[Foundation-l] Using Wikisource as an Alternative Open Access Repository

[Michael Peel]

On 26 Jun 2009, at 02:08, Samuel Klein wrote:

> Wikimedia currently doesn't like files as large as a feature film, or
> even a high-def short. (how should we address this?  Brion mentioned
> something about making video easier to upload in November.)

As I understand it, there are three issues with having large video  
files on Wikimedia:
1. Server capacity: Disk space + server load + bandwidth
2. Interface: Ogg only, no ability to create clips, rescaling, etc.
3. Community will

(1) I assume is fairly easy to solve (simply by throwing money at the  
problem) provided that there's sufficient demand and money available.
(2) is at least partly on its way, I believe, as per recent news  
stories [1].
(3) I don't know whether there's the will in the community to have  
large video support, partly as it's already done to an extent by  
archive.org and partly due to bandwidth/resource concerns (both the  
uploader's and Wikimedias)

Videos are resource-heavy, and community-light, unlike text content  
on Wikipedia, or even images on Commons. It will remain community- 
light unless we want to go the way of YouTube. It's still very  
difficult to create decent quality, useful video.

Having said that, IMHO having a usable (high quality) copy of public  
domain videos, and educational videos (PD or user-created), on  
Wikimedia sites can only be good.

> But is
> there any reason not to include other bodies of published sources now
> available under free license?  Wikisource is currently the closest
> thing available to a unified place to categorize, comment on, and
> provide bidirectional links to source text and files of any sort.  It
> should in some ways be our largest project, and even our most widely
> cited.

Wikisource is for textual sources, not videos or files in general -  
that's Wikimedia Commons.

Mike

[1] http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-10269308-17.html