[peanutz454]

I feel bad that wikipedia (I contribute and donated to it long ago), has forever been a text and photo based encyclopedia based on web.

I do not think MS Encarta's budget was more than $50 million, while it obviously had no more than 1% of articles. But the content they had was top notch. It was a very good multimedia encyclopedia.

Wikipedia's budget is about $170 million (based on quick search). I don't think their software has any major updates, all the contributors work as volunteers. But they have 700 employees! And needlessly spend money on conventions.

If someone needs to create content for wikipedia, they need to create something like Encarta that can be fun to use for kids, and available from school libraries. I have fond memories of teachers playing encarta videos when explaining topics like resonance and why sodium is so reactive.

[bawolff]

I'm somewhat active in spaces discussing more multimedia in wikimedia.

Usually these discussions stall out because once it gets down to details, nobody agrees on what multimedia/interactivity is actually wanted. Everyone thinks it would be "cool", but when it comes to specifics, nobody really knows. There is a lack of shared vision on what good multimedia in articles look like (beyond what currently exists in terms of puctures and videos). I think it is very much a cultural and vision problem, not a technical problem.

> Wikipedia's budget is about $170 million (based on quick search). I don't think their software has any major updates

That would be pretty untrue. I guess it depends on what you mean by "major", but plenty of commits are happening. Its all open source, you can see the commit log at https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/q/status:merged+-is:wip (Whether or not the changes have a good vision or are meeting needs, is an entirely different question people can debate about). Regardless we have come a long way from https://nostalgia.wikipedia.org/wiki/HomePage

> And needlessly spend money on conventions.

Contributors are largely volunteers, having major contributors meet and share stories once or twice a year provides a lot of value. Its important not to go overboard, but i think its really important for the smooth operation of wikipedia to have conventions every now and then.

[qingcharles]

I think it was the first version of Encarta, it had a time-lapse video of bread molding. I thought that was an excellent video and obviously added substantially to the article about mold.

There is a definite need for more video content in some articles.

[johannes1234321]

In my view prime examples for Multimedia would be 3D models to explore the human body, with ability to show/hide organs etc. on 2D representations some of the aspects are hard to grasp.

But such a thing has major technical complications and somehow falls out of the "Wiki" idea where anybody can edit and improve ...

[ahmedfromtunis]

As a kid, my mind was blown that I, a mere child, have in my possession a copy of videos such the Hiroshima bomb, the Heisenberg catastrophe, etc. and that I can watch them anytime I damn wanted. It was the most amazing feeling I had as a child and still remember it to this day! Thanks Encarta!

[morsch]

Hindenburg