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Show HN: Wikipedia as a doomscrollable social media feed

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Re: Show HN: Wikipedia as a doomscrollable social media feed

#21

Post by lazide »

rebane2001 wrote: post #20
goodmythical wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel very strongly that you should be able to serve hundreds or thousands of requests at gbps speeds. Why are you serving so much data personally instead of just reformatting theirs? Even if you're serving it locally...I mean a regular 100mbit line should easily support tens or hundreds of text users... What am I missing?

> Why are you serving so much data personally instead of just reformatting theirs? Because then you only need to download 40MB of data and do minimal processing. If you were to take the dumps off of Wikimedia, you would need to download 400MB of data and do processing on that data that would take minutes of time. And also it's kind of rude to hotlink a half a gig of data on someone else's site. > What am I missing? 4…

Why not…. Load it on demand?

Re: Show HN: Wikipedia as a doomscrollable social media feed

#22

Post by goodmythical »

rebane2001 wrote: post #20
goodmythical wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel very strongly that you should be able to serve hundreds or thousands of requests at gbps speeds. Why are you serving so much data personally instead of just reformatting theirs? Even if you're serving it locally...I mean a regular 100mbit line should easily support tens or hundreds of text users... What am I missing?

> Why are you serving so much data personally instead of just reformatting theirs? Because then you only need to download 40MB of data and do minimal processing. If you were to take the dumps off of Wikimedia, you would need to download 400MB of data and do processing on that data that would take minutes of time. And also it's kind of rude to hotlink a half a gig of data on someone else's site. > What am I missing? 4…

no but...why are you passing 40mb from your server to my device in a lump like that?

All I'm getting from your serve is a title, a sentence, and an image.

Why not give me say the first 20 and start loading the next 20 when I reach the 10th?

That way you're not getting hit with 40mb for every single click but only a couple of mb per click and a couple more per scroll for users that are actually using the service?

Look at your logs. How many people only ever got the first 40 and clicked off because you're getting ddosed? Every single time that's happened (which is more than a few times based on HN posts), you've not only lost a user but weakened the experience of someone that's chosen to wait by increasing their load time by insisting that they wait for the entire 40MB download.

I am just having trouble understanding why you've decided to make me and your server sit through a 40MB transfer for text and images...

Re: Show HN: Wikipedia as a doomscrollable social media feed

#23

Post by goodmythical »

lazide wrote: post #21
rebane2001 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why are you serving so much data personally instead of just reformatting theirs? Because then you only need to download 40MB of data and do minimal processing. If you were to take the dumps off of Wikimedia, you would need to download 400MB of data and do processing on that data that would take minutes of time. And also it's kind of rude to hotlink a half a gig of data on someone else's site. > What am I missing? 4…

Why not…. Load it on demand?

That's my point. So confused. Got a ton of users clicking off because of this.

Re: Show HN: Wikipedia as a doomscrollable social media feed

#24

Post by Der_Einzige »

I am so lucky to be basically immune to short form video garbage like TikTok, but I am not immune to Wikipedia's allure.

I easily have over 100 tabs of wikipedia open at any one time, reading about the most random stuff ever. I'm the guy who will unironically look up the food I'm eating on wikipedia while I'm eating it.

No need to try to make it "doomscrollable" when it's already got me by the balls.

Re: Show HN: Wikipedia as a doomscrollable social media feed

#25

Post by rebane2001 »

goodmythical wrote: post #22
rebane2001 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why are you serving so much data personally instead of just reformatting theirs? Because then you only need to download 40MB of data and do minimal processing. If you were to take the dumps off of Wikimedia, you would need to download 400MB of data and do processing on that data that would take minutes of time. And also it's kind of rude to hotlink a half a gig of data on someone else's site. > What am I missing? 4…

no but...why are you passing 40mb from your server to my device in a lump like that? All I'm getting from your serve is a title, a sentence, and an image. Why not give me say the first 20 and start loading the next 20 when I reach the 10th? That way you're not getting hit with 40mb for every single click but only a couple of mb per click and a couple more per scroll for users that are actually using the service? Look…

> no but...why are you passing 40mb from your server to my device in a lump like that?

Because you need all of the cross-article link data, which is the majority of the 40mb, to run the algorithm. The algorithm does not run on the server, because I care about both user privacy and internet preservation.

Once the 40MB is downloaded, you can go offline, and the algorithm will still work. If you save the index.html and the 40MB file, you can run the entire thing locally.

> actually using the service

This is a fun website, it is not a "service".

> you've not only lost a user but weakened the experience of someone that's chosen to wait by increasing their load time

I make websites for fun. Losing a user doesn't particularly affect me, I don't plan on monetizing this, I just want people to have fun.

Yes, it is annoying that people have to wait a bit for the page to load, but that is only because the project has hundreds of thousands of more eyes on it than I expected it to within the first few hours. I expected this project to get a few hundred visits within the first few hours, in which case the bandwidth wouldn't have been an issue whatsoever.

> I am just having trouble understanding why you've decided to make me and your server sit through a 40MB transfer for text and images...

Running the algorithm locally, privacy, stability, preservation, ability to look at and play with the code, ability to go offline, easy to maintain and host etc.

Besides, sites like Twitter use up like a quarter of that for the JavaScript alone.

Re: Show HN: Wikipedia as a doomscrollable social media feed

#30

Post by glenstein »

Love the concept. Wikitok also exists [1] but the recommendation aspect that you're bringing you the table is a very intriguing original spin on it. I would be fascinated to see what a smart algorithm could discover on my behalf on Wikipedia given enough time.

I think it would be nice if you could do a non simple English version but nevertheless happy with what you've put together, and I've added a shortcut to my phone. Please don't let the negativity stop you from continuing to work on it.

1. https://www.wikitok.io/

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