Template talk:Request quotation

Grammar

Resolved

 – Grammar problem fixed.

This template uses incorrect English. "Quote" is a verb, not a noun. It should be "quotation," not "quote." ⇒Bayerischermann ^- 19:22, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Why not move it yourself? :) Salaskan 14:49, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Some people prefer to discuss changes before making them. There's nothing wrong with that. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:19, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikiproject Inline templates proposed

Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Inline templates. I've been meaning to do this for a while. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 16:31, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Verbosity

This template addresses a common need, but it's hampered by its excessive length.

• ^{[Quotation from source requested on talk page to verify interpretation of source]}

That's a lot of text for an inline tag. The analogous {fact} tag simply says, "Citation request". Couldn't this template just say "Quotation request" or "Verification request"? That'd make the template more usable. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 10:40, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion{#if:| regarding [[:{{{1}}}]]}}. When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). 193.95.165.190 (talk) 12:52, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Y Improved. -- Lea (talk) 18:29, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

The change is an improvement but I think the verbiage does need to be reduced to a minimum, keeping in mind that the template might be used in succession. Put two or three of them in a paragraph and it destroys the flow of text. I'll make an edit in line with the original suggestion. Ham Pastrami (talk) 12:56, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I would actually prefer something closer to the original. I use this template fairly frequently and notice that, because the template itself makes no mention that the quote is "to be provided on the discussion page", that it quite often is placed in the article, which often isn't appropriate, and often means that the quote provided is shorter (to keep it to the point), meaning that context useful for evaluating whether it supports the original statement is lost. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 14:26, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Both Ham Pastrami and Hrafn have valid points. The inline comment needs to be short to avoid readability issues and yet a brief comment does lead one to think the quote needs to be in the article text rather than on the talk page. I have requested a possible technical solution to this here: WP:Village pump (technical)#Can a template do this?. -- Low Sea (talk) 17:30, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I think that the current template omits two important points:

1. Why a quote is needed (to verify the material that is cited to the reference -- generally where the source is relatively inaccessible); and
2. Where the quote should be placed (on the talkpage)

I would suggest that the template be expanded to ^{[Request quote on talk to verify]}, with 'talk' linking to the article's talkpage. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 05:33, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Link

"Quotation" currently links to WP:CITE, which I don't find optimal. (The previous reference to the talk page was worse though; I don't think inline templates should link to the talk page, and not everyone who adds this template might explain what they mean on the talk page.) Anyways, if anyone has a better link (perhaps to some page that talks about [literally] quoting sources), feel free to adjust. -- Lea (talk) 18:26, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

The closest I think is WP:BURDEN, particularly "The source should be cited clearly and precisely to enable readers to find the text that supports the article content in question." But even this is imperfect. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 04:27, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

extra space

Resolved

My browser displays 2 spaces between “need” and “quote.” Is there any reason that there is an   in the “pre-text”? 69.140.152.55 (talk) 00:38, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

the reason this is occurring is that the root template (fix) was modified to automatically add spaces between pre-text and text. I'll remove the extra space in this template.

I have a question, though - shouldn't this template get merged with the {{fact}} template? --Ludwigs2 00:59, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

I don’t think so. See where I put the template in Alan Keyes: at the time that I added the template, there were 3 supporting citations for a potentially-controversial statement about the POV of the subject of the article, but 2 were from blogs and the remaining 1 didn’t support the proposition. The {{fact}} or {{verify source}} templates would be most appropriate if all 3 of these were absent. 69.140.152.55 (talk) 16:17, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Update: now it is cited to a reliable source, but one that appears to be password-protected; although a quote is now provided on the article’s Talk page, I think that the use of this template in that article illustrates the difference between {{fact}} and it. 69.140.152.55 (talk) 16:35, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

We need more than "quote needed"

Contrary to this edit, this is not really a "similar template" to ^{[citation needed]}:

• That template requests a citation (with a link to the relevant policy, which clearly states why such a citation is needed) on the same page (article mainspace) as the template itself. This is a very simple request, and does not require any clarification. Hence it can be made with reasonable clarity in only two words.
• This template on the other hand, is meant to be requesting a quotation somewhere else (i.e. on article talk) for reasons that are not explicitly stated in, but must be inferred from the relevant policy (which is WP:V, not WP:CITE -- which is what is currently linked to). This is clearly a more complex request, and cannot be explained in only two words.

How is an editor expected to infer that it "is used to request a direct quote from the cited source, to be provided on the discussion page so that it may be verified that the source can verify the statement or has been interpreted correctly" from its contents: ^{[quotation needed]}? Telepathy?

As I suggested above, it would be better to have something like ^{[Request quote on talk to verify]}, with 'talk' linking to the article's talkpage. This actually:

1. Informs the editor of the correct policy, and how that policy is relevant to the request.
2. Tells the editor where the quote should be placed.

It takes a bit longer to explain something using English rather than telepathy, but I've found it to be generally more reliable. ;) Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 14:59, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, from putting together code from this and other templates, the code required to implement this is:

{{fix
 |link=Wikipedia:Verifiability
 |text=verify
 |title=quotation needed ''on talk'' from source to verify
 |pre-text=Request quotation on [[{{TALKPAGENAME}}|talk]] to 
 }}

... which yields: (the talk-link doesn't work here because this is already a talkpage). Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 15:20, 30 December 2008 (UTC) [Just noticed that my sample code didn't match my original recommendation, above -- altering to match. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 12:20, 2 January 2009 (UTC) ]

My only defence is to plead that my two words were an improvement on the previous two :) I disagree that the quotation should be requested to be provided on the talkpage; it should be included in the inline citation given for the claim, such as by utilising the |quote parameter of the citation templates. This allows the reader to see the source for the contested claim. Skomorokh 15:25, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

The template's current documentation clearly states that the quotation should be on talk. Generally, the length of quotation needed to verify that the source supports the statement cited to it, and isn't being taken out of context (or similar), is greater than the amount of text that would be reasonable to have as a footnote in mainspace, so my current thinking is that it should stay that way (though I'm willing to be convinced otherwise). Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 15:35, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, check out how we're using them at Stormfront (website), where I came from to this template. We have controversial claims that have been cited to sources that do not support them in the past, so what we do is this. The reader can see clearly how the statement is being supported, and decide for themselves what to make of it. Skomorokh 15:38, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Such short quotes may be sufficient for verification on Stormfront, but they are inadequate for where I generally work, in Creationism-related articles -- where quote-mining is a cottage industry among creationists, and we frequently find quotes employed by POV-pushers that turn out to have wildly different (and not infrequently diametrically opposite) meanings, when the full context is revealed. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 15:49, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

[Edit conflict] I use this template fairly regularly, and when I'm asked how much text I'd like to see, I generally reply the full paragraph from which the statement is being sourced as a minimum, with a preference for a paragraph either side as well. This provides an editor a good understanding of the context (enough for example to allow rewording the queried statement to more closely match the original source's intention, without sacrificing the flow of the article), but would generally be excessive for a footnote. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 15:42, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Also, I would point out that having a quotation requested on talk does not preclude a (generally shorter) quote being included in mainspace, if it is thought beneficial for the reader -- in fact this happens reasonably frequently as a result of the talkpage quote. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 15:52, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Erroneous categorisations

Why does this template currently put the tagged page into Category:All articles with unsourced statements & its date-based sub-category (as I discovered while looking into the code for it to do the above sample code)? This template is used to request a quote from an already cited source, so by definition, the statement in question is sourced. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 15:23, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Why not add a quote in a footnote?

Why does this template request a quotation to be added to the talk page, as opposed to adding a quote in a footnote (say using the quote= parameter of the various {{citation}}-related templates)? It seems to me that the reference should remain verifiable in the future, even if the talk page is archived, and that a quotation in a footnote would serve that end better than a quotation on a talk page. —AlanBarrett (talk) 09:57, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Never mind, I see that this has been discussed under #We need more than "quote needed" above. —AlanBarrett (talk) 10:01, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Discussed, yes, but the explanation was not, I think, adequate. Explanations should indeed "remain verifiable in the future, even if the talk page is archived, and that a quotation in a footnote would serve that end better than a quotation on a talk page". The concern that we should demand the quote on Talk because creationists "quote-mine", assuming it's a valid concern, affects only a vanishingly small percentage of citations. Jayjg ^(talk) 18:00, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

What is an "unquoted reference"?

As a programmer, I interpret this as a reference which is not quoted. Is this supposed to mean a "reference without a quote"? --Chealer (talk) 23:07, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

I infer it to mean a place where you state a fact using the reference, but not putting an exact quotation between quotation marks. I respond....five years later. HaltlosePersonalityDisorder (talk) 21:20, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

Category?

Should this not add the articles to a Category:Articles requiring requested quotations? HaltlosePersonalityDisorder (talk) 21:20, 28 December 2020 (UTC)