3 ms·

Wikipedia could do a better job integrating media. I remember Encarta being pretty good about having video files showing the outlines of wars and battles... at

Wikipedia could do a better job integrating media. I remember Encarta being pretty good about having video files showing the outlines of wars and battles... at least for the Vietnam War which is what I remember most. I prefer watching a video outline of wars and battles on youtube rather than dig right into a wall of text on wikipedia.

situational87 7y ago
I still remember using one of the earliest Encarta versions and seeing a tiny postage stamp sized video animate and play some half broken wav file for the first time. I remember it hitting me like a baseball bat: we can do VIDEOS on computers now! This will change everything! TV is going to die because there are no ads on computers!
- disgruntledphd2 7y ago
  Those were more innocent times, to be fair.
  - situational87 7y ago
    I spent a good five years online browsing the web before they decided to start adding advertising to everything. I never agreed to that switch in the contract.
- smacktoward 7y ago
  Look on the bright side, you got two out of three right :D
rtkwe 7y ago
Also things like the globe or the timeline mentioned in the article would be great to add to wikipedia. Being able to quickly pull up a timeline of battles mentioned on wikipedia that took place or involved a certain country could be neat. Similar things on the globe could illustrate a lot of things.
WorldMaker 7y ago
Yes. Part of the problem is the CC license restriction of Wikipedia/Wikimedia. A lot of primary sources such as the ones Encarta included were often proprietary licensed and copyrighted products. According to Wikipedia's annual donation bars they (supposedly) spend enough on hosting costs every year that spending money on licensing media content is (probably) out of the question for them. I almost wish for a sort of intellectual property "eminent domain" promoting more things like famous news footage into the public domain where they fit an "almanac" need. Though I admit creating any sort of such program would be really hard to do, as the boundaries would be murky and it potentially would impact the revenue of companies and groups that generally need such revenue to survive (PBS, for example).

situational87 7y ago

I still remember using one of the earliest Encarta versions and seeing a tiny postage stamp sized video animate and play some half broken wav file for the first time. I remember it hitting me like a baseball bat: we can do VIDEOS on computers now! This will change everything! TV is going to die because there are no ads on computers!

disgruntledphd2 7y ago
Those were more innocent times, to be fair.
- situational87 7y ago
  I spent a good five years online browsing the web before they decided to start adding advertising to everything. I never agreed to that switch in the contract.
smacktoward 7y ago
Look on the bright side, you got two out of three right :D

rtkwe 7y ago

Also things like the globe or the timeline mentioned in the article would be great to add to wikipedia. Being able to quickly pull up a timeline of battles mentioned on wikipedia that took place or involved a certain country could be neat. Similar things on the globe could illustrate a lot of things.

WorldMaker 7y ago

Yes. Part of the problem is the CC license restriction of Wikipedia/Wikimedia. A lot of primary sources such as the ones Encarta included were often proprietary licensed and copyrighted products. According to Wikipedia's annual donation bars they (supposedly) spend enough on hosting costs every year that spending money on licensing media content is (probably) out of the question for them. I almost wish for a sort of intellectual property "eminent domain" promoting more things like famous news footage into the public domain where they fit an "almanac" need. Though I admit creating any sort of such program would be really hard to do, as the boundaries would be murky and it potentially would impact the revenue of companies and groups that generally need such revenue to survive (PBS, for example).