Talk:Main Page/Archives/001

Logo

I think the logo would be better with a white background and some fancy border. Personal opinion, though. Kpjas 16:31 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)

If you want to create a new one, go ahead. -fonzy :-)

I've just uploaded one. No fancy border though -- Jimregan 02:14 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I've created a version of the same logo as the current one but with antialiased text. While new logo ideas are being thought out, the new image can serve as a temporary replacement. -- Arvindn 07:09 7 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Wikipedia will soon be deciding on a new logo. Should Wikiquote adopt the logo of Wikipedia, or should it have its own logo? Nanobug 02:40, 17 Sep 2003 (UTC)

As Wikiquote is a sister project it should have its own international logo. So my answer is no. -fonzy

I've set the antiliased version (with slight tweaks) as the present logo for the meantime. I really like Neolux's proposal, fwiw. Any objections to switching to it? --Brion VIBBER 06:14, 25 Sep 2003 (UTC)

No objections here. Nanobug 16:39, 25 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Done, please see Wikiquote:Logo. --Brion VIBBER 05:05, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I noticed the logo is changed. It is nog longer this one; nl:Afbeelding:Wiki.png Is this a idea of this Wiki? Walter 12:09, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The logo had been changed back to the latest one this morning, and I do not know why it has changed back to the older one now. ~ Kalki 13:30, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Thw logo seems to be in a state or extreme flux: I was about to note that it had changed back to the newest version, but as I updated my page before typing here, it had changed back to the oldest one. What it will end up being when things stop being shifted around I do not know, nor why it continues to be changed. ~ Kalki 15:36, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Speeches

Hey Fonzy - cool idea. But how about also allowing much larger quotes (such as entire public domain source texts). That way there will be plenty of material for this project to work with and there would not be any duplication of effort with a "Project Sourceburg"- type project. IMO the two projects are very complimentary (just like Wikitionary is both a dictionary and thesaurus and Wikipedia is both an encyclopedia and almanac/gazetteer). --Maveric149

by a "large quote" do you mean a whole speach of something like: "I had a Dream", or a large section of it? - fonzy

the whole thing. --mav

IMO, I wouldn't do that. I may give a link to it from the persons quote page and give a meaning and source there. - fonzy

OK. Then I really don't see how this project is significantly differentiated enough from just having quotes in Wikipedia articles. It also seems to be a waste to have a separate source text wiki. --mav

Reading my previous message again, It looks like i menat sopmething else. I will ahev to do an example to show you what I mean. Also thsi project will get rid of some of the quotes that cramp the Wikipedia artilces. Alot fo the quotes taht I ahev seen on WIkipedia dont talk about the meaning or what is meant by the quote said. But this is what Wikiquote is for. Altough If others think that large quotes should be on here then, I will have to live with it. -fonzy

Now I think about it again, yes I think whole speachs can be put on here, but may have to be dealt with differently. -fonzy

Coolness! As a general rule you don't want to be too focused when making a new project. That is why the Sep11 wiki is dead (it should have been a general tribute wiki). --mav

So shall we add a "Speeches" link to the Main Page? Nanobug 20:38 21 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I like the idea of a section about whole speeches or song for example... but is there copyright problems ? Koxinga

Can you copyright speeches? I would have thought they were public domain. Nanobug

Some speeches are copyrighted, which is where we have to be carfeul. Also we have to work out a template for the layout of speeches, also ther titles for them. -fonzy

if they don't have "official title", there is often a very famous sentence in a famous speech. We could use it , no ? Koxinga 16:57 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

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Speeches aren't quotations. If you want to collect speeches, make a wikispeech. --212.142.33.102 15:56, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Natch, it already exists: Wikisource --212.142.33.100 20:41, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

New website

Anybody want to go ahead and reserve http://wikiquote.org and http://wikiquote.com for the Wikimedia Foundation? I would but my partner won't let me buy any more URLs for Wikimedia. --mav

Nevermind - Jimbo just bought both domain names. I'm sure a developer will move this wiki to the .org soon. --mav

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Sticking to Wikipedia standards where appropriate

(Lacking a Wikiquote:Village pump or similar, I suppose this is the best place to ask) Should pages like Latin Proverbs, Irish Proverbs &c be at Latin proverbs &c? I'm just wondering if I should move or redirect -- Jimregan 02:05 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I agree. It makes sense to stick by Wikipedia standards unless we have a good reason not to. Moved. Nanobug 17:24 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

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Quote of the day

I have added a Quote of the Day to the Main page. What do you think? Nanobug 17:32 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I like the idea, but having a human update it seems (1) troublesome, and (2) subject to personal biases. I recall something about a resuraunt with a QoD getting in trouble for quoting Hitler saying "The victor will not be asked whether he told the truth or not," so a random quotation should be clearly marked as such. But I would love to hear a gem of insight from a philosopher I'd never heard of before... Paullusmagnus

I agree it is problematic having a human update it. However, it may be difficult (but not necessarily impossible) to automate the process, since the program would have to pick a random page (that has quotes on it, as opposed to templates or something) and then parse the page and pick a quote from it. Since this would have to be built into the Wikipedia Phase3 (or maybe 4) software, and there are already several bug fixes and enhancement requests for this, it will probably not be done soon. Any other ideas? Nanobug

(And I have changed the link to the author to stay within WikiQuote rather than to Wikipedia. They can always get to Wikipedia from the author page. Nanobug)

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Wikiquote software customizations

Also, the Language.php file needs to be heavily edited to change things like "The Free Encyclopedia", "About Wikipedia", etc to something more appropriate to this Wiki. Or is the WikiQuote considered part of the Wikipedia? Ditto for Wikimedia - Textbooks. Nanobug 18:20 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Wikiquote is a sister project to wikipedia and wiktionary, not a sub project. -fonzy

That is what I thought. That is why we need to get references to Wikipedia removed. Nanobug

Another problem: the title of the main page is "Main Page - Wikipedia", but it should be "Main Page - Wikiquote". Browsers like Mozilla show this title in the windows title bar and in the tab label. Dwheeler 02:56, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)

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"Wikiquote"

Quibble: Technically, I believe that "quote" is only a noun in the sense of "insurance quote." In the sense of repeating phrases, we can quote great philosophers, but we can only get quotations from them. Of course, "quote" as a noun is entering common English (I've seen it in at least one dictionary), so we can choose to use it, but pedants will be turned off by seeing improper usage. "Wikiquote" and "quote.wikipedia.org" are fine anyways because they make sense as verbs.... Does anyone have feelings on the matter? Paullusmagnus

Wikiquote is a noun but that doesn't mean that both "wiki" and "quote" need be nouns. "Wiki" means quick which is either an adjective or adverb. A quote, in the sense used here, is a verb. So at Wikiquote we quickly quote people. It works for me anyway. --Maveric149 07:34 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I meant that we use "Quote of the Day" and "Wikimedia Quote Emporium" in the text of the wiki. I think "Wikiquote" is fine. Paullusmagnus

Using "Quote" to mean quotation is fine, OED lists this usage from 1885 onwards. --Imran 21:52 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

You have to treat "Wikiquote" as a brand new word, rather than two old words put together. -fonzy

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Reducing size of Main Page

At this stage of the project, do we need links on the Main Page to List of people, List of literary works and List of proverbs, which appear to be duplicates of the lists on the Main Page? (When we have a large number of articles we will probably need something like this, but perhaps not for a while yet.) Nanobug 12:52 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

In the last few days we have had quite a lot of articles added, and will probably get many more. So now my question is the other way around - do we need to list every person on the main page any more, especially since we are listing them on List of people (and the maintenance of both is becoming tedious and error prone)? Why don't we remove them from the Main Page (and just leave the link), and do the same for Literary Works and Proverbs?

For example, maybe we should have something like this between Quote of the Day and About this Project, similar to the way Wiktionary does it:

== Quotes ==

[[List of people|by people]] - [[List of literary works|in literary works]] - [[List of proverbs|proverbs]] - [[List of speeches|speeches]] - [[List of themes|by theme]] Nanobug 21:07 21 Jul 2003 (UTC)

which would look like:

Quotes

by people - in literary works - proverbs - speeches - by theme

I agree but then the main page will seem quite empty. We can make a selection of the most known of the celebrities quoted instead of listing all of them... Koxinga

With a "See List of people for a complete list." note at the bottom perhaps? Nanobug

See below for resolution of this discussion point. Nanobug 16:54, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)

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Themed-based quotations

Recent changes by Ellmist have implied that we could have a set of Theme-based quotations, quotations on war, pets, lies, intelligence, children, truth, success, failure, work, happiness etc. Is this a good idea?

My personal opinion is that this would involve duplication of quotes in 2 or more articles (one quote could easily be associated with several different concepts) and that we would want to avoid duplication. The current search facility, although not ideal for this task (due to not looking for synonyms of words entered), can already show several pages which have quotes which include any specific word i.e search for "war". Nanobug 16:22 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

But in the current system, duplication of quotes can exists too. A quote from a literature can also be considered as a quote of the author of that work. I think we need some clear policies about that.

Oh but why do we want to avoid duplication? (I think the theme-based quotes idea is really good.) --Lorenzarius 17:02 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I think Ellmist cut and pasted all those from another site directly even the bits abnout themes quotations. I dont think it was his idea. -fonzy

He has you can see by looking at this link: [1]

Yes, I had noticed that. I don't think we should have links to quotes on related themes after every quote. But I have thought about it and changed my mind about themed aricles in Wikiquote. Duplication is not bad as such I guess. Since that is at least two of us, if no-one has any objections I guess we can go ahead and begin creating themed articles. Nanobug

The themed-based pages don't have to be exhaustive. First we add a citation on its autor's page then if it fit into a category, we could add it. Koxinga

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What wikiquote's aims should be

I think we should make some serious consideration on which direction Wikiquote should go and what our aims should be. After all the standard name is quotations, Bartlett has been out of copyright for decades, and there are hundreds if not thousands of quotations websites. And given the nature of quotes lacking copyright, there is no great need for a copyleft quotations site.

So to gain market share amongs users of quotations websites/dictionaries, we need to have something which makes us stand out. I'm open to suggestions, but I think we should go for authenticity, as that is something lacking from most current sources. For every single quote we should either have information about when/where the quote was said/written or alternatively have information about the earliest known source of the quote (that we can find).

--Imran 21:21 21 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Agreed - fonzy

Sounds good in theory. How about this for a possible implementation: we divide each set of quotes by a person into two sections, Verified and Attributed. See Wikiquote talk:Templates/Archive for an example.

I am happy with that adaption. - fonzy ---

I think our of our (Wikiquote's) strengths over other quotation sites should be as close as possible integration with Wikipedia (Wiktionary?). We can give really broad background information about authors, literary works, historical period etc (through Wikipedia). So Notes: could be quite extensive. I suppose we could link to years in literature for literary works.
Verification of quotations is crucial, especially with wiki editorial process.
Kpjas 21:10 22 Jul 2003 (UTC)

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Only very early editions of Bartlett's are out of copyright. The world could use a free dictionary of quotations with some actual added value; that is, proper references and such.

Misquotations

We IMO should have misquotations on Wikiquote and say or guide the reader to the correct one. -fonzy

Do you mean a page of misquotations, or misquotes on each person's page? Nanobug

A special page for misquotations. -fonzy

I agree. There are a few really famous incorrect quotes out there, which people might just think are missing from a page if they don't see them. If a person has a famous quote misattributed to them, it'd be very helpful to have that pointed out on the page. It looks like some people are already doing this, as on the George Washington page. In a similar vein, other people have famous quotes attributed to them, but taken out of context. In these cases it would be helpful to list the quote in its fuller context, with the famous out-of-context bit in bold. I can't think of a good example of this just now, though. --67.118.43.33 19:12, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

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This "agreement" makes no sense, since "fonzy" is speaking about a "special page". I say misquotations should be on both the (supposed) speaker's page and a general "misquotations" page. --212.142.33.102 15:56, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

What is a quotation ?

I think we need a definition of quotation to help us define what should and what should not be part of wikiquote.

One definition:

A quote is a statement attributed to a specific source which is repeated to express an idea or belief, due to the clarity, insight or weight of the statement being superior to other statements expressing the same idea.

I think this will cover most of our quotes, but not quite all, as some quotes are used to illustrate the personality of the speaker or the event the quote describes. (for instance Bushisms, or the many WW2 quotes).

Does this cover all the quotes we want in wikiquote or am I missing some other types of quotes ?

--Imran 22:17 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Do we accept funny quotations? If yes, it should be added somewhere. Koxinga 10:50 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I can't see why not. As long as someone else created the humor in the first place, and we are not trying to add humor in later (e.g. in Notes). They could be added to each person's page as per normal, or Anonymous if the author is not known. You could even have a Humorous quotes page if you wanted, although this may grow rather large since a good percentage of the quotes in Wikiquote are humorous. Nanobug 17:02 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I've just created a TV show quote page for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It's somewhat far afield of the Bartlett's approach, both in intent and format, so it might serve to stretch the imagination about what folks might consider a "quotation", particularly for inclusion in Wikiquote. (The same will probably be true for other TV quote pages.) I invite comments and suggestions (even if they're only to say I shouldn't post such a statement here on the Talk:Main page). :-) ☺ -- Jeff Q 02:57, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Short quotations of dialog within a written story, play, film, tv show episodes, interviews or general conversation seem fine to me, though generally short statements by a single person should be the preffered format. These fit in quite well with the idea of short representational quotations to exhibit some interesting aspects of a literary or theatrical work. — Kalki 03:33, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC)

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IMO the quotations should be at least somewhat of general interest. This means that in general (unless they are very famous by themselves) they really should have some meaning outside of the original context. I'm really not waiting for a ton of quotations from a show I've never seen, and that for that reason make no sense at all to me. --212.142.33.102 15:56, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Wikiquote suggestions

Any chance of an RSS feed or similar to allow other websites to use WQ for their own QOTD? I can see that it would be a popular thing, and would help promote the Wikimedia family to those that haven't previously heard about it.

Maybe even having a small text file or something with a new quote every day, then building a script for web-builders to put on their site with "Wikiquote of the Day" or "quotes provided by Wikiquote" text or similar.

Any thoughts?

--Neolux 20:59 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)

An interface for selecting random quotes in plaintext or XML would be nice, since at this point I'm sure WQ's database is larger than UNIX fortune's..

--[[User::otiswild|otiswild]]

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Special characters

Neolux, may I ask why you removed the special characters from three people on the Main Page? (François-René de Chateaubriand, Henri Poincaré, and François Rabelais) Nanobug 14:05 27 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I did? It was certainly unintentional! Perhaps my browser was in a weird mode when editing the page to add the link to Misquotations. I have a Mac and was using Safari at the time, and it's usually pretty good with international character sets and things like that...Sorry about that! I'll see if it happens again when I get home and see what could have happened. Neolux 17:37 27 Jul 2003 (UTC)

That's OK, these things happen. I notice Koxinga replaced them quickly so no harm done. (Thanks Koxinga.) Nanobug

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Misc

I added Unknown to main page but deleted it as I think I'd better discuss it here. My intention was to separate quotes that are known not to have authors (Anonymous) from quotes whose authors are not known (but are known to exist). If someone has a quote for which he knows that it has author (like I did for "Vae Victis"; I just don't know how his name is written in English), but doesn't know who that is, he would put it in Unknown; it would be some sort of 'work in progress' section. Anonymous would remain for quotes that are known not to have authors.

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hm it appears during the software update, the Wikiquote name space was changed back to Wikipedia, probably accidently. It needs to be put back -fonzy

So you installed the software? Who can fix this? Nanobug 21:04, 18 Aug 2003 (UTC)

LOL no I didn't install the software :-), We need to change the .php back to Wikiquote: namespace. -fonzy

That was meant to be "So who installed the software? Who can fix this?" I must have been dreaming when I wrote it. Nanobug 22:44, 18 Aug 2003 (UTC)

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We need to change (IMO) "From the Wikimedia Quote Emporium" to "From Wikiquote, the free Quotation Encylopedia". -fonzy

I agree. I always felt that "Emporium" did not fit on Wikiquote. Nanobug 21:04, 18 Aug 2003 (UTC)

So do I. Kpjas

COPY or MOVE quotes from Wikipedia?

Can you please add your comments on en:Talk:Wikiquote#Removing_quotes_from_Wikipedia?, Thanks Fantasy

New Main Page design

OK, we now have a new main page! See the discussion leading up to this change at Talk:Proposed new main page. Nanobug 16:51, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I have a suggestion for the universal page template: I think it would be very convenient for most, if there were a direct link to the list of people by name on all pages, as there currently are for the main page and recent changes. —Kalki 2003·08·22 19:07 UTC (PS: the macro I use for my time stamp is something I use systemwide on my computer, and appear fine to me… but if there are any odd characters that are generated for other people, when I use them in these entry boxes, I can use somethng else.)

We have a direct link to list of people by name (and occupation) from recent changes. I don't know how to change the overall page template, I think that is in the actual PHP software somewhere. Re your timestamp, no there are no odd characters, but I am wondering why you don't just use the standard ~~~~ to do user + timestamp? Nanobug 19:25, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)

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Slogans

I had the idea of also addng slogans to Wikiquote eg: Coca-Cola:

• "Always Coca-Cola"
• Date: 19whenever - whenever
• Countries: United Kingdom, other1, other 2
• Notes: maybe brief history of the slogan

Although will we face copyright problems with some slogans? -fonzy

Slogans aren't quotations. --212.142.33.102 15:56, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

comments

Shouldn't we add a section where we, the unfamous, could add our own witicism? I bet there are a lot of people out there that could contribute their thoughts and views of the world..

Shouldn't there be a history section?

I was asked by a polish user: [2] what the font is on the wikiqoute logo. Would somebody help him/her please?

I believe that the logo was designed by w:User:Neolux so he might be able to help. ~ Kalki 17:03, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

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Please rollback to the previous of Wikimedia software. Who brings a buggy beta online? --80.219.6.127 23:12, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

One thing i'm unable to understand is how you are unable to gather all theseinformation and how u wil be clarifying the doubts???

and the main thing you are giving the users to edit the information. Isin't it suspicious or it wont damage ur website?

Fix front page

The search box on the front page at Wikiquote actually redirects to articles at Wikipedia. This is silly from a usability stand-point. Why would someone visit Wikiquote to find articles from Wikipedia? 138.217.242.74 09:09, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This was probably just a temporary glitch; things seem okay now. ~ Kalki 18:13, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

New "Tennyson Quote of the Day" section

Moved to Wikiquote talk:Quote of the day

Sister projects

The first word of sister projects should be changed to "Wikiquote" (rather than Wikipedia, which this is not). 24 ^go who am i to disagree // 01:37, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

How I may create a new article for him?

What to click?

Coronado

Looking for information about what kind of people live Ca.

10:51, 11 March 2005 (PST)

Quote of the Day email list inexistent?

Moved to Wikiquote talk:Quote of the day

RS/RDF-Feed or similar of the Quote of the day?

Moved to Wikiquote talk:Quote of the day

Pornography references

There is a whole lot of pornography references on the main page. I wonder if you can fix this problem. -- 4.252.157.190 01:09, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

That was actually fixed by the time you posted your request. If you still see problems, click on your browser's refresh button once or twice to get an updated page. — Jeff Q (talk) 05:17, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Main Page protected

I have just protected the Main Page from edits by anyone other than sysops. The incidents of spam and other forms of vandalism have recently been becoming too extreme and too frequent to permit this page to remain open to all users, and the time has probably come to permanently protect it, as is the case with the Wikipedia main page. There is a known problem that I myself have experienced, where previous edits remain as the apparently most recent edit to users who are not logged in, and some of the postings to this page recently are not what we would wish newcomers to the project to first encounter when they first visit Wikiquote. ~ Kalki 15:19, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The Simpsons

It's The Simpsons, not Simpsons! -- 68.72.125.15 15:54, 26 Mar 2005

I appreciate your frustration at this seeming inaccuracy, but please consider that the Main page has a very condensed list of useful links. You will notice that other shows are abbreviated in a form recognized by the entertainment industry as being sufficient to identify the show. (Examples: Buffy for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, MST3K for Mystery Science Theater 3000.) The fact that many browsers will display the full titles when one moves one's mouse over the link also helps to make clear the correct titles. A number of editors here (myself included) work to ensure that TV shows have their full official names as their article titles. (Also, please forgive the relocation of your posting, but Main page comments are typically added to the bottom of the page.) — Jeff Q (talk) 21:22, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Based on your other Simpsons-related link edits, I see I misunderstood the scope of your concern. There is an ongoing argument in the Wikiverse on whether to use articles (e.g., a, an, the) in page titles. This often encourages people to create pages without articles in the title. I think this isn't quite as common on Wikiquote, and, as I mentioned above, editors often change film and TV show page titles to their formal names when it occurs, leaving redirects from the article-less name. It's always a good idea to fix the redirects in links when this occurs, but practically speaking, many people either forget or don't take the sometimes considerable time to do this task. Thank you for your conscientious effort to remove these Simpsons redirects. — Jeff Q (talk) 21:40, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Not linking the basic structure

I.e., it would sure be nicer if one single quote entered once could appear on the page for its theme, its author, its source work, etc. etc., rather than their being strewn about according to how they were entered. I don't know if that's possible with the current Wiki technology, or how. 206.213.251.31 20:17, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

With Wiki, the controller (the editing mode) and the view (how the quotes appear to the user) are very tightly coupled. I can think of three advantages of this design:

1. It is obvious how changes to the quotes data affect the way quotes appear. A contributor who wants to add a quote or change the way a word is spelled or capitalized simply makes the change in the Edit window, and it is accomplished. Contributors are able to train themselves.
2. It is obvious how to arrange quotes on a page in any order, by just cutting them from one place and pasting them in another, perhaps by topic, perhaps by some progressive sequence within a topic. It is difficult to implement this freedom of arrangement for an untrained user with a SQL ORDER BY.
3. It enables such a powerful "undo" that for the most part the controls can be left open to the public.

All that being said, I still agree it would be nice if one quote could show up on many pages. Maybe Flickr, del.icio.us, and de.lerio.us are instructive? Enabling contributor-added tags to quotes would let users browse by arbitrary categories. I think that could be done and still keep advantages 1 and 3, but it is not obvious to me how to provide advantage 2, the ordering of quotes within a category. Perhaps playlists?

--Eustace Tilley 10:07, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Link to Mnemonics

For "Mnemonics," the Browse link at the top of the page is to Category:Mnemonics. The Categories link at the bottom of the page is to Mnemonics. I think the Categories link should be changed to point to Category:Mnemonics. --Eustace Tilley 09:23, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for notice, Eustace Tilley. Not only Mnemonics but other links are links to articles, too. Supposingly they survive before the time we have no Category namespace. Or just the name "Categories" are misleading. I leave it now, I am not sure it should be changed as you said. Besides this fact, your proposal is worthy to consider if we change those links' target. --Aphaia 10:26, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

With the completed VfD deletion of the Mnemonics article, both links now point to Category:Mnemonics. — Jeff Q (talk) 03:05, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Unknowns...

I've noticed a lot of "unknowns" in the topics lists. These are not quotes. A quote can be anonymous but some sort of source should be provided. In some of the articles, it certainly appears that opinionated editors are adding thier own private opinions as quotes attributed to nobody. This takes away from the integrety of the 'pedia. Specifically I noticed lots on "editor opinions" in the abortion topic article under "pro life". If we can't remove them, can someone at least add some arbitrary opinions to the pro choice side to help balance the article? I'm just dying to add "Babies are stupid! - Unknown". PS: Why are we seperating the sides in this? What about neutral discussion? Why not just mix them arbitrarily or by source alphabetically?

Add Mickey to new

I've just created a fairly substansial page of celebrity quotes about Mickey Mouse, any sysop mind adding a link? -- user:zanimum

I typically leave "new pages" listing for others, but I did do some other linking (which anyone can do). I had some difficulty trying to categorize Mickey. He's not a book, film, TV show, or author (although he's involved with all these). I added a link to him at Walt Disney cartoon characters and placed both of them in a new category, Cartoon characters, which covers both print and video cartoons. The new category is listed under Category:Themes until someone thinks of a better place to put it, or a better way to organize the genre. — Jeff Q (talk) 03:01, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Events and Years

What is wikiquote's policy for adding pages of quotes related to an event such as WWII or well known quotes of a year?

128.54.249.137 04:30, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

I don't believe we have a policy on years. The recent enabling of formatted dates (like 15 May 2005, which displays differently for each user based on their Preferences setting) encourages the creation of date and year pages, but we haven't really discussed this yet. I'm a bit leery of collecting quotes by date or year in general, because of the additional duplication of quotes and the unlikelihood that people would look up quotes by date or year. (There are some exceptions, perhaps, like 4 July, 1 May, or 1939.) As far as WWII goes, World War II might make a reasonable theme article. — Jeff Q (talk) 13:42, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

I imagined a quote yearbook for a collection that properly reflects the events that shaped the year (e.g. "Not guilty", 1995). I thought it would be a perfect complement to the wikipedia year pages. 128.54.249.137 20:10, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Template introduction

Is there any inconvenience, if we introduce templates for "New articles" and interlang links (and some other frequently updated part)? I heard once, if a page contains the more history, loading is a bit the higher stressed. It would be nice to reduce stress on accessing to the main page... --Aphaia 12:57, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Sounds okay to me; editing those sections would be easier as well, not having to find them amidst the formatting of other sections. ~ Kalki 13:08, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'm a firm believer in not making changes that make life harder for humans in order to make things easier for computers, so I'm against any complications unless there is a proven, compelling performance problem. But if templates make it easier for human editors to maintain it without changing usability for human readers, I say go for it. — Jeff Q (talk) 14:59, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think templates on Main Page bring us editors two benefits;

• Unless we protect templates, any people can edit parts using templates (like "New articles")
• As Kalki said, we are less bothered with anxiety if we corrupt table schemes (there are many esoteric parameters which I can hardly understand).

The first benefit will be lost if each template is vandalized and need to protect, but the second one won't be lost. We can highlight only parts we need to modify and update, using templates. --Aphaia 16:21, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Che Guevara quote

Wow - my first visit to Wikiquote and I'm smacked right in the face by a quote from Che Guevara. Help! - I'm surrounded by socialism! -- 129.33.49.251, 09:42, 14 Jun 2005

Don't worry — there's plenty of capitalism and most every other -ism represented in Wikiquote. Why don't you try using the Random Page link to explore just how varied Wikiquote is? And welcome! — Jeff Q (talk) 20:10, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

RSS feed

I would think that being able to add an RSS feed would be very simple.

Is there a roadmap of features?

If so, is this already on it?

I inquire about how legal it would be to put the QOTD on my website as a interesting factoid. If it is, is there a way to have it automatically updated when it updates on the main page. That would be a great alternative to manually updating it. Contact me via aim about this, I dont have an account here yet. (HAMsterONtheBLOOK) --12.217.69.199 00:03, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

I have an account now. Please still use the AIM screen name to contact me. --ZERVONIUS 00:07, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

The ordinary mortals should be allowed to contribute

Ordinary people who have seen the world with a discerning eye, have a philosophical bent of mind or have wisdom on specific subjects should contribute their own quotations. This should not be reserved for only the famous people and celebrities of the world. Each person in his or her own unique way contributes to the world. So each one of us can share his or her thought. This will only help enrich the largest encyclopaedia of quotations of the world. - Indranil Sen, India

Well, that would be an interesting project — a collection of quotes from the general population. However, that isn't Wikiquote's purpose, which is to be a premier collection of quotes from famous individuals and works. Someone could always create another wiki to be a more inclusive compendium, of course. A significant problem with your idea is the question of who decides whose quotations demonstrate a "discerning eye", a "philosophical bent of mind", and "wisdom". If you are a regular participant here, you are probably well aware of the challenge in getting people to agree even on what "famous" means. Futhermore, I've never heard of anyone with personal quotations who doesn't believe themselves to be profound, although I've often heard others suggest (sometimes not so politely) how unprofound they are. I think such a project would have its work cut out for it. But I'm sure someone will start such a project eventually; that's the beauty of wiki. Meanwhile, any "ordinary mortal" can list their own quotations on their Wikiquote User page if they like. — Jeff Q (talk) 1 July 2005 07:57 (UTC)

-- Thanks Jeff for the insight. I have visited the site just today and am quite impressed. A quotation should be judged more on what it wishes to say and less on the person who has said it. Many gems in the world get unnoticed as we don't have the 'eye' to find them.

Thanks. Hope to contribute to the site in the days ahead. - Indranil Sen, India.

QotD vote

Moved to Wikiquote talk:Quote of the day

Reference text

Here is a revolutionary thought: in addition to specifying the author of the quote, why not add specific bibliographic reference?

Quotes are usually quoted from somewhere: a book, a speech, etc. I think this information would be most interesting for Wikiquote readers. (added by User:217.132.120.51)

Note that whenever there are specific sources, they are listed. Some quotes' sources are hard to track down, and then they go in "Attributed". If you have any source information, please add it to wikiquote. Thanks ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 7 July 2005 10:16 (UTC)

QOTD on main page problem

The last few days the quote of the day on the main page hasn't updated (by around 10 am - midday) but it has on the actual QOTD page, I've clicked the link to purge the main cache & then the QOTD on main page is updated. I don't know if I'm just the first person to notice this & to purge the cache, but at 10am it seems doubtful so there may be a problem with whatever procedure/program updates the main page. AllanHainey 10:00, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

I think its that with the fact that there is probably more then one server in the Wikiquote cluster. Purging the cache doesn't nesesarily reflect a changed page for all users. At least that what seems to happen. I have purged the cache and saw the change, but came back later in a new session to find the change reverted. My RSS feed gets around this though, It purges the cache before updating the RSS feed. And usually its updated on time or really close to the correct time. --Datasage 03:59, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Recently, master DB and slaves are sometimes unsynched. The latest problem was resolved few days ago after DB locking for an hour. I hope Allan finds now no problem. --Aphaia 06:40, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

It has been alright for a wee while but today I noticed that the QOTD is stuck on "I do not believe that the tendency is to make men and women brave and glorious when you tell them that there are certain ideas upon certain subjects that they must never express; that they must go through life with a pretence as a shield; that their neighbors will think much more of them if they will only keep still; and that above all is a God who despises one who honestly expresses what he believes." ~ Robert G. Ingersoll from the 12th & today is the 15th. I purged the cache but it didn't make any difference. On the Wikiquote:Quote of the day page it shows up the correct QOTD. AllanHainey 15:15, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Use Nabble to Allow Rating and Commenting on Quotes

Moved to Wikiquote talk:Quote of the day

quote?

Moved to Wikiquote talk:FAQ ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 04:34, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Problem

On Main Page, why does the right corner top say "Create Account or Log In" instead of "RyanCahn my talk peferences my watchlist my contributions log out"? RyanCahn

Problem Over

It's a miracle! Now I can do what I want with my account! RyanCahn

Thai wikiquote

I just setup Thai wikiquote at Thai wikiquote . Right now there are only 14 pages though. --206.127.177.59 00:26, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I've added a link to the Thai wikiquote on the main page. ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 10:20, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Not Blocked

I'm not blocked! Hahaha! Bad chance you users! RyanCahn

Yes blocked, for 24 hours, per policy — a textbook case of disruption. Eternal optimist that I am, I have invited Ryan to be constructive when he returns from his block. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 01:04, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Copyright

How much of an excerpt does Wikiquote accept before it becomes a copyright violation? I'm referring to Address Unknown: Episode 5. I deleted this from the same article on en.wikipedia as a copyright violation. Zoe 20:06, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

I've nominated the six "episode" articles transwikied from Wikipedia for deletion; see WQ:VFD#Address Unknown "episodes". If these are indeed complete transcriptions of the supposed "TV show", they are de facto violations. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 23:48, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Proposal

• change ..."or go to the Log in page to create an user page" to ..."or go to the Log in page to create a user page"
• add Team America: World Police to the films section.

-- Zanaq

I've made the "a user" correction. The other request brings up something I hadn't thought about. Before we protected the Main Page from frequent vandalism, anyone could add an article to the various sample sections. Now those sections are essentially static, with only the New Pages section being updated periodically (a task the sysops have left to our senior guy, Kalki, who's been doing it since he was the only active sysop). Regular readers will know I'm not one to suggest yet another new maintenance task, but I suppose we should consider how we might make these sample articles rotate, with community input, without removing the needed protection for the Main Page. Does anyone have ideas that would enable this without creating an insupportable burden to the sysop staff? Bear in mind that we're still shaking out issues with Quote of the Day, and the selection process would eventually have to address every sample section individually, including all the genres and New Pages. It's no small issue. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 18:37, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanx for the implementation & explanation.

The only section that should be revolving fast is the New section IMHO. I think the sample section should only feature those quote pages that are of sufficient high quality (e.g. Team America: World Police). Sort of like Featured Articles on Wikipedia. A scheme like that would significantly reduce the administrative burden. -- Zanaq, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Ah, but WP's Featured Articles change every day. Our New Pages change once or twice a month, which doesn't seem so long to expect changes in the sample (featured) film, literary, people, and other articles on the Main Page. And "high quality" is often in the eye of the reader. Objectively, I can say that Team America: World Police is considerably far from the currently recommended film format, and so would probably have difficulties getting selected as a Featured Article, if we had such a system in place. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 22:57, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm not entirely clear what you mean regarding the frequency of changes, but my HO is that New should rotate the fastest, and "Featured" should be rotating very slowly. thats pretty stupid. I take that back. I agree with what Jeff Q said, sorta, i think. Regarding the quality of TA:WP I opened up a discussion topic Talk:Team America: World Police. -- Zanaq, 12 September 2005

Posting obvious notability expectation

Many new editors create "vanity" articles (quote articles for themselves) in the main article space of Wikiquote, contrary to official policy and long-standing practice. However, some of them have raised the point that our introduction says nothing about quotes from notable people and creative works, and that they have to dig for such policy statements. The opening sentence of the main page currently says:

Welcome to Wikiquote, a free online compendium of quotations in every language, including sources (where known), translations of non-English quotes, and links to Wikipedia for further information!

I propose that we make the notability requirement obvious by changing this to:

Welcome to Wikiquote, a free online compendium of quotations from notable persons and creative works in every language, including sources (where known), translations of non-English quotes, and links to Wikipedia for further information!

I invite comments, questions, alternative sugggestions, and general discussion. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 19:45, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the initiative. I spent some time about it, and thought about the version:

Welcome to Wikiquote, a free online encyclopedia of quotations in every language, including sources (where known), translations of non-English quotes, and links to Wikipedia for further information!

That is, replacing the word compendium in our current text with the word encyclopedia. The reason I am hesitant to use the word notable in an introduction is that it means different things to different people. In wikiquote-specific discussions, such as VfD, we expect people to be somewhat familiar with WQ lingo, but not so in the main page. However, an encyclopedia already has a certain meaning: nobody thinks her son's words belong in an encyclopedia of quotations, I would hope. I'm not entirely happy with this idea either, though. ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 20:41, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Personally I am reluctant; because it is beyond my common sense - it seems to dull we need to tell people "almost no one wants to read your own quotes". But if this can improve current flood of vanity, I don't oppose. On my preference, the notability remark could be put as a second sentence "You find here quotations of notable people and creative works". Another possibe solotion is modification of the message at the top of new article. --Aphaia 23:53, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Personally I like JeffQ's version, with the exceptions of changing the word 'persons' to 'people' (the most common (modern) use of 'persons' is when referring to specific people, I think), and I really dislike the ! mark at the end!!! :) I dislike ! marks in general, and in this specific case it might also give the impression that the most exciting component of wikiquote is the 'links to Wikipedia' component. iddo999 08:06, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Since no one oppose strongly, I think the time to modify has riped already. --Aphaia 03:13, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Okay, how about we try this:

Welcome to Wikiquote, a free online compendium of quotations from notable people and creative works in every language, including sources (where known), translations of non-English quotes, and links to Wikipedia for further information.

Rationale: (A) "notable" is our typical one-word shorthand for "not everyone"; (B) the introduction must be very terse and is not meant to replace or even reduce the need to read WQ help pages to understand how and what to contribute; (C) the line does seem a little long for the breathlessness of an exclamation point; and (D) "encyclopedia" might be misleading. (Subpoints on (D): (1) neither "encyclopedia" nor "dictionary", both of which I believe are used for some quotation collections, is technically accurate; (2) Wikipedia has its own problems with notability of articles, even though "encyclopedia" is part of its name; (3) we already have a problem with editors creating encyclopedia articles instead of quote articles; (4) of the two most frequent types of non-notable additions, intentional vanity won't be stopped by an intro tweak, but accidental vanity [from not knowing article and user-page content policy] probably will be by use of the word "notable", even without context.)

Unless there are objections or further comments, I suggest we make this change any time after 0:00, 19 October 2005 (UTC). ~ Jeff Q (talk) 22:15, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree with all of JeffQ's points. Of course, some of this is speculation, e.g. whether using the word "notable" would be helpful, as JeffQ and I think, or whether it might be confusing, as MosheZadka thinks. We should choose the version that seems best for now, and perhaps review it again later. IMHO JeffQ's version is best. iddo999 22:34, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

I am for it. All phrasings have some issues, and nothing is set in stone. This might solve the problem, and if it doesn't, we'll be smarter when we try to find some other phrasing which will be better. ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 16:49, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, it seems we stalled on this again after basic agreement among the four participants, so I went ahead and made the last recommended change. I also changed the Wikipedia link from an external one to an internal one in the process. Any feedback on the new introductory paragraph would be appreciated. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 20:40, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

I approve of this change. ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 06:52, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Me too. If we face unexpected problem, then improve it. As a restart point, proposed version seems to me good enough explain what we accept and welcome. --Aphaia 05:06, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Favorites link

Should the main page really link to a page which is slated for deletion pending moving of its content? I suggest that we remove the favorites link from the main page. ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 06:00, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, that was a temporary concession to those who might want to transfer their favorite quotes into the appropriate articles before it was completely deleted. However, very few moves have been done in the half year since, and some folks have tried to add some in that time. I think we should go ahead and remove the link to avoid problems. I suggest that anyone wanting to participate in quote moves add Wikiquote:Favorites to their watchlist as soon as possible. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 06:56, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Since we've had no additional commentary and have had enough time to consider this, I recommend that we remove the Favorites link any time after 0:00, 20 November 2005 (UTC). (I'll take care of it myself unless I'm once again rendered inactive for a spell.) The article will still exist while we slowly transfer the quotes, but it won't have the odd exposure on the Main page. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 03:58, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Strongly support Jeff's proposal. I prefer either 1) to protect either 1) Favorites page for preventing new articles or 2) to move it into Wikiquote namespace as a page needed cleanup. --Aphaia 05:00, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

It's already in WQ namespace. ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 05:43, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Removed links to Favorites, as per Jeff's deadline above. ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 14:29, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Interwiki

Could the administrator add a link to Wikiquote in Bosnian language on this main page bs: Thanks Dado

Not knowing Bosnian, I borrowed "Bosanski" from Wikipedia's main page to add a properly labelled link to the "In other languages" tables on the left and right of our main page. Dado, let us know if there is anything wrong with either of these links. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 20:31, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Nope. You got it. Thanks Dado