AmericanLemming
Hello there. I'm AmericanLemming, and I spend a lot more time editing Wikipedia than I do here. But since I collect quotes from movies and video games for the fun of it, I figured I should maybe start sharing them with the world.
- Taking a quick look at Wikiquote's policies shows that they are very similar to Wikipedia's, which I am intimately familiar with.
- However, if I make a mistake, don't hesitate to revert and/or correct my edit, as long as you let me know what I did wrong. Thank you.
Posted on 12 July 2016 at roughly 10:56 UTC Time.
General information
editImportant policies and guidelines
editHow-to guides
editImportant quotes from policy pages
editWikiquote is not a compendium of song lyrics or entire poems, and there are definite copyright issues in using more than a few lines of modern songs or modern poetry, even under fair use provisions. The same applies to dialogue from films, TV shows, and video games. While there are no legal impediments to using entire poems or lyrics that are in the public domain, the use of entire poems or the full lyrics of any songs are not encouraged, and a selection process of significant statements within a poem or a song should generally occur. Postings of copyrighted works on the internet does NOT place them in the public domain. See Wikiquote:Copyrights.
Guidelines (from Wikiquote:Copyrights)
edit- For specific guidance on how much is too much, see Wikiquote:Limits on quotations.
Generally, it is suggested that only short quotations and their references be used, even when permissible.
It is important, especially when quoting from things such as movies and television series, but also other published works, to make sure that there are not too many quotes from any single copyrighted work. Be especially careful not to take too many quotations from a single television or movie series (which could potentially be held under one large copyright claim as well as per-episode copyright claims).
If this simple rule is followed, most Wikiquote use of copyrighted materials should easily fall under the "fair use" clause. For more information on the "fair use" clause, see the Wikipedia article on the subject.
If you believe that a given article has too many quotes or excerpts from a copyrighted work on it, please add the text {{checkcopyright}} to its talk page. This will cause it to go into a queue for review and possible revision.
Wikiquote:Limits on quotations
editTo maintain the quality of our pages and to reduce the potential for copyright violation, we must place a number of limits on quotations.
Wikiquote, consisting of the words of notable people, is prone by its very nature to exceed fair use. A great deal of vigilance by our community of editors will be needed to keep articles within advisable limits, all the more so because these limits have proven difficult to define and are subject to much interpretation.
A Wikiquote article is a collection of quotations by subject. Its structure is not as evident as that of a Wikipedia article, where information is arranged to make a clear and coherent narrative. It is an all too natural temptation for our editors to add and never subtract. Instead of working together on selecting quotations for articles, editors will tend to keep adding until the dialogue of a television show, for example, comes close to being duplicated. Some contributors, as we have seen, appear to believe that duplication is the very purpose of Wikiquote. An article then becomes a sort of clubhouse for fans; and no quote, however trite or trivial, is omitted. Without limitations on the choices of quotations, we will end up with useless and valueless pages. Decisions about quality are often subjective, but this can be no reason for claiming that decisions should therefore not be made.
The standard for good quotations is that they are memorable, significant, well-expressed and concise. See Wikiquote:Quotability for a guideline to the selection of quotations.
The following sections deal with the limits we impose on quotations. In addition to these guidelines, quotations are subject to trimming or removal on the basis of quality.