LibriVox Forum

I know I'm two months late in this discussion, but I just read it a few minutes ago. I have stumbled upon this project a little while ago and was ecstatic to discover the nature of this project. I'm fairly active on Wikimedia projects (I peruse Wikipedia, and spend most of my time on Wikisource), so I'm fairly familiar with what's going on.

First off, let me say that LibriVox is getting the links pointed to its site that's due to it. This is happening over at Wikimedia Commons, where I'm slowly editing the chapters (meaning I'm splitting them into audio files where each audio file contains exactly one chapter) for use over on their respective pages on Wikisource. On the files I upload to Commons, I always link to LibriVox.org, the actual project page where the files came from on LibriVox.org, and the reader's personal page (if applicable). There are no problems with adding these links on Commons, and is actually needed for proper sourcing of the file. Of course, I'm working very slowly on this project since it's currently a one-man show and my time is split up a lot over the various projects I'm doing on Wikisource. But I just thought I'd let everyone know that LibriVox's name is getting out there, albeit at a very slow pace.

The problem that the community here at LibriVox ran into is a legitimate concern that has popped up recently: SEO (search enging optimization) techniques (in most cases, this is also known as link spam). Wikipedia is mirrored by countless other sites, and many of those mirrors duplicate all the links that are on the Wikipedia article page. This will in turn up the ranking of all the sites that are linked to from each Wikipedia article. Think of the possibilities here for a small for-profit business: get your link on Wikipedia, it will be all over the net, and then you will get increased traffic due to appearing closer to the top of search results on Google.

Because of the link spamming on Wikipedia, many contributors (admins and non-admins alike) are a bit wary of external links (some pages have hundreds of them--WHY, no one understands). What happened in LibriVox's case is they ran afoul of a maverick admin who could not differentiate between a for-profit organization/business and one which shares similar goals as Wikipedia. But with the bureaucratic quagmire Wikipedia's found itself in, this is to be expected from time to time, but it is just a shame it happened to the "audio side" of one of its own sister projects. But just know that your links will always be welcome over at Wikisource and Commons (although, if you add external links to Wikisource, I'll probably remove them once I've gotten the actual audio files up on Commons, added the appropriate information there, and then link to them from Wikisource--but they make good placeholders while I find the time to focus on another LibriVox book).

Thanks, Z! Looks like you've got Alice all split up and downloadable through wikimedia -- neato!

hey zhaladshar,

actually in retrospect I can understand the policy, esp since LV was/is not yet perhaps known as a trustworthy and legit source.

anyway, your efforts at wikisource are much appreciated! and this is the ideal outcome, that wikifolk take up the cause!

Fast forward the clock to 2021. I've become interested in adding Wikipedia links over the past 6 months, learned how to add them correctly using the pre-approved Wikipedia Author and Book Templates, and have not had a single link deleted. I've partnered with David Olson who designed our spreadsheet to keep track of links, created a Zoom session teaching others how to become involved, and a Wiki page entitled Wikipedia Links. Please check it out, watch the video, download and read the instructions, then join our fledgling little team who are making these links happen. Areas of interest can be assigned to help avoid duplicate efforts. Contact me via PM for additional information.

You'll find the more recent Wikipedia Links Discussion Thread, and the Wikipedia Links Working Thread as stickies in our Volunteers Wanted, Other Projects forum, where you should post any links you create, so we can add them to our progress spreadsheets. Take your time, do it right, and join LV's Adding Wikipedia Links team. The kinks have been mostly ironed out. It's time to get this done.

msfry wrote: ↑March 14th, 2021, 4:12 pm Fast forward the clock to 2021. I've become interested in adding Wikipedia links over the past 6 months, learned how to add them correctly using the pre-approved Wikipedia Author and Book Templates, and have not had a single link deleted. I've partnered with David Olson who designed our spreadsheet to keep track of links, created a Zoom session teaching others how to become involved, and a Wiki page entitled Wikipedia Links. Please check it out, watch the video, download and read the instructions, then join our fledgling little team who are making these links happen. Areas of interest can be assigned to help avoid duplicate efforts. Contact me via PM for additional information.

You'll find the more recent Wikipedia Links Discussion Thread, and the Wikipedia Links Working Thread as stickies in our Volunteers Wanted, Other Projects forum, where you should post any links you create, so we can add them to our progress spreadsheets. Take your time, do it right, and join LV's Adding Wikipedia Links team. The kinks have been mostly ironed out. It's time to get this done.

I'm always interested in learning something new plus always interested in Wikipedia so, two stones, yeah? If you are still interested in building your community of wikifolk, I can get started next week tutoring myself on the process and the rules. Thanks.

Great. We need all the quality help we can get. I've answered your PM and copied David on that correspondence.

msfry wrote: ↑March 14th, 2021, 4:12 pm Fast forward the clock to 2021. I've become interested in adding Wikipedia links over the past 6 months, learned how to add them correctly using the pre-approved Wikipedia Author and Book Templates, and have not had a single link deleted. I've partnered with David Olson who designed our spreadsheet to keep track of links, created a Zoom session teaching others how to become involved, and a Wiki page entitled Wikipedia Links. Please check it out, watch the video, download and read the instructions, then join our fledgling little team who are making these links happen. Areas of interest can be assigned to help avoid duplicate efforts. Contact me via PM for additional information.

You'll find the more recent Wikipedia Links Discussion Thread, and the Wikipedia Links Working Thread as stickies in our Volunteers Wanted, Other Projects forum, where you should post any links you create, so we can add them to our progress spreadsheets. Take your time, do it right, and join LV's Adding Wikipedia Links team. The kinks have been mostly ironed out. It's time to get this done.

I would like to contribute to this community, can I give it a try. Can you please help me with further details? Thanks.

diptivs wrote: ↑December 21st, 2021, 10:55 pm I would like to contribute to this community, can I give it a try. Can you please help me with further details? Thanks.

Hello, diptivs. Welcome to Librivox. To learn more about adding links back to LV's books and authors on the appropriate Wikipedia pages, visit the Librivox wiki (see menu bar above), do a search for Wikipedia Links (left column), and read up on the instructions. You can also watch a video. Then, if you notice a book that lacks a link, give it a try and report back as described, to have it checked for accuracy. Help would be most welcome.

This is totally a new concept to me. However, I'm waiting for recordings to assigned to me so I have nothing else to do. What I've done so far is recordings of various types.

Learning new skills is something that I really enjoy, and it leads to being able to do other things. I'm will to help if you don't mind spending the time to work with me on how to do it. I do have computer skills and pick up things pretty quickly. Once I'm involved, I listen to YouTube videos and do research to help me learn.

Carol/Nammy.

Nammy wrote: ↑June 5th, 2022, 1:45 pm This is totally a new concept to me. However, I'm waiting for recordings to assigned to me so I have nothing else to do. What I've done so far is recordings of various types.

Learning new skills is something that I really enjoy, and it leads to being able to do other things. I'm will to help if you don't mind spending the time to work with me on how to do it. I do have computer skills and pick up things pretty quickly. Once I'm involved, I listen to YouTube videos and do research to help me learn.

Carol/Nammy.

See next post.

msfry wrote: ↑March 14th, 2021, 4:12 pm Fast forward the clock to 2021. I've become interested in adding Wikipedia links over the past 6 months, learned how to add them correctly using the pre-approved Wikipedia Author and Book Templates, and have not had a single link deleted. I've partnered with David Olson who designed our spreadsheet to keep track of links, created a Zoom session teaching others how to become involved, and a Wiki page entitled Wikipedia Links. Please check it out, watch the video, download and read the instructions, then join our fledgling little team who are making these links happen. Areas of interest can be assigned to help avoid duplicate efforts. Contact me via PM for additional information.

You'll find the more recent Wikipedia Links Discussion Thread, and the Wikipedia Links Working Thread as stickies in our Volunteers Wanted, Other Projects forum, where you should post any links you create, so we can add them to our progress spreadsheets. Take your time, do it right, and join LV's Adding Wikipedia Links team. The kinks have been mostly ironed out. It's time to get this done.

Since all of these posts before the one above are dated 2006, I recommend this forum be locked. Let the first and/or last post reference these links below, which direct interested parties to the ways we do things in 2022. You will also find the Discussion and Working Threads as stickies (anchored to the top of) in our Volunteers Wanted, Other Projects forum.
Wikipedia Links.
Wikipedia Links Discussion Thread
Wikipedia Links Working Thread

This Topic is locked. See post just before this one.