We're fucked.
this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2024
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Technology
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It's ok, it'll be all over soon*
*^Subject to geological time scale^
20,000 years of this, 7 more to go!
Adjusted for time since release, 4 more to go!
I wonder if Wikipedia could mitigate this to some degree by updating their UX. I don't particularly want them to, and I certainly don't want a "New Coke" Wikipedia. But the design is rather plain and "looks old" to a modern user.
And people are suckers for a friendly-looking starter like "Certainly!"
They did recently, or at least within the last year or so. Naturally, I hate it. lol
I've seen the redesign too and not really sure how I feel about it 😂 there's a lot of additional whitespace and it kinds looks like a blown up mobile version of the site
The whitespace and the popovers. I get really annoyed reading a page and accidentally bump the cursor over something and a popup preview covers up what I'm reading. Or I'll be scrolling with the keyboard and a linked word scrolls under the cursor and the popover appears. Then it triggers popovers on every word as I move the mouse out of the way.
Feels like navigating a mine field. That's the part I'm most split on: sometimes I find that useful, most times it's a nuisance.
Page previews are unrelated to and have been around before the redesign. You can turn it off by clicking on the cog in the corner of the preview. To avoid the minefield issue… just move your cursor outside the minefield? This is yet another thing limited width helps, but you can still have your cursor stay at the unibar.
linked word scrolls under the cursor and the popover appears
Nobody wants that. It's bug report worthy.
How would you fix it? HTML hover triggers don’t care if you scrolled.
I made https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Aaron_Liu/v22.css to fix that. Otherwise I adore the design.
Make the page 15x more bloated with JavaScript popups and it'll be "modern".
https://www.wikiwand.com/ is what your looking for, its basically a wrapper with a modern UI
If you visit the site straight from the web there may be ads but if you use the extension there shouldn’t be
They are also a leading donor to wikipedia so its not like they’re just stealing content for profit. You may indirectly do more to get money in wikipedia their hands then you do by visiting the main site.
from Wikiwand's description:
Welcome to Wikiwand, an AI-driven wiki aggregator created to enhance user experience on Wikipedia by streamlining knowledge consumption.
We integrate AI alongside, not as a replacement for, the full-contextual articles from Wikipedia, Wikiquote, and Wiktionary.
By leveraging cutting-edge AI technologies, Wikiwand helps users quickly grasp key points and related topics without the need to sift through lengthy articles.
oh how the mighty have fallen.
I don’t use Wikiwand because I don’t like the interface, but IMO that’s just how they attract funding.
I mean yeah they do have an ai chat feature but i literally never used it and honestly forgot its there.
Honestly the quote from their site confuses me, i ve used since before ai buzz started and i have not noticed much difference so i am not sure what they mean with being ai drive, maybe just marketing?
Not a good look admittedly but i’d say it’s the actual product that counts, which really is just modern wikipedia ui.
It's modern alright, complete with an "AI tools sidebar" and a "please login" popup that takes up half the screen.
There's no login popup and you can easily hide the sidebar, just like Wikipedia's skin.
Ah, I must've clicked on a premium theme on the way in.
Love this extension <3
Hell no, we don't need corporate enshittification for an open knowledge platform https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiwand#Business_model
Yeah i have stopped using it last week actually.
If you have the extension you have no ads but whenever i wanted to send a link to someone those are poisoned. Using the direct link to wikipedia also had the url encoded for using older settings.
No idea about the israel connection. If i hadent left for those other reasons i would have now
I actually used this a few years ago (never noticed the ads or popups because I always use an adequate ad-blocker with lists that also filter out stupid banners and other annoyances), but I immediately stopped using it after I learned about the parent company. It's not like they made much profit from me anyways, but still, they see which articles you're visiting, and I wouldn't trust them with this information.
The main reason I used it was the design anyway, ever since Wikipedia slightly updated their standard theme to make it look more modern. I hope they start using the Citizen skin for MediaWiki, which would finally make it look like an actual modern website. Other wikis like The Apple Wiki also use it, and it's beautiful in my opinion.
I now use Wikiless for privacy reasons, this page has some reasons why it's a good idea to use it: https://github.com/Metastem/Wikiless/wiki/FAQ
LibRedirect automatically redirects all Wikipedia links in my browser to Wikiless
While I also hate Wikiwand, its corporatism, and its "features", I'm confused about the last part. They're bad because they were founded by Israelis?
Not bad because of that but many of the donations going to isreal fits some larger patterns i have picked up on since i started to pay attention to the gaza war.
It started with realizing how involved aipac is in a us election cycle. The "about us" information does not mask things
"WE STAND with those who stand with Israel. The AIPAC PAC is a bipartisan, pro-Israel political action committee. It is the largest pro-Israel PAC in America and contributed more resources directly to candidates than any other PAC. 98% of AIPAC-backed candidates won their general election races in 2022."
Somehow that’s not foreign interference.
Then i became aware of how all the major tech companies have additional offices in "Silicon Wadi" Which is some kind of clone of Silicon Valley owner by Isreal.
But add one very major nuance. My issue is with the Isreal state and corporations that reside their, the global organized entities. It is not with its people or the Jewish religion. I am somewhat fascinated by the origin of Abrahamic religion and them being the oldest makes them a truly fascinated culture to learn from.
Well, they could just have a wikipedia.org and old.wikipedia.org and have the option for it to redirect
I don't see how you could do that while having it stay an encyclopedia.
Not sure I follow you. An update of the visuals / presentation doesn't change the inherent nature of it. Books get republished with new dust jackets all the time.
People liked the ChatGPT presentation because it slowly revealed the text (which also made errors harder to discern). To update and adapt it would be doing away with the encyclopedia format. If you want a ChatGPT presentation, just use ChatGPT or that OneWordReader thing.
OK, now I understand. I think we're talking about different things here. Or I missed that point in the paper. I would not want that kind of thing for Wikipedia, I agree with you there.
Wtf, the general population must be a bunch of morons
Of course they're morons when they slave away as wage cogs instead of exercizing their smarts.