Talk:Future Audiences/Generated Video

Commons

Sorry, I don't understand one thing. Are we saying that this will be videos created for TikTok, instead of uploading them to Commons and trying to make Commons a platform for sharing videos? Theklan (talk) 17:48, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Theklan,

This is a small experiment to test reaching and engaging audiences who are not visiting Wikimedia projects and like to learn/get fun information on short video platforms – therefore, we will be sharing these videos on those platforms. We want to see if this can be one path to help these audiences learn about and from Wikimedia projects, let them interact with the Wikimedia wikis, and see if some could find their way to contributing to the movement.

I’d be fine with also uploading these to Commons if there’s interest in having them available to reuse on our projects, but the question of whether Commons should become a platform for sharing short “edu-tainment” videos is a much bigger strategic question that is outside the scope of this team or hypothesis to answer – and requires the participation of the Commons community. As you know, there are many different visions for how Commons could/should look in the future, and in case you missed it, Selena Deckelmann (WMF Chief Product and Technology Officer) will be kicking off some conversations with different stakeholders involved in Commons to begin to unpack where it could and should go next, starting at a roundtable discussion at WikiConference North America later this week. MPinchuk (WMF) (talk) 16:03, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

So the answer is that the WMF will be investing money in something not usable at Wikipedia, instead of creating something that can be used in our platforms AND, at the same time, improves the platform usability itself. Not the wisest move short term, and a very bad one in the long term. Theklan (talk) 16:56, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree that improving the platform's usability is important, but reaching and engaging audiences who are not visiting Wikimedia projects is also important for the future of Wikipedia. The impact may not be immediately visible, and even this strategy of generating videos may not work, but it's just an experiment to explore different possibilities. SCP-2000 03:14, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Why should those people leave TikTok and come to Wikipedia, if they are watching great content in TikTok that is not available at Wikipedia? What is the point of making a product for another platform but not usable by ourselves? Theklan (talk) 06:10, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

1. Because people also leave sites for different sites (or the better description would be spend less time on site A and start spending time on site B or even just add site B in addition).
2. I don't think the plan is to only put this on sites like TikTok (hopefully not only the cancer that is TikTok but also Reddit and YouTube) – it could be uploaded there, where people would come across it, and to Wikimedia Commons (where the content will be seen by nearly nobody because 2.1 Google doesn't index videos on Commons and 2.2 there is no proper app that can play its videos (see below) and no explore feed/page like on popular sites (see here)

Prototyperspective (talk) 09:35, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

As stated above, the plan is to upload the videos only to TikTok. Even if the WMF is not investing on solving the video affair, the videos can still be uploaded to Commons, and we can use those in articles. You can see an example at eu:Bisurte. Theklan (talk) 10:09, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Please see the project page measuring how these videos perform on TikTok and other short video platforms (Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts). It is not only upload to TikTok but also include other platforms. Anyway, I agree these videos can upload to Commons (just like A Wiki Minute). SCP-2000 10:21, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Indeed, that's said in the introduction, but there are no other mentions below and all the measures are about TikTok. However, the main problem is still there: WMF is investing money in improving other platforms, instead of improving Commons and creating content available for Wikimedia projects. Theklan (talk) 10:24, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

The first and absolutely necessary step to making that happen is to enable videos to play at all in the native app for Commons, see https://github.com/commons-app/apps-android-commons/issues/5622 (and I really don't know why even know one can't find or play videos with the app). Prototyperspective (talk) 22:12, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Great idea but DYKs are horrible

I really like the idea and think it could be a key thing that could make Wikipedia and its valuable content much more known and useful.

However, the DYK of Wikipedia are horrible. If you use these as video sources, you'd just do what most people do and probably even worse than them: pollute the Internet and waste people's time on entirely irrelevant unimportant trivia. Every fourth time or so is marketing or just an ad for some pop-culture product.

Instead, please consider well which kind of information you distribute and make videos for. Short videos for YouTube shorts could be really successful. You could use the lead sections of articles or even summarize a lead and/or some sections. At this point there also is lots of media material on WMC that is just waiting to be used for CCBY videos, for example at c:Category:Documentary videos, c:Category:Videos by Terra X, or c:Category:Videos by subject.

I made something similar with a list-type article which has short items but the overall video was still 10 - 15 minutes long and a bit dry and unfamiliar (essentially a newscast about notable studies that have been included in Wikipedia articles).

Maybe other editors could provide more ideas for what to use for short informative videos or be enabled to request them but please don't use DYKs or only few with some other sources. Another way these videos could be useful if you provide links to the relevant Wikipedia articles so please don't forget to put these links into the short description. Prototyperspective (talk) 22:23, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

We have been doing this for two years (now starting the third season) in the Basque Wikimedians User Group's project "Ikusgela". The project is called "Zortziko Txikian" and it works: eu:Atari:Hezkuntza/Ikusgela#Zortziko_txikian. Every video is uploaded to Commons so we can use them for Wikipedia articles, and they are uploaded, additionally, to TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, so people is aware of those. Theklan (talk) 06:10, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Really interesting, never knew what the Ikusgela are about or were from, thanks for linking. Maybe examples like that should also be investigated by this research project. In addition to informative videos about contents of Wikipedia (don't know if that applies to these), there also a few videos about Wikipedia that are popular and maybe similar ones could be produced – here is one. The main channels post videos even long-term Wikipedians are unlikely to watch or be interested in like zoom recordings, it may need a separate channel for actually interesting videos and only those. Prototyperspective (talk) 09:40, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Maybe it's just English Wikipedia, but I generally concur with @Prototyperspective that using DYK as source material or a starting point may be suboptimal. DYK is often a mishmash of personal pet projects with questionable editorial quality, though I admit some of that is a personal bias. :) - Fuzheado (talk) 13:50, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Date error?

Right now it reads "November-January 2024" but should that be "November 2024 – January 2025"? - Fuzheado (talk) 13:53, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Fixed. Thanks! Johan (WMF) (talk) 10:20, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

The next monthly Future Audiences video call: October 31, 16:00 UTC

(Copied over from Talk:Future Audiences since it specifically relates to this project. You can ask any questions or leave comments about this call on the main talk page.)

Hi all, this is announcement of the next monthly hour-long Future Audiences video call – a space where anyone interested in this work can come learn, ask questions, and give input on the work the Future Audiences team are doing around AI or social media experiments, or talk about their own related initiatives. Please feel free to turn up – we're happy for anyone who wants to come talk or listen to us. You don't need to have done anything specific within these fields.

More details:

• When: 16:00 UTC Thursday October 31
• Where: Google Meet (works in most popular desktop browsers) – please email futureaudienceswikimedia.org to get the link!
• Recorded? Yes

Agenda:

• Add a Fact – insights from testing by over 85 Wikipedians
• Short video – early launch data from TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube

To register contact:

futureaudienceswikimedia.org – we'll send you a link to the call.

Slides, recordings and notes from previous meetings can be found at Future Audiences/Community discussions. We're looking forward to seeing you or hearing from you. Johan (WMF) (talk) 15:43, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Why DYK and not WP:25?

I haven't seen the results report in the October meeting recording yet, but I can see the view counts on Tiktok and YouTube Shorts. I must agree with Prototyperspective and Fuzheado above, in that DYKs are extremely esoteric, (usually that being the point of them) and not at all of general interest. Nor are they ever going to be of specific interest to what I understand are the "future audiences" target demographics. Please remember that DYK requirements exclude popular, well maintained articles, and exist as an incentive to work on the obscure and unpopular to a large extent.

If you want to go viral, please set the AI generator sights on w:WP:25! I suggest the reaction among the short attention-spanned will be like night and day. Mesopub (talk) 16:36, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Mesopub: Thanks for the feedback, we appreciate it.

The main reason DYK was chosen for this experiment was because there's an already existing hook, which meant that we could use that. The theory was that an odd fact about a slightly more esoteric topic would be more interesting than a more bland presentation of say a big topic like "Sweden". I'll pass along the suggestion to use w:WP:25 to the rest of the team. Johan (WMF) (talk) 20:27, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

The "Notes/About" column usually has the reason the article is on the list, which might serve to formulate a hook. 141.239.252.245 10:25, 4 November 2024 (UTC)