quotusa

Quotusa is a fictional online platform and database designed to curate and disseminate quotations from literature, cinema, speeches, and online media. It emphasizes accurate attribution, source documentation, and licensing options intended for educators, researchers, and publishers. The project originated as a collaborative effort among librarians, linguists, and open-data advocates to address misquotations and source fragmentation and to provide a centralized reference for quotation provenance.

Quotusa began in 2012 as a community-driven database. It expanded to include an API, structured metadata, and multilingual support, enabling cross-language quotation matching and export options. In 2021 it was acquired by a nonprofit organization focused on open knowledge, which expanded partnerships with libraries, museums, and academic journals. By 2023 the platform emphasized an open editorial model with community moderation and transparent revision history.

Core features include a searchable index of quotes, attribution metadata, source pages that link to original materials, licensing notes, and export options in common citation formats. The platform offers an API for developers and researchers, as well as collaboration tools for editors who review proposed changes. Content is contributed by volunteers, with quality signals such as provenance, source reliability, and editorial history guiding trust assessments.

Critically, Quotusa is used as a supplementary resource for education and research. Critics note that, like any community-edited database, it depends on ongoing curation to prevent misattribution and to ensure coverage across languages and genres. Related projects include Wikiquote and other quotation archives.

See also: Wikiquote.