Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia/Archive 12

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Archive 12

Review of Audiofiles

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Hello team,

I just wanted to let you know of a change. When I review the articles I will either put "Pass" or "Fail" in the final review box. Any section that gets a 'low' in any category will be a fail and can be fixed usually by splitting the file. If you do not know how to do that, you can always send it to me and I can edit the file for you.

The assessment covers three areas:
Technical quality: Examples include background noise, breath noise and pops, editing, and bitrate.
Clarity: How understandable the recording is. Examples include enunciation and consistency of pacing.
Accuracy: How true the recording is to the source text. Examples include misreading of words and appropriate use of voice inflection to convey the meaning intended in the source text.
Listen to the recording in full and rate the perceived quality in each area as low, medium, or high. See the rating criteria below. A rating of low in one or more areas will require the spoken recording to be unlinked from its parent text article until the problem is resolved. The user who produced the article should be notified of the problem in a clear and friendly manner, and given appropriate opportunity and assistance to resolve it.

If you have any questions, please let me know. Galendalia Talk to me ^{CVU Graduate} 13:46, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Galendalia, I'm sorry what? You can't just make decisions without getting consensus. Simply making decisions without asking the community is pointless. Spoken recordings aren't meant to be passed or failed, they are meant to be given ratings, like spoken articles so that members of the project can assess whether to re-record them. — Yours, Berrely • ^Talk∕_Contribs 14:11, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Berrely - This was stated long before I came along. I have not changed any of the guidelines. A rating of low in one or more areas will require the spoken recording to be unlinked from its parent text article until the problem is resolved. The user who produced the article should be notified of the problem in a clear and friendly manner, and given appropriate opportunity and assistance to resolve it. As far as to pass or fail, it is only on the review page until it is placed on the article and the ratings are transferred and the talk box is placed on the article. Once that is completed, it is removed from the box. Pass and Fail are the easiest of two options list without going into detail, as going into detail can be done on the user's talk page. Galendalia Talk to me ^{CVU Graduate} 14:31, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Galendalia, ok, thank you for clearing that up. — Yours, Berrely • ^Talk∕_Contribs 14:51, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Berrely No worries! I am always on IRC if you want to chat too or you have ideas. When I am on, I can make live edits and we can see how things look. :) Galendalia Talk to me ^{CVU Graduate} 14:55, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Archaea reading

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Article: Archaea
File: File:En-Archaea-article.ogg

Hey! I tried my first spoken Wikipedia today by recording Archaea. I would appreciate some feedback so I can be a more confident contributor. Thanks Ovinus (talk) 07:33, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

@Ovinus Real: Thanks for the notice. Follow the upload guide and make sure it’s in the review block and a link to the article is there and I can review it later today. I look forward to hearing it. Galendalia Talk to me ^{CVU Graduate} 07:35, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Done! Good night (for me). Ovinus (talk) 07:42, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Per guidelines, I've moved the template to "External links" section. —⁠andrybak (talk) 09:23, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Ovinus Real - You missed words within this paragraph which is towards the top: Archaea and bacteria are generally similar in size and shape, although a few archaea have very different shapes, such as the flat and square cells of Haloquadratum walsbyi.[7] Despite this morphological similarity to bacteria, archaea possess genes and several metabolic pathways that are more closely related to those of eukaryotes, notably for the enzymes involved in transcription and translation. Other aspects of archaeal biochemistry are unique, such as their reliance on ether lipids in their cell membranes,[8] including archaeols. Archaea use more energy sources than eukaryotes: these range from organic compounds, such as sugars, to ammonia, metal ions or even hydrogen gas. Salt-tolerant archaea (the Haloarchaea) use sunlight as an energy source, and other species of archaea fix carbon, but unlike plants and cyanobacteria, no known species of archaea does both. Archaea reproduce asexually by binary fission, fragmentation, or budding; unlike bacteria, no known species of Archaea forms endospores. I stopped listening at this point. Can you listen and double-check, please? Thanks, Galendalia Talk to me ^{CVU Graduate} 03:08, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

@Galendalia: Hi, I listened to my recording a couple times. By missed words, do you mean mispronounced? Because I don't see any words that I missed. What words specifically did I miss? Ovinus (talk) 06:59, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

For reference, this section starts around 0:57. I've listened to it several times and don't see any missing words. Did I mispronounce "Haloquadratum walsbyi"? That seems to be the only difficult word in the passage... Thanks, Ovinus (talk) 06:59, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Ovinus Real That was my bad my computer speakers did not play them. I am going to add these to the articles for you. (including the one below). I apologize for the issue. You are good to go, my friend. Thanks, Galendalia Talk to me ^{CVU Graduate} 13:49, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Thank you! Glad we could figure it out :P Ovinus (talk) 16:58, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Merge templates?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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It would seem that the parameters for {{Spoken article review}} would also be appropriate to add to {{WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia}}. Any thoughts? Boghog (talk) 15:25, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Hi @Boghog: - They are actually two separate templates. I am working on changing the banner to more of what it should be to define it better to basically state there is an audio file and the date it was created. The other puts the information on the talk page of the review of the file just for reference which gets archived. You will probably see the request come in shortly. I appreciate the thought and keep them coming Galendalia Talk to me ^{CVU Graduate} 15:53, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. Many other project banners include an |importance=low/medium/high and |class=stub/start/C/B/A/GA/FA rating (see for example the banners at the top of Talk:Archaea). |class= is roughly equivalent to |Technical quality=, |Clarity=, and |Accuracy=. So wouldn't it make sense to add the last three parameters to {{WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia}}? This way, the rating would be permanently displayed near the top of the talk page and not be archived. Boghog (talk) 16:06, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

@Boghog: Would you be interested in making that for me since I do not know how? I would agree with that then. I want to change the wording in that all together. I am thinking "This article has an associated audio file that was created on {{date}} with the version {{diff}}." Then maybe add the other stuff? Galendalia Talk to me ^{CVU Graduate} 16:17, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

(talk page watcher) Galendalia and Boghog, I already added the important parameters at {{Spoken Wikipedia/sandbox}}, if you want I could add those parameters. The problem is, there would then be a huge backlog of pages that would need to manually edited for the new template, and, considering that most recordings aren't reviewed, I personally don't think it would be worth the hassle it causes. Just my opinion. — Yours, Berrely • ^Talk∕_Contribs 16:31, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Berrely I agree so I think it would just be going forward. I have the page on my watchlist and I posted a big box at the top of the articles completed page Galendalia Talk to me ^{CVU Graduate} 16:36, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

OK, I now see that {{Spoken article review}} is mainly intended for placement on the audio file page, not the article talk page. If the two templates were both intended for article talk pages, then it would make sense to merge the templates. But that is not the case here. So on second thought, my suggestion was not such a good idea. Sorry for the confusion. Boghog (talk) 17:00, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Editing

Does anyone know how to put an edit link next to the article box at the top for articles to review so users do not have to edit the whole page? Galendalia Talk to me ^{CVU Graduate} 17:21, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Galendalia, what do you mean? I'm a bit confused by what you just said. — Yours, Berrely • ^Talk∕_Contribs 11:56, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Requests?

Before the WikiProject got overhauled, I could have sworn there was a Requests page where I found articles like E3. Has it disappeared? —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 18:10, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Hey Hey Tenryuu it is still there but I haven’t gotten it out yet. I’m pretty sure if you go to the main project page and click on subpages you should see it. Galendalia Talk to me ^{CVU Graduate} 18:14, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Sorry can you check the tabs all the way through. It may be on one of the pages linked just not on its own. Galendalia Talk to me ^{CVU Graduate} 18:15, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Galendalia, all good then. I can't find a subpage that looks like the one I saw a while back, though there is a Wikipedia:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia/todo on here.

Tenryuu - Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spoken_Wikipedia/Article_choice_guidelines. It is also a link on that same page under the first section. I hope this helps! Galendalia Talk to me ^{CVU Graduate} 18:35, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Galendalia ah, it was a category page, which explains why I didn't find it under subpages. Thanks! —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 18:42, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Tenryuu yeah I can't get it to transclude on the page so I put in a workaround. :) Galendalia Talk to me ^{CVU Graduate} 18:56, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

@Tenryuu: Were you able to find it? Galendalia Talk to me ^{CVU Graduate} 17:38, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Is it acceptable to use a separate account for this project?

I'm interested in contributing to this project, but i have some privacy worries about my voice being linked too easily to my main account. Is it ok to use a separate undisclosed account for just this project? Or would that get me blocked for sock puppetry? 49.197.15.62 (talk) 04:23, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi logged-out editor; you may want to have a read over at WP:VALIDALT, as the "Privacy" point seems to be the most relevant. Generally you should notify others (as on both userpages), but consider reading the last paragraph in WP:SOCK#NOTIFY for how to proceed without doing that. The only other big thing is that your two accounts should never interact with each other, such as participating in the same discussion. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 15:59, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Ogg files

Hiya, I'm going to start doing some recordings, but my computer records in .mp3 files. Is there a way I can convert to .ogg? Naihreloe (talk) 19:54, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Naihreloe, thanks for contributing to the project! Are you using Audacity? If so, once you're finished recording, you can go to the File dropdown menu and click on "Export Audio" to save the file as a different sound file type. Be sure to change the file type to "Ogg Vorbis files". —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 19:56, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Ah! Thank you! That explains a lot, I kept changing it and being confused why it refused to save as an .ogg. Naihreloe (talk) 21:00, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Repeated requests from one user

I am brand new to Wikipedia (on the editing side of things, at least) so I'm not sure if this is worth bringing up, but I noticed that many of the articles requested to have a spoken version were by one user by the name of "Lionsdude148." Does this change whether the request is "valid"? Do we still focus on FAs regardless of who requested them? Should we focus on FAs regardless of whether there is a request at all? I'm trying to determine a first article to work on and this has somewhat complicated things for me, since it does seem abnormal. JustinLynchVA (talk) 09:09, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

JustinLynchVA personally, I think that Lionsdude148 shouldn't be mass tagging articles for recording, but there's nothing against it. While FAs are preferred to be worked on, you can record something for any article, regardless if it's been requested, or if it's FA class or stub class. — Yours, Berrely • ^Talk∕_Contribs 09:22, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Discussion at Template talk:Spoken Wikipedia#Redesign

 You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Spoken Wikipedia#Redesign. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 06:13, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

We still don't have a spoken version of visual impairment

I'd think that that article ought to be a priority. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 04:01, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

@Sdkb: If you don't mind waiting until next week, I can take the article for reading. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 04:23, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

@Tenryuu: could you clarify what you mean by take the article for reading? I don't have the capacity to record an article that long anytime soon, so I'm happy to let whoever wants to take it on; I just wanted to draw attention to it since it seems like an important matter for accessibility. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 04:27, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

@Sdkb: I've downloaded a copy of the article and am copyediting it to be suitable for reading out loud (a script). I'm getting myself acquainted with guidelines as this would be my first Wikipedia spoken article. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 04:55, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

@Sdkb: Thanks for waiting. I've added the article to the "Completed articles" page. You can listen to the file here. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 01:20, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Machine reading of articles without a spoken version

I see there was a discussion back in 2014 on using speech synthesis engines for creating spoken versions of articles. The sentiments there (both of which I agree with) were that (a) it should be separate from the human-done recordings (since an actual human voice is better), and (b) that it should be done generated on demand (so that it wouldn't fall out of date). Speech synthesis engines have improved a lot in the last six years, so I was wondering if we could return to this, and maybe figure out some specifics of what we'd want to ask developers to implement. Some questions:

• Where would we want to put the link to the spoken version? I'd suggest the left sidebar as one possibility, since it's vaguely analogous to the "printable version" button.
• What would need to happen to make the machine recordings as good as possible? For instance, we'd want to tell the machine to ignore elements like external links sections, and to choose a default accent based on the variety of English tag if one is present.
• What customization options would we want? Accent, gender, speed, and inclusion/exclusion of some components come to mind.

Let's try to stick to mostly non-technical considerations (i.e. what do we want, assuming it's possible) here, and if there's sufficient enthusiasm, we can then hopefully start collaborating with folks with technical expertise. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 03:58, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

I just realized Pediaphon exists and tried it out. It's got major major problems, though — the synthesis technology sounds many years old, and there seems to be almost zero filtering taking place (for instance, it says "jump to start" right after the title). It might provide a jumping off point, though. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 04:32, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Sdkb I agree this would be a good idea, really it should've been introduced a while ago considering many news organisations, etc. are including speech synthesis for their articles, and the technology is considerably better than it was when last discussed (take a look at Amazon's TTS). This would be massive change though, I think adding something like this would get lost in all of the useless links there, and either everyone waits till the RfC discussion as to change the sidebar fails/goes forward, or more ideally it is added somewhere else. Not to mention the effort that would be needed to set it up; a MediaWiki would have to program a .js script that is compatible will all of Wikimedia's Wikis (It would be ideal to work in all languages the speech synthesis is available) and there would have to be a whole discussion at Village Pump as to whether to add it. It might be a good idea to have some people from WP:WikiProject Accessibility to help out, as this is more in their field. As for the actual TTS itself... I personally believe Amazon is the best in the business (or at least the only ones to make their TTS public), but it comes at a price. Taking a look at Amazon Polly's page, you can see it starts from $4 for 1 million characters. Ideally, having the neutral voices (the ones that are being constantly improved and sound the best) would be used, and they start from $16 per 1 million characters. To give you an idea, reading the London page 76 times would cost $16, and considering the number of people that would likely be using the option, WMF would have to start paying thousands of dollars per month to maintain the tool. Sure you could just use the free version, but if the whole point is to help accessibility or make article reading more efficient, you might as well get a good voice. — Yours, Berrely • ^Talk∕_Contribs 07:58, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

NVM about the RfC proposal, I just read it and realised consensus had been reached. — Yours, Berrely • ^Talk∕_Contribs 08:16, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

@Berrely: It would definitely be a big change, so I don't think there's any way around needing to have a big discussion to make sure there's consensus for it. If I'd thought of this a few months ago I would have included it when I started the big sidebar discussion, but even now, I think the notion that the sidebar is unchangeable has hopefully been shattered enough that additional changes can be proposed. Regarding Amazon, that's unfortunately a non-starter (editors are so skeptical of the big tech companies, it'd be a challenge even if Amazon offered it to us for free). Look to the fact that we use Open Street Map rather than Google Maps as a point of comparison. Is there any free open-source equivalent to Amazon's Polly? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 10:35, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

@Sdkb: There are quite a few. Not as good as Amazon's but still quite good:

• MaryTTS
• eSpeak
• Mimic

Wikipedia even has a category for them: Category:Free speech synthesis software — Yours, Berrely • ^Talk∕_Contribs 10:48, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Of those three, Mimic seems most up to date. This is about as far as I'm willing to take this initiative (I was mostly interested in getting the ball rolling), but if someone else wants to pick up the baton, I'd love to see this carried forward to implementation. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 05:42, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

I realize this convo is 2.5 years old but just want to mention that I'm working on putting together a system that uses TorToiSe, an open-source but GPU-heavy implementation that gives really realistic results. Script and RSS (podcast) output, or if you just want a single example mp3 here is one for the article on Braille. I'm working on "text normalization" which is stuff like turning "$1.2 billion" into "1.2 billion dollars", as well as stuff like date ranges, etc., and then specific formatting like rendering the ToC and image captions as one would read them. For right now I'm just working on improving it and plan to make an external-links kind of podcast feed, but I'm interested in any thoughts on how or where such content can be integrated or hosted on Wikipedia (probably after there is a better text normalization in place), or other discussions I should be reading on the subject. morrisjm (talk) 18:01, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Requesting help with Alexander Hamilton article

I'm new to the Spoken Wikipedia project, and made a recording of the article on Alexander Hamilton. I uploaded it yesterday (the anniversary of his death) and made a request on the article's talk page for someone to add it, as the article is semi-protected so I can't edit it. As it's now been over 24 hours and there seems to be no movement there, I wonder whether someone with the permissions to edit a semi-protected article might be willing to add it.

Here's a link to the recording: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:En_Alexander_Hamilton-article.ogg

Many thanks to anyone able to help me out.

Rupert-ap-Gruffydd (talk) 19:41, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

 Done Username⁶⁸⁹² 19:58, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, it's working well now. Rupert-ap-Gruffydd (talk) 21:47, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

Albani Zaria

I want to write an Article about Albani zaria Kfarming081 (talk) 13:43, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

@Kfarming081: This is not the place to ask about writing new articles, but I strongly suggest you read WP:YFA. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 15:00, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

​Properly pinging this time. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 15:01, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

August 2020 Discussion of this project

• Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Universal_Audio_Articles_for_English_Language_Learners_and_Persons_with_Disabilities

Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:25, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Dust 514

Spoken english version of article: Dust 514

I would like to get my feet wet in recording spoken versions of articles. I recorded an article of a subject I am familiar with. Please review this test recording. I know my pop filter didn't catch all the harsh p's (I'm still working on improving posture / positioning with respect to the microphone). I tried to match the script structure recommended in other pages of this WikiProject. This was the script I read from. Thanks. Baltakatei 15:24, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Baltakatei, seems practically perfect, only 2 notes, maybe speak slightly quicker? Simply speeding up talking by 10-20% might make the article a bit clearer to listen to, also, the introduction usually omits the word "online", though there is nothing wrong with it. I've left a review on the file talk. Thanks for contributing to the project! — Yours, Berrely • ^Talk∕_Contribs 17:13, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Decent quality text-to-speech Wikipedia articles

Hi All,

As a recent personal project, I have been generating text-to-speech Wikipedia articles and uploading them to YouTube. For text-to-speech, I have been using Google's Wavenet service -- I know historically, text-to-speech software has been a bit mediocre, but the Google Wavenet service is actually passable.

I can set up queues of wiki articles and generate about 2 articles per hour.

You can see examples on my YouTube channel -- here is Abraham Lincoln's Wiki Article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBYvtZjP_bU&t=1s

Is this of any interest to the current project? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dr Quacksworth (talk • contribs) 03:53, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Dr Quacksworth, the YouTube video you've linked is private. It needs to be public or unlisted for other people to be able to watch it. —⁠andrybak (talk) 07:07, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

@Andrybak:, Apologies, here is a video that is public: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2BXRW_NST4&feature=youtu.be Dr Quacksworth (talk) 23:15, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia/Archive 12#Machine reading of articles without a spoken version. I am not sure though if Wavelet is under a compatible license for Wikipedia. — Yours, Berrely • ^Talk∕_Contribs 08:49, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

@Berrely:, I am having some trouble finding info about licensing for Google Wavenet. But it is a paid service, so I believe I have free license to distribute? Although, I must distribute under Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0 per Wikipedia. Regarding the discussion you linked -- yes, this is $16 per million characters, so service-on-demand isn't feasible. Dr Quacksworth (talk) 23:15, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Dr Quacksworth, Wavenet is sadly not under a compatible license with Wikipedia, as it is commercial non-derivative, there are several other options however in the previous discussion that are fully open source. — Yours, Berrely • ^Talk∕_Contribs 13:26, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

@Berrely: thanks for the reply. Would you kindly point me to the source of your information? Please forgive my ignorance, copyright rules are not my forte.

In my own research, I see some confusing information. The TOU are here: https://cloud.google.com/terms/. From section 5.1, "...Customer owns all Intellectual Property Rights in Customer Data and Customer Applications, and Google owns all Intellectual Property Rights in the Services and Software." Would this not be a case of "Customer Application"?

From section 3.3, "Customer will not, and will not allow End Users to, (a) copy, modify, or create a derivative work of the Services;" -- would this refer to building some flavor of competing "Service"? If Google is selling this service, surely they expect customers to monetize some sort of application of the Google Service, no?

See additional discussion here (not necessarily reputable info): https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/17999/commercial-use-of-recorded-output-made-by-speech-synthesis-via-web-speech-api-on

My interpretation is that I own these recordings, so long as I release them with additional licenses as required by Wikipedia.

Regardless of legal precedent, I understand your concerns. An open source solution would be best. But at this point, IMHO, open source solutions seem to be sub-par. From feedback I am receiving elsewhere, it seems audiences won't bother with poor TTS. So switching TTS services seems like a non-starter to me.

If you or anyone else want to collaborate, let me know. Otherwise, I may just work in parallel on my own projects. Cheers :) Dr Quacksworth (talk) 01:31, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Drive-by newsflash - information re a script-creation tool now in doubt

Hello editors. I think I've done two spoken articles but am unlikely to do more. Nevertheless the thought occurred to me that surely a tool could be created that would auto-generate a pretty decent script and I set about seeing if one existed. So I ended up in this region and if you look at step 3 here you will see hints of such a tool. However on investigation, the person who added that text with its seeming promise of more tool development to come ( User:Galendalia) ) has been banned from Wikipedia. Just thought that would be useful to know. For my part I am no longer involved with wiki (not due to any bad experiences!) and I dislike pointing to problems without the intention of assisting but that's what I find myself doing today. --bodnotbod (talk) 16:31, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Bodnotbod, Galendalia made a lot of bold claims, and regrettably it seems the script may never be finished. This project is semi-active, and perhaps someone at WP:US/R would be happy to make a script with this. Otherwise, I wish you the best with your retirement from this wiki. — Yours, Berrely • ^Talk∕_Contribs 13:38, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

I noticed the project coordinator is still listed as Galendalia in this project's guideline pages. Perhaps it would be a good decision to appoint some other user? --YuriNikolai (talk) 02:21, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

An android App that lets you hear and record Wikipedia articles

Hello, In order to make hearing and recording articles more convenient, a friend and i created an android app that lets you hear and record Wikipedia articles from inside the app. This is the link to the google play store if someone is interested - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wiki_audio_app.wikiaudio . The app is in its first version but is already usable. Feedback and tips, on how to improve the app will be highly appreciated :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tomer ronen (talk • contribs) 09:05, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

@Tomer ronen:Hey this is a great idea, is this open sourced in any type of way? --Grun4a (talk) 02:21, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

I need help with putting a file to an article.

I have read the Play-Yan article, and I enjoyed reading it. Now, I have posted the recording earlier. I read the instructions and it looked too hard. Can anyone help? — Preceding unsigned comment added by GingerTheDogYT (talk • contribs) 17:30, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Hello, GingerTheDogYT. You need to follow instructions at Wikipedia:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia/Template guidelines. —⁠andrybak (talk) 17:40, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Potential use of Opus instead of Vorbis audio?

Is there a reason why this project stipulates Vorbis for audio encoding and not the newer and more efficient Opus codec? Opus is FOSS, like Vorbis, but per the developer's own documentation can give you high-quality mono voice at 24 kbps, much easier on bandwidth and storage than the 70 kbps Vorbis currently stipulated. I also believe that Wikipedia's media embedder can play back Opus fine (I was perusing the list of spoken articles and stumbled onto one whose file was Opus-encoded in violation of the current standard, and it played, although I can't link it here because I forgot the specific name).

If it's because Opus is still a little bit obscure in terms of recorders and transcoders (my installation of Audacity only encodes it because I already had FFmpeg, with which Audacity can interface, installed), could some type of grandfather system be used along the lines of "we encourage using the high-efficiency Opus codec, but users whose recording or audio conversion software cannot handle Opus can use the older Vorbis codec at as an alternative"? (Although I doubt this would be the case in the first place since the existing guidelines don't seem to find it a problem that Vorbis isn't supported by all recorders either.)

Techn1ciaN-A1- (talk) 04:22, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

In re my comment about the Wikipedia embedder, I had a brain lapse and forgot that decoding is done client-side. Knowing that, Opus should almost definitely not be a problem for users; YouTube uses it, so I don't believe there's a (modern) browser that can't decode it. Techn1ciaN-A1- (talk) 04:33, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

New article

How do I do a spoken article? Thanks!2603:7080:BB0E:FFE9:D9D1:A95A:863B:ED61 (talk) 22:45, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Hi IP editor, and thanks for your interest in creating a spoken article. The guidelines can be found here. Is there anything in particular you have a question about? —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 🎄Happy Holidays!⛄ 23:09, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Invitation to participate in research to understand how you work with media

Greetings everyone!

If you work with media files — either regularly or occasionally — we want to invite you to join a research session to help us understand this process and the challenges you face during it. To participate, we ask that you first complete this short survey in which we ask you a few questions about working with media. At the end, we ask for an email address that we can use to contact you if you are selected for an interview. If selected, we will follow up with an email invitation to select a day/time to participate. As a thank you for your time and insights, we are able to offer interview participants a gift card in compensation for participation.

You can complete the survey on any internet-capable device, but in order to participate in the interview, you will need access to a computer and internet connection fast enough to support video calls.

Thank you!

(MRaish (WMF) (talk) 19:59, 2 March 2021 (UTC))

This survey will be conducted via Google Forms, which may subject it to additional terms. For more information about privacy and data-handling, see the privacy statement for this survey.

Spoken scripting

If we can find a suitable TTS plugin, we could script the automatic creation of machine read articles. Where are the audio files being stored? If they were uploaded to be linked from the top of Wikipedia the file size would be insane. Also, it could also be copied to YouTube, to give more access for Wikipedia.

Potentially if this was done under a Wikipedia YouTube account, then Wikipedia could make income off YouTube ads. 09:30, 7 March 2021 (UTC)Jaybest (talk)

Personally I can't stand machine-read audio files (even the best ones), but I have noticed that often it is the existence of something inadequate that makes people want the adequate version. For example, it wasn't until I realized that my iphone could 'machine-read' e-books for free that I started to really wish that the machine-readers were human-readers. So, I love this idea for three reasons: 1. The point that YouTube could generate income for Wikipedia that [User:Jaybest|Jaybest] makes. 2. For people who find machine-read files adequate (including those with visual impairment), this opens up the world of Wikipedia to be accessed via audio! 3. For those of us, like myself, who find machine-reading inadequate, both the machine and human-read files(if they exist) could be made available on each article. Where human-read articles don't exist, there could be a link that says something along the lines of 'Looking for a human-read version? Request or record one here,' which would take readers to this WikiProject. In this way, the machine-read articles could help to increase both awareness of this project and help increase desire from readers who find machine-read articles inadequate. Sarah VanArsdal (talk) 18:16, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

New file for review

I have added a new file for review on the Review page, feel free to trout me, if I did it wrong. Ⓩⓟⓟⓘⓧ _Talk 23:21, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

Convenience link: Wikipedia:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia/Review. I listened to the first 15 minutes or so. I think the technical quality to great. There are some minor content mistakes (like hesitation for complex words and some swapped words) but overall I like it.--Commander Keane (talk) 06:00, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Discussion at Template talk:Audio § Clicking shouldn't open up an entirely new page

 You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Audio § Clicking shouldn't open up an entirely new page. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 05:21, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Advice on article selection needs clarification regarding copyright

The article selection section of the instructions for making spoken articles states that all articles that incorporate any copyrighted text should be avoided. This is a very vague statement that should have been elaborated on years ago. What if an article contains a brief quote from a newspaper or other source? Would that make the whole article inadmissible for Spoken Wikipedia?

If so, what would be the justification for excluding articles that use brief fair use quotes, given that the article text itself is able to be licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0? In other words, what makes it so that the written article is not copyvio and can be licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0, but a spoken version would be copyvio? DaysonZhang (talk) 04:50, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Template for articles with outdated audio recordings

Looking at the list of spoken articles, I noticed that a bunch of them are from before 2010. It would be useful if we had a template to mark talk pages of articles that have recordings older than, say, 5 years.

Perhaps the template text could read something like:
The article presently has a spoken version, but it may be substantially different than the current revision as it was recorded on (date). You can help by following the instructions on the Spoken Wikipedia project.

Thoughts? (Dylan1496 (talk) 22:59, 29 May 2021 (UTC))

The {{Spoken Wikipedia}} template already says "This audio file was created from a revision of this page dated <date>, and does not reflect subsequent edits." I think it's sufficient. isaacl (talk) 23:06, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

"Wikispeech" text-to-speech tool being developed

The WMF appears to be developing a text-to-speech tool, Wikispeech, that will be able to produce automatic spoken versions of Wikipedia articles. I'm glad to see this development, as I think machine reading is the only way for this project to have an impact on a widely noticeable scale. The WMF, as communicative as ever *sigh*, doesn't seem to have posted here since 2016, so wanted to let you all know. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:59, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Best practice for uploading multi-part recordings

I just finished editing the first of a two part recording on an article and was wondering if it would be best for me to upload the first part now, then upload the second part after I finish editing it, separately. Is this fine or should I upload both parts all at once? Camshaft64 (Talk | Contributions) 00:37, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

From the WikiProject desk at The Signpost

1.  –
2.  –
3.  –
4.  –

Each participant who signs up above may participate in the interview at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/WikiProject report. The interview contains questions about the project's work, problems and achievements. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk, FAQ, contribs | please use {{ping}} on reply)} 22:55, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

It seems I'm one of the more active participants on the talk page here, but I hardly feel qualified to represent the project to the Signpost. This is not a super active project. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 02:11, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

Oldham FAR

I have nominated Oldham 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. Z1720 (talk) 02:09, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Notice of Featured Article Review

I have nominated Ramón Emeterio Betances 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. Z1720 (talk) 02:54, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Spoken Wikipedia boilerplate

Template:Spoken Wikipedia boilerplate has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. —⁠andrybak (talk) 10:05, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Changing this project's icon

The current icon

The proposed icon

Hello! I've recently taken an interest in replacing icons with simple versions (often derived from Wikimedia's OOUI). I would like to propose changing the icon (used primarily in templates such as Template:Spoken Wikipedia) to a flat OOUI icon, which would be clearer at small sizes. What do you think? An example of this as a top icon is here. Tol (talk | contribs) @ 20:13, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Hi Tol and thanks for suggesting the icon change (I saw your icons as well at GL and really like some of them, and hopefully will reply soon). I like that you're trying to simplify the icon, however I don't really feel the need for simplification. This seems to be one of the few icons that works relatively well at small sizes, though correct me if I'm wrong. The main thing I dislike is identity; the previous icon had some detail and is almost only used on the Spoken Wikipedia project; it's an identifier, however your proposed icon just; well looks like some generic flat volume icon (no offense, I can imagine you put a lot of time into it). Maybe instead of the logo you could try getting consensus for the topicon on articles? Of course this is just my opinion; maybe others like it more. Cheers — Berrely • ^Talk∕_Contribs 08:44, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

@Berrely: Thanks for the feedback! That makes sense — I think more detail looks good at larger sizes, while less detail looks good at smaller size; I'll consider just getting consensus for the top icon. Also, I didn't draw it myself (it's just an OOUI icon), so don't worry! Tol (talk | contribs) @ 18:45, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

FAR for Sheerness

I have nominated Sheerness 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. Z1720 (talk) 15:54, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

How to read a mathematical formula, or other non-sentences

I started a recording for the Sun article months ago which I'm going back to. In the Orbit in Milky Way section, there are some complex mathematical formulae that I've tried to read smoothly, but I'd be kidding myself if I expected anyone to follow it. Does anyone have any thoughts on how to tackle such sections? Read them as they are, omit them, read them but warn listeners in advance, or some other method I've not thought of? Thrownfootfalls (talk) 21:51, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Undocumented use of {{WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia}}

/Template guidelines suggests providing the filename and oldid in {{WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia}}, but the documentation for this template has never mentioned it taking these parameters. Is this intentional? - ExcarnateSojourner (talk) 04:27, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

Gallomimia (talk) 04:06, 21 November 2021 (UTC)== Reading square brackets in quotations ==

How should square brackets (and their contents) that appear in a quotation be read in a recording?

I want to read Jamiroquai, which has many short quotations, like this one:

This resulted in what was thought to be both a "tighter, more angry collection of songs" for Synkronized, and a change of musical direction from "creating propulsive collections of [long] tunes, [and] speaking out against injustice".

It feels to me like it breaks the flow of the sentence to say "bracket" for every square bracket in this case, but I think it is necessary to give some kind of indication that the words I speak are not the actual words used by the source of the quote. And just to further complicate matters, square brackets are sometimes used within a word:

However, the record was said to have "capture[ed] this first phase of Jamiroquai at their very best", according to Daryl Easlea of BBC Music.

I'm guessing few people will see this, so please reply if you have any opinions / thoughts on this.

- excarnateSojourner (talk|contrib) 00:37, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

@ExcarnateSojourner: This seems more to be a question of style, and I'm not aware of any narration guidelines that talk about this. It's great that you're asking about minute details, though; the purpose of the editorial changes/additions are to provide more context or grammatically integrate the quote into the passage. For contextual changes or additions, I personally would leave pauses (roughly a fraction of a second, as if there were commas there) around those. For purely grammatical cases, just narrate it as if that was the original quote in the first place. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 05:58, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

-It is my opinion that the point of adding square brackets is precisely to avoid breaking the sentence when spoken, but to indicate to a reader that this was not the exact phrase quoted, and the changes are to match context. That being said, when reading aloud, perhaps you should simply ignore them? Even a comma pause would break up the quote in a harmful way. Gallomimia (talk) 04:07, 21 November 2021 (UTC)Gallomimia

Ongoing RfC that concerns this WikiProject

Hi there! There's an ongoing RfC at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Spoken narrations of the blurbs at Today's featured article (TFA)—I hope to hear your input! theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/them) 07:01, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

@theleekycauldron As someone who hopes to see a bit of exposure by reading articles aloud, I'd quite like to become involved. I'm a bit too new to the inner machinations of this community, so let me ask a few questions: How often do these articles come out? Every day I presume. How much lead time can be had before the article is featured? Some days, I'm more than capable of reading a good sized blurb the night before and posting it. If I grow some discipline in doing this daily, I might like to make a thing of it.Gallomimia (talk) 05:58, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Wikimedia Sound Logo project

The Wikimedia Sound Logo project

Hello everyone,

The Wikimedia sound logo project is in an early development phase -- this stage is for asking all kinds of questions, developing and fielding ideas, finding themes and shaping the direction of the project. Here is a link to the meta page for the project:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications/Sound_Logo

Your input is welcome. Thank you, VGrigas (WMF) (talk) 19:08, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

FAR for The Green (Dartmouth College)

I have nominated The Green (Dartmouth College) 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. Bumbubookworm (talk) 12:48, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

Youngest speaker?

I'm interested in this project and what it does. I was looking at the guidelines and no where did I see anything that suggested anything about how old you should be. This was expected; wikipedia usually doesn't do things like that. But I was wondering, what's the youngest person who's recorded an article? Have any had to be rejected because of poor quality due to their age? Thanks, ― Levi_OP^Talk 00:45, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) § IPA reader

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) § IPA reader. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:32, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Help with formatting Table

I was not able to correctly format the page for the addition of adding Maxwell's Equations to the recordings done. ScientistBuilder (talk) 22:54, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

RFC

There is a discussion at Talk:Jim Henson#RFC on Jim Henson Infobox that members might be interested in. -- Otr500 (talk) 21:07, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

Euler Recording Complete

How do I add a link to the recording of the article on Leonard Euler to the page? The file is available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:En-Leonard-Euler.ogg ScientistBuilder (talk) 22:48, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

@ScientistBuilder Hi, it seems like you uploaded the wrong version; the one linked is just your 3 second test Strangerpete (talk) 16:04, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

Hmm ScientistBuilder (talk) 21:39, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

Auto-number headings?

In the recording guidelines, there is a reference to an "auto-number headings" preference. I believe I used to have this turned on, but it went missing a few months ago and I can't seem to find it in the Wikipedia preferences any more. Does anyone know of a plugin we can get to restore this? – PeeJay 13:15, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

@PeeJay I just had the same question, and ended up finding it under Preferences > Gadgets > Testing & Development at the way bottom Strangerpete (talk) 15:57, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

That’s great, thank you! – PeeJay 10:15, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

requested feature for the requested articles list

I would like some way to find short articles from the list of requests. Here are my ideas: •Displaying the word count of the article next to its name in the list of requested articles •Having a separate list of only the short articles? (Problematic because then someone would have to decide exactly what qualifies as short) 24.22.241.89 (talk) 08:45, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

I find that creating an account and enabling the Navigation popups gadget (which can be done at Preferences → Gadgets → Navigation popups: article previews and editing functions pop up when hovering over links to give a decent estimate of how big an article is to be helpful. There is also a gadget on the same page, Prosesize, which adds a link in the sidebar to see how many words are in the prose of an article (doesn't count listed items, tables, or references). —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 16:52, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

90377 Sedna - featured article review

I have nominated 90377 Sedna 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. Renerpho (talk) 06:03, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Euler recording

I will start recording reading Leonard Euler ScientistBuilder (talk) 20:14, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

I have started recording but the audio requirements are very specific.

I think I will take a break because I have made some errors. ScientistBuilder (talk) 20:36, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

Recording device

What am i looking for in a half-decent usb microphone? I can find plenty of $80 plus examples but i'm hoping not to spend more than £30 ($65) (i'm in UK). Zindor (talk) 20:22, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

A digital voice recorder with a USB type of link to PC may be a good option although there may be good microphones too-- I am not fully aware of the options there. Using cellphone microphone to record may also be helpful too. Readisten (talk) 21:30, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion, i hadn't thought of digital voice recorders. Zindor (talk) 22:05, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

FAR for Palladian architecture

I have nominated Palladian architecture 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. Z1720 (talk) 18:16, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Unedited recording

I'm wondering if I could upload an audio recording without lots of preparation. I want to read an article out loud without getting into all the audio recording requirements. I don't know that much about starting and stopping audio recordings, for example. ScientistBuilder (talk) 19:44, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

For example, I don't have a lot of advanced audio equipment like recording devices and microphones and advanced audio software. ScientistBuilder (talk) 20:00, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Recording Earth's magnetic field

I am hoping to start learning how record audio and make a recording of Earth's magnetic field. ScientistBuilder (talk) 19:56, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

I have a recording that I tried starting but I think I might have messed up or not set the Audacity recording levels to the right specifications. I have a file at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Earth%27s_Magnetic_Field_Recording_June_19_2022.ogg that I recorded the first section. ScientistBuilder (talk) 20:24, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Math

I am wondering how math should be read out loud. ScientistBuilder (talk) 21:22, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

Because much of the English speaking world says maths, rather than math, I would recommend saying "mathematics". HiLo48 (talk) 00:11, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

I am wondering how to pronounce mathematical formulas with limits, matrices, integrals, sums, fractions, exponents, and other specialized symbols. ScientistBuilder (talk) 19:45, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

There's fairly standard pronunciation for most of those things among teachers across the English speaking. I'm no good at phonetics, so I can't help much on that front. Maybe have a look at some YouTube videos on topics you're interested in. HiLo48 (talk) 04:58, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

Screening team for the new Wikimedia sound logo

The Wikimedia sound logo contest is progressing and as we get ready to launch in September, we are looking for a few volunteers to help with screening contest entries. Please let us know on our talk page or get directly in touch with me if you are interested. There are also other ways for community members to get involved and if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me. VGrigas (WMF) (talk) 19:10, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

Clicking the link downloads the file

Are there any better format options for when it comes to clicking the link causing the audio file to download? I know clicking on the logo will play the file instead of downloading it, but the link says "listen," so I think that's what most people will click on, then will inadvertently download the file. Spongeworthy93 (talk) 03:52, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

FAR for Caeser ciper

I have nominated Caesar cipher for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the 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" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Z1720 (talk) 00:44, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Here to help, but need some help.

Hello! I'd like to begin recording and contributing. I recorded one of the upcoming featured articles (Blast Corps) and have tried to follow all of the instructions to upload and add, but now I'm stuck. I'm not certain that I've done everything correctly. Please let me know and I'll correct. Any help on setting up a basic user page as I am 100% new to Wikipedia/Wikimedia would be appreciated also. Thanks! Nick Marinovich (talk) 23:30, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

For convenience: link to the file on Commons.

As far as I can see you just need to add a link to the file in the Blast Corps. Take Tower_of_London as an example. Editing Blast Corps, directly below the ==External links== line you need to place {{Spoken Wikipedia|Blast Corps - Spoken Article - English.ogg |date=2022-11-26}}.

As for your userpage you could add a userbox, eg place {{User WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia}} at the top of the edit box.

If you want someone to do these edits for you, just ask.

Cheers --Commander Keane (talk) 00:51, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for your speedy assistance! I was able to make both edits (it appears.) I was stopped when the requirements for filename structure (En-Blast Corps-article.ogg) got changed via the upload wizard. I'll scroll down and use the manual one from now on. I will browse other user profile pages for examples and update mine accordingly. Thanks again! Nick Marinovich (talk) 01:44, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

One of your project's articles has been selected for improvement!

Hello, Please note that Human history, which is within this project's scope, has been selected as one of the Articles for improvement. The article is scheduled to appear on Wikipedia's Community portal in the "Articles for improvement" section for one week, beginning today. Everyone is encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thanks, and happy editing! Delivered by — MusikBot talk 00:05, 5 December 2022 (UTC) on behalf of the AFI team

A Surprise

I want Pre-flight safety demonstration to be spoken. It will be so great if this happens. Colby DC (talk) 18:43, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Podcast / RSS Feed

It appears Spoken Wikipedia, as a whole, does not exist as a podcast, or RSS feed. I see and talk history that there have been several people who have started to do that, but none of them seem to be live and I don't see anything searching for podcasts that includes all of the recordings. Is there anything that anyone is aware of that is currently live where one can use a podcast app to listen to these? Is there an RSS feed even for the oggs (or other feed of updates, other than the automatically generated ones Wikimedia makes for all page changes)? Again seeing some stop-start efforts ten years or more ago, but nothing current. Before I start looking into it, I want to see what currently exists, if anything, to build on. Thanks -- Joe ETA: this feed Special:Export/Wikipedia:Spoken_articles seems like it would work as a starting point. But again the question is to see if, in making such a podcast, I am reinventing any existing wheels. morrisjm (talk) 17:04, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

---

Okay so back a week later, I wrote a script that does the thing, at least in its most basic form. Here is an RSS feed that you can load, at least into AntennaPod, that gives you the Spoken Wikipedia files as a podcast feed.

https://wcast.me/sw/

It links to the native ogg files on Wikipedia, so you'd only expect it to work on platforms that support ogg, like Android. I've tested it only with Antennapod. You can search (in Antennapod) by category or Wikipedia username to only see those subsets since those are in the shownotes. Licensing info is also included in the shownotes.

To open the feed in AntennaPod: download and open AntennaPod on an android device. Tap the three-line menu in the top left, "Add Podcast", look down under "Advanced" and tap on "Add Podcast by RSS address". It's a big podcast -- 1600+ "episodes" as of Feb 2023 -- so it will take a few seconds to open up. Click "subscribe" and you should be all set. MIT-licensed source code here. Also the best place to submit issues.

I don't think there is any way this is going to work on Apple devices in this form -- searching for ogg-supporting podcast iOS apps I get nothing. It probably will work on other Android podcast apps where you can just give an RSS feed. If you try other Android pocast apps, let me know if it works or not.

At some point, hopefully soon, I'm going to work on making a script that locally generates a mp3-based RSS feed (as in, it downloads the ogg/wavs locally and converts them, as well generating a RSS feed for that points to them), and put it up on some CDN (probably Cloudflare, free) and that way these will be available for download via iTunes and other normal podcast channels. morrisjm (talk) 07:00, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

@Morrisjm: Aren't all oggs on Commons transcoded to MP3s these days? e.g. File:Green_and_Golden_Bell_Frog.ogg has this MP3 version: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/d/d2/Green_and_Golden_Bell_Frog.ogg/Green_and_Golden_Bell_Frog.ogg.mp3 Sam Wilson 07:33, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

That'd be great if universally true. I have no particular interest in content hosting or writing more conversion code. I'll look into it. Thank you! morrisjm (talk) 07:47, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

OK, so I did an mp3-based version, at the updated URL https://wcast.me/sw/. I'm going to kick the tires on it a bit more and then will paste it into external links on this page. I might even submit it to a podcast feed index eventually; I'll have to do better explicit-content tagging (e.g., the entire "Human Sexuality" section, probably others) and/or put those in a separate feed for that.

Transcoding turns out to be almost universal. A few files seem to have had mp3 transcoding not happen, I list them below. They have a transcoding status of "not ready". Not sure if there is a place to report those so another attempt can be made? Probably some server error, there's so few of them, 5 out of 1600.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:En-Gordon-Ramsay-Plane-Food-article.ogg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Indigenous_people_of_the_Everglades_region.ogg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:En-Guzman_y_Gomez-article.ogg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LibriVox.oga

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Spoken_Wikipedia_-_English_-_chiptune.oga morrisjm (talk) 07:54, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

Not sure if there is a place to report those so another attempt can be made? no need to report, just clicking "Reset transcode" on the Commons page of the files in section "Transcode status" is enough. Which I did and all five files now have mp3 transcoding now. —⁠andrybak (talk) 08:41, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

excellent thank you they seem to be picked up into the feed now morrisjm (talk) 02:21, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Is the list automatically updated? If not, should adding the article to the list be included as a step in the "Creating Recordings" instructions?

I recorded a couple of files last weekend (for Pont du Gard and Disruptive Eye Mask) and dutifully uploaded them, following the instructions here. They show up linked in the articles. I was sort of imagining that it would automatically show up on the Wikipedia:Spoken Article list page, which looks somewhat machine-generated. A week later it hasn't. So . . . is that something I should manually add in? If the recording volunteer is in fact supposed to be the one manually adding it there, should that then be added as a step in the instructions? morrisjm (talk) 05:55, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

Answering my own question a week later, seems pretty clear it is manually updated. I added a line to the instructions to ensure people don't forget. morrisjm (talk) 02:29, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Project template

Template:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia says to add the banner "to the top of the talk page of any spoken articles". In the case of Delta Cafe, would this be Talk:Delta Cafe, or File talk:Delta Cafe.ogg, or both? ---Another Believer _(Talk) 23:31, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

News of likely keen interest

Sims, Daniel (September 19, 2023). "Project Gutenberg releases 5,000 free audiobooks using neural text-to-speech technology: Eventually, anyone might be able to listen to an audiobook in their own voice". TechSpot. Audiobooks have gained popularity in recent years due to their accessibility, but recording them can be difficult and expensive. Researchers recently demonstrated an automated method using synthetic text-to-speech that solves numerous problems facing the technology and could enable ordinary users to generate audiobooks.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:03, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Articles being read out by AI voices/screen readers?

I've noticed that a not insigificant number of spoken Wikipedia files uploaded within the last year appear to be read by an artificial voice. See examples here, here, and here. They all appear to have been uploaded by the same user. Should something be done about this? It seems antithetical to have these files read by screenreaders since the whole point of the project is to have a natural human voice reading them. I'm not sure who to contact with this but it seems important to note. TheAmazingRaspberry (talk) 17:07, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure what users are in charge of this project but User:Peppage and User:HemlockVR seem to be involved in this heavily, could you give your thoughts? TheAmazingRaspberry (talk) 17:33, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Any new practice of using AI to contribute content to Wikipedia at scale should be described at WP:PUMP. I commend these users for piloting new technology and their attempts are praiseworthy, but at the same time, new technology combined with Wikipedia has inhuman global consequences that quickly can affect millions to hundreds of millions of people in periods as short as days or weeks. Because individuals have the power to have such impact so quickly, it is good to discuss these things.

We do not have any established community process for talking about AI. "Text to voice" is not even exactly AI, as the software has been around for 20 years, although it has gotten much better in the past year because of new developments in AI, so I think it counts.

I do not think there is any problem with what these users have done, but they might be setting a precedent which could lead others to consider whether to generate such audiofiles at scale in English or other languages. It is better to have some early conversation on this. Bluerasberry (talk) 17:59, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Part of the concern I have is that at their core these AI voices are just screen-readers, and as a result they often lack the necessary human context to make sense of some articles. Take the file for Buffalo x8, which was recorded by a human. The human reader uses different tones to illustrate the different meanings of the word "Buffalo" in the sentence, and in one section that reads:

> Buffalo^c buffalo^a Buffalo^c buffalo^a buffalo^v buffalo^v Buffalo^c buffalo^a

The reader clarifies which category each of the small letters refers to (c for the city, a for the animal, v for the verb). An AI screenwriter isn't going to understand that, it would just read out "Buffalo c buffalo a Buffalo c…" and not clarify what each reference to the word actually refers to.

In my opinion, I think these screen reader recordings should be replaced by human recordings as soon as possible or at the very least be marked as being read by a screen reader. Would love to hear other opinions though. TheAmazingRaspberry (talk) 01:21, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

I was thrilled when screen reader recordings were added to a few articles I've worked on. I have no idea if screen reader recordings are easier to create or not, but I would rather a quality article have a screen reader recording than none at all. No problem if there's a preference for human recordings, or for noting the recording type to readers, but let's not discourage editors from trying to create helpful content. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 23:33, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

People are expecting human-read articles, where a human will understand things like emphasis, implicit pauses (e.g. places a comma was omitted), using a "quoting voice", differing pronunciations of a word depending on how it is used, and just general cadence. Human readers are also conveying information that might not be available to a non-sighted reader, such as announcing that information is in a table, the contents of a key image to the article, etc.

This isn't helpful content, it's just noise. If peopled wanted text to speech, they can just use those programs directly. These recordings do not belong in articles. Opencooper (talk) 23:20, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. Remove everything that isn't read by a human. Text-to-speech has it's place, but here, it's watering down the quality of the project. Cortador (talk) 10:02, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Update request

I want to request a spoken article be updated to the latest version. The current version of the spoken article is from 2010, so is very outdated. How do I go about making a spoken article update request (as opposed to a normal spoken article request)? Helper201 (talk) 20:30, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab) § Rethinking WP:Spoken Wikipedia

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab) § Rethinking WP:Spoken Wikipedia. Remsense留 21:35, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Input requested

There is a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section#Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section#Pronunciation that may be of your interest. Regards, --Thinker78 (talk) 21:47, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia errors

The instructions for adding a spoken recording to an article state that you should add {{WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia|FileName.ogg}} to the articles talk page. However, this introduces an unexpected parameter error (for example on the WikiProjects talk page section of the article Sega), and there is no mention of the file name parameter on the WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia template documentation. There is clearly some inconsistency here, which is worrying considering this is part of the main process for adding spoken recordings to files. I am not sure how to go about fixing this, any help would be very much appreciated. It is a wonderful world (talk) 07:51, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Aledis

It’s a word that means to add oxygen to a container 2601:600:C500:4CD0:3486:C511:3EFB:AD4E (talk) 20:35, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

I could not find it on Wiktionary.--Commander Keane (talk) 21:24, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Template guidelines contradict MOS:TALKORDER

Wikipedia:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia/Template guidelines state that At the top of the article's talk page, add {{WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia}}, emphasis original. This contradicts MOS:TALKORDER, which puts the WP banners below ten other things. Thus, I think this should be reworded to say On the article's talk page, add {{WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia}}, following our guidelines on the order of talk page banners. Queen of Hearts ^she/_they^talk/_stalk 23:18, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Bulk removals?

Any comments on these bulk removals? "rv text-to-speech added without consensus" and many more at Opencooper (talk · contribs).

Is the project still live? Are they all to be removed now? Where was this decided?

I don't understand the "added without consensus" comment either. Surely they're covered by the general project and don't need per-article specific permissions?

@Alanasings: Andy Dingley (talk) 00:05, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

I believe this is related to this discussion last December: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia/Archive 12 § Articles being read out by AI voices/screen readers? isaacl (talk) 00:16, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps my edit summary wasn't clear enough. I wasn't removing regular spoken articles read by humans, but those created by an AI text-to-speech (TTS). These were all uploaded by a single user, User:Alanasings, without gaining consensus for adding them first. I was planning to write a post on their talk page after finishing, but didn't get to removing all of them.

As for the "why", these spoken articles are meant to be created by humans. TTS technology has been around forever. If that was perfect and could easily replace humans, this project wouldn't exist, and those would be automatically generated for articles.

The quality of these TTS uploads is, frankly, crap. Firstly, it's clear that the creator isn't reviewing or editing these. Blue Book (magazine)'s TTS has 30 seconds of silence and starts with "test, test, test", and Eileen (novel) has 10 seconds of silence. Over at Evika Siliņa and Zach Galifianakis, it didn't even say the names of the subjects correctly. Same at Juanpa Zurita, where it also read out the infobox. At womance, it couldn't figure out how to pronounce the title, which is meant to rhyme with "romance". At Link rot, it says "reference rah" (not "rot"). At Black Mask (magazine), it can't say "subgenre". Deals Gap, North Carolina has bad enunciation. At Sceloporus malachiticus, it says "6 8 inches" instead to "6 to 8" for "6–8", and omits the conversion in parenthesis. True Confessions (magazine) has the title said twice. Every single one of these has unnatural cadence.

I could go on for days on how all of these TTS recordings are subpar, but it's evident that they do readers a disservice compared to a human reader taking the time to pronounce things correctly, respect punctuation and natural pauses, and actually understand what is being said. The uploader should have never flooded Wikipedia with these without consulting the community. Opencooper (talk) 01:01, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

I don't think the files are "sub par." A lot of work went into them. Alanasings (talk) 13:59, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

If you don't think they're subpar, can you address the unacceptable quality of the pronunciation and cadence compared to a human reader? For many of these, it didn't even say the subject's name correctly, which is the first basic thing that a human would have made sure to get right. You're clearly not reviewing them since you published them regardless of so many glaring errors. The amount of time spent creating them doesn't excuse their fundamental shortcomings and editorial inappropriateness. Clicking a button to make AI do something for you doesn't absolve you of all responsibility for the result. Opencooper (talk) 20:12, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Some of them might have mispronunciations. I don't think there is any problem with the cadence, especially in the latter ones. There is no "editorial inappropriateness." They were reviewed. There is more it to than "pushing a button." You seem to have a very strong opinion abut this that borders on rude. I don't care if you take them down or not. I am not interested arguing with you on Wikipedia. I won't be making any more of the spoken files. By the way, this is how Wikipedia loses enthusiastic editors. Alanasings (talk) 20:33, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

I, too, would rather articles have text-to-speech recordings than none at all. I appreciate User:Alanasings' work here and hope to understand how these recordings are problematic. Perhaps there's a way to clarify that the recordings are text-to-speech?, and/or, perhaps these can be kept until a human version is recorded? ---Another Believer _(Talk) 19:40, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Readers content with automated speech versions can use screen readers, and thus benefit from being able to hear the latest version (or any earlier version, if they wish). isaacl (talk) 23:30, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. Though I feel @Opencooper should have opened a discussion before mass-deleting, I don't see how computer-generated voice recordings are an improvement over screen readers. This aim of this project, as far as I can tell, is to provide recordings of articles read out by humans, not AIs. Funcrunch (talk) 03:27, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

@Another Believer: I've already pointed out fundamental issues with these recordings, including not even pronouncing the subject correctly, so these are not better than nothing. Every single recording when put under a little scrutiny has problems. Picking randomly, at Elisabeth Boehm, it doesn't say "Tatar" and "Hungarian" correctly, and even forgets how to speak English when saying "Governorate".

Keeping these in articles will actually prevent human versions from being recorded, since people will think the article has already been covered, and they'll easily be outpaced by low-quality AI content generated by the hundreds.

@Funcrunch: I know you mostly agree with me, but it's curious how the onus is on me, and you don't feel Alanasings should have opened a discussion before flooding the project with these. They themselves were fine with their removal, and I waited a week and there were no objections, so I proceeded. I should have included a pointer to this discussion in the summaries though. Opencooper (talk) 04:33, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

@Opencooper From their response upthread, I wouldn't agree that @Alanasings was "fine" with the removals, but I don't want to press the issue. Funcrunch (talk) 05:13, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

No, I wasn't "fine" with it. Alanasings (talk) 00:31, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

I linked earlier to the related discussion in December. isaacl (talk) 04:35, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Coming in a bit late, but is there a consensus on whether or not to remove the AI screenreader files? If so, then could someone with some free time on their hands remove all the items from the Wikipedia:Spoken articles list? I don't know the exact number of files there are but it seems like there's quite a few. TheAmazingRaspberry (talk) 00:56, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Done. Opencooper (talk) 02:29, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Andrée's Arctic balloon expedition

I have nominated Andrée's Arctic balloon expedition for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the 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" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Z1720 (talk) 22:42, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Articles that need voice over?

Hi there, I think I am in the right place? I want to help do audio voiceover, and have experience in reading scripts and recording audiobooks, and would love to help. I would appreciate any and all pointers to say, a list of where I can find articles that need voice over or have been requested, nothing too big, nothing too small. thanks, have a wonderful day. CoffeeEnjoyerz (talk) 16:38, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi CoffeeEnjoyerz, sorry I should have given you a more thorough answer on the Help desk. You are welcome to record any article you like. Category:Spoken Wikipedia requests has some ideas. But, if you are looking for some high quality text I would recommend Wikipedia:Database reports/Featured articles by size - scroll to the bottom of the list to find something not too long. Just pick one that peaks your interest, and check the top right of the article to see if it has already been recorded. Commander Keane (talk) 17:48, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Hey thats no problem! Thank you very much for your help! CoffeeEnjoyerz (talk) 18:06, 17 July 2024 (UTC)