Sunday, August 5, 2012

Uploading Captions to existing videos

So you have been asked to upload captions to your video.  Thank you in advance.  Having captions not only allows hearing impaired people to be able to watch your video, it allows people to watch it in other languages.

With the Wikipedia World project we are working to caption tons of interviews and other subject matter so that we can turn around and use them for citations on Wikipedia pages.  This is much quicker and easier than translating entire notable documents that probably do need to be translated. 

The following is specific instructions on how to upload captions to YouTube if you are asked.  Below these instructions is a plea for you all picture and video holders to preserve the history you have created, and make available for future projects.

Instructions:








You should have received an email with a file attached, the extension will probably be .srt  You do not have to open this file. 



Next go to the video on YouTube. 








You see that little downward arrow next to the Annotations tab?  Click on that down arrow.




Click on Captions






Now click on upload caption file or transcript.  Your file screen should come up.  You need to find the file that was sent to you amongst all the other files.  Open that file.



 Change the tab to the language that it is translated into.  Click upload. 

You should be able to see the changes you have made by clicking on the "view on video page" tab.



Under the video there is a red CC If you click on that you will be able to click on the translation you want to see displayed on the video. 


If you click on the CC button you will see a "settings" feature.  If you play around with these you can make the captions appear better.  I haven't done this yet, but I suppose it can be very helpful for certain videos.

Please spread the video around in your social world.  Talk up this project.  We need tons of people to help out.  Once they realize they might be holding onto videos that may be useful to the Wikipedia World project they might just upload them, or bring them to our attention.  (contact me at susangerbic@yahoo.com)
Plea:

I'm not sure how an owner can make their account available for others to upload without having you do it for us.  If someone knows how this can be done I would love an answer.  If you are a video owner, remember you are in-trusted with a piece of history that may be needed for projects we can't even imagine how we will use in the future. 

Somehow you need to find a way to pass on permissions for these videos in case you are incapable or unavailable in the future.  I'm releasing permissions and passwords to some key people in my life with instructions on how the pictures and videos can be used.  Also I have made several people I trust admins on my blogs, projects and accounts so they can move right in and keep things on track if I'm unable to.  I'm trying to avoid the founders syndrome right up front. 

I'm looking at videos of Jerry Andrus that aren't perfect, not the most amazing quality, but they are available and the content is wonderful in my eyes.  If these videos and pictures didn't exist, then a piece of history would be completely lost.  See this blog about how you can help out with the Wikipedia projects without becoming an editor. 

Saturday, August 4, 2012

Wikipedia World - 3 weeks later

There has been a lot of interest in the Wikipedia World Project.  Most are obviously not involved in the group but still rooting for it to be a big success.

We are now about 3 weeks out from TAM 2012 when I announced this project.  And I think an update would be welcome about now.

We now have 13 language groups formed; English, German, Norsk, French, Turkish, Dutch, Korean, Russian, Portuguese, Espanol, Danish, Farsi and Swedish.

The IIG Randi Beard photo has gone worldwide with it included on these pages...

English
German
Turkish
French
Spanish
Russian
Dutch
Portuguese
Norsk

Our next project is to produce a Jerry Andrus page in each language.  After that page is done we will be able to branch off onto more pages.

The English page re-write is almost done and just waiting for me to spend a week in Eugene, OR gathering more interviews and photos.

The Portuguese and Dutch pages for Andrus are about a forth of the way complete. 

We have identified 7 videos that show Jerry performing or just show his illusions.  These 7 videos have very few words and no need for captioning, they are ready to go.

We have 5 videos that discuss Andrus and need to be captioned first in English and then in all the other languages.  We have 3 of these done in English, and 1 in Portuguese and 1 in Dutch.

I'm really enjoying doing the English captioning, at first it was confusing to me and took a long time.  Now I've got the hang of it and its like a video game of sorts, but with an actual purpose.  I've done several others in my video library but only the 3 for this project,  I will focus on improving that number this weekend.

We have have several Andrus videos that are already in a language other than English.  Those are ready to go onto pages as is.

Several of the language groups have done a cursory look at what lies ahead for us.  From what we can discover we have our hands full.  Nix Dorf provided us with a good overview of the Portuguese and Spanish Wikipedia pages on this blog.

We are making to-do lists in many of the language groups, and of course the individual editors are free to work on whatever projects/pages they want.  Several have already expressed the desire to work on homeopathy in their native language.  Niels is very interested in creating this page in his language, MusiCure.  Apparently it is big news in Denmark.

My goal is to also really focus on creating pages (or improving pages) for people and groups that are specific to that language.  We get so focused on English speakers being the big-wigs in the skeptical movement that we forget there are skeptical spokepeople all over.  Each language group will need to identify who/what these are and make a plan.

We have had many glitches, most of Wikipedia World team are brand new editors, we are stumbling through this together as so far the editing screen is exactly the same in English and all languages.   Kind of like using an ATM with a different language on the screen, you just hopefully push the right buttons.

On Portuguese Wikipedia apparently you can't use YouTube videos as a citation unless you get the URL on the "whitelist" first.  That was interesting, but we managed to work through that.

I usually make a user page for myself on the different WP language pages.  On one I instantly received a "welcome to Wikipedia" kind of notice, and then seconds later a notice for speedy deletion of my user page.  It is still there but that was a bit unnerving.  Rian also got the same notice when she created a page on the Dutch WP.  We never figured that out.  Its been interesting, but we are starting to get the hang of this. 

As usual we really do need your help.  We need 20 times the amount of editors we have now.  Its an exciting time to be doing this, and an exciting project.  Even if you don't have a second language, we can help you find your way to helping out with this project.

Please write to me at susangerbic@yahoo.com



Thursday, August 2, 2012

Creationists frustrated and give up editing Wikipedia

Thought I would share these Wikipedia links with you all.  (I probably discovered them from one of Tim Farley's links).

The first one Wicked Glitch writes that creationists are throwing in the towel (according to Evolution News and Views) as far as Wikipedia goes.  They just can't get their edits to stay on the page they are editing.  Wonder why?

Love how they envision us editors... 

Evolution News and Views, (an intelligent design blog) recently did a post whining about how ID proponents can’t force Wikipedia to represent them in a favorable light because a few “unemployed” evolutionists with too much time on their hands vigilantly monitor Wikipedia and immediately remove/modify any pro-ID edits. The post mentions a “highly technical” study...

Must make sure to get this good news to Dr. Eugenie Scott.  Now I guess she can relax!  Just kidding folks.  As was just recently reported by our very own Tim Farley, we can't just relax just because we are in the right.  Science and critical thinking needs us and letting down our guard is not a good thing.
 
The second URL is to a study someone did on  the Dynamics of Conflicts in Wikipedia.  Very interesting reading.


 I'm always on the lookout for good Wikipedia related articles, so pass them on if you find them.

BTW - I have turned off the ability for anonymous people to leave comments on this blog.  I was forever getting spammed and it was annoying.  The last person to leave an anonymous comment was James Randi, on this blog.  I don't think it will get better than that.





As always you can comment here, or send me an email susangerbic@yahoo.com