On Wed, Sep 10, 2008 at 7:43 PM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Sep 8, 2008 at 8:49 AM, Andrew Whitworth wknight8111@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Sep 8, 2008 at 12:59 AM, John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com wrote:
There is a discussion on Meta to disband Wikiquote, or at least consider the problems it faces and how to move forward.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metapub/On_disbanding_Wikiquote
So far it is mostly people who have doubts about its utility, so broader participation is desirable. I appreciate that this is not going to be a pleasant discussion for regular contributors to Wikiquote, but I see it as a worthwhile discussion, even if it only to re-affirm the community support for having a quote project now that the encyclopedia and library project are rapidly encroaching on its territory.
I know this proposal is probably offensive to some people. Nobody wants to see "their project" closed, no matter what problems it may have. I've seen this with projects that are much worse off then en.wikiquote, and I would expect nothing less from the quoters (what do their members call themselves?).
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I'm not in favor of closing wikiquote, but then again it could turn out to be the correct decision if questions like those above don't have clear and suitable answers. I hope people take this issue seriously because Wikiquote could seriously benefit from some thoughtful introspection.
--Andrew Whitworth
I guess this might be another potentially offensive proposal, but I think Wikiquote, given that it is in some ways the least successful of the projects, might be a good test case for a remerge, "wikicompendium"-style, back to Wikipedia.
I feel that the separation of the projects (and the consequent fracturing of the community) may have been a historic mistake, and that we should consider whether or not something like Wikiquote might work better as a "Quote:" namespace on Wikipedia (while retaining the conventions particular to Wikiquote). I feel this is an experiment that might be worth pursuing.
I was earlier thinking of a Quote: namespace for Wikisource, as a way to ensure that the source is provided in full first, before the quotes are attached, or at least concurrently developed. I hadnt thought of a Quote namespace being part of Wikipedia - that could help allow the fair-use quotes to be better managed.
-- John