How did Wikipedia layout become so bloated? | Hacker News Reader

How did Wikipedia layout become so bloated?

24 pointscountWSS29 comments

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.

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I 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"
      ]
  }

I 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"
        ]
    }

It'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.

Did 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.

Wikipedia.org :270 cookies, 110MB used. Never cleared or disabled any.

I also have the sidebars constantly reappearing, and I don't have cookies disabled. It's really annoying.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/legacy-wikipe...

I have been using MonoBook for years (early 2023 I think), I see nothing like that.

It might have something to do with Wikimedia Foundation and WP:CANCER.

reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_C...

It 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.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

Corruption is fought best by not allowing it anywhere at all.

Putting 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.

True 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.

Personally 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.

Is the WMF in debt?

The WMF is clearly unable to reduce expenses. If donations ever decrease, it will be bankrupt within two years.

> The WMF is clearly unable to reduce expenses.

Nothing about this is clear. What makes you think that, if the donations were to significantly fall off, they would be unable to reduce expenses?

To be fair, you don’t have any evidence that they could. It’s speculation either way. The only data we have is they spend more every year, and that they still have the audacity to aggressively fundraise constantly by plastering every article with ads begging for money. Sometimes I think I’d rather it just had a big banner ad for Coca-Cola on the top.

I'm not the one claiming anything, waving about some FUDy article.

> they spend more every year

They also bring in more money every year.

> audacity to aggressively fundraise constantly by plastering every article with ads begging for money.

This is ... really unnecessarily dramatic and not really truthful. They do a fundraise campaign once a year with an easily-closed banner, the proceeds of which they use to fund many projects that enrich humanity's collective knowledge.

Seriously, you guys need to direct your energy elsewhere. The WMF is not the type of org people should be complaining about on HN.

Wikipedia pages now have more sidebars than actual history.

Is there some kind of extension to block their begging for donations banner?

A quick reminder that reader mode works great with almost every WP article.

I’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.

> It has been shown multiple times.

Feel free to share.

Go and google it. Youll find plenty of examples and research.

Here is just one I’ve found https://manhattan.institute/article/is-wikipedia-politically...

Another fresh example that comes to mind is systematic anti Israeli whitewashing of radical movements and ideologies.

I've not experienced this, can you provide some examples?

this post is about layouts

Layouts are logical symptoms of underlying deeper problem

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