Peace and Passion

Peace and Passion (talk) 21:37, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Important guidelines from JeffQ's draft Exemption Doctrine Policy

Implementation of limitations

Defining limitations on the inclusion of non-free material is not sufficient to ensure that Wikiquote is practicing fair use. Editors must be willing and able to reduce excessive quoting quickly and easily wherever and whenever they find it. To this end, several practices have been used and are recommended:

Delete any unsourced quotes that seem unlikely to have been said or written by the person or included in the work. Unsourced quotes should be considered as mere requests that other editors source the quotes. If no one seems willing or prepared to source them, editors should feel free to remove them.

For theme articles, delete any quotes that are tangential or unrelated to the theme. Quotes should be essentially about the stated theme, not just mentioning it in passing.

Delete any quotes whose cited sources do not check out or are not considered reliable by Wikimedia standards.

Delete any quotes that are not original or pithy (i.e., terse and full of impact).

Delete any quotes that are not essentially about the words. This is a serious problem for audiovisual works, as much of the interest in such works comes not so much from the words but from the entire audiovisual experience. Some specific guidelines:
- Ordinary exclamations are neither pithy nor original. Always delete them.
- Catchphrases may be acceptable, but only if they are famous enough to have explicitly cited secondary or tertiary sources, not just the work itself.
- Plot revelations and other story-related statements are typically not quoteworthy for the general Wikiquote audience unless the words themselves mean something outside of the immediate context. (Remember, we collect words that stand on their own, not just important plot points from stories.)
- Large scene transcriptions are neither terse nor insubstantial. As interesting as they may be to read, they do not serve as pithy excerpts, and should always be deleted.
- It should go without saying that descriptions of actions, sounds, or scenes are not quoted words and therefore have no place in Wikiquote, except in the limited situations where they provide needed context (usually in a single source line; i.e., a terse description of how to find the source, like "[After the fire, Captain Reynolds addresses the crew.]). Any quote that requires descriptions of what one is seeing or hearing while the words are being said is usually bad for Wikiquote, however entertaining the scene might be.

If the remaining quotes still exceed numerical limits, delete whatever quotes seem the least quoteworthy until the work or section of the work is within guidelines. If trimming the entire work, feel free to delete entire episodes if necessary. (But if the article is designed to include all episode titles for completeness, leave the headings in place.)

NOTE: Because quote deletion can be very controversial, deletions should always be accompanied by a specific edit summary that explains in a few words why the quote or quotes are being deleted. Since some of these guidelines, especially the last, will require individual judgment, there are inevitable disagreements, but these can be worked out on the article's discussion (talk) page. However, editors who insist on restoring material that has been identified as part of excessive quoting should not simply re-add material, but should remove a similar amount of material from the part of the work identified as excessively quoted. Failure to do so can be construed as attempting to violate fair-use guidelines, and may result in preventive action taken against the editor if it persists.

If deleted quotes are restored without explanation, editors should feel free to re-delete them once. If quotes are restored with an explanation, or unexplained restorations continue, editors should start a discussion (if they haven't already) about their actions on the article's discussion page. Do not engage in edit wars, even if other editors do not respond. If an editor fails to cooperate by discussing the issue, call for assistance either from the community (at Wikiquote:Village pump) or from administrators (at Wikiquote:Administrators' noticeboard).