Wikipedia talk:Featured sound candidates/Archive 4

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New feature

Taking a hint from Featured Pictures, I've added a little box next to the table of contents on WP:FSC which lists sounds needing more voters.

The section in question is found in Wikipedia:Featured sound candidates/Header Wikipedia:Featured sound candidates/Urgents; I'll probably spin it off into its own subpage later, but wanted to start tonight's coding with something quick and easy. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 22:35, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Should we crop this?

• Headbomb recommended this to me, and I was thinking that it was rather good. My question, however, is whether or not it needs a good cropping. The bulk of it repeats itself, hence the question. Sven Manguard Wha? 03:04, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Not really necessary IMO. There is value in hearing that the bird repeats itself for quite a while. Jujutacular ^talk 03:14, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Good file, I think. I'd not crop; the sequences are subtly different from each other. Tony (talk) 15:07, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

I see no benefit to cropping. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 16:31, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Not only that, but bird calls are distinguished by the number of times it repeates a certain string of notes --Guerillero | My Talk 01:29, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

1935 78 RPM record copyright query

I hope that someone who is more knowledgeable about the ins and outs of copyright that I can clarify this for me. I think it's pretty cut-and-dried, but I'd love to have clarification. I have come accross a 1935 recording on a 78 RPM record, uploaded to archive.org with a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 licence; it's a Columbia disk and more specifically can be found here (yes it's more Brandenburgs!). It's published in the USA after 1923, albeit written by a composer who died waaay before that, so therefore the performance in the recording is actually undercopyright protection for WP purposes, irrespective of what the internet archive says. Am I right? Thanks in advance for clearing this up. Major Bloodnok (talk) 14:01, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

That's generally correct. Archive.org works on Egyptian law, which is MUCH more liberal. Indeed, EU law only gives 50 years of protection to recordings - but then we run up against U.S: law, which is the worst of all possibilities: Unclear. I'd tend to avoid any recordings from after 1922 as a precautionary measure. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 14:49, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks for being so clear; I did think it terribly unlikely that it was in the public domain. They do have a whole load of classical recording on there, some of which look suspiciously like a recording from a commercial source. I'll be very wary. Major Bloodnok (talk) 15:36, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Inded, that's the other problem with Archive.org: No system exists to check the files' copyright status. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 15:43, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Noise Reduction

I uploaded two files that could use noise reduction.

• File:'tain't Nobody's Bus'ness If I Do.ogg
• File:You Got Everything A Sweet Mama Needs But Me.ogg

Anyone able to help? Sven Manguard Wha? 05:31, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I had a quick go at both of these, but couldn't get much improvement. I'll try again when I have time. Major Bloodnok (talk) 20:18, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Goings-on

Can we please go back to bullet points at Wikipedia:Goings-on. Frankly it's rude that we changed over to the sound template there. It takes up far, far to much space, and no one else is doing previews there. We're not more important than anyone else, so we shouldn't act as such. I've added my three promotions in bullet format, I'd hope the rest of you will do the same from now on. Sven Manguard Wha? 03:30, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I've done a switch over. You can hate me later, but it's back to how it's been for as long as I've known it, and frankly, it's a whole lot more sane that way. Let's not make everyone else suffer on our behalf please. Sven Manguard Wha? 03:39, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I highly agree, and suggest we amend the closing instructions accordingly. Jujutacular ^talk 06:45, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Question

I haven't been up-to-date with the goings-on at FSC, can other users close nominations as successful? There will be a point where we'll need more than 3 closers, considering FSC is now slightly more active than before. —Ancient Apparition • Champagne? • 5:00pm • 06:00, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, anyone can close. I think that the point of directors needs to be redone to be "people that are willing and able to perform closings." Adam and I were discussing adding a few more people anyways. Really the key word in that description is "able" in my opinion. The only requirements that I would have is that the closer knows FS policy (i.e. don't close until seven days after the nomination, make sure it has a 2/3rds majority, etc.) and that the closer does the closing correctly (the procedure is absurdly long, and while X's tool is a godsend for this, it's not perfect.) If you meet both of those requirements, which owing from previous encounters I suspect you do, then feel free to close at will. Sven Manguard Wha? 06:58, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Oh ok then. Thanks for clearing that up Sven, —Ancient Apparition • Champagne? • 10:21am • 23:21, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Sven and Featured sound director

Sven has left Wikipedia, and, with X! being away most of the time, this leaves only me as an active Featured sound director.

I believe - at least if I'm to continue nominating and voting on things - that we need more directors, and hence would request that anyone interested in the role should state their interest now. Applicants will be given further instructions - basically, closing a few noms to show they can do so accurately - and then we'll open a vote.

• I will think about this. --Guerillero | My Talk 05:44, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I will but my name forward for this however, I work at a camp most of the summer. This restricts me to being on the internet to once a week. That may disqualify me from this role --Guerillero | My Talk 15:40, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it's a problem; we're all going to have some inactive periods. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 20:47, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Secondly

To keep things moving along until we get more directors I'd like to request that, as an interim proposal, I be allowed to close things I have nominated or voted on in very limited circumstances:

• There are at least 4 supports, and no opposes. (one more support than normally required); or, for delist noms, at least 4 delists, and no keeps. For things I've nominated myself, this number raises to 5.
• 17 days have passed. (10 more than normally required)
• No person actively doing closes is able to close it instead - e.g. if Guerillero hasn't voted on it, I should ask him, not close it under this scheme.
• A note declaring intent to close has gone up 24 hours before, with no challenges.

I'll let this second proposal run for a week, and will only implement it if there are 0 opposes at that time, and if it's still necessary. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 03:54, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support I see no problems with this iff it ends when the new directors are announced. --Guerillero | My Talk 05:44, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
• Two active directors are probably enough for the moment (so that neither has to close nominations s/he has put up or been closely involved in ... it's a matter of balance at FAC; strongly held opinions, multiple posts, and/or a !vote usually result in closure by the other director). FAC has only two (or three, is it?), with a huge load by comparison. Let us hope that Sven returns soon; there is every chance he will. It would be better to pass on closures you've nominated to Guerillero, I think. Another possibility is Graham87. BTW, I endorse the work by the three current directors. They have helped to build a platform for a transformed FSC process. Tony (talk) 12:42, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
  • X! has been largely inactive for weeks, and there are some cases where almost all the regulars have voted, e.g. the Christmas Carol one, or the Toccata and Fugue delist. This proposal deals only with things that cannot be closed another way, as a last resort. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 20:34, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
• I'm all right with this going through. I'm extremely busy IRL and Wikipedia is the least of my interests right now. It should be over at some point soon in the future (hopefully), but I'm okay with someone else helping with the closures. (X! · talk)  · @787  ·  17:53, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Is Guerillero willing to do this? Otherwise, we need to get someone new in. Tony (talk) 07:07, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

My two cents, from a piano dropout (liked sports better)

HAVE an FS and then get better at it, over time. Do not get sooo wrapped up in debate, that you don't have FSes, don't star things, don't put them on the front page. FA never would have gotten to where they were if they didn't start. And it was a process that they raised their game. I actually think main page exposure is good for the FSes even if they are spotty, since they will draw scrutiny and force you to up your game (with time) and maybe draw outsiders as well.

FPs have gone through an evolution of quality with time as well. And have some similar issues of "art" and of people trying to show off themselves as creator, that is a little bit different than in articles. It's fine. It's a tension we have with attribution and the like, but it's FINE.

What I would love to see is featured movies on the Front Page...since the darned movie format on this site is noncompatible with the civilized world. The scrutiny might drive the darned techies to change the policy or the technology or whatever. So we can see movies. Like people since at least 2005. So anyhow, keep on trucking.

P.s. Myrrha...

TCO (talk) 06:15, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Where are the nomination discussions kept?

I listened to the controversial piano piece and enjoyed it. IANAM though. Wanted to read the FS discussion. For FA, FL, FP, you can see the discussions (there actually in the template where it says "identified".

P.s. Could someone make a sound for me for Myrrha? Does not have to be featured, but just can someone play a piece? Seems like Ravel and Suessa and Caplet are well famous and all. Do you need a whole group of instruments though? Any ideas? Please read the section. Is it possible someone can record something on piano or trumpet or whatever? Again, I'm just looking for the file. Not for a big fight about featuredness. I just think it would be tits to have a sound in there. Would be something people are not expecting in a mythology article, but very multimedia, very encyclopedic, very Wiki! PLEEEEEASE??

TCO (talk) 05:50, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Regarding the FS template: the "identified" should link to the FSC discussion (e.g. here). If you know of one that doesn't I will gladly rectify it. Jujutacular ^talk 13:15, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

What were they thinking?

Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 21:00, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Guerillero

Guerillero (talk · contribs) Guerillero has shown competence at promoting and judging Featured sounds, and I nominate him as a director. This vote will be open one week. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 02:47, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Support. Major Bloodnok (talk) 20:11, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Support. —Ancient Apparition • Champagne? • 8:27pm • 09:27, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Support. Tony (talk) 04:14, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Support (X! · talk)  · @149  ·  02:34, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Support Jujutacular ^talk 12:28, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

I welcome our new Featured sound director, Guerillero. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 14:27, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Support - Blast, I had hoped to be back before this was closed. Either way, this support vote is the first thing I did since unretiring, so that counts for something, yes? And don't worry about summer, I'm not going to be too active until the summer, so when you wind down for camp, I'll take over, it'll all work out very well, I hope. Sven Manguard Wha? 03:30, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Rachnmaninoff call to arms

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Compositions_by_Sergei_Rachmaninoff

Every single one of those needs to be brought over here. While completely legal in the U.S., they have an ambiguous copyright status in Russia. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 02:15, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Can we upload over the existing Commons files so that when they get deleted there'll be a local copy? Or do we save and upload under a different name? —Ancient Apparition • Champagne? • 11:30pm • 12:30, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

If possible. do what you suggest, but it may be necessary to use a different name due to the software blocking sane behaviours (also, some of the file names are awful). Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 15:41, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Alright then, IE is fucking up on my laptop so I'll have to do it when it'll let me on Commons. —Ancient Apparition • Champagne? • 1:04pm • 02:04, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

If there's a danger they'll be deleted from Commons, perhaps alert them so they don't vanish before we pick them up at en.WP? Tony (talk) 07:19, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Is there a chance of moving them over without having to re-upload? Since the files are on a shared database couldn't we just move them from the shared database to the enwp database. —Ancient Apparition • Champagne? • 9:37am • 22:37, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

I know there is a way I just can't think of it off the top of my head --Guerillero | My Talk 00:58, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Get a bot to do it; that shouldn't be too difficult. However, could someone clarify what exactly the licensing situation is? (I mean, has there already been a deletion discussion, or are we 110% sure there is a licensing issue? commons:Commons:Deletion requests/Rachmaninoff recordings from Pandora Records is a bit confusing to me.) /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 03:49, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Better safe-than-sorry, fetchcomms. Best to copy 'em. Who knows what'll happen tomorrow/next week/month on Commons. If there are (c) concerns for enwiki then we can discuss that on here.

As regards the technical "how" please wait about an hour - I'm looking.

Oh, wait. I can't.

I mean...I can very easily just transfer the files to enwiki but I don't have the 'reupload-shared' right, so I can't copy 'em into the same name on enwiki. Darn. I had a script ready to do it, too.

So...well, I've downloaded the 19 files - just in case. I haven't bothered to copy all the file page info tho. It'd be easier, really, for a SysOp with python to run a script to move them (thus keeping all the data).

If there's anything else I can do, let me know. Chzz  ►  18:36, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Update: The Earwig (talk · contribs) is copying them over, right now; Category:Compositions_by_Sergei_Rachmaninoff. Some templates will need fixing.  Chzz  ►  01:30, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

They are now all uploaded to enwiki, in Category:Compositions_by_Sergei_Rachmaninoff.

Because the description pages were copied over from Commons, many templates need fixing. Please fix 'em - or I will, at some point.

Cheers,  Chzz  ►  02:30, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

FS mentor

I need an FS mentor. I have to have an FS now that FS is going to the main page. How do I find sounds. Here are things I would be proud to put forth as FSCs:

Rossini's William Tell Overture

Chopin's Minute Waltz

Lou Gehrig's I am the Luckiest man on the face of the earth speach.

Martin Luther King's I Have A Dream speach

What are the chances that I can find any of these and create successful FSCs?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 05:27, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Also, would pursuit of larger works like Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite and Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven) be beyond an FS neophyte?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 05:40, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Whoa, whoa, what? Well let's see what we can do here. First off, you are of course welcome to nominate sounds at the candidates page (of which this is the talk page of) provided that those files meet the Featured Sound criteria. The instructions are on the candidates page, and come complete with a template. You don't need a mentor or anything like that. I shudder to think that other featured processes might be as insular or overly complex as to make that sort of thing needed or desirable. As for the four you indicated:

- The William Tell Overture that is currently in the article has recording artifact issues (i.e. it came off poorly from the original phonograph cylinder or record) which is understandable. There might be a better version online. FS has assembled a collection of sources of recordings at Wikipedia:Featured_sounds/Sources. For this, your best bet is one of the links from the sections "US Military Bands", "Internet Archive", "Pandora Records", or "IMSLP - Petrucci Music Library". Since you already have picture credits, I'll assume you know the difference between free use and fair use. FS only accepts free use recordings. Note two things though: first, both the composition and the performance must be free use. The William Tell Overture was composed in 1829, meaning that it is Public Domain, and therefore useable, however that does not mean that any performances of the piece are also Public Domain, most are not. The performer must release his or her own rights seperately. On the other hand, if the piece was composed in 1929 instead of 1829 the composition would likely be copyrighted, meaning that even if the performer released his or her part under a free license, we cannot use the file as free use. Second, note that FS is a local (English Wikipedia) project. This means that as long as it is free use for Wikipedia, it does not need to be Commons compatible. In most cases this won't matter, but keep that in mind if you ever come into contact with certain French or Russian pieces that are PD in the US but not in their home countries. We can still use those, provided that the performances are also free use, even though Commons could not use the files.

- The Minute Waltz is also a Public Domain composition. Both of the perfomances on the page Minute Waltz are free use. Note that the second one is performed off a computer composition, rather than by hand, if I am reading what this page indicates correctly. I personally would favor a by-hand performance over a MIDI (computer performance) however the by-hand performance currently in the article isn't the best one I've heard. You might want to hit up "Internet Archive", "Pandora Records", or "IMSLP - Petrucci Music Library" for a better recording.

- Neither of the speeches you mentioned have recordings. Featured sounds has speeches, but they have to be in the speech deliverer's voice, so in this case, you'd have to find a public domain recording of one of those two speeches. I don't know where you would find one or if they even exist. Again, both the written text of the speech and the recoding of it need to be free use. In some cases public domain speecehs, such as those given by US government officials, are recorded by for profit media outlets, meaning that the written speech is public domain and the recording is copyrighted.

I'm not sure what else I can offer you. If you're having trouble with Pandora, track down Adam Cuerden, one of the other Featured Sounds regulars, as he knows how to navigate that site. If you find an old recording, he and others also can restore damaged recordings in some but not all cases. Finally, feel free to drop me a line if you need anything else. Hope this helps, Sven Manguard Wha? 06:33, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Great to see you over here in these parts Tony! You don't need a mentor, all you need is a good pair of ears ;) and willingness to stand in the face of adversity, by that I mean don't be afraid to put forward a piece that is odd or that has some problems, most of the time the age of the recording itself has to do with the fuzziness and background noise. I look forward to listening to the delightful sound files you nominate, it's always interesting listening to the sounds available. —Ancient Apparition • Champagne? • 9:19pm • 10:19, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

What is the relevance of something being listed in the National Recording Registry to it being eligible here?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 16:45, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, it would be good evidence of that particular recording being notable, if there's any doubt on the matter. For example, if someone wonders if DeWolf Hopper's Casey at the Bat is notable, you could just point and say "It's listed in the National Recording Registry", and your point is pretty much proven. Of course, there's a limited number of such registered recordings that are out of copyright. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 17:41, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 17:41, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

My question is more related to the public domain. How common is it for the government to acquire the rights to things that become part of the registry. Maybe it never happens. I was thinking that in some cases some sort of ownership rights may transfer as something becomes part of the registry.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 21:41, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

I doubt that ownership changed hands. --Guerillero | My Talk 21:57, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Can someone clarify the eligibility of the following:--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 05:15, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

1. Franklin Delano Roosevelt State of the Union (Four Freedoms) (January 6, 1941)
2. Franklin Delano Roosevelt Fireside Chat 1: On the Banking Crisis (March 12, 1933)
3. John Fitzgerald Kennedy Establishment of the Peace Corps (March 1, 1961)
4. John Fitzgerald Kennedy "Ich bin ein Berliner" Speech (June 26, 1963)
5. Barack Obama State of the Union Address (January 27, 2010)
6. Barack Obama Address Before a Joint Session of Congress (February 24, 2009)

All six are Miller Center recordings. Historically we have treated presidential speeches taken from that website as PD-USGov (works of a federal government employee created during the course of their work) however the Miller site really isn't clear. I've tried calling twice and just have bad timing, I haven't been able to reach the person I need to in order to clear this all up. I will try to do so during tomorrow's business hours, although it's not the best day to conduct serious business, hopefully I can get through. My advice: Assume they are PD-USGov and treat them as such, and check back here for updates. If it turns out they are not PD, we're going to have to delist several FSes (from speeches taken from the Miller Center already) as a result, so I'll make sure that the answer is made clear when I get it. Cheers, Sven Manguard Wha? 05:24, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

O.K. so what do I do to get these up on WP and then at FSC?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 06:05, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

I.E., how do I convert to ogg after downloading from this site. Also, which format should I download videos in and what do I convert them to (and how).--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 06:40, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

I usually use a program called Goldwave to convert audio files to ogg. http://www.goldwave.com There's a trial version that gives you a limited number of commands (150) before having to close and reopen it. It has all the features of the full program otherwise. It's quite pricey, but I bought it years ago when it wasn't as expensive. Another good program is Audacity, which is Open Source, as too is FFmpeg. All can handle/support and convert most audio formats to ogg. If you're on Linux, check out Ubuntu Studio. For converting video, the only program I have used is SUPER (software). Commons:Help:Converting video has more information about handling video files for Wikimedia. The two audio files I've had promoted here, File:Barack Obama Oath of Office.ogg (nom) and File:Barack Obama inauguration speech 2009.ogg (nom) were both recorded and edited using Goldwave. Matthewedwards :  Chat  04:40, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Creating video files

I now have posted several of the audio files. However, I do not know how to upload video files to commons. What format type is preferred and what software program would convert the video files from the following pages:

1. John Fitzgerald Kennedy "Ich bin ein Berliner" Speech (June 26, 1963)
2. Barack Obama State of the Union Address (January 27, 2010)
3. Barack Obama Address Before a Joint Session of Congress (February 24, 2009)

--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 01:58, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I think the JFK speech is already a FS. In terms of what program to use to convert them to .ogg I have no clue. --Guerillero | My Talk 02:18, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I think just the audio file is a current FS. I would think if we could get a good video file, this would also be important.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 15:14, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Audacity is a free program that can convert files into .ogg format, I've used it and it doesn't affect file quality or clarity. —Ancient Apparition • Champagne? • 1:49pm • 02:49, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

See my reply in the previous discussion. Matthewedwards :  Chat  04:44, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I have the Miro video converter mentioned at http://videoonwikipedia.org/howto.html for converting video files to .ogv files. However, this is a barebones program and does not facilitate modification of the original. I need something that at least enables me to crop the video.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 15:16, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Question

This might be a little silly, but which headphones provide good audio rendering? Since I don't think my earphones and in-built laptop speaker adequately render audio (sometimes I hear things others don't etc. etc.), though I could be mistaken. —Ancient Apparition • Champagne? • 1:52pm • 02:52, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, how much do you want to pay? :) I think this and the related links on the left will help (if you don't have a couple hundred or thousand dollars to spend, try the "Best budget headphones" link there). /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 03:56, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Sendheiser; around $200. Tony (talk) 04:33, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

^Worth it. (Not as good as good speakers, but close enough)  Chzz  ►  04:43, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Lol, that's a lot of money. Tony, Chzz, if I add it to my Amazon Wish List will you gift it to me? :D Matthewedwards :  Chat  04:46, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I was thinking Sendheiser but I thought I'd ask here first, the Klipsch doesn't seem like a bad choice. Thanks guys, —Ancient Apparition • Champagne? • 5:43pm • 06:43, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

March talles

I just tallied up the stats for March. By my count, we had 24 promotes. This is more than we have had in any previous month of Featured Sounds' existence. Even with the 4 delistings, the net total increase of 20 still beats out the previous best both, October 2008, which had 18.

Indeed, March 2011 had more featured sounds than the entire year of 2007, Featured Sounds' first year, in which only 14 were promoted. However, it also beats out the entire year of 2010, in which 17 were promoted - so let's not get too cocky here. We've done well, but we don't want to fall back to where we were.

Note these tallies are by nomination. We've had several batch nominations of late, so the true total is likely a fair bit higher. If we can keep up this rate, little will prevent us from going to a daily feature by the end of the year, or at least combining with Featured lists to make a week's worth of content.

Good work, everyone! Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 04:48, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Does celebration dance. Sven Manguard Wha? 05:11, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Woot! Time to look for more prospective FS's :P —Ancient Apparition • Champagne? • 5:47pm • 06:47, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

We generated more FS this week then Featured pictures generated images. You should all give yourself a round of applause. signpost link --Guerillero | My Talk | Review Me 01:46, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I noticed! That's fantastic, hopefully we can keep this up every week :P —Ancient Apparition • Champagne? • 9:44am • 23:44, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Template:FeaturedSound

I just noticed that my two FSs, File:Barack Obama Oath of Office.ogg and File:Barack Obama inauguration speech 2009.ogg have Template:FeaturedSound on the local pages but nothing at Commons, where the files are actually located, to indicate that they're Featured on this project. I know for images Commons displays a similar template to say they're enWP Featured Pictures. Have these two files been overlooked or don't we advertise enWP FS at Commons? Matthewedwards :  Chat  04:52, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Also, because of the length of the Inauguration speech, the transcript is in a collapsible box at Commons, but it's not showing up here. How can this be fixed? Matthewedwards :  Chat  04:54, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Long story short, Featured pictures has a bot to handle Commons tagging, we don't. Ideally, we should get one, or at least get someone to write a script that can be run once a month. X!? =) Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 04:55, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

As for the inauguration text... suffice it to say, it's because Commons is full of morons. Here's a line from Commons:Template:Hidden, which handles the display of the text in the collapsed box:

“ <div class="body show-on-commons" style="padding:3px; font-weight:{{{fw2|normal}}}; background:{{{bg2|transparent}}}; text-align:{{{ta2|left}}}; {{{contentstyle|{{{contentcss|}}}}}}"> ”

Guess what "body show-on-commons" means? That's right. Only show on commons. Try switching to {{Collapse top}} and {{collapse bottom}}, which should be far more functional. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 05:01, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining :) Looks like some IP fixed the hidden transcript. Thanks, whoever that was! :) Matthewedwards :  Chat  06:33, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Ughh...

File:Advance Australia Fair instrumental.ogg - The drums are almost inaudible which is not good if they were slightly louder I'd nominate the piece myself. —Ancient Apparition • Champagne? • 6:17pm • 07:17, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I see little value in the music, unlike some other national anthems (it is one of the most boring national anthems around, IMO). Just because a work happens to be a national anthem does not mean it should be a featured sound, even if played well. It just means it should be uploaded and used in the appropriate article(s). Tony (talk) 09:27, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Aren't you living in Australia as well Tony? Also, the music isn't bad when played with a full band and more emphasis on the percussion, there aren't any cymbals in the US Navy Band perf. —Ancient Apparition • Champagne? • 9:16pm • 10:16, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm not one for nationalism; musical taste doesn't depend on where you live, does it? It does need the cymbals, as loud and often as possible. :-) Tony (talk) 14:11, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

True, that is bias if you favour music from one country because you live there or are from there :P, the cymbals complement the snare drums. —Ancient Apparition • Champagne? • 9:38am • 23:38, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Miller Center - PD US Gov under assault at commons

Sven Manguard (talk · contribs) previously stated that the Miller center files have been assumed to be PD-USGOV, but that if they are not a whole lot of current WP:FSs need to be deleted. Please weigh in at Deletion Request.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 14:39, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Ah, no that's just a documentation issue, not a copyright one. I addressed it at the deletion discussion on commons. In short, the video is PD (it says so at the website of the Kennedy Library, again linked at the Commons discussion) it just doesn't say so at the Miller site. Sven Manguard Wha? 00:48, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Oddly you commented there without a keep or delete opinion.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 06:31, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Honestly, I hate commons, especially when it comes to deletions. Most of my encounters with Commons have been... unpleasant. I don't trust them, but you don't really want to hear about that. The short version is that I've given them the information, either they see that it's public domain and leave it alone, or they don't, and we upload the file locally. Sven Manguard Wha? 07:47, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Combine!

I just found Wikipedia:Free sound resources while I was looking for the page that had a listing of all the PD templates used for image description pages. I think it's a good idea to add what we have at Wikipedia:Featured sounds/Sources to that page, then make the FS page a redirect. Thoughts? Sven Manguard Wha? 04:43, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

By the way, that list of all the PD templates, I'm still looking for it in case anyone finds it. Thanks in advance, Sven Manguard Wha? 05:32, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I think Category:Public domain copyright templates is the category you're looking for Sven ;) —Ancient Apparition • Champagne? • 9:27am • 23:27, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Also with moving the sources we have and redirecting, I support that. —Ancient Apparition • Champagne? • 9:41am • 23:41, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I'd tackle hug you, but that would be wrong. Thanks for that link though. It makes my life much easier. Sven Manguard Wha? 05:21, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Aw shucks :P it's the least I could do. Perhaps we should just be WP:BOLD and move the info over and redirect the page since there's no harm in doing so and if we do find more we can just add to the existing page. —Ancient Apparition • Champagne? • 6:49pm • 08:49, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Widening of the FSC page

Fixed. It was an overly-long link in one of the nominations which wasn't able to wrap because it had no breaks. I shortened it to a description of the link.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Why has this been done? It is annoying for all of those readers who use a less wide window width by default: several words are chopped off the end of each line. The extra width has never been enforced for other featured content pages. Tony (talk) 15:14, 6 April 2011 (UTC) Can you clarify what you mean? Is there a scrollbar at the bottom, for instance? Because I know how to fix that, but if that's not the problem, I'm not sure. Adam Cuerden (talk) 16:38, 6 April 2011 (UTC) It has one for me adam --Guerillero | My Talk | Review Me 02:55, 7 April 2011 (UTC) I believe it might be better now: I moved the 'urgents' template to the left side. Jujutacular talk 04:10, 7 April 2011 (UTC) The urgents box is absolutely ANNOYING! putting it above the TOC just lengthens the page, the page is laggy enough as it is (and I'm on ADSL2+ broadband!) My screen isn't very wide and I had no problems with width, but that must just be me. There must be somewhere where it wouldn't be annoying for all users. —Ancient Apparition • Champagne? • 5:55pm • 07:55, 7 April 2011 (UTC) The problem persists. This talk page is fine, just like other WP pages. But the FSC page overleaf won't "wrap" lines narrower than a rather large width. It has only been like this for a week or two, when I finally realised and said something. Tony (talk) 08:07, 7 April 2011 (UTC) The page layout is dreadful too... I'd fix it but my wikimarkup knowledge is mediocre. —Ancient Apparition • Champagne? • 7:04pm • 09:04, 7 April 2011 (UTC) Edited, how's it look now, Tony? —Ancient Apparition • Champagne? • 7:17pm • 09:17, 7 April 2011 (UTC) It got wider for me --Guerillero | My Talk | Review Me 10:33, 7 April 2011 (UTC) AA, it's still there. Trying to think who's good at this kind of thing ... Tony (talk) 13:37, 7 April 2011 (UTC) [Unindent] I've tried something that should work. Basically, I moved urgents to the navbar and cut the framing. If that works, tell me. What's your screen width, Tony? Adam Cuerden (talk) 13:51, 7 April 2011 (UTC) Found the problem - It's NOT the header; it's one of the noms. If I strip out some of the noms, it scales fine. Just need to figure out which one. Adam Cuerden (talk) 14:09, 7 April 2011 (UTC) It's the JFK video. Here's the page without that nom, and it scales perfectly. Adam Cuerden (talk) 14:16, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Who's the brains who fixed it? Looks lovely. Tony (talk) 15:33, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Was me, I'm afraid. There's a trick you can do: When you know there's a problem, but not where, you can often find the problem by just removing half the page, and seeing if that fixes the problem. If it does, the problem was in the half you removed; if it doesn't, it's in the half you didn't. Keep playing around like that and you can narrow it down pretty quickly. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 15:57, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

New Barnstar

Hi all I've made an FS Barnstar and before it's added to Wikipedia:Barnstars consensus needs to be established at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Wikipedia Awards#FS Barnstar. Cheers, —Ancient Apparition • Champagne? • 7:04pm • 09:04, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Criteria - can "high artistic standard" be expanded?

This is possibly asking for trouble at this time, but I think it is something the community should address. Not necessarily right now, but certainly as the project progresses and hopefully interest in it increases. Specifically, the FS Criteria only mentions the musicality of a recording once: "Musical performances are of a high artistic standard." I'm sure that most people would consider not terribly helpful, because it is entirely open to the ear of the beholder as to what is a "high artistic standard". Most of the editors who hang around this project page may have a good idea what this means, but can this be quantified or explained on the criteria page?

I think there at least should be a discussion of a way forward. Should we, for instance, make it important that the voting editor be familiar with the piece of music before judging the piece? This would enable detailed critique of the performance and judge its quality, but it would exclude most editors from voting on anything that they didn't know already. If not, how do we explain that the voting editor should weigh up the musical performance, the dynamics, the execution of the piece, the number of "wrong notes" present, the skill needed to play the piece, and the complexity of a multi-performer recording vs a solo?

Some guidance would be helpful on the criteria page - at least we would have a better idea against which we should be judging musical performances; are we after "professional standard", and what does this terms mean in a volunteer-lead, open-source encyclopedia in which any editor can vote irrespective of their musical ability and perceptiveness? I've heard plenty of professional musicians in my time, and not all of these performances were "professional" in quality.

The community have discussed this before - I raised it initially here, and no decision was made, except to say that the encyclopaedic value of the piece should be recognised as well. Ultimately, the community will still vehemently disagree about musical performances, and that's fine (afterall isn't that what magazines like "Gramophone" stand for?), but a vague criteria makes it harder for outsiders to engage in it. Major Bloodnok (talk) 23:09, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

First of all, thank you for opening this issue back up, as it seems that it does need to be addressed in further detail.

Regarding your first question: no I do not believe that reviewers should need to be previously familiar with a piece. It is at once both unenforceable, and infeasible. There is nothing we can do to be sure that reviewers are familiar with pieces before reviewing. It also seems to be infeasible because we don't have the population necessary to have reviewers that are familiar with every nominated piece. The world of music is immense and diverse, and I don't want to limit our reviews to those few common pieces that 90% of music aficionados know. Perhaps this proposal could be revisited when we have the population of say, FPC or FAC.

I would propose that we spin-off criteria 2c into its own number (6). Some suggested wording follows, we can tweak this of course.

6. Musical performances are of a high artistic standard.

(i) Extremely few notes, if any, are missed. Those that are missed do not detract strongly from the performance.

(ii) Expressive markings such as dynamics, articulation, and tempo are observed well.

Thoughts? Additions? Questions? Jujutacular ^talk 00:24, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

The only hesitation I have is for the extreme cases: for example, a Jazz recording can, and arguably, should have more deviation from the score than a Bach piece, and a very, very difficult piece might reasonably have a few mistakes, while an easy piece shouldn't have any. And, of course, more leeway might be given for a historical or noteworthy recording: When Enrico Caruso sings Ombra mai fu, he's allowed to make tweaks and changes, because he's significant in his own right, and was one of the few early popularizers of the long-forgotten piece who actually used the lyrics. If I recorded Ombra mai fu and made similar idiosyncratic changes, though, you'd be quite right to tell me that it wasn't good enough, because I am not a world-famous performer noted for my wonderful interpretation of opera.

In a similar vein, Caruso's recording of "Over There" is appallingly bad due to Caruso's heavily-accented English, but it's actually discussed in the article as being a notable novelty recording. Again, Caruso might get away with it because his recording is notable in its own right. I can't get away with it.

I think you take my point. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 02:40, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable. We could add a 3rd point: (iii) Consideration will be given to the difficulty of the piece performed, as well as the noteworthiness of the recording. Jujutacular ^talk 02:53, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

I'd also say that a recording should be a fairly mainstram interpretation of a song, except where A. the performer, arrangement, arranger, and/or recording is in some way notable, or B. individual expression is encouraged for that song or genre; for example, a cadenza or jazz. I recently rejected an odd reinterpretation of Joy to the World which I think was converted to 7/8. As it was meant to be an example of the song as normally performed, it was useless. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 03:51, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

No, it is utterly inappropriate to talk of "extremely few notes, if any, are missed. Those that are missed do not detract strongly from the performance," and "expressive markings such as dynamics, articulation, and tempo are observed well." A performance of high artistic standard assumes these. This should not be spelled out, unless you want to start adding lots of riders, like "most, if not all of the notes, are in tune". Tony (talk) 07:26, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

The point of this discussion is that not enough guidance is given in the criteria about what is expected. In this stage of the project it is very important to nail down our expectations: we need to cultivate new contributors (desparately) and maintain a certain level of quality. Tuning issues are adequately covered by point (i). Jujutacular ^talk 12:37, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Adam and Jujutacular's points sound very reasonable. I am relieved by your answer to my initial question too! Major Bloodnok (talk) 22:51, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

• Juju, "Consideration will be given to the difficulty of the piece performed, as well as the noteworthiness of the recording" appears to make it official that people should be encouraged to perform difficult pieces with wrong notes; or at least, if they choose to record their attempts at difficult pieces, the performance can be to a lower standard. It would be better if performers chose to nominate works that are of an appropriate difficulty. Difficult works, especially virtuoso works, are written to show off a performer's dazzling technique, and are heard in that vein. I say these things as general concepts that are well-accepted in the music world, in response to your proposal here; not at all in relation to any particular recording.

  "not enough guidance is given in the criteria about what is expected"—The trouble with this is that the list will be a mile long, and most or all of it would be vulnerable to wikilawyering. I would be like adding a list at the FACriteria that specifies the number of grammatical glitches that are allowed; the number of redundant wordings that are allowed (more if it's a difficult topic).

  "a recording should be a fairly mainstram interpretation of a song, except where A. the performer, arrangement, arranger, and/or recording is in some way notable, or B. individual expression is encouraged for that song or genre; for example, a cadenza or jazz". What about instrumental works; is it just a single genre, a "song" that is at issue? Who says what a "mainstream" interpretation is?

  Finally, what are "missing notes"? They occur when there's a sudden silence, or more likely a drop-out glitch in a recording. Do you mean "wrong notes"? They are often present in the most memorable recordings, but codifying their number or proportion is impossible: it comes down to balancing their instrusiveness with other factors, which should be discussed by the reviewers. Tony (talk) 01:54, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Point taken, but what would you have us do? As it is now, there is absolutely no guidance as to what level of professionalism we are expecting. Contributors will be utterly puzzled and turned off if they enter a process where reviewers are all over the map.

I have seen you cite FAC multiple times about how you in large part helped to significantly raise the standards of professionalism in writing. I don't dispute that, but my problem with it is this: FAC (and before that, Brilliant prose) had functioned for a while, churning out the best we had to offer. A community was alive and functioning and was ready to take that next step. WP:GA was in place to leave somewhere for the not-so-amazing articles to go. Here, today, at FSC, we do not have that. We have a few fledgling contributors hoping to get off the ground. Clearly, by the disagreements our community has already had, we have not settled on a level of professionalism to be expected. Something must be done if we are ever going to make it. Pointing to a criteria that says that we expect a 'high' standard is not going to cut it. Jujutacular ^talk 02:19, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

These things become dysfunctional to codify beyond the very top level, as now, I think. This is the same for all featured-content criteria that deal with standards; they seem to be capable only of signalling that professional standards are required, but it leaves it up to the culture to decide the details, both over time and in relation to individual nominations. I appreciate your frustrations, and your suggestions for fine-grained codifying, but I think the answer lies in cultural evolution and individual comments. That's what the reviewers' comments amount to, I guess. I think the FPC people who wrote that glossary of terms did a really fine job, and I wish it was cited more often. I learned so much from that, and still have some learning. Come to think of it, why not a glossary for this one, too? It would at least make new reviewers aware of the technical/artistic issues they can read and discuss, even if not defining a pass/fail level in each case. What do you think? Tony (talk) 02:47, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

I think each point will be more in depth than at FPC, perhaps a "best practices" page? Jujutacular ^talk 03:32, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

In case anyone is wondering, we are referrring to this page. Juju, yes, possibly with a "this is usually considered desirable, whereas this usually isn't" slant, where applicable. But I see that the photography glossary does do that in some cases; for example, "A situation where the brighter parts of an image are totally white, causing a loss of highlight detail and an often unappealing look to the image. This is commonly seen when shooting into a bright section of the sky for example." (My italics)

I wonder, also, whether a few terms might be illustrated with excerpts from sound files; now that would be valuable, and if promoted might be a way of enticing more editors in here, who might otherwise be put off by technicalities. Need to see whether this idea has more general support; if so, I am willing to do a mock-up trial page for critical feedback. Tony (talk) 04:03, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

I think it is a stellar idea, Tony. It will have a lot of leverage. Not you just doing individual reviews, but spreading your views on what to review and how to do a review. Lot of amplification. I was just thinking the other day that some essays on what a good review is, might be helpful, for FA. I don't mean just a template. But something more sophisticated, some discussion and examples, and for grownups, that want to look at things and learn, not just follow a wikilawyer rulebook.TCO (talk) 06:34, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

More thorough guidance from the community would be helpful, either as part of the criteria page, or as a separate page. Having examples as a base-line would be an excellent part of that. Major Bloodnok (talk) 16:43, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

It may be easiest to have a collection of essays, detailing different people's views on the subject, and then we can cooperate to try and summarise the conflicting opinions, and to note what everyone agrees on. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 16:52, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Roll Call infeisable

The roll call isn't working, I think a new system would work better. I've talked with a few people about this and the best idea I've been able to form is a queue system. How it would work is this:

1. Someone (likely me) creates a list of all current featured sounds in order of promotion.
2. From that list, we transfer FSes onto a queue page, with say 32 entries on the page at a time. (At 8 FS on the main page a month, 24 is three months, the extra 8 gives us a full month's worth of padding, see why the padding is important below.)
3. Once an item hits the queue, we give it a good looking over (prioritizing attention on the entries that have been on the page the longest). This is the time to make sure that:

   a) The description page is properly formatted

   b) The file still meets usage criteria (i.e. it's well used in an article)

   c) The file is of high enough quality to hit the main page

4. Assuming a file checks out, we then decide where to put it. This could mean the next open spot, or it could mean that it gets held for weeks (in the case of several files of the same type coming up back to back), or if needed months (in the case of several movements from the same piece), and move the FS into a different "confirmed and placed" page. Ideally the confirmed page would have three months planned out in advance as well.

   There would also be room in this system for requests and special occasions, (i.e. one of the carols on Christmas or a Hungry Luck track for J Milburn's wiki-birthday), we'd just push it up into the queue, review it, and then place it where it's wanted on the confirmed page.

Thoughts? Sven Manguard Wha? 04:47, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Delists

Just simplified nominating to delist: It now has its own template. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 17:12, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Clarificiation of the Miller Center issue

I spoke with someone at the Miller Center about the copyright status of the recordings on their website that we've been using. Here is a quick summary:

• The files on the Miller Center cite are taken from the presidential libraries of the presidents depicted in those files.
• Presidential libraries are part of the National Archives. Just about all of the files on the presidential library websites are going to be within the public domain, those that are not are marked as such (and generally involve other elements than just the recordings.)
• The Miller Center operates under the assumption that everything they put on their website is within the public domain.
• The Miller Center does not explictly state this becasue they don't have the resources to independently verify copyright status, they instead operate under the assumption that the copyright information provided by the presidential libraries is correct.

Therefore:

• Use of the Miller Center recordings is permitted under PD (either US Government or National Archives PD tags work.) Therefore they are acceptable as Featured Sounds. No desisting is necessary.
• It is, however, preferable to go to the source, i.e. the presidential libraries, and get a copy there. This is for two reasons; One, the copyright information is stated explicitly instead of implicitly, and two, we can avoid Miller Center watermarks by doing so. If presidential libraries make it hard to download, at least linking to the specific pages where the files are on the presidential library sites (in the file description pages on Wikipedia and Commons) will prevent future issues.

I hope this clears everything up. Sven Manguard Wha? 01:25, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

• I am noticing those watermarks and realize that they are an issue. I will go to the presidential libraries and see what I can find.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 04:06, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
  • I just looked up the JFK Ich Bin Ein Berliner speech and found this link. I don't see how a regular citizen such as myself could download the video.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 05:27, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
  • LBJ Library has very little video.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 05:35, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Similar lack of video at the Jimmy Carter Library for the two videos in my pipeline (See Camp David and Panama Canal).--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 06:09, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

200th Featured sound, 300th Featured Sound part

By my calculations - which should be about as right as one can get, we've hit two milestones.

First off, our 200th Featured sound was O Canada, performed by the United States Navy Band, and nominated by Ancient Apparition. Note this counts the Hungry Lucy album as one FS for this count; if it's counted as 10, then the 200th was one of the Air Force Band marches which were promoted in a batch a bit ago, but that set was one of mine, so it's Ancient Apparition's that counts.

The 300th Featured sound part was File:Dial_up_modem_noises.ogg, recorded by User:Userpd, and nominated by, well, me. Don't blame me, I have like 40% of all FSes; I was bound to get a landmark sooner or later. That was somewhat quickly promoted, though, so I'm open to "officially" declaring the 300th part the NEXT file promoted. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 01:46, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I hate to do this to AA, but we need to let the Dial up run for seven days. Featured processes do not use wp:SNOW closes. Sorry, but I'm reopening it. Sven Manguard Wha? 08:56, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough, I was too trigger-happy :S but on a more related note, WOOT! —Ancient Apparition • Champagne? • 9:33pm • 11:33, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

The Kyrie, Wikipedia:Featured_sound_candidates/Kyrie_eleison, is ready to promote. Someone promote that, and that'll be our official 300th part. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 12:14, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I promoted something else, one of TTT's speeches, yesterday. Guess TTT got lucky. That or we say the hell with it and give it to the dial up tone. Sven Manguard Wha? 07:21, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Since the dial-up modem is an FSC (though unofficially), perhaps both files should share 300th part? TTT's as the official 300th and Adam's find as 300 unofficially - due to a premature WP:SNOW close on my part. —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 12:39pm • 02:39, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Witht he number FSes I have, I think everyone knows I'm connetcted to FS. Let Tony have it =) Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 11:47, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Tony's it is :) Congrats! —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 11:05am • 01:05, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Bit more restoring?

File:WoodrowWilson-addresstoAmericanIndians.ogg - There's some whistling noise in the sound that reduces the quality of the file overall, it is better compared to the original unedited version but I think that a little bit more noise reduction would help. —Ancient Apparition • Champagne? • 11:45am • 01:45, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

I'll need to redo it from the start. Those metallic noises are a sign of badly-done noise removal, and are largely unfixable without starting over. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 01:54, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 02:32, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Bonus restoration:

Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 03:16, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Nominated the edited version of Wilson's address here, I'll compare Taft's speech's edit with the original. Cheers Adam! —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 12:58pm • 02:58, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

The edit to Taft's speech is clear, but the words sound muffled, that said, they were barely understandable in the original (due to that awful static) some sounds aren't audible (s mainly), is it possible to try and lessen the extent of noise reduction? —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 1:08pm • 03:08, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Try this.

That's much better. —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 11:47am • 01:47, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

JS Bach nomination

Can I nominate this? Tony (talk) 13:48, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

It's highly impressive, but, um, I think there would be a whole host of copyright & notability issues here. When you get right down to it, would I want to hear that performance more than once if taken out of context? My old 48K spectrum could beep single notes in a similar manner, and I wouldn't want to hear than too often. Major Bloodnok (talk) 21:01, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

This was meant in humour, of course. Tony (talk) 09:30, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

OMG TEH WHITE PPLS!

And on that overly dramatic note, I've been going through our 200 Featured Sounds and noticed something (well not really noticed, it's been something Adam and I have discussed for a while).

• The majority of our field recordings are from birds.
• We have lots of Christian music.
• We have lots of American music and Classical music from Western Europe.
• We have lots of Speeches by Americans.

• We have almost no field recordings from creatures that don't happen to have wings.
• We have almost no music from religions other than Christianity.
• We have almost no music from Asia, Africa, the Carribean, Eastern Europe, Latin America, Oceania, or non United States North America.
• We have almost no speeches from Asia, Africa, the Carribean, Eastern Europe, Latin America, Oceania, or non United States North America.

A little diversity would be nice. I'm not saying we should turn down good material that's Christian, American, or Avian, but I am saying that when we decide to go hunting for sounds, perhaps a bit of branching out would be in order. Adam found a great site with Japanese recordings (he linked me twice, I forgot where I put the link.) Either way, we need to find more places like that and start getting a broader cross section of sound.

Eventually we'll also have to have a discussion on if we want to promote any more speeches not in English (we have two already, both highly notable), but that can wait for the moment.

Please weigh in. Sven Manguard Wha? 03:54, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Keep in mind this is English Wikipedia. Foreign language speeches will be underrepresented as will things from cultures where English is not the primary language or religions not commonly practiced in English. Many projects are not as diverse as we would like: WP:GT has too many 30 Rock and The Simpsons seasons; WP:FT has too many hurricane, sports awards and battleship lists. WP:FA has many over/underrepresented categories as do WP:FL and WP:GA.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 04:30, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Tony's right that foreign-language speeches will be underrepresented (WP:BIAS and all), but we have articles on them so it's not like there isn't the encyclopedic value in foreign speeches, or even mid to late 20th Century non-Presidential speeches. Articles exist for Speeches of Max Weber, List of speeches, Sermons and speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr., I Have a Dream, List of speeches given by Adolf Hitler, List of speeches given by Presidents of the United States, Robert F. Kennedy's speech on the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Indian speeches about independence, yet not one of them has even one audio file. Now, I don't know if there is a recording of "I have a dream" that is public domain. We've all heard it, no doubt, even those of us who aren't American, but any recording is probably owned, sadly, by CBS or NBC or such. When it comes to the Weber or Hitler speeches, we would need a German speaker to translate the speech and make sure it's at the correct article or correct placement in the article, that it is of stand-alone encyclopedic value, etc. How great and important it is for the education and furthering the knowledge of our readers, but IMO it all comes down to sourcing Public Domain examples.

We have too much American music? Well, it's the same thing as I just said, really. We have the articles. Music of Morocco, Music of Korea, [[Music of <insert country here>]]. But where do we find examples of Russian, Tongan and Kyrgyzstani music, and then where do we find Public domain examples? When we've got them, how do we know which articles they belong in if no-one understands the languages they use? Similarly, where do we find examples of PD Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist music? Absolutely it would be great to get this stuff, but how?

Too much classical western European music you say? Well, again, we have encyclopedic articles on other genres, just look at Template:Popmusic, Template:World rock, Template:Rock music, Template:Rhythm and blues, and Tony1's old "duff duff" favourites Template:House music-footer, dance music and Template:Synth pop-footer. Personal opinions aside, should we have encyclopedic examples of music for each and every article? Of course, but most of these are modern music genres and most of it will be copyrighted. So where do we go to find PD versions? I don't know. I doubt many other people do, which is why we've collected a large amount of classical music where it's easy to find PD cos it's all old.

There's only so much we can get from what's listed at Wikipedia:Featured sounds/Sources and Wikipedia:Free sound resources. The US Army band isn't going to give us an example of UK grime, and Dizzee Rascal and Tinchy Stryder aren't likely to give us any of their work and tag it as PD. We'd be lucky if their management company will give us a photo of them.

I think the main problem is where do we source this stuff from? If I knew where to find examples of what you say we're missing, I'd happily crawl through it all looking for gems. I mean, my guilty pleasures are African music, Caribbean music (especially those with steel drums) and African animal sounds like lions, tigers and elephants. I only get to hear it on History Channel and BBC Nature documentaries though! We can't really give some great audio equipment to a set of Tuareg nomads and say, "hey, while you're traveling through the Masai Mara, record some lions roaring, and when you get back to civilisation, upload them to Wikipedia". We need dedicated people who know how to capture this stuff and are willing to work with us, or again, find a source for it all. I suppose it would be pretty easy to find animal calls online, but then we have to find PD versions of it, which is often an extra hurdle.

Finally, I would say that the reason we have a lot of American music and speeches by Americans is because any Presidential speech is likely to be PD and it's easy to figure out whether a piece of music is or not (basically is it older than 1923 or whenever). It's probably harder to figure out what the rules are for audio copyrights for works in other countries, or we know they're copyrighted. Winston Churchill, great speaker. Can we actually get any examples of his speeches? No. The Queen's speeches or Christmas messages? No. Because the British Government copyrights everything. We could theoretically get hold of some old BBC stuff, from 1922 to 1929, but just how the heck are we supposed to do that?

Also, like the IPer below, I find it difficult to understand what is and isn't PD when it comes to sounds and recordings and the differences between them. Matthewedwards :  Chat  06:02, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Going off the comments above, what's especially interesting is few little Canadian, British, Indian, and Australian music, field recordings, and speeches we have. Those are all also English speaking countries. As for the non-anglophone music (which is more achieveable than speeches), we do have articles, and in many cases the music is out there, the issue is that we can't bridge the two because of a language barrier. I know that's not an easy thing to solve, and I don't have an answer. Honestly I was hoping more for getting some ideas than for getting a long speech on how hard it is, I gotta say that's rather kicked my enthusiasm down a bit. Ah well, I suppose we have enough other things to worry about. Sven Manguard Wha? 07:08, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Not to mention the indigenous peoples of the predominantly white Western-countries, North America, Australia, New Zealand etc. I'm sure there are plenty recordings floating around the internet that AREN'T white, Christian or birdsongs/calls. —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 9:58pm • 11:58, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

I have a Jewish music cleanup I need to finish, actually. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 13:42, 11 April 2011 (UTC) Not anymore. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 00:43, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

The availability issue is an even bigger part of this than Matthew makes it out to be. But as far as government works in the U.S. goes, of course it's the whole government whose works are public domain; in the U. K., actually, government (crown) copyright expires after 50 years (so there are some U. K. government sounds on Commons, though probably none worth featured status), and more and more media is becoming available under the free Open Government License (probably few if any sounds—yet). Old Indian music should not be hard to get—Indian sound recordings become PD 60 years after publication; just find an Indian music fan, I expect, and we'll have plenty. I think I even have some I can upload—but they're CDs said to be unmodified from old originals: would they work?. 02:47, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Nominations needing closing

Most of the nominations below are in need of closing, I'd do so myself but given the extensive comments and differing views I find establishing consensus in these nominations to be a rather haphazard affair. —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 9:53pm • 11:53, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

I will see what I can do --Guerillero | My Talk | Review Me 15:41, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Stay on nominations

Can we please put a stay on nominations until we can get to about 20-25. Its hard to navigate the page when there are 34 nominations. cheers --Guerillero | My Talk | Review Me 02:28, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Works for me. 20 as a limit works well. We can always set up a subpage for overflow, although for the regulars, waiting works just as well. Sven Manguard Wha? 04:49, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm only willing to put that request on regulars; let's not chase off new people. Also, there's a lot of noms that could close, either today or tomorrow. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 09:00, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Oh, also, I put up a lot of urgents. They're a little ahead of the normal timescale, but with so many, I'd like to close things right away when they're ready to close. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 09:57, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

There are 40 now. I stuck up the template. I will start closing things tonight when I am finished with a paper I am writing off-wiki. Sven Manguard Wha? 21:39, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

• I've reopened to nominations. There's at least half a dozen more ready to close. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 11:00, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Deletion of original files after edits are created

Should I ask to have files deleted when FSC discussions lead to superior versions that replace all article space usage even though the original files still remain in FSC discussions and log files.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 14:51, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Not really, so long as you fill in the "other_versions" paramater in the page description to inform people that there is a better version. Since nothing is ever permanently deleted anyways, it won't save space, and should there come a time that audio restoration becomes more powerful, working from the original will be preferable to working from the edit. Sven Manguard Wha? 21:33, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

(ec)This would all be well and good, but Adam Cuerden (talk · contribs) has placed all the alternate versions on WP (see User_talk:Adam_Cuerden#File:FDR.27s_1941_State_of_the_Union_.28Four_Freedoms_speech.29_Edit_1.ogg), making the other versions parameter on commons useless.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 00:22, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Agreed One should never delete the originals: They're needed to docxument the restoration. - Adam, on a Kindle —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.238.84.65 (talk) 21:49, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

1972

This template: {{PD-US-record}}

may be of interest to us. Ca we really upload recordings bade before 1972? That would put Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band into the public domain and I know that the Beatles lawyer would be contacting us if we tried to upload anything of theirs --Guerillero | My Talk | Review Me 00:20, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Well in that case, from my very limited understanding, a pre-'72 "recording" of St. Pepper may be public domain, but the "subject", the actual song, composition, lyrics, are still copyrighted and so is unsuitable for nomination. It may apply better to other things, but I'm sure there are more knowledgeable people here who can confirm. Matthewedwards :  Chat  01:58, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

I can't read. "Recordings of copyrighted musical compositions etc., cannot be freely used, but it is asserted that this sound recording not based on copyrighted material can be considered public domain in the United States." This could let us expand some things. Though, I wouldn't risk it myself --Guerillero | My Talk 02:02, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

It might be useful for field recordings, interviews, NPR news broadcasts and the like. Sven and Adam are likely to know more. Matthewedwards :  Chat  02:32, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

That template is never sufficient for a featured sound. Anything going on the main page needs far better rationale than that. I could buy it if it was out of copyright in its source country, though. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 03:46, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

So to verify that I understand correctly, a US recording created before February 15, 1972 of an out-of-copyright composition (say, a Beethoven sonata) would be public domain? Jujutacular ^talk 11:56, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Not really, in fact, I suspect any attempt to use that template is actually likely to be a copyvio. Commons can be really stupid sometimes.

The point that template's based on is basically that the U.S. has no coherent laws on copyright for sounds before 1972, that being handled in a very confusing and bizarre way. The U.S. also has the RIAA. I don't think it's worth the risk. Pre-1923 should be fine, though, even though it's a bit ambiguous as well. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 23:56, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

For the record, though,t here is a period that DOES have unambiguous copyright status: 15 Feb 1972 to the start of 1978, published without a copyright notice. THAT'S unambiguously out of copyright (huzzah!)

Simple version: U.S. Copyright Law for Sound Recordings before 1972 is basically whatever a judge says it is at the time. However, pre-1923 is a hard-set date in copyright law that is probably safe to apply to sound recordings. Don't expect to get away with anything after that. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 00:08, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Editing down of longish speeches (and other sounds)

I wrote this at one of TTT's nominations, but it's too long and needs proper discussion by all editors here.

I think we are all new to the notion of long speeches, and some editors don't agree with my misgivings about the length. However, I believe a general policy, with exceptions where appropriate, might evolve. First, I wonder how visitors/editors listen to such speeches; in a fast world, a fast internet, my hunch is that more people will click and listen through if we use our editorial skills to present a trimmed-down version of such speeches that are of a narrower scope, or at least omit the fluffy stuff politicians bore us all with nowadays, for example. I wonder whether the articles these speeches likely to be used in could sometimes do with shorter, more narrow-scope versions. The full version is always available and can be linked to from an edited-down version, so any concern about making info inaccessible should not be at issue. The Monica Lewinsky nom is an extreme example where I think I do want to see just the last bit in a few related articles, not the huge 21-minute, loosely conceived and rambling version that is largely irrelevant to that topic. Trimming the front and back is not so problematic; editing out stuff through the run of the piece needs more care, technically, in a vid. (Can vids be readily edited such as with ogg. audio files?) In all cases, we are meant to be the masters of NPOV, and practise this in our article writing. We often select small fragments of quoted text, use ellipsis points and square brackets to get the person's point across neutrally with the minimum of clutter. Isn't it a similar aim here? I'd like to hear the opinions of others on this. (Disclaimer: I'm a great fan of Bill Clinton's.) Tony (talk) 15:48, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Personally, I think editors chopping entire speeches, is unorthodox and a bit POV. Unless there are secondary sources that provide excerpts we should provide entire speeches. I am not familiar with secondary sources that tend to chop speeches and don't see much problem in including entire speeches and where warranted noting the exact timepoint in a speech when a notable quote may occur. Editing such speeches changes the context of the quote.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 16:06, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

My personal opinion is that that's a bit like providing only the first movement of Beethoven's 5th symphony, or the last movement of his ninth - it's catering to what people already know, and hiding the context from them. Also, in some cases, it's impossible to create an extract that accurately covers the full speech; for example, Truman's Farewell Speech briefly covers all notable aspects of his presidency. It couldn't be trimmed down.

Perhaps an example will help. Here's a current featured sound:

This is what we should have promoted:

Now, of course, there's limits. We're not going to promote a three-day audio log. But at the same time, we don't want to cut too close. Now, where a speech is made up of obvious sections, that may be different. If person X deals with 8 topics of no general interest, then says "Oh, and one more thing. [Incredibly iconic speech follows], then we could cut to the ninth topic, no problem. Or if a speech s very long , for example, the several days of lectures that led to the surprise revelation that Fermat's Last Theorem had been proven as a consequence of the previous proof, we might want to only show the revelation, simply as several hours is too much. But I don't think the speeches under consideration necessarily fall into those situations. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 16:17, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

The Monica Lewinky one certainly does. At the moment, it is misleadingly titled. Tony (talk) 15:04, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Basically, the speech has political context that says Clinton wanted to make clear Lewinsky was a footnote among his issues of the day. Clipping the speech to make a soundbite is what a sensationalist media might do, but we should not, IMO. It is a bit POV for us to decide what part of the context we want to give the reader when we can give them the whole thing with minimal cost to those who don't want the whole context.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 20:35, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I have to agree with User: Tony1 on this - it would not be POV to include a clip with that title starting with "Now I have to go back and work on my State of the Union speech" which leads into his statement about Lewinsky and the scandal. Including the 5 minutes before that, which is completely about his education reforms, and then inferring some unstated political context is actually more POV than trimming the clip to the relevant portion. In my opinion this raises an OR/SYNTH problem - we should not be deciding what Clinton "wanted to make clear". (My comments here are as a regular editor since 2007 of Lewinsky scandal[1] and Monica Lewinsky [2] - I'm not addressing this FSC action, just what is placed in Lewinsky scandal.) Tvoz/talk 06:41, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Please point me to any scholarly source or library that ever chops up a presidential speech. The scholarly source we are using and all presidential libraries seem to view presidential speeches as a uniform body, AFAI can tell. Sure news agencies do it all the time in order to maximize ratinges, but we are not out to maximize ratings.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 07:06, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

I am not suggesting chopping up anything - I am talking about starting the clip at the part that is relevant to the article. Tvoz/talk 08:43, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

• TonyTT, there is nothing special about US presidential speeches. All speeches need to be cut to scope and size as a practicality to maximise their EV. Likewise, one does not quote an entire speech in a WP article out of some fear of introducing POV: presenting information from sources has to serve our readers' encyclopedic needs, and can readily do so in reduced form. That is part of the skill we all have as editors (i.e., non-POV). And are you suggesting that a featured picture candidate should not be cropped when the reviewers recommend it? Tony (talk) 13:47, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

I've come rather late to the party, but I think that the focus should be on showing the notable well-known phrase in the context of the speech (or whatever the mode of communication was). I think it would be wrong of us to shorten a speech unless there was a very good reason to do so. In general, editors should assume in the first instance that the historical context around the phrase / paragraph is important, and that therefore as much of the original recording should be used as possible. There will obviously be exceptions and recordings which for one reason or another need to get shortened, but I think we can deal with this on a case-by-case basis. Instead of getting underwear in a twist over exactly what actions we should take for all cases, make a general consensus guideline with the acknowledgement that there will, inevitably, be exceptions, and that it should be up to the nominating editor in the first instance to decide which way to take it. The community of FS'ers can take a view over the piece in particular.

It would be most useful for readers to have the brief clip with the phrase / paragraph etc as a separate file, with the full speech available either as a link on the file page, in the article itself, or in the description as deemed appropriate. That way they could hear the most notable part first if they wished and then listen to it in context. For my money the FS would most likely be the full file with the shortened version being the TLDR (or TLDL).

By the way, keep up the good work TTT!Major Bloodnok (talk) 19:52, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Further to the above, this page on the Commons discusses various issues connected to video. In terms of front page practicalities there is obviously a concern that a large video file or audio files will cause a problem for the WP servers; one route would be to have them as FS but not to use them on the Front page. Another possibility occurs to me that it would be sensible to have a brief clip(s) of a FS speech where it is not possible for bandwidth reasons to have the whole thing. The file itself would somewhere link to the other, longer version, perhaps as part of the description. Major Bloodnok (talk) 21:06, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Video vs. audio

I am noticing that my preference is to create video files from the Miller Center archives, but previously most people have been working with audio files. What is the opinion of the project on audio vs. video.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 04:02, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, it would be great if we could start moving toward a Wikipedia:Featured video candidates process in the future. Anyone want to step up and help build that? :)--Pharos (talk) 04:10, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Regardless of whether they are separate projects or a unified one, the question is what is of value to WP. What should I spend my time on to help out?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 04:31, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

P.S. Much like WP:GT and WP:FT are under one roof, I think separate featured audio and featured video could operate as sort of separate ideas under the same featured sound project.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 04:35, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

That's pretty much as it is now. It's funny, videos are featured both here at FS and at FP (not the same videos of course). The difference tends to be the emphasis. What is the more important element – the visual or the audio? Even combining the videos from here and FPC, there wouldn't be enough for a whole new project.

Anyway, I think the choice between audio only and video comes down to context. In some contexts, the visual element isn't very important and would only serve to distract the reader. In other contexts, video would be a great addition the project. Now if we could only start using H264... Jujutacular ^talk 11:47, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, I think building a process for recognizing high-quality video content as such is a powerful way to advance improving video standards and practices on Wikipedia. Obviously this does go beyond the few sound-focused videos which are currently part of FS. I think the time for a dedicated video process is ripe now though, with the content drives being organized by the Wikipedia Video and Education Working Group, and the near-future adoption of WebM on Wikimedia projects.--Pharos (talk) 15:44, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

It could work, but be warmed it took Sounds about 4 years to build to this level. Mind you, we're the first project to really start after the other projects had matured; the lessons we learnt may hold any FV project in good stead.

I'd probably say the most important lessons are:

• Don't model yourself after a mature project. Featured sounds tried to exactly imitate Featured pictures when it started, including such things as failing nominations if it didn't get enough votes in a short timeframe. Which leads to my next point:
• Avoid sharp deadlines. Set a date after which things can be closed, but allow things to run until they're ready to close.
• Videos run up fairly hard against filesize limitations. You'll need to do some campaigning to raise the limits. In the meantime, get started with FV. Sure, you may end up having to scrap 99% of the early videos, but so long as people keep their files, they can replace them when filesizes increase. The existence of a Featured Video project will in itself give justification for the changes, particularly if it gets a lot of participation early.
• Consider using the success of another project to your own ends. For a few weeks, FSCs were displayed on the Featured Picture Candidates page. It helped
• People need to see new things regularly if they're going to visit the page regularly. Try to nominate something at least every two days. A dead project does not magically attract participants.
• You're going to be a bit incestuous at first, with a small number of people voting on each others' nominations. Learn to live with that; any problems should self-correct later, when delists start happening.
• Cultivate a good relationship with some administrators willing to adjudicate on closures. Don't make them do the full 20-step closure process, just have them make the decision; the regulars can do the actual closing.
• Speaking of which, make the closure process as simple as possible. There's going to be at least four pages you MUST add the video to: Wikipedia:Featured videos, Template:Announcements/New_featured_content, Wikipedia:Goings-on, and the user page. Plus you'll have a template to add to the Video description page to mark it as an FV, and will have to move the nomination to the monthly log. That's more than enough work without having to use four different templates, with differing syntaxes, for each of the pages you have to add it to.
• Have the number of votes needed to promote be a realistic number. Three support votes, including the nominator, is probably the best bet, until such time as most promotions close with four support votes anyway.
• Advertise milestones. Project start? Advertise it in the Signpost! 25 FVs? Unless you've been wildly successful (or decided all currently featured videos from FS and FP are FVs), that'll have taken a few months. Promote it to the Signpost. Don't be silly about it, but do try to get as much commentary about you as possible, so that people know you exist. And make darn sure you're appearing in Features and admins at least once a month, preferably weekly. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 17:26, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

• Of course, given Featured Video is probably the last Featured Content process until a fundamental change in technology happens, I doubt me that this list will be that useful to anyone but you. =) Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 17:37, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

It's not like we normally have a choice to have high-quality video that we're just ignoring. For most Featured Sounds, no video is possible anyway. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 11:53, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

• For the record, I oppose featured videos. I don't believe that at this time there is enough of a niche. I also believe that featured sounds needs to focus on audio. If the video's sound is equivalent to a regular audio clip, I'm fine with it. If it's not, we should stick with the less flashy but better sounding ogg. Sven Manguard Wha?
  • Edit: I decided that there probably is a niche by now. Sven Manguard Wha? 00:05, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
    • Having a video on FS in the long run would probably not be the best place for this. However, until there is a FV process in place FS & FP will have to do. On the whole, I'm not against video here; the key for me is whether the visuals add to the sound. Political speeches on the whole benefit from it. Major Bloodnok (talk) 21:28, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Another major issue is the 100MB file size limit, which means that for longer speeches the quality has to be degraded fairly substantially. While I have supported at least one speech at low quality, we do have to consider this issue for videos. Again, I am not against video as it can enhance the encyclopaedic value of a sound, but we do have to consider quality, given the technical limits on WP. Youtube has lots of high quality video and I think in the long-run this is where we should be going. Given the current limits of WP, especially considering the potential demand on its bandwidth, I think we have to be conservative for now. Major Bloodnok (talk) 07:49, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Miller Center licence tag

The following tag, Template:Miller Center both locally and on commons, should be used for all Miller Center recordings, along with the PD-USGov tag, in order to prevent a repeat of the jelly donut speech issue.

If you have cause to modify the template, please ensure that you modify it in both places. Hope this helps, Sven Manguard Wha? 03:08, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Miller Center Multimedia Archive This file was taken from the website of the Scripps Library Multimedia Archive of the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs. The Miller Center multimedia files are taken from the presidential libraries of the presidents they depict. The files are therefore within the public domain, both as works of US Government employees conducted during their work, and as a part of the National Archive. Video files from the Miller Center are watermarked by the center. In many cases a higher quality version of video, or one without the watermark, will be available through the respective presidential libraries. Users with screencasting software are encouraged to upload new versions of the videos if comparable or greater audio and visual quality can be achieved. If the speech is listed as a Featured Sound, please do not upload the new version over the old one, instead upload a new version and inform Featured Sounds at Wikipedia talk:Featured sound candidates. If it's not a featured sound, feel free to upload the new version over the Miller Center version.

A couple of caveats. First, the Miller Center's videos are not always from the presidential libraries. Sometimes they are produced in-house at the Miller Center—those are the videos that are broadcast by PBS affiliates throughout the nation each week. Second, sometimes the video is licensed from TV news stations, on the occasion when they have the only known copies of historical footage, and such videos would be marked clearly as being copyrighted. In the former case, my assumption is that those videos may be reproduced just as freely, although IANAL. In the latter case, reproducing those videos would be both a copyright violation and a violation of WP:CP.

(I'm an employee of the Miller Center, and I also happen to be a Wikipedia contributor on my own time. I speak only for myself here.) --WaldoJ (talk) 13:28, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

This is concerning, as this isn't what I was told when I called. We need to clarify these somehow then. I wish it were easier to get the ones we have directly from the presidential libraries, as that would clarify things so much more. Thank you WaldoJ, and if you have any advice for how to proceed that would also be welcome. Sven Manguard Wha? 00:13, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Archived update (10 April)

I just archived a bunch of old threads. In case anyone missed anything:

• Guerillero became a director.
• Rachnmaninoff files were transferred from commons to local by Chzz.
• TonyTheTiger came to learn the ropes. He was shown said ropes.
• March saw impressive promotion numbers.
• The collapse template we were using for transcripts wasn't showing on commons, it's been fixed.
• AA made a new barnstar.

I think that's everything. We should try and fix that issue with the templates soon. Sven Manguard Wha? 07:58, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Having thought about it a bit, it might be that it's just the wrong template to use - that Commons:Template:Hidden is intended to hide things solely useful to Commons, and just happens to be horribly named. I could see wanting to have such a template, but not under the same name as an en-wiki one which does the same thing except for the undocumented only-commons feature. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 13:40, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Simple audio copyright rules

Where can I find the rules regarding the copyright of audio works, in simple, layman terms?

I'm having difficulty fathoming whether the "sound" is copyrightable or the recording of the sound, or both.

For example, if BBC Radio 3 aired a piece of music that was in the public domain, can it be recorded off of BBC iPlayer and uploaded here? Or would it be copyrighted because it was recorded from the BBC?

Or if I found a book at the library with birdcalls, since a birdcall is most likely public domain, is the recording of it also in public domain or is that copyrighted? Thanks, 66.87.12.186 (talk) 04:21, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Regarding radio broadcasts of classical music: the underlying piece may be old and thus fall under public domain, but the recording is new, and thus a new copyright has been created for that specific recording. I assume modern recordings of bird calls would be copyrighted as well, but I am not sure actually, anyone know of any precedence for this? Jujutacular ^talk 04:28, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

The three 'simple' audio copyright rules.

• Unless it explicitly says otherwise, you must assume that it is copyrighted.
  • Copyright expires over time and some things never get copyrighted, but copyright law is immensely complicated and does not generalize well. See point 3.
• With audio and video, there are two seperate components that may be copyrighted seperately and expire at different times. In audio those two components are the original composition and the performance of the work. In video it is what is being recorded and the recording itself.
  • Any composition by Mozart will be in the public domain, however if I were to preform one of his pieces, I could copyright my performance separately. Both the composition and the performance must be free use for the audio file to be free use. The pyramids at Egypt are too old to be protected by copyright, but if I were to produce a video on them I could copyright that video. As with the audio, both the subject and the production must be free use for the video to be free use. See point 3.
• When in doubt, ask someone more experienced!
  • I offer this a lot, I'm rarely taken up on it. I will sit with you and answer questions and walk through the process if you ask me to. The best way to learn is to read the policy page on Wikipedia, then ask people for help when you have questions. Experience is the best teacher. If I can help interested people learn the ropes, the payoff (seeing more people uploading to Wikipedia and seeing more Featured Sounds) will be more than worth the time.

Sven Manguard Wha? 06:59, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

In simpler terms:

• Before 1923 is almost certainly fine.
• Anything with an appropriate Creative Commons release, or which was recorded by a member of the Federal Government is fine, so long as the underlying composition is.
• Anything else is a nightmare. There's actually quite a lot of recordings which are out of copyright in pretty much every country but the U.S., and which may be out of copyright in the U.S. too, but which we can't feature because of the ambiguity. =/

Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 11:42, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Joint nom

I was wondering if it would be logical/kosher to nominate File:King Cotton.ogg and File:The Gallant Seventh.ogg along with the Wikipedia:Featured sound candidates/Manhattan Beach‎ nomination since they are by the same composer from the same album?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 00:49, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

If they're from the same album then there should be no problem. —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 12:22pm • 02:22, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

In the end, grouping nominations or leaving them simple has technical differences. Three separate pieces will be counted as three featured sounds in three parts (one part each). It makes closing more complicated for me, but easier for Adam (the difference being I use X's tool and he has the process memorized). So long as the count is right and the promotions are done properly, I don't care one way or the other. Sven Manguard Wha? 02:36, 15 April 2011 (UTC)