Wikipedia is starting to add celebrity and other public figure voices to one of its projects, called WikiVIP, which stands for “Wikipedia Voice Intro Project”. What is it you ask? Well, Wikipedia thought it could do with some voices through all its article lines, namely important and known people will be voice sampled and the recordings saved on the Wikipedia database for preservation purposes.
The project was started by Wikipedia editors Andy Mabbett and Andrew Gray, who approach celebrities and explained this idea. The first celebrity to join the project was Stephen Fry, who now has a sample of his speaking voice on Wikipedia. The aim is to attract and spread the word so as other public figures, scientists, artists, etc. hear about the project and get their voice sample taken by the Wikipedia team.
Even BBC has reportedly started supporting Wikipedia, having short clips from some of its programming sent for preservation as well. The voices range from Sir Tim Berners-Lee to Augn San Suu Kyi. All recordings have been announced to have an open-license in order to allow others to use them freely. They can be uploaded to Wikipedia Commons in an open format, such as Ogg Vobis, sort of like mp3 but without patents restricting them.
The aim of the project and the preservation of voices is to help “current and future generations” to hear how celebrities and public figures sounded like, basically adding a voice to a face. Those who have Wikipedia pages about them are apparently encouraged to contact the WikiVIP team with a voice recording sample to help contribute to the growing database.
Thank you TheNextWeb for providing us with this information
Set the curve with the CORSAIR XENEON FLEX 45WQHD240 OLED Bendable UltraWide Gaming Display, built…
Say hello to the future of graphics, with the MSI GeForce RTX 4090 GAMING X…
This Scan Gamer RTX features the 8GB NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 graphics card featuring new…
The MAG series fights alongside gamers in pursuit of honor. With added military-inspired elements in…
Wireless gaming headset designed for performance and comfort. Outfitted with all the surround sound, voice…
The H6 Flow's innovative compact design emphasizes GPU cooling with a strategically angled front corner,…