Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia/Archive 8

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Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council

Is now up for featured article review, and needs to have additional references and citations to maintain its status. please come by and take a look! Judgesurreal777 (talk) 00:53, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

podcast of articles

how can i add these spoken articles to podcast of iTunes —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.94.151.182 (talk) 11:05, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

You can download the .ogg files and put them into iTunes. There is a QuickTime component [1] that you need to download to use it. Otherwise I'm sure there are many ogg to MP3 converters (and freeware editors like Audacity will let you open ogg and resave in MP3). .:davumaya:. 05:01, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I think the question was about being able to add a podcast of all the Wikipedia spoken articles to iTunes. I have been looking around for such a podcast URL but haven't found anything.--Avernet (talk) 21:28, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

What Happens to the Bad Reviews?

I'd like to get really involved in this Spoken Wikipedia project, in as many areas as I can, from contributing full articles, to pronunciations, to just reviewing other user contributions. I figured that I would start with reviewing, just to familiarise myself with the standards out there already and to clear up some of the backlog. I've come across an unreviewed recording of a biiiiig article which I think is very sub-standard – the quality is great, but the reader flounders far too regularly and is missing the Wikipedia intro and end disclaimer. I'm happy to review it and point out its faults, but I think they are severe enough to warrant a deletion of the audio altogether – where do I stand on this? I'm not sure how active this project is. How useful are these reviews proving? Are the reviews reviewed by admins who can make the decision on whether to keep the content or not? P.S. I'm new to Wikipedia, so apologies for any errors or mis-understanings! Thanks :) Maedin (talk) 19:32, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi Maedin. Unfortunately I had typed a long reply which was lost when WP crashed, but in brief: the review guidelines and standards were codified in February 2007 (at this page), so any sppken article dating before then is less likely to meet our present standards. Conversely, I would not expect any article from the last ~15 months to leave off the standard introduction, licence information etc., as these are clearly identified as being required. So we need to take the age of the recording into account. A "Low" grade for technical quality should automatically be given where the licensing info at the end is absent, because this is required in order to demonstrate that the text and recording are both licensed under GNU FDL. If you could let me know (perhaps on my talk page) which article you have listened to, I will give it a listen as well and give you my views. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 12:51, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, Hassocks, I will leave a message on your talk page. :) Maedin (talk) 12:10, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Request for review

I'm terribly new to this whole editing thing on Wikipedia (other than a few minor edits), and especially new to spoken articles.

I'd greatly appreciate any feedback on my first spoken article, Christopher Cox.

Above was from User:Ssnseawolf. I will pick this up; will leave a note at Ssn's talk page accordingly. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 12:51, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the audit and detective work on finding my username, Hassocks. Signatureless no more! Ssnseawolf (talk) 19:13, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Review completed; I will notify Ssn on his talk page as well. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 21:43, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

New contributor

Hi, I'm a new contributor to this project. Over the last couple of days, I've submitted pronunciations for deity and have recorded the article Isaac Newton. Since I'm new, it's probably not very good, so is there somewhere where I can voluntarily submit my recording for review? A.C. Norman (talk) 09:17, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Welcome! Thanks for your contributions. The best place to request a review is probably at this talk page, in fact: I have it on my watch list, and I believe other regulars do as well. I'll try to listen to this over the weekend and compile a review for you. I'll check "deity" as well. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 12:51, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Review completed; see here. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 15:39, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Cheers for that: it's good to know that my recordings weren't too wide of the mark! A.C. Norman (talk) 11:02, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

First spoken article

Hey! I just recorded my first spoken article. Its a partial of the article, as its a long article. Id greatly appreciated if someone could review it before i continue with the rest of the article. Thanks!! Wiki Roxor (talk) 02:37, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi Wiki Roxor, working on it! :), Maedin (talk) 06:59, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I've listened now to the recording that you've uploaded, but won't complete a full review on its discussion page. I found quite a large issue with the technical quality of the recording, and in a review would probably mark it as Medium to Low, but leaning towards Low. There were a few mic knocks, an IE "click", and some background noises (a car?); see 1:28, 5:02, 10:57-11:02, 13:37-13:46. In addition, the overall quality is quite poor, with voice distortion throughout the recording, but particularly worse at 9:14. There are also changes in the audio level at each section, with significant hum/fuzz where these edits are made. A particular example is 3:47 to 3:52. These are all things which should ideally be avoided in Spoken Articles. Other reviewers may be able to offer more "technical" language on the nature of the issues!

However, I did find the pace very steady and easy to follow, and the pronunciation very good, especially with foreign words. Accuracy in the reading of the text was mostly very good, too, though the image could, perhaps, be better introduced; for example, by saying, "An image accompanies this section of the article..." Inflection was nicely done. The word hyperbole in the third paragraph is mis-pronounced; see the Wikipedia article for the pronunciation. Also, the title of the recording is mis-spelled, which I realised because I tried to search for it and couldn't! Overall, I would say that Clarity and Accuracy are High.

I would encourage the reader to address the technical problems, as the other aspects of the recording are well done, and I would hate to see such a promising Spoken Article dragged down by audio issues. If other reviewers wish to offer a second opinion, please do so; I am not a very experienced Wikipedian or reviewer and am open to having my opinion challenged, lol :)

Thank you for the recording, Wiki Roxor, and hope to see many more contributions from you! Cheers, Maedin (talk) 12:57, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a bunch! I didnt notice the 'hums' before but Ill definitely work on fixing the tech issues up asap. Wiki Roxor (talk) 13:47, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Another new contributor...

Hello, I've recently begun recording spoken articles. My first has been a very short one just to get my feet wet, so to speak - Begotten. Could someone listen to a minute or so of it and tell me if it is acceptable? If so, any advice would be much appreciated. Bosola (talk) 18:11, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

This makes little sense

I am a semi-active Wiktionarian who ran across this project a long time ago. Listening to a lot of radio online, I consider recording articles here to be potentially very useful. The equipment and software to record is already set up on my machine, so I started today on this featured article that uses language and names familiar to me. After recording, to perfection, only the introduction and part of the first section, I am completely disillutioned.

The primary problem is a pattern that I've noticed before. Random individuals who contribute to an article tend to insert ideas parenthetically. In fact I think my first contribution to this project lay between two brackets, and in the very next edit the curves at either end were removed by a wiser editor. Whether the symbols are there or not doesn't make any difference in the reading, however. Look at the introduction and first section of that article and count, besides the number of parenthesis, the number of tagged-on examples using "such as" or imbedded definitions, descriptions, and explanations. It hardly flows.

Then there's the problem that the article isn't written systematically, so there isn't any connectiveness, e.g. in the fourth paragraph between lensing, waves, and the Big Bang. There's no topic sentence stringing the pieces together, so listening to it in a linear fashion could mislead someone into thinking that LIGO and GEO 600 are studying lensing. And I have to worry that some of the examples are even correct, particularly the one given for fictitious forces. I feel like I'm wasting my energy on whimsical, haphazard writing. Practically it makes more sense to go through and first edit the damn thing myself, adapting it for speech and checking all the information for accuracy, or being lazy and just ripping it out. I'd really like to just go at it and spew out an entire article, but there are so many reasons I can't start recording today.

A couple of issues are already mentioned elsewhere. Wiki is a collaborative effort, so it doesn't make sense to have only the original contributors back up raw files for future edits. Anyway, I simply couldn't imagine anyone sitting through an entire reading of the article without wanting to skip to certain sections. Otherwise why are we reading the contents? I'm sure even the blind would want more options than fast forward. There is an entire mechanics that has not been implemented, if it has even been thought through.

And to think, this is an easy article. It's featured and is supposed to be correct. There isn't any tabular data. There aren't any strange French names to be Anglicized. What can I say to you? Good luck. I'll be back when you've worked things out. 66.68.23.41 (talk) 07:31, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi. If you feel this article no longer represents the best that Wikipedia has to offer (What is a Featured article?) you may find a better place to bring this up is WP:Featured article review. The instructions for making a report are on that page. Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 07:42, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Nevermind, I didn't notice you said you'll be back when it's figured out.. Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 07:43, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

You make some good points, and not being able to skip to sections is a crucial feature that is missing from the recordings / process as it is now. However, editing an article to make it ideal for a reading is part and parcel: I am fully at sympathy with how frustrating this can be when you just want to record, but it's unavoidable. I would not expect even the finest contributors to FAs to have considered how it might flow when read aloud. Some parenthetical statements don't even need to be edited, btw, just read to combine them smoothly into the text, usually using a preposition or a simple "played by" if you're referring to an actor or musician.

I hope I'm not being rude, but if you are familiar with the subject and feel that a particular example may not be accurate, then this is why editors with specific expertise are so very needed. Instead of calling it whimsical or haphazard, why not correct it and improve it even more? The FA process is quite a critical one, but it's not necessarily carried out by experts in the subject, and things can be missed. Correcting it might delay your itch to record the article, but in truth the accuracy of the article is paramount.

I am working on a recording of an article with many Dutch, Chinese, and Arabic references, and I am not familiar with these languages. Fortunately, I have good friends who speak these languages and am enlisting their help to get the pronunciations as right as I can; even asking for recordings of specific words so I can practise. If I didn't have friends who could help me, I would probably badger strangers, lol. It's a long, slow process, and sometimes I wish I could just blunder my way through, butchering the many names, but I'd rather it was correct and not just another Anglicisation. And once I'm done doing that part, I'm bound to find areas where the text should be improved to help convey the sense of the text when spoken. It's a featured article, too, but I never expected to come to it and find it perfect and flawless for my reading.

And I appreciate that the blind may wish to have more options than just fast-forward, but I don't think this is a reason to stop producing spoken articles or to call the whole thing flawed. I would like to think that those who listen will appreciate the spoken articles that are there, even if some nuances of the text are a little confusing. Whether they are trying to learn English, or are perfecting their British accent, or listening while they cycle or jog or sleep, or whether they are blind and are tired of screen readers: this is an effort to put content out there for them, and effort it very well does require. Maedin\^talk 21:28, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree --- I think it would definitely benefit to have seperate sounds recordings for individual sections in the article. In that way, the work for each article may be divided among more people, and changes to only certain sections of the article can be isolated and re-recorded more easily. Also, readers/ listeners can also skip ahead to pertinent sections, and replay certain sections if necessary. Psychera (talk) 11:08, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

New here

Hey, I'm new to the spoken word section, but I made a recording of Supply and demand, and I want someone to help review/post it, as I don't know what processes are involved. The URL for the file I uploaded is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Supply-and-demand-9-28-08.ogg

Any questions or requests would be best left on my talk page, so that I see them quickly. I'd be happy to re-record any sentences which aren't clear. In addition, this article is graph-heavy. I went with just using the captions on the graphs, which were fairly descriptive, but I feel that it might be beneficial to add descriptions of them as well. Any thoughts on whether this is a good idea, or would make the article too long would also be appreciated. Huadpe (talk) 05:45, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi Huadpe; thanks for contributing. I'll review this today for you; look out on your talk page for comments this evening (UK time). This topic takes me back to my university days!! Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 10:44, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Vowel Featured Article Review

Vowel has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.)

Interested newbie, and a script alert

Hi, I've just learned about your WikiProject; good work! I'm interested in producing recordings, especially of scientific articles, but I've no experience with that. Do people typically buy a separate microphone for recording? If you could add more details on hardware, the software used to drive it, and other nuts'n'bolts issues to the recording guidelines, that'd be helpful.

For my part, I've been writing some scripts to help people using screen readers such as JAWS and Fire Vox to read Wikipedia more conveniently and flowingly. You can find the scripts listed on my user page. For illustration, the scripts strip out hyperlinks, remove indenting, summarize differences between article versions, that sort of thing. Nearly anything is possible with such scripts, so if you have a wish-list for new scripts or suggestions for the current scripts, please drop me a line. Proteins (talk) 14:06, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

First spoken article - review requested

Hello! I just finished my first spoken article and would like a review and some feedback. It's a short nine-minute reading of Interstate 15 in Arizona. Since it's a short featured article, I figured it would be perfect for getting my feet wet. Thanks! -- Tonyle (talk) 23:38, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi Tonyle, and thanks for contributing! I'll pick this one up and post a review in the next day or so. I'll drop you a note when this is complete. Cheers, Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 08:38, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Music

I'm interested in recording articles and I want to know if it would be appropriate to include music? I haven't found any spoken articles that include music. Can anyone offer any examples? I would think including brief music clips (obviously, within fair use copyright guidelines) would be appropriate especially for articles about musicians, songs, albums and so forth. Also, I am a musician, and I can include original music accompanying a reading such as you would hear in a documentary. Is there Wikipedia theme music? I haven't found anything in the guidelines to support or hinder the use of music. Donnie Love (talk) 11:28, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

If you do do this, I'd recommend making versions with and without, because some people would like to reuse the audio content without worrying about fair use issues (which are somewhat more problematic for media than for text). I would just do one and then present it to the community to see what they think. Dcoetzee 22:41, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Variations on spoken articles

Something else that might be considered is making videos that contain footage/images and a narrator, reading a whole article or excerpts from one. For example it might simply be a collection of a few passages from an article with a slideshow of some images. Ideally there could be a separate narration sound layer so that it could be recorded in different languages too. You see a lot of videos like this, e.g. on sites like Britannica. Richard001 (talk) 00:35, 16 December 2008 (UTC)