6 ms·
How did Wikipedia layout become so bloated?
Every single page is mostly sidebars, each has to be clicked
'hide' for every pageload(it does not save the state of sidebars!!) to reveal the article squeezed inside.
For the "full sidebars on" default, it requires either a 8k screen or 30% zoom to even see an article content.
- josephcsible 2mo agoIt's especially annoying on pages that have big tables, where all the wasted space makes it need to horizontally scroll. Sometimes I wish that once a horizontal scrollbar appears, browsers would ignore max-width on that page from then on.
- Olreich 2mo agoDid you disable cookies or something? Table of Contents sidebar hides and stays hidden across page loads, browser restarts, etc. Appearance sidebar is the same. Appearance sidebar lets you set the article width as well, with the default being slightly slim, but the wide option being the full browser width. The only way I can get it to reset is to clear my cookies, so its likely that.
- inigyou 2mo agoIt might have something to do with Wikimedia Foundation and WP:CANCER.
- josefritzishere 2mo agoreference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_Cancer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_C...
- squigz 2mo agoIt seems a bit silly to base this entire analysis on Wikipedia page views without exploring what else the WMF does. And in any event, I have a really hard time getting worked up about the relatively small amount of money they deal with - and use to do a lot of good for the world - while corruption and greedy corporations are as rampant and filthy rich as they are.
- tosti 2mo agoTwo wrongs don't make a right. Corruption is fought best by not allowing it anywhere at all.
- squigz 2mo agoPutting aside that I don't believe WMF is 'wrong' here at all, it's simply not reasonable or healthy to get upset about every wrong thing. One needs to pick their battles.
- tosti 2mo agoTrue that. Getting upset about pretty much anything is rarely useful. IDK who first theorized this, but usually people get upset when they don't fully understand the situation. They who truly grasp the entire situation can't get upset. The real battle is in oneself.
- tdeck 2mo agoPersonally I'm not worked up over it either, but I find the argument that this puts Wikipedia at risk persuasive. If it some point WMF racks up debts they can't pay and puts itself up for sale, these days probably Elon Musk or Larry Ellison would buy it.
- bananaflag 2mo agoI have been using MonoBook for years (early 2023 I think), I see nothing like that.
- ateles 2mo agohttps://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/legacy-wikipedia/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/legacy-wikipe...
- aristofun 2mo agoI’ll answer deeper question “why” if you don’t mind. Wikipedia itself has become corrupted and politically and ideologically biased in past years. It has been shown multiple times. When you stop pursuing the truth and start pursuing an agenda - things get ugly over time. It’s a general pattern.
- jan_paje 2mo agoI've not experienced this, can you provide some examples?
- squigz 2mo ago> It has been shown multiple times. Feel free to share.
- aristofun 2mo agoGo and google it. Youll find plenty of examples and research. Here is just one I’ve found https://manhattan.institute/article/is-wikipedia-politically-biased https://manhattan.institute/article/is-wikipedia-politically... Another fresh example that comes to mind is systematic anti Israeli whitewashing of radical movements and ideologies.
- gnoll_of_gozag 2mo agothis post is about layouts
- aristofun 2mo agoLayouts are logical symptoms of underlying deeper problem
- g8oz 2mo agoIs there some kind of extension to block their begging for donations banner?
- chuckadams 2mo agoA quick reminder that reader mode works great with almost every WP article.
- davisr 2mo agoI use Redirector in Firefox to rewrite URLs to the old Wikipedia: { "description": "Old Wikipedia", "exampleUrl": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page", "exampleResult": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page?useskin=vector", "error": null, "includePattern": "^(https?://)([a-z0-9-]*\\.)wikipedia\\.org\\/wiki\\/([^?]+)(?!=\\?useskin=vector)", "excludePattern": "", "patternDesc": "Adds ?useskin=vector to any Wikipedia page", "redirectUrl": "https://$2wikipedia.org/wiki/$3?useskin=vector", "patternType": "R", "processMatches": "noProcessing", "disabled": false, "grouped": false, "appliesTo": [ "main_frame" ] }
- Figs 2mo agoI do something similar with Redirector, but a bit more involved (to also redirect mobile links to the regular pages + a few other cases): { "description": "Wikipedia Mobile -> Regular", "exampleUrl": "https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypernucleus", "exampleResult": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypernucleus?useskin=vector", "error": null, "includePattern": "https://([^.]+).m.wikipedia.org/wiki/([^#?]+)(#(.+))?", "excludePattern": "", "patternDesc": "Remove .m and add ?useskin=vector to end", "redirectUrl": "https://$1.wikipedia.org/wiki/$2?useskin=vector$3", "patternType": "R", "processMatches": "noProcessing", "disabled": false, "grouped": false, "appliesTo": [ "main_frame" ] }, { "description": "Wikipedia (Use Vector instead of Vector2022 skin)", "exampleUrl": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato", "exampleResult": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato?useskin=vector", "error": null, "includePattern": "https://([^.]+).wikipedia.org/wiki/([^#?]+)(#(.+))?", "excludePattern": "(https://[^.]+.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:.+)|(https://([^.]+).wikipedia.org/wiki/[^?]+[?].*useskin=.+)", "patternDesc": "Add ?useskin=vector to end", "redirectUrl": "https://$1.wikipedia.org/wiki/$2?useskin=vector$3", "patternType": "R", "processMatches": "noProcessing", "disabled": false, "grouped": false, "appliesTo": [ "main_frame" ] }, { "description": "Wikipedia (Use Vector instead of Vector2022 skin) -- Query String Redirect", "exampleUrl": "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Petabyte&redirect=no", "exampleResult": "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Petabyte&redirect=no&useskin=vector", "error": null, "includePattern": "https://([^.]+).wikipedia.org/((?:w/index.php)|(?:wiki/([^#?]+)))[?]([^#]+)(#(.+))?", "excludePattern": "(https://[^.]+.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:.+)|(https://([^.]+).wikipedia.org/wiki/[^?]+[?].*useskin=.+)", "patternDesc": "https://([^.]+).wikipedia.org/wiki/([^#?]+)[?].+useskin=.+", "redirectUrl": "https://$1.wikipedia.org/$2$3?$4&useskin=vector$5", "patternType": "R", "processMatches": "noProcessing", "disabled": false, "grouped": false, "appliesTo": [ "main_frame" ] }
- Bhagya1111 2mo agoWikipedia pages now have more sidebars than actual history.