# four lines or four sentences?



## Thomas1

Hello, 

A coupe of weeks ago I submitted a post with a quotation in the French section of WR forums. Bearing in mind the thread we had some time ago dealing with citations, I paid attention not to violate the rule. I quoted from a reference grammar book and the text was not lyrics nor poetry, so I thought the four sentences were perfectly permitted. However, my post got abridged due to not having met the rules of quoting. The moderator said that even though the citation was not longer than four sentences, the policy is that it also should fit within four lines rule. This got me a bit puzzled I must admit, taking into account what the rules say.

I don’t mind such policy and rules, but may I suggest that they be officially introduced into the commonly available WR rules so that we know and could abide by them?


Tom


PS: excuse me if this has already been brought up, but I haven't frequented WR forums for a while, and having skimmed over some threads I see it hasn't.


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## Paulfromitaly

You will find this thread quite interesting.

Regla #4


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## Cagey

Hello Thomas,

I see that you participated in the other thread as well.

If I understand the English Only policy correctly ~ and I may have missed something ~ we enforce the 4 sentence rule literally and rather crudely.  In general, we allow four sentences, whether they are long or short.  Perhaps it would be different in an extreme case, if each sentence made a long paragraph or took up a page. I haven't seen your text, so can't tell whether we would place it in that category.  

In EO, the limit to four lines of lyrics is more restrictive than the limit to four sentences, but then four lines of a lyric are usually a proportionately larger part of the work as a whole.

I think you may need the input of the French moderators concerning the policy in their forum.


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## Thomas1

Thank you Paulfromitaly and Cagey for your answers. 

Yes, I have participated in that thread, and it is one of the reasons for which I started this one. 



Cagey said:


> I think you may need the input of the French moderators concerning the policy in their forum.


It would be very much appreciated, to the good of everyone, I think. It is a pity no one has got interested in spite of a sincere attempt to clear up the matter.


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## pyan

Thank you for your questions about our quotation or citation policy. You've helped us to realise that we have not been being consistent in how rule 4 is applied across forums (French forums v. other WR forums) and even within the French forums themselves.

Early in the life of the forums, concerns about possible copyright and legal issues made some quote limits necessary. There may have been some confusion about what, exactly, would constitute fair use. It seems that at least one of the very first French-English moderators took the approach of applying a 4-line limit in all cases. The WordReference rules have been revised and reworked several times since then, and we do not have a copy of the older versions at hand, but it is possible that this 4-line limit, so clearly in contradiction with the current wording of rule 4, was not so inconsistent with previous versions. Older mods train new mods, the idea of a 4-line limit was passed along when the moderation team grew and evolved... but only patchily, because apparently not all of the original French-English moderators had applied this 4-line limit.

Discussing your question, we discovered that some of us were trained to apply a 4-line limit and others weren't. But we all agree that in light of the clear declaration of citation or quotation policy in the current official WR rules, there is no point in continuing a separate policy on the French-English forums, especially one that may have arisen unofficially from a misunderstanding. In the future, we will enforce rule 4 as written:


> *4. Respect intellectual property.*
> No plagiarized content is allowed. No copyrighted material may be inserted  into posts except as indicated here:
> Minor fair use excerpts (one or two) from dictionaries are permitted. Always  acknowledge the source.
> Quotes and translations of prose up to 4 sentences are permitted. No audio or video files or links may be inserted without prior moderator approval. No  links to YouTube are permitted.
> Song lyrics and verse may be quoted and translated, up to a maximum of 4  lines.
> All forms of inserted content that do not meet these conditions will be removed without exception.


We retain the right to truncate at our discretion citations of dictionary entries and other such reference works that are written neither in verse nor in prose (i.e., works where "lines" and "sentences" are hard to define). The objective is not to prevent members from transmitting useful information or substantiating their arguments with a reference, but to protect all of us from copyright violation problems. 

Once again we thank you for raising this question and giving us the opportunity to correct the inconsistency, and thank you for your patience as we (slowly and carefully) discussed the matter.

Pyan
(on behalf of the entire FR-EN mod team)


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## linguos

Hi. 

I've got a question concerning the rule no. 4, ie.: 



> Quotes and translations of prose up to 4 sentences are permitted. No audio or  video files or links may be inserted without prior moderator approval. No  links to YouTube are permitted.
> Song lyrics and verse may be quoted and translated, up to a maximum of 4 lines.
> All forms of inserted content that do not meet these conditions will be removed without exception.


Wouldn't it be better if there was a limit of maximum words or characters that may be quoted?

For instance, the first 8 verses of the song "My Way" by Frank Sinatra has *45 words and 251 characters* (according to the online counter from www.lettercount.com) and it wouldn't be allowed just because it's 8, not 4 lines.

Yet, in one of *arzit*'s threads, he gives a quote of transcription from a documentary film that has *143 words and 785 characters* (according to the same source), but it's all squeezed into just 2 sentences, so the rule wasn't broken. And one could imagine even longer sentences.

Personally, I can even imagine someone joining separate sentences just to fit into the rule (then it wouldn't be an exact quote, but if the source isn't well known to the public, most people wouldn't spot it).

Anyway, it's only a suggestion. I'd be glad to here what others think of this rule.


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## Paulfromitaly

A similar discussion

four lines or four sentences?


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## linguos

Yes, I've read that discussion, but it doesn't satisfy my curiosity as to why it always has to be 4 lines and 4 sentences.

Also, I started this thread to see what other think about changing the rule to *a fixed number of characters* (or words), this would make it much more specific and would make cheating practically impossible.

If others think there's no need for it and the way it is now is OK for them, then that's what I want to hear. I just want to know what logic lies behind this rule, since we can all easily imagine 5 sentences from one novel which are together much shorter than only 3 sentences from a different prose. And the guy quoting the shorter passage gets his post deleted, while the guy quoting a longer passage has his thread thriving...


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## Mate

Linguos,

The mod team is not able to count words or characters in all threads opened at all times in all forums. Take rule #4 as it mas meant to be: just a guideline. Then please combine said rule with #5:

*Strict limits on translation and homework help. No proofreading.*
These forums respond to specific questions about text. They do  not provide free translations. They do not provide proofreading and  rewriting of texts. Thus, discussion should center on the word or phrase  in the thread title. Additional source text is accepted only as context; please do not submit it for translation or proofreading.
Help with schoolwork will be given only if you post your own translation/interpretation first.  

Cheers!


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## linguos

OK, you say it is just a guideline, but there are others who are more strict about it.

So should the quotes with 5 or 6 sentences always be deleted, even if they're actually quite short?

PS. I'm not particularly unhappy with this rule or anything. I just wanted to suggest a slight alteration to it. If you think my suggestion is stupid, then it's perfectly fine.


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## cherine

Hi Linguos,

Your suggestion is not stupid at all. It's just more practical and time saving for everyone (especially mods  ) to count lines instead of characters or words.

Besides, as Mate said, the lines are used as context only. So, even if you quote the whole song (which is not allowed, this is just an IF) you won't be able to discuss it, but only discuss one word, one expression or one grammatical question in the whole song.


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## linguos

That's true, but sometimes this additional 5th line can be important for the context. 

I have myself marked for 'a moderator review' (reported) a post that had 5 sentences of reference, just because I took the no. 4 rule literally.


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## cherine

linguos said:


> That's true, but sometimes this additional 5th line can be important for the context.


Sure! And if we put this as a rule, I promise you someone will come in the future and say: "why not allow 6 lines? Sometimes this additional 6th line can be important for the context". 

It took the modertors and the administrator very long time and lenghthy discussions to come to this limit. The idea of discussing this all over again is just scary.  So, please, try to live with this rule even if you find it of utmost silliness. Pretty please.


> I have myself marked for 'a moderator review' (reported) a post that had 5 sentences of reference, just because I took the no. 4 rule literally.


This sounds like someone filed a suite against you or something. First, you can't tell for sure whether someone reported your post or if it's the mod who noticed it by himself/herself. Second, if you break the rule, don't complain that you got caught.
Third, it's not a big deal to break the rule once, unknowingly. It is a problem when one repeats this.


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## linguos

cherine said:


> This sounds like someone filed a suite against you or something. First, you can't tell for sure whether someone reported your post or if it's the mod who noticed it by himself/herself. Second, if you break the rule, don't complain that you got caught.
> Third, it's not a big deal to break the rule once, unknowingly. It is a problem when one repeats this.


No, no, you misunderstood me. I wasn't caught, it was I, who caught another user on this and I reported that post as potentially violating the current rules of the forum. 

Anyway, as I said before, it's not that this rule bothers me a lot, I just wanted to suggest a different solution. If the forum doesn't have the application that would automatically count the number of the characters being typed, then it's wholly understandable why you find the 4-lines/4-sentences rule as the most pragramtic.


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## Vanda

And you can always link the lyrics - without videos - so the ones interested on the whole context can take advantage of it, or look for it by themselves.


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## cherine

linguos said:


> No, no, you misunderstood me. I wasn't caught, it was I, who caught another user on this and I reported that post as potentially violating the current rules of the forum.


Ah! Sorry for the misunderstanding.
In this case, don't feel sorry you "had to report someone" 


> Anyway, as I said before, it's not that this rule bothers me a lot, I just wanted to suggest a different solution. If the forum doesn't have the application that would automatically count the number of the characters type, then it's wholly understandable why you find the 4-lines/4-sentences rule as the most pragramtic.


Thanks for your understanding


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## VicNicSor

Hello, everyone!



cherine said:


> It's just more practical and time saving for everyone (especially mods  ) to count lines instead of characters or words.


May I suggest a solution?: there are long and short sentences. The short ones -- up to five (or six) words, the long ones -- more. A long sentence is equal to two short ones. So you can quote:
- four long sentences
- three long and two short
- two long and four short
- one long and six short
- eight short

Or something like that.

I believe it'd be much easier than counting words or characters, and at the same time it would be fairer to those who quote short sentences. I always think of it when I see someone quote 100-word sentences from, say, some prose of some eloquent writer, and at the same time I have my 5-words-length sentences from movies deleted only because I've exceed the limit, though my whole quote is actually ten times smaller.

Vic.


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## cherine

And how would you define and/or make the difference between long and short sentences?


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## VicNicSor

cherine said:


> And how would you define and/or make the difference between long and short sentences?


As I said:


VicNicSor said:


> The short ones -- up to five (or six) words, the long ones -- more.



Look please at this dialog from "_How to Lose a Guy in 10 days":_


VicNicSor said:


> A guy and a girl are making the acquaintance of each other in a restaurant. They've introduced themselves, and now the dialog. The girl:
> _- Unattached?
> - Currently.
> - Likewise.
> - Surprising.
> *- Psycho?
> - Rarely. lnterested?*
> - Perhaps.
> - Hungry?
> - Starving.
> - Leaving.
> - Now?_


Twelve sentences. I exceeded the limit three times! Delete the excess eight sentences and no one will understand what's going on there at all.


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## Loob

I don't see the problem.

The limit is four lines of poetry or four sentences of prose.

No?


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## VicNicSor

Yes, but that's the problem. There's no much problem with poetry, because lines are usually more or less of one length. But with prose it's different (I started an independent thread on this but was directed to here), the length of the sentences of which varies very much.


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## cherine

We can look at it in a different way: If someone's looking for the meaning of the words you highlighted, we don't need all the conversation. If they need the meaning of more words, they'll simply need to open a thread for each, with the pertinent/sufficient context, again in the limit determined by the rule.


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## VicNicSor

It's often not "words" but a "phrase". Usually, to understand and say what a phrase means you need enough context. Native speakers say: we're not sure what it means because we don't have enough context. 
And it's not at all necessary "all the conversation". Just a little more than four short sentences would be enough. Of course, I always can explain the direct speech with my own words, or just turn it into indirect speech, like, instead of:
-- I love you.
-- I love you too.
... to say:
"She said that she loved him and he said he loved her too".

I just suggested a way to avoid this. After all, it's easier to count up to five twice than to look for full periods in a long piece of text.


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## wildan1

I think some of you are over-thinking this issue. 

As moderators, we follow the Forum rules, but we also have our experience and good judgment to apply to a specific situation.

If you are really concerned that your citation needs more than the specific number of four lines (verse) or four sentences (prose), just contact a moderator for the given forum via Conversation and ask for guidance. I think all of us would happily give appropriate guidance for this kind of concern.

There would be very little interest for us to start counting words, characters or some other micro-measured standard for citations--many of us are just too busy in our roles of keeping the forums functioning well to spend that much time.


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## VicNicSor

Excuse me, but then I have another suggestion:
Quotes of prose from video (movies, TV series) up to 6-8 sentences.
The reasons:
1. written sentences in a book/magazine/blog etc. are independent and complete. A book is written sentences only. Dialogs in a movie have no such value without the video. I mean -- all the written sentences of a book is the book itself. All the written dialogs from a movie are not the movie itself but just a transcript or a subtitle text file.

2. Quoted sentences from movies/TV series are always dialogs, unlike books where they are both dialogs and an author's words. Spoken dialogs are usually/on average shorter than written sentences which describe something (written prose).


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## wildan1

As I have already said, VicNicSor, just contact a moderator in the forum where you want to post your query and ask for help. As moderators, we are here to help you.


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## VicNicSor

Thank you!


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## mkellogg

We had to pick some simple limit and that is what we chose, as inflexible and simplistic as it is.


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