Wikinews talk:Audio Wikinews/archive 2005

Hey i would like to help out with this, do you have a streaming server, if not i can get my hands on one free, and also i have an idea, you should run it simular to a tv news channel with several shows, one of wich i could do weekdays....so let me know what you all think.--Ryan524 21:56, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Hey guys, I'd really like to get this project started ASAP. I think it has great potential and we can really attract a large number of listeners, and who knows - perhaps get picked up by some independent radio stations out there :D.

But we'll need a few things to get started, so here it goes:

- Anchors, perhaps figure out a time that's best for us all to broadcast a short clip at a certain time each day. We could also take turns on a chat on Skype and see how that works, but I'm not sure on how good the quality would be.

- Primary audio format, I'd like to use Vorbis but not many DAP's support this, so MP3 would have to be used if we were to set up a podcast-like feed. Anything at 64kbps or higher seems to be compatible with most DAP's (at least from my observations) as well, so no need to have uber-great sounding clips. We could also encode in different formats as well.

- Jazzy sound bytes, maybe music licensed under the PD or CC to incorporate into the clips (something to keep them interesting).

- RSS feed updater... I have no clue here, a podcast feed isn't much harder to set up than a regular RSS feed, but I have no idea to start one from a wiki like this.

After that, we'll be up and running. I'll wait for some more feedback here, but I really have high hopes for this project! --Mrmiscellanious 00:59, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Great ideas...

Anchors

I'm not sure we need to get too scheduled yet. Whoever has time and equipment should be doing this, I think. We should aim to update the hourly playlist at least twice a day, probably at 0600 and 1800 UTC (1400 and 0200 in my timezone.)

• I could probably release one around 6 a.m. Eastern (1100 UTC) and again at 3 p.m. (2000 UTC), but I can't guarantee one every single day. --Mrmiscellanious 19:39, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

File format

Wikinews must be available in free codecs, of course. Commons.wikimedia does not support hosting sound files other than in .ogg. Wikinews does not need to be hosted exclusively on commons, though. I would personally prefer to only support .ogg simply to force more support of this free format from webcasters (our target market, imo) and Macintosh. Supposedly it is possible to play .ogg with iTunes.

Jazzy sound bites

I've been putting out feelers looking for a jingle maker to brand us with, but not getting many bites. I will continue to look, but maybe you have better sources?

The software I'm using, Audacity, would allow me to add background sound tracks, sound clips, and so on. I strongly suspect this is a good idea, but frankly my time is so sucked up during the day I can rarely put enough time into this to get 4-5 brief news headlines written and recorded. Should I ocus on fewer tracks, but adding sound layers?

I'm thinking why music? Nature sounds. A bird call landing close by for Wikicast intro ... voice-over dubbed to ocean surf sounds ... bird sound flying off = 3 segments -Edbrown05 02:41, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

A little bird whispered in my ear... -Edbrown05 02:42, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Way cool idea! <goes looking for such sound streams> - Amgine/^talk 02:43, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Glad you like it! Sits well with me. -Edbrown05 02:47, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Talk about a way to set us apart from the competetion :) There is an australian bird that is called the magpie (very different to european magpies). Its a damn aggresive, and not particualy good looking bird, but it produces a very destinctive sound. I'll see if i can record one and upload it. Quite possibly its not appropriate, but, hey ill let you guys decide that. ~The bellman | Smile 07:39, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Here's news. I can get all the ocean sounds we need. The bird stuff is trickier. (A zoo?) Many sound clips are readily available for purchase. No needto go anywhere! -Edbrown05 02:54, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I found this nice one, "Rave Wave" from musicloops.com that would be a great background/opener for our sound clips. The clip is a loop, unsure of the license, but I was able to have permission from them to use it on my own podcast. I'll send them an email and see what they'll say about the possible usage here. --Mrmiscellanious 19:46, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

RSS feeder

This is a technical item I will need to do research on. I do have some ideas though...

Collaborative scripting and segments

I would like to see the daily news brief being regularly updated and used as the script for an hourly update. We need to keep the hourly update to no more than 5 minutes. And it can be continuously updated through the day, if we'd like.

The way to do have the podcast continuously updated is to keep uploading files as they are recorded, and adding them to the play list (subtracting, too, to stay in the 5 minute time frame.)

Can this be done with DynamicPageLinking? Perhaps DPL could be done where the headline + first 2 graphs would be enough to take care of it for Wikicast purposes, it wouldn't necessarily have to be specifically for News Brief page. -Edbrown05 02:46, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately, no it can't be, unless we write a separate news brief artice for each regular article. - Amgine/^talk 19:48, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Advisement

I am getting some excellent advice from a radio person, and the suggestion is to improve our voices, first. Secondly, we should aim for a small, tight news format. Here's an outline:

• radio news are shorter than 3 minutes - 2 news + weather forecast
• 1st news - about 2 minutes (if it's very important), 2nd news - +/- 30-40 seconds and weather forecast - max 5-10 second

Such a short time will mean really really shrinking our news down to just the shortest bullets. - Amgine/^talk 22:37, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It depends really. Here in aus (on abc local radio at least) news goes for different lengths of time at different times of the day. We have the kind of news you describe above every quater hour. But we have longer news on the hour. before at 07:45 -08:30 we have 45 mins of news (first fifteen mins is officially news and the next half hour is current affairs program AM, but really AM is not like comercial current affair programs (at least in aus) because it really is just more in depth news - like wikinews articles, and anyway they are both read by the same person, and tend to merge into each other). Again from 17:45 - 18:30 we have the same thing (though now it is called PM). So basically, in conclusion, i presume our target audience is ppl who listen to podcasts, not radio, and even if it was radio there is still a lot of room for movement. I think we should develop a range of podcasts each with specific timelimits, purposes and audiences. Sorry if i sound like im coming back and trying to tell ppl what to do, but im just so excited by this, words really cant express it. best of luck to everyone. ~The bellman | Smile 07:34, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Submissions through Skype?

I've found a great way to set up an answering-machine like setup for Skype. I think if we organized the Audio page a little more, and included ways of how users can submit their own bulletins, our project can really get off the ground.

Anyways, back to the Skype machine... if anyone would like to test it out, send a short audio message to wikinewsmachine. I've nicknamed it AWAM (Audio Wikinews Answering Machine), and this will record all incoming Skype conversations. --Mrmiscellanious 04:08, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Comments

I just heared the latest edition. It's very complete, though probably a bit long. And what happened to the tunes? I believe I heared some tunes on a previous edition. To be frank, the current format seems to me a bit monotone. -- Redge (Talk) 17:12, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

I do agree about the broadcasts being a bit monotone, try and listen to a news broadcast from the Beeb and try to listen to the pauses and how the newsreaders gentley speak in a relaxing mood but being serious and the same time. 159753 15:12, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

I am interested in reading Wikinews articles for the Wikinews network and/or Audio Wikinews. How do I do this, where do I send it, and where do I get that backgroud music? --206.45.170.232 01:02, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Regarding your interest in WikiNews Network, we are currently testing out an easy-to-use system to submit a show and get broadcasting. We expect this system to be ready within the next couple of weeks. I greatly appreciate your interest in WikiNews Network, and hopefully you will still be interested in doing broadcasts when are system is ready. NGerda 02:13, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)

Transcripts?

I just listened to the latest release. Are there transcripts? What is the source that says "the US military has admitted that the koran had been mishandled"? I'm referring to: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/20050528-1800UTC.ogg

I read it off the Wikipedia Current Event section, which links to a BBC article that says the following: "The demonstrations came after the US military admitted some of its guards had mishandled the Muslim holy book." --Mrmiscellanious 21:45, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

This has been a very confusing issue in my mind. I'm not sure what to make of the BBC statement. If I look at the ACLU's official website, I can't find any such claim: http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=18320&c=206 seems to be current and relevant. All I can find are documents that mention detainees allegations.

I agree, that's the only bit I could find (BBC) that claimed the soldiers had to do anything. I was reading it straight off the page, and didn't catch myself until the episode was already published. This whole item is a mess, I'll stop reporting on it alltogether, it'll be much easier to stick to the facts that way. --Mrmiscellanious 00:39, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

I actually think this is a place wikinews could shine, by trying to objectively catlogue and sift through the various claims in MSM.

Metric system

Just a minor detail : since this is an international endeavour, shouldn't we provide metric numbers for all measures?

Good idea :>) NGerda 16:47, Jun 12, 2005 (UTC)

Oh my fucking god

This is brilliant. You guys have done so much while ive been away. My mind is reeling with the posibilites. WOW. Ok, so ive almost finished my exams and should be on holidays soon (back in a place where the internet connection is free and my ports open (so i can use IRC)) so hopefully ill get involved again.

Questions:

1. Does anyone know if most players that understand the vorbis codec would understand the speex codec? They are both ogg, but speex is designed specifically for speech so can be compressed a whole heap better than vorbis, and is also automagically gets rid of some of the background noise. Through the miracle of ogg packaging however, it is possible to include both speex and vorbis in the one file (if we ever needed something other than speech). Anyway, this isnt really important, just something to keep in the backs of our minds for now.

• Most, if not all, can properly decode Vorbis and Speex. I have had trouble in the past finding a decent Speex encoder, though - and it is even lesser popular than Vorbis (plus, I don't know if Commons supports Speex files [they're in the OGG container anyway, but I think there's a rule against Speex]). In any way, we can just recommend VLC to those who can't play back the files. --Mrmiscellanious 04:32, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

1. What about regional variations? i presume that at some point in the future we want multiple casts, from different regions and the like, how are we planning on handling this? Are we going to have one 'official' cast, and then multiple casts with different accents. What if two people want to be the voice of Australia (for example)? If this has already been discussed just point me to where.

Then they can sign up on the schedule.

1. What basic hardware/software does one need to set this up?

Icecast or Nicecast.

1. Who was the driving force behind this (i know DV was trying to get it up and running before he left)? Whoever it was i vigorously shake your hand.

Ryan proposed the initial idea for WikiNews Network, and we're working on a new broadcasting system. Think of it as wiki for radio.

Congratualtions everyone, now: to infinity and beyond.

~The bellman | Smile  07:19, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Oh and i forgot, hows about including the quote of the day in there too (if ppl think that it would fit in), just so wikiquote doesnt feel left out ~The bellman | Smile 07:21, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Lol NGerda 18:26, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)

Development, issues, and discussion

So you want to do a show, huh?

I now have a specification from at least one webcasting group who would like to have Audio Wikinews in their daily schedule. This specification will require hard work from people in this project to meet the demands:

• An hourly news update:
  • 5 minutes long
    • Short stories a minimum of 20 seconds
    • Long stories a maximum of 90 seconds
  • Updated at least daily
    • If possible, two different news updates, so they can be alternated (even hours have track A, odd hours have track B)

Another optional item is a full news show. This could be a half-hour or a full-hour show. If full-hour it would be in two 29 minute segments with no over-lap.

• A daily news show
  • 29 minutes
    • Short story minimum 90 seconds
    • Long story maximum 330 seconds
  • Weekly schedule
    • Can be two stories per week (weekend show) or 5 stories per week (weekday show)
  • Format may be multiple broadcaster or single announcer

For each of these we would want to use a single URL so the webcaster may automate the system. I think this can be done on commons; will test to make sure. - Amgine/^talk 01:09, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Issues

The current Audio Wikinews page top section excludes people who want to do work on this project. It needs to be changed to be inclusive, so the information about where the program is recorded must be removed.

The project scripts, where they are developed and where they are archived, needs to be prominently advertised so people can get involved in editing them. Can does not mean will, but it needs to be an option. In general, the entire set up is not very public; it needs to be more accessible, more sunlight and less shade. - Amgine/^talk 01:09, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I would like to start converting all of the Ogg Vorbis files to MP3 files, which are much more widely used. Any comments? --Munchkinguy 30 June 2005 00:14 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Commons does not accept mp3s if I recall correctly. It's one of the reasons we started with .Ogg - Amgine/^talk 30 June 2005 00:17 (UTC)

Discussion

I've been going back through some of the tracks which have been recorded, and we have a great start here! I'm looking for places which would be interested in carrying the feed, so we can get as many audio stations using the material as pl.wikinews has. One thing everyone is looking for is some standards of production (how long it is, etc.) so they can work their schedules around it. What do you folks think? are you interested in making material which will be webcast/broadcast on non-commercial and commercial stations? - Amgine/^talk 01:09, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Why don't the Wikinews Newsbriefs play on the Wikinews Network at the beginning every hour? --Munchkinguy 29 June 2005 23:24 (UTC)

Hello? --Munchkinguy 1 July 2005 18:00 (UTC)

Ideas

I think it would be a very good if the Wikinews Reports hade many different voices in the same broadcast. During the day, the articles are continuosly converted into audio files (by different volunteers). When it's time to put the report together, the "Putting-Report-Together-Guy" (PRTG) takes the stories of the day and mixes them together into one full news cast. The PRTG would only have to record the date and end titles, so it would be much faster than now, when the PRTG has to record all the stories himself (and its easier to listen to a report containing different voices, than listening to the same voice for fifteen minutes). I would be happy to contribute to this, but I just want to make sure that it's technically possible. I also need a recording program that can record Ogg Vorbis... Väsk 11:31, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I really like that idea -- and several individuals can PRTGs. Reports could be uploaded to commons and the Vorbis files posted to Wikinews:Audio Wikinews/Reports... The variation in voices, etc, would be great. Briefs and Full Reports might or might not include some of the same stories -- depending on whether it's still up-to-date news or if the story has been updated. As reports are edited into programs (by the PRTGs), they can make notes on the above Reports page so folks will know what's going on... Anyone object if I mock up the Reports page?

By the way, Audacity works great for encoding to Vorbis. --Chiacomo (talk) 18:33, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I found out about Audacity later, you should add something about how to record and recommended software on the WNN pages. I recorded one this morning: Google planning PayPal rival. Väsk 21:15, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

We need to find a way to notify one-another that we're working on a brief or full report. I just finished a brief and reloaded the Audio Wikinews page to find one was very recently submitted. Perhaps contributors could simply add the next line to the table and insert "In production" in the spot where the file link will later go. How does that sound? --Chiacomo (talk) 03:59, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Buenisimo! NGerda 04:03, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

It would be nice if there was a link to http://www.jcraft.com/jorbis/player/JOrbisPlayer.php?play=http://somewhere/test.ogg in the template so that people could just use a java based player if they want. I will add it in now, hopefully it will get used. --Jonbro 18:16, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Daily newscasts

As of next week, i'm going to be looking at doing a daily broadcast at various different times. If anyone has any complaints of this, please let me know.--Matt von Furrie 28 June 2005 09:40 (UTC)

What do you mean by a daily broadcast? Would love to know what the plan is. - Amgine/^talk 28 June 2005 20:58 (UTC)

Interlanguage cooperation concerning news briefs

On french wikinews, we try to set up a similar project to Wikinews:Audio Wikinews : Wikinews:Audio (it's just in testing right now, as we haven't got the approval of the community and as we need more articles...) anyway, we've thought about creating a common (interlanguage) news brief - as translation of one or two lines technically is easier than whole articles. These international news briefs would have to concern only globally important matters (mainly politics, conflicts, diplomacy). What do you think of this idea and the possible creation of a project on Meta (after having Spanish, German wikinews with us) ? Faager - «?» 28 June 2005 20:23 (UTC)

What language would it be in? NGerda June 28, 2005 20:24 (UTC)

In my opinion, it is a great idea. Are you thinking of international news briefs in english or in more than one language? --SonicR 28 June 2005 20:33 (UTC)

We had thought of multilingual news briefs (at least English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, Swedish and French which are the 7 "biggest" Wikinewses). It'd meet the international ambition of Wikinews giving the same - reworked and reviewed (through the multilingual revision process) information to everyone for global issues. Faager - «?» 29 June 2005 16:35 (UTC)

This is sort of started, in concept at least, here on en. See News briefs. The news briefs are templated into the top of each daily category as well. The New brief actually is made up of short articles attached to main articles in the form [[Article name/Brief]], which makes it easy to find and use it in many different ways. - Amgine/^talk 28 June 2005 21:02 (UTC)

This is exactly what we'd want to make accessible to any language - a cooperation to achieve greater quantity (and quality). Faager - «?» 29 June 2005 16:35 (UTC)

I can set this up for any site which wants something similar, or we could create briefs here for foreign language articles. How would you like this to work? - Amgine/^talk 30 June 2005 02:31 (UTC)

I'd prefer it to be a project hosted by Meta, so that en.wikinews doesn't become central or gains even more importance than that it already has. Faager - «?» 30 June 2005 16:37 (UTC)

Okay, I will begin building a system on meta if I can. It should be located at meta:Wikinews/Audio Wikinews briefs within a day or two. - Amgine/^talk 3 July 2005 01:42 (UTC)

Standardized Scripting for Briefs and Full Reports

There's been some discussion recently on talk pages as well as IRC about on trying to standardize script templates for Briefs and Full Reports. If Wikinews audio content is to be picked up by online (and potentially on-air) broadcasters, it will be important for them to know what to expect as concerns length of segments, etc... Our listeners will expect and should receive a "standardized" package -- perhaps introductions of segments should be essentially the same, the format and order of content should be somewhat the same, etc...

Additionally, as we are wiki, it is essential that our scripts be products of the community and open to editing and comment. Current practice (my own included) has been to prepare the transcript shortly before broadcast, record a brief, and upload. Ashamedly, I confess that I've even prepared briefs without a transcript at all -- only quoting relevant sections of published articles "on the fly".

Recently, some editors of at least News Brief transcripts have experimented with including a "brief" as a subpage of a published article. See Bodies found at crash site of US helicopter in Afghanistan/Brief for an example of a brief attached to an article. That brief was later transcluded into a "News Briefs" page for the appropriate date -- see News briefs:June 30, 2005 for an example. The purpose here is to allow editors to write briefs, perhaps, as they write or edit articles thereby relieving one individual of the responsibility of writing the entire transcript. Articles whose content is included in briefs could be copied into a dated and timed transcript for an Audio Wikinews News Brief. Additionally, I suppose, the transcluded briefs page might be used by some individuals to get a quick synopsis of current news (especially if the practice of including a /Brief page is adopted or at least accepted by the community).

You've read my novel, now some questions:

• Should we develop or attempt to standardize the opening of Audio Wikinews News Briefs and Full Reports. For example, "This is your Audio Wikinews News Brief for January 1, 2005 at 1930 UTC. I'm John Doe."
• Should we develop or attempt to standardize "extra" content for AW News Briefs or Full Reports? For example, facts from wikipedia, today in history, inclusions from current events on WP, etc. Coverage and inclusion of these items has been somewhat spotty and there doesn't appear to be an accepted practice.
• Should we develop or attempt to standardize the closing comments? The closing comments of both AW Briefs and Full Reports list a telephone number and a gmail address -- who is responsible for checking these methods of contacting wikinews? Should these be roles or something rather than an individual responsibility? We certainly should ALWAYS include the statement about Wikinews, the Wikimedia Foundation, and Public Domain.

I'm done typing. Let's see how this goes... --Chiacomo (talk) 2 July 2005 05:03 (UTC)

Any changes we make should be put into the Script Templates. Currently, there is nothing in either of the templates talking about "public domain", so we should probably figure out what to put there. The News Brief template, as it stands, says this about mentioning Wikipedia Current Events: "Keep as short as possible, and discuss items not encompassed above. Should only be used as a time-filler, unless important items are missing above." --Munchkinguy 2 July 2005 17:06 (UTC)

I'd really like to see some standardization on the content of these recordings - it really seems a free-for-all at the moment, and the current instructions are a little worrying - they amount to little more than "roll your own"!

I can't see what's needed more than people just reading out published articles, then saving them to files with the same name .ogg. People could record as many or as few as they feel like, and hopefully we'd get a mix of people recording (sounds better). Someone could then edit them together to make one complete recording (say for the last day), which could then be podcast and possibly streamed as a loop.

Does it need to be any more complex than that? Dan100 (Talk) 3 July 2005 00:34 (UTC)

I mostly agree Dan100 (sometimes the way something is written is not so easy to read aloud, so rewording to make it easier may occasionally be necessary.)

When it comes to News briefs, obviously we don't want to read entire articles - we want to squeeze a lot of stories into a short amount of time. For these it is fairly easy to pick and choose the stories from each day's News briefs which add up to enough time, again just reading the text from the /Brief which is editable by everyone. There should be "lead-in" (Stating it's a news brief, and the name of the recorder, date and time), and if there is enough time a "lead-out". The lead-out doesn't need to have a lot of information in my opinion.

Full reports, on the other hand, should be simple reading of a single article. There should be no lead-in or lead-out. These will be strung together by an "announcer", possibly with sound segués, into a sort of "show" at some point. But first we need to get people to start submitting the recorded stories.

That's my two cents, at least - keep it simple, don't spend limited seconds trying to promote Wikinews, use the text content built by the community and avoid trying to be the star of the show; the news is the star, we're just there in a supporting role. - Amgine/^talk 3 July 2005 01:39 (UTC)

OK, that sounds like Amgine, Chiacomo and I are pretty much in agreement. Anyone mind if I attack the wn:a page to reflect this? I think the current 'instructions' are causing more trouble than they're worth. Dan100 (Talk) 3 July 2005 10:12 (UTC)

Seems fine by me too. --Dcabrilo 3 July 2005 20:18 (UTC)

What do you mean by a "lead-out"? --Munchkinguy 5 July 2005 03:55 (UTC)

The bit at the end. Dan100 (Talk) 5 July 2005 11:38 (UTC)

Done the overhaul. I discarded rubbish like the 'contact details' (??) and the sound effects section. I changed the terminology a bit: Report=recordings of complete articles, Briefs=recordings of brief versions of articles. If poeple start recording stuff in a reliable and consistent manner, we can start thinking about combininng them to make 'Full reports' and podcasting them (which would be tres cool). Dan100 (Talk) 5 July 2005 13:02 (UTC)

Oh and, just in case anyone gets frisky with the Rollback button, you can see what I did here. Dan100 (Talk) 5 July 2005 13:08 (UTC)

I've just noticed that I've just done is exactly what was already suggested under Ideas above :-). So let's make it work! Dan100 (Talk) 5 July 2005 13:16 (UTC)

New format

This is too confusing, guys. Can you please clarify what the new regulations are? I've lost track of what the briefs and reports actually are under this new format - and I'm very confused about all this new stuff. Are compilations of articles still in play, or are we making a recording for every single article now? --Mrmiscellanious 5 July 2005 20:29 (UTC)

I concur. Very confusing. Maybe we should have two seperate sub-pages: one for the recording of each article, and one for the the Full Reports & News Briefs. --Munchkinguy 6 July 2005 02:44 (UTC)

And are we still doing Full Reports? I think they're important (I never did one, but I still think they're important). "Audio Wikinews: Full Report" doesn't seem to fit into either the "report" category (one entire article) or the "brief" category. It is important that we have a daily news program that covers all the important stories of the day. --Munchkinguy 6 July 2005 03:30 (UTC) PS: Can you count the times I said "Important"?

The new new format is much better. Fantastic! No more confusion! --Munchkinguy 01:02, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Streaming Wikinews

I've been thinking about this a bit and I figure that we could pull it off. If we could garner the support of a site like Live365 since we are non-profit and get a price reduction, wthen we could have instant access to the news without all the trouble of .ogg files. (I had a hell of a time trying to find a player that would play the files.)

One of the problems that I have currently noticed is that we have two programs, not counting the news briefs and full reports. That would start to get repetative quickly. Now both those shows, from what I gather about them as I have not had the chance to listen to them yet, cover most aspects of the general new itself. The other time slots need to be filled with other programs, but I don't really see the search for programs to be strong. Now we already have enough material to do a sports show, a entertainment show, and a politics show (they don't even have to be NPOV (as long as both "sides" would get fair representation) with two or more hosts). The point is that the audio Wikinews and Wikinews Network will stay in a rut until we do these things. Now once these things start to be accomplished the live streaming Wikinews begins to be a true reality.

Back to the Live 365 thing. If we didn't get a price reduction (which I highly doubt we would get anyway) the cost for live relay broadcasting, 200 simultaneous listeners, and 2000 MBs of storage equals $1,199.40 for a year. (yes I'm thinking of donations) For 300 simultaneous listeners its $1,348.90. That is very pricey though. Which is why I'm writing this. I want to know if there are other options for online broadcasting at a lower rate.

I would really like to see this happen so let's figure out a way to do it. -Martinman11 8 July 2005 20:55 (UTC)

It would be nice, but if you look at the scheduale for the streaming Wikinews Network, you can see that there is very little schedualed. --Munchkinguy 9 July 2005 02:22 (UTC)

My point exactly. We need to start producing more programs. -Martinman11 20:54, 9 July 2005 (UTC)

Icecast [1] can be used to stream OGG/Vorbis both live/rolling and 'on-demand'. This would require a dedicated server which would cost in the region of at least EUR350 a year for a 10Mbps port. --Pvtparts 09:55, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Podcast is coming

Folks, I thought I'd update you on this ASAP. I've found a way to get our project to have it's own podcast (one for Full Reports, one for News Briefs), and I'll be working on that mostly this week. Expect for a RSS feed to be up shortly. --Mrmiscellanious 20:16, 9 July 2005 (UTC)

This project is still officially "proposed"

Just a note, though this project is progressing rapidily, it is still only a proposal which has not been officially endorsed by the Foundation or by consesnus of the Wikinews community. -- Davodd | Talk 23:50, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

• At the same time, it never has been officially opposed. [2] --Mrmiscellanious 00:23, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

That was added as a mistake. I removed it and apologise for any misunderstanding it caused. -- Davodd | Talk 03:49, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

I would love there to be a podcast, but I have reservations calling a feed that links to ogg files a podcast. - Cohesion 05:36, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Time for a cleanup

This project page is getting a little too disorganized. I think we should have a selection of all the denominations of Audio Wikinews (/News Briefs, /Full Reports, /Spoken Wikinews), and a selection page when users type in "Wikinews: Audio Wikinews". Something like this. --Mrmiscellanious 20:41, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. -- NGerda 20:47, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

"imaginary projects"

NGerda just reverted Dan100's removal of what he labeled as "imaginary projects". As these projects indeed are imaginary, suggest reverting it back to Dan100's last edit. If somebody cares to create proposals for those projects, etc, then we can possibly link to them. --Dejan Čabrilo 02:55, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

The projects have proposals, whi are linked to by the curret Audio Wikinews page. The reason I reverted Dan's edit was because he did not discuss or get approval for the major change he made to both the look layout, and links of the Audo Wikinews main page. -- NGerda 04:07, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

Essentialy, they are not Wikinews' projects. The right place to put a proposal for them is on a Water cooler, so I'll revert back to Dan100's edit. --Dejan Čabrilo 04:14, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Dan100's edits should have been discussed. Te current layout was suported above. -- NGerda 04:19, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

First, I liked the coloured boxes that were there before and that Dan100 calls "ugly". Second, Wikinews World Report is not an imaginary project; there has been one edition of it so far. Therfore, we can have four nice coloured boxes on the project page. --Munchkinguy 04:33, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Thank you Munchkinguy! -- NGerda 04:34, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

Of course, it's a matter of taste (I personally don't think there is need for boxes, and like it more in-line). A propo WWR, NGerda recorded it as a "demo", and there is obviosly not enough support for such a show. --Dejan Čabrilo 04:36, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Dcabrilo, there was an actual show besides the demo. It is linked to on the subproject page that you removed the link to. Wikinews World Report was supported by 4 Wikinewsies and opposed by 3 Wikinewsies. -- NGerda 04:39, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

In a very informal vote and a very liberal interpretation of comments. Besides, we are not a democracy here. --Dejan Čabrilo 04:40, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

I would consider a majority vote enough support to lik to a project, though. -- NGerda 04:42, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

Audio Wikinews is no longer a proposal, it's a community-endorsed project. I removed the links to what are at best ideas, and at worst, rejected proposals.

I was going to keep the boxes but, having been left with only three parts, it didn't look good (plus they were difficult to edit). Furthermore, the descriptions in the boxes were wrong, but there wasn't enough space in them to a decent amount of text to properly describe each subsection.

I'd really like people to embrace Audio Wikinews and support it as it is, rather than use it as a battleground to push pet projects which are generally opposed by the community. Dan100 (Talk) 15:42, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

But what about the coloured squares? I found them to give the page a much friendlier interface. Also, I think we need a link to the releases.

• Dan, the colored boxes were there to make it easier and look nicer than just putting text links. The short descriptions went inside the boxes, then a larger description on their own Wikinews:Audio Wikinews/ page, along with their releases. I have put off on creating the new release pages until FutureTalk2 is complete, and further opinions on the nature of the project and its relation to Wikinews are expressed. The boxes aren't too hard to edit :-). --Mrmiscellanious 19:52, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry. The commoent that says "what about the coloured squares?" was mine. I forgot to log in, and I forgot to sign it. How embarassing. Sorry if this caused anyone to put a Welcome message on my talk page. --Munchkinguy 20:13, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

I changed the project page to sort-of-the-way-it-was-before. Any comments? --Munchkinguy 20:27, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

I support -- NGerda 21:13, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

Defining "News Briefs" and "Full Reports"

Since there has never been a definition of either, although Amgine, NGerda and I have been discussing it ever since the beginning of the two. We need to vote on how long and how often the two formats should be.

• My Proposals:

• News Briefs should be no longer than 2 minutes, and should be recorded at least daily.
• Full Reports should be no shorter than 4 minutes, and should be recorded at least weekly.

--Mrmiscellanious 03:43, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Audio rendering of HTML

I hope this is a constructive suggestion.

I always thought HTML, that conforms to WWW consortium standards, was able to be automatically rendered by an "audio browser", such as a blind person might use. As such, wouldn't it be better to make sure the HTML generated by wikipedia is suitable for audio rendering rather than manually converting articles to audio?

The WWW Consortium has a page about alternative rendering methods, including audio.

'Audio rendering' would also mean that the audio is always in sync with the written text.

I agree though that there are valid reasons for doing the job manually:

• Community involvement
• A friendly human voice
• The audio might flow better if it is not a verbatim copy of the written text.

It would be neat if each page could have a 'read it to me' icon on it. The audio rendering might be done by a java program, downloaded as part of the wikipedia content, so the user doesn't have to specifically have their browser set up for audio. Apart from the java download the additional bandwidth and computing power requirments on the wikimedia servers would be zero.

Failing that the wikimedia servers might do the rendering and provide an ogg file. Providing an ogg would be costly though in terms of bandwidth and computing power.

I haven't actually listened to it, but FreeTTS is a free (BSD license) voice synthesiser written in java.

John Dalton 23:41, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Itunes

Has there been any effort to get this RSS listed on Itunes? Or Odeo? Would be a great ideo IMO. Jacoplane 05:42, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

You can't be listed on itunes because the format is only ogg, which isn't supported by ipods, or really any other major mobile audio hardware. --anon

Is there absolutely no way in the world we can also release it as an MP3? -- User:Zanimum