I just tried to watch some presentation videos from Wikimania.
Some had very weak sound, some had no sound in the first minutes,
some only played the first minute and then stopped. I don't think
the Wikimania videos are unique in having such problems. Video is
new to Commons, and the expert contributors are more familiar with
still images.
How can we learn to make better videos? Are there some good
instructions? Perhaps a free instruction video (Wikibooks, but a
video instead of a book) on how to produce good videos is what we
need. In fact, the English Wikibooks has a title on "Video
Production", http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Video_Production but it
doesn't have a clear focus (pun not intended). It starts out with
discussing satellite TV and has long sections on file formats in
different operating systems.
There is a help page on Commons for converting video to the Ogg
Theora format, but that is only the last step in a long chain.
Given that video is new, how can we find and rate videos, nominate
"good/featured videos", and give advice on how to improve quality?
Is the Commons village pump enough for this? Commons has a
separate graphics village pump. Do we also need a separate video
village pump?
Current digital video cameras use hard disks or memory cards,
instead of tape cassettes. Many new models cost less than 300
euro (or dollars), some as little as 120 euro (memory card perhaps
not included). Some have a special "Youtube mode", and I guess
that kind of usage is what drives the price down. What models are
good, and what should one watch out for?
We can find free still photos on Flickr and copy them to Commons.
Is there somewhere we can find free videos and copy them? Yes, at
the Internet Archive. Somewhere else?
--
Lars Aronsson (lars(a)aronsson.se)
Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se
Unfortunately the api will be changed and will be no longer backward compatible. Please fix your bots.
SEE:
> Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 16:42:47 -0400
> From: bjorsch(a)wikimedia.org
> To: wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org; mediawiki-api-announce(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: [Wikitech-l] API BREAKING CHANGE: Default continuation mode for action=query will change at the end of this month
>
> As has been announced several times (most recently at
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2015-April/081559.html),
> the default continuation mode for action=query requests to api.php will be
> changing to be easier for new coders to use correctly.
>
> *The date is now set:* we intend to merge the change to ride the deployment
> train at the end of June. That should be 1.26wmf12, to be deployed to test
> wikis on June 30, non-Wikipedias on July 1, and Wikipedias on July 2.
>
> If your bot or script is receiving the warning about this upcoming change
> (as seen here
> <https://www.mediawiki.org/w/api.php?action=query&list=allpages>, for
> example), it's time to fix your code!
>
> - The simple solution is to simply include the "rawcontinue" parameter
> with your request to continue receiving the raw continuation data (
> example
> <https://www.mediawiki.org/w/api.php?action=query&list=allpages&rawcontinue=1>).
> No other code changes should be necessary.
> - Or you could update your code to use the simplified continuation
> documented at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Query#Continuing_queries
> (example
> <https://www.mediawiki.org/w/api.php?action=query&list=allpages&continue=>),
> which is much easier for clients to implement correctly.
>
> Either of the above solutions may be tested immediately, you'll know it
> works because you stop seeing the warning.
>
> I've compiled a list of bots that have hit the deprecation warning more
> than 10000 times over the course of the week May 23–29. If you are
> responsible for any of these bots, please fix them. If you know who is,
> please make sure they've seen this notification. Thanks.
>
> AAlertBot
> AboHeidiBot
> AbshirBot
> Acebot
> Ameenbot
> ArnauBot
> Beau.bot
> Begemot-Bot
> BeneBot*
> BeriBot
> BOT-Superzerocool
> CalakBot
> CamelBot
> CandalBot
> CategorizationBot
> CatWatchBot
> ClueBot_III
> ClueBot_NG
> CobainBot
> CorenSearchBot
> Cyberbot_I
> Cyberbot_II
> DanmicholoBot
> DeltaQuadBot
> Dexbot
> Dibot
> EdinBot
> ElphiBot
> ErfgoedBot
> Faebot
> Fatemibot
> FawikiPatroller
> HAL
> HasteurBot
> HerculeBot
> Hexabot
> HRoestBot
> IluvatarBot
> Invadibot
> Irclogbot
> Irfan-bot
> Jimmy-abot
> JYBot
> Krdbot
> Legobot
> Lowercase_sigmabot_III
> MahdiBot
> MalarzBOT
> MastiBot
> Merge_bot
> NaggoBot
> NasirkhanBot
> NirvanaBot
> Obaid-bot
> PatruBOT
> PBot
> Phe-bot
> Rezabot
> RMCD_bot
> Shuaib-bot
> SineBot
> SteinsplitterBot
> SvickBOT
> TaxonBot
> Theo's_Little_Bot
> W2Bot
> WLE-SpainBot
> Xqbot
> YaCBot
> ZedlikBot
> ZkBot
>
>
> --
> Brad Jorsch (Anomie)
> Software Engineer
> Wikimedia Foundation
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
In reading the recent
http://pro.europeana.eu/files/Europeana_Professional/Publications/Metadata%…
summary I think that some of the principles apply to Commons as well,
tohugh of course we're talking of very different beasts.
For instance:
* "Data should be enriched where possible (e.g. through multilinguality
or vocabularies)" is something we do better than most, even though
further integration with the Translate extension is needed;
* "using a preview portal as a means of data validation" is basically
covered by the CommonsMetadata tracking categories, also visible on
preview (though I don't know about GWT);
* "A thumbnail should be made available for all digital cultural
heritage objects" is easier for us but still a strength we tend to overlook.
Other ideas?
Nemo