:: I reworded my first post just now, so Ventura's may be less connectable.  Didn't want to disrespect Ventura by altering their post, so left s/his as-is. 
 ::response/nexts: 
 ::I have read all that GIF shit.  I know the long story.  I curtailed, but referenced via 'poison pills' bit. 
 ::Animation would indeed be an odd choice for a traditional encyclopedia, but we're not.   
 :;A point that comes to mind is, 'is there a way for animated GIFs to degrade gracefully?' (so that printed or other more static incarnations of Wikipedia might not be hindered too much by such an addition to the mix.) 
 ::re: GIFs sucking for photos:  Fuckin A; I'm most definitely with you there.  but there ain't animated JPEGs, and on-balance GIFs dont suck that bad, and where they suck (at least on on-screen resolution fronts) they suck more-so on the file-size front and not the quality-of-visual-representation front (and since the actual impact of file size issues isn't grave, it might be deemed acceptable). 
 ::Personally, I'm straight-fucking PNG, whigga, but I'll be faqqed if I feel comfortable putting them forward as prime-time worthy yet to any non-techy types. 
 ::-:)