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
Hello everyone,
The Technical Engagement team
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Technical_Engagement> is
interested in talking with active contributors to Wikimedia Commons about
finding more ways for the Commons community to use Toolhub. We are
interested in having more tools that are helpful for workflows on Commons
listed in Toolhub and for those tools to be more discoverable to folks who
are contributing to Commons.
We think that updating Commons: Tools
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Tools> is one way to start on
this problem. We are proposing a small project to build new templates and
use them to make the list of tools readable by a bot.
If you are interested in discussing our proposal, or if you have your own
idea to propose improving Toolhub integration with Commons, please join the
conversation at Commons tools discussion page
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Tools#Proposal:_Improve_Too…>
.
Benedict Udeh (he/him)
Community Relations Specialist (Wikidata & Commons)
Wikimedia Foundation
Hello 👋🏽
I'm Benedict Nnaemeka Udeh from Nigeria, a recently hired Community
Relations Specialist (CRS
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Relations_Specialists>) for
Wikidata and Commons.
I'm a member of the Igbo Wikimedians User Group, the Founder of IG Wikidata
Hub, and the Founder of Wiki Mentor Africa, a mentorship program that seeks
to bring more African developers and technical writers into the technical
space of Wikimedia. I'm passionate about community growth and capacity
building. Like you, I'm incredibly spirited about the free knowledge
movement.
In my new position as CRS, I will focus on collaboration and communication
with you about Wikidata and Commons product development, the user-facing
changes and roll-outs, and sometimes on projects with special needs for
collaboration with Volunteers. In other words, I am here to serve you (the
editors, contributors, and readers of Commons and Wikidata projects) and
the working groups at the Foundation that support Commons and Wikidata.
I've already started sharing some updates; you can find them on the Product
and technical support for Commons Portal
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Product_and_technical_support_fo…>.
Please feel free to use the discussion page
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Product_and_technical_suppo…>
to discuss these updates.
I look forward to working with and for you all and can't wait to see the
fantastic things we will do together.
Benedict Udeh
Community Relations Specialist