Talk:Philip Schaff

This is a quotation from Philip Schaff verbatim. It is not an encyclopedia article. I am in the process of editing it. If it is too long, it will be shortened. It needed to be transwikied from Wikipedia where it had been posted because it is entirely a quotation. Please allow time for me to work on it before transwikiing it back. Thank you. --Drboisclair 14:37, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Please reduce this article to a few essential quotes immediately, as its current state appears to be a major copyright violation. While we welcome starting articles that will be built up over time, we cannot similarly allow massive copyvio articles that need trimming to remain on the site over time, as they will be spread over the Internet by Wikiquote-copying bots in as little as a day or two. Thank you for your cooperation. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 01:44, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

The Library of Congress lists this work as having been published between 1882 and 1910 (although surely it must have been finished by 1893, as Schaff died then). This places it in the public domain, so I've removed the {{checkcopyright}} tag. However, length is still an issue, as Wikiquote's purpose is not to include huge excerpts of any material, but rather to focus on pithy quotes. We've had discussions in the past about just how long quotes might reasonably be. Although there has been no consensus per se, the maximum I've ever seen discussed is perhaps three paragraphs. This goes well beyond that. One thing to consider when trimming is what the point of the quote is. Most long passages contain essential ideas that are phrased or summarized in only a sentence or two. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 15:12, 26 May 2006 (UTC)