifications is translated for all of the languages we serve.

There are three major points of translation needed to be either done or checked:

• Echo on translatewiki for user interface - you must have an account on translatewiki to translate
• Thanks on translatewiki for user interface - you must have an account on translatewiki to translate
• Notifications help on mediawiki.org. This page can be hosted after translation on mediawiki.org or we can localize it to this Wikipedia. You do not have to have an account to translate on mediawiki, but single-user login will create it for you there if you follow the link.

• Checklist

Please let us know if you have any questions, suggestions or comments about this new tool. For more information, visit this project hub and this help page. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 18:26, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

(via the Global message delivery system) (wrong page? You can fix it.)

I am not sure anyone here is qualified to translate from English to Quotish, but if somebody wants to give it a try.... Regarding "localize it to this Wikipedia", it may be noted that this is not a Wikipedia, this is a Wikiquote. ~ Ningauble (talk) 16:54, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

It's a good thing to have, though. I have found it very useful on Wikipedia. BD2412 T 17:28, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it is a good thing, especially for the newcomers it is primarily intended to target.

My only quibbles with the implementation, and they are minor ones, are (1) If you don't want duplicate echoes via email, the option to turn them off is not on the main User Preferences tab under "Email options", the logical place to indicate you don't want auto-generated emails, but is on a less obvious subsidiary tab; and (2) It adds still more client-side scripting straws to the camel's back for users with older browsers or limited bandwidth. ~ Ningauble (talk) 18:17, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Speak up about the trademark registration of the Community logo.

Hi all,

Please join the consultation about the Community logo that represents Meta-Wiki: m:Community Logo/Request for consultation.

This community consultation was commenced on September 24. The following day, two individuals filed a legal opposition against the registration of the Community logo.

The question is whether the Wikimedia Foundation should seek a collective membership mark with respect to this logo or abandon its registration and protection of the trademark.

We want to make sure that everyone get a chance to speak up so that we can get clear direction from the community. We would therefore really appreciate the community's help in translating this announcement from English so that everyone is able to understand it.

Thanks, Geoff & Yana 19:59, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Add All Quotes from Episode

Hello, the name is Blurred Lines, and I would like to ask if there's any chance that I could put in all of the quotes from an episode instead of few ones? --Blurred Lines (talk) 20:36, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Hello, Blurred Lines, and welcome to Wikiquote! Unfortunately, you can not add all of the quotes from an episode. That would be a copyright violation. Please read Wikiquote:Limits on quotations for more information on the subject. Nick1372 (talk) 01:44, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

"Further reading" sections

A question has arisen about including "Further reading" sections in Wikiquote articles.

Recent developments

User Mdd recently identified 33 articles containing "Further reading" sections, and removed those sections with the edit summary

"Removed further reading section - this is not Wikipedia".[6]

The majority of the 33 articles were created or principally authored by only two contributors: Cirt (20 articles) and Inesculent (5 articles). In discussion at Mdd's talk page, the removal was questioned by Cirt and endorsed by myself, Ningauble. Subsequently, Cirt has partially reverted about half of these removals and created an additional article with a "Further reading" section.

At present there are a total of 17 articles (to the best of my knowledge) with "Further reading" sections, all of which were added by a single contributor. These articles are:

American Dialect Society Olly Blackburn Campaign for "santorum" neologism François-Eudes Chanfrault Chargemaster Donkey Punch (novel)

Sandra Fluke Freedom for the Thought That We Hate Fuck (film) Large-group awareness training MediaWiki OT VIII

Sect Sexual slang Ma Anand Sheela Streisand effect Truth in Numbers?

Discussion

In addition to discussion on Mdd's talk page, Cirt has noted re-additions on the talk pages of affected articles, soliciting compromise. There have been replies to four of these posts (that I am aware of) at Talk:Campaign for "santorum" neologism, Talk:Donkey Punch (novel), Talk:Ma Anand Sheela, and Talk:OT VIII.

I think it would be better to consider the question, whether this type of content is appropriate for Wikiquote, in a centralized discussion here, rather than multiple, scattered venues and duplicative discussions.

Does the community support or oppose including these "Further reading" sections, in particular (subject to quantitative or qualitative compromise) or in general (as a difference in kind)? ~ Ningauble (talk) 18:38, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

---

Compromise between being a jackrabbit and being an antelope?

• I agree with the observation by Robin Lionheart that this is a question of the type of content, not the quantity thereof.[7][8] I am not quite sure what it means to compromise between being an encyclopedia and being a compendium of quotations, rather than being one thing or the other. Like the Jackalope, this seems like a mythical chimera, not a plausible reality.

  Several of these sections, and the articles in which they appear, give the appearance, intentionally or inadvertently, of using Wikiquote as a coatrack to hang content that one user is banned from posting at Wikipedia. Regardless of the propriety or impropriety of this appearance, it illustrates a broader problem:

  I have remarked many times about articles that seem to be essays about a topic, or collections of bibliographic and research factoids, or even exposition of a point of view, that are constructed from quotations with little or no regard for quotability. This misconstrues the object of a compendium of quotations; but subjective considerations can make the phenomenon difficult to manage. The problem of using Wikiquote for purposes other than the art of quotation is greatly exacerbated by the addition of further information that is not even ostensibly related to quotation, which, whatever the topic of an article may be, is the true subject of Wikiquote.

  I oppose including these "Further reading" sections, in particular and in general, because, as Mdd wrote, "this is not Wikipedia"; but further, though the fictive trophy pictured above might be a fine place to hang one's coat, this is not a jackalope. ~ Ningauble (talk) 18:58, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• I oppose including such sections (as I noted on a few of the Talk pages cited above). I agree with the arguments set forth here by Ningauble - I do not find that such links have a place here at WQ. I feel that adding such links is designed more to push a particular POV than to provide opportunity for additional quotes. If there are truly additional quoteworthy quotes available at the linked sites, they may certainly be quoted - but such links are much better served at an encyclopedic site than at ours. However, the feeling I get is that this is just a backdoor way of presenting additional essays or articles that on their own do not contain anything worth quoting. In fact, I feel that the addition of such sections continues a growing problem at this site in general - the inclusion of "quotes" on a topic regardless of their memorableness, instead existing as a dry recitation of facts on a given topic. To me, this is not what WQ is about - it should instead be a collection of memorable quotes from noteworthy people or works. I believe that having such additional links further waters down the product. ~ UDScott (talk) 19:10, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose inclusion of "Further reading" sections. These are appropriate for Wikipedia, a general purpose encyclopedia, not for Wikiquote, a tightly focused compendium of quotes. I also completely endorse UDScott's concerns about straying too far afield from the purpose of Wikiquote, which is to provide memorable quotes from noteworthy sources. BD2412 T 19:37, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
• I oppose these sections as they are used here. We're a quote compendium. No one should be coming to us looking for information about topics, let alone pointers to other sites with information about those topics. Our links to sister sites are enough for a reader interested in a topic. Keep all other external links to quotes only. Nick1372 (talk) 22:07, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
• Comment: I clearly see the will of the community as expressed above is against the Further reading section on pages on Wikiquote. I will go about removing them voluntarily from the above pages, myself. Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 22:14, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Y Done, I've removed the sects in question from the above named pages. Hopefully this is now satisfactory, -- Cirt (talk) 22:22, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Update on "Further reading" sects

1. I did a search of "Further reading" on any remaining pages on Wikiquote.
2. I removed those sects, with a note to the community consensus at Wikiquote:Village Pump.
3. I then made a note of this on the talk pages of those respective entries.
4. Hopefully this is satisfactory.

Have a great day, -- Cirt (talk) 00:08, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for that, Cirt. :) Nick1372 (talk) 00:50, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

To all: Should we add the result of this discussion to WQ:NOT to prevent this from happening again? Or is there another relevant policy? Nick1372 (talk) 00:54, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

You're welcome! That sounds like a fine idea to me, no objections, -- Cirt (talk) 01:40, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Okay, then I'd like to propose that the following text be added to Wikiquote:What Wikiquote is not#Wikiquote is not an encyclopedia:

Do not add "Further reading" sections to Wikiquote articles. Literature and articles about a subject do not need to be listed in Wikiquote, as it does not have encyclopedic content.

What does everyone think? Nick1372 (talk) 02:23, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

I would add that such sections may instead be added to the Wikipedia article for the topic. BD2412 T 03:26, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Agree with both Nick1372 (talk · contributions) and BD2412 (talk · contributions), above. The proposed wording sounds appropriate. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 03:27, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Y Done, I've added the above wording by User:Nick1372, with the modifications from User:BD2412, to Wikiquote:What Wikiquote is not, please see DIFF. Feel free to tweak the wording further. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 16:51, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Revising policy at WQ:NOT#Wikiquote is not an encyclopedia in light of this discussion is a good idea. I was going to suggest some different wording for this, and for the existing sentence about introductions.

I.e., I was going to solicit feedback about rewriting the paragraph along these lines:
"Wikiquote is not the same as its sister project, Wikipedia. A short introduction is used to identify an article's subject and, if needed, indicate why it is notable. Longer expositions and suggestions for further reading about the subject may be added to a corresponding Wikipedia article, but do not belong in Wikiquote."

However, since the wording has already been finalized, it appears that I am just too slow (or too easily distracted by things like sleeping and eating) to participate in the fast pace at which changes to major policy pages are deliberated and executed, in less than a day. ~ Ningauble (talk) 17:57, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Please re-read my last sentence in my above post. I wrote: "Feel free to tweak the wording further." I would be most happy if anyone wished to modify my changes. :) Have a great day, -- Cirt (talk) 18:06, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and added the helpful suggestions above by User:Ningauble to the page WQ:NOT#Wikiquote is not an encyclopedia, please see DIFF. Please anyone feel free to change or modify that page as you like. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 18:14, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Well, I don't think that's the way to deliberate substantive changes to a core policy page, and the {{policy}} banner at the top of the page says "Please do not make significant changes to this page without prior discussion." Also, this is not a page that anyone can change as they like, because someone has semi-protected it.[9]

The wording above was expressly offered to solicit feedback and, though it is gratifying that you seem to approve of my offering, there has not been much comment yet. Also, though I may not have entirely clear, I had intended that the community consider something like my proposal for use instead of, rather than in addition to (as already implemented[10]) language suggested by Nick1372. A little deliberation might have remedied my lack of clarity.

I really do not think that a core policy page should be treated like a sandbox for trying out ideas, and I really do not understand this rush to implement whatever has been recently suggested for discussion. ~ Ningauble (talk) 19:30, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Well, no harm done. :) Please feel free to modify the page as you see fit, per the emerging community consensus from this above discussion. Have a great day, -- Cirt (talk) 19:40, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Looking at the page, including both Ninguable's suggestion and my suggestion have cluttered it up a bit. I say we should remove my own suggestion, as Ninguable's is satisfactory. Is everyone good with that? Nick1372 (talk) 23:59, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Good idea. Y Done. Looks a better now. Good wording by Ningauble, above. Please anyone do feel free to modify any of the changes I've made there. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 05:34, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

The revision seems sensible to me. While I doubt anyone will object, do slow down and give people a chance to weigh in, Cirt. ~ Robin Lionheart (talk) 18:41, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Okay, will do. :) Thank you for your input, -- Cirt (talk) 22:18, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Images make mobile site UNREADABLE

I was surprised to see that there is no guideline in the FAQ about image placement, but reviewing the previous pages here makes it clear that there is an obvious heated debate with regards to the subject of images.

Well, here is some food for thought - unlike on the main site, where the images are merely annoying, on the mobile version of wikiquote the image spam makes the pages completely unreadable. This is a serious problem, and can be addressed in only two ways:

1) remove the vast majority of the (mostly irrelevant) images from wikiquote

2) provide some mechanism for the mobile page whereby it defaults to an image-free format.

Quite apart from the issue of readability, there is the discourtesy of hogging the limited mobile phone bandwidth of someone who unsuspectingly things they are heading to a primarily textually based website.

Jmackaerospace (talk) 03:54, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Ok, sorry, I had not been able to find the WQ:Image use policy due to the afformentioned mobile device... it really should be part of the FAQs however. Jmackaerospace (talk) 04:38, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Comment: I would have to strongly agree with all of the comments by Jmackaerospace (talk · contributions), above, regarding over-usage of images on this site. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 14:18, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

I have to say, I kind of agree; I just looked at the mobile version of Friedrich Nietzsche on my iPhone, and those images are definitely just in the way. Could we perhaps create a decorative image template that would allow for their use on the regular site, but prevents them from being displayed on the mobile site? I don't want to get rid of every image ever, but having a bunch of decorative images getting in the way of the actual content of the site isn't particularly helpful. EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:36, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

I agree with EVula (talk · contributions) however I think it's best to just have one policy and apply it uniformly, and get rid of over-usage of images on pages to the detriment of our readers. -- Cirt (talk) 19:59, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Especially annoying in the mobile version is, that there are first five images you have to pass before the quotes starts. It seems a simple solution (to begin with) can be to abandon that praxis to put more than one picture on top of an article. -- Mdd (talk) 20:34, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Strongly agree with this comment by Mdd (talk · contributions). I imagine most readers would simply close the window and be discouraged by Wikiquote if they keep scrolling only to find images, and no quotes, on and on and on and on. -- Cirt (talk) 20:46, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Just for the record: In the mobile version of George Orwell you have first get 27 image. And in mobile version of Love you need to pass 21 image before you can read the B section. -- Mdd (talk) 22:43, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Although a large amount of images in the lead is certainly annoying, I do want to point out that it's definitely not a problem for readers who just want images turned off (including those with limited bandwidth). It's incredibly easy to just stop showing images altogether on these readers' devices. The reader just needs to go to Special:MobileOptions (shown as "Settings" in the collapsible menu on the left) and switch the bright blue button to "Off". It is still an issue, though, for people who can/want to see images, but are spammed by 62 of them before the actual article starts. Mdd's proposition to space the images out through the article is great, and as someone who uses the mobile site every day, I support it 100%. Nick1372 (talk) 23:53, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Mdd (talk · contributions), as well. Certainly one image in the lede is plenty, and then maybe no more than five (5) per article. -- Cirt (talk) 05:36, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

• I think we could do with cutting the number of images in Wikiquote articles, but surely EVula's suggestion's the best short term one ? It would be pretty quick to write the correct template and insert it everywhere using AWB or a bot. Aphorist (talk) 13:07, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
  • @Aphorist, can you write such a template? Or do you known anybody who can? -- Mdd (talk) 14:24, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
    • I could, but I'm extremely busy with real life work at the moment. If it's going to have multiple transclusions on virtually every page of the wiki we're going to have to think about the lightest way to implement it. It would probably be easier to change our local media wiki mobile extension to have noimages as the default setting. Aphorist (talk) 07:11, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
      • Ok fair enough. Do you know if we can "change our local media wiki mobile extension to have noimages as the default setting", and how? -- Mdd (talk) 12:42, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Question: Does size matter? For example, would a page with a dozen small images (in terms of kb, not px) load faster than a page with three enormous images? BD2412 T 22:56, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

#Image policy again, (not) again

Wikiquote's images are a deep embarrassment to the project, and I know (from private conversations) that they drive away some editors who don't want to waste their time on a project that (on many pages) looks like a kindergarten art project. This is just one more reason to enforce a sensible policy on images. - Macspaunday (talk) 12:23, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

This subject has been discussed at length at #Image policy again. Let us please stick to the problem at hand that presumably "Images make mobile site UNREADABLE". -- Mdd (talk) 12:40, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Once again I strongly agree with Macspaunday (talk · contributions) that pages shouldn't have numerous images on them, and could be limited to five (5) images maximum. -- Cirt (talk) 16:24, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

I do not agree that this sub-thread is off topic at all. The opening post of the main thread posited "remove the vast majority of the (mostly irrelevant) images" as one of two possible alternatives for solving the problem. Calling for enforcement of the existing WQ:IMAGE policy is perfectly germane to this discussion because doing so would make most of the problem disappear.

That previous discussion opened with the question "Is there any hope that the excellent image use policy might be followed...?" That discussion showed a clear consensus (by user count, not word count) in support of the policy. Our chief imagist explicitly acknowledged the consensus, but has continued to revert image removal anyway. Therefore, the answer to the question appears to be that no, there is no chance the policy will be followed unless it is enforced. ~ Ningauble (talk) 00:36, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Agree with above comment by Ningauble (talk · contributions), that if the community consensus is strong about less images on pages, then enforcement is needed for those that willfully go against this! -- Cirt (talk) 14:38, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Is this response in the wrong place? It seems to address the conversation above, rather than addressing my question. BD2412 T 16:19, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

I agree that this was a bit scrambled, so I am moving Cirt's reply under my post, to which it refers. Your question (now below) might fit better in the main thread above, about the impact of images on mobile devices in general, rather than this sub-thread about enforcing the image policy in particular to mitigate the impact. ~ Ningauble (talk) 17:21, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

For the record, I agree with a limitation on the raw number of images per page. In fact, I would propose that we have overall page size limitations, and try to split overly long theme pages into appropriate subtopics, although that is a separate matter. Five images per page seems like a good and reasonable limitation, absent some extraordinary circumstance. BD2412 T 17:53, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

While I do support the removal of extraneous images, I am not so sure that I support a hard limit on the number of images. It seems to me to be a bit harsh to establish a rule based on one method of consuming the site. I would rather focus on enforcing the existing policy (WQ:IMAGE). If it is better enforced, and images that do not meet the criteria established in the policy are removed, I doubt we will have so many overly crowded pages. ~ UDScott (talk) 18:04, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

I like the idea of a hard limit on the number of images. However, if all we do is limit the number of images on the entire page, we might still have a problem with people dumping all five pictures into the lead. Then it still makes the mobile site unreadable, as the reader will have to scroll through multiple images. Perhaps we can add an extension to that saying that there can only be one image in the lead? Nick1372 (talk) 18:30, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Mediawiki Extension:NotForMobile / The solution...

Can we install this extension to WQ ? Then we can just put <nfm></nfm> tags around all images and problem's solved. Presumably sysops can edit LocalSettings.php ?Aphorist (talk) 09:04, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

This seems like a very interesting option:

• This test-edit confirms, that these <nfm></nfm> tags don't function yet, here on Wikiquote.
• Now where should this be installed? The download instructions states:

Please download copy of the extension from our site http://www.n0r1sk.com and and place it in $IP/extensions/ExtensionName/ExtensionName.php. Note: $IP stands for the root directory of your MediaWiki installation, the same directory that holds LocalSettings.php.

However en.wikiquote.org/extensions/ doesn't seem to exist....!? -- Mdd (talk) 13:32, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

(It is in the root directory on the server, not the public wikiquote.org domain. Local sysops cannot install extensions, only WMF System administrators.) ~ Ningauble (talk) 14:32, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Has this extension been installed on any other Wikimedia sites? Is it compatible with the Foundation's mw:Extension:MobileFrontend currently installed here? ~ Ningauble (talk) 14:32, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

This extension has not been installed on en.wikipedia.org ; meta.wikimedia.org ; mediawiki.org , or at least that is what similar test-edits showed. As to the compatibility, can we ask any System administrators for advice? -- Mdd (talk) 15:02, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

A little investigation reveals that Extension:MobileFrontend already provides a way to do this using CSS class="nomobile", so there is no need for the tortuous process of getting approval to install a new or (in this case) third-party extension on Wikimedia servers.

However, I don't want to endorse using this approach because forking our pages to display different content on different platforms could lead to a lot of problems. I think it would be far better to make all of Wikiquote's content suitable for everyone by, e.g., judicious use of an image policy as described in the"#Image policy again, (not) again" sub-thread above. ~ Ningauble (talk) 14:55, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

I agree; an improved image policy would be better than just getting rid of the pictures altogether. I use the mobile site all the time, and the images can make the experience of using Wikiquote better, when they're used right. Please don't remove them. Nick1372 (talk) 18:30, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

While I'm not too keen on the general "new age" style illustration of articles here, I'd rather fork our pages; if a different number of images is ideal on desktop rather than mobile browsing, we should seek to give both sets of users the best possible experience rather than a compromise. This wouldn't preclude seriously cutting back on the number of images in our articles, of course, and I think judicious use of an image policy would be an excellent idea. --Aphorist (talk) 14:26, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Auto spambot detection with User:Abuse filter

Please see Wikiquote:Administrators'_noticeboard#Auto_spambot_detection_with_User:Abuse_filter. -- Cirt (talk) 14:38, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Question about sort order in "Attributed" sects

Okay, so I know that for people pages, we have:

1. Quotes by the person = ordered chronologically.
2. Quotes about the person = ordered alphabetically by author.

But what about quotes in an Attributed section?

1. Should these be ordered by author of the secondary source to which they are cited?
2. Or ordered chronologically by date of publication in those secondary sources, or what?

For now I think I'll order them by author of the secondary source to which they are cited.

Thank you,

-- Cirt (talk) 02:01, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

My opinion is that we should treat them the same as the other types of quotes on a people page - sort them chronologically. I doubt whether most users would know the author of a secondary source such that that would be the way they would look for a quote. ~ UDScott (talk) 14:30, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm confused, I've been told that quotes on pages should be sorted by author alphabetically, and not chronologically. Also, not sure what the point is of sorting quotes in an Attributed sect chronologically? -- Cirt (talk) 16:09, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

I don't understand the confusion. People pages always have quotes by the person (whether sourced or merely attributed) sorted chronologically. The rationale for this sorting in the Attributed section is the same as for sourced quotes. ~ UDScott (talk) 17:24, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Chronology of what? Publication of the secondary source with no known date of when the person said it? That doesn't seem as helpful to the reader as alphabetical by secondary source, does it? -- Cirt (talk) 18:56, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Granted it is not as clean as when you have a direct source, but I fail to see how sorting them by the second source provides any value at all. ~ UDScott (talk) 20:44, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

So, chronological order by date of publication of the secondary source then? -- Cirt (talk) 20:48, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

I think, as a general practice, we should always try to find the earliest attribution for such quotes, and then order them accordingly. In some cases, that is helpful for determining possible authenticity. For example, a purported Thomas Jefferson quote first attributed to Jefferson in the 1970s is somewhat less likely to actually be his than a quote first attributed to Jefferson in the 1790s. BD2412 T 21:17, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Understood, will do, thanks! -- Cirt (talk) 21:29, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Removed nine (9) images, and bolding, from page - Comedy

I've gone ahead and removed nine (9) images, and bolding, from page, Comedy.

From prior discussions here at WQ:VP it's been established that community consensus does not support image usage in this manner and does not support this type of bolding.

Hopefully these changes will stay in the page as stable.

Cheers,

-- Cirt (talk) 20:26, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Which prior discussions? Wikiquote needs more flavour in my opinion, and not less. --Spannerjam (talk) 09:00, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

See above, not very far up actually, on this very page. It makes the pages cumbersome and difficult to load. It turns readers OFF from Wikiquote. -- Cirt (talk) 12:42, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Or, actually such is the apparent OPINION of a very few editors who have persistently sought to characterize things thus, whenever, at most a few times a year, of the thousands of visitors a day to this site, someone makes a new comment of disapproval of some of the many images for various reasons, or the use of images at all. There are many issues which probably do need to be clarified here in coming weeks and months — but I find some of the recurring impulses to suppress the options of all on the part of a few a far more disturbing and detrimental habit. I myself must be attending to many other matters once again, and do no have time to make all the points which I would like to, but thought I would make at least a very brief comment on these matters before doing leaving. I hope to address the issues more extensively within the coming week. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 20:40, 2 November 2013 (UTC) + tweak

I have never been annoyed by the images on Wikiquote. On the whole I agree with the WQ:IMAGE policy. But that does not mean I don't think we should be careful with deletions. In this case, and other cases. At worst poorly formatted articles can serve as vivid examples for how Wikiquote not should be. Someone mentioned earlier that a bunch of pages are hard to read when using a mobile phone, because of images being in the way. But isn't it better to change the individual articles, and, if necessary, the Wikiquote website so that a person can read it from a cell phone as well instead of just removing a lot of images? --Spannerjam (talk) 06:26, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

William James = removed eighteen (18) out of twenty-three (23) images, leaving five (5) total images on page

• William James = removed eighteen (18) out of twenty-three (23) images, leaving five (5) total image on page

I think we can all agree that this page was overloaded with way waaaaaaaaaaaay too many images.

Let's try to avoid this sort of pattern in the future on Wikiquote pages.

Thank you,

-- Cirt (talk) 20:40, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Reduced total to five (5) images at John Adams

Reduced total to five (5) images at John Adams diff, this has since been reverted.

See revert at diff.

Thoughts?

Do we really need those extra twenty (20) images on the page John Adams??????

-- Cirt (talk) 01:34, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure that it is necessary to make an individual report of each of these edits here. There's really no need to report anything unless someone objects. Cheers! BD2412 T 01:51, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, well, be that as it may, it appears someone has indeed objected, by reverting, you see? -- Cirt (talk) 01:57, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

While I don't necessarily disagree that many pages have too many images, I also believe that the user who reverted in this case has a point: yes there have been plenty of discussions, but there are no rules that set any limits on the number of images that may be used on a page. A wholesale campaign to begin stripping what you feel are an excessive amount of images seems a bit premature to me. As I stated in some of the mentioned discussions, I am all for enforcing our existing policy (WQ:IMAGE), where the use of images is governed by their relevance (and not merely based on a hard and fast acceptable number of images). If the ones you are stripping out do not fit with the policy, then great, I am all for their removal - but I do not get the sense that you are using the policy to guide your selection of images to delete. ~ UDScott (talk) 22:28, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Understood. But does this particular page really need those extra twenty (20) images, balanced against the need for our readers to be able to load these pages without difficulty? -- Cirt (talk) 03:52, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

No, I don't believe it does - but I also believe that if the policy were enforced, most of those quotes could be removed anyway. I'm not against removing images (if they violate the established policy). I am just against removing them for an arbitrary reason or to instill an artificial (and not official) hard limit. So I do not support automatically trimming images down to 5, unless such cuts were supported by the policy. ~ UDScott (talk) 04:26, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Understood. But we are in agreement that overall there are too many images on that page. -- Cirt (talk) 17:02, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Introducting Beta Features

(Apologies for writing in English. Please translate if necessary)

We would like to let you know about Beta Features, a new program from the Wikimedia Foundation that lets you try out new features before they are released for everyone.

Think of it as a digital laboratory where community members can preview upcoming software and give feedback to help improve them. This special preference page lets designers and engineers experiment with new features on a broad scale, but in a way that's not disruptive.

Beta Features is now ready for testing on MediaWiki.org. It will also be released on Wikimedia Commons and MetaWiki this Thursday, 7 November. Based on test results, the plan is to release it on all wikis worldwide on 21 November, 2013.

Here are the first features you can test this week:

• Media Viewer — view images in large size or full screen
• VisualEditor Formulæ (for wikis with VisualEditor) — edit algebra or equations on your pages
• Typography Refresh — make text more readable (coming Thursday)

Would you like to try out Beta Features now? After you log in on MediaWiki.org, a small 'Beta' link will appear next to your 'Preferences'. Click on it to see features you can test, check the ones you want, then click 'Save'. Learn more on the Beta Features page.

After you've tested Beta Features, please let the developers know what you think on this discussion page -- or report any bugs here on Bugzilla. You're also welcome to join this IRC office hours chat on Friday, 8 November at 18:30 UTC.

Beta Features was developed by the Wikimedia Foundation's Design, Multimedia and VisualEditor teams. Along with other developers, they will be adding new features to this experimental program every few weeks. They are very grateful to all the community members who helped create this project — and look forward to many more productive collaborations in the future.

Enjoy, and don't forget to let developers know what you think! Keegan (WMF) (talk) 19:47, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Distributed via Global message delivery (wrong page? Correct it here), 19:47, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

The same lame joke I always make...

I will be taking a trip tomorrow, and will be unable to edit for a week. Please try to finish this project by the time I get back. Cheers! BD2412 T 02:10, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Call for comments on draft trademark policy

Hi all,

The Wikimedia legal team invites you to participate in the development of the new Wikimedia trademark policy.

The current trademark policy was introduced in 2009 to protect the Wikimedia marks. We are now updating this policy to better balance permissive use of the marks with the legal requirements for preserving them for the community. The new draft trademark policy is ready for your review here, and we encourage you to discuss it here.

We would appreciate if someone would translate this message into your language so more members of your community can contribute to the conversation.

Thanks,
Yana & Geoff

Does Wikipedia provide e-books for Kindle type devices. Than you btagg@comcast.net

Linking to quotes from Wikipedia

I have a few questions I can't find answers to about linking from Wikipedia to Wikiquotes.

1. A WQ article like w:Georgia O'Keeffe, for example, has a large section called "quotes," (which seems redundant, BTW,) which is about 3,500 words long. There are no keywords or topics to help a reader find anything specific. Is it assumed that when a reader comes to that page they will simply want to read the entire thing? Isn't there a way to make it more user friendly, like some of the quotations books out there that have keywords, or at least topics, included in the index?
2. But w:Charles Darwin, on the other hand, has almost 14,000 words and does have a few subsections focused on some of his books. However, the WP article for him, Charles Darwin, only has a single Wikiquote link box at the very end. Wouldn't it be better to have a number of links within that article going directly to relevant WQ sections, thereby acting as a kind of citation or Notes section? For example, his main WP article has a section called "Voyage of the Beagle." Couldn't it include a direct link to his quotes page section, w:Charles_Darwin#The_Voyage_of_the_Beagle, almost like a hatnote?

Can anyone explain if that kind of linking is allowed and maybe point to some examples? Thanks. --Light show (talk) 19:20, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

@Light Show: It's Wikiquote custom not to organize quotes by topic. We organize quotes in chronological order. Authors, such as Charles Darwin, are the exception to this rule. Quotes from their books are given subsections, nothing else. That's the way we do it here.

Your idea about linking to Wikiquote sections from Wikipedia sections is not going to happen. Wikipedia just doesn't have external links (including to sister projects) in anywhere but the External links section. That's Wikipedia's rules, not ours. Nick1372 (talk) 21:20, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining. That brings up another question, about whether WQ can be used as a supporting second citation. For instance, if there was a 500-word sourced quote by Darwin in his WQ, can his WP article that quotes 10 of those words, have a linkable citation to the WQ section, along with the source book citation? A reader, instead of seeing a citation with just a page number, could also read the full quote and more in context in WQ. --Light show (talk) 21:39, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

For a work in the public domain (as all of Darwin's are) it would actually probably be better to link to a Wikisource page of the book itself. BD2412 T 22:36, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Darwin was only mentioned as an example. It's a general question. --Light show (talk) 23:28, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't think so. I don't think we're a reliable source. Nick1372 (talk) 00:41, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

There is another place you can have external links in an English Wikipedia article, and that's by using ref tags under certain circumstances. I'm not sure whether this would presuppose that Wikiquote was itself a reliable source. Provided the quote is properly sourced here, that might itself be enough to meet the English Wikipedia verifiability guidelines (but other language Wikipedias have their own policies and guidelines which don't necessarily match). I think it should, but I suspect we won't really know until the consensus or otherwise is somehow tested. Andrewa (talk) 02:14, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Recurring style dispute

I have noticed that BD2412 (talk · contributions) once again is going on another massive rampage of stylistic impositions which I believe had last occurred to such a degree during one of the lulls in my own activity here, (back in May 2012). He had then declared these massive changes were to "enforce consistency in punctuation and spacing" which to my knowledge have NEVER been agreed to here. I was VERY busy with other matters in that period, and had not much time to do much here, but I had noticed it had occurred and objected to the "Sudden changing of Punctuation standards" on his talk page, as did Ninguable, who asserted "we have bigger problems than inconsistency in whether non-sentential bullet items use a full stop. (Personally, I don't use them. I was schooled not to, but I know there are other schools of thought.)" Our objections were then dismissed with a simple assertion that it bothered him to have them in such a style as we preferred, and that he could "shoot through a few hundred pages in a matter of hours and fix them all." And massive alterations continued so as to "fix" them in the style he prefers.

I do NOT believe that this is "fixing" them well so much as fixing them ill and AGAINST what for MANY years had been the preferred style evident here. As I believe I have probably asserted somewhere in the past, I believe that his notion of "consistent punctuation at the end of citation lines to clearly indicate to the reader that the line has ended" are no more necessary or appropriate to the interlinear info lines here than are periods at the end of title lines. Both habits of punctuation have been used, I believe primarily in the 19th century and earlier, in some publications, but I believe them archaic, needless, and personally find them aesthetically ugly, in most cases. I believe an attempt at developing a more extensive consensus should probably occur here over the next month or so, so that guidelines might perhaps be established by the end of this year, and invite others to comment on the matter and make any suggestions. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 00:49, 28 November 2013 (UTC) + tweaks

For the record, my remark quoted by Kalki above was not intended as an objection to the practice. I merely observed that it is no big deal and, parenthetically, that my own habits in this regard do not reflect any sort of universal standard. ~ Ningauble (talk) 14:30, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

AGAINST imposed periods at the end of interlinear citation lines

1. ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 00:49, 28 November 2013 (UTC) I am adamantly AGAINST this, for reasons indicated in the above statements.
   • Here's the thing - if there is no rule, then there's no rule against my adding periods at the ends of citation lines. Show me the rule prohibiting this (or establish consensus for such a rule), and I'll abide by the rule. BD2412 T 01:19, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
     • I agree there is no rule against your adding periods at the ends of citation lines, and would not seek to impose any drastic penalties on people doing this, especially in ignorance of the existing styles, but I continue to assert that the general preferences evident HAVE BEEN against these, and am now attempting to let a consensus develop and emerge on the matter, and would politely request that you cease to make such massive alterations on pages at this point, at least until one has had a chance to develop. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 01:38, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
       • Before I started on my current "rampage" you removed all the end-of-citation punctuation that was already there at Circle (with an edit summary that did not even acknowledge this change). The only difference between your imposition and mine is that mine is easier to effect and maintain through a mass-editing tool. BD2412 T 01:45, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
         • As I believe I was the creator (as Accountability) and a primary contributor to that page and MANY OTHERS you have gone about altering to your particular preferences, and it HAD been in the style I prefer until it fell victim to your massive revisions of hundreds of pages back in May of last year, whille I was adding a new quote, I simply reverted it to the style it had prior to that imposition, which you are OBVIOUSLY AWARE is MUCH harder for others to reverse than it is for you to seek to IMPOSE. I certainly would not be proud to make such an admission, as you go about continuing with massive alterations, against the clearly stated preferences of the creators or primary contributors to many pages. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 02:17, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
           • To be clear, it is not a matter of pride. We have many pages that are internally inconsistent, with some citations on the page ending in punctuation and some not ending in punctuation. If we are going to make those pages internally consistent, it is simply much easier from a technical standpoint to add a period to the ends of lines that don't have them than it is to remove punctuation from the ends of lines that have them. In part, this is because the tools we use to add (or subtract) punctuation can't necessarily tell the difference between a lede, a quote, a citation, or some other piece of explanatory text. BD2412 T 16:42, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
2. I'm against this. The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations doesn't use periods at the end of citations. I'm for consistency within each article, though. DanielTom (talk) 09:40, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

FOR imposed periods at the end of interlinear citation lines

1. To the extent that there is no rule, there should be one, and it should be for punctuation of citations. Here's why. Sometimes our citations are merely the identification of the source; sometimes they contain additional lines of information (particularly where we are describing dubiously attributed or misattributed quotes). Consider this:
   • Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.
     • Barry Goldwater, speech accepting nomination for president, Republican national convention, San Francisco, California (July 16, 1964). Congressional Record, July 21, 1964, vol. 110, p. 16388. Senator Goldwater comments that the remark was not original with him: "In fact, I believe Cicero used it in some form at one time, and I have been able to trace it rather faintly back to some of the early Greeks so, while I was very proud of the fact that I made the speech, it's certainly not original".

   Now, obviously we need to have a period at the end of the second sentence in that citation because it is a complete sentence; and obviously we need a period at the end of the first sentence because it separates the two sentences. However, if this particular citation should end in a period, then for consistency's sake, every citation sentence in Extremism should end in a period. This also happens to be the style used in Respectfully Quoted, the public domain compilation from which this quote was imported, as seen on the Bartleby page for the same quote. BD2412 T 01:39, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

   I agree that it is obvious that punctuation IS needed in THIS instance, but disagree with the statement that "if this particular citation should end in a period, then for consistency's sake, every citation sentence in Extremism should end in a period." Emerson stated that "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" and MOST interlinear citations do NOT require such punctuation and thus to insist that ALL should have such, because a few can or must is something I consider a foolish imposition of unnecessary consistency. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 02:05, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

   I think that we should be putting periods at the end of citations. While it may look ugly in some cases, it looks more professional. I think looking more professional is more important than the aesthetics. Nick1372 (talk) 04:03, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

   I do not believe ugliness in presentation and unnecessary imposition of punctuation should be regarded in any way as a standard of "professionalism" and must pity those who would. As you yourself currently list your favorite quotes on your user page without such aberrations, I believe that you have been, up to this point, inclined to what I regard to be a generally more accepted aesthetic, and I strongly believe that imposition of one you concede to be an ugly one should NOT become the mandated norm here. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 04:22, 28 November 2013 (UTC) + tweak

   For the record, I don't think periods at the end of citations are "ugly" at all. They are merely punctuation, not more aesthetically significant than the commas in between author names and work titles. Everyone in this discussion has managed to use a lot of periods without any apparent revulsion. More to the point (pardon the pun) is that Wikiquote is a functional project. We collect and catalog sourced, quotable quotes for the benefit of those who need to find such quotes. Any aesthetic considerations that go beyond making it easy to find and read these materials is tertiary at best. BD2412 T 04:55, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

   I have no revulsion to proper punctuation, any more than I have a desire for mandating needless punctuation. I assert that putting a period at the end of the interlinear citations is PRIMARILY a stylistic concern, and doing so certainly does NOT make it any more "easy to find and read these materials", and I do consider such unnecessary punctuation marks generally ugly. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 05:26, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

   Kalki, you're right. In the past, I have been not including periods at the end of citations, because I didn't think it mattered. I was under the impression that I had to choose a side here, and if I had to, I would choose putting periods at the end of citations. However, as Ninguable has proven below, I don't have to pick a side, and I won't. It just doesn't matter that much to me. Nick1372 (talk) 16:09, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Neutral about periods at the end of interlinear citation lines

1. It is a small point. ~ Ningauble (talk) 14:32, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

   I agree, and welcome the humor with which you make yours, but the massive conversion of numerous pages to a style I generally find ugly is something which prompted me to open this discussion here. We shall see how things proceed… So it goes… ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 14:42, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

2. It doesn't matter that much. If we had to have a policy about it, can we do something similar to w:WP:ENGVAR, where we don't change it in articles that already have a style, but we make sure all the citations in each article match? Nick1372 (talk) 16:09, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Starting a new page

I tried the links at Help:Starting a new page (section Using input box), they seemed perfect for a newcomer from English Wikipedia, but the ones on persons and literary works both opened an edit box attempting to edit the main page (which I can't do, which is probably a good thing).

I note Wikiquote:Guide to layout is clearly labelled THIS IS A DRAFT WHICH IS NOT FINISHED YET, but Help:Starting a new page isn't so labelled, in fact it's quite prominently linked to from Wikiquote:Welcome, newcomers (section Writing).

What have I done wrong? Andrewa (talk) 17:49, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

You got the Main page because the input box for the title of your new article, immediately above the button, was blank. I am sorry that was confusing: you need to enter a title first.

The best guide to layout is by example: check out a few of the "selected articles" listed on the Main page to see how things are generally laid out. Wikiquote:Templates has some outlines exemplifying the wiki-markup that the input boxes generate if a new page name is entered.

(This is obviously not the best default for missing input, but I have no idea how to fix the tool. Our general help pages are really not very good, and nobody has worked on improving them for years. I am afriad this sort of writing is just not something that our unpaid volunteers feel motivated to work on.) ~ Ningauble (talk) 19:29, 30 November 2013 (UTC) expanded 19:39, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, at least you're pretty good at answering questions by bumbling newbies, thank you! And that's probably more important. I'll have another go. Andrewa (talk) 20:42, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Scientology

What does the community make of this edit by user:Cirt on the Scientology page?

These ten quotations (actually eleven entries, but one is a duplicate) only mention Scientology tangentially, and are all primarily about est or Werner Erhard and seem to have been cherry-picked to give a misleading impression that there is a far stronger connection to Scientology than existed in reality.

For example

• " The founder of EST, a former member of the Scientology church called Werner Erhard..."
• "*Est (Erhard Seminars Training) has been a singularly successful synthetic derivation, which has itself gone on to generate new movements, transmitting aspects of Scientology thought or practice far from the domain of L. Ron Hubbard."
• "Rupert (1992) discusses a range of cases... such as the human potential movement, est, or Scientology."
• "...and est/Forum was a repackaging of Scientology by Werner Erhard,..."
• "Werner Erhard's highly successful est cult is partly derived from Scientology."

etc.

The fact of the matter is that Erhard did a few Scientology courses in the space of five months in early 1970, at a time when he was avidly investigating a vast range of philosophies and disciplines, but that is not the impression that a reader of this page would be left with.

Does it not reflect negatively on the reputation of Wikiquote to have the Scientology page commandeered to serve as a coatrack to propagate misleading information about other organizations and individuals?

It may be relevant that Cirt has an extensive history of POV-pushing on these subjects on wikipedia, and in fact was de-sysopped and topic-banned for exactly that behavior there. After that, he concentrated on other wikimedia projects (where he has undoubtedly done a good deal of great work), but perhaps he cannot resist the temptation to return to his obsessions? --MLKLewis (talk) 00:47, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Reply: Y Done. I've gone ahead and voluntarily taken the initiative to move those above-mentioned quotes to the talk page, DIFF. Hopefully this is now satisfactory to MLKLewis (talk · contributions). Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 16:20, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

With respect, I do not feel that Cirt's response fully adresses my concerns. Although he has removed the five items that I listed above by way of example, he has left the other five equally questionable entries on the page. And what is the justification for inserting the removed material into the Talk page, which is meant to be for discussions about how to improve the Topic page?

Furthermore, is not the intense activity this last October at this page: https://en.wikiquote.org/w/index.php?title=Landmark_Forum&offset=&limit=100&action=history a further example of Cirt's attempting to hijack Wikiquote to propagate a personal viewpoint, an activity for which he was sanctioned at Wikipedia? --MLKLewis (talk) 07:34, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

MLKLewis (talk · contributions), I'm glad you've acknowledged that I went ahead and removed entries from that page. If you participate in talk page discussion on the individual page I hope we can come to an amicable resolution together about this. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 06:52, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Quotes about notable social implications of technology

I would like to add quotes about particular scientific developments to Wikiquote. Is this ok?Open Research (talk) 13:32, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

It should be perfectly fine as long as the subject fulfills our notability guideline. As a general rule of thumb, if there's a Wikipedia page, it's notable enough. Is there a particular development you want to add? Nick1372 (talk) 01:58, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Delete (not just lock) simple.wikiquote.org?

The simple-English wikiquote project at http://simple.wikiquote.org has been locked for some time, but it's still visible on the web, so it hasn't been fully closed. The simple English version of (apparently) 591 pages taints the whole project by making it look infantile - an impression reinforced by all those pages on the main site that use kindergarten-style images of galaxies and flames to illustrate abstract ideas. Isn't it time to remove it? Macspaunday (talk) 21:20, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Though there are clearly many differences of opinion between us on many matters, here is something I believe we can agree upon. I never really liked the idea much, but for a time it was clear that at least a few others did, and I am usually loathe to suppress efforts of others needlessly. The quality of their productions never did find broad appeal, and their enthusiasms were eventually dismissed, derided and suppressed by others, and the project killed. As it seems to be a thoroughly defunct site, I believe its presence on the web should probably be removed, and would support any efforts to have this done, within whatever guidelines the Wikimedia Foundation have developed for doing so. R.I.P. Simple Wikiquote. So it goes… ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 22:55, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

I also agree that it ought to be deleted. About three years ago, after the decision to "close" the project but before official policy for closures was adopted, I discussed the final disposition of the WikiParaphrase project with a LangCom member, but I did not initiate formal proceedings at the time. If someone would like to do so, the official venue is at m:Proposals for closing projects, and is governed by m:Closing projects policy under the auspices of LangCom delegated by the Foundation Board. ~ Ningauble (talk) 16:21, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Template:QoDList

This new template transcludes {{QoDBar}} and is able to output a list of all Quotes Of The Day for a given month, via Module:QoD. So Wikiquote:Quote of the day/January 2014 and such wouldn't have to be handled manually. Do you support implementing it practically? --Ricordisamoa 07:33, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

It is not immediately obvious to me how this works. Viewing the new Template:QoDList, the output of "#invoke:QoD|list" is null. I am guessing, from examining the code of Module:QoD, that it depends on the context where the template is transcluded.

Could you provide a sample page exemplifying use of the new template in a context where the module output is non-null, and consider fleshing out some documentation or usage notes at Template:QoDList/doc and/or Module:QoD/doc? Thanks. ~ Ningauble (talk) 14:26, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

@Ningauble: it depends on the page, but the month-year pair can also be specified manually (as {{#invoke:QoD|list|June 2013}}). You can see {{QoDList}} in action on Wikiquote:Quote of the day/December 2013 (diff). I also added some docs, feel free to edit them. --Ricordisamoa 15:07, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Nineteen (19) images re-added at William James ???

DIFF = Nineteen (19) images re-added at William James.

Does this community think this is too many images for a page?

Does the community feel this will cramp down on loading time for our readers, discouraging them from viewing pages on Wikiquote?

Does the community feel this will make load time difficult for editors, turning them off from editing Wikiquote?

Thank you for your time,

-- Cirt (talk) 18:55, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

This member of this community does NOT think "this is too many images for a page." The VERY highly used Wikimedia Commons places FAR more images on a standard page. I can appreciate that some people who do not have fast connections (for whatever reasons this might be the case) will not easily appreciate many of the pages on the internet with graphics. Yet I do not believe that these relative few who do not use some auxiliary browsers set for faster browsing without images, to hasten the time of downloading pages without such graphics as are quite standard on MOST web-pages today, should keep our pages permanently crippled to a highly constrained standards which might have made some sense 10 years ago, but are hardly appropriate today. I believe nothing is more likely to be "turning anyone off" from editing Wikiquote than such bossiness with constraints as a very few people have been increasingly pushing here in recent years — by which they can control more of what others can or cannot do, and reducing the options available to others here in ways I have frankly found disgusting and contemptible, and often extremely hypocritical — and I am quite ready to make plain some of the reasons why in the coming months. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 20:31, 10 January 2014 (UTC) + tweaks

Whatever the merits or faults of the policy, it's clear that this part of it has frequently been ignored by some editors:

"Dispute resolution
An image that is not a literal representation of the subject of the page may be removed by any editor who believes it to be inappropriate. Thereafter, it should not be re-added without first obtaining consensus on the article talk page."

Perhaps it might be better to follow established and unambiguous policy rather than ignore it merely because (apparently) an editor doesn't like it? - Macspaunday (talk) 20:43, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

I have sometimes engaged in direct action of rather mild and moderate civil disobedience in accord with the principles of Justice and Liberty that others seem quite satisfied to give little more than a lot of shallow and safe "lip service" to. In this particular case, I view "the merits or faults of the policy" that was devised by a few people some months ago as nothing more or less than thoughtlessly or deliberately giving free reign to those most eager to censor, VANDALIZE and remove any traces of MANY of the IDEAS and efforts of others to make generally important points and generally appealing presentations of the quotes here. I am actually inclined to use far harsher terms, but restrain myself for now. Even at the start I recognized these proposed "rules" as contemptible and unworthy of any significant respect, as simply devices providing implicit sanction and approval to the most narrow-minded, intolerant and malicious of people, most eager to denigrate the contributions of others, to destroy as rapidly as they could, and with VERY little consideration, what others might have taken months or years of careful consideration to gradually produce. I truly consider the fact that so inanely destructive and foully fascist an "ideal" and practice as those INNATELY unjust "policies" represent have not been recognized as such by others as simply disgraceful. Such an atmosphere created by the increasing arrogance and smug intolerance of those who seek to control and constrain others, and the bafflement and disgust of those who wish to contribute in the spirit of liberty advocated by the greatest of people, and which was one of the foundational principles of the wiki software, and the Wikimedia projects themselves is what I believe far more people than myself find appalling and sometimes discouraging.

Prior to the above statement I was going to make this relevant point: A standard setting at Wikimedia Commons, which is the source of all the imagery available to us, provides 200 image thumbnails to a page, and such is what I get quite swiftly when I click on Category:Nature. This once could mean a very long download time, but certainly does not with most users who are likely to do much browsing on the internet at all today. I certainly do not plan to use that many on any article page here — but to make large pages with even dozens of images on them, which are relatively rare and probably always will be, seem incredibly burdensome to most users is something I believe is ludicrous. I would probably spend more time saying a bit more, but I have to be leaving now, and am already running a bit late on important matters. So it goes... ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 21:41, 10 January 2014 (UTC) + tweaks

I agree with the comment by Macspaunday (talk · contributions), above. However with regards to this particular page I will leave it to others to hopefully take action here regarding the violations of Wikiquote:Image use policy that have taken place, as noted by Macspaunday (talk · contributions), above. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 22:57, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Block

Please block User:YODO (You Only Die Once), this user is obviously immature, one example is stating in one of his edit summaries: Get a life you sockpuppet!. I spoke with DanielTom at Meta. I will be here to revert his vandal-edits. To be honest, I don't care if I engage in an edit war. The administrators here are not very active. --Goldenburg111 (talk) 18:56, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Looks like no admin is around right now, so I've blocked that user for one day. Please review the action and take (if needed) further action. -Barras (talk) 20:03, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

I yet blocked another user: User:Tell me about it!. As above, review the action taken and adjust it as you seem it fits. -Barras (talk) 23:15, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, both have been re-blocked for 1 month. -- Mdd (talk) 22:30, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Personally, I would do a 3 month block, but that's me. --~~Golden_burg111 23:46, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Hey folks, I just issued another block on DarknessFalls74 (talk · contributions). As with the two above, please review the action taken and adjust it as needed. -Barras (talk) 19:16, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, the user is re-blocked for 1 month. -- Mdd (talk) 20:16, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Rollback

I am requesting rollback permission is so I can easily rollback vandal edits. I also "participated in the User:YODO (You Only Die Once) vandal attack", and it was pretty hard undoing his edits and I usually got into edit conflicts. Clarifying that Rollback Rights are given to users to easily revert pure vandalism. I just tagged a few spam pages for deletion and reverted a vandal-only account's action of a page recently. I am also a rollbacker on the Simple English Wiktionary, and of course, I would be in big trouble if I was lying. I am an Anti-Vandal Worker at Meta and Wikipedia. I am also an admin and bureaucrat on the Orian Test Wiki and admin at the Test Wiki. I am also, at Wikia, currently an admin on 10 wikis and crat on 5 of those wikis. Thanks! --~~Golden_burg111 20:42, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

The best thing for you to do would be to request Adminship at Wikiquote:Requests for adminship so that the merits of your request can be discussed and determined. My sense is that you have made many positive edits and reverted plenty of vandalism. The only question might be the relatively short period of time in which you have been editing here, but that may or may not be a large stumbling block. In the end, it would be best to formally request it and let the discussion begin. Good luck. ~ UDScott (talk)

Okay, thanks UDScott, one question, can I take this subject off? --~~Golden_burg111 21:08, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

I would just leave it and maybe direct readers to the Wikiquote:Requests for adminship page, should they wish to contribute to the discussion. ~ UDScott (talk) 21:12, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

@UDScott: I feel it is unwise to encourage Golden to run for adminship so prematurely, as he wouldn't stand a chance (despite his best intentions), and the result could upset him.
@Golden: even if you don't have rollback rights, you can still revert vandalism. I know you want to help out, but please try to be patient. Cheers, DanielTom (talk) 21:36, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

@DanielTom: As quoted by Jimbo Wales, "no big deal". --~~Golden_burg111 21:38, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

I assume that Goldenburg111 does not realise that on WQ, only admins can be granted rollback.--Abramsky (talk) 15:58, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

(Is this true? Abramsky, what do your elf admin eyes see?) DanielTom (talk) 16:03, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

It is not a separately grantable user right at Wikiquote: there is no "Rollbacker" user group like at Wikipedia. Rollback is included in the rights of the Administrator group, as shown at Special:ListGroupRights. (The corresponding configuration at Wikipedia is much more complex and bureaucratic.) ~ Ningauble (talk) 13:39, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Request for comment on Commons: Should Wikimedia support MP4 video?

I apologize for this message being only in English. Please translate it if needed to help your community.

The Wikimedia Foundation's multimedia team seeks community guidance on a proposal to support the MP4 video format. This digital video standard is used widely around the world to record, edit and watch videos on mobile phones, desktop computers and home video devices. It is also known as H.264/MPEG-4 or AVC.

Supporting the MP4 format would make it much easier for our users to view and contribute video on Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects -- and video files could be offered in dual formats on our sites, so we could continue to support current open formats (WebM and Ogg Theora).

However, MP4 is a patent-encumbered format, and using a proprietary format would be a departure from our current practice of only supporting open formats on our sites -- even though the licenses appear to have acceptable legal terms, with only a small fee required.

We would appreciate your guidance on whether or not to support MP4. Our Request for Comments presents views both in favor and against MP4 support, based on opinions we’ve heard in our discussions with community and team members.

Please join this RfC -- and share your advice.

All users are welcome to participate, whether you are active on Commons, Wikipedia, other Wikimedia project -- or any site that uses content from our free media repository.

You are also welcome to join tomorrow's Office hours chat on IRC, this Thursday, January 16, at 19:00 UTC, if you would like to discuss this project with our team and other community members.

We look forward to a constructive discussion with you, so we can make a more informed decision together on this important topic. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 06:47, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

I am not sure anyone here is qualified to translate from English to Quotish, but if somebody wants to give it a try.... ~ Ningauble (talk) 13:45, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Global sysops

Hello Wikiquote community!

As you may have seen, I recently blocked some accounts on this project in my capacity as steward. In the light of the fact that this project has only few really active sysops, I'd like to suggest you to allow global sysops acting on your project. Those users are being elected on meta to help small projects with the removal of vandalism etc. They're generally supposed to not act like a normal locally elected admin and will mostly only act in emergencies. I could imagine that this would help here from time to time. While I'm technically able to issue blocks or delete page (just as any other steward), I feel rather uncomfortable doing this, as I'd rather see that done by local people.

I could very well imagine that this would help here. Since GS is opt-in only, a vote for this is needed and the same would be needed to remove them at any point when needed. Please take your time and consider this idea carefully. If you've any further questions, please feel free to ping me. Kind regards, -Barras (talk) 19:28, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Barras, why would you feel uncomfortable blocking obvious rampant vandals? I agree with you, that it should be preferably done "by local people", but global sysops aren't "local" either, and I don't understand how global sysops would do a better job in answering emergencies and stopping rampant vandals than stewards do (besides, as far as I know, there are many more stewards than global sysops). Recent vandalism spree aside (which was done by sockpuppets that need to be checked and blocked), I believe the ideal solution is to have more local active admins, which is why I suggested Kalki to run for adminship again. (At least that would be my preference.) ~ DanielTom (talk) 20:18, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Stewards can't watch everything, simply put. Global sysops help fill in the gaps of steward coverage, which I believe was one reason the group was created in the first place.--Jasper Deng (talk|meta) 04:44, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

I would support adding GS, but I have a COI as I am one myself. ;) See my contributions for all the stuff I could have blocked if this wiki were opted-in. Of course, it's up to the community. PiRSquared17 (talk) 19:34, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Per PiRSquared17. --Rschen7754 19:44, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Smaller projects should always opt in for Global Sysops, since it is not that simple to get more active local admins. Should the en.q community start a discussion about opting in, I would support (and I have no COI). --Ricordisamoa 21:39, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Global sysops cheapen local adminship, and only in cases of the utmost necessity (e.g. really small wikis) should they be opted-in. I, for one, tend to think that any help fighting vandalism should be welcomed. Unfortunately, judging by recent comments on a local unrelated discussion, we can't even expect stewards to stay neutral, let alone global sysops. There are further problems, related to WQ's specific policies, which I'm not even going to get into. I would like to highlight, though, that the description of global sysops as "highly trusted users" should make any thinking person suspicious. Just when did we elect these global sysops? I don't remember voting for any of them myself. Sure, there are some very well-meaning, good users in this group, for example Érico Júnior Wouters and PiRSquared17. But I can also see a couple of names I very strongly distrust, of cruel unhelpful people whose apparent job it is to collect hats, and whom I very much doubt would ever be elected local sysops via normal process. That's my warning, for what it's worth (not much). I think GS should only be opted in after a strong consensus for it amongst our established admins. (I doubt such a consensus will ever be achieved, but who knows.) ~ DanielTom (talk) 02:03, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

DanielTom: Global sysopship (along with global rollback and some other global groups) is requested on m:SRGP. For example, my request, Érico's request. Anyone can comment on a candidate. Global sysops only ever act (in theory) when the request is uncontroversial (such as spam/vandalism) and no local admins are around to deal with it. Does that answer some of your questions? PiRSquared17 (talk) 16:08, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, as you know, Meta elections are kind of a joke. People who'd have no chance of being elected admins at Wikipedia again get elected global sysops... And although it is said that if we opt-in, we can then also opt-out, it's more of a one-way street, as I think it would be very difficult to establish a consensus to opt-out afterwards. Obviously global sysops can't be locally desysopped, so we need to be careful. Your description of what they can do seems misleading. It appears to me that global sysops can act without being requested, and they don't just revert obvious vandalism, but also engage in "routine maintenance" (their purpose per policy), which in turn means they, who are not familiar with Wikiquote's policies, may end up deleting pages they shouldn't. And again, it's not as if we can't ask the help of stewards to block vandals in case of emergency. It also seems to me that Wikiquote is actually out of scope for GS, and I would very much like to hear what our local admins think of this proposal, though I doubt they will be so blunt as me in saying that it threatens Wikiquote's independence. I still think the solution for Wikiquote is through local admins, and if global sysops are so eager to help (*cough*), they can go through the normal process and be elected here. ~ DanielTom (talk) 15:49, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

To clear up a couple misunderstandings:

1. Global sysops are not elected. They are appointed by Stewards after taking public comment. They serve at the pleasure of the Stewards, assisting with their workload by handling routine tasks that do not require more advanced rights.
2. Wikiquote is not out of scope. Any project can opt in or opt out: the default described in the policy applies only to projects that do not opt either way.

Whether you trust the Stewards to appoint people who can be trusted to respect the bounds of their role, whether you trust the Stewards to step in if someone exceeds those bounds, that is your call. ~ Ningauble (talk) 21:23, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Global sysops perform routine maintenance. That is their purpose. In practice, this amounts to spam, vandalism/long-term abuse, and noncontroversial routine requests. If enwikiquote is opted in, GS will surely respect local policies, but you can't expect us to read every single wiki's policies before acting. At least I haven't (but I do usually look at the deletion reason dropdown to see if they have a similar "speedy deletion" criterion to what I will use. I almost never block.). Usually the stuff we do is completely noncontroversial, and we tend only to act in emergencies or when local admins are unavailable. m:Special:WikiSets/7: enwikiquote and plwikiquote are the only Wikiquotes opted out of GS help. Ningauble is correct that any project can opt in or out. The scope on Meta is just the default. Also: being a global sysop is much easier and less complicated than being a local admin on (English or another large) Wikipedia, as you mentioned. Global sysops only do noncontroversial maintenance tasks, whereas an admin on enwiki is expected to be able to determine consensus, deal with private matters, act in controversial cases or in drama like ANI, etc. In fact becoming a steward might be easier than having a successful enwiki RfA. Do you think this ongoing RFGS is a joke? PiRSquared17 (talk) 04:21, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Indeed, I'm glad to see two global sysops (Rschen and yourself) admitting that becoming a steward (=> access to IPs) could be much easier than getting adminship – good heavens! am I the only one who thinks something is terribly wrong here? If this is true of stewards, it must be even more so of global sysops, and I might add I personally am shocked and offended to see that someone like Rschen is a global sysop. Opting in will be something of a historical moment for WQ, because in truth there is no turning back, even if theoretically we could opt out again – who would then be willing to oppose global sysops?, how would we ever reach that consensus? In any case, those were just a few observations before our admins gave their opinions, and as they apparently don't seem to mind GS being opted in, it might just be that you'll have your wish. ~ DanielTom (talk) 00:56, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

If you're going to attack me, at least get my quote right - I said that it is much easier than getting adminship on en.wikipedia. --Rschen7754 19:40, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Not sure, who "attacks" who. I am reminded of this. Pretending that a public rename is a sock, just to defame my real name, that seems to me much more of an "attack" than my saying I am offended that you are are in any position of responsibility. I see you keep trying to collect hats, and that after recently failing to get CU on Wikipedia, you are now trying to get stewardship at Meta. What a disgrace. ~ DanielTom (talk) 20:44, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Who is attacking who is you. What Rschen did at that particular diff is standard practise at enwiki, if a user is deemed a sock, they are tagged. The fact the account existed even a rename means the account exists ergo, a sockpuppet. The fact Rschen failed to get CU is like me failing to get rollback here and then asking for Bureaucrat at Wikidata, they have 0% relation. Also your description of Rschen actually willing to help out Wikimedia is the disgrace here. Good faith volunteers deserve credit, not defamatory comments. Now that is said, get back to doing something constructive unlike we've seen at metawiki. John F. Lewis (talk) 22:00, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

The guy who admits to never editing articles tells me to go do "something constructive". Why do you show up here, just to share your ignorance on the difference between socks and public renames? I challenge you to try and make a single edit to an article before commenting here again and embarrassing yourself further. ~ DanielTom (talk) 22:06, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Whether I edit articles now or not is my choice. Nothing for you to comment on simply because you're losing the 'but mom, Rschen is the one being mean!' battle. Oh and yes, maybe I don't edit articles but hey, I am constructive. I do SWMT work, did a month of administrator work at a small wiki and do some-what active work on Wikidata. And on enwiki, I active help new users get accounts. See, I give people accounts not create them for myself and then abuse them. Now, as I said, be constructive anyway you want except through derogatory comment at Rschen and arguing about how people follow polices when dealing with clearly abusive users. John F. Lewis (talk) 22:26, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

You still haven't made even 1 edit to articles, and most likely never will. Calling me abusive doesn't count as an article edit. You have nothing to contribute to Wikiquote. ~ DanielTom (talk) 22:38, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Why don't both of you stop? Instead of bickering? You guys are acting like children here! I would suggest both of you stop this pointless discussion. Wikiquote's Village Pump is not for both of you to bicker about pointless stuff. I expect better from both of you. --~~Golden_burg111 22:35, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Just shut up about god damn editing of articles. I am not violating policies by not doing it. Last comment here. Future comments I'd like at my talk page. If not, I'll just move them over. Peace. John F. Lewis (talk) 22:46, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Did I hit a nerve? Do you feel embarrassed for never editing articles? I certainly would. ~ DanielTom (talk) 22:47, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

• I would not be averse to opting in. Having been unable to give as much time to Wikiquote myself in recent months as in previous years, no longer being able to review the entire RC log every day, I have a sense that a lot of things are slipping through the cracks. ~ Ningauble (talk) 21:27, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

  Non sequitur, as global sysops can already patrol recent changes, just like any other user; problem is, most of them just don't bother to, and this is very unlikely to change even if we opt-in. (What would change is, someone who already patrols recent changes could notify them at Meta of vandal attacks, and they would then be able to step in and block the vandals. But if you think that global sysops are going to start magically reviewing every change to articles once they are opted-in, you are just fooling yourself.) ~ DanielTom (talk) 13:18, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

  What follows from my observation is that I believe a lot of things are slipping through the cracks, more things than when I was patrolling more. I did not say, and it does not follow (non sequitur) that global sysops would patrol in the manner that I used to do, nor that nothing would slip through the cracks. Things have always slipped through the cracks anyway. What would follow is more little Dutch boys plugging more of the cracks. ~ Ningauble (talk) 15:10, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

  I'm sure m:SWMT will monitor enwikiquote, if it doesn't already. PiRSquared17 (talk) 04:21, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

• I agree. I think the benefits of having off-project admins able to step in and stop vandalism outweigh any downside. BD2412 T 01:52, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

  These global sysops can already revert vandalism, they just don't do it, because they don't patrol WQ's recent changes. They would only be of help in case someone who does patrol it should ask them to block rampant vandals. But for this there already are stewards, who are more in number than global sysops. Opting in will be a historically bad decision. WQ is almost the only wiki standing independent, like a diamond in the desert, but you seem to be willing to trade its independence for nothing. ~ DanielTom (talk) 21:45, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

• Agree with these comments by Ningauble and BD2412, above. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 02:15, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Does anyone want to close this? PiRSquared17 (talk) 02:59, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

• Late here, but I'm also in support of opting in here.  Hazard SJ  20:52, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

• I am not adamantly hostile to the idea, but I really have not as yet examined the issues involved much, and certainly would not wish to rush into opting in. As there is at least one prominent editor who I generally respect who seems adamantly opposed, I remain reluctant to support it at this point. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 22:29, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

  That's fine, take your time. There's no rush to decide whether you want GS or not, obviously. I just wanted to see if anyone else would comment. PiRSquared17 (talk) 00:47, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

• In the light of the recent events concerning the request to a global block, I am far from convinced that global sysops and their supporters can overcome the cultural differences. -- Mdd (talk) 22:45, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

  Global sysops have nothing to do with global blocking or locking. That is a steward thing. Yes, stewards and global sysops have some things in common, but really there is a huge difference. However, I can see how this would change your opinion of Meta, cross-wiki maintenance, etc. PiRSquared17 (talk) 00:47, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

• I personally don't feel this wiki has a need for a GS opt-in and looking at Special:ActiveUsers I would rather refuse to perform any actions here. Unless the community wants the GS to play a significant role in countervandalism work (which I don't expect) I am not supporting any movement towards an opt-in. Please also note my COI in this case. Vogone (talk) 23:03, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

  Thanks for your comments, Vogone. I would generally agree, except in cases where a vandal is around when no admins are. PiRSquared17 (talk) 00:47, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

As a strong believer in democracy, and in the independence of each wiki, I would like to urge everyone again to be extra careful here. Many people try to interfere with wiki processes and decision making in ways we are not (and can't even be) aware of. If you want an example, see this leaked discussion of ArbCom, and read what they say about Wikiquote. This has happened before, and will happen again, sooner or later. Everyone has their own interests in mind, which is fine, but we responsible Wikiquote editors should resist and not give away power to outsiders needlessly, and do our best to keep the Wikiquote project as independent as possible. ~ DanielTom (talk) 23:20, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

• Being a global sysop is completely different from being on the English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee. Global sysops only deal with spam (including spambots, linkspam, etc.) and vandalism. I do not know exactly what made Barras start this discussion, but please note that nobody is trying to force this on you. If you decide against it, that's fine, but GS are experienced and willing to help with tasks that most would find tedious. PiRSquared17 (talk) 00:47, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Admin nomination of Kalki

As some are aware, I was once an admin here (from 29 January 2004 to 1 December 2009), and I have now nominated myself to regain adminship at Requests for adminship‎‎. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 20:57, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

---

• Wikiquote:Requests for adminship/Kalki (3rd request)

Been over one week.

RFA presently at 66.7 percent.

Plus additional Comments.

-- Cirt (talk) 11:36, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

• Wikiquote:Requests for adminship states that "Adminship nominations must be posted for at least one week, to provide opportunity for comments and voting, before a bureaucrat will make the promotion if warranted". This sets a minimum time but not a maximum. We have routinely allowed these discussions to stay open for longer times, to allow the community the greatest opportunity to find and weigh in on the discussion (see, e.g., Wikiquote:Requests for adminship/Mdd). Indeed, since your request for closure, an additional opinion has been offered which has changed the proportion of support from 66.7% to 60%. I would give it a few more days. Cheers! BD2412 T 16:19, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Okay, sounds good. Thank you, BD2412, I'll defer to your judgement. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 16:32, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

User Creation Logs

We need an active sysop to block the recent account creations. Since YODO was blocked, we have been getting some recent vandals here. Any opinions? --~~Golden_burg111 19:31, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, there's definitely a vandal/sock attack currently. I'm watching and can get stewards if needed. Maybe User:Jni could help...? PiRSquared17 (talk) 19:32, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Mdd. PiRSquared17 (talk) 19:35, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

And thank you both. Mdd (talk) 19:37, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

I'll be online for next couple hours and can help with pest control for sure! I was tracing one sock/vandal from en-wp to here in fact. I've been mostly inactive for few years so please tell me if I do something stupid with the admin tools. jni (talk) 19:44, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

I am thinking about adding a template where we can place it on a user talk page saying that their name is not appropriate for wikiquote. But we need a sysop to block the inappropriate username. --~~Golden_burg111 19:54, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Contributions

Anyone can contribute to User:Goldenburg111/Wikiquote in 2014. --~~Golden_burg111 21:49, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

The page says "This page is to document issues with Wikiquote since January 1, 2014." What kind of issues? I for one think that we need a complete top down reimagining of the software, so that quotes can be sorted by every kind of data (topic, author, date, kind of work, etc.). BD2412 T 22:31, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Issues = Sockpuppetry, canvassing by Cirt at Meta, causing drama and disruption. Different sockpuppeters and new accounts made for vandalism. --~~Golden_burg111 22:38, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

It's your userspace, you're free to do as you will with it. BD2412 T 02:24, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Comment: I understand that Kalki and I have had disagreements over interpretations of his behavior patterns in the past. For this reason after much thought I've decided not to comment further upon the ongoing RFA. I'll instead respectfully defer to the community in the discussion there. Have a great day, -- Cirt (talk) 04:29, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

While it's your userspace, you can collect notes of that nature there if want to, but is it really that constructive activity? Sounds like stirring more drama and disruption. Sockpuppet notice board might be useful though, especially tracking for cross-wiki sockpuppeteers. jni (talk) 10:03, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Thank you jni for clarifying, is it okay to add notes about main points instead of specific users being "called out"? --~~Golden_burg111 19:40, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

That is certainly better than calling out individual users. But I'd avoid even creating such a page in first place. That is just my personal opinion, I don't think there is any policy forbidding user's maintaining bulletin/notice board kind of pages in their user space (and I'd hate bureaucrazy like that here). jni (talk) 15:00, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Citation error

Hey, I've got no idea what's wrong with the citations over at Stephenie LaGrossa. All I did was copy it over from Wikipedia. Is citation style different here? Survivorfan1995 (talk) 18:56, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi. You forgot to add <references/>, but in any case Wikiquote's formatting guidelines are a bit different than those of Wikipedia, so I've re-formatted the article accordingly. Cheers, DanielTom (talk) 19:22, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Activist group public relations announcement being put forward as a 'quote'

As shown in this edit, an IP editor is repeatedly inserting an announcement by an anti-abortion activist organization, an announcement that is not notable, nor is it traceable to a single person. As such, I don't think it can be called a quote. This IP editor has in the past repeatedly tussled with me over the attribution of abortion quotes, challenging the findings of Ann D. Gordon who is the top scholar on Susan B. Anthony's life. Binksternet (talk) 22:34, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject Name Confusion

Hi Wikiquote and all of it's fellow members! I am thinking about a Wikiquote WikiProject. I want to create a wikiproject that encourages users to clean up at least one article in a week. In a few months, the cleanup categories would be blank! I am still struggling on the name of the project. Any suggestions for the name? Or any suggestion on the Project itself? --~~Golden_burg111 22:23, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

How about WikiProject Weekly Cleanup? Direct and to the point. BD2412 T 22:25, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks BD2 for your suggestions. I think that's a good name. --~~Golden_burg111 22:28, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Here's one as well WikiProject: Article Cleanup project? Miszatomic 22:29, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

I think we've preferred to call them pages rather than articles here (to contrast with Wikipedia's "article" space and Wiktionary's "entry" space). Come to think of it, we really don't have the tradition of WikiProjects here that Wikipedia does, although we could surely use some. For example, we could coordinate with WikiProject Law and WikiProject Medicine to improve our pages covering these specific fields. BD2412 T 22:32, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

I bet this one would benefit Wikiquote easily. --~~Golden_burg111 22:37, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Wikiquote:WikiProject Weekly Cleanup

You may feel free to join! Any suggestions? --~~Golden_burg111 22:53, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

m:Requests for comment/Global ban for DanielTom

Hello, per m:Global bans, a general requirement of a global bans request for comment is notify all projects where the user subject to the ban has editied. DanielTom is either an active editor or a past editor of this wiki and therefore I am notifying the project of this proposal. Everyone is welcome to go and voice their opinion of the proposal and about the user in general. Thanks, John F. Lewis (talk) 03:13, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Global bans can create serious consequences, I'd urge users to look at this ban proposal. --Abd (talk) 06:58, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

I have left my own comment of opposition to this there, and like Abd have requested a speedy dismissal of this as a quite unwarranted request. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 11:23, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Reading distorted descriptions of yourself painted in the worst possible light can be slightly amusing, or extremely depressing, considering how other people might take this garbage seriously. If anything, this shows how extremely unwise it is to edit under anything close to your real name, though I'm sure most people here don't need to be reminded of that. Anyway, thanks to everyone who commented there, I appreciate it. ~ DanielTom (talk) 15:57, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

I am glad to see you're back and this particular nonsense has ended. I would advise remaining cautious though. I, for years, have put up with some nonsense which in some ways has not been quite that immediately consequential — and am willing to continue to do so, with confidence that when truths are sufficiently assessed, whatever the faults or deficiencies I might have inadvertently manifested in the courses of events will clearly be perceived to not be the most grievous ones. Blessings. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 16:23, 2 February 2014 (UTC) + tweak

• I am glad the ban request was quickly withdrawn before I wasted any time drafting an explanation of why it was a mistake. ~ Ningauble (talk) 17:25, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

• I am also glad, that this ban request is withdrawn. It would be nice if these past events would be resolved instead of keep coming back. -- Mdd (talk) 23:16, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Main Page Images

The average number of images per quote of the day has gotten quite high, with there being 10 separate images on January 30 (which were, to this user, very difficult to look at). Was there ever a consensus reached about the number/size/quality of images on the main page, and if so, is it being followed? 132.177.170.36 17:43, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Extensive discussion in 2011–2012 reached an apparent consensus that this is too much, but not how much is ok. ([11] [12]) This nonspecific consensus was enforced for a time by removing all images pending adoption of a specific policy. Images returned to the main page just under a year ago, without any policy or guideline, and attempts to moderate their quantity have been reverted. ([13]) In short: (1) no, there is no express consensus for what should be included, and (2) no, consensus for what should not be included, vague though it be, is not being followed. ~ Ningauble (talk) 15:33, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Comment: I do not think the attempts to moderate the quantity of images on the Main Page should have been reverted. It is quite frustrating to see a community consensus summarily reverted and arbitrarily ignored. -- Cirt (talk) 15:39, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

I have followed the discussion on and off for the past few years, and I understand the two sides - that there is a consensus, and there is a very active minority that doesn't care for that consensus. Can we (well, you, since I'm not qualified) actually create a policy that reflects the consensus, or at the very least limits the number/size/quality of images (say, one on each side and a small one above and below, which, though still excessive, at least leaves the front page readable)? Or, alternatively, is it not even worth it? 132.177.170.36 19:50, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

I echo the concerns of 132.177.170.36 (talk · contributions) and agree with the comments made here. -- Cirt (talk) 20:54, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

---

I find the comments on this issue in this section rather misleading in various ways, but especially reject the implied assertions that any actual wide ranging consensus was arrived at after any substantial or extensive periods of active debate, despite the periods of months or years during which these contentions have sometimes VERY briefly occurred, and gone largely ignored by others, either unaware of them, or too disinterested or intimidated by the intensity of opinions to get involved.

Though sometimes I can do some rather quickly, It often takes much work and considerable effort and thought to produce a good layout, and I confess I do not always succeed to my own satisfaction with the materials available, but for many years I have done what I could with the quotes available here and the images available at the commons, and I believe that this service is a generally valued and appreciated one, based upon the comments of people with as yet little or no personal involvement here in the issue.

On 31 January 2012, there was an act of aggressive and arrogant censorship which was suddenly imposed by one admin who I believe simply sensed an opportunity to further harass and constrain my activities here with but little complaint likely from others most actively involved in these matters at the time. Clearly without much regard for permitting any further discussions, and inclined to take the most radically severe steps available, he decided to destructively edit what I believe was a quite good and relevant layout for February 3, a few minutes after I posted it:

I went down to the sacred store Where I'd heard the music years before But the man there said the music wouldn't play And in the streets the children screamed The lovers cried and the poets dreamed But not a word was spoken The church bells all were broken And the three men I admire most The Father, Son and Holy Ghost They caught the last train for the coast The Day the Music Died. ~ Don McLean ~

File:Buddy holly.jpg

After this edit ONLY the text remained, and none of the relevant imagery, which I had chosen to honor these artists and to commemorate some of the themes and ideas of their music. I myself, if I remember correctly, was in a hurry, and unable to edit it further, and had to leave soon after that.

I am able and willing to work with anyone, but I do anger somewhat at what I perceive to be various forms of injustice and hypocrisy which do arise all to frequently where people are not confronted with each other in face to face dialogue, and many rules can be rather extravagantly grown and even more extravagantly ignored or dismissed while some of the most aggressively denigrative of people are focussing upon and magnifying the relatively minor breaches of rules or merely expectations which others make.

This led to my DISGUST at the foully presumptive forms of impulses towards what I believe to be improper censorship and constraints which were becoming far more evident and boldly practiced on this site, which was founded and had existed for years quite uncontroversially as a wiki with acceptance of MAXIMAL freedoms of editors and MINIMAL rule by any officials, and led to my decision not to even bother adding them for at least a few days or weeks, when I believed I might have more time to address some of the precise quantitative restrictions which were being proposed in regard to various rather nebulous qualitative issues.

Further acts of abusive destruction occurred so regularly in the period after that, It was actually over a year, before I began adding images to the QOTD again partially in March 2013, and fully in April, May, and ever since then, and once again, received more compliments than complaints, but those few who seem eager and willing to oppose these layouts have again banded together, while those who are not involved and perhaps do not wish to be involved in such contentious matters have remained unaware or uninvolved, as is their right.

Though I can honestly recognize that the layouts are not always so well developed or well honed as further time might permit, and I myself would have simplified some of them, but certainly not merely to decrease their visual size, had I had more time to consider things.

I also believe that over the years I have certainly received FAR more compliments both publicly and in private for my graphic presentations than complaints about them, despite the relatively few disparaging remarks a year that have arisen here because of them, and which have often been seized upon by those very little involvement here generally beyond supporting the constraints of others, and who seem most zealous to find ways to rigorously constrain and suppress some forms of presentation options.

I believe that there are now attempts by those who are often involved in little more than devising constraints and rules to bind others in such ways as they themselves would not find binding or uncomfortable at all to group together and impose their will suddenly and vigorously, as has sometimes occurred in the past.

This issue as well as others are some I believe should be elaborated upon more extensively in the coming weeks and months, and sufficient time for arguments to be presented and considered, and matters settled with more widespread involvement. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 22:14, 4 February 2014 (UTC) + tweaks

Kalki, to me, those pictures of american pies have too bright a color—they really do distract one's attention from the quote. And this is Wikiquote. All I can say, regarding this issue, is that I personally would do the QOTD layout differently, with fewer and smaller pictures, and more emphasis on the quote (incl. source). But Kalki has been the only one doing the QOTDs, for many years, and of course he is doing what looks to him the best. I don't think it's possible to convince Kalki that he is "wrong". ~ DanielTom (talk) 22:50, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

I am still around, but quite later than I planned to be at getting started on several things elsewhere, and just briefly noting that I do believe matters can and should be more elaborately discussed, and in my relatively few contentions with people on what the best images available for pages have been, have always been willing to reach acceptable compromises or agreements, where alternatives are presented, but I believe efforts to rigorously constrain or entirely eliminate the use of imagery are very detrimental for many reasons, and I am willing to specify many reasons why later. I must get going now. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 23:00, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

I hardly recognized Don McLean - I think Kalki does brilliant work and the images draw my eye to the word content -clumsily put, I mean draw mw to the whole thing, so the words get read - still I suppose there were iconoclasts who went round smashing in stained glass windows - some people seem puritan by nature and theres probably no pleasing them. Sayerslle (talk) 14:42, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

I thank you much for your appreciation. And I would note that I do believe images always serve as windows to a far more expansive range of ideas than text quotes alone usually do, and that is one of many reasons I believe them desirable. And I know that I am not alone in referring to photographs and graphic art works as "visual quotation" though the concept apparently remains unfamiliar to most. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 18:53, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

There may be something to what Kalki writes above about people being intimidated by the nature of these discussions. Walls of text laden with boldfaced shouting and emotionally charged invective might indeed have the effect of deterring a quorum.

I look forward to the actual exercise of Kalki's professed ability and willingness to work with anyone on this issue, so that a meaningful compromise may be found between no images at all and overwhelming that which is ostensibly being presented. ~ Ningauble (talk) 17:45, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

"There may be something to what Kalki writes above about people being intimidated by the nature of these discussions. Walls of text laden with boldfaced shouting and emotionally charged invective might indeed have the effect of deterring a quorum.". I for one strongly agree with these comments by Ningauble (talk · contributions), above. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 18:02, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

It's a bumper sticker culture. People have to get it like that, and if they don't, if it takes three seconds to make them understand, you're off their radar screen. ~ Larry Lessig

Oh, my sometimes obviously passionate intensity in asserting honest opinions as effectively as I can against what I perceive to be various forms of error, false suppositions, or deliberate deceits can sometimes be very intimidating I suppose, but there obviously is no way that there is any attempt to intimidate in what an official admin might declare in imperious tones of condescension of apparently "Authoritative Objectivity" to anyone who disagrees with their own particular ranges of opinion or will. Seconded by another "admin" who in my honest opinion relies upon various forms of flattery and intimidation to retain what prestige, position and power he has attained. "Walls of text laden with boldfaced shouting and emotionally charged invective might indeed have the effect of deterring a quorum." That surely is PURELY objective and neutral assertion, simply asserted against the uncivil act of anyone arguing extensively against any one else's position — it seems no one could even conceivably or rationally disagree with that. Sarcasm intended here — yet I hope some of my silliness in presenting these sincere observations can be forgiven, as I forgive others for sometimes being so damned imperiously somber and officiously censorious about things. I generally like people, even many of those who often strongly disagree with me, and I like there being a variety of ideas and attitudes available to people — and as most artists would assert, images provide ways to introduce some of these to people in ways that would otherwise not occur.

That there actually might be people who find things more interesting with some indications of aspects of the quote they might not have known about or considered through the use of imagery, is something to be dismissed as mere "distraction" and promotion of "distraction", and such arguments merely "digression" from such hard and fast rules as some people wish to establish in a project that was created as one of many with implicit and sometimes EXPLICIT directives to avoid the hang-ups of having too many hard and fast rules — which the wise know can often be abused by people very casually in very many ways, against which most people often have little recourse.

I quote Larry Lessig with an image to emphasize that imagery IS useful in drawing people to contemplate the quote associated with the imagery, in ways text alone would NOT. As to compromises, I will try to refrain from more than 4 or 5 images, when there is no need for them to frame the text: there are generally 4 regions on the QOTD layout where images can be presented. I usually, but not always, attempt to use all of these to at least some extent, though until recently I usually preferred rather minor images above and below the quote, and I admit that sometimes I clearly have overdone things in ways that are not the best aesthetic arrangements possible. Usually that was because I was trying to present significant ideas which were relevant to the quote being used, or simply significant images of the author of the statement or its subject. I believe 2 good solid blocks of imagery to either side is usually desirable, and can accept that I should not attempt to put too many images in the layout, merely to present ideas present or implied in the quotes; but on larger quotes especially more than one image to either side is sometimes necessary to properly frame the entire text, and on smaller quotes images to the top and bottom allow the text to be framed in such a way as draws one's attention to it further, in ways that would not exist without some imagery. I believe there should always be a minimum of two images, and a maximum of 4 regions of imagery, generally not to exceed 50% of the area of main page, and preferably less than an third of it, even though absolute rules on that would make me uncomfortable. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 18:53, 5 February 2014 (UTC) + tweaks

(I'm the topic starter; I just registered my account.) What I'm getting from this discussion is that essentially we have no choice but to hope Kalki keeps things under control, then? TreeRol (talk) 14:29, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Though we obviously differ strongly in our opinions on this matter, I thank you for creating an account here, and welcome you as a participant. I would certainly phrase things differently, and assert rather bluntly, that in accord with the principles with which Wiki software and Wikimedia projects were founded and developed: I seek to keep things from being under too much needless or detrimental "control" by anyone, including myself. I have certainly NOT sought to exert any extraordinary control of things which I am not actively involved in as a regularly concerned participant, here or anywhere, and seek to rigorously control nothing so much as my own actions, rather than that of others. Usually I have sought to find ways, through various venues, including this one, to INDICATE diverse views on Truth and Beauty, Meaning and Purpose, and not merely those I myself find most valid or appealing, though, like most people, I generally would favor these. I believe that IF things are perceptively reviewed without the prejudices of presuming things have to be under some sort of absolutist controls, by people assuming or wishing to behave AS IF they KNOW what is best for others to DO, THINK and SAY, I have persistently sought to keep many things from becoming rigorously controlled by such impulses, all of my life. And I did not seek to establish such principles of behavior here — the wiki software and the wiki projects were already quite explicitly established with such aims and procedures in mind — I have for the most part simply have opposed efforts to corrupt or constrain those principles in such ways as I do not believe proper, in either rational or ethical senses. I believe that even if sometimes they are manifest in mild forms, there are many ways the impulses to overly control things have been detrimental in far more ways than are apparent by the casual examinations of those who out of fears, hatreds, resentments or merely minor irritation, are most inclined to find ways to absolutely judge, condemn and punish others are likely to practice, and which require the more extensive examination of those who are more tolerant, patient, and willing to forgive error, without needlessly punishing it, and prone to let many diverse forms of participation in presentations arise. I have just now created a page for Solomon Asch, to accompany one I have started on Philip Zimbardo, and one I have helped develop on Stanley Milgram, each of whom have contributed major insights into social psychology and the various ways group pressures can often corrupt moral assessments and rational competence, and have helped develop general ideas of the cognition necessary for recognizing and combatting Groupthink excesses of control over individual volition and choices. I would recommend them to anyone interested in reviewing some of the fundamentals of social psychology. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 16:03, 7 February 2014 (UTC)+ tweaks

You claim to act against people "wishing to behave AS IF they KNOW what is best for others to DO, THINK and SAY" but then later say "I have for the most part simply have opposed efforts to corrupt or constrain those principles in such ways as *I DO NOT BELIEVE PROPER*" (emphasis mine that time). You must realize that if your actions are guided by what you do and do not believe proper, then you are constraining what we (the collective we) can DO and SAY in terms of this project. You are imposing your will on others. Once you start acting upon what you do and do not believe proper, consensus becomes irrelevant. This is no longer a collaborative project, but one that is based on your whims and desires.

I ask everyone: should it be the latter? And if not, what can we do about it? TreeRol (talk) 17:01, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Again, quite frankly — I quite honestly state that I, like everyone, act for the most part on my beliefs and impressions, rather than try to pretend to anyone that such a path is simply "horrific" and intolerable — and as I have indicated many times, I try to keep my beliefs reasonable and in maximal harmony with verifiable Truths, the vital virtues of Humility, Courage, Honesty and Compassion and principles of Justice, Unity, Liberty, and to the extent any "collective" or "individual" opposes these, and insists on absolute conformity in ways that are not innately necessary, I believe that to be an error of the type I have been inclined to label foully fascist, arrogant, tyrannical, and terroristic since I was a very young child. I can forgive people for doing such things, but I do not provide them my willing consent or approval, and if I can find ways of doing so, I seek to find ways to help people rise out of such errors and embrace paths of greater grace, and genuine harmony which only can come about by respect for eternal and enduring truths rather than either collective or individual wills as to how to characterize or serve such truths. I believe you obviously did not look at some of the suggested pages, or if you did, did not understand the statements that indicate where people passionately forbid certain forms of independence because "consensus becomes irrelevant " they are espousing views where truth and genuine rationality and morality quite often become irrelevant, in deference to force of "the collective". That is nothing other than simply Fascism such as summarily implies or states "Might makes Right" or "Might is always Right." ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 17:23, 7 February 2014 (UTC) + tweaks

In answer to the question above, "What can we do about it?" - It seems clear that nothing can be done about it. The visual appearance of the project is effectively under the control of one editor and there is no prospect that this situation will ever change. It's a remarkable and I think unprecedented situation in the Wiki-related universe. - Macspaunday (talk) 20:51, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Kalki said: That is nothing other than simply Fascism such as summarily implies or states "Might makes Right" or "Might is always Right."

No, instead Kalki's particular interpretation of "truth" is always right. I have to sadly agree with the above, that as long as Kalki is allowed to define what is right, and is allowed to discount every other opinion because it does not fit "truth," "rationality," or "morality," this project is hopeless. TreeRol (talk) 21:05, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Nothing prevents Macspaunday, or you, or anyone else, from working on it, selecting and creating a QOTD every single day, the way you see fit. I don't think Kalki could, or would, revert your efforts. But it would be a lot of work. ~ DanielTom (talk) 21:32, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Actually, it is not entirely true that they are free to do whatever they see fit; I myself am not entirely free to do entirely as I see fit, in all regards, and do not wish to be. While still an admin and a long admired one, I constrained myself and the selection processes to its current procedures, gradually over time, to allow maximum input in selections of QOTD from all who wished to be involved, and though there are currently very few who regularly participate now, Zarbon, for one, was once a frequent opponent in debates over which quotes should be selected, and he was actually quite effective in getting his way much of the time, but not so much of it as he might have wished.

In regard to larger issues: I quite often keep MANY of my opinions and many aspects of my knowledge reserved from overt presentation, yet sometimes I choose not to remain quiet about long constrained perspectives that indicate what I perceive of some of the deficiencies and flaws in the arguments and strategies of others. I might often out of convenience or necessity refrain from revealing some truths, but I certainly do not go about attempting to obscure truths on vitally important matters and principles, nor silence others from indicating their opinions of them, and when people do resort to attempting to do so in various ways, out of various irritations with the views of others, and my own or others arguments or tenacity in not bowing abjectly to theirs, I do not always "politely" defer to simply accepting their particular opinions or rather crude attempts to distort or defame mine or those of others, such as have most actively created and built these projects, rather than simply control what others can do. I know some people wish to try to make that seem "unconscionably" rude, but so be it. I state my case as ably as I believe proper and necessary, and let others state theirs. I have been doing the very extensive and occasionally contentious work for years, amidst some frustratations, but with general approval, and a few others seek to occasionally frustrate and absolutely constrain my assessments of what presentations would be optimal to what theirs would be, simply because thus far, a very few people band together, with assumptions they speak for a majority of others, to say they don't understand, don't accept and don't desire my contributions. Even though, throughout the years, I have had FAR more people I find far more generally respectable, say that they value them, I realize that such groups joined in their avid hostilities can indeed be a threat to many generally desirable liberties and freedoms — and such people often do get quite irate and intolerant of others rights when they are not abjectly obeyed. I am a person who has had my life genuinely threatened in literal ways, and not been cowed by such arrogance, nor deterred in seeking to protect the rights of myself and others; I am not prone to submit without need to those who seem adamant in their desires that excessive forms of constraint and command over the rights and liberties of others be accepted and deferred to, apparently without question nor even vigorous counter-arguments. — that's about all I can say right now, as I have to attend to some matters because I must be leaving soon, at least briefly. Blessings to all. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 21:58, 7 February 2014 (UTC) + tweaks

Can we step back from discussion of process, philosophy, and personality for a moment, and return to the original topic of this thread, which was Main Page Images and, specifically, the quantity thereof?

In particular, I would like to explore two specific points in the last paragraph of Kalki's post on 5 February 2014 at 18:53, beginning at the phrase "As to compromises", regarding necessity and proportion these images.

1. I don't think it has been demonstrated that it is necessary to frame the entire text of the QotD with images. When I first joined Wikiquote some years back the quote of the day was accompanied by one small image on the main page. It was framed by a colored box with a header and footer. I do not recall any great hue and cry, or any comment at all, about the lack of a necessary frame of images boxing the quote.

   If one were designing the main page from scratch, one might begin by listing possible features and classifying them as either vitally necessary, highly desirable, or wish-list items. I think including a quote of the day would rank quite high and adding an image would be very desirable but, in my opinion, including a montage of images would have little or no priority for the main landing page of a site devoted to quotations. I would certainly recommend against using a "frame" that dominates the entire page, which brings up the second point...

2. Devoting up to 50% of the page to this material is, in my opinion, completely out of proportion to other priorities for space on the project's main public portal. As remarked in an earlier discussion, it pushes everything else but the masthead below the fold. Even a third of the page strikes me as a disproportionate allocation among main elements of the page:

• Masthead
• Quote of the day
• Selected pages
• New pages
• Main categories
• Community
• Sister projects
• Other languages

I suggest we consider illustrating the presentation of the quote of the day in proportion to that which is ostensibly being presented:  I think allocating one third of the QotD block to illustration would be a more appropriate upper limit than a third or a half of the entire page.

I welcome the thoughts and opinions of other contributors about what is necessary and what is proportionate for Wikiquote's main landing page. (I don't think discussion of process, philosophy, and personality is going to shed much light on those issues.) ~ Ningauble (talk) 17:00, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

I know that very few things are "necessary" to accept as "necessary" in any absolute sense, but do believe that framing the text with image fields is quite aesthetically appealing to most people, and thus highly desirable for presentations. The only things which regularly change on the main page here are the QOTD and the New page listings which are directly below it, and so I do not think that it remaining a prominent portion of the page, actually less than 25% of the page in most cases, I believe, is at all undesirable for a primary presentation page. The other sections are certainly not all that less convenient to access, to anyone but those with very slow connections. Though I am doing some things out of consideration for those in such circumstances, such as stripping out most px specs and reducing the use of animations on pages, I have stated before I don't believe that those who still have such should be a primary constraint on the development of any of our wiki pages. I do believe that if their problems are extreme enough, they should simply shut off image displays on their primary browser, or use an alternate browser where such settings are used. I believe that reducing the size of the images, relative to the size of the quote, or to one third of the QOTD is a rather crude and extreme measure to simply minimize the size of images, the only reason for such being very slow connection speeds, which are increasingly uncommon among most users, and generally not accommodated as a primary concern at most sites on the internet, including Wikimedia ones. As I have previously stated, it is quite standard to get pages with well over a hundred images at the much more commonly visited Wikimedia commons. As usual, I am quite willing to honor general provisions which can be arrived at, but do not generally support creating overly detailed nor overly absolute constraints on any matters, in accord with the principles of innovation and adaptation with which the Wikis were founded. I believe a general agreement to keep the images proportional to the page, and usually less than 30% is a reasonable one. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 17:47, 8 February 2014 (UTC) + tweaks

It's not about page loading time, it's about screen real estate on the main page. It is not a case of "the only reason for such being very slow connection speeds". The reasons given are pushing everything else below the fold, and proportion to relevance for the purpose of a home page. I think you are mistaken in considering the main page "a primary presentation page":  The home page is primarily a portal to the project.

Compare the home page of the Wikimedia Commons project to which you refer:  it has two pictures (one static and one media file), each of which is the focus of a dedicated section. (It also uses a few iconographic links, as does ours.) Of course a project that is primarily a repository of images and media files has many pages with many more images, but not on its main portal page – this example does not support your argument. ~ Ningauble (talk) 19:13, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

We are all involved to varying degrees in various forms of presentations. I believe the people who normally are involved with the main page layout for the commons do a fine job, and generally understand that graphic layouts are important to sparking and developing interests in a broad variety of subjects, people and ideas — as are quotes. I believe that it is widely recognized that quotes used in conjunction with images and visual images in conjunction with text quotes can often do a far better job of generating interest, curiosity, contemplation and exploration than either generally would alone, and that highly formalized constraints on presentations simply limit the varieties of options available in composing such presentations. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 19:33, 8 February 2014 (UTC) + tweak

Proposal to adopt Wikipedia's policy on having multiple accounts.

As Kalki pointed out in his recent RfA, Wikiquote has no specific policy page establishing a mandate against editing from multiple accounts. The Wikipedia policy with respect to this issue is thorough and long-established, providing both the rationales for prohibiting editing from multiple accounts as a general matter, and the means and circumstances by which such editing is permissible (for example, editing from a clearly designated "backup account" when working from a public computer). I therefore propose to adopt the language of Wikipedia:Sock puppetry in its entirety, subject only to modifications for replacing instances of "Wikipedia" with "Wikiquote". Cheers! BD2412 T 17:06, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

I briefly posted this on the Administrator's Noticeboard, but realized it should be on this page instead. BD2412 T 17:06, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

• Support. The Wikiquote community already seems to support this. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 14:51, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

I would like to note that the above link states specifically that "Kalki is limited to one account" and that this was an unprecedented restriction here, in reaction to controversies that arose because I had created multiple accounts, and was unapologetic for doing so, and at that time unwilling to state some of the reasons for them, or take issue with the matter, and that I had in fact already agreed to limit myself to editing from one account, and had not and have not in any way attempted to evade that restriction, nor to misuse any of my accounts either before that time or since. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 19:12, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose (very conditionally) : I am quite willing to develop and largely adopt such rules, within the next month or so, but would much prefer to make some important distinctions which are not evident in this document as it exists in its current state, despite having been gradually evolving or decaying in various stages, for many years, on a far more populated site, since its inception in 14 February 2004‎, where it provided little more than a definition and the statement:

Some folks believe sock puppets suck.
Others believe that they are useful, when used for good.

I believe there are issues to be raised more explicitly now. There are ALSO significant FACTS related to my own past use of multiple accounts and the reactions of others to them that I wish to be honestly and fairly addressed, and measures taken to rectify the current situation where I believe quite improperly and unjustly, the accounts I was gradually identifying as my own were suddenly defaced with VERY misleading statements which imply that these were merely Sockpuppets and that I had clearly been guilty of improper behavior with them, which I have always asserted was NEVER the case, and certainly never my intentions.

Though I actually seem to be entering another week or so where I am likely to be more busy than I had thought elsewhere, within the next week or two I would actually like to begin to present upon my own user pages an accounting of some of the more significant reasons I created such accounts in the first place — and why I generally object to the pre-emptive suppression of such anonymity as they can afford, and why I object slightly to some of the wording in the current Wikipedia document, though not its general intent. I expect to be very busy on this matter and others in coming week or two, but to all, I send Blessings ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 18:55, 4 February 2014 (UTC) + tweaks

This proposition is not ex post facto; it has nothing to do with your previous accounts, other than your own assertion that Wikiquote has had no policy barring the use of multiple accounts. BD2412 T 19:10, 4 February 2014 (UTC) + tweaks

One of the things I would like to address is that the defacement of my multiple account pages as "Sock puppets" was undertaken not merely ex post facto but without clear community consensus to label them such, largely by one very hostile and very presumptive admin, who on the same page he links to only a portion of, was being declared by others to have acted improperly and in such ways as were clearly against policies. If we are going to adopt a policy regarding multiple accounts, I would like the long-standing injustice of that addressed as well, so that these accounts can be labelled in less presumptive and what I believe to be quite dishonest ways. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 19:23, 4 February 2014 (UTC) + tweaks

Our adoption of a forward-looking policy should not be contingent on addressing past events not occurring under that policy. BD2412 T 20:40, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

I certainly agree with that, but while discussions are occurring on such matters, I believe it would be proper to take assessments of past incidents, and such facts and opinions as I intend to present, in settling upon any new policies, and the adoption should not be rushed, merely for the convenience of some who might wish to rush such matters, and forego discussions or debates in such ways as I believe would be detrimental in many ways. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 21:14, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

• Comment: Adopting Wikipedia's policy as it stands could be problematic because it makes reference to entities and procedures for which Wikiquote does not have any local counterpart, e.g. Arbitration Committee and checkuser.

  Our current policy simply says "It is recommended that users not edit under multiple usernames, unless they have a very good reason." Something more definitive than this would be a good idea, and the Wikipedia policy could be a good starting point. ~ Ningauble (talk) 16:07, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

  I have imported the Wikipedia page to Wikiquote:Sock puppetry and tagged it as an essay for now. We can whittle it down and otherwise adjust it to our local needs. BD2412 T 18:56, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for that — as I indicated, I am willing to support a slightly revised version of this eventually — but I would expect it to take at least a couple of weeks to establish a viable agreement. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 19:11, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Of that, I have no doubt. BD2412 T 19:55, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

WelcomeBot

This bot has been beating me with a stick as soon as I looked over this bot's contribution list. WelcomeBot's last edit was in 2008. Now, it has been six years (correct me if I am wrong) since this bot has contributed. On other wikis, the bureaucrats would revoke the bot's right due to inactivity. See User Rights Log. --~~Golden_burg111 22:15, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

File:Voltairinedecleyre.png

Since File:VoltairinedeCleyre.jpg exists - and is a completely different image - I renamed this. I've also done a restoration. However, a number of the usages here are on protected pages, so can someone replace the usage at Wikiquote:Quote of the day/November 17 with either: File:Voltairine de Cleyre (Age 35) - Original.png (unrestored version) or File:Voltairine de Cleyre (Age 35).jpg (restored version)? Adam Cuerden (talk) 13:00, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

The page probably should not have been protected. This is cascading protection from the page Wikiquote:Quote of the day/Index/Display, which was created in an abortive attempt to reorganize QotD pages. As the reorganization appears to have been abandoned and its index does not appear to be used anywhere, I wonder if the page creator, Cirt, would be amenable to deleting it and the associated Wikiquote:Quote of the day/Index/Links. ~ Ningauble (talk) 15:25, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

I never understood precisely what Cirt was trying to do with these back then, in 2009, but they were entirely his effort, without much regard or consideration of the long standing and enduring QOTD selection, processing and archiving procedures, and all those index pages currently in a format that improperly generalizes them with titles such as "Wikiquote:Quote of the day/January 1" were moved into these titles then, and I believe simply should be moved back to the standard Wikiquote:Quote of the day/January 1, 2009 title format for them. I don't understand exactly what is causing the protection problems at this point, having ignored the issue for some time, as one of relatively little significance, but agree the protections should be removed, and the pages restored to their original more standard titles. I just happen to be checking in now, don't have much time, and must be leaving again soon. Blessings. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 17:04, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Reply: I've unprotected both those pages. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 17:38, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Fair use audio/video clips

Hello,

Forgive my naive curiosity, but I wonder why Wikiquote pages never propose audio or video clips for famous quotes in movies, songs or speeches for instance. Since audio clips can be used as "fair use" on Wikipedia (see for instance on "We Are the World"), is there anything that prevents Wikiquote contributors to put, say, short audio clips of "I Have A Dream"'s finest quotes? or even a video clip of Gone with the Wind's "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."?

Wouldn't that be "fair use"? wouldn't that be any useful to Wikiquote pages? I mean, lots of quotes from speeches or movies would benefit a lot from a presentation with their voice intonation, or visual context, no?

Thanks for any views on the subject! - Cos (talk) 16:24, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Such media clips can be linked to within pages, if they are available at the commons under an acceptable license, but, of course, simply "fair use" materials are not. Years ago, to avoid duplications, excess, and complicated burdens on a limited staff of regular admins, it was decided at the English Wikiquote to use only media available at the commons. Though it might sometimes be frustrating, I still believe that is probably a good thing, over all, as there are often contentions on even using images available at the commons, as some of the above sections can indicate. Blessings. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 16:48, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

OK, so the English Wikiquote is not opposed to fair use in itself (since, as I understood it on Wikiquote:Copyrights, it is under that very fair use that quotations are put here), but chose to avoid the complexity to manage fair use media files. That answers my primary question, thanks!

Now, theoretically speaking, would it be feasible? Would it be legal to use excerpts of copyrighted audio or video content, just to display them as quotations from a published work? And if yes, would it be any different if Wikiquote was a for-profit project?

I'm trying to get a better view of how media excerpts can legally be viewed as "quotations"... (for instance, is there a difference between selling a dictionary of (text) quotations, which seems feasible, and selling a compendium of media quotations?)

Cos (talk) 19:46, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

I am not familiar with all the technical details of how and why fair use has been defined or limited in various ways, in various contexts, and I am sure that this is a very complex legal matter, to which I make no pretense of having definite or authoritative answers. Good luck in seeking help on this one. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 20:27, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

No one here is giving legal advice. I actually think we could use audio/video clips that are in the public domain, but as to copyrighted material, "fair use" for educational purposes is usually something like (no more than) 5 seconds of a five minute video. (On some pages there are links to Youtube clips, that's much safer, and may work as a solution – though even there caution is required, linking to "illegal" material is of course not permissible.) ~ DanielTom (talk) 20:36, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

I wasn't trying to get legal advice (or any authoritative answer at all), I know w:Wikipedia:Legal disclaimer and the like quite well, sorry if that's the impression I gave you. I was simply curious about understanding how this (using media clips under "fair use") applies to Wikiquote, or in general, and I thought that maybe there were contributors here who would have previously dealt with the issue. And that curiosity was only triggered by the fact that, as a reader of Wikiquote, I thought audio/video clips on the pages would have been great, and then I wondered, "wait, maybe it's not possible?".

Thank you anyway for your answers. - Cos (talk) 18:42, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Six pictures for Quote of the day ?!?

Does the Quote of the day really need to have six (6) pictures in it?!?

-- Cirt (talk) 02:48, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

It is of course quite possible to indicate much of how snide and hypocritical a person can be in only 15 words or even fewer, but complexity and intricate sincerity of thought often demands much more than that, and in defense of liberties and generally healthy good humor, I am usually quite prone to provide what I can, when I can, in the hopes that some who are plainly ignorant, confused and intolerant towards the actual or potential capacities of others might eventually become knowledgeable and wise enough to develop a genuine and profound love for the principles of Liberty, rather than merely the sounding of such words as can indicate it among those who are not prone to be insincere and hypocritical. I also hope that those who are often intimidated or merely irritated by the intolerant can learn to laugh at them, even if it must be sardonic laughter, rather than being angry at them, and sometimes thus even slipping into their ranks, and becoming unjustly intolerant of those so ignorant and confused as to be unjustly intolerant, rather than simply and properly and justly intolerant of unjust intolerance itself.

Actually the quote of the day for today has 611 pictures known as "letters" and "punctuation marks" within it. These are arranged in sequences representing 120 vocalizations commonly known as "words" which form phrases and statements of thought. Unfortunately many of these are often used by some people with very little actually sincerity, or any profound understanding of principles or concepts, such as those who might regularly use words of praise for Freedom of speech, while often doing so much as they can to effectively constrain and control such speech or indications of ideas as others can make, in extremely intolerant absolutist ways, which are often dependent upon mechanistic, legalistic formulas which are often touted as "sensible" or even "necessary" by the unimaginative, to the unimaginative, for the unimaginative. It is often a very easy thing to get the unimaginative to agree that the imaginative should be constrained and controlled by those most eager to constrain and control them. Some might go so far as to stress that MANY of these symbols are actually "redundant" and repetitive — there are only 26 letters, and once of each of these should be enough to indicate all that these images should be construed to indicate — and combing them in various ways lead to such "distractions" as people call "ideas", which are nearly always a threat to powers and prestige of the most vacuous.

Using my own admittedly limited imaginative capacities to discern that you were probably attempting to criticize the fact that 6 complex images generally referred to as pictures frame the 611-symbol quote of the day, I will address the rhetorical inquiry regarding their necessity. Of course, thought itself is perhaps not actually "necessary" thing among many human beings, as many people often make abundantly clear by their regular impulses towards impositions of relatively thoughtless constraints and condemnation of others abilities to indicate or express many forms of thought and thoughtfulness.

In this particular case, six images were selected to indicate some aspects of the ideas indicated through the QOTD words, or provide images of the person who is being quoted. It certainly could have used more to illustrate its expansive call to praise of humanistic appreciation of life and all that human beings can experience or observe, and a rejection of those primarily dark, ignorant and confused impulses towards denigrative and destructive and even suicidal or murderous attitudes and actions which many of the most ignorant and confused of people often favor or promote.

Do you have doubts about life? Are you unsure if it is really worth the trouble? Look at the sky: that is for you. Look at each person's face as you pass them on the street: those faces are for you. And the street itself, and the ground under the street, and the ball of fire underneath the ground: all these things are for you. They are as much for you as they are for other people. Remember this when you wake up in the morning and think you have nothing. Stand up and face the east. Now praise the sky and praise the light within each person under the sky. It's okay to be unsure. But praise, praise, praise. ~ Miranda July ~

With an emphasis on the worthiness of Life itself, especially to the extent it promotes Liberty and Justice in all vitally important human endeavors, and to further testify of the usefulness of thought, imagination, and images in the use of words and quotes, I will quote a few more extremely worthy statements of worthy principles by worthy minds.

To quote the current Wikipedia and Wikiquote introduction: Censorship is the suppression of speech or other public communication which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, politically incorrect or inconvenient as determined by a government, media outlet or other controlling body.

Wikis were admirably devised to MINIMIZE the presence of the overly constrained and controlling impulses of groups and individuals most prone to rely upon static and dull understandings and misunderstandings of rules and regulations, and to permit those with most extensive and expansive ideas to have much more opportunity for indicating them and developing them without needless hindrance. Wikis of many types persist in doing so, despite many forms of constraining and corruptive influences, and I trust that they will continue to do so, despite occasional afflictions of short-sightedness, and tendencies towards pre-emptive censorship or limitations on the presentations of ideas.

• The first condition of progress is the removal of censorship.
  • George Bernard Shaw, in his Preface to Mrs. Warren's Profession

• Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime. Long ago those who wrote our First Amendment charted a different course. They believed a society can be truly strong only when it is truly free. In the realm of expression they put their faith, for better or for worse, in the enlightened choice of the people, free from the interference of a policeman's intrusive thumb or a judge's heavy hand.
  • Potter Stewart, in his dissenting opinion in Ginzburg et al v. United States (1965)

• Every dimwit editor who sees himself as the source of all dreary blanc-mange plain porridge unleavened literature, licks his guillotine and eyes the neck of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery rhyme.
  • Ray Bradbury, in Fahrenheit 451, Coda (1979 edition)

Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost. ~ Thomas Jefferson ~

As I know that not all are inclined to persist in their inclinations to defend liberties where it is obvious there are some groups of people prone to cohere in their opposition to them, those few who do cohere for liberty can sometimes render humanity a valuable service, and I hope that in the times to come, what efforts I have made to help people become more aware and appreciative of the principles of Justice, Unity, Liberty and Joyous Universal Love of ALL will be of great benefit to many, even if many of the ways I have done so remain obscured and unnoticed by most. Blessings to all. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 06:55, 15 February 2014 (UTC) + tweaks

I know some indications of the complexities of my own particular thoughts and ideas, and those of others, in promotion of liberty and praise for it and for the presentations of ideas in general can seem "verbose" — but that is one of the burdens of having a relatively complex mind and the will to keep it complexly alert and active. Something which many of the wise throughout the ages have advised, in various ways. I add this little note to provide just a few more refinements of thought and a further quote that addresses one of the tragedies of current times:

In a three-minute stretch between commercials, or in seven hundred words, it is impossible to present unfamiliar thoughts or surprising conclusions with the argument and evidence required to afford them credibility. Regurgitation of welcome pieties faces no such problem. ~ Noam Chomsky ~

So it goes… and so much as they ever can … may Blessings abound. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 07:07, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

I like this QOTD layout. ~ DanielTom (talk) 11:03, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Which? There are two examples of illustrated quotations above (Miranda July and Thomas Jefferson). I prefer the second layout for use on the main page because it doesn't make the QotD box 7–8 times larger (depending on window size) than the QotD itself and push everything else "below the fold". ~ Ningauble (talk) 14:46, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I was referring to the QOTD (Miranda July), not the Jefferson quote. [I don't think Kalki posted the latter with the intent of it being a QOTD layout proposal.] There have certainly been some QOTDs that I found too extravagant, or with too many mystical (large) pictures, but in this QOTD the pictures seem comparatively well chosen and pleasant. However, more generally, I agree that the QOTD should preferably have fewer & smaller pictures (otherwise, it gives readers the wrong impression, this wiki is not really about the pictures), and occupy less space, so that for example the suggested articles in the main page could gain more immediate visibility. ~ DanielTom (talk) 15:01, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

It does not. But the person who runs this site thinks otherwise, and also equates "criticism of layout decisions" with "censorship." There is nothing anyone can do about it, except avoid the main page entirely. That's easy enough to do with Google, and I would recommend it as a way around the egregious front page. TreeRol (talk) 20:40, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

"It does not" seems a rather incoherent statement, along with others less obviously so. No one "runs" this site, and despite the regular efforts of a few people to absolutely constrain and control what others can do, in ways that defy and betray the very principles of promoting extremely diverse and minimally regulated contributions with which most wikis were founded, it remains, on the whole, only incidentally and probably not permanently corrupted by such efforts. And despite the often infantile reactions of people in responding to criticism, I certainly do NOT stupidly assert that criticism of layout decisions amounts to "censorship" — I assert that calls for extreme constraint or ELIMINATION of layout decisions by those most involved in the actual work and consideration of options, by a few people who seem most interested in constraining or eliminating MANY options IS censorship. Such constraints as would de facto constrain others to the sensibilities or desires of a relatively small group of people who seem very inclined to be critical and intolerant of others ideas, and often quite extremely intolerant and punitive towards criticisms of themselves and their ideas. And indeed if such people find the layouts which others have acclaimed so intolerable, they are more than welcome to do as they will and avoid looking at them at all, and avoid considering any ideas or presentations save those they find most comfortable and consoling to their precious little minds and forms of mindfulness. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 21:14, 19 February 2014 (UTC) + tweaks

I realized afterwards that your lead statement "It does not" probably refers to the leading question presented by the creator of this section, which pretty much ignores all the extensive material added afterward. If one can overlook that much text and imagery as if it were not existent, and mattered not at all, congratulations of a sort: I have little doubt that you will be able to succeed in keeping your mind "pure and undefiled" by any "alien" ideas such as I or others might introduce. So it goes... ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 21:45, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

(I wonder whether you'll be able to post such pictures again in discussions once Flow is enacted.) ~ DanielTom (talk) 23:19, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Kalki, it is possible to read what you write and still disagree with you. I did not ignore "all the extensive material added afterward," nor did I "overlook that much text and imagery as if it were not existent." I read it, which should have been obvious by the fact that I referenced it. I just disagree with you. The QotD does not need 6 images. Your arguments are not persuasive - particularly the one comparing letters to pictures. The fact that you believe your making an argument means that argument is correct is one of the problems here. I am not promoting censorship of ideas. I don't believe the unimaginative are trying to constrain or control anyone. I believe 6 images makes the QotD section too busy, and distracts from the purpose of this site, which is to provide quotes. That's my opinion. But I'm aware that no amount of argument against what you want will change your actions, or your opinion of those who disagree with you as closed-minded troglodytes. TreeRol (talk) 15:08, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps it might be simplest to get rid of the quotation altogether, and simply post "Mystical pictures of the day"? At present, the quotation tends to get lost amidst all the galactic objects, lights in the forest, rainbows, shadows extending into the distance, hands reaching for the sky, etc., etc. - Macspaunday (talk) 17:11, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I fear Kalki's method might actually have the opposite effect of what he is trying to accomplish. In the first place, I am not sure whether these large pictures do a good job in attracting more people's attention to the quote, or if on the contrary people get bored with always seeing the same pattern and flashy colors—which could lead them to not read the quotes of the day, and start avoiding the main page. Now, to be fair, Kalki often tries to choose appropriate, and different, pictures for QOTD. But Macspaunday's parody of Kalki's preference for mystical imagery might actually point to a poverty of thought that is much contrary to Kalki's sincere intention of introducing people to new thoughts and ideas. At least speaking for myself, when I read a quote for the first time, I prefer to be free to imagine (and produce my own imagery of) what the quote represents, to me, on my own. Kalki might wish to present his interpretation of the quote to others, but this (unintentionally?) interferes and breaks in advance my own interpretation. It's like being forced to watch a movie adaptation (good or bad) before reading a book. I don't know how that's compatibly with the principles of Freedom Kalki defends. ~ DanielTom (talk) 18:19, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

On the subject of what attracts people. Taking a quick look at our "rival" sites, apparently goodreads doesn't have nor use subjective pictures at all, and they seem to attract more people than Wikiquote (the same is true for brainyquote, which in fact doesn't present any pictures). Of course these sites are not good in many aspects (e.g., sourcing of quotes), but perhaps goodreads' policy to only present a small picture of the author next to the quote is something we could adopt. I'm almost sure that if they started adding large colorful shining pictures next to quotes, their viewership would decline. Perhaps giving a more professional look to our main page would help attract (and keep) more visitors. I recently made two simple suggestions for the QOTD, here and here, don't know if they would be better. ~ DanielTom (talk) 18:39, 20 February 2014 (UTC) P.S. Obviously the QOTD alone is not even remotely responsible for overall less viewership, Wikiquote has many other—much more serious—problems, in content, navigation, etc. (and I repeat that I think Kalki has done more for the betterment of WQ than any other editor, my comments here are not meant to blame him, just offer constructive criticism. ~ DanielTom (talk) 19:14, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Indeed. I appreciate Kalki's desire to make an artistic presentation, but would advise him to consider the artistry of Minimalism. Hmmm, now I see that we have no page on Minimalism. BD2412 T 22:07, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

(We do now.) ~ DanielTom (talk) 23:59, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

DanielTom has offered some excellent and indisputable wisdom here. He's absolutely right that Goodreads et al. go wrong in ways that WQ goes right: WQ has sourced quotations, warnings about false and doubtful attributions, etc. - and WQ gets hundreds of things right that Goodreads et al. conspicuously get wrong. But Goodreads et al. look vastly more authoritative than WQ because they don't illustrate hundreds of different quotations with Hoag's Object, heart-shaped stones held in the hand, etc., etc. They look authoritative in ways that WQ, sadly, does not. - Macspaunday (talk) 01:08, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Why do those websites attract more traffic than WQ? This is a topic that needs research, but I believe the main reason is that they present the best quotes right at the top of their pages. goodreads, for example, has a voting system whereby the most liked quotes appear at the top. This is much different from WQ, where the readers often have to read through a sea of quotes just to find an occasional gem. (And this is particularly true in long theme pages, such as "Love".) The only way we can solve this in our current system is, believe it or not, through the use of pictures, to highlight the best quotes. (I suspect many of our readers only read through long pages by simply looking at picture captions.) So, at least to my mind, pictures can actually be the solution, not the problem. However, to be sure, I also share concerns about pictures in excess, irrelevant to the text, or too subjective that they apply and appear everywhere. In addition, although I might for example worship every single word Shakespeare wrote, placing a picture for every one of his quotes would not attract more people's attention to them, it might very well just do the opposite. This seems to be what is happening in articles that are flooded with walls of pictures. So pictures can become the problem when they are too many, and so go counter to their function of highlighting key quotes. I think this is something everyone can recognize. ~ DanielTom (talk) 12:34, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Leaving aside the consideration of typographic glyphs as images, leaving aside the question of whether Kalki speaks for the "silent majority" (or is, in some sense, a multitude incarnate), leaving aside the small mindedness of mere mortals overwhelmed by the grandeur of Kalki's idealism; Kalki actually does offer a reason to support using a multiplicity of images. To wit:  to have much more opportunity for indicating extensive and expansive ideas.

Chomsky's quoted remark about the limitations of short-form exposition is certainly correct: some ideas require a longer form for their successful exposition. Toward that end, using the very rough approximation that a picture is worth a thousand words, one might seek an opportunity to indicate extensive and expansive ideas with an essay of six thousand words. However, bearing in mind that the art of quotation is generally characterized by brevity, it would be incongruous to seek such opportunities in the pages of Wikiquote.

Kalki's defense of the photomontage as a form of expression begs the question of whether the exposition of extensive and expansive ideas belongs on the main page. I think that it does not. ~ Ningauble (talk) 15:32, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Another way of thinking about Ningauble's point is this: Imagine that the quotation of the day is typically surrounded by six quotations from the Bible or Shakespeare - and that many of them had also been used to surround completely different quotations on previous days. That would certainly be a long-form exposition, but would it be appropriate to the front page, and would it show respect to the authors of the quotations? I'd imagine that many of the authors would think they were being less than respectfully represented by a page that surrounds a sentence or two that they wrote with thousands of words from the Bible or Shakespeare. I'd imagine they would think the same way about seeing their quotations surrounded by pictures of clouds, rainbows, galactic spirals, prisms, sculpted hearts, nineteenth-century genre paintings, etc. - Macspaunday (talk) 01:50, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Amidst many activities with concerns elsewhere, I have now examined the above comments, and will probably do so again, before posting some responses to some recent statements and actions. I am considering many options of what sorts of rebuttals to make, as I again leave for elsewhere, for there are plainly many complexities to consider in the assertions and attitudes of those who seek to impose what they perceive as admirable "simplicity" on the options of others in quite complicated ways, for quite complicated and varied reasons. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 22:23, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Why bother? From your attitude in that very comment we can be pretty confident what your response will be. We cannot discuss what the community deems appropriate on this site as long as it might have some impact on you having your way. It's not very complicated at all. You will do what you want, and any discussion to the contrary is us (no matter how great a majority we are) trying to "impose" something on you. The discussion will go nowhere as long as you continue to ignore that somebody's opinions aside from yours might have merit. TreeRol (talk) 17:16, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

I am always willing to acknowledge merit, where it can be found, and to actually bother about a lot of things others do not, where vitally important forms of truth are at stake; and you are actually right to some very limited extent, though demonstrably wrong in others, for you can rely upon my responses being quite contrary to those which promote various forms of suppression of various forms of intelligent exposition by various forms of arrogant misuse of force.

Ironies and profound forms of stupidity about them certainly abound in this world, in ways I will actually decline to always specify, out of consideration of the plainly delicate and fragile sensibilities of some, and the need to discreetly retain some forms of knowledge to be revealed in more effective ways than those of presently declaring them openly to some of the most plainly ignorant, intolerant and insensitive people presently active here. I will actually specify that many of the most belligerently intolerant and oppressive of people are often desperate to find ways to convince others of the certainty of their numerical or absolute moral superiority, and genuinely believe such things themselves. I am certainly NOT quite so full of shallow and stupid certitude about many things as you certainly are trying to make me seem, in ways I will concede I perceive to be quite shallow and obvious.

I must say that for someone who had as yet only started a topic of derision of my work, and had made only 3 edits, all specifically in derision of me, who has contributed over 100,000, armed with all the authority of "collective identity" with a few others of the most intolerant here which those 3 edits provided you, declared in rather comically imperious tones of command as a member of "the collective", of those most avid to control OTHERS: "You must realize that if your actions are guided by what you do and do not believe proper, then you are constraining what we (the collective we) can DO and SAY in terms of this project. You are imposing your will on others."

I am not actually intimidated very much at all by such remarkably clear examples of the presumptive arrogance of the most intolerant and eagerly oppressive of people; I actually expect many of them to eventually provide prominent and long remembered examples to many students and researches of psychological and sociological processes, of significant aberrations in the social processes, towards subtle and overt forms of anti-social oppression and suppression of dissent.

Actually from the moment I first read those words, I honestly perceived you might be engaged in one of the most remarkably arrogant, petty and presumptuous forms of pretension and deceitfulness or delusions which I had yet encountered on this wiki, and I actually strongly suspect that you could very likely be one of the sporadic trolls who primarily aim to disrupt the normal processes of wikis and their development. Of course I am quite willing to concede that I could be entirely wrong, and you are not actually such a paltry twerp, and even without much actual evidence in support of such an assessment, could conceivably even be a generally mild and benevolent researcher in various social sciences, including those of how people respond in positive and negative ways to various forms of generally positive and intelligent presentations of various ideas or indications of the beauty of the world, and in this case you are assuming the guise of an intolerant belligerent twerp or troll to provide an example for all eternity of how easily swayed to paths of oppressive stupidity some people can be, much like those in the psychology experiments of Solomon Asch, Stanley Milgram, and Philip Zimbardo. IF that were the actually the case here I would actually have to assert that I consider it an extremely unethical and misguided practice and strongly disagree with the adoption of such vile guises by anyone, even in pretenses, for ostensibly worthy psychological research and investigations, and forms of direct action in social involvement.

Though not quite as pessimistic as he sometimes was, I have long agreed to a great extent with many of the observations of the intelligent Heroically Angelic Humanist Absurdist, Kurt Vonnegut including that in Mother Night: We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.

As I have remained busier than I had anticipated I would be in various complex concerns, and it actually looks like I will continue to be for a while yet, I am willing to patiently consider many options and aspects of many situations, before I respond more vigorously here, to what I believe to be many rather ironically stupid developments in the audacity of those who would suppress and censor the indication of thoughts and ideas.

As I have to get busy doing other things now, I will simply close with a profound quote by one of many profound philosophers who I have long admired:

Every morning I shall concern myself anew about the boundary Between the love-deed-Yes and the power-deed-No And pressing forward honor reality. We cannot avoid Using power, Cannot escape the compulsion To afflict the world, So let us, cautious in diction And mighty in contradiction, Love powerfully.

~ Martin Buber ~

Blessings to all. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 19:23, 24 February 2014 (UTC) + tweaks

Name-calling and cries of censorship, while hiding behind some kind of absolute moral authority. Who could have seen that coming?

I'll admit that my attempt to improve the wiki in this particular way has been lost, although I'd encourage others to continue the battle. And especially, if you are reading this and agree, I would encourage you to register and to speak up. Even if your contribution will be dismissed (publicly, anyway - privately I have received kudos), if you desire the improvement of this project you should contribute in any way you see necessary, including this one. TreeRol (talk) 22:04, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

You are plainly mistaken if you think I am "hiding behind some kind of absolute moral authority." I am a rather anarchistic Absurdist and though I might accept that in some ways there could be such absolutes, I reject notions that any mortal mind has the capacity or comprehension to absolutely determine or formulate such with absolutely reliable accuracy. To each their own pieces of the puzzles... So it goes... ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 22:20, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Universal Language Selector will be enabled by default again on this wiki by 21 February 2014

On January 21 2014 the MediaWiki extension Universal Language Selector (ULS) was disabled on this wiki. A new preference was added for logged-in users to turn on ULS. This was done to prevent slow loading of pages due to ULS webfonts, a behaviour that had been observed by the Wikimedia Technical Operations team on some wikis.

We are now ready to enable ULS again. The temporary preference to enable ULS will be removed. A new checkbox has been added to the Language Panel to enable/disable font delivery. This will be unchecked by default for this wiki, but can be selected at any time by the users to enable webfonts. This is an interim solution while we improve the feature of webfonts delivery.

You can read the announcement and the development plan for more information. Apologies for writing this message only in English. Thank you. Runa

No apology is needed. Visitors here are not required to master the subtle art of translating from English to Quotish. ~ Ningauble (talk) 13:07, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Heh. PiRSquared17 (talk) 04:11, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Amendment to the Terms of Use

Hello all,

Please join a discussion about a proposed amendment to the Wikimedia Terms of Use regarding undisclosed paid editing and we encourage you to voice your thoughts there. Please translate this statement if you can, and we welcome you to translate the proposed amendment and introduction. Please see the discussion on Meta Wiki for more information. Thank you! Slaporte (WMF) 22:00, 21 February 2014 (UTC)