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[edit] Proposal to split long presidential pages.

Some of our longest pages are those of U.S. Presidents: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush. I propose that these pages be divided into eras, with separate entries for pre-presidency, presidency, and post-presidency quotes for each (Lincoln had no post-presidential period, of course, but some quotes about Lincoln are post-presidency). Objections? BD2412 T 17:40, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good. Of course, George W. Bush has no post-presidential period yet.--Cato 21:23, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
This seems okay to me as well, so long as it is a proposal to add sections within the page, rather than to create separate pages. ~ Kalki 23:45, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
The point of the proposal is to create separate pages, because the primary pages are too long. Why not separate pages? BD2412 T 00:23, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
I simply see don't see that there is actually need for such separate pages for different eras in the life of people, and don't find the idea desirable. ~ Kalki 00:37, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
There are, to my understanding, still technical limitations which cause large pages to load slowly. Our project serves the entire world, and most of it does not yet have DSL. BD2412 T 02:28, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
BD2412, maybe you could create on your userpage an example, I suggest by copying the page of one president and dividing it into eras, keeping the more notable quotes of each era in the main example page (and trimming the rest), and creating three additional pages that contain the trimmed (+untrimmed) quotes of each era. If the end results looks good, then other editors here could review it to decide whether your proposal is beneficial. My guess is that if the quality of such an example is high, most editors (including me) will like it, though it still means that more effort would be needed for high quality versions of other pages... BTW do you care only about U.S. presidents, or is this supposed to be an initial step that shows how we should split all the long pages? ~ iddo999 23:49, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
I will put together an example. I hadn't really thought about other pages, as Presidents are so easily divisible by era in this way. I suppose any national leader who had many pre- and post- office quotes could be treated the same. BD2412 T 02:18, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Categories for Birth Dates

We have categories for death dates, but not birth dates. Why? Has there been some consensus over this?--TBC 01:09, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

We've discussed it occasionally and there's never been any enthusiasm for it. It's important to give a rough idea of when people were active, and death date is adequate for this purpose.--Poetlister 06:40, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] FYI: Cato is temporally de-checkusered

See meta:Requests for comments/Poetlister and Cato. You are welcome to comment here. For getting background knowledge, meta:talk:Requests for comments/Poetlister and Cato might be more helpful, though.

Please note:

  • Poetlister, Cato (and Yehudi) made to date no public comment. They each may have something to say. I personally would like them to respond.
  • It is no sort of power game: Wikiquote CUs (mainly me but Jeff Q at that time were briefed), involved Enwiki arbcom members and WMF Office (Cary Bass) have been closely communicating about this issue, and all agree it is finally up to English Wikiquote community. This removal is just for emergency and English Wikiquote community is expected to decide finally whether to recall him or get him back the access.
  • As said on the page, we don't think Cato has abused his power. He ran an arguable check very earlier period but it was not considered as a big deal even then. It is rather a matter of trust. If Cato and Poetlister are tied (as well as Yehudi) and if so, if the community's trust was breached. It says also the WMF has no reason to believe that Cato did not identify to them correctly. So they have no reason to revoke the access as violation of policy. It is then genuinely a community matter.
  • FT2 says he will give more information soon. You may want to wait for a while.

Thank you for your attention, --Aphaia 10:34, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Update 2008-09-09

Hello there, here are some update from me:

  • Since FT2 published his investigation about the former User:Poetlister (abbr. PL) et al. and Cato was consequently de-checkusered, I haven't contacted the PL operator. I haven't heard from any other WQ regulars they interacted with the PL operator.
  • Relevant discussions are on s:Wikisource:Scriptorium#Poetlister where he was granted sysop bit and therefore on their RFA for vote for confidence.
  • The investigation strongly suggests, as said on Wikisource:Scriptrium, that Giselle H. is unlikely no real identity of Poetlister but someone else. We don't know who is the female whose photo was featured on PL user page for months: could be Giselle H or anyone else than the PL operator.
  • While FT2 promised an update last week, it may delay by the end of this week. FT2 has explained the delay which is due to trying to clear the rest of the case.

Thanks --Aphaia 14:34, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

While we may get some additional information, I think we have a good enough information to step forward. My concern is rather the recent inactivity of established editors of this project, but hopefully it may not be a big deal; we don't have to make a conclusion in hours, and each member of this community may have the time enough to give a consideration in several points as well as give a look a/o join the discussion on meta.

It's complicated but I think I would like to see at least two things in this moment:

  1. explanation from Poetlister, Cato and/or Yehudi.
  2. vote for confirmation on Cato's CU which is now suspended.

All those accounts are granted restricted accesses though, I am not sure if it is a good idea to proceed confirmation of those votes, under these condition 1) we have no policy about how to recall or confirm a sysop and 2) we have not heard Cato/Poetlister's explanation yet.

We could allow them to go away silently, while I think they owe us an explanation what it was after all; we need to vote for confirmation on user:Cato and his CU bit and determine what will be the ENWQ community consensus. Otherwise this issue keep us in a limbo: epoche of ethics and trust, which I am afraid will hurt us as long as it continues. --Aphaia 14:49, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Update 2008-09-10

I got a mail from Quillercouch. Technically it is unlikely to happen to be forged. There is no explanation why they did that. I recommend them to admit to every sock on meta page, since it is now a cross-wiki matter, centralizing information is helpful. --Aphaia 06:33, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Update 2008-09-11

Since then I got some mails. My reply has been consistent: urge him to admit to every sock.

I reviewed the recent votes and discussion within a month. I am pretty concerned about this ongoing VfD Wikiquote:Votes for deletion/Fox News Channel. I presume that those three accounts, at minimum, are likely to be operated by a same person. Or some of them could be a meatpuppet of the other. Please be careful to close the vote. Thanks. --Aphaia 19:03, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Update 2008-09-22

For the record:

  • Community decides their privileges are stripped.
  • The operator will be allowed to edit with one account he'll choose, not now, but in months when community agrees. Other accounts are permanently blocked.
  • The list of his socks was posted on Wikisource by s:user:Cato, while we don't confirm its completeness. As of yet, three accounts are pointed out as missing and two of them were later admitted. On one account Poetlister2 (talk · contributions) the operator has not given a public statement.
  • As the CU who detected this account first, while I publicly noted "harassement?", I have never asserted it was a harassment, but suggested one possibility. In other words there was also a possibility it was no harassment, and I've thought so from the beginning. The technical evidences around Poetlister2 (talk · contributions) definitely makes it hard to think nothing but his new sockpuppet.
  • The operator has given no explanation why he used those socks and needed them flagged.

--Aphaia 07:02, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Only en-Wikiquote should be shut down IMHO

I see no need to shut down the German project. En is full of copyvios WITHOUT any fair use rationale. The German project has now strict quality standards:

  • From not-PD authors only 5-10 quotations (from movies only 5 in the maximum)!
  • No new quote without a serious source! --Histo 20:03, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
    • Nothing is getting shut down. However, I am certainly open to enacting prohibitions crafted towards limiting the potential for copyvio material. At the very least, we should indeed have strict and immutable limitations on the amount of content to be derived from films, TV shows, and other works that are still within their copyright period. Cheers! BD2412 T 23:37, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
      • I agree that it would be inappropriate to shut down the whole project, and that we should first make an effort to clean up the problems. Randomly, I found The Golden Girls, which contains 214k of copyrighted dialog from that TV series. That would appear to go beyond what is allowable under fair-use. On the other hand, a rule of only 5-10 quotations from non-PD sources may be overly harsh and would probably result in many disputes over which quotes to include. The best place to start may be to delete unsourced quotations, particularly those from the living or recently deceased ("recently" possibly meaning 70 years). Will Beback 23:45, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
        • We've discussed these matters before, as here and here; but we never got around to voting on a policy. Maybe it's time we stop leaving so very much to gradually evolving practices. Instead, we could work more on actual decisions to be used as guidelines and cited as procedures. It would make our work easier in the long run if we could point to the number of quotes allowed per episode, movie, etc. We've had the usual decision-making dilemma, of course: so few regular and committed editors, with most of their time and effort spent on routine chores and ongoing projects; and so the big problems keep getting shelved. And yet if we only had a dozen editors, each of them working weekly on five pages in question for copyright status, we would eliminate our current copyright list in two weeks. That would be a good start, certainly. I've tried to get the ball rolling now by cleaning up Dane Cook and Steven Wright. This week I'll also work on Bill Hicks, Lewis Black and Les Misérables (musical). Would anyone else like to volunteer on copyright cleanup? - InvisibleSun 00:34, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
InvisibleSun, I will also continue to work on this issue and plan to try to tackle the trimming of many of the TV show pages that are on the list of problems. This is an issue I've tried to work on for quite some time, but haven't been able to fully devote myself to it. If we can get some more help, maybe we can divide and conquer the pages that need the most help. I think the reason it takes some time is that I would rather excise quotes that are not all that memorable, leaving only the best subset of quotes from a given work. Rather than just a wholesale stripping of quotes, I like to be smart about the trimming. But admittedly the problem now has some heat on it and I will try to ramp up my efforts. ~ UDScott 19:09, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
This is much appreciated, UDScott. I am going to create a page entitled "Wikiquote: Copyright Cleanup Project." On this page, editors who join the cleanup could list the pages on which they plan to be working. This will serve two purposes: 1) to prevent people from inadvertently working on the same pages; 2) to be updated each time a page is worked on, therefore showing up in Recent Changes and reminding people of the project's existence. On the pages I've worked on so far, I've been using the consensus of no more than five quotes per show or episode. Unsourced quotes and very long quotes are automatically deleted. One of the reasons I had held off from working on these pages was that I had little or no knowledge of most of the subjects on the list. When faced with selecting among quotes, I have chosen those that seem to work best on the printed page and also seem the most memorable. I would rather operate using a scalpel; but if I sometimes end up using a hatchet, so be it. It's a lesser evil by far to reduce a page, however severely, than leave it eternally languishing in potential violation of copyright. - InvisibleSun 20:05, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
          • Deleting unsourced quotations will do nothing to alleviate our primary copyright problem: excessively long pages of quotes from TV shows and films, which are unquestionably well sourced. If we ban TV shows altogether, that would relieve any uncertainty over what to include from TV shows. There is, I might add, truly a massive amount that is, in fact, in the public domain that we ought to have here and have not yet incorporated. BD2412 T 00:41, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
            • There are two steps in dealing with copyvio: 1) delete any unsourced quotes; 2) limit the number of sourced quotes. If we did that, we wouldn't need to eliminate TV shows and films. - InvisibleSun 01:07, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
              • Unsourced quotations are a problem simply because it's difficult to determine their copyright status. With the TV shows and films their status is known. Based on well-known interpretations of the U.S. copyright law (which applies to most of these), extensive quotations from a show or series would almost certainly exceed fair use. Looking at the recent changes link, it looks like a substantial amount of effort goes into creating them, so care should be taken in deciding how to proceed. That discussion should be in a separate thread and also at Wikiquote talk:Copyrights. Will Beback 01:30, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
                • True, there are two different problems. But there is no limitation to the reporting of quotes uttered by a particular person, as opposed to quotes assignable to a specific work. With respect to deceased people (especially generations dead figures such as Thomas Jefferson or Walt Whitman), an inadequately sourced quote presents little or no legal issue. BD2412 T 02:05, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Folks, it was raised up on foundation-l. You probalbly would like to join the discussion and defend our project. Just fyi. --Aphaia 05:34, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Could you give a link please. Tyrenius 07:40, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-September/045729.html --Histo 08:14, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that the limitation of de Wikiquote would be too harsh. 5-10 quotes from TV shows are enough for an educational project. I think the best would be to shut down en WQ for a while because the massive legal and quality problems of this project have never been taken seriously. To give an example:

These page contains simply book excerpts from a copyrighted book as I have noted in 2007 on the discussion page - no reaction. In 2008 I tagged the page with the copyvio template - no reaction. NOTHING HAS BEEN DONE. Wikiquote has tolerated massive copyright violations. It's time to act not only to discuss (and then to do NOTHING). The German experience shows that a reform of a Wikiquote project is possible. But painful decisions have to be made. --Histo 08:25, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

It's alright we can hear you. No need to shout. Tyrenius 12:39, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
So fix it. Will (talk) 14:39, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
I believe that there is a definite problem with many of the pages on en WQ - problems that require substantial work to correct, but I think it is a bit unfair to state that these problems have never been taken seriously. There are plenty of users here that do care, but I will only speak for myself. I have often tried to focus on the problem of having too many quotes, especially on TV pages (and in fact have trimmed many TV show pages down to 5 quotes per episode). But I just do not have the time that is necessary to complete much of the needed trimming. I'm not offering that as an excuse, but rather I see the current debate as an opportunity to finally bring some resources and organization to bear against the problem. While I believe there is a core group of users that take the problem very seriously, there are far too many casual users that do not. By having such a drastic move as shutting down the site as a point of discussion, perhaps meaningful trimming can occur on more than a sporadic or isolated fashion. There are many pages with a copyright tag already placed on them - these pages require some attention. In the end, I feel that the knee-jerk action of closing the site is a bit much, but I am hopeful that we can focus on this problem and form a meaningful plan to rectify it that will allow the site to continue. ~ UDScott 17:04, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Comment As someone who has done some work on wikiquote, and who agrees that it is a worthy project; although IMHO - it is both confusing and problematic as to what does and does not belong. Wikiquote needs fixing not disbanding, it is a good project and it needs help by good editors and more administrators. It needs clear guidelines, and well thought out MoS policies. There might be a wikiquote central discussion page set up like this one is now for ongoing discussion; the remaining administrators need help and support. I feel badly about what happened, and badly fooled by the recent shocking events; but the project is worthwhile and its potential in the future as an interesting body of human comment is important. It has potential but needs clarification and front page parameters about how to work here. Modernist 18:43, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

German WQ has deleted 1000+ articles in 2008 and it wasn't so excessive like en WQ. There are thousands of problematic articles like the excerpts in Birdsong (novel). From such a novel only the 5 "best" quotes should be accepted because of copyvio and quality reasons --Histo 00:08, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I've looked at Birdsong (novel), and I don't see a problem. The quotes, although there are many, are all short and pithy. For a 500+ page book, it's really a tiny proportion. The Simpsons pages are a serious problem, and are a serious contrast. BD2412 T 00:39, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
Histo: We've already reached a working consensus of five quotes per episode of a TV show. The next step is to arrive at working numbers for movies, books, etc. The average book has many more words than the average episode of a show. Assume, merely for the sake of argument, that 1% of a book is fair use. Birdsong, as BD412 mentions, is over 500 pages, which would make about five pages to equal 1%. I'm not proposing, of course, that we allow five pages' worth of quotes from Birdsong; but I also think that more than five short quotes, if taken from an average-length book, would be acceptable fair use for copyright concerns. Suppose, then, also merely for the sake of argument, that we agreed to one short quote for every 50 pages of any book published after 1923. Once we agree on limitations — and I suspect we're not all that far from them — we too can work on "1000+ articles" in a year and show by our efforts that Assume Good Faith is now in our favor. - InvisibleSun 01:02, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
Also, as I mentioned in the Meta discussion, Wikiquote falls under the DMCA safe harbor provision; any copyright owner who has a problem with any of our content must inform us and give us a chance to remove the offending material before taking any further action. BD2412 T 04:08, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that en WQ has really understood the message:

  • As Vandenberg has said WQ tolerates massive copyright violations. 5 quotes per episode aren't fair use for me, 5 per show may be.
  • I don't think that we are on a legal ground with the Birdsong quotes.
  • WQ has to restrict fair use according the WMF media policy. Fair use is only possible for small exceptions not for the whole project. --134.130.68.200 17:51, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
Right now, as you can see, we have a discussion about the working guidelines in trimming pages with copyright problems. This current topic began on 9/07. It is now only 9/09. So far we have two people who agree to five quotes per episode; another person would prefer no TV pages at all. We've yet to hear suggestions from most of the other regular participants. It would make sense, don't you think, to see what the consensus will be before reaching any conclusions? As we're working first on trimming the most problematic pages, we're using a maximum of five per episode as a rule-of-thumb so that the work may proceed. It's a way to get things moving. - InvisibleSun 18:50, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
Hi, sorry for late coming. I am interesting in trying to employ the proposed criteria 5 quotes per episode / 5 pages equivalent (how many lines?) per 500 pages of books. Personally I feel 5 quotes per episode are still much and 5 quotes per season could be enough, but anyway 5 quotes per episode may be a greater cut-off than the present situation. So let us try and see how it works. --Aphaia 19:05, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
In response to the concerns about the Birdsong page posted above, let's look at the Birdsong quotes, then. The book is well over 500 pages. We have (counting the 'unsourced' quotes) 46 quotations in the entry, less than one line for every ten pages of the book, and indeed no more than two quotes are taken from any single page. Our quotes are relatively short as well, an average of 17.1 words per quote. These quotes reflect the opinion of the editors who have added them about what are the most "quotable" (i.e. poignant, meaningful, poetic, etc.) lines in the book. It is impossible in this case to reconstruct the plot or details of the book by reading the quotes, which prevents it from acting as a substitute for the actual book in the marketplace. Note that by comparison, Wikipedia fully describes the plot of the book, albeit without using any words that are in the book itself - thus it is Wikipedia's thorough presentation of the chronology of the book, plot and character development that presents the greatest threat to substitute for, and therefore hinder the marketability of, the work. I have read the law on fair use, and have worked on live fair use cases brought before courts. I can tell you with no hesitation that the collection of quotes in our Birdsong entry would be deemed fair by any court in the U.S. I won't pretend to make that argument for many of our TV show entries, but the idea of 5-10 quotes being the limit of fair use irrespective of the length of the work from which they are taken is simply legally incorrect. BD2412 T 20:57, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I am sure that

  • an US court will not accept the Birdsong entry as fair use. It is offered under a free license with the consequence that everybody can use this compilation based on a un-free work. This is an educational project which aims to create free content and the re-use possibilities are part of the fair use rationale.
  • the Birdsong entry could NOT be justified according the WMF media policy.

If there is legal doubt feel free to ask the WMF lawyer! --Histo 16:33, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

See also http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-September/045789.html --Histo 18:56, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

  • The Seinfeld case revolved around a book sold for profit that competed directly and commercially with works licensed by the owners of the copyright; the work in question contained over 640 pieces of information comprising not merely quotes, but episode plot and resolution details. Granted, our Seinfeld pages must be, and will be, reigned in. However, the Birdsong case is far more comparable in quantity of material to New Era Publications Int'l ApS v. Carol Pub. Group, 904 F.2d 152 (2d. Cir. 1990), which remains a binding precedent in the circuit; in New Era, the author of a critical work on Scientology had copied 121 passages from among L. Ron Hubbard's various books. The court weighed the fair use factors and found that this was fair use despite the author's commercial motive for profit, in part because the work was for the purpose of "criticism, scholarship, or research" (Wikiquote falls into the latter two), and in part because the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole was deemed low where the alleged infringer copied 5-6% of 12 lengthy works and 8% or more of 11 short works - far below the substantiality of the copying of Birdsong. Cheers! BD2412 T 00:20, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikiquote definitevely doesn't fall under scholarship or research. Collecting uncommented trivia citations isn't sholarship. --Histo 23:19, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

  • We are serving the same function as a Bartlett's Quotations or an Oxford Quotations - each of which contains hundreds, perhaps thousands, of quotes from works currently in copyright, despite both being commercial ventures published for profit. If those works qualify as scholarship, it's hard to see why Wikiquote can't make the same claim. BD2412 T 02:49, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright guidelines for trimming articles

In addition to having the ongoing discussion above, it might be useful to keep a section specifically for working guidelines in trimming pages. These guidelines are concerned with copyright issues in particular. I'll start with my own suggestions as seen below. N.B: Line lengths are defined as how they would appear on a Wikiquote page. - InvisibleSun 22:32, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

  • I think, in general, we should have word limits in addition to line limits. A 'line' can be of indefinite length. My personal preference is to set the Gettysburg Address (272 words) as the upper limit for the length of what can be called a "quote" absent some really compelling reason why a longer piece needs to be quoted. I propose that we have 'hard' rules in this sense, but also maintain a process whereby the community can evaluate specific cases and formally approve (or reject) something that goes one quote or a few words over the limit. BD2412 T 05:00, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
    • Picking up on the suggestion you have made, perhaps we could have a page with a title like "Wikiquote:Article Maintenance" and similar in format to Wikiquote:Votes for deletion, in which we could vote every time a situation comes up in which an exceptionally notable long quote may be allowed. The page could also deal with the situation described by UDScott in Films, wherein a work with an unusually high number of famous quotes would be allowed to surpass guideline limits. It would serve, in short, as a forum to vote on any potential exceptions to rules. A template on an article would alert its readers that a consensus vote is going on. We would also have a time limit for voting. Having a central page to serve these functions would encourage more participation and would be relatively easier to maintain than having votes on the discussion pages of articles. - InvisibleSun 19:07, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Films

  • Five quotes maximum per hour. Unassigned quotes (i.e., quotes not assigned to specific characters) are discarded. Inappropriately lengthy quotes (i.e., seven or more lines by one character, ten or more lines of dialogue) are discarded. - InvisibleSun 22:32, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment - IMHO dialogue often seems too long, rambling and lacking in meaning. Dialogue should be short and to the point. Pertaining to TV as well. Modernist 04:15, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
    • Agreed - if it is not immediately apparent that a line of dialogue is worth quoting, we should can it. BD2412 T 05:13, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment: While I am obviously on board with the idea of trimming things, I think that having the same standard for films as we do for TV shows is not quite right. I would rather see a bit more leeway for quotes. While I know that for some films this would not be necessary (due to a lack of really pithy quotes), I am sure that for some (e.g. Casablanca or even Pulp Fiction) it might be hard to fit into this guideline. In fact, if you use Casablanca as an example: with a running time of about an hour and 40 minutes, it would qualify for maybe 7 quotes using this guideline. Just the lines that are included in the AFI list of best film quotes ever gets you to 7. While I admit that the page could still use some trimming, I feel that there are more than just those 7 that are memorable and worthy of inclusion. But if this guideline is the consensus, I will certainly abide by it. Just wanted to start a little dialogue regarding films in particular (which usually have a higher standard of writing than most TV shows). ~ UDScott 12:21, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
While raising the maximum would allow more leeway to films like Casablanca, it would certainly result in a great many editors claiming the higher maximum for just about any film. There is now a discussion, in the introductory remarks to this guidelines section, proposing a way to vote on exceptional cases. This would allow a situation like that of Casablanca to be considered while retaining the lower maximum guideline for quotes. - InvisibleSun 19:39, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

At German WQ we have five quotes per movie. All quotation have to be short. This also seems appropriate here --Histo 16:35, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

  • The five quotes per hour rule is certainly one I could live with, but is that to include the film's taglines, or can they be considered as supplementary to those five per hour? Opinions? --Antiquary 18:46, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
    • I would think that they would be separate. But I would also not be averse to removing them altogether, as I have always thought of them as not quotes, but just something extra on the page. ~ UDScott 20:07, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] TV series

  • Five quotes maximum per episode. Unassigned quotes are discarded. Inappropriately lengthy quotes (i.e., seven or more lines by one character, ten or more lines of dialogue) are discarded. - InvisibleSun 22:32, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
    • Perhaps it should be 'quotes per hour' as with movies. Obviously, there will usually be more dialogue in a one-hour show than a half-hour show. BD2412 T 05:06, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Five quotes per series. More is copyright violation --Histo 16:36, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Histo, I think you just show your opinion without any evidence. Can you please give us what is the basis of your argument, like an article of US Copyright Law or a verdict from the Federal Court the United State? For example, can you please show the evidence why five quotes per series broadcasted one year is okay but six is no? --Aphaia 16:52, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

You have to decide in a pragmatic way. There is NO, i repeat NO reason to think that an US court would accept hundreds of quotations of one series as fair use. It's not my duty to write a fair use rationale for you. It's your duty to end the massive copyright violations here. Feel free to read:

You have to respect the official Media Policy of the WMF which clearly says:

Such EDPs must be minimal. Their use, with limited exception, should be to illustrate historically significant events, to include identifying protected works such as logos, or to complement (within narrow limits) articles about copyrighted contemporary works. [1].

Would you say that 100 K of quotations from a TV series is minimal? --Histo 18:30, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

It depends on how many years the show had run. The Simpsons, for example, has been running for about 20 years. - InvisibleSun 20:33, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment. Based on what has been said so far, I would propose a maximum of two quotes per half-hour episode and five quotes per hour-long episode. Imposing a cap on the number of quotes per series would also help greatly, although it would be more user-friendly to impose them by season than by entire series. Imagine, for example, keeping a count of total quotes for a long-running series like The Simpsons. What, then, should be our limit of quotes per season? 20? It would mean that each episode of a season might end up with only one or two quotes, but this doesn't sound like a bad idea to me. And if a show runs for more than five years, should we impose a cap on how many total quotes are allowed?- InvisibleSun 20:33, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
Would anyone like to comment on the proposal to limit the number of quotes per season? I had suggested a cap of 20 just to get the discussion going. Since I don't deal much with TV pages, it would be better to hear from editors with more experience. - InvisibleSun 19:33, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
One thing is that the math does not work: If you keep 5 quotes per episode (and most shows have seasons of around 22 episodes), that would lead to >100 quotes per season, not 20. So if you limit it to 20 per season, that is one or none per episode. I would rather stick to the 5 per episode limit. ~ UDScott 19:55, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
The idea so far is that five quotes per episode is an allowable maximum, but it doesn't preclude that idea that a cap might be placed on the number of quotes per season. Say, for example, that a season has 20 episodes and that we're allotting 20 quotes per season. If allotted evenly, this would be one quote per episode. On the other hand, if it's considered that some episodes are particularly quotable and that some are not, then it would be possible to have as many as five quotes per episode for some episodes while other episodes have none at all. For all I know, the suggestion of a 20-quote cap could be quite unrealistic. But I'm reminded of what Antiquary said above about the inequity between our limits on quotes per book and our limit on quotes per episode of shows. The idea of a cap on quotes per season could restore this imbalance. For some readers it might not seem unreasonable that a show that has been on for several years and has a page with 125,000 KB has about 21 times more KB than Antony and Cleopatra. It's an inappropriate comparison, they would say, and the total number of show hours is so much longer than the play. And yet there is at the same time an inescapable feeling of imbalance that the show is considered, by all practical estimates, to have 21 times more memorable quotes than a celebrated classic. That's why I wanted to suggest the possibility of caps for TV seasons. - InvisibleSun 20:26, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

See Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. It is assumed "one quote" by a character. In a show a sequel of another dialogue was inserted and thus divided into pieces. It is a long speech whose duration was 3-5 minutes (perhaps 5 but my memory is fragile on that). It exceeds "seven line criterion" proposed on the above. Also we don't know where it was taken: of an episode or of the movie (recently produced) whose screenplays were not equal. Better speedy now? --Aphaia 08:31, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Characters

  • Quotes unassigned to sources are discarded. Pages consisting of unassigned quotes are speedily deleted. Maximum numbers of quotes per guidelines to movies, TV shows, books, etc. - InvisibleSun 22:32, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Spoken-word (speeches, standup comedy, interviews, etc.)

  • Five quotes maximum for any work published after the 1923 copyright cut-off. Inappropriately lengthy quotes (i.e., seven or more lines) are discarded. - InvisibleSun 22:32, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
    • Note that certain speeches - particularly those delivered by political candidates and officeholders in the course of their official activities - are traditionally considered to be in the public domain. BD2412 T 00:29, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Electronic games

  • Three quotes maximum per game. Unassigned quotes are discarded. Inappropriately lengthy quotes (i.e., seven or more lines by one character, ten or more lines of dialogue) are discarded.- InvisibleSun 22:32, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
    • Do we need quotes from electronic games at all? This strikes me as the least worthwhile category of things to quote. BD2412 T 05:14, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
      • I think 'yes', but not many (either games or quotes). I've argued in the past that, by the very nature of the medium, game quotes ought to be subject to a higher standard of quotability than quotations from other mass media. Specifically, I'd like to require reliable secondary sourcing—i.e., the quotability of any line of game text or dialogue needs to be demonstrated by it having already been quoted in a critical secondary source (such as a review. 121a0012 05:48, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
        • To BD2412 yes, since it is a significant part of the late 20th & 21th C pop culture. Many quotes from electronic games become later Internet memes, like "all your base ...". In addition to the numerical measure, I prefer here to insist their quotability. If a quote is taken directly from a game, it should be removed. Only quotations which are found in reliable sources like magazines or website articles can be in our collection. --Aphaia 16:57, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
          • I will propose this, then. I think the number of truly notable quotes originating from video games is small enough to have a single page of quotes from video games, with no more than 3-5 quotes from any given game. BD2412 T 23:49, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
            • Per Category:Electronic games, we now have 235 titles. - InvisibleSun 00:40, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
              • Ok, look at those. Here are some quotes from The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction:
                • Hello, Dr. Banner, I'm looking forward to meet your acquaintance.
                • Corporal, send a fire team: one round towards the outhouse of the West wall.
                • Banner, what did you do to me, you freak? You turned me into an Abomination!
                • You got the guts? Let's find out.
                • Come on, you mindless freak!
              • There are maybe two salvageable quotes on the entire page. But more importantly, why do we need quotes from this game, of no particular importance, at all? Why do we have six different entries on the six games in the "Grand Theft Auto" series, and another six on the "Metal Gear Solid" series? In most instances, the quotes in these pages are not particularly profound, nor are they even particularly original. We should not have quotes from games unless the quotes themselves are profound or otherwise notable in some way. BD2412 T 02:42, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
  • 5KB/game maximum would be fine. Will (talk) 10:33, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
    • I am against excluding quotes from electronic games. Three quotes maximum per copyrighted game look fine to me.--Jusjih 03:02, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
  • I think games should be treated like movies - not the "per hour" thing - but about the same number of quotes per game as we allow for a typical movie. The budget for a major video game is comparable to a large-ish Hollywood movie - professional writers are typically employed and voice actors sometimes ad-lib or improvise their lines. Obviously the quotes should all be "notable", not just "filler" material to get us up to the allowed number - and that by itself will limit the number to a much smaller number than for movies. But video games are growing up - coming of age - they may well become as significant culturally as movies and we shouldn't enact rules to limit them unnecessarily if there IS more notable material in there. But "notable" doesn't always mean "profound" - many quotes are not profound or witty or clever or grammatical or...anything really. But if they take on memetic qualities, they should be in WikiQuote. ("All your base are belong to us" is the obvious example). If someone comes across that line and wants to know where it originally came from and to make sure they are quoting it exactly correctly - then that information should certainly be here in WikiQuote. SteveBaker 02:43, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Record albums

  • A maximum of three fairly brief quotes (i.e, an average of four lines of verse apiece) per album. - InvisibleSun 22:32, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
    • As with my comment regarding films, I think this might be a bit strict, especially for such notables bands as Led Zeppelin or The Beatles, where there are without question more than 3 notable songs on some of their albums. And yes I know we have also proposed a system whereby proposed exceptions to the rules can be debated, I just still think this is too few for albums - I would suggest five per album. ~ UDScott 17:59, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
      • Agreed. We allow up to five quotes for TV episodes and standup comedy albums; many record albums would be of an equivalent length. - InvisibleSun 18:27, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
        • Yes, that's kind of what I was thinking - equating them with roughly hour-long works. And we could still have a forum to address special cases (like Led Zeppelin or The Beatles. ~ UDScott 18:32, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Books

  • An average of up to five lines of prose or eight lines of poetry per 50 pages of any book published after the 1923 copyright cut-off. - InvisibleSun 22:32, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
    • I think you need to be clear here what sort of book you're talking about. By this rule, most of Stephen Jay Gould would have to go, yet simply by attributing the quotations to the original form of publication (individual essays in a magazine) they would stand. (And what's a "line", anyway? Different people will use different-sized fonts and different-sized browser windows. A more appropriate unit for prose length would be "sentence", which also takes into account the differing verbosity levels of different authors.) 121a0012 05:00, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
      • 5 lines of prose for 50 pages of book is equivalent to 50 lines of prose for 500 pages of book, amounting to perhaps 200,000 or 250,000 words. Yet it's suggested that in film we allow 5 quotations of up to 10 lines of dialogue each for every hour of film. I make that 50 lines for at most 10,000 words of dialogue. Similarly our guideline for albums translates as 50 lines for every 20,000 words (approx.) of lyric. These figures are based on my estimates of how fast people speak or sing and how many words are printed on a page, so I don't insist on their absolute accuracy, but surely it's clear that our demands on literary quotations are wildly out of line with our demands in other media. I suggest we set our limit at 5 lines of prose for every 10 pages, and also make our requirements in film, TV and record album more stringent. --Antiquary 13:26, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
        • 121a0012: It's true that Stephen Jay Gould's quotes, if traced to their original magazine publications, could present different copyright evaluations than when published in one book. Since copyright violation, however, can be claimed by the book's publishers, I'm not sure it would resolve the matter to claim that they had begun as magazine articles. This is one of the complications of quotes from works that an author publishes in differing formats. It would be possible, for example, to keep to fair use of a poet by small amounts of well-known quotes from his books; but when the inevitable Selected Poems of... is published, these quotes all in one book could become a copyright violation. As for using sentences as the unit for imposing limits, what would you propose? I'm having a hard time picturing an "average" sentence. - InvisibleSun 23:29, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
          • Antiquary: Now that the discussion of TV shows involves the possibility of imposing a cap for total quotes, I believe that this would do much to make more equitable the differences in TV vs. literature. As for literature itself, it would probably be better, as you have suggested, to use lines rather than numbers of quotes as our measure. If the average book has about 40 lines per page (I say this after making an estimate from half a dozen books of various sizes), then five lines per ten pages, as you have proposed, would be about 1.25% of a book. This seems like an unexceptionable standard. If it be objected, as some have already done, that lines are too variable and that words should be the unit of measurement, then we would have to arrive at the average number of words per line. I confess that I'm reluctant to have words as units because it's the least user-friendly method. I'm picturing the continuous counting of words to determine fair use. We know that the average contributor is not going to do this; so this means that we will be doing it for him, in one edit after another. Do we have enough regular editors who are prepared to do this? I doubt it. - InvisibleSun 23:29, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

5 quotes per work are enough. More isn't fair use --Histo 16:37, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

  • Evidence, please? I am a U.S. intellectual property attorney, and I deal in copyrights frequently. Based on my experience in actual copyright infringement litigation, I can assure you that the above statement is flatly incorrect. BD2412 T 00:32, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I see no evidence for the assertions of BD2412. They are fully unproven --Histo 23:21, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

  • I cited a case above - New Era Publications Int'l ApS v. Carol Pub. Group, 904 F.2d 152 (2d. Cir. 1990) - to which you had no effective answer. I'd hardly say that assertion is "fully unproven". I'll expand on that by remarking that 17 USC § 107, which expressly sets forth a right to fair use of copyrighted material, is not limited to scholarship and research, but also covers criticism, comment, and news reporting. The selection of quotes as worthy of inclusion in a collection of quotes is, at the very least, commentary on those quotes. BD2412 T 05:20, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

That's nonsense. A collection isn't a commentary. --Histo 13:37, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

  • It is if we have guidelines restricting inclusion in the collection to quotes deemed notable and worthy of preservation. Then the inclusion or exclusion of quotes becomes a commentary on the notability of those quotes. BD2412 T 16:17, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Sentences and lines are highly variable. I would prefer to talk in terms of percentage of the book. If a book is 100 pages, how many pages of it can we quote? 1? 5? Half a page? Richard001 04:51, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] People

  • Unsourced quotes for living people are discarded. - InvisibleSun 22:32, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment IMHO a clear definition of what constitutes Sourced and Unsourced needs to be explained. Why isn't everything sourced? The concept of unsourced has always struck me as potential copyvio. It makes things easy, too easy, and needs tightened guidelines. Actually I think the concept of unsourced is a huge potential violation of Wikipedia:No original research, I don't see any mention here: [2] recommending the input of unsourced material. It makes things easy but does it work? Modernist 04:22, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
    • I have always interepreted "unsourced" as either "commonly attributed to" (where research has not turned up the original source) or "inadequate source identification" (a Reliable Source attributes the quotation to a particular person, but the evidence of the secondary source is not sufficient to locate the primary source -- e.g., because the secondary source does not provide a citation). Translations, of course, make this ever so much more complicated, since both the original work (the primary source for its own text) and the translation (the primary source for its own text and a secondary source for the original work) need to be cited properly. But of course many editors interpret "unsourced" as "it is rumored that John Doe said...". 121a0012 05:07, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
    • Just to reinforce that a bit... I'd be perfectly happy if everything that would go in an "unsourced" section were restricted to talk pages and WQ:Reference desk. On the few pages I patrol, that's generally what I do when someone adds a quotation that isn't properly sourced: I move it to the talk page with a note indicating why and asking for a source citation. If we interpret the "unsourced" section as "please help me identify the source" then it's clearly more appropraite that these should be on the talk pages rather than the article pages. 121a0012 05:53, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
  • I think unsourced to a large extant needs to be eliminated in any form in the long run, although in Talk pages it seems okay as a speculative destination for the main article. I like the suggestion that unsourced sections be re-designated as section in need of reference. The unsourced material is good for the most part but it encourages laziness and a laissez-faire attitude about what can and can't be included. Right now - it's anything goes and as tempting as that is it's creating problems... Modernist 14:13, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

In the German WQ we discard all unsourced quotations. To give sources should be the specific value of WQ --Histo 16:39, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

For living people, not only concerned about copyvio, but also about possible libel, I think we should establish "every quote should be sourced": it isn't equal to be attributed. Either online or offline (in print) quotes without citing the source should be discarded for the living people. --Aphaia 17:00, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

  • Every quote should be sourced, simple and clear..Modernist 20:26, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
  • If unsourced quotes were to be transferred to the talk pages of articles, does this eliminate the potential for claims of libel? If so, then I would agree with placing them on talk pages, where they might eventually be sourced, than merely getting rid of them at once. But what about newly created pages? As one of the people who routinely works on reformatting new articles, I can testify that the average contributor's article makes no attempt at sourcing. It doesn't, in fact, attempt much of anything: it's just a few quotes blankly dumped upon a page. Should we transfer these quotes to a talk page, which would make the article temporarily quoteless; or should we just speedily delete the article? If the latter, we will eliminate many, if not most, new pages; but considering their general quality, this may not be such a loss as might be feared. It could even encourage contributors to source their quotes. And what of already existing articles consisting of nothing but unsourced quotes? Will those pages also remain quoteless while the quotes are transferred to the talk pages, or should they be deleted as well? It makes no sense to have an article without any quotes, however temporarily: it would be better, I think, just to delete them the same as we would if they were new. - InvisibleSun 00:18, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
    • I recommend placing this - {{references}} under all unsourced section headings as a temporary fix measure...until sources can be added. Modernist 01:45, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
      • Although the template is a useful reminder, I wouldn't say it supersedes the necessity of removing unsourced quotes from articles. Getting them off the pages is the first priority, whether by deletion or by transfer to the talk pages. The effort involved in adding the template would be wasted were we soon to decide, as we are so far agreed on, that removal is our choice. The only need for the template would be if we decided to keep unsourced quotes until sources were found. I wouldn't recommend that: there's no guarantee an unsourced quote will ever be sourced. - InvisibleSun 02:22, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
  • I've tagged the unsourced sections on most of the articles I've spent time on. Its like an in use sign, I'll gather my books and sources and reference what I can as my time permits, and as an article gets done I'll remove irrelevant and unsourced material and the template. Modernist 03:09, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
  • In the discussion over at Meta, it was pointed out that we should have no legal problem with transferring unsourced quotes to talk pages. As one person expressed it, "The talk pages are there for the project, and are not part of the product." Imagine, for example, the trouble that Wikipedia would be in if its talk page discussions were susceptible to claims of defamation. - InvisibleSun 19:29, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
  • When we say that there should be no unsourced quotes, perhaps it would be best to clarify that this also pertains to quotes in the "About" sections. - InvisibleSun 21:50, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
  • I also would prefer that we have definitions of the words "sourced" and/or "attributed" and/or "unsourced", otherwise the policy guidelines that we come up with might mean different things to different people. To give one example that illustrates why such definitions aren't trivial, should the quote "F___ Saddam. we're taking him out." [3] be in the sourced or attributed or unsourced section? Opinions please?:) ~ iddo999 02:22, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
    • Based on the consensus so far, there would no longer be any unsourced sections and no more acceptance of new unsourced quotes. Just to give my own opinion, the quote you link to could be considered sourced and could be formatted in an "As quoted in..." fashion; but ideally it would be better to have a less secondary source. What is the origin of this quote? Was it told to these reporters directly, or did they find it somewhere else? - InvisibleSun 02:40, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
      • I am in favor of the proposal to get rid of unsourced quotes (for living as well as dead people), but I think that we should define what "unsourced" means so that this proposal would be meaningful. Regarding the example, obviously you won't find it on tape... It was published in a well-known publication (mentioning explicitly that this is a direct quote, so is that enough for it to belong in the sourced section?) and wasn't denied, though I'd guess that if someone insisted to get a direct confirmation he would get some non-denial denial or whatever... If we only have "sourced" section, what is the fate of this example? More opinions please? ~ iddo999 03:04, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
        • We might consider the appelation Anonymous to cover important quotes that cannot be narrowed down to a single source, or reference...anonymous but limited to clear guidelines that the quote be both materially important to the article or to the subject; and only a proscribed number of anonymous quotes be allowed per article - like three....Modernist 19:31, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
          • If I understand correctly, you are raising a completely different issue, about quotes where it isn't even known who said them, as opposed to quotes that are attributed to some specific person but the source is missing or unreliable. If that's not what you meant, then the words "unsourced"/"attributed" that we were using seem to me more to the point compared to "anonymous". So if I got what you said, your proposal might be good but it belongs e.g. in "themes" subsection discussion and not here, because it's irrelevant to "People" pages where the specific person who made all the quotes in such a page is identified (though it's relevant for "about" sections"). ~ iddo999 00:56, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
  • I would also like to point out that if we indeed decide to get rid of unsourced quotes, then as mentioned above I think that we should move the unsourced sections to the talkpages instead of deleting them. In many pages the unsourced section contains appropriate quotes that get easily be sourced though the editor who intially added them didn't bother, so just deleting these quotes would be a bit barbaric... ~ iddo999 00:56, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
    • I have proposed in a separate discussion below that unsourced quotes be moved to subpages rather than talk pages (i.e. John Doe/unsourced), with a set expiration date (much like a prod). BD2412 T 01:04, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Themes

  • When a theme page has no sourced quotes, the sources must be provided. A quotee's name alone is insufficient, since it offers no proof of the quote being genuine. If no source can be found for a quote, it should be transferred to the talk page. If determined to be inappropriate per Wikiquote guidelines (length, memorability, etc.), it should simply be deleted. A page with nothing but unsourced quotes should be nominated for deletion; transferring the quotes to the talk page would leave the article empty. Anonymous quotes should only be allowed if a source is provided to show their currency. - InvisibleSun 02:07, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Comments

Something like this already exists at User:Jeffq/Wikiquote:Exemption Doctrine Policy, which I started with the hope that we could eventually move it to Wikiquote:Exemption Doctrine Policy, which would then represent the EDP that the Wikimedia Foundation expects us to have for non-free material. (Unfortunately, their "Resolution:Licensing policy" is obviously written mainly to address images and other binary media, not text, but we've talked in the past about implementing an EDP to cover WQ's unique situation.) My absence from WQ has prevented me from doing more to promote this; I'm glad to see everyone getting on with it anyway! If no one objects, I (or anyone else who wants to) can do the move now. Whatever we discuss here should be folded into the eventual WQ:EDP, and any discussion here should ultimately be moved to its talk page. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 01:18, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

There is some conceptual overlap between this and what I had hoped to do with Wikiquote:Quotability. I think a large portion of our copyright concerns will evaporate if we set standards delineating exactly what importance and quality of quotes belong in Wikiquote, and discard everything that does not meet those standards. As our quote of the day feature shows, there are many beautiful and clever and moving quotes out there - why keep all the crap piled up around those? BD2412 T 05:11, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
I like what I see at Wikiquote:Quotability concerning verifiability...Modernist 14:27, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
I agree with moving the page per Jeffq's recommendation. Once we have agreed-upon guidelines, we might want to consider a way of referring our contributors directly to it so that we don't have to be constantly explaining the rules. I don't think it would be too intrusive if every article had, perhaps between the intro and the text, a one-line template which said something like, "For Wikiquote rules on copyright limitations of quotes, please see this page," with the words "this page" serving as a link to the guidelines. We could also link to the page in our edit summary lines whenever relevant. - InvisibleSun 01:10, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
  • I think this project will sure overwrap with Wikiquote:Quotability, just different where to stress. Quotability policy is concerned about every type quote (we once discussed on what would be quotable quotes of Sir Isaac Newton), but now we are concerned about mainly copyrighted materials. Using templates to enforce our rules on copyright limitations sounds fine to me. Can we also put it in many places - to welcome templates, in pages to be created and/or in mediawiki:anonnotice? --Aphaia 18:46, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
    • Yes indeed, Wikiquote:Quotability is concerned about every type quote - if we come up with strict standards about what quality of quotes should be included, and then strictly apply those standards, we will thereby eliminate most of the junk that raises copyright concerns in the first place. BD2412 T 02:36, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
  • I'd be more willing to work with a byte limit than a quote limit. Also, I myself would grant leniency to where the work has caused memetic repetition, e.g. GLaDOS' lines in Portal, or the famous "It's a trap!", "Your overconfidence is your weakness.", and "There is another Skywalker" scenes from Star Wars Episode VI (and of course "I am your father". Still, we could chop things down quite a bit. If it must be purely numerical, five or six quotes per hour for audiovisual, two per (average) gameplay hour, one or two lines per song. Will (talk) 14:19, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Vote for confidence

Until now we have no recall in any reason. I think now we need at least one vote for confidence: the case of Cato's CU. I am not sure if I would like to call it "recall" since the bit itself was already removed. Also I prefer a generic name always, so I wouldn't like to name it vote for recall. I prefer the name WS uses "vote for confidence".

Also I don't think it a good idea the EN WP custom which allows their sysops to build their own rule for recall independently (see an attempt on this project at user:Yehudi). I think rather we would like to have a project level rule which is applied for all votes for confidence. That means in this context we wouldn't let the user Cato offer the rule along which the vote on his suspended CU bit. Instead I propose that the community have a generic rule on vote for confidence and it will be applied for every other vote.

I propose to import the current EN WS rule. They have a simple mechanism: three established registered users ask for vote on a given user in their RfA page, and then a bureaucrat recognizes those three. Then the vote will happen. The threshold to pass is the single majority (>50%), not alike regular RfA. I've given my thought for days on this issue and concluded that it would work for us too.

Thought? --Aphaia 20:20, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

  • I agree the community should register opinions in a Vote Concerning the matter of Poetlister, Cato, and Yehudi. Modernist 20:42, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
  • This sounds like a good idea and is a lot cleaner than enwiki's. Cbrown1023 talk 21:18, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
I copied the rule from EN WS and modifid (remove the schedule votes of confidence part etc) to accustom for your needs. See the below.
If no opposition comes from the community within a day, I take it the community tentative approves to render it for the vote mentioned by Modernist, while I an mot sure how the vote is best structured. We can later discuss on that. --Aphaia 00:02, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

IMHO Poetlister/Quillercouch must be removed as both Bureaucrat and administrator. Cato removed as administrator and checkuser (even if its null and void) and Yehudi must be removed as administrator as quickly as possible to reestablish the credibility and the viability of this project..Modernist 03:49, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Modernist for your feedback. But I don't think this is the right forum. IMHO it should be on WQ:RFA. Also I an not sure if it is right to start the vote immediately. Wikisource community decided to wait for him until 15th hoping him to give an explaination why he did it after all. I think them quite fair in this difficult circumstance; after all we don't know now even if we would like him to retain all those socks, if those three are all of his socks (that is what I urge him to say publicly!) and which account he as a person would like to retain if we allow him to continue editing but not all his socks, etc.
Also, a bit selfishly saying, the comment in your style may make it difficult for b'crats to resume the result. I personally prefer to divide them to each account just for readability. --Aphaia 05:25, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
Thank you Aphaia, my comments are meant to move us all forward on the same page. I'd like to hear an explanation from him, but the 15th sounds OK as does WQ:RFA - in your style. Modernist 10:38, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
Thanks to thanks ;) Yes your comments have moved this issue forward and I appreciate you and Casey. I agree on the 15th. The 10th day since this issue was made public.
Back to the immediate concern. I propose and thus support to have a vote of confidence on these accounts (at least on Cato from the 15th). I think Modernist supported. Casey may have supported to have a vote too? If so it gets three supports already so we will move forward. Is it okay? How about, Casey? --Aphaia 17:27, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
I support having a vote. - InvisibleSun 18:00, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
InvisibleSun thirded so that it will happen on WQ:RFA#Votes of confidence. --Aphaia 04:58, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
*nod* Vote is a good idea. Cbrown1023 talk 14:20, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
I would like to ask who would become the subject of the vote for confidence while not scheduled in advance.--Jusjih 01:04, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

User:WJBscribe supplied this explanation of who - more or less, I suppose on: this post on Wikisource where Cato admits to a number of sockpuppet accounts across WMF projects, including Quillercouch/Poetlister and Yehudi.... Modernist 11:12, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

To Jusjih, every account alleged to be his socks and granted restricted access. At this moment it is equal to Cato, Quillercouch and Yehudi. s:user:Cato confirmed those three as Modernist pointed out.
As for the schedule, it was my fault not to determine its term beforehand. But in comparison with the granted rights, it should not be shorter than one week, I think, to gather opinions from the community member as much as possible. --Aphaia 07:31, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Votes of confidence

originally taken from English Wikisource

Restricted access depends on the continued support of the community. This may be tested by a vote of confidence, in which a simple majority (50%+1) must support the user's continued access for it to be retained. (What access a discussion concerns should be explicitly noted in the discussion's introduction.) Any user may propose a vote of confidence, but at least three established users must support the need for one before it can be called.

In the case of an called proposal, the user may not use the restricted access for any non-trivial action at any time until the vote is closed. A bureaucrat will eventually archive the discussion and, if so decided, request removal of restricted access by a steward.

[edit] What is copyrighted and what isn't

I'm not a registered user here but I worked at another languaje wikiquote. I have noticed the current debate about enforcing copyright rules, and before going on with that, I need to have some things clarified, and here I'm more likely to find answers.

On one side, there are quotes that are in the public domain, such as things said by historical people or procers centuries ago. I think it's beyond doubt that those are in the public domain and have no copyright, and can be used and cited freely and without limits. On the other side, there are copyrighted works, wich would be able to be cited but only in very small proportions, if at all, under the legal umbrella of "Fair use".

The current debate tries to determine the exception policy about fair use, when it can be used and when it can't. But there is another issue to be conidered before that: when a quote is protected by copyright, and when it isn't? Commons has a very good system, with all the template tags, to check if there is some way an image falls into PD, but there isn't such a way to determine the copyright status of a quote.

Some questions I have wondered

  • Protected works. There is no doubt that current or time-close works in the media such as movies and TV shows are always protected in themselves by copyright. It isn't a big surprise if iconic quotes or slogans, such as "My name is Bond, James Bond", are protected as well. Long quotes that do not make sense outside of the plot, such as the speech of V in the TV in the movie "V for Vendetta", would be surely protected as well. But which is the limit? A work of fiction, specially those wich are not narrated from a third point of view, says many things, many of wich are just trivial quotes of everyday usage. Just by placing any random movie in the TV I heard quotes such as "It's a good idea", "Me too", "You don't have to", "Sounds good" and I strongly doubt they can't claim copyright for that. Can they do it, or is there a limit?
  • There is an interview made by a media source, such as a magazine, to a known person, which says many things. To whom does the copyright of the quotes of that interview belong, to the media or the person? And when and under wich conditions would such copyright expire and become public domain? 200.126.149.214 13:26, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
    • Under the "merger doctrine" short quotes (like "My name is Bond, James Bond") are not protected by copyright, as there are too few ways to concisely express the thought to remove the phrase from our vocabulary. A compilation of such quotes may be protected, however. The individual quotes may be protected by trademark law, but only against trademark use (we could not advertise a movie based on it containing a character who says that, except possibly as a parody). As for the interview, copyright subsists in live performances that are simultaneously recorded with the authorization of the performer, per sec. 101 of the Copyright Act. BD2412 T 05:14, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Productions

virtually all of this (ok, everything I looked at but I didn't look at every page) is dialogue, not quotes. Suggest this is not the correct venue for this and other places (specifically, fan wikis and sites) might be a better place. I will be blunt: IMO the entire category and sub-cats might benefit from mass deletion. KillerChihuahua 20:02, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand this comment at all - first, the category includes not only films and TV shows, but also literary works (so there is more than just dialogue there). Second, what's the problem with dialogue anyway? Those are quotes. The definition of a quote is not that it is a single line. While there is a larger ongoing debate regarding the use or potential overuse of quotes from copyrighted works (and that will run its course and have an outcome based on Fair Use), I do not feel that this suggestion - that this entire category be deleted simply because there is dialogue contained within i