4 ms·
If the author or anyone else with the ability to update Wikipedia's code itself is reading this, I have a suggestion for some low-hanging fruit that wastes a lo
by wolrah 3y ago
If the author or anyone else with the ability to update Wikipedia's code itself is reading this, I have a suggestion for some low-hanging fruit that wastes a lot more than 300ms for all sorts of users, not just those on low-end mobile devices.
Wikipedia, like many web sites, makes it really easy for mobile users to get redirected to a mobile-specific version running on a mobile-specific domain.
The problem is that this mobile-specific version is not good for browsing on a full computer. It's not even great on a tablet. But there's no easy way to switch back when I've been sent a mobile-specific link other than editing the link by hand. Mobile links end up everywhere thanks to phone users just copy/pasting whatever they have, and desktop users suffer as a result.
Please, anyone who develops web sites, stop doing the mobile-specific URL nonsense. Make your pages adaptable to just work properly on all target devices.
If you insist on doing things this way with mobile-specific URLs, at least make it equally easy for desktop users to get off the mobile URLs as you make it for phone users to get on them.
- yorwba 3y agoScroll down to the bottom, click "Desktop". Not easy to notice that this is an option, not too hard to use once you've found out.
- lloydatkinson 3y agoAnd yet practically very little effort for Wikipedia to serve the correct version
- jvm___ 3y agoBut how do you determine the users intent? They asked for the mobile version - but they're on desktop. Do you serve what the asked for? Or what you think they should want? What if they actually want the mobile version - if you always send desktop to desktop, then they can't get mobile...
- jakear 3y agoNot sure why the downvotes, this is a reasonable question. (As evidenced by all the other answers...) The simple answer is that you don't encode device specific intent in the URI, you put in in style sheets where it belongs.
- bornfreddy 3y agoNot a downvoter, but I can understand them. GP's comment assumes that there need to be different versions of the page, while HTML allows degradable experience. Just have the same page and make it work properly everywhere.
- remram 3y agoOn mobile, they asked for the desktop version, and got redirected to mobile. Does intent not matter there? If you are going to redirect automatically, then redirect back automatically.
- smallnix 3y agoYou do what's best for the majority of users.
- marginalia_nu 3y agoThis is the opposite of accessibility.
- hutzlibu 3y agoNot necessarily. You can optimize for the majority, but still keep things functional for everyone else.
- jlund-molfese 3y agoYou’re getting downvoted, but this is a totally legitimate comment. A sizable minority of people prefer the mobile WP interface and find it cleaner even on a non-mobile device. m.wikipedia isn’t the default, so it’s different from regular wikipedia.com redirecting a mobile user to the mobile version. It’s easier for them to go to m.wikipedia.com than to change their user agent, especially if they aren’t that technical.
- ufo 3y agoYeah, but that takes longer than 300ms ;)
- whym 3y agoThere has been an RFC about it (for years). "Remove .m. subdomain, serve mobile and desktop variants through the same URL" https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T214998 https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T214998
- throw0101b 3y agoThere problem is when your auto-detection gets it wrong and you keep getting served the mobile version even if you are not (looking at you www.arista.com).
- account42 3y agoIf you do it right you don't have auto-detection because you don't have separate versions of the page in the first place. CSS is powerful enough to adapt a page to whatever viewport it happens to be displayed on.
- dspillett 3y agoThis is a good use of a session cookie. Or even a stored cookie. It would be considered a non-tracking essential site function value too, so you wouldn't need to beg permission (contrary to what people who want us to be against privacy legislation will claim), and the site is probably already asking for permission anyway for other reasons so even that point is moot.
- saagarjha 3y agoUnfortunately "non-tracking cookies" are no longer a thing in most browsers.
- dspillett 3y agoI was meaning non-tracking essential cookies, as defined by privacy legislation that requires permission for things that are not essential for site features. Or are you suggesting mainstream browsers are blocking same-origin session-level cookies by default now? I'm not aware of any. And if you have a browser that is blocking such things, the worst that will happen is the current behaviour (repeated mis-guesses because the preference isn't stored) continues.
- strictfp 3y agoHot take: the mobile site also isn't good for cellphones
- TexanFeller 3y agoAgree! I despise almost all mobile sites, even from my phone. "responsive" sites invariably suck too. Give me the full desktop site every time.
- avnigo 3y agoMy main gripe about the Wikipedia mobile site is that text search doesn't work on the collapsed sections, and there's no way to expand all sections at once. The simplest thing left to do is the request/navigate to the desktop site and use your browser's find text feature then.
- orbisvicis 3y agoSince the redesign the expandable categories of the mobile Wikipedia website expand no more than once on Android Firefox beta, so I constantly must reload the page to read new categories. Fixing this might be a good way to reduce bandwidth.
- namtab00 3y agoI'd add shareable links, with some "copy link" ui for headings in articles, please!