How did Wikipedia layout become so bloated?

21 pointsposted 8 hours ago
by countWSS

Item id: 49167493

27 Comments

josephcsible

8 hours ago

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.

Olreich

7 hours ago

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.

sparky_z

5 hours ago

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

countWSS

6 hours ago

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

Bhagya1111

3 hours ago

Wikipedia pages now have more sidebars than actual history.

davisr

6 hours ago

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"
      ]
  }

Figs

5 hours ago

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"
        ]
    }

bananaflag

7 hours ago

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

inigyou

7 hours ago

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

josefritzishere

7 hours ago

squigz

6 hours ago

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.

tosti

6 hours ago

Two wrongs don't make a right.

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

squigz

6 hours ago

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.

tosti

3 hours ago

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.

tdeck

6 hours ago

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.

squigz

6 hours ago

Is the WMF in debt?

inigyou

6 hours ago

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

squigz

6 hours ago

> 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?

chuckadams

7 hours ago

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

g8oz

7 hours ago

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

aristofun

7 hours ago

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.

jan_paje

7 hours ago

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

gnoll_of_gozag

6 hours ago

this post is about layouts

aristofun

5 hours ago

Layouts are logical symptoms of underlying deeper problem