On 10 September 2010 14:06, Steve Bowbrick <Steve.Bowbrick(a)bbc.co.uk> wrote:
Should we just allow entry editors to link to In Our
Time episodes from
citations? or is there a systematic way that this could be done? Could
episodes be automatically added to entries where there is a direct
metadata correspondence, for instance?
If you're talking about an external link tacked on the end of an
article, rather than a specific reference: an external link has to be
one of the best few web links *in all the world* on that given topic.
I would guess off the top of my head that this is unlikely to be the
case for a TV show on an article that isn't specifically about that TV
show, though it conceivably could. It would have to be better than
almost every possible external link of any type in the world, though.
Would streaming audio be a useful addition to entries?
Or would MP3s be
better? Would it be useful if we added the whole In Our Time archive to
the commons (I think that one's a bit of a longshot!). Are there any
other clever things that In Our Time could be doing to improve entries?
If you can clear the release thicket (and I have some idea of just how
difficult that is) to get it released as actual, no-fooling, free
content, per the definition,[1] then I can confidently say that we
will go to considerable effort to laud you to the skies and tell the
world.
The reason this would be remarkable is that we've spent about the last
six years trying to work out how the BBC could feasibly release
*anything whatsoever* under a proper free content licence. So you
might have a bit of an uphill battle. Please do try, though!
- d.
[1]
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Licensing - you really truly
relinquish control and other people can freely spread derivatives for
*any* purpose and even make money off it. In my experience, trying to
explain this to media people explodes their heads. The usual way I
explain why anyone would think this is a good idea is that (a) it
works for us (b) the media person contacted us, not the other way
around.