[Foundation-l] [Wikimania-l] Thank you!

[Bod Notbod]

On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 9:31 PM, phoebe ayers<phoebe.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:

> - videos of all the talks!!!!

As someone who is unlikely to be able to ever attend a Wikimania
unless it comes to London I'd like to express my gratitude for all the
effort that's gone into that. I've watched quite a few and intend to
watch many more.

There is, however, room for improvement on this front. So here's what
I would like to see, in terms of video, from the next Wikimania:

1. Some of the videos have issues (eg, absent sound for part of the
talk or audio track slowed down to the extent that people sound like
orcs). It would be good if whoever uploads the video would view the
content and try to solve such issues before making them available. If
it's not possible to solve the issue it would be good if they could
annotate the video (eg "sound absent until 2:48") so people are
forewarned and can fast forward to the watchable portion.

2. On many videos, if not most, it is impossible to see the content of
the slides. Could videos be uploaded in higher resolution? Obvious
downsides: larger file size, more bandwidth required. Or maybe all
presenters could be encouraged to upload their presentation slides (I
know some already do this) so people can view along as they listen to
the audio of the talk.

3. On the videos with a Q&A segment the audience often doesn't have a
microphone so the viewer can't hear the questions. Could more talks
provide the audience with a microphone? And where this isn't possible,
could speakers be encouraged to repeat or summarise the question for
the benefit of the camera?

4. More of an observation than a recommendation: as I've watched the
videos most of their respective talk pages have not yet been
contributed to (they're red links). The same can be said for their
entries in the Wikimania schedule. I thought more people would be
wanting to discuss the content of the talks.

Despite my various gripes it's really great to have so many videos, so
thanks to everyone involved.