User talk:Patrickjoel

Hi Patrick,

I'm glad to see that you've looked into a lot of introductory information, and have started editing more! Nice work with your userpage also. Is there anything in particular that you find confusing about How to edit a page? Perhaps if you let me know what is causing you problems I will be able to give you a simpler answer.

I've just posted this at the New Contributors' Help Page where you asked the question, but questions regarding Spoken Wikipedia would be best to ask at the Spoken Wikipedia talk page. All pages have a talk page, accessable from the "discussion" tab at the top of the page. These are usually the best places to ask questions about the page/article/whatever the page is about.

I hope that was somewhat more helpful! Let me know if I can clarify any more. -- Nataly a 23:52, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Spoken Wikipedia!
"Dear Ckamaeleon, did you suggest suitable articles for new voice recorders? I found a list which included some interesting subjects, and i've recorded my first rendering of the vanilla sex article. So it's sitting on my computer now - but I don't know what to do with it next! Can you direct me to some help with loading this file? Ogg, Canonicalization and uploading are a mystery to me, but I think that the file is a good edit. Thanks very much Ckamaeleon, Patrickjoel --Patrick 09:47, 24 April 2006 (UTC)"

Hey there, Patrick!

Indeed I did. First off, thanks for your interest and your work so far! I was beginning to think the "first article suggestions" page was going to waste. (By the way, there's nothing especially important about any of the articles on there--they just looked like they might be kind of fun/interesting to do without being too complicated or long).

So you've got this recording and it sounds pretty good, but you don't know what to do with it? Sort of "all dressed up with no place to go" as it were?

Here are the answers to some of your questions. If it looks complicated, don't let that put yuou off. I'm just very wordy when I explain things. Once you get the hang of it, it's easy to do.

I'm going to assume that the recording doesn't require any more processing (normalization, compression, or sound removal) or anything--that it's ready to go onto Wikipedia.


 * Ok, this is great, thanks very much for getting back to me!


 * Yeah, I just saw your post on the Project talk page. Sorry to make you answer twice

First things first:

Questions for you
Here are some questions for you. They'll help us get on the same page. it's probably easiest to just put your reply under each one.

It's very likely .WAV (which is good. You should always save any articles that you haven't finished as WAV b/c compressing a file (which is what other formats do) will degrade its quality some each time you re-save it. It's like when you make a photocopy of something else that's already been photocopied.
 * Do you know what format your recording is saved in now?


 * It is WAV. I seem to be able to save audio as various different file types, about five of which are WAV, there's a windows one and a Microsoft one and something called DVI/IMA ADPCM WAV. Don't know the difference, so have picked Windows PCM wav each time.

''If it was Audacity, I can provide lots of help (since that's what I use), otherwise, I'll do the best I can. :o)''
 * What software are you using to record your articles?


 * Unfortunately not - I've only got Adobe Audition.

''Probably, since you found the suggestions page. But I wanted to make sure. If you have and you're still confused, it means that we need to rewrite the guidelines to make them easier to follow''
 * Have you read the recording guidelines/step-by-step guide to producing Spoken Wikipedia Articles?


 * Yes - this is where I got confused... I've got more enthusiasm than knowledge you see, a real pain in the behind. Anyway, I was fine up until description of OGG files, there was no description of how to make my WAV files into OGG ones, and I can't see any reference to OGG in my save as, file type box on Audition. Then I also fell over on the page about canonicalization. I did try to understand that, but the fourth word on the page is 'algorithm', so there's a vain hope that I'm going to get much joy out of that. If I had a stepped example of the canonicalization process that I could repeat without understanding what I was doing, maybe I could get started, and then the penny will drop at some later stage. This all feels a bit like having to know how to build a whole car before learning to drive at the moment. Really appreciate your help, thanks, Patrick

--Patrick 14:07, 24 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I've just seen your step by step guide below, and that's exactly what I need, so will read before I come back again... Patrick

--Patrick 14:11, 24 April 2006 (UTC)


 * OK brilliant - I've read about canonicalization and will be able to do this. Maybe it's just as simple as 'how do I create an .ogg file?' Will my .wav file become one automatically if I change its ending to .ogg? Thanks again, Patrick

--Patrick 14:15, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

What is Ogg?
Ogg is a free (meaning nobody has to pay to use it, AND it's freely downloadable and distributable) file format that will compress your audio so that it takes up less space.

You MUST change your recording to the Ogg file format. This is b/c Wikipedia won't accept sound files in non-free formats, like MP3. (I didn't make the rule, and if you wish to find out more about it, there are several discussions already on the Project Talk page.

Canonical format
This just means "the accepted way that people name Wikipedia articles." TIP: The easiest way to figure out how to do this is just to look at the last part of the web address in your browser window.

English Wikipedia follows a simple web address format. The address always starts out with "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/" and then the name of the article. As a rule, the first letter of the title is ALWAYS capitalized, but none of the other letters in the title are, unless they're supposed to be capitalized in normal usage.

So the title for the article on iPods is actually "IPod"

The other "big rule" besides the capitalization one is that spaces_get_replaced_by_underscores if there's more than one word.

Watch out: Wikipedia will very often redirect you to a the correct page if you type in (or click on the link to) a similar but inappropriate title. An example would be "Dippin_dots". (click on the link if you want follow along this example.)

The name SHOULD have both words capitalized, AND an apostrophe goes after the word "Dippin".

A helpful Wikipedian foresaw this and made the page automatically redirect you to the correct one.

BUT (here's the tricky part), your browser still reads "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dippin_dots" in the address bar--even though you've been redirected!

Solution: Before you look at your browser's address bar, you should make sure the page hasn't redirected. If it has, you will know because it will say so in tiny letters under the title. Like this:


 * Dippin' Dots
 * From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 * (Redirected from Dippin dots)

That probably looked very complicated, right?

Let's walk through it with your article on vanilla sex.


 * 1) Go to the article that you're been reading from (or just click on the link above)
 * 2) Look at the article title. No surprises here. It says:


 * Vanilla sex
 * From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanilla_sex
 * 1) Since it doesn't say anything about a redirect, we can assume that the name in the web address on your browser is formatted correctly.
 * 2) So we look up at the browser address/location bar and see this:
 * 1) We already know that the title comes AFTER the word "wiki/"
 * 2) So the canonical title for this article must be "Vanilla_sex"

And indeed it is: The "V" gets capitalized since it's the first letter, and the space is changed to an underscore.

This was actually a fairly simple article name:
 * the term vanilla sex isn't really an Americanism/Britishism/whatever (see Sandpit and Sandbox for an example of this)
 * nobody is debating whether the word "sex" should be capitalized or whether the phrase is a proper noun or anything.

So where is all of this going? The file name that you give your recording should be

Vanilla_sex.ogg

That was a roundabout way to get to something that simple, but it's good for you to know if you end up doing something like Columbine High School massacre. Naming the recording "Columbine_high_school_massacre.ogg" (with lowercase "h" and "s") would be inaccurate b/c it doesn't match the article's title.

If you crave technical information and love reading through complicated but thorough rules, you can find the full guidelines for naming articles, they're here. But really, you shouldn't have to worry too much about that. The people who wrote the article took care of that for you! You just need to make sure the recording matches up with the article name.

P.S. -- '''What happens if someone re-records the article? Wouldn't I need to add a date to tyhe file name?''' You don't need to put a date in your filename when you save it, b/c Wikipedia keeps track of old and new versions. So if someone (or even yourself) uploaded a re-recording of Vanilla_sex, you shouldn't lose your original recording. It will just be marked as an "old version" automatically.

The Uploading Process
The Uploading process is not hard either. But it has gotten unwieldy. I'm talking to other Wikipedians about finding waysto simplify it. For now, I'm goingto see what you have to say about what I've written so far. Once you're ready, we'll move on.

Ckamaeleon ((T)) 13:52, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Ogg conversion
Sad to say, but changing the extension won't help. (I know this works for some file types...)

Since you don't see a "save as" option in Adobe Audition (and maybe I can be some help since I used to use CoolEdit before it became AA), then do you see an "export" option in the "file menu? Ckamaeleon ((T)) 14:24, 24 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Well no, I've looked for that on your suggestion here, and found nothing. But it did prompt me to find this text under Audtion's help-site, after searching for the phrase 'export':


 * Note: If you want to save files in a format that's not listed here, you may be able to do so by using an ACM Waveform codec. For more information, see ACM Waveform (.wav).


 * The next page followed with: Microsoft ACM (Audio Compression Manager) is part of all 32-bit versions of Windows. Adobe Audition supports the ACM driver, which enables you to open and save files in a variety of formats other than those directly supported by Adobe Audition. Some of these formats come as a standard part of Windows, while others are provided by third-parties. You may acquire ACM formats when you install other software. To save a file in an alternate format by using the ACM driver, choose File > Save As, choose ACM Waveform as the file format, and click Options. You can select from among various quality levels, and each level will give you different options for formats and attributes. Note: The ACM driver you want to use might require that the file be in a specific format before saving it. For example, if you want to save a file in the DSP Group TrueSpeech format, you should first use the Edit > Convert Sample Type command to convert the file to 8 KHz, mono, 16-bit, because that is the only format that the TrueSpeech ACM driver supports. For more information on any particular ACM driver, contact the creator of the format (such as DSP Group for TrueSpeech, or CCITT for the various CCITT formats) or the manufacturer of the hardware that uses the format in question.


 * On attempting this instruction, I found that .ogg still wasn't listed as a possible option from ACM Waveform.

--Patrick 14:35, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Hmm.. I wonder if it would help if you downloaded the codec for Ogg. (codec = "compression/decompression" if you don't know. It basically lets your computer encode and decode files of a particular audio/video type. If you play MP3s on your computer, you're already using an MP3 codec to listen to them.)

You can find the Ogg Speex codec here (I'm assuming you're using Windows. If so, choose "windows binaries")

Let me know if you're a Mac user, and I'll see what I can find. I'm 99.99% certain you can find a codec for Mac, too. You might try asking a Project member who uses a Mac. I think User:mrdallaway does. but he uses Audacity.

As far as WAV goes, yeah.. there are a couple of choices I think I use PCM, but I wouldn't swear by it. Quite frankly, I don't understandthe difference between them very well myself. I think some are compressed (more compressed than?) and others aren't. If you have lots of hard drive space, definately consider using whichever one has the least compression (OR use a format that offers lossless compression. FLAC is one, but I'm sure there are others.) Another good choice would be saving it in whatever proprietary format AA uses. That probably will preserve your working files quite well. FYI-- audacity is free to download and use. The main benefit is that is IS free AND it also happens to have a flavor for Linux, Mac, and Windows...so once you get comfy with it, you can use it on almost any computer. But if you like using AA, I don't see a really good reason to switch. (oh.. well.. it exports to ogg out of the box.. but still, there's got to be a way to do it from AA. I know b/c we have project members who use it. Ckamaeleon ((T)) 14:56, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

An Idea
I ran across some links to conversion utilities on the Ogg website. So if you can't find a plugin for AA, you may have to save your files as WAV and then use a 3rd party utility (like a drag n drop style utility) to convert them. Ckamaeleon ((T)) 15:08, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

How are you doing?/Morale Boost
I've put out some feelers to see if I can't find someone to help you with AA. Right now, I want to tell you not to get too freaked out or discouraged. I remember thinking "this is just too damned complicated!" when I was getting started here. Think of this as an investment: once you're set up, things will go much more smoothly.

Ckamaeleon ((T)) 15:28, 24 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi there - no I've been finding some freeware which can convert WAV to OGG, and, it's worked! The quality is now rubbish, so I'm going to re-record the article which should only take a few minutes, and then try and get the best ogg file I can before proceeding - thanks very much for bearing with me! When I finally do get this sound-article up, I'd really appreciate it if you could have a listen and let me know what improvements you think there should be. Hope that'll be ok?

--Patrick 15:56, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I should hope that the converter didn't mess up the quality. I also hope you can specify the compression level for the conversions. Ogg Vorbis and Speex are lossy formats, which means that you can choose different levels of compression. Of course you want to compress it as much as possible so that people with slow connections can download it more easily. But you also don't want it to distort or sound bad.

FYI-- I don't know if it was clear to you that OGG has a couple of different flavors. Wikipedia general guidelines say to use Vorbis, but Speex is specifically designed to do a better job compressing human speech, so there was talk about using that. Personally, I think I shall try to download a codec for Speex and see if it isn't better on my own recordings. That said, I've been using Vorbis w/ no problem.

And sure, I'll be happy to give it a listen. Let me know if you are having uploading trouble. The guide is pretty easy to follow. Just copy the template with all of the speker info (like your user name and the date and your accent, etc.)

For the license box, you don't need to choose anything b/c you've already included the gfdl license in the template.

After it's uploaded, you'll need to add it to the article page and remove any requests for the article and put it on the Spoken Wikipedia Articles page. Again, I think the instructions are in the guide. And it's pretty easy to do: mostly just cutting and pasting. But yes, tedious. Ckamaeleon ((T)) 16:10, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Possibly Helpful:
Does anybody use Adobe Audition? Patrick is looking for help getting the program to export to OGG. I looked at the list of sample specs and it seems that everyone is using Audacity, which already is set up to encode Ogg files. But the recording guide specifically mentions Adobe Audition as an example of a recording program, so somebody has to know about it. Ckamaeleon ((T)) 15:15, 24 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I use it. All you have to do is download a filter for OGG files and put it in the plugin folder, and it should allow you to save it as an .ogg extension. Google "Adobe Audition" and "OGG"; it should come up. Anthony Hit me up... 19:02, 24 April 2006 (UTC) (from the Project Talk Page Ckamaeleon ((T)) 20:37, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Vanilla Sex.ogg comments
Don't take any of this critique too seriously. These are just one user's opinions. Listening to the recorded articles will give you an idea of the range of styles that Spoken Wikipedians have. Plus, in my opinion, it's better to have more people working on recordings than to drive people people away by over-criticising.

1. Because English is a global language, "plain English" is probably not the best description for anyone's accent. Perhaps you could be a little more specific? For instance, I noticed on your User page that you live in NE England. For someone from the middle of the U.S., your accent would sound exotic and interesting, not "plain"--even if it's nothing special to you. :o)


 * I understand - thank you for taking the time to do this though - I chose "plain English" because the associations with "Received Pronunciation" are a little bit queasy-making, (posh, privileged etc.), and although that's what my accent is, I really want to avoid it! I thought of BBC English, but that's a bit grand too I think. What do you call a voice that doesn't belong to any region? I take your point though, so I'm going to change the reference to "Received Pronunciation" for now. Believe me - if this was read by one of my neighbours you'd be able to tell!


 * I understand the whole RP baggage thing. Plus, (lol) most Americans have no idea what it means..but that's our problem. I think if you wrote something like "British English" that would be okay. You could include a region if you like ("Midlands" or something like that. It would of course mean more to people from the UK), but as you said, you don't think it's particularly distinctive. I've seen both RP and (I think) BBC English listed. I personally don't have a problem with the latter.   Ckamaeleon ((T)) 21:43, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

P.S.-- I'm in a similar situation, bc/ I'm from Texas and I currently live in Arkansas, but my accent really isn't typical of either. For the record, I usually put "General American (Texas)" as my accent because I think most Northerners would identify my accent as Southern--even though most people here wouldn't. Ckamaeleon ((T)) 22:00, 24 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Two more things - 1. is this the best place to reply to you? You might be having to check my page regularly to see replies, and 2. I've just listened to MrDalloway's reading of the Palladio article, and it's so very good. What do you think are the main big steps for me to get my audio submissions up to that quality?

--Patrick 21:12, 24 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Since we were exchanging a lot of info on this page, I just watchlisted it. If you want to get my attention, the best way is to click the "t" next to my signature. That will put you on my Talk page, which pops up a little banner next time I log in. But I generally reply to things on your talk page so that the conversation isn't broken across two pages.


 * I'm quite fond of Mrdallaway's recordings. I know he spends a lot of time on them. Let me give Palladio another listen and get back to you. Ckamaeleon ((T)) 21:44, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

2. Excellent intonation! It's read very well, though it sounds like you ran out of breath at "within" in the sentence "'Generally speaking, there is a much broader variance of sexual behavior within individual cultures than between them, and no such stereotype holds up under scrutiny.'" consider slowing down ever so slightly. maybe by 5-10%, but not dramatically.

3. Technical notes: there's a slight echo (possibly from your voice bouncing off a wall in the room?) It's not serious. There seems to be some sort of tapping/low popping sound near the end of the article. I noticed it starting in the last 2 paragraphs, after "...inhabitants of Naples." I'm not sure what's causing it. Might be compression artifacts...might be environment noise,

4. Good. You read out the web addresses and did the "consult also" thing.

5. Some people (myself included) list the categories at the bottom of hte article. But I don't think there's consensus on whether everyone should. Ckamaeleon ((T)) 21:30, 24 April 2006 (UTC)


 * OK that's smashing - I can do something about 3, by buying a decent microphone, and maybe scrapping compression as an experiment next time. I'll have a see about that, and I can add categories at the bottom too. I reckon my voice will relax as I go along too. This is just the feedback I needed, but you've been really supportive all day, so thank you. I'm going to have a crack at something else in the morning, maybe not a Featured Article, because I need more practice first, but I'm going to choose something that's been requested next.


 * You might consider waiting to see if you stay with the project before you much money in equipment, but I definately think it's good to experiment with processing. In fact, I usually save a copy of my projects before I apply any effects to them, just in case I decide that the results are sub-par.

Thanks again,

--Patrick 21:40, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

You're very welcome. The worst thing you can do is jump in too far and get burnt-out. Featured articles tend to be quite long, and having to break up a recording is a bit complicated (both in terms of deciding where to divide it and in terms of templates and things). I think your plan is a good one. And also, please remember the "first article suggestions" page if you run across any that might be good for beginners. Ckamaeleon ((T)) 21:50, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Palladian Architecture
I think what makes the recording so nice is the panache with which it's read. I'm almost certain that Mrdallaway read over it once or twice before recording it. He may have even printed out a copy and marked it up with reading notes. I do this for long articles (a glass of water is also a must for the long ones).

I do recall he was having some trouble with compression making his recordings sound funky. You might ask him how he's processing them now (if at all). You can still hear a little echo in his recordings, too. As I said before, it's not a  horrible, horrible problem.

Also, I like the liberties he took, listing the contents of the article first. Although, I tend to include external links and references if they are short (I'm in the group that says that you can always stop listening, since they're at the end of the article). But it's nice that he gives the listener an overview and specifically mentions that the links and references are not included in the audio version (so they know that they can find them online). Ckamaeleon ((T)) 22:19, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Re: Spoken Wikipedia
Hey Patrick, my apologies for the delay in response. It looks like Ckamaeleon beat me to the punch, and did a very good job at answering your questions ;). If you have any other questions you need answered, feel free to drop a note on my talk page. --Kevin McManus 23:54, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Re: Palladio
Patrick, thanks so much for the comments on Palladio. You sure know how to induce the warm fuzzies. Now that is a real useful skill. :-)

To answer one of your questions: I chose this subject because I have a particular fondness for it, having toured a number of the villas in the Veneto. And I love buildings.

Fun person and fellow dedicated recorder User:Ckamaeleon has suggested ways to approach recordings, and he makes good points.

What I seem to do is: 1) Read through the article a few times (2? 3?) and get a feeling (K) for how it will sound (A), while noting particular points that need highlighting.

2) Record the whole thing in one sitting, however long it takes, in order to retain a feel (K) for the thing. This is usually interspersed with streams of unmentionable blasphemy (recorded) at errors in "garden-path" syntax and such, or just plain gibberish/trips of the tongue etc  on the part of the speaker. Or if I realize that I've fallen into semi-conscious repetition of the words, or that there's a more interesting/clearer way of putting this idea across. I think I'm always aware that I am attempting to "lend voice to the text", however that has been arrived at.  It does have a certain authority.  Or at least the texts that I gravitate towards seem to.

Anyway. Such lapses are followed by the "3-2-1" method, easily recognized in audio editing ware such as Audacity, Audition etc in order to...

3) Edit out said lapses.

Thassit. This may or may not be of use.

Best wishes in your endeavors. Keep us posted on what you're up to.

Best Mrdallaway 15:32, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Spoken Article Licenses
Patrickjoel - First off thanks for your Spoken article contributions! When you upload a spoken file, please don't select PD-self as the license as this is incorrect. Since Wikipedia's articles are licensed under the GFDL license, derivative works such as spoken versions must also be GFDL licensed (and thus not PD). Since the template at Uploading guidelines already includes a GFDL license, you can just leave the license selector blank. Thanks! - SCEhard T 04:34, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Hey Patrick - Sorry I left this message without even realizing you were the same person who had just written on my talk page! Regarding Audacity, I am not an expert my any means but I'll try to help:  When you are actually working in Audacity, the file type shouldn't matter since I think it uses its own file type until you use File -> Export As ... .  Were the problems showing up only after your exported the file or also just playing the audio in Audacity?  I am not sure about the correct order for normalizing, compressing, and reducing.  If you have more experience with Adobe Audition, it might be best to export the audio from Audition in a lossless format and then just use Audacity to make the conversion to OGG.  Hope this helps! - SCEhard T 21:02, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

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