HRWiki talk:Spoken Articles
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Problematic
Hey there. I notice this article on Lapper's page and I read the wikiproject thing too. I've got a couple of questions and concerns. 
I R F 14:07, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
- So what's the consensous for spoken articles at the moment? So good or no good? I don't think it's a good idea to leave it in limbo. —Shwoo 04:31, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Scope
According to this page, there 1586 pages containing legit content. That is a huge undertaking. Do we realize how many takes just one article would require? I R F 14:07, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
- Not everything needs to be recorded (for example, I don't see the point in recording transcripts, which comprise a huge part of a lot of articles). If we do go forward with this, featured articles and other high-visibility articles would be a good place to start.
Trey56 14:33, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Dynamic
This isn't like making the bible on tape every article changes so quick it makes my head spin. Are we going to record every time an edit or addition is made to a page? I R F 14:07, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
- Definitely not, for small changes. Also, it's rare for an important page to change dramatically. Once a representative version of an article is recorded, it wouldn't need to be updated for some time. Trey56 14:33, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Professionalism
I seriously doubt that we have any professional voice actors in our midst. If it is done less than great, if will make the whole wiki seem less profession / credible. Almost youtube'ish. I R F 14:07, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
- This is a valid concern, and for this reason I personally don't plan to record many. I do think we have some good readers (for example, Shwoo), but it's tricky to evaluate people and say "You're good enough to record one" and "You're not". Trey56 14:21, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Need?
Why do this. Text readers are readily available. My collegue Adam is blind and he has a screen reader that reads his computer out loud and does so quite well. In fact that is one of the reasons why pages should adhere to xhtml 1.0 strict in matters like using <em></em> instead of <i></i> beacuase of how the browser would read it. I R F 14:07, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
- I concur with IRFs last point. What are we trying to accomplish with this project? The majority of people who would need to use this feature have other ways to accomplish the assumed goal, and are more likely to use those ways rather than a link at the bottom of a page. But the question at hand for me is: What are we trying to accomplish with this project? -
ISTC 14:19, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
- Yeah, this is a very good point. Since it seems unlikely that many disabled people would actually be benefited from this, the main reason to do it is for the enjoyment of the people recording and anyone who wants to listen. But this purpose may very well be outweighed by the effort and space concerns. Trey56 14:33, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
- According to Spoken Wikipedia, the benefited would include the reading impaired, the English impaired, as well as the visually impaired. Of course it's "fun" to record articles, but the benefits are not nonexistant. — Lapper (talk) 15:31, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
- But that is reinventing the wheel. There are already free text readers for that very purpose. I R F 15:33, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
- Another point made on that page is, "Visually-impaired users can use screen readers, of course, but with current technology, they may not be as accurate as a human vocal performance. " Perhaps you should bring it up at #wikipedia or on their WikiProject talk page to get more informed opinions. — Lapper (talk) 15:36, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
- Bah, I don't care what 'kepdia does. They can do their own thing. But I do know this. I am currently taking online classes at University of Phoenix and since all my textbooks are in pdf form, I have a text reader read them....So I'm learning while I doing laundry. I used something like Natural Reader and although not perfect, it sounded quite human like (as opposed to wouldn't you prefer a nice game of chess). I R F 16:25, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
- Bah, I don't care what 'kepdia does. They can do their own thing. But I do know this. I am currently taking online classes at University of Phoenix and since all my textbooks are in pdf form, I have a text reader read them....So I'm learning while I doing laundry. I used something like Natural Reader and although not perfect, it sounded quite human like (as opposed to wouldn't you prefer a nice game of chess).
- Another point made on that page is, "Visually-impaired users can use screen readers, of course, but with current technology, they may not be as accurate as a human vocal performance. " Perhaps you should bring it up at #wikipedia or on their WikiProject talk page to get more informed opinions. — Lapper (talk) 15:36, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
- But that is reinventing the wheel. There are already free text readers for that very purpose.
- According to Spoken Wikipedia, the benefited would include the reading impaired, the English impaired, as well as the visually impaired. Of course it's "fun" to record articles, but the benefits are not nonexistant. — Lapper (talk) 15:31, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
- Yeah, this is a very good point. Since it seems unlikely that many disabled people would actually be benefited from this, the main reason to do it is for the enjoyment of the people recording and anyone who wants to listen. But this purpose may very well be outweighed by the effort and space concerns.
I don't think this project is where we need to be focusing our efforts right now. We should instead focus on improving the overall quality of our non-toon articles, which currently are not at a level of professionalism that would warrant having them recorded. — It's dot com 16:34, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
- Yes, I did notice that when I was reading Stinkoman out loud some of both the sentences and organization were awkward. I entirely agree that effort should go first to polishing the articles, and this certainly should happen before they're recorded. As a side note, reading articles aloud (no recording necessary) proves to be a good litmus test for identifying what needs to be improved. Trey56 16:53, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
- I agree here, I think some of our articles could go through some significant improvement. -- Tom 17:23, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
- So what we basically need here is a rating system, that can be compared to Wikipedia's "Good Article" rating. Some, non featured articles, will be evaluated and be put on a list of good pages to have a spoken version of. The start of this project, in my opinion is to clear out the already featured articles for grammar, structure and other parameters. Any article tagged as "good" by a committee can be spoken. — Elcool (talk)(contribs) 17:32, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
- After a brief discussion, it's come to my attention that this project is probably superfluous. As Dot com mentioned, our articles (particularly our FAs) are definitely not to the standard we would like them to be. Elcool and I joint-propose to make it a point to increase the exclusivity of the status of Featured Article, as "interesting" articles probably shouldn't be the line we draw. On a related note, why do we have the clause regarding "not compromising previous work" if the previous work has not been identified on a basis of excellence? — Lapper (talk) 21:15, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Space/bandwidth
Right now, typical file sizes are on the order of 1MB. If few people are actually going to use this, is it worth the vast amount of memory it would consume? Trey56 14:21, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
- I believe either It's dot com or Tom would not hesitate to let us know if the project grows so vast that we become stretched for server space. I don't think it's an issue that needs to be immediately addressed. — Lapper (talk) 15:31, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
- I disagree, now before we get to far into this project is the best (well before we started would have been better, but that's not an option now) time for this type of issue to be discussed, it ties back into what articles are we going do this for? How many of them are there? Why do it for some but not for others if our purpose is to help those visually impared and not just to hear ourselves talk (figuatively and litterally), would they be less interested in the lists, or in the explanations and references? These issues all will end up determining how much space this project will take up, and thusly what the value/expense is of doing such a project. We are not a corporation with donors paying specifically for the space of such a project, so we as a community need to decide if this is really a valuable addition to the wiki, or if its not the best use of our resources (server space, time, money, etc.) - ISTC 15:54, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
- In respective answer to your questions, (1) Presumably only featured, high-traffic, and articles of significance. (2) There are many. Possibly in the low/mid hundreds. (3) Presumably we will do it for all articles, but we have to start somewhere, and it's not going to be on running gags pages, etc. It would be best to do long-standing articles rather than lists. In addition, I believe you're going to far with this "expense" thing. As the aphorism goes, "Wiki is not paper", and although it may be taking up space, I believe it is the responsibility of those who can access such server information to inform us if it's gone too far. As for "if it's a valuable addition", such a discussion is taking place right now. There seem to be opinions that it's "pointless", but if it is indeed, you needn't contribute. This project will not hinder your ability to go right along editing pages. — Lapper (talk) 16:02, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
- It is not my intention to say this is pointless, but rather an attempt at gathering information on something going on with something I care about. To say that those with concerns about it should just "stand down" and go about editing, I would say that this is simular to the creation of a page that someone may find "pointless" and wish to delete: Just because someone finds something interesting, or wishes to add it to the wiki, does not mean that it would be what's "best" for the community and thus there should be opportunity for all involved to express their concerns and discuss the subject. Otherwise the argument that I percieve you to be making would constitute anyone being able to add any page just as long as it could somehow be linked to H*R or the Wiki, but I somehow don't believe that is what you propose. - ISTC 16:14, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
- You're correct, of course. My choice of wording was sub-standard. What I meant to get across was that in a similar instance, I, myself, did not fully approve of having a subtitles project, but the fact that the community approved although I may not have did not make me attack the project, but rather go about my way without contributing. What you said especially emphasizes that my wording was wrong due to my being a fervent deletionist and would most certainly not ignore a non-satisfactory page. What are your further concerns? — Lapper (talk) 16:19, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
- I'm basically just expressing the same concerns as Trey and IRF, especially relating to bandwidth and server constraints. In addition I'd like for us to have a procedure in place before we started, because I honestly don't see a need as such with this wiki for such a program, but I'm ok with it existing if everything is in place for all to see and there is a firm plan of action for how, why, what, when, etc. As of right now I don't see a defined project, and as such I see it being ripe for rife discord and the potential for lots of reverts of substandard recordings, and other potential issues. - ISTC 16:40, 5 January 2007 (UTC) (please see this discussion for good example of aforementioned discored) :-)
- I'm basically just expressing the same concerns as Trey and IRF, especially relating to bandwidth and server constraints. In addition I'd like for us to have a procedure in place before we started, because I honestly don't see a need as such with this wiki for such a program, but I'm ok with it existing if everything is in place for all to see and there is a firm plan of action for how, why, what, when, etc. As of right now I don't see a defined project, and as such I see it being ripe for rife discord and the potential for lots of reverts of substandard recordings, and other potential issues. -
- You're correct, of course. My choice of wording was sub-standard. What I meant to get across was that in a similar instance, I, myself, did not fully approve of having a subtitles project, but the fact that the community approved although I may not have did not make me attack the project, but rather go about my way without contributing. What you said especially emphasizes that my wording was wrong due to my being a fervent deletionist and would most certainly not ignore a non-satisfactory page. What are your further concerns? — Lapper (talk) 16:19, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
- It is not my intention to say this is pointless, but rather an attempt at gathering information on something going on with something I care about. To say that those with concerns about it should just "stand down" and go about editing, I would say that this is simular to the creation of a page that someone may find "pointless" and wish to delete: Just because someone finds something interesting, or wishes to add it to the wiki, does not mean that it would be what's "best" for the community and thus there should be opportunity for all involved to express their concerns and discuss the subject. Otherwise the argument that I percieve you to be making would constitute anyone being able to add any page just as long as it could somehow be linked to H*R or the Wiki, but I somehow don't believe that is what you propose. -
- In respective answer to your questions, (1) Presumably only featured, high-traffic, and articles of significance. (2) There are many. Possibly in the low/mid hundreds. (3) Presumably we will do it for all articles, but we have to start somewhere, and it's not going to be on running gags pages, etc. It would be best to do long-standing articles rather than lists. In addition, I believe you're going to far with this "expense" thing. As the aphorism goes, "Wiki is not paper", and although it may be taking up space, I believe it is the responsibility of those who can access such server information to inform us if it's gone too far. As for "if it's a valuable addition", such a discussion is taking place right now. There seem to be opinions that it's "pointless", but if it is indeed, you needn't contribute. This project will not hinder your ability to go right along editing pages. — Lapper (talk) 16:02, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
- I disagree, now before we get to far into this project is the best (well before we started would have been better, but that's not an option now) time for this type of issue to be discussed, it ties back into what articles are we going do this for? How many of them are there? Why do it for some but not for others if our purpose is to help those visually impared and not just to hear ourselves talk (figuatively and litterally), would they be less interested in the lists, or in the explanations and references? These issues all will end up determining how much space this project will take up, and thusly what the value/expense is of doing such a project. We are not a corporation with donors paying specifically for the space of such a project, so we as a community need to decide if this is really a valuable addition to the wiki, or if its not the best use of our resources (server space, time, money, etc.) -
I'm not sure whether space would be an issue, but I'm almost certain that bandwidth is an issue. Every 1 MB file that gets uploaded and then repeatedly downloaded eventually starts to add up to real dollars and cents that we have to pay. — It's dot com 16:39, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Question
- I have a really crisp and clear microphone, and I want to help out, alas, I don't know how to convert it to .ogg or what media player supports that type of extension. Can someone help? TheYellowDart—(t/c)
- As noted by Dot com in several topics above, this project is on hiatus until we get our current articles and FA standards up to par. If and when this project becomes frontmost in importance again, it'd be great to have you contribute. P.S. VLC — Lapper (talk) 00:50, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
- Yeah, I agree with Lapper. I was going to say that Audacity is the audio recording and editing program most often used by wiki-types. I wouldn't go too crazy with recording articles, though...I think there are some pretty good reasons listed above for not pursuing this project right now (most importantly, we need to improve our articles first, plus bandwidth concerns). Trey56 00:52, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks Lapper. I'll just have to wait it out. Oh, and thanks for telling me which media player supports it. It's appreciated a lot. Your friend and never was your enemy, TheYellowDart—(t/c)
- After having the pleasure of hearing Lapper read Homestar Runner (Flash Cartoon), I thought I'd join in on this project once it starts up again. I don't have a microphone, but I can get one. I do, however, have an .ogg player, acting and singing experience, and a good reading voice. So once we get back to this, count me in! -Brightstar Shiner 16:31, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks Lapper. I'll just have to wait it out. Oh, and thanks for telling me which media player supports it. It's appreciated a lot. Your friend and never was your enemy, TheYellowDart—(t/c)
- Yeah, I agree with Lapper. I was going to say that Audacity is the audio recording and editing program most often used by wiki-types. I wouldn't go too crazy with recording articles, though...I think there are some pretty good reasons listed above for not pursuing this project right now (most importantly, we need to improve our articles first, plus bandwidth concerns).
Let's Talk About This Again
I'm not happy that this page is in limbo right now. Most people are saying that we're going to get back to Spoken Articles eventually, but when is that? There are many overlying problems with this project to deal with (memory, sound quality, figuring out how to actually do it right) and we're not even sure what the goal of this page is. I'm here to jumpstart this disscussion again and figure out if the wiki should have spoken articles or not. It's no use to just leave the page lying here to gather dust. -Brightstar Shiner 21:21, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
- Yeah, guys, c'mon. Let's be bold and start this up again. I'm willing. --TheYellowDart—(t/c) 21:49, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
- I don't think the issue is that no one here has the initiative. The issue is that we haven't brought the majority of our articles up to par. — Lapper (talk) 22:04, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
- Yes. If we wanted to start this up again, we would, at the very least, need to have a way to choose some of our finest articles to be recorded. Basically, articles that would be worthy of being published if there were any publications that cared about cartoons with dumb animal characters as much as we do. So, have a look around, find an article that needs improvement, and improve it! Heimstern Läufer
22:08, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
- We could first record "Homestar Runner" or "Strong Bad". Those don't look half bad. All right, I'm taking your advice and I'm going to fix up some articles. BTW, Lapper, excellent job with the Spoken Article about Homestar Runner (flash cartoon). Just sayin' ;-) --TheYellowDart—(t/c) 22:12, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
- {replying to Lapper after edit conflict, but also taking into account Heinstern's post} Maybe we should make a list of all the articles we want spoken and tag the ones that need cleanup. Then we'll go in there and start fixing them all. But what I think is the problem is that no one's sure whether this project is worth it or not, so they're not cleaning up the articles, and that's why Spoken Articles isn't going anywhere. -Brightstar Shiner 22:13, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
- I can volunteer for listing and cleaning pages, but not recording since I don't have a mic. — Sam
Fisher (Come in, Lambert.) 18:18, 11 March 2007
- Featured Articles would be a good place to start. Not all of them have to be recorded, but we can pick and choose the ones we want to use. -Brightstar Shiner 22:20, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
- I'll definably do so recordings. The Floppy Disk Container page is huge, and I think I could do that. --TotalSpaceshipGirl3 22:20, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
- I was about to propose starting with Character pages. But your idea definitely deserves credit. — SamFisher (Come in, Lambert.) 18:22, 11 March 2007
- I was about to propose starting with Character pages. But your idea definitely deserves credit. — Sam
- I can volunteer for listing and cleaning pages, but not recording since I don't have a mic. — Sam
- {replying to Lapper after edit conflict, but also taking into account Heinstern's post} Maybe we should make a list of all the articles we want spoken and tag the ones that need cleanup. Then we'll go in there and start fixing them all. But what I think is the problem is that no one's sure whether this project is worth it or not, so they're not cleaning up the articles, and that's why Spoken Articles isn't going anywhere. -Brightstar Shiner 22:13, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
- We could first record "Homestar Runner" or "Strong Bad". Those don't look half bad. All right, I'm taking your advice and I'm going to fix up some articles. BTW, Lapper, excellent job with the Spoken Article about Homestar Runner (flash cartoon). Just sayin' ;-) --TheYellowDart—(t/c) 22:12, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
- Yes. If we wanted to start this up again, we would, at the very least, need to have a way to choose some of our finest articles to be recorded. Basically, articles that would be worthy of being published if there were any publications that cared about cartoons with dumb animal characters as much as we do. So, have a look around, find an article that needs improvement, and improve it! Heimstern Läufer
- I don't think the issue is that no one here has the initiative. The issue is that we haven't brought the majority of our articles up to par. — Lapper (talk) 22:04, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Folks, please remember why the discussion about this project stopped:
I'm not sure whether space would be an issue, but I'm almost certain that bandwidth is an issue. Every 1 MB file that gets uploaded and then repeatedly downloaded eventually starts to add up to real dollars and cents that we have to pay. — It's dot com 16:39, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
We need to solve this issue before we can really start the project. Loafing
22:25, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
- There's always the possibility of an outside host. --TotalSpaceshipGirl3 22:26, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
- Aha! I knew it too good to be true! Here we were, getting all excited, and bam! Donations, anyone? I'm considering one. --TheYellowDart—(t/c) 22:28, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
