Does anyone else think that we need some sort of guidelines for posting and editing direct quotes within articles? I have seen some disturbing things going on lately. A few users seem to have taken it upon themselves to correct the spelling, grammar, or word usage within quotes. I think that we should develop some sort of warning about not doing this as it jeopardizes our Fair use claim on that material. Direct quotes aught to be verbatim and any changes, edits, or exclusions really should be explicitly noted by using square brackets ("[ ]").
Secondarily, do we have a policy about adding internal links to quotes? I think that it is a rather unprofessional and distracting practice. Even the Uncyclopedia makes fun of us for doing it. I mean, if you must add an internal link to ambiguous words like "you", "he", or "they" in order for the quote to make sense, it probably isn't good enough to be in that article in the first place...--Sentry [Talk] 08:14, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
- Hahahahah! That Unclyclopaedia article is pretty funny - obviously written by some of our own number. Anyway, I agree that grammar and word usage should not be changed in quotations. Quotes should be a hunfred percent faithful to the source; even if there are misspellings and grammar mistakes in the sources, these should be present in the quotes too.... oftherwise they wouldn't be quotes. And I also agree about the []-thing. I mean, that's an convention in academia and elsewhere, so we'd better also use it here. About links in quotations... I don't have a problem with links in quotations... not even if people make fun of us for it. KEJ 10:45, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
- Of course the Uncyclopedia makes fun of us for that - the article was written by Sikon. QuentinGeorge 10:57, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
- I'll say we keep it as we always have, Who cares if Uncyclopedia makes fun of us? Let them laugh, it's just pathetic anyway for such a small thing. However a quote should be directly translated from it's primary stage or originaly writing. But I also agree that bad grammar should be corrected if found. Lorth Needa 14:17, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
- Bad grammer should NOT be corrected if it originates in the source that the quote is taken from. That's a convention, you do not change quotes, you keep them the way they originally are, even though they're full of mistakes. KEJ 21:22, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree on both counts: that quotes should be verbatim and we should have internal links in quotes only very rarely. Some our current quotes are so over-linked that it's much more distracting than it is useful. I was actually going to start a topic on this myself, but it seems you beat me to it. :-) RMF 22:28, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
- Yes, links in quotes should be avoided, especially when something like -Han to Leia will do. -Finlayson 00:44, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
I admit that the issue of whether or not internal links should be included in quotes in not terribly important, but in the interest of aesthetics and readability, I think the practice has gotten out of hand. Recently, I have seen some wookieepedians spend an inordinate amount of time systematically adding redundant internal links to article quotes. Maybe it is just me, but that seems like a massive waste of time and energy as more experienced editors will likely remove most of them within a week…
I understand the need to add duplicate internal links to image captions (they serve as a navigational aid), but adding extra links to quotes does not seem to serve any purpose beyond making those quotes appear cluttered and messy. I think that we should perhaps expand the "Quotations" section of the Manual of Style, adding some guidelines for proper quote usage and urging users to avoid adding internal links to direct quotes unless they contain that article's ONLY mention of that particular word/concept/thing.
Lastly, many quotes serve as introductions to article subsections. The manual of style states that Internal links should not be added to headings. I think that it is fairly logical to extend that ban to introductory quotes as well… </rant> --Sentry [Talk] 06:02, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
- So... does this count as a consensus? Shall we go through and eliminate redundant quotation links, systematically and without mercy? Images of Order 66 already dance through my head... :-) -BaronGrackle 16:22, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
- Well, I guess that we should write up a new policy and have a vote on a new consensus track thread…--Sentry [Talk] 07:35, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
- so were taking the links out of quotes? Its gonna be a long process, i don't know some seem good like the Jacen Solo one where its the dark man quote, which leads to Jacen, however some are getting carried away. Jedi Dude 07:39, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
- I'm not necessarily saying that we should outlaw them entirely. I just think that all redudant internal links in quotes should be removed. In addition, I think that it would be better to eliminate internal links from quotes that serve ans section headers because the links are distracting and those links can easily be integrated into the body of the text.--Sentry [Talk] 07:43, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
- Yeah, some links are nice. There are some pages I never would have learned about, if not for a link to them within the quote. But Jedi and blaster aren't on that list, you know? And I'm as guilty as anyone; I've been treating excessive quote-linking as policy. -BaronGrackle 10:37, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
- so were taking the links out of quotes? Its gonna be a long process, i don't know some seem good like the Jacen Solo one where its the dark man quote, which leads to Jacen, however some are getting carried away. Jedi Dude 07:39, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
- Well, I guess that we should write up a new policy and have a vote on a new consensus track thread…--Sentry [Talk] 07:35, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
- I started a Consensus track at: Forum:Quotes.–SentryTalk 07:43, 23 July 2006 (UTC)