Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia/Reading guidelines/Archive 1

Heading section

Hey, I've noticed this page is currently under construction, and just wanted to give my input. You need to change the Headings section, as the generally accepted method for reading out headings is to say "Section 1: History" for example, rather than just saying the heading itself - this helps reduce confusion on the part of the listener. I'd change it myself, but I'm not great at wording guidelines! Cheers, H4cksaw (talk) 10:25, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, and done! Rfwoolf 10:42, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Tables

Hi there! Thanks so much for the guidelines! Just a suggestion, but some guidelines on how to handle tables would be great. Thanks! -Sarfa 19:50, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I too would appreciate knowing how to handle tables! At the moment I plan on just stating that there is a table with facts or figures on subject x. JoshuaJohnLee ^{talk softly, please} 00:23, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

MP3 or WAV ---> Ogg Vorbis

I think it would be exceptionally helpful to note any ways in which some of us can convert files into Ogg Vorbis, considering that we don't necessarily know how to. I was going to try recording for the project, but I can really only record to WAV or MP3 format for vocals as far as I know. : \ (I'm running Win XP, coincidentally) Runa27 21:04, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I use Audacity, which is free. It can record directly to Ogg Vorbis or import files in other audio formats and convert them to Ogg Vorbis. There's a bit more about using Audacity for Spoken Wikipedia on the Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spoken_Wikipedia/Recording_guidelines page. I'm new to this project, so I'm not sure if this information should also be added to this Reading Guidelines page or not. —Ka-Ping Yee (talk) 07:06, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Something that is good to remember is that you should try to not convert from a compressed format to another compressed format. For example, from MP3 to OGG. If your audio recording program doesn't support OGG, save your recording in wav-format (uncompressed), then load it into an audio editing program where you convert it to OGG. If this in no way is possible, make sure to let the compressed file be of the highest quality possible before converting it to OGG. Ran4 (talk) 05:38, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Disambiguation links

When an article starts with disambiguation links, should those be read? For now, I'm assuming the answer is "no" (based on the idea that these are similar to category links). But please confirm or correct me if I'm wrong. Thanks. —Ka-Ping Yee (talk) 07:01, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd say it's a bad idea - but perhaps there are some good reasons for some cases that I can't consider at the moment. I would say that the article identifies itself in its introduction paragraph - so for example for the Titanic article, you would not have to read a disambig note saying "This is the article about the ship, not the movie" because the opening line would be something like "The Titanic was a ship". On the other hand there may be articles where there is room for confusion about a title for instance if the article was about one George W. Bush there may be a disambig note saying "not to be confused with George W. Bush Senior" - you know what I'm saying?

So I think the baseline rule is not to read, but if it will avoid confusion then perhaps read it? Rfwoolf (talk) 21:02, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Footnotes?

The guideline mentions references but not footnotes. I'm dubious about reading them as I fear that they would break the flow of the article but it might be good if we agreed on a standard for them. Dfmclean (talk) 23:25, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

GFDL compliance

Doesn't the recorder have to mention the GFDL at some point? howcheng {chat} 23:24, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Standard Opening

Has anyone created a standard opening like:

This is the English Wikipedia article for "{PAGENAME}" read on December 12, 2008.

-- IrishDragon 16:49, 14 December 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by IrishDragon (talk • contribs)

New Issues

Hi,

Bird, a complicated feature article is raising some new issues for spoken article reading. I enumerate them in subsections below.

Phyllogeny trees

Phyllogeny trees or cladograms present important information regarding an organisms evolution, development and radiation and its relation to other living and extinct species. These are an important feature of WP:TOL articles. I have initiated a discussion here.

Main & See Also

One comes across 'main' templates in most of the sections of most articles which are important topics. One could say, for example:

The material for this section has been taken from the wikipedia article 'Bird evolution'.

The point is, does it make a difference to the listener whether the material of this section comes from another article or not. Anyway invariably that article would not have a spoken version. (This may change later, if we are all fortunate).

A similar case could be made for 'see also' (the one just under a section heading. Like the 'see also' at the end of the article which suggests related topics. In both these cases, IMHO, we do not add value 'unless a spoken version' exists for any of these.

In this case, I propose that all the 'main' and 'see also' articles whose spoken versions exist be mentioned at the end with the following text, or something like it':

The following spoken articles contain additional information on this topic:

firstly - classification of birds, secondly - bird migration and lastly - bird song.

Many WikiProject Links

Please see Bird#External_links. Here we have nine WikiProjects with additional information for readers.

We have been mentioning the Wikimedia Commons links as follows:

Additionally, there is a link to Wikimedia Commons which has media related to 'Ladakh'.

We could:

• Option A. Give up mention of these wikimedia projects altogether. (Its nice to know stuff is there but no immediate benefit to the listener).
• Option B. Mention each one of them in a long sentance. (So what if they are listening let them know about other available resources).
• Option C. Mention in a generic way without specifying the exact WikiProjects (like we do references).

I recommend Option 'A'.AshLin (talk)

Footnotes

The guideline already tells us how to tackle references, but what about footnotes. Sometimes they contain information relevant to the article, sometimes they are only sources. We have three choices:

• Option A - Incorporate relevant footnotes only, as per discretion in the text of the article for purposes of spoken script.(ie spoken text contains footnote material, married into script, article remains untouched).
• Option B - Avoid footnotes altogether regardless. If they contain important material, remove that from footnotes and incorporate in the article main text itself. (physically promote footnotes selectively to main text. They accordingly appear in the spoken text script.)
• Option C - Avoid mentioning footnotes altogether.

I recommend 'Option C'. AshLin (talk) 07:12, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

External links & further reading/additional references

I recommend that these be avoided altogether for purposes of the spoken text. AshLin (talk) 07:12, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

---

Opinions please. AshLin (talk) 17:25, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Waiting before starting to speak

I've noticed some files have like 2 seconds missing from the beginning, at least when playing in Windows Media Player (I think it was Multiple sclerosis treatment or AIDS, perhaps both). Therefore, I suggest that one should wait 2 seconds before starting to speak. Not a big issue, but still... Mikael Häggström (talk) 16:27, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Foreign words in article?

I was wondering whether to pronounce foreign names in its own language (for example, Madrid) or as I would say it to friends here in California. Personally, I would prefer saying names like that in Spanish, but some readers might not be able to catch the name. Rabiddog51sb (talk) 00:03, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

Tables?

As someone who wants to become involved in this project, I want to know what the general way of reading a table out loud is. (Maybe column headings and then row-by-row?) I have searched for articles that contain tables at Wikipedia:Spoken articles (to listen to as examples), but have not found any satisfactory ones. Thanks. —TeragR ^disc./con. 06:25, 19 September 2018 (UTC)