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
Hello! My apologies if you see similar announcements across platforms, we
are hoping to reach as many interested folks as possible.
We are having a community conversation and demonstration of a new tool in
development, View it!. Please join us (anyone is allowed to attend) on
Wednesday, August 31st at 12 pm EST <https://www.worldtimebuddy.com/>. If
you’re interested in learning more but are unable to attend, please feel
free to email me, or visit our Meta page
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/View_it!_Tool>and sign up for updates (or
beta testing).
View it! is a tool that will show Wikipedia users (editors and hopefully
readers, too) relevant Wikimedia Commons media depicting - or otherwise
related to - the article they are viewing.
The number of images displayed in a Wikipedia article is finite and highly
curated by editors; through View it! users will have access to the full
catalog of images available on Wikimedia Commons. View it! will increase
discoverability of Wikimedia Commons uploads and encourage contributors to
utilize Commons and structured data
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Structured_data>.
Please join Dominic Byrd-McDevitt (User:Dominic
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dominic>), Kevin Payravi (
User:SuperHamster <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SuperHamster>), and
Jamie Flood (User:JamieF <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JamieF>) to
share more about the vision for View it! and have a community conversation
about functionality of the tool and suggestions for structured data to be
utilized.
We look forward to chatting with you and hope you’ll join us!
Thank you,
Dominic, Kevin, & Jamie
Hi all,
Hope you have been well! We have just released v4.0 of the Commons Android
app to production on Google Play - this version includes tons of new
features (a map displaying nearby Commons pictures, custom SPARQL queries,
user profiles, and a custom picture selector), as well as fixes for major
bugs such as the "date uploaded" bug. The app can be downloaded from the
Play Store[1] or directly from our GitHub repository[2].
I should probably also add that this will likely be my last release - I am
currently transitioning to a new career, and will be stepping down from the
role of project lead, which I have held for the past 6 years. I intend to
stick around on a volunteer basis, but the amount of time that I can put
into the app from now on will be much more limited. I have discussed this
with the app's community, and I believe that a new grant team might be
emerging, and one of the volunteers might step up to take on the project
lead role.
Thank you very much for the support that you have all shown to the Commons
app over the years. It was an honor and a pleasure to work with all of you
- I have learned so much and met so many amazing people in the Wikimedia
community, and I certainly hope to continue being part of it. I also hope
that the app and the community surrounding it may have benefited from my
work here, and that the new team will be able to bring it to places that I
might not have ever foreseen.
Best regards,
Josephine (User: Misaochan)
[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fr.free.nrw.commons
[2] https://github.com/commons-app/apps-android-commons/releases
Hello everyone,
We would like to extend an invitation to Wikimedia Commons community members to attend two sound-related events at this year’s [Wikimania, the Festival Edition](https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania). The first is an interactive sound logo production masterclass with sound logo experts on Thursday, August 11 from 13:10-14:00 UTC. The second is the Wikimedia sound logo roundtable on Sunday, August 14 from 10:30-11:20 UTC. This will be a forum to discuss the Wikimedia sound logo and find opportunities to collaborate ahead of the global contest launch.
Please check the [Wikimania 2022 wiki](https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania) for the most [up to date program](https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Program).
We hope to see you there!
On behalf of the sound logo team and the community liaisons,
Jon Kolbert
Sent with [Proton Mail](https://proton.me/) secure email.