Grants:IEG/Fundación Joaquín Díaz/Final

Part 1: The Project

Summary

The project is completed but time used to process the whole database produced a delay on the final time recquired to complete the project. This can be considered the main highlights for this projects:

• Good work with data mining and song processing
• Too much time was used in data fixing, due to errors on the data that required individual attention for the files.
• Some files were not uploaded for some reason (insults, copyright issues, etc.).
• Anyways, amazing stuff! The records contain unique material with hours of amusement.

Methods and activities

As reported in the midpoint report, I have worked in the data mining process since the first day with continuous contact with Fundación Joaquín Díaz staff. I have contacted Joaquín Díaz, Carlos Porro (music technician) and Luis Vincent (computer technician) every time I have had any problem regarding the records, and they have always showed an extraordinary enthusiasm to the task.

Outcomes and impact

Waiting for the final upload...

Outcomes

As of July 31st the project was waiting for the final upload. This section can be completed when the upload takes place.

Progress towards stated goals

During the duration of the IEG, database has been completely processed. All errors detected have been corrected. All the songs have been edited to correct these errors and have been converted to ogg.

The program for the massive data uploading is ready. The only task that was not performed during the IEG time is the massive uploading of such data, which will begin as soon as possible so that the results can be visible, as in this project, the measures of success are not visible until the uploading is complete.

Update: as of June 2016, commons:Category:Recordings provided by Fundación Joaquín Díaz contains 21375 files.

Indicators of impact

I am surprised by media attention even before completion. For instance:

• On the news of RTVCyL, the TV of Castile and León
• El Día de Valladolid, a local newspaper

Learning

This project has been very useful to go further into knowledge of some of my hobbies, such as ethnography, popular culture, folk music, etc.

What worked well

The first part of the IEG project worked as planned, as I expected to finish the listening part of the IEG in four months and a half starting on January 1st, so considering that I actually started working on it by January 9th (I didn't have access to the records until that day), this part of the project finished after 5 months from January 1st. I held a Hangout with Siko in March and I explained this little delay. In order to avoid a bigger delay, Abián of WMES kindly created the script based on upload.py bot of pywikipedia to upload the files to Commons matching the data contained on the CSV file I worked on this months.

What didn’t work

I initially planned 3 weeks for data fixing, but it lasted much longer -8 weeks finally-. I didn't expect this by the time of the midreport. I can divide this fixing work in two grounds:

• First, I worked again on the first songs that I listened in January, when the IEG started. This happened because I introduced more tags and categories while I advanced on the listening process, so the first songs had less information that those listened later. I guess it was something logical in this kind of works.
• Second, around a 5% of the records had some kind of error (i. e. two records in one track or vice versa, songs that didn't match with the description provided in the database or others with an awful noise). Furthermore, on July 6th the FJD sent me the list of "censored records", regarding some records which contained insults (to other people, to the king of Spain...) or other records which contained copyrighted material (recorded radio programs).

We held a third meeting with FJD on June 20th to deal with this issues and the staff of the FJD helped on the database depuration process. The percentage of problematic records was significantly higher than expected due to the estimation made based on ATOs 1 to 10, which I revised in October, and can be considered among those ATOs with less problems in the databse and the records. This has caused a great delay, because these files needed individual attention. I have also dealt with several problems in the name of the files: the standard name was ATO_00xxx_yy, but I might find ATO_0xxx_yy, ATO_00xxx.yy or ATO_00xxx_ yy, which at the end caused some troubles finding records. To fix all the problems explained I worked file-by-file and then I used Visual MP3 Splitter & Joiner to create files matching the descriptions. Once I had all the proper files I converted them to .ogg using SoundConverter. This process usually occurred while listening other records, so I could profit all the time working on the IEG.

Next steps and opportunities

I hope that the Spanish Wikisource community can help on the transcription process of the songs, and the Fundación Joaquín Díaz is willing to cooperate in this task!

The FJD has several videos of the original recordings, so we can work on that after this project. Furthermore, some of the singers could have an article on Wikipedia, so the FJD is willing to collaborate offering bibliography on this topic.

Part 2: The Grant

Finances

Actual spending

Please copy and paste the completed table from your project finances page. Check that you’ve listed the actual expenditures compared with what was originally planned. If there are differences between the planned and actual use of funds, please use the column provided to explain them.

• Personal remuneration for related tasks: €580/month / $735/month, including taxes, for partial dedication from December to May.
• Travel spending: €76 / $96 due to four trips planned to Urueña from Valladolid (it depends of the transfer of the files, if we have to have a personal interview with the archive team, etc.)
• The total amount requested is €3,556 / $4,506.

Remaining funds

Do you have any unspent funds from the grant?

Please answer yes or no. If yes, list the amount you did not use and explain why.

• No. Budget was as expected. Although one trip to Urueña of the four planned was not necessary. However, we will make a trip to Madrid to explain the project in Real Academia Española (RAE)

If you have unspent funds, they must be returned to WMF. Please see the instructions for returning unspent funds and indicate here if this is still in progress, or if this is already completed:

Documentation

Did you send documentation of all expenses paid with grant funds to grantsadminwikimedia.org, according to the guidelines here?

Please answer yes or no. If no, include an explanation.

• No. The trips made were done in my own car on the days referred on the report.

Confirmation of project status

Did you comply with the requirements specified by WMF in the grant agreement?

Please answer yes or no.

• Yes.

Is your project completed?

Please answer yes or no.

• No. The upload process is getting completed this August. I couldn't complete the project on time due to the strong effort and time invested in data fixing

Grantee reflection

We’d love to hear any thoughts you have on what this project has meant to you, or how the experience of being an IEGrantee has gone overall. Is there something that surprised you, or that you particularly enjoyed, or that you’ll do differently going forward as a result of the IEG experience? Please share it here!

As I said in my midpoint report, it has been a richful experience. I have enjoyed most of the times hearing the songs, tales and lifes of our ancestors and I hope to make it available to the rest of the community. What I regret is to need a few additional time to upload the contents. Anyway, I think that the delay doesnt affect the value of the project.