Misplaced Pages

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Archives for this page: Archive 1 (13 Apr 05 – 6 May 05) Archive 2 (16 Apr 05 – 16 Aug 05) Archive 3 (24 Sep 05 – 11 Jan 06) Archive 4 (11 Jan 06 – 16 Mar 06) Archive 5 (11 Mar 06 – 25 Jul 06) Archive 6 (4 Sep 06 – 19 Feb 07) Archive 7 (17 Jan 07 – 07 Dec 07) Archive 8 (...) Archive 9 (...) Archives from the Article Choice Guidelines talk page: Archive 1 (16 Mar 06 – 22 May 06) Archives from the Recording Guidelines talk page: Archive 1 (7 Nov 05 – 19 May 07) Archives from the Uploading Guidelines talk page: Archive 1 (28 Feb 06 – 13 Oct 06) Archives from the Template Guidelines talk page: Archive 1 (14 Mar 06 – 2 Mar 07)

This page has archives. Sections older than 365 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 4 sections are present.

Suggestion: Heading-only spoken?

One of the obstacles to recording an article is its length.

Wouldn't the project get more traction if it were an option (or it were an encouraged practice) to record only the introduction to articles? This leaves open the option of filling in the balance of the article later, either by the same reader or by another.

The section-by-section approach seems to fit in better to the incrmementalism that gives Misplaced Pages its vibrancy. Vonfraginoff (talk) 12:57, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

I find this an interesting idea, also because it allows to update the spoken versions of articles more easily if it's normal for various sections to be recorded by different speakers in separate files.

It might become a bit of a burden to have to hear the whole ", at www.wikipedia.org" lead-in for each section, though.

LjL (talk) 15:19, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree that there are problems with the proposal, but isn't it better to have many more imperfect, abridged spoken articles than fewer perfect, unabridged ones?

Vonfraginoff (talk) 05:20, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I prefer this way too. It makes sense. I put myself down for recording a few articles but stopped after the first one due to names I cant pronounce and long articles where small sections contently change.

Hintswen  Talk | Contribs  07:02, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Russian language (team-work)

Hello! I want to make recording of this article History of the Russian language. But my native Russian is much more better than English. Does any one is interested to make English part of this article? And I will make Russian part and integrate (merge yours and mine parts of) audio in Audacity editor. What do you think? -- AKA MBG (talk) 09:46, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Hey Andrew! I think that sounds like a superb idea! What a great way to use the strengths of two different people to create the ideal spoken article, ;-) My Russian is non-existent, but my English is great. I'd be happy to work with you on this. Are you skilled in using Audacity? Maedin\ 11:13, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Maedin! Now I am recording the huge article Russia, but I hope that the next article we can make together. Yes, I am fan and user of Audacity :) -- Andrew Krizhanovsky (talk) 08:29, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Spoken Misplaced Pages/Uploading guidelines

Now that the Misplaced Pages licenses have been updated, will this page need updating? Surely, every spoken article will need to be released under Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0 and the GFDL now? J Milburn (talk) 13:27, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

The licenses are being migrated, forget the GFDL, it's CC-BY-SA from now on. All sample scripts and help pages need to be updated. --Simon Speed (talk) 23:58, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't seem like anyone is actually doing this, so if no one volunteers, I'll go do it once I finish my number theory homework. (Warning: It may be a day or longer.) Also, just to make sure the licencing tag would be {{GFDL|CC-by-sa-3.0}} now? Sophus Bie 03:22, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Okay, by trial and error, I've found that using {{GFDL|migration=redundant}} and {{cc-by-sa-3.0}} gets what I think we should be using, but there has to be a better way to do it. Would someone who's more familiar with the Commons tell me how, exactly, I'm doing it wrong? Sophus Bie 03:35, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

I changed the outdated description to display the {{GFDL}} license without the disclaimers - disclaimers were only added to old files at one point. One should change the wording in the guidelines to use {{cc-by-sa-3.0}} and then switch to this license or use dual-licensing, as it's now used across the board on Misplaced Pages. Hekerui (talk) 00:08, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

in your spoken version, you say what licence you release it under. so if its under GNU then it cant be under creative commons and vice versa. (i think anyway) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.61.111.53 (talk) 13:29, 12 April 2010

No. That's not true, different licenses are not automatically mutually exclusive. Since the main license was changed subsecquent recordings likely require a cc-by-sa-3.0 license to conform with new additions released under this license but that doesn't somehow invalidate older recordings' licenses. The important thing is that the audio file mentions the used license. Hekerui (talk) 13:50, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

New Banner Template

I don't know why I did not notice before, but I built Template:WikiProject_Spoken_Wikipedia; primarily because I needed something to put on the "ogg" pages themselves, but also on the articles that HAVE an ogg assigned. I will start a conversation on the talk page about how the various class and importance fields should be used. -- Mjquin_id (talk) 05:35, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Articles with quotations

According to the third pointer of the article choice guidelines, "spoken word audio clips of Misplaced Pages articles that incorporate copyrighted text pose legal problems (since the resulting audio file cannot be licensed under the GFDL)" and should thus be avoided. The article I'm looking to narrate has a few (two or three) block quotations. Would this be considered "copyrighted text" that would make the article unfit for this project by WP rules? Ink Runner (talk) 05:31, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

You may also want to try asking at Misplaced Pages:Media copyright questions. -- œ 10:25, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Problem uploading and file type

I can make spoken pages really easy, but I have 2 problems
1. when I click on Special:Upload I get an error message saying

The action you have requested is limited to Autoconfirmed users, Administrators, Confirmed users.

2. I do not know how to change an MP3 file into the required file. Sghfdhdfghdfgfd (talk) 16:31, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Hi - A few things:

• I changed your account so you should be able to upload files now. See Misplaced Pages:User_access_levels#Autoconfirmed_users if you want a detailed explanation.
• You may want to consider a different user name since yours looks like a throw-away vandal account. If you want to, simply create a new account. See WP:U for more info.
• Please read Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Spoken Misplaced Pages/Recording guidelines before uploading the file to make sure it fits the project. There are some recommended tools there for recording to OGG (or converting MP3 to OGG). My preference is for software called Audacity.

Hope this helps! Let us know if you have any other questions. -SCEhardT 19:16, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I have the same problem. I am very new at all of this but would like to upload my audio and get the same error message. Could you please change my account as well? Eite1wil (talk) 07:22, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

How to handle outdated audio clips?

The audio file of Obama's main page is extremely outdated. How should we handle this? Please take a look at the talk page there. Thanks, The Magnificent Clean-keeper (talk) 23:13, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I think the general feeling is that when a spoken article doesn't improve Misplaced Pages, it should be removed. This is often due to poor initial quality, but being outdated seems to me like it fits the criteria. I don't think we've 'expired' a high-profile spoken article before, but it seems like the reasonable thing to do. -SCEhardT 00:38, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I have updated the recording. davumaya 01:50, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Great. Thank you very much for your effort. Best, The Magnificent Clean-keeper (talk) 17:06, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Mobile Access

Somebody definitely should build an iPhone app or a mobile-accessible site (I can actually build this within hours in AJAX/PHP if anybody is willing to provide bandwidth) where the audio files would be stored/organized as .mp3s or .m3u playlists. Perhaps even start an iTunes podcast for every new article. I spend an awful lot of time on the road. It would be a great help to easily be able to listen to the articles on my iPhone without the tedious task of downloading, converting, importing, and syncing (yeah yeah, I'm lazy, that's why I like the Spoken Misplaced Pages :P)

Proposed app: - Front Page: Top spoken articles - Search: All articles - Browse: By category (and subcategory) - Record: This would only be for iPhones/2nd-3rdGen iPod Touches, where you can record an article while on the road. Unfortunately this would require an iPhone dev account and knowledge of their API, which I don't quite have the money/time to do at the moment. And unfortunately as far as I know iPhone does not allow access to microphone on Safari —Preceding unsigned comment added by AdzSpeaks (talk • contribs) 22:47, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

What to include and not include

Do we include the following things or not

• text in info boxs
• pictures and descriptions
• external links
• sources
• also see

Sghfdhdfghdfgfd (talk) 12:24, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Hi - Check out Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Spoken Misplaced Pages/Reading Guidelines -SCEhardT 03:15, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Spoken articles as a podcast?

Might it be an idea to have a Misplaced Pages Spoken article podcast? People could subscribe to it on iTunes and download the latest spoken articles as they become available. It might give the project a lot more attention and get more participants. Richard001 (talk) 10:34, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I think this would need to be hosted on an external webserver since Wikimedia projects can't have mp3s due to copyright/trademark concerns. -SCEhardT 03:17, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

The podcasts could be made available as Vorbis (ogg) and uploaded to Commons and also hosted elsewhere as mp3s. Possibly a website specialising in offering/producing podcasts would be willing to host free. I think it's a great idea; but there is the little issue with reviews. I don't think our spoken articles should go out as a podcast until they're reviewed and . . . well, there's quite a backlog: Maedin\ 10:10, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I think a voting process could take care of that, there's enough good ones now to do one a week for quite a while. The only issue I see is setting up an RSS feed, can that be done through Misplaced Pages? --The_stuart (talk) 16:28, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Complete switch to Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License for recordings

Gonzonoir has changed the description in the Recording guidelines to reflect that the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License became the primary Wikimedia license for text following the licensing update. I thought it's time to fix the remaining mentions of GFDL for recording and have changed the following:

• Article choice guidelines: Replaced "GFDL" with "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License"
• Recording guidelines: Specified the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license to 3.0 Unported and specified the url to access it.
• Reading Guidelines: The same as recording guidelines.
• Uploading guidelines: Changed {{GFDL}} to {{cc-by-sa-3.0}}

Hekerui (talk) 18:11, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Alternative text for images

There is quite a bit of discussion going on at Misplaced Pages talk:Alternative text for images on what exactly alt text should be used for and what standards should apply. I came here to look something up, and I thought those active here might be have useful things to contribute to that discussion, so I'm dropping off a notice here. Carcharoth (talk) 21:53, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Deluxe Distribution

This article contains a template indended (I think) for use on a File: page. Alas, having read through the template docs I'm none the wiser as to where it should be moved. I'm hoping one of the project members more familiar with spoken-word conventions can sort it please. - TB (talk) 10:21, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

I fixed the inclusion of the file in the page and the Commons description of the file in line with the given info. Unfortunately the file does not include mention of the license as outlined in the recording guidelines. Hekerui (talk) 11:01, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Cheers. - TB (talk) 16:45, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Archiving the talk page

I know that it has been done in the past, but should we add user:miszabot to auto archive this page since its gotten kinda long? Just a suggestion--Fumitol (talk) 07:53, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Microformat in Spoken Misplaced Pages template

The {{Spoken Misplaced Pages}} template now emits an hAudio microformat. To include the publication date of the audio file in the microformat's metadata, please use {{Start date}}, thus:

{{Spoken Misplaced Pages|black.ogg|{{Start date|2005|08|16}}|5.9 mega}}

I'll request a bot to convert existing instances. For more information, see microformats project. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 21:04, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Robot voice-read articles

File:Syston.ogg, File:Rearsby.ogg, and File:The Game.ogg were read by a computer programme. The project is made for human voice recordings, all the guidelines refer to the human voice. A robot reader is something I would guess blind people already have access to, and for seeing people the voice is really irritating. Therefore I think the files should be removed. Hekerui (talk) 10:37, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I am not agree that these files should be deleted. I think that these files simplify the listening of articles by blind peoples. But...

1. There is need to create the separate (low-quality) list for these articles
2. There is a need in a special category for automatically created audio files., e.g. Category:Text to speech spoken articles. -- Andrew Krizhanovsky (talk) 11:18, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

One can see in the above section "Just proper synthetic voice is needed..." and in the archives that consensus is against synthetic voice. Hekerui (talk) 13:04, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

As the maker of thoes pages, the quality is actully very good. it. is. not. like. the. voice. is. talking. like. this., but actully very smoothly, a bit like stephen hawkings, but not as roboty. and because its computer generated, i dont have to spend hours re-recording an article, i can tweek a few words or charaters and re-upload, then its sorted - Sghfdhdfghdfgfd (talk) 13:57, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Need to reach a consensus about a bot

SpeakerBot is a bot I'm making. I intend to make this bot to help find articles to create updated spoken versions. Andewz111 (no 'r') (nudge me) 07:23, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Also, what tasks should it do? (This was a BUMP from BRFA) ] (talk · contribs) (typo intended) 01:23, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

New to this

I'm thinking of doing the World War II article, but before starting something so big, I'd like to see if my reading-aloud is really...good enough, so to speak. Any feedback, positive or negative, is greatly appreciated. I did the introduction part, and uploaded it here.

File:Intro WWII test.ogg

Kuakuu (talk) 00:06, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Hi! Your voice is very good. I like it. Just 2 remarks: 1) try to read a little more slowly, 2) a little more high quality microphone will be fine (because, I hear a background white noise). Good luck! -- Andrew Krizhanovsky (talk) 06:47, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Good! I fixed the license (please remember to use the same license as the text, the share-alike portion makes this unavoidable). Hekerui (talk) 09:29, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I will remember that. I wasn't really sure which one to pick, so I just kinda...picked one. I will also try to read slower and perhaps get a new microphone. Kuakuu (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 23:05, 6 May 2010 (UTC).

Request to Have This Article Spoken

The article about how to make spoken articles is, itself, not spoken. My mind is blown. Adamlankford (talk) 20:16, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Spoken articles are largely for people who have difficulty/impossibility reading articles. Such a person would probably have difficulty participating in this project then as that requires reading articles such as this one.AerobicFox (talk) 20:57, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

At what point should an audio recording be removed?

If an article has been altered and expanded so greatly since an audio recording was made, should it be removed? Or should the original recordist be contacted to inform him he should re-record the article? In general, though, my question is, is there ever a time when an audio recording should be removed? – Kerαunoςcopia_galaxies 18:45, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

I think a recording should be removed if an updated version exists (that is not worse than the old one) or if the recording is corrupted or of unusable quality or a hoax/nonsense recording. Hekerui (talk) 18:50, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

To clarify, an audio recording should be removed only if an updated audio recording ( of the same article) exists, correct? In other words, an audio recording of an article, no matter how old the version of the article that was recorded is, should remain on the article page. – Kerαunoςcopia_galaxies 19:05, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

One should excercise common sense. If an article was totally rewritten or merged then it's possible. I think that's an unlikely scenario though. If in doubt, one can discuss here. Hekerui (talk) 20:15, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Ok, thank you. I would also get a consensus from the editors of the article. – Kerαunoςcopia_galaxies 21:14, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

I think that only in the case, when the old version of the article is totally wrong about the subject (and it becomes clear after the rewriting the article). Then the audio-article should be deleted. So, usual audio-articles in most cases will be never deleted. IMHO. -- Andrew Krizhanovsky (talk) 13:42, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't the question was about deletion, just removal from an article. Hekerui (talk) 14:33, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

The Lost audio recording is 3-4 years old and is completely different from the current article. Should it be kept? 166.77.6.4 (talk) 15:00, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Unless someone posts an updated version, I think yes. Hekerui (talk) 15:05, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, as well. -- Andrew Krizhanovsky (talk) 18:35, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree, since Hekerui here and a few others elsewhere pointed me in the right direction. Unless the recording has defamatory or improperly sourced material in it, the recording is no different than a version of the article on another language's Wiki. Someone just needs to update it with a new recording. – Kerαunoςcopia_galaxies 19:02, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Category:Lists of popular pages by WikiProject

You may wish to refer to the new category Category:Lists of popular pages by WikiProject.—Wavelength (talk) 21:18, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

No progress recordings removed

I removed three "In progress" entries of users who haven't edited Misplaced Pages for more than 2 years. Hekerui (talk) 14:33, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Microphone and noise reduc test

Recorded the following tonight, wondering if my noise reduction is sufficient for complex article reading. I've added my current notes to the file talk. Feedback appreciated. - RoyBoy 04:49, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Anybody in here? - RoyBoy 00:52, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

My subjective opinion: It sounds okay, except that it sounds like you are speaking from far away. And you start very low and always come back to it, which sounds a little unnatural (to me anyway). Hekerui (talk) 15:29, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Ah, thanks will listen for that. - RoyBoy 01:48, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

I think, it's a very good voice in a comparison with many I have heard here. Good. Very good.

Quality... Yes, there is some small noise. It's possible that (1) the microphone is not the best, or (2) the export rate of the .OGG file is not too high... In the Audacity I prefer the maximum quality of the export file (the value is 10). -- Andrew Krizhanovsky (talk) 08:02, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, well the only microphone I currently have is integrated to my monitor, so indeed not the best... but at least it doesn't pop with "p's". My export is using oggdropXPd, the quality setting on the recording is 4 which is supposed to be a nominal 128 kbits. But on replay I just noticed its actually about 1/2 that at 67 kbits. Didn't expect that, what kbit quality should I aim for, 128 or 192? If I max it at 10, the average is just above 200 kbit, but is about three times the size of my original file. 620k vs 1800k. For simple 1-track voice recording, should 128 be more than enough? Is size of the file an issue? - RoyBoy 01:48, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Here is the same reading, but encoded with quality 10. - RoyBoy 06:33, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it's better now. As I know, guys at Commons say, that the quality of the photo should be as high as possible, and the size is not important. I do not see the difference: photo or audio files...

Also you can add some kind of background sounds and music (of course, with open license) in order to add impression and improve the result audio. Almost all audio articles in the Russian Misplaced Pages have some background special audio effect and music (with open license from Jamendo). Welcome to listen: Spoken articles list. -- Andrew Krizhanovsky (talk) 07:41, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion of some more guidelines

I suggest some additional guidelines for adapting written content to speech.

• Some entries may be omitted, including:
  • Tags below headers, such as Further information or Main article
  • Sections of See also, Further reading and References
• Otherwise, it is impossible to have guidelines for every article detail, so it is mainly up to at one's own discretion how to adapt written content to speech.

Sorry by the way for forgetting to log in, and adding those guidelines without discussing here first.Mikael Häggström (talk) 15:33, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Never mind, they were already given in Misplaced Pages:WikiProject_Spoken_Wikipedia/Reading_Guidelines. Mikael Häggström (talk) 16:00, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Mentioning how to pronounce addresses

I really think the pronunciation of the URL should really be stated, such as:
This sound file and all text in the article are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3 point 0 Unported License, available at H T T P colon slash slash creativecommons dot org slash licenses slash B Y dash S A slash 3 dot 0" (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)
Perhaps I'm the only one who is "stupid" in this sense, but I seldom speak addresses out loud, I just type them in, so it's useful to me. Mikael Häggström (talk) 16:21, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I think you added the spelled out version to the recording page, but I went back to the previous version because I think that's indeed not necessary. Hekerui (talk) 15:07, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

My first attempt. Feedback please

I've just uploaded my first attempt at File:Pathogenic bacteria (part).ogg. It's just the first sentences, but I'd appreciate some feedback on it. I've made a noise reduction in Audacity according to the Recording guidelines, but I'm not familiar with normalization and compression. Does anyone know the appropriate settings I should use in Audacity to optimize future recordings of mine? Mikael Häggström (talk) 16:54, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't know about special setting in Audacity for better recording. But I think that good microphone + good audiocard in computer + long cord from mic to computer (in order to reduce the computer noise, remark: the notebook is more quiet than desktop computer), produce good result :)

Your recording is good. If you can be a little more energetic (voice) and fast (speech tempo), then it will be fine. But it's already okey now. -- Andrew Krizhanovsky (talk) 09:28, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback! Good to know that the recording quality is acceptable for making a recording of the entire article; I'll continue soon. Mikael Häggström (talk) 15:07, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I've just extended it to almost 7 minutes now. Any additional feedback is appreciated now, because I'll soon continue into the basic laboratory characteristics, which is probably too detailed and tedious to listen to for anyone not specifically interested in the subject. I've not yet performed noise reduction, but will do this on the entire file when finished, so it will sound like the previous version in that regards. Mikael Häggström (talk) 21:35, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

All audio articles in one torrent. MP3

There is a torrent at the site The Pirate Bay titled "Russian Spoken Misplaced Pages 2010 mp3". It contains all audio articles of the Russian Misplaced Pages in my favourite :) mp3 format.

Could somebody to gather, convert (to mp3) and prepare (as a torrent) the same collection of all audio articles of English Misplaced Pages? -- Andrew Krizhanovsky (talk) 14:55, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Active?

Is this project still active? I'm thinking about buying a microphone to get involved, but I see from the backlog of reviews that this may no longer still be active because some of those dates are old. Kansan (talk) 21:32, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't know about the reviews, we should probably ask someone who volunteers whether they still proceed, but recordings are still made and lots of people have this project watchlisted. Hekerui (talk) 21:36, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I suppose that the reviews are secondary to this project in some sense, so I might go ahead. Thanks for the quick reply. Kansan (talk) 23:44, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Everton FC FAR

I have nominated Everton F. C. for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. YellowMonkey (new photo poll) 00:42, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Statistics for deWP

Hello, I´ve got a question about statistics of spoken articles (linked here): In october 2010 the Deutsche Zentralbücherei für Blinde zu Leipzig (~ `german central library for blind people in Leipzig´) is going to produce spoken versions of all Artikel des Tages (≙ Today's featured article). We want to know how many hits they´ll have.

Do you know a way to activate them → http://wikistics.falsikon.de/latest/wikipedia/de/topics/Spoken_articles.htm ?

Thanks a lot, Hæggis (talk) 12:51, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

I am not sure that it possible to see the statistics of all spoken articles. But you can see stat of any article in DE Misplaced Pages, e.g. http://stats.grok.se/de/201008/Sedantag -- Andrew Krizhanovsky (talk) 17:36, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for quick response. The problem is: This tool only can comprise the information page of an spoken article, i.e. File:De-ottos mops-article.ogg (→ stats), not the number of .mp3/.ogg/… hits. --Hæggis (talk) 00:14, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Where to upload the sound files?

Do we upload them to the regular Misplaced Pages or Misplaced Pages Commons? I've noticed that many of my recordings have been migrated to the Commons. But I'm confused about uploading new recordings to the Commons because I don't know what upload option to use ("It is entirely my own work", "It is from another Wikimedia project", etc). For now, I'm just going to keep doing what I've been doing and upload them to the regular Misplaced Pages. Thanks. --Mangst (talk) 23:47, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

I am usually uploading to Commons by using basic form. Look at any good audio article at Commons (e.g. my file :) File:Ru-Russia part 9 Culture.ogg) and use copy-paste method. It's difficult only in first time... -- Andrew Krizhanovsky (talk) 11:50, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I didn't know about the basic upload form. Do you have to do anything different with your wiki markup in order to reference a file from the Commons? Or can you still do the following: {{Spoken Misplaced Pages|FileName.ogg|2010-09-29}} --Mangst (talk) 00:49, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, You are right. There is no difference for the wiki markup. The file could be stored at local Misplaced Pages, or at the Commons. The wiki markup is the same. -- Andrew Krizhanovsky (talk) 13:56, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. --Mangst (talk) 14:55, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

So, is there really any reason to upload them to Misplaced Pages rather than Wikicommons? Also what's the point of uploading or moving them to the Commons anyway, it's not likely they're going to used by any other project aside the one it was originally produced for? And if the answer is that users can have a easy library of free audio, why doesn't Wikimedia simply have a policy about uploading non-fair-use media to Wikimedia Commons, it's all rather questionable. I was thinking of getting into this but I'm a little confused about rules and that relating to uploading.
Thanks
--George2001hi (Discussion) 21:53, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Please can I have some help?

I recently have began attempting to record a spoken version of Edward VIII abdication crisis using Audacity, the problem is when I speak into the microphone, it produces a rather quiet recording - anyway after removing background noise using the 'Noise removal' feature - I 'Normalize' it and it produces a rather strange background noise - the only way I can describe it is - tingling - it appears on both speech and 'silent' parts.
The Steps I did:

• Recorded sound file
• Highlighted small piece of sound where I didn't speak, went to 'Effect', 'Noise Removal', 'Get Sound Profile', Ctrl+A to select-all, went to 'Effect', moved the slider to first available selection on the left, and clicked 'Removed Noise'.
• Went to 'Effect' - 'Normalize', both of boxes ticked "Remove any DC offset (center on 0 vertically)" and "Normalize maximum amplitude to -3db, and pressed okay.
  The resulting sound file is rather strange. Here's a example-
  File:Example of Sound problem.ogg
  

Thanks
--George2001hi (Discussion) 14:33, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

IMHO, the quality (and the price) of the microphone and the audio card (in the computer) are very important for the good recording. If the microphone is too simple and too cheap, then any tricks in the audio editing program don't help.

The quality of your recording is 62kbps - it's too low quality for me. I prefer (look again at my file) 290kbps. -- Andrew Krizhanovsky (talk) 12:50, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

P.S. Please, upload the source audio file (before editing in the Audacity) in order to understand where the problem is... -- Andrew Krizhanovsky (talk) 12:53, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

I'll upload the raw file as soon as I have some time.--George2001hi (Discussion) 21:35, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

When removing noise produces new noise like that, I will either re-record or just let the old noise (usually just a hiss) stay, as the warble in your example is very distracting and the noise removal process also changes the main signal (your voice) to be less intelligible. From a signal-processing viewpoint, have you tried re-removing the noise, but with the warble as the noise profile (taken during a pause)? This may produce odd, unexpected results to the speech however. If you have the chance, use better equipment, but I know this is not always feasible. You can also experiment with different techniques while recording, such as using a soundcard-provided noise filter, moving to a different room with less noise/echo, or even just lowering the recording volume and speaking louder. -- Quas NaArt (talk) 06:39, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Voice Synthesizers

I'm trying to add a spoken version of the article I've written on Donkey Kong Country 2. Are voice synthesizers allowed? I've completed everything, just wishing to upload it soon. I don't want my work to go wasted. NarSakSasLee (talk) 14:46, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Is anyone going to answer please? NarSakSasLee (talk) 15:57, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Go ahead. Please note that there are other synthesized recordings listed here - the ones highlighted in grey. The synthetic voice apart, please ensure all other recording guidelines are followed if not in letter, at least in spirit. AshLin (talk) 17:21, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Synthesized recordings are not prohibited, but the human voice is what makes the text better accessible for blind people or people who like to listen to articles, the people who this WikiProject aims to help. Hekerui (talk) 18:34, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. NarSakSasLee (talk) 22:20, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Alt text - a curious omission in the reading guidelines for images

Hi,

Our reading guidelines for images make no mention of alt text. This is a curious omission considering that :

• Misplaced Pages has a policy page on "alt text".
• Alt text provides alternative descriptions of images in spoken texts.

Would anyone like to comment? AshLin (talk) 07:53, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Stephens City, Virginia

Would someone mind doing a spoken word of the Stephens City, Virginia article, please? It is a recent FA (August 15, 2010) and TFA (September 5, 2010). I think it would make for a good candidate for spoken word entry. Thanks...Neutralhomer • Talk • 15:27, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

A user appears to be working on this, will update if they are unable. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 05:05, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Recording now complete; I hope to edit and upload in the next couple of days. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 12:21, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Completed by Hassocks5489, uploaded and on the page. Many thanks! :) - Neutralhomer • Talk • 05:10, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Metric equivalents of measurements on Peak oil

I want to record Peak oil. There are many measurements of barrels of oil , all of which include metric equivalents in scientific notation. Is it necessary to include these? I think it would make the recording extremely unwieldy and disruptive. Kansan (talk) 06:27, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Articles only?

Forgive me if this has been asked before, but what about Spoken text from Wikisource? Spoken pronunciations at the lead of the article? Spoken pronunciations for Wikidictionary, etc. --AerobicFox (talk) 20:54, 13 December 2010 (UTC)