Dear Wikimedia Video Enthusiasts,
We’re thrilled to invite you to contribute to the upcoming Wikimania 2025, taking place in Nairobi, Kenya from August 6-9, with a pre-conference on August 5. The conference theme, Wikimania at 20: Inclusivity. Impact. Sustainability., celebrates two decades of collaboration, innovation, and shared knowledge within the Wikimedia universe.
The Call for Program Proposals is now open and will close on March 31, 2025! We encourage you to submit sessions relevant to the conference theme. Proposals can be presented in any mode—whether live from Nairobi as an onsite participant, remotely from your home or workplace, or through a pre-recorded presentation.
To help spark ideas, here are a few topics that may align with the conference theme:
● Innovative approaches to using free and open video tools to make Wikimedia content more accessible to diverse audiences.
● Case studies on how video technologies have significantly enhanced Wikimedia projects or community engagement.
● Strategies for ensuring open-source video tools remain viable, energy-efficient, and community-driven over the long term.
Program submission site is at https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2025:Program.
We’d love to hear your ideas! If you have suggestions, comments, or specific requests, please email wikimania(a)wikimedia.org. Our dedicated team of volunteers is here to support and guide you through the process.
Additionally, to support you in developing your proposals, the Programme Subcommittee will host a consultation hour: 📅 Today, Thursday, 20 March 🕐 13:00 UTC (Find your local time at https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1742475600) 🌐 Video Call Link: https://wikimedia.zoom.us/j/84172058297 💬 Live Interpretation Available in Arabic, French, and Swahili
We’re excited to see the incredible contributions this community will bring to Wikimania 2025. Let’s work together to make this landmark conference a success!
Warm regards,
Butch Bustria
https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2025:Organisers
Dear Wikimedians of WREN,
As you may know, Wikimania 2025 will mark the 20th anniversary of this incredible global gathering, and we couldn’t be more thrilled to host it in Nairobi, Kenya from August 6-9, with a pre-conference on August 5. This year’s theme, Wikimania at 20: Inclusivity. Impact. Sustainability., is a powerful call to showcase innovative ideas, collaborative efforts, and meaningful contributions that align with these guiding principles.
We invite you to submit program proposals that resonate with the theme by 31 March 2025. Proposals can take any form—including remote presentations, pre-recorded sessions, or onsite participation in Nairobi.
To help spark ideas, here are a few topics that may align with the conference theme:
● Case studies on GLAM collaborations that bridge cultural gaps and improve access to underrepresented content on Wikipedia, and other Wikimedia projects;
● A workshop sharing best practices for engaging institutions in improving Wikipedia content for education and research purposes;
● Panel discussion on strategies to ensure Wikimedia partnerships thrive and create lasting benefits for communities.
You bring unique perspectives as Wikimedians in Residence, working closely with institutions to foster collaboration and enhance Wikipedia’s content. This conference is an excellent opportunity to share your expertise and inspire others.
To submit your proposal, please visit the program submission site: https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2025:Program
For inquiries, comments, or assistance with your proposal, please email wikimania(a)wikimedia.org. Our team of dedicated volunteers will be happy to guide you.
Additionally, to support you in developing your proposals, the Programme Subcommittee will host a consultation hour: 📅 Today, Thursday, 20 March 🕐 13:00 UTC (Find your local time at https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1742475600) 🌐 Video Call Link: https://wikimedia.zoom.us/j/84172058297 💬 Live Interpretation Available in Arabic, French, and Swahili
Let’s make Wikimania 2025 an unforgettable event that reflects the values of inclusivity, impact, and sustainability. I look forward to seeing your creative and inspiring proposals!
Warm regards,
Butch Bustria
https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2025:Organisers
I've been surprised by the success of this 7 min animation on Dewey
codes, from the Finnish libraries (kirjastokaista.fi):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF342znnAsM
It's been on the front page of YouTube in Finland for several days now,
even as top 1 trending video. It reached 200k views and counting.
As far as I know, no "serious" video on Wikipedia or other Wikimedia
projects has reached such a virality. (Although I see a Stephen Colbert
and an alltime10s video with 1M views each.) Maybe we can learn
something from it?
The video is part of a series by this Tuomas Toivainen:
http://www.kirjastokaista.fi/kallen-ja-keijon-kirjastoluokat-animaatiot/https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuomas_Toivainen
Federico
-------- Messaggio inoltrato --------
Oggetto: [Multimedia] Video output changing to WebM VP9/Opus soon
Data: Sun, 17 Jun 2018 11:29:00 -0700
Mittente: Brion Vibber
In the next couple weeks I'm planning to start switching our video
transcode output from WebM VP8/Vorbis to the newer WebM VP9/Opus
profile, which saves us about 38% on file size and bandwidth while
retaining the same quality.
This will not affect what kinds of files you upload; only the scaled
transcoded output files used for playback will change. All modern
browsers that support VP8 support VP9 as well, and our player shim for
Safari and IE will continue to work.
All the details:
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:TimedMediaHandler/VP9_transition>
Comments and questions welcome!
-- brion
Hi all,
We have worked together with Dutch public broadcaster VPRO in the open
publication of materials from the documentary series The Mind of the
Universe. It was a comprehensive project that covered the publication on
http://themindoftheuniverse.org/, where the material was transcribed (in
most casing using speech to text tools), was annotated (using annotation
software developed by Sound and Vision) and where the material can be
searched full text and downloaded. It was then uploaded to Wikimedia
Commons for use on the Wikimedia projects.
With support from the Wikimedia Foundation (a PEG grant) we were able to
write and publish a Practitioners' Statement in which we reflect on our
experiences. It can be found here
<http://publications.beeldengeluid.nl/pub/600/> and on-wiki here
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MotU-Public-Broadcasting-Comment-in…>
.
Engagement with the Wikimedia community in this particular case proved
challenging, the reasons for this are described in the paper. However,
seeing a public broadcaster embrace open publication so fully has been a
great learning experience and hopefully will be inspiring and informative
for many.
Feel free to forward and comment!
Best,
Jesse
--
Met vriendelijke groet,
*Jesse de Vos*
Researcher Interactive and New Media
*T* 035 - 677 39 37
*Aanwezig:* ma t/m do
<http://www.beeldengeluid.nl/>
*Nederlands Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid*
*Media Parkboulevard 1, 1217 WE Hilversum | Postbus 1060, 1200 BB
Hilversum | *
*beeldengeluid.nl* <http://www.beeldengeluid.nl/>
Hello,
It might be of interest to people on this list so I thought I would share.
This weekend I will live stream a few sessions from the Wikimedia Diversity
Conference[1]. I will use Open Broadcaster Software Studio (or OBS for
short)[2], which appaerently is what all the streaming kids use today. I
will stream to YouTube and later upload the file to Commons. It is really
easy to save a local file while you stream, so I don't need do download it
from YouTube before uploading it to Commons. I will also try a live
captioning tool called Web Captioner [3]. Unfortunately that will render
the subtitles into the video, even though they are also downloadable in
.srt, but I guess one cannot get everything (yet).
To a related question, do anyone know decent categories on Commons to put
lower thirds and other graphics in? And is there any good place onwiki to
document how to use them?
[1] https://www.youtube.com/user/WikimediaSverige/videos?flow=grid&view=2
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Broadcaster_Software
[3] https://webcaptioner.com/
Best regards
Jan Ainali
Hi All,
I attended on the section about videos of Wikimania, where one of the
topics was, that Wikimedia Commons needs more videos.
Until now, I tried to upload a video only ones, and this was the result:
* https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T128826
The main reasons are
* While I have experience with photography, I am a bad cinematographer;
* I am not familiar with the video formats, their parameters and how can I
convert between formats (keeping the quality high as much as possible).
After Wikimania I decided to upload some videos I recorded during
Wikimania, and I spent a day with this task without a real success. I would
like to share this experience, and maybe you can give me advice.
First I tried to convert my MP4 (H264+AAC) records to webm format. I
started with a relatively smaller video with the size of around 200 MB.
1. I tried the https://tools.wmflabs.org/videoconvert/ tool.
I logged in, started to upload the video. Uploading was very slow. After a
longer time the page showed, that the upload was finished, but as soon as I
wanted to move on the next step, I realized, that I had to log in again.
Then I realized, that the video was uploaded only partly (probably I was
logged out because of an unknown reason). I tried to convert the video, but
there was no status update, how long should I wait. After one hour I
reloaded the page, and the tool told me, I have to log in again. After that
I saw, that I lost the session and I should start it again. After that I
jumped to the next tool.
2. I tried the https://tools.wmflabs.org/video2commons/ tool.
The interface is nice, my feeling was, that it was faster (but still a long
time). After I uploaded the video, I chose the VP9 format (I think it
provides better quality that VP8). After some minutes I received an error
message: Exitcode: 1 Ok, I restarted the conversion, but in the end I got
the same result. I had to choose between restart the conversion or delete
the task, and finally I deleted the task. With that, I deleted the uploaded
video in the same time, there was no way to change the conversion settings
only. I jumped to an offline tool (because this uploading process will be
even longer with larger videos).
Note: none of the online conversion tools (nor the Upload Wizard on
Commons!) has the option to pause the uploading process, I can only
completely cancel it. It would be useful, because uploads can take hours
long and meanwhile I should use my internet connection for example for a
call or internet banking temporarily (both happened yesterday).
3. I tried to convert using the latest VLC video player. After I set the
parameters, I clicked convert. Then the software completely crashed. I
tried ones more, with the same result.
4. As a last try, I downloaded the XMedia Recode software.
And after I learnt the software a little bit, I was able to convert my
video.
I tried with different setups, but I didn't see the really big difference
with the video compressed 1/10 of the highest quality settings...
I set the bitrate of the audio channel to 192 kb/s, but I have no feeling
with the video channel.
I am wondering what are the optimal settings (compression level without
observable quality loss) based on your experience.
Best,
Samat
Dear all,
We are currently preparing an upload of video content coming from a
production from the Dutch public broadcaster VPRO called "Mind of the
Universe
<https://www.vpro.nl/programmas/the-mind-of-the-universe/kijk/extra/english.…>".
A very exiting project that we will probably talk more about in the near
future.
I was hoping to get some feedback on a few issues:
- the videos have been tagged with keywords. How could we incorporate these
in the metadata? Would we simply add those in de description field?
- These tags are UNESCO thesaurus terms. Does anyone know whether it would
make sense to link to these terms on Wikidata in the Commons-metadata? I'm
struggling to see the added value but it can probably be done.
- Finally, we also have subtitles available in .srt formats. Are there
people here who have experience with uploading videos to commons combined
with subtitles?
Thanks for your feedback!
Best,
Jesse
--
Met vriendelijke groet,
*Jesse de Vos*
Researcher Interactive and New Media
*T* 035 - 677 39 37
*Aanwezig:* ma t/m do
<http://www.beeldengeluid.nl/>
*Nederlands Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid*
*Media Parkboulevard 1, 1217 WE Hilversum | Postbus 1060, 1200 BB
Hilversum | *
*beeldengeluid.nl* <http://www.beeldengeluid.nl/>