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I miss Microsoft Encarta (2019)

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Re: I miss Microsoft Encarta (2019)

#191

Post by crazygringo »

cooper12 wrote: post #175
cooper12 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There actually are two methods of interactivity on Wikipedia right now, the Graph extension [0] and Kartographer. [1] With the first you can create charts, timelines, and histograms, based on Vega. With the second, you can add points on maps (with images), have shapes, and outlines, from OpenStreetMap. Unfortunately, both aren't used as much as they should because most are comfortable using other tools and baking thi…

I also forgot to mention interactive 3D models in STL format. [0] There's also a user who has done amazing work [1] with SVG files, but these mainly only work if you view the original file, as MediaWiki generates a static PNG thumbnail for SVG files (silly, but maybe was needed at some point for proper support). [0]: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Extension:3D [1]: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Cmglee/…

Oh wow! An even better page of theirs is:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cmglee/Dynamic_SVG_for_Wi...

This is a great example of just basic animation:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/Circulat...

Re: I miss Microsoft Encarta (2019)

#192

Post by markjgraham »

bawolff wrote: post #165
Dirlewanger wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>a 25yr old website Yeah, that's a feature. I like that. No bloated JS framework taking 10 seconds to load, no obnoxious whitespace, minimal changes to the desktop experience when they implemented mobile. I admit they're a little slow to implement quality-of-life things (the hover-over preview being one of them). I also think link rot is a real problem too. Even though it's not necessarily their domain, I think Wikip…

There is efforts to auto replace dead links with links to internet archive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:InternetArchiveBot

Yes!

We have been doing that for several years... nearly 13 million links fixed so far!

Re: I miss Microsoft Encarta (2019)

#193

Post by 8bitsrule »

01100011 wrote: post #156
asiachick wrote: post #82

I don't know if miss Encarta but it does point out that in some ways Wikipedia feels like a step backward. Sure, wikipedia has more topics but where's a video? Where's the interactive explanations? Wikipedia feels like a 25yr old website. I know some people like that but it feels like a missed opportunity and stagnation to me

Also, lot of Wikipedia articles are geared towards experts. Sometimes I'll go there looking to learn what something is and give up because understanding the article would require familiarity the parent domain.

That's one reason I like that they've added the pop-up 'windows' into the internally-linked articles. They often lead to simpler material, or help define terms that otherwise go over my head. But yeah, many sci-tech articles are far from accessible to the 'intelligent layman'.

Re: I miss Microsoft Encarta (2019)

#194

Post by Hello71 »

hoards_tenting wrote: post #118
Hello71 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

of which about $0 goes to actual content creators.

They don't pay people to create content directly but in their most recent annual report they state that 32% of their expenses are supporting the community. > The Wikimedia projects exist thanks to volunteer communities around the world that create and maintain them. We strengthen these communities through grants, programs, events, trainings, partnerships, tools to augment contributor capacity, and support for the leg…

mneh... these expenses include things like the disastrous https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_Engine_(Wikimedia_Fo... and other similar projects which the existing community was not consulted on and have tenuous effects on actually attracting and retaining contributors.

Re: I miss Microsoft Encarta (2019)

#195

Post by ksec »

rchaud wrote: post #121

I grabbed a copy of Encarta '97 at a street market in Kuala Lumpur for all of $3. I was 11 and it blew my mind how much info there was in it. Despite also buying FIFA '97 at shop, I looked forward to coming home from school and firing up a new article. They had a audio and video too! It's hard to explain just how incredible it was to have this info all in one place in the pre-internet age. Even today, I'd say having…

> I looked forward to coming home from school and firing up a new article.

This. It was so much fun, extreme high quality, organised information for you suck in. Something both Google and Wiki fails to recreate.

Re: I miss Microsoft Encarta (2019)

#196

Post by mister_hn »

jaywalk wrote: post #114
mister_hn wrote: post #79

I remember when I've got the Encarta 1995 and I was light years ahead of my school friends when doing researches and gather material. I guess an hypothetical Encarta 2020 would not even fit in 5/6 Blue Rays, especially considering the better quality of images and videos

You mean Microsoft Azure Encarta Series X 2020 Edition Ultimate Plus Pack?

or Microsoft Encarta 4K 2020 :-)

Re: I miss Microsoft Encarta (2019)

#197

Post by laumars »

amyjess wrote: post #176
laumars wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You clearly never had to set up a sound card for a DOS game (oh the joys of autoexec.bat) or had to install your own networking drivers just to get TCP/IP support.

GP is talking about the Windows 95/98 era, not the DOS era. By that point, all of that was history.

No it really wasn’t. DirectX, OpenGL and Glide were really the start of Windows games and they didn’t become the norm until around 98 (bare in mind I’m talking about release date, not purchase date). In fact even as late as then some games were still written in DOS using special Glide or GL drivers for DOS. The 95 era of Windows was very much DOS orientated when it came to gaming.

Citation: I was a gamer and games developer in that era.

Re: I miss Microsoft Encarta (2019)

#198

Post by pwdisswordfish0 »

fsloth wrote: post #96
coldpie wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's way more effort than writing some text. That kind of content doesn't make itself for free.

This. If we get tools that enables simple creation of video/interactive assets then Wikipedia will get those more. As a life long graphics geek and programmer, currently the content creation ecosystem is not really on "bicycle" level - more like unicycle while juggling chainsaws - although it's getting better. I mean I've done graphics stuff all my life, and would be quite lost how to "do a quick animation" in someth…

http://wickeditor.com open source Flash replacement for 2020

Re: I miss Microsoft Encarta (2019)

#199

Post by musicale »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #21
jxf wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the value of Encarta was in the human curation of what was interesting. Wikipedia includes (by necessity) everything — but an encyclopedia would probably devote more space to (say) Nigerian history than to (say) the in-game statistics of all ~1,000 Pokémon.

And yet there's a ton of information that is rejected from Wikipedia itself, which found a place on e.g. Wikia and a few other sites like that - mainly about gaming, but also about subjects like D&D, etc.

If Bulbasaur is on Wikipedia, then Owlbear should be also. ;-)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owlbear

Re: I miss Microsoft Encarta (2019)

#200

Post by musicale »

ben_w wrote: post #26
jxf wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the value of Encarta was in the human curation of what was interesting. Wikipedia includes (by necessity) everything — but an encyclopedia would probably devote more space to (say) Nigerian history than to (say) the in-game statistics of all ~1,000 Pokémon.

I remember a similar comparison with Tony Blair back when he was the Prime Minister of the UK; the response was that while Wikipedia did indeed say more about Pikachu than Blair, Wikipedia also said more about Blair than did whichever “proper” encyclopaedia Wikipedia was being compared with at the time.

Well, Pikachu has been a highly influential Pokémon for nearly 30 years.
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