Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia

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Wikipedia:Why is BFDI not on Wikipedia?

IP requested Spoken Wikipedia for that page. 176.223.186.133 (talk) 18:49, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

And it's still not being recorded. 67.209.129.27 (talk) 18:31, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Patience is a virtue, you're always free to create a recording yourself! 7kk (talk) 00:26, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

(Not for IPs, however.) 67.209.130.30 (talk) 08:57, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

Yes, however you can always create an account. If you do wish to make a recording yourself that is. 7kk (talk) 17:53, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

How to deal with large and complicated tables

A thought of mine on how to deal with large and complicated tables such as Ed Bradley#Awards and recognition. In such cases, the spoken editor faces a challenge. Doing a complete detailed read out is laborious and at the same time very difficult for a listener to parse and usually not useful.

Different approaches could be used while dealing with tables:

• Option 1 - Summarise very broadly.
• Option 2 - Summarise very broadly. AND Give the name of the audio file where the details are completely .
• Option 3 - Group common items and summarise. AND Give the name of the audio file where the details are completely .
• Option 4 - Choose most important items to expound in full. AND Give the name of the audio file where the details are completely .
• Option 5 - Give the details completely.

One could choose any approach. However, the listener should be clear from your script that what you are saying regarding the table is your summary work and not the original text of the article.

This thought of mine arose from a question to me from M4V3R1CK32. I invite thoughts and views from others on this issue.

Ashwin Baindur (User:AshLin) (talk) 06:10, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

Pronounciation of names, what to include

Hello, I am considering contributing to this project, and was wondering about some things:

When there is a name (whether of a person or of something else), is there a more conveinent way of finding the pronounciation than searching for random videos with the person in it? Unlike dictionary words, names are not something that always takes a couple of seconds to look up. Additionally, what about the scenario when there is no video of anyone saying the person's / subject's name?

Also, what info should be included in the recording? I assume it would be the title of the article, the date of the article version that the recording is based on, and all sections aside from References, including infoboxes, graphs, etc? And is there otherwise any information that is too menial to include? Also, I notice there's recordings of people saying the url of the article considering the title is read, and the url is going to be on the English Wiki if it's in English. Is the url being read necessary? It seems a bit redundant, but maybe I am missing something.

It seems info on what parts should be recorded is not in the "Creating Recordings" page of this project. Shouldn't this info be included in there? TheGEICOgecko (talk) 08:26, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

@TheGEICOgecko: Here are my thoughts on the process.

• is there a more conveinent way of finding the pronounciation than searching for random videos with the person in it?

Unfortunately, not really. Part of the duty we take on when making recordings is finding the right pronunciation of words. It's one of the things that sets a Spoken article apart from a screen reader. Pronunciation might be included in an article introduction. When such videos don't exist -- and there are no videos anywhere of anyone saying the name in question with a pronunciation, something I have not yet come across -- I break the name down into its constituent parts, e.g. look for just the last name. If there still is no pronunciation -- and I have never seen this -- then I would punch the name into Google Translate and use that pronunciation. You can just enter the word and get a machine pronunciation back. That pronunciation may change depending on source language, so if you know the origin language of the name, Translate can get a little more accurate.

• what info should be included in the recording? I assume it would be the title of the article, the date of the article version that the recording is based on, and all sections aside from References, including infoboxes, graphs, etc?
• And is there otherwise any information that is too menial to include?
• It seems info on what parts should be recorded is not in the "Creating Recordings" page of this project. Shouldn't this info be included in there?

I'll say this gently, but you may want to revisit the recording guidelines. It is a little harder to find in the navbox, but the reading guidelines have the info you are looking for.

Broadly, those guidelines currently state:

• Begin with a standard opening: Article name, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, at E N dot wikipedia dot org. Saying the specific article URL is not required.
• Date of the article version is not required in the recording, that will be included in the info you add to the file when uploading it to Commons
• Infoboxes are up to you. There are guidelines if you want to record them at that link I left earlier. I do not record infoboxes, the information in the infobox should be in the article body if the article is properly following the MOS and infobox template documentation. Images/charts/etc. should be noted in the recording, and their captions included in the recording. Don't describe images/charts/graphs/files unless a few caveats are met. Check the reading guidelines for more.
• Be sure to include the Table of Contents. Do not include the sections not being recorded in the reading of the TOC.
• As far as information being too "menial", I don't think there has been any real discussion of that and I think the editors who add that "menial" information to articles might take issue with that phrasing, especially given that most articles that we record are featured articles. See also, References, Bibliography, and External links sections are not included in recordings, typically. Where it gets more complicated is with tables of things like awards, filmographies, or subspecies. That information isn't typically considered "menial", but there is some variation in how it gets recorded. The previous discussion post on this Talk page goes into some detail on how that might be handled. For me, I record basically everything between the introduction and See also/Notes.
• End all recordings with a standard closing: This sound file and all text in the article are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, available at creative commons dot org slash licenses slash by hyphen S A slash four point zero

I hope that's helpful! M4V3R1CK32 (talk) 20:27, 9 April 2025 (UTC)