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1 00:00:01,920 --> 00:00:07,280 Does your local community or project have a hard time keeping up with everything that is happening 2 00:00:07,280 --> 00:00:13,200 in the Wikimedia movement? In this talk I'll explain why podcasts are an important way of 3 00:00:13,200 --> 00:00:20,320 disseminating information, explain how it's an underutilized resource in our communities 4 00:00:20,320 --> 00:00:29,840 right now, and how you can get started filling that information gap while having fun doing it. 5 00:00:41,920 --> 00:00:49,040 My name is Jan Ainali and I'm a Swedish Wikipedian. I have been doing Wikipediapodden for 6 00:00:49,040 --> 00:00:57,040 three years, almost 150 episodes and almost 90 episodes of Wikidata live editing. I'm an 7 00:00:57,040 --> 00:01:04,880 admin on Swedish Wikipedia. I edit on Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons and I was the Swedish Wikimedian 8 00:01:04,880 --> 00:01:13,280 of the year last year. So first a general point that is applicable to every time that you are 9 00:01:13,280 --> 00:01:19,440 passing along information. True for podcasts as well as newsletters or anything else like that. 10 00:01:19,440 --> 00:01:25,920 And it is the part of the curation process. You act as a journalist making sure that what you are passing 11 00:01:25,920 --> 00:01:34,960 along to your audience and to your listeners is relevant to them. Now the strength of the podcast 12 00:01:34,960 --> 00:01:42,640 is the audio format. Some people will have an easier time digesting that type of information 13 00:01:42,640 --> 00:01:50,720 rather than just reading it. It is also great thanks to the ability to letting people multitask. 14 00:01:51,920 --> 00:01:58,160 This means that some people may have time to listen to this while doing something else and they 15 00:01:58,160 --> 00:02:03,840 couldn't have that time reading up on everything even if you were collecting it in a newsletter. By 16 00:02:03,840 --> 00:02:11,120 this I mean that you can listen to a podcast while perhaps commuting to your work, while you're doing 17 00:02:11,120 --> 00:02:18,960 your chores in your household while during your workout or perhaps even for some people 18 00:02:18,960 --> 00:02:25,840 while you're at work. And it's important to do it in your local language. First of all 19 00:02:25,840 --> 00:02:32,560 I think that Tobler's first law of geography also applies to language and it says 20 00:02:33,520 --> 00:02:39,520 "everything is related to everything else but near things are more related than distant things". 21 00:02:40,560 --> 00:02:48,320 So with that if someone is giving you information in your language you probably have an easier time 22 00:02:48,320 --> 00:02:53,440 to be able to relate to that. And specifically in the Wikimedia projects if you're talking 23 00:02:53,440 --> 00:03:01,200 about the language version you may know the local policies, you know how the local community behaves, 24 00:03:01,200 --> 00:03:07,040 and you know what technology is enabled and what settings it has which means that you can make it 25 00:03:07,920 --> 00:03:13,440 more customized for your listeners than if you were talking to the whole world. But also look 26 00:03:13,440 --> 00:03:19,920 at this practically. While many can understand many languages listening to something that is 27 00:03:20,480 --> 00:03:28,960 not your mother tongue it requires a higher cognitive load so you have less resources 28 00:03:28,960 --> 00:03:36,160 in your brain to focus on the content and you have to focus more on the form and what is being said. 29 00:03:36,160 --> 00:03:41,520 We must also recognize that while many are proficient in reading a second language 30 00:03:42,560 --> 00:03:50,480 if someone is talking quickly on a podcast you might not be able to catch up with everything they 31 00:03:50,480 --> 00:03:59,120 say. And of course, we should also be aware that not everyone has the privilege of knowing several 32 00:03:59,120 --> 00:04:07,920 languages. And that is why we make sure that we can reach more people by providing a podcast in 33 00:04:08,560 --> 00:04:15,360 more languages. Not specifically your podcast might not reach more but in total if we are doing 34 00:04:15,360 --> 00:04:24,480 more podcasts in local languages. So how do you get started when podcasting? And you might feel 35 00:04:25,440 --> 00:04:35,440 intimidated by the technology behind it. But really you don't need a lot of technology. Often any kind 36 00:04:35,440 --> 00:04:42,400 of external microphone will be good enough. The one in your computer might pick up too much of 37 00:04:42,400 --> 00:04:48,800 other sounds to be good enough but just if you have one external microphone in your webcam that 38 00:04:48,800 --> 00:04:56,080 might be good. So you don't need a lot of tools. I really recommend when you're doing podcasts with 39 00:04:56,080 --> 00:05:04,080 some other person that you have headphones so that no sound will leak from the computer into 40 00:05:04,080 --> 00:05:13,840 the microphone. But the most important resource when you're doing podcasts is silence. The more 41 00:05:13,840 --> 00:05:20,880 quiet environment you can be the better the sound you will get because you can have more control of 42 00:05:20,880 --> 00:05:28,880 what you do. So try to find places that are silent and where there's no echo when you record. 43 00:05:30,160 --> 00:05:36,240 And if that means that you might have to record in an other time of day, that might be what 44 00:05:36,240 --> 00:05:42,400 you have to do then. You can improve the sound quality if you're in a room by putting out 45 00:05:42,400 --> 00:05:49,360 some fabric around you. But echo is less of an issue than just other noise so just try to find 46 00:05:49,360 --> 00:05:54,880 something where it is quiet because that will make it possible for you to record better. And then for 47 00:05:54,880 --> 00:06:00,960 your recording tools I can highly recommend the free and open source software Audacity. 48 00:06:01,680 --> 00:06:09,360 It's available for several platforms. It has all the features that you should need to edit a 49 00:06:10,080 --> 00:06:17,840 podcast. I have been doing all my podcasts editing in that software. Now if you want to do 50 00:06:17,840 --> 00:06:28,080 recording remotely there's several options and some are more tricky than others. But the most 51 00:06:28,080 --> 00:06:36,000 important thing I would say is that you test your setup before you're doing something that's 52 00:06:37,040 --> 00:06:41,200 when it's really important. When you have an interviewee that can only join for a short 53 00:06:41,200 --> 00:06:50,960 while. So test, test and test. Now to go for some more practical notes, the Wikipedia Weekly 54 00:06:51,600 --> 00:06:56,880 podcast has a Streamyard account and if you would like to record through that 55 00:06:57,600 --> 00:07:04,160 that is certainly possible just look for us on Metawiki for Wikipedia weekly and take contact 56 00:07:04,720 --> 00:07:10,080 with us and we will set you up for recording. The benefit of recording with Streamyard for example 57 00:07:10,080 --> 00:07:17,360 is that it has a separate channel for each audio file which makes it much easier to have a good 58 00:07:17,360 --> 00:07:22,560 quality of the sound when you're editing. But there are plenty of other resources out there. 59 00:07:23,200 --> 00:07:32,080 You could record from Zoom for example. There are services specifically for podcasting that 60 00:07:32,080 --> 00:07:38,560 I hear are very good, I haven't tried it. And for the highest quality you would try to do something 61 00:07:38,560 --> 00:07:44,800 that is a "double ender" which means that the one you're talking to on the other side is 62 00:07:44,800 --> 00:07:51,760 recording their sound locally and then sending you the files after the interview. This means that 63 00:07:52,320 --> 00:07:57,440 you will get a very high quality because it's not relying on your internet connection. You 64 00:07:57,440 --> 00:08:02,640 can record locally they can record locally and then you edit it together. The downsides with 65 00:08:02,640 --> 00:08:07,280 that is that the editing takes a little bit more time because you need to sync them up 66 00:08:08,320 --> 00:08:14,400 and of course it's a little bit more troublesome for the one you are recording with because they 67 00:08:14,400 --> 00:08:20,800 need to be able, and know how, to record the audio locally. But if you're a couple of persons 68 00:08:20,800 --> 00:08:26,560 Wikipedians who know each other and wants to do this, this might be the best way to achieve great 69 00:08:26,560 --> 00:08:35,280 audio. So now when you come to figuring out what should I podcast about there's first I would say 70 00:08:35,280 --> 00:08:39,280 a couple of questions that you would like to figure out first. And that is 71 00:08:39,280 --> 00:08:46,640 format, what niche you want and the length of your podcast. So when I say format I'm thinking 72 00:08:46,640 --> 00:08:52,800 do you want to do like a new sweep style podcast which has segments for different things? 73 00:08:53,440 --> 00:08:59,040 Do you want to do interviews with just one person every episode that you're talking to? 74 00:08:59,760 --> 00:09:04,880 Or do you want to do monologues or sort of essays but online? Do you want to 75 00:09:04,880 --> 00:09:09,680 do breaking news and just do that topic when they come up? When I say 76 00:09:09,680 --> 00:09:17,440 niches or rather I talk about what kind of content would you like. You could have a mix of something. 77 00:09:17,440 --> 00:09:22,400 You could have something that is very specifically targeting a local project 78 00:09:22,400 --> 00:09:28,640 for example a language version of Wikipedia. You could do something that is even more specific 79 00:09:29,760 --> 00:09:37,120 for a WikiProject. You could talk about community or you could talk about the governance which could 80 00:09:37,120 --> 00:09:44,160 relate to many different projects. You could talk about technology if you're interested in that. 81 00:09:45,200 --> 00:09:51,120 You could talk about regional aspects perhaps even spanning multiple languages. 82 00:09:52,800 --> 00:10:00,080 And you can talk about research about Wikimedia. You could have the focus of 83 00:10:00,080 --> 00:10:06,640 any kind of minority group or content gap angle within the wikis. 84 00:10:07,760 --> 00:10:13,760 Or you could just do fun stuff and of course any mix of this is also possible. One other thing that 85 00:10:13,760 --> 00:10:19,760 you want to consider is how often do you want to make your podcast. It takes some time to 86 00:10:19,760 --> 00:10:26,560 research. It takes some time to record and of course editing also takes some time depending 87 00:10:26,560 --> 00:10:33,360 on how detailed you want to do it and how how fussy you are about it too it should sound good. 88 00:10:34,160 --> 00:10:40,480 So you can try out if you want to do it once a week, every fortnight, once a month, but I 89 00:10:40,480 --> 00:10:46,720 would suggest finding some sort of regular pattern because that is what is common among podcasts and 90 00:10:47,600 --> 00:10:53,680 it might be easier for your listeners to know what's happening and to follow along. One of the 91 00:10:53,680 --> 00:11:00,240 tricky parts after you decided on this is to where do I find information about this. And this is sort 92 00:11:00,240 --> 00:11:08,880 of the journalistic part of creating the podcast. So there are a number of places that is good for 93 00:11:08,880 --> 00:11:15,760 this. One of the obvious ones that you should have looked at and perhaps have in your RSS feed 94 00:11:15,760 --> 00:11:21,840 is the Wikimedia Diff. A lot of things comes up there, news from various sources so that's 95 00:11:21,840 --> 00:11:27,840 a good starting point. Then it's also good to look at other people who are publishing and 96 00:11:29,280 --> 00:11:34,720 Wikipedia Signpost on English Wikipedia is a good collection of different kinds 97 00:11:34,720 --> 00:11:41,600 of news coming up. I would also suggest that you join the Wikipedia Weekly Facebook group 98 00:11:41,600 --> 00:11:47,520 because there's a lot of different things coming up in those. And then of course all different 99 00:11:47,520 --> 00:11:52,960 affiliates, follow them on social media because not everyone is posting to Diff or on Facebook but if 100 00:11:52,960 --> 00:11:58,240 you follow them on their social media you'll be sure to reach the news. And you can specifically 101 00:11:58,800 --> 00:12:06,400 follow the ones that are more relevant to your target group. Then there's a number of 102 00:12:06,400 --> 00:12:12,160 different newsletters that you could subscribe to. On-wiki and on mail but 103 00:12:13,040 --> 00:12:19,440 if you're interested in tech there's the Tech news. There's the Wikidata newsletter. The Growth 104 00:12:19,440 --> 00:12:25,280 team from Wikimedia Foundation has a newsletter and so does the Abstract Wikipedia. Wikipedia 105 00:12:25,280 --> 00:12:30,320 Education comes with a newsletter and there's also This Month in GLAM so you get a collection of 106 00:12:30,320 --> 00:12:36,400 different things that you can search for and see if something is relevant. You might also consider 107 00:12:36,400 --> 00:12:42,560 joining the mailing list wikimedia-l because that's one that spans over multiple projects. But 108 00:12:42,560 --> 00:12:47,840 if there's also a mailing list for your project you should probably be on that one as well to 109 00:12:47,840 --> 00:12:53,040 catch things that come up. And of course there are a few other podcasts about Wikipedia 110 00:12:53,040 --> 00:12:59,760 and you can always be inspired but then for all of these things it might be nice to give credit 111 00:12:59,760 --> 00:13:05,040 or in your show notes show the original source so that people can find out where it came from. 112 00:13:05,600 --> 00:13:12,240 So for other podcasts that you could listen to there is a podcast category on Wikimedia Commons 113 00:13:12,240 --> 00:13:18,320 that you should of course check out. There's a lot of back catalog that you can listen back to. 114 00:13:19,200 --> 00:13:25,280 There's the Wikipedia Weekly of course that's history but you can listen to a couple of these 115 00:13:25,280 --> 00:13:32,240 can give you some clue of what a Wikipedia podcast could be like. We also have the ongoing right now 116 00:13:33,120 --> 00:13:37,760 The World According to Wikipedia that you should really subscribe to and listen to. 117 00:13:38,880 --> 00:13:44,480 There's a podcast from the movement strategy which is very specific in its content but it 118 00:13:44,480 --> 00:13:54,960 can give you an idea of what you can talk about. There's the WikiAfrica Hour only on YouTube but I 119 00:13:54,960 --> 00:14:01,840 still think it's worth looking into in the realm of podcast even if this is more of live stream 120 00:14:02,480 --> 00:14:11,200 because it has the form of a podcast with guests coming on and there's a new segment 121 00:14:11,200 --> 00:14:17,120 so you can be inspired. There's also the Wiki Update podcast which is shorter and usually 122 00:14:17,120 --> 00:14:23,280 have a guest something with a little bit of an interview. And then not exactly Wikipedia 123 00:14:23,280 --> 00:14:31,680 but I'll bring it up here it's the Between the Brackets which is about MediaWiki but usually 124 00:14:31,680 --> 00:14:36,480 since Wikimedia is is one of the big users of MediaWiki is also something related to 125 00:14:36,480 --> 00:14:42,160 the Wikimedia movement. And those are things that you can be inspired by but most of all I 126 00:14:42,160 --> 00:14:54,000 hope that you have been inspired by this talk and want to try out podcasting yourself. Good luck!