Spoken article quality assessment
This is an attempt to systematically assess spoken Wikipedia articles, based partly on ideas discussed here. It should provide the following benefits to narrators and listeners:
- Assist inexperienced contributors who may be trying to master the technicalities of recording and editing spoken Wikipedia articles to identify the strengths and weaknesses in their work. In conjunction with help from the recording assistance group, this should help to resolve uncertainties that new contributors commonly experience and make it easier to get started.
- Assist all contributors in picking up problems in their recordings, for example, mis-reads which obscure the meaning of the source text, or technical problems which can make an otherwise good recording problematic for listeners, such as low audio level. My own experience suggests that there seems to be a general reluctance on the part of listeners to offer criticism of a recording, even when there are obvious problems with it, so feedback to narrators will have to come from within the Spoken Wikipedia project.
- Provide listeners with an easy way to assess the quality of a recording before they download it. Useful, for example, for people using spoken articles to help them to learn English and people with slower internet connections.
- The metadata produced will assist in spoken article management. The assessments will make it easier to identify spoken articles in need of improvement or re-recording (rated low in one or more of the assessment areas detailed below), or which do not meet general Wikipedia or WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia guidelines, ultimately leading to a better experience for listeners.
The main spoken article assessment page is now here.