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Wikiquote:Village pump archive 38

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Judaism and Jews

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Back in 2005, Jayjg split Judaism and Jews into two separate articles, with the reasoning that "Jews and Judaism are not the same thing". While I agree with that reasoning for encyclopedic purposes, I wonder whether it really serves any ends for a collection of quotations to divide these pages. I would merge them under Judaism. Thoughts? BD2412 T 20:46, 26 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose the distinction is between quotes about the religion as such and those about followers of the religion. It is a valid distinction but does not justify two articles. After all, "Christian" and "Buddhist" just redirect to Christianity and Buddhism.--Collingwood (talk) 11:27, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It is a bit more complicated than that: one is a religion, and the other is an ethnic identity that includes both adherents to the religion and people who do not adhere to the religion. If merged, I think "Judaism" would be the wrong target because many of the quotes at "Jews" are not about religion. On the other hand, some of them do seem to be about religion, which suggests it may be difficult for contributors, or anyone, to disentangle religion from culture. Still, I don't have a strong preference between splitting and merging. ~ Ningauble (talk) 18:14, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I vote merge. If someone is looking for a particular quote chances are that they are not entirely clear which to look under and we are trying easy of reference rather than set theory, surely. --BozMo (talk) 22:22, 3 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I am going to go ahead and merge these pages. We can always have subsections on a single page to delineate disctinctions, as needed. Cheers! BD2412 T 14:32, 4 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

how to add quotations

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- I just want to add the occasional quotation I've found useful -

Preemptive semi-protection of Mitt Romney

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I would like to propose that we preemptively semi-edit-protect Mitt Romney (Barack Obama is already semi-protected), and probably Gary Johnson, Joe Biden and Paul Ryan, until after the election, to avoid the inevitable wave of partisan edit warring. Also, Abortion, which has seen recent efforts at political sloganeering. In fact, I'd suggest fully protecting them and only leaving the talk pages open for suggested additions to be added to the articles by admins pursuant to community consensus. This is just my opinion, of course, but I've never seen much good come out of the silly season. BD2412 T 02:07, 5 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'd agree; too much chance for stupidity. EVula // talk // ☯ // 04:53, 5 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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The Wikimedia Foundation is conducting a request for comment on a proposed program that could provide legal assistance to users in specific support roles who are named in a legal complaint as a defendant because of those roles. We wanted to be sure that your community was aware of this discussion and would have a chance to participate in that discussion. If this page is not the best place to publicize this request for comment, please help spread the word to those who may be interested in participating. (If you'd like to help translating the "request for comment", program policy or other pages and don't know how the translation system works, please come by my user talk page at m:User talk:Mdennis (WMF). I'll be happy to assist or to connect you with a volunteer who can assist.) Thank you! --Mdennis (WMF) (talk) 15:34, 5 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Archive bot request

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I'd like to remind the community of my open bot request, if anyone else is interested. Hazard-SJ (talk) 01:01, 7 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Y Done. Cheers! BD2412 T 14:54, 9 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Hazard-SJ (talk) 19:43, 15 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Historical racism in Jehovah's Witnesses publications

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Wikiquote recently drew notice at the Wikipedia AN/I [1] for changes made to Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania. The changes were self reverted by the same editor [2] possibly due to intimidation at Wikipedia. As I write this the talk page for the article on Wikiquote does not exist.

Now reading over the list of policies - many drawn from Wikipedia and not really obvious how to apply - I saw none to determine whether an article should exist or not. It seems weird to have a page of quotes by the Watchtower - sort of like having a page of "quotes from Molecular and Cell Biology". But I suppose you have many pages about topics (e.g. Nature) and this is a formal name for the Jehovah's Witnesses organization. I have no idea how you decide such things.

I am convinced that it is worthwhile to have quotes documenting a phenomenon regarding a religion, whether or not it is unpleasant; these quotes apparently drew notice from third party publishers and so aren't some editor's own hatchet job cut and pasted out of a box of archives. Adding so many to this general list does skew the impression - I don't know if you have a way to settle NPOV in Wikiquote articles, or how you do so even in theory based on simply the choice of quotes. One option might be to devolve the racial quotes to something like "Historical racism in Watchtower publications" etc. and link it from this page - no idea if that is common or accepted practice.

I am also convinced that having editors called out on the carpet on Wikipedia for their Wikiquote activities is an invasion of Wikiquote's right to autonomous self development, and even the canvassing of editors from Wikipedia to go here and change things would be undesirable. I would urge those of you who are familiar with this site to settle on a solution to this issue and stand up for your rights. Wnt (talk) 18:40, 8 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]


I reverted the changes. But the sources for my quotes were:

Look at http://www.watchman.org/jw/aparthid.htm

Look at http://insidethewatchtower.com/history/a-brief-history-of-racism-in-watchtower-publications/

So please understand me!--Cmmmm (talk) 20:36, 8 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Watch Tower Society has made thousands (millions) of statements on a great many topics. Collecting a few quotes about purported racism (irrespective of whether they were sourced by the individual or by some third party website with the same agenda), some from over 100 years ago, and most of which reflect the racist attitudes that were prevalent among general society at the time, is clearly POV pushing.--Jeffro77 (talk) 00:34, 9 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The suggestion of 'intimidation' is also blatantly false. There are rules about appropriate content. Or does Wikiquote not care about soapboxing and pushing personal agendas?--Jeffro77 (talk) 00:40, 9 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The implication above that the issue is about whether there should be a Wikiquote page for the Watch Tower Society at all is also false. The problem is with the extremely selective use of quoting to push the editor's personal agenda.--Jeffro77 (talk) 00:46, 9 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The rules about NPOV on this site do not apply to the selection of quotations. Maybe they should do, but it is a tricky issue to formulate a sensible policy. The relevant section of WQ:NPOV, with my underlining, says
Since Wikiquote is a collection of quotations, NPOV writing is less frequently required. This does not mean that NPOV is any less an official policy, or that it does not apply on Wikiquote. Quotations included in Wikiquote do not need to conform to NPOV, as they are reflections of the point-of-view of the quoted individual; however, all non-quote text on Wikiquote (excluding userpages and with limitations in the Wikiquote namespace) should conform to NPOV. This includes intro text on quote pages, templates intended for the main namespace (they should not express preference for or against any view, etc.), and where relevant, the contents of the Wikiquote namespace.

--Collingwood (talk) 07:34, 9 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The statement you quote is in regard to content of individual quotes. It is not justification for cherry picking of quotes to suit an agenda. Indeed, the quotes selected were not the current "point-of-view of the quoted [organisation]", but selected outdated quotes from when racism was much more prevalent in society. Wikiquote policy indicates that unless otherwise stated, policies defer to those of Wikipedia. As such, W:WP:UNDUE would apply.--Jeffro77 (talk) 07:50, 9 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Watchtower claims that this racism never happened. So there is a reason to include it.--Cmmmm (talk) 07:55, 9 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You would need to provide a reliable source to support such a claim. The anonymously-run personal websites you often defer to for your quote-mining are not reliable sources. In actual fact, whilst they don't raise the matter that racist statements appeared in their publications a century ago when such views were prevalent in society generally, nor have they denied it. In short, get off your soapbox.--Jeffro77 (talk) 07:58, 9 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The first website is not anonymous and shows that the Watchtower has made a great cover-up concerning this racist statements.--Cmmmm (talk) 08:05, 9 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Nor is it a reliable or notable source. It provides quotes from over a century ago, but provides no evidence of a 'cover-up'. You were wrong when you tried this at Wikipedia, and you're still wrong. There is no issue of the magnitude you wish to present, and no justification for cherry-picking quotes about an issue that is beyond ancillary to the scope of the organisation in question. There are plenty of forums where you are welcome to discuss conspiracy theories about cover-ups. This isn't one of them.--Jeffro77 (talk) 08:08, 9 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Furthermore, I added the date of appearance with every quote.--Cmmmm (talk) 08:15, 9 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Give it up. You're pushing an agenda based on outdated quotes that are not central to the purpose of the organisation in question. Find a more appropriate forum to discuss your pet issues.--Jeffro77 (talk) 08:18, 9 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why is the Watchtower so afraid of this old quotes?--Cmmmm (talk) 08:21, 9 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Your question makes no sense. I'm not aware that "The Watchtower", or any representative thereof, has said anything about your insignificant crusade. The fact remains that the undue weight you wish to give this 'issue' is not suitable here. Find a suitable web forum to air your thoughts.--Jeffro77 (talk) 08:35, 9 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It is obvious that Jeffro77 does care about me but what think the other editors?--Cmmmm (talk) 08:49, 9 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have two observations about this: the first is a technical but important point about accurate and honest citations, and the second concerns "quotability" and the purpose of Wikiquote.
  1. Says who? As Wnt notes, it seems weird to have quotes by the Watchtower. However, it appears to be the practice of these periodicals to run articles written by a committee on behalf of the organization, without identifying individual writers, so the "author" is a "corporate person".

    More fundamentally, the citations given do not respect the dictum that appears every time one uses Wikiquote's edit screen:  "Please cite your sources" [emphasis added]. Contributor Cmmmm states above that the actual source was a secondhand attribution so, at the very least, the citation should indicate that it is "as quoted by" the secondary source on which the contributor relies. Obscuring the actual source used is particularly troubling when it is a non-neutral blog or website that appears to be devoted to disparaging the organization.

    I have previously noticed problems with Cmmmm being unclear about "who says so", and even appearing to not understand what the phrase "quoted by" actually means, e.g. in contributions to the Joe Biden article last month. I am beginning to think that all of this editor's contributions should be reviewed with critical attention to the veracity of the citations.

  2. Quotability. Wnt is not the first person to suggest that it is worthwhile to have quotes documenting a phenomenon, but I do not believe this is consistent with Wikiquote's purpose. Almost anything can be "quoted" for some documentary purpose in some context, but in the context of a compendium of quotations what matters is "quotability", a quality that is not directly related to utility for documentary purposes.

    In my not so humble opinion Wikiquote is not an appendix to Wikipedia, and ought not be treated as an overflow bin for extended bibliographic reference materials or for elaborating and documenting details that do not fit an encyclopedic summary style. Documentary information is more appropriate for projects such as Wikipedia or Wikinews, whether it be in the form of a direct quotation or a gloss with bibliographic citation.

    My point is not about whether these quotes, or the other quotes in the article, are worthwhile for understanding something about the subject, but whether the editors of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, e.g., would even remotely consider including them as quotations that are interesting in their own right or by virtue of being widely quoted. I think not, and I would favor deleting the entire article.

In item #1 above I have tried to assume incompetence rather than malice, but I would be remiss if I did not mention that the contributor has been indefinitely blocked at Wikipedia for POV pushing and disruption. Regarding item #2, I should acknowledge that some Wikiquote contributors dissent from the opinion I gave, that the WQ:Q guideline is open to subjective interpretation, and that there are very many examples where the spirit of the guideline is not followed. ~ Ningauble (talk) 19:24, 9 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I note that I reverted my version on the Watchtower and now do not include the quotes.--Cmmmm (talk) 20:20, 9 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's good. They should not have been posted here (nor at Wikipedia...) due to WP:UNDUE. --Nouniquenames (talk) 20:38, 9 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment period on the Wikimedia United States Federation

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There is a proposal for an an umbrella organization for chapters and other groups in the US called the Wikimedia United States Federation. A draft of the bylaws is now up at meta. There will be an open comment period on the bylaws 17 September, 2012 to 1 October, 2012. The comments received given will be incorporated into the bylaws and they will be put up to a ratification vote from 8 October, 2012 to 15 October, 2012. --Guerillero (talk) 21:54, 17 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Archive bot working

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Hello. My bot is now doing automated archiving. It has made an archive of WQ:RD, for an example of how it works. I think it would be good to implement it for this page too, but we would need to move the archives to subpages. Hazard-SJ (talk) 00:34, 20 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Jesus or Christianity page

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Sorry if this is the wrong place, but I noticed this page is well over LOQ. http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jesus_or_Christianity After attempting to trim it down, my edit was reverted. What should I do / be done ? 83.70.170.48 14:59, 1 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Please have a go at pruning the page. Quite a few of the quotes do not seem particularly quotable.--Collingwood (talk) 06:53, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, please don't be discouraged. The next step is to post some specific rationale for your removals on the article talk page, so that the editorial disagreement can be settled by reasoned discussion. I posted some observations there, which are generally supportive of trimming it down. ~ Ningauble (talk) 15:38, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just tried again to remove non-quotes, trim the fat and edit down the whole heap of new words added. The same single user who appears to want to add the entire book, and bold over half of each passage, is just undoing any attempt to trim. I don't know how to report/confront on Wikiquote. And at this stage, I don't know what the next step is. 83.70.170.48 09:10, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have declared the article a copyvio. It should be heavily pruned before the template is removed.--Collingwood (talk) 12:03, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Note that the below link for Jesus or Christianity is to Archive.org where this public domain book may be downloaded. If you think that there is a copyright violation, please contact them. The copyright violation notice is invalid. Another avenue is surely available? ELApro (talk) 23:47, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above statements by 83.70.170.48 are totally mischarachterized. This article has remained open to editing and the only reversion was made on Oct 1st, after an unidentified editor deleted all of the quotes but one from the Chapter one section. This was interpreted as a vandalism or extreme censorship attack. The "the whole heap of new words added" were following the introduction of the new heading section for Chapter 4. Is nothing from chapter 4 quotable and only one statement from chapter one.? ELApro (talk) 23:42, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Jesus or Christianity was published in 1929 and is in the public domain! There is no possible copyright violation. Please do not destroy the article or its history. I do not understand why it was removed from viewing, unless the content was disagreeable and was censored. Anyone is free to edit the material, but the article's public domain history should not be destroyed. Thanks. ELApro (talk) 15:09, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As mentioned here and on the talk page, the problem is the amount of content. Only quotable material should be included, regardless of copyright status. And just because something was published in 1929 does not mean it is out of copyright. Public domain status removes one problem, but not the volume/quotability problem.83.70.170.48 15:12, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]


Note: Jesus or Christianity was originally published before 1923 and is in the public domain. ELApro (talk) 16:07, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Quote: you have "declared the article a copyvio." Please do not delete the article's history. ELApro (talk) 16:25, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I do not follow this. I can find no reference to a publication date earlier than 1929. Further, the linked page does not say that this book is out of copyright. On the contrary, it says "Copyrightowner: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc". Where a book is out of copyright, the page says so and gives the evidence; see for example here. The Googlebooks page also says that it is in copyright. What evidence do you have to the contrary? I have not deleted or amended the article's history, and would not do so without a Vote for Deletion.--Collingwood (talk) 12:21, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have not found a publication date prior to 1929 either. I was referencing this Google Book listing. However, I have mailed an inquiry to Doubleday and emailed Archive.org and BiblioLabs, LLC. So far only one response: Although BiblioLabs deals in reprints of public domain books, Leslie Gibson concedes that the book is still under copyright, but does not know who the copyright holder is. I will contact Williams Press. I may have to stand corrected. My apologies if this is the case. ELApro (talk) 15:29, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
But to my mind, the above thoughts on copyright reflect only one reason for discussion on the level of quoting that has been done from this source - I don't see that many of these quotes rise to the level of being quote-worthy in the first place. Just because you may be able to quote extensively from something that is not under copyright does not mean that you should. The page as it stood before the copyright tag was placed was one that looked more like a regurgitation of much of the book, without any sense of what is memorable or pithy and deserves to be included here. It is on that basis that I believe the page should be trimmed, regardless of the outcome of the copyright discussion. ~ UDScott (talk) 15:38, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The copyright question is probably irrelevant, but the book was published first in 1929, not earlier. Anyone can confirm this by checking worldcat.org, the Library of Congress Catalogue, the Harvard Library catalogue, Yale Library catalogue, etc., etc. If the book were published earlier than 1929, then some record of it would exist; no record of an earlier publication exists. And because it was published after 1923 in the US, it is absolutely, definitely not in the public domain unless someone can produce documentary evidence that the author or the author's heirs explicitly and publicly released it into the public domain. No amount of shouting or bold-face type can alter these very simple, easily-ascertainable facts. - Macspaunday (talk) 18:03, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Upcoming software changes - please report any problems

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(I think you don't get Global message delivery notifications here, so I don't think you'll get this twice, but if you do, I'm sorry for the duplication.)

All Wikimedia wikis - including this one - will soon be upgraded with new and possibly disruptive code. This process will affect English Wikiquote on Wednesday, October 17 (see the upgrade schedule & code details).

Please watch for problems with:

  • revision diffs
  • templates
  • CSS and JavaScript pages (like user scripts)
  • bots
  • PDF export
  • images, video, and sound, especially scaling sizes
  • the CologneBlue skin

If you notice any problems, please report problems at our defect tracker site. You can test for possible problems at test2.wikipedia.org and mediawiki.org, which have already been updated.

Thanks! With your help we can find problems fast and get them fixed faster.

Sumana Harihareswara, Wikimedia Foundation Engineering Community Manager (talk)

P.S. I'm especially notifying you about this current deployment because it has especially big code changes in it. To keep up with the smaller changes that happen every two weeks, watch the upgrade schedule.

Sharihareswara (WMF) (talk) 03:03, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Fake quotes

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I have found a quote herewhich appears to be entirely fabricated. The final quote on the page, it is attributed to the "February 1946 Issue of Psychiatry." I can find no record of this periodical ever existing, including in JSTOR and the 23,000+ similar archives available to me through my university.

How do I request that this quote be flagged as possibly fake, and request the originating editor to provide a specific cite that can be independently verified? —This unsigned comment is by John Henry (talk • contribs) .

Actually, where such manufactured quotes have been widely disseminated (as this one has, judging by the Google Books hits), we usually create a ==Misattributed== section to explain the basis for determining that the quote was fabricated. This dispels misinformation and prevents quotes from later being reintroduced into the article. See, e.g., Thomas Jefferson#Misattributed. BD2412 T 02:01, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The quotation in question seems to be from Brock Chisholm's article "The Soldier's Return," in the magazine Psychiatry, February 1946, pp. 103-105. A trip to any large library can confirm this, but that's clearly what the citation refers to. The magazine Psychiatry has been published since 1938 by the William Alanson White Psychiatric Foundation, which also published at least one book by Brock Chisholm. Psychiatry is not hard to find (for example, it's listed here: [[3]]). The magazine may not be available in digitized format in any of 23,000 digital archives searched by the original poster in this section, but that doesn't mean that the magazine doesn't exist on paper. If you can't find something on-line, the next place to look is on the library shelf. - Macspaunday (talk) 03:53, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Deterioration of English proverbs article

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This article has undergone major revisions in recent months, and I do not believe it is for the better. Interested contributors are invited to comment at Talk:English proverbs#Subject headings and Talk:English proverbs#Removal of historical citations and proverbs. Thank you. ~ Ningauble (talk) 13:38, 22 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would agree that this page is no longer in a good state - and I have commented to this effect on its Talk page. ~ UDScott (talk) 14:27, 22 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Improving communication between your wiki and "tech people"

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[main thread not yet archived]

Case in point: MediaWiki message support

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This post is intended to exemplify a very specific failure to communicate, and suggest in a very general way what the developer community might do differently.

  • Incident:  Support for MediaWiki:Wikimedia-editpage-tos-summary was discontinued a few days ago. It is no longer displayed on the edit screen. (Cf. #Edit tools and boilerplate missing thread below.)
  • Advance communication:  None that I can find.
  • Documentation available:  Nothing useful that I can find. The MediaWiki wiki has advice for finding the message that contains the text one is seeing, but this is little help for finding the appropriate message to use for text one is no longer seeing.
  • Previous instance:  This is similar to the situation in July 2009, when MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning was discontinued and replaced by MediaWiki:Wikimedia-copyrightwarning. (mw:mediawiki:Manual:Interface/Copyrightwarning still does not mention that the message is not supported in WMF installations.)
  • "What can the developer community do?"
    1. Keep in mind the possibility, especially with very high visibility MediaWiki: messages, that maybe, "HEY, we were using that!"
      Seriously: one could check, one could ask, one could warn, one could provide documentation for post hoc recovery.
    2. Since the foundation needs, or wants, to change its legal boilerplate from time to time, consider providing a commitment to (and documenting!) separate, stable message hooks for site-specific customization on select high-visibility pages.
    3. Consider organizing (and completing!) documentation on the MediaWiki wiki so that (1) it is easy to find out what messages are available for a given context without reverse engineering, and (2) differences between the generic MediaWiki product and the WMF version are clearly identified.

I don't mean to belabor the particulars of this case in point. This is just a current example of something that hit us out of the blue, more than once, and seems representative of a pattern that might give the impression of "tech people" being out of touch. ~ Ningauble (talk) 20:28, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Looking into this a little further, it appears someone did try to warn us at MediaWiki talk:Wikimedia-editpage-tos-summary, which is not a page anyone was watching. mw:MediaWiki_1.21/wmf6 does indicate that this is a "breaking change", but that is not on anybody's watchlist here either (understandably so, since the page was created just four days before the scheduled release); and I note in the edit history that it was identified as a breaking change the day after rollout was scheduled to begin. Somebody knew in advance that this would or could break things, because the question of how to publicize the change for wikis that have customized the message was raised at bugzilla:42491 last month, but nobody followed up.

I do check the meta:Wikimedia forum every week or two for important community-wide notifications. Breaking changes have sometimes been announced there, but I did not see a notice this time, which brings me to a fourth suggestion (and answer to the question at bugzilla):

  1. Announce breaking changes at the Wikimedia forum well in advance of rolling them out.
If you want to improve communications, a first step might be to persuade the "tech people" that if they know they are breaking something, then this is something that needs to be communicated. ~ Ningauble (talk) 01:47, 19 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with you on all points: that change was too careless, and I was surprised when I saw it approved. I asked for a few days if someone was going to communicate it, and I did it myself at last minute, as I could.
Posting to the Wikimedia Forum looks ok, but if you're looking specifically for breaking changes you should probably directly check the mw: pages like mw:MediaWiki 1.21/Roadmap; hopefully all releases will have readable summaries of the changes.
Documentation is another thing I care a lot about, but why are you looking for it on Manual:Interface (this is a real question, it's not always obvious where the information is expected to be)? It's on /qqq subpages like translatewiki:MediaWiki:Wikimedia-copyrightwarning/qqq, usually visible on any wiki (cf. bug 41578), and if they lack info please ask on translatewiki:Support or file a bug.
Finally, I doubt that the WMF will ever understand and appreciate the wide diversity and richness of our hundreds of projects. After all, this copyright warning change is only the last example of an en.wiki-only attitude. The WMF considers spending money on projects other than Wikipedia almost a crime (something against "legitimacy"). This is one more reason to acknowledge and support, as far as possibly, efforts like guillom's to change the situation (and don't forget that you're privileged, English is your native language). --Nemo 23:04, 23 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Freedom of speech

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I invite all those commenting above to help me expand the page Freedom of speech. I've recently cleaned it up and re-ordered the quotes in chronological order. :) It's an extremely important topic to have a resource on for reference here on the Internet. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 21:06, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Update:
Phew, that was a fun little project. :) Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 22:57, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Request for comments at Talk:OT VIII

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Additional input is requested at Talk:OT VIII#Request for comment on 'quality of quotes'. Your contribution to reaching a consensus would be appreciated. Thank you. ~ Ningauble (talk) 14:21, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Replied at the article's talk page with a suggestion for reaching a consensus. -- Cirt (talk) 16:33, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Update: UDScott (talk · contributions) has put forth a reasonable suggestion, and I have implemented it, hopefully this ('done" removed as gesture of good faith) satisfactory now. :) Have a great day! Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 19:02, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Notwithstanding that the discussion has been marked Done by the article creator, just one day after comments were solicited, opinions from others who have not participated in the discussion are still welcome. ~ Ningauble (talk) 18:38, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion was not marked as "done", I was simply noting that I had gone and "done" the suggestion helpfully given by UDScott (talk · contributions). To assume anything else is to read into something that was not stated, and therefore, a wholly incorrect assumption on your part. -- Cirt (talk) 21:34, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Update: "done", above, removed, as gesture of good faith. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 21:39, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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This is probably more than a bit presumptuous on my part, but I have started a discussion at w:Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Religion#Goals for 2013? in the English wikipedia asking what if any sort of goals we might be able to reasonably set for the next year, in wikipedia and other WF sites as well. I figured the wikipedia probably gets more attention, which is why I started the discussion there. But I would be very interested in seeing any input regarding what the editors here think might be the areas here most in need or meriting additional attention. Maybe, and at this point it is just a maybe, maybe we might be able to get some input on such topics if we have some idea what it is we really need to work on. Anyway, I would welcome any input anyone here might have. John Carter (talk) 20:01, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We don't have much in the way of WikiProjects here, but it seems like a good idea to have them. There are certainly quite a few theme articles relating to religion (one of my own first big projects here was importing a public domain collection of quotes by religious leaders), and if there are editors who want to come over from Wikipedia and focus on those, that would probably be a very good thing. BD2412 T 01:21, 5 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It certainly would, I suppose be useful to have some sort of dedicated group or groups dealing with religious quotes. And I suppose creation of such groups might be considered one of the easier and presumably more achievable goals possible, and I do think making sure the goals are achievable is probably among the most important things, because that would probably help them continue. Would there be any sort of perhaps "core list" of extant and potential pages of quotations on religion or religions which could be used as a bit of an indicator of where to focus attention? John Carter (talk) 16:47, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think the link to the category that I provided would basically be that list. All of our pages need work, although I would add that there has been much discussion of finding ways to break up our extremely long Religion page into more user-friendly pieces. BD2412 T 18:16, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Quotes about MediaWiki

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I'm doing research on MediaWiki, if anyone knows of interesting or pithy quotes about MediaWiki, please let me know at Talk:MediaWiki, it would be most appreciated! Thank you, -- Cirt (talk) 17:17, 5 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Global account userbox

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Several other WMF projects, including the Finnish, French, and Italian Wikiquotes, have a “User SUL” userbox template for identifying global accounts: see mine at Commons, for example. But there doesn’t seem to be one here. Is there a reason for that? I’d be willing to create one (presumably by copying & modifying a suitable example from elsewhere), but I don’t have a clue how.—Odysseus1479 (talk) 22:44, 5 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it really needs any modification other than changing the logo to the Wikiquote one. We could chop out the multilingual stuff as this is purely an English language site, but it's not crucial. Having said that, I'm not sure that we need the userbox.--Collingwood (talk) 13:11, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well, commons:Template:User SUL runs off of the same {{userbox}} template that we've already got, so we could probably just copy the code over to {{User SUL}}. I'd agree with Collingwood that we don't really need it, but then again, we don't need a lot of things that we do anyway. :) EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:25, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback on wrong/misleading quotations

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FYI [4] --Nemo 16:08, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A Thucydides misattribution sorted out

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I've sorted out a very common misattribution to Thucydides, but I'm not at all certain that I've formatted or presented it correctly. Could someone who is more expert than I am possibly take a look and make any necessary corrections? Thanks! - Macspaunday (talk) 17:10, 13 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Looks OK to me - I just added a little formatting that we use to set Misattributed sections a little apart from other quotes sections. ~ UDScott (talk) 17:14, 13 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! I've now corrected the publication date, which I had lazily entered without checking it adequately - Macspaunday (talk) 17:16, 13 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Edit tools and boilerplate missing

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Has anyone else noticed that the edit tools and some of the boilerplate text (viewable here) have disappeared from the bottom of the edit screen in recent days, or is it just another new incompatibility with my browser (IE7)? ~ Ningauble (talk) 20:37, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've noticed it too - and I am using Firefox. ~ UDScott (talk) 21:21, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, how can we fix this? Is there somewhere to send a notification or complaint to MediaWiki people? -- Cirt (talk) 21:25, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I will look into it, and should have a solution by sometime tomorrow. I wanted to know first whether it was just me. (The same thing happened a few years ago when support for the MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning message was discontinued.) ~ Ningauble (talk) 21:34, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks very much! -- Cirt (talk) 21:36, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Edit tools

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I have restored the edit tools using the MediaWiki:Edittools message. I think the tool set could benefit from a little cleanup. In particular, I propose the following amendments:

  1. Remove some wiki markup items from the "Insert characters" section that duplicate items in the "Wiki markup" section, specifically: [ ], [[ ]], {{ }}, and |.
  2. Remove curly quotes ( ‘ “ ’ ” ) from the "Insert characters" section, because this punctuation is deprecated in Wikiquote articles.
  3. Remove footnote related markup from the "Wiki markup" section, because footnotes are deprecated in Wikiquote articles, specifically: <ref></ref>, {{Reflist}} , and <references/>.
  4. Remove <blockquote></blockquote> from the "Wiki markup" section, because this format is deprecated in Wikiquote articles. (However, it is occasionally used in user pages and, more rarely, in discussions.)
  5. Move {{DEFAULTSORT:}} from the end of the "Wiki markup" section to immediately after [[Category:]], with which it is associated, because its use is often neglected.
  6. Add <nowiki></nowiki> to the "Wiki markup" section, because escaping wiki markup is logically important to wiki markup (and because I, for one, use it a lot).

Are these changes agreeable? ~ Ningauble (talk) 15:53, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

These proposals all sound fine to me. ~ UDScott (talk) 17:53, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'd put DEFAULTSORT before categories, because that's how I always format articles, otherwise I'm happy.--Collingwood (talk) 20:23, 19 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
 Y Done. ~ Ningauble (talk) 14:55, 21 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Boilerplate text

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I am still looking into this part. Note that, for similar purpose, en.Wikipedia uses MediaWiki:Editpage-head-copy-warn to place a discretely brief message at the top of the edit page. If we want to use the header message then our boilerplate text should probably be similarly trimmed and toned down.~ Ningauble (talk) 15:53, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Nonfiction books Category

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Looks like there might be a need for additional Nonfiction book subcategories: "Religious Studies books," "Psychology books" and "Sociology books." ELApro (talk) 22:01, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, feel free to add these or others. I recently added several subcats for Nonfiction books, but of course there are other possibilities. ~ UDScott (talk) 02:16, 19 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, -- Cirt (talk) 04:36, 19 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Can we have some consistency? It's "Nonfiction books" but "Non-fiction authors".--Collingwood (talk) 20:24, 19 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree - I believe that the non-hyphenated version is more commonly accepted now, but of course WP uses the hyphenated version. See this link for a discussion on which is better. In the end, I don't care, but you're right, we should be consistent. ~ UDScott (talk) 21:19, 19 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

sitenotice

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MediaWiki:sitenotice hasn't been changed since 2008. If there's been nothing meaningfully new to say there in four years, it should probably just be blanked. 121a0012 (talk) 01:58, 26 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's not quite correct. It was used last year and earlier this year to warn about maintenance work. However, you are right that it has basically said the same thing for a long time, but surely it is something worth saying.--Collingwood (talk) 11:10, 26 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Merging accounts certainly isn't something that is "news" anymore, but copyright cleanup is still plenty valid (and is likely to always be so). But until there's something to change it to, I don't see much point in bothering. EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:08, 26 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The point would be not annoying users with out-of-date and irrelevant messages. I would not have mentioned it if it were not irritating. 121a0012 (talk) 01:24, 27 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that it's quite irritating. I doubt anyone can give any reason to keep it there.
The cleanup page has been mostly inactive for years now, and visits have dropped too, so keeping it in the sitenotice is proved to be useless. It's just a list of pages that don't need action, after all. A general tasks page would be a more useful thing to link, but if it's preferred to keep the same note one could directly link Category:Pages which need their copyright status checked: that's where the actionable items and even the instructions are. --Nemo 08:50, 27 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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