[Foundation-l] Wikiquote: to be, or not to be

[Pavlo Shevelo]

First about proper tone of discussion:

I'm pretty much surprised (I mean that) to see "we & them" attitude
combined with things which seems like BIGbrotherhood.
See how many words like "them", "their" etc. are used and isn't it
(pardon me) too snobbish to talk about "inspections"?

Now to the questions:

On Mon, Sep 8, 2008 at 3:49 PM, Andrew Whitworth <wknight8111 at gmail.com> wrote:
> ... Some questions that I think WQ needs to ask itself, possibly with
> input from other projects, are:
>
> 1) What is the boundary that differentiates a quote from a source? If
> we have a transcript of length X, at what N is X > N suitable for
> Wikisource and X < N suitable for wikiquote? Obviously, N is not going
> to be a firm number, but having a clear answer to this question will
> help silence some detractors who say WQ should be merged into WS.

Are you serious about proposing such metrics? Isn't it obvious that
neither 100% of the text source, nor 99%, ... nor 50%, ... nor 10%
(!!!) etc. of the source text con't be the quotation? Perhaps the
problem is in confusing the notions "quotation" and "citation"?
Seemingly anyone can take, for example, Oxford dictionary of
quotations to get the idea of what quotation is.

For everybody convenience let me use the example:

"I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us
as equals."

is a quotation no matter what the context was.
There are 18 words (if I'm not mistaken). And there is great
difference between this qoutation and any 18 words long citation from
any text written/spoken by same author.
[I'm not saying that citations should be prohibited in WQ, but
quotations are IMHO the main "mission" of WQ and the name of the
project is WQ and not WC ;) ]

By the way, talking about metrics - perhaps that 18 words might be the
100% of some 'source', it doesn't matter.


> 2) Is the purpose of WQ to store, source, and organize quotations in
> an analogous way to how Commons handles media? If so, we should be
> pursuing technical means through which quotations from WQ can be
> easily transcluded into works that require them, such as WP, WB, WV,
> and WN.

Yes, it's good point (if I understood it well). There is (in WP as
well as in WQ) group of templates to provide cross-references between
WP and WQ but they are just workaround, no more.

> 3) If a contemporary figure makes an important statement, is that the
> jurisdiction of WQ, WN, WP, or a combination thereof? That is, is WQ
> trying to follow current events, or is it focusing on a more
> historical perspective?

Regarding following/focusing: same as WP (IMHO)

Regarding 'jurisdiction': apparently combination, that's all synergy
(!!!) of WMF projects are all about!

Let me make the statement (sort of teasing if not provocation ;) ):
all statements made by Winston Churchill and well known as his
quotations contains much more "statement" than all details of his
biography. Looking from this point WP provides just (pardon me)
second-level service, answering the question: who was that guy, who
made such clever statements, and, for example, what education should I
have to be at least half as clever :)

> 4) Is a GFDL site license really appropriate if the vast majority of
> content on WQ is not released under that license? If we have quotes
> that are too old for copyright (and therefore PD) or quotes that are
> too new (and therefore being used as some kind of fair use), does
> having a GFDL stamp on the website really make any sense?

That's complicate (as gini noted already)

>
> 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.

If you are not in favor of closing what is the motivation (reason?) to
talk about closing from your very first posting?

>
> --Andrew Whitworth
>

Pavlo Shevelo