Wikiquote:Village pump archive 9

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Village pump archive 9

From October 2006 to November 2006, originally posted to Wikiquote:Village pump.

Copyvio again

This is a subject which was mentioned here a few months ago (see the June archive for the topics "Jack Handy" and "Fair Use"). Now it has come up again: on October 2nd, Danny, a Wikimedia Foundation steward, deleted the page for Demetri Martin based on concerns about fair use. We have 21 articles currently tagged for copyright status. So far we have not really concluded anything except to say that we are too understaffed to handle the complicated problems of copyright and of who decides such matters. It's not like I have any particular knowledge on the subject, either; and yet I'm wondering if we might just have to make some empiric decision, considering how the fate of French Wikiquote always hangs over us. Even though, as was previously noted, we may not be as vulnerable as French Wikiquote because of the difference in the European Community laws, it's scary to think that everything we've all done here so far could go for nothing because of something like this.

For this reason, maybe we should place notices on all the pages tagged for copyvio, saying in effect: "We need those of you who contribute to this page to use your knowledge and your abilities to pare down these quotes; if not, it will have to be done by others. They will likely not do the job as skillfully as you, since they may not know much or anything about the subject of this page." If no contributors happen to take up the challenge (as they probably will not, given their passion for adding and their aversion to editing), then perhaps the sysops should simply divvy up the articles among themselves. It's a fairly terrible solution, and not the sort of thing we should even be doing; but maybe we should consider it after all, in light of possible serious consequences. At best it's only a temporary solution: as doubtless it will not be long before the pages in question accumulate quotes to the point of yet another copyvio warning. - InvisibleSun 04:11, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I've placed messages like that on several article talk pages. I'd be surprised if even a dozen people have read them, total. There is no community will to delete anything significant here. We need to find a solution that can be executed by the dozen or so folks who actually care about such problems here. We've only got a couple dozen pending policy revision issues active, so what the heck — let's add the occasionally discussed setting of a quote limit based on the length of the quoted work. As I've said elsewhere, such a limit would show a good-faith community effort to establish a reasonable fair-use condition. Of course, we'd still have to implement it, and I'm not sure we have enough active editors to deal with this issue. We could also take some draconian steps, like Danny's article deletion or my removal of an arbitrary 97% of Jack Handey (which has since been built back up to 16% of its old copyvio state). It would be good to have a policy, like that of Wikipedia:Verifiability, that encourages editors to delete large amounts of material that aren't appropriate for the project. (In WP:V's case, it's the inclusion of unsourced material, which is yet another problem we have here, too, but in this case, it would be likely copyright violations.) This might make infrequent editors more comfortable doing what can be considered an act of violence against an article (especially by those who don't believe in or care about copyrights). Sorry about the rant; I'm just getting tired of being the hatchet man for these kinds of problems. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 06:00, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I think we should definitely consider rewriting the text of the {{checkcopyright}} template. In its current form, it certainly creates the impression that there are users who are sufficiently familiar with what would be considered fair use, and there aren't (I would argue that it's virtually impossible to ever have such a thing, given the nature of fair use). Actually, what I suggest would be a new template, perhaps {{copyvio}}, with text along the lines of "This page has been flagged as a potential copyright violation. Wikiquote pages are not suitable for large portions of copyrighted works. Please edit this page to reduce the amount of content from copyrighted works." (The exact text to be used is something that should be worked out if/when we decide to use a new template.)

While having some set limit for "how much is still fair use" might work to deter some editors from expanding pages to copyright-violating lengths, I don't know that it would have much effect, or do much to show a good-faith effort on our part. As you said in your comment on Wikiquote talk:Copyrights, there simply is no way to know ahead of time the point at which something goes beyond fair use and becomes infringement. Suppose we instituted a cap at, say, 5% of the total content of a work (ignoring the difficulty of calculating such); while that would show that we were making an active effort to avoid full and complete reproductions of copyrighted works, it's still possible that a court could find that the 5% was too much, and was infringing, and that we were also committing willful copyright infringement by encouraging users to submit more-than-legal amounts of copyrighted material. I would really love to get an opinion from an actual lawyer involved with Wikimedia projects, as they would be the ones who would have to fight out any battles about the use of copyrighted material (and it would be nice for them to have had a hand in setting up the policy, so that we (editors) can have some assurance that it's legal, or at least that all the blame is not on us).

In the meantime, I think that all we can do is to keep an eye our for pages tagged with {{checkcopyright}} and, if nothing happens within a few days of the tag being added, put the axe to them ourselves. As is the case with so many things here, we just don't have the number of reliable editors here that we can rely on to handle some of this stuff. —LrdChaos (talk) 17:38, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I've now done some work on two articles tagged with {{checkcopyright}}, reducing the number of tagged pages from 21 to 19. I'll be working on another six of these articles over the next month or so. - InvisibleSun 18:14, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I've just finished a major rewrite (from the ground up) on Mitch Hedberg. In addition to providing sourced for quotes, I've also eliminated the entire "Unsourced" section for now, but with a note on the Talk page saying that it may be desirable to restore it with only a few quotes. —LrdChaos (talk) 21:29, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

There are some major copyright violations on the Sathya Sai Baba article and not sure how to get the issue addressed. There are also people erroneously citing quotes that they have never verified for themselves. SSS108 ^talk-email 04:36, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

nofollow

Can the nofollow tag be used on the archived pages, so that old quotes that were removed will not be indexed by the search engines? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.37.239.14 (talk • contribs) 13:41, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

What "archived pages" do you mean? Do you mean archives of pages like this and Talk pages, archived Votes for deletion discussions, or the histories for various pages? In any case, once quotes are removed from a page (whether because the page was archived or deleted), the next time a search engine bot checks the page it will update the search engine's database with the new content, and any removed quotes should no longer appear. —LrdChaos (talk) 17:00, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

he means that google search finds pages be clicking links and then arcives them, I fould an old page that was not sopposted to be avialible to the public in google by searching for all pages at www.runescape.com that way. It does this by auto clicking on any static text links and archiving the address it gets, then auto clicking on all static text links again. p.s i did not make an account, just to explain this (my wikipedia acount is ultra two).

Reference desk

Perhaps we should add a Reference Desk link to the Navigation box. - InvisibleSun 20:49, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Could be, if someone is always lurking around there.

Going further, how about having two nativation boxes? For readers mainly and for editors mainly. See German Wikipedia, for example, it has two boxes, navigation and collaboration. Their way seems to me quite reasonable. --Aphaia 04:45, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Tech help please: just created new page

and I can't find the page when i use the search engine. Why? Have I don't something wrong? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Gininap (talk • contribs) 03:39, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Don't worry. Your new article, The Rules of Attraction, exists. It can take a little time for the databases to be updated so that the Wikimedia search engine can find new articles. By the way, it's a good idea when you're talking about an article to name it specifically and enclose it in double brackets, which creates a link to the article. This has the additional benefit of showing whether the article exists — if the link is red, it doesn't; if it's blue, it does. There's no delay, either; you know immediately if your article is there. Anyway, welcome to Wikiquote, and thanks for the addition! ~ Jeff Q (talk) 05:03, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Copyrights and Fair Use

I am editing the Wikipedia article on the deceased author Jane Roberts, and someone else moved a bulleted list of excerpts of her writing to WikiQuote. I've been reading the Help pages and it says that permission must be gotten to quote copyrighted material. To the best of my knowledge, no permisson was ever gotten from the current copyright-holder (which is her husband, who is still living). This brings up the question of whether the quotes can be used under the Fair Use Doctrine. It seems to me that a list of quotes would not be covered by Fair Use because the quotes are not incorporated into another author's work (essentially, the purpose of the Fair Use Doctrine is to allow copyrighted materials to be discussed by other authors). Getting permission from Roberts' husband is a possibility but wouldn't be easy. This being the case, can a list of quotes be included at all, either in Wikipedia or in Wikiquote? This whole issue is very confusing.

Also, how long can a quote be -- one sentence, one paragraph? Is there a limit? To the best of my recollection, the Supreme Court ruled that Fair Use quotes must not contain the entire creative work being quoted and must be appropriate to the new work which contains the quotes. However, I don't know how long fair-use quotes can be when they are included in a bulleted list.

Thank you,

Caleb Murdock —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.23.100.154 (talk • contribs) 08:11, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Fair use is a notoriously vague idea; there's no well-defined line that we can point to as the boundary between a fair use and an infringing use. Generally, though, quoting a few short segments of a copyrighted work is fair use; how much depends on several factors that probably couldn't be listed definitively outside of an actual lawsuit about it. That said, the purpose of fair use is to allow the public at large (not just "other authors") to be able to quote short bits of copyrighted works.

I'm not a lawyer, so don't take what I'm going to say as legal advice, but the law lists four "factors" for determining whether a particular use qualifies as a fair use (17 USC 107, for the actual wording). In short, the factors are the purpose of the use (i.e., an educational use is preferrable to a commercial one), the nature of the work (not sure what this means, exactly), how much is used (i.e., full or significant reproductions are out, but quoting a few short segments is generally OK), and the effect on the market for the work (i.e., would/does the use take away from the market for the original? I would take this to mean that if there were some, say, self-help book that listed steps, and then explained them, it would not be a fair use to simply all quote the steps (but not the explanation), even if they're just a sentence long, because they're central to the reason people would buy the book).

As a result, it's basically impossible for anyone to say with certainty where there's a limit to how long a quote can be. We do prefer that editors add only the minimal amount of the quote necessary to get the point across; quotes that run about a paragraph-length or more are liable to be trimmed down to a sentence or two, or removed entirely, in some cases. —LrdChaos (talk) 13:58, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Usernames containing the @ symbol

Due to new policies and software changes, new accounts on the Wikimedia Foundation wikis can no longer be created if the username contains the @-symbol [1]. Existing users who have the @ symbol in their username can still login but only temporarily. All these users need to request a username change. ~ Kalki 17:44, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Template:Test1-selfrv

I added the Smiley.svg image, if this is a good thing, then comment here, I've never really edited wikiquote but I'd like to help out with vandalism-fixing!! --82.42.237.173 21:53, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Quotes Search By Classification

A suggestion really, more than a question. I looked in the FAQ but did not find anything about classification of quotes by theme (e.g. "inspirational" or "humorous"). I just wanted to mention that such a classification might be helpful while searching. - Rene Ylanan -

Never mind! I found the Categories page (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Category:Themes). Sorry about that... - Rene -

Redirects

Since Le Morte d'Arthur is the only known work of Thomas Malory I thought it would be best to merge the two articles. I've therefore copied all three of the Le Morte d'Arthur stub's entries in the Thomas Malory article. The next step should be to redirect Le Morte d'Arthur to Thomas Malory, but my redirect doesn't seem to have worked. It seems to me that I followed the instructions given at WP:Redirect to the letter. Is there something I should know? Antiquary 11:45, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I've now made a number of attempts to redirect it and can't get it to work, either. I've seen this problem several times before with redirects. Perhaps some sort of glitch in the system? Sometimes I can get them to work after re-entering them, but it isn't working so far in this case. - InvisibleSun 15:21, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Works for me. 121a0012 17:46, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I see it did. Thanks. Antiquary 18:51, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

How perplexing: I click on Le Morte d'Arthur and it still doesn't redirect me to Thomas Malory. It continues to appear on my computer as the stub with three quotes. And yet when I press the Edit button, the page shows nothing but the redirect. - InvisibleSun 19:00, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I've tried it twice — once between InvisibleSun's first post and 121a0012's post, and again just now. It worked both times for me. Clearly, Wikiquote doesn't like InvisibleSun, but is warming up to Antiquary. ☺ Seriously, is there something about our page caching system that might have different caches of a page on different servers, one cache of which is failing to update in a timely manner? ~ Jeff Q (talk) 05:23, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Trying to attribute a quote

:"Religion is a magic device for turning unanswerable questions into unquestionable answers. " this has several attributes around the net to "Art gecko". Who/What is he? I could'nt find any resources to pin down it's ID if any. I would hate to to disavow him from this. thanks --Diza 23:08, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

First rule of thumb in tracking down quotes: if it's claimed to be said by someone with a punning name (e.g., "Art gecko", punning on art deco), it's probably not original with this pseudonymous person. A First Things article credits John D. Caputo with discussing the lack of an identifiable origin to a variation on this quote, apparently in his 2006 book Philosophy and Theology ISBN 0687331269: "Philosophy asks unanswerable questions; theology gives unquestionable answers." I'd start there to see exactly what he says. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 22:57, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank you so much Jeff, Id leave it up to you to insert this great "quote" quote in wiki..maybe under Religion --Diza 23:24, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it's already there on the Religion page:

"Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned.
Anonymous; quoted in Dennett, Daniel C. (2006). Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, 1st ed., p. 17, Viking Penguin. ISBN 0-670-03472-X."
- InvisibleSun 01:31, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

A-ha — I thought I'd seen that somewhere recently! In fact, now that I think of it… yes, I added that on 18 September. I can't even remember what I did a few weeks ago. ☹ I can see that I'm taking my mini-wikibreak (or at least a reduced-activity period) none too soon. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 05:30, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

The 'Chief Seattle' quotes

The page on Chief Seattle was ridiculous. All of the quotes are known fabrications. I cleaned it up to remove the quotes and fix the biography. I don't know what wikiquote policy is, whether a quote page with no quotes should be removed, but if so, this page qualifies. I put a link to snopes about the 'Chief Seattle' urban legend, if you are interested do a web search with words like 'chief seattle quotes debunk manufactured faked', etc. There is no controversy about this, check for yourself. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.107.56.100 (talk • contribs) 12:13, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I've cleaned up the Chief Seattle page, trimming the intro, adding valid quotes, and adding a Misattributed section, in which I restored the deleted quotes. I added a note about the hoax. ~ UDScott 13:22, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! But I've still got some worries about the quotes you added, see the discussion page. 70.107.56.100 20:27, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

MoS/NPOV: quotes in bold?

What is the policy about the practice seen on some pages of having some quotes or part of quotes being displayed in bold?

I noticed it while editing Mohandas Gandhi, which has some weird or suspicious bolding (many of them apparently done by an NRAA fan emphasizing the need for arms).

For comparison, I looked at Albert Einstein, which has its share of bold too -- some of them being very famous quotes, other seemingly being nothing more than the bolding editor's pet quote.

I couldn't find anything about that in the Help manual, and Wikiquote apparently doesn't have a handy Wikipedia:Annotated_article documentation. To me, it looks like POV or bias to bold some quotes or part of quotes on our whims. At least if there's no clear policy and objective criterion about how bolding is decided. Is there one?

-- 62.147.86.199 10:37, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I think bolding should be done in two circumstances: First, when a well-known quote is hidden as a subclause deep within a lengthy paragraph of text, and the quote includes the whole of the paragraph, it is useful to bold the quote in order to direct readers' attention to it. Second, where a particular quote is much better known than others, bolding the quote highlights its significance.

Bolding should certainly not be done where the editor who added it wants to draw attention to something they agree with; you're right that that is POV. Fys. “Ta fys aym”. 10:46, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Bolding is useful for emphasis at Wikiquote for several reasons. As I have stated in the past, the very act of quotation inherently involves emphasis of one part of a person's statements over others, and the further use of editorial emphasis in bold is permitted here, though its use is not expected to be without some contentions. Some previous arguments on the matter are at Wikiquote:Village pump archive 8. ~ Kalki 00:50, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Category:War versus Category:Wars and battles

I just created Category:Wars and battles, and was surprised to find that there was already a Category:War. The latter does not follow our naming convention (a category has more than one instance, so category names are plural). I have no great attachment to Category:Wars and battles, but I think it's both more descriptive and more inclusive. What do other wikiquotians think? Which one should we keep? (I'll do the cleanup work, whatever the consensus is.) 121a0012 05:54, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, there's wikipedia:Category:War for example, and I'm not sure which naming convention you're referring to? I personally don't mind either way, but I agree that only one should be kept. iddo999 07:14, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Correct me if i am wrong but a war and a battle can be two seperate things.. you could be at war but not have battle per se.. MatthewFenton 10:20, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

The naming convention 121a0012 alludes to is an unwritten one (like so many things on Wikiquote) that distinguishes between countable nouns, which can represent many distinct instances, and mass nouns, which refer to "a homogeneous substance or a concept without subdivisions" (Merriam-Webster Online). Wikipedia doesn't adequately describe this distinction (see w:Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories)), although I believe they try to follow it in making a distinction between categories for "lists of items" and "topical category names". Wikiquote, however, deals with this problem regularly in trying to select singular or plural nouns for article titles, because unlike Wikipedia, all our theme articles are in the form "quotes about X"; e.g., "quotes about cats" (countable) and "quotes about science" (mass).

The problem here is that "war" is both a countable noun ("… in the United States only Congress can declare wars", Gustave Gilbert, Nuremberg Diary) and a mass noun ("War is fought by human beings", Carl von Clausewitz, On War). For our purposes, both make sense, so we must decide whether we want to use only one form, grouping all articles about war/wars into one category, or make the distinction by preserving both uses. I can see a number of reasons for keeping both, based on our trend toward requiring quotes to be specifically (rather than tangentially) connected to their enclosing article's subject, implying something similar for category names. But this would also make it harder for folks to choose a category for an article. Keeping only "War" has the obvious appeal of simplicity. We might also use subcategories to preserve the distinct categories, perhaps placing "Wars and battles" under "War". ~ Jeff Q (talk) 14:15, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I think that something like this really depends on how the noun is being used. I don't think we need a Category:War, because what pages could it contain? The only logical fit would be War (as in the theme), and there's no need for a category that only contains, and only ever should contain, one page. Quotes about a specific war or battle, if they warrant their own page, would fit much better in a Category:Wars or Category:Wars and battles, which would list the pages for wars and for battles, which I think is more intuitive. —LrdChaos (talk) 14:36, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand your comment. Don't Just war theory and Nuclear war fit Category:War? Anyway, just having the "War" cat for simplicity sounds good to me, in order to prevent future confusions by new editors. Having "Wars and battles" as a sub cat of "War" also seems like a good suggestion to me. iddo999 22:31, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Pages for years

moved to Category talk:Year page placeholders

Wikiquote Font

Does anyone know what font is used for the "Wikiquote" logo in the top left?

This has been asked before, but years ago; I do not know the name of the font but I believe that the logo was designed by w:User:Neolux so he might be able to provide that information. ~ Kalki 17:36, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Featured Article equivalent?

Is there an FA equivalent on Wikiquote, or any plans to make one? It might spur some extra editing, don't you think? Dev920 18:44, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

We don't have any "featured article" status at present; our front page instead features a "quote of the day" selected from among nominations made and voted on by editors. I suspect that this is better suited to us than a "featured page" process, since typically, the quotes are what matters, and are merely grouped by person or theme. —LrdChaos (talk) 18:58, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Request for recreating french wikiquote

moved to Wikiquote talk:Other language Wikiquotes

Rumor in African American culture

Could users please take a look at the entry Rumor in African American culture. I've left some comments on the talk page. It seems like a really tenuously linked set of quotes and I suspect it was created for ulterior reasons. 212.140.119.40 13:18, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

American History Primary Sources

There is a large number of articles waiting in the Transwiki queue (I think originally from en Wikipedia but I haven't checked) under the rubric of "American History Primary Sources". (You can see the lot in Special:Uncategorizedpages, among others.) Editors who are a bit more comfortable with this subject matter, please have a look at these pages and figure out what to do with them. 121a0012 00:50, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Ellipsis

I haven't come across any Wikiquote policy or discussion about this practice: selectively quoting by omitting words, phrases or sentences and replacing them with dots. Whether or not we make it a matter of actual policy, I would like to hear opinions about this practice, which I think should at least be fairly strongly discouraged. I can understand it when someone thinks that a quotation would be clearer, more incisive or less laborious if edited without parts of a relevant passage; and yet even in those instances I would rather see the quotation intact, not only for reasons of accuracy but also to know what might happen to be missing. If we see a quotation without the interruptions of ellipsis, we still have the prerogative when quoting it to make the omissions we choose; but when it is done for us by someone else, we can never feel confident that nothing of importance was deleted or that it was the result of good editing style.

While at work here on Wikiquote, especially in source-finding, I'm often astonished to see just how much had been excised by those three little dots. In some cases, entire paragraphs had been omitted between the parts of a quotation. There are instances in which the use of ellipsis is a kind of egotistical rewriting — as if editors merely regarded texts as raw material. No doubt they think they're doing whatever it takes to get a quotation across; but if it takes such drastic surgery to make it function, maybe it shouldn't be done in the first place. There are many good passages of writing or speaking which simply don't translate into quotation. Better to accept this than to resort to hatcheting and sawing.

Whenever possible I've made it my practice to fill in ellipses, but in a few cases everything I've done has then been reverted. Not having any policy or informal practice to back me up, I've felt at a loss to pursue it further. - InvisibleSun 02:32, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I would mildly disagree. Even though Wiki is not paper, we do not want to go overboard in extensive quotation -- particularly in the case of some more logorrheic authors. I cannot object to elision of lists of examples, restatements of a thesis, etc., so long as the "before" and "after" texts are clearly part of the same thought and the resulting quotation retains the meaning of the original text. In the case of "entire paragraphs [having been] omitted", that's clearly inappropriate: what you have here is two separate quotations joined by an ellipsis. 121a0012 03:39, 15 November 2006 (UTC) (sorry, had to step away) … two separate thoughts married in a single "quotation" with an ellipsis. (This may be somewhat more acceptable if the "before" and "after" texts are complete sentences; if combined into one sentence, that would be well over the line of malfeasance as far as I'm concerned.) 121a0012 03:47, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I think I'm in the same boat as User:121a0012 on this. Some editors get carried away with ellipses. In some cases, I think that it's because they're trying to condense several paragraphs of text into two or three that do a very good job at expressing a certain point. I know the feeling, as there are more than a few times I've come across someone making an excellent point, but doing so with a lot of superfluous verbiage, and I can understand the urge to take a knife to all of that and cut it down to the barest essence. However, I don't believe that's a good idea for Wikiquote, because we simply don't have enough people to continually check that each and every time an ellipsis is used, it's being used responsibly.

That said, I don't think that it would necessarily be worthwhile to enact a blanket prohibition on the use of ellipses in quotes. It can be used responsibly, and it does happen. I think that something like this is perhaps best covered as part of our NPOV policy; one of the issues I've tried to address in my draft version is the presentation of quotes. I was particularly thinking about cases of selective quoting (e.g., taking a small portion of a text, like an author's hypothetical that they then go on to discuss at length, and presenting it as though it was the author's definitive feelings on the issue), but it could easily be adapted to cover cases where important material is being removed by ellipses, especially where it changes the meaning of the quote. —LrdChaos (talk) 14:41, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

An alternative could be to present first the condensed/elipsed version, and beneath the full version, so anyone can check if both texts are clearly part of the same thought, like the following. --Javierme 16:57, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

• "Brevity [...] is important while quoting."
  • Author
  • Full version /original version "Brevity -and by brevity I don't mean conceptual poverty, but the result of the ability to express one's thought in a straigtforward manner- is important while quoting."

Quotes about someone

Would it be appropriate to have a section in Greta Garbo of quotes about Garbo? (Eg there's a suitable quote in Kenneth Tynan.) -- Ml64 19:08, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes. See this page for a layout guide. In this case, for example, you could create a section entitled About Greta Garbo. - InvisibleSun 20:11, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Esperanza

Join wikiquote:Esperanza and help make wikiquote a better place. The goal of Esperanza is to make wikiquote a better place. --Sir James Paul 19:12, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

While we would all like Wikiquote to be a better place, a brand-new editor creating an Esperanza project without a basic understanding of how either Esperanza or Wikiquote work, or what the general purposes of Wikimedia Foundation projects are, is simply not a good idea. (To this end, I've nominated WQ:ESP for deletion.) In fact, the goals of Wikipedia:Esperanza itself are currently being questioned (see w:Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Esperanza), as it is being used to form a social network that detracts from the basic effort of building an global encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Likewise, Wikiquote must not be simiilarly distracted from its purpose of building a global compendium of quotations from notable people and creative works, especially since we have far fewer regular editors. Just as we don't have Wikipedia's robust, committee-heavy systems for general maintenance, we probably need to stick to handing out advice and encouragement here at the Village Pump for the foreseeable future. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 20:29, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Esperanza needs someone who is willing to be vice president. The vice president will work with the president to help make wikiquotes a better place to work. Esperenza is a community of people who support eachother and other editors. If you decide to run for vice president go to wikiquote:Esperanza, then go to its talk page, you will see ssomething that says vice president election, in that section write your user name, and why you think you should be vice president, also go on Esperanza's main page and put your name where it says members. If you win you will be apart of something great. The election will be from November 19 to November 29. The term will start on december 1 and will end on Feb.1.--Sir James Paul 22:11, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Sir James Paul has no standing at Wikiquote with which to declare any elections, and has thus far demonstrated no knowledge whatsoever of relevant Wikiquote policies and practices. No one with even the most basic Wikiquote (or even Wikimedia) experience has stepped up to work on this project yet. Before any other decisions can be made, we must first decide whether we will even have a Wikiquote Esperanza. This discussion is taking place at WQ:VFD#Esperanza. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 01:14, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I do have a knoledge of Esperanza because I am a member of it on both wikipedia and wikipedia simple english. If you take a look at The Charter of Esperanza you will see that it will keep members active. I am also going to bring in people from other wikimedia projects to help me make this Esperanza the best it can be. If you sign up to become a member you will be apart of something that will make wikiquote more friendly. Have a nice week.--Sir James Paul 02:03, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I feel like reeling in the village idiot when I say this, but I feel it must be said. Sir James Paul, this should not exist. I already explained myself on simple. You are no longer a member of english WP's Esperanza: you got the boot because you didn't meet their entry requirements. There are no entry requirements on Simple, however. However, you immmediately proposed a useless position that you wanted to occupy! It doesn't look like you know Esperanza as well as you say you do. Also, as it has been mentioned so many times, the Esperanza charter over at English is being completely overhauled because it had serious flaws. It is NOT a good idea to spread the project until they get all of the kinks out. So, Sir James Paul, you might have to work to get a leadership role rather than make your own position. PullToOpen 15:16, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Eh. Once I thought this idea good. Then I thought our community was so large as to have specific network to enforce committement. So I nodded him (and then I thought he was a regular editor). After browsing the website, I found rather my well-known Wikiquote. All knows all (hi, PullToOpen, btw). Much worse, the proposal seems to connect a sort of power ambition. The editor said to me, if I would join, I would be in a leadership position. Generally I am not interest in such an idea, while I adimit a social structure are going well with leadership in general. After scanning this thread, my interest in this proposal becomes very little. So as a late comer, I would like to join the chore; we do not need such. Specially a group whose main purpose of launching is to get a leadership "position" within that. --Aphaia 15:20, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

CAPTCHA and dyscalculia sufferers

Shouldn't there be a way for dyscalculia sufferers (which I am not) to get around the simple arithmetic that there is in CAPTCHA? Just a thought. --Oden 00:09, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Use a calculator? Fys. “Ta fys aym”. 00:16, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

What wikiquote:Esperanza is

The goal of wikiquote:Esperanza is to make wikiquote the best it can be. All members of Esperanza agree to revert vandalism and keep it from becoming a problem, to be friendly to everyone, and to work hard. We will encourage reverting vandalism, being friendly, and working hard by giving out monthly rewards and by putting the people who got them on the site. We will also do the same for the best article. This will make the members feel welcomed at wikiquote wich is important because thay are less apt to work hard if they do not feel welcomed. Once we get 5 members we will hold a election for president and vice president. Esperanza will not only help wikiquote but it will also give a good example to the Esperanza on wikipedia and if they take this ones example and make there Esperanza more like ours then that will improve wikiquote. Esperanza will keep problems like vandalism and edit wars from becoming major problems in wikiquote. To find out more ask me on my talk page. Thanks and god bless.--Sir James Paul 18:22, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

If those are your goals I see no point to an Esperanza here. MatthewFenton 17:02, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

As a founding member and third Administrator General of the original Esperanza (as well as a former member, due much in part to it's miserable failure) I can say with great confidence that there is no need of an Esperanza project on Wikiquote, and the matter should be dispensed with quickly, and by force if necessary. Essjay (Talk • Connect) 07:46, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

I've been reluctant to block Sir James Paul, partly because he seems earnest (though willfully ignorant, having repeatedly refused to learn about Wikiquote before trying to work on it), and partly because he doesn't quite fit the profile of a troll (i.e., not an obvious prankster). I suspect he will either take this disappointment as a learning opportunity, or will simply go away after the VfD is closed. I'm afraid the latter is far more likely, because he seems to have no interest in quotations, but only to run a social-networking project, with no regard to the medium. But we can hope for the best. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 09:18, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Jeff Q and think it would be a bad sign to block Sir James Paul. His first action on coming here was to create Citizenship, which is quite reasonable as themes go (see his version here). The quotes are germane to the subject and are not made up, apart from some attributed to 'Sir James Paul'. There was a Sir James Balfour Paul (1846-1931) who was a Scots genealogist (Knight Lyon King of Arms) and historian, and for AGF reasons I retained them in the hope that they were from him. But he did not mean any harm by creating Wikiquote:Esperanza, and to block him for trying to create it would be a very bad signal. Indeed, I find his persistence in defending it an admirable quality, even though misguided. As I tried to hint on his talk page, if he put the same effort into improving quote articles, he would very quickly become a valued contributor. Fys. “Ta fys aym”. 09:32, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid I'd forgotten about that first edit of Sir James Paul's. He clearly did start out with an interest in quotations. I apologize for my error. I've posted one more plea to him to review the advice he's been given and to consider working with us on the things that need work here. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 10:04, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

For the record: Esperanza on the English Wikipedia was dissolved based on community consensus in late 2006. The conclusion may be the Wikimedia project community is editors' community and need no further gear to build itself but pursue of its mission and goal. --Aphaia 12:14, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Sun Myung Moon

As you might imagine his collection of quotes is very controversal, with people both for and against him adding quotes (I am a member of his church). Recently one person has added catagories apparently to try to highlight some of the more extreme, "controversal" things Rev. Moon has said. He has also added some other quotes from other church sources that are not from Rev. Moon himself. Thanks for your help. I am not sure if this is the place to post this but I didn't see any noticeboard for problems as there is in WP. Steve Dufour 15:06, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikiquote:Announcements

Is dead. What to do? -- Zanimum 21:34, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Hello Zanimum. Um. Several possibility are there ...

1. Yes, we need it. We are going to revive!
2. Annoucements? Eh, we can see them on several other Wikimedia websites ...
3. I didn't know we had an annoucement page. I have no idea.
4. 42.

It could be helpful, specially since our community is now bigger than then (2004). While I am not around there frequently, I could input something. Is any other who is interest in reviving Wikiquote:Announcements?--Aphaia 15:11, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

What's new or big at Wikiquote?

What's new or big at Wikiquote? I'm looking for milestones for a press release focusing on Wikimedia's non-English Wikipedia projects. -- Zanimum 21:36, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

I suppose I don't need to point out that en:Wikiquote is neither non-English nor a Wikipedia project, eh? ☺ I'm not sure what we would want to report. We've recently updated our deletion policy to allow more speedy deletions (so we're perhaps only a year or so behind en:WP, not having prod and similar innovations). A few months ago, we instituted a new month-day article system that reorganized how we nominate Quotes for the Day (which I believe has had growing participation) and gets us halfway toward having proper preference-based date formatting. We added Essjay, Jaxl (aka Robert), LrdChaos, InvisibleSun, and (just last month) Fys to our administrators this year, bringing our total to 17, 7 or 8 of which participate on a daily or near-daily basis. There may be other big events that I'm just not recalling because of my current narrow attention span. I don't know if any of that is what you're looking for. Anyone want to fill in the (oft huge) gaps in my memory? ~ Jeff Q (talk) 02:36, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, background of question from Zanimum (I suppose). Recently English Wikipedia reached their 1.5M articles. Commons reached their 1M content. The Foundation thought both of them worthy to inform the press people and planned to issue a press release. Then some people argues that 400K artilces on French Wikipedia should be mentioned in that press release. Also some other significant milestones. Other stated non-Wikipedia projects should be also more focused. If the media people know the Foundation is not concerning with Wikipedia, it would be fine. So Zanimum was running here and there.

Back to the topic, um, I agree with Jeffq. We are a small project and there is no big news lately. Except reopening of French Wikiquote, but I supposed it was after the press release issued ... --Aphaia 04:26, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

RSS feeds of page-histories

Would you like to be able to subscribe to RSS (Atom) feeds of the edit histories of your favourite Wikitravel pages? Then vote to add hAtom to the change log of media wiki pages! Pigsonthewing 22:16, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikiquote logo

i like the logo

New copyvio template

There have been several recent incidents at VFD where whole web pages were being included in Wikiquote. In these cases, the common behavior has been to blank the page and include a short message explaining the blanking. However, this message often failed to provide details such as the exact location of the original material, and didn't include any information on what editors could do to resolve the issue. Additionally, the messages were not from a template, and were written by hand for each case. To deal with these problems, I have adapted Wikipedia's Template:copyvio for use on Wikiquote as {{copyvio}}. The copyright-violating page should be blanked and this template added in its place; the template adds the page to Category:Possible copyright violations, which should be checked from time to time for cases where a page was tagged this way, but either is not a copyright violation or the page was not nominated for deletion (as Wikiquote policy doesn't permit the automatic deletion of copyright-violating material after a period of time, as Wikipedia policy does, going through the "Votes for deletion" process is the only way to handle such cases). —LrdChaos (talk) 15:19, 29 November 2006 (UTC)