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Wikipedia To Add Video

Posted by Soulskill on from the there-goes-another-five-percent-of-my-day dept.

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."

40 of 165 comments (clear)

  1. No Male by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Clicking it will bring up an interface allowing her to search for video"

    So they only allow females to add videos!?!

    1. Re:No Male by larry+bagina · · Score: 3, Funny

      Yeah. Too many dudes posting dick pics. You can imagine what they'll do with video.

      --
      Do you even lift?

      These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

    2. Re:No Male by Xeth · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It's far worse than images. At least with an image, you can tell immediately that something's wrong. One wonders how long a video modified in the style of Tyler Durden might persist.

      --
      If your theory is different from practice, then your theory is wrong.
    3. Re:No Male by Raul654 · · Score: 5, Funny

      If only that was a joke...

      --


      To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
      --E.C. Stanton
    4. Re:No Male by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      If only that was a joke...

      Why does the "No Penis" template page contain an image of a penis?

    5. Re:No Male by mdwh2 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Note that this problem already exists with sound samples that are allowed on Wikipedia. And I'm not aware of it being a problem.

    6. Re:No Male by BobisOnlyBob · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Why do signs meaning "No parking" have an image of a parked car...?

  2. Rather not. by Nylathotep · · 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.

    1. Re:Rather not. by XPeter · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Agreed. This will also make Wikipedia's bandwidth cost skyrocket, and if I remember correctly they're on a lean budget.

      --
      "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
    2. Re:Rather not. by geniice · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Google has never provided servers or bandwidth to wikipedia. Yahoo provided some servers at one point. Since wikipedia doesn't carry ads google has little incentive to suppot it

      In practice bandwidth demands will likely be limited by how hard it is to produce encyclopedic videos and harder still to produce ones people want to watch.

    3. Re:Rather not. by Omestes · · Score: 3, 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.

      --
      A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
    4. Re:Rather not. by buchner.johannes · · Score: 2, Funny

      Maybe the'll add a comment section too.

      Then people can express how they feel about your NPOV.

      --
      NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
    5. Re:Rather not. by the_womble · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Its even wider than that. Here are a few examples of corporations that do not maximise profits:

      1) Oxfam
      2) the Mozilla Foundation
      3) bishops of the Church of England
      4) cities
      5) some cooperatives and mutuals
      6) some professional associations (some are unincorporated associations)
      7) educational institutions such as schools and universities

      It is also perfectly possible for a profit making corporation to have other objectives (such a guaranteeing editorial independence at Thompson Reuters), or to sacrifice profits in ways that the members approve of (e.g. by giving money to charity) in spite of the stated objectives being purely profit oriented.

      Can we know put this stupid, ignorant Slashdot meme to death? Yes , I know,no chance.

  3. I can see a problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    The "Porn" entry bring down the whole Wikipedia site in the first hour.

    1. Re:I can see a problem by merreborn · · Score: 4, Informative

      The "Porn" entry bring down the whole Wikipedia site in the first hour.

      It's already begun... (sauce [nsfw])

  4. Hipocrisy or something near that. by bogaboga · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It amazes me that the company that "promotes" open source uses a proprietary or not fully open method (read Flash), to deliver video. What's going on?

    1. Re:Hipocrisy or something near that. by BikeHelmet · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Don't go FOSS because it's FOSS. Go FOSS because it's superior.

      Not all FOSS is superior. I trust they'll use the best video streaming for the job, with priority placed on being open source.

      Flash has the best video streaming available at the moment, and the best compatibility. Hard to beat that for a website trying to reel in customers.

    2. Re:Hipocrisy or something near that. by icebike · · Score: 4, 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.

      --
      Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
    3. Re:Hipocrisy or something near that. by demachina · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I'm all for driving Flash out of existence, since Macromedia/Adobe should have never been allowed to acquire the near monopoly on web video they have. Adobe has also been a horrible steward of their responsibility especially when its come to Flash player support for devices like smart phones.

      But the flip side is you might recall back to what video was like before Flash. Every freaking web site you went to had a different video standard, video player, and you were usually forced to launch a video player which either wasn't integrated in the browser or was integrated badly. Flash only succeeded because it fixed a completely broken thing on the web where Apple, Real and Microsoft in particular were trying to acquire their own monopolies on web video.

      For this to succeed Wikipedia needs to compel a new video player standard other than Flash and proprietary codecs like H.264, and insure near universal availability of the solution they create as an integrated browser component, either built in to the browser or as a plugin.

      I'm kind of curious if HTML/5 is going to be able to achieve that lofty goal across all the warring browser factions in the world, especially IE and Microsoft. Not sure JavaFX counts as open. What other standard is their other than HTML/5.

      You also have the little problem that all existing video is going to have to be transcoded if you reject H.264, VP6, MPEG, WMV, AVI and Flash H.263 as acceptable formats. It sure isn't going to be easy to add video to Wikipedia if Joe and Jane user have to transcode the video to add it, or is Wikipedia going to automatically transcode video as they get it to their open standard.

      --
      @de_machina
    4. Re:Hipocrisy or something near that. by Ilgaz · · Score: 2, Interesting

      If someone at our TV had this genius idea of RE-encoding a maximum compressed format to another maximum compressed one, he would be fired in less than a commercial break time.

      Of course, not accepting H264, MPEG, H263 is pure ideological and will satisfy number of elitists who can't even tell difference between SD and HD broadcasts and even brag about it.

      The reality you mention was one of the main reasons why Nokia (and couple of sane companies) insisted on using h264 in video element. There is no way you won't lose quality between transcoding an already state-of-art compressed video to another one. It is the main reason why Youtube videos really sucks, people (who are ordinary) doesn't have the raw video at hand. I even encoded 3-4 videos from digital betacam masters for that exact reason and posted to Youtube. I asked the producer "would you prefer mpeg2-->DV-->VP7 chaos or this? There is no other option because guy/gal will post it.". So we posted our own copyrighted video which really interestingly automatically taken down since a "responsible citizen" reported it :)

      I try 1 more time for open codec fanatic developers: Would you want your pure C code to be converted blindly to BASIC and converted again back to C? That is what you do to videos when you transcode. Oh also, if VP6 worked, they wouldn't donate it to you for Theora. ;)

    5. Re:Hipocrisy or something near that. by tepples · · Score: 2, 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.

    6. Re:Hipocrisy or something near that. by Ilgaz · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Oh well, VLC works for anyone, Java mp4 player works too and so as anything. It wasn't my point, it is all about the feedback they would get if they embedded that or that. It is always negative of some kind. Also please forget about telling people to install some huge media player for a video, it won't happen. Even virus writers know it so they trick people with "codec install" :)

      After reading some comments, I agree it should have been video tag. World's one of the largest, most popular sites happens to be open source and open content, one should use that advantage in a good way without too muuch alienation of poor IE users. Asking browser if it can do the VIDEO thing and falling back to Flash if not would be best.Of course, please, no browser name sniffing, capabilities detection should be enough.

  5. Wikipedia will use "open-source formats" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    I don't know/care about kaltura, but from TFA:

    Key to Wikipedia's video effort--[...]--is Wikipedia's insistence that any video passing into its pages be based on open-source formats.

  6. Less is more. by owlnation · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Well, presumably it will only be notable video that's allowed.

    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.

    1. Re:Less is more. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Maybe it's a bit dodgy when it comes to the important stuff, but Wikipedia is an invaluable repository of pop-culture trivia. Simpsons, Star Trek, or Family Guy questions? I know where to look. And just the other day I needed to know the name of Dagwood Bumstead's daughter.

    2. Re:Less is more. by mdwh2 · · 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?

  7. Title is misleading by geniice · · Score: 4, Informative

    Title is somewhat misleading. Wikipedia has had video for years. For example scroll down at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_C8 or for direct to video http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Morris_C8_towing.ogv

  8. Another Tool by travisb828 · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's always nice to see new tools in the toolbox. I just wonder what kind of edit wars we can look forward to seeing. Could they be like this?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Human_anus

    1. Re:Another Tool by EdIII · · Score: 5, Funny

      I'm sorry, but not everybody is going to actually look at that link, and it is far too fucking priceless to be just referenced. So let's post the juicy parts:

      WRT that female image - how would the contributors here feel if I was to crop it down to the anus alone and use it to replace the current pic? Porn-sourced or not, it is a good, clear picture of the human anus, moreso than the existing image IMO. --Kurt Shaped Box 22:28, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

      That would bring it around full circle to where it's been a couple of years. We had a cropped, shaved, bleached porn-anus in this article for a while, it was determined unsuitable (and a copyvio) and replaced with the current hairy man-hole. All we need is a neutral-looking and not-overly-hairy, suitable for an anatomy text. The Crow 22:43, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

      I have actually considered taking a photo of my own anus for the article (as far as I am aware, mine is pretty typical) just to put an end to this. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to hold the camera at the right angle to get a decent shot. :( If you take a close look at the 'porn' anus in hi-res, it doesn't actually appear to have been shaved or bleached. --Kurt Shaped Box 22:52, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

      I don't think the old female anus was unsuitable; it was removed because it was unsourced. I'm not a fan of females, but cropped, that anus looks more useful than the male one we have now. I'd support adding it if you're willing to crop it. The only real problem is that it looks like a copyright violation too. --Kinst 21:59, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

      I'd certainly be willing to do it - but I'll leave it until the image's status is sorted out. As a matter of interest, why was it tagged as a copyvio (there doesn't appear to be any explanation)? --Kurt Shaped Box 01:24, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

      I don't think my anus is any less hairy than Ano.jpg and I wouldn't say that my anus is an atypical human anus. In any case, who would you be to state that my anus, or the anus on the picture is atypical. In fact most male anuses that I have come across have a similar amount of hair, although the color of the hair on the picture makes it quite prominent. If we were discussing the anus of any other species than human, hair would surely not be a concern. Furthermore if was the Italian gentleman, who was so generous and kind to contribute the picture, I would be downright offended, if the picture was replaced only because the amount of hair was considered, by other wikipedians, to be unnatural and/or objectionable. BrunOperator 13:36, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

      As for my part, I don't find the present anus photo objectional or abnormal. My issues are (1) it's so hairy that the actual anus isn't very visible, (2) It's a decidedly male-looking anus, so people are going to be tempted to put a shaved anus on there and call it "female" because this is what porn has conditioned them to think. The anus is neither male nor female... the anatomy is exactly the same, and some females have even hairier anuses than men. So I think if we had a slightly hairy anus, it would be both medically illustrative and gender-neutral. The Crow 14:17, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

  9. Weird story gender... by Facegarden · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ...a person editing a Wikipedia .... allowing her to search for video...

    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

    --
    Worldwide Military budgets: $2100 billion. Worldwide Space Exploration budgets: $38 billion. Really, world? Really?
    1. Re:Weird story gender... by afabbro · · Score: 3, Funny

      ...a person editing a Wikipedia .... allowing her to search for video...

      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

      Usually, they're college males hoping to get laid by progressive chicks.

      It never works that way, btw.

      --
      Advice: on VPS providers
    2. Re:Weird story gender... by gbjbaanb · · Score: 2, 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.

    3. Re:Weird story gender... by camperdave · · Score: 2, Informative

      I wish "they" was just correct.

      "They" is hereby correct by declaration. If somebody doesn't like it they can bite my shiney metal... pen. If it ever comes up, you can site this post.

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
    4. Re:Weird story gender... by mdwh2 · · 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.

    5. Re:Weird story gender... by seyyah · · Score: 2, Informative

      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.

      NO! Stop! Singluar "they" is good English grammar. It has been in our language for hundreds of years (it passes the Shakespeare test, i.e. he used it), and it is well-established today. Use it!

  10. Donations? by Itninja · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I have donated to Wikipedia a few times over the years. But I think I will stop if this video 'enhancement' takes off. I can think of no article I have ever read that would have been served better by video on the same page. Just reference a video from a source site. I thought Wikipedia was a non-profit organization running an lean crew of committed semi-volunteers, not a business looking to 'drive traffic' to their site.

    --
    I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
  11. Re:There's just one problem... by Jurily · · Score: 4, 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.

  12. Media is the missing element by RudeIota · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Wikipedia is missing the media rich content found on every other software-based encyclopedia, like Encarta and Worldbook. Since such software is dying off because the things like Wikipedia are so packed full of free, up-to-date information, it seems like a natural extension for the free encyclopedia.

    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.

    --
    Fact: Everything I say is fiction.
  13. Re:There's just one problem... by nausea_malvarma · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Why not use "they" and "their" as a gender neutral pronoun? Isn't that the standard? It's the most fair, and the least noticeable.

  14. Re:There's just one problem... by gigabites2 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Technically, that's grammatically incorrect. A singular object referred to as a plural object, as was mentioned above. The correct way to do so would be to say he or she or his or her. I suppose we could be like the French and assume the male gender. Then again, why assume? This is Slashdot!