Hacker News Reader

Comment by porphyra | Hacker News Reader

It was mildly annoying how en.wikipedia.org would redirect to en.m.wikipedia.org on mobile, but en.m.wikipedia.org wouldn't redirect to en.wikipedia.org on desktop. So when a mobile user sent me a link, I had to go and manually delete the '.m' in order to view it nicely. But I guess it makes sense since desktop developers need to be able to see the mobile site sometimes.

View on HN

I have always hated "m." domains for exactly this reason. They almost exclusively go one-way, mobile users get redirected to the mobile domain but desktop users never get redirected back, and all too often not only was the mobile version of the site objectively worse from the perspective of a desktop user but even the link to go back manually was either hard to find or nonexistent.

Wikipedia was one of the worst offenders, but lots of sites screwed this up in exactly the same way, and I feel it was a predecessor to modern "mobile first" web platforms that either treat desktop as second-class users or actively don't want desktop users.

The m. was still better than the (thankfully short-lived) fad of everyone buying a .mobi or similar domain for their mobile site.

Like the subdomain was RIGHT THERE.

Same problem though. The domain itself isn't the issue, it's that the redirect was only one way so mobile users always shared the mobile URL and desktop users who received that shared URL got the janky half-featured mobile site instead of the proper desktop one.

There was a period I can recall, maybe 2010 to 2020 most prominently, when a subset of HN readers strongly preferred the mobile Wikipedia site, even on desktop, and would always use ".m" linking to Wikipedia articles in comments threads. This also seemed to happen in reddit threads during that decade.

I sort of remember some of the older MediaWiki desktop themes looking worse than the mobile theme, but it was never enough for me personally to try always using the mobile site at the time. I do still strongly prefer old.reddit.com... For as long as that portal continues to exist.

Yeah, in the olden days, there was no max-width for desktop wikipedia, so the readability was not good.

I still use the old site and personally prefer it

> But I guess it makes sense since desktop developers need to be able to see the mobile site sometimes.

IMO this isn't a good reason. Developers can change the user agent.

(I also imagine there could be a no-redirect preference for logged in users. Or even just a special query string you could add to the end of a url.)

You would just change the dimensions using the browser devtools no user agent faking needed

I'm not sure dimensions are all that's different?

Your website might want to present a different interface for people using mouse and keyboard than for people using tiny touch screens? Even if the number of pixels in the browser window is otherwise the same.

I think Wikipedia redirected based on user agent, but yes, whatever, point is if you're a developer you can use the browser devtools to simulate whatever you need.

Tapping the share button (on mobile) instead of copying the link always used the non-mobile address, AFAICT.

I use the mobile page on desktop. Less clutter is always welcome.

> But I guess it makes sense since desktop developers need to be able to see the mobile site sometimes.

That is not at all the reason; did you read the article?.

Also web developers can just use devtools to simulate a mobile browser.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com