On Sun, 26 Sep 2004 18:42:36 -0700, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote:
Those links are only meaningful to an experienced
Wikipedian. They are
of absolutely no use to a casual visitor who may just want to hear how a
word on Wiktionary is pronounced. A link would need to be placed on
each and every page that has a .ogg file on it, much as is done at sites
that have .pdf files.
Communicating these issues can be a big problem. I know about it
because I subscribe to this mailing list. I rarely visit the other two
sites.
OK, a proposal:
* A [[Help:Sounds]] page should be created
* This page should be linked to automatically from the "Image:"
(description) page for every file matching *.ogg [since we have no
better way of determining file type]
* It should be strongly encouraged for people to add a link to this if
they use a [[Media:]] link to an Ogg Vorbis file.
* The page should be biased heavily towards casual visitors who have
no prior knowledge of Ogg; possibly even no real conception of
different filetypes
* Software for playback should be listed in a step-by-step/how-to
style, with the name most likely to be recognised mentioned at the
beginning of each item
e.g.:
"Sounds on {{sitename}} are stored in a format called [[Ogg Vorbis]],
which is a form of compression which makes them faster to download. It
is similar to the popular format known as [[MP3]], but there are a
legal issues associated with that format that make it undesirable for
our use.
==How to play sounds==
Unfortunately, the Ogg Vorbis format is not yet as common as others,
so you may find you do not have software that can play these files.
Below is a list of what programs can be used:
===Windows===
* '''Winamp''': support included in full installs of versions 2.80
and
later; [http://.. available here]
** if you used a "compact" installer, you may need [http://.. this plugin]
* '''Windows Media Player''': support can be added through
[http://..
this plugin]
* '''QuickTime''': plugin available [http://.. here]
===MacOS===
(similar)
===Linux and UNIX systems===
(etc)
Would this cover what people want?
--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]