Wikipedia beefs up pages on famous people with voice recordings

Soon, people logging into Wikipedia to know more about prominent people may get to find out not just how these public figures look, but also how they sound.

The Wikipedia voice intro project (WikiVIP) project, started by Wikipedia editor Andy Mabbett, asks these celebrities for a short recording of their voice.

"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 10 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," Wikimedia UK said in a blog post.

One of the contributors is actor and TV presenter Stephen Fry, who agreed to record a sample of his speaking voice for his Wikipedia biography.

The Wikimedia UK blog said other contributors so far include lunar astronaut Charles Duke Jr. and James Phillip Knight, Baron Knight of Weymouth.

"Once the recording of Stephen’s voice was uploaded and added to his biography, Andy also transcribed it as timed text captions which are displayed as the audio plays," Wikimedia UK said.

For now, it said Mabbett is also working with the British Broadcasting Co. to extract similar clips from certain BBC programs.

"Significantly, this is the first time that the BBC have openly licensed content from their broadcast programs," it added.

Public help

Wikimedia UK said the public can help the Wikipedia voice intro project by asking people they 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," it added.

On the other hand, it asked celebrities who are already subjects of Wikipedia articles to "record a sample of your voice."

First time

A separate report on PC World said that while Wikipedia has added short sound files offering proper pronunciation of a subject’s name, "WikiVip is the first time the online encyclopedia is seeking our original voice samples for its Wikipedia biographies."

"The new voice samples appear at the bottom of the bio box when available," it added.

But it also said Wikimedia has a long way to go before the majority of biography pages include a voice recording. — VC, GMA News