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Wikipedia Redefined

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Re: Wikipedia Redefined

#151

Post by jarek »

robryan wrote: post #144
tptacek wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm more worried about their database servers melting, since the overwhelming amount of traffic Wikipedia handles today is passive consumption. If you think highlighting and bookmarking of Wikipedia articles is extremely valuable --- and maybe it is! --- go start a site backed by Wikipedia's content. In the places where it actually counts, Wikipedia has bent over backwards to be helpful to developers.

Has anything that has built on top of wikipedia as the primary product got much traction? I think it is something that would be hard to really get widespread without it. Can a 3rd party even maintain a fully up to date set of wikipedia content? Not sure what their policy on scraping is?

No need to scrape, Wikipedia has full dumps for the articles available for download: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download#Eng...

Re: Wikipedia Redefined

#152

Post by cabalamat »

SwellJoe wrote: post #58
dsr_ wrote: post #52

Wikipedia doesn't need a redesign. It just needs to have an easy preferences setting for "I am a deletionist" vs "I am an inclusionist" or whatever the current preferred designations are. The deletionists get pared-down, guaranteed notable content, and the inclusionists get the mess.

This distinction is only relevant to maybe 1% of wikipedia users...the heavy users who get involved in internal politics and editing decisions (and maybe the spammers who try to wield wikipedia's massive visibility for their own purposes). The average wikipedia user has no idea there are deletion wars.

> This distinction is only relevant to maybe 1% of wikipedia users

I disagree. I have looked for content on WP before, only to find it has been deleted by deletionists. I have also given up creating new articles because of deletionists.

Re: Wikipedia Redefined

#154

Post by CamperBob2 »

eps wrote: post #133
tptacek wrote: post #27

You'd probably want any redesign of Wikipedia to start with the understanding that the front page of the English Wikipedia isn't WWW.WIKIPEDIA.ORG, it's EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG, and that that page is dominated by content --- most notably the WP Featured Articles, which are a core part of the Wikipedia community. Draw the pretty colored lines after you grok the concept. It goes downhill for me as they try to get more technic…

> Draw the pretty colored lines after you grok the concept. There is nothing to grok. Imagine Google's landing page being chokeful of "content" including, most notably, the featured articles of random nature. Your comment inadvertently demonstrates the problem with Wikipedia as it exists now. A vast majority of its users has nothing to do with its community. People come, they consume and they leave. Sad, but that's l…

A vast majority of its users has nothing to do with its community

So, your thinking is that Wikipedia should be more like YouTube comments.

In the words of John Lennon, "Well, you know..."

Re: Wikipedia Redefined

#155

Post by Lapsa »

pirateking wrote: post #38
tptacek wrote: post #27

You'd probably want any redesign of Wikipedia to start with the understanding that the front page of the English Wikipedia isn't WWW.WIKIPEDIA.ORG, it's EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG, and that that page is dominated by content --- most notably the WP Featured Articles, which are a core part of the Wikipedia community. Draw the pretty colored lines after you grok the concept. It goes downhill for me as they try to get more technic…

> Also the capital "I" in the font they're using is killing me. This is the main thing I remember after reading what seemed like an otherwise interesting study.

Oooh... that was capital of "I". was reading and thought that I`ve missed definition of kind a important acronym "JT". silly and ironic indeed.

Re: Wikipedia Redefined

#157

Post by te_chris »

primigenus wrote: post #105
firemanx wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it already delights users. Wikipedia is so absolutely content and hyperlink driven that it hardly needs much else. It's immense popularity and ubiquity is proof of that. I draw my delight not from some invasive graphics and UI work, but from the fact that when I want to read about Pyramids, I click a link on Google to Pyramids (or on the Wikipedia front page) and ALL I SEE IS PYRAMIDS. No other UI, no other s…

A great observation is that having access to the content provided by Wikipedia is a delight in and of itself. That's a fantastic starting point for investigating, then, how you can enhance that experience with great design. These guys did that with this brief. It's not the right answer, but it does raise some interesting questions. How do you design a more delightful Wikipedia without damaging the content? Because su…

That's the problem with designers, they always want to "enhance X with great design", ignorant of the fact that the object of their OCD desire for "great design" (in this case the world's most popular web service) obviously has great design already, as it's the most popular website in the world.

Re: Wikipedia Redefined

#158

Post by moe »

Well, got to cut them some slack for effort.

But the result is atrocious.

This is exactly the kind of stuff you normally get when BigCorp meets CI-agency.

Every single detail gets backed by an elaborate, esoteric justification, so everyone has their asses covered. Nevermind the horror that is the end-result. What matters is that "we made the button bright pink and 2 pixels tall because studies have shown bright pink catches attention and small click-targets invoke natural curiosity"...

Re: Wikipedia Redefined

#160

Post by kleiba »

I'm using a netbook. I think without "Readability" I woudln't have been able to make it through most of their post because I kept hitting space about twice per second. From looking at their redesign for an article page (didn't care much about anything related to the wikipedia homepage, I never use it), it seems like they don't care too much for people with small screens either: about half of the available screen estate available to my browser would be covered by their menu thing at the top.

I guess people with netbooks would be worse off.

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