Strange audio files and broken iOS app

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intrr
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Strange audio files and broken iOS app

Post by intrr » Sat Mar 14, 2020 1:31 pm

It's funny how they use some totally oddball communist audio format (".oga") that is unsupported out of the box by a huge swath of devices (namely, apparently all iOS devices), and as a workaround propose using an iOS Wikipedia app which, when trying to play the same .oga file, gives this:
85ADDCD3-DC62-422D-BFB3-C85C080567A6.jpeg
85ADDCD3-DC62-422D-BFB3-C85C080567A6.jpeg (208.06 KiB) Viewed 4276 times

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JuiceBeetle
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Re: Strange audio files and broken iOS app

Post by JuiceBeetle » Sat Mar 14, 2020 1:44 pm

Lol, that's miserable. You can report this on https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/
Maybe it depends on the uploader what format they choose, but it's certainly an error to suggest using the app then fail loading it :D
.oga btw is the new (since 2007) .ogg audio format.

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Re: Strange audio files and broken iOS app

Post by Abd » Sat Mar 14, 2020 2:04 pm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%A1naiste is useful if one wants to see the behavior. The file plays on my PC under Chrome, no problem. On my iPhone, I get a message offering to save the file to Dropbox. Looks like iOS doesn't have an oga processor. I used to have problems with the old ogg files on Commons. Simply not industry standard, not then, anyway. NERDS!!!

And no link is given to the "Wikipedia app". In other words, NOOBS!!!

The good news: noobs can learn. Nerds already know it all.

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Graaf Statler
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Re: Strange audio files and broken iOS app

Post by Graaf Statler » Sat Mar 14, 2020 3:34 pm

It seems there are on the site of our college critics a lot of technical guys active, better to ask there for a solution.

https://wikipediocracy.com/forum/

Or here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... technical)

They can help you much better than we can, most of us are banned or even office banned from every WMF project you know.

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Re: Strange audio files and broken iOS app

Post by intrr » Sat Mar 14, 2020 6:52 pm

Graaf Statler wrote:
Sat Mar 14, 2020 3:34 pm
It seems there are on the site of our college critics a lot of technical guys active, better to ask there for a solution.
Thanks... yeah, my main goal was to just rant about this whole "nerdiness" of the platform really. I supposed that it would be possible to play the file on my PC (which ironically runs Linux 😂) if I was really desperate.

However, this whole situation just shows that Wikipedia simply doesn't seem to care about "normal mainstream users" AT ALL, or doesn't have the technical competence to, say, gosh, auto- convert uploaded files to a normal format.

(the app they suggested (which also fails to play the file) btw is Wikipanion. But I first had to Google "how to play Wikipedia audio files on iPhone" or something to find that.).

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Graaf Statler
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Re: Strange audio files and broken iOS app

Post by Graaf Statler » Sun Mar 15, 2020 12:40 am

Media wiki software is total outdated, according to Dysk it is fixed every time with tape and stewing gum.
WMF has invested a lot of many moest times in most times complete useless things, but not in modern software.
It is a nerd thing, for many wiki users is working on the software much more interesting than building a decent reverence work.

But except noticing this there is not much we can do about it, because wikipedia is ruled by a fossilized bureaucracy.

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Re: Strange audio files and broken iOS app

Post by ericbarbour » Sun Mar 15, 2020 10:17 pm

it's not just that. The WMF has an "official remit" to support ONLY open-source media formats. (They have millions of JPG image files, which were NOT open format until recently when the patents ran out. I'm surprised no one sued them or maybe they WERE sued and we never heard anything about it.)

OGG is claimed to be a "universal" video/audio format set. But the responsible foundation keep changing it to "make it better", thus last generation OSes and smartphones can't play the latest format. The Vorbis lossy codec is already "obsolete" and supposed to be replaced with the newer (2012) Opus format. Yet WM Commons is stuck with uncounted thousands of old Vorbis files. And no one cares.

Do not bother trying to report this. It will (might?) be fixed--eventually. Probably by Apple updating iOS maybe. The WMF is a cemented bureaucracy and refuses to change to suit any "mere users". Thrashing blindly around remains their standard mode.

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