Wikipedia talk:Motto of the day/Archive 1

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Motto of the week

There are so many interesting and diverse candidates here that I think we should have a "motto of the week". That would be fun and really get people to think. If we could get the list up to 52 we could have one motto for every week of the year!

A wikimotto template could be created that would be updated on a weekly basis. That would be quite handy. - Pioneer-12

Some of these don't seem like "official mottos", but they would make great T-shirts or coffee mugs. Isomorphic 06:10, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

You wouldn't need even to create a template. You could just have a bot edit MediaWiki:Tagline once per week or day. Almafeta 10:01, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Couldn't we do one of those "fortunes" files like they do on mediazilla? - Omegatron 11:44, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

A weekly updated motto template would be fun, an official motto is taking it a bit seriously though i think - it somehow doesn't seem very wiki-like to have one. Martin (Bluemoose) 17:08, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

By that logic the wikilogo should change every week as well. Wiki isn't a commercial entity and as such dosn't need the same "branding" as corporate companies - I do, however, believe that consistency in name, logo and motto is important if we want to "spread the word" efficiently. In addition, how do you propose we deal with paper-editions of wiki? (Celcius 03:10, 13 August 2005 (UTC))

Personal preferences

I personally prefer these:

Knowledge from anyone, insight to everyone.
Learn. Know. Laugh. Love. Wikipedia.
Share your knowledge.

— Stevey7788 (talk) 23:46, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Not a joke

Okay, I cop to adding my own funny to the list -- but --

A motto is not a joke; it is the condensation of a community's deepest values. It does not speak well for us that we cannot agree on one.

The current motto, "The Free Encyclopedia", is perhaps the worst of the bunch -- well-intentioned, but useless, in that it says nothing -- or says all different things to all people, which may be fine for a brand of soda pop but is terrible for a scholarly project. "Free" means so many things that its only consistent meaning is little more than "what I want to do"; "encyclopedia" means something only to those who have seen one. Since Wikipedia is fast becoming the only general-purpose encyclopedia that most readers have ever seen, the word says nothing about who we are or what we do here.

I daresay our failure to display a motto that states and reveals our most cherished principles is both a cause and a symptom of our failure to have a cornerstone goal any longer. — Xiong 熊 talk * 22:42, 2005 August 15 (UTC)

I would say it is a joke. It is quite common for businesses and organizations to use ridiculous, pretentious and ultimately empty phrases to sum themselves up. As an encyclopaedia, with hopefully an emphasis on knowledge and learning, Wiki should not try and boil down everything it stands for into a glib three word phrase. An article would be barely long enough. Collaboration would suggest what one person will find profound another will find trite. This is already an argument and there are only two of us here. <g> The Wiki motto which probably best describes Wiki is a revert war over a motto. MeltBanana 21:43, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't care what other organisations do and dont do, we can think for ourselves, we can set examples, not follow them. I think the present motto is OK, but we could find a better one, plus it will be fun, when there are loads of suggestions, we can wittle out the joke ones (or separate them out now into jokes and serious ones), and then have some wiki-wide vote on it, I imagine it would be great fun! Martin - The non-blue non-moose 17:22, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Wikiquote

Can I suggest a Wikiquote official motto as well? It should be "Quanto magis admiraremini, si audissetis ipsum" (from Cicero) David | Talk 23:02, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

No 47

47 'A million monkeys, a million typewriters, a million cattle prods, and no bananas!'

I think its important not to become too serious about almost everything, anything in which people are overly protective of or serious would deserve lampooning. If you can't approach everything with a bit of humour, especially yourself, then you end up in a place nobody will want to go.

Compromise

Perhaps we could have a compromise:
All the suggestions are voted on, and the suggestion that gets the most votes becomest the official wiki motto. Then the next top 52 (assuming that enough more possible mottos are added) can be cycled through like the taglines on This Might Be a Wiki, changing every week.

Or...
We could divide all the submissions up into categories (serious, humerous, other languages, etc.) and pick a motto from each of those categories.
-Ationsong 22:01, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

I like the second idea. We could have a real motto, and a joke one, thus satisfying the sillier wikipedians, and the humorless drones. --Nintendorulez [[User talk:Nintendorulez|talk]] 22:45, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Official?

Is an offical motto ever going to be chosen out of these? Or is this just a page for whimsical wikipedians? —Bannus 21:32, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

I've got a complaint about this.

10. Just because we're amateur encyclopedia editors, doesn't mean we have to be humourless drones.

is not true at all, as much as I wish it was. Show me one article with a joke in it. I dare you to find a single one. (Seriously, we ought to do something to try to spice things up, everything's so... bland.) --Nintendorulez [[User talk:Nintendorulez|talk]] 22:38, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Have you checked out the "exploding animals" series? --Carnildo 08:36, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Also, I must suitly emphazi the importantance of checking out the Wikipedia:Reference desk. --Optichan 15:18, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I must point out to you: Clown#"That's good/that's bad" routine and if you need some real humour, check out funny words and the serious discussion on its talk page. (such as: "Millard Fillmore ate a rutabaga and badger muffaletta" vs. "James Madison ate a celery and fish sandwich"; you tell me which is funnier.") Pedant 02:42, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Mottos' Committee

I will soon change the name of the page to Wikipedia:Mottos' Committee; as stated in both main and talk pages, this is not an official purposal. --ShiningEyes 00:01, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Revival

I hope to revive the initiative. It would be a shame to loose 100 funny taglines. So I will be implementing the old "motto of the week" idea. I think there is plenty of good stuff to start with. So far the idea is to create a template and put it on the community portal. Ideas & suggestions are welcome! Renata 03:36, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Motto Length

I'd like to say that I think motto #9 on the rejected mottos page ("You don't understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been an admin. I could've been somebody, instead of a vandal, which is what I am.") is a cool quote. It says it was rejected for reasons of length, but it isn't really that long. Is there a specific size limit? K e rowyn ^{Leave a note} 19:56, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

More or less screen lenght (no exact number of letters or words). Remember, the actual template shows letter big & bold and therefore it looks really ugly if something is really long. Renata 19:59, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

POV scheduled mottos?

Just stubbled across this... User:THE KING has added several mottos to Wikipedia:Motto of the day/Schedule, many of which are manifestly inappropriate, as they do not bear on Wikipedia and/or manifest a political ideology. Who manages this schedule, exactly, and how? Sandstein 11:06, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Ok, a bit of a history here. The whole motto thing was tarted about a year ago and then died a sillent death. But at some point I discovered it and said, "hey, it's awesome idea!" I started to gather ideas how to make it work and what are the best approaches, etc. Go for it! decided to help me out and created the schedule, but I abandoned mottos for a while (I could not figure what to do). Then THE KING came and added all those political and POV mottos. I got really upset and last night impromptu launched the project. The details are not worked out and I would appreciate any suggestions... Renata 16:54, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

So I assume "Hugo Chavez must die" and "free man do not ask for the right to bear arms" are not the kind of motto we'll see in the future? I certainly hope so... —Nightst a llion (?) 13:09, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

I've added {{db|A6}}, but that might fail, because it's not really an article. If it fails try WP:MFD. -- Omniplex 05:51, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Organizing the Nominations

To make the nominations more organized, perhaps each new propsed motto should be placed on the page as a heading, and then underneath, comments can be posted about it. ...._(Complain)^{(Let us to it pell-mell)} 04:24, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Approved. David P. A. Hunter, esq. III ^{Let us to it,} _Pell-Mell 13:55, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Missing motto!

Today (11:47, 2 July 2006 (UTC)), we ran out of mottos! Yes, the box on my userpage displayed a red link, so I hastily added a new one. Please keep on top in the future - I'll help with the project if you don't have enough staff. —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξ φ 11:47, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

The same today, i just added an old one Childzy ^{(Talk|Contribs)} 11:05, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I hope nobody minds, i wen ahead and added some for the next two days, i took them from the aproved list and they were unused. Can somebody involved in the project get back to me, i wouldnt mind helping out. Childzy ^{(Talk|Contribs)} 11:17, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Overseer

i am willing to be an overseer.Geo. 20:32, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

/Under review

I am creating a [/Under review] page for mottos

being reviewed.

Asst. OverseerGeo. 21:04, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

links to reference

Shouldn't the mottos contain (or be) link to the article that describes the quote/thing referenced/parodied by the motto? Samohyl Jan 10:19, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

In some cases we do, but it is purely to the nominators discretion whether or not they link it, if you want to nominate a motto with a link then its fine. Childzy ^{(Talk|Contribs)} 10:20, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Overseer candidate

User:Hunterd has expressed interest in being a overseer. Please comment below.

Approve Geo. 19:30, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Installed as Temp. Overseer. Geo. 22:34, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Overseer application

Might as well offer up my services. I'll administer to some stuff, comment on proposed mottoes, and sometimes I can come up with one or two gems myself. —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξ φ 16:13, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Today's motto misspelled

Targeting not targetting!! Pedant 02:28, 12 August 2006 (UTC)