Wikiquote:Village pump archive 30

Archives

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

ANT DA ST*LKER!

wikiquote.org/w/index.php?title=Korean_War&diff=3090610&oldid=3090608

2010 section?

I've noticed that there's absolutely nothing regarding QOTD's in 2010. Going to the QOTM archive gives me links to recommend quotes, going to the entire archive stops abruptly at December 31. Seeing as we're already a week in to the new decade, I'd like to ask whether anybody's working to fix this? Insaeno 04:36, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

In what used to be my daily habitual activity, I would update these pages, and still intend to do so, but as I now tend to work on QOTD selections a few times a week rather than every day, doing QOTD work takes up larger blocks of my time, and I have neglected to update these pages since early last month. I will be busy much of today, but will try to get things fully updated here here within the next day or so. Previously, even when I wasn't active in editing pages I would usually check in here several times a day, but no longer having admin tools, the reasons for my doing this have largely vanished, and now I don't bother to check in anywhere near as often, and increasingly attend to other projects, where my usefulness and intentions remain less prone to be called into question. ~ Kalki (talk · contributions) 15:19, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

main aapke group ko join karna chahta hun 2409:4061:2D19:E44D:0:0:B9CB:F08 08:38, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

Google quote

I'm not sure if people are aware, but google news has a "quote" feature and there is a also google in quote labs for politicians. A sample google news quote search is Peter Schiff, though virtually anybody whose been in google news can have their quotes searched.Smallman12q 23:57, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I have occasionally used the quote feature of GoogleNews, but I am not very interested in quoting current news items. News articles sometimes repeat famous quotes that have stood the test of time, but are usually not very good about identifying the original sources (and sometimes just repeat misattributions and misquotes, copying from each other's mistakes). That said, I have found some good leads in the quote feature of GoogleNews, and used it to locate archives of original reports. (E.g., I recently used it to find quotes when Art Clokey passed away.) ~ Ningauble 14:39, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

The News Archive is good. i have just de-prodded Alex Ferguson using that.--Ole.Holm 20:39, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

The google news quote feature doesn't have to be for recent news. It can also work on some old news quotes if you set it to "all dates"...Smallman12q 02:15, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

w:Towards the Republic

• “Towards the Republic (Chinese: 走向共和) or For the Sake of The Republic is a 60-episode Chinese historical drama television series produced by CCTV. It was broadcast in 2003 on CCTV and cut to 59 episodes.” — {{{2}}}

I would like to know if it is OK to create Towards the Republic on wikiquote?Arilang1234 01:35, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

If reliably sourced quotes from the series are available, sure, why not? BD2412 T 05:15, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Welsh Wikiquote on the interwiki

Being technically challenged, I've been trying to see if it's possible to put a link to the Welsh Wikiquote in the "in other languages" navigation boxes on the left hand side?
I've been working on articles and although we are a small project, we have over 200 articles now (not bad considering we were proposed for closure a few months ago...) Does anybody know how a Welsh (or Cymraeg) link could be added so that more people know of our existence? Thankyou. Rhodri77 10:02, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

At the foot of the page (below the categories), put [[cy:page name]] , where "page name" is the name of the page at Cymraeg Wikiquote. E.g., I just put one on the Main page here (without a page name, which automatically links to the main page). Congratulations to the cy.wikiquote community for reinvigorating the project in the face of closure! ~ Ningauble 16:23, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Long may the project continue. Thankyou! Rhodri77 16:46, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

New software problems

I usually haven't minded this being among the first wikis to be used for testing of new Wikimedia software in the past, but the latest changes in editing functions have been extremely bothersome and I cannot recommend them being retained. I began noticing the lag in the edit box opening up a few days ago, and increasingly realized how horrendously irritating some of the editing options have become. On one's preference pages there are now options for different styles in the edit box — but none of these increased options work out at all for me. I cannot even paste-in extensive work directly from Textwrangler, a basic text-editor I have often used, without the result turning into a mess, but have to paste my work into a styled-text editor before pasting work into the edit box. Many previously solid formatting options available are now atrociously quirky and unreliable, and previously, where pressing the tab key moved one from the edit box to the comment box, it now produces a tab within the text edit box, and I much prefer the previous behavior. I do not expect I am the only one encountering these problems, and see no actual advantages to any of the changes I have noticed, but other comments are invited. ~ Kalki (talk · contributions) 12:21, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

I am not experiencing the problems you describe. Do you know which changes introduced these issues? I keep my configuration very simple: I use the MonoBook skin, and have not selected "try beta" or "Use external editor" &c. (I do external editing by manual copy & paste.) After a career in software engineering, I have no longer have much patience for being a guinea pig for software that is a work in progress.

(If you want to see a disaster in the making, check out the Liquid threads discussion interface being tried at the Strategy wiki. The basic idea is a good one, but I think the design and implementation suck. It is being described as a "beta test" on the Strategy wiki but, from my perspective, this exercise in incremental design specification is so not beta-ready.) ~ Ningauble 17:15, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

I had tried Beta when it first came out, but reverted to the standard format soon after, and I too use the default mono style. Thinking I might simply be having some software problems of my own, I rebooted my computer after reading your message, but the problems I mentioned persisted. I then reset my preferences slightly and specified sans-serif font editing (when I noticed the problems, I had the default setting and tried the mono spacing without any improvements)— and that seems to be more like the old way, and I can even TAB to the summary box, so perhaps the worst of my problems are over. I will see how it goes. ~ Kalki (talk · contributions) 22:18, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

It seems you are not alone in experiencing technical difficulties — I just noticed a watchlist notice at Wikipedia:

"Several bugs were introduced with recent 'Beta' enhancements by the Usability team. They recommend that those users having issues with experimental features disable them; features can be turned off at Preferences → Editing tab → Experimental features."

Don't you love it when the developers, assuming en.Wikipedia is the center of the universe, neglect to notify other projects about changes and issues? (Pity the folks at the Strategy wiki, where experimental beta features are enabled by default.) ~ Ningauble 13:37, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

wikipedia dosen't have a email web site. why can your photos or certain items cannot find the neccessary right distination of your information goes to the right location without a lot of hassel.due to brooding my work was left to be contumie before it was post edit. i have unfinish work that i can't finish. it didn't click but view a page low and behold there it was quoted and posted not my consent of approval and or sign it to be release. susan.—This unsigned comment is by 69.171.163.164 (talk • contribs) .

Is there a specific application software which is used for editing a Wiki. Maybe someone out there knows something. Please let me know, thanks in advance.

Call for proposals for Wikimedia UK initiatives

Hi all. The Wikimedia UK board has been putting together a budget for the next year (You can see this, and help with its development, here) and we have some money left over. We are looking for proposals for projects/iniatives with budget requirements in the range of £100-£3000 (GBP). These projects can be either online or offline, but they should be primarily focused on the UK and they must further the objects of Wikimedia UK (broadly, to collate/develop/spread freely licensed material).

The deadline for proposals is the end of this month (i.e. 0:00 UTC on 1 March 2010). You can find more details of the requirements, and how to submit proposals, on our blog. Thanks. Mike Peel 23:16, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Entering quotes about anti-Russian sentiment

I would like to add quotes about anti-Russian sentiment, but when considering neutral point of view policy, I would like to ask if I should add a new section at Russia or add a separate article.--Jusjih 02:55, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

NPOV is not the same on WQ as on WP. I think it would be quite OK to do either.--Ole.Holm 19:28, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Random quote widget

Is there a javascript code snippet or any other sort of web widget that allows external webpages to show a random wikiquote everytime they are loaded/refreshed?

No. The quotes in Wikiquote are not in a database. They are just text on the page, so the only way they are served is by the whole page.

Someone could theoretically write a program to extract smaller quotes from the pages and put them into a database from which they could be randomly served, but it's not a trivial task. The pages aren't quite standardized enough to easily do a reliable job. The extracted data would still require a lot of manual selection, editing, and classification.

—KHirsch 15:15, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Ideally, this will be the end to which Wikiquote aims, so that each quote can be tagged with various fields (author, dates, relevant themes), and a person interested in quotes by a particular author, or from a particular year, or on a particular topic, could readily call up all quotes in Wikiquote tagged with the corresponding information. BD2412 T 04:38, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

I have occasionally thought about how nice that would be, but it would not really be possible without a very major extension to the MediaWiki platform. There is an extension for this sort evolving at Semantic MediaWiki, but I have not investigated its features or its stability, and it looks like it could require considerable technical know-how to be used effectively. ~ Ningauble 16:02, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

BotWars: Simple English interwiki

A long time ago in a wiki far, far away...    Actually, it was only last year that there was an active WikiMedia project called Simple English Wikiquote, but the meta community voted to close it and it has been locked down.
At this time there are bots (some not yet officially flagged) running around reverting each other adding and removing interwiki links to the defunct project. These links will eventually go dead, after the wiki is archived at the incubator or elsewhere. Is it the consensus of the Wikiquote community that we should no longer have these interwiki links? ~ Ningauble 16:39, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

When the wiki is taken down then of course the links should go. I don't know if they should before the wiki does.--Ole.Holm 20:14, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

I definitely do not think this should be an external decision, to remove links on a local project with a bot whose operator is not familiar with this particular project. It is also not constructive to have random bots running willy-nilly doing random things. -- Cirt (talk) 21:08, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

svn wikiquote_family.py - simple wikiquote it is added in the list on removal interwiki. --Eleferen 07:04, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Well the script is wrong, and this local community does not at this point in time support consensus to do that. -- Cirt (talk) 11:27, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't see any point in keeping these links. (Disclosure: I manually removed Simple: interwikis from the Main page and Village pump myself.[1][2].) As far as I know, consensus to close the project is conclusive, and the only reason its pages are still viewable is because the developer assigned to shut it down has not acted. Is there a proposal to resuscitate the project currently under discussion somewhere? ~ Ningauble 16:29, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I thought that the pages on the project will remain locked and stable. As such, they are inherently useful to link to. -- Cirt (talk) 19:52, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I would not expect so, but inertia may keep them in place for some time. The process seems to be rather ad hoc, undocumented, backlogged, and lacking clear lines of responsibility.[3][4][5] "Apart from the common practices ... there is no official policy on closing projects"[6] but, from what I gather, the expected outcome is that content and history will be moved to the incubator.[7] It is no longer a Wikimedia project, but it could conceivably be adopted elsewhere under CC-BY-SA. ~ Ningauble 23:30, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Unless there is some firm statement unequivocally that all pages on that project will be deleted - I see no reason to remove the interwiki links. -- Cirt (talk) 23:35, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

In that case, you should block ALL bots: [8] ;-) --Eleferen 05:21, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

That bot appears to have been previously approved to run by the community. -- Cirt (talk) 05:43, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Rollback

Is there the rollback right flag here?--  † CR₉₀  03:52, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Nope. Not yet at least. -- Cirt (talk) 06:05, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Maybe it should be implemented.--  † CR₉₀  04:57, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Sockpuppet of User:Quillercouch (Poetlister/Cato et al.)

Since this seems to be a much more popular discussion page than the administrators' noticeboard, I just wanted to notify the readers here that I have created a new thread here; there is a new Poetlister sockpuppet afoot, User:Ole.Holm. Jonas Rand 19:05, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

I just posted a comment there which I repost here:

The observation that Ole.Holm has been blocked as a suspected sockpuppet of Poetlister/Cato appears to be valid. I am reserving and developing my own assessments on the matter, knowing that people have been wrongly suspected and accused of being even more obviously pernicious vandals and trolls. The poster of this message also seems to be a blocked entity, because of pervasive harassment elsewhere, and I am not personally inclined to look into the matter more than I have to, as I am no longer an admin who might be expected to do further investigation, but merely an editor who seeks to know just a little about those I work amongst. ~ Kalki 19:11, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

I will have to be leaving soon so I might not be able to make further observations here for a few hours. ~ Kalki (talk · contributions) 19:19, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

The checkusers here are already aware of this. I had already informed them of the block on Wikipedia and asked them to investigate. People here will no doubt wish to hear what they say. There can be no doubt that they will vindicate me. In any case, I invite people to examine my 3,000 edits and decide whether I am some dangerous vandal. Compare my edits to those of Ionas68224, who is blocked not only on WP but also Commons, Meta[9] and Simplewiki [10].

I have made my own investigations on Wikipedia Review. I see no evidence that this "Trick cyclist" is me beyond expressing a preference to edit here rather than on Wikipedia, which is surely also true for many other editors here. In any case, it appears that the alleged "esoterica related to sexual deviancy" amounts to no more than knowing that lycra and spandex are brand names for elastane![11] As for being Danish, I have lived most of my life in Britain and regard myself as British.

If Wikipedia Review is a reliable source, note that it says there that "Jonas Rand" is actually a middle-aged woman called Linda Rand who impersonates teenagers.[12] If so, you may wonder how reliable anything from this editor is.

Meanwhile I shall not edit Wikiquote further until this matter is resolved.--Ole.Holm 19:00, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Wikimania Scholarships

The call for applications for Wikimania Scholarships to attend Wikimania 2010 in Gdansk, Poland (July 9-11) is now open. The Wikimedia Foundation offers Scholarships to pay for selected individuals' round trip travel, accommodations, and registration at the conference. To apply, visit the Wikimania 2010 scholarships information page, click the secure link available there, and fill out the form to apply. For additional information, please visit the Scholarships information and FAQ pages:

• Scholarships
• Scholarships FAQ

Yours very truly, Cary Bass
Volunteer Coordinator
Wikimedia Foundation

Renaming a category

Please help I am familiar with the CfD process at Wikipedia, but I don't know if there is an equivalent here. Presently, under Category:Americans, there are several subcategories related to states. Two issues that are worth discussing:

1. Some categories are named in the style "People from X" (e.g. Category:People from Connecticut) and others are named after local demonyms (e.g. Category:New Yorkers.) It seems wise for these to be standardized.
2. The category for persons from Indiana is Category:Indianans, which is a coinage. Persons from Indiana are most commonly called "Hoosiers."

Thanks for any input on these matters. Koavf 01:00, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

The names are indeed inconsistent, but a far greater inconsistency lies on the fact that only a handful of people are categorized this way. I don't really see the relevance of this scheme of classification for Wikiquote's purposes. ~ Ningauble 13:56, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

I have no problem with it. Suppose I'm writing a speech on great moments in Indiana history, and want to pepper it with quotes from famous Hoosiers? I do, however, think that these categories should consistently mirror Wikipedia's category scheme, available at w:Category:People by state in the United States, which uses "People from (state)". BD2412 T 17:26, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

That makes sense in principle, and I don't really object. I was just pointing out the inconsistency, which does not make these categories very useful in practice.

Consider the case of the peripatetic Mark Twain, who is categorized as a Missourian and a Californian: he is notable as a person from Missouri because he wrote about the place and wrote for the Hannibal Journal, and notable as a person from California because he wrote about the place and wrote for The Californian. He is not categorized as a person from Connecticut even though that is where he ultimately settled, raised his family, and wrote his major novels. Perhaps this is because people there do not brag about him in quite the same way as do people from Hannibal, MO and San Francisco, CA. Wikipedia categorizes him as being from all these places, and also New York and Nevada, which makes good sense for biographical research even though he is not particularly notable as being from there. (Even Wikipedia does not categorize him as being from the Milky Way galaxy, even though he lived there all his life and wrote for The Galaxy magazine.) I suspect the difference between the wikis lies primarily in the nature of granfalloons, a concept originally defined by Kurt Vonnegut in Cat's Cradle, Ch. 42, with reference to Hoosiers in particular. So it goes....

Be that as it may, I agree that Wikipedia's naming convention is better. ~ Ningauble 14:49, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

How to extract all quotes?

Hello,

I have downloaded a dump from Wikiquote and now I'm trying to extract a list of all quotes. This does not seem to be easy, because the quotes are all embedded inside the articles (eg. no normalization). Can anyone give me a hint? How can I extract the list of quotes?

Thank you,

Dora

There is no way to automate this. Wikiquote is not organized as a database of quotations, but as a collection of articles using MediaWiki markup. While there is some consistency in the layout of most articles, it is not nearly rigorous enough to make automatic extraction feasible. ~ Ningauble 14:02, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

popups

Could an admin add Lupin's popups to Gadgets? I find it highly useful in all wiki things. Griffinofwales 01:46, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi, could you provide us with a link to that Gadget? Thanks --Aphaia 08:08, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I would like to see more of stephen kings dark tower series quotes on the wikiquote screensaver, is there anyway i can add them myself? or they can be added into the database which is apparently linked to the screensaver?

sincerely,

th

Wikimania 2010

Wikimania 2010, this year's global event devoted to Wikimedia projects around the globe, is accepting submissions for presentations, workshops, panels, and tutorials related to the Wikimedia projects or free content topics in general. The conference will be held from July 9-11, 2010 in Gdansk, Poland. For more information, check the official Call for Participation. Cbrown1023 talk 22:22, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Commons image inclusion debates

Hey, I'd like you to remind now very active debates go on elsewhere about Commons inclusion policy, rest you hasn't noticed yet. Currently the main issue is inclusion of non-educational and erotic images which are suspected to upload for self-promotion of subjects.

While I'm not sure how it has affected, affects now and will do us actually, it may influence us theoretically, since we now totally rely on Commons as image and media repository, disabling our own upload feature.

Discussions happen in several places, including

• Commons:Village pump
• foundation-l archives of this month (May 2010)

Meta (meta:Goings-on) has some derivative discussions, including "founder" flag and so on.

If you know other active fora, please feel free to add them. Thanks. --Aphaia 08:26, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year contest open!

Dear Wikiquote users,

Wikimedia Commons is happy to announce that the 2009 Picture of the Year competition has now opened. Any user registered at a Wikimedia wiki since 2009 or before with more than 200 edits before 16 January 2010 (UTC) is welcome to vote.

Over 890 images that have been rated Featured Pictures by the international Wikimedia Commons community in the past year are fighting to impress the highest number of voters. From professional animal and plants shots, over breathtaking panoramas and skylines, restorations of historically relevant images, images portraying world's best architecture, maps, emblems and diagrams created with the most modern technology and impressing human portrays, Commons features pictures for all flavours.

Check your eligibility now and if you're allowed to vote, you may use one of your accounts for the voting. The vote page is located at: Commons:Picture of the Year/2009/Voting.

Two rounds of voting will be held: In the first round, you can vote for as many images as you like. In the final round, when only 20 images are left, you must decide for one image to become the Picture of the Year.

Wikimedia Commons is looking forward for your decision in determinating the ultimate featured picture of 2009.

Thanks, Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year committee http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2009 --The Evil IP address 17:24, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Proposal to bar StarWarsFanBoy from VfD participation for one month.

I, have, unfortunately, come around to the position that something must be done with respect to StarWarsFanBoy and his disingenuous commentary in VfD discussions. He has, for several months, consistently voted to delete pages with boilerplate language that complains of issues not present within the page under discussion. He occasionally inserts other unhelpful and potentially disruptive comments into the discussion, such as this clearly false assertion that "everyone picked delete for this page" at Wikiquote:Votes for deletion/Noam Chomsky. While it may be a simple thing for experienced project members (and closing admins) to shrug off his comments, they are at best unhelpful, and at worst may cause confusion and distress to occasional editors who are unfamiliar with his pattern of conduct and the weight that his comments are given in these discussions. I welcome StarWarsFanBoy to continue participating in all other areas of this project, but I must propose the imposition of a community bar on his participation in deletion discussions for a period of one month from the date of the resolution of this discussion. BD2412 T 21:53, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

• I am only trying to get rid of very bad pages during VFDs and tell the admins that some VFDs are still open and not closed after their Closing dates. Besides my goal is to get things to obey our Manual of style, obey our policies and get rid of only bad pages.(StarWarsFanBoy 23:34, 15 May 2010 (UTC))

• Support temporary ban from VfD discussions. StarWarsFanBoy has made some good article edits since returning under a new account, but participation in discussions has been entirely unconstructive. At a time when the project has experienced a drop-off in active contributors, we can ill-afford to subject visitors to nonsensical and provocative remarks.

  I encourage StarWarsFanBoy to continue making good article edits, but please stop disrupting discussions with things that are not relevant (like the MOS). ~ Ningauble 00:05, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

We need the MOS because its how most pages are not to messy or need a cleanup template and besides I am only trying to explain why pages need to be deleted on VFDs.(StarWarsFanBoy 00:17, 16 May 2010 (UTC))

• Support, per discussion above - this user, while perhaps good-intentioned, has nonetheless become quite a nuisance. ~ UDScott 01:33, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

• Support even reluctantly for a goodwill editor but lacking knowledge and understandings enough to get involved into managerial works. Deleting a page with meaningful content just because it doesn't follow MOS is nonsense. Styles are for substance, to help understand it, not over substance. Our mission is spreading knowledge, not style. Our missions consist in spreading knowledge through significant quotes which is common goods for the whole human beings, not spreading good style to display quotes. The reply of StarWarsFanBoy here made me suspect he hasn't understood yet, which is a very basic thing for experienced participators. Also proposed one month is not too long for observance and stay calm. I hope he learns a lot during the coming month, and accumulates experiences and understandings what our missions are. --Aphaia 01:55, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Sorry but I am only saying is that bad articles should be deleted on VFDs and besides Manual of Style is considered a policy and the admins must enforce all policies including the Manual of Style.(StarWarsFanBoy 02:01, 16 May 2010 (UTC))

• This doesn't explain why you would falsely claim that everyone had voted to delete a page, when most of the actual votes were to keep that page. This is not the first time you've made such a claim. BD2412 T 14:38, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Look I'm just saying I'm sorry but I only want the bad to leave the Website because thats how I clean up this website.(StarWarsFanBoy 21:00, 17 May 2010 (UTC))

• There are many ways to clean up this website without participating unconstructively in deletion discussions. Perhaps a month off from those discussions will help you attain some focus as to the more constructive contributions you can make. Who knows, maybe there won't even be any deletion discussions in that time, and you won't miss anything. BD2412 T 15:24, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
• Support - I don't fully understood StarWarsFanBoy's grievance(s) that led to this, as it appears to have all happened with some previous account. But whatever the origin, it comes across as some kind of passive-aggressive game that serves no purpose but to annoy other VFD participants (especially given his refusal to stop posting reasons for deletion that don't apply to the article in question). On Wikipedia it would be WP:POINT. I support a topic ban until he's prepared to deal with this in a straightforward manner. Gordonofcartoon 03:07, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose - How am I supposed to get some pointless pages deleted if I get banned from VFD discussions?(StarWarsFanBoy 04:52, 21 May 2010 (UTC))

Process

This is a novel discussion on this project, and we really don't have any parameters set out for when it should be drawn to a close. If no one objects, I think it would be fair to wrap it up after seven days, rounded up to the nearest hour (that is, at 22:00, 22 May 2010 (UTC)), and I will ask that an admin who has not participated in the discussion take responsibility for closing it and adjudicating the decision of the community. BD2412 T 19:55, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

I support this proposed process. Furthermore: if a ban is enacted the closer should post the terms on the user's talk page, warn that violating a community ban will result in blocking, and invite constructive participation after the ban expires. ~ Ningauble 20:18, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree. I'll find an uninvolved admin to close this, if there is nothing further. BD2412 T 01:35, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Support the proposed process, with Ningauble's. We can't stress too much that constructive participation to other parts of Wikiquote life is welcome and encouraged, and the proposed ban is just in a limited term. --Aphaia 04:36, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Did I do this right?

Did I create R.L. Stine correctly? Joe Chill 01:50, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I made some edits to the page - take a look at what I did. I added a better intro (taken from Wikipedia), added categories, and moved some quotes that are not truly sourced (the link just went to a page where the quotes are still not sourced). ~ UDScott 01:54, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Citations needed on Proverb pages

I strengthened the language about unsourced quotes at Wikiquote:Sourcing slightly, boldly added a section on Proverbs to the guideline, and added a Source line to Wikiquote:Templates/Proverbs in order to encourage the practice of providing citations. Of course, finding sources for proverbs is a (very) long-term project. I welcome community review of these amendments. ~ Ningauble 17:59, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Did I do this right?

Hi ppl - I'm new, but keen. I just edited the Joseph Jacobs page in Wiki main, adding "Celtic Fairy Tales" to the Works section. I got the Format right - but would like someone to confirm that "The Baldwin Project" passes the Notifications standards as an external link. I would also like to create a "Baldwins Project" wiki page as my first Article because it seems such a wondewrful source of educational stuff. Would such a page be deemed "promotional"? Or would it be better if I simply edit other articles in the children's literature category, using "Baldwin Project" as a source wherever appropriate?

Thanks.

Markdask 18:56, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Creating an article at Wikipedia about the Baldwin project is a question for the folks at Wikipedia. (See Wikipedia:Notability.) Wikiquote is a separate project just for quotes.

Memorable quotes from classic children's literature are very welcome here! For some ideas about presentation, take a look at some of our articles on authors covered at the Baldwin project, such as, e.g., L. Frank Baum, Rudyard Kipling, and John Masefield. I would hesitate to add lots of links to the site in theme pages; but, while adding quotes to an article on an author or work, a discrete link to good quality online editions in the "External links" section may be appropriate. ~ Ningauble 20:36, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Ningauble - yeah different projects - got it - get there eventually :)

Markdask 21:45, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Gussying up pages with unrelated images

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go. ~ Theodore Roethke

I first noticed this on the Wikiquote page for Theodore Roethke: taking excerpts of quotes and using them to caption a bunch of blandly pretty, unrelated images on the page. I thought that maybe someone had just done a poor job of this particular page, but after flipping through some random pages, I saw that this is done quite a lot. Why is this? And is it officially condoned? To me it just seems like a lot of clutter. I mean, it would be appropriate for a coffee table book, but not for a serious work of reference. Dindon 04:15, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

I've long noticed that some of the most shallow minded of people tend to be irritated at any show of artistry beyond the narrowness of their limited and shallow imaginations. This is neither an encyclopedia nor a dictionary — it is a compendium of quotations where many have diligently sought to present interesting statements in interesting ways. Since earliest days of Wikiquote I have always rejected and opposed the pernicious idea that a "serious work of reference" need be a bland work of monotonous uncreative presentations, ruled and dictated by people who prefer not to stretch their imaginative capacities beyond bland monotonous adherence to bland monotonous strictures and rules that people who love making up rules for others to obey find quite easy to make — and which the dullest dreariest minds all too often can use to constrain and inhibit the capacities and inclinations of people who actually have enough motivation to do some imaginative work to make pages more visually interesting presentation of more than superficial and cliche ideas which is often all the shallow minded can easily deal with, often thinking that they digest much by reading much and presuming much about how vast their understanding is, rather than how limited any mortal mind can be.

Contrary to the assumptions of many rule makers and abject rule obeyers, I have long thought that those who actually volunteer to do extensive work building up presentations to others, rather than appealing to rote herd behavior are in many ways the truly humble ones — the critics, the rule makers are the arrogant presumptuous constrainers of other peoples liberty, which contribute to many of the morbid mortifying constraints upon human vitality and individual lives. I have always been and continue to be an advocate of far greater liberty than I have found many of the more shallow minded and narrowly presumptuous of people in the world are often comfortable with. I certainly feel that they should always be quite free to indicate their ire, and I assert I others should always be quite free to respond with theirs at those who would constrain long developing liberties and vitality with rules that are needless save to those who seek to command and control others with their easily pronounced rules — rather than influence them with their diligent work and devotions. ~ Kalki (talk · contributions) 05:38, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

I won't argue against your point, because I don't know what it is (rules are bad? works of reference are supposed to be creative?). I will say this though: don't be a jerk. I was asking a question in earnest, and wasn't attacking anyone. If I were a first-time wiki-editor, and this was my first impression of the wiki community, I would throw my hands up and vow never again to bother attempting to contribute. I'm not surprised at all that you were divested of your admin powers. Comporting yourself as you do above, you make a very poor ambassador for the community. Dindon 00:07, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

To answer the original poster's question (rather than discuss motives and other digressions): there is no official policy or guideline on the nature or quantity of images in Wikiquote articles. Although a few visitors to the site have questioned this, the customary practice, as you observe, has included abundant illustration. Individual articles are treated on a case-by-case basis.

From my own perspective, some pages are not quite to my taste in this respect but I don't see any need for broad rules because it does no real harm. (I must confess, however, that one reason I no longer participate in the "Quote of the Day" project is because I do not want quotes I nominate to be associated on the main page with images that I might find inappropriate.) ~ Ningauble 16:49, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Help with transwiki

Hello, I'm new to Wikiquote and need some help. I recently did a transwiki from Wikipedia --> Wikiqoute for the first time and I'd like someone to review it to make sure I did everything okay and if it is yet suitable to move out of the Transwiki: namespace. Also, as per Help:Transwiki#Incoming transwikis and m:Help:Transwiki#Complete transwiki (local users) someone more familiar with Wikiquote should probably check if it "overlaps one or more existing articles" or "may appear inappropriate for Wikiquote", afaik there's no such article existing on Wikiquote so I thought it may benefit this project. I suppose it will also need to be properly wikified to suit Wikiquote's standards (removing all the redlinks, properly categorized, etc.) but if Wikiquote is better served by merging this information into another existing article then that should be done instead. The article is at Transwiki:List of political catch phrases. Thanks, OlEnglish 13:53, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

• I thought the transwiki process was intended to carry the actual page history of the transwikied material. In any case, I think it is fine to do it by reference if the process is not automated. BD2412 T 16:13, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Many of these quotes would be excellent additions to articles on the people who originally said them, or good starting points for articles about them. Some would be good additions to articles in Category:Politics or other themes that the quotes address. However, this topic seems too broad and amorphous for a single theme page. (Cf. the substantial effort last year to clean up and re-factor the Politics article. Much was achieved, but it could still use some work.) ~ Ningauble 16:46, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

BD2412, if that is so then the Help:Transwiki page needs to be updated. I'm unfamiliar with how to use Special:Import but it tells me I need to be part of the group "Transwiki importers" to do it anyway. -- OlEnglish 22:32, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

It may well be that the process just doesn't work for Wikiquote as it does for, say, Wiktionary. BD2412 T 01:25, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Although a "Transwiki importers" group exists, at this point only Administrators have the "import" right on Wikiquote. I imagine the feature works, as it appears to have been used in the early days of the wiki, but I have never experimented with it myself. ~ Ningauble 16:18, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Time for an assessment?

I feel that we should do a top down assessment of all Wikiquote pages while the project is still small enough for that to be a reasonable goal. We have about 18,000 articles, of which 2,000 are mere blank pages reserved for years. Of the 16,000 remaining, I have a thousand on my watchlist, and I'm guessing that if we eliminate the articles on the watchlists of our other active admins, we should be able to pare it down to a few thousand. If we get to, say, 3,000 unwatched pages and can divvy those up between ten editors, that's 300 a piece, which is a reasonable number to do a quick flip-through and make sure nothing is egregiously wrong with them. How about it? BD2412 T 18:01, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm game, although I have much less on my own watchlist - only 170 currently. But it sounds like a plan. ~ UDScott 18:45, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Good. Is there a way to determine which articles are not watched by active admins without laying it out for potential bad actors to see? BD2412 T 20:37, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Only 58 on my watchlist, I'm afraid, but this sounds like a good idea. -Sketchmoose 20:45, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Put them on a deleted page. That works without a software enhancement. (A useful enhancement might be "hidden categories only admins can see.") Antandrus 21:37, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

That might be a good start. Of course, only admins can see [Unwatched pages], but that doesn't indicate pages that are on inactive watchlists (or, theoretically, vandal watchlists). BD2412 T 02:21, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

It looks like there are about 4,800 unwatched pages in article space, or roughly 1/3 of all articles (excluding redirects, year page placeholders, & disambiguation pages). I would surmise that if so many as 2/3 of all articles are "watched", the watches are mostly inactive and/or watched by the article creators. ~ Ningauble 15:31, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

More than I had imagined. BD2412 T 17:46, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

At first I thought you meant something like Wikipedia's Wikiproject article assessment tags or Good Article reviews. The idea of doing a sweep for obvious problems has merit, as there are surely a significant number that could persist more or less indefinitely without showing up on Recent Changes or being tagged for maintenance, though they must be far fewer than the ever-growing number of tagged problems that we are already not keeping up with.

Whenever I have attempted to survey broad groups of articles or maintenance categories, I have run up against limitations in my own ability to assess them: For many subjects I am unable to distinguish between blather arising from contributor tomfoolery, and contributions that are "legitimate" quotations of blathering sources – not without undertaking research that would make my head explode from the sheer mindlessness of it. Wikipedia's method of assigning articles to Wikiprojects is a good one, because it directs the attention of interested and knowledgeable people to the articles. Unfortunately, I don't think the Wikiquote community is large enough to use this method for providing adult supervision in all subject areas, not even all of the "popular" ones.

(I keep my own watchlist trimmed to 500 pages, about 2/3 of which are articles, and many of which are intentionally temporary watches. Perhaps one should not read too much into the fact that a page is watched: Sometimes I watchlist a page to monitor developments because I know it just ain't right but am not yet sure what, if anything, to do about it.)

That said, a "quick flip through" is probably a good idea even though it will likely not "make sure" of anything more than that everything has at least been looked at by a sensible person. How about making a short list of things to check for, in addition to the defining characteristics of maintenance categories (e.g. "zombies" – people not categorized as living or dead)? ~ Ningauble 16:07, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

One thing we should look for is article titles that we have here that do not exist on Wikipedia. Those should raise an immediate suspicion about notability. What else? Just obvious crap pages, in general. We should, by the way, have some means of designating our best pages, if only to provide examples against which others can be measured. BD2412 T 00:39, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Two areas to give particular attention to are unwatched pages and short pages. I have created User:YearPageWatchlist‎ to "watch" all the year placeholders, in order to remove them from the list of unwatched pages (it will take a few days for this to kick in), and in a similar vein, I have added a long comment to all of those pages and several short disambig pages to either remove them, or at least move them up, in the list of short pages. After these fixes are registered in the system, we can take a harder look at our currently unwatched and short pages. BD2412 T 03:48, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

WHy does a site get blacklisted?

I wanted to add this site ( www.mansonquotes.com )to Marilyn Mansons page but when I tried it came up "black listed" I don't see anything wrong with the site....why is this? I asked this question in the wrong place before so sorry

--anon

Unreliable aggregated quote sites are often spammed onto pages, this should be aggressively prevented in favor of utilizing reliable secondary sources. -- Cirt (talk) 14:39, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Standards for proverbs and tongue twisters.

We have a number of wholly unsourced pages of proverbs from various nations/languages, and tongue twisters for the same. I see no reason why these quotes should be held to any lower of a standard for sourcing. If there is a rationale to be heard, please let me know. Cheers! BD2412 T 17:55, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

I fully agree - having no standards just encourages the proliferation of false or ridiculous additions (much like we used to have with Advertising slogans). I would support requiring these to be sourced, even if that leads to the majority of them being removed. ~ UDScott 19:33, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Do we have a policy on tongue twisters, by the way? I suppose they count as quotes, although they tend to be meaningless. BD2412 T 19:37, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Not that I know of - although I do seem to recall one or more of them being nominated for VFD before and in the end being kept. I'll try to look back if I have time. ~ UDScott 20:00, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

I'll find them. Cheers! BD2412 T 21:58, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Precedent notwithstanding, I believe that non-English tongue twisters and palindromes really have no place here, even if sourced. The very essence of what might arguably make them quotable in the original language is totally lost in translation. ~ Ningauble 22:07, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

My opinion on sourcing proverbs in general is expressed by the phrase "should be cited" in my recent addition to Wikiquote:Sourcing#Proverbs (mentioned above). A couple other thoughts on such pages:

1. Non-English proverbs (if sourced) present a subtle issue. There is clearly good reason to include proverbs that have been widely quoted using a foreign language within English language works (as has been popular, e.g., in epochs when French and Latin loomed large in world literature, or with languages such as Welsh and Gaelic that are major tributaries of English). On the other hand, most such proverbs survive in English versions, and their non-English roots might better be included as source notes to the derivative English proverbs, rather than in separate pages. Where such origins are known, their inclusion is a Very Good Thing™.
   My opinion is doubtless a controversial one, for it runs against precedent, but I don't mean to be chauvinistic: there are other very good places for proverbs that are not proverbial in the English-speaking world.
2. English language proverbs broken out by nationality, ethnicity, or dialect seem problematic to me. (Witness the recently failed attempt to create a Canadian version.) Current breakouts between Proverbs, English proverbs, American proverbs, &tc. seem hopelessly muddled. Is the point to determine where they are currently popular, where they are distinctively characteristic, or where they originated? It looks as if the practice often merely reflects where the contributor happens to live! The average contributor, IMO, is not competent to classify them; and even serious researchers are sorely pressed to sort them out.
   From an anti-chauvinistic perspective, I would be pleased to have Americanisms, Briticisms (or "Britishisms," to use an Americanism), and all the rest comingled. The great English language proverbs are pan-Anglophone, and if colloquial ones are proverbial enough to be included, let them mingle promiscuously with the rest (using notes on origins as appropriate) rather than ghettoize them.

...but I digress.

Returning to BD2412's original enquiry:   I think we should proceed expeditiously with the disposition of unsourced (at least) non-English pages (especially where translation quality is unverifiable), possibly by transwiki to other language wikis; but proceed by stages on the English language proverbs, first removing the more obviously clueless contributions before moving unsourced ones that merit research to talk pages, and perhaps waiting until some progress has been made on sourcing them rather than hastily putting them out of sight and out of mind (using the occasion as an incentive to work on sourcing). ~ Ningauble 22:14, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

I have to admit, I have an additional concern. Many (if not most) of our "proverbs" pages were created by anon IPs with large initial text dumps, raising the possibility that these have been copied and pasted from elsewhere on the Internet. BD2412 T 22:35, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Doubtlessly so: Some were previously expunged when the sources from which they were stolen were identified. ~ Ningauble 18:51, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

I also agree that we should move non-English tongue twisters to their home-language wikis. BD2412 T 23:24, 28 June 2010 (UTC)