Wiktionary talk:Quotations

Really, really old discussions (from before 2008) have been moved to Wiktionary talk:Quotations/Archive.

Lost in translation

What does this mean?

Quotes should only be from date-able printed source, except for in the case of earliest usage where reliably date-able electronic sources (e.g. Usenet) can be used.

DAVilla 03:28, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I think it means that we prefer date-possessing print media over electronic, except in cases where the word appeared first in date-possessing electronic media. In such a case, there should be a quotation from the electronic source where the word first appeared. --EncycloPetey 04:34, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Quoting of newspapers/magazines

Is there a policy for quoting from newspapers and magazines? E.g. on cadre, it links to Financial Times without any name of the journalist, but I’ve seen more elaborate sources. Isn’t there a template for this? H. (talk) 15:02, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

There is no poliocy, no, but including the full date and the writer's name both seem like common sense to include. We don't have a template for this, in part because they are very difficult to write so that they will both format consistently and yet be flexible enough for the various possible situations that might arise. The citation templates on Wikipedia cause me no end of headaches as I have to look up parameter names almost every time that I use one. Not infrequently, I find that a key parameter does not exist for the template I am trying to use there. --EncycloPetey 15:53, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

That is odd. In my experience the only template that has ever given me significant issues is the encyclopedia one (I normally stick to cite_website/journal/news/book/encyclopedia, though, so the more oddball ones I wouldn't be surprised if they had issues), which has some very idiosyncratic usage. Circeus 18:02, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Reusing a quotation

I added the same quote (from a 1948 book) to a number of entries (presidio, while, exploring, seeking, colonists, eastern, seaboard, away, celebrating); I'm not sure if this is would be considered a problem or not. For really common words, like while, what sort of quotations do we want? Thoughts, comments? JesseW 07:37, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

That's not a problem at all; it's quite efficient of you is the quote shows context for multiple words. For common words, I'd look for uses in different parts of the sentence (subject and object for nouns; words like while at the beginning and middle of a sentence). Personally, when I do quotes for common words, I seek out a variety of dates, regions, and genres for each sense and each part of speech. For dates, I'll try to find at least three qoutes per century (early, middle, and late). For regions, I'll try to include quotes at least from the UK and US, and look for citations from Australia, Canada, Ireland, India, or South Africa if I can find them. I try to include a few quotes from women as well as men. I try to have some poetry, some literature, drama, memoirs, and government documents. Of course, all of this is the ideal that I strive for, and it is rare to even come close to meeting all my personal expectations, but striving for something like this makes the collected citations much more useful. --EncycloPetey 08:08, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! Please put what you just wrote someone more visible (i.e. on this page, or at least your userpage, or at a minimum, I'll put it on mine). That's about what I had thought, but it's very helpful to have the range laid out as you did. I hope the quote I used really does show context for all the words I used it on. Review would be certainly appreciated... But I'll go and do more now... JesseW 09:30, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Can we please end citation lines with a colon?

It drives me crazy that citation lines are being ended with a comma instead of a colon; it's just wrong! This what I'm proposing (example from Citations:scur, colon after "p. 524"):

• 1994, Mary C. Smith, David M. Sherman, Goat Medicine, →ISBN, p. 524:

  If the scur is in the form of a thin strip, like a piece of ribbon candy, the owner is instructed to keep it trimmed with hoof trimmers.

Cheers! bd2412 T 03:46, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

The comma doesn't drive me crazy (I've added many hundreds of quotations and gotten used to the convention of ending the line with a comma), but I agree with BD2412 that a colon would be more consistent with usual practice. (PS: A period would also be more consistent with usual practice than a comma.) -- WikiPedant 04:06, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree that a comma is misused for this, but don't see that a colon is necessarily correct either. My own practice has been to have no punctuation at the end of the first line. --EncycloPetey 04:50, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with WikiPedant. However, you also seem to be implicitly proposing the use of "p." instead of "page", and that's not a change I'd support. —Ruakh_TALK 11:44, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

My only concern is the comma versus the colon. I have no qualms expanding the p. to a page wherever I've added citations (I'm afraid there are many), but the comma must go, and it is the colon which is the punctuation mark that happily announces: look, an example! bd2412 T 16:25, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I always abbreviate "page" to "p." (and use any other standard abbreviations that apply) because I believe that the citation line should be as brief and non-intrusive as possible (while giving all required info), so every abbreviatory trick in the book should be used. -- WikiPedant 16:43, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I do agree with that, but I really want to focus on the colon here. Colon! Colon! Colon! bd2412 T 18:44, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I've seen this before—irritable colon syndrome. A serious case too. -- WikiPedant 21:09, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I’m with EncycloPetey — I’d rather not have any punctuation at the end (and that is my practice); however, if I had to choose, I’d opt for a colon. Apart from that, I think that the form that a citation should take is thus (to use bd2412’s example from above):

• 1994: Mary C. Smith & David M. Sherman, Goat Medicine, page 524 ([Publisher]; →ISBN

  If the scur is in the form of a thin strip, like a piece of ribbon candy, the owner is instructed to keep it trimmed with hoof trimmers.

Nota the colon after the year, the ampersand between the co-authors’ names (which can just be the word “and”, especially in lists of three or more), the word “page(s)” (and “verse(s)”, “section(s)”, and whatever) written in full (not that I mind abbreviations thereof), and the fact that the publisher name and ISBN follow at the end (within parentheses, separated therein by a semi-colon). I believe this is the neatest and most intuitive order, organisation, &c. Any in (dis)agreement? † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 03:19, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Where's the colon at the end of the citation (after the end of the ISBN)? Surely some punctuation is in order - it's not a continuation of the citation itself. The rest I'm really not concerned with, although I will say that if there are more than three authors, common practice is to name one and et al. the rest. bd2412 T 03:51, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Sure, you can stick a colon after the closing parenthesis if you like (as I said, I’m not bothered about it). The et alii is a good one — that should be permitted but not enforced practice IMO. So, you cool with my scheme boiy? † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 04:03, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

In academic citations, the first author followed by et al. is often used when there are more than 2 authors. In pretty much any style guide, the page number comes last and it should not be omitted (as it is above) unless the work is a classic available online (then I settle for a chapter number). Generally, the logic is that the citation starts with the year (because it documents the history of usage) and then more-or-less proceeds through increasingly specific items of information. If an ISBN is provided, the name of the publisher strikes me as unnecessary. I frankly think there's a simple wisdom in separating all the elements with commas (except for the ending, which might be better handled with a period, or colon) and would prefer not to use parentheses in the citation lines. -- WikiPedant 04:22, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

• I also prefer the colon. Ƿidsiþ 07:49, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I confer with Pete: no punctuation at the end of the citation line whatever. Yes, a colon makes more sense than a comma, but it is still unnecessary, since the line on itself sets it off enough from the following line. Is there a vote on this? H. (talk) 14:36, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

• I'm down with it. I'm also OK with nothing, but think a colon is slightly better; indentation alone isn't really enough to establish the visual relationship IMO. -- Visviva 06:13, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

New information: We should not use a colon at the end of the line. For scriptural quotations, using a colon means that we end lines with things like "Exodus 20:7:". The pair of colons looks awkward and weird. --EncycloPetey 19:17, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

You've got a point there, Petey. The two colons are not the end of the world, and there are work-arounds (such as "Exodus, ch. 20, ver. 7:"), but the standard notation for biblical citations does use a colon between chapter and verse and the result when a second colon is added is not the prettiest sight I ever saw. Maybe a period would be better. -- WikiPedant 00:59, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Mind you, I disapprove of the overuse of the simple biblical quotations in the Webster imports for an equally simple reason: the bible translations are many, and they frequently have differing wordings. Circeus 17:57, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm bothered by that as well, which is why I specify the translation when I use quote. The original KJV is most useful for me, because of its date. --EncycloPetey 14:31, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I am not at all bothered by using a colon after a scriptural quotation. bd2412 T 18:30, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Me, neither. "Exodus 20:7:" looks fine to me.​—msh210℠ 18:36, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Same here. For me this isn't "new information" — I've added many scriptural quotations (just one is enough to verify that a sense meets the CFI, and they come with free translation and Masoretic vocalization) — and it had never occurred to me that the two colons might look weird to people. But being a programmer, I guess I've become inured to repetitive punctuation. :-P   —Ruakh_TALK 19:07, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I might as well comment on the debate as large too: I have a slight preference for colon over comma, but I definitely disapprove of putting nothing. Circeus 15:37, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Can we please get rid of the colon? I think it looks terrible. Most of all because it is at the end of a line. There is no need for any punctuation there, it serves like a title, under it follows the corresponding text. My 2¢. H. (talk) 08:19, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

It seems to me that we should be using a template for citations to allow people to choose whether they want a comma, colon or nothing (we should be using templates anyway for a variety of other reasons). Thryduulf (talk) 09:17, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Use of ¶

Just saying, I don't like the use of ¶ for paragraph breaks. Why not continue onto the next line? DAVilla 05:19, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Because it breaks the visual flow of the entry, IMO. Citations are present for illustration, not for their own sake; thus, they shouldn't create any more visual noise than necessary. There aren't very many cases where we should be citing from more than one paragraph anyway -- literary dialogue is the only common case I'm aware of -- but if ¶ is problematic for such cases, I'd rather we just replaced the line break with a space. -- Visviva 05:35, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm all for stripping quotations and their citation lines to the bare minimum. But in the cases of poetry and song lyrics, I believe it is appropriate--maybe even the only responsible course--to use separate lines, reproducing the verse precisely as the author wrote it. Devices like slash marks and ¶'s are justified in print dictionaries (where the space is not available). But we don't have that problem, and I don't like to turn poetry into something that doesn't look like poetry. -- WikiPedant 23:40, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

FWIW, I never use ¶, using only line-breaks instead. If citations cause “visual noise”, then I consign them to a rel-table. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 18:43, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Proposed new template

I may not be the most experienced user, but I have noticed there are quite a few templates on quotes such as {{quote-news}}, {{quote-journal}}, {{quote-newsgroup}}, {{quote-video}},{{quote-us-patent}}, and {{quote-book}}. Although all of these templates are great, they all share similar parameters so I propose that we rename {{quote}} to maybe something along the lines of {{big-quote}} and use {{quote}} as the versatile template for all of those other quotation templates. (Sort of like w:Template:Citation on Wikipedia.) 98.166.139.216 00:18, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Those tempates may have similar parameter names, but the display generated is different for each kind of source, and it is not at all simple to merge them. --EncycloPetey 02:02, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

[F]irst letter brackets

I don't have much experience here, and I didn't notice a guideline in the policy, so I want to know if there's consensus around the use of brackets in quotations to indicate that the starting word of the quote is not the first word of the sentence in the original. For example, I just added a quotation to chouse, in which the full sentence is "They never like you half so well as when you bring your men with you: they don't want officers so much as men; and some of the commands, if they can chouse you out of your recruits, will not stop to do so; and then you may whistle for your commission." The part in bold is what I pulled out for the quotation, which I started with [S] and ended with a period.

A second issue that I just noticed—this guideline specifically states that quotations should be listed under a level 4 header, grouped by part of speech; however, {{new en noun}} includes "quotations" as a level 3 header. Which is correct? --Spangineer 23:16, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Re: “[S]ome”: Personally, I prefer “ […] some” (using the {{...}} template).

Re: level-4 vs. level-3: This guideline is correct. I'll fix {{new en noun}}; thanks for pointing that out!

—Ruakh_TALK 23:54, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Re the "[F]irst letter" question, I have never had a problem with simply changing an initial lowercase letter to uppercase without using square brackets, as long as the quotation still consists of a grammatically complete unit (i.e., a sentence). Similarly, I have no problem with concluding a quotation with a period where there was no period in the original, as long as the quotation is a grammatically complete unit. I follow the usual style standard for academic writing and only use ellipsis marks ({{...}}) within a quotation -- never at the beginning or end of a quotation. Ordinarily Ruakh and I get along famously, but we do not see eye-to-eye on these points.

Re the level 3/level 4 question, yes level 4 is required.

-- WikiPedant 00:46, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I alternate regularly between "[F]irst letter" format and " […] , punctuation break." format myself. As a side note, I don't think replacement of a word is okay: e.g. "[The president] was shot". I'd go with "He [President X/The president] was shot" instead. Circeus 17:52, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Quoting translated works

Can we please add a section on how to quote translated works? There is a mention that the translator should come before the author, but how exactly? I just tried motu proprio#Dutch, but it doesn’t look right. H. (talk) 19:18, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

There are three kinds of translated quotations: (1) Quotations translated from non-English works, where the quotations are included to support use of an English word (see rustic, Noun 1927-29 quote); (2) Quotations from non-English works that are used to support words in the same non-English language, but which carry an English translation for the user (see centum Latin section); (3) Quotations from non-English works that are used to support words in a different non-English language, and which carry an English translation for the user (I've seen no examples yet). We really need an explanation for each of the first two items. --EncycloPetey 02:10, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

attenir has a French quotation that is from a translation of English. Given the verb was already markedly archaic at that time (Grevisse note it was never in Academy and rare amongst literary writers, giving only 19th century quotes), this is a useful quotation. Circeus 23:21, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

I consider the second case needful of standatdisation/clarification on how to format it. I for myself have been adding some quotations from Pobedonoscev's articles and I found that English translation with expired copyright (the translator has deceased in 1938). I would like to know whether the format in Citations:разноплемённый looks appropriate to other users active in adding quotations (e. g. whether mentioning the translator should be obligatory, the translation italicised or not etc). Its nascence has evolved in concord with Vahag (see here). In centum#Latin the translator of Vergil is not mentioned. The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 19:49, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I suppose that several links to entries with quotations with translations should be added to the Wiktionary:Quotations. I think it helps new editors to use translations in quotes. E.g., links to centum#Latin, attenir. -- Andrew Krizhanovsky 15:39, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Proposing to add wiki source to 3.1

As follows:
3.1 "The 1913 Webster Dictionary uses quotes ... The year and the specific work need to be researched and added, and that is tedious, painstaking work. Using Wikisource and Google Books may help significantly..."
Is that ok?

Also, I've been wondering, is there a way to make wikisource an internal link? Thanks.--Tyranny Sue 06:55, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Added, and you can use the prefix s: as in [[s:Main Page]]. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 01:08, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikiquote

Wikiquote is not a source used for our quotations. That's not what we mean by "quotations" here. Most quotations we use are not notable enough to ever be included in Wikiquote. See Citations:parrot for examples of what Wiktionary wants in terms of supporting information. --EncycloPetey 22:08, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I know very well the differences between Wiktionary and Wikiquote: I'm the one who wrote the policies about this on Wikiquote. In fact, I wrote quite the opposite of what you're ascribing to me: most quotations Wiktionary uses are not suitable for Wikiquote, but many quotations in Wikiquote contain words, idiomatic expressions, constructions and regimina which make them useful as examples in Wiktionary's entries. And to use as examples quotations of famous authors is an obvious major plus for a dictionary. --Nemo 20:47, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Your change was to a list of tips in finding metadata (year, etc.) for Webster 1913 quotations. In the general case, is there any reason to think that Wikiquote can help with that? That is, what proportion of Webster 1913 quotations are currently in Wikiquote, and what proportion would be welcome there if someone wanted to add them? I'm guessing the proportion is small. —Ruakh_TALK 21:14, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

The quotations on Wikiquote frequently lack the information necessary for a good Wiktionary quotation. For example, a very large number of Wikiquote items lack a date, which is a critical piece of information here. Many others are oral quotations, not published by the speaker himself, and so the spelling is left to whomever happened to write down the quote. Many other quotations, such as those from Shakespeare, have been edited and modernized, so that they do not resemble the original in spelling, orthography, or punctuation. Wikiquote just isn't that useful for what we do on Wiktionary. --EncycloPetey 00:46, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

If a quotation on Wikiquote lacks a date, it should be moved from that Wikiquote article to its talk page as improperly sourced. We are working very hard to fully source our quotes. Cheers! bd2412 T 00:53, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

In Wikiquote can create "featured quotes" this is, quotes that can be used in Wiktionary because have good data.Remenber the three R: reduce, reuse and recycle.lol.--BoldLuis (talk) 11:18, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Standard formatting for self-published works

See User talk:Doremítzwr#s.n. for context.
When a work is published by the same person, society, or whatever that wrote it, shall it be a rule that the publisher be specified as “self-published”, thereby avoiding both inæsthetic duplication and abstruse Latin? Or does someone have a better idea?  — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ ⓤ · ⓣ  · ⓒ ~ 21:54, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

When it's published by the same person, I think "self-published" is the way to go. When it's published by the same society, I think either author or publisher should simply be skipped. —Ruakh_TALK 22:16, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Ruakh. If it's possible to ascertain the author's name, even if it's not listed in the standard places, that'd be better.​—msh210℠ 16:53, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Note that the redundancy can be triplicate, e.g.:

• 1970: Society of Biochemists, Journal of the Society of Biochemists, volume 12, page 60 (Society of Biochemists)

In such cases, I prefer to cut down on such redundancy like this:

• 1970: Journal of the Society of Biochemists, volume 12, page 60 (self-published)

Does that seem acceptable / ideal?  — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 11:51, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

That seems needlessly uninformative. Better would be something like:

• 1970, John Divorcé, “Effect of Biochemistry on Marriages”, in Journal of the Society of Biochemists, volume 12, page 60:

  It is often said that love conquers all.

—Ruakh_TALK 15:10, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that's preferable, but what if neither the sub-work title nor its author is known to us?  — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 19:14, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

How is that possible? Can you give a real example? —Ruakh_TALK 00:16, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Like in a snippet-only preview from google books. --Bequw → τ 01:39, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

In that case, I think we just have to give what we have:

• 1970, in Journal of the Society of Biochemists, volume 12, page 60:

  […] aid that love conquers all.

—Ruakh_TALK 17:26, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

(And by "what we have", I mean "what we hope we might have". Google Books is not at all reliable, especially for periodicals.) —Ruakh_TALK 17:29, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Year numbering system

Would it be safe to assume that we use BCE/CE rather than BC/AD? A scan of the latest XML dump shows 212 uses of " BCE" but no uses of " BC" alone. I'd prefer one system rather than an allowance for both as wikipedia does. --Bequw → τ 05:08, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

I really don't see why we would need to pick one over the other. As long as each entry only uses one form (and for that the one that was used first seems the best to go with) then I really don't see it as a problem requiring prescriptiveness. Thryduulf (talk) 09:20, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I prefer BCE, and would not object to making everyone use it. I realize that the entire calendar is Christian anyway, but BC and AD are really just flaunting it. :-P   —Ruakh_TALK 21:33, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I prefer AD and BC for the same reason — the calendar's Christian origin should not be given the whitewash of cultural neutrality. I'm an atheist, but using CE and BCE just seems disingenuous.  — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 21:49, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

So, can I start using AM? I really don't see what's disingenuous about CE and BCE. If you don't believe that Jesus is your lord and savior, then "the year of our Lord" and "before the Savior" are factually inaccurate, whereas "Christian era" and "before the Christian era" are neutral. —Ruakh_TALK 23:20, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

By the way, this is a minor point, but the calendar doesn't really have a Christian origin — it's a modification of a pre-existing Roman calendar — it just has various Christian elements, and Christianity is the reason for its wide propagation. —Ruakh_TALK 23:22, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I'd always understood CE and BCE to be initialisms for Common Era and Before the Common Era, respectively; the OED gives only “Before the Common Era” for B.C.E., but it glosses C.E. as “Common Era; occas., Christian Era” (it also states that the latter can be spelt C.Æ.). I guess it makes sense (and would be less disingenuous) to gloss CE and BCE as “(Before the) Christian Era”; if we create {{C.E.}} and {{B.C.E.}} and have them link to Appendix:Glossary#C.E., B.C.E., whereat it is explained that they are initialisms for Christian Era and Before the Christian Era, respectively, then I guess I'd be OK with prescribing that system in place of AD and BC.
BTW, FWIW, annō Dominī is Latin for "in [the] year of [the] Lord", not "in the year of our Lord" (that would be annō Dominī nostrī); moreover, since Latin doesn't have articles, there's no reason that annō Dominī can't be glossed "in the year of a Lord", which surely wouldn't be objectionable. Also, by "the calendar's Christian origin", I meant the origin of the numbering of its years.  — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 11:36, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

How about we use ADE then?  :-)  On a more serious note and FWIW, I don't care which we use, nor whether we institute consistency across entries, except that if we do institute consistency across entries then it should be consistent across eras also (so we don't always use AD and BCE).​—msh210℠ (talk) 16:37, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

BCE/CE more commonly refer to "Common Era", as the OED eludes to, so I've glossed them as such in the appendix. I've created the templates. Would it be a good idea to redirect {{BCE}} and {{CE}} (an unused redirect)? I much prefer these over AD/BC (atheists would argue that "a Lord" doesn't exist and is therefore still factually incorrect). --Bequw → τ 21:02, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

The whole point about disingenuousness was down to the "Common" bit of "(Before the) Common Era". No matter: the use of templates means that we can accommodate everyone; the display of CE/BCE or AD/BC could be a pref. or, better still, a toggle in the visibility box. For AD/CE, the year would have to be included as the first parameter within the template, because AD precedes the year, whereas CE follows it. I assume this wouldn't be too difficult; who has the know-how for this?  — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 14:31, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

If we're going to have different displays for different visitors, we should not do so by having both in the page and hiding one or the other by means of CSS. (That is bad Web authoring and breaks for visitors who don't use CSS, those using screen readers (who might use CSS, but not visual CSS), and perhaps others.) Rather, we'd have to display one by default and then allow users to set a JavaScript-based option that will replace it with the other. This is doable (and AFAICT not hard), but begs the question in that we still have to pick a default view for the vast majority of visitors who won't set an option. (IMO we should not do this at all. We have more than enough options that only regulars ever use.)​—msh210℠ (talk) 17:03, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I don't have the technical knowledge to comment on the CSS issue, but I do have to wonder how much of a problem is the use of CSS, really. In those rare instances where there isn't the CSS support, a user will see, for example, "AD 143 CE" for post-Jesus dates (which is regretable, but not confusing, and certainly isn't the end of the world) but, for example, "298 BCE" for pre-Jesus dates (because only the E would need to be toggled). Since AD/CE is only used for dates in the first few centuries (whereas BC/BCE is used for all pre-Jesus dates), this display problem will affect very few dates. (It would be good to know exactly how many entries presently use AD or CE for their quotations' dates; who knows how to perform such a search?) In summary, such togglability-related display problems affect very few dates (AD 1–circa 400) for very few users (those without visual CSS support), which, to me, seems a very worthwhile trade-off for something that causes so much disagreement (see w:Common Era, ¶ 2).  — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 21:15, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Good points. How about this: We use CSS to toggle the "E", and don't use "AD" or "CE" at all, even for early dates. (Do we need to?) That allows both backward compatibility (which "AD 3 CE" does not really) and a choice of "BC" or "BCE", and doesn't require JS. It still begs the question in that we still have to pick a default view for the vast majority of our users who won't set an option (but have visual CSS). (And still IMO we should not do this at all, as we have more than enough options that only regulars ever use.)
This would be eminently doable: let template:BC (redirect template:BCE  :-) ) display <abbr>BC<span class="how-unchristian-of-you">E</span></abbr> and, if we want the default to be to hide the "E", add .how-unchristian-of-you{display:none} to Common.css. Then use a JS PREF to toggle visibility.​—msh210℠ (talk) 18:07, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

While only (and always) providing BC[E] could be accurate, it's an odd convention that I think would confuse the average reader and editor. Ranges like "3 BC[E] - 1" could be interpreted as "3-1 BC[E]", rather than "3 BC[E] - 1 (AD/CE)". I've just made a JS PREFS that converts {{B.C.E.}}/{{C.E.}} to BC/AD links and additionally shifts the AD to before the year range. Regardless of the default I think this is the right method for customizing. I might have been too bold but I did convert some entries to use these templates. If consensus (in the BP) is to have the default be AD/BC than I will modify the entries and JS. --Bequw → τ 18:26, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I like msh210's idea of always omitting AD/CE — it's already a universal convention to mark all pre-Jesus dates with BC(E), whereas the lateness of dates marked with AD/CE varies. Given a year number without context, the ordinary assumption is that it's a year of the Dominus, not a minus date. That said, Bequw's right that omitting AD/CE is confusing in date ranges that bridge the birth of the Nazarene, so perhaps we should keep those plus-date markers for those cases only, which affects vanishingly few instances. I'm concerned that this is just a PREF; as msh210 said, "we have more than enough options that only regulars ever use". This needs to be an easily-accessed toggle, in the style of those in the visibility box in the left-hand side of our interface. — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 21:15, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

I disagree, on multiple counts:

• Re: "Given a year number without context, the ordinary assumption is that it's a year of the Dominus, not a minus date": That depends on the number. Given the number "30" without context, the ordinary assumption is that it's not a year number at all!
• Re: "This needs to be an easily-accessed toggle, in the style of those in the visibility box in the left-hand side of our interface": I think the PREF is already insane overkill. Adding this to the UI is, well, whatever comes after insane overkill. Maniacal hunting-to-extinction?

—Ruakh_TALK 22:46, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

OK, context in which one knows it's a year. In a list of quotations spanning from AD 30 to, say, AD 850, without any indication of era, a person will know that they are all AD dates (if only because of chronological order). Even when there is only a single quotation dated 30, a person will know it's a year if he's ever seen a Wiktionary quotation before (assuming it's properly formatted). As for the maniacal hunting-to-extinction, would adding that toggle to the UI (?) cause any problems? — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 23:28, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

No, I think that no matter how obvious the context, it's confusing to just use "30" as a year. I was about to type up an example quotation from that time to show what I mean, so I looked up Pliny the Elder to see what years he wrote in, and I found that Wikipedia gives his death-date as "August 25, 79 (aged 55–56)", and I did a double-take trying to figure out why they didn't include the year. In a situation where they formatted a date in the normal American way, the way that I see fifty times a day every day of my life, where I knew roughly what year to expect, and where I was specifically looking for a year and had just been discussing the interpretation of era-less years, it still took me several seconds to recognize that he died in 79 C.E. Maybe I'm just abnormally stupid, but y'know, 50% of the people are always below average. —Ruakh_TALK 01:45, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

I do a double-take everytime I see that format and the day-date has no ordinal markers (even when it's a four-digit year, like "August 25, 1979"), and the effect is greater with formatting like 8/25/1979. Irrespective of that, Wikipedia's doing it half-right in this case — with "AD" already mentioned, why should it be given again? –A guy born AD can't die BC… — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 01:57, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Re "a person will know that they are all AD dates" that is not always the case. Theoretically, even if the numbers are increasing in magnitude, the first one could always be BC[E] ("30, 50, 80" could be "30 CE, 50 CE, 80 CE" or "30 BCE, 50 CE, 80 CE"). Practically, we don't check to ensure quotations are in chronological order and many entries don't have this. Especially because of this last reason, we should note the era for every year date. --Bequw → τ 02:37, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

(unindent) I agree that the PREF-link should be easily accessible. What if we gave a link and instructions at the Glossary page that the templates link to? We could even provide a tooltip to let them know about this option. I hesitate to put the link right in the sidebar because those are more for actions that a user might want to change often, whereas this is probably something the user will only touch once. PREFS being cluttered is an independent issue as if it is unusably cluttered it should be reorganized anyways. There are many entries there (ones that only frequent editors care about) that people should just hard-code into their skin files. PREFS should be left for the preferences important to the casual user (eg this customization), those that need to be browser specific (eg the mobile one), and those for proposing new changes (eg the new collapsible box stuff Yair is proposing). --Bequw → τ 02:45, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Forgive the delay is response. I agree with you. I see you've already made some of those proposed changes. Is the tooltip up and running? We should have a BP discussion soon about clearing out most of the cruft in WT:PREFS; perhaps a subpage for a lot of the more technical stuff is the way to go. — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 18:49, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

NP. The tooltip is live. Let me know if there's anything else we can do. I've start WT:Grease pit#reorganizing PREFS. --Bequw → τ 02:17, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

How should I be seeing the tooltip? At the moment, the text I see is Appendix:Glossary... — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 10:57, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Ah, thanks, it was only working in Chrome. Now should work in all (IE & FF). --Bequw → τ 01:37, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Yup; it does. However, the tooltip suggests that by clicking on the (B)CE, it'll automatically change to BC/AD. Would it be possible for it to actually do that? If not, do you reckon the link should point directly to WT:PREFS? — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 10:19, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Can't easily have the click change the preferences. I think they should be able to still get to the glossary (what if they just don't know what the term means). What about clearing up the tooltip to read "Click for info and instructions to change to BC/AD". --Bequw → τ 13:38, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Does the glossary link change depending upon which form is shown? If not, then we need to combine our glossary entries for AD and CE and for BC and BCE. Also, how about changing the text to read "Click for the glossary and for a link to a toggle to switch between AD/CE and BC/BCE."? — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 15:27, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Glossary link does (and has) change with the toggle. I've updated the tooltip too. --Bequw → τ 03:41, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Once the PREFS are trimmed down, I daresay that toggle will be quite functional. — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 20:41, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

I've found a problem: The tooltip displays Appendix:Glossary and not the helping message when the display is set to AD (I haven't checked for BC). — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 20:52, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Fixed. --Bequw → τ 02:58, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Great, thanks. Now, what shall we do about {{A.D.}} and {{B.C.}}? Redirect them to {{C.E.}} and {{B.C.E.}}, respectively? — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 08:52, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good. I've redirected them. I've also noted those redirects on the docs for {{B.C.E.}} and {{C.E.}} in case someone gets confused. --Bequw → τ 18:37, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Good work; well done! — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 21:49, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

1) I am not quite content with imposing BCE as the option by default and forcing the decorous reader at first to encounter CE and only then to seek how to fulfil his/her intention to switch to AD.

2) Having recently finished perusing Carlyle's masterpiece Past and Present where he decries Atheism and other sad isms (quote), I consider preferring CE over AD another instance of their pervasion and personally embrace AD and BC as manifestations of a millenia old tradition. Consequently, I can only join the suspicion of disingenuousness, albeit driven by motives which are dissimilar to Doremítzwr's. The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 17:08, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Not being an atheist, but also not having anything against atheists, I'm not sure whether to be offended at your insinuation that I am one. Regardless, I hardly see the relevance: if you want to be anti-atheist, that's your own business, but Wiktionary isn't the place to promulgate such views. (Also, FYI, in current usage "peruse" means "skim, scan, read cursorily". Some usage mavens will tell you that it still means "read thoroughly", but they're lying to you.) —Ruakh_TALK 04:14, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Firstly, it is not newly-found. Secondly, I never claimed you were an Atheist, I simply perceive the proposed imposement of BCE/CE as a modification aiming at removing the Christian element of counting and therefore I condemn this modification. This is simply the explanation of my motives to condemn it and by no means should you regard it as an exhortation or promulgation of anything, for ordinarily I do not comment on people, but on proposals. As for peruse, Penguin's The Modern English Dictionary (1989) has as the sole sense read carefully, so I use the word in that and only that sense. The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 06:03, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Format of notes in quotations

Many Chinese entries have notes that go along with a quotation (eg 三人成虎). Currently they're using footnotes and just showing the notes right below. Is this the formatting we want? --Bequw → τ 05:33, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

In [[三人成虎]] the notes are only in the translation, and the translation is original (it says it's a "Wiktionary translation"). In such a case, or in any case that the footnotes are added by us, I think we should not have them: they are ugly. Incorporate any notes into the translation (in square brackets) instead. But that's just my esthetics speaking. Where a footnote is in the original text and is not needed for the citation, I think we should omit the footnote (and the marker for it in the main text) and do what the lawyers do, writing "internal footnotes omitted" or something like that on the #* (metadata) line. Where the quotation has a footnote and both the footnote and the main text are needed to cite the term, then, well, I guess we have to deal with the ugliness....​—msh210℠ (talk) 16:29, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Ruakh's comment below made me realize what I hadn't thitherto: that the quote was in an etymology section. Consider my comment above as applying to quotations used for citation (not the present case).​—msh210℠ (talk) 18:36, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

[[三人成虎]] doesn't actually have any "quotations" (in the Wiktionary sense of that term). The etymology section includes a quotation formatted like a "quotation", but it's not actually a "quotation" because it doesn't actually use the term; rather, it's simply the passage that the expression is alluding to. And the ====Quotations==== section contains but one quotation — a quotation, in English, from an English work, that does not use the phrase, nor a translation of the phrase, but that is apparently intended to illustrate the concept (?). But you're obviously asking about the quotation in the etymology section, since that's the one with footnotes. Given that the footnotes are only in the translation, I think the problem is with the overall approach: it's clear that the quotation, on its own, is not enough explanation. So I think it makes more sense to rewrite the whole thing. Something like this would be much clearer IMHO:

Literally “three people produce a tiger”, from 三 (sān, “three”) + 人 (rén, “person”) + 成 (chéng, “produce”) + 虎 (hǔ, “tiger”). The expression refers to a passage in Zhan Guo Ce (circa 77–6 B.C.E.), wherein the king of Wei admits to his minister that if three people told him there was a tiger in the marketplace, the king would believe them, and his minister replies, "Whereas it is clear that there is no tiger in the market, yet three people saying so produces the tiger." (For the full relevant passage and translation, see the citations page.)

—Ruakh_TALK 17:36, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Links in the body of quoted text

Note: this discussion has been moved from User talk:Ruakh. —Ruakh_TALK 21:02, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Hello Ruakh -- Re this edit. You do? All the time? I've never seen you put links in the body of quoted text. Are we on the same page here? I'm not talking about avoiding wiki-linking authors or names of works on the citation line of the quotation. We all do that. I'm talking about avoiding the use of links in the body of the text constituting the actual quoted material. I haven't built a data set and run any regression analyses, but I think almost all the seasoned editors here avoid those sorts of links. -- Ghost of WikiPedant 00:33, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I understand what you're talking about, and yes, I've done it many times, though "all the time" is an exaggeration. Offhand the only specific time I can think of is at [[snower]], but I know that's not the only time. Generally I only do it when I think that (1) a reader is likely not to be familiar with the linked word and (2) an understanding of the linked word is helpful in understanding the quotation well enough for it to be a useful example of the headword. (In the snower example, "champeen snower" sounds like "one who snows champeens" unless you know or can guess what "champeen" means.) I agree with the policy against wikilinks in example sentences, but I think quotations have slightly different considerations, since we can't just rewrite them to use simpler words and/or to make sense with less context.

BTW, "almost all the seasoned editors here" is a very short list; I literally cannot think of ten editors who add more than, say, one quotation a month or so. (Of course, I only notice quotation-adding when a word is listed at RFV, so it's possible that there are dozens of editors who regularly add quotations but never for RFV'd words; but somehow I doubt that.) But A-cai (talk • contribs) also linkifies words in quotations — much more than I do, actually — see [[曾經滄海難為水]] and [[井底之蛙]].

Anyway, as always, I'm willing to defer to consensus, if/as/when consensus becomes clear to me.

—Ruakh 01:19, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and I also add a lot of Wikipedia links. Probably more of those than word-links, actually. See e.g. the first citation at [[rephasing]]. —Ruakh 01:24, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I think it is our practice. I remember being told that we don't do it and wondering why. Well, why?

Ruakh's stated principles for departure from my understanding of prevailing practice make sense to me. DCDuring TALK 01:29, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

DC and Ruakh -- A couple of times, when my back was to the wall and I just couldn't find a better quotation, I've included one or two square-bracketed words to clarify an abbreviation or whatever. (I would have added "[champion]" after "champeen" in Ruakh's snower quotation.) But I think links go too far, since they pull the reader out of the quotation, which countervails the whole function of the quotation--to provide a coherent, cohesive context illuminating the meaning. So my considered opinion is that it's a bad practice to starting blue-ing up the quotations, and it sets a bad example for new editors who are liable to get the idea that it's OK to include links within quoted text as liberally as is done in definitions. I think most seasoned editors, including Ruakh, already have some sense of the dangers of linking up quoted text, and I note that even Ruakh's own example of rephasing only used blue links inside editor-added square brackets. In any case, now it's time to make my way back to mainspace, where each of us can continue to add quotations according to his own lights. -- Ghost of WikiPedant 05:00, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I can understand (perhaps) A-cai's linking from CJKV text, but for languages with words, linking elements in a quotation distracts the reader from the whole point of the quotation, which is to illiustrate use of the entry word. In a quotation, blue links are visual distractions that hamper this function. If a quotation "needs" wikilinks to be understandable to a reader, then it is either a poor choice for a quotation, or else it is a very old quotation for which such difficulties are to be expected. --EncycloPetey 05:04, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Note also that Wiktionary:Quotations is explicitly a "Think Tank", which means that the recommendations given there have never been voted in as policy, so the presence of the "no links" point is not a binding policy issue at this time. --EncycloPetey 05:13, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

It is easy to generate a long list of properties of quotations that make them poor choices; for many words, it is much harder to generate three quotations that are all "good" choices. Personally, my preferred kinds of citations are roughly, in no particular order, these:

• citations that are clearly in the relevant sense
• earliest and latest citations
• print citations
• citations that are easy to understand without too much context
• citations that demonstrate the range of grammar of a sense
• citations that demonstrate the range of precise meaning of a sense
• citations that demonstrate the range of referents/subjects/etc. of a sense
• citations that use common collocates, or otherwise demonstrate typical usage
• citations where the full context is visible on Wikisource or Google Books or whatnot
• citations that count toward the CFI (durable archival, use as opposed to mention, etc.)

Sometimes, some of the above preferences "lose out", and we include quotations that would benefit from one or more wikilinks. I don't see that as a fatal problem.

—Ruakh 15:01, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm. This discussion has been dormant for over five months; however, I think one reason against linking in quotations was missed. When I add quotations, I endeavour to reproduce the source text as precisely as possible, which includes reproducing any links in the source (or the absence thereof); see the 2007 quot. at Citations:encolden for an example of a source-reproduced link. That said, I have no problem adding links to the source-information line (as in the link-heavy quots. of Humean#English) or to adding them in quotations' translations (per the 1830 quot. at balanephagous#English) or in bracketted editorial comments (as shown by WikiPedant above to have been done by Ruakh in rephasing#English). For that reason, I believe our policy should be against adding wikilinks to quoted text (excepting bracketted editorial comments). — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 15:41, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Additional See Also links

I think the See Also section (or perhaps elsewhere in the document, wherever appropriate) would benefit from links to Wiktionary:References and Help:Citations, Quotations, References for assistance in disambiguating between these three closely-related types of bibliographical inclusion. —Morganiq 22:17, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

"This is a Wiktionary policy, guideline or common practices page"

Warning to casual readers of the page: looks like it's not any of the three.[1] --Nemo 18:48, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Seems to me you might just have to read the page. IMO that solves everything. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:52, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

For someone reading this who doesn't know what we're talking about, see diff. The passage you misquoted was in fact "Quotes should only be from date-able printed sources or archived Usenet posts" which you used to justify deleting archived Usenet posts. Right. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:32, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Didn't misquote. See diff.​—msh210℠ (talk) 20:38, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the correction. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:33, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Quoting from a series; introducing general context within brackets

Hi, I'm trying to provide a quote from Tad Williams' City of Golden Shadow for "to gild the lily". First, should I mention that this book is part of the Otherworld series? If so, how should it be done? Besides, I'd like to mention the context surrounding the quote (describing an execution by lethal injection) in a few words only. Could someone have a look at what I've done on this page and tell me what could be improved? I'm not sure I'll be able to check for answers on this here page or even to modify my contribution, though.

Thank you, Denhetreil (talk) 03:57, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Quoting a discussion forum

I would need to use quotations from discussion forums to attest the secondary definition and form of an Internet slang word. Is this okay and if yes, is there an existing template that I can use? Axelode (talk) 22:10, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Not generally okay. From the page: "Quotes should only be from date-able printed sources or archived Usenet posts, except for in the case of earliest usage where reliably date-able other sources can be used (although they still do not count as toward the attestation requirement for inclusion)." Equinox ◑ 22:12, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

[sic] regarding 'date-able', do we really say that? Sigh. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:13, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Remarks to help a quotation?

I introduced a quotation for beau sabreur (gallant swordsman). In brief, the sentence is "She was a beau sabreur". In the source, this woman is frequently described in masculine terms. ("She was a man of the world.") I have absolutely no idea if beau sabreur is used for men and women, or if a gallant swordswoman is known as a belle sabreur. My point is that despite appearances, this is definitely not a source for using beau sabreur to refer to a woman. Anyone familiar with the source would know that, but no one reading the isolated quotation would know better. I would like to introduce a comment. Is there an appropriate format? Looking here turns up nothing. Suggestions? Choor monster (talk) 14:43, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

This is the kind of inquiry best posted at the Information Desk. Generally -eur corresponds to -euse, so I believe the feminine equivalent in French would be belle sabreuse. Chuck Entz (talk) 15:38, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

You misunderstood me. I am not looking for the French for gallant swordswoman—in a comment I asked someone to just fix the French—I am looking for policy regarding quotations that can be badly misconstrued out of context. (PS: thanks, I'm adding belle sabreuse, it's genuine.) Choor monster (talk) 16:10, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

We don't seem to have any standard way of doing so, but I think we should. This information is probably best put on a citations: page (e.g. citations:beau sabreur) rather than in the entry; in fact, because of the necessity of adding in a qualifying remark, I think I'd put the entire quotation plus remark in the citations: page. And then add the remark as, perhaps, a separate line beneath or above the quotation in square brackets or italics. As I said, we have no standard format for this (yet).​—msh210℠ (talk) 20:50, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Using quotations for an agenda

Do we have a policy regarding quotations that are blatantly, needlessly political? User:ReidAA has been adding a great number of quotations for words that don't really need quotations in the first place, and many of them are strongly political. See, for example, where the same quotation was added to jail, monopoly, lawsuit and several more. He's been doing this for some months now.

Obviously, certain words are pretty much limited in choice. For example, I added a political example usage for social engineering, and I believe it is as universally acceptable as such things can get. I did not add the Gingrich "right-wing social engineering" quotation—it's independently famous, of course—since the page doesn't seem to need quotations to justify its existence. Choor monster (talk) 13:56, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

First, there is no need to reproduce the entire paragraph with its ellipses. If the sentence is being used to show the use of the word within the sentence, it should start and end with that sentence. The only time an example quote should include more than one sentence is where two short sentences encompass an explanation of the use of the term. I.e., "He hurt his leg skiing. That's where his limp comes from". Second, since most words have a very large number of sentences that could be used as examples, it should be no issue for an editor to replace a sentence with one proposed to be more neutral. bd2412 T 14:50, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Note: I have reduced a few dozen of the most recent additions to the single sentence containing the cited word for each. bd2412 T 15:19, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

[after e/c] We don't have any specific policy, no, but if it's as you describe, then obviously it's bad behavior. Have you asked him/her about it? —Ruakh_TALK 14:57, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

I didn't ask since I wasn't sure if there was policy to quote. Also, my own view is that these are terms not needing citations for their inclusion, it would be simpler to delete the quotations. Choor monster (talk) 18:38, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

I would like us to have citations for every single sense of every single word (eventually!). Citations expressing any kind of real-world bias are a problem. It is more common with made-up usage examples. I have changed them in the past where we had something like "I hate (actual brand of fizzy drink)" to illustrate "hate". Equinox ◑ 18:43, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

I agree with your end-goal. I just feel there is no harm in not trying to figure out what's worth keeping from these particular quotations. Cutting the multiple sentences down to a single less charged sentence will typically give us a poor citation. Better to scrap it. Choor monster (talk) 19:12, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

For some of them, the single line works fine. For most, a better example of the word in use can be found. bd2412 T 21:08, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Let it be known that I would wholeheartedly support such a policy. I recently discovered in a certain user's edit history what appears to be a pattern of inserting cites and usexes into entries to advance a very particular set of viewpoints. I can understand including politically-charged cites in politically-charged words, like teahadist or libtard, because you want to illustrate how the words are actually used in the real world, but this user had shoehorned quotations from polemical pieces into the entries of perfectly neutral words (in addition to creating new entries with loaded definitions). Moreover, this user had culled said quotations from non-notable, non-durable blogs, all of which advocate the same narrow set of viewpoints. But this was all done 2-3 years ago, so because behaviour does not seem to be recent or ongoing, I haven't confronted the user about it, instead opting to simply replace the problematic cites with non-problematic ones. -Cloudcuckoolander (talk) 12:51, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm not so sure about the whole letting sleeping dogs lie thing any more. This was done by an established user, and now I'm watching a discussion from the sidelines, and this user accused another of making edits to advance a particular viewpoint, as if their own record on that front were clean (i.e. they had never engaged in ideologically-motivated editing themselves). -Cloudcuckoolander (talk) 18:15, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

I understand that you don't want to "name names", as it were, but since your comment doesn't provide any information, I'm not sure it can lead to anything useful. I think you either need to: (1) say who you're talking about, so others can examine the situation and step in; (2) talk to said editor yourself; or (3) let it go. (If you don't want to do #1 on-wiki, but are willing to do so in an e-mail to an admin you feel comfortable with, you can use the Special:EmailUser feature. Of course, given the above, it might end up being pretty obvious who said what to whom. Especially since I'm sure I'm not the only one with a good guess whom you might mean . . .) —Ruakh_TALK 20:53, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Insertion of quotes from range of non-notable/non-durable blogs espousing same ideological viewpoint (often into entries of neutral/non-politicized words):

[2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]

Problematic usexes and definitions:

[22] [23] [24]

This is what I've been able to find thus far. I've done my best to find replacement cites, and to rework the problematic definitions and usexes. -Cloudcuckoolander (talk) 22:17, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. That is indeed the editor whom I thought you might be referring to. With many of the non-durable blog cites, the existing quotation may be worse than simply not having any quotation for now; don't hesitate, in such cases, to simply remove it. —Ruakh_TALK 23:17, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

The terms/senses that've been added have been (for the most part) attestable, so by replacing the problematic cites with OK ones, I've been trying to preemptively fireproof these terms/senses against RfD/RfV. Cloudcuckoolander (talk) 23:59, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

"Non-durable blog cites"? Heh. Looking through the first few citations, when I clicked through, I found that Wordpress seems to have closed the originating blog down. Choor monster (talk) 15:48, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Automating quotations?

Would it be possible to automate quotations to a degree? For example, can we have a bot search Google Books for sentences within a certain length, containing a certain word, from sources having isbn numbers, and have that bot create a project space page here with the preformatted quotes, so we can pick the best ones to add to entries? bd2412 T 03:05, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

I doubt that would work well, since I have seen some huge errors in Google's titles, authors, years, and page numbering. I suppose it could be a good start. Does anything prevent us? e.g. [25] terms of service. This oddly enough doesn't seem to talk about automation, but either I've missed it or there's some other separate contract dealing with that. Equinox ◑ 03:11, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

[26]. "Google's Terms of Service do not allow the sending of automated queries of any sort to our system without express permission in advance from Google." I think you'd be better off using some other dataset, such as Project Gutenberg. DTLHS (talk) 03:16, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

That would be just as good. I suspect that if we trawl for a big enough sample, we'll get some small clearly usable portion. We can download entire public domain works and parse them sentence by sentence for good uses of words. bd2412 T 03:19, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

It would be great if we could get all of the texts quoted in Webster that we have partial attribution for. I suspect most of them are quite obscure though. DTLHS (talk) 03:45, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

• What I'd like to use is a tool allowing a user to go to a webiste, say the New York Times, find a word and click a button which imports the quote (and all its metadata like author, date) into Wiktionary. Then I could be happy -WF

Typography doubts

It is stated in here that the general policy is to faithfully reproduce the typography of a source work, and that spaces appearing larger than one ASCII space simply count as a single space. But what about works where the spacing (or, better, the lack thereof) results in words appearing merged together when they're not? I wanted to add a quotation for the word tosco, which is cited in Dante's Divina Commedia; since I'm trying to take my quotes from early sources, I found this 1472 edition of the Commedia (viewable under "Comincia la Comedia [...]" > "Carta [c10r]"), where the verse containing the term appears as “non pomi ueran maſtecchi contoſco”, whereas the modern equivalent would be “non pomi v'eran, ma stecchi con tosco”. My question is: do the missing spaces hinder text comprehension in such cases? GianWiki (talk) 18:26, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

ISBN numbers

Section 8 under "How to Format Quotations" states "If the quotation can be read online, some editors make the page number into a link to the online source, but this practice is contentious. Links within the dictionary entry can always be provided with ISBN numbers." "Always" seems plainly wrong as books published before 1967 don't have ISBN numbers. Plus, not all books have ISBN numbers anyway. Ecphora (talk) 03:25, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

The page reads: "some editors make the page number into a link to the online source, but this practice is contentious"--- this statement needs to be revised since every Word of the Day entry (for instance a friend in need is a friend indeed) always links the page when available. I have never encountered any resistance to linking to a page, and I link to pages everyday. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 20:28, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

non-durability

Where is this explained? Would using archive.org or archive.is satisfy concern original page may be taken down? ScratchMarshall (talk) 07:31, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

See WT:ATTEST. In short, things that were published in physical copies or are on Google Books, or posts archived on Google Groups. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:29, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

use other projects

Hello. How I can use this function in other wiki projects? Which extensions, templates or gadgets required? --Drabdullayev17 (talk) 09:00, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

How many is too many?

“In general, a few good and illustrative quotations should go directly in the entry, while other quotations (if there are very many) can go in the Citations: namespace to avoid cluttering the entry.”
My question is: how many quotations is too many quotations? I was working on quotations for the Italian entry beltà, and – in order to cover a wide time range – I ended up with 11 quotations for the term, ranging from the 13^th to the 19^th century. Does that count as “cluttering the entry”? — GianWiki (talk) 10:15, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

To correct, or not to correct?

What should we do when a quotation has a simple typographical error that has no bearing on the meaning of the quotation, nor on the word being exemplified? This policy page only says that, "Generally it is important to reproduce the punctuation of the source accurately, as this can greatly impact the meaning." So what about when it doesn't impact the meaning?

For comparison, Wikipedia has the policy (at WP:SIC) that, "If there is a significant error in the original, follow it with the template {{sic}} (producing [sic] ) to show that the error was not made by Wikipedia. However, insignificant spelling and typographic errors should simply be silently corrected (for example, correct basicly to basically)." Wiktionary also has a Template:sic, but it doesn't have any guidance on "significant" versus "insignificant" errors.

I ask specifically because of this quotation on the page for "stere":

It will be observed, that in this system it is only necessary to remember the metre, are litre, and stere...

In this quotation, there should be a comma after "are" (which is the unit of area, not the inflection of "to be"). The comma is missing in the original, which perhaps not coincidentally comes at the end of a line, where it's easy to miss such things. So: do we correct it or do we mark it [sic]? -- Perey (talk) 12:03, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Use {{sic}}. Equinox ◑ 13:01, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

In this case you could also add "[,]". — SGconlaw (talk) 20:50, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

What color for quoting red-letter Bible passages?

Specifically, when quoting a translation that prescribes which passages are or are not to be some form of red, should that be reflected in the quote? Which shade of red, if so? How would one verify such a prescription, in contrast to mere publishing tradition? It may well be that black lettering would be preferable, for efficiency's sake…but I thought it best to at least pose the question. BlueCaper (talk) 08:20, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

@BlueCaper: I don't think it's generally necessary to reflect the fact that a certain passage in indicated in a colour of ink other than black. (In a lot of Bibles, this is just done to indicate that the words are spoken by Jesus.) However, if it is thought necessary, I would suggest italicizing the passage, and perhaps adding a note explaining the reason for the italicization. — SGconlaw (talk) 13:44, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Video

video screenshot requested, please, about how-to for newbies. --BoldLuis (talk) 11:25, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Relevant word as part of the title

What should you do when a source only uses the relevant word in its own title? Glades12 (talk) 16:17, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

I was recently faced with this problem as well for a quote I added at gay#Noun. I decided the most consistent thing would be to repeat the title in the text param, with appropriate bolding. I added "[headline]" at the beginning just to make it clear to the reader that it's not part of the running text of the work, and that the repetition of the title is not an error. i.e.

• 1969, “N.Y. Gays: Will the Spark Die?”, in The Advocate‎^[27]:

  [headline] N.Y. Gays: Will the Spark Die?

Colin M (talk) 20:26, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

I think that's an appropriate solution too, though I think in general using a title as a quotation is not as good as a quotation from the actual text. You get more context of how the word is used in the latter case. — SGconlaw (talk) 20:48, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. I still included it in that case because it was the earliest usage of the term I could find (and, while the term also probably appears in the body, the article is not freely available anywhere online). Colin M (talk) 21:09, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

OK, that’s a good reason for including it. — SGconlaw (talk) 04:55, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Hyphenation

[28] The whole Hyphenation section on this page is an insult to the English language. It is a mistake to ignore commons patterns of hyphenation across lines. To the oralists who are transfixed by verbal communication, they will view the conventions of hyphen placement as something trivial, not worthy of citation/quotation etc- elitists: 'pay hyphenation no mind, it is an out of date fashion of little importance- we elites study the sounds of language and not what appears on the page of the rubes; it shall be eliminated by the time the 11th edition of the Newspeak dictionary is published'. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 16:26, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

@Geographyinitiative: this policy is about quotations in entries. What the hyphenation section is saying is that in quotation text it is generally not necessary to indicate where the hyphens indicating line breaks are. It would be quite tedious and arguably look odd if such hyphens had to be indicated, as follows:

[T]he guard shot three dead, and then got shot dead him[-]self by the other four, "in consequence of the failure of his ammu[-]nition:" after which the mail was robbed in peace; that magnificent potentate, the Lord Mayor of London, was made to stand and deliver on Turnham Green, by one highwayman, who despoiled the illus[-]trious creature in sight of all his retinue; [...]

The suggested way to hyphenate words should already be indicated in the pronunciation section of entries (for example, look up illustrious and you will see that it is to be hyphenated "il‧lus‧tri‧ous"), so it is redundant to indicate the breaks in quoted text as well. — SGconlaw (talk) 17:42, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

@Sgconlaw Thank you so much for your response- it really means a lot to me. I knew from a moment's reflection that the "suggested way to hyphenate words" you are talking about was inconsistent with actual usage I know. Here are examples:

1. "The illustr¬ious Italian sociologist Alessandro Pizzorno,[...]" [29]
2. "the influence exercised by these migrant shi from illustr¬ious Northern Chinese families" [30]
3. "Despite such illustr¬ious achievements and connections, Hannibal’s descendants[...]" [31]
4. "[...]Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter, to name two illustr¬ious benefactors, put to masterful use."[32]
5. "tomb of the illustr¬ious ruler Ranjit Singh"[33]

I believe that the wording "should normally only be reproduced where the line breaks are explicit" and the wording "In this case it should not be reproduced," are directly blocking the inclusion of examples that would inculcate and teach readers of Wiktionary about our English language word-break habits like these I point out above. Here is an example where I have just broken the spirit of the guidelines on this page ("should not be reproduced") and taught the readers of Wiktionary about the normative line-break of a particular word. Thanks so much for your time. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 23:43, 23 July 2021 (UTC) (modified)

@Geographyinitiative: the point is that entries should already have an indication of how to hyphenate a term in the “Pronunciation” section. Therefore, it’s redundant to indicate the use of hyphens in the quotations as well. (And it would be too troublesome and redundant to indicate all hyphens in all quotations.) If you feel that a certain form of hyphenation should be indicated, the “Pronunciation” section should be updated. — SGconlaw (talk) 04:52, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

How does Quotations system work?

The quotation system looks unique among the sister projects. It is not a template (AFAICT) and must be driven at the MediaWiki layer. Is there some place I could learn more about it, technically, or its history or origin? -- GreenC (talk) 02:27, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

Information about Webster's 1913 moved from the main page

Webster’s 1913 Dictionary uses quotations, but shows only the quote and the surname of the author, in that order. The specific work and year is listed for some authors at Wiktionary:Abbreviated Authorities in Webster, but for others it will need to be researched and added which can be tedious and painstaking work. Using Wikisource or Google Books may help. Expanding the information on these quotes helps Wiktionary, but it is not mandatory. Simply put what you have in the proper order, and someone else can research the added details. In the absence of any information about the author or work, consider paraphrasing the quote as an example sentence instead.

The above was removed from the main page since it isn't really relevant to quotations in general and would be better put on a page specifically about Webster's 1913. —The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 00:23, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Where to find citations?

168.216.10.225 12:57, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

Quotations can found in published books, online sites, etc. The preferred citations are from Google Books, but an online-only quotation can also work if deemed acceptable in a WT:RFV request. —Svārtava ^[t•u•r] 13:29, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

Other sources are the HathiTrust Digital Library and the Internet Archive. Some editors prefer these sources as Google is a for-profit site. — SGconlaw (talk) 18:32, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

Abbreviations

The style guide now links here as the main source for appropriate abbreviations. I understand not wanting to laundry list everything but it's probably better if we include more than just et al. The Style Guide specifically mentions c. for approximate dating and specifically dislikes q.v. and cf. Are there others? I think the default right now is to use ante for 'Before' (we even have the {{ante}} template) but that's far more obscure than either cf. or q.v. so a slightly longer discussion here could clarify some of that confusion. I assume pp., ll., etc. are all still ok, although I'm not sure enough about that to mention them by name in the longer section. — LlywelynII 04:42, 18 June 2023 (UTC)