Wikipedia To Add Video 165
viyh writes "Wikipedia will be adding a video option within two or three months, according to the MIT Technology Review. '... a person editing a Wikipedia article will find a new button labeled "Add Media." Clicking it will bring up an interface allowing her to search for video — initially from three repositories containing copyright-free material — and drag chosen portions into the article, without having to install any video-editing software or do any conversions herself. The results will appear as a clickable video clip embedded within the article.' They will be requiring all video to use open-source formats. This is in hopes of getting content providers to open up their material to gain wider exposure on the Wikipedia website. There is also an in-browser editor that removes a lot of the headache often associated with any kind of video editing. With the new Wikipedia system, 'people will be able to easily inject media into pages, in a way that wasn't possible before,' says Michael Dale, a software engineer from Kaltura, the company assisting with development of the tools."
Rather not. (Score:5, Insightful)
I like wiki because it's such a clean, fast, text layout with nothing special. I don't see how this is going to improve things.
Hipocrisy or something near that. (Score:4, Insightful)
It amazes me that the company [kaltura.com] that "promotes" open source uses a proprietary or not fully open method (read Flash), to deliver video. What's going on?
Less is more. (Score:4, Insightful)
And presumably also, every band on Earth will have a sample of their video on every page they can get away with, as well as every company that now successfully uses Wikipedia to astroturf their products will get a nice demo video up too.
It seems that as each month passes wikipedia becomes less and less relevant, and less reputable. Wholly because of bad administrative decisions.
Weird story gender... (Score:2, Insightful)
Strange, apparently a "person" can only be female.
I know, I know, if it said "he" no one would notice, but obviously this person was going out of their way to say "her", so why not just go with "they"? I know it's not grammatically correct (according to an English teacher I had) but at least it works, and it should be correct.
Anyway, it just annoys me when someone goes out of their way to try to end the male gender bias only to throw in female gender bias instead of making it gender neutral.
-Taylor
Re:Hipocrisy or something near that. (Score:5, Insightful)
Its also proprietary, requiring a license to use their tools.
Its an abusive technology, allowing no view controls other than blocking or de-installing flash all together.
With the advent of HTML5, flash is NOT the way to go.
Re:Rather not. (Score:4, Insightful)
They're all inherently evil, except that google is smart enough to know that a good image counts.
I'm pretty far to the left here, and really dislike most corporations, greed, and economic sociopathy, but I'd say you are wrong there.
There is nothing in the idea or structure of a corporation that makes them innately evil. I doubt your incorporation papers have a hidden sub-clause demanding you be "evil", and I really doubt that many existent corporations set out to do evil. Corporations are morally gray.
It how they choose to act which would color them as good or evil, not their very existence. Just like pretty much all human constructs, it exists as a neutral tool, its ultimate ethical/moral value comes from the use of it.
Re:Weird story gender... (Score:3, Insightful)
I've noticed this 'politically correct' way of writing documents nowadays. I assumed it was deluded female tech authors trying to make some kind of point. Its not grammatically correct (according to my old English teacher - she said "In English, He embraces She") as the masculine form always includes the feminine. Like "mankind" means women too. "Womenkind" on the other hand is very exclusive.
Pity us poor men, we don't have a gender bias, we have to share it with women, while women get their own.
So, yeah, it annoys me too - authors should know better than to write in this way, of all the incorrect forms of grammer, this is the one that really stands out for some reason.
Re:Hipocrisy or something near that. (Score:3, Insightful)
With the advent of HTML5, flash is NOT the way to go.
Flash uses H.264, which is said to use half the bandwidth of Theora. And a lot of people use a PC where they don't have administrative rights to install an HTML 5 viewer.
Re:Less is more. (Score:3, Insightful)
And presumably also, every band on Earth will have a sample of their video on every page they can get away with
In the same way that they advertise their band on every page? Except they don't. Same for the companies. (Yet the sad thing is that other people whine about Wikipedia precisely because too much stuff is deleted...)
It seems that as each month passes wikipedia becomes less and less relevant, and less reputable.
You are mistaking your preference, and your opinion, with actual general fact. Like it or not, it's still a Top 10 website, and if you as a random person posting of a forum are going to make claims about it becoming less reputable, I do hope you have a reference?
Re:Weird story gender... (Score:5, Insightful)
So you acknowledge that all three possibilities offered by the English language are flawed, but you still criticise the author for picking one you evidently have a problem with?
For heaven's sake - get over it.
Re:There's just one problem... (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently the feminists won and we're so fucking PC now that there are no males on the internet.
Let's face it: in English, if you talk about someone, you either have to specify his/her gender, or pretend they're more than one person.
Media is the missing element (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, links to other websites are fine, but the archival of human knowledge found in Wikipedia is important too. Links get broken, external media disappears... I'm sure WP would much rather have their own content which they control, than rely on other sources that taint media with ads, that are inconsistent in formats etc...
When you see the kind of junk on YouTube, I know, its worrysome. I know there will be copyright issues, pornography etc... It will cost more money for sure... But it's time to make use of the rich feature set Internet brings to us and WP. It's an advantage WP has over printed textbooks and they should use such advantages IF they can handle it.
I guess that's the issue though: Even YouTube is having a hard time profiting from video hosting.
Speaking of YouTube -- and maybe this is a disastrous idea -- but what if Wikipedia relied on a service like YouTube? Obviously that's not going to work (advertising, comments, flash player etc...), but think about it: Hosting videos and filtering inappropriate stuff is what they are good at. Maybe with some negotiation and charitable good will on YouTube's part, there could be special provisions for Wikipedia. For example, YouTube could host user-uploaded video content for WP, but without all the commercial baggage (Read: charitable). However, if you followed the link, it would take you to YouTube to show the video in high-def or whatever... commercial free, no junk comments etc. It wouldn't be profitable for YouTube, but they'd have *more* useful content on their website thanks to WP, drawing more users and good will. Also, WP would benefit from the already established efficiency of YouTube.
Again though, that's kind of a crazy idea with a plethora of potential pit falls, but just brain storming. Yes, there would have to be many changes to accommodate these videos, WP would have to be pretty trusting of TY and finally YT would have to be in an awfully giving mood itself.
Personally, I'd much rather have WP host the material, but find a way to do so for far less than I'm imagining the real cost will be.
Re:Less is more. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:No Male (Score:2, Insightful)
Why do signs meaning "No parking" have an image of a parked car...?
Re:There's just one problem... (Score:4, Insightful)