Slider:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia

The WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia aims to produce recordings of Wikipedia articles being read out loud. See Spoken articles.

You can read any article you like (or even just a section, but complete articles are obviously preferred), but we'd like to start with these:

• Articles soon to be featured on the Main Page: to increase project publicity. (see Short featured articles for short FA yet to be on the main page.)
• Featured articles
• English versions of articles on the List of articles all languages should have
• Articles requested by other users; see Requests

You should consider the stability of articles before producing a spoken version — an article involved in a dispute or undergoing major revision may be a poor candidate.

Guidelines

Production Notes

• Preferred format is Ogg Vorbis audio, at 48 kbps, 44.1 khz mono. (see talk for how to achieve this).
• The resulting filename should consist of the article title in canonicalized form plus the ogg extension.
• Treat links like text when reading. Any vocal indication of every link would disrupt the flow. However, you are free to pick out the most relevant links and mention them at the end.
• Speak slower than normal, about 25% slower. You should have about 150–160 words per minute so people can comfortably hear an article. Most conversational speech is at 200 words per minute or more. [1]
• Tell people where it's from begin your recordings with:

  "Article name, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org." and end each one with "This sound file and all text in the article are licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License, available at www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html" (GNU is pronounced "guh-noo" or can be spelled out).

• Tag your files! since the Ogg container gives us the option of several additional tags, add the following to the file itself:

  source

  From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: www.wikipedia.org

  copying

  Licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License: http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/fdl.txt

  article

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_title

  version

  the date/timestamp of the text edition you are recording.

Production tips

• Speak across the microphone or to the side of it, rather than directly into it, to avoid pops and breath noise. A distance of 30 cm (a foot) away from the microphone is recommended.

  Another method of reducing pops and breath noises is to make a homemade screen. Form a circle with a coat hanger, cover it with an old pair of pantyhose, and speak through it into the microphone.

• Mess up a take? – Instead of stopping the recording, just stop speaking, then speak out "three, two, one" and then start reading again. You can easily edit out the "flub" since the countdown gives you a cue on where to make the edit, and gives you some "silence" to edit in.
• Volume levels – make sure your audio levels are high but not clipping and if you have the ability, to compress and normalize your audio.

  For those unfamiliar with "audio" terminology, a brief description of these terms:

  • Compression is a dynamic levelling of audio, making loud parts quieter, and the quiet parts louder, so that a consistant sound level is achieved. (on professional audio gear where 0db is maximum, -12db is a good place to level the average RMS for speech.)
  • Normalization is a calculated adjusting of audio so that the loudest peak is set to maximum potential volume, generally it is close to 0db (on professional audio gear where 0db is maximum, -10db is a good place to normalize the average RMS for speech.)
  • RMS – see Audio power

Recommended Tools

• Audio recorder – use one that can record section by section, like Audacity (open source, for Mac, Windows and Linux[2]), Sony's Sound Forge, or Cool Edit (now Adobe Audition). If you make a mistake, start a section over. Paragraphs work well.

Uploading

On the upload page, paste the following template, and fill in the appropriate information (don't forget to add the {{gfdl}} copyright tag at the end):

{{Spoken article entry|
file_name= 
|title= 
|time= 
|file_size= 
|user_name= 
|date= 
|accent=
|}}

• File_name should be of the form: name_of_file.ogg
• Title refers to the title of the actual article.
• Time is the length of time in minutes and seconds of the article, for example: 12:34
• File_size is the size of the file, for example: 12.6 MB
• User_name is the name of the user who read/uploaded the file, for example: Willmcw
• Date should be a link to the revision that was read, for example: 2005–04–18
• Accent is the regional accent of the reader. See Regional accents of English speakers for the possibilities.

List your article at Wikipedia:Spoken articles under the proper heading. Use for reference the entries at Wikipedia:Featured articles. The article link should be of the format [[:Image:FileName.ogg|ArticleName]] at Wikipedia:Spoken articles.

Templates for articles

• For featured articles, place {{spoken}} in front of the article name at Wikipedia:Featured articles.
• For the bottoms of articles, add the following template:

  {{Spoken Wikipedia|FileName.ogg|YYYY-MM-DD}}

  • Remember to update the date when uploading a newer version.

  • If the reading is broken up into parts, use {{Spoken Wikipedia-n|YYYY-MM-DD|FileName (part 1).ogg|FileName (part 2).ogg|...}}. Templates are provided for up to 5 parts. Although there's no specific limit for file size, 10 MB, or about 20 minutes, might be a place to think about a break.

• For the top of the article's talk page, add the following template:

  {{Talk Spoken Wikipedia|FileName.ogg}}

Completed recordings

List your article at Category:Spoken articles in the format: [[:Image:FileName.ogg|ArticleName]] , under the proper heading. Use for reference the entries at Wikipedia:Featured articles.

The table of completed recordings was moved to /Table of recordings. It no longer seems necessary to add new items to the table, only to Category:Spoken articles. However, it is still encouraged that you add them to the table as well.

Active participants

Place your current project after your name.

• Andrevan – talk — haven't decided what to do yet, but this is a cool idea
• Arwel – talk — Welsh language and Ruthin are mine.
• Ashdurbat – talk — Opeth is mine.
• blankfaze – talk — Crushing by elephant
• brian0918 – talk — Great Lakes Storm of 1913
• Cal T – talk
• Chris Roy – talk
• Craigy – talk — Victoria of the United Kingdom
• Demi – talk
• Derek Ross – talk — History of Scotland
• DO'Neil – talk
• the Epopt – talk – Limerence, (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
• Fuzheado – talk — Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.
• Jeshii – talk — Action potential, Psychedelic mushroom
• Peter Isotalo – People's Republic of China
• Luigi30 – talk
• MykReeve – talk
• silsor – talk
• Steinsky – talk — Free will
• Szyslak – talk — Wikipedia:Neutral point of view
• Timwi – talk — Longest word in English
• TrbleClef – talk — Choir
• Troythompson – talk
• Willmcw – talk — Attack on Pearl Harbor
• Zanimum – talk — Jim Henson and all of the Sesame Street articles are mine.

Recording assistance

• Alkivar
• Trevor Caira

Cheerleaders

• Matt Crypto — big fan of the project, but my voice is too naff to do recordings!
• Sparky the Seventh Chaos – Love the idea, but alas I have no recording equipment. Maybe someday.
• Danny — I think this is an amazing project and near to my heart, since I used to direct cartoon dubbing. Unfortunately, my voice sucks for this, but thanks to everyone who is participating.
• Smoddy — really cool idea, but having me record it would be as bad as having nothing at all (possibly considerably worse).
• Merovingian — This is a great idea, but I have a teenage voice.
  • But all the better! That will give our recordings more liveliness! :-) I think you should give it a try :-) — Timwi 11:49, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
• I have a mild lisp. Neutrality^talk 23:53, May 1, 2005 (UTC)
  • You might want to record a sample for lisp, it would demonstrate the concept much better than the text could. Greg Robson 13:32, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
• EasilyAmused — I can't wait to be rid of this insufferable sinusitis...
• Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis)—I love the project, but can't participate due to my mild, but annoying accent. Keep up the great work though!
• Eequor — hee, great idea!
• Golbez – Dear god, Wikipedia continues to amaze me. Good show!
• Gkhan — Dear god, you guys rule! I'd love to help but i fear I have an accent and no recording equipement
• Hermione1980 — Rock on, y'all! I'd also love to help, but my microphone stinks and I have one of the worst American Southern accents you ever heard.

Sample configurations

• Alkivar – Dell PC, Sony's Sound Forge, RØDE NT1 ($499).
• Andrevan – Custom-built PC, Windows XP, Pentium 4 2.4 GHz, 512 MB RAM, SoundBlaster Live! Value, generic Dell microphone, Audacity.
• blankfaze – eMachines PC, Windows XP, 1.3 GHz, 256 MB RAM, some old microphone I've had since about 1997, Audacity.
• brian0918 – Custom-built PC, Windows XP, Audacity, Logitech USB microphone
• Demi – Dell Latitude laptop, $11 microphone, OpenBSD. Using sox and oggenc.
• DO'Neil – PC running Windows XP, Audacity, recordings done with a cheap Verbatim headset microphone.
• Fuzheado – Apple iBook G4 1 GHz, MacOS 10.3.8, Audacity, built-in microphone
• Luigi30 – PC running Windows XP. Recording with GoldWave to either high or low bitrate Ogg Vorbis depending on length, and using a headset microphone.
• silsor – home-built Athlon PC with cheap ES1371 sound card, Audacity/ALSA/Debian (all free software), $3 microphone. If I can do it so can you!
• Timwi – Toshiba Satellite laptop, Audacity, headset microphone. Apparently my files are vastly larger than everyone else's, but so far nobody could tell me how to fix that.
• Troythompson – home-built Athlon PC, Windows XP, Audacity, Plantronics series headset (about $40 USD).
• Trevor Caira – Dell Dimension T500 with an emu10k1, Slackware Linux 10.1.0 ALSA, ecasound, oggenc, LADSPA, Shure SM57, Behringer Eurorack
• MykReeve – Apple PowerBook G4 1.33 GHz, MacOS 10.3.9, Audacity, built-in microphone
• User:Cluth – Apple PowerBook G4 1.67 GHz, MacOS 10.3.9, Audacity and Logic, Shure SM58, ART Tube MP Studio preamp, working on getting a pro audio interface (I'm a student radio producer)

See also

• Meta:Wikisound: a project proposed by Angela to provide spoken versions of pages from Wikipedia and its sister projects.
• Wikipedia:Sound: policies for handling sounds, and information for handling sound files