Wikiquote:Village pump archive 14

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Village pump archive 14

During May and June 2007, originally posted to Wikiquote:Village pump.

Fake message

originally a part of WQ:VP#Practical joke on the user page - just funny or need to surpress? (now archived)

There was a massive debate on WP about these hoax boxes, which impersonate the MediaWiki interface. Save a lot of trouble and ban such practices outright. This isn't a playground. Tyrenius 20:03, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Tyrenius, could you provide a link to this debate? ~ Jeff Q (talk) 21:01, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

YouTube as source

Some people like to input a bare url as source, even it is obviously second source. Now I found this pattern on Frank Zappa. There YouTube links are put here and there and you don't find it until you click it.

Personally I don't think it a good way from several reasons.

• At least in an appearance it doesn't follow the traditional way. In the traditional way of citation, either you follow Chicago Manual or one of others, some data should be explicitly given; author, title, publisher, date and so on. [1] is not the sufficient in this point.
• Secondary source issue. Though I admit YouTube might be the original source and if so, it should be referred so, but obviously it is not the case of Zappa (he passed away some years before). As far as I know, ideally the citation have to taken from the original source and even it isn't, the data of original should be given. Putting YouTube url may be not welcome from this view either.

As community, we have no set guideline for this issue, if I recall correctly. How do you think about it? Or I am too rigid in this point? --Aphaia 23:10, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

I feel all links should be plainly labeled as to where they are linked to, and those which link to a sound or video file, a pdf, or other bandwidth consuming targets should be plainly labeled as doing so. ~ Kalki 23:19, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Another reason why sources should always be named in an article is that links aren't guaranteed to last. They may become broken; they may be incorrectly addressed; or the page to which they link may be deleted. This is especially common in YouTube, where a video will end up eliminated for copyright violation or because the account of the person who posted it has been suspended. - InvisibleSun 03:41, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Bare links are a very minimum but rather poor means to provide source information. We should do everything short of banning them to encourage people to make clear in the text of the articles what the sources are. (We couldn't police a ban properly, anyway.) I've fixed or removed far too many broken links and removed too many sources whose non-reliability (by Wikimedia standards) was hidden by bare links. YouTube specifically is a very unreliable source (in both senses), as thousands of its links are routinely removed for copyright violations. Anything whose source is YouTube should be treated as unreliable unless proven otherwise, especially since YouTube users frequently adopt usernames that sound official but are not. (For example, Showtime was rather annoyed with YouTubers representing themselves as "Showtime" and "Penn & Teller" for uploading episodes of Bullshit!.) If someone has a YouTube source, they should try to find a proper reliable source for the same information, often found in news sites or websites covering the specific subject. Google and other search engines don't give us much excuse for relying on substandard sourcing. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 22:49, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Best practice would be to have something like <ref>[http://www.mylibrary.com Shakespeare's library]: "relevant info" accessed 3 May 2007</ref>. Then everyone can see what site the link is to, what info comes from the link and when it was viewed. Cumbersome but helpful to users.--Poetlister 15:55, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

As for the link, I agree on that [http://foobar.com Foobar.com] with the date accessed is the best practice. However, Poetlister, you imply we are better to switch to have a separate "References" section for now? I personally feel it better to have the source data very aside of the quote. In a large article, references at the bottom is a bit annoying in my preferences. --Aphaia 17:35, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I must disagree with the above links on two counts:

1. Simple but very common links like [http://foobar.com Foobar.com] are incredibly unspecific. If the link breaks, we frequently don't have enough information to find a replacement.
2. The more detailed <ref>[http://www.mylibrary.com Shakespeare's library]: "relevant info" accessed 3 May 2007</ref> has its own problems. It still hides the reliability of the source. The publisher — in this case, MyLibrary.com — should be explicitly shown in the source, preferably with a link to its home page, or maybe even its "about" page. Many substandard websites fail to provide information about who is behind them, or what their editorial policies are. Without this, we can't adequately determine wiki-reliability.

I'm beginning to think that, whatever the performance penalty, using the {{cite}} templates should be encouraged. They work well with our standard sub-bulleting sourcing, even when they are formatted with multiple lines to make their use clearer to editors unfamiliar with them, something we should also encourage. Here's an example from the Dean Koontz article:

• When it came to formal classes, I was a slacker. But I've always been a diligent autodidact and can teach myself virtually any subject — if I have a serious interest in it.
  • "Q&A" column. Dean Koontz: The Official Website. RandomHouse.com (16 June 2006). Retrieved on 2006-09-12.

The citation part looks like this when edited:

** {{cite web
  | date = [[16 June]] [[2006]]
  | url = http://www.randomhouse.com/bantamdell/koontz/meet_qa/june_15_2006.html
  | title = "Q&A" column
  | work = Dean Koontz: The Official Website
  | publisher = [http://www.randomhouse.com RandomHouse.com]
  | accessdate = 2006-09-12
}}

(Missing information can be left blank and wiki markup omitted for later addition.) This formatting not only makes it easier to check, fix, and expand a {{cite}} source, but also allows newbies to learn robust, well-formatted sources by seeing how others have done it. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 20:19, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Thema article organization - articles about places

Trying to expand Germany from materials from German Wikiquote, I found two problems (again) about its sorting.

1. We have no fixed rule for sorting on themes. We may say we prefer chronological and/or alphabetical orders, but if we need to clean up an article, we need to choose one of those two ways.
2. Before I jumped in, there are two quotes on Germany. It looked like English quotes by English speaking people. Is it better for us, specially on location theme articles, to mix up all quotes or better to divide insiders from outsiders?
3. As for sorting originally German quotes (and perhaps also originally French quotes someday), if we sort them alphabetically, which version is better to chose for sorting? The English one or the original German one? Now there is only one version of translation to each German quotes, but there could be another versions. On the other hand, I am not sure if it is appropriate/reader-friendly to put the original German one in the beginning of each entry, as well our current boilerplace suggested:

* ''Foreign language quote.''
** Translation: English translation
** Author and source 

And recently suggested, this format should be changed anyway - it was requested for putting which language was the original, and it is not clear where this information should be added (The third line?).

For your information, the German article on this theme (perhaps other lengthy quotes too) are sorted by alphabetical (like proverbs). They put the translation first, and put the original (if found) in the next line, like the below:

from de:Napoléon Bonaparte

• "Soldaten, seid euch bewusst, dass von diesen Pyramiden vierzig Jahrhunderte auf euch herab blicken." - Vor der Schlacht bei den Pyramiden, 21. Juli 1798

• (Original franz.: "Soldats, songez que du haut de ces pyramides quarante siècles vous contemplent!")

--Aphaia 20:29, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

As regular village-pump readers may know, I despise theme and proverbs articles because they rarely contain sourced quotes and tend to be littered with personal inventions of our editors or telephone-game variations of quotes whose main attribute is rapid web distribution. I suspect there is no single organization method that would serve all purposes for such articles, so I would favor chronological order, except without sources, we can't reliably determine chronology. If we were prepared to clean these up by more aggressive sourcing (and consequent weeding-out of many unsourced "quotes"), we might better implement chrono order. Even so, there will probably always be valuable unsourced quotes, so we still need at least an alternative for undated quotes.

As far as the order of quote language goes for non-English quotes, I urge staying with the original-language quote first, with the English translation underneath. (I'd like to see sources for both, frankly.) On a related issue, I'd like to suggest we adopt a slight formatting change to the translation line. Because our policy is to remove quotation marks around the quoted material, we need a formatting difference between supplemental words in the auxiliary content of quotes, perhaps like so:

* ''On ne change pas une équipe qui gagne.''
** ''Literal meaning:'' One doesn't change a team that wins. 
** ''Idiomatic translation:'' If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

which would look like this:

• On ne change pas une équipe qui gagne.
  • Literal meaning: One doesn't change a team that wins.
  • Idiomatic translation: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Essentially, anything that isn't part of the quote should be italicized (or de-italicized, in some cases) to make the quote visually distinct from the supporting text. Italicization is less intrusive than bolding, and doesn't interfere with our practice of bolding more important quotes and portions of quotes, nor should it unduly intefere with the occasional italicizing of a few words in the original quoted text. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 23:16, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

For proverbs, I agree those parallel translations (both literal and idiomatic) are helpful. For general cases, I have no idea if we need both. I confess when I began this discussion, I missed some elements of formatting, like "italicizing original foreign quotes", and agree on that such graphical differences seem to work well.

One remaining concerning is where we put the information about original language of quotes. If I recall correctly, our formatting example give no guideline about this for now.

For persons, mostly introduction can serve to give information even implicitly. If we say "John Doe is a French", hopefully our readers understand most of his quotes would be said originally in French, even if we cannot provided the source. Or am I too optimistic at this point? If so, we are better to add the info about original language to each quote, like German Wikipedia.

For theme articles ... I performed an experience on the article Church, there you find two original texts (I would like to type Matthew's quote, if it is appropriate for us to cite it from Nestle-Aland 26ed, but I have no good ancient-Greek input method right now). Your comment and improvement will be appreciated. --Aphaia 10:47, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

We've gotten a bit off the subject of theme articles, but I'd like to add my two cents on the subject of translations. It is important to distinguish between two kinds of quotations: those that are normally quoted in their original language, for which a translation is provided as a matter of convenience (e.g., Latin proverbs), and those whose quotability comes at least in part from a notable translation (e.g., the King James Bible). I don't think it is necessarily within the compass of Wikiquote to analyze multiple translations of a given foreign-language text, unless the work's notability is somehow implicated in the differences among those translations. My inclination would be to discourage Wikiquotians from using their own personal translations, which suggests that making the English quote primary (with an appropriate citation for the text used, including identification of the translator), and the source-language text as an additional, but optional, detail. (We must not demand that every editor working on the Jorge Luis Borges article be able to read the original Spanish!) 121a0012 02:37, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Bot policy revision

There are two modifications proposed about Wikiquote:Bots on Wikiquote talk:Bots#Modifications. Proposals were submitted in this March.

If there is no objection within one week, I'd like to rewrite the policy page. Thank you for your attention! --Aphaia 15:36, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Do new pages have to be manually added to the search index?

Hello everyone, I created a wikiquote page for the French sociologist Émile Durkheim yesterday, and I noticed that he still does not show up in a Search. Could someone verify if there is anything I need to do on my end to add/activate the wiki, or will it eventually be available whenever the search index is updated? The wiki is located at Émile Durkheim in case anyone would like to review it or modify the text. Also, could someone verify that the birth & death dates are in the proper format for allowing users' preferences to kick in? (Obviously this is my first contribution to wikimedia!) Thanks! Varlokkur 17:39, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Varlokkur, thank you for your contribution. As for your first question, sorry, there is a delay. It will show up in the Wikiquote search or other search engine, so thank you for your patience.

As for date format, there is no fixed rule about date formatting, so your way is okay for now, though it is not widely used on the project. Sooner or later we'll have a fixed rule about that too, so please stay in tune for a while. Thanks. --Aphaia 17:47, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

You also need to add him manually to List of people by name‎.--Poetlister 15:58, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Welcome bot?

I think we could probably use a welcome bot. I would be happy to run it (either under User:BrownBot or another bot if you believe I should change it, like "Welcomebot"). <--Technical nonsense: I would use m:pywikipedia (m:welcome.py script).--> I am wondering if the community believes that this is a good idea and should be done. Cbrown1023 talk 00:49, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

After doing 10,000 or so of these welcomes manually, I for one would appreciate a bot. ☺ My main concern is that a bot-driven welcome message give a clear and friendly link to someone (or someones) who can be counted on to answer direct questions, in addition to the village pump, which can be hit or miss sometimes. I expect that the most appropriate additional link would be to Wikiquote:Welcoming Committee, the members of whom should be ready and willing to respond to such individual queries. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 22:34, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Supportive. People who have an interest in this issue may be also interested in m:Cross-project comparisons/MediaWiki:Welcomecreation and Template:Welcome comparisons.

As for our current message, recently I have been considering if it is a good idea to add a link to Wikiquote:Manual of style and more Wikiquote:Templates. Thoughts, folks? --Aphaia 01:42, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I did a rather large test run with User:BrownBot (when we actually run the bot, it will be User:WelcomeBot) and its results are posted at Wikiquote:Welcome log. There will always be a welcome log at Wikiquote:Welcome log for every run. I welcomed the users using Template:Welcome-bot. Please review. Now a question, do you think this bot should be flagged? Cbrown1023 talk 22:37, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Very nice! Two requests:

1. Could you provide a link to Wikiquote:Welcoming Committee in the welcome message itself? Right now, someone who might ordinarily think to ask the welcome-poster a question will always get you (from your BrownBot/WelcomeBot "contact my owner!" link). That's fine, if you want to be the person to respond to all individual posts, but that's where I was expecting to see something like "For other help getting started, you can talk to anyone in the Welcoming Committee." Perhaps this could be integrated with the VP link text. I'm not sure what's best.
2. Could you fix it so the logs use 2-digit days as well as months? "2007/05/5", besides having an uncomfortable asymmetry, won't sort correctly. I'm not sure, but it might also be better to use "yyyy-mm-dd" instead of slashes to avoid potential confusion with subpage contexts. Neither of these may matter now, but if I've learned anything in a quarter-century of programming, it's to fix little oddities like this before they become institutionalized because they will almost always come back to haunt you in the future. ☺

I'll avoid the question of flagging, as I don't think I understand the considerations yet. Thanks for putting this together! ~ Jeff Q (talk) 01:55, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

1. You mean other than the bolded one in the opening that says "on behalf of the Welcoming Committee" with a link and the notice about that on the bot's user and user talk page? Cbrown1023 talk 02:51, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

2. Um, that is the default for the script (and I think that is what is used on many other projects). It is done by {{/{{CURRENTYEAR}}/{{CURRENTMONTH}}/{{CURRENTDAY}}}} so today's would be (shown here as a link) Wikiquote:Welcome log/2024/12/3. This means that it is in the "yyyy-mm-dd" format (as you seem to have suggested I change it to :)). I do agree that it is weird that CURRENTDAY produces a number without the preceding zero while CURRENTMONTH does... I am sure that I can change the code to reflect any "minor" changes if you think it necessary.

The flagging would just result in it being hidden from recent changes, in case it does a lot of edits in a short amount of time. I am not really sure if that is necessary or wnated for this bot, but as you said, this cna be discussed at a later date. Cbrown1023 talk 02:51, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

1. Oops! I was looking at a BrownBot sample. I hadn't seen the WelcomeBot message you mention above, which is very good. Maybe it's better than trying to fit the three-choice text you use into the welcome message itself.

2. In my book, "2007/05/5" is "yyyy/mm/d" format (note the lack of doubled "d"), which is not any standard date format I'm aware of. ("yyyy/m/d" is reasonable, "yyyy/mm/dd" is reasonable; "yyyy/mm/d" makes no sense.) If that's what Mediawiki is generating, it's a bug that should have been fixed long ago. ☹ I'm dismayed it works that way, but I guess that means our stuff will have the same problems, if any, that everyone else has. Since you're writing the code, you get the final say, unless anyone else sees any problems with this. (It wouldn't be the first time I'm the sole anal-retentive on an issue. ☺) ~ Jeff Q (talk) 04:14, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

:-P but you mustn't be too quick to yell "BUG!" (don't think I believe you to not know a bug when you see one, though!) There are a couple of different "magic words" produce dates (I think they are on meta somewhere around m:Parser functions), it may just be a Local settings issue. This script just happens to work this way and don't worry, we are all anal sometimes. :) Cbrown1023 talk 04:55, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and that mis-communication of Brown/WelcomeBot was my fault! Sorry! :)

Also, looking at recent changes, it may be better if we get a bot flag for WelcomeBot. :) Cbrown1023 talk 04:56, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Wow the bot is running. It looks quite nice. A link to WQ:WC is a good idea imo. It would be more friendly and practical to a link to the bot. I think WC could affliate the WelcomeBot which is run by Cbrown1023. As like "You can ask a question to the operator (fill the name) and other member of Welcoming committee" (need copyedit).--Aphaia 05:42, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

If everyone is agreed, as I am, that this is a good idea, and that it is working properly, I will give it a bot flag as soon as permissable, under any official policies in place. ~ Kalki 05:50, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I have created an official bot request on the Wikiquote:Bots page. The reason I had not done so earlier is because this bot needed more discussion and a wider set of opinions. Cbrown1023 talk 13:55, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikiquote:Blocking policy; blocking duration

Recently Wikiquote:Blocking policy (drafted in 2004 at first) was tagged as "official policy" and no one complains about that as far as I know. On the other hand, there has been a gap between document and our practice. The policy say the initial blocking should last 24 hours, but among us blocking in much longer durations are frequently found. Besides I support the idea "at first 24 hours, then expand" basically, it is not good to leave this kind of gap in a long term. Since blocking is not punishment and we are not so a small project that no one visit in days, I am not sure if we need a long term blocking for vandalism, even done without attention to the warning on their talk.

I suggest therefore a modification to match the letter and action; either we reconsider our practice and follow the policy or change the policy to reflect our practice. You will find the further discussion on Wikiquote talk:Blocking policy. --Aphaia 07:17, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

10,000 articles

By the main page edit counts we have now passed the 10,000 article mark. We now have a myriad of articles. I was keeping careful track of the last twenty or so edits, and by my trackings the last few were these:

10001 Gilbert Parker

10000 ‎Langdon Smith

9999 ‎Stars

9998 Karl Schmidt-Rottluff

9997 Otto Mueller

9996 Suha Taji-Farouki

I thus believe that "Langdon Smith" counts as our 10,000th article. ~ Kalki 13:40, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree. And you are its orginator (see below). Congrats to you and us all :)

Would you like us to record your real name in Wikiquote:Press releases/May 2007 too? --Aphaia 14:13, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

N 14:04 Langdon Smith‎ (3 changes) . . (+7,200) . . (Page history) [Kalki‎ (3×)]

m 14:04 (cur; last) . . (+6) . . Kalki (Talk | contribs | block)

m 13:41 (cur; last) . . (0) . . Kalki (Talk | contribs | block) (→Quotes about Smith)

N 13:29 (cur; last) . . (+7,194) . . Kalki (Talk | contribs | block) (a start...)

+-N 13:58 Gilbert Parker‎ (3 changes) . . (+755) . . (Page history) [Kalki‎; Silver Surfer‎ (2×)]

13:58 (cur; last) . . (+88) . . Silver Surfer (Talk | contribs | block) (add an image)

m 13:45 (cur; last) . . (+6) . . Kalki (Talk | contribs | block)

N 13:30 (cur; last) . . (+661) . . Silver Surfer (Talk | contribs | block) (New page: Sir Horatio Gilbert George Parker, 1st Baronet (23 November - 1862 – 6 September 1932), known as Gilbert Parker was a Canadian novelist and Br...)

I just finished doing some corrections and additions to the Wikipedia article on Langdon Smith, and have to do a few other things for a while, but I really am not interested in being identified at all as the author of the article. I did deliberately make an effort to choose something noteworthy and post it at that time, simply to prevent the "landmark" article from being something extremely trivial or embarrassing. ~ Kalki 15:00, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

*nod* I happily see our landmark article so nicely organized. Again thank you for your efforts as always. I posted an extract of press release to foundation-l for their notification. --Aphaia 15:49, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Filip_Pirganoski

Or again a stubborn newcomer on his preferred formatting. (diff). I would invite you rather than reverting it by myself, though personally feel my revision is more legitimate. Thank you for your attention. --Aphaia 20:24, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Bleach and Naruto

I've reverted deleted datas on theses pages. Can you seen that ? I'm not sure. I think it's vandalism.--Bertrand GRONDIN 13:11, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your notice, Groudin! I have no clear idea on both cases. While it is not recommendable to revert a revision without explanation, since almost all quotes removed/brought back are unsourced and no reason of editing has been given, it is hard for me to assert which version is better. I know both works in manga, but only by name, so a glance cannot help to determine which version may be legitmate.

For prevent further edit warring, I protected both articles for three days and would ask all interested editors to give the reasoning of revisions on each talk. Thanks.--Aphaia 14:57, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Good ! I'm bureaucrat on French Wikiquote. Thanks for your answer :-)--Bertrand GRONDIN 15:21, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Mais oui, c'est mon plaisir :) --Aphaia 16:49, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Move unrestricted?

I realized any registered user can move the pages on English Wikiquote not as well English Wikipedia. An attack from WoW (log) had me realize it by chance. Today, thought it hasn't finished yet, WoW tried to vandalize our project thrice until now.

We are better to keep letting all users move pages? Or are we better to follow the Wikipedia way and put a restriction for newbies?

Of course it could be a bug and it may have happened occasionally. I have no clear idea which setting is applied to our project. However if it was intentionally open by developers, I think we are better once to consider by ourselves.

So, opinions? --Aphaia 16:45, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

The massive moving of pages by a vandal can be far more tedious a problem to sort out than simple edits, and if an option exists to restrict new users from doing this I am all for it. It couldn't totally eliminate a vandal's ability, but it could reduce it. I have not had a chance to be online much today, but I had noticed some of the problems that had been taken care of earlier. ~ Kalki 18:04, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Brion said the default setting has no restriction. Foreseeing no major objection arises, I asked Brion on the IRC #wikimedia-tech to change the setting, to allow not every registered users, but the user group [autoconfirmed] to move the pages as like as semi-protected pages.

Sorry for my overrun, the change doesn't however take a second, and can be reverted. So I thought we might better to try to see how it works rather than discussing if we wouldn't or not. Further comments will be appreciated. --Aphaia 19:58, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Aphaia, could you explain what the "user group [autoconfirmed]" means in plain terms? I'm not understanding what is "confirmed". ~ Jeff Q (talk) 00:31, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

It differs sometimes per project. Basically, any user with an account more than 4 days old (or a flagged bot) is autoconfirmed. The name just comes from the fact that they are "automattically-confirmed" as "okay" editors, having lasted at least 4 days. :-P Cbrown1023 talk 00:37, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

In that case, restricting moves to only those registered users seems not to be a significant hardship. (But then again, I said that about restricting page creation to registered users only before Angela nixed that idea.) As long as we don't run afoul of a Board policy, I'd agree to this. It would certainly slow down the WoW-style vandalisms, at least at first. But I would point out that this type of vandal has been known to register usernames weeks or even months before using them. If it were technically possible, I would think that a mechanism that would prevent more than one or two moves a minute except by admins would have a more significant impact on this style of vandalism. Are there reasons Wikiquotians might find it desirable to legitimately move a bunch of articles in a short time? (Wikipedians might, as they often create large numbers of parallel articles, like for TV episodes, but I'm not sure we have any similar pressing needs here.) ~ Jeff Q (talk) 02:24, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

As for restricting page creation, I would rather suggest we are better to develop the idea how "stable version" can help the project.

JeffQ's "restriction move interval" is an interesting idea in my opinion. I don't know if it is technically implemented right now. For reasons of massive move ... how about archiving and page divisions (sometimes we saw our articles separaed into subarticles, see several TV series)? In a long term it would be better not to restrict only to admins. But it wouldn't a great pain even if restricted. --Aphaia 04:45, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Splitting up articles involves at most one move (not including talk page, which moves automatically with appropriate option) and a lot of subpage creations. It's incredibly unlikely anyone could do (or would have any reason to do) more than one of these multi-article operations in 60 seconds. (Has anyone here ever split two different TV-show articles in the same minute, or even the same day?) Archiving is another matter. Does any non-admin ever archive more than one page per minute? If a bot does this, would we need to give it sysop privileges to permit this if we could implement a timed move restriction? ~ Jeff Q (talk) 10:45, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

As for the recent attack (Special:Contributions/Auburn_Pilot), "one move per minutes" may not work as a hazard ... we seem not to be harshly attacked yet, hopefully. --Aphaia 12:53, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Page move vandalism

I have no doubt that people here are more than competent at dealing with such problem but a while back Books "enjoyed" a spate of such vandalism and I found myself dealing with it quite often. On the off chance that this may not be common practice (or indeed that you may have a better way) feel free to look at this method. I've suggested elsewhere that you may find pages in Books protected pages that may help you. Let me know if I can assist further. Regards --Herby ^{talk thyme} 10:54, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! I admit the suggested method looks effective. Fortunately the recent attacks were not complicated, I'd recommend all interested people to learn the Wikibooks way.--Aphaia

Maybe to clarify some more. This is for when they get bored of single page moves and take to moving a page several times. This really is a time to work out what to do rather than start reverting - I did that once and learnt a lesson! I hope it doesn't happen to you - regards --Herby ^{talk thyme} 13:25, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I've had to deal with that kind of multiple-move mess on at least one occasion here. Always check the histories of the vandalized pages before doing a revert! (However, I can personally attest that if someone messes up the restores, we can fix the problem.) ~ Jeff Q (talk) 18:18, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

You guys remind me another type mess along move; move and gibberish. So the procedure might be 1) revert the page, if edited 2) remove the original and 3) move it to to the original place. I failed to revert the vandalized revision and needed to restore the original legitimate one manually. --Aphaia 18:26, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

On the latest attack (see log), around 20 pages were moved per minute. On IRC #wikimedia, I asked Tim Starling to set restriction. Now the restriction of number of move is set 2 per minute (a page with talk). If necessary, we can later ask devs to modify the setting. --Aphaia 10:38, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Is this restriction for everyone, for anons only, for non-"autoconfirmed" users, or for non-sysops? ~ Jeff Q (talk) 19:40, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Anons may not move the page default. I thought I asked for all users except sysops & bots, but I am not sure if I used the terms properly. I should have asked him to restrict moves for autoconfirmed users (since only autoconfirmed users could move pages at that time), but I told him the target would be "users (not autoconfirmed) except sysops & bots". He asked how old the account which had vandalized the project was, so hopefully he understood what I expected, but I'd ask him to brief us for confirmation. --Aphaia 20:15, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikizine #70

Wikizine Year: 2007 Week: 19 Number: 70 has issued today. This issue contains some pieces of news relevant to us.

• Password security
• Rebranding discussion on foundation-l (not widely supported though)
• Milestone :)

I recommend you to give a look to the archive, if you haven't got the latest copy. --Aphaia 05:50, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Category:Free software

First I thought it a theme category, but it is not. It is used rather as a generic tag both for people and theme articles. I am not sure if it fits to our category tree, though we haven't clearly describe our categorization policy yet. Thought? --Aphaia 20:02, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

order of interwikis

We should find a consensus about the order do you use here in wikiquote for interwiki languages - just as alphabetical order by project code or alphabetical order by appearance. Avjoska 21:27, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree we are better to fix the guideline. I personally prefer to sort them by lang code alphabetical order, since it is handy to sort non-latin script language, and it therefore gives us a clear and easy-to-learn criteria. While "alphabetical order by appearance" seems more natural for some site visitors, we need to have an additional rule how to deal non-latin script languages, so the guideline is more complicated, besides we need to know the corresepondence of apperance/lang code to sort them following the guidelines. According to Wikiquote:Other language Wikiquotes, close to one forth of our active projects are written in non-latin scripts. --Aphaia 21:37, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I strongly believe that these should be alphabetical by project code. That is the policy on most wikis that I know and I think that is better for finding and for updating. Cbrown1023 talk 12:32, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Do you guys think there should be voting about it? Avjoska 16:22, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure we have to vote. No one has opposed the discussion above, so you may assume we've reached the consensus. --Aphaia 08:39, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

it:Template:Interprogetto

I found eventually Italian Wikiquote uses an esoteric and smart template (example is shown at e.g. it:Diego Maradona - see the bottom of navigation boxes). I think it not only visually nice but also functionally; if we have multiple links to sister projects, having boxes is a bit annoying. The template set (it contains several sub templates) is too complicated for me to understand how it works, so I am not sure if I step into its introduction more deeply, but anyone else might be interested in. --Aphaia 18:51, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I really like the way this looks but it may be a real pain to code for our project and to move it over! Cbrown1023 talk 21:57, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Anime and manga articles

After having a little dispute on the Naruto and Bleach articles about whether or not we should use the original Japanese names (surname first, followed by given name) instead of the English/Western names (given name, followed by surname), we agreed upon using the English names and, in parenthesis, the kanji and romanji of each name (example: "Naruto Uzumaki (うずまきナルト, Uzumaki Naruto)" ). I personally like this format, and two other users seem to agree with me on the matter. Should this format be applied to all other anime- and manga-related articles as well? Just thought I'd ask the opinion of the community before making the changes. // DecaimientoPoético 01:41, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

As one of discussion participant, I think we can include it into the recommended format, and therefore apply it to other articles, unless it looks too complex for targeting sections. If many people take it annoyed to link the section in the way Naruto#Naruto Uzumaki (うずまきナルト, Uzumaki Naruto) and alike, I think we are better to modify the proposed way to keep the first one as section name and have the other two elements follow the section title, or put a link target id using "span id" (here id=Naruto Uzumaki or whatever). --Aphaia 01:55, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

If you don't mind, do you think you can show me an example of the span id thing (sorry I'm kinda slow)? This is our current setup:

==[[w:Naruto Uzumaki|Naruto Uzumaki (うずまきナルト, Uzumaki Naruto)]]==
<span id=Naruto Uzumaki />
* Quote 1
* Quote 2

What are the changes you have in mind? // DecaimientoPoético 11:21, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

How about that? In that case, #Naruto Uzumaki (うずまきナルト, Uzumaki Naruto) and #Naruto Uzumaki may work almost alike. --Aphaia 13:16, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I see what you're saying now. That's perfect, not to mention makes pinpointing a specific section so much more easier, except the name has to have quotation marks around it to work properly (<span id="Naruto Uzumaki" />). I'll start to apply the new headers and spans to the other anime and manga articles as soon as I get the chance.

Also, I added a note about this at Wikiquote talk:Template, so you might want to check it out if you're interested. // DecaimientoPoético 11:40, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

WMF Resolution: Licensing Policy

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Licensing_policy (March 23, 2007)

The consequences are clear:

• Like other projects (except Commons) Wikiquote must have a Exemption Doctrine Policy (EDP) because most quotations here are copyright protected.

• There is a clear statement: "Such EDPs must be minimal. Their use, with limited exception, should be to illustrate historically significant events, to include identifying protected works such as logos, or to complement (within narrow limits) articles about copyrighted contemporary works."

• It is not possible to make further use of the fair use doctrine of US copyright law as Wikiquote:Copyrights says. There is no doubt that most stuff here can only regarded as non-copyvio on the basis of the fair use doctrine.

• Wikimedia projects should have educational content. The samples given in the Licensing policy let conclude that "fair use" is only allowed for small portions of content which is clearly educational. Anime, mangas, Simpsons etc are not educational IMHO.

• According to the WMF Licensing Policy all post-1923 content has to be deleted which is only allowed on fair use basis AND has no special educational value.

• I fear that more than 90 % of WQ content has to be deleted.

• The only way I see to avoid this is to get a separate WMF resolution with special rules for Wikiquote. --Histo 22:56, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your comment, but it is not clear if the LP is applied for text as well media. I asked it on foundation-l but haven't got no answer. I prefer to wait words from the Board member, not your personal opinion.

I don't agree with your argument about "educational things". Please note, your German law isn't necessarily applied for our project.

While I respect WQ:AGF but my impression from your recent edits on German Wikiquote and m:User talk:Eloquence is not preferable. I would like you to know I am merciless for both vandals and trolls. Thanks. --Aphaia 23:47, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree completely with Aphaia here, as I usually do. Cbrown1023 talk 23:58, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Aphaia's point about the application of EDP to text is the main issue here. Wikiquote already has a practice of rejecting any non-free media like images, requiring them to come from Wikimedia Commons, which forbids non-free material, so it's not clear if we need an EDP. We'll see what the Wikimedia Foundation thinks about text.

I'd also like to address the question of educational content. At first glance, citing The Simpsons as having educational value does seem a bit peculiar. But we must put this question in the proper context. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, which means it contains articles on all manner of subjects, in order to educate readers. It makes perfect sense to include culturally significant Simpsons as part of that collection of material. Wikiquote is a quote compendium. Quote collections are educational in that they document select words and phrases featured prominently in society, like excerpts from important speeches, pithy statements usable in many contexts, and culturally iconic expressions. In that last arena, many television shows, and most definitely The Simpsons, have contributed quite a bit to the general culture. Whether one is happy about that or not ☺, it is a fact of society. Including Simpsons quotes makes sense.

The real question might be, "Just how much of this culturally prominent discourse should Wikiquote include?" Printed collections have very strict physical and cost limitations, forcing their editors and publishers to be very selective. Wikiquote effectively has no such limitations. Although we theoretically could exceed our storage or bandwidth capacities, this won't happen because there are other, more pressing limitations. Most particularly, like print collections, we must observe fair-use restrictions. Unlike those works, we have nothing but our policies and the efforts of our editors to enforce those restrictions. Whether or not we ultimately have an EDP, we definitely need to formalize some guidelines to make it easier for editors to know when the community feels we've exceeded reasonable limits in each article. (We also have the oversight of the Foundation, so we shouldn't get any ideas about being too expansive!) Discussion about this issue typically takes place at Wikiquote talk:Copyrights, for those interested. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 01:00, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Jeffq, I agree with you we need a clear guideline, but it doesn't matter what is the topic in my opinion. for English learners as second/foreign language, those modern production is quite educational. :) It's not a joke, in Japan there have been nationwide broadcasted/published English lesson on the radio which has used pops, extract movies, TV shows or cartoons. And besides those materials for lessons, it is a part of cultural studies to catch up modern phenomenons. To sum up what is considered to be notable in a culture serves educational purpose per se in my opinion.

So our concerns should be if a topic is educational or not, but the amount of extract from a material is within a reasonable limit. It depends rather the accepted knowledge about fair use, not our discretion; however a clear guideline would be helpful, since we have seen some particular themes /subjects are frequently touching that limitation. --Aphaia 01:09, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I did not argue with German law. LP is the basis for all Wikimedia media: texts, audio etc. EDP has to be minimal. WQ projects are in countries without fair use provisions like the US a copyvio. Please note that French law doesn't allow quotations of Bertolt Brecht in the French Wikiquote (first article after the closure!). I cannot see any educational value in most trivia articles here. If one has to accept the small portion doctrine of the LC it is clear that the most modern stuff here has to be removed. --80.132.154.60 01:41, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Why do you think French law doesn't allow quotations of Bertolt Brecht? French law allows : « as long as the author and the work is mentioned : (...) short quotes in polemic, educational, scientific or informative works » (Code de la propriété intellectuelle, article L122-5, alinéa 3, point a). These quotes have to be « short » w.r.t. the original work (a rule of thumb is : no more than 15% of the original work) and the work in which the quote is included. Quote databases are allowed in French law, as long as they're not restricted to one author or one work (then they'd be an anthology, which is a derived work).

This is in accordance with the European directive 2001/29/EC which provides that : « Member States may provide for exceptions or limitations in the following cases : (...) quotations for purposes such as criticism or review, provided that they relate to a work or other subject-matter which has already been lawfully made available to the public, that, unless this turns out to be impossible, the source, including the author's name, is indicated, and that their use is in accordance with fair practice, and to the extent required by the specific purpose ».

Which condition do you believe is not fulfilled? We only have short quotations, from works that have been made available to the public, and the name of the work and the author is obviously mentioned for each quotation.

As for your definition of « educational » : your whole argument is only based on an elitist view of what's educational and what's not (where, e.g., Brecht would be educational but not the Simpsons). This reminds me of the usual and dull speech about « Culture » (with a capital C). This is not what the resolution or the law is about : a quote database is an educational work, and providing quotes from a TV show that is part of the American culture *is* educational. Jeff Q already answered your concern better than I could, so let's just stop. Manuel Menal 11:57, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

There is no doubt than in the European legal framework collections of quotations are copyvios. A collection of quotes is not legitimated by a specific purpose ("for purposes such as criticism or review"). We do here no criticism or review in the legal sense. Bundesgerichtshof has clearly decided in "Handbuch moderner Zitate" that a collection of quotations is no work in which they could legally incorporated. Please give a proof for your assertion: "Quote databases are allowed in French law". But I have to repeat my point:

• Quotes of protected works are not free content according the relevant definition of WMF
• Works which can only used according to legal excceptions (like fair use in the US or L122-5) need an EDP
• EDP has to be minimal
• If "educational" has no clear limits then it is an useless word. --Histo 17:55, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

We shouldn't be so quick to dismiss Histo's concerns. Thus far, we have only two cited cases (as described by Stanford University Libraries' "Summaries of Fair Use Cases") that pertain to collections of quotes from fictional works (Seinfeld and Twin Peaks), and both were deemed not fair-use. There are differences between Wikiquote and the books found to be copyvios, but they aren't so great that we can ignore these rulings. Sooner or later we're going to be forced to deal with this issue. I'd suggested earlier that we create a Wikiquote:Exemption Doctrine Policy page, but a better title might be Wikiquote:Non-free content or Wikiquote:Fair use, to parallel and be modelled after w:Wikipedia:Non-free content, which is Wikipedia's EDP. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 04:05, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

What wikiquote is?/Warcraft

Warcraft Now the page for this series of game is pretty sparse.

This is because awhile back it was deemed most of the quotes infringed copyright and were inane. So it should be replaced with a trimmed down version.

Now here is my question. Several times through out the discussion page Jeff Q justifies this change by saying that wikiquote is used for pithy quotes.

Now correct me if I'm wrong but looking at What Wikiquote Is and What Wikiquote is Not I see nothing about a quote having to be pithy, only that is has to be from a notable person or work.

So could some one clear this up for me? Do quotes have to be pithy? Because there are definately plenty of quotes that I wouldn't call pithy on Wikiquote. Also, if they have to be pithy, who decides if a quote makes the cut? What about in situations where the decider has no knowledge about the quotation or where it comes from as it seems obvious by some of the comments made on the Warcraft article.

Thank you for helping out a newcomer to Wikiquote.TungstenWolfram 01:27, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I'll let others comment more broadly on this issue, since you already have some of my responses elsewhere, but I'd like to make one point that applies specifically to Warcraft but also to all articles. Many editors incorrectly treat Wikiquote as a fan website, adding vast transcriptions of anything and everything said or written about a subject. (I should know; I started Mystery Science Theater 3000 three years ago with some of this in mind, and I'm still working off the bad karma from that today.☺) Quote collections are not the same thing as transcriptions sites. Their specific purpose is to highlight the very best words of a work or a person. This means that even when neither copyright nor physical space is an issue, selectivity is. That doesn't mean that transcriptions site shouldn't exist; it just means that Wikiquote is not one of them. Saying a quote should be "pithy" is an incredibly concise way to make this point. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 01:43, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

So we are better to have a pithy new section "Wikiquote is not a transcription website"? --Aphaia 02:22, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I would agree with Jeff and use another way to say it (that Jeff has used with me in the past). That is that a quote should be able to stand on its own and not just advance plot or be of a nature that one has to view/read/play the film/show/book/game to understand its relevance. It should be memorable or interesting on its own, even to someone who is unfamiliar with the work. The quote should also not consist of large paragraphs of surrounding lines, but should be limited to the memorable line (rather than a whole scene transcription for example). Again, all this can be summed up with one word: pithy. Perhaps we should revise Wikiquote:Wikiquote so that What is Wikiquote? includes this notion of pithyness for a quote to be included. ~ UDScott 16:36, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Totally agreed to revise Wikiquote:Wikiquote. See also Wikiquote talk:Wikiquote. As well citation and sourcing, describing core idea of our project may be one of our important challenges to solve. Why we want only pithy quotes would be also relevant to the issue of "educational purpose".--Aphaia 20:53, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Seinfeld

Is there any doubt that these hundreds of quotes are copyright-protected and thus not free according the free content definition of LP? The legal risk of the Seinfeld quotes in the US seems not low, see http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wikiquote_talk:Copyrights#Seinfeld_case Seinfeld is part of our culture but is a pure fan-choice of quotations "educational"? If it so then it would be difficult to find something on earth which isn't educational ... Nevertheless: it is not free content and not according to all WMF policies --Histo 02:01, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

For my fellow editors, please note:

m:Requests_for_permissions/Archives/2006/07

• Please remove admin status of user Histo on de.wikiquote. This voting has lead to this decision and is mainly based on the missing legitimation (no election/no appointment from the community), his behavior in discussion, and his use of administrative functions. --WIKImaniac 12:52, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Done -Romihaitza 13:50, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I would like you all to remind an old Internet proverb - "don't feed a troll". Thanks. --Aphaia 02:35, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I think the only troll here are you Aphaia. If you don't like my position argue and do not make personal attacks. It doesn't matter why and under which dubious circumstances I have lost my admin function in WQ in 2006, a function which I get from the bureaucrat in the consensus of some "important" people of de-W and the WMF. Only one quote from a private mail from Jimbo Wales (in July 2006) after my de-admin in WQ: "I deeply respect what you have done here, and support you fully.". If de-WQ has now a much better standing than before mid-2006 then because some people has taken action on the basis of the suggestion on a reform process I made. --Histo 17:43, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Hey guys, it's no use calling each other a troll. Neither Histo nor Aphaia is one, and I'm 100% sure about that. Histo's point is: be aware that the Foundation is about to decide a policy which may not only result in having to delete thousands of images from Commons, hundreds of texts from de.wikisource, but, if one would really follow it throughout the Wikimediaverse, could result in deleting most of en.wikiquote as well. --62.214.230.187 20:03, 17 May 2007 (UTC) w:User:AndreasPraefcke

There is actually a case in which an author made a Seinfeld "quiz book" which used hundreds of quotes and episode descriptions from the series, and this was found to be a copyright violation. Can't remember the name of the case offhand, but this may be a serious concern. BD2412 T 05:14, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Yale Book of Quotations, revisited

In December 2006, we had a village pump conversation apparently with Fred R. Shapiro, editor of the new Yale Book of Quotations, about how Wikiquote might make extensive use of this reference. Shapiro's selling point was the use of "state-of-the-art research methods to comprehensively collect famous quotations and to trace quotations to their accurate origins". Of course, we found this quite exciting, as many editors here are aware of just how poorly sourced many quotes are even in the well-respected print publications available.

Recently I grabbed a copy from the library, and I have been doing some spot-checking of quotes. I have to say I'm not especially impressed with Yale so far. My most recent check was to find the origin of "Will it play in Peoria?, a famous line from vaudevillian days usually attributed to Groucho Marx. Not only did Yale fail to mention this in under "Groucho Marx", but it apparently bought the claim from John Ehrlichman and/or Time magazine (from 3 August 1969) that Ehrlichman originated it. (I don't have the article I cited in w:Talk:Will it play in Peoria?#Coining of the phrase that Yale uses to assert this origin, but it reminds me of many modern instances I've seen of professional news agencies, like CBS News and Associated Press, whose young reporters have no awareness of history and mistakenly cite, in passing, recent "origins" for phrases that have been around since before they were born.)

This was merely the worst example I came across yet. My earlier random hopping through the pages suggested that there weren't nearly as many newly researched origins as Shapiro implied ("a large percentage of the most famous quotations", which in hindsight seems rather more vague than I recalled it). Furthermore, a casual and admittedly brief comparison with the other references didn't suggest any particular area in which it was more likely to have types or depths of quotes that wouldn't be found in those other references.

It may still be a very valuable reference among the usual-suspect list of quotation books, but so far, it doesn't look like a panacea for our never-ending quest for authentic sources. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 12:30, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your report. It indicates also how high our aiming level about sourcing - as precise as academic writings; a real challenge. It is worthy to note the collection we aim to build is the best one not only in amount, but also in quality! --Aphaia 20:56, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikiquote user conduct

Regarding recent edit wars between two newcomers, I'm changing my mind we have not to formalize user conduct guidelines yet. While still I don't think the exisiting community needs such, a society in expansion may not avoid conflicts even they are brought from outside. A minimum set of guidelines may be useful as pointers when we need to talk to an editor why their behavior isn't welcome. I checked two imported guidelines Wikiquote:Assume good faith and Wikiquote:Civility from Wikipedia at first and tried to localize them. How we should take the others and how we should act the others are a good pair to start building such a minimum set in my opinion. While Civility guideline need more cleanups, regarding its reference to "mediation process", most of its part seems to me fine. I am still reluctant to pour our energy to this direction though, it wouldn't be a big deal to make it sure we all nod Wikimedia wide accepted wisdom. There could be other possible choices for such a set of established guidelines rather than drafts, and I'll be more than happy to see you elaborate them. --Aphaia 02:31, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

WMF Licensing Policy

Ich have missed this part of this page --Histo 12:59, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, some kind of glitch mangled the database while BD2412 was editing, and resisted earlier attempts to fix it. I believe everyone's recents posts have been restored now. Thank you for calling attention to the problem. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 14:11, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

We should consider categories based on the copyright status of source works.--Jusjih 07:50, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Template:Fame

I just created this template Template:Fame to make it a bit easier to deal with some of the contributions of editors who have added material of little-known authors to the pages. ~ Kalki 18:39, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Better to merge from/to {{WQisnot2}}? --Aphaia 03:16, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I added a bit from the previous template, so that the new one now reads:

Thank you for your effort to contribute to our project, but Wikiquote exists for the collecting of notable quotations of famous people and famous works, not for the posting of quotations of people not yet famous in some field. Within bounds of WIkimedia policy, registered users can put quotes of themselves or people they know on their user page. For a quick overview of what Wikiquote is, read Wikiquote:Wikiquote, and also What Wikiquote is not for a list of common activities that Wikiquote does not support.

I really have no great preference on what it is named, and it could be merged in whatever way is most convenient. ~ Kalki 03:29, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I do prefer to mantain positve inferences in using the terms notable quotations of "famous" people and works, rather than making negative inferences with such a terms as "un-notable". Not everyone is famous, nor can be, but arguably there is no one who is entirely "un-notable" ~ Kalki 03:34, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Your new message sounds much nicer. I merged WQisnow2 to {{fame}}. --Aphaia 03:41, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Strange behavior of the "FIND" box

For the past couple of weeks, I have been unable to enter a search term in the "Find" or "Search" box on any page in Wikiquote. I type one or two characters -- and I'm immediately whisked away to the Charitable organization article in Wikipedia. This happens on any Wikiquote page I happen to be on -- but nothing similar occurs in Wikipedia or any other Wiki, and all the links on the Wikiquote pages also work. Doesn't matter whether I use Firefox or Explorer, either. I've been having to "sneak" into Wikiquote via Google, which is getting a little old. . . . Has anyone else observed this or similar behavior? Since this happens ONLY at Wikiquote, I find it hard to believe it's my system, which is thoroughly wrapped up with NAV in any case, and which gets inspected for viruses, etc, every 24 hours. (I do a lot of work online and I take no chances.) Any thoughts? Anyone? Help? --Michael K. Smith 04:52, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Cannot it work for you still now? The "search" box on the sidebar have worked for me even recently, either putting "go" button or "search" button. --Aphaia 07:55, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Poetlister

Relevant discussion may be found at:

• w:WP:AN#Runcorn_and_sockpuppets_banned
• meta:Requests for CheckUser information#en.wq

---

I have blocked admin Poetlister per [1] (and other stuff in my block sum) and request a desysop. I will probably right more later tonight. Cbrown1023 talk 21:01, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm hesitate to support, while I know what Wonderfool was harmful and also how difficult to meet with the sockpuppeters. I hope it is not because I recommend him or her to be an admin here. There are three question from me, one philosphical, one practical, and the last combined with two elements.

A. We would apply unanimously the decision of the other projects? The research on that page linked tells en:Poetlister deserves to be banned as sockpuppet/double voting. But should it be directly means we would like to ban him or her?

B. Besides the application of the Enwiki arbcom ruling, there is another question: Has the user in concern accumulated multiple accounts here on Wikiquote too? I checked some names, that is, User:Runcorn and User:R613vlu, but there are no such accounts.

C. If there is a known sockpuppet of the other project, and yet the person doesn't harm this project, still should be considered an outlaw and need to be banned? Personally I don't prefer the logic C, unless the reason of banning on another project is legal infringement (massive copyvio, defamatory, vandalism), while I admit double-voting is ethically bad, and we are better to be careful to interact such people.

Shortly, I'd recommend Poetlister to step down, if and only if it is true (I daresay so, since it is still incredible for me. So perhaps I'm involved into the issue emotionally) and even not oppose the community to desysop him or her, however I am not certain to place an permanent block is a necessary deed at this moment. However, as I mentioned before, I cannot be totally neutral about this issue, I'd keep myself a bit far from the discussion and like you to discuss the relevant matters freely. --Aphaia 21:19, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Funny you should suggest all of that, Aphaian I had to step away and while I was away, I was thinking something along the same lines. I was thinking that an unblock, but permanent desysop (slim to no possibility or resysopn IMHO). Based on information from users that I trust completely, she is also a Wikipedia Review admin (google it) and based on that, might not be the best choice for an admin. (Contact me for more information on the many serious problems caused by that site.)

No offense to Poetlister, but I always thought she appeared "out of the blue" (but who am I to comment on that?).

My main reasonings behind a permanent de- are the fact that she did that on another wiki and is a WR admin. Other than that, I have nothing against her. I will unblock her with the instructions that she may please not perform any admin actions while she is under investigation. Cbrown1023 talk 21:44, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your reconsideration, Cbrown1023. I hope Poetlister behaves wisely. In my humble opinion, it isn't welcome a same person serves both Wikimedia project and WR, so I'd repeat my latest recommendation. Step aside from the sysop role of this project at this moment. It would be welcome for he to decide to be away from them, but even in this case, keeping a distance from administrative issues will be a wise opinion. --Aphaia 22:15, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

As for Wikimedia Review, I think this saying is brief and a good summary: "We sometimes tend to focus too much on sites like Wikipedia Review, where the bias is more than evident." Ray Saintonge, known Ec said it in this April on foundation-l. I would be strong to let the others criticize us, and let ourselves do our own tasks, building a free quotation collections, so recommend the community not to pursue the argments like what they are doing, and how we think that etc. --Aphaia 22:15, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I am aghast at this development. Poetlister and I haven't always agreed, but nothing she's done here that I've seen warrants blocking. en:Wikiquote traditionally follows its own council about cross-project user problems, based solely on the user's activity here, although we do, of course, bow to Board decisions and take Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee decisions into account for our own actions. I understand Cbrown1023's block, but am glad to see he has removed it. I support his request that Poetlister at least temporarily refrain from sysop actions (which may be as much a vacation as a sanction!), but I do not want to start any de-sysopping activity until we have time to review the information that led to this ArbCom decision, as well as the purported contradicting evidence w:User:Wooyi alluded to at w:WP:AN#Runcorn and sockpuppets banned. I'm hoping this is either a terrible mistake (possibly caused by impersonators) or perhaps a set of unwise actions elsewhere that would allow our community to keep this valuable contributor and admin. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 22:37, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

This wasn't an action based on an Arbitration Case. A few CheckUser were investigating and found it. They contacted ArbCom to see what they thought should be done, and the ArbCom decided a desysop was in order. Cbrown1023 talk 23:46, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

P.S. I'm not sure what relevance The Wikipedia Review has here. This is the first I've even heard of this discussion board, and seems to be yet another attempt to talk about Wikimedia in so many scattered forums (Esperanza, IRC, maillists, discussion boards — do we have Skypecasts and group text messaging yet?) that diffuse the focus and increase the entry-level challenges in doing what matters: working on the projects themselves. Based on the few threads I looked at while checking for any discussion about this matter, I'd say the content isn't noticeably different from any other general discussion board — a few nuggets of useful information buried inside a whole lot of non-sequiturs and silliness. My initial (and possibly under-informed) opinion is that it doesn't look like it should have any bearing on the responsibilities and reputations of Wikimedia project editors. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 22:37, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Okay, now that you have shown interest in that topic, I will, unfortunately, explain it in my next edit. Cbrown1023 talk 23:39, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia Review: It's a large problem. The thing is, the site would be fantastic if it was just constructive criticism, but it's not, it's full of trolls. I know of many users on the English Wikipedia who were actually stalked (in real life) because of information posted on and by users from the Wikipedia Review site. As admins, we have access to information that is sensitive or otherwise not-readily accessible to the public and should not be able to be posted on that site. I believe that Poetlister should be one or the other, not both (a WQ admin or a WR user). Cbrown1023 talk 23:46, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Seems better to wait for the other side of the story. In the meanwhile, temp desysop is not a big deal. I personally don't see why temp desysop should be carried out, but it doesn't matter either way I think. If it's true, this scenario raises a general question that's maybe interesting: should an offense that took place on wikipedia be subject to a penalty on wikiquote? An argument against it might be that the person gets punished twice, though I realize that there are also arguments for it. iddo999 23:22, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

First, blocks are definitely not punishment, that is my philosophy and is the policy on other wikis. Second, it's not really punishing them twice, it's the fact that because they acted that way there, what will stop them from doing it here? Cbrown1023 talk 23:39, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

An assumpution of good faith by this community, perhaps? ☺ Seriously, I don't mean to criticize, Cbrown1023. As I said above, I understand the quick action to head off a potential problem. I've done it myself, against legitimate usernames (recognized after the fact), to temporarily head off impersonations. But while blocking isn't officially a punishment, it is a reputation-stainer. Regardless of the final outcome, I would recommend moderation against someone not shown to be a vandal. I think we try to move quickly primarily to stop clear and present dangers to the project, like vandalism. If Poetlister or someone else in this situation were to start misbehaving here after being blocked elsewhere, or using their unblocked account here to cause problems elsewhere, that would be a C&PD that would merit a block. In the absence of this, I at least prefer to move more cautiously. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 00:09, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

See meta discussion (see below); for further information, it would be useful to know details, even by a limited number of people. It is a thing to decide who to listen to, though.(btw, what C&DP stands for?) --Aphaia 00:55, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about the "C&PD" acronym. I was just shortening my earlier mention of "clear and present danger", a very potent term in the U.S., used to justify unilateral restriction of rights and liberties in the face of perceived immediate threats to the nation. (It was also a exciting book by Tom Clancy and an entertaining film based on it, starring Harrison Ford. ☺) ~ Jeff Q (talk) 02:28, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I am quite taken aback by this reaction. If you check the history, I was accused in 2005 of being a sockpuppet of RachelBrown and blocked on Wikipedia. These charges were investigated by Charles Matthews and David Gerard, and they unblocked me. Newport, also accused of being a sockpupper of RachelBrown but also subsequently unblocked, is now charged with being a sock of Runcorn. Whether or not this is true (I don't believe it), the sole "evidence" against me now is the link to Newport via the discredited allegation against me from 2005. The claim against the others is that they all edited the same articles and participated in the same AfDs; I have edited none of these articles or AfDs. The strange charge against me here is that I came out of the blue. In fact, I was invited here by someone in good stead both on Wikipedia and here who thought that I would enjoy myself. Until now, I have. Obviously, I shall not edit here again until the community agrees that I should. However, I urge you to judge me on my conduct here, not on discredited allegations from 2005 from elsewhere.

The editor who invited me here was well aware of my work on Wikipedia Review, and I have made no secret of it. There are admins on Wikipedia with accounts there, including Fred Bauder (FJB). I do not believe that anything I have posted there is other than fair criticism. To judge me by what others may have posted there is like judging me here for what vandals have done. I also believe that I am a force for moderation there, and if you make me resign there so that I can stay here (and I want to stay here) then it will not have the effect you desire.

As for an editor blocked elsewhere being an admin here, there is ample precedent. If you read Wikipedia Review, you can read the story of Jeff Merkey, bureaucrat on the Cherokee site, who was blocked on the English one. - Poetlister 11:23, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

• I consider myself a little remote from this (though bear in mind I can see CU logs across wikis). A popular phrase in the UK over past years has been "If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck...." I will not insult folks intelligence by filling the end in. I have an account on Wikipedia and have read some of this but they do always seem to make things that could be short very long there.

  I can see nothing in Poetlister's behaviour here or any wiki I have admin rights on that causes me any concern. I believe that we are better judging (I hate that word) folk by their actions. While not a sysop here I would strongly resist any desysopping of Poetlister without some evidence of harm to this Wiki. Should the community find any editing of concern then I would hope that the first actions would be to take it up with that editor (unless they are extremely disruptive). Just my 0.02 (& I will continue to watch logs with interest) --Herby ^{talk thyme} 11:39, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

  • I'm also a strong believer that behaviour on Wikipedia, while it may on occasion help us to spot trends in vandalism, does not act as the determinant of our reaction. I came to Wikiquote when enduring a difficult spell over at Wikipedia, never hid it, and was made a sysop here because my contributions here were good. Poetlister has not done anything on Wikiquote which has caused problems and I for one encourage her to continue. Fys. &#147;Ta fys aym&#148;. 22:41, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
    • I agree that Poetlister has made a good contribution to Wikiquote and should continue as a sysop. - InvisibleSun 20:33, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
      • I am User:Wooyi on Wikipedia, and I believe Poetlister should not be desysopped here. Wikipedia and Wikiquotes are separate jurisdictions unless it's a foundational issue. We do not issue cross-wiki bans or sanctions. Thank you. 71.169.16.133 01:33, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

There are a few errors in what is written by Poetlister above. w:User:David Gerard did not unblock w:User:Poetlister, as can be seen from the block log. The initial evidence against Poetlister was a report of what CheckUser had revealed, and there has been quite a lot accrued in the time since, such as w:Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Seraphimblade 2. And yes, Poetlister, did participate in AFD discussions at Wikipedia where the other sockpuppet accounts participated. I and several other editors are currently engaged in the labourious task of reviewing them all. One such is w:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Jewish Fellows of the Royal Society (2nd nomination), where the "Taxwoman", "Rachel", and "Poetlister" rôles all participated.

I am independently convinced that the diagnosis of sock-puppetry here is correct. As part of the aforementioned review process, to see what past discussions (which range from deletion discussions to arbitration committee elections) could have been affected by this, I have looked at quite a number of discussions and I have no doubt that there is sock-puppetry here. There have been several discussions where it is quite apparent that there is a single person carrying out one side of a conversation through multiple accounts.

However, Wikiquote might be all right if the rôle account pattern used by this person continues to be adhered to now that it has become widespread knowledge amongst the rest of the editor community that this is one person with a plethora of accounts. The pattern was as far as I can tell first explicitly laid out on w:User:Zordrac/Poetlister. Wikiquote editors who are not English Wikipedia administrators, and who thus cannot see that page, can also find the pattern summarized in this edit. The rôles of the various pseudonyms are as follows: "Poetlister" — literary subjects, "LondonEye" — London locations, "Rachel" — Bible and Jewish subjects, and "Taxwoman" — fetish subjects. If the rôle account here sticks to literary subjects, Wikiquote should not be hurt by this. This would not be the first wiki where only one of the rôles shows up, because the other rôles don't match the project's purpose. (There's a London fetish wiki where only the "Taxwoman", and one other, rôle shows up, for example. Ironically, in that rôle this person has written on the subject of rôle playing.)

However, I recommend that a careful eye be kept upon this account's use of administrator tools, in particular the blocking tool. The rôle account on Wikipedia that successfully gained administrator privileges (both the "Runcorn" and the "Poetlister" rôles were nominated for administratorship) abused the blocking facility quite markedly. I also advise taking "I personally don't believe it." with a pinch of salt. Again, the rôle account with administrator privileges at Wikipedia successfully parried an earlier request for CheckUser at w:Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Newport (resulting in the blocking of an editor who, ironically, turned out to have been right) with the same "but she was unblocked afterwards" argument as put forward above. Uncle G 09:06, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm User:Casey Abell at Wikipedia, and last I checked, I'm not a sockpuppet, meatpuppet or muppet. I agree with Uncle G that WQ can keep Poetlister as a sysop as long as other editors keep their eyes open. As for the actual sockpuppetry charges, they've been around for a while, and the Wikipedia higher-ups finally took action based on what they say is new evidence. I have no reason to either doubt or accept the new evidence because I'm not allowed to see it. But unless there's some actual misconduct on Poetlister's part here at WQ, I don't see why her (?) sysop privileges, much less her editing privileges, should be removed. And now I'll quit telling you folks how to run your wiki, and get back to WP. 76.186.75.226 13:25, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm an outsider here so apologies in advance for perhaps not being within the norms of what is asked here. I would simply ask Poetlister the following questions: 1) Are they the same user as on en:wp (presumably the answer is yes, since they say they are) and 2) are the allegations of sockpuppetry made on en:wp true or false. If Poetlister says "false" then I'd be concerned because the evidence does seem quite strong. If Poetlister says "true" then I would give credit for honesty and it would be for the community to decide if there were increased risk, if any, from allowing a known sockpuppet from another wiki to be an admin here... (Aphaia's "C" concern, above) ++Lar: t/c 18:46, 2 June 2007 (UTC) PS I would also say that I think there is a very large difference between being someone with a Wikipedia Review ACCOUNT, as Fred does, and someone who is an admin there. That site is troublesome at best, due to the large number of bad plots hatched there, and the admins are a large part of the reason why it is the way it is, in my view. ++Lar: t/c 18:49, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

CheckUser

I request that the CheckUser request posted on Meta go through, just in case, due to her current allegations. If any socks found should be posted here and blocked, though I hope that none are found. If none are found, then I will completely drop any prejudice and negative thoughts of Poetlister and if they are, I would like to hear what she says about them. Cbrown1023 talk 20:53, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

For the record, the requested checkuser wasn't performed and request was archived. --Aphaia 10:47, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

For information - I archived this request on Meta. It seemed to me that as the user was not active and there were current issues to be addressed (anime puppetry) it might be distracting for stewards to have it there. There is a backlog of work in this area on Meta (I wonder what the situation would be if stewards were confirmed in their post from time to time!) and it seem better to allow others to get done rather than this. I would hope before at might be a concern again that there would be local checkusers --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:28, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Changing Usernames

Where do I go if I want to change my username? Real96 17:15, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

WQ:AN is recommended, but you may ask here on Village pump, too. --Aphaia 17:36, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I need to change my name to Miranda b/c that's my first name and I am filling usurpation requests on other projects to complete this request. Thanks a bunch! Real96 18:50, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Renaming

Can someone rename this account to "Curps". I tried creating the account Curps, but a HTTP 500 error occurred at user creation, so I had to create another name. No idea what caused this problem. --Curps 09:21, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Note, despite me signing as "Curps", the current username I have on here is Crxer. --Curps 09:22, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

If you can confirm your claiming identity successfully, you would have got the account. Also I would point out w:User:Curps has been on a wikibreak since August 2006. --Aphaia 10:48, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

New Category

Since there is a category for Living people, how about a category for Deceased people? - Polar1908 15:57, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I think we are better to have a set of category "deceased in XXXX" alike, on the other hand I'm afraid it is just redundant if we just labelled them as "deceased people" unless more detailed info isn't added. For project, it is not so much beneficial information (while if someone is living is not is, regarding legal issues, very important and worthy to note), if a person is deceased already or not; when they passed away is, on the contrary, more crucial related to copyright protection of their works. --Aphaia 18:45, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia has Category:Dead people. I suggest adding this here as well.--Jusjih 10:00, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I just added Category:Dead people linked to Wikipedia. How should we use it?--Jusjih 16:21, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll start adding the category when I come across any pages of deceased people. -- Polar1908 19:11, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

If we are to have such a category, I suggest that it simply be called "Deceased." I doubt that readers of these articles, as they look among the categories, would like to find themselves saying "I see Dead People." - InvisibleSun 20:55, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

I really don't see the category as very useful here at all. Even on Wikipedia it is basically just a "Supercategory" for far more extensive date-based categories than we yet have the time or need to set up. ~ Kalki 21:03, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

(change indent) I agree with Kalki on that it will be useful only used as supercategory for date (year)-based categories. I am not sure if we don't need, German Wikipedia use such "Died in YYYY" and utilize it in combination of copyright category (copyrighted or not). I'm happy with death year categories but cannot figure out how just "deceased" category directly put on articles is useful... --Aphaia 05:43, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

How about categorizing by decades if doing so by years is too deep now?--Jusjih 13:53, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Not bad. I won't even oppose just to label "Deceased" for those who passed away until 19th C. --Aphaia 14:04, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

In anticipation of potentially big Category:Dead people, how would you think of the following categories copied from w:Category:Deaths by year?

• 16th century deaths
• 17th century deaths
• 18th century deaths
• 19th century deaths
• 20th century deaths
• 21st century deaths

As we will possibly have many quotes from people dead for centuries, I consider categorizing by centuries not too deep at all. If anyone can think of any centuries with many deaths, then I suggest categorizing by decades. Categorizing by years would be reserved for potentially big categories for deaths by decades. If no objection, I would like to start categorizing deaths by centuries.--Jusjih 15:32, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Start immediately with decades for 20th and 21st centuries.--Cato 21:21, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Done, and I added 19th century deaths for now. Deaths in earlier centuries can be added as needed. As the longest individual copyright term is life + 100 years in Mexico, decades for 20th and 21st centuries can roughly tell if people's quotes are in the public domain.--Jusjih 15:45, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

curate's egg

does anyone know the origin of the expression "good in parts like a curate's egg". i have looked it up in the dictionary where it says it means that something is excellent in parts.i cannot get any further with it. curates presumably are male,and therefore would have no eggs-unless they keep chickens of course. i know what the expression means,but hwere on earth did it come from? computer world quite new to me,haven't logged in.16th june 2007.ma gardener.--62.255.12.13 23:33, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

It derives from an 1895 cartoon in Punch by George du Maurier, as seen in this Wikipedia article. - InvisibleSun 00:01, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Official WMF Election Notice

Please cross-post to as many high-visibility locations as make sense for your community.

The Wikimedia Board Election Steering Committee invites all community members to endorse candidates they support. Endorsements may be submitted on meta now till next Saturday, 23:59 June 23, 2007.

Each qualified community member can submit up to three endorsements. Please note several things:
- Only confirmed candidates are listed, so the list can be updated during the endorsements phase.
- You need an account on meta, not just the project that you are qualified to vote under, unless you meet the criteria on meta too.
- Please link your meta user page and your home wiki page. Detailed procedure can be found on the meta endorsement page.

All information is available on meta at:
On endorsements: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/Endorsements/en
On candidates each: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/Candidates/en
Election general: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/en
FAQ: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/FAQ/en

Questions about election are welcome at:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Board_elections/2007/FAQ

Thanks to devoted volunteering translators, those pages are also available in some languages other than English.

Thank you for your attention, we look forward to your participation.

For the election committee,
- Philippe | Talk 00:35, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Not as a committee member, but also as a single Wikiquotian, I would invite you to give a look to each candidate presentation and consider whom you would vote. Some candidates seems to have a strong opinion about the fate of "Wikipedia's minor sisters", so the coming Election might affect our project directly in some cases. --Aphaia 05:38, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

You all have one week left to read through the candidates' question pages and vote for the ones you support. This is quite important. For instance, here is one of the candidate's statements:

“I see Wikiquote as outside our core mission. I believe that the legal exposure created by it is excessive. It is my view that we should find another organization that wishes to host the content. Failing that, the project should be shut down.”

— [[{{{2}}}]], {{{3}}}

Omegatron 23:21, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks forks, voting closed. I expect we have the result one week later. Stay tuned! --Aphaia 10:45, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Creating a Christian music article

Hi. I'm totally new to Wikiquote. I've a little bit of experience on Wikipedia, but this is my first time accessing WQ. Anyways, my question is this: I wanna know what is required to create an article on Christian music. I see that there are a few articles on Christian musicians and song-writers such as Steven Curtis Chapman, Rich Mullins, and Martin Luther. Is it ok for me to go ahead and create an article on this topic or do WQ articles require to be about personalities and the like? Thanks! Ajcfreak 17:42, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikiquote, Ajcfreak! An article on "Christian music" would be considered a "theme" article. The structure of a theme article is outlined at Wikiquote:Templates/Themes. You should take a look at that page and perhaps look at a few sample theme articles, like the ones listed on Main Page or any that can be found under Category:Themes and its subcategories. When you are ready to create the article, the easiest way to do so is to use the "Add new theme" input box at Help:Starting a new page. It will put a copy of the theme template into your new article, so all you need to do is replace the "boilerplate" (example) material with an appropriate introduction, quotes, and other text.

Theme articles can be a little tricky because it's often difficult to define what one should include or exclude. In this case, I would suggest that a "Christian music" article should include quotes about Christian music, but not quotes that are lyrics from Christian music. The latter might be better placed in an article titled Christian lyrics, to parallel our Lyrics article. An example of a Christian-music quote might be Amy Grant's "Do I think all contemporary Christian music is good? No.", although this isn't especially pithy or original. (It also might be upsetting to fans, but theme articles tend to collect quotes from many perspectives; one must be prepared for this. Besides, to quote Theodore Sturgeon, "90% of everything is crud", so it's hardly a damning opinion, if you'll pardon the expression.)

If your desire is to quote lyrics, there are additional concerns. Because quotes should be original and specifically about their subject, quoting lyrics that are merely Biblical phrases would not be good fit, although memorable rephrasings, variations, or other clever uses of Biblical phrases might be. Quoting a lyrical passage just because it's impressive when heard with the music that accompanies it is not useful, because only fans of the work will "hear" the music in their heads. The same goes for quoting memorable visual performances that Wikiquote readers can't see. Wikiquote is a text-only medium, so it's the text that must stand on its own as quoteworthy. A good rule of thumb is to try to imagine if someone completely unfamiliar with the subject, who came to Wikiquote to see what people are saying about the subject after reading the Wikipedia article, would find illuminating, interesting, surprising — in other words, notable and memorable.

Finally, a important consideration for any article, but far more so for lyrics quoting, is avoiding copyright violation. It is a common practice on the Web to post complete song lyrics. This is almost always illegal. Lyrics websites might get away with it because the copyright holders find the promotion of the songs more valuable than any perceived loss of value from obscure website copies, or may have made large-scale advertising arrangements with the sites that are more important to them than any individual violations. Wikiquote does not accept advertising and does not seek individual license agreements with copyright holders (which would not only defeat its goal to provide free information but also would be impossible to execute without a business staff). The only quoting of copyrighted works that we can do is under "fair use" law, which severely limits what we can quote. For any particular song, we should stick to the shortest and most pithy part of a clever turn of phrase. For an artist, we must avoid quoting too much of their material overall, as this can undermine their ability to do the same for commercial purposes. There is no way to declare a specific amount of lines from lyrics or numbers of songs, because violation is in the eye of the copyright holder (and decided individually by unpredictable court cases). It's best to tread cautiously by quoting only a very select portion of the very best. We must also remember that everyone else will want to do the same on a subject, so be ready to discuss with other editors what should stay and what should go. There is no ownership of articles, so the participant editors must work together to select the article content.

This may be more than you wanted to know (I do tend to be more thorough than is necessarily requested!), but I hope you find this information useful. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 19:35, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Excellent. Of course it's thorough, but I guess it tells me enough to get me started. So now I'm looking at creating two articles instead of one. Thanks for the tonnes of advice et al. Will get started on these two articles - Christian music and Christian lyrics this week. Thanks a tonne. Ajcfreak 14:19, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

My RfA

I have canceled the withdrawal of my RfA after considerable thought and having had advice from people I respect. I have been in touch with Aphaia by email and being in communication at least should mean that we do not encounter real problems in the future. However if I were a member of the community who had voted on this I might wish to review my vote and I am quite happy with that. As such I would ask the bureaucrats to leave the granting of the rights for whatever period they consider sensible to allow the community to re-consider their votes if they wish to. I hope I will be able to serve Wikiquote in a positive way in the future. Thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 09:34, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I was about to support you, but I saw confusion. Canceling withdrawal permits me to support you there. Thanks.--Jusjih 16:32, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

As there has never been any opposition votes, nor indication that any who have voted have been inclined to rescind their support, I think it unlikely there will be a rush to do so now. We do certainly need more admins to address what vandalism occurs. Whatever disputes may exist elsewhere, there has been no claim or indication that Herbythyme would abuse admin privileges, and I am thus inclined to grant them now, but might wait a few days if there are any actual objections within the next few hours. ~ Kalki 18:44, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

password

I, with the username of Cesar Tort cannot log in since I forgot my Wikiquote password. What can I do? 189.140.214.111 01:01, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Foget it. I already remembered it! —Cesar Tort 01:03, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

But now I have another question: Why does my signature appears black? —Cesar Tort 01:08, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Your signature will always appear black on your own User page (as will any link on a page to the page itself); elsewhere, if you use 3 or 4 tildes ( ~~~~ ) it to sign, it should display normally. ~ Kalki 01:37, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually I see it black here and in another talk page I edited today. —Cesar Tort 03:06, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

This might have to do with your settings in the preferences tab. Go to your preferences and uncheck "Raw signatures (without automatic link)" and your results should be normal. ~ Kalki 03:21, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Right. Thanks! —Cesar Tort 03:48, 29 June 2007 (UTC)