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My initial take: I actually like this a lot. The body text is narrower which makes for easier reading. The sidebar with an updating highlight of current place i

My initial take: I actually like this a lot. The body text is narrower which makes for easier reading. The sidebar with an updating highlight of current place in document is really nice too. I don't mind the "wasted space": Wikipedia is primarily about reading, and any well typeset book or web page should have generous margins so the line length is not too long.

pdpi 4y ago
My first take: it’s different so it sucks. The lack of visual separation between the main content and the menu on the left is atrocious. Second take: oh wait, the menu in the left was completely useless and they replaced it with the table of contents for that particular entry. That’s actually a welcome change. I’ll get used to “different so it sucks” soon enough anyway, that’s my fault not theirs. It’s kind of fascinating when you catch yourself having knee-jerk reactions and “watch” your brain correct them.
- rascul 4y ago
  I find so much whitespace to the left tries to grab my attention and makes it harder to focus on the content.
  - jrochkind1 4y ago
    It says something about how we've (all) been trained to read the web that you find an empty margin more distracting and grabbing of attention than the previous thing that occupied that area of the screen -- a fairly useless list of wikipeida navigational links we had all learned to ignore.
seanalltogether 4y ago
I was worried about the narrow body impact on table data since wikipedia often has the most concise charts for comparison. Although the styling looks broken, at the least the data isn't hidden inside an inner scroll area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_30_series?useskin=vector-2022#Desktop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_30_series?useskin=vect...
nsajko 4y ago
Text width is important, but this is not a solution, zooming and changing browser window geometry is.
- bearmode 4y ago
  What an absolutely absurd thing to say.
- gpm 4y ago
  Mac OS (and some linux desktops) seems to really expect you to manage windows by having them always be full screen and swiping between desktops. Which makes changing browser window geometry sub-optimal. Even on desktops where it's reasonably easy, it's pretty annoying to have to resize the window when you go to different sites to get them to format properly.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
    It's not necessarily a function of the linux desktop. I use xfce, but it would be entirely easy to work with non-full-screen windows for my browser, emacs, clementine etc. However, I choose not, and use workspaces to spread things out.
  - kitsunesoba 4y ago
    > Mac OS … seems to really expect you to manage windows by having them always be full screen and swiping between desktops. Which makes changing browser window geometry sub-optimal. That hasn't been my experience at all, in fact for me macOS works better when windows are mostly sized to fit their content. Windows and Windows-like Linux DEs is where I feel pressure to maximize everything.
    - Wowfunhappy 4y ago
      I agree. Anecdotally, I also see more PCs with maximized windows in the wild, and more Macs with smaller windows. (I don't really see many people using Linux in the wild.)
geokon 4y ago
Why not just have multiple columns of text instead of half a screen of emptyness and stuff users rarely interact with? You could arrange the different wiki sections to be side by side.. in a dynamic responsive way depending on device/screen size
- DiggyJohnson 4y ago
  I find multicolumn on digital screens especially in the browser to seem very clunky. And with an arbitrary article length, multicol would require pagination, right?
  - geokon 4y ago
    Do you have any examples? I see some examples on MDN: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/CSS/CSS_layout/Multiple-column_Layout https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/CSS/CSS_layou... I imagine there are a few ways to do it. I'd just have columns break at section headers. It'd also jive well with the wiki pic/quick-info right hand sidebar that's common
ddejohn 4y ago
I've been using Redirector for the last few years to redirect Wikipedia links to the mobile site because the interface is so much cleaner and the content so much easier to read. I'm super excited about this change because I can finally get rid of that browser extension.
- pwdisswordfisha 4y ago
  I have been using a user script to do just the opposite, because the interface is so much poorly delineated and the content much harder to read. I guess I'll be modifying it to plaster ?useskin=vector at the end of every link as well...
ilyt 4y ago
For 16:9 screen sure, old wikipedia is too wide but I use side tabs in browser so my browsing area is closer to classical 4:3 monitor and the old one fit very well (for me) on that.
- rascul 4y ago
  I find the old width fine. The font size was too small, I adjust that locally, but the length was ok.

pdpi 4y ago

My first take: it’s different so it sucks. The lack of visual separation between the main content and the menu on the left is atrocious. Second take: oh wait, the menu in the left was completely useless and they replaced it with the table of contents for that particular entry. That’s actually a welcome change. I’ll get used to “different so it sucks” soon enough anyway, that’s my fault not theirs. It’s kind of fascinating when you catch yourself having knee-jerk reactions and “watch” your brain correct them.

rascul 4y ago
I find so much whitespace to the left tries to grab my attention and makes it harder to focus on the content.
- jrochkind1 4y ago
  It says something about how we've (all) been trained to read the web that you find an empty margin more distracting and grabbing of attention than the previous thing that occupied that area of the screen -- a fairly useless list of wikipeida navigational links we had all learned to ignore.

seanalltogether 4y ago

I was worried about the narrow body impact on table data since wikipedia often has the most concise charts for comparison. Although the styling looks broken, at the least the data isn't hidden inside an inner scroll area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_30_series?useskin=vector-2022#Desktop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_30_series?useskin=vect...

nsajko 4y ago

Text width is important, but this is not a solution, zooming and changing browser window geometry is.

bearmode 4y ago
What an absolutely absurd thing to say.
gpm 4y ago
Mac OS (and some linux desktops) seems to really expect you to manage windows by having them always be full screen and swiping between desktops. Which makes changing browser window geometry sub-optimal. Even on desktops where it's reasonably easy, it's pretty annoying to have to resize the window when you go to different sites to get them to format properly.
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
  It's not necessarily a function of the linux desktop. I use xfce, but it would be entirely easy to work with non-full-screen windows for my browser, emacs, clementine etc. However, I choose not, and use workspaces to spread things out.
- kitsunesoba 4y ago
  > Mac OS … seems to really expect you to manage windows by having them always be full screen and swiping between desktops. Which makes changing browser window geometry sub-optimal. That hasn't been my experience at all, in fact for me macOS works better when windows are mostly sized to fit their content. Windows and Windows-like Linux DEs is where I feel pressure to maximize everything.
  - Wowfunhappy 4y ago
    I agree. Anecdotally, I also see more PCs with maximized windows in the wild, and more Macs with smaller windows. (I don't really see many people using Linux in the wild.)

geokon 4y ago

Why not just have multiple columns of text instead of half a screen of emptyness and stuff users rarely interact with? You could arrange the different wiki sections to be side by side.. in a dynamic responsive way depending on device/screen size

DiggyJohnson 4y ago
I find multicolumn on digital screens especially in the browser to seem very clunky. And with an arbitrary article length, multicol would require pagination, right?
- geokon 4y ago
  Do you have any examples? I see some examples on MDN: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/CSS/CSS_layout/Multiple-column_Layout https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/CSS/CSS_layou... I imagine there are a few ways to do it. I'd just have columns break at section headers. It'd also jive well with the wiki pic/quick-info right hand sidebar that's common

ddejohn 4y ago

I've been using Redirector for the last few years to redirect Wikipedia links to the mobile site because the interface is so much cleaner and the content so much easier to read. I'm super excited about this change because I can finally get rid of that browser extension.

pwdisswordfisha 4y ago
I have been using a user script to do just the opposite, because the interface is so much poorly delineated and the content much harder to read. I guess I'll be modifying it to plaster ?useskin=vector at the end of every link as well...

ilyt 4y ago

For 16:9 screen sure, old wikipedia is too wide but I use side tabs in browser so my browsing area is closer to classical 4:3 monitor and the old one fit very well (for me) on that.

rascul 4y ago
I find the old width fine. The font size was too small, I adjust that locally, but the length was ok.