Encarta is dead [1]. Anyone willing to talk with Microsoft about getting materials for Wikipedia?
Oh, M$........
2009/3/31 Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com
Encarta is dead [1]. Anyone willing to talk with Microsoft about getting materials for Wikipedia?
[1] - http://encarta.msn.com/guide_page_FAQ/FAQ.html
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Well wow.
FMF
2009/3/31 shi zhao shizhao@gmail.com
Oh, M$........
2009/3/31 Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com
Encarta is dead [1]. Anyone willing to talk with Microsoft about getting materials for Wikipedia?
[1] - http://encarta.msn.com/guide_page_FAQ/FAQ.html
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RIP Encarta. For better or for worse, it was for many people, especially children, the first encyclopedia they ever encountered. It may eventually have sparked the interest of, and inspired, more than a few Wikipedians. Let's hope some of their material can be released (I'm hoping specifically for some of the multimedia, such as snippets of music made with rare instruments, and the sound files of letters, numbers and various phrases said in many languages, by native speakers). Maria [[User:Arria Belli]]
2009/3/31 David Moran fordmadoxfraud@gmail.com
Well wow.
FMF
2009/3/31 shi zhao shizhao@gmail.com
Oh, M$........
2009/3/31 Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com
Encarta is dead [1]. Anyone willing to talk with Microsoft about getting materials for Wikipedia?
[1] - http://encarta.msn.com/guide_page_FAQ/FAQ.html
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-- Chinese wikipedia: http://zh.wikipedia.org/ My blog: http://shizhao.org twitter: https://twitter.com/shizhao
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The Encarta people were very unprecise about what they are going to do in future... So, this means that there remains no big encyclopedia but ours? Except Britannica? And what about the situation in French, Italian etc., has anyone an overview about that? Then I also ask myself in how far this evolution is to be credited mainly to Wikipedia, or has it been "the Internet" in general that killed the dead-tree-encyclopedias. I remember that in 1999 or 2000 I already did not buy a paper encyclopedia because of the Internet. Kind regards Ziko
2009/3/31 Maria Fanucchi marialadouce@gmail.com
RIP Encarta. For better or for worse, it was for many people, especially children, the first encyclopedia they ever encountered. It may eventually have sparked the interest of, and inspired, more than a few Wikipedians. Let's hope some of their material can be released (I'm hoping specifically for some of the multimedia, such as snippets of music made with rare instruments, and the sound files of letters, numbers and various phrases said in many languages, by native speakers). Maria [[User:Arria Belli]]
2009/3/31 David Moran fordmadoxfraud@gmail.com
Well wow.
FMF
2009/3/31 shi zhao shizhao@gmail.com
Oh, M$........
2009/3/31 Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com
Encarta is dead [1]. Anyone willing to talk with Microsoft about getting materials for Wikipedia?
[1] - http://encarta.msn.com/guide_page_FAQ/FAQ.html
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-- Chinese wikipedia: http://zh.wikipedia.org/ My blog: http://shizhao.org twitter: https://twitter.com/shizhao
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2009/3/31 Ziko van Dijk zvandijk@googlemail.com:
So, this means that there remains no big encyclopedia but ours? Except Britannica? And what about the situation in French, Italian etc., has anyone an overview about that?
Enciclopèdia Catalana [1] is a very good free-as-in-beer online encyclopedia in the Catalan Language. Many of its articles about Catalan culture are also translated into English. (To see if an article has an English version, click the "Encyclopaedia" button.) The same company also offers at least three comprehensive dictionaries - the general monolingual Gran Diccionari (complete with full conjugations and etymologies), the excellent DIDAC for children [2], and Multilingüe - Catalan-Spanish-German-English-French [3]. I don't understand how do they do it without any advertising. Maybe the government helps it, but that is just a guess.
Anyway, the fact is that it is a strong competitor against the Catalan Wikipedia and Wiktionary and it is also a strong competitor against English Wikipedia for people who seek information about Catalan culture.
So the answer is No - not all major encyclopedias are dead, and that is a Good Thing.
[1] www.grec.cat [2] http://www.grec.net/cgibin/esc00.pgm/ [3] http://www.grec.cat/cgibin/mlt00.pgm
On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 12:56 PM, Ziko van Dijk zvandijk@googlemail.com wrote:
The Encarta people were very unprecise about what they are going to do in future... So, this means that there remains no big encyclopedia but ours? Except Britannica? And what about the situation in French, Italian etc., has anyone an overview about that? Then I also ask myself in how far this evolution is to be credited mainly to Wikipedia, or has it been "the Internet" in general that killed the dead-tree-encyclopedias. I remember that in 1999 or 2000 I already did not buy a paper encyclopedia because of the Internet.
As a young student of linguistics I was interested in Sumerian language. In 1996 I went to the National library of Serbia and took Britannica's 1995 edition. So, I've got the next references:
* Arno Poebel, Grundzüge der sumerischen Grammatik (1923), partly out of date, but still the only full grammar of Sumerian in all its stages; * Adam Falkenstein, Grammatik der Sprache Gudeas von Lagaš, 2 vol. (1949–50), a very thorough grammar of the New Sumerian dialect, * Das Sumerische (1959), a very brief but comprehensive survey of the Sumerian language; * Cyril J. Gadd, Sumerian Reading Book (1924), outdated but the only grammatical tool in English; * Samuel N. Kramer, The Sumerians (1963), provides a general introduction to Sumerian civilization.
Anecdote around this is that I was very confident in my linguistic knowledge and that I thought that I am able to understand linguistically German from 1923 (Arno Poebel's book). So, I went to the Library of Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts and asked them to make an inter-library borrowing from some German library. With a lot of enthusiasm I've started to read it... Of course, it was a complete disaster: I wasn't able to take any information. Copy of that book is still somewhere in my library.
One year later, in 1997, I tried to find something about Sumerian language at the net. Hm. I found at least two sites with full grammars of Sumerian dialects. So, I've finished with [traditional] encyclopedias.
BTW, the list of references above is from Britannica's [present] online edition [1]. Nothing was changed since 1995 edition. I remember well the list.
References from the English Wikipedia's article [2] are:
* Edzard, Dietz Otto (2003). Sumerian Grammar. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 90-04-12608-2. (grammar treatment for the advanced student) * Thomsen, Marie-Louise (2001) [1984]. The Sumerian Language: An Introduction to Its History and Grammatical Structure. Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag. ISBN 87-500-3654-8. (Well-organized with over 800 translated text excerpts.) * Diakonoff, I. M. (1976). "Ancient Writing and Ancient Written Language: Pitfalls and Peculiarities in the Study of Sumerian". Assyriological Studies 20 (Sumerological Studies in Honor of Thorkild Jakobsen): 99–121. * Rubio, Gonzalo (2007). "Sumerian Morphology." In Morphologies of Asia and Africa, vol. 2, pp. 1327-1379. Edited by Alan S. Kaye.. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns. ISBN 1-57506-109-0. * Attinger, Pascal (1993). Eléments de linguistique sumérienne: La construction de du11/e/di. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck&Ruprecht. ISBN 37-2780-869-1. * Volk, Konrad (1997). A Sumerian Reader. Rome: Pontificio Istituto Biblico. ISBN 88-7653-610-8. (collection of Sumerian texts) * Michalowski, Piotr, 'Sumerian as an Ergative Language', Journal of Cuneiform Studies 32 (1980), 86-103.
[1] - http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/573229/Sumerian-language [2] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumerian_language
Tomorrow is April 1st .......
On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 12:56 PM, Ziko van Dijk zvandijk@googlemail.com wrote:
The Encarta people were very unprecise about what they are going to do in future... So, this means that there remains no big encyclopedia but ours? Except Britannica? And what about the situation in French, Italian etc., has anyone an overview about that? Then I also ask myself in how far this evolution is to be credited mainly to Wikipedia, or has it been "the Internet" in general that killed the dead-tree-encyclopedias. I remember that in 1999 or 2000 I already did not buy a paper encyclopedia because of the Internet.
As a young student of linguistics I was interested in Sumerian language. In 1996 I went to the National library of Serbia and took Britannica's 1995 edition. So, I've got the next references:
- Arno Poebel, Grundzüge der sumerischen Grammatik (1923), partly out
of date, but still the only full grammar of Sumerian in all its stages;
- Adam Falkenstein, Grammatik der Sprache Gudeas von Lagaš, 2 vol.
(1949–50), a very thorough grammar of the New Sumerian dialect,
- Das Sumerische (1959), a very brief but comprehensive survey of the
Sumerian language;
- Cyril J. Gadd, Sumerian Reading Book (1924), outdated but the only
grammatical tool in English;
- Samuel N. Kramer, The Sumerians (1963), provides a general
introduction to Sumerian civilization.
Anecdote around this is that I was very confident in my linguistic knowledge and that I thought that I am able to understand linguistically German from 1923 (Arno Poebel's book). So, I went to the Library of Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts and asked them to make an inter-library borrowing from some German library. With a lot of enthusiasm I've started to read it... Of course, it was a complete disaster: I wasn't able to take any information. Copy of that book is still somewhere in my library.
One year later, in 1997, I tried to find something about Sumerian language at the net. Hm. I found at least two sites with full grammars of Sumerian dialects. So, I've finished with [traditional] encyclopedias.
BTW, the list of references above is from Britannica's [present] online edition [1]. Nothing was changed since 1995 edition. I remember well the list.
References from the English Wikipedia's article [2] are:
- Edzard, Dietz Otto (2003). Sumerian Grammar. Leiden: Brill. ISBN
90-04-12608-2. (grammar treatment for the advanced student)
- Thomsen, Marie-Louise (2001) [1984]. The Sumerian Language: An
Introduction to Its History and Grammatical Structure. Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag. ISBN 87-500-3654-8. (Well-organized with over 800 translated text excerpts.)
- Diakonoff, I. M. (1976). "Ancient Writing and Ancient Written
Language: Pitfalls and Peculiarities in the Study of Sumerian". Assyriological Studies 20 (Sumerological Studies in Honor of Thorkild Jakobsen): 99–121.
- Rubio, Gonzalo (2007). "Sumerian Morphology." In Morphologies of
Asia and Africa, vol. 2, pp. 1327-1379. Edited by Alan S. Kaye.. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns. ISBN 1-57506-109-0.
- Attinger, Pascal (1993). Eléments de linguistique sumérienne: La
construction de du11/e/di. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck&Ruprecht. ISBN 37-2780-869-1.
- Volk, Konrad (1997). A Sumerian Reader. Rome: Pontificio Istituto
Biblico. ISBN 88-7653-610-8. (collection of Sumerian texts)
- Michalowski, Piotr, 'Sumerian as an Ergative Language', Journal of
Cuneiform Studies 32 (1980), 86-103.
[1] - http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/573229/Sumerian-language [2] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumerian_language
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Tomorrow is April 1st .......
what is special about it? gmail birthday?
Maybe we could use that $20,000 that Philip Greenspun donated back in 2007 to purchase the Encarta illustrations (since it doesn't appear that that money is ever going to be used otherwise).
Ryan Kaldari
On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 10:15 AM, Domas Mituzas midom.lists@gmail.com wrote:
Tomorrow is April 1st .......
what is special about it? gmail birthday?
-- Domas Mituzas -- http://dammit.lt/ -- [[user:midom]]
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Ryan Kaldari wrote:
Maybe we could use that $20,000 that Philip Greenspun donated back in 2007 to purchase the Encarta illustrations (since it doesn't appear that that money is ever going to be used otherwise).
$20,000 means practically nothing to Microsoft. It's far more likely that they could be persuaded to donate Encarta's content as a PR gesture. Of course, they might have other plans.
On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 6:56 AM, Ziko van Dijk zvandijk@googlemail.comwrote:
Then I also ask myself in how far this evolution is to be credited mainly to Wikipedia, or has it been "the Internet" in general that killed the dead-tree-encyclopedias.
The personal computer killed the dead-tree encyclopedia. But Encarta wasn't a dead-tree encyclopedia.
Whether Wikipedia, the Internet, or something else, killed the commercial encyclopedia, is a more interesting question. Maybe the US Department of Justice's Antitrust Division will look into that one. Hah, just kidding. The whole purpose of the US Department of Justice's Antitrust Division is to kill commerce.
On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 1:48 AM, Maria Fanucchi marialadouce@gmail.com wrote:
RIP Encarta. For better or for worse, it was for many people, especially children, the first encyclopedia they ever encountered. It may eventually have sparked the interest of, and inspired, more than a few Wikipedians.
The first encyclopedia I encountered was a supermarket set, published by Grolier I think, made available one volume per week in 1991. Every grocery trip, my mother would buy me the next volume, and in a box somewhere I still have the complete set—in fact, I used them to fact-check some of my earliest Wikipedia articles, back when we were still creating pages about the commonest of things, any new content was a positive contribution, and we weren't quite so strict about citing sources.
A few years later, my parents bought a copy of one of the first editions of Encarta, distributed on a single CD-ROM. "Multimedia" was still a buzzword, and having audio sprinkled throughout—even video, for select topics—was an amazing thing. I grew up in an anti-Microsoft household, and we ran Encarta under IBM OS/2, but despite my prejudice, I couldn't help but find Encarta the greatest thing ever. I was disappointed when I had read every article in less than a week, but the proof of concept was there. (I don't think I need to wax nostalgic any further; obviously, long story short, I got here.)
So, yes, I do have some nostalgia for Encarta. Its day is long gone, and this is certainly overdue, but I've never really harbored any ill will toward it.
Let's hope some of their material can be released (I'm hoping specifically for some of the multimedia, such as snippets of music made with rare instruments, and the sound files of letters, numbers and various phrases said in many languages, by native speakers).
I second that. Even now, when I think about Encarta, the first thing that comes to mind is a recording they had of a Baroque piece played on the harpsichord. (Not that that's rare, but they did do a great job deciding what pieces warranted multimedia presentation, and they had some good ones.)
Austin
I believe a careful reading of the FAQ, while a buzzkill, casts doubt on Encarta's content being released: "Microsoft's vision is that everyone around the world needs to have access to quality education, and *we believe that we can use what we’ve learned and assets we’ve accrued with offerings like Encarta to develop future technology solutions*. In doing so, we feel strongly that we are making the right investments that will help make our vision a reality."
On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 8:57 PM, Austin Hair adhair@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 1:48 AM, Maria Fanucchi marialadouce@gmail.com wrote:
Let's hope some of their material can be released (I'm hoping
specifically
for some of the multimedia, such as snippets of music made with rare instruments, and the sound files of letters, numbers and various phrases said in many languages, by native speakers).
I second that. Even now, when I think about Encarta, the first thing that comes to mind is a recording they had of a Baroque piece played on the harpsichord. (Not that that's rare, but they did do a great job deciding what pieces warranted multimedia presentation, and they had some good ones.)
Austin
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Milos Rancic wrote:
Encarta is dead [1]. Anyone willing to talk with Microsoft about getting materials for Wikipedia?
There's already some effort being made by the Communications Committee to reach out.
--Michael Snow
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