Weekly Update Thread - 2024

Common Voice
#1

Hello Community :smiley:

Welcome back to the weekly update from the Common Voice Community team.

Common Voice Introduces More Gender Options
Common Voice is once again championing inclusivity and diversity with added selection of options in the “Sex or Gender” field. Explore the newly added choices aimed at providing more diverse and inclusive representation of gender identities.

Digital Initiatives for Indigenous Languages
Here’s a captivating report on Digital Initiatives for Indigenous Languages, jointly presented by Global Voices and UNESCO. The report provides valuable insights into initiatives that focuses on preserving and promoting indigenous languages in the digital space. Read more about it here.

4 Likes
#2
#3

Hey, in the overview of this forum the link still leads to the old weekly update thread:

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#4

yeah, the link still leads to the old weekly update thread!

#5

Hi @ster, @jesslynnrose and I struggled a bit with editing it, it needed the originator but we are working on it. Thank you for your patience.

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#6

Hi @James_avery, thank you for alerting, we will fix it.

#7

Hello Community

Welcome back to the weekly update from the Common Voice Community team.

One of our community members, @bozden , delivered a lecture on AI/Voice-AI and Common Voice, hosted by the Laz Institute in Turkey. The recording of the lecture can be found here.

For those who may have missed it, here’s a brief rundown of the latest developments in Common Voice posted over the last few weeks.

Did this update miss something important? Are you doing something cool that we can help you show off? Reply to this thread, message @jess or myself @Gina_Moape or say hello on Matrix or email commonvoice@mozilla.com and we’ll include you in the next update.

2 Likes
#8

Hello Community

Welcome back to the weekly update from the Common Voice Community team. This week are sharing funding opportunities.

iF Social Impact Prize
Registration is open for iF SOCIAL IMPACT PRIZE. Every year iF Design donates EUR 100,000 to support the best projects that contribute to improving society. If you work towards achieving one or more of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, your project is eligible for funding.Read more and Apply!

Digital Rights Funds
Over the years, SMEX has documented and reported online human rights violations in West Asia and North Africa, advocating for a free and open internet. To continue this movement, SMEX launched the Digital Rights Fund that aims to empower individuals, informal groups, and entities to effectively counter digital rights threats and violations online. Read more and Apply!

Did this update miss something important? Are you doing something cool that we can help you show off? Reply to this thread, message @Jess or myself @ or say hello on Matrix or email commonvoice@mozilla.com and we’ll include you in the next update.

#9

Hello Community

Welcome back to the weekly update from the Common Voice Community team.

Ethical License Incubator for open source projects
An interesting project on Ethical licensing, join a global community of nearly 300 open source maintainers and contributors, tech ethicists, social justice advocates, legal experts, academics, sociologists, human rights workers, and others who work together on ways to center justice and equity in the software commons.

Second Round of Variant Intake
Common Voice has opened another round of variant intake. Read more about it here.

Did this update miss something important? Are you doing something cool that we can help you show off? Reply to this thread, message @Jess or myself @ or say hello on Matrix or email commonvoice@mozilla.com and we’ll include you in the next update.

2 Likes
#10

Hello Community :smiley:

Welcome back to the weekly update from the Common Voice Community team.

AI continues to disrupt, for the good or……
Are you a writer, this is for you, the Algorithmic Justice League has launched a new campaign on behalf of writers against AI training data. Read more about it here

A must read article, how Tech companies harvest data for AI
OpenAI, Google and Meta ignored corporate policies, altered their own rules and discussed skirting copyright law as they sought online information to train their newest artificial intelligence systems. Read more about it here.

Did this update miss something important? Are you doing something cool that we can help you show off? Reply to this thread, message @Jess or myself @ or say hello on Matrix or email commonvoice@mozilla.com and we’ll include you in the next update.

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#11

Hey @gina, the second link you shared is on slack and it is not openly accessible. AFAIK, MCV also left slack years ago. Is there a public mirror for it?

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#12

Hi @bozden here is the correct link https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/06/technology/tech-giants-harvest-data-artificial-intelligence.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb

1 Like
#13

Hello Community :smiley:

Welcome back to the weekly update from the Common Voice Community team.

An event that might be of interest!
Conference: Text and Data Mining and Artificial Intelligence

The Swedish Library Association, Wikimedia Sverige, and the Institute of Intellectual Property and Market Law at Stockholm University, in collaboration with Knowledge Rights 21, are hosting a one-day conference dedicated to exploring the intersections of Text and Data Mining, Artificial Intelligence, Copyright and Libraries. Register here to attend.

Did this update miss something important? Are you doing something cool that we can help you show off? Reply to this thread, message @Jess or myself @gina_moape or say hello on Matrix or email commonvoice@mozilla.com and we’ll include you in the next update.

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#14

Hello Community

Welcome back to the weekly update from the Common Voice Community team.

Call for Proposal!
The call for proposals is open for the RightsCon program summit series. Sourced through an open Call for Proposals, the public program is built by and for a diverse community of activists, technologists, business leaders, policymakers, and journalists. Read more about it here.

On AI News!
Writers and publishers in Singapore reject a government plan to train AI on their work. Singapore’s literary community is pushing back against an official effort to train LLMs using their published works, part of a growing global resistance.

Did this update miss something important? Are you doing something cool that we can help you show off? Reply to this thread, message @Jess or myself @gina or say hello on Matrix or email commonvoice@mozilla.com and we’ll include you in the next update.

#15

Hello Community,

Welcome back to the weekly update from the Common Voice Community team.

This week we are giving a big shoutout to the Kidaw’ida (dav), Dholuo (luo), and Kalenjin (kln) communities. Over the past nine months, with funding from Lacuna Fund, these communities have collected and translated over 30k sentences from these languages to Swahili.

The Kidaw’ida (dav), Dholuo (luo), and Kalenjin (kln) communities are hosting a launch event on the 31st of May 2024. Hear more about their journey by registering to attend their event [here](https://lnkd.in/d4uchAqX Lacuna FundAudrey MboghoVivian OlooDr Andrew Kipkebut PhD).

Did this update miss something important? Are you doing something cool that we can help you show off? Reply to this thread, message @Jess or myself @ or say hello on Matrix or email commonvoice@mozilla.com and we’ll include you in the next update.

#16

Hello Community

Welcome back to the weekly update from the Common Voice Community team.

New Dataset Release Cutoff Date
Great News:)The new dataset release is coming next Wednesday on June 19th! The cut off date will be Friday, June 14th.

MozFest
The Mozilla CV team is at MozFest this week. Mozilla is committed to the realization of Artificial Intelligence that is worthy of trust, both on and offline. This year’s themes include Trustworthy AI, Togetherness, Collective Wellbeing, Opportunity and Abundance. Find out more about the schedule, community and updates here.

Did this update miss something important? Are you doing something cool that we can help you show off? Reply to this thread, message @Jess or myself @Gina_Moape or say hello on Matrix or email commonvoice@mozilla.com and we’ll include you in the next update.

1 Like
#17

Hello Community :grinning:

Welcome back to the weekly update from the Common Voice Community team. :dancer:

Language Variant Support
The language variant support feature is now live. This means that community members are now able to contribute to language variants of their choice. More information will be published in the upcoming blog post.

On AI News
An AI startup in Nigeria, Awarri launched LangEasy, a platform that allows people with a smartphone to help train the model through voice and text inputs. LangEasy gives users sentences to read out loud, and asks them to save the audio on the app to train the model. Read more about the model here.

Did this update miss something important? Are you doing something cool that we can help you show off? Reply to this thread, message @Jess or myself @gina or say hello on Matrix or email commonvoice@mozilla.com and we’ll include you in the next update.

2 Likes
#18

I would like to know if this is true or false or just plain old spam. If it is true why has Mozilla done nothing about it?

Hello,

This is a friendly email to make you aware that your personal email address is currently visible to the whole internet via Mozilla’s Discourse forum. It will show up in Google Search results. The affected email is the one that this email was sent to.

Many users may not be aware that their email address is publicly visible and Mozilla has not done anything about it in the 4 years it has been known, so I’ve taken this into my own hands to inform you.

What can you do?

You can update your profile name to be something else (actually, profile name is completely optional, so you can leave it blank if you want).

Steps to update profile name:

  1. If you search for " Mozilla Discourse forum " it should be one of the first results.
  2. Login. (Top-right)
  3. Click on your profile picture at the top right.
  4. Then, click on your username, at the top of the dropdown menu.
  5. Click on the " Preferences " button.
  6. Change the " Name " field, and click " Save Changes ".
#19

Hey @william_veitch, I think you used your e-mail address in your name. In this case the e-mail you get are saying correctly, it is not SPAM, it is an actual friendly e-mail. Your e-mail is exposed as you can see below:

[IMAGE DELETED]

(I will delete the image after you change it)

For example this is mine:

image

I don’t hide my name (I tend to remain public), but I don’t want to expose my e-mail. In the yellow marked area you can write you full name, given name, or just leave it empty as it is optional.

1 Like
#20

Great to see Common Voice taking steps towards greater inclusivity! The expanded gender options are a fantastic move and will undoubtedly contribute to a more representative dataset.

I’m also excited about the report on Digital Initiatives for Indigenous Languages. Preserving and promoting these languages is crucial for cultural heritage and diversity. It’s great to see organizations like Global Voices and UNESCO working together on this important issue.

I’m curious to know more about the specific gender options added. How did the Common Voice team decide on these options? Were community members involved in the process?

Additionally, I’d love to learn more about the specific initiatives highlighted in the report. Are there any particular projects or communities that have shown promising results in preserving indigenous languages?

Looking forward to more updates from the Common Voice team!