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CensoredScribe and bare URLs

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Even after his one-month block, CensoredScribe still continues to (I think purposefully) bring Wikiquote's standards down, by posting low-quality irrelevant "quotes" followed by a name and an equally irrelevant number (bare URL).

He had previously been warned about the use of bare URLs (months ago) but is still doing it: diff, diff.

Expecting other editors to clean up after him, especially after having already been told how to properly cite sources, is not just lazy and rude, but can be considered a form of vandalism (when done to hundreds of pages). If he continues to do this, I think he should be blocked again (but for a longer time). ~ DanielTom (talk) 00:43, 6 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • I imagine you banned the person who added those errors to the Asimov page as well, and your not just picking on me for religious and political differences that would be politically divisive to actually state as your official rational. Nope, it's cause adding that bare URL to the Batman and comics pages, cause a [1] might as well be a bullet in someones arm. If this communal decision was so important than you should also use a direct quotation of the conversation to weed out me and all the the typographically unfit to edit from the wiki pool. Nice to see you too Daniel.

Also thanks for giving me heads up on my user page. Also you didn't bother to actually state so that others could investigate, even though I've only edited 4 page, I gathered there was some concern that I edit too much so I'm deliberately spacing the information I've already acquired over the last month out to make it last longer. The majority of my time now will consist of asking other editors to review the half dozenposts I make daily, which I imagine you will be starting to revert all of for no explicable reason, right after you delete those 1 or 2 bare Urls for poisoning the wiki with typographic sepsis.

You are aware that there was a time on wikiquote where unsourced statements were allowed right and that those are worse than bare url's whicha re at least verifiable? Did you Daniel Tom, personally lead the rally to ban everyone who made them the day after that decision was passed or id you not care like most people? If at the village pump there isa thread where there isa cncensus that I am not allowed to add bare urls I will play along. Because if you are picking on me in particular instead of cleaning up vandalism like I did on the Asimov page you may want to rethink your priorities and consider whether your perfectionism is perhaps detrimental to the enjoyment the majority around you.

I leave you with this quote from Voltaire, "Perfect is the enemy of the good". CensoredScribe (talk) 04:19, 6 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Bare URLs are an annoyance. If you can go to the trouble of sourcing and adding the quote, I don't see why you can't go to the trouble of providing a properly formatted citation. BD2412 T 13:37, 8 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, just put a title and a date at the very least. – Illegitimate Barrister (talk) 21:40, 8 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
CensoredScribe sometimes puts a name and a title, but doesn't mention that it's a journalistic title, doesn't mention the author of the piece, what the publication is, date, etc., making it seem that it was the person being quoted who wrote it (as if it's a book title), like here: "Hillary Clinton Donald Trump, Abortion Foe, Eyes ‘Punishment’ for Women, Then Recants" – I'm starting to think that even bare URLs are preferable to his lazy, sloppy and misleading citations. ~ DanielTom (talk) 21:56, 8 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This is not just lazy, sloppy and misleading, it is blatantly false: the linked article does not attribute the quoted words to Hillary Clinton at all. I have reverted it. ~ Ningauble (talk) 11:33, 10 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Please take a look at this page created by CensoredScribe alone – and appreciate not just the impressive collection of bare URLs, but all the tediously long, irrelevant ramblings ("quotes") he compiled there as well. I think time will prove me right, that:

  • most of CensoredScribe's additions will need to be reverted (especially his appalling "About {{PAGENAME}}" sections);
  • some new policy will be developed requiring that "quotes" whose only citation is a bare URL be moved to the article's Talk page;
  • more and more people will come to the inevitable conclusion that CensoredScibe is simply not fit to edit Wikiquote.

But perhaps I'm being too optimistic. ~ DanielTom (talk) 02:33, 10 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Dear CensoredScribe,

I haven't really been around this year, so I'm sort of out of the loop.

You claim DanielTom is targeting you for reasons of religious and political ideological difference.  Maybe that is the case, maybe not; again, I haven't been around, so if it has been happening, I haven't borne witness to it.

I also do not know whether DanielTom has ever pushed for the blocking or banning of individuals who uploaded unsourced quotes.  I wasn't around in the era when Wikiquote transitioned from accepting to rejecting unsourced quotes.

But, the question remains:  Even if DanielTom is targeting you for religious and/or political reasons, and even if DanielTom never pushed for the blocking or banning of anyone who added unsourced quotes, why is that a reason to wait for a village pump consensus regarding bare URLs?  Why not just raise your personal standards now, regardless of whether you are being targeted?  After all, you just said that you only add six quotes a day, so it wouldn't take very much of your additional time at all to include titles and dates, would it?

Don't do it for DanielTom.  Do it for yourself.

Sincerely yours,
allixpeeke (talk) 19:18, 10 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

P. S.  (directed to all readers, not just CensoredScribe):

There is a quote that I have always heard attributed to Benjamin Franklin: "Anything worth doing is worth taking the time to do right."

However, I just tried to find the quote online, and couldn't.

If this (or some similar quote) is Franklin's, methinks someone ought to add it to our Benjamin Franklin page; if it is not, methinks someone ought to add it to the misattributed section of our Benjamin Franklin page.

(I did find a quote on Wikiquote somewhat similar to this one: "Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well" at Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield.  If the Franklin attribution is a misattribution, then when we add it to the misattributed section, we should note its similarity to this Philip Stanhope quote.)

help with requesting protection

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I've edited the eleventh doctor page in order to bring it in line with Wikiquote:Limits on quotations, but another user has reverted it a couple times, I'd like to open a dialog with them so it doesn't continue to have the two of us reverting back and forth, but thats difficult if it's not temporarily protected.

any help, or ideas on how to proceed would be appreciated. 184.147.19.57 23:26, 10 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The limits on quotations suggested have long been proposed as guidelines, but never accepted as absolutes by most people involved here — and there have also long been contentions that even those proposed are overly restrictive, especially if they were to be taken as absolutes. As you are presently editing from an anon IP any semi-protection of the page would actually block any edits you made in such manner, rather than those of the registered user who reverted yours. This issue is one that is not likely to be definitively decided any time soon, and I am not going to protect it from anon edits at this time. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 01:01, 11 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think he means to protect it from all edits until the dispute is resolved. I would support that. BD2412 T 18:44, 11 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Do we really need LGBT and Lesbian Sexual Practices?

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It seems kind of needlessly specific to have a page for Lesbian sexual practices differentiated from LGBT; considering you could just have made a page for Lesbian, Gay Bisexual Transgender and Questioning before diving the desire from the physical act. I am opposed to this page and believe it indicates a certain bias; I would appreciate any one else's opinions on the matter.I know I don't say by P's and Q's enough so thank you ahead of time. 19:58, 13 April 2016 (UTC)—This unsigned comment is by CensoredScribe (talk • contribs) .

Please provide links to the article(s) you are talking about. ~ Ningauble (talk) 13:46, 14 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for saying please, if you don't mind my asking were you unable to find the article without the links by using the search box? Would you like the page revision links or does the history tab suffice? Forgive my written stutter, unlike the spoken kind is is completely unacceptable, at least I hope verbal stuttering is still socially acceptable certain times and places like the school yard it isn't... CensoredScribe (talk) 17:53, 14 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
In reply to your question, the first thing I tried in the search box turned up a redlink. I could have searched further, but thought it simple enough to just ask. Thank you for amending your post to include links to the articles in question.

More generally, it is best practice to include links like these. Ever since the invention of hypertext, and particularly since wikimarkup makes hyperlinking so easy, this is de rigueur for clear writing. As a matter of courtesy to your readers, there should be no need to search for the subject of your post at all: it should always be just a click away. ~ Ningauble (talk) 15:09, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • Whether we "really need" an article about sexual acts, separate from social aspects of gender and sexuality, would probably depend on whether there are too many quotable quotes to fit in articles on broader themes relating to sexuality. In this case, the single quote in the present article seems to be lacking in quotability, and had already been removed from the LGBT article by Peter1c as "lacking notability, relevance, reasonable length". It is actually a mashup of two quotes from different chapters of the primary source, discussed separately below:
  1. The first quote (p. 318 in the primary source) is merely a clinical description of tribadism and, as such, and is not remotely "witty, pithy, wise, eloquent, or poignant". The opening, "Though the fact seems little known", is something of an absurdity because, of course, this has been well known since classical antiquity. It is more a case of being widely known but not mentioned in polite company at the time and place of his writing, in accord with the etiquette of Victorian morality.
  2. The second quote (p. 303 in the primary source) is simply making the plain observation that this is normal. It is neither strikingly well said nor profoundly insightful. The phrase, "At least two ... have been brought to my attention", appears to indicate he was very little informed about the subject on which he held forth.
In defending the quote, CensoredScribe asserts that "Marston was the Kinsey of his time but overshadowed by his comic". Nothing could be farther from the truth. The Kinsey Reports are ranked among the most influential scientific books of the century. Marston's ruminations on sexuality, published as popularization rather than science, had no noticeable impact. Switching to comic books was a good career move.

Notwithstanding Marston's boldness in flaunting taboos of his milieu, there is nothing enduringly noteworthy in these remarks, and there is no need for this page to enshrine them at Wikiquote. ~ Ningauble (talk) 15:14, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I have commented about this page here and here.  allixpeeke (talk) 22:36, 10 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yu-Gi-Oh! GX

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Hi, there are Yu-Gi-Oh! GX and Yu-Gi-Oh GX which deal about the same argument. Would you please merge them? :) Thanks. --Superchilum (talk) 08:19, 14 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm confused about pop culture quotes because I was thanked for adding Gargoyles to the war page yet Peter1c deletes every pop culture reference.

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The war page contains a number of quotes from pop culture; in fact a number of pages have sections dedicated to fiction exclusively. I was wondering whether Peter1c was aware of this when making mass revisions because it seems to me they are imposing a very narrow definition of what is acceptable without actually providing what that definition is. I would appreciate someone other than Kalki, Peter1c, Daniel Tom, or Ninguable chiming in on this; though their opinions are welcome as well, it seems to be a rather insular critique group for me of late. I hope the bare urls are better, BD2412 mentioned it was a problem, I'll eventually go through the...I'm estimating 10 theme pages, with the unformatted web interviews; it's not a problem outside of the entries for the works themselves...I should probably count those but those pages need cleanup beyond just that. I would appreciate Peter's view on electronic games cleanup. I believe I've established I'm a capable judge of multiple fields and not just western history and literature; admittedly I prefer the history to the literature. CensoredScribe (talk) 17:50, 14 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The issue is not that these quotes disputed on 14 April are from pop culture. Pop culture in not banned from Wikiquote. The issue with these quotes, as with many or most of CensoredScribe's contributions, is clearly identified in the edit summaries as lack of relevance to the topic of the page. I agree with the assertion in the heading that CensoredScribe is confused about this. ~ Ningauble (talk) 13:37, 23 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I definitely think the Bugs Bunny quote deserves retention.  Although it does not comment on the nature of war, it is a memorable, famous, and easily-quotable declaration of war, perhaps the most memorable, famous, and easily-quotable declaration of war from all of fiction.

Also, I see that the page desperately needs a certain Randolph Bourne quote added to it.

allixpeeke (talk) 22:49, 10 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Bugs Bunny line is not original: it is an homage to Groucho Marx, as documented at Wikipedia. Nor was it entirely original to Marks Brothers films because, of course, without the addition of Groucho's wry "of course" it had long been an ordinary figure of speech in serious discourse. ~ Ningauble (talk) 13:08, 11 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Server switch 2016

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The Wikimedia Foundation will be testing its newest data center in Dallas. This will make sure Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster. To make sure everything is working, the Wikimedia Technology department needs to conduct a planned test. This test will show whether they can reliably switch from one data center to the other. It requires many teams to prepare for the test and to be available to fix any unexpected problems.

They will switch all traffic to the new data center on Tuesday, 19 April.
On Thursday, 21 April, they will switch back to the primary data center.

Unfortunately, because of some limitations in MediaWiki, all editing must stop during those two switches. We apologize for this disruption, and we are working to minimize it in the future.

You will be able to read, but not edit, all wikis for a short period of time.

  • You will not be able to edit for approximately 15 to 30 minutes on Tuesday, 19 April and Thursday, 21 April, starting at 14:00 UTC (15:00 BST, 16:00 CEST, 10:00 EDT, 07:00 PDT).

If you try to edit or save during these times, you will see an error message. We hope that no edits will be lost during these minutes, but we can't guarantee it. If you see the error message, then please wait until everything is back to normal. Then you should be able to save your edit. But, we recommend that you make a copy of your changes first, just in case.

Other effects:

  • Background jobs will be slower and some may be dropped.

Red links might not be updated as quickly as normal. If you create an article that is already linked somewhere else, the link will stay red longer than usual. Some long-running scripts will have to be stopped.

  • There will be a code freeze for the week of 18 April.

No non-essential code deployments will take place.

This test was originally planned to take place on March 22. April 19th and 21st are the new dates. You can read the schedule at wikitech.wikimedia.org. They will post any changes on that schedule. There will be more notifications about this. Please share this information with your community. /User:Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:07, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

CensoredScribe still working diligently to bring Wikiquote's standards down

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He still has no idea what quotes are. Has anyone been paying attention to his latest edits at all? Here's his most recent (IMO worse than Wikia-level) "contribution":

  • When attempting to run from a fast-moving, deadly animal,” said, “high heels are perhaps the worst choice of footwear possible. Running shoes would get my vote.

These are not notable, memorable quotations. (I won't go over the lazy and incomplete citations again. The transcription [«...animal,” said, “high...»] is equally poor.) My question is, what is it going to take for CensoredScribe to be blocked again? (Or am I the only one bothered by this?) ~ DanielTom (talk) 03:06, 23 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps the best thing to do is for you to apply for adminship; I think you would get a lot of support (including mine, but other more active contributors would matter more). - Macspaunday (talk) 15:55, 23 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, but no thanks. I do appreciate your (potential) support, though. Getting back to the subject at hand, I will just state for the record that two different editors sent me "thank you" notifications for my starting this section, which probably means I am not alone in thinking CensoredScribe's edits to date have been very problematic and annoying. He has now been blocked again, this time for a couple of months. (I don't actually like seeing people blocked, but in this case it is 100% called for and unfortunately necessary.) ~ DanielTom (talk) 22:37, 24 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

rename Category:DC comics to Category:DC Comics

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I'm not sure if this is the correct place to post this, but Comics needs to be in uppercase. --Ixfd64 (talk) 18:50, 23 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Ixfd64: Thanks, I'll use AWB. --Rubbish computer (HALP!: I dropped the bass?) 20:21, 23 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
 Y Done --Rubbish computer (HALP!: I dropped the bass?) 20:26, 23 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your hard work! --Ixfd64 (talk) 21:12, 24 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Does a quote need to be quoted to be a quote, and are my about sections Daniel Tom's reverting acceptable for those fan specific articles?

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DanielTom seems to have decided at this time to go through my edits systsenatically, and this is a good thing admiteddly in that there's alot of bad pop culture quotes I added to theme articles. However my about sections try and make even the worst media appreciable for some technical hallmark or one of the actors. If you don;t believe me than try making an about section for Halle Barrys Cat Woman that's memorable isn't about her being hot and working out which is what people went to see that movie for. Daniel Tom also excludes a lot of scientists based off not being quoted else wheres. I think we all need checks and balances, in my case clean up for my many errors with loose associations, mostly from pop culture but also the occasional religious figure. Keep in mind thought Daniel and many others clearly goes through all my edits; where as I've yet to meet another who frequently reverts Daniel Tom. CensoredScribe

I have an idea, if Daniel Tom is willing, before reverting the hundreds of about sections I and others have made; if they would provide 1 or 2 examples of an acceptable about section for a work of fiction so the community can analyze it. If others ask Daniel Tom might actually listen and help us all, particularly me learn. CensoredScribe (talk) 21:14, 23 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I spent the past 2 days attempting to clean up some of CensoredScribe's worst "contributions" (maybe 15% of them), but have in fact been very conservative in my reversions. For instance, while I believe that "quotes" whose only citations are bare URLs (that look like random numbers to readers) should be deleted or moved to the talk page, I have not acted on this principle, because it has yet to be established by the Wikiquote community. Just so people here understand what I'm referring to, here's a (by no means exhaustive, and in no particular order) collection of edits by CensoredScribe, in his typical lazy style, that I have not reverted (even though I do think most of them should be reverted):
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37] [38] [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] [44] [45] [46] [47] [48] [49] [50] [51] [52] [53] [54] [55] [56] [57] [58] [59] [60] [61] [62] [63] [64] [65] [66] [67] [68] [69] [70] [71] [72] [73] [74] [75] [76] [77] [78] [79] [80] [81] [82] [83] [84] [85] [86] [87] [88] [89] [90] [91] [92] [93] [94] [95] [96] [97] [98] [99] [100] [101] [102] [103] [104] [105] [106] [107] [108] [109] [110] [111] [112] [113] [114] [115] [116] [117] [118] [119] [120] [121] [122] [123] [124] etc.
CensoredScribe admits it is a "good thing" that I went through his edits "systsenatically" (sic) because "there's alot [sic] of bad pop culture quotes I added to theme articles". Nearly all of my reversions had to do with this; almost none were of his hundreds of terrible and unmemorable "About {{PAGENAME}}" sections, which deface previously good-looking articles that many editors worked hard to build. I did notice, though, that CensoredScribe creates many such sections in just a couple of minutes. They are not well researched, for the most part. As I've already explained, he basically googles the page's name + "interview" and then copy/pastes excerpts into Wikiquote (often from blogs or other such unreliable websites), with no regard for memorability/quotability (and sometimes adds them not just incredibly quickly, but without the slightest care). That's the reason we now have many "quotes" in said sections literally starting with "And", "But", "Well", "Yet", "Actually", "You know", "They", "Yeah."  I do feel they are disrespectful towards the editors who previously worked on those pages (not to mention disgraceful and embarrassing for Wikiquote). Another thing I didn't do, is review his potentially inaccurate categorizations (what got him banned on en.wikipedia) of hundreds of articles here, but noticed in my quick scan that UDScott already reverted some of them.
I was asked to "provide 1 or 2 examples of an acceptable about section for a work of fiction so the community can analyze it". Here are a few of my own (even though I don't actually follow much contemporary fiction, and other editors could probably provide better examples):
To me, quotes by the original authors are often interesting (e.g., diff or diff):
  • First, I have to say, there is no resemblance between the movie and the book. Having said that, the movie in itself, purely as a movie, I found to be very enjoyable. I had fun watching it. What I would hope is that anyone who sees the movie would certainly enjoy it, but I'd also hope that they'd actually read the book. The book is quite different. It's a very powerful, very moving story, and I think people would find a lot more depth in the book.
I also don't mind the occasional biting criticism – e.g., about The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, diff:
More classical examples: about Paradise Lost (diff, diff, etc.):
  • The want of human interest is always felt. Paradise Lost is one of the books which the reader admires and lays down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than it is. Its perusal is a duty rather than a pleasure. We read Milton for instruction, retire harassed and overburdened, and look elsewhere for recreation; we desert our master, and seek for companions.
    • Samuel Johnson, Lives of the English Poets (1781), "The Life of Milton".
(See also: about An Essay on Criticism, An Essay on Man, The Iliad of Homer (Alexander Pope)...)
Or, about The Lord of the Rings (diff, diff, etc.):
  • As we read we find ourselves sharing [the characters'] burden; when we have finished, we return to our own life not relaxed but fortified.
These should be enough to give you an idea of what I would consider an "acceptable about section" (with actual "quotable" quotes). ~ DanielTom (talk) 01:04, 25 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you DanielTom for your substantial work on cleaning up the mess this user has created. There remains much to be done, and it will take a long time, but this is a very good start. (I disagree about your example from Lloyd Alexander. The issue of film adaptations failing to capture the depth of books on which they are based is commonplace, and Alexander does not say anything particularly new or insightful about it.) ~ Ningauble (talk) 12:53, 25 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
(That's true, but he also mentioned that he found it enjoyable and fun – of course nothing "particularly new or insightful", but still quoteworthy as the original author's reaction to the film adaptation. Think of it this way, would Tolkien say the same thing about the Jackson films...? Still, I concede that it was not the best example.) ~ DanielTom (talk) 13:46, 25 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • CensoredScribe's original question about "those fan specific articles" rests on a mistaken understanding of what Wikiquote is. Wikiquote is not a fan site. Users interested in such material might consider Wikia, which bills itself as "The Home of Fandom", a more appropriate venue. ~ Ningauble (talk) 12:56, 25 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Good point. I would also add that CensoredScribe seems to be operating under another false assumption, viz. that all pages need to have about sections. But of course, it may well be the case that there are many works about which nothing memorable has been said. Another important concern (which Peter1c, in his occasional reversions of CensoredScribe's irrelevant "quotes", has already articulated much better than I can) is that the blocks of text in CS's About sections almost always invoke/mention without any clarification the names of people or characters whom the general reader can not be expected to be familiar with, and are often packed with very detailed and completely unquoteworthy information, which again is not the purpose of Wikiquote. The "quotes" CensoredScribe says he plans to add to various articles once his block expires make me believe this pattern will continue... ~ DanielTom (talk) 16:40, 25 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Translated quotes lacking the original text

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Today I stumbled upon Herodotus, which I believe is just one example of the numerous pages here where translated quotes lack the original source text. I think the quality of EN-WQ would improve a lot if source texts were added as much as possible in such cases. On the Dutch version of Wikiquote, this is already a standard rule now, as well as the rule that all quotes must have at least one previous citation from a relevant source before they can be added to Wikiquote. Would this rule perhaps also work here if it were implemented? Maybe a subproject to improve as many pages as possible can be created here? De Wikischim (talk) 10:47, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Though adding quotes with sourcing to texts in the original languages has long been encouraged as an OPTION, especially where there are significant divergences in alternate interpretations or translations available, it has never been a requirement, nor do I believe that it ever should be — such a requirement would considerably hinder the growth of the project in adding material from the broad abundance of materials originally created in other languages, which are widely or even most available in English translations. Using such standards VERY FEW if ANY of the the ideas presented on the Herodotus page and many others, would presently be presented. The existence and growth of MOST of the pages for ancient philosophers, and scriptures of various religious traditions, would be extremely hindered, especially with the already small and habitually limited work force of volunteers here.
Wikiquote is a project that DEPENDS upon volunteers to add quotations, and most people should be encouraged to add from what materials they find most notable and accessible — and especially in the English language, most of these are NOT necessarily original language sources. Relative to such people eager to add what tangible contributions they can, I for one have long believed that are presently quite an excess of people willing to "volunteer" in creating rules for OTHERS — by which many contributions by most are far more constrained and limited, rather than encouraged. I believe encouraging people eager to promote broad awareness of diverse ideas is far more valuable to this project and to Humanity as a whole than promotion of any further constraining rules which hinder their contributions would be. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 12:09, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your answer. OK, of course I see what you mean. However, it is not my intention at all to make this is a whole new requirement for a quote to be added to this project, or so. I was only curious to see if you'd see it here as a possible improvement and if creating a subproject or someting like that this would perhaps be an option. The fact that the above-named rule is currently a strict policy on NL-Wikiquote (which was adopted there some years ago) has nothing directly to do with it. De Wikischim (talk) 13:38, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding two separate points in De Wikischim's inquiry:
  1. Including the original language is a Good Thing™ but I don't think requiring it is a good idea because most contributors only have sources available in translation. The days when every educated person was expected to be conversant in Greek and Latin are long past, and nearly everyone relies on translations. On the other hand, many of our pages containing translated quotes do have a very serious problem that needs work: failure to cite the source of translation. As I often say, If it ain't cited, it ain't a quote. (You can quote me on that.)
  2. Requiring secondary or tertiary sources for every quotation, on the principle that if it ain't quoted it ain't a quote, has been discussed before but not adopted. (Such a rule would require deleting the majority of Wikiquote's content!) I am of two minds on this. On the one hand, I have argued that for sufficiently notable works our contributors should be welcome to include passages of their own choosing that have strong qualities of quotability. On the other hand, because "quotability" is so subjectively difficult to define, and because many things are "notable" for reasons having little to do with the quality of their words, this laxity has resulted in accumulating mass quantities of banalities that have no place in any compendium of quotations.
At the intersection of these two issues lies the phenomenon of quotes that are both selected and translated by the contributors themselves. I do believe that something which has never been quoted or translated in English before should be presumed inappropriate for the English Wikiquote. ~ Ningauble (talk) 14:41, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I also think it is very good when entries include quotations with the English translation as well as the original language. I don't think it should be mandatory, but some form of project to add the original languages to entries is something I support. Regarding including citations; I am not in favour of this. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 23:54, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • I always add the original text when it is available to me and I can be sure it is accurate. I rarely do it for Greek philosophers because I have no understanding of Greek (other than its alphabet), which makes transcribing any sentence in Greek take forever. An exception to this would be quotations from widely available texts already transcribed online, like those of the New Testament (or Old Testament). But I know Greek speaking people who tell me they can't read ancient Greek, so even Greek native speakers wouldn't be able to contribute to Wikiquote's articles on ancient Greek writers if adding the original texts were a requirement. ~ DanielTom (talk) 21:32, 7 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Fair use in the Kingdom of the Netherlands (And other country's)

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But did you know, if you do it the way you do it now, it's copyvio? The said conclusion is that most of Wikiquote-EN is copyvio for the Dutch law. You have to deal with the Dutch law as well with the American law for Dutch quotes. And that's the same in most European country's, also England. Best regards, Graaf Statler (talk) 22:38, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Today I created an article for Posidonius, Cicero's teacher, with quotes only in English, without the original texts. Is it copyvio? Even if the English texts were not out of copyright, quotations from them (if only a small portion of the text, for educational/nonprofit purposes, and properly sourced) clearly fall under fair use. (In UK law, unlike what Graaf Statler claims, quotations also fall explicitly under fair use/dealing.) But the English translations I used were published in 1920 and 1925, so (as is the case of most translations of foreign authors I come across on en.wikiquote) their copyright has already expired; in this case they are even available on Wikisource. Graaf Statler is trolling with serious issues; he appears to have some sort of broader agenda against the WMF – at least I see him complaining to Mdennis (WMF), claiming that most of his home Wikipedia is also "copyvio", where he got blocked, and after a few other rants he got blocked on Meta today as well. Certainly claiming that "most of Wikiquote-EN is copyvio" is patently false, outlandish and irresponsible. And it makes people less willing to listen to his otherwise more reasonable case. Requiring further citations for Dutch (and other foreign languages) recent quotes that are not out of copyright is actually something we could adopt (even though articles where these appear are but a very tiny fraction of all Wikiquote's articles). ~ DanielTom (talk) 21:32, 7 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The small problem is that user Waheldad is explaining the system you are using is copyvio, and not me (In the link.) And in Europe we don't have fair use , and Wikiquote-EN is under and European law and American law form European matters. And I am not talking about the PD. So, a lot of words and no solution. And yes, telling something is copyvio seems to be trolling in the Wikimedia-family. Very special. But you can always block me, what happend when I told on Wikipedia_NL some users were copying and not writing articels. With the proof by the way. And copvio is copvio, tiny fracion or not. By the way, how tiny is that "tiny fraction"? Graaf Statler (talk) 21:53, 7 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
"The article only discusses American Fair Use legislation. But a lot of Wikiquote articles deal with quotes from foreign sources. Examples: Geert Wilders draws its first quote from De Limburger (a Dutch newspaper) from September 4, 2004. As Geert Wilders is still alive he can claim copyright on his "statement". OK, there is very little creativity in this statement, but then look at the 3rd quote, which has more uniqueness. Fact is that these statements have copyright under Dutch law, and where the US law recognizes "Fair Use" for quotations, the Dutch law has "Citaatrecht". And the Dutch citaatrecht is much more restrictive than Fair Use. It requires a "purpose" for quoting, other than creating a collection of quotes. In the Dutch WQ we have adapted our approach to only list quotes that are already quoted elsewhere (and list at least one of these secondary sources) and link them to a completely description of the primary source (which in most cases is not given in the secondary sources, even if this is mandatory in citaatrecht)" By User:Whaledad.
Very tiny. For instance: we have about 60 pages for Dutch people, the overwhelming majority of which don't have any text in Dutch in them – most quotes are from English sources (interviews or books published in the US). I'd be surprised if you could find more than 10 pages with any Dutch text in them, and then you would have to show that those few quotations, in an educational site of public interest, are "copyvio", which still hasn't been established. Anyway, let's pretend the 10 pages are all copyvio (which is unreasonable): 10 / ~25000 articles * 100 = 0.04%. ~ DanielTom (talk) 22:37, 7 May 2016 (UTC) last edit: 22:55, 7 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Fine. And now what about the English, Danish, German, Greek etc articles. And how is the situation in Japan? Only America has fair use you know! And what about the PB of 95 years in America? And published in the USA does't change anything! Wikiquote under American AND Dutch law! Or under the German AND American law. And did you know if you have any critic on Wikimedia you are a Troll? Graaf Statler (talk) 22:47, 7 May 2016 (UTC) PS No Thom, you are not nice, but ignoring arguments and facts, like everybody in the Wikimedia family! You need German Dutch etc souces. Not American! But better and more easy to call someone a troll, is't it? Or to block him, also a good solution. Graaf Statler (talk) 23:03, 7 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The point is, you are creating havoc and running your mouth without a clue. You jump to conclusions too quickly. I didn't say anything about blocking you being a solution. But playing the victim when you've been blocked on both Dutch Wikipedia and Meta (for cross-wiki "Intimidating behaviour/harassment") doesn't work very well. You've also been blocked on NL-Wikiquote by Whaledad last week. That's not a good sign. Now, if your claim about English law is correct, that would mean a compendium of quotations like The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (published in Oxford), which quotes many times from recent English sources, is also full of copyvio! And much more clearly than Wikiquote, because, unlike us, they are for-profit. ~ DanielTom (talk) 00:24, 8 May 2016 (UTC) P.S. The WMF has actual experts and lawyers that can answer your questions/concerns. I don't want to pass myself off as an expert on these matters, so I'm not going to respond further. Try contacting them. ~ DanielTom (talk) 00:42, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You know Daniel, It is your Quote, not mine. So, I don't contact anybody, and I am not a victim at all, because I am sitting in the sun and Wikipedia/media/quote can walk to the hell with their crazy blocks, copyvio and wasting of money And yes, I asked user user:Romaine to inform that experts and layers something is wrong, and user:Whaledad has the answer, but he never gave it to us. (By the way, De Wikischim has also left Wikiquote-NL because of the behavior of Whaledad.) And why don't you inform if I may ask? You are not an expert, so you don't know what is right. Shall I give you the answer why you don't do that? Because you are afraid I am right!
People don't like bad news. Block him! It's a troll! Yes, it was also one of the first thinks you said! No mister Daniel Tom, I am not a troll! They made me a troll by blokking me everywere and you believe it! Why? Because I am critical! Because I told them a wikimedia party of 15.000 euro is a big wasting of money! Give the money to the children in Africa, but don't party! That is a better solution. But believe whoever you like. Best regards and good luck with your project! Graaf Statler (talk) 07:17, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
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Traditionally, our templates use links to our sister projects (i.e. wikipedia, etc.) in the format where they place a box on the right side of the external links section. But I have increasingly seen the use of inline templates, which instead place the links in a list on the left, similar to other kinds of external links. Personally, I favor the use of the boxes, since they set these links apart from others. But in the end, I don't really care which format we use, but we should probably try to be consistent. Anyone have any thoughts on this? ~ UDScott (talk) 17:18, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Though I have occasionally used the inline format, I also tend to generally prefer the older form, for similar reasons, though I believe their size might be reduced a bit, perhaps by reducing the size of the icons somewhat. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 12:04, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I also prefer the more prominent box style interwiki links, but de gustibus non est disputandum. (The term "inline" is really a misnomer when they are used as standalone list items rather than in line with running text.) ~ Ningauble (talk) 12:51, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
My attitude is this:  We should generally use the standard box templates except in certain situations (e.g., if it screws with the page).  For example, on the page A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge, if a standard box template is used, then, depending upon the size of the window you're using, said box may partially overlap the A Nightmare on Elm Street template.  Thus, for that page, the inline template makes more sense.  allixpeeke (talk) 03:21, 21 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
My attitude toward navboxes like Template:A Nightmare on Elm Street is one of dismay and disgust. They are large and unsightly. Colors with poor contrast often make them unreadable, and they are commonly filled with useless links to nowhere. Most use a fixed width that does not respect window size.

This blight spreading across Wikiquote pages in the past year or so has mostly affected articles that do not interest me (e.g. derivative works "franchises" with little originality and dubious quotability) rather than articles I like; but as more and more articles of various kinds are disfigured by this spreading epidemic of ugliness I will cease to like them as well. ~ Ningauble (talk) 15:38, 21 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestion: In certain cases, quotes should have their own pages

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Pages in Wikiquote generally consist of,

  • lists of quotes by a specified author
  • lists of quotes on a specified theme, or
  • in some cases, lists of quotes from a specified book

I'd like to suggest that, at least in certain cases, quotes should have their own dedicated pages. I'm particularly thinking of quotes that are widely misattributed.

  • When a quote is of particular interest, especially when it is commonly misattributed, we want to give a list of early citations with sources. This amount of detail doesn't fit neatly into the bullet-point dominated format currently used.
  • The page for a quote could include all common variants in a "Variants" section. Again, this amount of detail does not fit particularly gracefully into the current format.
  • When searching for a quote, Google doesn't rank Wikiquote very highly. It instead tends to prioritize sites like goodreads.com and brainyquote.com -- sites have very little (if any) quality control, and tend to propagate misattributions. It seems likely that Google would give higher priority to pages that contain the quote as the page title.
  • We would still link to the page for the quote from the author and/or subject pages, including the full quote in the list.

If people think this is OK, I will create a demo of what a page like this could look like. . Thanks. Grover cleveland (talk) 18:49, 12 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I actually am not inclined to believe this is a good idea — and find it very likely to open the door to a plethora of trivial pages on trivial quotes with all manner of trivial controversies about them, as well as some of the more notable phrases which might have many variants or various attributions. There could be abundance of arguments regarding what exactly should be the criteria for the creation of such pages and the levels of notability or importance of such statements or controversies about them. I prefer that most of the various attributions and variants which occur to be addressed upon the pages of the attributed authors. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 01:52, 19 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I think the entire structure of Wikiquote needs to be changed to a more Wikidata-like function, where individual quotes are cataloged with relevant categories of data, and then pages are created on the fly with quotes by a particular author, within a particular theme, or with other characteristics like dates or keywords, as selected by the searcher. BD2412 T 03:34, 19 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You have stated such things at times, for quite a while — and I am very glad that that this has also remained a generally unpopular and unaccepted idea.
I believe that I am sufficiently well acquainted with the propensity of some to "automate" things to the advantage of those who favor some of the most mechanistic forms of classifications and activities, as more "efficient" than those willing to exercise broader ranges of their own imaginations and permit others to exercise and indicate theirs to the extent that doing so does not violate the principles of Justice, Unity, Liberty and intelligent association based upon these principles, as can be generally agreed to by most people.
I will simply state that I favor the wiki-model of actual human involvement in quotation presentation which permits broader ranges of innovation and diversity of presentations, within general guidelines and standards, rather than rigorously constrained or channeled database models which serve to automate the presentation of ideas and thoughts according to the preferences or mental vacuities of those most inclined to IMPOSE their own upon others. I have always recognized the actual need for some forms of agreements and guidelines in many ranges of human endeavors — but generally prefer to keep these as loose as possible, permitting nuance and innovation, rather than create or support extremely constraining formulations which permit and impel very rigorous and often quite stupid and difficult or impossible to ignore "standardizations".
What you seem inclined to propose might perhaps work better as a very extensive and substantial sub-project of options at "Wikidata" for those perhaps interested in developing them, rather than one which would pretty much ignore and discard much of the work that has been done by thousands of editors in over a decade of gradual work here, and reshape the whole project to what I consider would be a rather lame mechanistic "efficiency" of simplistic "standardization" with extreme disregard of the unformulated essences of many aspects and patterns of Truth, Reality, Wit, Wisdom and Beauty — and the diverse interconnections which exist among these in complex ways, which at least a few people are sometimes inclined to explore and appreciate in ways easily stifled or even dissipated and eliminated by many formally adopted formalistic formulations, which favor the cancerous growth of idolatrous ideologies of idiocy rather than the growth of splendrous imaginative ideas of idealistic intelligence. So it goes… ⨀∴☥☮♥∵ॐ …Blessings. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 11:44, 19 May 2016 (UTC) + tweaks[reply]
At the same time, however, limiting the contents of pages to what is added by "human" involvement means that numerous good quotes for inclusion with a theme or by an author will be overlooked, because humans don't necessarily have the patience to find all the quotes relevant to a theme. At least our search function allows us to find keywords, but having used it to aid in the assembly of many pages, I have noted that it also returns many false positives. For example, when I started making the Attorney General page, most of the returns were for people who had that phrase in their description, not in a quote. BD2412 T 17:54, 21 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your response, Kalki! I'll try to address the points you raise:
[it could] open the door to a plethora of trivial pages on trivial quotes with all manner of trivial controversies about them
I think this is unlikely to happen, and even if it did, it's not clear why it's a big problem. There are benefits to having separate pages for even "trivial" quotes:
  • You can link directly to the quote, rather than having to link to a page containing a (possibly huge) list of other quotes by the same author / on the same theme.
  • If the quote belongs in more than one list (e.g. its author and its theme) then all information about the quote (e.g. list of citations, disputes over attribution) can be centralized in one place.
  • The current quote pages arranged by author / theme / book would still link to the quote's dedicated page, so we would not lose the ability to see lists arranged by author or theme.
There could be abundance of arguments regarding what exactly should be the criteria for the creation of such pages and the levels of notability or importance of such statements or controversies about them.
We already have criteria for inclusion of quotes, so I don't see why this should cause any increase in such controversies.
I've created a sample page here for a specific quote, with examples of how it would be linked from the list pages here and here. Cheers! Grover cleveland (talk) 19:03, 20 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
If I understand rightly, the pages Grover cleveland is suggesting would be a lot like those at the Quote Investigator (an excellent site, by the way), but with less exposition. With reference to the four bullet points in Grover's opening post:
  • A short list of early citations, sufficient to clarify origins or at least rebut misattributions, does fit well enough under quotes in "misattributed" sections. Many articles have this sort of information. For Wikiquote's purposes, I don't think expanding this to whole pagefuls of detail is better than simply providing a citation to more extensive analysis elsewhere, e.g., at The Quote Verifier by Ralph Keyes or Quote Investigator by Garson O’Toole.
  • Trying to list "all common variants" could be too much information. Devoting whole pages to individual quotes could be an irresistible magnet for the sort of trivial or banal rephrasings and mentions from "popular culture" and unpopular blogs that have occasionally been pruned from existing articles. There is much to be said for a format that encourages brevity.
  • Search engine optimization (SEO) is a debatable objective, and a constantly moving target. If Google ranks BrainlessQuote first for Grover's example[125] I think it is their failing, not ours. Personally, I take a dim view of SEO as something primarily used for delivering people to view content one is pushing, rather than delivering content that people are seeking.
  • Linking individual quotes from other articles, as further discussed in Grover's second post above, is a significant point but opens a large can of worms. The way we handle quotes repeated on multiple pages, whether because they are attributed to multiple authors or just because they are relevant to multiple topics, is inherently redundant and leads to inconsistencies. This might be resolved with a database driven system, as recommended by BD2412 below, but I suspect there are insurmountable design and implementation challenges to make reading, editing, and curating by the general public feasible.
That said, we do already have Category:Phrases, ostensibly for articles about individual phrases or quotations, but I think it was not well conceived and is not well populated. (I myself created a page that might be categorized thus, though it is not.) Pages in that category are not at all like what Grover cleveland is proposing. ~ Ningauble (talk) 13:10, 22 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Ningauble: We also have Category:Memes, which I have also just added to Category:Phrases. Cheers! BD2412 T 14:49, 22 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your comments, Ningauble. I guess the fundamental question is: what is the aim of Wikiquote? According to to Wikiquote:Policies and guidelines (bold added):
Our goal with Wikiquote is to create a free compendium of quotations--indeed, the largest compendium of quotations in history, in both breadth and depth. We also want Wikiquote to become a reliable resource.
If we want Wikiquote to be large in both breadth and depth, then analysis of quotes and "whole pagefuls of detail" seems appropriate, in the relatively few cases where a single quote does warrant such analysis. Merely pointing people to analysis elsewhere seems unsatisfactory to me -- those other sites may go offline or require registration, books may be inaccessible, and in any case they will not be free for reuse because of copyright restrictions. And it seems to negate one of the most exciting features of Wikis -- that, by aggregating material from multiple reliable sources, they can become more comprehensive than any other single source. That, after all, is how Wikipedia has become such a success.
Devoting whole pages to individual quotes could be an irresistible magnet for the sort of trivial or banal rephrasings and mentions from "popular culture" and unpopular blogs that have occasionally been pruned from existing articles.
I don't see this as a huge objection. If material does not meet Wikiquote standards, it can be removed in the future, just as it is now.
There is much to be said for a format that encourages brevity.
Yes, and we would still have one. The lists of quotes arranged by author / topic would still be there, and these could be even more brief than they are today, because we would have the option of adding additional detail to individual quote pages, rather than cramming it into nested elements of the the lists.
Cheers. Grover cleveland (talk) 18:52, 23 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Ningauble:, @Kalki:, any other editors-- any repsonses? I feel that this is something that would take the Wikiquote project in the right direction. Please let me know of any further comments you have in response to the latest arguments I've presented above. Thanks! Grover cleveland (talk) 02:05, 26 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

A new "Welcome" dialog

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Hello everyone. This is a heads-up about a change which has just been announced in Tech News: Add the "welcome" dialog (with button to switch) to the wikitext editor.

In a nutshell, later this week this will provide a one-time "Welcome" message in the wikitext editor which explains that anyone can edit, and every improvement helps. The user can then start editing in the wikitext editor right away, or switch to the visual editor. (This is the equivalent of an already existing welcome message for visual editor users, which suggests the option to switch to the wikitext editor. If you have already seen this dialog in the visual editor, you will not see the new one in the wikitext editor.)

  • I want to make sure that, although users will see this dialog only once, they can read it in their language as much as possible. Please read the instructions if you can help with that.
  • I also want to underline that the dialog does not change in any way current site-wide and personal configurations of the visual editor. Nothing changes permanently for users who chose to hide the visual editor in their Preferences or for those who don't use it anyway, or for wikis where it's still a Beta Feature, or for wikis where certain groups of users don't get the visual editor tab, etc.
    • There is a slight chance that you see a few more questions than usual about the visual editor. Please refer people to the documentation or to the feedback page, and feel free to ping me if you have questions too!
  • Finally, I want to acknowledge that, while not everyone will see that dialog, many of you will; if you're reading this you are likely not the intended recipients of that one-time dialog, so you may be confused or annoyed by it—and if this is the case, I'm truly sorry about that. This message also avoids that you have to explain the same thing over and over again—just point to this section. Please feel free to cross-post this message at other venues on this wiki if you think it will help avoid that users feel caught by surprise by this change.

If you want to learn more, please see https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T133800; if you have feedback or think you need to report a bug with the dialog, you can post in that task (or at mediawiki.org if you prefer).

Thanks for your attention and happy editing, Elitre (WMF) 16:48, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Quotability of many of the pages in Category:Chemistry

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I am not sure that many of the pages within this category (and many of its subcategories) contain quotes that are in any way memorable or pithy. I do not see the value in keeping pages with quotes taken from textbooks - we are supposed to be a compendium of memorable or notable quotes, and I believe that many of these pages do not contain anything remotely resembling that. I would recommend deletion of most of these pages, with the exception perhaps of the following: Atomic theory, Analytical chemistry, Alchemy, Cooking, Fossil fuel, Origin of life, Singularity, and Synthesis. And I further believe this problem exists for other science-related categories as well. Any thoughts from anyone? ~ UDScott (talk) 17:39, 20 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • I don't have a problem with them, for the most part. They are a bit dry, but extend coverage to areas that other quotation compilations tend to ignore, and can be expanded in the future. One of my long-term goals here is to contact Carl C. Gaither of Killeen, Texas (author of Gaither's Dictionary of Scientific Quotations and many other comparable compilations) to seek public domain release of older compilations. BD2412 T 14:52, 22 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yes, but my point is that we are supposed to be a collection of memorable or notable quotes. And we specifically say it does not include excerpts from textbooks (see Wikiquote:What_Wikiquote_is_not#Wikiquote_is_not_a_textbook). Of course there may be exceptions (like Einstein's Theory of Relativity or other notable examples such as this). ~ UDScott (talk) 15:00, 22 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
      • If people want to make pages on obscure topics with boring but verifiably sourced textbook quotes, I see no reason to spend any time at all addressing them. They don't really hurt anything (since they will only be seen by people who actually look for quotes on those topics), and they just might draw the interest of people who will add more notable and quotable quotes. These do not raise copyright concerns, and do not appear to be part of a promotional effort. Their bookishness should be a fairly low priority on our radar. BD2412 T 02:37, 23 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
        • I would not say bookishness is the issue here – the whole business of quoting classical literature is widely considered a bookish pursuit – but rather the issue lies in the general nature of textbooks, as elaborated in further remarks under my earlier post below.

          I must say I am surprised to find the principal developer of the Wikiquote:Quotability guideline seeming here to deprecate its importance. Please reconsider: if quotability is not to be a top priority for our "compendium of notable quotations" then I am not sure what else its raison d'être would be. ~ Ningauble (talk) 16:38, 2 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

          • Well, I'm not about to start creating pages like these, and would not advise other editors to make this the focus of their work, but I'm in no hurry to delete the ones that have been made. BD2412 T 19:03, 2 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am inclined to agree with UDScott. Though the problem is not limited to chemistry and science topics, these fields do seem to have attracted a great deal of unremarkable textbook material. Not everything worth highlighting when studying a textbook (e.g. [126], [127], [128], [129]) is worthy of inclusion in a compendium of notable quotations. Of course, something which is a flat statement of fact can be quoteworthy when it is an original, seminal observation that has achieved significant fame and influence. Such is not the case with the pages criticized here. ~ Ningauble (talk) 15:23, 22 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Further remarks about textbooks:  It is generally characteristic of textbooks to present what is already generally accepted knowledge in a field rather than presenting new and original thought: new ideas are generally hashed out in peer reviewed journals or widely accepted monographs before being recapitulated in textbooks. However well a textbook may organize and explain the subject, in essence it is a collection of information from prior sources. There are exceptions, where a new idea or argument, an original synthesis of a fresh perspective, or a strikingly well said clarification appears for the first time in a textbook, but these are very rare exceptions.

    I myself have added some quotations from textbooks that represent these sorts of exceptions, e.g. George Pólya's How to Solve It and Darrell Huff's How to Lie with Statistics. These texts did not simply present what was generally accepted knowledge and practice in their fields, they strongly criticized the state of the art and made powerful arguments for reforming how it was taught and practiced. The selected quotes focus specifically on these polemical aspects, rather than purely informative material that might better be cited in an encyclopedia than a compendium of notable quotations. ~ Ningauble (talk) 16:38, 2 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Deprecate Simple English Wikiquote

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So I use Google to look up the "one man, two men, three or more men" quote and the first link is to Wikiquote. Oh dear, that page looks rather strange. But there's the quote, and others, but what's this Simple: thing? And why is the second quote on the page so hideously wrongly misinterpreted into "simple English"?

And why are the last edits to that John Adams page in 2009 defending the bad interpretation? And the last edits to their Main Page from 2009, and by the same defending editor? Who is now retired?

The Simple English Wikiquote site looks quite dead, and yet Google and at least the John Adams page here links to that Simple English page and site which is full of cobwebs. Did I mention that wiki isn't linked into the global Wiki logins and I can't login there to fix it?

I found this note over at Wikidata where they "removed the interwiki link" 'simplewikiquote' from there, but that doesn't help here, does it?

Simple Wikiquote is dead. How does it get removed from the "In other languages" sidebar from all pages here?

(Aside: Of course that doesn't then help the fact that the John Adams page at en.wikiquote.org is not even in the first 10 pages of results at Google for that search above. Perhaps they thought simple.wikiquote.org and en.wikiquote.org were "the same thing"? Might that be enough motivation?)

Shenme (talk) 00:27, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • I would tend to agree. Wikiquote is not the sort of project that is well suited for a "Simple" version. The quotes say what they say, simple or not. BD2412 T 01:34, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • It is an embarrassment to the Wikiquote name and to the Wikimedia foundation that this defunct "wikiparaphrase" website still has not been taken down. Years ago, I tried to persuade Language committee members to do so, but there was no clear policy on what to do with the content of closed projects and nobody would act on it. Since then a Closing projects policy has been formalized, and it appears that the only recourse is to hold another discussion at Proposals for closing projects expressly on the question of whether to delete the content. Such discussions can drag on for years, and are not binding. (It is a purely advisory procedure, not a community decision. The decision is entirely up to the Language committee, subject to review by the Foundation board.) ~ Ningauble (talk) 02:14, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Any Latin Scholars Here?

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Are there any people here who have studied Latin extensively? (By "extensively", I mean to suggest a skill level that would include the ability to translate Latin texts, as well as some knowledge of specific Roman writers.) I have a quote that is often attributed to Marcus Tullius Cicero, but may actually be from Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus). I would like to discuss this quote and related info with someone more knowledgeable than myself. Please reply on my Talk page. Thanks, CononOfSamos (talk) 06:13, 26 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • DanielTom might be able to help out with that, if you ask nicely. They seem to have in interest in Latin works, although they don't list Latin or even English as a language they speak on their user page. "Can we say that Dryden's translation of Virgil is a misattribution?", from the Virgil page edit history seems to suggest a knowledge of the finesses of Latin translation. CensoredScribe (talk) 19:02, 24 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Draft space

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I need a draft space on this project to work on drafts. I have too many userspace drafts, and it seems a bit weird to have drafts in Wikiquote space. BD2412 T 19:44, 31 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

JavaScript

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Hi. I can see that this project has old JavaScript that needs to be updated. I would happily make the required updates myself, but I would have to – at least temporarily – become an admin here to do that (because the relevant pages are in the MediaWiki namespace). I have already made these updates on a number of other projects, so it would be very easy for me to do this. If no one does anything, some JavaScript-related tools will break later this year. If you want me to make these updates, you can grant me admin rights and I will make the updates as soon as I can. Nirmos (talk) 22:04, 2 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Merge?

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Hello, I think these couples should be merged:

--130.251.101.201 08:53, 6 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@BD2412: thank you. And what about the other two cases? --130.251.101.201 10:34, 14 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'll look into them, probably after I get back from Wikimania, in about two weeks. BD2412 T 12:19, 14 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I also add Manusmṛti and Manu Smriti. --130.251.101.201 12:25, 16 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@BD2412: I also add Error, which should be linked to d:Q29485, since there's w:Error from Wikipedia, but there is already Mistakes from en.quote (the incipit of mistakes says "mistakes (or errors)...", so maybe they should be merged). --130.251.101.201 13:00, 5 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I would not merge Mistake and Error. A mistake is typically a specific event, whereas one may be in error over a long period. I would highlight that distinction. BD2412 T 14:05, 5 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@BD2412: Ok thanks :) so, there are just the remaining 3 cases (Category:Reboot TV shows and Category:Television series reboots, Aid and Foreign aid, Manusmṛti and Manu Smriti). Thank you again for your help. --130.251.101.201 08:14, 6 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@BD2412: Are there any news about the latter cases? Tell me if I can help, I don't want to appear harassing :-) --130.251.101.201 07:34, 20 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Also Category:Taiwanese people and Category:Taiwanese. --130.251.101.201 08:41, 20 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I have been busy elsewhere. I went ahead and merged Manusmṛti and Manu Smriti. I will have a look at the rest this afternoon. BD2412 T 15:18, 20 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Is this quote better for rape or consent, and is it formatted well enough?

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Neither. This example of frat-boy trolling has no place in any compendium of notable quotations. This inquiry on the Village Pump gives the appearance of being trolling itself. ~ Ningauble (talk) 10:25, 25 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You've a rather loose definition of trolling Ninguable; if asking the acceptability of a phrase that has made headlines is trolling. You know, Mein Kampf and Fred Phelps have pages on wikiquote, and the selected passages provide no proof they have been quoted, do you want to get rid of them for being written by trolls? We an assume millions of people have read Hitler in much the same way millions were forced to read Mao's red book again and again in Tibetan classrooms, as one of 3 acceptable books, but that's not the same as "quotability" and doesn't indicate any particular passage as being quotable. How about this one from Wikipedia, which has been distinguished as being the most horrifying headline to grace a news paper?
  • Abortion hope after 'gay genes' finding.
Bringing up all manner of other things that are totally unrelated to your original query, such as Hitler and Fred Phelps and Mao and the Daily Mail, only confirms the impression that you are just trolling. ~ Ningauble (talk) 15:54, 25 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
With all due respect, a more polite way to phrase that would have been only ask one question per discussion as the responses are not allowed to wander from a original question (which is false for posters other than the OP). Again, you prove your definition of trolling is rather broad and includes as not following the rules of etiquette verbatim, ignoring malicious intent or effect. Ignoring intent is; forgive the comparison, like equating forgetfulness with lying, and saying anyone with Alzheimer's is an obsessive liar because the result of factually relaying the information is the same. Also, "all manners"is rather a colloquial exaggeration coming from you, mind your maths and your manners. CensoredScribe (talk) 18:16, 25 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I concur with Ningauble's assessment. You appear to be trolling. It would be one thing if you consistently added good quotes to pages, but occasionally added one that the community found questionable. In fact, however, almost all of your additions are of low quality, with tenuous relevance to the pages to which they are added. BD2412 T 13:09, 1 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Would the following be a notable quote for eugenics, homosexuality, infanticide or abortion?

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  • Abortion hope after 'gay genes' finding.

No. ~ Ningauble (talk) 21:19, 27 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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I would like to see the return of Wikiquote:Featured article to go along with the quote of the day. On the talk page, the following edit from over 2005, this was listed as a possible example:

October 11, 2005 - Eliza Patricia Dushku is an American actress. I'd like to go back to Buffy, but I've been in a coma, I've jumped off a building, I've been in prison - how many other ways can they bring me back? But those guys are geniuses, so who knows?

One problem I think, is that unlike Unyclopedia, simply showing the articles intro won't really demonstrate why it is featured, as that is mostly due to the quotes farther along the article. I think rather than daily, it would also be better to update weekly and nomination should be through a formalized voting process on a VFH page like Uncyclopedia has. CensoredScribe (talk) 14:47, 25 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

First: please note that this would not be a return of featured articles: the original proposal was never implemented. Second: I think this would be very premature since we do not even have a system in place for rating good articles, with a clear consensus on criteria for what constitutes a good article, much less a featured one. ~ Ningauble (talk) 16:14, 25 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the correction. Also, you technically should have capitalized Please, after the colon following the word first, as the colon was used to start a complete sentence. See Grammar Girl. CensoredScribe (talk) 18:07, 25 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Is the presence of a single typo or a single formatting error an acceptable reason to delete a quote?

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I was wondering if DanielTom is justified in doing this, because I think it would help me get a higher edit count if I could use this as justification for reverting edits while abiding by the rules, if it is. Obviously fixing the formatting errors and typos would also work, but it's the "lazy and incompetent" editors fault the otherwise acceptable quote got deleted. If not I would gladly behave civilly and constructively; I just thought I would ask before making a large number of needless revisions that could be reasonably or against the guidelines of Wikiquote:Civility. Am I correct that only medical diagnosis such as retarded blind or senile would count as uncivil; or would repeatedly asking an editor if they actually speak English count as well? I know not to feed the trolls but I'm tired of being trolled. CensoredScribe (talk) 00:49, 26 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You don't have to create a new section on Village Pump every time a new thought pops into your head. ~ DanielTom (talk) 01:44, 26 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@CensoredScribe: I like that you want to contribute here and I feel like you have something you can genuinely add. But I also think you should seriously just take a break of 60 minutes before you post something that seems like it's going to be inflammatory. Look, let's call a spade a spade here: you know what is in your heart and what your intentions are when you post something like the above. You know it. What could possibly be the outcome of something like that? Be honest with me. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:07, 26 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Is the following revision to a citation fix vandalism/harassment, or is the citation fix in fact not correct?

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[130] This is a matter of proper grammar and citation styles, not interpreting the site rules like all the other discussions I've started here; so I expect the answer to be fairly free of debate as the citations either are, or are not correct as verified by Chicago, MLA, APA or any other acceptable style guides to use on Wikiquote. If I can't make grammatical fixes without risking an edit "war", than I will now be leaving, having been successfully bullied away from contributing. I believe that yelling vandalism can itself be considered vandalism when said statement is proven beyond a reasonable doubt as false, and could constitute site disruption and or in civil harassment if it continues. CensoredScribe (talk) 17:49, 27 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'll limit myself to documenting CensoredScribe's (probably deliberate mis)use of parentheses in that diff alone, even though there are other problems with it (for instance, he adds superfluous punctuation such as periods to most citations, then inconsistently removes the same periods in other citations, as well as pertinent information like the word "published" in the first citation, etc.):
  • "Quotations (1989)" → "Quotations, (1989)"
  • "Lloyd (1920)" → Lloyd, (1920)"
  • "Hughes, Lovell v." → "Hughes, (Lovell v."
  • "Frankfurter, Milk Wagon" → "Frankfurter, (Milk Wagon"
  • "Photographs, 1971" → "Photographs, (1971"
  • "States, 1971)" → "States, (1971)"
  • "Rehnquist, Hustler Magazine" → "Rehnquist, (Hustler Magazine"
  • "Jr., Texas v." → "Jr., (w:Texas v."
  • "Public Radio (May 2, 2002)" → "Public Radio, (May 2, 2002)"
  • "steynonline.com (9 May 2015)" → "steynonline.com, (9 May 2015)"
(Not content with this, he undid my revision and called me "delusional" and an "Idiot" in his edit summary.) Usually I would not waste my time responding to his trolling, but as this time he decided to spam not just the Village Pump with his nonsense but also the talk pages of 10 different users, I leave this response here so as to not waste theirs. ~ DanielTom (talk) 19:23, 27 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Many of the so-called "fixes" in the linked edit are in fact not correct. (E.g., among other obvious problems, numerous instances of unbalanced parentheses.)

    Whether this damage represents deliberate vandalism or unwitting incompetence is a judgment call, but either way vandalism is prohibited and competence is required. Whether this absurd complaint on Wikiquote's central discussion board about reversion of obvious errors is an act of deliberate trolling or of pathological attention seeking is also moot, for the same two reasons. ~ Ningauble (talk) 20:17, 27 June 2016 (UTC) Note: An editor has expressed a concern that Ningauble (talk has been canvassed to this discussion.[reply]

In response to CensoredScribe (talk · contributions)'s request on my talk page and that of several other editors for commentary here, I will address that request now, and address him directly here, rather on my talk page.

I continue to be perplexed as to the actual intentions and aims motivating your activities in regard to these current issues and many in the past, and like many am more inclined to be irritated than amused or grateful.

I have been willing to extend to you the benefit of many doubts, because of the necessity of much uncertainty in making many assessments based upon rather limited information and often inconsistent or incoherent remarks regarding many things, including your actual levels and forms of understandings and misunderstandings; yet more often than not it seems highly likely that you are deliberately intent on being disruptive and inconsiderate of conventions and norms, and prone to producing MANY poor or generally detrimental additions and major contentions on what in many cases might normally be relatively minor or trivial matters, were they not produced with such abundance, regularity, and persistence.

In the current situation you seem to characterize yourself and your alterations as the work of a "wiki-gnome" being subtle and useful formatting edits — but the general assessments of others is that these edits have been at the very best generally inconsistent and largely detrimental, and a rather appalling nuisance, and perhaps a deliberate attempt on your part to be one, or to have your often abundant and abundantly improper activities to once again become the object of others attention.

As has long been the case this year, I am very busy with many other issues and problems elsewhere, and though I had hoped to have had many of my current activities finished by now, it is more likely than not that many of the most time consuming activities will continue for at least another month or two. I have not even had much time to address issues of more direct and permanent concern to me, and thus I have NOT had the time nor inclination to even attempt to attend to all the controversies and contentions which abound around your edits, but my honest assessments of them, from what I have taken the time to examine, is that you seem to often focus upon rather trivial and mundane observations JUST to get your "edit counts" up (which you have stated at times as a goal — AS IF that were a highly proper and worthy one in itself — and one which it is proper to be primarily focused upon or obsessed with — rather than on providing such expressions and quotes as most people would find generally significant, meaningful and genuinely interesting in relation to various subjects or at least to the greater awareness and appreciation of the opinions of the authors relative to many generally interesting subjects).

Beyond that you seem to very often be most inclined to seek and find expressions which are likely to be considered bizarre, rude, crude, insulting to the sensibilities of most people — and apparently believe that any objection to such make you are a bold and persecuted purveyor of significant truths — which you often seem to consider "important" precisely to the degree they are unwelcome. I am confident this statement of my opinions may well be an unwelcome truth to you — but I certainly do not believe that its unwelcome quality is what makes it important or notable, but any importance or noteworthiness it has is a consequence of being honest and fair in its focus upon generally important and enduring matters, rather than dubious fixations on trivial or transient ones.

I have always recognized that at least occasionally you contribute quotes of genuine merit, which probably most people would find worthy of their attention and consideration, but can agree with others that such has NOT been the character of the bulk of your often very poorly formatted and sloppy addition of trivial and obscure observations, which could easily be interpreted as either a sign of undue haste to simply increase your edit counts, or a deliberate disregard and disdain for the conventions and general practices here, or even genuinely malicious trolling to irritate others by producing edits with such evident disregard.

At this point I can only recommend that you take greater caution and consideration in your edits, whether of content or formatting, and NOT in such haste to make them without due regard to norms, but find it increasingly likely that if anything close to the pace of your recent edits continue, increasing numbers of people will desire to take more drastic action once again. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 10:22, 28 June 2016 (UTC) + tweaks[reply]

Concerning Daniel Tom: The periods are not "superfluous", as they are included in APA MLA and Chicago. I had sysops privileges first given to me on RationalWiki by Miekhal who never used capitalization yet was an admin still, saying he could always just pay someone to fix their grammatical errors. You yourself don't always capitalize, according to IOHANNVSERVS talk page, so perhaps you neglect the beginning and endings of sentences as unimportant?

As for trolling someone by calling them an idiot, or in both your cases accusing them of incompetence (sugesting they are unable to legally sign contracts much more directly than the way weird implies gayness), Ninguable and DanielTom have also done this a half dozen times to me as you can see looking through their recent edit history, (don't say TL;DR), so why don't we all just agree here and now? Do you think that's how pope Francis talks to the people that grab him without his consent, or to anyone for that matter?

As for Ninguable: Is it canvassing if you contact other editors off site and they never mention it? I mean, hypothetically if I could prove you have a circle of 5 editors you frequently contact on AIM or e-mail to win discussions, could it be held against you here as canvassing, or were a situation like Mike Godwin described on secrecy to occur, would that be viewed as doxxing, given they are your personal e-mails and not onsite communication? I'm glad you told me about this, however there's no actual recommended penalty described for canvassing.

In general: I'd like to mention that the edits to Samuel Alito Secrecy and Science are correct. The difference between the articles forSscience, Freedom of speech and Barrack Obama is that titled and untitled speeches that are part of formally titled events and law articles are actually prevalent in the latter; which I am less familiar with citing because I don't typically cite case law or presidential dinners.

I've more to to say in this section concerning the unbalanced parenthesis and other grammatical errors mentioned, but it will have to wait till I have something to eat; I'm curious what's the longest anyone here has gone here or at work without eating whiles editing? Anyone work a full work day without eating than go on to edit wikiquote, we should all try it once. Navy Seals are required to write essays after sleep deprivation numerous obstacle courses; as seen in G.I. Jane. Writing without eating is a bad habit I picked up from an incest survivor I lived with; a fairly common trait for survivors according to what I've read. Indeed one could argue anyone who starves themselves deliberately is not competent, though I doubt a therapist would use those words; nor would anyone familiar with some of the obscure self mortifying religious practices of monks, both Dharmic and Catholic. I won't edit stomach rumbling anymore, or after a bad nights sleep, to decrease the number of mistakes. CensoredScribe (talk) 16:11, 28 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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Screenshot of Compact Language Links interlanguage list

Compact Language Links has been available as a beta-feature on all Wikimedia wikis since 2014. With compact language links enabled, users are shown a much shorter list of languages on the interlanguage link section of an article (see image). Based on several factors, this shorter list of languages is expected to be more relevant for them and valuable for finding similar content in a language known to them. More information about compact language links can be found in the project documentation.

From today onwards, compact language links has been enabled as the default listing of interlanguage links on this wiki. You may have read about this already in the latest issue of Tech News. However, using the button at the bottom, you will be able to see a longer list of all the languages the article has been written in. The setting for this compact list can be changed by using the checkbox under User Preferences -> Appearance -> Languages. I would also like to apologize for inadvertently missing out this wiki when I sent the advance notice last week about this upcoming feature.

The compact language links feature has been tested extensively by the Wikimedia Language team, which developed it. However, in case there are any problems or other feedback please let us know on the project talk page. We look forward to your feedback. It is to be noted that on some wikis the presence of an existing older gadget that was used for a similar purpose may cause an interference for compact language list. We would like to bring this to the attention of the admins of this wiki. Full details are on this phabricator ticket. Thank you. On behalf of the Wikimedia Language team:--Runa Bhattacharjee (WMF) (talk) 04:41, 28 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Who first said "The bigger they are, the harder they fall"?

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Hi, regarding the famous sentence "The bigger they are, the harder they fall", some sources attribute it to Joe Walcott (e.g. [131], [132], [133]), but other (important) ones date it to previous times ([134], [135]). How can we deal with this topic? --Superchilum (talk) 12:06, 28 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Background on this is well described in the Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs (6th edition, 2015, p. 26). The idea has been around since at least the 4th century in Latin, and English examples can be found from 1493 and 1670. The proverb in its current form is generally credited to boxer Bob Fitzsimmons who said "The bigger the man, the heavier the fall" in 1902. I do not think it is possible to determine who is responsible for minor wording changes since then, but the exact wording in current use can be found in print shortly thereafter in 1905.

Among sources that attribute it to Joe Walcott, I do not find any that date from the period or that indicate when he said it or where the attribution came from: they do not appear to be reliable sources. ~ Ningauble (talk) 15:37, 28 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Ningauble: Ok, so the current version ("The bigger they are...") can be credited to Fitzsimmons, while the oldest form of "The higher etc." is attributed to Claudian in the IV Century, is that right? --Superchilum (talk) 15:24, 30 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
More or less. When dealing with proverbs that evolve and mutate over time, as they inevitably do, it is usually impossible to determine the exact origin of each variant. The best one can do is cite the earliest occurrences that are reliably known. ~ Ningauble (talk) 16:20, 30 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Editing News #2—2016

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Read this in another language • Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter

 
Did you know?

It's quick and easy to insert a references list.

 

Place the cursor where you want to display the references list (usually at the bottom of the page). Open the "Insert" menu and click the "References list" icon (three books).

If you are using several groups of references, which is relatively rare, you will have the opportunity to specify the group. If you do that, then only the references that belong to the specified group will be displayed in this list of references. Finally, click "Insert" in the dialog to insert the References list. This list will change as you add more footnotes to the page.

You can read and help translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor Team has fixed many bugs. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are improving support for Arabic and Indic scripts, and adapting the visual editor to the needs of the Wikivoyages and Wikisources.

Recent changes

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The visual editor is now available to all users at most Wikivoyages. It was also enabled for all contributors at the French Wikinews.

The single edit tab feature combines the "Edit" and "Edit source" tabs into a single "Edit" tab. It has been deployed to several Wikipedias, including Hungarian, Polish, English and Japanese Wikipedias, as well as to all Wikivoyages. At these wikis, you can change your settings for this feature in the "Editing" tab of Special:Preferences. The team is now reviewing the feedback and considering ways to improve the design before rolling it out to more people.

Future changes

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The "Save page" button will say "Publish page". This will affect both the visual and wikitext editing systems. More information is available on Meta.

The visual editor will be offered to all editors at the remaining "Phase 6" Wikipedias during the next few months. The developers want to know whether typing in your language feels natural in the visual editor. Please post your comments and the language(s) that you tested at the feedback thread on mediawiki.org. This will affect several languages, including: Arabic, Hindi, Thai, Tamil, Marathi, Malayalam, Urdu, Persian, Bengali, Assamese, Aramaic and others.

The team is working with the volunteer developers who power Wikisource to provide the visual editor there, for opt-in testing right now and eventually for all users. (T138966)

The team is working on a modern wikitext editor. It will look like the visual editor, and be able to use the citoid service and other modern tools. This new editing system may become available as a Beta Feature on desktop devices around September 2016. You can read about this project in a general status update on the Wikimedia mailing list.

Let's work together

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If you aren't reading this in your preferred language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you!

m:User:Elitre (WMF), 17:20, 3 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • Did you know? Elitre (WMF), did you know that references lists are completely deprecated at the English Wikiquote? As with all quality compendia of quotations in print, such as Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, the philosophy here is that citations belong with the quotations, in the body of the text and not in separate footnotes. ~ Ningauble (talk) 18:12, 5 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure I see how this relates to the newsletter...? --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 05:43, 6 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Silly me, got it. You may hide that part, if you want? --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 05:46, 6 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I also went ahead and filed https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T139442, just in case. Thanks for your note. Best, --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 05:54, 6 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Open call for Project Grants

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Greetings! The Project Grants program is accepting proposals from July 1st to August 2nd to fund new tools, research, offline outreach (including editathon series, workshops, etc), online organizing (including contests), and other experiments that enhance the work of Wikimedia volunteers. Whether you need a small or large amount of funds, Project Grants can support you and your team’s project development time in addition to project expenses such as materials, travel, and rental space.

Also accepting candidates to join the Project Grants Committee through July 15.

With thanks, I JethroBT (WMF) 15:21, 5 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Seeking dispute resolution

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I seek other editors to give their opinion on a dispute between DanielTom and me on the Barrack Obama page here

Thanks to all, IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 02:00, 11 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Except

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Recently, I took to trying to improve one of our stub articles, exception, which had only two quotes.  Now, perhaps I went about this the wrong way, and if so, I shall defer to consensus.  But, here's to hoping consensus will concur with me.

When considering what quotes to add, my first thought was whether I could think what the most famous exception ever quoted was.  The most famous one I could think of was the Franklin quote about death and taxes.  Specifically, the quote reads, "Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes!"

Now, even though I disagree with that quote on both counts (on death because I am a transhumanist and on taxes because I'm an anarchist), I nevertheless recognise the fame and importance of that quote, and thought that it should be added.

This isn't to say that I only added a single quote.  Over the course of about twenty-four hours, I made almost a dozen edits, adding a large number of quotes and some images as well.

Then, Peter1c, citing "Numerous off-topic quotes" in her or his edit summary, undid the entirety of my work on the page.

I added the quotes just once more, responding in my edit summary to the claim that my additions were "off-topic" with "The page isn't just for quotes that define 'exception.'  Adding 34 quotes dealing with exceptions.  Each and every one added deals with either (A) a specific exception, (B) a specific lack of exception, or (C) the nature of exceptions."

After this, Ningauble, too, deleted the entirety of the additions.  Ningauble also cited "Numerous off-topic quotes" as the rationale for deleting the entirety of my additions.

Now, the last thing I want is an edit-war, so I bring the situation to you, the Wikiquote community.

Here is what the page looked like with my additions (20 July 2016).  I encourage each of you to check out the page and see for yourself if you believe the quotes I added were "off-topic."  (If you think that request is too burdensome, please at least read the seven quotes that appear under each of the seven images I included on the right-hand side of the screen.  They provide a fair sampling of my additions.)  Again, I shall defer to consensus.

To be clear, I believe both Peter1c and Ningauble were acting in good faith.  Of the two of them, Peter1c has even gone as far as explaining what she or he meant when she or he claimed that my additions were "off-topic."  Peter1c writes,

In the Exception article, I am concerned that many of the quotes do not provide any new information to the reader about exceptionality. Examples are appropriate for theme articles when the example tells the reader something new and interesting about the theme. But when the example is a typical example of the theme, what does it tell the reader about the theme? For example:

I like this quote, but what does it tell the reader about exceptionality and exceptions? Readers will come to the page looking for quotes that will tell them something new and interesting about the nature of exceptions.

I appreciate Peter1c explaining her or his position.  It makes sense why, from her or his perspective, I was adding "off-topic" quotes: i.e., none of the quotes I added explained the concept of exceptionality.

Although I understand and respect Peter1c's position, I nevertheless still disagree.  Why must the page be confined to only those quotes that in some way define exception, that in some way explain what exceptionality is?  We don't have that standard for any other page, as far as I can tell.  Three examples:

The first quote on the nature page does nothing to explain the concept of naturalness:

  • If there's a power above us, (and that there is all nature cries aloud
    Through all her works) he must delight in virtue.

The first quote on the birth page does nothing to explain the concept of birthing:

  • Rab Judah citing Samuel ruled: If an abortion had the likeness of Lilith its mother is unclean by reason of the birth, for it is a child but it has wings.
    • (Babylonian Talmud on Tractate Nidda 24b)

    • The first quote on the pen page says nothing about the concept or the nature of the pen:

  • Whose noble praise
    Deserves a quill pluckt from an angel's wing.
    • Dorothy Berry, Sonnet, prefixed to Diana Primrose's Chain of Pearls (1699).

    • I did not bother to read the entirety of those three pages, but I suspect that the three are full of quotes that don't explain the concepts of naturalness, birthing, and the pen respectively, and precisely because that would narrow the scope of Wikiquote too greatly.  Thus, I am inclined to believe that most, if not all, of the additions I made to the exception page are acceptable.

    But, maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe there is something exceptional about the exception page that suggests we should, for that page, narrow our scope.  I leave it to you, the Wikiquote community, to decide.

    As I see it, there seem to be three possibilities here.

    Possibility One

    Exception is an exception to the way we handle topics here, and should only include quotes that discuss the nature or concept of exceptionality.

    Possibility Two

    Exception is not exceptional, and either some, many, most, or all of the quotes I previously added should be readded.

    Possibility Three

    We set up the page to look something like this:

    Exception refers to anything excluded from or not in conformance with a general rule, principle, class, etc.

    Quotes about exceptionality

    • An exception is nothing else than a rule that applies exceptionally.
      • Fausto Cercignani in: Brian Morris, Simply Transcribed. Quotations from Fausto Cercignani, 2014, p. 31.
    • On the one side stands the exception, on the other the universal, and the struggle itself is a strange conflict between the rage and impatience of the universal over the disturbance the exception causes and its infatuated partiality for the exception, for after all is said and done, just as heaven rejoices more over a sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous, so does the universal rejoice over the exception. On the other side battles the insubordination and defiance of the exception, his weakness and infirmity. The whole thing is a wrestling match in which the universal breaks with the exception, wrestles with him in conflict, and strengthens him through this wrestling. If the exception cannot endure the distress, the universal does not help him any more than heaven helps a sinner who cannot endure the pain of repentance.


    Quotes about exceptions

    A · B · C · D · E · F · G · H · I · J · K · L · M · N · O · P · Q · R · S · T · U · V · W · X · Y · Z · Misattributed

    A

    B

    • There is nothing very remarkable about being immortal; with the exception of mankind, all creatures are immortal, for they know nothing of death.  What is divine, terrible, and incomprehensible is to know oneself immortal.
      • Jorge Luis Borges, "The Immortal," §IV in The Aleph (1949); tr. Andrew Hurley, Collected Fictions (1998).
      • Variant:  To be immortal is commonplace; except for man, all creatures are immortal, for they are ignorant of death; what is divine, terrible, incomprehensible, is to know that one is immortal.

    C

    …

    Frankly, when I began writing this, I only had possibilities one and two in my mind, and at the time, I was thinking that possibility two was the best option.  But, in writing this post, I came up with possibility three, and I now believe that it is superior to both options one and two.  Moreover, I suspect that, regardless of whether Peter1c and Ningauble prefer option three over option one or not, they will likely find option three preferable to option two.

    So, to the Wikiquote community at large, including Peter1c and Ningauble, what do you think?  Do quotes about exceptions belong on the exceptions page in addition to quotes about the concept of exceptionality (as in options two and three), or not (as in option one)?  And if they do, should they be fully integrated with one another (as in option two) or given their own unique sections (as in option three)?

    Thanks in advance to all who weigh in!

    Best
    allixpeeke (talk) 09:44, 21 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]


    • Not to get into the whole argument above, but one thing I would like to point out: just because a quote contains the word 'except' does not mean that quote is about the page's topic. And I would argue that many of the above quotes are not really about the topic - which is likely why the others removed such quotes from the page. The only one I would consider relevant is the one by Fausto Cercignani. ~ UDScott (talk) 13:12, 21 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]


    • I maintain that if the subject of the quote differs from the theme of the page then it generally does not belong. Of course, there are exceptions where a quote speaks directly to the theme in a substantial way without it being the grammatical subject of a sentence, or where the quote refers to the subject of the theme in a way that is strikingly original and poignant. This should not be taken as license to include anything that says something is (or is not) an exception in the Exception theme nor, similarly, to include every assertion about someone's intelligence in the Idiot or Genius themes.

      As an example of this perspective in practice, I recently spent the better part of a month (a little at a time) cleaning up the Common sense article. Among other issues I addressed were numerous examples of authors merely claiming common sense as justification for their point, which I removed from the article. It is a lot of work to clean up this sort of thing, but failure to do so would be an open invitation to coatracking points of view about unrelated topics. ~ Ningauble (talk) 15:31, 21 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    • Thank you, Ningauble, for weighing in.  It helps me to better understand where you are coming from.  Two questions to you specifically:  (1) In your opinion, would we be better served if the page were titled Exceptionality instead of Exceptions?  I have a hard time not seeing my additions as quotes about exceptions, but I have no difficulty admitting that they are not quotes about exceptionality, and that the two quotes that are on the page are quotes about exceptionality.  (2) If you do not think the page would be better served by changing its title, is there, in your opinion, any room on the page for quotes about specific famous exceptions, e.g., the Franklin quote?

      Respectfully yours,
      allixpeeke (talk) 05:14, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    What is your gender?

    edit

    I honestly can't remember most of the genders of the other users here, so I created this.  If you wish for me to refer to you with masculine pronouns in the future, please add your name here followed by [[File:Male-símbolo2.svg|30px|center]].  If you wish for me to refer to you with feminine pronouns in the future, please add your name here followed by [[File:Pink Venus symbol.svg|39px|center]].  Thanks.  allixpeeke (talk) 09:44, 21 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    RfC notice: Designated space for editors to give and seek advice about topic bans and other sanctions

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    There is an RfC on Meta about creating a noticeboard to help editors who have been sanctioned. Your input is welcome. Robertinventor (talk) 11:54, 28 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    Insofar as this proposal is expressly concerned with Wikipedia only (cf. lede sentence), I don't quite see the point of notifying Wikiquote about it. I can certainly see that people might benefit from an external forum to help navigate Wikipedia's elaborate bureaucracy, but the situation at Wikiquote is nothing like it. ~ Ningauble (talk) 13:56, 28 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Okay apologies, I was a little unsure when I posted it and I'm totally fine with removing this section from the page. Was going to revert my edit but now that you've replied I suppose you should be the one to do it and you can of course remove this comment too. Robertinventor (talk) 18:05, 28 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
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