Forum:CT Archive/Quote length

This page is an archive of a community-wide discussion. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made in the Senate Hall or new Consensus Track pages rather than here so that this page is preserved as a historic record.
The result of the debate was to restrict quotes in articles to below ten lines of dialogue (not lines of text), and preferably much less. Particularly long statements/speeches/soliloquies should not be quoted as part of a dialogue, but may be quoted individually. Graestan^(Talk) 12:07, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Recently, it has come to my attention that there is a slight issue currently with quote lengths in quote pages and articles. To demonstrate the sort of thing I'm talking about, I'm going to reproduce a single quote that is currently on Quote:Gilad Pellaeon

Pellaeon: "The reason I have brought you all here is quite simple. I wish to share with you a realization I have come to, and to tell you what I intend to do about it. In the last forty-eight standard hours, the Imperial Navy has fended off the greatest threat it has ever faced. You've seen the reports and studied the breakdowns, so I'm sure you can understand the significance of what happened at Bastion and, hopefully, will have some appreciation of the seriousness of the decisions we must now make. Until we rebuild Bastion, the Empire is temporarily without a capital; the Moff Council has lost several of its most important members and, with them, I suspect, its short-term cohesion. Many of our citizens have been enslaved by the Yuuzhan Vong, and our borders are no longer safe. But the threat we have repelled is not the Yuuzhan Vong. It is something far more insidious. Indeed, we didn't know we were facing it until the very last, when it was almost too late to fend it off. That threat can be summed up in one word. It is a word that has more fear for me than extinction. It is irrelevance. When we first heard about the Yuuzhan Vong, we blithely observed their passage through the galaxy and assumed that when they didn't attack us, they did so out of caution. We were too strong, too determined, too superior for them to risk a confrontation. We believed ourselves to be too formidable an opponent. But when we sent support to the Battle of Ithor, we saw just how strong the enemy's fleets really were. Afraid that we would be unable to defend ourselves, we pulled in our heads and dug in, waiting for an attack that never came. And it never came because we simply didn't matter to the Yuuzhan Vong. We weren't considered a threat. We had demonstrated an unwillingness to become involved in someone else's fight, and a propensity for sitting back and watching our neighbors being destroyed. Why should they attack us? We weren't hurting them; if anything, we were making their job easier. In effect, we made ourselves irrelevant, and for that I feel the greatest shame of all. Well, we've been attacked now. No one could've missed that. But does that mean we're relevant? No. It means that Supreme Overlord Shimrra took a moment to stamp out a potential threat lingering around his rear lines. A potential threat, mind you, not an actual threat. The force he sent wasn't sufficient to disable us, even with surprise on its side, but it was nothing compared to the resources he committed to Coruscant. B'shith Vorrik, furthermore, is no Tsavong Lah or Nas Choka. Had we really mattered to the overall war, Shimrra would have wiped us out years ago, not tried now as an afterthought. But we refused to roll over and be destroyed, even when we were grievously injured. We insulted the enemy as he retreated, and we liberated some of those taken captive. We showed them that we are not easy prey, and that we will not be so easily dismissed. If Shimrra didn't consider the Empire a threat before, he will now. How long he considers us a threat, however, is entirely up to us."
Flennic: "And why is that?"
Sarreti: "Isn't that obvious, Kurlen? If we sit here expecting to defend our territories indefinitely, we'll all be dead within months."
Pellaeon: "And giving Vorrik time to petition another strike force from Shimrra—fresher, larger, and certainly more eager for our blood—would be suicide. We remain a threat only so long as we remain alive."
Flennic: "I can't help but feel apprehensive about the alternative you're about to propose."
Pellaeon: "It's the only alternative that I can see. We must take the fight to the Yuuzhan Vong."
Flennic: "You would have us leave our worlds behind? Undefended?"
Pellaeon: "Not entirely. Every planet would retain a token defense force—at least enough to repel the sort of attack Yaga Minor suffered."
Crowal: "But not enough to repel a serious invasion."
Sarreti: "If the Yuuzhan Vong are kept busy elsewhere, there won't be one."
Flennic: "Can we be absolutely certain of that, though? Admiral, you are gambling with our very lives here!"
Pellaeon: "Isn't that what all leaders must do in times of war? I'm offering you a chance of victory as opposed to the certainty of our destruction. Mark my words: if we do nothing, we will be destroyed."
Crowal: "If, as you say, we can't beat the Yuuzhan Vong here, then how do you propose we beat them on their own territory?"
Pellaeon: "A fair question. And one that has occupied my mind these last couple of days."
Flennic: "Go on then. Give us your answer."
Pellaeon: "There is only one possible answer. In order to survive intact, the Empire needs to see itself objectively; it needs to cultivate a certain distance from its immediate past and see itself in the context of the wider galaxy and its history. We are not alone here, as much as we might sometimes like to pretend we are. We cannot avoid what is happening outside, as the Yuuzhan Vong have so convincingly demonstrated. For too long have we kept to ourselves; for too long have we ignored what is going on out there in the wider galaxy. We have remained content to direct our attention inward, at our own navels. I do not exclude myself from this criticism, either. There have been times I could have fought harder to do what my gut told me was right. That I didn't will be my undying shame, because it was almost our undoing. But I will not let it happen again."
Flennic: "You will not? Grand Admiral, I trust we are coming to some sort of point here. If you have gathered us together to dictate your terms, then please get on with it so that we can vote on your dismissal and put this behind us forever."
Pellaeon: "As Grand Admiral of the Imperial Navy, I am formally advising the Moff Council that at our earliest possible convenience we must strike a formal agreement with the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances to share military resources in order to repel the threat of the Yuuzhan Vong from the galaxy. Furthermore, I advise that this agreement be ongoing after the immediate threat has passed. The only way to survive in the future is to turn our back on the past. As much as some of you may dislike to hear it, it is time for us to make peace with one another."
Flennic: "Join the Galactic Alliance? Have you gone mad? You can't believe that any of us would ever agree to this!"
Pellaeon: "I don't need your agreement, Kurlen. When I say that I am advising the council, I am only following a formality. This is the way it will be, because this is the way it has to be. I am simply saving you the need to think it through for yourselves."
Anonymous moff: "This is treason!"
Sarreti: "It's common sense."
Pellaeon: "My loyalty to the Empire is as strong as it has ever been. I will do what I must to ensure its survival."
Freyborn: "By forcing us to submit to them? We have spent our lives fighting this scum, and now you wish us to—"
Pellaeon: "Be mindful of your words, Moff Freyborn These 'scum,' as you call them, saved my life back at Bastion—as well as saving the Empire from an early grave."
Flennic: "A grave they dug for us in the first place. At our peak we would never have fallen to the Yuuzhan Vong as they have. We would have sent them back from whence they came—impaled upon their own amphistaffs!"
Pellaeon: "Do you really believe that, Kurlen? We weren't able to resist a handful of Rebels, so how would we have resisted the massed might of the Yuuzhan Vong? Your reasoning is both faulty and circular—and it is precisely the kind of reasoning that has brought us to these straits. The Empire is foundering not from forces exterior to it, but as a result of its own internal weaknesses. Our current circumstances are our own fault; it is foolish to lay blame elsewhere for our own failings."
Flennic: "The Empire will never surrender to the Galactic Alliance, Admiral. And I cannot believe you would ever consider this after all your years resisting their insidious advance!"
Pellaeon: "Like it or not, they have ruled the galaxy for almost as many decades as we did—and with less bloodshed and military expenditure, I might add. Right now, they are the one thing that stands between us and enslavement and death at the hands of the Yuuzhan Vong, and it is time we acknowledged that. And we need to do it now before we bury ourselves beneath old grudges and an inability to accept reality."
Flennic: "I refuse to accept defeat. And I don't regard that inability as a disability, either. The Empire is strong; we proved that—you proved that—by repelling the invasion. Why, on a day when we should be celebrating our victory, are we contemplating the end of the Empire?"
Pellaeon: "First, allying ourselves with the Galactic Alliance isn't the same thing as dissolving the Empire. That should be obvious even to a child, Kurlen. They're not asking us to surrender our sovereignty; nor will we. We will simply combine forces to our mutual benefit. Second, as I said earlier, the Empire exists today only because of luck: luck that the Yuuzhan Vong didn't attack sooner, and luck that the emissaries from the Galactic Alliance came along when they did to show us how to fight effectively. Third, if we don't fight back now, the Yuuzhan Vong will return and strike us down without any mercy whatsoever. If we don't drive them back and join with our neighbors to keep them back, then no one will ever be safe again. And this Empire we hold so precious will completely cease to be. If you can't accept that argument, Kurlen, then you'll have to learn to accept your irrelevance to the council instead."
Flennic: "Are you threatening me?"
Pellaeon: "Yes, Kurlen, I am. The council will unanimously accept my proposal, or I will take the entire fleet with me when I leave."
Flennic: "This is treason of the worst kind, Admiral."
Pellaeon: "How strong are your convictions, Kurlen? Are you prepared to die for them?"
Flennic: "You can't threaten us, Admiral! We are the Council of Moffs; we appointed you. We can always appoint another Grand Admiral to take your place—one who won't lead us down such a treacherous path!"
Pellaeon: "Another warlord choking on remembered glories, you mean? There aren't many left, Kurlen. Our numbers have dwindled in futile attempts to reclaim something that was taken from us long ago. The galaxy isn't ours by right; we have lost it. The sooner we accept that, the sooner we can begin to understand what role exists for us now. And if that new role is to be part of the Galactic Alliance, then so be it. It has to be better than extinction. I for one am sick of fighting a war we can never win—and against the wrong enemy, what's more."
Flennic: "This is madness. Are you all just going to stand by and let him destroy everything we've managed to salvage?"
Sarreti: "It's better than being dead, Kurlen."
Crowal: "Or enslaved."
Flennic: "You, Crowal? You believe this nonsense?"
Crowal: "It's not nonsense, Kurlen. I argued against joining the Galactic Alliance when the enemy wasn't on our doorstep, thinking that if we didn't provoke the Yuuzhan Vong, they would leave us alone. But that proved to be a mistake."
Flennic: "No. No…No! I will not submit! You! You and your vile mind tricks have poisoned us!"
Jade Skywalker: "Nonsense. We use our powers to save lives, not waste them—unlike you, Moff Flennic. You are not the only one here who served under Palpatine. I have changed, and so has the Grand Admiral. And I suspect that you must have, too, for our former master would never have tolerated such idiocy in one of his servants. What were you thinking? That Yaga Minor would become capital now that Bastion has fallen? That you would lead the council? Don't be a fool, Flennic."
Pellaeon: "Stand down, Kurlen. Stand down now and abide by the will of the council, and I swear that no action will be taken for what has happened here today."
Flennic: "Very well. I give my support to your proposal of allying ourselves with the Galactic Alliance. But I stand by my opinion, Admiral."
Pellaeon: "As it is yours to stand by. But hear this, Kurlen: you have pulled a weapon on me this day, an act of treason that under normal circumstances would be punishable by death. But these are not normal circumstances, and so I am prepared to overlook your insurrection. However, from this moment on you would be wise to be mindful of your actions. Because if you so much as breathe in a manner that I think is treacherous, then I will have your head. Is that understood?"
—Gilad Pellaeon, Kurlen Flennic, Ephin Sarreti, Crowal, an anonymous moff, Freyborn, and Mara Jade Skywalker^[src]

It's not Wookieepedia's job to replace the text with our quotes. When you get to quoting long dialogues or whole scenes, it's too much. A scene involving a particular character may be cool, and may show off that character's strengths, but I don't personally think it is ever appropriate to quote the whole thing. The vast majority of our quotes in my opinion should be one or two lines, and I personally don't think any of them should be as long as 10 lines. This CT is to ask whether a limit on quotes should be created. If it passes, I'll create another vote with options on what the limit should be (whether wordcount or number of exchanges, whether it should be restrictive or only targeting the worst excesses. etc.).

[edit] Voting

Here's the first stage. I'll add a second stage with options if it's needed.

[edit] Part II

[edit] Yrf's proposal: Quotes should be less than 10 lines of dialogue, preferably much less. Particularly long statements/speeches/soliloquies should not be quoted as part of a dialogue, but may be quoted individually.

1. I think this is reasonable.Yrfeloran 05:21, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
2. I agree wholeheartedly. Graestan^(Talk) 17:02, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
3. Most quotes should fall under this, but I hope that doesn't mean that people will try to post the maximum legal length quotes just because they can. -- Riffsyphon1024 16:14, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
4. Chack Jadson ^(Talk) 00:47, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
5. I could go much stricter than this, as it turns out. I'm more in favor of something like 6 "exchanges", but this'll certainly do for a start. Atarumaster88 ^{(Talk page)} 13:46, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
   • I'm with Atarumaster88 on this. I'd prefer fewer exchanges, but I guess less than 10 is reasonable. Doluk 21:37, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

   • Vote stricken per Forum:Single issue voters, which we really should codify, but that's a different subject. Atarumaster88 ^{(Talk page)} 21:42, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

6. Jedimca0^{(Do or Do Not, There is No Try)} 21:59, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
7. Goodwood ^{(Alliance Intelligence)} 00:05, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
8. Changed vote upon clarification. —Silly Dan _(talk) 19:53, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
9. Unit 8311 10:11, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
10. I would rather just ask nicely, but 10 lines is certainly a reasonable amount. Soresumakashi 22:32, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
11. Seems very good to me. Flexible without being absurd. Gonk ^(Gonk!) 12:08, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
12. I s'pose this'll work. -- Ozzel 05:44, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestion is too strict

1. KEJ 16:57, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
2. -- AdmirableAckbar ^(Talk) 17:04, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
3. Surprise surprise. Havac 00:24, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
4. I'm all in favor of a quote limit-I voted that way above. But the nebulous "ten lines" parameter is entirely unacceptable. Find me a concrete definition , one that's reasonable, to restrict quote lengths to, and I will support. Atarumaster88 ^{(Talk page)} 19:57, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
   • Lines of dialogue, not lines of text. See below. Yrfeloran 00:30, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
5. There's no way to define "ten lines" without specifying what skin, font, resolution, and window size to use. —Silly Dan _(talk) 00:17, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
   • Lines of dialogue, not lines of text. See below. Yrfeloran 00:30, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
     • Well, that makes more sense. There's still going to be ambiguity when someone quotes a paragraph of narration or IU writing, but I haven't seen too many overly long examples of that. —Silly Dan _(talk) 19:53, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestion is too lax

[edit] Discussion

Maybe a limit on Articles but not on Quote pages? I'm not going to vote (yet) becuase I'm not sure about this - Kingpin13^{Cantina Battle Ground} 18:08, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

• I'd just like to note that the sample quote is over twice as long as the minimum for FA status and is over three pages long. Of course, the entire thing is AWESOME, but that doesn't make it any better. jSarek 21:10, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
• My suggestion for quote limits is that all quotes should be under 200 words, and all dialogue quotes should be 7 lines or less(e.g. A speaks 4 times, B speaks 3 times). I think this is pretty generous and encompasses the vast majority of legitimate quotes we currently have on the wiki. Though I could go as high as 250, I guess.Yrfeloran 21:26, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
• More discussion: Sure, that's an exceptionally long quote. However, it's not a single case - there are at least two other 20-exchange quotes on that particular page, and I stopped counting before I reached the bottom. There's also numerous slightly shorter ones that are still IMHO excessive. One of the quotes on Corran's page that I removed was between eight people. The purpose of a quote page shouldn't be to post everything anyone has ever said about the characters, including extensive dialogues. For one, it's unencyclopedic. Flip through something like Bartlett's Familiar Quotations and you'll be hard pressed to find any quotes as long as the scene quotes on the pages mentioned. These long dialogues wouldn't be acceptable on QOTD, they wouldn't be acceptable in a good or featured article, and they're just turning quote pages into more of a "text gallery" than they were already. This CT was started after discussion with other individuals about this. Yrfeloran 23:21, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
  • You see, though, I think there's a distinct purpose to quote pages, and it's collecting the quotes that really say something about the character. It's not a QOTD farm system. It's not an article quote farm system. It doesn't matter whether those quotes would work in those places, because that's not where they are. It's also not Bartlett's. It's not "Hey, here are some famous/notable quotes." It's not even, "Hey, here are some famous/notable quotes by this character." It's "This is a collection of the quotes that say something about this character." I wasn't aware that it was only a collection of the short quotes that say something about the character, or the instantly recognizable quotes that say something about this character, or only snippets of dialogue that say something about this character. Sure, maybe we want some kind of standards. But it seems that the quote pages are being dismissed because they're seen as something secondary. "Well, we don't actually want them to be detailed and complete. That would be silly. It offends my personal sense of what's important." We can't have a complete article on Burl Ives, because it offends my sense of what's important. We can't have a complete article on some KOTOR NPC, because it offends my sense of what's important. We can't have featured articles on a character I haven't heard of before, because it offends my sense of what's important. We can't have articles longer than Luke's, because it offends my sense of what's important. We can't have articles on a background character with no dialogue, because it offends my sense of what's important. It seems that lately, Wookieepedia has become less concerned with being complete and comprehensive and more concerned with being limited and exclusive, because God forbid someone else spend time and effort on something someone else doesn't think is important. Maybe we do need a limit. I don't think we do. I think that, when we see something that offends our sense of what's important on a quote page, we can argue it on the talk page and work out a solution one quote at a time instead of tripping over ourselves to lock chains around our necks on what's permissible and what isn't. Havac 23:40, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Eh, we have a 50,000 word article on Corran Horn to say something about the character. And now you're saying that's incomplete? :P I guess the issue is is that we have a different perception of what's appropriate. Just as a reader, I find long dialogues (especially with the tl;dr; factor!) to not be good quotes. A scene can be fantastic prose, but often it just doesn't work well if forced into a dialogue form. A lot of the stuff I removed from Corran's page was like that. If you need that much context for a quote, it probably wasn't a good one to begin with. And, I mean, you could get much more insight into a character by just posting the appropriate pages from the book he's in, but we don't do that, and there's reasons we don't do that. I must say, I'd be willing to give stuff like, say, Corran Horn's eulogy a pass if the long dialogues went away. There's a couple of great Dooku scenes I looked at that simply wouldn't have worked as quotes and I didn't try to force them into that context. I don't see the quote page as a complete collection of any quote that "says something" about the character. And they certainly shouldn't be longer than main character articles. Yrfeloran 00:23, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
    • Then we should expand the main character articles. There's always more than one solution. Really, you find that "long" dialogue doesn't make a "good" quote. Is that the basis for a policy? So it's tl;dr for you . . . does that mean that Wookieepedia shouldn't have it, or just that you shouldn't bother to read it? And I'm not saying at all that Corran's article is incomplete, or that Pellaeon's is . . . I'm saying that we should want quote pages to be complete. They're not the same page. It's like complaining that the Clone Wars article is complete, so we shouldn't have so much detail in the Battle of Geonosis article. Havac 01:54, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
      • What is the definition of "complete" here, though? I don't see how "complete" can work with quote pages until you've collected every word uttered by or about a certain character. Thefourdotelipsis 14:08, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
        • You see, that's actually a good point. I'd consider complete to be the point at which the majority of users start saying about any new addition, "That doesn't deserve to be on here. It's not relevant enough." Not "It's too long" but "It has no place on here. It doesn't say anything meaningful about the character." Havac 23:17, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
• Nobody's brought up the subject of Copyrights yet. Even if a quote is very helpful and informative, more than a couple hundred words is probably a copyright violation. And yes, breaking them into smaller, irregular chunks helps out on this front, just as comic panels are safer than pages of comics.-LtNOWIS 23:43, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
  • It may well be "fair use", but like Nowis, I'd rather err on the side of caution. The fact that quote pages are nothing but copyrighted material also urges caution...my strong preference is still for short quotes that say a lot, not long quotes that might say just as much but take way to long to say it in. Yrfeloran 23:09, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
• Here's where I stand on a quote-length limit. There should be some sort (that quote is rediculously long), but I don't want something too ridged. For example, if the quote limit is 10 words (I know it would obviously be much longer), what if I find a quote of 11 words, could I use it? I think it should be fairly large and also if a quote is longer than it, I think that it should be able to be appealed here on the consensus track. DarthDragon164^{Dragon's Lair} 02:35, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
  • how about if the quote is longer then the limit (which i dont think shuld exist) then only an Admin can put it on a page, Adims wouldn't bee swamped with requests, and it would give us some slack, ideas? RC-1136 ^Copy 09:02, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
    • Um, no. I don't mind comprehensive quote lists; the risk here is both fair use violation and the fact that a super-long piece of quoted material, like the egregious example listed above, just looks stupid. Admins shouldn't have to patrol quote pages or approve quotes other than "better safe than sorry" basis—as I've said since the beginning, this should be common sense. Atarumaster88 ^{(Talk page)} 15:05, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
      • While I agree that it should be based on common sense, but a lot of the time, people just don't have it, or if they do, they ignore it, that is why I think there should be a limit. DarthDragon164^{Dragon's Lair} 20:49, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
• Is this new proposal based on ten lines of Wookieepedia text or source text? Atarumaster88 ^{(Talk page)} 13:46, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure "lines" is the best way to measure quote length, since I'm pretty sure the number of lines will vary with screen resolution and other factors. jSarek 20:05, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
    • And does less than ten mean no more than nine? -- Ozzel 20:08, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
      • Clarification. By "lines" I mean dialogue lines. So X:Blah is one line and X:Blah Y:Blah X:Blah is three lines. A long speech would be one line. The above Pellaeon quote is I think somewhere above 40 lines. I think at least 99% of quotes currently on the site would "pass" my suggestion. Most Wookieepedia quotes are three lines or less.Yrfeloran 00:28, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
        • So the proposal is for "up to ten lines of dialogue inclusive"? If so I think any motion should be specified as such. Darth Xadún^{(Consult the Holocron)} 12:06, 15 July 2008 (UTC)