Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia/Archive 4

This is an archive of past discussions on Wikipedia:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

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Location of spoken article list

A while back the spoken article list was moved from Wikipedia:Spoken articles to Category:Spoken articles to avoid self-references. However, there was a proposed solution to this problem but the content was never moved back. Does anybody object to moving the list back to Wikipedia:Spoken articles? This is how Wikipedia:Featured articles is set up and I think the result is cleaner since the category contents don't clutter up the bottom of the page. -SCEhard T 15:18, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Seeing no objections, I went ahead with the move. Hopefully I've got all the links right, but let me know if I screwed anything up :-) -SCEhard T 20:48, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Cookin'!

I've just checked the RSS feed, and forty new spoken articles have been added since it was recently updated. That's something of a record. There's a significant body of great work being built up here. Kudos to everyone involved. -- Macropode 13:32, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Nice! When was the last update? I've been a little slack on Wikipedia lately (too much other stuff going on) but this may be good incentive to start back in. And I'll second a hearty kudos all around. -- Laura S | talk to me 14:15, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I've been a bit behind in updating (though it is up-to-date now) - there were 29 (!) new articles last month, several with 2 or 3 parts! Kudos to all! -SCEhard T 16:28, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Sex parameter in template

Please see this discussion about removing the sex parameter from the spoken article template. -SCEhard T 22:26, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Copyrighted text and spoken articles

Here's a little story of woe that hopefully might help others avoid walking into the copyright minefield, as I seem to have done. Back before the article choice guidelines contained the warning against recording articles containing copyrighted text, I recorded the featured articles Homo floresiensis and Cyclone Tracy. These both contain small sections of copyrighted text. At present I don't understand why it seems to be permissable to include this in the article (licensed under the GFDL) but not it's spoken version, but I'm no legal expert, and that's what it says in Wikipedia:Fair use under "Audio clips". It's a guideline, but was apparently put there after discussion with Jimbo, so I'm inclined to take it as read. I had blithely assumed that it was pretty safe to record almost any article, as the spoken recording guidelines suggested.

As a first step to remedying this situation, I've removed the links from the articles. The second would probably be to put the audio files up for deletion. Looking at WP:IFD and related pages, the options get pretty complex, and there doesn't seem to be any precedent for dealing with spoken audio files which are incorrectly licensed under the GFDL. I'd appreciate any guidance from people more familiar with admin-type issues on how to proceed with this. -- Macropode 11:27, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Why not just edit out the copyrighted text from the audio file? At brief glance it looks like the articles should be nearly complete with the quoted text removed. With the copyrighted text removed, upload the new version to the same file name and have an admin delete the old version. -SCEhard T 12:37, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Great! I wasn't aware that an admin could fix it that easily. Cyclone Tracy is no problem, but Homo floresiensis has some sections that depend fairly heavily on the copyrighted quotes. I'll work on it. Thanks SCEhardt. -- Macropode 09:16, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I almost amended the fair use guidelines since this isn't as bad a situation as it might seem, but the invocation of The Jimbo's name made me think twice. Basically, you're free to record any article on Wikipedia so long as the article itself contains no copyvios, which is where the licensing question comes into play.

If anyone has public speaking experience, there's a rule of thumb that quoting someone's work with proper attribution given to the source is perfectly acceptable (and in fact lends credibility among other things) but using any information without attributing it to a source is the same as written plagiarism. Of course, (1) this is retaining, even distributing, a recording, not just giving a speech and (2) we have a "written" version as well. I imagine it's different in that (1) the quotation length must be within reason - I don't know if the "30 second rule" is for normal text or just music - and used to demonstrate a point rather than just because we feel like it and (2) we can get away without narrating the entire References section, but if there's a quote with a footnote, you'd best be making a note of your own so you can refer to the source without stopping the recording to scroll down or (worse) skipping the citation.

After my last suggestion apparently came off badly, I should say the emphases weren't meant to be authoritative or pissy, just emphasize for clarity. Hopefully that explanation didn't further confuse you guys. I always know what I'm talking about - even when no one else does! ;) Moulder 03:03, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Maximizing potential

I had an idea the other day for a way to both increase this project's output significantly and make it more useful (or at least put it to use in cases where screen readers can't do the job). I'm betting a lot of you either are students or at least know one or more teachers or professionals if you're not one already. Why not get out the word and have some of the experts we already know work on articles related to their specialities? You don't have to feel like a nerd, because you'll be soliciting their help for the sake of a good cause (education, accessibility, etc) and the recordings they make can be targeted to meet specific needs:

Mathematics - Joe Schmo says, "Look at all the funny symbols, I wonder what that means!" This won't work in all cases, since some involved concepts can't really be "read" properly, but many articles would benefit from someone familiar with the topic explaining them correctly and confidently (I personally learn better from lectures than textbooks.)
Linguistics - Any linguistics-related topic will do, but what about something as simple as a person who speaks Language A reading an article about it? Hearing the language gives 100 times the benefit of reading it even if you know IPA.
Literature - What about things like alliterative verse where the information is there but you've no idea what do do with it? Or at least how to pronounce it. Your English teacher/professor probably does.
Anything science-related - Don't you love the names they come up with for some of that stuff? :)

Anyway, that was longer than I expected, but you get the idea. I'm going to contact a couple people this coming semester, so maybe you guys can do the same. Be creative! Be bold! Be... all you can be? Aha, be smart and get someone else to do it if you think you're in over your head. Moulder 22:38, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

If you can convince more people who "know their stuff" to read articles, good on you. It can only be of benefit to this project, and the English Wikipedia as a whole. Personally, however, given the increasingly high public profile of the Wikipedia project, I wonder why there aren't more of them here doing it already.

I consider myself a regular "Joe Schmoe". I come to Wikipedia, look at all the funny symbols, wonder what they mean, and, because my curiosity has been piqued, go and find out! Then I might plug in my microphone and record the article dealing with the subject I find particularly interesting. If I find myself in over my head, I learn to swim, quickly! I go and do some research, which might involve soliciting help from someone more knowledgable than myself, who hasn't had the time, or, for whatever reason, the interest to get involved themselves. As I do more, I get better at it. I rely on the listener to tell me if I've done something incorrectly, and I enjoy trying to improve my work. I can get up there, and have a go, myself. This, for me, is what the Wikipedia is about, and I'm sure I'm not alone in seeing it this way.

I've narrated one or two science-related articles, and nobody has told me (yet!) that I've done a bad job. Others have done similar. I challenge anybody to pick any significant problem with the recording of this article, for example, and from what I can gather, the narrator in this case has no professional or academic expertise in the field. It is just one example of many great recordings that have been done here by "amateurs".

No offence, Moulder, but there's more to being a Wikipedian than being an expert. -- Macropode 07:41, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh I agree completely, and that's a great way to tackle things. I didn't mean to imply that people like you are incapable of doing this, only that teachers, colleagues, friends can be untapped resources and potentially valuable contributors. The "in over your head" bit was my way of saying don't be discouraged if the task seems too difficult. Moulder 18:49, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay, point taken. I interpreted your idea in a way you obviously hadn't intended. Seen in a different light, it's great, and I agree wholeheartedly, particularly with respect to linguistics and literature related articles. -- Macropode 04:10, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

And thankfully, there are Wikipedians around that are patient with people recording articles they have a limited understanding of! For the most part, if you interact with the contributors of the article you are recording, you will have success. Recording an article is painstaking, if for no other reason than that it requires a solid block of free time in relative quiet. I know that is a rarity for me - I am still waiting for a good time to re-record some dunces in a couple of my articles. --Aguerriero (talk) 14:41, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Quiet - what's that? I have to work around my noisy kids, next door's noisy kids, 'planes, bird song (they're nesting in the trees in our back yard), barking dogs, boom-tish boom-tish bass-monster car stereos and various other things. Recording spoken articles is character-building. You develop patience. :) -- Macropode 09:43, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Help!

Hey. I would like to help with this WikiProject, but I can't decide on what article I should do. Can you help and at least give me prehaps one that would benefit from Spoken Wikipedia? Thank you. Uncke Herb!!! 07:50, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I think it helps to work on something you're interested in. Another thing to keep in mind is to start with an article of manageable size. Taking a look at your contribs, I think Thomastown, Victoria would be a good choice for you. Hope this helps! -SCEhard T 13:51, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Southern accent

How do I change my accent so I don't have my drawl? I'm from the SouthEastern United States. Gang sta EB (sliding logs~dive logs) 01:23, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Why do you want to? »»» Switchercat ^talk_contribs 02:54, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

My guess would be just listen to people who speak with the accent you'd rather have (whether live or recorded), and try to imitate it. Listen to the differences - vowels especially - and how they're spoken - is the tongue in a different place in the mouth, etc. There are also speech therapists who will work with you to change (or lose) an accent. That said, I'm sort of with Switchercat on this one - unless you need to change your accent for a play or something, why would you want to change it? -- Laura S | talk to me 14:12, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I've spent a lot of time around people from the south, and depending on where you're from, you might not even need to worry about being understood. Probably 75% of southerners (especially if you're reading instead of talking with local slang) are just as easy to understand as someone from Boston or New Joisey. See aslo The Sopranos. Moulder 19:49, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Hey watch what you say about Jersey! Besides, the only people who say "New Joisey" are from New Yawk. :) -- Laura S | talk to me 20:52, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

All you North Americans sound pretty funny to me... :) (Right-oh Moulder, here's your chance to get even with me :) ) -- Macropode 08:28, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Hey least you don't have to worry about confusing day and die when you listen to us... although I guess when you marry it's anything but merry, especially if her name's Mary. :D Moulder 17:11, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

GangstaEB, I grew up in the Florida Panhandle, so I feel your pain. I know people who tried to lessen their accents by not using contractions. It provides a minor curb to your speech. It seems to work reasonably well, but I suspect that it works primarily by causing the speaker to focus on all of his or her speech and not just contractions. Another thing you can do yourself, probably in conjunction with omitting contractions, is to read up on phonology and learn about the particular characteristics or your regional dialect, such as dropping g's, aspirating h's, or emphasizing certain vowels. Once you know what to look for, it becomes a matter of listening to yourself as you speak and "correcting" the accented peculiarities. Of course, there is no compelling reason for you to do so outside of your personal desire: As fahr as ahm consuhnned there is nuhthin wrong with uh Suthuhn Drahwal. Good luck and happy enunciation!--128.186.13.112 14:23, 18 July 2006 (UTC)smallwhitelight

For what it's worth, Australian accents, to me, sound "normal". It's just a matter of perspective. I've never yet heard anybody who's been speaking clearly in English, but with another accent, who I couldn't understand. What's more, I find it enjoyable to listen to people speaking in the accent associated with their own particular cultural group. Viva la difference! -- Macropode 01:37, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I out I'd be auh littul clearur if I didn't uuse my Suthuhn drahwal, y'all. But if nobudy 's consuhnned I'll uuuse it. GangstaEB~(penguin logs) 00:37, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Apparently you haven't had much experience with ebonics -- wait, apparently it's "African American Vernacular English" now -- which is understandable. Actually, I don't think it's considered ebonics -- I mean, "AAVE" -- if it's spoken "clearly" in the way you meant it (see link). Moulder 05:14, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Southern English has been merged with African American Vernacular English... it started in 1620 and never stopped. GangstaEB~(penguin logs) 11:23, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

If there's anybody who wants to narrate a Wikipedia article written in "standard" English, but who thinks that their accent might be problematic, then let's hear it! I'd be happy to tell you if it's understandable to a speaker of "Australian English" and my guess is that others used to different accents would do likewise, if asked. -- Macropode 06:14, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Star Wars

Ravenlock posted this a while back: I plan to tackle Star Wars and related links. I just want to know if he's still working on it. He posted that around August 2005 and it's his only contribution to Wikipedia at all (unless he's been going by his IP address after that). I've started recording a spoken version of Star Wars and I plan to be done soon. If he wants to take it back over, he's welcome to... or if somebody wants to slap my wrist for starting a recording, that's fine too :) -- Doran 20:03, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

From what you say, it sounds like Ravenlock has moved on to other pursuits. It might not hurt to drop a line at his/her talk page though, just in case. -- Laura S | talk to me 20:50, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Hey Doran, no-one's going to slap your wrist for starting a recording - I might be inclined to razz you a bit if you stop at just one, though. :) -- Macropode 08:09, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Wow... this is difficult. Still trying though! -- Doran 07:56, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Yeah it looks pretty challenging. Hang in there though, it will be totally worth it! -- Laura S | talk to me 15:14, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Wow... this is hard. Harder than I thought. Still trying! :D -- Doran 18:21, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Macropode. It's not like you're starting to record an article that someone is actively working on, like CPU. Right, Macropode? :) --Aguerriero (talk) 17:50, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Aguerriero, I have searched hither and yon, yet see no evidence of the three spoken articles that were to be your penance for the aforementioned misdeed. If you do not take action to remedy this matter forthwith, Sir, then I shall have no option but to reinstate my challenge! :) -- Macropode 06:20, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Someone please upload my file for me!

I finished a spoken article for Rock, Paper, Scissors and tried to upload it over my lame dial-up and it timed out. So, instead, I uploaded it to http://homepage.mac.com/emotive_media/rps.ogg and was hoping some kind soul might DL it then UL it here. Thanks! - Wikifier

How big is the file? If you put the whole article in one file, it might be too big to upload to Wikipedia (I forget the limit - 20MB?) and you'll need to break it into parts. That would explain why it worked on mac.com and not Wikipedia. -- Laura S | talk to me 04:54, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Here you go! I wasn't sure about the date recorded or the accent so don't forget to fill those in -SCEhard T 07:51, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! - Wikifier

Podcast

The audio pieces produced by this project would be great content for a podcast. Has this been considered? End users could subscribe to individual topic areas, or the entire site, and receive new items in their feed as the recorded articles are uploaded. Of course the ogg vorbis format would be problematic with iPods (I believe). Any thoughts on this? Obeyken 04:45, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

There has been an RSS feed for a couple of years now, and the link isn't concealed. Joe D (t)

Yup tried that, but ran into the the ogg compatbility issue. Perhaps that's a showstopper until iPod supports ogg, or everyone switches to iRiver... ;-) Obeyken 05:44, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I think you should be able to use Audacity to convert the ogg file to mp3. This isn't the best solution but it will get the audio to your iPod. -SCEhard T 11:33, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

OGG with Audacity

How do I make one? GangstaEB~(penguin logs) 23:01, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

File > Export as OGG, if I remember right. :) Switchercat ^talk_cont 23:11, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

If you already have an Audacity project, you just choose "Export as Ogg Vorbis". Nice and easy! If you're looking for overall advice, it's actually not too bad. As soon as you hit "record" in Audacity, it will start a new track for you, and you can go from there. -- Laura S | talk to me 23:56, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Al'kesh

Could you please tell me why the box on Al'kesh is not displaying a date but rather a red link? Thank you. American Patriot 1776 05:13, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Just a slight formatting issue (see [1]) -SCEhard T 14:41, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you very much. American Patriot 1776 15:27, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Spoken articles

I am very interested in the Spoken Wikipedia Project. I have Windows XP and Office 2003. I can copy and paste an article into Office Word and using the language bar make the Text to Speech function read the article and in the same time record what the computer says using Audacity then save it (ogg format) and export it to Wikipedia. Is this legal? --Meno25 15:24, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

There's no point in doing that. You wouldn't help anyone — most users, especially visually impaired people, do have access to such software. Unfortunately, screen readers are far from sounding natural, and they sometimes make mistakes with non-straightforward pronunciation (e.g. stress of "conduct" as a noun vs as a verb), so it would be much better for a human to do the reading. Thanks for your support, though. --Cameltrader 04:52, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Feedback

I just decided to join this project. I started out recording a short article (Saint Demetrius of Thessaloniki), and I believe I've stuck to all the criteria, but could an experienced member of the project offer a little feedback? How did I do? Thanks! I look forward to contributing more in the future. --Alekjds 17:50, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

--

Likewise, I've just started and chose to do the article on Julius Caesar because it was requested. What I'd love to have is a second set of ears tell me how well I did and what improvements need be made. It's a long article, though—the audio is in three parts and about an hour in length—so I understand if no one wants to take the time. Thanks a lot if you do! --Kevin F. Story 17:14, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

I might join...

I have the highest admiration and respect for the people in this project, having attempted this several times. I'm thinking of contributing a few myself; to start off, guidelines and policies. Crystallina 05:00, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

There are helpful people here who'd be happy to assist if you're having any doubts or difficulties - don't hesitate to ask. -- Macropode 12:56, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Okay, here's a first attempt at Wikipedia:Patent nonsense. I can't use it, unfortunately, since the dog decided to get overeager towards the end. So I'll use it as a test run and ask if there's anything I can improve on? I have a feeling I'm talking too quickly and I had multiple frogs in my throat. Also, do I have a noticeable Southern accent? I don't really think I do but it'd be good to get a second opinion. Crystallina 01:08, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd listen, but I'm one of those rabid free (libre) software zealots who don't use proprietary browser plugins. Anybody else? -- Macropode 06:15, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Hey Crystallina (if you're still watching this), I listened to it, and it sounded OK (I didn't notice your accent, by the way!) There's a bit of background noise, and it's a bit echo-ey. I think your mouth was a leeeetle too far away from the mic. Apart from that, good work. riana_dzast a 23:23, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

So... where's the copyrights section

WP:IT says at the top "See the appropriate section on WP:SPOKEN" if you're trying to upload a spoken sound file. Where's the section here? Thanx. 68.39.174.238 21:00, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Spoken articles are licensed under the GFDL because the articles themselves are under the GFDL and the spoken version is considered a derivative work. Uploading guidelines shows the license to use and Article choice guidelines mentions that articles containing copyrighted (3rd party) text should not be recorded. Hope this helps! -SCEhard T 22:27, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Foreign word pronunciation

In a week or so I'm going to attempt recording the Gilberto Silva article. My question is: should I pronounce foreign words/names with an English or Portuguese accent? For example, his full name, Gilberto Aperacido da Silva is phoenetically pronounced as GiwBERtoo AperaSEEdoo da SIWva (caps indicate the word's accent) and his home state in Brazil, Minas Gerais is pronounced MINah-sheh-RAISH. While I roughly know how the words should be pronounced, I am not a native Portuguese speaker, so my imitated accent would be slightly wrong in the ears of a Portuguese person. Should I just pronounce it with an obvious English (in my case British) accent? Or shall I pronounce it as Portuguese as I can? Is there a guideline on this?

Thanks for your time, -GilbertoSilvaFan 16:55, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

No guidelines, it's up to your own judgment. People generally see it as a mark of respect when you at least try to pronounce their names the way they would. -- Macropode 03:18, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Cool, thanks for your thoughts. I'll give it a go on the names, but stick to my own accent on the other foreign words. -GilbertoSilvaFan 23:15, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Is there a portal? This needs a portal

Someone I know is learning English, so I said "Hey, you should listen to Wikipedia articles while reading the text". Unfortunatley, there is no way for a non-experience wikipedian to do this. The navigation tools and data layout are completely useless for doing this. For contributors with a few thousand edits, it's fine. We all know where to find the audio infobox, and how to get the version of the page from which the recording was made, and we know the difference between a wrongly written infobox and a shortcoming in our knowledge.

Y'know what would be great? A 2-column list with the audio file on the left (linking to the .ogg) and on the right would be the article from which the audiofile was made. Sorted alphabetically. Also great would be if the list could also be viewed sorted into some categories.

I don't know how to do that, but it hit me that what is needed is an entry point to Wikipedia for people looking for articles with accompanying audio. Wikipedia's alternative entry points are Portals. So I'd like a "Portal:Read_and_Listen" to exist (or whatever name). I could do some of the work (or all of the work if I set low enough standards :-). Does anything like this already exist on English Wikipedia? On other language Wikipedias? Anyone have other suggestions for what a good portal would include? Input appreciated, thanks. Gronky 17:34, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Did you have a look at Category:Spoken articles (an alphabetic list, though not exactly what you request) and Wikipedia:Spoken articles (grouped into categories by subject)? --Cameltrader 06:10, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

The Category is useless for non-experts, but I'll skip the reasons because the Wikipedia:Spoken_articles page is good enough to dissuade me from making a portal. Thanks for pointing it out, it solves half of the problem. The half left unsolved is the difficulty of finding the version of the page that corresponds to the audio recording (as a test, I opened the first 6 articles in the Biology section and found none had links to the corresponding version of the text). This part of the problem could be solved not by making a portal but by better informing and nudging recording makers to add this. I'll go look for how to do that. Thanks a lot. Gronky 12:50, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I've put my proposal on the uploading guidelines talk page. Gronky 13:18, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Recording sections of articles

If a user was to record only the first section or two of an article, how would he or she add the file to the article, since the whole article isn't spoken? Robert 00:11, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

The usual procedure applies. It's probably better, however, if you record the whole article. There are a few technical problems involved when adding to a recording that's been compressed and encoded, as well as the disappointment the listener experiences when she or he finds that the recording of an article they're interested in is incomplete. -- Macropode 10:15, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Accents

Is there a specific place with accents to choose from? I'm not quite sure how to classify my accent; I'm from New York, but I speak with relativly little of that accent. But saying it's just "American" would be too subjective... Robert 00:27, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

American English#Regional differences is probably the closest you'll get.-- Macropode 09:22, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Re-write of Wikipedia:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia#Solution suggestions

Does anybody have any suggestions for, or objections to, this? As it stands, I think it might be giving people the misleading impression that it's acceptable to upload computer-synthesised spoken articles. -- Macropode 12:54, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

question

I am interested in recording Acetic acid: it's featured, it's fairly stable, and I'm studying Chemistry, so I shouldn't pronounce anything too badly (although I will say 'aluminium' as it's written :) ). I was wondering how I should go about reading out the chemical equations, though. I generally read --> as "goes to" and the equilibrium arrow (there's an example in the middle of this image) as "is in equilibrium with". Should I go with that?

Thanks, and congratulations to everyone who's been working on this project so far. riana_dzast a 13:49, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Please don't start one of those interminable spelling wars here. :) It always amazes me how willing some people are to argue about such inconsequential things.

Make a little test recording of a few equations read out in the way you propose, then play the childhood game of "let's pretend". You've never seen the Acetic acid article before, and you've just downloaded this great spoken version that some talented narrator has made. Listen to the recording. Does it make sense? Does it give you an image of the equations in your head? If you're feeling daring, try it out on another Chemistry student. You might just end up setting the standard by which chemical equations are read out in Wikipedia spoken articles. -- Macropode 10:11, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Oops, I should have checked. Look at Wikipedia:Spoken articles#Chemistry for some precedent. -- Macropode 10:21, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

No, I wasn't going to argue about it, I was joking! :) Thanks for your reply. When I get a minute, I'll read up on the other chemistry spoken articles - when I went searching, I only found Titanium, but there aren't any equations in it.

Hydrochloric acid does, though, so I'll listen to that. Cheers! riana_dzast a 10:35, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

The equations aren't read out, full stop. Odd. riana_dzast a 11:25, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Joking? So was I, in a sense. :P If the equations take a significant amount of time to read out, it may result in a spoken article that only a chemistry student could love. :) Possibly the reason for their omission in Hydrochloric acid. -- Macropode 12:58, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Fair point. OK, when I get some time, I'll have a go at recording, and get back here with my results :) riana_dzast a 13:10, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 14:20, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Solutions suggestions

I have included an example of how text to audio-visual and be done with software and web page hosting. I have explained briefly how this can be done of on the following discussion page of Treaty of Waitangi.RoddyYoung 21:51, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Request

I submitted a request at the beginning of October, but hasn't been responded to yet (Cool (song)). Are articles ordered in a queue of the sorts? Velten 22:41, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm babyfresh new, but my impression is that there is a list of requested articles. Those that are working on the spoken word project can go and pick at their leisure. So your article may not get selected if there are other articles to choose from. If you would still like this read, and no one has recorded it by the time I finish recording my next three: Radio drama Radio comedy and Pixie, then I will record this one for you. Please leave a note on my talk page to remind me. :) Ara Pelodi 04:15, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Identifying correct article version?

I'm interested in doing a recording of the current featured article at this time (Bricker Amendment) but I'm not sure what revision to use. Because the article text can change at any time it's quality can, too. So I wanted to get the "Featured Article" approved version but I can't tell when that was. There have been a few dozen edits done to the article today (including removing vandalism). And the Fetaured Article pages link just to the current version (shouldn't they link to the featured iteration of the article?) so how do I figure out which version is the "correct" one?

P.S. (Slightly offtopic) Aren't featured articles supposed to be locked from editing during their time on the front page because they are a more visible target for vadalism? -SeaFox 01:01, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

The opposite, actually. See WP:PPol. -- Visviva 08:47, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Treaty of Waitangi Audio Visual 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 of 7

The youtube link to what is discussed Treaty of Waitangi time line. A result of a personal project that was started in 2005 while a student at Waikato University in the School and Māori and Pacific Development and a student in Te Wananga o Aotearoa as a year one and two Ata Reo student. The process started with a programme that turns text into audio. First the book was scanned in to the computer and optical character recognition (OCR) was used to ready the text for it to be turned into MP3 files. These files in audio form were loaded into Movie maker (a free programme found in the start menue under accessory in the microsoft opperating system.) Note the text to audio programme was not trained to pronounce Māori words and greatly weakens this word as it needs to be reworked with better pronunciation. The pictures were scanned into the computer next and imported into movie maker and lined up to match the audio visual commentary. Text was added to the beginning and end of the audio visual segments and saved as one file. This file was not used for 12 months until www.youtube.com was read about on a BBC news artical. The file was broken up into 7 segments of approx. ten minutes long and words were added to beginning and end. A group was started in a person page in Youtube and the seven video's were uploaded on to that site. TPK was informed of the work at this stage and though was given to contact the Turnbull library for copy right matters to do with the images. This work is in progress and has taken another step today now that this link to wikipedia has been made. Next the link between youtube and wikipedia was made on 28 October 2006 after reading http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spoken_Wikipedia. The idea to develope the use of the process outlined to help in the wikipedia needed an example of it worked in principle and so linking off the wikipedia page on Treaty of Waitangi become a great way to work both together as a scientific project. I have seen the Treaty of Waitangi Road show in Rotorua, a truck that travels New Zealand and stops in parks and sports grounds and unloads an audio visual presentation display. The book that I used for my project is featured in the hand outs of presentation. As a part treasurer of my local Kohanga Reo I am passionate to see the languge of Māori developed as the offical mother tounge of Aotearoa. I have offered this project as part of this. At a recent launch of a Te Reo strategy by the Iwi Raukawa I took a video of the launch and it was after that night that I put my work onto youtube. The process took both Saturday and Sunday but I feel it was in the true spirit of what was being asked and offered by Raukawa. It was a labour of love. Now this process has moved one step further along now that the world can read and hear the story of the greatest navigating people's on the planet which is on a scientific level with the apolo missions of NASA. If you have any questions please email me on young.roderick@gmail.com RoddyYoung 09:51, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I've given feedback at Talk:Treaty_of_Waitangi#Treaty_of_Waitangi_Audio_Visual_1.2C2.2C3.2C4.2C5.2C6.2C7_of_7. Input by people involved with the Spoken Wikipedia project would be welcome there.

The information in the video's is feely online at http://www.treatyofwaitangi.govt.nz/ here RoddyYoung 19:14, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I've now removed the links from this page. The links have nothing to do with WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia, and the person who produced the text-to-speech does not currently have permission from the copyright holder for the material.-gadfium 19:22, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

A nice Text to Speech tool which might be of interest to this project

I have been following this project for awhile, but I haven't had the occasion to post here yet. When I saw a Text to speech tool (Phoneticom) used at Agoravox a Citizen journalism site, I thought that Wikipedia can benefit from it too; I have then contacted Readspeaker who have helped me to conduct a test in Wikipedia, the result is still rough on the edges as this is just a test, but I think that there is a very good potential there. Readspeaker told me they would agree to let Wikipedia use their tool at no charges, of course if we go for a such tool, the exact conditions need to be defined in a way that suit both parties. Anyway, consider this as just an experiment, I would like to have your feedback guys, thanks.--Khalid hassani 21:55, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

There seems to be a bit of backlash here when it comes to TTS. See the top of this page, and also here. dq 04:25, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the links, I have read the commentaries, I think that main grief people are bringing is the fact that synthetic voice is not convenient to listen too. In fact the originality of Phoneticom is that it dose use a real human voice to read the text, not a synthetic one, have you listened to the test I have put on line ? (see my initial post)--Khalid hassani 12:09, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I can't seem to get it to work is there some sort of plug-in required? As far as TTS goes, I'm not sure why people are resisting it, there is still a human behind the audio. And what if Stephen Hawking wanted to contribute an article? dq 14:25, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

If the main arguments against this idea were based entirely on aesthetic grounds, then I, for one, would not be arguing against it.

Whether text-to-speech programs make use of a human voice or an artificially generated one, they're still nowhere near smart enough to consistently interpret the text correctly. When some clever programmer eventually manages to develop a set of algorithms that overcome this issue, she or he will become very well respected in their field, we'll all be hearing a lot more talking machines, and the Spoken Wikipedia project will be redundant. In the meantime, with tools like Phoneticom, while the voice may be that of a human, the interpretation of the text is still done by a machine that is, as yet, no match for the average human brain in this area.

Phonetic representation aside, how do you justify turning a small amount of text into a very large audio file and uploading it to the already heavily loaded Wikimedia servers, when anybody can run text-to-speech software to listen to any Wikipedia article on their own computer, at the speed and in the voice style of their choice, without having to download your large audio file? -- Macropode 09:57, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Khalid, to clarify, my only objection is to people who want to take the output generated by a text-to-speech program and upload it to Wikipedia as a spoken article. My understanding of ReadSpeaker is that it takes the text from a web site, renders it to speech, and streams the audio straight to the client, making uploading TTS-generated audio to Wikipedia unnecessary. It could be very useful. :) -- Macropode 15:00, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Commons

I managed to record the Sarajevo article which was requested a while ago, but I uploaded to the commons [2] since some people in the comments archives implied that was the place media files should rightly go. However, none of the how-to for linking it to the article or categories works anymore (I have no problems making audio files, but sometimes I don't really understand how to link thinks agross wikis). Maybe someone can help clear this up-- I can just reload it to en.wikipedia if that is the best thing. And if anyone knows how to link it to the Sarajevo article please feel free to, although it would be useful for the future to know how ;) Dan Carkner 19:28, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I just used {{spoken Wikipedia|En-Sarajevo.ogg|2006-11-14}} at the top of external links, which seemed to work fine. HTH. Wikibofh_(talk) 03:59, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Do people really use this service?

Hi, not trying to be snarky, I'm just trying to figure out how we know if people are getting real use out of the spoken articles project. I'm a science educator by trade and a public speaker, and was planning on doing a run through of the science featured articles and do spoken versions of as many as I have time for. However, I'm trying to decide how much time to throw at it, and gauge the interest level. Anyone here get a lot of use out of them? Has anyone heard from a blind school who uses them? People who podcast them and listen on their iPods on the way to work? Thanks for your comments! Phidauex 21:49, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

The people that I know who use it are non-native speakers who listen while reading an article. Often, people recording articles forget to add a link to the version they record, which makes the recording not so useful. If you make recordings, please don't make this mistake. Thanks. Gronky 03:56, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip, I'll make sure any recordings I put together have a link to the revision I read. I can imagine that being helpful for someone who isn't a native English speaker. Phidauex 07:58, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Phidauex, have faith, my son. -- Macropode 01:25, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Boomaga

Try and get boomaga from the YTMND dramtic reading site, he has a nice voice and is a good voice actor.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.123.153.254 (talk • contribs)

Hahahaha great idea. Boomaga is awesome. --- RockMFR 05:12, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Crazy idea I just got

Stop me if anyone have suggested this before, but have anyone tried "promoting" this project against schools?

Young(-ish) people can produce just as high quality recordings as anyone else (listen for example to Image:Sandpit.ogg or Image:Fork.ogg). What I'm thinking is that a teacher can either pick out some suitable articles or ask students to pick a suitable article themselves, and then use these for reading classes. The results could be recorded and contributed back to us. This could be a (hopefully) fun, educational and usefull project, can be combined with media classes or whatever too (redocring editing etc). That should at least turn out some usefull recordings. Something worth asking the Foundation people to consider the next time they go on a "tour" maybe?

Love the RRS feed by the way, I've been listening for a couple solid hours now, the majority is fairly good quality. --Sherool (talk) 12:08, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

What's the difference between craziness and creativity? :-)

There's great potential for the framework the Spoken project provides to be useful to forward-thinking educators. However, I think we haven't yet reached the point where we have that "critical mass" of good spoken work necessary to gain credibility with educational and other non-commercial organisations to whom Spoken Wikipedia could be useful in various ways as a resource. Personally, I think that if this project can produce enough good work to prove it's worth in people's minds, word will get around and there'll be no need for active promotion, but if somebody wants to step up and make representations to the Foundation people, I'll be all for it.

Critical feedback is always a help. Thank you! -- Macropode 08:06, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 19:33, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

Really! To everyone who's put their time and effort into this little WikiProject over the past year. -- Macropode 05:30, 31 December 2006 (UTC)