Talk:Potential memorandum of understanding and collaboration with BBC

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General discussion

Collaboration with the BBC is an obvious move; they are a not-for-profit organisation, and hold one of the UK's most significant archives. As noted, I'm already working with them (as will be several other WMUK members, as volunteers, at the event in January). Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 17:31, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. We should definitely work on closer collaboration with the BBC. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 14:37, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Existing collaborations

  • BBC "Your paintings" matching against Wikipedia/Wikidata. (blog entry about tool) --Magnus
    • The BBC are little involved in this. They host the site but the Public Catalogue Foundation do the content. Johnbod (talk) 18:15, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
      • They do far more than "host the site". They had responsibility for the data tools for the project, which facilitate crowd-sourced tagging, and which have direct parallels in the work the Wikimedia community needs to do, as it imports the million-plus images released recently by the British Library, and other donated GLAM media. This rich, structured metadata is available via a BBC API as linked data. They also include links to Wikipedia. Their 2011 blog post explains more. To describe them as "little involved" is particularly unjust. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 14:47, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
        • I was going to comment that I am also very interested in this, as someone creating content about YP artists on Wikipedia. It seems that I should comment also that John perhaps knows what he is talking about, from hands-on experience. It might be helpful to split the difference between John and Andy here, and start breaking down the big area of Your Paintings. There is (I know via John) some scope for free content, but his point expands (I believe) to saying "not the Beeb's say-so" on releasing the images. If there is potentially open software and open data to discuss, then I guess there needs to be clarification via exploratory talks. Which would need to get to specifics. And doesn't count as an existing colloboration, let's say. Charles Matthews (talk) 13:47, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Commons BBC voice project on Saturday, 18 January 2014. --RexxS (talk) 14:10, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
  • The BBC draws on Wikipedia content for its Wildlife Finder (e.g. [1]) and Musician (e.g. [2]) pages. (disclosure: I assisted with the former, some years ago, albeit not the Wikipedia part). They also use Wikipedia article titles as a folksonomy of tag names in a World Service radio archive project, see [3] Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 17:36, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Possible projects

Proms

Good ideas here, but of those, the Proms is the one that grabs my immediate attention. As a concert series it gets a huge amount of attention. There is surely a great deal of content to be generated by documenting executants, conductors, orchestras, and particularly composers of new and recent works. Charles Matthews (talk) 13:42, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

In Our Time

As I understand it, there were once talks between the BBC and Wikipedia in relation to their programme 'In Our Time'. I don't know what the talks consisted of. In Our Time covers a topic each week with the host Melvyn Bragg and three or four expert guests. Quite often the topic would readily match up with an article name. Here's a link to their archive. Anyway, just thought I'd let you know. --85.210.2.35 15:21, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

I think they might be updating the article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_In_Our_Time_programmes all of which is nicely linked. The whole archive is also available through the BBC (although not openly, as in CC, so as far as I know) Sjgknight (talk) 16:51, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
The programme is included within the scope of the Commons BBC voice project mentioned above. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 19:43, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Linked data

The BBC has significant technical capability around linked data, I don't have any immediate suggestions but I'd just note there might be interesting potential there Sjgknight (talk) 16:38, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

My contacts are in the team leading on this. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 17:31, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Radio Times archives = Genome

One thing that comes to mind is their "Genome" database. They have OCRd the programme listings from a full run of Radio Times magazines, into a searchable database. I've used it several times, to add information and references to Wikipedia articles. They can't make this publicly available, for rights reasons, but I'd like to see access granted to a number of Wikimedians, in the manner of access granted to HighBeam, as part of the Wikipedia Library project. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 17:28, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

BBC Learning

I'd certainly like to see us develop a working relationship with BBC Learning or Education or Schools or Knowledge & Learning (not really sure what the department is called now). See:

Not sure what to consider doing precisely, but perhaps this is something for the Education Committee to discuss and/or one we can ask the BBC to consider and then scale/propose/plan accordingly. --Toni Sant (WMUK) (talk) 13:02, 16 December 2013 (UTC)


'Beti a'i Phobol' radio programme

Beti a'i Phobol (Beti and her People) is a Desert Island Disk-type programme, and is one of the few Radio Cymru programmes that has an on-line archive. Could this form part of a project similar to the BBC Voices Project? There are 111 programmes (at the moment), including the voices of Ray Gravell (rugby player), Malcolm Allen (ex-Premiership footballer), Wyn Roberts, Baron Roberts of Conwy (politician), Archbishop Barry Morgan, which may be of interest to those outside Wales.

BBC Wales annual lectures

From 1938 to 1994(?) there were annual lectures on Radio Cymru, Radio Wales (and most likely on Welsh Home Service/Radio 4 Wales prior that). They alternated between Welsh and English each year. Some of these, Tynged yr Iaith in particular, are historically important and influential. It would be great to have these as sound files.

Welsh language tools

BBC's English/Welsh dictionary

Although this dictionary possibly takes it's source from another on-line dictionary - it might be possible to use it populate Wiktionary and Wiciadur.

How do I say...?

Audio pronounciation of placenames(mapped possibly geo-tagged?), and people's names. We could request that these sound files are transfered to an open format for Commons/inclusion in WP articles.

What's in a name?

Until recently, there was a good section on BBC Wales' website called 'What's in a name?' which explained the etmology behind place names and geographical feature in Wales. For whatever reason it is no longer on-line - here's a dead link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/whatsinaname/sites/placenames/pages/alltwalis.shtml Fortunately the information is still available (for the time being at least!) in Welsh.

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