Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia/Archive 5

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Text to speech

Can advanced text-to-speech software (such as AT&T natural voices: http://www.naturalvoices.att.com/demos/) be used to create Spoken articles? Beeing careful, of course, to respect original pronuntiation/phonetics, punctuation, and correct use of abbreviations. --201.151.73.53 06:40, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the results from such software are acceptable for this project. (Plus, would there be copyright issues?) -SCEhardT 06:57, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
Would the software that comes with Mac OS X be acceptable? I don't see how there is any copyright issues, since the software doesn't have a hold on the end product (or does it and I don't know about this?). I see how the voice is copyrighted, but the audio file is not giving away the voice anymore than hearing the voice in a room would be considered stealing the copyright. Assuming there is no copyright issue, if it sounds good enough it may be worthwhile to look into using since that could be used to a much greater extent than the current method. The results would require at least one or two careful listenings before being uploaded, I agree. --66.91.242.235 14:21, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
Although speech synthesis can be tedious to listen to, use of a good voice can have a positive impact, and there are open source alternatives that may alleviate copyright worries. I would love to see/hear wikipedia articles - and even auto-generated playlists, aka wikistations on various topics...--Pzygote 07:34, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to start creating sythezised spoken articles. The TTS engine that can be used is Festival which is free to use-- they also provide free voices. I think synthesized articles can be of benefit for these reasons:

  • 1) Sight-impared users can listen to articles when there is no TTS capability available (eg: internet cafe's, public libraries).
  • 2) The ability to make more spoken articles in less time.
  • 3) The ability for those with poor-speech and a bad-speaking voice to still contribute to Wikipedia.

I've uploaded an example of a sythesized article here. Please listen to it and review whether it's acceptable. Thanks. dq 23:16, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

To address your points:
1) Public services, particularly libraries, would most likely have an interest in catering to their sight-impaired users by having TTS software installed on their own systems, thereby giving sight-impaired users access to much more than just Wikipedia articles. If they don't, then they're not granting everybody equal access to their services. If the issue is raised with them in a friendly and constructive manner, they may be willing do something about it.
2) Granted, although I won't speculate about whether people prefer machine-generated or human voices. The human brain is very good at dealing with speech; machines currently aren't, as is very obvious if you listen to one for a while. They might render some short articles reasonably well, but they inevitably make some very obvious mistakes, and the time you spend on correcting these would probably be better spent on narrating the article using your own voice. Also, one of the features of this project is that it provides material for people learning to speak English. Nobody (that I know of) wants to speak like a machine.
3) There are many ways to usefully contribute to Wikipedia in case you're unable, for physical reasons or otherwise, to do Spoken. If you're just lacking speaking practice and maybe a bit of confidence, rest assured you're not alone! No right-thinking person is going to throw crap at you for trying.
Irene_papas.ogg is a very short recording, at just over four minutes long, yet it's nearly 3 MegaBytes in size. En.Wikipedia currently has 1,450,226 articles. Even if they were all that short, and only a fraction of them were uploaded as captured TTS engine output, you're looking at potentially huge amounts of Wikimedia server disk space (not to mention the network bandwidth needed to transfer it all) to store artificially generated audio that could just as easily be produced by users downloading the text versions of articles in the usual way, and then simply performing the extra step of having their computer convert it to speech on-the-fly. There's no shortage of TTS software to do this with. -- Macropode 10:36, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I encoded the Irene_papas.ogg file in a separate step-- it can be made smaller. I recorded it at 48k as per intructions here, but the ogg-quality level is probably much higher than it needs to be (I think it's at 3). dq 13:51, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

You can compress the crap out of it (I do with mine) and you still won't end up with a file any smaller than a couple of MB. Speech synthesisers are fun to play with, but the fact remains that it's hard to justify storing synthesised audio on Wikimedia's servers when pretty much any Wikipedia user can bypass the whole process of downloading it by running TTS software on their own machine. It's much faster, as the user only downloads a few kB of text rather than MegaBytes of audio, and they can choose to have the article rendered to audio in whatever voice style and at whatever speed they like. Being the mature person that I am, I'd probably use a Dalek voice.
C'mon man, treat the listeners to the dulcet tones of your own voice. -- Macropode 06:57, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
What about an on-the-fly generator of spoken articles? That is, a person clicks on an article's "Spoken" link, the article is passed through the TTS software mentioned above, and the person is presented with a .OGG file that is cached on the Wikimedia servers until a few revisions are made to the text. This might be a bit tricky to pull off, seeing as we don't want the Wikimedia servers performing the conversion and with all the differences between Windows/Mac/Linux... you get the idea. Java, perhaps? Anyway, just food for thought. --Mechcozmo 05:27, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

For all of you, who want to compare naturally spoken texts with computer generated ones: Give http://prt-i61.fernuni-hagen.de/~bischoff/radiopedia/index_en.html a try, and hear that the best text to speech algorithm is not as good as the worst natural speaker. ~~de:Benutzer:Jokannes 138.245.96.129 14:57, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Userbox / Artwork

It looked like this WikiProject doesn't have any Userbox, so I created one. I couldn't get a very good image of a microphone, so added this. Feel free to improve.

It expands as follows:

This user is a member of WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia.




To add this template, type:

{{User WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia}}

Ambuj Saxena (talk) 19:01, 13 March 2006 (UTC)


---
Since there weren't any good images to use in the userbox, I decided to make one. I've uploaded some self-made images to the Wikipedia Commons: Wikimic.png; Wikimic2.png; Wikimic-cropped.png; Wikimic2-cropped.png

Hopefully,the cropped versions will look better when shrunk down to userbox size.

Here are some suggestions for how they could be used in a userbox. Feel free to make suggestions or even boldly modify them.

This user is a member of WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia.




One would add this template by typing:

{{User WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia2}}

This user is a member of WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia.




One would add this template by typing:

{{User WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia3}}

Ckamaeleon 19:50, 15 March 2006 (UTC) P.S. -- I'm partial to the maroon one, myself.

This user is a member of WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia.




I like the digital noise variation. Was the source file that you derived it from freely licensed? If not, that could be problematic...otherwise, great!
P.S. -- if you like, you could make the white background transparent (it's easy to do in GIMP and other image editors). That would let it blend in with the background color of the userbox. As I understand, you can also specify a contrasting color for the part of the userbox that has the image, so it would blend into that, actually. Ckamaeleon ((T)) 14:35, 5 April 2006 (UTC)


Here's another Userbox design idea: use a 2-box design, like the one produced by this code: {{userbox-2|#0000CD|#ADD8E6|[[Image:Crystal package favourite.png|40px]]|Boxes can have one or two sideboxes.|[[Image:Crystal ark.png|40px]]}} but have the image on the left something like a written page and the box on the right one of the "audio" symbols we've devleoped for the above userboxes. Ckamaeleon ((T)) 14:43, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Like this:

This user is a member of WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia.




The symbol is public domain, its the standard symbol for a speaker output. I drew it myself using the image i found as a reference. I'll make it transparant soon, my flash is acting funny . Glad you like it : ) Jackpot Den 19:44, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Uploading problem

OK, I completed my first spoken article and I'm trying to upload it. However, after I click "upload file" my browser (Firefox) keeps timing out. Any suggestions? --Speaker Eric 08:40, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

How big is the file size? I think there's a current limit of ~20mb. pfctdayelise (translate?) 09:25, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
Yes, that was exactly my problem. I split the file and it uploaded just fine. Any comments would be welcome. Doubtless, the process will be much easier next time. --Speaker Eric 11:03, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Article Selection

Hello all, A few weeks ago, I started adding articles to the Article Choice Guide's Talk Page I wanted to invite project members to contribute to the list: if, during your Wikipedia browsing, you find an article that might be a good "first" article, consider adding it to the list for new project members.

As it says on the page, feel free to edit the list as you see fit. The only thing that would bother me would be seeing no suggestions there Ckamaeleon ((T)) 08:04, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Which microphone?

I'm thinking of recording some articles, but the only microphone I possess is a tiny little thing I got free with PC Gamer for playing computer games with and I doubt the results from it would be acceptable even under "better crap than nothing" standards. The instructions on this WikiProject seem very comprehensive, but there doesn't seem to be much advice on buying a decent microphone. A glance at Amazon's bestsellers doesn't give me much of an idea about what would be decent enough to record articles on. --Sam Blanning(talk) 17:38, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't know about which models are good/bad, but you'll want to get a microphone specifically designed for a computer. I think most of the mics on the page you linked to would need a signal booster to work with a PC. -SCEhardT 17:51, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
For voice, any cheap microphone is usually sufficient, as long as you eliminate background noise and speak at a proper distance. ~MDD4696 18:04, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
Is there a way to tell which ones are designed for a computer? --Sam Blanning(talk) 18:18, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
i've always had the impression that the Project doesn't require spending a lot of money. Glancing at the system configs, some of us have fancy-dancy systems and some of us don't. I see everything from hi-end equipment and custom built machines running Gentoo to out-of-the-box Dells and generic mics. I think any mic that you find at a computer store (even if you buy it @ Amazon) should be okay. Another option would be to find a brick-and-mortar store that has an easy return policy so you can try out your purchase and choose another if it's not good. Ckamaeleon ((T)) 00:36, 18 April 2006 (UTC) P.S. -- I use my generic OEM mic (meaning the one that came with my computer) and find that while it's not nearly as nice as my friend's sweet conden$or mic, it gets the job done. Environment (eliminating background noise, maybe padding echoey walls) and good production (not too close to the mic, judicious effect processing) seem to play a larger part.
There are any number of inexpensive microphones on the market that are designed to plug straight into your computer/sound card. They are usually identified as such on the packaging. Look for almost any lightweight mic that has one of those tiddly little 3.5mm audio connectors on the end of the cable. Internally, they're all pretty much the same, the key component being a tiny electret-condenser microphone cartridge which is powered by the sound card in your computer.
Most of these mics work quite well, but some introduce a bit of electrical hum or noise into the signal; if it's constant and reasonably low in level, it can usually be effectively removed with your sound software's noise-reduction tool.
The only potentially serious obstacle you might run into if you're unlucky, is variable low-level buzzing, whining and other strange sounds that manifest themselves in your recording no matter what microphone you use. This is caused by all those transistors in the chips in your computer switching their little heads off millions of times per second and generating electrical noise in the process. This noise sometimes gets into the computer's sound circuitry. I have a cheapo laptop computer, which while being audibly very quiet and generally a lovely little machine, has a habit of injecting high rpm motorbike type sounds into any recording I try to make whenever it accesses it's hard disk, making it unusable for doing audio recordings with.
As pointed out by others above, getting the production basics right first will yield better results than fussing over microphone quality. Whatever microphone you use, get close enough to it to out-compete any background noise and echo, but not so close that you sound like Darth Vader with a cold when you breathe. :) -- Macropode 08:36, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

How do I make an OGG file?

Help please! I've recorded one of the suggested articles this morning, compressed it, normalized it and taken off noise, and I don't know what to do next. Apologies for the cross-posting - I've asked this question in a couple of other places, but I don't know which place is the right one to refer to for advice. I think I need to know how to make my Adobe Audition turn my file into OGG format - is that right? - and then, a beginner's explanation of how to name the file ready for Wikipedia. After that I'll have a go at uploading it, hoping not to find too many problems along the way. Thanks, Patrick --Patrick 13:45, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

You can always just save it as whatever, then download audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/), open the file with that, and save it as OGG from Audacity Robert 01:37, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Vorbis vs. Speex?

While we're discussing this, is there an authorative decision on whether to use Vorbis or Speex? I know that people have talked about using Speex (a long time ago in the talk archives for this page), but in practice, I'm just using Vorbis, since it's what's on my computer already. Ckamaeleon ((T)) 14:42, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I was just doing some reading, and it seems that while Speex is a better codec to use, Audacity (which most of us use) can't export to it yet. So I'm guessing most everyone is using the "export to Ogg Vorbis" command in Audacity. Ckamaeleon ((T)) 16:35, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm in the same boat as Patrick: I want to help out Wikipedia by making recordings for you guys, but I don't know how to make this obscure format, ogg!!! Why don't you guys just use something NORMAL like mp3? I'm using MOTU dp4 on a Mac. I have iTunes. Someone please tell me how to make an ogg file! email <address removed>

I've removed your email address so that it doesn't get picked up by spammers. You can revert my edit if you really do want it posted. The best thing to do is check back here for responses. -- Laura S | talk to me 01:53, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Ogg + Adobe Audition

Does anybody use Adobe Audition? Patrick is looking for help getting the program to export to OGG. I looked at the list of sample specs and it seems that everyone is using Audacity, which already is set up to encode Ogg files. But the recording guide specifically mentions Adobe Audition as an example of a recording program, so somebody has to know about it. Ckamaeleon ((T)) 15:15, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I use it. All you have to do is download a filter for OGG files and put it in the plugin folder, and it should allow you to save it as an .ogg extension. Google "Adobe Audition" and "OGG"; it should come up. Anthony Hit me up... 19:02, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Speaker Quality (Performer Quality)

Along the lines of the "File quality audits / Technical summaries" section, is there a page or section that could collect and award the spoken files for their high speaker quality? And when I say high speaker quality, I don't really mean just the sound quality, but I am talking about the quality of the speaker (so maybe it should collect names of users who are highly regarded for their spoken files). In the long run, I guess I'm pointing in the direction of having experienced/professional people do the spoken articles, but that's not really my intent. My real intent is not only to recognize good speakers, but also help people (like myself) emulate them when I'm trying to make one on my own. I'll go right ahead and give props to the spoken file for Rachel Green. However, the speaker for this file was advertising for their own thing, and the user is not actively involved with Wikipedia. The advertisement made in the file has since been cut out now thanks to User:MarkSweep. In any case, the quality of the speech is relatively good, and so I would like to recognize those files that are spoken well. Kenumay 11:37, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea, although I'd be wary of specifiying "good" speakers over anyone else. I've been listening to a lot of different files and have yet to hear one that sounds bad. It might accomplish the same goal (pointing out characteristics to emulate) if we expand the production tips into a section on "characteristics of a great spoken recording" or something, along the lines of What is a featured article. And as for recognizing great recordings, this project does have a barnstar. It looks like it was intended mainly for volume contributions, but I see no reason why you couldn't award it for a single, particularly high-quality recording. --Laura S 15:25, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Featured narration?

Anyone for this idea?-- 陈鼎翔 贡献 Chat with Tdxiang on IRC! 09:06, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

I like it! Do we have enough articles for this? Seems like there are a lot, but I don't know what quality standards we'd impose. Also, I could be wrong (cause I'm kinda new) but my impression was that a lot of the point of the FA is to help nurture articles into featured status - ie, it drives improvement of articles. The spoken versions aren't really something that can be tweaked by the community.
Although this is very similar to what Kenumay suggested above. It seems there's a desire emerging to highlight excellent spoken articles. Good reasons would be promoting the project, providing guidance on high-quality narrations and recordings, etc. It won't help improve current narrations without totally redoing them, but it might encourage higher quality down the road. (I'm not sure there actually is a quality problem though; every recording I've listened to has sounded really good.)
Could you elaborate some more on your thoughts around reasoning, and also what criteria would be used to select a Featured Narration?
By the way, I like calling them "narrations". It flows a little better than "spoken version", which is what I've been calling them. --Laura S 13:46, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
I would prefer to see a Spoken Article Peer Review. Joe D (t) 16:03, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Oh, okay, we should set up a page then!:)-- 陈鼎翔 贡献 Chat with Tdxiang on IRC! 03:32, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
I also would like to see some kind of peer review system established. Since I've been doing this, very few people have volunteered any critical appraisal of the spoken articles I've done. Under these circumstances, it can be somewhat difficult to know if you're not doing things right. For example, I recorded a featured article in December last year which contains the names of several Japanese astronomers, one of which, due to my failure to do some basic research, I rather badly mis-pronounced. This fairly obvious mistake stood without comment until last week, when I updated the recording.
I have a heap of fun doing these recordings (strange, isn't it? :) ) to the best of my somewhat limited ability, but the seeming lack of the same element of critical review that applies to the original text articles leads to the possibility that I may, on occasion, be inadvertently harming the Wikipedia goal of providing accurate and factual information.
This could also, of course, simply be due to the fact that this project is still too small to have yet garnered much attention, or it could be that people are just too bloody polite to say when something's wrong. :) -- Macropode 08:22, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
Peer review sounds like a great idea. Those of us keeping the raw files should be able to do some (simple) edits if necessary. What sort of things would we be looking for in a peer review? I'm thinking two categories: technical merits and quality of speaking. Technical merits is pretty self-explanatory; it would cover sound quality, noise, etc. (Perhaps someone with more sound experience could elaborate on what constitutes good technical merit?) Quality of speaking would cover speed, enunciation, conformance to the actual article text, etc.
Some possible issues would be things like accents - which is why I listed enunciation but not pronunciation. Pronunciation of names in the article is definitely important, but I don't think we can expect anyyone to have a perfect accent in every language. Also we'd have to watch that we're checking against the actual version of the article that was recorded.
Pronunciation is a major problem for me too; I have had to look up a lot of pronunciations of names, and there are some articles I've just not done because I had a feeling I would completely mess up half the names in it, and not all of them have pronunciation guides on the web. A good idea might be to leave a note on the talk page asking someone familiar with the material to provide pronunciations. --Laura S 17:01, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
On reviewing the discussion here, it appears that while peer review seems generally considered in theory to be a Good Thing, actually implementing a workable system may not be so easy. Any further ideas on this, anyone?
I've placed requests for feedback on article talk pages several times and got a few very helpful replies. I might try doing this on a more regular basis.
With regard to checking against the actual article version recorded, I make a "web archive" copy of the text of each article I record, for my own reference. KDE's Konqueror web browser has this functionality, as I believe does MS Internet Explorer although currently Firefox doesn't. -- Macropode 12:08, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
I believe there's an extension that does this. I've used it with FF 1.07 in Windows. I'd assume there's an updated version for FF 1.5 by now. I haven't tested it on FF for Linux b/c I've been too lazy to download all of the extensions I have on the Win version Ckamaeleon ((T)) 06:00, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
I just discovered Ckamaeleon's idea though it doesn't seem to have taken off. If it were implemented, it may not be used too much by listeners for a while, but it would provide a clear indication that feedback is welcomed and a reasonably convenient way to provide it, given the technical limitations of the MediaWiki software. -- Macropode 11:30, 12 May 2006 (UTC)


Yeah, I was kind of disheartened that nobody ran with it...but you win some, you lose some. If nothing else, I think it would fill the need for feedback that new project members have. They're usually anxious about their accent/equipment/etc. and until now, feedback has been going on their talk pages, but that makes it more fragmented than it has to be. It also means that it can get buried in an archive somewhere. Ckamaeleon ((T)) 05:57, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Help Pages

Are there any plans to produce spoken versions of Wikipedia Help pages, policies, guidlines, and other non-article suff? --Saxsux 20:10, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

To my knowledge, no. It might be very useful for people with vision impairments to have spoken versions of these, but it would probably be important that the spoken versions be kept up-to-date with any changes in the text, particularly for help and policy pages. Macropode 08:15, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
How often do some of these pages change? I'd imagine the five pillars don't change a whole lot. (On second thought, it seems they do change more often than I thought, although they mostly look like relatively minor changes, and a lot of vandalism reverts.) It might be worth looking at recording some of the more static ones. If we could do a series of some of the more prominent ones, that might really help increase the visibility of the project. --Laura S 21:18, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Saxsux, if you're thinking about doing these, go for it! -- Macropode 02:44, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
WP:NOT already has a spoken version. I'm surprised that recording spoken versions of the five pillars, at least, isn't actually planned. --Sam Blanning(talk) 09:58, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
WP:GFDL also has a spoken version, and WP:IAR is one line. This really only leaves two. They're fairly long (feature-length, if you will), but nothing terribly difficult. I can do them as my next articles; I was being indecisive about which one to do next anyway. We should also consider doing some of the other prominent policies, such as WP:AGF. Thanks for the comment Sam, it's great to see active interest from outside the project! --Laura S 13:42, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
I want to be inside the project, actually, but haven't got around to buying a microphone yet :-) --Sam Blanning(talk) 11:31, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
So hurry up and buy one! :) It's a little time-consuming but well worth it in my opinion. And somehow fun. You've probably noticed people saying this elsewhere but you don't need any expensive fancy microphone. My no-name microphone seems to work ok. (I hope - no one besides my friends has critiqued my files) --Laura S 23:09, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
As an update: I've started recording WP:NPOV. It's long, but going pretty fast because it's written in a conversational tone, and doesn't have any foreign words or names that I have to look up. --Laura S 00:45, 13 May 2006 (UTC)


WP:NPOV is done. --Laura S 02:41, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
Update: I did WP:EQ and even WP:IAR (the whole line! :) so the five pillars are done. There are other policies that would be worth doing, but I think I need a small break :) --Laura S 00:54, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

This is slightly off topic, but in relation to recording policy and guideline pages, there is an interesting discussion/poll going on at Wikipedia:Editing policy pages. -- Laura S | talk to me 17:16, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

It seems like there has been talk of doing this. I DO know that other project members have been recording the WP: articles (i.e. WP:No Personal Attacks, etc.) I think it's a great idea, provided they're kept up to date. Perhaps a few members will make them "pet projects." It seems like it may be easier to update the articles that you originally recorded, if only b/c you're familiar with them already.Ckamaeleon ((T)) 06:04, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Active Participants list?

I think it's great that so many people are on board, but it feels like the Project Page is getting unwieldy b/c of the long list of active participants. Is there some way we could organize it?

  • Maybe we could put up a "hide" option at the top of the list--OR at the start of each letter?
  • Another option might be to create subpages..or divide the list up by specialty, (if we can discern such a thing) or some other characteristic. Personally, I think it would be neat to have the members grouped by some vocal quality, like accent...but I wouldn't want to offend anyone by doing that. Ckamaeleon ((T)) 06:09, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
I, for one, wouldn't be in the least offended by being grouped according to accent, although I'm not sure it would serve any useful purpose other than to break up the list so that it might be more manageable. I'd like, however, to keep the list all on one page. This makes it easy to search when you've selected an article as your next victim, and you want to check that someone isn't already working on it.
Maybe we should have an "Inactive Participants" list too. :) -- Macropode 07:21, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Another thought: What if we put the active participants list on a subpage and just used the space on the main page for "Recent contributions". You could put your name up there and the article and a date. Newest goes first. Maybe even a bot to delete entries more than a month old (or just anything after the first 25 entries) or something like that. That way, we'd get to see what's been freshly churned out, AND
  1. People who are active get the small reward of being more visible
  2. It's easier to find fresh articles for critique/commentary
  3. People who like to download articles for listening (and/or the folks working on the RSS feed) might find it useful

Ckamaeleon ((T)) 08:14, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with all the advantages to this idea that you've pointed out, however I think the idea has the disadvantage that it would add complexity to the "housekeeping" tasks that need to be done while working in this project. This would particularly affect new contributors and people like me who have a propensity to either forget or to stuff up details like this. Along with maintenance of the RSS feed and the soliciting of critique/commentary, this idea is another example of an aspect of this project that would greatly benefit from having automated tools do the work, if it were possible. -- Macropode 10:09, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I cringe when I think of all the little steps that have "creeped" into the project. All of a sudden people are spending more time doing tags and comments here and there than they are actually reading articles aloud! What's BECOME of us, I ask?? Less melodramatically, I wish I knew how to write bots and things to do this for us. None of my project related bot-requests have gotten much attn. :o( Ckamaeleon ((T)) 10:19, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

On a related note, I have talked about trying to organize this talk page's archives thematically, rather than chronologically. There are a lot of good ideas in there, but few people have the patience to sit down and read through them, as willy-nilly as they are. Ckamaeleon ((T))

You have altogether too many new ideas to be good for one person. Cut it out! :) -- Macropode 10:33, 21 May 2006 (UTC)


lol...that's who I am.. I'm a brainstormer. Would it be any better if I assigned a few to each personality? (j/k) Ckamaeleon ((T)) 11:14, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Possibly, but don't look my way. I'm a nit-picking perfectionist, and have enough trouble just getting out about one spoken per month... -- Macropode 11:40, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Only 24 hours to "get" the personality joke. There are no flies on me, but you can see where they've been... -- Macropode 06:22, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm curious to know...

...Do I have a "California accent"? :) A visitor from Texas once told me I do, but I've never been able to discern any difference from "General American" when listening to others talk. I recently recorded Image:Renaissance.ogg, so maybe someone from the USA can listen to a little of it and tell me - I've been to a few different (albeit western) states without ever thinking, "Man, these people have accents!" Maybe my Texan friend, who had the stereotypical Texan accent, is just more accutely aware of linguistic differences. Moulder 04:03, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

(Good lord, I just listened to myself and I need to slow down a bit. Nervous probably. Sorry!) Moulder 06:56, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Hey can't listen to the recording right now, but I sympathize about talking too fast. People have always told me I talk really fast. I slow it down to what feels like a crawl when I record, but it still seems faster than a lot of the others. Ever give a presentation to a live audience? That's the worst! So easy to get nervous but you absolutely cannot let yourself speed up :) -- Laura S | talk to me 12:49, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
I can't detect any accent. Sounds General American to me. I on the other hand am from Michigan, so I have to monitor my use of ABOOT instead of about. :) Good performance, BTW. Aguerriero (talk) 22:18, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Deletion of Template:Spoken Wikipedia

has been proposed at WP:TFD and subsequently withdrawn, and discussion continues here for anyone who is interested. -- Macropode 16:07, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

To clarify, the person who proposed the template be deleted actually wants only the icon in the upper right corner to go away. He was a dissenter early on, as the talk page shows. Thanks for posting this Macropode, I wouldn't have known about it otherwise. -- Laura S | talk to me 20:06, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
I have no preference one way or the other regarding the Spoken icon in the top right corner of articles. However, I noticed that all the Spoken icons have been removed from WP:FA, apparently on aesthetic grounds. Upon further investigation, I came across this. What interests me is that, unless I misinterpret the argument, there seems to be a proposal here for a vote which would include the option of complete deletion of the Spoken Wikpedia template. -- Macropode 00:26, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
This proposed policy, created by User:Raul654 on 17 May 2006, may also be of interest in relation to the future of the Spoken template on article pages. Acceptance of this proposal as policy would pave the way for the removal of any link from an article's main page to it's spoken version, no matter where it is positioned or what size it is. -- Macropode 04:24, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Review requested

Hi all, I just stumbled on this project and I am very excited about contributing. I did a test run on a small article I wrote a while back, Opaline glass. I was wondering if anyone would give it a listen and let me know if they hear anything I can improve on before starting longer articles (or alternately, "Hey Andy, you sound like a dying yak. Please don't record any other articles.") :) Thanks, Aguerriero (talk) 22:26, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Your recording sounds great. I have two comments: first, that the very beginning of the recording got cut off (unless that's just a problem with my player; I'm using my new Mac and not used to it yet). The second is completely personal preference. I prefer recordings to be a little faster. However, I tend to talk faster than most people like, so it's entirely possible that your pace is perfect :) -- Laura S | talk to me 00:47, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
I too wouldn't mind it being a bit faster, but I'd rather have you do it slower than ideal than the way I did Renaissance on my first try. :) One thing that irks is me is that a lot of Americans (I'm from Cali so make of that what you will) seem to say "wih-ih/uh" instead of "wih-kee" when it's part of the word Wikipedia. That just grates on me for some reason. Moulder 03:35, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
Heh - I'm from NJ and end up saying "wih-kee", but it sounds weird every time I say it. That's just how it comes out though. "Wik-ih" feels lazy or something. Interestingly, when I listen to my recordings, I hear a much deeper accent than I thought I had. I wonder if that's just when I record though, because I'm making such a concerted effort in speaking. -- Laura S | talk to me 15:10, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
Yep, good work. speed her up a bit maybe, but the quality's great. THE KING 12:45, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Handjob

Hello everyone. to get myself into this project and just see how i go before i do a featured article, i thought i would produce a spoken version of the Handjob article. Feedback would be greatly appreciated on my talk page. Similarly for logitech. Thanks, THE KING 10:22, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Wow those sound like two different people! In both cases, the title got cut off (they start right in with "from Wikipedia..."). I would suggest a little more enunciation, although the Logitech article was ok on that. The Handjob article was probably too fast, but I thought you got the pacing pretty much right on in Logitech. -- Laura S | talk to me 04:44, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
Laura, I think there might be some issues with your playback, since this is the second article where you had that issue of the beginning being cut off. It plays fine for me in Winamp. Aguerriero (talk) 20:56, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
Nice try. Fremont in the Logitech article is pronounced freemont. I think you need to check the pronounciation on some other names too. --Facto 05:16, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Jean Grey

Recording this spoken version of Jean Grey (Image:Jean Grey.ogg) was tough. It was my first one, so please let me know if it is allright. --Facto 07:43, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Great job, Darth Vader... Moulder 20:40, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
Thanks (I think). How were you able to keep your file size down so low. My first 30 minutes were 15MB, but you managed to squeeze 47 minutes into 14MB. --Facto 20:54, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
Ouch, that's some scathing criticism... of course now I'm curious and can't wait to listen to it (can't while I'm at work). -- Laura S | talk to me 20:51, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I didn't mean to be so mean, but what did you do to make it sound that way? Slow it down? My initial reaction was that it was intended to be comedic; I didn't mean that to be a personal attack (if by some chance you really are Vader). Other than that, it's fine.
I use Nero Wave Editor, which was originally Cool Edit Pro and is now Adobe Something-or-other, and when I save it, I tell it to go at 45kbps. If you're using Audacity, I noticed it doesn't ask for specs when you export to OGG - it just saves. Maybe someone more experienced can help you out. Moulder 21:19, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
Ah I see what you mean. Not Darth Vader exactly, but it does sound like you recorded it normally and then slowed it way down. It's low and thick. If that is how your voice really sounds, I'd recommend speaking a little faster. -- Laura S | talk to me 22:25, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
In Audacity, there's a little menu for each track. To the left of the track there's a box with a bunch of info; click on the little triangle next to "audio track", select "rate", and you can pick an option there. I'm not a sound expert but I think that will do it. -- Laura S | talk to me 23:06, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
That's the sample rate, which should be 44100 Hz. From the Audacity main menu, do "Edit" > "Preferences" to open the Audacity preferences dialogue box. Choose "File Formats" from the tabs on the left. In the "OGG Export Setup" section, bung the slider labeled "OGG Quality" all the way to the left. Then when you've finished editing your spoken and do "File" > "Export as OGG Vorbis", the resulting file will be compressed to play at a nominal 48 kbps bitrate. This produces small audio files which are quicker for users with slower internet links to download and don't take up heaps of space on the Wikipedia servers, but still sound very good for spoken audio. -- Macropode 09:21, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

AIDS issues

I'm concerned with the formatting in AIDS' external links section, because it hides the speaker icon at the top of the article. Does anyone know how to fix this?

Once it is fixed, I noticed the spoken articles category mentions articles being on the front page with an audio link, so when AIDS is today's FA, we'll get some publicity. :) Moulder 19:19, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

add it to the bottom of the section maybe? --Facto 19:34, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
Good idea putting it in with the notes. Are any other articles formatted that way? I supposed they're just trying to keep the page from being too long, but it seems kind of kludgy to me. And as far as the main page, I've done a couple FA articles that were planned for main page for exactly that reason :) They're a little tougher, because they tend to be long and there's a time crunch, but worth it I think. -- Laura S | talk to me 20:17, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
Something tells me this is one of those political issues that I didn't want to get involved in... But isn't this contrary to what it says here about spoken articles on the main page? I haven't been involved with the project long enough to know how to react. Moulder 06:05, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
Be fearful, Moulder, you're questioning Raul654's will. :) -- Macropode 09:26, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
Excuse me, people. Sarcasm, in hindsight, even in jest, obviously is not productive in situations like this. Moulder, yes it's politics, and it's ugly. You might try asking Raul654 what the reasoning behind his actions is. -- Macropode 06:56, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
I've been on both sides of the aisle, so no comment. ;) But if this is the case, maybe the bolding on the category page should be either removed or just to indicate that an article had a spoken version when it was on the main page. Moulder 09:01, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Heavy metal umlaut

I really want to record this article, since it is an FA and it has been requested. But DAMN it is challenging. I have done several takes and I keep messing things up or barely misprounouncing some facet of it. The most difficult thing is having to read all the instances of words that contain the umlaut. Aguerriero (talk) 20:58, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

No need to do it all at once! Just try section-by-section (or even smaller parts) and stick them together afterwards. I think this would be a neat spoken article to have! -SCEhardT 22:54, 12 June 2006 (UTC)


Background Noise Problem

I was recently testing out Audacity, before I record my article, but when I followed the guidelines on the record page, it still left a background I can only describe as just like you've just poured out a glass of coke and the bubbles are making noises, but swooshier. I can't up the noise removal any more without making my voice sound bad, but the only noise in my room is the computer fan! What can I do to rectify this? Dev920 00:29, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, what microphone are you using? I've been successful with a cheap no-name mic, so you don't need anything fancy. But it's possible there is just something wrong with yours, or a bad connection in the wiring somewhere along the way. Also, is the computer fan very close to the mic? -- Laura S | talk to me 01:07, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
I know exactly what you are talking about, and if someone knows the answer to this problem, I'd love to hear it. I have this problem even with *no* noise at all in the room, dead silent. ~MDD4696 01:36, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
Its a cheapo five quid one. The computer fan is located underneath my desk, so I don't think it's that. But if you think there might be someting wrong with the mic itself, I'll try my spare one tomorrow - it's 2:30 am and I need to sleep! Dev920 01:39, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
Er, actually sometimes the problem in this case might be that the microphone is TOO good, or too sensitive to ambient noise. Trying turning down the input level on Audacity, and speaking closer to the mic. If you have the input level too high, it will let you be further away but also pick up a gnat farting. Aguerriero (talk) 02:25, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
Dev920, when you make a test recording with an open mic, without talking or the sound of flatulent gnats in the room, and without applying any processing whatsoever to the recording, do you still hear this noise on playback?
Audacity's noise reduction, BTW, is very effective, but tends to introduce artifacts into the audio, as you've found. I find it works very well when set to absolute minumum, and I have two moderately noisy machines under the desk. -- Macropode 10:09, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Right, I tried using a different mic, which had no effect whatsoever. I tried setting the level of the mic down to 0.1 as recommended, but the noise didn't go away and then I just couldn't hear me properly. When I put it a little lower, and then removed a little noise, it did end up almost perfect, but you could still hear the little sparkly noise, and it was starting to go a bit goldfish bowly. When I tried recording a bit closer, it resulted in my voice becoming a bit louder, and nothing else. Making a blank recording does result in exactly the same noise. Not sure what that means though. Dev920 18:59, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Let's rule out a few possibilities, then. It's not ambient noise. The fact that the noise doesn't change when you swap mics or reduce the mic gain pretty much rules out the microphone as the source of your trouble. The noise is present in a blank un-processed recording so it's not any artifact introduced by the sound editing software. Unless I've missed something, it seems to me that you may have a problem I've seen before; internally generated electrical noise getting into your computer's sound circuitry. Laptops seem particularly prone to this problem. It's defining characteristic is that it seems like nothing you do (short of using noise reduction to "blank" it out) will make it go away, and that's because it's coming from inside your computer, not from your microphone.
There are a few things you can try, in no particular order of ridiculousness:
  • Open your system's sound mixer app (I can't help you with specific details here, you might have to experiment a little) and turn off/mute all the inputs except your sound source, usually "Mic" (although on my system, using Audacity on Kubuntu Linux, it's called "Capture"). What you want to do here is to ensure that the only audio you're recording is coming from your microphone, and not any other sound sources your system may have which could be just contributing noise. It's unlikely, but worth a try.
  • Try plugging a new/different sound card into your computer, and using that. It may help in cases of internal electrical noise.
  • Beg, borrow or steal (preferably from a family member :) ) another computer to do your spoken recordings on.
  • Finally, just soldier on, and don't worry about it too much. MDD4696 has the same problem, and from listening to his very good recording, you wouldn't know it. With a bit of experimentation with noise reduction and maybe a bit of equalisation, you should still be able to make great sounding recordings.
If it all seems like a lot of hassle at first, stick with it. It gets easier, no bull! Let us know how you get on. -- Macropode 10:37, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
I think I figured out the source of my problem... it's something with my sound card's output, not the recording... oops! ~MDD4696 15:37, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
Good news, MDD4696. Now you've got no excuse for not doing more spoken. Get going! :)
Usually, these issues turn out to be something as simple (but non-obvious at the time) as a mixer setting, or having the mic plugged into the Line in socket instead of the Mic socket, something I've accidentally done. These can be pretty frustrating when all you want to do is make a recording, but it's very rarely some exotic, un-solvable problem, just something that takes a bit of persistence to solve. -- Macropode 04:27, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
Dev920, now that MDD4696 has pointed out the missing cornerstone in my towering edifice of logic above, maybe you'd like to upload a recording and see if it sounds as bad to us as it does to you. :) -- Macropode 08:05, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
I am currently out of town and will remain so for the next day or two. Will update you on my attempts when I get back.

Update: Basically, it is electrical inference from my crap mic that cannot be editted without destroying my voice. Instead of simply buying a slightly better mic, my mother insists I can borrow her (extremely good) mic - except of course, that she's on the Internet just as much as me and hates to part with it for long periods of time, so I'm guessing this article is going to take a while... Dev920 21:48, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

My kids aren't averse to the use of a bit of emotional blackmail in situations like this. Try it! Don't tell your mum I said this, though. :) -- Macropode 04:38, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Reviews please...

  • Ok, so I've now done a few of these, but before I move onto something large I'd like some constructive criticism. I'm using Audacity on a Windows laptop with a Logitech headset/mic combo. I think the quality has gotten better, but right now I'm not sure if it is good enough. In particular the effect that sounds like a synthesized wave on some of them. Ok, enough dithering. In order I did them:
  1. Dennis Ritchie
  2. Ken Thompson (computer programmer)
  3. Adam Elsheimer
  4. Monster truck

Wikibofh(talk) 05:14, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

It sounds like you're going too far with the noise removal (based on the monster truck one - I'm listening to it right now). You're easy enough to understand, but it's almost as if something's missing from the audio file. Maybe that's the compression, which I'm 90% sure is whatever the synthesized sound issue is. The file is fine though, just ease up on the threshold next time. Moulder 09:06, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
You were probably aware of this already, but Dennis Ritchie is a bit quiet and sounds like you were trying a bit too hard to make your recording understandable. The recording works though and is fine for a first attempt. Moulder 09:12, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the comments. I have tried the lowest noise removal levels and I still seem to get that artifact. I will probably re-record Ritchie, if for no other reason than I changed the article after my recording. It's amazing how doing the spoken word thing shows how many things need to be fixed.  :) Perhaps I could upload the file without any noise removal or normalization and someone here could give it a shot and then explain what they did? Thanks again. Wikibofh(talk) 15:38, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Large file upload....

Ok, so I've finished World War I, but can't get it to upload. It is a large file (40MB). Does it have to be broken into smaller pieces or is there a way we can work around the upload size limit? Wikibofh(talk) 15:44, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

It appears that other editors have had problems uploading any files larger than 20MB. So, you probably should break it into at least two parts. That allows for easier downloading for users, as well. --Aguerriero (talk) 18:56, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

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. -SCEhardT 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 :-) -SCEhardT 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! -SCEhardT 16:28, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Sex parameter in template

Please see this discussion about removing the sex parameter from the spoken article template. -SCEhardT 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. -SCEhardT 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! -SCEhardT 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. GangstaEB (sliding logs~dive logs) 01:23, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Why do you want to? »»» Switchercat talkcontribs 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 -SCEhardT 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. -SCEhardT 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 talkcont 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)