Mark Pellegrini wrote:
(1) The 2 megabyte upload limit - I discovered through trial and error that uploads are capped at 2 megabytes. For full-length songs, this is way, way too small. A 3-4 minutes song in ogg format at average quality is about 5 megs. I have to set my encoder to its lowest settings (0 or 1 out of 10) to get it under 2 megs. Angela has said (rightly so) that full length songs belong at Wikisource, not on Wikipedia itself. So the above changes should be made there.
I'd like to add to this comment. I have what is increasingly a fairly ordinary 5 megapixel digital camera. I took a ton of photos in Europe of famous things. The size of the photos varies to a degree, but most are 1.8-2.2 Megabytes. About half of them, therefore, can't be uploaded unless I reduce the quality.
There are some reasons to limit upload size, particularly if bandwidth skyrockets, etc. But 2 Mb is now too small, and I would support a discussion of moving it to a higher number. I would say that for the bulk of photos that people would upload, 3 Mb is more than enough.
For songs, it sounds like 5Mb would be adequate, if barely.
I want the sound FAQ to refer to it, but I pity the poor person who has to go through what I did to get it working. The easiest solution would be simply to zip up the working version I have here and let Wikipedia host it.
If it is free software, and not encumbered by patents (why are all the English sites 404) then we can host it. If there are patent issues applicable to the U.S. only, then I'm sure some wikipedian will volunteer a stable place.
--Jimbo