15 ms·

The sole critique of the UX of Wikipedia that I have is that the normal version of Wikipedia redirects you to the mobile version when using a mobile device, and

by seppel 6y ago

The sole critique of the UX of Wikipedia that I have is that the normal version of Wikipedia redirects you to the mobile version when using a mobile device, and changes the URL while doing so. This is why we end up with all these m.wikipedia links. The mobile version, however, does not redirect you to the normal page when using a normal computer. So people like myself constantly have to edit the "m." from wikipedia links to get the normal version. I really dont get why they are doing that.

mywittyname 6y ago
I honestly think they were exploring replacing the desktop version with mobile at some point and used desktop m. removal as a gauge of aversion to the change.
- msla 6y ago
  That can't be true because the mobile version doesn't allow access to all of Wikipedia's functionality, such as talk pages, unless they've made some serious changes. (More precisely, I don't remember there being any way to get from an article to the article's talk page without editing the URL in the mobile version.)
  - howlgarnish 6y ago
    This was fixed quite some time ago, there's now a Discussion tab/link on the mobile version.
    - seppel 6y ago
      Can you tell me you I can get there, e.g., here? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test The work "discuss" does not show up in the source code, you can check "curl https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test | grep -i discuss" The discussion is called "talk" on the desktop version, but it is also missing on the mobile one. Or there is some javascript trickery going on, but I clearly dont get it.
      - fireattack 6y ago
        Not sure why you're missing but https://i.imgur.com/llv2rtc.png https://i.imgur.com/llv2rtc.png
        seppel 6y ago
        This is how it looks in my Firefox: https://imgur.com/a/x2Gl1Sj https://imgur.com/a/x2Gl1Sj And this is how it looks in my Chrome: https://imgur.com/a/LQ7pmH8 https://imgur.com/a/LQ7pmH8
        fireattack 6y ago
        Ah, you're right. You need to login and enable "advanced mode" in setting (in hamburger menu) to see it.
        seppel 6y ago
        I see. But this also means that every mobile user of wikipedia (I guess the majority now?) which is not logged in and enabled that feature (for sure the majority) does not even know about the discussion pages of wikipedia articles. This is super sad.
tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
Also, the mobile version collapsing the zippies, which means search doesn't work.
- EE84M3i 6y ago
  What are "zippies"? I tried searching but couldn't find a relevant definition.
  - howlgarnish 6y ago
    On Wikipedia, the content section headers. More generally, expandable sections of a page that default to being collapsed.
  - camdenreslink 6y ago
    Sometimes called accordion menus. See: https://jqueryui.com/accordion/ https://jqueryui.com/accordion/
- DonCopal 6y ago
  On mobile wikipedia site go to hamburger icon - settings and then Expand all sections
  - lxgr 6y ago
    Oh, nice, this is apparently a persistent setting too! Thanks!
spixy 6y ago
I made extension that does exactly that if you want https://github.com/spixy/NoMoreMobile/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/spixy/NoMoreMobile/blob/master/README.md
- seppel 6y ago
  That's appreciated, thank you. I already have such an extension to redirect reddit to old.reddit. It works and I can somehow see why such a thing might be necessary for commercialized platforms such as reddit. However, I'm suprised that this is neccessary for wikipedia. I guess it was more work to write the extension than to fix whatever is going on on wikipedias side. But then, on the other hand, maybe writing the extension and stop caring about what is going on on wikipedia is easier.
chrisweekly 6y ago
I'll never understand the lack of a "prefer full site" link in the footer of every page. Common sense / table stakes for usability since forever.
Izno 6y ago
Firstly, at the bottom of the page in either desktop or mobile you can get to the other with a mobile/desktop link. (Discoverability fail maybe?) Secondly, there's discussion about serving everything from a single domain at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T214998 https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T214998 , which I guess would enable the normal mobile browser feature of switching between desktop and mobile.
- seppel 6y ago
  > Firstly, at the bottom of the page in either desktop or mobile you can get to the other with a mobile/desktop link. (Discoverability fail maybe?) For a long page, scrolling to the bottom might take even longer than just changing the URL. Yes, there are keyboard shortcuts to scroll to the bottom, but so there are shortcuts to edit the URL bar. It is, in any case, an annoyance that always(!) takes some extra time. [Edit: I love that switching to the desktop version is literally the very last word/link of the mobile version. Even after the link to the "Privacy policy" and the "Terms of Use" that probably nobody in the history of homo sapiens ever clicked] > Secondly, there's discussion about serving everything from a single domain at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T214998 https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T214998 , which I guess would enable the normal mobile browser feature of switching between desktop and mobile. The last comment on this discussion is, quite ironically: "Have been somewhat expecting this to be fixed for the better part of 7+ years now. Hopefully this can be implemented soon!"
- account42 6y ago
  > Secondly, there's discussion about serving everything from a single domain at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T214998 https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T214998 , which I guess would enable the normal mobile browser feature of switching between desktop and mobile. Except there should not be two versions at all and instead they should just make the desktop version responsive and strip out the bloat - I don't want an article to on desktop to load six different javascript files and have a giant banner at the top any more than on mobile. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test is 27 different requests for me - that is inexcusable for mostly text content.
tusharpandey13 6y ago
Facebook also does this.
nullc 6y ago
I find the mobile version to be pretty poor and mostly the opposite of what I want when using wikipedia in a mobile capacity. Mobile has higher latency and a small screen, so its important that I not need to make lots of request and its important that I can search inside documents. Both of which are broken by wikipedia's mobile interface.
9935c101ab17a66 6y ago
I wonder if there's a functional reason why they do this, rather than just implementing responsive design / media queries? I seem to remember more sites doing this ~5 years ago, but based on what I see, it has fallen out of favour. (Actually found some info if anyone is curious: https://medium.com/freely-sharing-the-sum-of-all-knowledge/why-does-wikipedia-in-2018-have-a-mobile-site-and-a-desktop-site-bc2982f30fb9 https://medium.com/freely-sharing-the-sum-of-all-knowledge/w.... Though the article helps explain some of the context and reasoning, I don't think it really justifies the divergent experience and imperceptible progress on improving the desktop experience)

by seppel 6y ago

mywittyname 6y ago

I honestly think they were exploring replacing the desktop version with mobile at some point and used desktop m. removal as a gauge of aversion to the change.

msla 6y ago
That can't be true because the mobile version doesn't allow access to all of Wikipedia's functionality, such as talk pages, unless they've made some serious changes. (More precisely, I don't remember there being any way to get from an article to the article's talk page without editing the URL in the mobile version.)
- howlgarnish 6y ago
  This was fixed quite some time ago, there's now a Discussion tab/link on the mobile version.
  - seppel 6y ago
    Can you tell me you I can get there, e.g., here? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test The work "discuss" does not show up in the source code, you can check "curl https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test | grep -i discuss" The discussion is called "talk" on the desktop version, but it is also missing on the mobile one. Or there is some javascript trickery going on, but I clearly dont get it.
    - fireattack 6y ago
      Not sure why you're missing but https://i.imgur.com/llv2rtc.png https://i.imgur.com/llv2rtc.png
      - seppel 6y ago
        This is how it looks in my Firefox: https://imgur.com/a/x2Gl1Sj https://imgur.com/a/x2Gl1Sj And this is how it looks in my Chrome: https://imgur.com/a/LQ7pmH8 https://imgur.com/a/LQ7pmH8
        fireattack 6y ago
        Ah, you're right. You need to login and enable "advanced mode" in setting (in hamburger menu) to see it.
        seppel 6y ago
        I see. But this also means that every mobile user of wikipedia (I guess the majority now?) which is not logged in and enabled that feature (for sure the majority) does not even know about the discussion pages of wikipedia articles. This is super sad.

tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago

Also, the mobile version collapsing the zippies, which means search doesn't work.

EE84M3i 6y ago
What are "zippies"? I tried searching but couldn't find a relevant definition.
- howlgarnish 6y ago
  On Wikipedia, the content section headers. More generally, expandable sections of a page that default to being collapsed.
- camdenreslink 6y ago
  Sometimes called accordion menus. See: https://jqueryui.com/accordion/ https://jqueryui.com/accordion/
DonCopal 6y ago
On mobile wikipedia site go to hamburger icon - settings and then Expand all sections
- lxgr 6y ago
  Oh, nice, this is apparently a persistent setting too! Thanks!

spixy 6y ago

I made extension that does exactly that if you want https://github.com/spixy/NoMoreMobile/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/spixy/NoMoreMobile/blob/master/README.md

seppel 6y ago
That's appreciated, thank you. I already have such an extension to redirect reddit to old.reddit. It works and I can somehow see why such a thing might be necessary for commercialized platforms such as reddit. However, I'm suprised that this is neccessary for wikipedia. I guess it was more work to write the extension than to fix whatever is going on on wikipedias side. But then, on the other hand, maybe writing the extension and stop caring about what is going on on wikipedia is easier.

chrisweekly 6y ago

I'll never understand the lack of a "prefer full site" link in the footer of every page. Common sense / table stakes for usability since forever.

Izno 6y ago

Firstly, at the bottom of the page in either desktop or mobile you can get to the other with a mobile/desktop link. (Discoverability fail maybe?) Secondly, there's discussion about serving everything from a single domain at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T214998 https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T214998 , which I guess would enable the normal mobile browser feature of switching between desktop and mobile.

seppel 6y ago
> Firstly, at the bottom of the page in either desktop or mobile you can get to the other with a mobile/desktop link. (Discoverability fail maybe?) For a long page, scrolling to the bottom might take even longer than just changing the URL. Yes, there are keyboard shortcuts to scroll to the bottom, but so there are shortcuts to edit the URL bar. It is, in any case, an annoyance that always(!) takes some extra time. [Edit: I love that switching to the desktop version is literally the very last word/link of the mobile version. Even after the link to the "Privacy policy" and the "Terms of Use" that probably nobody in the history of homo sapiens ever clicked] > Secondly, there's discussion about serving everything from a single domain at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T214998 https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T214998 , which I guess would enable the normal mobile browser feature of switching between desktop and mobile. The last comment on this discussion is, quite ironically: "Have been somewhat expecting this to be fixed for the better part of 7+ years now. Hopefully this can be implemented soon!"
account42 6y ago
> Secondly, there's discussion about serving everything from a single domain at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T214998 https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T214998 , which I guess would enable the normal mobile browser feature of switching between desktop and mobile. Except there should not be two versions at all and instead they should just make the desktop version responsive and strip out the bloat - I don't want an article to on desktop to load six different javascript files and have a giant banner at the top any more than on mobile. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test is 27 different requests for me - that is inexcusable for mostly text content.

tusharpandey13 6y ago

Facebook also does this.

nullc 6y ago

I find the mobile version to be pretty poor and mostly the opposite of what I want when using wikipedia in a mobile capacity. Mobile has higher latency and a small screen, so its important that I not need to make lots of request and its important that I can search inside documents. Both of which are broken by wikipedia's mobile interface.

9935c101ab17a66 6y ago

I wonder if there's a functional reason why they do this, rather than just implementing responsive design / media queries? I seem to remember more sites doing this ~5 years ago, but based on what I see, it has fallen out of favour. (Actually found some info if anyone is curious: https://medium.com/freely-sharing-the-sum-of-all-knowledge/why-does-wikipedia-in-2018-have-a-mobile-site-and-a-desktop-site-bc2982f30fb9 https://medium.com/freely-sharing-the-sum-of-all-knowledge/w.... Though the article helps explain some of the context and reasoning, I don't think it really justifies the divergent experience and imperceptible progress on improving the desktop experience)