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From September to October 2008, originally posted to Wikiquote:Village pump.

Village pump archive 25

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Categories for Birth Dates

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We have categories for death dates, but not birth dates. Why? Has there been some consensus over this?--TBC 01:09, 1 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We've discussed it occasionally and there's never been any enthusiasm for it. It's important to give a rough idea of when people were active, and death date is adequate for this purpose.--Poetlister 06:40, 1 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FYI: Cato is temporally de-checkusered

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See meta:Requests for comments/Poetlister and Cato. You are welcome to comment here. For getting background knowledge, meta:talk:Requests for comments/Poetlister and Cato might be more helpful, though.

Please note:

  • Poetlister, Cato (and Yehudi) made to date no public comment. They each may have something to say. I personally would like them to respond.
  • It is no sort of power game: Wikiquote CUs (mainly me but Jeff Q at that time were briefed), involved Enwiki arbcom members and WMF Office (Cary Bass) have been closely communicating about this issue, and all agree it is finally up to English Wikiquote community. This removal is just for emergency and English Wikiquote community is expected to decide finally whether to recall him or get him back the access.
  • As said on the page, we don't think Cato has abused his power. He ran an arguable check very earlier period but it was not considered as a big deal even then. It is rather a matter of trust. If Cato and Poetlister are tied (as well as Yehudi) and if so, if the community's trust was breached. It says also the WMF has no reason to believe that Cato did not identify to them correctly. So they have no reason to revoke the access as violation of policy. It is then genuinely a community matter.
  • FT2 says he will give more information soon. You may want to wait for a while.

Thank you for your attention, --Aphaia 10:34, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Update 2008-09-09

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Hello there, here are some update from me:

  • Since FT2 published his investigation about the former User:Poetlister (abbr. PL) et al. and Cato was consequently de-checkusered, I haven't contacted the PL operator. I haven't heard from any other WQ regulars they interacted with the PL operator.
  • Relevant discussions are on s:Wikisource:Scriptorium#Poetlister where he was granted sysop bit and therefore on their RFA for vote for confidence.
  • The investigation strongly suggests, as said on Wikisource:Scriptrium, that Giselle H. is unlikely no real identity of Poetlister but someone else. We don't know who is the female whose photo was featured on PL user page for months: could be Giselle H or anyone else than the PL operator.
  • While FT2 promised an update last week, it may delay by the end of this week. FT2 has explained the delay which is due to trying to clear the rest of the case.

Thanks --Aphaia 14:34, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

While we may get some additional information, I think we have a good enough information to step forward. My concern is rather the recent inactivity of established editors of this project, but hopefully it may not be a big deal; we don't have to make a conclusion in hours, and each member of this community may have the time enough to give a consideration in several points as well as give a look a/o join the discussion on meta.

It's complicated but I think I would like to see at least two things in this moment:

  1. explanation from Poetlister, Cato and/or Yehudi.
  2. vote for confirmation on Cato's CU which is now suspended.

All those accounts are granted restricted accesses though, I am not sure if it is a good idea to proceed confirmation of those votes, under these condition 1) we have no policy about how to recall or confirm a sysop and 2) we have not heard Cato/Poetlister's explanation yet.

We could allow them to go away silently, while I think they owe us an explanation what it was after all; we need to vote for confirmation on user:Cato and his CU bit and determine what will be the ENWQ community consensus. Otherwise this issue keep us in a limbo: epoche of ethics and trust, which I am afraid will hurt us as long as it continues. --Aphaia 14:49, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Update 2008-09-10

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I got a mail from Quillercouch. Technically it is unlikely to happen to be forged. There is no explanation why they did that. I recommend them to admit to every sock on meta page, since it is now a cross-wiki matter, centralizing information is helpful. --Aphaia 06:33, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Update 2008-09-11

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Since then I got some mails. My reply has been consistent: urge him to admit to every sock.

I reviewed the recent votes and discussion within a month. I am pretty concerned about this ongoing VfD Wikiquote:Votes for deletion/Fox News Channel. I presume that those three accounts, at minimum, are likely to be operated by a same person. Or some of them could be a meatpuppet of the other. Please be careful to close the vote. Thanks. --Aphaia 19:03, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Update 2008-09-22

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For the record:

  • Community decides their privileges are stripped.
  • The operator will be allowed to edit with one account he'll choose, not now, but in months when community agrees. Other accounts are permanently blocked.
  • The list of his socks was posted on Wikisource by s:user:Cato, while we don't confirm its completeness. As of yet, three accounts are pointed out as missing and two of them were later admitted. On one account Poetlister2 (talk · contributions) the operator has not given a public statement.
  • As the CU who detected this account first, while I publicly noted "harassement?", I have never asserted it was a harassment, but suggested one possibility. In other words there was also a possibility it was no harassment, and I've thought so from the beginning. The technical evidences around Poetlister2 (talk · contributions) definitely makes it hard to think nothing but his new sockpuppet.
  • The operator has given no explanation why he used those socks and needed them flagged.

--Aphaia 07:02, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Only en-Wikiquote should be shut down IMHO

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I see no need to shut down the German project. En is full of copyvios WITHOUT any fair use rationale. The German project has now strict quality standards:

  • From not-PD authors only 5-10 quotations (from movies only 5 in the maximum)!
  • No new quote without a serious source! --Histo 20:03, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Nothing is getting shut down. However, I am certainly open to enacting prohibitions crafted towards limiting the potential for copyvio material. At the very least, we should indeed have strict and immutable limitations on the amount of content to be derived from films, TV shows, and other works that are still within their copyright period. Cheers! BD2412 T 23:37, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • I agree that it would be inappropriate to shut down the whole project, and that we should first make an effort to clean up the problems. Randomly, I found The Golden Girls, which contains 214k of copyrighted dialog from that TV series. That would appear to go beyond what is allowable under fair-use. On the other hand, a rule of only 5-10 quotations from non-PD sources may be overly harsh and would probably result in many disputes over which quotes to include. The best place to start may be to delete unsourced quotations, particularly those from the living or recently deceased ("recently" possibly meaning 70 years). Will Beback 23:45, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • We've discussed these matters before, as here and here; but we never got around to voting on a policy. Maybe it's time we stop leaving so very much to gradually evolving practices. Instead, we could work more on actual decisions to be used as guidelines and cited as procedures. It would make our work easier in the long run if we could point to the number of quotes allowed per episode, movie, etc. We've had the usual decision-making dilemma, of course: so few regular and committed editors, with most of their time and effort spent on routine chores and ongoing projects; and so the big problems keep getting shelved. And yet if we only had a dozen editors, each of them working weekly on five pages in question for copyright status, we would eliminate our current copyright list in two weeks. That would be a good start, certainly. I've tried to get the ball rolling now by cleaning up Dane Cook and Steven Wright. This week I'll also work on Bill Hicks, Lewis Black and Les Misérables (musical). Would anyone else like to volunteer on copyright cleanup? - InvisibleSun 00:34, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
InvisibleSun, I will also continue to work on this issue and plan to try to tackle the trimming of many of the TV show pages that are on the list of problems. This is an issue I've tried to work on for quite some time, but haven't been able to fully devote myself to it. If we can get some more help, maybe we can divide and conquer the pages that need the most help. I think the reason it takes some time is that I would rather excise quotes that are not all that memorable, leaving only the best subset of quotes from a given work. Rather than just a wholesale stripping of quotes, I like to be smart about the trimming. But admittedly the problem now has some heat on it and I will try to ramp up my efforts. ~ UDScott 19:09, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This is much appreciated, UDScott. I am going to create a page entitled "Wikiquote: Copyright Cleanup Project." On this page, editors who join the cleanup could list the pages on which they plan to be working. This will serve two purposes: 1) to prevent people from inadvertently working on the same pages; 2) to be updated each time a page is worked on, therefore showing up in Recent Changes and reminding people of the project's existence. On the pages I've worked on so far, I've been using the consensus of no more than five quotes per show or episode. Unsourced quotes and very long quotes are automatically deleted. One of the reasons I had held off from working on these pages was that I had little or no knowledge of most of the subjects on the list. When faced with selecting among quotes, I have chosen those that seem to work best on the printed page and also seem the most memorable. I would rather operate using a scalpel; but if I sometimes end up using a hatchet, so be it. It's a lesser evil by far to reduce a page, however severely, than leave it eternally languishing in potential violation of copyright. - InvisibleSun 20:05, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
          • Deleting unsourced quotations will do nothing to alleviate our primary copyright problem: excessively long pages of quotes from TV shows and films, which are unquestionably well sourced. If we ban TV shows altogether, that would relieve any uncertainty over what to include from TV shows. There is, I might add, truly a massive amount that is, in fact, in the public domain that we ought to have here and have not yet incorporated. BD2412 T 00:41, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
            • There are two steps in dealing with copyvio: 1) delete any unsourced quotes; 2) limit the number of sourced quotes. If we did that, we wouldn't need to eliminate TV shows and films. - InvisibleSun 01:07, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
              • Unsourced quotations are a problem simply because it's difficult to determine their copyright status. With the TV shows and films their status is known. Based on well-known interpretations of the U.S. copyright law (which applies to most of these), extensive quotations from a show or series would almost certainly exceed fair use. Looking at the recent changes link, it looks like a substantial amount of effort goes into creating them, so care should be taken in deciding how to proceed. That discussion should be in a separate thread and also at Wikiquote talk:Copyrights. Will Beback 01:30, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
                • True, there are two different problems. But there is no limitation to the reporting of quotes uttered by a particular person, as opposed to quotes assignable to a specific work. With respect to deceased people (especially generations dead figures such as Thomas Jefferson or Walt Whitman), an inadequately sourced quote presents little or no legal issue. BD2412 T 02:05, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Folks, it was raised up on foundation-l. You probalbly would like to join the discussion and defend our project. Just fyi. --Aphaia 05:34, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Could you give a link please. Tyrenius 07:40, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-September/045729.html --Histo 08:14, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that the limitation of de Wikiquote would be too harsh. 5-10 quotes from TV shows are enough for an educational project. I think the best would be to shut down en WQ for a while because the massive legal and quality problems of this project have never been taken seriously. To give an example:

These page contains simply book excerpts from a copyrighted book as I have noted in 2007 on the discussion page - no reaction. In 2008 I tagged the page with the copyvio template - no reaction. NOTHING HAS BEEN DONE. Wikiquote has tolerated massive copyright violations. It's time to act not only to discuss (and then to do NOTHING). The German experience shows that a reform of a Wikiquote project is possible. But painful decisions have to be made. --Histo 08:25, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's alright we can hear you. No need to shout. Tyrenius 12:39, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
So fix it. Will (talk) 14:39, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I believe that there is a definite problem with many of the pages on en WQ - problems that require substantial work to correct, but I think it is a bit unfair to state that these problems have never been taken seriously. There are plenty of users here that do care, but I will only speak for myself. I have often tried to focus on the problem of having too many quotes, especially on TV pages (and in fact have trimmed many TV show pages down to 5 quotes per episode). But I just do not have the time that is necessary to complete much of the needed trimming. I'm not offering that as an excuse, but rather I see the current debate as an opportunity to finally bring some resources and organization to bear against the problem. While I believe there is a core group of users that take the problem very seriously, there are far too many casual users that do not. By having such a drastic move as shutting down the site as a point of discussion, perhaps meaningful trimming can occur on more than a sporadic or isolated fashion. There are many pages with a copyright tag already placed on them - these pages require some attention. In the end, I feel that the knee-jerk action of closing the site is a bit much, but I am hopeful that we can focus on this problem and form a meaningful plan to rectify it that will allow the site to continue. ~ UDScott 17:04, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment As someone who has done some work on wikiquote, and who agrees that it is a worthy project; although IMHO - it is both confusing and problematic as to what does and does not belong. Wikiquote needs fixing not disbanding, it is a good project and it needs help by good editors and more administrators. It needs clear guidelines, and well thought out MoS policies. There might be a wikiquote central discussion page set up like this one is now for ongoing discussion; the remaining administrators need help and support. I feel badly about what happened, and badly fooled by the recent shocking events; but the project is worthwhile and its potential in the future as an interesting body of human comment is important. It has potential but needs clarification and front page parameters about how to work here. Modernist 18:43, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

German WQ has deleted 1000+ articles in 2008 and it wasn't so excessive like en WQ. There are thousands of problematic articles like the excerpts in Birdsong (novel). From such a novel only the 5 "best" quotes should be accepted because of copyvio and quality reasons --Histo 00:08, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've looked at Birdsong (novel), and I don't see a problem. The quotes, although there are many, are all short and pithy. For a 500+ page book, it's really a tiny proportion. The Simpsons pages are a serious problem, and are a serious contrast. BD2412 T 00:39, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Histo: We've already reached a working consensus of five quotes per episode of a TV show. The next step is to arrive at working numbers for movies, books, etc. The average book has many more words than the average episode of a show. Assume, merely for the sake of argument, that 1% of a book is fair use. Birdsong, as BD412 mentions, is over 500 pages, which would make about five pages to equal 1%. I'm not proposing, of course, that we allow five pages' worth of quotes from Birdsong; but I also think that more than five short quotes, if taken from an average-length book, would be acceptable fair use for copyright concerns. Suppose, then, also merely for the sake of argument, that we agreed to one short quote for every 50 pages of any book published after 1923. Once we agree on limitations — and I suspect we're not all that far from them — we too can work on "1000+ articles" in a year and show by our efforts that Assume Good Faith is now in our favor. - InvisibleSun 01:02, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Also, as I mentioned in the Meta discussion, Wikiquote falls under the DMCA safe harbor provision; any copyright owner who has a problem with any of our content must inform us and give us a chance to remove the offending material before taking any further action. BD2412 T 04:08, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that en WQ has really understood the message:

  • As Vandenberg has said WQ tolerates massive copyright violations. 5 quotes per episode aren't fair use for me, 5 per show may be.
  • I don't think that we are on a legal ground with the Birdsong quotes.
Right now, as you can see, we have a discussion about the working guidelines in trimming pages with copyright problems. This current topic began on 9/07. It is now only 9/09. So far we have two people who agree to five quotes per episode; another person would prefer no TV pages at all. We've yet to hear suggestions from most of the other regular participants. It would make sense, don't you think, to see what the consensus will be before reaching any conclusions? As we're working first on trimming the most problematic pages, we're using a maximum of five per episode as a rule-of-thumb so that the work may proceed. It's a way to get things moving. - InvisibleSun 18:50, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, sorry for late coming. I am interesting in trying to employ the proposed criteria 5 quotes per episode / 5 pages equivalent (how many lines?) per 500 pages of books. Personally I feel 5 quotes per episode are still much and 5 quotes per season could be enough, but anyway 5 quotes per episode may be a greater cut-off than the present situation. So let us try and see how it works. --Aphaia 19:05, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In response to the concerns about the Birdsong page posted above, let's look at the Birdsong quotes, then. The book is well over 500 pages. We have (counting the 'unsourced' quotes) 46 quotations in the entry, less than one line for every ten pages of the book, and indeed no more than two quotes are taken from any single page. Our quotes are relatively short as well, an average of 17.1 words per quote. These quotes reflect the opinion of the editors who have added them about what are the most "quotable" (i.e. poignant, meaningful, poetic, etc.) lines in the book. It is impossible in this case to reconstruct the plot or details of the book by reading the quotes, which prevents it from acting as a substitute for the actual book in the marketplace. Note that by comparison, Wikipedia fully describes the plot of the book, albeit without using any words that are in the book itself - thus it is Wikipedia's thorough presentation of the chronology of the book, plot and character development that presents the greatest threat to substitute for, and therefore hinder the marketability of, the work. I have read the law on fair use, and have worked on live fair use cases brought before courts. I can tell you with no hesitation that the collection of quotes in our Birdsong entry would be deemed fair by any court in the U.S. I won't pretend to make that argument for many of our TV show entries, but the idea of 5-10 quotes being the limit of fair use irrespective of the length of the work from which they are taken is simply legally incorrect. BD2412 T 20:57, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am sure that

  • an US court will not accept the Birdsong entry as fair use. It is offered under a free license with the consequence that everybody can use this compilation based on a un-free work. This is an educational project which aims to create free content and the re-use possibilities are part of the fair use rationale.
  • the Birdsong entry could NOT be justified according the WMF media policy.

If there is legal doubt feel free to ask the WMF lawyer! --Histo 16:33, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See also http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-September/045789.html --Histo 18:56, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • The Seinfeld case revolved around a book sold for profit that competed directly and commercially with works licensed by the owners of the copyright; the work in question contained over 640 pieces of information comprising not merely quotes, but episode plot and resolution details. Granted, our Seinfeld pages must be, and will be, reigned in. However, the Birdsong case is far more comparable in quantity of material to New Era Publications Int'l ApS v. Carol Pub. Group, 904 F.2d 152 (2d. Cir. 1990), which remains a binding precedent in the circuit; in New Era, the author of a critical work on Scientology had copied 121 passages from among L. Ron Hubbard's various books. The court weighed the fair use factors and found that this was fair use despite the author's commercial motive for profit, in part because the work was for the purpose of "criticism, scholarship, or research" (Wikiquote falls into the latter two), and in part because the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole was deemed low where the alleged infringer copied 5-6% of 12 lengthy works and 8% or more of 11 short works - far below the substantiality of the copying of Birdsong. Cheers! BD2412 T 00:20, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikiquote definitevely doesn't fall under scholarship or research. Collecting uncommented trivia citations isn't sholarship. --Histo 23:19, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • We are serving the same function as a Bartlett's Quotations or an Oxford Quotations - each of which contains hundreds, perhaps thousands, of quotes from works currently in copyright, despite both being commercial ventures published for profit. If those works qualify as scholarship, it's hard to see why Wikiquote can't make the same claim. BD2412 T 02:49, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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In addition to having the ongoing discussion above, it might be useful to keep a section specifically for working guidelines in trimming pages. These guidelines are concerned with copyright issues in particular. I'll start with my own suggestions as seen below. N.B: Line lengths are defined as how they would appear on a Wikiquote page. - InvisibleSun 22:32, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • I think, in general, we should have word limits in addition to line limits. A 'line' can be of indefinite length. My personal preference is to set the Gettysburg Address (272 words) as the upper limit for the length of what can be called a "quote" absent some really compelling reason why a longer piece needs to be quoted. I propose that we have 'hard' rules in this sense, but also maintain a process whereby the community can evaluate specific cases and formally approve (or reject) something that goes one quote or a few words over the limit. BD2412 T 05:00, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Picking up on the suggestion you have made, perhaps we could have a page with a title like "Wikiquote:Article Maintenance" and similar in format to Wikiquote:Votes for deletion, in which we could vote every time a situation comes up in which an exceptionally notable long quote may be allowed. The page could also deal with the situation described by UDScott in Films, wherein a work with an unusually high number of famous quotes would be allowed to surpass guideline limits. It would serve, in short, as a forum to vote on any potential exceptions to rules. A template on an article would alert its readers that a consensus vote is going on. We would also have a time limit for voting. Having a central page to serve these functions would encourage more participation and would be relatively easier to maintain than having votes on the discussion pages of articles. - InvisibleSun 19:07, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Films

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  • Five quotes maximum per hour. Unassigned quotes (i.e., quotes not assigned to specific characters) are discarded. Inappropriately lengthy quotes (i.e., seven or more lines by one character, ten or more lines of dialogue) are discarded. - InvisibleSun 22:32, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - IMHO dialogue often seems too long, rambling and lacking in meaning. Dialogue should be short and to the point. Pertaining to TV as well. Modernist 04:15, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: While I am obviously on board with the idea of trimming things, I think that having the same standard for films as we do for TV shows is not quite right. I would rather see a bit more leeway for quotes. While I know that for some films this would not be necessary (due to a lack of really pithy quotes), I am sure that for some (e.g. Casablanca or even Pulp Fiction) it might be hard to fit into this guideline. In fact, if you use Casablanca as an example: with a running time of about an hour and 40 minutes, it would qualify for maybe 7 quotes using this guideline. Just the lines that are included in the AFI list of best film quotes ever gets you to 7. While I admit that the page could still use some trimming, I feel that there are more than just those 7 that are memorable and worthy of inclusion. But if this guideline is the consensus, I will certainly abide by it. Just wanted to start a little dialogue regarding films in particular (which usually have a higher standard of writing than most TV shows). ~ UDScott 12:21, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
While raising the maximum would allow more leeway to films like Casablanca, it would certainly result in a great many editors claiming the higher maximum for just about any film. There is now a discussion, in the introductory remarks to this guidelines section, proposing a way to vote on exceptional cases. This would allow a situation like that of Casablanca to be considered while retaining the lower maximum guideline for quotes. - InvisibleSun 19:39, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

At German WQ we have five quotes per movie. All quotation have to be short. This also seems appropriate here --Histo 16:35, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • The five quotes per hour rule is certainly one I could live with, but is that to include the film's taglines, or can they be considered as supplementary to those five per hour? Opinions? --Antiquary 18:46, 17 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • I would think that they would be separate. But I would also not be averse to removing them altogether, as I have always thought of them as not quotes, but just something extra on the page. ~ UDScott 20:07, 17 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

TV series

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Five quotes per series. More is copyright violation --Histo 16:36, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Histo, I think you just show your opinion without any evidence. Can you please give us what is the basis of your argument, like an article of US Copyright Law or a verdict from the Federal Court the United State? For example, can you please show the evidence why five quotes per series broadcasted one year is okay but six is no? --Aphaia 16:52, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You have to decide in a pragmatic way. There is NO, i repeat NO reason to think that an US court would accept hundreds of quotations of one series as fair use. It's not my duty to write a fair use rationale for you. It's your duty to end the massive copyright violations here. Feel free to read:

You have to respect the official Media Policy of the WMF which clearly says:

Such EDPs must be minimal. Their use, with limited exception, should be to illustrate historically significant events, to include identifying protected works such as logos, or to complement (within narrow limits) articles about copyrighted contemporary works. [1].

Would you say that 100 K of quotations from a TV series is minimal? --Histo 18:30, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It depends on how many years the show had run. The Simpsons, for example, has been running for about 20 years. - InvisibleSun 20:33, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Based on what has been said so far, I would propose a maximum of two quotes per half-hour episode and five quotes per hour-long episode. Imposing a cap on the number of quotes per series would also help greatly, although it would be more user-friendly to impose them by season than by entire series. Imagine, for example, keeping a count of total quotes for a long-running series like The Simpsons. What, then, should be our limit of quotes per season? 20? It would mean that each episode of a season might end up with only one or two quotes, but this doesn't sound like a bad idea to me. And if a show runs for more than five years, should we impose a cap on how many total quotes are allowed?- InvisibleSun 20:33, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Would anyone like to comment on the proposal to limit the number of quotes per season? I had suggested a cap of 20 just to get the discussion going. Since I don't deal much with TV pages, it would be better to hear from editors with more experience. - InvisibleSun 19:33, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
One thing is that the math does not work: If you keep 5 quotes per episode (and most shows have seasons of around 22 episodes), that would lead to >100 quotes per season, not 20. So if you limit it to 20 per season, that is one or none per episode. I would rather stick to the 5 per episode limit. ~ UDScott 19:55, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The idea so far is that five quotes per episode is an allowable maximum, but it doesn't preclude that idea that a cap might be placed on the number of quotes per season. Say, for example, that a season has 20 episodes and that we're allotting 20 quotes per season. If allotted evenly, this would be one quote per episode. On the other hand, if it's considered that some episodes are particularly quotable and that some are not, then it would be possible to have as many as five quotes per episode for some episodes while other episodes have none at all. For all I know, the suggestion of a 20-quote cap could be quite unrealistic. But I'm reminded of what Antiquary said above about the inequity between our limits on quotes per book and our limit on quotes per episode of shows. The idea of a cap on quotes per season could restore this imbalance. For some readers it might not seem unreasonable that a show that has been on for several years and has a page with 125,000 KB has about 21 times more KB than Antony and Cleopatra. It's an inappropriate comparison, they would say, and the total number of show hours is so much longer than the play. And yet there is at the same time an inescapable feeling of imbalance that the show is considered, by all practical estimates, to have 21 times more memorable quotes than a celebrated classic. That's why I wanted to suggest the possibility of caps for TV seasons. - InvisibleSun 20:26, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. It is assumed "one quote" by a character. In a show a sequel of another dialogue was inserted and thus divided into pieces. It is a long speech whose duration was 3-5 minutes (perhaps 5 but my memory is fragile on that). It exceeds "seven line criterion" proposed on the above. Also we don't know where it was taken: of an episode or of the movie (recently produced) whose screenplays were not equal. Better speedy now? --Aphaia 08:31, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Characters

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Spoken-word (speeches, standup comedy, interviews, etc.)

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  • Five quotes maximum for any work published after the 1923 copyright cut-off. Inappropriately lengthy quotes (i.e., seven or more lines) are discarded. - InvisibleSun 22:32, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Note that certain speeches - particularly those delivered by political candidates and officeholders in the course of their official activities - are traditionally considered to be in the public domain. BD2412 T 00:29, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Electronic games

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  • Three quotes maximum per game. Unassigned quotes are discarded. Inappropriately lengthy quotes (i.e., seven or more lines by one character, ten or more lines of dialogue) are discarded.- InvisibleSun 22:32, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Do we need quotes from electronic games at all? This strikes me as the least worthwhile category of things to quote. BD2412 T 05:14, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • I think 'yes', but not many (either games or quotes). I've argued in the past that, by the very nature of the medium, game quotes ought to be subject to a higher standard of quotability than quotations from other mass media. Specifically, I'd like to require reliable secondary sourcing—i.e., the quotability of any line of game text or dialogue needs to be demonstrated by it having already been quoted in a critical secondary source (such as a review. 121a0012 05:48, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • To BD2412 yes, since it is a significant part of the late 20th & 21th C pop culture. Many quotes from electronic games become later Internet memes, like "all your base ...". In addition to the numerical measure, I prefer here to insist their quotability. If a quote is taken directly from a game, it should be removed. Only quotations which are found in reliable sources like magazines or website articles can be in our collection. --Aphaia 16:57, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
          • I will propose this, then. I think the number of truly notable quotes originating from video games is small enough to have a single page of quotes from video games, with no more than 3-5 quotes from any given game. BD2412 T 23:49, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
            • Per Category:Electronic games, we now have 235 titles. - InvisibleSun 00:40, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
              • Ok, look at those. Here are some quotes from The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction:
                • Hello, Dr. Banner, I'm looking forward to meet your acquaintance.
                • Corporal, send a fire team: one round towards the outhouse of the West wall.
                • Banner, what did you do to me, you freak? You turned me into an Abomination!
                • You got the guts? Let's find out.
                • Come on, you mindless freak!
              • There are maybe two salvageable quotes on the entire page. But more importantly, why do we need quotes from this game, of no particular importance, at all? Why do we have six different entries on the six games in the "Grand Theft Auto" series, and another six on the "Metal Gear Solid" series? In most instances, the quotes in these pages are not particularly profound, nor are they even particularly original. We should not have quotes from games unless the quotes themselves are profound or otherwise notable in some way. BD2412 T 02:42, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • 5KB/game maximum would be fine. Will (talk) 10:33, 14 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think games should be treated like movies - not the "per hour" thing - but about the same number of quotes per game as we allow for a typical movie. The budget for a major video game is comparable to a large-ish Hollywood movie - professional writers are typically employed and voice actors sometimes ad-lib or improvise their lines. Obviously the quotes should all be "notable", not just "filler" material to get us up to the allowed number - and that by itself will limit the number to a much smaller number than for movies. But video games are growing up - coming of age - they may well become as significant culturally as movies and we shouldn't enact rules to limit them unnecessarily if there IS more notable material in there. But "notable" doesn't always mean "profound" - many quotes are not profound or witty or clever or grammatical or...anything really. But if they take on memetic qualities, they should be in WikiQuote. ("All your base are belong to us" is the obvious example). If someone comes across that line and wants to know where it originally came from and to make sure they are quoting it exactly correctly - then that information should certainly be here in WikiQuote. SteveBaker 02:43, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Record albums

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Books

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  • An average of up to five lines of prose or eight lines of poetry per 50 pages of any book published after the 1923 copyright cut-off. - InvisibleSun 22:32, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think you need to be clear here what sort of book you're talking about. By this rule, most of Stephen Jay Gould would have to go, yet simply by attributing the quotations to the original form of publication (individual essays in a magazine) they would stand. (And what's a "line", anyway? Different people will use different-sized fonts and different-sized browser windows. A more appropriate unit for prose length would be "sentence", which also takes into account the differing verbosity levels of different authors.) 121a0012 05:00, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • 5 lines of prose for 50 pages of book is equivalent to 50 lines of prose for 500 pages of book, amounting to perhaps 200,000 or 250,000 words. Yet it's suggested that in film we allow 5 quotations of up to 10 lines of dialogue each for every hour of film. I make that 50 lines for at most 10,000 words of dialogue. Similarly our guideline for albums translates as 50 lines for every 20,000 words (approx.) of lyric. These figures are based on my estimates of how fast people speak or sing and how many words are printed on a page, so I don't insist on their absolute accuracy, but surely it's clear that our demands on literary quotations are wildly out of line with our demands in other media. I suggest we set our limit at 5 lines of prose for every 10 pages, and also make our requirements in film, TV and record album more stringent. --Antiquary 13:26, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • 121a0012: It's true that Stephen Jay Gould's quotes, if traced to their original magazine publications, could present different copyright evaluations than when published in one book. Since copyright violation, however, can be claimed by the book's publishers, I'm not sure it would resolve the matter to claim that they had begun as magazine articles. This is one of the complications of quotes from works that an author publishes in differing formats. It would be possible, for example, to keep to fair use of a poet by small amounts of well-known quotes from his books; but when the inevitable Selected Poems of... is published, these quotes all in one book could become a copyright violation. As for using sentences as the unit for imposing limits, what would you propose? I'm having a hard time picturing an "average" sentence. - InvisibleSun 23:29, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
          • Antiquary: Now that the discussion of TV shows involves the possibility of imposing a cap for total quotes, I believe that this would do much to make more equitable the differences in TV vs. literature. As for literature itself, it would probably be better, as you have suggested, to use lines rather than numbers of quotes as our measure. If the average book has about 40 lines per page (I say this after making an estimate from half a dozen books of various sizes), then five lines per ten pages, as you have proposed, would be about 1.25% of a book. This seems like an unexceptionable standard. If it be objected, as some have already done, that lines are too variable and that words should be the unit of measurement, then we would have to arrive at the average number of words per line. I confess that I'm reluctant to have words as units because it's the least user-friendly method. I'm picturing the continuous counting of words to determine fair use. We know that the average contributor is not going to do this; so this means that we will be doing it for him, in one edit after another. Do we have enough regular editors who are prepared to do this? I doubt it. - InvisibleSun 23:29, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

5 quotes per work are enough. More isn't fair use --Histo 16:37, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Evidence, please? I am a U.S. intellectual property attorney, and I deal in copyrights frequently. Based on my experience in actual copyright infringement litigation, I can assure you that the above statement is flatly incorrect. BD2412 T 00:32, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I see no evidence for the assertions of BD2412. They are fully unproven --Histo 23:21, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • I cited a case above - New Era Publications Int'l ApS v. Carol Pub. Group, 904 F.2d 152 (2d. Cir. 1990) - to which you had no effective answer. I'd hardly say that assertion is "fully unproven". I'll expand on that by remarking that 17 USC § 107, which expressly sets forth a right to fair use of copyrighted material, is not limited to scholarship and research, but also covers criticism, comment, and news reporting. The selection of quotes as worthy of inclusion in a collection of quotes is, at the very least, commentary on those quotes. BD2412 T 05:20, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's nonsense. A collection isn't a commentary. --Histo 13:37, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • It is if we have guidelines restricting inclusion in the collection to quotes deemed notable and worthy of preservation. Then the inclusion or exclusion of quotes becomes a commentary on the notability of those quotes. BD2412 T 16:17, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sentences and lines are highly variable. I would prefer to talk in terms of percentage of the book. If a book is 100 pages, how many pages of it can we quote? 1? 5? Half a page? Richard001 04:51, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

People

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  • Comment IMHO a clear definition of what constitutes Sourced and Unsourced needs to be explained. Why isn't everything sourced? The concept of unsourced has always struck me as potential copyvio. It makes things easy, too easy, and needs tightened guidelines. Actually I think the concept of unsourced is a huge potential violation of Wikipedia:No original research, I don't see any mention here: [2] recommending the input of unsourced material. It makes things easy but does it work? Modernist 04:22, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • I have always interepreted "unsourced" as either "commonly attributed to" (where research has not turned up the original source) or "inadequate source identification" (a Reliable Source attributes the quotation to a particular person, but the evidence of the secondary source is not sufficient to locate the primary source -- e.g., because the secondary source does not provide a citation). Translations, of course, make this ever so much more complicated, since both the original work (the primary source for its own text) and the translation (the primary source for its own text and a secondary source for the original work) need to be cited properly. But of course many editors interpret "unsourced" as "it is rumored that John Doe said...". 121a0012 05:07, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Just to reinforce that a bit... I'd be perfectly happy if everything that would go in an "unsourced" section were restricted to talk pages and WQ:Reference desk. On the few pages I patrol, that's generally what I do when someone adds a quotation that isn't properly sourced: I move it to the talk page with a note indicating why and asking for a source citation. If we interpret the "unsourced" section as "please help me identify the source" then it's clearly more appropraite that these should be on the talk pages rather than the article pages. 121a0012 05:53, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think unsourced to a large extant needs to be eliminated in any form in the long run, although in Talk pages it seems okay as a speculative destination for the main article. I like the suggestion that unsourced sections be re-designated as section in need of reference. The unsourced material is good for the most part but it encourages laziness and a laissez-faire attitude about what can and can't be included. Right now - it's anything goes and as tempting as that is it's creating problems... Modernist 14:13, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In the German WQ we discard all unsourced quotations. To give sources should be the specific value of WQ --Histo 16:39, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For living people, not only concerned about copyvio, but also about possible libel, I think we should establish "every quote should be sourced": it isn't equal to be attributed. Either online or offline (in print) quotes without citing the source should be discarded for the living people. --Aphaia 17:00, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • If unsourced quotes were to be transferred to the talk pages of articles, does this eliminate the potential for claims of libel? If so, then I would agree with placing them on talk pages, where they might eventually be sourced, than merely getting rid of them at once. But what about newly created pages? As one of the people who routinely works on reformatting new articles, I can testify that the average contributor's article makes no attempt at sourcing. It doesn't, in fact, attempt much of anything: it's just a few quotes blankly dumped upon a page. Should we transfer these quotes to a talk page, which would make the article temporarily quoteless; or should we just speedily delete the article? If the latter, we will eliminate many, if not most, new pages; but considering their general quality, this may not be such a loss as might be feared. It could even encourage contributors to source their quotes. And what of already existing articles consisting of nothing but unsourced quotes? Will those pages also remain quoteless while the quotes are transferred to the talk pages, or should they be deleted as well? It makes no sense to have an article without any quotes, however temporarily: it would be better, I think, just to delete them the same as we would if they were new. - InvisibleSun 00:18, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • I recommend placing this - {{references}} under all unsourced section headings as a temporary fix measure...until sources can be added. Modernist 01:45, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • Although the template is a useful reminder, I wouldn't say it supersedes the necessity of removing unsourced quotes from articles. Getting them off the pages is the first priority, whether by deletion or by transfer to the talk pages. The effort involved in adding the template would be wasted were we soon to decide, as we are so far agreed on, that removal is our choice. The only need for the template would be if we decided to keep unsourced quotes until sources were found. I wouldn't recommend that: there's no guarantee an unsourced quote will ever be sourced. - InvisibleSun 02:22, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've tagged the unsourced sections on most of the articles I've spent time on. Its like an in use sign, I'll gather my books and sources and reference what I can as my time permits, and as an article gets done I'll remove irrelevant and unsourced material and the template. Modernist 03:09, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the discussion over at Meta, it was pointed out that we should have no legal problem with transferring unsourced quotes to talk pages. As one person expressed it, "The talk pages are there for the project, and are not part of the product." Imagine, for example, the trouble that Wikipedia would be in if its talk page discussions were susceptible to claims of defamation. - InvisibleSun 19:29, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I also would prefer that we have definitions of the words "sourced" and/or "attributed" and/or "unsourced", otherwise the policy guidelines that we come up with might mean different things to different people. To give one example that illustrates why such definitions aren't trivial, should the quote "F___ Saddam. we're taking him out." [3] be in the sourced or attributed or unsourced section? Opinions please?:) ~ iddo999 02:22, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Based on the consensus so far, there would no longer be any unsourced sections and no more acceptance of new unsourced quotes. Just to give my own opinion, the quote you link to could be considered sourced and could be formatted in an "As quoted in..." fashion; but ideally it would be better to have a less secondary source. What is the origin of this quote? Was it told to these reporters directly, or did they find it somewhere else? - InvisibleSun 02:40, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • I am in favor of the proposal to get rid of unsourced quotes (for living as well as dead people), but I think that we should define what "unsourced" means so that this proposal would be meaningful. Regarding the example, obviously you won't find it on tape... It was published in a well-known publication (mentioning explicitly that this is a direct quote, so is that enough for it to belong in the sourced section?) and wasn't denied, though I'd guess that if someone insisted to get a direct confirmation he would get some non-denial denial or whatever... If we only have "sourced" section, what is the fate of this example? More opinions please? ~ iddo999 03:04, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • We might consider the appelation Anonymous to cover important quotes that cannot be narrowed down to a single source, or reference...anonymous but limited to clear guidelines that the quote be both materially important to the article or to the subject; and only a proscribed number of anonymous quotes be allowed per article - like three....Modernist 19:31, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
          • If I understand correctly, you are raising a completely different issue, about quotes where it isn't even known who said them, as opposed to quotes that are attributed to some specific person but the source is missing or unreliable. If that's not what you meant, then the words "unsourced"/"attributed" that we were using seem to me more to the point compared to "anonymous". So if I got what you said, your proposal might be good but it belongs e.g. in "themes" subsection discussion and not here, because it's irrelevant to "People" pages where the specific person who made all the quotes in such a page is identified (though it's relevant for "about" sections"). ~ iddo999 00:56, 17 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would also like to point out that if we indeed decide to get rid of unsourced quotes, then as mentioned above I think that we should move the unsourced sections to the talkpages instead of deleting them. In many pages the unsourced section contains appropriate quotes that get easily be sourced though the editor who intially added them didn't bother, so just deleting these quotes would be a bit barbaric... ~ iddo999 00:56, 17 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Themes

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  • When a theme page has no sourced quotes, the sources must be provided. A quotee's name alone is insufficient, since it offers no proof of the quote being genuine. If no source can be found for a quote, it should be transferred to the talk page. If determined to be inappropriate per Wikiquote guidelines (length, memorability, etc.), it should simply be deleted. A page with nothing but unsourced quotes should be nominated for deletion; transferring the quotes to the talk page would leave the article empty. Anonymous quotes should only be allowed if a source is provided to show their currency. - InvisibleSun 02:07, 13 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

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Something like this already exists at User:Jeffq/Wikiquote:Exemption Doctrine Policy, which I started with the hope that we could eventually move it to Wikiquote:Exemption Doctrine Policy, which would then represent the EDP that the Wikimedia Foundation expects us to have for non-free material. (Unfortunately, their "Resolution:Licensing policy" is obviously written mainly to address images and other binary media, not text, but we've talked in the past about implementing an EDP to cover WQ's unique situation.) My absence from WQ has prevented me from doing more to promote this; I'm glad to see everyone getting on with it anyway! If no one objects, I (or anyone else who wants to) can do the move now. Whatever we discuss here should be folded into the eventual WQ:EDP, and any discussion here should ultimately be moved to its talk page. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 01:18, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is some conceptual overlap between this and what I had hoped to do with Wikiquote:Quotability. I think a large portion of our copyright concerns will evaporate if we set standards delineating exactly what importance and quality of quotes belong in Wikiquote, and discard everything that does not meet those standards. As our quote of the day feature shows, there are many beautiful and clever and moving quotes out there - why keep all the crap piled up around those? BD2412 T 05:11, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I like what I see at Wikiquote:Quotability concerning verifiability...Modernist 14:27, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with moving the page per Jeffq's recommendation. Once we have agreed-upon guidelines, we might want to consider a way of referring our contributors directly to it so that we don't have to be constantly explaining the rules. I don't think it would be too intrusive if every article had, perhaps between the intro and the text, a one-line template which said something like, "For Wikiquote rules on copyright limitations of quotes, please see this page," with the words "this page" serving as a link to the guidelines. We could also link to the page in our edit summary lines whenever relevant. - InvisibleSun 01:10, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think this project will sure overwrap with Wikiquote:Quotability, just different where to stress. Quotability policy is concerned about every type quote (we once discussed on what would be quotable quotes of Sir Isaac Newton), but now we are concerned about mainly copyrighted materials. Using templates to enforce our rules on copyright limitations sounds fine to me. Can we also put it in many places - to welcome templates, in pages to be created and/or in mediawiki:anonnotice? --Aphaia 18:46, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yes indeed, Wikiquote:Quotability is concerned about every type quote - if we come up with strict standards about what quality of quotes should be included, and then strictly apply those standards, we will thereby eliminate most of the junk that raises copyright concerns in the first place. BD2412 T 02:36, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'd be more willing to work with a byte limit than a quote limit. Also, I myself would grant leniency to where the work has caused memetic repetition, e.g. GLaDOS' lines in Portal, or the famous "It's a trap!", "Your overconfidence is your weakness.", and "There is another Skywalker" scenes from Star Wars Episode VI (and of course "I am your father". Still, we could chop things down quite a bit. If it must be purely numerical, five or six quotes per hour for audiovisual, two per (average) gameplay hour, one or two lines per song. Will (talk) 14:19, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Vote for confidence

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Until now we have no recall in any reason. I think now we need at least one vote for confidence: the case of Cato's CU. I am not sure if I would like to call it "recall" since the bit itself was already removed. Also I prefer a generic name always, so I wouldn't like to name it vote for recall. I prefer the name WS uses "vote for confidence".

Also I don't think it a good idea the EN WP custom which allows their sysops to build their own rule for recall independently (see an attempt on this project at user:Yehudi). I think rather we would like to have a project level rule which is applied for all votes for confidence. That means in this context we wouldn't let the user Cato offer the rule along which the vote on his suspended CU bit. Instead I propose that the community have a generic rule on vote for confidence and it will be applied for every other vote.

I propose to import the current EN WS rule. They have a simple mechanism: three established registered users ask for vote on a given user in their RfA page, and then a bureaucrat recognizes those three. Then the vote will happen. The threshold to pass is the single majority (>50%), not alike regular RfA. I've given my thought for days on this issue and concluded that it would work for us too.

Thought? --Aphaia 20:20, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I copied the rule from EN WS and modifid (remove the schedule votes of confidence part etc) to accustom for your needs. See the below.
If no opposition comes from the community within a day, I take it the community tentative approves to render it for the vote mentioned by Modernist, while I an mot sure how the vote is best structured. We can later discuss on that. --Aphaia 00:02, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

IMHO Poetlister/Quillercouch must be removed as both Bureaucrat and administrator. Cato removed as administrator and checkuser (even if its null and void) and Yehudi must be removed as administrator as quickly as possible to reestablish the credibility and the viability of this project..Modernist 03:49, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Modernist for your feedback. But I don't think this is the right forum. IMHO it should be on WQ:RFA. Also I an not sure if it is right to start the vote immediately. Wikisource community decided to wait for him until 15th hoping him to give an explaination why he did it after all. I think them quite fair in this difficult circumstance; after all we don't know now even if we would like him to retain all those socks, if those three are all of his socks (that is what I urge him to say publicly!) and which account he as a person would like to retain if we allow him to continue editing but not all his socks, etc.
Also, a bit selfishly saying, the comment in your style may make it difficult for b'crats to resume the result. I personally prefer to divide them to each account just for readability. --Aphaia 05:25, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you Aphaia, my comments are meant to move us all forward on the same page. I'd like to hear an explanation from him, but the 15th sounds OK as does WQ:RFA - in your style. Modernist 10:38, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks to thanks ;) Yes your comments have moved this issue forward and I appreciate you and Casey. I agree on the 15th. The 10th day since this issue was made public.
Back to the immediate concern. I propose and thus support to have a vote of confidence on these accounts (at least on Cato from the 15th). I think Modernist supported. Casey may have supported to have a vote too? If so it gets three supports already so we will move forward. Is it okay? How about, Casey? --Aphaia 17:27, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I support having a vote. - InvisibleSun 18:00, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
InvisibleSun thirded so that it will happen on WQ:RFA#Votes of confidence. --Aphaia 04:58, 13 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
*nod* Vote is a good idea. Cbrown1023 talk 14:20, 13 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to ask who would become the subject of the vote for confidence while not scheduled in advance.--Jusjih 01:04, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

User:WJBscribe supplied this explanation of who - more or less, I suppose on: this post on Wikisource where Cato admits to a number of sockpuppet accounts across WMF projects, including Quillercouch/Poetlister and Yehudi.... Modernist 11:12, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To Jusjih, every account alleged to be his socks and granted restricted access. At this moment it is equal to Cato, Quillercouch and Yehudi. s:user:Cato confirmed those three as Modernist pointed out.
As for the schedule, it was my fault not to determine its term beforehand. But in comparison with the granted rights, it should not be shorter than one week, I think, to gather opinions from the community member as much as possible. --Aphaia 07:31, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Votes of confidence

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originally taken from English Wikisource

Restricted access depends on the continued support of the community. This may be tested by a vote of confidence, in which a simple majority (50%+1) must support the user's continued access for it to be retained. (What access a discussion concerns should be explicitly noted in the discussion's introduction.) Any user may propose a vote of confidence, but at least three established users must support the need for one before it can be called.

In the case of an called proposal, the user may not use the restricted access for any non-trivial action at any time until the vote is closed. A bureaucrat will eventually archive the discussion and, if so decided, request removal of restricted access by a steward.

What is copyrighted and what isn't

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I'm not a registered user here but I worked at another languaje wikiquote. I have noticed the current debate about enforcing copyright rules, and before going on with that, I need to have some things clarified, and here I'm more likely to find answers.

On one side, there are quotes that are in the public domain, such as things said by historical people or procers centuries ago. I think it's beyond doubt that those are in the public domain and have no copyright, and can be used and cited freely and without limits. On the other side, there are copyrighted works, wich would be able to be cited but only in very small proportions, if at all, under the legal umbrella of "Fair use".

The current debate tries to determine the exception policy about fair use, when it can be used and when it can't. But there is another issue to be conidered before that: when a quote is protected by copyright, and when it isn't? Commons has a very good system, with all the template tags, to check if there is some way an image falls into PD, but there isn't such a way to determine the copyright status of a quote.

Some questions I have wondered

  • Protected works. There is no doubt that current or time-close works in the media such as movies and TV shows are always protected in themselves by copyright. It isn't a big surprise if iconic quotes or slogans, such as "My name is Bond, James Bond", are protected as well. Long quotes that do not make sense outside of the plot, such as the speech of V in the TV in the movie "V for Vendetta", would be surely protected as well. But which is the limit? A work of fiction, specially those wich are not narrated from a third point of view, says many things, many of wich are just trivial quotes of everyday usage. Just by placing any random movie in the TV I heard quotes such as "It's a good idea", "Me too", "You don't have to", "Sounds good" and I strongly doubt they can't claim copyright for that. Can they do it, or is there a limit?
  • There is an interview made by a media source, such as a magazine, to a known person, which says many things. To whom does the copyright of the quotes of that interview belong, to the media or the person? And when and under wich conditions would such copyright expire and become public domain? 200.126.149.214 13:26, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Under the "merger doctrine" short quotes (like "My name is Bond, James Bond") are not protected by copyright, as there are too few ways to concisely express the thought to remove the phrase from our vocabulary. A compilation of such quotes may be protected, however. The individual quotes may be protected by trademark law, but only against trademark use (we could not advertise a movie based on it containing a character who says that, except possibly as a parody). As for the interview, copyright subsists in live performances that are simultaneously recorded with the authorization of the performer, per sec. 101 of the Copyright Act. BD2412 T 05:14, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Productions

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virtually all of this (ok, everything I looked at but I didn't look at every page) is dialogue, not quotes. Suggest this is not the correct venue for this and other places (specifically, fan wikis and sites) might be a better place. I will be blunt: IMO the entire category and sub-cats might benefit from mass deletion. KillerChihuahua 20:02, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand this comment at all - first, the category includes not only films and TV shows, but also literary works (so there is more than just dialogue there). Second, what's the problem with dialogue anyway? Those are quotes. The definition of a quote is not that it is a single line. While there is a larger ongoing debate regarding the use or potential overuse of quotes from copyrighted works (and that will run its course and have an outcome based on Fair Use), I do not feel that this suggestion - that this entire category be deleted simply because there is dialogue contained within it - holds merit. ~ UDScott 20:20, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I apologise for being unclear. When I say "mass deletions" I don't mean "delete it all". There is no problem with dialogue; however dialogue and quotes are most emphatically not synonymous. KillerChihuahua 21:04, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(outdent) So the best way to handle pages which appear to me to be un-salvageable is to Afd? Sorry, I'm experienced on en.wp, not here - I appreciate the assistance learning how you prefer things handled here. KillerChihuahua 14:43, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikiquote:Votes for deletion here. But I agree with you; if the page cannot be improved or is unlikely to have a quote-worthy thing, deletion is a solution in my humble opinion. I even regularly put some notable but quasi-synopsis like pages on WQ:VFD. --Aphaia 17:21, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
[edit]

In response to the tired Simpsons/Seinfeld OMFG copyvio meme, this is what our official attorney said:

“ I can't speak for the Board, but I don't see in this case a compelling argument for Wikiquote to change its current practice.

Copyright law cases typically involve multifactorial analyses and lots of nuance. I would not assume that a commercial book publisher's use of "Seinfeld" quotes necessarily tells us anything about a non-commercial reference's use of quotations.

Many people believe that copyright jurisprudence gives clear and obvious guidance about how one should use copyrighted materials in future cases. My experience has been, however, that this belief is mistaken.

If we were contacted by a copyright holder with a complaint about Wikiquote, of course, we would attempt to respond within reason to resolve the complaint without anyone's having to resort to litigation. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act actually provides for services like Wikiquote a way of resolving copyright complaints without serious risk of litigation through its notice-and-takedown procedures. I'm not aware of any DMCA notices regarding Seinfeld quotations on Wikiquote.

”

—Mike Godwin 21:20:23, 10 September 2008 (UTC), The foundation-l mailing list

Per Jimbo, all legal questions should be referred to Mike. Mike has spoken so, in the interest of avoiding further copyright paranoia, please stop saying that hundreds of quotes are a copyvio. --Dragon695 14:01, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Dragon 695 for this post - perhaps you could also add it to the ongoing Meta discussion? On disbanding Wikiquote ~ UDScott 14:15, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion Mr. Godwin is wrong and he didn't spoke for the Board. Seinfeld is a massive copyright violation with 1000+ quotes and WQ isn't in compliance with the WMF licensing policy. Mike Lifeguard wrote in the same discussion:

“ 'm afraid I don't understand how we reconcile the principle that WMF is supposed to provide freely-licensed content, and the Wikiquote project is apparently chock-full of so-called fair use. This is far worse than simply

incorporating fair use media (which is not permitted on many projects for principled reasons). I can understand a Wikiquote containing quotes which have fallen out of copyright and I think such a project would be wonderful. But using fair use to compile quotes seems to me to be a bad idea regardless of how many there are. So whether a court would accept a fair use defence is rather immaterial to me - I am more concerned with the principle of having an entire article/page of solely fair use content. For a WMF project, this seems nonsensical.

”

This is also my opinion --Histo 23:46, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Histo, what do you suppose the purpose of copyright law is? BD2412 T 00:12, 13 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe you should read http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080909014304275 carefully? --Histo 01:18, 13 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I hope you realize that the Harry Potter decision bodes far worse for Wikipedia (which is after all an encyclopedia, and substitutes for an encyclopedia that someone might buy) than it does for Wikiquote. Is it your position that all of Wikipedia should be shut down? BD2412 T 01:30, 13 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In any event, you have not answered my question: what is the purpose of copyright law? BD2412 T 01:31, 13 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I do not think that I have to answer silly questions here. Read the Wikipedia entry about Copyright if something is not clear. We have to accept the copyright and the WMF Policies. That's all --Histo 13:35, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And you're acting obstructively towards an intellectual property lawyer. Will (talk) 13:51, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, that's his right, too. I wouldn't say Histo is acting obstructively, just petulantly. I'll supply the answer, in any event. The purpose of copyright, as expressly outlined in the U.S. Constitution, is "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts". Prohibitions which do not act to promote such progress are unconstitutional as prohibitive of free expression. Now, please explain, how would shuttering Wikiquote promote the progress of science and the useful arts? BD2412 T 16:25, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
On an off-topic note, I actually wonder if anyone's used that argument in relation to DRM... the cassette and crossbones is parodied often in this regard... Will (talk) 19:40, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I cannot see that 1000 Seinfeld quotes are promoting the progress of science and useful arts. That's nonsense and this article is a clear copyright violation. And ist is not relevant if someone here is saying he is a copyright lawyer. I am then the Duke of Wellington --Histo 17:53, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Which is why Seinfeld had been tagged for copyright concerns (we place the tags on the talk pages) and will be trimmed by the Wikiquote:Copyright Cleanup Project. Which is also why pages with very large KB will be worked on. We have a small group of regular editors. The guidelines we are working on, as you seem not to have noticed, do nothing to defend bloated pages; on the contrary, we have begun to do something to control them and to keep them under control. Perhaps you would like to assist us in this. Considering the number of times you have come here and posted your many and repetitive complaints, I feel quite certain that you could somehow find the time to do constructive things as well. - InvisibleSun 19:20, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I do not think that my repetetive complaints are'nt constructive. What I do or not I prefer to decide myself, thanks --Histo 18:49, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Copyrighted literature

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How much of a book (or other work) can one quote on a page on said book, if that book is copyrighted? Is there any legal limit? Richard001 00:14, 14 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We're discussing that very matter right now on the Village Pump topic Copyright guidelines for trimming articles. In particular, see the subtopic "Books." I hope you'll feel welcome to join the discussion. - InvisibleSun 00:21, 14 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal for quote length limit.

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I would like to make a formal proposal that we adopt a limit on the length of quotes. We are Wikiquote, not Wikispeech. Any "quote" that exceeds a few lines in length is more properly called a speech, and included in Wikisource if it is eligible. Such quotes taken from workds that are not in the public domain also raise copyright concerns. In light of the foregoing, my proposal is as follows:

No quote in excess of 250 words shall be included without prior approval by a vote of the community. This prohibition may not be evaded by dividing a long quote into several smaller quotes.

I'd like to have a period of discussion on this followed by a vote. Any thoughts? Cheers! BD2412 T 16:52, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would argue that this has been already taken care of by the line-length limitations we are discussing in the various genres. If we decide, for example, on seven-line limits for individual characters and ten-line limits for dialogue, this would preclude, I should think, any 250-word quotes no matter what the font and formatting variations. You would have to be getting 25 words per line to equal 250 words in a ten-line dialogue; is that even possible in any standard font or format? Allowing 250-word quotes would be more expansive and would make for longer selections than we have discussed. The only advantage that a 250-word limit would have is in the matter of books, where we have been discussing a limit of five lines per ten pages (i.e., about 1.25% of a book). In the case of books, the five-lines-per-ten pages limit allows a certain flexibility. You could, for example, have an eight-line quote and a two-line quote for 20 pages, since it would equal five lines per ten pages. By imposing a 250-word limit, it would create a desirable maximum allowable limit for any one quote.

Some people have argued that line lengths are not good units of measurement because lines vary according to formats. I would still propose it as a measurement because I believe that word-counting is the least user-friendly method. Give it a try, counting up to 250 words, and I think you'll see what I mean. We want a method that is the most practicable for ourselves, since we know that most editors will not be doing any of this and that we will have to do it for them. In short, with the exception of books, I wouldn't want as much as 250 words unless we agree that our current limits are too restrictive. I don't happen to think that they are, but that's just my own opinion. I've found so far, while working in the Copyright Cleanup Project, that seven lines of individual quotes and ten lines of dialogue have been quite adequate for the purpose of page-trimming.- InvisibleSun 18:28, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Have you seen the quotes at Noam Chomsky lately? Scroll down the page a bit. There are "quotes" of over a thousand words - but those quotes are said to come from speeches which Chomsky has released into the public domain. The situation is a bit of an extreme, but it does exist. BD2412 T 22:43, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In the guidelines section entitled Spoken-word (speeches, standup comedy, interviews, etc.), I proposed a seven-line quote limit, which would be even more restrictive than a 250-word maximum. As always, notable exceptions could be presented for vote at a community page dealing with those situations. I'd like to remind people at this point that if they think any of the proposed guideline limits are too restrictive, they may want to offer alternative maximums, whether it be on lines per quote, total caps on quote numbers, etc. - InvisibleSun 18:42, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This is not at all to suggest that the seven-line proposal is too restrictive. If I expand my browser window to the fill screen, the Gettysburg Address (which is 272 words) is seven lines of text; in terms of sentences, it is nine, but two of those ("We are met on a great battle-field of that war" and "It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this") are comparatively short; if they were removed what would be left would be seven lines and 250 words exactly. That represents, to my thinking, the upper limit of what we should include absent specific community approval for going over that length. BD2412 T 23:26, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Enforcing new guidelines

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Perhaps it would be better to wait until the guidelines have been finalized before discussing what we will need to do to carry them out; but some of the questions involved in enforcement may affect what our guideline decisions will be. It might be worthwhile to discuss a few topics in advance.

  • 1) Unsourced quotes. We've had a consensus so far that we want to remove unsourced quotes from pages. These quotes can be placed on the talk pages and left there to be worked on. But what about new edits with unsourced quotes? We know that many, if not most editors will only give us unsourced quotes. Should we just keep transferring them to talk pages, allowing the talk page quotes to get bigger and more unmanageable, while many of the articles more or less stagnate; or should we finally put a moratorium on the acceptance of unsourced quotes? Our problem until now is that there has been little incentive for editors to do things right or well. They have given us unsourced quotes; we have accepted them. They give us pages with not even an attempt at formatting, with nothing but the bare quotes; we format them or give them cleanup tags. And so on. If we're to really turn things around and get some leverage, I propose that we give them a need to source quotes by rejecting all unsourced quotes. If a new edit is nothing but unsourced quotes, it would be reverted. If it contains both sourced and unsourced quotes, the sourced ones will be kept and the unsourced ones deleted. If a new article is created with nothing but unsourced quotes, it will be speedily deleted. Editors have the prerogative, of course, of sourcing unsourced quotes as they encounter them. The summary lines would explain the reason for the rejection of unsourced quotes, as would a templated message sent to the contributor. Inadequately sourced quotes could be accepted, based on what we decide the minimal requirements should be.

    The rejection of new articles with only unsourced quotes will affect, in turn, existing articles with only unsourced quotes. If the unsourced quotes in these articles were to be transferred to the talk pages, the articles would be quoteless. Perhaps we could put these pages up to a VfD as we find them, allowing interested editors to source at least one quote before the articles are deleted. Or perhaps we'll decide simply to delete them en masse, with editors keeping lists of any articles they'd like to work on after deletion. There are any number of ways we could handle these matters, so I trust that people will offer alternatives if we decide that this is our policy. I don't think it's unreasonable to say to contributors from now on: "Add nothing that you cannot source." We know that there will be complications: explaining, for example, that sourcing doesn't mean finding something on ThinkExist, Brainyquote or someone's MySpace page. It would always be well, if we're going to be sending templated messages, to have a link to a page explaining guidelines.

    This is an attempt to begin the discussion of enforcement issues. I hope that other editors will add issues which occur to them as well. - InvisibleSun 20:35, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    • Good. I think we should immediately delete unsourced quotes newly added from this point, and make it a hard and fast rule, either it has some kind of sourcing in a reliable and durably archived format when it goes in, or it doesn't go in. I think we should also move existing unsourced quotes as we find them to a subpage (i.e. Joe Smith/unsourced) with a clearly set expiration date, maybe a month. What is sourced can be moved to the entry, but whatever is not sourced when that date passes gets deleted with the subpage. BD2412 T 22:49, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • Maybe we could use a system like the prod one - where once unsourced quotes are moved to a subpage, a tag is placed on the subpage that places it into a category of pages that should be deleted after a given period of time. If someone finds sources, they can then be moved back to the main page. Otherwise, after the time period has passed, the subpage is deleted. ~ UDScott 18:08, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • Agreed. Subpages with time limits are a much more workable solution than the one I had proposed for sending them all to VfD. If I knew, for instance, that there were a good many subpages whose quotes I wouldn't be able to source in time, it would just be matter of creating a desktop folder in which these quotes are kept in files and would be sourced when I found the time to work on them. - InvisibleSun 18:52, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We have in the German Wikiquote clear rules: No new quote without an exact source (including edition and page number, simple title of the book isn't enough), no moving of unsourced quotes on talk or subpages. Experience over years has shown that one can neglect the number of unsourced quotes which are sourced ex post by others. Thus unsourced quotes would last until the end of time or of Wikiquote (what ever is shorter) --Histo 18:00, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Unsourced quotes added before the rules at German WQ were tightened are still in the articles? --Bradeos Graphon Βραδέως Γράφων 21:14, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I know they are removed; the authors in PD have still some, but there is a limitation. Living authors and recently deceased have no such allowance. --Aphaia 10:56, 17 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Unsourced quotes should no longer be added. The policy should be only sourced quotes..When I first came here over a year ago from Wp I was surprised to see unsourced sections. I think that as the unsourced sections disappear the liklihood is that unsourced quotes will disappear also because there is no basis...I've tagged all the unsourced sections of articles I've worked on. As I source the quotes I get rid of the sections, on those articles about living people I've placed those on the talk pages. Modernist 03:26, 17 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the policy should be sourced quotes only. I've been on WQ less than a year, and I think I've been able to source all my contributions. --Bradeos Graphon Βραδέως Γράφων 03:47, 17 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I concur. Also I would love to see "no original quote" policy: if a sentence is not quoted by someone else yet, it shouldn't be included to our project, even it was properly sourced. After applying this rule for the contemporary works like TV shows, their volumes may be greatly decreased. --Aphaia 10:56, 17 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As much as I agree with much of what has been said here (and I am definitely in support of trimming the pages, especially TV show pages), I do not agree with this "no original source" policy. As discussed before here: Wikiquote:Village_pump_archive_22#Proposal_for_strict_limitations_on__TV_show_quotes, there was some disagreement about whether or not this was a good idea. The problem I have is that applying this would strip most of the TV pages to no quotes at all. Instead, I would rather apply the strict limit of 5 quotes per episode and use community consensus on whether or not a quote should be included (based on its value or whether or not it is pithy enough). ~ UDScott 13:36, 17 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'd also suggest primarily sourced quotes from notable people or characters should be OK, consensus willing. --Bradeos Graphon Βραδέως Γράφων 02:02, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This seems to be a good idea, particularly in light of the need to ensure quality. Tagging an article and noting that there are unsourced quotations, and then giving a time limit (say a week or two) for the quotes to be sourced seems like a good way of going about it. sephiroth bcr (converse) 06:38, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • 2) Maintenance of limits. Once a page has been trimmed for guideline limitations, the question then arises of how we deal with counter-efforts, i.e., contributors who try to revert the trimming or try to build articles beyond their limits. We have already begun to see attempted resistance to pages that were trimmed by the Wikiquote:Copyright Cleanup Project. We can't treat these attempts as if they were the same as vandalism, since it would imply that these contributors know they're doing wrong. What means, then, do we use to inform them, and how do we prevent continued attempts to surpass the guideline limits? We could create a templated message, alerting contributors that their edits have been reverted or modified, and with a page link to our guideline policy. We could also, as discussed earlier, put a guideline link on every article at some appropriate and noticeable place. If people continue to ignore guidelines after being warned, they could be temporarily blocked as we would do for vandalism, and with a templated blocking message for the same. As a temporary measure until a revised guidelines page is created, messages could be sent to editors informing them of the quote limits already agreed upon. Further reinforcement would be in the wording of edit summary lines, explaining the guidelines that had prompted our actions.

    There is another question as well when it comes to the maintenance of guideline limits. If an editor, for example, adds a quote to a TV episode where the limit has already been reached, do we simply revert the edit, or do we consider replacing one of the existing quotes with the newly added quote? The latter would be the more flexible policy, although it would perhaps require more regular editors than we have to do the constant and intensive work involved. Once our new policy gets under way, the majority of new edits are going to have to be revised for one reason or another: unsourced quotes, guideline limits, reformatting, vandalism, etc. We must prepare for this by choosing policies which don't surpass our abilities. Electing more sysops would be a good start; but that's another issue for now. - InvisibleSun 19:38, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • If people are continuing to violate consensus and add quotes back in, then construe it as disruptive editing, give them warnings, and then block them if the activity continues. If they get off their block and continue to add quotes against in against consensus, then block them again. If you have editorial consensus on an issue, then you uphold it. Editors are expected to abide by editorial consensus (with the the exception of IAR cases, but that's another story), and if they disagree with the consensus, they should try to change the consensus rather than simply attempt to ignore it. Naturally, people often don't know about the consensus on the matter, so you revert them once and AGF, leave a message on their talk page explaining the consensus on the matter, and if they continue to add quotes or whatnot, then give them a warning. If they go past that, then block them. sephiroth bcr (converse) 20:43, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • As far as I know, the new guideline has no page of its own, and not easy to skim. Can anyone who gets deeply involved launch a page for the new guideline? It may make us easy to enforce it and help them aware such trimming is no vandalism (sometimes they claimed so) but enforcement of community consensus. --Aphaia 05:44, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • I'd be happy to write one up, but are we condensing all of the above discussion onto one guideline, or are there going to be multiple guidelines (for like electronic games, etc.) branching off from one general stylistic guideline? Personally, the latter is preferable, but that's up to consensus here. sephiroth bcr (converse) 07:18, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I suppose the latter preferable, in regard of other similar guidelines on WP (like notability etc.) as well as discussion on the above. They would be easily grown and one page won't be enough to pack 'em all. --Aphaia 17:16, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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See w:Talk:Eben_Moglen#Speeches_and_Such about using wikiquote as a dumping ground for large sections of external links from wikipedia. Opinions? ~ iddo999 12:06, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think WQ is an appropriate dumping ground for that collection of links. While it may be useful to build up the page, in my opinion, the reference section of wikiquote should be the original sources of citations on that page. In other words, if we don't cite from a page, it has no ground to be called references. Wikiquote is no more collection of links or link directory than Wikipedia, I understand. --Aphaia 13:24, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I suspect that your suggested standard (i.e. only include links to websites that are used for the actual citations) would mean that the vast majority of external links should be deleted, because they're mostly links to an official homepage and so on. I actually try to follow this standard on the pages that I'm working on, but by and large it's certainly not the common practice on wikiquote... More opinions? ~ iddo999 14:08, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, I didn't include the case you suggested: I am okay with the official websites, they are anyway one or some sites: the links I am concerned about on the above are a vast number of links of speeches and writings. Not one or some links which has bios and other materials. --Aphaia 16:03, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I failed to understand what you meant by "they are anyway one or some sites". I am personally opposed to including links of official homepages etc. on wikiquote, and instead prefer to include only links to websites that are directly related to quotes. Anyway I don't think that it's some common wikipedia practice to transfer their linkfarms here, just those two cases (Moglen and RMS). I assume that their reasoning is that these links to speeches are useful for wikiquote because we can grab quote from them. I actually did it once with one of the RMS speeches that they moved here. ~ iddo999 17:21, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't mind having a link to their official sites, in other words, I don't mind missing them. I reviewed some articles and find rarely links to official sites, so perhaps it is better not to stick my previous position. Now we don't have them, so let us not add them: they may be found on Wikipedia.
BTW we need to make a conclusion of this discussion I guess. Richard Stallman#external links are now turned into a sort of link directory. I suppose we can safely refer to WQ:NOT, say "Wikiquote is no link repository", and remove most of those links? --Aphaia 09:48, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Links to actual sources quoted are fine. An interwiki link or three for the author or subject is a good thing. I never saw another type of external link that I thought was necessary to Wikiquote's mission. I recommend keeping a tight lid on that can of worms: ban them all and let Wikipedia do the work of managing external links as a task intrinsic to its mission. ~ Ningauble 20:56, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

RMS is trimmed [4](6KB reduced)! --Aphaia 23:23, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong algorithm: 8KB. --Aphaia 00:14, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have not become involved in many recent debates because of limitations on my time, but I actually believe that links to interviews and writings by the subject of a page are entirely appropriate to have in the external links sections of pages. In the past it is only links to pages of quote projects without sourcing and to sites largely or totally unrelated to the subject which have been viewed as a problem. I certainly see no need to eliminate most links to material which actually does relate to the subject. ~ Kalki 23:41, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough, I see no problem in principle. Just bear in mind that should the project grow in popularity there may be a growing management burden. I participate in an unaffiliated wiki where the majority of bureaucratic work involves dealing with linkspam of the most objectionable sort, so my perspective is biased. ~ Ningauble 01:17, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

IP block exemption

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In the cource of recent investigation, we found some good editors editing via open proxy or sort of with a good reason (e.g. living in Mainland China, avoiding harassment to the previous username etc.). I think we need to implement this system of exemption and request for this user class as well. Blocking all PL/Cato abusing IP addresses sure invokes collateral damage.

See also commons:Commons:IP block exemption and user list

Thanks! --Aphaia 09:11, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. See also w:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-05-12/IP block exemption --Aphaia 06:17, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Officialization of WQ:RENAME and WQ:USURP

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Trial ended in August on WQ:RENAME and WQ:USURP. While it may be arguable when automatic usurpation is granted, I think it is beyond this policy draft, since it depends on the definition of malicious content (and how to detect such) which is not within this policies which defines formats and procedures.

Do you think they are okay to be official policies? Since they are used for 4 months and more, if no objection occurs in a week, I think it is better for us to label them as official policies or rewrite its parts we don't like. --Aphaia 00:30, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Both look good. Pretty standard stuff for 'crats to handle. sephiroth bcr (converse) 01:51, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Now they are English Wikiquote policies. --Aphaia 22:48, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Single-sourced Rush Limbaugh quotes

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On the Rush Limbaugh page, there are a couple of quotes from a book, “101 People Who Are Really Screwing Up America.” In one of these quotes, Limbaugh says that James Earl Ray (the assassin of Martin Luther King Jr.) deserves a posthumous medal of honor. These quotes are more incendiary than Limbaugh’s normal quotes.

Here’s the problem: These quotes are attributed to this one book, but that book does not provide any source for them. Furthermore, after a reasonably thorough search on the internet, no other source for these quotes has been found. The only source ever provided (if any) is the same book. Given that no other information about these quotes has been found, it seems unlikely that they are actual quotes. However, every attempt to have them removed has been blocked. Are there any other options? It seems like there should be a way to remove questionable quotes. The Vidiot 21:14, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I certainly would not consider secondary-sourced quotations that don't cite the primary source to be "sourced". There is a start at sourcing, but I'd consider such (possibily fictitious) quotations to be unsourced. Worryingly, Wikiquote:Sourcing (which I wrote) seems to suggest the opposite. 121a0012 00:29, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
So what is the solution in this case? Should the quotes be moved to Unsourced? Removed altogether? Several people consider their publication in a book as a sufficient source, which has made it difficult to modify the page. Any advice would be welcomed. The Vidiot 17:58, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's a question of determining whether or not the book can be trusted as a reliable source, which would normally depend on factors such as whether it was from a reputable publisher or was self-published. Tyrenius 03:27, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
My position is that it doesn't matter how "reliable" a secondary source is (using WP's flawed definition); Wikiquote, as a compendium of quotations, should only consider a quotation sourced when there is a verifiable primary-source citation. If people insist on having the "reliable sources" phraseology, then we should make it clear that secondary sources which do not provide primary-source citations are by definition not reliable. A sufficient primary-source citation would include the specific details of where the speaker spoke, and in the case of Mr. Limbaugh's radio program, would identify the specific date on which the program was first aired. If there's any doubt, they should be left out, or at a minimum moved to the article's talk page. 18.26.0.5 02:18, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree. If the source where the quote is found is a reliable one, then there is no reason why it cannot be used. Tyrenius 00:52, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If the source where the quote is found is a reliable one, then it will have an adequate citation of the primary source. If there is no primary-source citation, then there is no reason to believe that a secondary source quotation is accurate -- particularly in a case like this where the secondary source is known a priori to be biased. WQ's paramount concern should be the accuracy of its quotations. 121a0012 03:43, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I must humbly agree with the majority of the posters. If a secondary source cannot substantiate its information by providing an original source, it should not be accepted as reliable. Ideally of course, *all* quotes should come from primary sources, but in the event that this is not possible, Wikiquote should insist on a primary source citation from the secondary source. Otherwise, how could Wikiquote be sure that it was spoken/written at all? Wisewiki 16:29, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Google Books source

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Lets say I have a source from Google Books, such as [5]. Should I cite it as a book, or a website? Or should I not use it at all because of some reason? Ilikepie2221 15:01, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In de.WQ we cite it as a book but give the link to GBS, see e.g. http://de.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Raabe --Histo 18:46, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal: notice for excessive quotes from copyrighted works

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I think we now have no fixed message reflecting our guideline and thought on quotes from copyrighted works as well as a codified guideline.

I put a message when I reverted an anon edit which was made on a recently cleaned-up article. That is,

"Wikiquote mission is to create a collection of quotations, not create a whole copy of synopsis. Your edit was therefore reverted. You are however welcome to raise a discussion on its talk to argue your addition is meaningful and necessary to understand the work in interest."

It may be blunt and your elaboration will be very appreciated. Also when we have codified our recent discussion about quoting limitation from such works, that page be referred in this message.

Thought? --Aphaia 21:51, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

At this point we should create a number of new templates to deal with revised guideline policies:

1) A message stating that we now have a policy of not accepting unsourced quotes.

2) A message, as Aphaia has outlined above, stating that quotes must remain within limitations to prevent copyright violation and to ensure quality. This message can be all-inclusive, with a link to a revised guideline page, or it can be one of a number of genre-specific messages: i.e., one for television, one for books, etc.

3) A first-warning message notifying contributors about their violation of guideline limits.

4) A blocking notice for repeat violators of guideline limits.

5) A message stating that the sourcing provided by a contributor is inadequate: i.e., the quote will be accepted, but the contributor is encouraged to provide further sourcing.

6) A message on each article that links to the new guidelines page.

Perhaps this topic can be used to craft all these new messages for template creation. - InvisibleSun 22:13, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I like the idea of templates for this. Also, perhaps we should have some sort of message on the edit screen reminding people of specific editing requirements for copyright purposes, for example the 5 quotes per episode, etc.? --Bradeos Graphon Βραδέως Γράφων 18:21, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I concur with Bradeos Graphon. It seems some people need to point out concrete measurement. --Aphaia 10:53, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
[edit]

It has been about a month since beginning the discussion on revised guidelines (see here, here and here). The following is what I believe to be a summary of the consensus so far. Editors are encouraged to make further comments and suggested changes in each subsection or in the Comments section at the end. I propose that in a week from now we vote on accepting these guidelines, including any of the changes agreed upon. We would then create a page for the revised guidelines as well as a preface for the same. Please also note the above topic for a discussion of creating templates to explain and enforce guidelines. - InvisibleSun 01:00, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Films

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Five quotes maximum per hour. Unassigned quotes (i.e., quotes not assigned to specific characters) are discarded. Inappropriately lengthy quotes are trimmed or discarded. Recommended maximum length of quotes: seven lines by one character, ten lines of dialogue.

TV series

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Five quotes maximum per hour-long episode. Two quotes maximum per half-hour episode. Unassigned quotes are discarded. Inappropriately lengthy quotes are trimmed or discarded. Recommended maximum length of quotes: seven lines by one character, ten lines of dialogue.

Only the 30 minute and 60 minute formats are dealt with here, since they're the most common, but other formats will have to be dealt with from time to time. Presumably we're agreed that the number of quotes should be proportionate to the length of the programme, so that, for example, we allow one quote for a 15 minute show and ten for a 2 hour special. If we don't, what do we want? And if we do, shouldn't this be stated explicitly? --Antiquary 20:06, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that we should be more specific. Since we've been treating TV shows and films in a comparable manner (i.e., five quotes maximum per hour), we could adopt the same measure for TV quotes: one quote for a show less than half an hour long, two quotes for half an hour, five quotes for an hour, seven quotes for an hour and a half, ten quotes for two hours and fifteen quotes for three hours. - InvisibleSun 20:34, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I agree - I have been using the rate of roughly 1 quote for every 12 minutes (5 per hour) when trimming films, and I would apply the same standard here. ~ UDScott 01:26, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Commercial TV shows are actually shorter than their running time by regular amounts. A half hour show is typically actually 22 minutes, with the rest filled by commercials. And hour show is, I think, 48 minutes. This differs from commercial-free shows on channels like HBO, which run the full thirty minutes or hour. BD2412 T 04:35, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You're right. Normally, a quarter of the show's runtime is given to commercials: 30-minute shows run for 21.5 minutes, 60-minute shows for 43, etc (with exceptions given to some episodes where they run half the ads). Of course, it doesn't count if the network is ad-free, like the BBC or HBO. So yeah, I'd support 1 quote/9 or 10 minutes. Will (talk) 10:11, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The advantage of measurements such as "half-hour episode" or "hour-long show" is that they're user-friendly. Considering how much resistance there is and will be to keeping pages trimmed, we need a guide without unnecessary refinements, especially if the current measurements already achieve our goals. There is nothing wrong with a standard such as one quote every nine or ten minutes, i.e., minutes of actual show times without commercials; but we have to be realistic about this, choosing methods that our editors can readily work with. If we choose measurements that would prove more complicated, people will be less inclined to follow the guidelines at all. - InvisibleSun 02:21, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Characters

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Unsourced quotes are discarded. Pages consisting of unsourced quotes are nominated for deletion. Maximum numbers of quotes per guidelines to movies, TV shows, books, etc.

I recommend deprecating the "Fictional Character" genre. Copyright issues become unmanageable when multiple articles are spawned from a single work (even when they are sourced, which they usually are not). The only reason to have a character theme article is when there are numerous notable quotes about the character. ~ Ningauble 15:12, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hear hear. I mean, look at The Daleks. Really bad article. Will (talk) 17:29, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There should never be a page on an individual character, apart from the work in which that character appears, unless it is a coordinating page with links to different works featuring that character. I might go a stretch and agree with a page of this type also containing a few one-off quotes from that character that appear in advertising, but in no larger work. But they would have to be damn useful quotes. BD2412 T 03:46, 27 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I endorse the notion of disambiguation pages for works in which a character appears. (By character theme I was thinking of things like Mickey Mouse, which seems to be a well-conceived theme article (although it has source and quality issues).) ~ Ningauble 14:27, 27 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The vast majority of character pages will probably be deleted under our new guidelines; and so the problem of having these pages, I would say, will likely take care of itself. - InvisibleSun 02:33, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I say keep all the fictional Character pages because my hard work on making them as notable quotes pages was hard.(Dennys 18:06, 1 May 2009 (UTC))[reply]

Spoken-word (speeches, standup comedy, interviews, etc.)

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Five quotes maximum for any work published after the 1923 copyright cut-off. Inappropriately lengthy quotes (i.e., seven or more lines) are trimmed or discarded.

  • Please note that certain types of speeches (particularly political speeches by candidates for office or by public figures advocating for political action, such as favoring the passage of a statute) are traditionally considered to have extremely weak copyright protection, and may even fall into the public domain. We can quote far more extensively from Martin Luther King Jr's "I have a dream" speech than we can from a Jerry Seinfeld standup routine, because the former is more newsworthy, and of far greater public interest - in other words, people have a right to see the words which are influencing the laws under which they live. We can quote the entirety of any President's Inaugural Address because that is a government work. Cheers! BD2412 T 03:54, 27 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The guideline could be reworded as follows: "Five quotes maximum for any copyrighted work published after the 1923 cut-off," etc. - InvisibleSun 02:39, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Probably should just say "any work not in the public domain" with a link to a page describing what exactly is in the public domain: pre-1923 works, pre-1941 works for which copyright was never renewed, government works (including official speeches by elected officials and other government employees), and works that for various other reasons have been adjudged by courts to fall into the public domain. BD2412 T 17:57, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but I think this is better covered in the (yet to be drafted) preamble, not repeated for each medium. A point worth mentioning specific to the spoken word is that a published source needs to be cited: even if it is extemporaneous one cannot assume there is no fixed form subject to copyright. (Relevant to "something I heard at a comedy club last night.") ~ Ningauble 18:34, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Electronic games

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Three quotes maximum per game. Unassigned quotes are discarded. Inappropriately lengthy quotes are trimmed or discarded. Recommended maximum length of quotes: seven lines by one character, ten or more lines of dialogue.

Record albums

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A maximum of five fairly brief quotes (i.e, an average of four lines of verse apiece) per album.

Books

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A recommended maximum of five lines of prose or eight lines of poetry for every ten pages of any book published after the 1923 copyright cut-off, i.e., about 1.25% of the total content of a book.

People

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Unsourced quotes will be removed from articles. Newly created pages consisting of unsourced quotes are nominated for deletion or given a PROD tag. For existing pages, unsourced quotes will be placed on a time-limited subpage, which will then be deleted when the time is reached. If all of the quotes on an existing page are unsourced, the page will be nominated for deletion.

Themes

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Sourced quotes only. A quotee's name alone is insufficient, since it offers no proof of the quote being genuine. If no source can be found for a quote, it should be transferred to a time-limited subpage. If a quote is determined to be inappropriate per Wikiquote guidelines (length, memorability, etc.), it should simply be deleted. A page with nothing but unsourced quotes should be nominated for deletion; transferring the quotes to a subpage would leave the article empty. Anonymous quotes should only be allowed if a source is provided to show their currency.

In many cases, a theme quotation should be traceable to a non-theme page for its originator. I'm worried that these may get out of sync, particularly when strict length/count limits are applied to the originator's page. If a quotation is deleted from a person or work page, does it need to be deleted from theme pages, too? If so, how do we enforce this? If not, does this eviscerate the limits we are trying to apply? What should happen when a new editor "helpfully" copies a quote from a theme page back to a person or work page from which it was deleted? (In theory, we could use transclusion to make sure that at least the same version of a quote is used everywhere -- although that's not always desireable -- but I believe limitations in the template mechanism would cause that to break down if used on pages the size of some of our theme pages.) 121a0012 03:04, 13 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to me that a quote deleted from an author's page because of limits would have to be deleted from theme pages as well. If this were not done, it could be argued that although an author's page quotes from a book are within limits, the total quotes on all Wikiquote pages are in excess of the limits for the book. (This wouldn't be the case, of course, with the same quote appearing on more than one page, since it still counts as only one quote.) As for an editor copying quotes from theme pages to authors' pages, probably the only way to deal with it is to do what we're now doing with TV and film pages, i.e., keep watching the pages while patrolling in order to see that limits are maintained. Perhaps the biggest problem in all this is that we don't know how often an author's quotes appear on other pages unless we use the author's name in the Search function and go through every result. This is laborious, to be sure, and yet I can't think offhand of any other way of doing it. - InvisibleSun 19:55, 13 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have not seen this as a problem on theme pages, where there are typically only one or two quotes per author—perhaps I just have not seen the problem pages. (It is a problem on "fictional character" pages.) ~ Ningauble 00:07, 14 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

General considerations

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1) A maximum length of 250 words per quote.

2) If a page is considered by an editor to have an unusually large number of memorable quotes (e.g., some movie classics), an appeal can be made to the community to allow an exception to the guidelines. Each case would be presented on a forum (entitled "Wikiquote:Article Maintenance" or the like) with a time limitation similar to that of Votes for Deletion. Each article discussed would have a tag on the article's page informing readers that a discussion is taking place. Likewise, if a quote exceeds the 250-word limit, it could also be presented to the forum for discussion.

3) A template will be placed prominently on each article, linking it to the guidelines page.

Comments

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Nice summary and draft. I would love to define some terms like "quote". For example the guideline for electronic games say "Three quotes maximum per game. Unassigned quotes are discarded. Inappropriately lengthy quotes are trimmed or discarded. Recommended maximum length of quotes: seven lines by one character, ten or more lines of dialogue.". One may argue a saying from a character is a quote per se. In the beginning we may define what quotes are in this guideline (a portion taken from a work which may consists of multiple lines such as dialogue?)--Aphaia 02:23, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think we should very rarely have 'dialogue'. A quote should be a single statement by a single person, unless it can be shown that an exchange is likely to be used in its entirety, and would only make sense or be useful if presented in its entirety. Example:
Darth Vader: Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father.
Luke Skywalker: He told me enough! He told me you killed him!
Darth Vader: No. I am your father.
Luke Skywalker: [shocked] No... No! That's not true! That's impossible!
Darth Vader: Search your feelings, you know it to be true!
There are many lengthy exchanges of dialogue in many of our film pages that are, perhaps significant to advance the plot of the particular film, but are neither particularly poignant exchanges, nor (as with the above) culturally significant. BD2412 T 04:00, 27 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I cannot tolerate this because there is no compatibilty with the WMF Media policy. There is no cap e.g. for TV series and WQ will remain a collection of Copyright Violations. --Histo 22:22, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As I said a few weeks ago, a byte cap would work better than a numerical cap. Will (talk) 00:14, 13 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In order to decide whether a method works best, we have to ask ourselves: "How likely is it that most editors will follow it?" A byte cap is harder to arrive at than a numerical cap. I can't imagine most editors complying with this, which is reason alone not to recommend it on such an understaffed site as this. - InvisibleSun 02:49, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Template

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Another thing that might be good to have is a template to add to a user's talk page when they add quotes above the limit to a page that has already been trimmed to fit within the guidelines. We can certainly remove the quotes, but it might be good to then be able to add a note to the user's talk page telling them about the removal and linking to the guideline page. ~ UDScott 22:22, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In an earlier post there was mention of half a dozen templates that could result from the new guidelines. Now that the guidelines discussion seems to be winding down, we could create the messages and make the templates so that they will be ready for use after the guidelines are voted on. Regarding the latter, I will volunteer to create the finalized guidelines page, including an introduction, over the upcoming weekend so that we could be ready at the beginning of next week to review it for approval. - InvisibleSun 03:25, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Confused

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I'm sorry, but I'm completely confused about some of the articles I've randomly viewed. The article 2 Stupid Dogs seems to be a collection of dialogue from the cartoon, not quotes. What is the relevancy of this? I would like to help and contribute to this project, but coming across so many entries like this one has confused me as to its purpose. It seems that anything goes here and there is no guideline or enforcement of content. Where can I find this information and how does the article in question conform to these policies and guidelines? Please, can anyone answer my inquiry?--JavierMC 03:11, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Like Wikipedia, Wikiquote is an all-volunteer effort. Unlike Wikipedia, Wikiquote doesn't quite have as large a number of roving editors who go to considerable effort to weed out junk from gems (although this is slowly improving). Many of our articles need serious attention, and after skimming over 2 Stupid Dogs, I'd have to say this is one of those.
We're still small enough in some ways that our guidelines pages are minimal and often only in draft form. I recommend that you check out Wikiquote:Wikiquote for a high-level view of what we're after, and Wikiquote:What Wikiquote is not for some ideas of things we shouldn't have in articles. Wikiquote:Guide to layout gives a brief description of how article content is arranged, Wikiquote:Templates and its subpages show overall templates for each genre, and Wikiquote:Manual of style discusses style guidelines. (I believe cartoons and/or comics, since they are serial and tend to include quotable dialogue, should be formatted and arranged like TV shows.)
I've been away for a bit, so I'm not sure if we have this codified yet, but the basic desire is to cite — and source — the most pithy and original words in a work, without including so many that they become a copyright violation. 2 Stupid Dogs appears to include quite a bit of context-less, unoriginal material that can be summarily deleted. It also completely lacks source information; i.e., what episodes or issues each quote is from. Your efforts to trim, correct, source, and generally clean up this material would be greatly appreciated. I'd be happy to answer any questions on my talk page. And welcome to Wikiquote! ~ Jeff Q (talk) 03:41, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • For guidelines on the limitations of quotes, see the above topic. Although these guidelines are about to be voted on, we are already applying them in the Wikiquote:Copyright Cleanup Project and have been using them while patrolling the Recent Changes page. As Jeff says, there aren't that many regular editors on Wikiquote to do this work, so our trimming and maintenance is only as much as each of us can reasonably do at any time. If you would like, for example, to take part in the copyright cleanup, your aid would be much appreciated. - InvisibleSun 18:21, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the information. I looked at the guidelines and policies and I'm taking my first stab at Richard J. Daley to source and cleanup. If someone cares to stop by and see if I'm on track, it's appreciated. I don't want to get to far into helping if my help is in opposition to how I interpret the guidelines and policy. I'm a wikipedian, so breaking habits developed there may be necessary to wikiquote. Cheers. --JavierMC 20:50, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sourcing

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Why are quotes that are under Sourced sections not directly cited to a third party verifiable source and these sources gathered in a Footnotes or References section on the articles? This is a real concern on articles with quotes of living persons. There should be NO attributed quotes on articles of living persons. If it can not be sourced and verifiable, it DOES NOT belong on the article. I think I had better stop now with my edits until I understand how WQ addresses this, otherwise my edit knife would wound many such articles. I have edited Richard J. Daley and Frank Abagnale so far. Please, someone, let me know if my edits are within policy here.--JavierMC 00:40, 13 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As seen in the guidelines policy we are working on, all unsourced quotes are to be removed from articles (see here.) Pending the creation of time-limited subpages, we have been placing unsourced/attributed quotes on talk pages or deleting them. When you come across any unsourced quotes on pages (and not just for living people), feel free to remove them. We have been encouraging editors to place sources directly below quotes rather than use footnotes and reference sections. It would probably do more to remind people that quotes need sourcing if they saw sourcing directly below quotes. It may also help prevent copyvio. If many of the sources come from one work and are more than should be allowed, it will be easier to spot this by placing sources after each quote than by sifting among the footnotes. We also prefer to place multiple quotes from the same source within subsections so as not to have to keep repeating some of the source info and to keep better track of the quotes. When a number of quotes exceeds the allowable limit, it will be easier to trim the subsection than to keep scanning through the article for all quotes with identical sources. - InvisibleSun 01:10, 13 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am an Italian wikipedia user, and I need help from English mothertongue.

[edit]

I need to know the exactitude about this citation from Vincent Van Gogh:

"I always do what I can't do, to learn how it must be done."

I do not have found this in Wikiquote. —This unsigned comment is by 87.15.53.127 (talk • contribs) .

This is actually a quote from Pablo Picasso - "I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it." Source: Richard Alan Krieger (2002). Civilization's Quotations: Life's Ideal. Algora Publishing. pp. Pg. 132. ISBN 1892941767. . Hope that helps.--JavierMC 22:54, 14 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I just added this to the Picasso article, as it was not listed there either. --JavierMC 23:02, 14 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sarah palin quotes

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The quotes page for Sarah Palin has a banner stating "this page is brought to you by Ass Pus production". Someone may wish to fix that?

Wikiquote on the Radio!

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Wikiquote was on the radio! We got an e-mail asking if Wikiquote could be quoted (I know... what a thought :-)), of course we said that it was possible (provided the page was noted where you could find the history). We asked when the show was, so that our Wikiquotians could listen in and got this reply:

From: "Fiona"
To: "Wikiquote Information Team" <info-en(at)wikiquote.org>
Subject: RE: [Ticket#2008100610004086] quoting wikiquote
Created: 10/21/2008 08:40:46
Attachment: Wikiquote rave.mp3

Hi Casey,

Thanks for that.

My show is called Chatback and is broadcast via Shortwave Radio to India on 13635 kHz from 9pm India Standard Time but you can listen through the internet on this link http://www.cvc.tv/english/tune-in

I've attached a rave I did last week on the show (see mp3 file attached) to give you an idea what I've been doing.

Take care, Be well and God Bless
Fiona

Feel free to listen in to the show and listen to the show where she mentioned us (in the attachment). Cbrown1023 talk 01:00, 23 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Trying phrase

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I am absolutely certain that there is a phrase "If at first you don't succeed, try and try again". But i can't find it. Where do i go? 147.197.215.16 10:58, 25 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you go to The Yale Book of Quotations on page 578, you will see this quote set out fully with complete information as to its source. Fred R. Shapiro

Move vandalism

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Looking at the move log, moves on Wikiquote are rather rare. Additionally, most of them are performed by admins. In response to the recent move vandalism, if it is technically possible, I think that the "move" right should be restricted to administrators only. Thoughts? Will (talk) 15:00, 26 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikiquote on mobile phones

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Not sure whether this is already familiar, but thanks to the Sevenval AG a mobile phone version of Wikiquote is available online: http://en.wikiquote.7val.com/ --Melancholie 17:21, 26 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

QOTD problems

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I perceive that there are developing problems with October and November Quote of the day selections.

Though there is no clear and certain evidence which permit me to take any official action as an admin here, regarding certain strong suspicions of myself and others of fraudulent votes, I am now presently taking action as an individual person with a right assert my views on matters of some significance, and what I consider to be a duty to assert them as clearly as possible when I do.

In the months since some of his earlier efforts to post quotes for the QOTD, Zarbon has made many admirable suggestions which I have been quite welcome to accept and use, and at least a few which I have ranked very highly, but he has also on a some occasions made suggestions which I consider to be deplorable, of statements I consider to be extremely contemptible and barely worthy of consideration as a QOTD here. In relation to at least a couple of these, as well as a few other more acceptable suggestions, there has been increased voting activity, particularly through the username Waheedone which I and others have found to be highly suspicious. These suspicions have not yet been supported by sufficient evidence to disregard certain votes as fraudulent, but I retain a very strong suspicion that they are, as I believe others do.

If there are not enough people concerned with the issue, and will actually become more involved with the rankings of suggestions, it looks like the QOTD here might for a time become a haven for the presentation of very extremist authoritarian views, and perhaps not any chosen by an honorably formed consensus, but by the fervency of one, or perhaps two, promoters of authoritarian ideas, and the apathy or neglect of others.

Currently a rather atrocious statement full of arrogant assumptions by one by a nazi war criminal, relating to the need for authoritarian rule over human laborers, is ranked a 4 by the two votes of Zarbon and Waheedone, for the October 27 QOTD:

What would you do if your country's welfare depended on labor? When a ship is in a storm it requires one captain. ~ Fritz Sauckel

Currently, because of these two rankings of 4, this thus outranks any of the other suggestions. Of those others available, I personally prefer a famous remark by Theodore Roosevelt, on the importance in life of having a non-threatening disposition and a capacity and will to defend oneself if one is attacked:

I have always been fond of the West African proverb "Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far."

This was only partly used a few years ago, as it is normally only partly quoted, and what Roosevelt states was a proverb he admired is normally attributed to him. I believe that this earliest known use of it should be quoted in full, where he declares it to be a proverb. There are precedents for more complete quotes being used again, and I certainly feel this one should be used in the more complete form.

The following quote is another by Roosevelt which I also consider a very worthy option, and which I might rank at 4 if I did not prefer to use the one above:

No man is justified in doing evil on the grounds of expediency.

I can see why Zarbon might rank the statement merely a 1, because it seems to me that such a statement is one that he honestly does not agree with, and might have a genuine contempt for, but there are many comments most people seem to find commendable which he seems to rank extremely low 1 or 0 merely to provide statements of some deplorably shallow and extremist views more of a chance to succeed, as has thus far been the case on a few occasions.

I would much prefer more people become involved in the selection of QOTD, to counter such influences than that I be impelled by current procedures to make selections which I find morally repulsive, because a few people, who currently represent an active minority of 1 or 2 are willing to give some authoritarian statements a ranking of 4 (meaning it should certainly be used), and statements which seem more acceptable to most prople are such as they rank at 1 (meaning no desire to see it used) or 0 (meaning unacceptable). ~ Kalki 23:26, 26 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Kalki, I have noticed some of what you are referring to in the past, but had been occupied by other areas here. I agree that many of the suggestions and votes of these users does not seem to reflect what I would consider to be the spirit of WQ. I agree that this is a problem and I will add my votes when I can to try to balance this out. ~ UDScott 23:34, 26 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the participation, today. I was thus able to use the far more acceptable quote which you ranked a 4 rather than the above mentioned Nazi one:
Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education. ~ Alfred Whitney Griswold
I encourage the participation of others as well, in the months ahead, so that the presentation and support of good ideas may continue to be an effective means of defeating or diminishing the prominence and influence of bad ideas. ~ Kalki 00:37, 27 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One thing we would like to consider is probably that vote-only participation. User:Waheedone had almost no edits but only votes. Letting vote-only users participate community votes is generally considered unacceptable (e.g. VfD). I am not sure if we enforce this idea to QotD too, though. --Aphaia 02:53, 27 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That should be enforced everywhere that a community decision is made. BD2412 T 06:28, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The problem has been compounded by the arrival of another suspicious editor: User:Fossil, who has made no other edits than to QotD and his own userpage. The likelihood is not great that editors would show up on Wikiquote with no other purpose than to cast votes. I agree with Aphaia and BD2412 about the limitations on voting. - InvisibleSun 00:36, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am finding these accusations now after a while. I want to point everyone's attention to my responses to the below section in Village pump and the administrator's noticeboard as well. I want everyone to be aware that I do not control these other users and I do not have any sockpuppets. Accusations such as these are something I find annoying. I can't control the votes of other people. The best solution is to ignore their votes completely unless they prove to be wikiquote contributors in the long run and aren't just around to mess around with the qotd suggestions. In any case, I can't say that I don't hold my own suggestions highly, because I do. Otherwise, I would not have initially suggested them. I agree that all new editors should be given limitations to some degree. I have great respect for InvisibleSun and Kalki and pretty much the entire idea behind qotd and want to maintain that respect. Zarbon 06:12, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Notability

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I think we need to be careful when we talk about notability. What might not be notable to one person would be notable to another. I know with my old book of quotations that I own is chalked full of quotes that I either never said or never heard before. Yet, just because it doesn't fit either one of these categories doesn't mean it shouldn't be in the book. Also, on that grounds, we should remember that wikiquote isn't paper, meaning, that we will store and reference more quotes then a book would be able to do. See wikipedia on notability and wikimedia on paper vs. wiki. --Pinkkeith 19:24, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes we should be careful of the term "notability." I sometimes forget my resolution not to use it at Wikiquote. It is a central concept at Wikipedia with a refined interpretation specific to their mission, which mission is quite different from Wikiquote's.
On the one hand, Wikiquote is concerned specifically with primary sources, while Wikipedia more restrictively considers them insufficient without reliable secondary sources. On the other hand, Wikipedia more inclusively seeks to cover virtually everything that can be covered reliably, while Wikiquote is concerned with selecting the best "quality" according to admittedly subjective criteria.
See the discussion (currently stalled, while the community focuses on copyright issues) about formulating policy for Quotability. See also what passes for a mission statement here. ~ Ningauble 20:27, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If I happen to come across a neat and beautifully written phrase on a random blog by a complete unknown person, I simply don't think it would be appropriate to include it in Wikiquote. After all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so once we open that door, what can we refuse? I think all of our entries must have a combination of notability and quotability. These concepts bear an inverse relation to one another - the more notable the person, the less profound or well-written the quote needs to be to merit inclusion. But even the most famous person in the world shouldn't get his grocery list in here, and even the quote we all agree to be great should not merit inclusion if the speaker is an utterly non-notable person. BD2412 T 06:26, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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