Some Wikipedia articles include sound or video files, which can be played on almost all personal computers. However, your computer must have the right software. If your computer does not automatically play these files when you click on them, downloading and installing free software from the internet can enable it to do so.

Sound files on Wikipedia generally use the Vorbis audio format, and video files use the Theora format, both contained in an Ogg file. These are analogous to other formats used to play digital audio and video such as MP3 and MPEG. However, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X do not support these formats by default, and require additional software to play them (see below).

Music files may occasionally use the MIDI format (.MID or .MIDI extension). MIDI is generally playable without additional software, as most computers have a MIDI-enabled player and sound card.

For help making and converting video and audio into the format usable on Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Creation and usage of media files.

Jimmy Donal "Jimbo" Wales ( /ˈdoʊnəl ˈweɪlz/; born August 7, 1966) is an American Internet entrepreneur best known as a co-founder and promoter of the online non-profit encyclopedia Wikipedia and the Wikia company. Wales was born in Huntsville, Alabama, United States, where he attended Randolph School, a university-preparatory school, then earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in finance. While in graduate school, he taught at two universities, but left before completing a PhD in order to take a job in finance and later worked as the research director of a Chicago futures and options firm. In 1996, he and two partners founded Bomis, a male-oriented web portal featuring entertainment and adult content. The company would provide the initial funding for the peer-reviewed free encyclopedia Nupedia (2000–2003) and its successor, Wikipedia.

On January 15, 2001, with Larry Sanger and others, Wales launched Wikipedia, a free, open content encyclopedia that enjoyed rapid growth and popularity, and as Wikipedia’s public profile grew, he became the project’s promoter and spokesman. He is historically cited as a co-founder of Wikipedia, though he has disputed the "co-" designation, declaring himself the sole founder. Wales serves on the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit charitable organization he helped establish to operate Wikipedia, holding its board-appointed "community founder" seat. In 2004, he co-founded Wikia, a for-profit wiki-hosting service. His role in creating Wikipedia, which has become the world’s largest encyclopedia, prompted Time magazine to name him in its 2006 list of the world’s most influential people.