Wikiquote:Village pump archive 26

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From November to December 2008, originally posted to Wikiquote:Village pump.

Village pump archive 26

RFC: new VfD notification template

Request for comment: I created a draft Template:VFDNote, roughly similar to Template:PRODWarning and Template:PRODNote. Please review, comment on its talkpage, and/or revise as appropriate. Thanks. ~ Ningauble 18:41, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

I like the template, but it prompts me to ask a question about PROD and VfD notifications. It's one thing to notify the creator of a newly created article, but what if the article has been worked on by a good many people? (See, for example, the edit history of the Frankie Boyle page, which is up for VfD.) Should there be a time limit based on how far back the edits go, or do we notify every contributor? - InvisibleSun 00:19, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Over at 'pedia the guidance is to notify "principle contributors" and specifically to refrain from "canvassing." I think two notifications are usually sufficient, and more than four are rarely necessary. In choosing whom to notify, I consider two principles paramount:

• Who evinces the most interest and has done the most work?
• If there is a case to be made, who is most likely able to make it?

Both principles aim to solicit input for a well informed outcome; the first is also a matter of courtesy. Indicators to consider when answering these questions include, but are not limited to:

• Original article creator, if still active in the community.
• Cumulative size and substance of edits. (By substance independent of size, I mean work on sourcing, cleanup, etc.)
• Participation in discussion on the article's talk page. If discussion or edit history are contentious, try to include all sides.
• Recent participation, unless relatively minor.
• As a tie-breaker, favor named accounts who stand behind their work over IP users whose choice limits the right to stand up for it.

This approach is predicated on the assumption that "it's a discussion, not a vote", so the objective is to give fair notice for soliciting input, not for canvass votes. ~ Ningauble 15:43, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

In the example of Frankie Boyle, where there has been a surge of small additions in recent months (by numerous IPs, and single-contribution accounts), I might pick the three with the most contributions in the last three months, including at least one with edits in the last month. I would probably include the named article creator, who also made the largest single contribution, but would not be surprised if the notice went unnoticed because that was the editor's only contribution to Wikiquote. I would not lose any sleep if nobody noticed due to dynamic IP assignment: anonymity has its price, and this affords a reasonable chance of being noticed. ~ Ningauble 15:43, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

After several months experience with this, I have changed my thinking about notifying IP users. Such notices rarely produce a response. One reason is that messages sent to a dynamically assigned IP address are often never seen by the intended recipient. Another is that some people decline to create a user account because they simply do not want to be talked to. Therefore, I no longer send courtesy notices to IP addresses unless (1) their last edit is so recent that the session may still be active, or (2) the edit history indicates that it is a static address over an extended period. ~ Ningauble 18:13, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Searching

How can I search specifically within "films" or "TV shows"?

QOTD selection process

When I devised the current ranking system for ranking QOTD suggestions and began using it a few years ago, I had anticipated that the voting process could conceivably be disrupted and corrupted by the concerted action of a very few people, intent on posting material for the most part embarrassing or entirely unacceptable to the general community of those involved with Wikiquote, and asserted that the final decisions on selections should always be made by a responsible administrator, or perhaps a odd-numbered council of them.

Up to recent weeks I have seldom perceived any need or reason to disregard the indicated votes on the suggestion pages, but this is no longer the case. I believe that at the very least such group disruption as I had anticipated has begun to occur, or, more likely a single treacherously deceitful individual has begun to deliberately pollute the voting process so that rankings by multiple sock puppets could provide a fraudulent means of controlling the results, and an an extremely artificial prominence or dominance of this individual's pernicious preferences and influences could occur.

Specifically, Zarbon (talk · contributions), who has in the past had indefinite blocks on his accounts both here and at Wikipedia under strong suspicions of indulging in improper or deceitful activity, and who was permitted to resume the use of the Zarbon account here after much pleading with admins, after long bypassing of the blocks here and at WIkipedia through the use of IPs and other user acccounts, has now been suspected, by me and others, of having recently resorted to the use of sockpuppets in skewing the QOTD votes toward his preferences.

I am only presenting a case here of what seems to me to very clearly be the situation, although this is not yet something proven, and perhaps not even provable through available means. It is my honest assessment that Zarbon may have become more cleverly deceitful in some ways, but that his general integrity and trustworthiness has not clearly improved with time at all, and that his will and desire to deceive, and to have his desires unjustly dominate over the will of others has become rather blatantly manifest, in far more than his pronouncements which seem to range from the authoritarian to the nihilistic, depending on what best suits his particular inclinations at the time.

As there is as yet no definite proof of what seems to be rather blatant fraudulence, I have deferred to the apparent ranked preferences up to this point, even when I strongly suspected, and indeed retained very little doubt that fraudulent votes were being used.

As an emergency measure, in response to this, and despite having very strong suspicions, and indeed belief of unethical activity on the part of Zarbon, I will at this point still count his votes, but will disregard the recent votes of Waheedone (talk · contributions) and Fossil (talk · contributions), or any other voter who has not had at least a 3 month history of editing on Wikiquote, as such a standard has been used on Wikimedia voting processes in the past and seems entirely appropriate in this situation.

Despite a strong aversion to complicating processes and procedures more than is necessary, the possibility of the continuation of very fraudulent activity in this regard impels me to make a suggestion : if the voting activity on the these pages continues to appear highly suspicious and highly vulnerable to fraudulant voting, I believe it might become necessary that we should abandon the current system I had devised, where all users can rank the suggestions, and move to have a council of and odd number of trusted admins (perhaps only elected for periods of a year at a time) become the official rankers and final selectors of the QOTD, out of the suggestions provided by any users.

I will refrain from officially proposing this, at this time, as a necessary measure, and hope it might not be necessary any time soon, but I think it, or something much like it might eventually be necessary, if problems continue. ~ Kalki 17:44, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Comment: Since this is posed at AN rather than VP I hope you will pardon my interjecting, but I must say I endorse the proposed emergency measure and encourage the community to seek a long term solution for the susceptibility to manipulation. In addition to the issue of sockpuppets, meatpuppets, or single purpose account voting blocks, whatever the case may be, I am also extremely annoyed by the gamesmanship of one who nominates disproportionate numbers of suggestions for every day, many of them self-ranked as marginal. I just want to turn off the computer and walk away from what ought to be an enjoyable exercise: reviewing a few of the very best quotes Wikiquote has to offer. ~ Ningauble 18:55, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

I originally posted my comments on the Admin Noticeboard, but agree it is probably more appropriate to post it here, and have now done so. ~ Kalki 19:33, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Hello, Kalki. I'm wondering as to why you would bring something like this up without letting me know. I was also made aware of this accusation by Lyle on the date of Nov 30. And when I checked user Fossil's talk page, I saw a post concerning this. I just want to say that I am a bit offended that you would accuse me. I proved to everyone in the past that I had absolutely no "sockpuppets" and other accusations were all groundless. In fact, I've tried my best to point out suspicious behavior to you and other admins on a constant basis. The users Fossil and Waheedone, to name those two...seem to agree with many of my suggestions for the most part...I can't control their votes. InvisibleSun seems to agree with many of your suggestions, that doesn't make him a sockpuppet I'm certain. I've been wrongfully accused in the past and I'd very much prefer not to be incorporated with any negative behavior. I will convey my feelings to these other users, such as Fossil, as well. I just wanted to let you know that I am not being dishonest and I've proven myself honest in the past as well. Any wrong actions taken against me were done by vandaliser "wiki-star" and I did not take part in any vandalizing or sockpuppeteering. I don't know how else to prove to you that I only operate with my one user name. I guess you can deem the qotd votes cast by other newly joined members as invalid...or not count them at all if that makes any difference...I assume that would solve the initial problem. Zarbon 05:28, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

It is entirely conceivable, and perhaps even possible, that 2 people suddenly discovered Wikiquote who so extensively share your own rather peculiarly perverse tastes, who seem similarly inclined to regularly rank statements more established editors here consider very wise or significant as having little or no worth, and to promote with great zeal what most people consider rather banal or offensive statements as if they were brilliant, and to do very little else. I yet can honestly state that I simply do not believe it, and find little reason to do so, despite your protests of your innocence and honesty.
I recognize that there is a fundamental and important difference between having suspicions, or even strong convictions and being able to prove them, and thus to act in ways which would be entirely unfair and unjust to people truly innocent, but there is also vast difference between not being able to prove some form of guilt and being able to prove innocence. Your innocence in this and other regards is far from "proven."
Frankly, my impression of you has always been of someone very prone to pronounce extremely exaggerated claims of both your victimhood and the worth of your stated views. I am entirely willing to credit you with cleverness enough to find ways to effectively deceive others, or at least to prevent your deceptions from being proven or provable by the means normally available, but I am not willing to credit you with being someone inclined to be very wise in your focus or your aims, nor to credit your activities with being entirely virtuous and honorable.
Though I long held some definite suspicions, I had never at any point been absolutely convinced that you were also your apparent nemesis "Wiki-star", but I have also never been entirely convinced that you were not. The abusive troll-vandal known as Wiki-star, and apparently many other names, had also been clever enough to avoid being absolutely associated with many other identities, but that has not prevented the blocking of that user because of the times where abusive intent was clear. It is certainly not entirely unlikely that some of the most abusive of trolls would set up some "innocent victim" personas as well as more openly aggressive ones, by which to undermine wiki projects in more subtle and less obvious or actionable ways. Your nearly automatic assertions of much activity that has little or no clear reason for such association to being that of Wiki-star has also been very suspicious in itself, as a means of merely causing further confusion and drama and drawing attention to this rather pathetic troll-vandal.
There is clearly not enough evidence to take direct action against you, or any of these very recently created identities, yet because of what I as well as others have perceived to probably be rather pronounced attempts to deceive and achieve undeserved influence over choices made about the QOTD, it might become necessary to eventually constrain the rankings made on user suggestions to trusted admins, so as to prevent such extreme manipulation as could occur when a very deceitful and unprincipled user is willing to use sockpuppets to vote on matters. ~ Kalki 17:55, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry if you feel that way, but I still want to continue to participate in the voting process. Is it truly my fault that these people show up...no. What can I do? I can't control other members. And no, I am not wiki-star and the very suggestion of that disgusts me. I hate vandalizers and sockpuppeteers. In fact, I have a hatred for them even moreso than you. That one vandal was following my activity and pretty much deliberately attributing stupidity to my reputation. I have the same user name on wikipedia, and wikimedia commons and it is the only user name I operate under. I proved myself in the past and I will prove myself again. But never ever incorporate me with idiots such as those, you will be disrespecting the honor that I have tried to build. Another thing, just because you don't like some of my suggestions, doesn't mean that they are bad. And I have made many contributions in the past. I have never limited my contributions to the qotd. The best way I can prove to you my sincerity is by my own words. I HOLD YOU IN GREAT RESPECT. And I would like it to stay that way. My suggestion to you is that you do not count the votes made by these other users and only count mine since I have been making suggestions and contributions for a very long time now. Please don't let your own emotion cloud your better judgment. I don't have anything to do with any other users. I love qotd and I genuinely want the best for it, therefore maintaining its original nature. For the most part, InvisibleSun, yourself, and I were the only ones who were doing most of the voting. The very fact that other people would catch on and start voting is inevitable. Maybe you should just tell them all to stop voting. But I sincerely do not want to lose my own privelege for the misconception that you may have, because I have been taking part with you for quite some time now. Zarbon 04:53, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I seriously think you guys need to cut Zarbon a break. Yes, he's quirky with the QOTD, but to the extent that others may be "following" him, their votes are easily enough discarded under an eminently fair policy of counting only the votes of solid contributors. And, although Zarbon has chosen to focus on a rather unusual set of content, it is certainly material worth having in an holistic collection of important quotes. I can not emphasize enough that Zarbon is a contributor, and we would do well to keep our volunteers feeling welcome absent a well-evidenced reason to do otherwise. BD2412 T 07:34, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Enough said. I think we can employ a systematic approach to discard two (almost) vote-only accounts, particularly if we would like to keep it as "community vote". The allegation cast on Zarbon as a user is another matter ... I would like to see a stable rule on voting rather than focusing a user (or users') behavior. --Aphaia 09:34, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Guidelines for trimming articles: final version

I am about to post an article entitled Wikiquote:Limits on quotations, which will be the consensus result of discussions about the trimming of pages. The talk page of the article can be used for suggestions and corrections, with votes to be cast after an agreed-upon period and after consensus changes have been made. In the section above entitled Wikiquote:Village pump#Template, we can post our suggestions for messages to be used in relation to the guidelines. - InvisibleSun 03:12, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Handy new template

I just copied over {{lowercase-title}} from enwiki; this will let us display the "proper" name for lower-case articles (such as iPod instead of IPod). Enjoy. EVula // talk // 23:54, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

sea dog

I need to know what a sea dog is from the past. My son is doing a report and we do not know what it is or what they did. All we know they had something to do with pirates and tribes and trails. Someone please help me by letting me know what cite to go to where I can get the information. We have to print it out. Please help me. Thank you.

You want to look at Wikipedia, not Wikiquote. Sorry. EVula // talk // 06:55, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Fundraiser banner gadget

I've just created a gadget (our first) that allows users to suppress the fundraiser banner. This is handy for those of us that agree it's important, but are tired of seeing it (either because it's obnoxious or because we've already donated and don't need to be beaten over the head).

I've wanted to do this for a while, but had to wait for that pesky RfA to finish first. ;) EVula // talk // ☯ // 15:56, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Most popular pages?

I'm looking for "popular" quotes, and was wondering if anyplace lists pages by how often they are viewed, or just provides the 100 most read pages? If not, I think it would be a useful addition to the navigation section on the left sidebar. —This unsigned comment is by 209.128.143.66 (talk • contribs) .

Well, there's Special:MostLinked, though that includes a lot of non-quote pages, such as Wikiquote:What Wikiquote is not and Help:Edit summary. You could also check out Special:MostRevisions, though that's just the pages on Wikiquote with the most edits. Both of those pages can be found in the "Special pages" link in the sidebar. EVula // talk // ☯ // 02:09, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Chapters and chapter titles

I've noticed that there are several different ways that chapters and chapter titles are noted after literary quotes. Is there a preferred way? Psyche825 05:02, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

There is no one-size-fits-all approach, as there is a variety of styles in the works themselves. I am currently preparing an article on a work organized by Book/Chapter/Section where books are numbered and named, chapters are numbered but unnamed, and sections are named but unnumbered, except the first section of each chapter is unnamed; and another work with interleaved narrative lines, each having its own numbering sequence. What to do? My two cents: do whatever will (1) make it useful for readers to find the passage, and (2) make the article self-consistent and attractive. ~ Ningauble 15:13, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! I knew it would be hard to have a preferred way, since books and other works are all different, but I thought it would be better to check just in case. Psyche825 00:16, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Metal Gear

Pursuant to the discussion in Wikiquote:Votes for deletion/Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, I have merged all Metal Gear pages into a single page, trimmed that drastically, and redirected all the previous separate pages to that one. This is kind of a big action, so I'd like the community to review the outcome and let me know if I've taken too much off the top. Cheers! BD2412 T 12:17, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Good job! ~ UDScott 14:38, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Good save. ~ Ningauble 19:26, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Recent BNP quotes

Has anyone made a page with the recent BNP (British National Party) quotes I just heard on the BBC 1 news. You know, possibly hyppocritical (depending on your opinion) things like;

• "Its like we're living in a facist society"

and

• "It breaches our human rights"

After some of their members' detail were posted on the internet. Thanks, Wikisaver62 18:32, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Just my opinion, but I hope not. I prefer to see Wikiquote used for preserving statements that are particularly pithy, witty, wise, eloquent, or poignant, rather than for documenting a recent political kerfuffle or building a case for a point of view. This is not to say they are uninteresting, just that this may not be the most appropriate venue. ~ Ningauble 16:38, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Am I doing okay?

Hello. I am working on cleaning up the page "Crime", and standardizing it and making sure everything is sourced. I moved unsourced and dubious source stuff to the talk page, and then added in a bunch of sourced stuff. How am I doing so far? Hopefully if all goes well I would like to do this to clean up some other general theme topic pages as well. Cirt (talk) 07:59, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

• We've discussed the fate of unsourced quotes before, and I think the consensus we came to was that it's better to move them to a subpage (i.e. Crime/unsourced). That way, whatever is left unsourced or unsourceable will be wiped out for good when the subpage is deleted. BD2412 T 09:42, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
  • That's a great idea. I just moved them to the talk page temporarily just in case someone objected and wanted to discuss them there, or work on sourcing them. How does the page "Crime" itself look so far, after the work I did to it? Cirt (talk) 10:00, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Category suppression

Those who monitor such things may have noticed Category:Candidates for speedy deletion no longer lists pages that display samples of {{db}} but are not actually candidates for deletion, such as Wikiquote:Template messages. This is because they are now using the |categories=no parameter to avoid spurious entries in maintenance categories, as described at Category:Templates that support category suppression. I plan to do this for a few more maintenance tags, and encourage others to the same. There is a simple^[verify?] how-to guide at Category talk:Templates that support category suppression. On the other hand, if you think this is the wrong thing to do then stop me before I kill again. ~ Ningauble 20:57, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Edit section 0 gadget now installed

I just added a gadget that adds an "[edit]" link to edit just the lead section. Go to Special:Preferences to test it out. EVula // talk // ☯ // 00:13, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for doing that. I have found this to be a useful tool on other projects. Cirt (talk) 00:27, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

As have I; as soon as I'm done installing a few more gadgets, I'll be adding it over at Wikisource too. :) EVula // talk // ☯ // 04:20, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Sweeeeeeeeeeet. Cirt (talk) 04:52, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism from IP 194.187.32.1

The 194.187.32.1 IP vandalized, today, several pages on this project. I'll be fine to block it before new vandalismes.--Bertrand GRONDIN 12:23, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Y Blocked. Thanks for the cleanup work. (The standard place to report these is at WQ:VIP.) ~ Ningauble 12:46, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank's for the link. I'm bureaucrat in french Wikiquote :-). You'll be welcome there.--Bertrand GRONDIN 14:31, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Rush Limbaugh Edit War

I am having an edit war with someone on the Rush Limbaugh page, and I have no idea how to resolve it. There are two particular quotes that come from a single book, that have been attributed to Rush Limbaugh. However, no other source for those quotes has been found, and the book itself does not cite exactly when those quotes were made. I have attempted to remove them, but the other user (under several different IPs) keeps restoring them. Can someone tell me how you resolve this? I tried posting something on the Administrator’s Noticeboard, but have gotten no response. Help! The Vidiot 20:05, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

At the risk of stating the obvious, it seems that the administrators are, for the most part, not particularly interested in that article. There is a bit of a quandary in that, while an article on a prominent polemicist is certainly appropriate, including controversial statements and argumentation for the sake of documenting controversy lies, in the minds of some, outside of the core mission of compiling our common legacy of wise, witty, pithy, eloquent, and poignant insights. It is no surprise that attempting to document controversy introduces controversy into the process.
On the matter of attributions in general, it may be a small step toward compromise to follow our standard practice: all statements lacking identification of the author's work or speech, if they be included at all, belong in a section at the end of the article under an "Attributed" heading. Hearsay, when admissible at all, must be presented as such, and not otherwise. This is acutely and consequentially the case when the subject is a living person. This does not resolve the dispute, but at least sets it in the correct context.
Should these statements be included at all? I have a definite opinion, but it may not be definitive: documenting controversy is not what I am here for, and I consider such material a greater embarrassment to Wikiquote than to the subject. ~ Ningauble 23:21, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

The quotes in question are sourced to Rush Limbaugh by at least one published book. Over 95% of the quotes on the page would have to be placed into the "attributed" section, were this recommendation to be followed. Unless that standard is enforced for all living radio commentators on WQ, I see no need to make a special exception for Limbaugh. --69.64.213.146 02:50, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

That other articles also need cleanup is irrelevant. It is a never-ending task. ~ Ningauble 15:27, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

If the quotes aren't properly sourced, they should be relegated to the "Attributed" section if not removed entirely. Anyone can publish a book; what reason is there to believe that the purported quotations are legitimate, in the absence of a primary-source citation? The kind of secondary source at issue here is not one that editors should necessarily take at face value; if their credibility has been questioned, and the authors of these books have given no evidence to the contrary, my inclination would be to delete them entirely. 121a0012 03:01, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

That standard should be enforced for all living radio commentators on WQ; the fact that it is not currently enforced depends on the time and efforts of the editors, not the validity of the standard. I agree that over 95% of the quotes should be placed in the "Attributed" section, if not deleted entirely.

So 121a0012, if the user keeps restoring the above quotes to "Sourced," even though they do not include a primary-source citation, what can be done to enforce their removal? The Vidiot 06:26, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

No one, besides one or two ardent Limbaugh fans here, have questioned the book's reliablity. Anyone with an agenda can "question" a book's legitimacy via a posting on a WQ page. This does not, in any way, detract from the source in question. Show a real-world source that legitimately questions the vetted book. Otherwise, stop trying to scrub sourced quotes you wish Limbaugh hadn't said. --98.14.221.68 16:40, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

It does not matter who or how many people have questioned the book’s reliability; if it does not cite a specific work where those quotes were given, it is not a reliable source. Read all the other discussions about quotes without a primary source. Just saying the name of the speaker is NOT sufficient sourcing! The Vidiot 17:18, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Repeat: The book cites Limbaugh as a primary source, for over thirty quotes. The book is not a collection of time-stamped radio transcripts. --69.64.213.146 00:25, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Again, according to Wikiquote guidelines, a source should be SPECIFIC, which means “identifying a publication with enough information to readily find the quote.” Simply providing the NAME of the speaker is not specific enough, and does not meet Wikiquote guidelines. Such a quote falls under the category of “Attributed.” The Vidiot 17:14, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Two points to make at first:

Placing the quotes in the "Attributed" section will not be an answer, as it is now the policy here at Wikiquote to allow sourced quotes only (see Wikiquote:Limits on quotations). In keeping with this policy, all unsourced/attributed quotes on the Limbaugh page should be transferred to the talk page, with a heading entitled "Unsourced." It's possible to have a "Misattributed" or "Disputed" section on a Wikiquote page; but before deciding whether these edit-war quotes are to be classified as disputed, here is the second point:

Has anyone tried contacting the author, Jack Huberman, online to resolve this problem? He has a blog page. If he can source the quotes to particular shows, it would put an end to the controversy. - InvisibleSun 02:41, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm all for contacting Huberman, however I couldn't find an email address on the blog page. If there is one, please post here, and I'll be happy to contact him. But I doubt Hubermaan producing transcripts will do anything to stop "Vidiot"'s campaign to scrub the sourced quotes. He's been at this for over a year. When the quotes had an air date, but no linked source, he scrubbed them (and was reverted, several times, by Moby). When a linked source was added, he scrubbed them, now stating the "source" was unacceptable (even though it's an undisputed primary, published source.) He then began to fill the VP page with straw men arguments, trying (and failing) to build consensus for scrubbing the quotes based on his invented premise that the book is, somehow, "unreliable." His nonsense has been tolerated for far too long, and his edit warring, and attempts to game the system, warrant admin intervention, at the very least. --69.64.213.146 05:58, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

You need to carefully observe the distinction between primary and secondary sources. Any book that wasn't written by person X is, by definition, not a primary source for X's words. It may be an appropriate secondary source or it may not; this is a judgment call that must depend on the nature of the source and whether it provides sufficient information to prove that it is in fact a secondary source and not just repeating unverified (and unverifiable) hearsay. It's OK to quote from a secondary source, particularly if the primary source is not generally available (as in the case of a radio broadcast); it's not OK to quote a rumor. Now, in this case, I would consider a specific air date to be sufficient citation for the primary source (particularly in the case of multi-hour programs like Limbaugh's, which affiliates slice and dice to fit their schedules), but if you got the quotation from a book, then you need to cite the book as well, as the source of the transcription. 121a0012 06:29, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

The book in question is cited, and linked, on the page in question. --98.14.221.68 13:37, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

But the book does not include the citation of the primary source (the specific speech, not just the name of the speaker), which is required for it to be sourced. The Vidiot 01:38, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

You are misstating, once again, WQ sourcing guidelines. --69.64.213.146 02:00, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

InvisibleSun: "Attributed" does not necessarily mean the same thing as "Unsourced" (although you wouldn't know it from most WQ pages, it's true). Something in the sort of intermediate state we're discussing here is legitimately sourced, but not primary-sourced, and the dispute is over the veracity of the quotations. I can easily foresee situations arising in which we can identify an attribution, in a source we might otherwise consider reliable, of a quotation to a particular person, but still be uncertain about its validity because the source we have doesn't specify where it got the quote. "Attributed", properly applied, should mean that the attribution is sourced, but the quotation is not. (I expect this to apply in particular to premodern literature, where in many cases the primary source may be lost to history, but commentaries on it have survived.) 121a0012 06:37, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I’m sorry, but 69.64.213.146 is misrepresenting my actions in this matter. First of all, I do not recall the quotes in question ever having a listed air date. Secondly, the book is (as others have pointed out) a secondary source, not a primary source, and the book specifically does NOT cite a specific work or speech from which the quotes were taken, which makes it unreliable as a primary source. And finally, while you claim I attempting to “game the system,” I have repeatedly initiated discussions on the Talk page, VP, and others, trying to resolve this issue. On the other hand, 69.64.213.146 generally just reverts the quotes in question, but has rarely made any effort (until recently) to discuss the subject. I am interested in making sure that the included quotes are reliable, and most of the people who have participated in the discussion agree with me that the two quotes in question do not have a sufficient primary source. The Vidiot 07:20, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Also, if we agree that Huberman should be contacted for air dates for the above quotes, can we agree that they should be moved to “Unsourced” until an air date is provided? Otherwise, they will just remain where they are while 69.64.213.146 delays initiating any contact. At least moving them to “Unsourced” (and keeping them there) will provide 69.64.213.146 with some incentive to track down that email address. The Vidiot 07:22, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

No. Feel free to contact Huberman yourself; it has not become my sole responsibility. As a matter of fact, since you're the only one disputing his book, I would think it behooves you to contact him. Something tells me, though, that you won't. The sourced quotes should remain right where they were/are before your scrubbing campaign began. I'm going to treat your continued scrubbing of them as vandalism. --98.14.221.68 13:35, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Since you are the one claiming that the books have a valid primary source, you should take responsibility for tracking it down. I am not going to spend my time searching for something that I believe does not exist, because you can’t prove a negative. The burden of proof is on YOU, not me. Since the quotes do not have a primary source, they should be moved to “Attributed,” or removed completely. If you want to change that, then find a primary source. The Vidiot 17:09, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

See above comments. --69.64.213.146 23:29, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I see your comments: You want the quote to be listed as Sourced, but you do not want to do any research to find the primary source. You want ME to do the research for you, but refuse to remove the quote even if I can not find a primary source. You want to have your cake and eat it too, but that is not valid in this case. The Vidiot 01:38, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

See above comments. [Vidiot: feel free to copy and paste this after your next 3,000 stonewalls] --69.64.213.146 01:51, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I have just created a "Disputed" section for the quotes in question — please refrain from indulging in further infantile disputes on this matter, until the quotes are either more fully sourced or proven fallacious. ~ Kalki 02:25, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

• On the bookshelf at my left elbow as I write this, I have a copy of the second printing of the first edition of Mencken's Minority Report (1956), which I'd picked up in a used bookstore in Baltimore a couple of decades ago. I used it to correctly source the quotations from that work which were (and remain) posted on that writer's Wikiquote page.
  Mencken is one of those writers who "recycled" tremendous amounts of his original work, in many cases preparing for submission to his book publishers paste-up collections of newspaper and magazine clippings he'd taken from his personal archives in his Hollins Street home.
  He's also been collected and quoted by a great many other writers, most notably by Alistair Cooke in The Vintage Mencken (1955). All of this means that when attributing a quotation to Mencken, it is difficult - perhaps insuperably so - to accurately source the original appearance of those words. The best a modern reader might reasonably be expected to do is to cite the published text from which he got what he'd contributed to Mencken's Wikiquote page.
  Now, it strikes me that much the same seems to be happening with Rush Limbaugh's quotations, particularly as the volume of his verbal utterances is approaching Saganesque numbers and the controversies in which he revels are bound to make him a polarizing but nonetheless attention-getting figure.
  Gathering quotations attributed to Mr. Limbaugh - whether sourced, unsourced, or explicitly disputed - strikes me as useful in the extreme, particularly as on Wikiquote the proverbial "with enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow" error-checking function can operate as nowhere else on the Web. Here we see an opportunity for Wikiquote to remedy errors that compound and canker on other Web sites, great and small. If this is not a value proposition, what is?

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.73.205.230 (talk • contribs) 07:29, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Entertonement

I've been encountering a couple of editors adding links to Entertonement, which is (in essence) a repository for audio clips from films. My thinking in removing the links was, first and foremost, that it was spam (the first editor I caught doing that was doing nothing else), but a second editor has come across my radar, confused as to why we wouldn't allow the links.

Since there is some relevance there with the links, I figured it'd be best to get some feedback from the community first. Personally, I think it's a major copyvio issue, but I don't know the exact balance between fair use and copyvio. Thoughts? EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:19, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I just removed a few of these links myself, because their addition did seem to be a major spamming effort on the part of someone, probably using various names to avoid attracting attention, and this should probably not be encouraged, but I can see that the links might perhaps be useful to some, even as the IMDb links are. I really don't have any strong feelings either way at this point, but I am irritated by what does seem to be primarily a concerted spamming effort. ~ Kalki 23:42, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

These links continue to accrete, albeit at a more moderate pace. I take a dim view of them myself, considering them to be on a par with YouTube links: nearly useless as citations; mostly superfluous for "see also;" but occasionally, very occasionally, potentially helpful for material that is hard to find in other media.
I see no value in linking to sound bites from films in current release or available on DVD. Having reviewed the site's meta pages, I think it is fair to assume anything posted within the terms of use (a hypothetical assumption, to be sure), unless it is already in the public domain, is either self-published original content or promotional material for a publication. ~ Ningauble 18:56, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

They're still coming. I'm removing them from everywhere I can, since after a few weeks, nobody's argued for them to be kept; they're spreading pretty insidiously everywhere... EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:48, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Delete them all. On the other hand, we do have the technical capacity to host our own audiovisual media, so if there are snippets of speeches that are in the public domain (such as quotes from inaugural addresses) or would clearly be fair use (such as a few seconds of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech, or even a short quote from a movie) why not have those ourselves? BD2412 T 18:33, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm all for adding audio (or even video) clips, where relevant. Such files would be best served on Commons if they are freely available. If we're looking to test this out, we could try to incorporate File:En-ELEC08-ObamaNewYorker.ogg into Barack Obama's article.
I'd be interested in investigating our Fair Use to very special audio clips, such as the aforementioned "I have a dream" speech. But we have enough things to work on right now, I don't feel like adding to our workload. :) EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:17, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

It's an aspirational goal. I have no doubt whatsoever that an isolated 15-20 second clip of any feature film ever screened would constitute fair use. BD2412 T 17:43, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

As CEO of Entertonement, I'm happy to contribute to the discussion. We are seeing a small but consistent amount of traffic coming from WQ, and when I first saw it, I went over some of the examples. We're pleased that someone finds the value enough to post us here, and we definitely do not want to encourage spammers. I'm happy to work with the WQ community to ensure these are valid links (or to block it out entirely if that's what the community would like). Or course, I may be biased, but I think the embedded sound bites do provide some additional value - instead of just reading the quote, one can actually hear the sound bite. However, I do not under any circumstances want to encourage behavior that the WQ community disagrees with. Sites like WQ only thrive when the users rule, I don't want to be part of diluting that power in any way.

As far as fair-use is concerned, we are a fully DMCA-compliant site.

If you have any questions, comments, etc, please do not hesitate to contact me directly at aronchick@entertonement.com. User:aronchick 23:51, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Quotes about not by

I wonder if there are quotes not just by certain persons but about persons. Of course these quotes may be positive (pro) or negative (con). I am thinking about what someone may have said about an author, e.g. Ayn Rand - whether they think they are good, erudite or perhaps not so good - or a actor (same thing). Such quotes might also be about a particular book, e.g. War and Peace, or a movie e.g. Twilight or Gone With the Wind. It might also be about an actor (an actor's ability). These quotes would be by someone else of course and would be cross-linked somehow.

If this is practical or has already been done but I somehow missed it please so indicate.

—This unsigned comment is by Sir Arthur (talk • contribs) .

There are standard sections at the bottom of many pages for " == Quotes about [AUTHOR or WORK] ==" ~ Kalki 00:48, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Another new gadget: Enhanced Interwikis

I just added a gadget that I shamelessly swiped from the Simple English Wikipedia. It's called Enhanced Interwikis (which you may have figured out from the title of this post), and it allows you to toggle between the native name for each language, the ISO code, and the English name. (for example, Deutsch / de / German, or Esperanto / es / Spanish)

The best example of this in action would be the interwiki list on Main Page. EVula // talk // ☯ // 05:20, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

This does not seem to work for me. How about using w:User:Tra/sidebartranslate.js instead? Cirt (talk) 05:55, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure why, but the first click doesn't do much of anything; try clicking "in other languages" at least twice. EVula // talk // ☯ // 06:00, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Ooh! Really really neat! Thank you. Cirt (talk) 06:08, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

External link templates

I noticed that the template Template:Imdb had been deleted back in 2006. I think that these sorts of templates are extremely helpful in the external links section of articles (some of these offsite bio pages have additional places to look for research in finding sourced quotes) and I would like to go ahead and create them for usage. What do people think?

• w:Template:imdb
• w:Template:ibdb
• w:Template:TV.com person

Thanks for your time, Cirt (talk) 20:51, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I think we need an "External links" section a lot less here than we do on Wikipedia, due primarily to our much more limited scope. However, to address IMDb, I'd like to point out that we do have {{imdb title}}, which links directly to the Quotes aspect of each IMDb entry (which is more relevant than the full entry). EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:25, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Ah many thanks for that. What of the other links proposed? Cirt (talk) 21:28, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Also, it should be noted that {{imdb title}} only works for Production (movies/films/television programs) pages, not People. :( Cirt (talk) 21:30, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

See Category:External link templates — we already have {{Imdb name}}, {{Imdb title}}, {{Tv.com person}}, and {{Tv.com show}}, among others. ~ Ningauble 21:41, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much. Will use those. :) Cirt (talk) 22:02, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Are there quote pages for individuals on IMDb? I just did a cursory glance, and didn't find any; if that's the case, I don't think we need to bother linking to it. Any site that isn't an official site of the article's topic should involve just quotes about said subject; anything else and I think it's just a waste of space. EVula // talk // ☯ // 22:42, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Oh just last one would it be okay to create w:Template:ibdb ? Cirt (talk) 22:03, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't see why not. If you copy or adapt Wikipedia's w:Template:Ibdb title or w:Template:Ibdb name be sure to give 'em credit under the GFDL. ~ Ningauble 22:35, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Whenever I copy stuff from another wiki, I try to link to it in the initial edit summary.[1] That ensures permanent attribution. EVula // talk // ☯ // 22:42, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Again, if there aren't any quotes there, I don't see the point in having the template (that includes the tv.com templates). EVula // talk // ☯ // 22:42, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

EVula has a point. I was just going with the historical consensus (or precedent anyway) on IMDB. The links are rather superfluous when there a 'pedia link available. I have been known to link source material (e.g. Wikisource, Project Gutenberg) and bibliographies myself, but that's about it. I am not that keen on link farming ~ Ningauble 22:59, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

IMDB has quotes for most films (although poorly done in my opinion). I often link to external references listing the works of an author. BD2412 T 09:59, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

IMDb does have quotes for people. Unlike for works (which have separate pages), people's quotes are found in a "Personal Quotes" section of the Biography page ("www.imdb.com/name/nm{PERSON_ID}/bio"). Of course, just as with works, these links are a convenient place to start to collect quotes. Even though IMDb does have some editorial oversight of this user-added material, IMDb quotes have (in the past at least) been notoriously inaccurate and are rarely adequately sourced. People quotes should be reliably sourced elsewhere. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 20:43, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Jeff is correct. Websites such as thinkexist.com, brainyquote, etc., including IMDB are great places to start looking for quotes, but quotes need a specific source to be "sourced". Those sites don't give a specific source of where the quote was... well... quoted. Examples of sources are newspapers and news articles such as The New York Times, ESPN, Los Angeles Times, The Daily Telegraph, etc. There are many other good sources also, and it doesn't just have to be news articles. (I work on mostly baseball-related articles, and sources for baseball players are usually news articles, so that's just me) RyanCross @ 21:59, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

www.wikiquote.org portal update

See talk, please. Thanks, Nemo 11:38, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

A proposal

As it is the pages is the sources of the quotations and lists the quotations.

I would prefer it to be the other way around, eg. the pages should be the quotations, and list the sources that used it.

The reason,

Currently the wiki answer questions like;

Who said what in Pirates Of The Caribbean?

And can provide quotes from specific sources. This has a substitutionary property and as such scirts copyright violation. To help provide sources on a specific topic we need Theme pages.

My way we could the wiki would answer the following question;

Where is "Not rules as such, more like guidelines" from?

Which does not have the same degree of a substitutionary property. And we could adapt the category system to help provide sources on a specific topic.

85.166.72.37 14:22, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

• Ideally, our search bar should do that job - something for the programmers to tackle. BD2412 T 15:20, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Never going to happen. 85.166.72.37 10:30, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
    • The wiki architecture does not lend itself to using quotes as titles, nor does it make sense, given the structure of most quote compendiums, to collect quotes by the words in them rather than the subject and/or source. But it really doesn't matter because search engines are a far better mechanism for finding quotes by key words than the reverse-lookup indices found in many a printed quote collection. Either the Wikiquote search button or Google will find a quote that contains the words "not rules more like guidelines" much more rapidly and reliably than a printed index search of far fewer collected quotes. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 16:33, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
      • Not only that, but a lot of times, the quote that someone has in their mind is wrong. Plugging it into Google will give you a fairly high chance of finding out the right quote, whereas we wouldn't be able to approach that level of accuracy. EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:59, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
• We have Theme pages. We can always use more theme pages. Themes are a Good Thing™. But manual indexing can never achieve the comprehensiveness of a search engine. "The Code is more what you'd call guidelines, than actual rules" appears in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (found using Wikiquote's built-in search tool on the exact phrase "than actual rules") but the general idea likely has older provenance. ~ Ningauble 18:26, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Unlisted names

I've made a list at Wikiquote:Unlisted names of more than 4,000 names of people for whom we have articles, but who do not appear on the List of people by name - for anyone who wants to work on plugging them in to the lists. Also a good opportunity to glance through those entries and pick out the ones that we should get rid of. Cheers! BD2412 T 21:26, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

I'll probably try to work on this (might take me a while though...). Thanks for letting us know, BD2412. RyanCross @ 22:17, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

OMG, that's like 1/4 of all the articles in the wiki! Isn't there an "automagical" way to browse a flattened index of Category:People? ~ Ningauble 23:09, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

I did it with the AWB list-comparer, hence the list. BD2412 T 00:04, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

I think there is an automagical way of generating a flattened list of every page in a single category and its subcategories, but I don't remember the syntax. I was reminded of it recently while perusing MediaWiki (Wikipedia and Beyond) by Daniel J. Barrett ISBN 978-0596519797, but I haven't bought that book yet, so I can't look it up right now, nor can I recall where I was experimenting with it. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 01:53, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, an automated way is much better than manually... it took me nearly five minutes to add two names to the list... RyanCross @ 03:14, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

That should not be the case. Cut and paste! BD2412 T 15:44, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

There are still well over 4,000 names on this list, even after hundreds of fixes. Can somebody get a bot to do the heavy lifting here? BD2412 T 00:23, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Simple new gadget

There's now a gadget that, when active, causes all external links to open in new windows.

I find it helpful, which is generally the first thing I consider when I think about bringing a gadget over here. ;) EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:29, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

New Recent Changes gadget

I just installed a gadget that creates a Recent Changes box on the sidebar. It displays the last ten articles and provides diffs. Enjoy! EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:56, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

That's going to be pretty useful. It's useful at Simple English Wikipedia, and I'm sure it can be of good use here. Thank you for installing it. :) RyanCross @ 21:58, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I've been using it on the SE Wikiquote for a while, and thought it was good enough to stealborrow. :) I'm still looking around for more gadgets to swipe... in fact, I may have just found one more... EVula // talk // ☯ // 22:02, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Okay, now I've added a New Pages gadget, swiped from the Simple English Wikipedia. You can use them both, but that makes the left-hand side area really, really long. *shrug* Still, it's helpful. EVula // talk // ☯ // 22:08, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Happy to hear of another gadget installment! (e/c) Well, it's good that en.wikiquote has more gadgets to use now with some installments from other projects. When I first came here several months ago, I was surprised to see not even one gadget! It seemed that en.wikiquote was the only English project not using any gadgets back then. At least we have our own share of gadgets for editors to use now, which is good and always useful to have on any project. RyanCross @ 22:11, 29 December 2008 (UTC)