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;Telling the stories of rural England with Wikipedia
;Stephen Fry records his voice for Wikipedia


[[File:Humphrey_Southall_presents_at_EduWiki_Conference_2013.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Humphrey Southall presenting at EduWiki conference2013]]
[[File:Stephen_Fry.jpg|thumb|right|230px|Stephen Fry]]


''This post was written by Dr Humphrey Southall, Reader in Geography, University of Portsmouth, written with Dr Martin Poulter, Jisc's Wikimedia Ambassador and was [http://wikiambassador.jiscinvolve.org/wp/2014/01/21/rural-england-wikipedia/#more-57 originally published here]''
Stephen Fry wears many hats – wit, television presenter, actor, writer and geek. He now has a new hat to wear: Wikipedia contributor.


In November, at the [http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2013/11/eduwiki-conference-2013-convenes-in-cardiff/ EduWiki Conference 2013], academics and Wikimedians spent two days discussing a range of issues of common concern. David White of the University of Oxford’s Department for Continuing Education delivered a keynote exploring the ways in which students use Wikipedia, and I contributed a presentation of my own, describing a Wikipedia-based assignment I give to first-year students in Applied Human Geography and also looking at how academics can inform the widest public about their subject, and raise awareness of the reliable sources used in research.
Stephen was recently approached by Wikipedia editor [http://pigsonthewing.org.uk/ Andy Mabbett] ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pigsonthewing User:Pigsonthewing]), who founded the Wikipedia voice intro project (WikiVIP). Although in New York at the time, Stephen willingly obliged and recorded a sample of his speaking voice for use on [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_fry his Wikipedia biography].


For the past two decades, I've been part of a team building the site [http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/ A Vision of Britain] with funding from Jisc, the National Lottery and research bodies. I have also been involved in [http://gis.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k235&pageid=icb.page421399 international discussions about ‘gazetteers’], during which I've come to regard Wikipedia as one of the world’s most widely used gazetteers. In the course of creating links between A Vision of Britain and Wikipedia it grew clear how many stub articles existed about villages and that gave me an idea that developed into an engaging, challenging assignment for my first-year students.
The project asks people who are the subject of Wikipedia articles – whether they are celebrities like Stephen Fry, or those notable for other activities like scientists or artists – to make short recordings of their voice, lasting around ten seconds or so. The recordings are then uploaded to the article so that Wikipedia’s readers know what they sound like and how to correctly pronounce their names. Contributors to the project so far include lunar astronaut [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Duke Charlie Duke] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Knight Baron Knight of Weymouth], a peer of the United Kingdom. You can listen to all of the voice recordings made for the project so far [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Voice_intro_project here on Wikimedia Commons] or on the appropriate Wikipedia articles.


In one module, I want students to get substantial experience of using census data, and of proper referencing – to understand the numbers associated with a place and be able to interpret what those mean for the people who live there. The new assignment idea was to get students to deliver their work into Wikipedia. Each one was allocated a Wikipedia article about a village in northern England, and expected to look after it over a period of months, making gradual improvements by adding reliably sourced information.
Once the recording of Stephen’s voice was uploaded and added to his biography, Andy also transcribed it as [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Timed_Text timed text captions] which are displayed as the audio plays.


<span class="plainlinks">[http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2014/01/telling-the-stories-of-rural-england-with-wikipedia/ <nowiki>[</nowiki>Post continues...<nowiki>]</nowiki>]</span>
Andy is also working with the BBC on [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:BBC_voice_project a project] to extract similar clips from certain BBC programmes. Significantly, this is the first time that the BBC have openly licensed content from their broadcast programmes.
 
At an event at new Broadcasting House on 18 January, volunteers identified over three hundred clips, which the BBC are reviewing, processing, and then [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:BBC_voice_samples uploading to Wikimedia Commons]. Wikimedians are then inserting them into relevant Wikipedia articles. At the time of writing, just under half of the identified clips have been uploaded, and work continues. Examples added to articles so far range from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_berners-lee Sir Tim Berners-Lee] to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aung_San_Suu_Kyi Aung San Suu Kyi].
 
You can help the Wikipedia voice intro project by asking people you know who are the subject of Wikipedia articles to make recordings of their voices in any language in which they’re comfortable (the project is not just for English speakers). You can also help to transcribe the existing files into timed text captions.
 
And if you happen to be the subject of a Wikipedia article, why not record a sample of your voice? If you’d like more details of how you can get involved in the voice project, or Wikipedia in general, please email [http://mailto:stevie.benton@wikimedia.org.uk stevie.benton@wikimedia.org.uk]
<span class="plainlinks">[http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2014/01/stephen-fry-records-his-voice-for-wikipedia/ <nowiki>[</nowiki>...<nowiki>]</nowiki>]</span>


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Revision as of 16:15, 25 January 2014

Cymraeg | English

Cymraeg | English

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