Wikipediocracy

Mancunium wrote:{{hatnote}} link

HRIP7 wrote:Brian Anderson, Motherboard: This real-time sonification of Wikipedia's change feed will make you weep

Erm ... it's about this: http://listen.hatnote.com/

Personally, I think the sound effects could be tweaked: to reflect the various spelling errors, vandalism, misrepresentations, unsourced defamation, screaming at ANI, etc., along with the good or at least indifferent edits.

The result ought to be a little more cacophonic and startling, but there you go. It's all good. Zzzzzzzzzz.

The idea of Wikipedia does not necessarily produce Zen-like feelings. A good resource for quick research, or a place to catch up on missed story arcs, perhaps, but tranquility is not the first thing that pops into your head. Especially in a world where Wikipedia entry defacement and manipulation is a very real thing. However, thanks to the efforts of the “Listen to Wikipedia” project, you can get closer to Zen whenever someone edits a particular entry.

Simply enough, the project, which was created by Stephen LaPorte and Mahmoud Hashemi, plays soothing, ambient-style music whenever a Wikipedia pages is edited.

Smiley wrote:

HRIP7 wrote:Brian Anderson, Motherboard: This real-time sonification of Wikipedia's change feed will make you weep

Erm ... it's about this: http://listen.hatnote.com/

Personally, I think the sound effects could be tweaked: to reflect the various spelling errors, vandalism, misrepresentations, unsourced defamation, screaming at ANI, etc., along with the good or at least indifferent edits.

The result ought to be a little more cacophonic and startling, but there you go. It's all good. Zzzzzzzzzz.

Ha! Was thinking much the same thing.. I reckon various farmyard animal noises would be most appropriate.

Everyone’s favorite internet encyclopedia, it turns out, makes some incredibly soothing music when translated into sound. Mahmoud Hashemi and Stephen LaPorte‘s project Listen to Wikipedia converts the edits that people make to Wikipedia pages into sounds that, remarkably, synthesize perfectly. The result is an unlikely orchestra of bells and strings, and you can listen to it for hours. This is how the site works:

[... I don't care how it works ...]

Listen to Wikipedia is open-source and collects its data in real-time from Wikimon [linkhttps://github.com/hatnote/wikimon[/link]]. [...] There is a strange order and rhythm to the music of Wikipedia. It sounds almost intentional. Hashemi and LaPorte, of course, designed the notes to be pleasing and make sense musically, but they still come across as if scored by a composer—not generated by a series of random, unconnected edits.

Who knew someone editing the 'A Song of Ice and Fire' Wikipedia page could be so beautiful?

It seems like Wikipedia editing involves a lot of drama, between eliminating promotional material, adding important facts, and cleaning up after someone adds "penis" to a bunch of entries about antique furniture. But the sound of Wikipedia is surprisingly mellow and relaxing. Stephen LaPorte, legal counsel to the Wikimedia Foundation, and Mahmoud Hashemi, a developer at eBay, have a blog called {{Hatnote}}, where they post projects, especially ones related to Wikipedia. Their Listen to Wikipedia tool turns changes on the service into sounds. [...] Originally posted over the summer, the project surfaced on Hacker News and Gizmodo today, probably because everyone needs some calming music to keep them going at work. And Listen to Wikipedia is open-source in case you ever want to build on it.


Probably better on 'cid