Wikiquote

Wikiquote
Original design and raster version by Neolux; vector version by Minh Nguyen, bas · CC BY-SA 3.0 · source
Name	Wikiquote
Caption	Main page of Wikiquote
Type	Reference
Language	Multilingual
Registration	Optional
Owner	Wikimedia Foundation
Author	Wikimedia community
Launched	2003

Wikiquote

Wikiquote is a free, collaboratively edited online compendium of quotations and related information started in 2003 and hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. It collects attributed quotes from notable individuals such as William Shakespeare, Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, Winston Churchill, and Marie Curie, as well as from works like Hamlet (play), The Odyssey, The Divine Comedy, Hamlet (play), and To Kill a Mockingbird. The project aims to provide sourced, verifiable excerpts alongside contextual details linking to biographies, texts, historical events, and institutions such as the British Museum and the Library of Congress.

History

Wikiquote was initiated by contributors influenced by sister projects such as Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, and Wiktionary during the early 2000s, with roots in conversations among editors involved with Nupedia and Jimmy Wales. Early development saw the creation of language editions inspired by practices from Project Gutenberg and citation norms from major libraries like the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Milestones include the establishment of topical pages for figures such as Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Martin Luther King Jr., and Friedrich Nietzsche, and expansions aligning with digital humanities efforts at institutions like the National Archives and the Smithsonian Institution.

Structure and Organization

The project runs on MediaWiki software maintained by the Wikimedia Foundation and interlinks with projects such as Wikidata and Wikibooks. Its structure mirrors bibliographic and authority control systems used by the Library of Congress and the Vatican Library through standardized pages for individuals, works, and themes; for example, pages exist for Leo Tolstoy, Jane Austen, Pablo Neruda, Frida Kahlo, and Ludwig van Beethoven. Content is organized into main quote pages, topical compilations, and index pages modeled after subject headings similar to those used by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions and cataloging practices at the British Library.

Content and Policies

Content is governed by community-developed policies emphasizing verifiability, attribution, and avoidance of original research. Contributors are expected to provide sources drawn from publications such as Oxford University Press titles, archival collections at the National Library of Australia, and annotated editions like those from Cambridge University Press. Policy pages address attribution for speakers like Napoleon Bonaparte, Queen Elizabeth I, George Orwell, and Ada Lovelace, and detail handling of disputed quotations tied to events such as the French Revolution or publications like The Federalist Papers. Copyright and public domain considerations reference thresholds used by institutions such as the United States Copyright Office and the European Patent Office.

Language Editions

Wikiquote exists in numerous language editions, each reflecting local scholarly and cultural priorities seen in editions for languages represented by figures such as Leo Tolstoy (Russian), Gabriel García Márquez (Spanish), Li Bai (Chinese), Rabindranath Tagore (Bengali), and Homer (Greek). Larger editions coordinate through interlanguage links and leverage bibliographic data from Biblioteca Nacional de España and national libraries like the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek. Smaller or emerging editions may focus on regional authors such as Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Chinua Achebe, Kālidāsa, and Sappho and collaborate with local archives and universities like University of São Paulo and Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Community and Governance

Governance follows Wikimedia community norms with administrators, editors, and volunteers who participate in policy discussions and dispute resolution, paralleling governance models at Wikimedia Deutschland and the Wikimedia UK chapters. Roles include administrators handling vandalism and page protection, mediators for conflicts involving quotations attributed to figures like Vladimir Lenin or Mikhail Gorbachev, and editors coordinating thematic projects on subjects such as Friedrich Engels, Simone de Beauvoir, and Malala Yousafzai. Oversight and legal questions sometimes involve the Wikimedia Foundation staff and external institutions like the European Court of Human Rights in matters touching on speech and attribution.

Reception and Impact

Scholars in literary studies, history, and information science have cited the project alongside resources such as JSTOR, Project MUSE, and national library catalogs when researching figures like Charles Dickens, Emily Dickinson, Nikolai Gogol, Isabel Allende, and Sun Tzu. Educators and journalists draw on Wikiquote material together with reference works such as the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, the Cambridge Companions series, and archival collections at the New York Public Library. Critiques have addressed reliability and sourcing practices in comparison to established editorial projects like Encyclopædia Britannica and scholarly editions from Harvard University Press, while advocates highlight its accessibility and multilingual reach exemplified by contributions covering Plato, Confucius, Rumi, Søren Kierkegaard, and Simone Weil.

Category:Wikimedia projects Category:Online encyclopedias