Originally posted to Wikiquote:Village pump, from July 2003 till May 2004.

Village pump archive 1

	Archives
	; 2003; 2004; 2005: 01–06 · 07–09 · 09–12; 2006: 01–05 · 06 · 07–09 · 10–11 · 12; 2007: 01 · 02 · 03 · 04 · 05–06 · 07 · 08–11 · 12; 2008: 01 · 02–04 · 05–06 · 07–08 · 09–10 · 11–12; 2009: 01–02 · 03–09 · 10–12; 2010: 01–06 · 07–12; 2011: 01–05 · 06–08 · 09–12; 2012: 01–02 · 03–04 · 05–08 · 09–12; 2013: 01–06 · 07–12; 2014: 01–04 · 05–08 · 09–12; 2015: 01–03 · 04–08 · 09–12; 2016: 01–03 · 04–07 · 08–12; 2017: 01–06 · 07–12; 2018: 01–06 · 07–12; 2019: 01–06 · 07–12; 2020: 01–06 · 07–12; 2021: 01–06 · 07–12; 2022: 01–06 · 07–12; 2023: 01–06 · 07–12; ;

Interface

Many texts in the interface are from Wikipedia, and they do not suit here (such as Special:Recentchanges). So is someone working on that now? --Lorenzarius 14:46 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

It appears not. Fonzy, any idea? Nanobug 19:03 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Quote duplication?

Something has struck me when adding to some of the quotes, and I think it's the potential for massive duplication.

A quote from Shakespeare, say Romeo and Juliet, could go into the Literary section under Romeo and Juliet, in the people section under Shakespeare, and the Themes section under Love. One quote, repeated and stored three times.

Is there a way to tag an article or specific quote to be in certain categories, and then to have that article automatically appear under the three headings, but only stored once, then cross-referenced? The main menu, and sub-menus are then built automatically based on these tags.

Just a thought, as I think the number of quotes stored will far exceed the actual number of unique quotes due to duplication.

Neolux 14:19 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Yes, we may have duplication, and I was originally against the idea (see Talk:Main Page under Theme-based quotations). I don't think the problem will be as bad as you suggest. The Shakespeare example is a non-issue, as we have links in Shakespeare to each of his plays, which actually contain the quotes (although we have yet to finish moving all the plays into their own articles, but there is still no duplication, either in Shakepeare or other authors of plays/books). The themes look like a big problem, but I seriously doubt that they will grow to anything like the size of the rest of Wikiquote. Maybe if they look like they will, the Wikiquote software (which at the moment is the same as the Wikipedia software) could be changed, but it will be very difficult to change it for just this particular request: there appear to be a lot of other pending changes to it, and not that many programmers to do them, so don't hold your breath. See also Software_Phase_IV for an example of some of the pending changes. Nanobug 17:31 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

The themes thing comes up as the "Penguin Thesaurus of Quotations" orders all of its quotes by theme and has an index of people at the back. I originally bought the book for something I wrote a while back, and I was looking for a quote on a particular subject. I think I was writing about "Production Line Celebrities" such as are created by reality shows like "Big Brother". I wanted to see to coined the "15 minutes of fame" phrase, and also see what others had to say about the subject. Looking up "Fame" in the book, I found out it was Andy Warhol, and also found a number of other great quotes. I believe this is how most quotes are looked up. At the same time, I can go to the index and find out what else has been said by Warhol. These are just my thoughts on the project, as I'd like to see something that can replace my book, but provide better cross-referencing and functionality, as well as more recent quotes. It is this reason that I think the Themes section will be more valuable as it grows, and most quotes will be looked up from there. Neolux 17:58 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

It might be useful to take advantage of the "What links here" feature by having quotes link to their topics. When a quote links to science, say, you can follow the link to the science page, which will have an "external" link on it that duplicates the "what links here" button: "See also the list of pages with quotes about science." That way, you can get a list of pages that have quotes that are about science. The same would work for people, too; link Mark Twain's name on the first quote by him on a page, and you can find all quotes by Mark Twain by clicking "list of pages with quotes by Mark Twain". This is a bit of hack, and it's hardly perfect, but it's easy to do and works with the current software. -- Merphant 12:57 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

That sounds like a great idea! Even better is that it's not a software change, it's utilising the existing software better! Neolux 22:57 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Where to discuss policy?

Where is the correct place to discuss/propose policy (like what the standards for regarding a quotation as legitimate are)? Currently, the closest thing to that I see here is Talk:MainPage. What about formatting/organization/template issues? Wikiquote probably has a different set of issues than Wikipedia.... Paullusmagnus 17:55 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

What is a quotation ? How about bushisms ? Lapses of Dan Quayle and Ronald Reagan. Are they acceptable ? Our (former) president (Lech Walesa) is quite (in)famous for his "creative" wisdom. Kpjas

And what about quotes from the Simpsons? ;-) --Lorenzarius 03:07 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)

There have recently appeared criticisms of the whole idea of Wiktionary as premature, not discussed enough and un-wiki. "I'm not sure I like the Wiki- Quote idea at all, as it intersects a lot with Project Sourceberg, is not very wiki-like (a quote is a quote) and not very compatible with the open content idea. Wiki-Quote was only very briefly discussed." Erik Moeller Kpjas

But in a Wiki- Quote, if someone is misquoted (or the quote is miscredited, etc) you have the a-thousand-eyeballs-are-better-than-one phenomenon coming into play, and someone's bound to notice and correct the bugs ... -- Gaurav 08:54 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)

One possible problem is with commonly repeated nonquotations, e.g. Hitler saying that his new gun registration programs will make the world a safer place. There is good evidence that he never said it, but every gun rights activist who visits Wikiquote is going to try to add it. Encyclopedic material is verifiable in ways that quotations aren't, because quoted people die and misquotations get repeated (how do quotation dictionaries cope?). I propose that we also list nonquotations (along with evidence of falsehood and maybe origin of the mistake) on the author pages in order to alleviate the repeated addition of false quotations. That would make randomly generating a QoD (Quotation of the Day) even harder. Perhaps a script could read HTML comments that point to real quotations ( *Fourscore and seven years ago... )... -- Paullusmagnus 18:48 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)

We have recently changed the template to differentiate between Verified quotes and Attributed quotes for those that we do not have a known (and reliable) source. See also the discussion on What Wikiquote's aims should be on Talk:Main Page

At the same time, I also have misgivings about the whole concept of Wikiquote. I don't like the idea that it is separate and isolated from the Wikipedia. For one thing, anyone searching on a word in Wikipedia has to know to come to Wikiquote and search again if they also want quotations on the word. I would much prefer it if all the quotations were kept in Wikipedia (and some of them are - see proverb for an example of current duplication between Wikipedia and Wikiquote: English proverbs seems definitely to have been just copied and paste, and now they are diverging).

I am guessing it was originally set up because of sections like point 11 in Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not: "#List repository of loosely associated topics such as; quotations, aphorisms or persons (But of course, there is nothing wrong with having lists if their entries are famous because they are associated with or significantly contributed to the list topic)."

So they didn't want to clutter Wikipedia with zillions of quotations. There are several other things in What Wikipedia is not that could be split off and put into separate Wiki sites as well, and some of them have, such as Wiktionary, and others have been discussed, such as Wikinews. Since we appear to be stuck with it this way, let's make the best of it, integrate Wikipedia and Wikiquote as much as possible with links between the two, grow Wikiquote to a reasonable size, and generally try to raise awareness of Wikiquote as much as we can. Nanobug 17:01, 13 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I think I've broken something

I think I've broken something. I don't know how. I didn't try to edit this page but it shows up in my contributions. The page is Wikiquote:All_pages_by_title. Angela 22:42 27 Jul 2003 (UTC).

This has disappeared from my list of contributions now. Perhaps I didn't break anything. Are links to Wikipedia only to go to the English version? There is no page at the English one for Roberto Bolano, so can I link it to the [[es:Roberto_Bola%F1o|Spanish Wikipedia]]? Angela 20:44 8 Aug 2003 (UTC)

As this is the English Wikiquote it should only link to the English Wikipedia. When a Spanish Wikiquote is set up that will link to the spanish Wikipedia. -fonzy

Translations and interlanguage linking

Several articles now contain a single sentence and translations of that sentence into several dozen languages.

For example, see these pages:

W. H. Auden
Gustave Flaubert
Roberto Bolano
Pablo Neruda
and the last section of William Shakespeare

Kpjas has questioned the need for these pages and whether they fit into the concept of Wikiquote. My opinion is no. What's yours? Nanobug 16:34, 12 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Let me explain. I don't question the need for making translations in general but I wonder how would it fit into Wikiquotes in other languages. I think it would be better not to bombard reader with dozens of translations just forward him/her to appropriate languages Wikiquotes.
Mark Twain only in English on the English Wikiquote, but the original and translation to the given language on the French, German, Polish etc Wikiquote, with links to other versions. We could start Wikiquotes in much more languages quickier than Wikipedia has been doing. It would be nice to put interface files for translation on meta for forthcoming Wikiquotes. Kpjas 19:37, 12 Aug 2003 (UTC)

The problem with most of these pages is that they are taking a whole page for just one quote. Most of our pages are not like that, which would make linking from one language Wikiquote to the exact same quote in another difficult (e.g. if it was two thirds of the way down the page somewhere, the reader would have trouble finding it). Or maybe we have a special category for individual quotes with dozens of translations.

Plus, most of out pages show the quote in the language it was originally written in, and the tranliteration and/or translation to English. With these pages I can't tell what the original language was, and if it is English, then it seems like this is backward - the quotes in the other languages should be in other Wikiquotes, with a translation to the appropriate language. Nanobug 12:46, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)

IMHO the translations cause no harm to anyone, ok maybe some annoyance to those linguistically challenged. But words are words and to have words in several languages makes this project worthwhile to folks hunting for material in other languages, specially in the minor languages, those with only a few thousand speakers, because it gives them a presence and at the same time an equal footing with the big langs like Spanish, English, etc.

Perhaps a good solution is to tweak en:MediaWiki to show a dropdown box, or an expandable link-list for translations for a certain quote. Thus the English sentence would display on the page, and a link to the side would designate translations available for this quote, when the reader clicks to obtain translations, the quote is displayed in whatever translations are available for this quote. What do you think of such a solution??? ILVI 25SEP2003

Atomic structures - The basic unit of Wikiquote is a quote

Perhaps it is not really a burning issue to resolve but I think that unlike in Wikipedia in Wikiquote atomic structures are not articles but quotations, proverbs and speeches. It poses a few problems the most important are duplication, slight differences and "quotation count problem".

Duplication is a feature, not a bug i.e. the same quotation quite reasonably may appear in more that one place (author + theme). Slight differences are a problem that we need to keep an eye on. Do we have a "quotation count problem": I didn't know we counted our quotes, and what is the problem if we did (we could ignore certain pages such as themes when and if we counted)? At the moment all we count are the number of entries (i.e. pages). Nanobug 12:46, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)

It doesn't bother me very much but it is a little strange that "Wikimedia Quote Emporium" does not know how many quotations it can boast.
This type of project and this type of content seems to be much better suited to utilize XML format, doesn't it ? --Kpjas 16:15, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)

If we wanted to count quotes, it wouldn't be too difficult. If we ignore certain pages (Wikiquote, theme pages etc) by looking at the template we can easily work out how to parse each page and count the quotes. Anyone feel like doing it? (VIM perhaps?) XML was raised before. We could do it, but it would make editing a little more difficult, especially for casual users. Our templates sort of define our exact structure already anyway, just like XML is supposed to do (although not as strictly, as you don't have to follow the template). Nanobug 23:01, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Temporary measure might be to include some standard phrase with quotation count at the top or even let server software count that if we can adhere strictly to templates. Thoughts ? Kpjas 21:28, 18 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Even if an article does not adhere strictly to the template, as long as it has each quotation in a list (i.e. prefixed with *), which is 99% of them, then we can count each entry in the list as one quotation. (and ignore ** for source, translation, notes etc). Nanobug 19:30, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)

QotD server emails?

Do we plan to start a service of sending QotD's by email ?

Nobody had mentioned it before. Feel free to start one if you think it's a good idea. Nanobug 12:46, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I think there was at some point "Send an article a day" feature in Wikipedia but now it has been discontinued. If it was coded we could easily adapt it to our needs.--Kpjas 16:15, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)

BTW another idea would be to offer RSS feed with quotations. Kpjas 16:15, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I prefer the RSS idea to the e-mail one. Angela

Here comes in the atomic bug problem (see above). Since our atomic entity, stored in the database is an article it would be hard to stream as RSS feed a collection of newly added quotes. We can (quite easily) show the world what new pages have been created or old pages updated.
Note that Wiktionary managed to avoid this problem because their article is more or less equivalent to a dictionary entry.--Kpjas 17:47, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Favicon - Icon for Wikiquote?

Would whoever made favicon for Wikipedia create a new favicon for Wikiquote ? I think "Q" in the same font would be fine. I kinda like it.
--Kpjas 16:34, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I agree. It'll give us a seperate identity, which'd be cool -- Gaurav 17:25, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Done. I used the font Garamond, which may or may not having anything to do with the W icon... --Brion VIBBER 07:24, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Title Bar still says Wikipedia

I've noticed that our title bar on the main page still says "Wikipedia". Anyone know how to fix that? Basil Fawlty 23:59, 24 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Yes, this needs to be fixed by a developer. See also Interface above. Nanobug 16:25, 25 Sep 2003 (UTC)

That will be fixed along with other things such as "Wikiquote:" not being a real namespace, for which some munging has to be done on the database. --Brion VIBBER 04:56, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

What sort of munging? I am trying to install the Wikipedia software at work at the moment, and will be needing to change the "Wikipedia:" namespace as well. Is it more than just fixing line 16 and 17 of language.php? i.e.

4 => "Wikipedia",

5 => "Wikipedia_talk",

As well as that change, I have mentioned a few other changes we need someone like yourself to do on your talk page. Nanobug 12:54, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

If the namespaces are changed, existing pages have to be renamed to match, or for instance this page would be completely inaccessible; the page now at Wikipedia:Village pump would show up when you visited Wikiquote:Village pump (it would be a redirect to itself, not helpful).

Note that if you see the above lines, you're either using the unstable version or you've got an old version. The current stable version has a $wgSitename global variable which can be set in LocalSettings which will appear in the 4/5 namespaces and many text messages. (This hasn't been set up for all languages yet, but is in the English file and I think the Russian.) --Brion VIBBER 21:06, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Yes, I just downloaded the latest version of MediaWiki and noticed the change to the language.php file with the variable for the main namespace. A great idea. I understand now what you meant by munging - I didn't realize before that Wikiquote was not a real namespace. Nanobug 12:08, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Standardized poetry style?

There are a number of small snippets of poetry on various pages and most of them seem to be formatted with "/" for line breaks. Is this just a relic from paper based lists of quotations saving space or do we have a good reason not to use "real" formatting? - Anon

Personally I think "real" formatting looks better. You have to do it with <br/> between lines to maintain the correct indenting. Nanobug 16:25, 25 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Those that I posted were a relic of my ignorance… and I have since made alterations of many of them, and will henceforth use the <br/> format. Thanks for the tip. Kalki 08:53, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Copyright violations and VfD

Hello, I'm not a regular Wikiquote contributor so I might just be here messing things up and not knowing what I'm doing but I just found a potential copyright violation at Bob Dylan. I couldn't find any boilerplate text here so I used the one from Wikipedia. Then I went to find votes for deletion and couldn't find that either so I made one at Wikiquote:Votes for deletion. I hope this was the right thing to do and I haven't just gone and duplicated something that was elsewhere. Angela 21:52, 6 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Not at all. Thanks very much Angela. We still have quite a few Wikiquote pages yet to set up here, so any help is much appreciated. And anyway, you know all about the [[en:Wikipedia:Be bold in updating pages|is much appreciated. And anyway, you know all about the Be bold in updating pages rule, which applies to Wikipedia/Wikiquote pages as much as "articles", so go for it.

By the way, we haven't quite worked out what to call our articles here: since they are not free prose, but just a collection of quotations, the term articles doesn't seem to fit. Entries doesn't work either, as each page has several entries (quotations) on it. And pages includes things in other namespaces, so it also is not appropriate. Any ideas? Nanobug 03:21, 7 Oct 2003 (UTC)

"Wikiquote is not a place for song lyrics"

(Q originally posted on the What Wikiquote Is Not talk page, but this probably a better place for the question.)

Does this mean that absolutely no song lyrics can appear on the site? I understand that Wikiquote isn't intended to become a lyrics repository, but is it permissible to include excerpts from songs that could stand alone?

Examples, off the top of my head:

"All you need is love." -- The Beatles
"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." -- John Lennon, "Beautiful Boy"
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." -- Bob Dylan

If these can't be included, why not? If it's copyright issues, I'm wondering if we should allow quotations from movies or any other works still under copyright. Scarequotes 23:39, 16 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Those examples look fine to me... —Paul A 02:05, 24 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I believe this assertion and the one about poetry, should be amended, and that while it should be emphasized that Wikiquote is not a compendium of song lyrics or entire poems, and that there are are definite copyright issues in using more than a few lines of modern songs or modern poetry, even under fair use provisions, that these guidelines should state something like:

"Wikiquote is not a compendium of song lyrics or entire poems, and there are are definite copyright issues in using more than a few lines of modern songs or modern poetry, even under Fair Use provisions. While there are no legal impediments to using entire poems or lyrics in the Public Domain, the use of entire poems or the full lyrics of songs are not encouraged, and a selection process of significant statements within a poem or a song should generally occur. Despite the ignorance and delusions of some, postings of copyrighted works on the internet does NOT place them in the public domain.

The current statement would exclude such short but complete poems as those of Shakespeare's Sonnets, or Dickinson's stanzas which are often quoted in their entirety within other works of literature, ALL Haiku which is inately short, and even Ogden Nash's Fleas (ie: Adam / Had 'em), while technically permitting most of much longer works such as Poe's The Raven of which merely a few lines or stanzas would be sufficient, and more appropriate. Kalki 10:05, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Logo size issues

I don't know if this is the right place to point this out, but on my computer the current version of the Wikiquote logo is noticeably wider than the sidebar it's in, and it's messing up the page layout. Is anybody else having this problem? —Paul A 02:05, 24 Oct 2003 (UTC)

It's a resized version I made, but the older bigger one is still appearing, the older version should be deleted. - fonzy

is that the reason, which causes the vertical line touching the content on the right? --Gboy 09:43, 13 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Classifying quotes for automatic placement

Why don't we update the software in this wiki, so that we can choose which items the quotes belong to, and have them classified automatically? I don't think that's hard to do, just adding some more fields in the database, but that would make the job more convenient and easier to manage and reduce the repeated content. --Yacht 16:55, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Deletion request

Where's your Votes for Deletion page? Can't find it on the main page. Here's what needs to be deleted:

Yes! My name is Pierre Elliot Trudeau: blanked after vandalism.

The Votes for deletion page allows you to request deletions. Please read this page carefully for details. -- Jeff Q 09:37, 7 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Logging in

Wikiquote cannot see that I have cookies enabled. They are enabled in my browser; wikiquote cookies (in fact, all ...wikipedia.org cookies) are enabled in my proxy; I can log in just fine on Wikipedia; I can turn off the proxy entirely; cookies are still enabled in my browser; login still tells me I need to enable cookies. I suppose this should go to the bug-report facility; pointer, please? 209.204.172.194 21:56, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

There might be helpful information for you at Wikiquote:Bug reports —Kalki 23:26, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Thanks, that was the pointer I needed. Dandrake 18:22, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

After I look at or edit a page, www.wikiquote keeps automatically redirecting me back to quote.wikipedia, where I am not logged in and cannot logged in. Until this is fixed, it is damn frustrating to try to use Wikiquote as a logged in user. I think this ESSENTIAL to get fixed. -- Infrogmation 19:37, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

... as it does it again as soon as I edited this. I'm outta here for now. -- 67.74.168.84 19:40, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC) (the same person as above)

Verified; source

Does "Verified" have a specific meaning according to some relevant document that I couldn't easily find? In Benjamin Franklin, for instance, two oral quotes are marked as verified, and the "source" is the place where he allegedly said them; but there's no source for the datum that he actually said this at that time. Should there be a category for "Verified in that I know I read this in some good book"? --Till Wikiquote allows me to log in, just call me 209.204.172.194 21:56, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

There is a great deal that is still undefined or unresolved here, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. It's still a work in its early stages. I personally tend to put sources below the quote without specifically declaring them to be the source, and think explicit assertions of "Source:" should be reserved for such original sources as one is certain are correct, if even that. In some of the quotes by Franklin where "Source:" is prefixed to the note that follows I would agree it should be considered a notice of context. I might go ahead and correct that now, — I personally try to avoid getting into too many contentions about formatting and ordering. My own personal preferences are to put individual quotes in chronological order (where known) at the top, followed by quotes grouped as being from within specific works (also in chronological order), then finally the == Attributed == quotes without definite citations of sources in alphabetical order. Any quote anywhere can be accompanied by a note that places it in context if that seems necessary or appropriate. —Kalki 22:39, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Thanks. Sounds like good principles. --Still me, even if my current IP happens to be 64.3.18.56 18:18, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Fictional characters' quotes

I think a standard needs to be set as far as quotes from fictional characters. I can already see someone entering an individual page for every single recurring character on "The Simpsons" (Mr. Burns has already been created) which is entirely inappropriate IMHO. I would surmise that the practical and appropriate decision would be to limit quotes from fictional characters to a page for the media in which they appear. (IE: Mr. Burn's quotes on "The simpsons" page; Captain Ahab's quotes on the "Moby Dick" page, and so forth.) 66.157.29.22 12:59, 17 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I agree there should not be individual pages devoted to the statements of fictional characters, and a limitation of such statements to the fictional works in which they appear, or to pages for the non-fictional authors of such statements as are expressed by such characters. There could rapidly come to be a great deal of confusion for many people about the true sources of such statements, and the fictional or non-fictional status of some characters were this to continue. Kalki 17:49, 17 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Problem is with things like "The Simpsons" is that there are so many quotes taht putting them all on one page is goign to make it very large, far too large. - fonzy

Votes For Deletion

I'm not sure how to entirely delete inappropriate pages but there doesn't seem to be a "votes for deletion" section here at wikiquote. We need to create one, don't you think? Already there are inappropriate vanity entires popping up (EX: "Joe Romersa" was just a link to a web page of photographs.) 66.157.29.22 20:03, 17 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Here is a yet another request for a deletion process! The page Death By Stereo isn't remotely a quote page. It's just a duplication of the Wikipedia page. I just happened to run across it doing jumping through Random Pages. I'm concerned that, without a deletion process, we will see ever-increasing numbers of junk pages accumulate. Are there any sysops who can respond to this question, please? -- Jeff Q 08:22, 7 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I've answered my own question, but I'll put it here so others don't repeat this question. The Votes for deletion page allows you to request deletions. Please read this page carefully for details. -- Jeff Q 09:35, 7 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Four French quote files

Mathematique Science Maurice et Patapon (a french strip) Religion

They are under GPL or the DFSG (The quotations included in this package are excerpts from larger works and their reproduction is believed to constitute "fair use". This collection of quotations was created by ellisllk@ellisllk.lautre.net and others and is placed in the public domain. It can be found at [1]), as you want. They are specially formatted for fortune. Ellisllk 16:17, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hebrew WikiQuote

We are considering to "open" an Hebrew branch of this project. Who is the one to discuss and give us information about "what should be done" in order to start this project.
Just remember that on top of our peculiar letters, the direction of writing Hebrew (and Arabic) is Right 2 Left.
BTW How can I look into WikiQuote of other languages ? Dod1 23:14, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

There is a list at the Wikiquote:Other Language Wikiquotes page for those who wish to help in starting Wikiquotes for other languages. I do not know who would be available as yet to initiate any of the projects, but perhaps someone at the Hebrew Wikipedia could help with this one. — Kalki 23:45, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Contributing some collections

I have my own quotation collections at http://www.amk.ca/quotations/, and would like to contribute some of them to Wikiquote. I'm thinking the collections by single authors (Robertson Davies, Neil Gaiman, Peter Greenaway, H.P. Lovecraft, Conan Doyle) would be most suitable; the other collections are more personal and perhaps less suited for the Wikiquote project. I'm also willing to contribute the Shakespeare collection, but it would require more work in order to be merged with the existing Shakespeare quotations. So, what should I do? Just create corresponding pages and fill them in? -- amk 19:08, 17Apr 2004 (EDT)

There are pages for Neil Gaiman and his San∂man and Books of Magic stories, Arthur Conan Doyle and his Sherlock Holmes stories, and H. P. Lovecraft as well as William Shakespeare, but any additions, or new pages you wish to make are welcome. — Kalki 00:19, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Book of poetic quotations on PGDP

"Handy dictionary of poetical quotations" by George Whitefield Powers is being proofed here, in case anyone wants to help have it proofed quicker. -- Jimregan 18:35, 4 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Verified versus Sourced

I moved one quote of Adolf Hitler from verfied to attributed because the source that was mentioned was a second hand source. Not a source directly from Hitler. I guess and hope that this is according to the rules of Wikiquote. How can you be sure that the second hand source is reliable unless it has a reference to a first hand source? You can not. So that is why I think that second hand sources are not acceptable to classify a quote under verified.Andries 15:03, 16 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

This issue has come up several times, and recently Jdcope created a page for "Erwin Griswold" which used Sourced rather than Verified as a header. I think that this is an excellent alternative, and have begun using it on a few pages recently, for it can indicate an indirect source without making an assertion as to authenticity or reliability. I am now proposing that it be adopted as the preferred designation. I have long thought "Verified" to be too strong a term unless you are dealing directly with original sources. If no one objects or can come up with a better alternative I might change the template to reflect this within the next week or two. Suggestions are welcomed. ~ Kalki 16:08, 16 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I think that the degree of proof should be clearly stated. After all, intellectual accuracy is one of the aims of Wikipedia related projects. A quote from a public discourse has a bigger degree of proof than a private conversation with only one witness. And I agree that the term verified should only be used for proven quotes. I may be too concerned about the whole issue due to my background as an ex-follower of Sathya Sai Baba who is surrounded by rumors, disinformation and propaganda. What about three sections: atrributed, sourced and verified ? Andries 17:01, 16 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I think Verified should simply be dropped as an unnecessary and always somewhat dubious designation. The most well known quotations and sources should not need to be buttressed by such an affirmation, and the most dubious should never be given it at all. The reliability of nearly any source can nearly always be questioned, no matter how accurate it may be. Headers that I think are appropriate are:
==Sourced:== for quotations with cited sources (arranged chronologically when dated, and alphabetically when not)
Headers for various TITLED WORKS arranged chronologically
==Attributed: == for quotes with no cited source, and
==Probably spurious:== or ==Mis-attributed:== when there is strong evidence that the quotation is not genuine, or has often been misattributed to an individual. ~ Kalki 17:22, 16 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I also think that == Quotes by others about [NAME] == is a good category for collecting quotes about notable individuals made by other notable figures. ~ Kalki 17:29, 16 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I agree to a great extent and you come up with excellent ideas but I think that the distinction between second hand and direct first hand sources should be made. This is essential in the case of Sathya Sai Baba. I mean, I can find dozens of indirectly sourced but probably fake quotes of him. I admit that this is an extreme case but this case unfortunately happens to be important to me. Andries 17:48, 16 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

The levels of direct or indirect attribution can be presented in various ways in notes after the quotation itself, without a need for seperate section titles for those quotes we are more inclined to believe correct and genuine, and those we are more inclined to think might not be. To say any statement is "proven" false or true, genuine or spurious is something I have usually been very reluctant to do, even when I have little or no doubt upon a matter. The notes that can follow a quote (and further comment in the talk pages) allows for much finer designation of reliability or lack of it than can ever be conveniently be provided in the headers. ~ Kalki 18:22, 16 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I guess you are right. Andries 20:46, 18 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Goal for Wikiquote?

I think there should be a goal like Wikipedia used to have and has now passed by almost 200,000 articles. I think the goal should be 25,000 entries.

Abrupt style change broke all manner of things!

What the hell just happened to the Wikiquote style and/or formatting? Let me count the ways that things are suddenly broken:

Single-spaced text can't be distinguished from double-spaced text.
Wikipedia links using "en:" have simply disappeared.
Ordinary links are practically invisible until you mouse over them, violating basic HTML practice.
Formerly clearly-visible menu-style links around the margins have become so innocuous that you can't find them unless you know what you're looking for.
The left margin suddenly has a box entitled "other languages" filled with bullet items all labelled "English", which actually appear to be individual links contained on the page (but you wouldn't know that unless you hovered over them or clicked on them).

That's just what I noticed in the first two minutes of trying to use this new format! Didn't anybody test this? Where was the announcement that it was about to happen? I admit that it looks pretty, but it's fairly useless for normal operation unless you already know what you're doing, even if the clearly broken things are fixed. It would be a nightmare to a newbie. It looks like someone came down with User Interface Cuteness disease. I apologize about my vehemence, but this is a serious problem. -- Jeff Q 11:54, 22 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not a programmer so I don't know all the changes in store, but I do rather like most of them. There had been talk at a few places in the Wikimedia realms about the upgrades and changes…(I'd actually encountered a samplng of this style somewhere else a while back, but I forget where). For the most part I do greatly prefer the new look and layout, but there are things that will take a little getting used to, and I expect it will take some tweaking for a while to get a few things adjusted properly. At least for the time being I seem to be stably logged in through "wikiquote.org" and that was a problem for me previously. ~ Kalki 12:16, 22 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Some of the things that will need fixing: simple "en:" links to wikipedia no longer work. Someone had mentioned that they would not in a discussion I had read a few months back and I've been using the "wikipedia:en:" format since then… and that does work. I don't know if there is a simpler alternative or not. Also in the previous software double and triple apostrophes for italic and bold formatting were limited in their effects to the line in which they occured, and now it appears they are not. If this is permanent many existing edits will require a set of closing double or triple apostrophes to block the formatting effects. ~ Kalki 13:33, 22 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I see that someone has fixed the Wikiquote style so that my complaints #2 and #5 above have gone away. I still have problems with #3 and #4, but I suspect these will be a losing battle. However, #1 is a serious issue. One major custom of existing Wiki practice is using physical line breaks between bulleted, numbered, or indented text to provide a simple separation of these text lines — unlike the HTML practice of permitting fancy formatting (like changing margins or padding).

By unilaterally forcing additional space between physically-separated lines, Wikiquote has rendered it nearly impossible to tell the difference between simple line breaks and paragraph-like breaks. No other Wikipedia sister project I've seen does this. Is Wikiquote declaring its independence from the Wiki world? If so, the least it could do is define an alternate means to remove undesirable space between lines. Perhaps Wikiquote wishes to encourage CSS2 styling?

Another question: if contributors are encouraged to use the Sandbox to test new pages, why don't Wikiquote's style authorities use the Sandbox (or a meta-equivalent) to test styles? It certainly doesn't appear that that was done, given the appearance and disappearance of critical tabs (i.e., former simple links) at the page top (among other things) in the past 36 hours. Seems like you're setting a bad example. ☺ -- Jeff Q 04:13, 23 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that we at wikiquote might be among the first Wikimedia projects that the developers are testing the new Mediawiki software on, but there have been some indications that it was in the works for quite a while at the Meta pages and at the Mediawiki project at Sourceforge.net. I also see that the two alterations that I had mentioned have been addressed: the effects of 2 or 3 apostrophes as formatting signals no longer proceeds beyond the line they are in, and as Jeff Q has pointed out, the "en:" links are now working again. This is excellent responsiveness, and I do hope the "en:" links remain a valid means for other projects to link with the English wikipedia (because it will spare us quite a lot of cleaning up). I also hope that some adjustment of the spacing between lines can soon be made. The new more compact appearance is visually appealing but presently perhaps just a bit too compact, to the degree that it obscures the distinctions between the indented and non-indented lines of text and the fact that the indented text is almost always most closely associated with the text prior to it, rather than that which comes after. Other than that I love the new look. They developers have been at work on this for some time, and I know they have been testing the software elsewhere. I think it quite sensible that they test the new interface out on us and some of the smaller projects a bit for final tweakings before declaring it ready for the Wikipedia. Here is a link to the Meta-wiki page for comments and bug reports on the MediaWiki 1.3 software (like Wikiquote, the Meta-wiki is a distinct project from the Wikipedia and has a seperate user registry if you wish to log in there). ~ Kalki 14:25, 23 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I don't get the "more compact" reference. Yes, the margins take up less space now, but most of the space an article requires tends to be for its own text. With the extra line spacing, one would expect articles to be significantly longer. This is certainly borne out in the TV show quote pages I've been maintaining. (See MST3K and Buffy. Oh, wait — you probably won't, because the links I created in the last sentence are virtually invisible [Problem #3 above].) Perhaps it's not as much an issue for those pages that only use bulleted lines? However, as I've said elsewhere, bulleted formatting for quotes doesn't work well with dialog. I have no objection in principal to reformatting these unconventional pages to play nice with the new formatting, as long as a suitable dialog format can be established. -- Jeff Q 19:14, 23 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I have a suggestion for resolving this problem for at least the next few months: set the default style preference for Wikiquote users to "Standard". The proponents of GUI cuteness have tossed common sense out the window in committing anyone not explicitly choosing "Standard" to a radically new user interface without announcement, and in the middle of a test of many other new elements. (I didn't even know there was a choice of styles until I investigated what all this talk about "Monobook" was about. I pity newbies and casual users!)

The "Standard" style eliminates both of my most serious concerns: the excessive line spacing and the nearly-invisible links. On the other hand, one can make an argument for forcing people to confront the new "preferred" style in order to get feedback. (That's "preferred" in the sense that a very small subset of Wiki cognoscenti decided it would be ideal, without a traditional wiki discussion or vote. And feedback is only useful as far as it is acknowledged and used for change.) I personally like much of the Monobook style, but as long as it renders my favorite pages nearly unreadable, I must stay with Standard.

I implore the Wikiquote administrators to set Wikiquote to assume "Standard" style for any user who hasn't explicitly chosen a style, and, in keeping with the Wiki spirit, TELL US what they've done, rather than commit stealth decision-making. -- Jeff Q 13:45, 31 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Serious delays and errors

Wikiquote is getting seriously bogged down in the past week. Wait times for pages are stretching from 1-4 minutes, with some as long as 5 minutes! (That is, when you don't get a "server down" error.) Furthermore, I made eight updates in a 70-minute period several hours ago in the same logged-in session, but five forgot my user name and only recorded my (temporary) IP address, and one even recorded both the IP and my user name (which I've never seen before). What the heck is going on, folks? If something isn't done soon, I've going to have to shelve my Wikiquotes work. I already do 3-6 page updates at a time to avoid wasting time. When every one of them is only halfway through a 3-4 minute wait (three times: Edit, View, Save), then I move to more efficient work. -- Jeff Q 13:42, 25 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Wikifying case in page names

After noticing that [[Television shows]] was initially a broken link, I moved the Television Shows article to the Wiki-proper lowercase version. While fixing the linked-from pages, though, I saw in List of categories that most (but not all) of the other page titles listed have initial capitals in all their words. (I'm not talking about people's names and created works, which are expected to be capitalized, but rather lists, categories, themes, etc.) Is Wikiquote policy different from Wikipedia? If not, I have no problem moving appropriate pages as I come across them, but I don't want to be a renegade if the policy is different. -- Jeff Q 02:07, 29 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Wikiquote:Village pump archive 1