I just tried to watch some presentation videos from Wikimania.
Some had very weak sound, some had no sound in the first minutes,
some only played the first minute and then stopped. I don't think
the Wikimania videos are unique in having such problems. Video is
new to Commons, and the expert contributors are more familiar with
still images.
How can we learn to make better videos? Are there some good
instructions? Perhaps a free instruction video (Wikibooks, but a
video instead of a book) on how to produce good videos is what we
need. In fact, the English Wikibooks has a title on "Video
Production", http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Video_Production but it
doesn't have a clear focus (pun not intended). It starts out with
discussing satellite TV and has long sections on file formats in
different operating systems.
There is a help page on Commons for converting video to the Ogg
Theora format, but that is only the last step in a long chain.
Given that video is new, how can we find and rate videos, nominate
"good/featured videos", and give advice on how to improve quality?
Is the Commons village pump enough for this? Commons has a
separate graphics village pump. Do we also need a separate video
village pump?
Current digital video cameras use hard disks or memory cards,
instead of tape cassettes. Many new models cost less than 300
euro (or dollars), some as little as 120 euro (memory card perhaps
not included). Some have a special "Youtube mode", and I guess
that kind of usage is what drives the price down. What models are
good, and what should one watch out for?
We can find free still photos on Flickr and copy them to Commons.
Is there somewhere we can find free videos and copy them? Yes, at
the Internet Archive. Somewhere else?
--
Lars Aronsson (lars(a)aronsson.se)
Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se
Dear ones,
Where might I get or mirror a dump of Commons media files?
> It seems worth mentioning on the front page of
https://dumps.wikimedia.org/
> It looks like the compressed XML of the ~50M description pages is ~25GB.
> It looks like wiki-team set up a dump script that posted monthly dumps to
the internet archive; in 2013 it stopped include the month+year in the
title; in 2016 it stopped altogether.
https://archive.org/details/wikimediacommons
Hello everyone,
Today, the Wikimedia Foundation's Community Engagement department is
launching Wikimedia Space <https://space.wmflabs.org>, a platform for
movement <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_movement> organizers,
affiliates, contributors, partners, and the Foundation to share news,
questions, and conversations.
Learning from others has been the bedrock for development and growth in our
movement. With this platform, we want to promote these sorts of enriching
exchanges by welcoming people from every background to build strong and
diverse communities, breaking down the barriers for entry to our movement,
and focusing our efforts on facilitating collaboration, including from
communities that are new to our movement.
Wikimedia Space is a single place for collaboration, comprising Blog
<https://space.wmflabs.org/> and Discuss
<https://discuss-space.wmflabs.org/> hubs. The Blog section provides a
movement-wide platform for project updates, recent events, and shared
learnings. We have designed editorial guidelines that allow everyone to
share their news with others. Wikimedia Space also allows anybody to add an
event, which can be discovered in a calendar
<https://discuss-space.wmflabs.org/c/events/l/calendar> or a map
<https://discuss-space.wmflabs.org/c/events/l/map> of the movement. We want
this new space to be safe and welcoming, especially for newcomers, and this
is why it is governed by a code of conduct
<https://discuss-space.wmflabs.org/guidelines>, and relies on active
community moderation.
Wikimedia Space is currently a prototype, built on WordPress
<https://wordpress.org/> and Discourse <https://discourse.org/>. While at
present it only operates in English, it will evolve to include multiple
languages in the near future. This project is only possible with your
participation. Spread the news and join Wikimedia Space
<https://discuss-space.wmflabs.org/t/how-to-join-wikimedia-space/113>!
Read more about the features you’ll find on our blog post. We have also
published posts on how to make this space yours, so it can best serve your
needs. You can find all the documentation for this project on its page on
Meta.
See you at Wikimedia Space!
*María Cruz * \\ Communications and Outreach Manager, Community Engagement
\\ Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
mcruz(a)wikimedia.org | Twitter: @marianarra_
<https://twitter.com/marianarra_>
Greetings,
The Structured Data on Commons team plans to release the first version of
qualifiers for depicts statements [0] this week. The team has been testing
the feature with the community for a month [1] and are ready to turn it on
for Commons on Thursday, 20 June, between 11:00-12:00 UTC. Adding
qualifiers allows users to further develop depicts statements. For example,
"depicts: house cat" can be extended into "depicts: house
cat[color:black]." You will be able to find qualifiers in the "Structured
data" tab on the file page, or in the "Add data" tab in the UploadWizard.
This version has a drop-down menu to select qualifiers; an update in the
near future will replace the drop-down with an auto-suggest box.
I'll keep the community posted when qualifiers go live on Thursday, after
the team makes sure everything is configured and working as expected.
0. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Structured_data
1.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Structured_data#Adding_qual…
--
Keegan Peterzell
Community Relations Specialist
Wikimedia Foundation
Hello.
We have released a comprehensive tutorial video -- as one medium-length
video and as several shorter clips -- aimed at helping non-Wikimedians
submit media to Wikimedia Commons via OTRS.
This video is the result of a pilot project within the framework of
the Community
Capacity Development <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CCD>[1] program at
the Wikimedia Foundation. It was led by Asaf Bartov
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Asaf_(WMF)>[2], from the Community
Development team, with the active involvement of an advisory committee made
up of experienced OTRS and Commons volunteers. The script development and
video production were done by contractor Victor Grigas
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:VGrigas_(WMF)>[3], and reviewed by
the advisory committee.
The video is intended to be useful to OTRS agents, Commons volunteers, and
Wikipedia volunteers in various languages, for helping *non-Wikimedians*
submit media via OTRS. It is hoped that being able to refer people to the
video, in whole or in part (to the introduction plus a specific scenario,
perhaps), would save at least some of the *very common* back-and-forth
correspondence many OTRS agents have to conduct with non-Wikimedian
contributors struggling to understand copyright and Commons norms.
The video is designed to be easy to translate and localize, with no speech,
and a lot of interstitials, which should facilitate preparing localized
versions of the video(s).
The page describing the video, including links to the various versions, the
script, and even B-roll material, is here:
*https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Video_tutorial_on_how_to_submit_media_to_Wikimedia_Commons_using_OTRS
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Video_tutorial_on_how_to_submit_media_to_Wi…>*
I request your help in three ways:
1. Spread the news in your communities, and ensure your fellow volunteers
are aware of the availability of this resource.
2. Translate the video (the page itself is much less important) into your
language, if not English.
3. Provide feedback on the video, or on your use of it, ideally on-wiki, in
the talk page of the page linked above.
Thanks,
A.
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Capacity_Development
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Asaf_(WMF)
[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:VGrigas_(WMF)
--
Asaf Bartov
Community Development
Wikimedia Foundation <http://www.wikimediafoundation.org>
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
https://donate.wikimedia.org