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Why it took a long time to build the tiny link preview on Wikipedia

blog.wikimedia.org

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Re: Why it took a long time to build the tiny link preview on Wikipedia

#51
> We couldn’t expect every single article to be edited to designate a thumbnail.

It wouldn't surprise me if they could. Not to say that automation isn't great, and for this purpose probably ideal.

But, selecting a thumbnail for every Wikipedia article seems like something the community could easily have done.

Re: Why it took a long time to build the tiny link preview on Wikipedia

#52
post #44

I personally always use the mobile version https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page for desktop these days. I much prefer it to the standard version.

I hate that I don't have the bar on the left to be able to switch to a different language conveniently. I use it all the time and I've no idea if it's even accessible at all in the mobile version. The mobile version also wastes a ton of screen real-estate but I guess that's fashionable these days. I really enjoy Wikipedia but the #1 item on my feature wishlist is "redirect me towards the non-mobile version of the sit…

It's at the top of each page - click the icon directly under the article title (on the left) that looks like a Chinese character next to an A.

I'd snip a screenshot, but I'm on mobile...

Re: Why it took a long time to build the tiny link preview on Wikipedia

#53
post #4

TL;DR: they had to choose a thumbnail and summary. I have been using WikiWand for years, which not only did that but also makes reading Wikipedia much better. Maybe I'm the only one but I have the hardest time reading paragraphs with lots of words per line. Previously I had to resize the browser each time I had to read something in Wikipedia :|

Thanks for letting me know about WikiWand.

Re: Why it took a long time to build the tiny link preview on Wikipedia

#54
post #9

I am continually impressed by the markup Wikipedia generates. They've managed to pull in pretty link previews, scientific notation and a grid layout, whilst building a highly nested markup structure? The remarkable part? Wikipedia works great inside a text browser like elinks. It works great in a modern browser. Without sacrificing the interactivity people have grown to expect.

Wikipedia's markup is just terrible for trying to do any sort of scraping or analysis. I once tried to write a script that pulled the latest version of macOS from the sidebar of this article[1] and I gave up because it was difficult and brittle in a way that made it nearly impossible. I'd probably have better results parsing the HTML with a regex. Likewise, I know a friend who literally had to scrap an entire project…

Can't you use their API? https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/#!/Page_content/get_pag...

Re: Why it took a long time to build the tiny link preview on Wikipedia

#55
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works well for the latest (and last) version of IE, at least.

Using IE11 with the emulator switched to IE5 I can assure you, it works in IE5. At least the main layout, no popup though :D Still equal parts scary and astonishing.

Wikipedia is a content-heavy website first, webapp only second. If it's written correctly, then of course it's going to work in IE5 - maybe with some parts of the layout looking ugly, maybe with some margins being wrong, some media not being embedded, but generally should be usable.

Nowadays it's fine for a webdev to not test their pages on IE5, but when the page is done right, there is no reason for it not to work in IE5, lynx, w3m or Netscape Navigator. Really, it's just a webdeveloper's job done right.

Re: Why it took a long time to build the tiny link preview on Wikipedia

#57

Wow. Had just read that and then saw the feature first time while browsing over a list page. Was moving my curser down the list and when ever I wanted to click a link, the above link hat popped up the layer, highjacking my click and leading me to the wrong page. What a great way of destroying the user experience with a beautifully over-engineered feature that is utterly crap while actually trying to use the underlyin…

You’re welcome.

Re: Why it took a long time to build the tiny link preview on Wikipedia

#58
post #9

I am continually impressed by the markup Wikipedia generates. They've managed to pull in pretty link previews, scientific notation and a grid layout, whilst building a highly nested markup structure? The remarkable part? Wikipedia works great inside a text browser like elinks. It works great in a modern browser. Without sacrificing the interactivity people have grown to expect.

Wikipedia's markup is just terrible for trying to do any sort of scraping or analysis. I once tried to write a script that pulled the latest version of macOS from the sidebar of this article[1] and I gave up because it was difficult and brittle in a way that made it nearly impossible. I'd probably have better results parsing the HTML with a regex. Likewise, I know a friend who literally had to scrap an entire project…

I hit the same thing recently, but that's basically what Wikidata was founded for - and I'm sure it has the latest version of macOS. It's really easy to fetch Wikidata data using the Wikidata API (my example: https://gitlab.com/Flockademic/whereisscihub/blob/master/ind... )

Re: Why it took a long time to build the tiny link preview on Wikipedia

#59
This is useful feature, but do note for some class of wikipedia surfing this is a net-negative:

For the case when I came across a subject I knew not a lot about I would keep queuing them up, leading to an array of pages I'd read about a topic, leading to a deeper understanding about the topic/domain. With this feature, the probability that a page would be queued up would go down.

Sometimes going down the wiki rabbit-hole is the best form of time-sink.

Re: Why it took a long time to build the tiny link preview on Wikipedia

#60
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Uhm, no. It just means that people are hovering over links with their mouse. It does not imply any opinion about the previews. When you evaluate features using engagement metrics, there are only two possibilities. If the metric is high, users love the feature. If the metric is low, users don't know the feature exists, and more alerts or "unread" badges must be added to help them learn.

But when the feature only needs you to hover over a link to activate (which people do anyway) you have no basis to claim that this is users "liking" the feature - it might just be noise from everyday regular navigation.

i was using wikipedia to with my son yesterday for a project and found it really annoying, so i'm in that list of people who hit the api but aren't in the list of people who seem to be "liking it"
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