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Proposal:Record and upload sound clips in web application

From Strategic Planning
Status (see valid statuses)

The status of this proposal is:
 'Doing...'


Summary

To allow users to upload audio clips recorded from a computer microphone to Wikimedia projects using solely their browser. This should drastically increase the number of pronunciation files uploaded to Wikimedia projects and also improve language related Wikibooks and WikiVersity. It could possibly help spoken articles or longer subjects.

Pure audio can convey much information in relatively few bytes, and may serve as an alternative distribution for the WMF materials. I recommend that the Foundation make a major push to develop its audio offerings.

Proposal

  1. Create a web interface that would allow a user's microphone to record a file in locally (Flash? Java?)
  2. Upload recorded file to Wikimedia server upon user command after they have confirmed it is of proper quality
  3. Encode file into Ogg Vorbis if this has not been done locally
  4. Provide interface for user to name the final file and submit its description, license, etc. to selected Wikimedia project.
  5. Develop convenient tools and/or help notes for volunteers to work with pure audio files.
  6. Develop tags for musical notation on Wikipedia and methods for hearing them played.
  7. Pursue donations such as ethnomusicology and animal sounds from Cornell's Laboratory of Ornithology.

Motivation

  1. Improve sound recordings by lowering the effort required to make them.
  2. Wiktionary needs more pronunciation files in all languages and this reduces the learning curve
  3. Wikibooks/Wikiversity has many language books which would benefit from user recorded sound files. Spoken versions of Wikipedia articles, Wikiversity lectures, Wikibooks and Wikisource texts, etc.[1]
  4. Unforeseen (positive) consequences of making audio easier
  5. Pronunciation assessment

Key Questions

  1. Are there other projects that have done this we can use?
  2. Can this be done with FOSS? If not is a non-free method producing free content acceptable?
  3. Is any development/server cost justified for the purpose?
  4. Can't we use existing resources, such as professional pronunciation dictionaries' recording, trying to get them freed (some are online already, e.g. DOP for Italian)?

Potential Costs

  • Developer time to make MediaWiki extension
  • Server bandwidth involved in uploading wave files and having them converted to Vorbis

References

Community Discussion

Do you have a thought about this proposal? A suggestion? Discuss this proposal by going to Proposal talk:Record and upload sound clips in web application.

Want to work on this proposal?

  1. James Salsman
  2. .. Sign your name here!
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