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Wikipedia Redefined

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Re: Wikipedia Redefined

#161

Post by vacri »

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…

It's hilarious from the start - first thing they do is throw out the logo that incorporates multiple languages and says 'fuck you, we're going English for Wiki'. They compound this by then making all the various logos English-derived, so these guys have basically shouted to the world that they don't grasp the basics of their client.

They even propose a feature that shows everyone how much English dominates the other languages in other languages, being the colour bar. And if you want something not in English, you have to find the nigh-undiscoverable 'roll over top right corner' to have the language selecter appear. They're pushing really hard to make non-English users feel like second-class citizens.

Then they redesign the page to make content harder to get to by putting a giant damn banner at the top of every page. Literally a third of the page is the banner. It's a wonder they didn't suggest putting some 'subtle' advertising in or something.

This redesign literally made be laugh out loud several times. My main regret is that I don't have a marketing budget, because then I could ensure these jokers would never get any of it.

Re: Wikipedia Redefined

#162

Post by thebigshane »

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?

Wikipedia also has an API (although this does little to address tptacek's concerns of database meltdown, unless you cache frequent requests):

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Main_page

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Query

For example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&prop=revi...

brings back:

   { 
     "query": { 
       "pages": {
         "1666533": {
           "pageid": 1666533, 
           "ns": 0, 
           "title": "Y Combinator (company)", 
           "revisions": [
             {
               "*": "{{Infobox company\n| company_name = Y Combinator\n 
                     [...redacted full wikitext content of article...]"
             }
           ]
         }
       }
     }
   }

Re: Wikipedia Redefined

#163

Post by vacri »

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…

Wikipedia is not a social media site.

Re: Wikipedia Redefined

#164

Post by thinkingisfun »

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…

> "Imagine Google's landing page being chokeful of "content" including, most notably, the featured articles of random nature."

In the case of Google that is easy, since they have no content. Wikipedia does, and displays it (and yes, content, not "content", I have no idea what you thought you were doing there, but I saw it) -- along with a search field. So where is the problem?

> "People come, they consume and they leave. Sad, but that's life. But still the site is built to favor not their experience, but the experience of those who is deeply involved with Wikipedia"

You say that is if it's a bad thing. It's not as if there was any content there if the site wasn't accomodating to those who actually help out.

> "the change initiated by those outside of the community."

Making a websites with some screen mockups, zero code and a huge font as to make the whole thing unreadable isn't initiating change, it's piggybacking on the success and popularity of Wikipedia.

I mean, yes, by all means get involved and help improve it. But just telling them from the outside what to do, that's silly. Actually, all the content is free. You can make a mirror of Wikipedia and implement those changes. Let us see a live demo, you know. Screenshots and the promise to check your email are cute, but it's kinda been done before.

Re: Wikipedia Redefined

#165

Post by DHowett »

tptacek wrote: post #124
thebigshane wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know. You think it's a bad idea though? Why? Are we worried about vandalism? I think I can support an idea that would hope to turn otherwise passive consumers into not-so-much-any-longer passive consumers. As long as pseudonyms remain acceptable.

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.

Well, they're already trying to quell the flames of their database servers by heavyhandedly deleting articles that they find non-notable.

The unfortunate truth of the matter is that, given infinite time, they will have to fight all these fires eventually. To delay the inevitable by not actively encouraging user registration is a disservice to the entire editorial platform.

Re: Wikipedia Redefined

#167

Post by jmduke »

te_chris wrote: post #157
primigenus wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is a horrible blanket statement. Don't call all designers ignorant because you don't like one specific proposed redesign.

Re: Wikipedia Redefined

#168

Post by vacri »

icebraining wrote: post #77
citricsquid wrote: post #13

copying my comment from reddit: If a user doesn't recognise the word "English" then they are not going to have any idea what language select. The reason the languages are all listed on the page without any interaction needed is so someone can look at the webpage and recognise their language and select it without having to understand anything else. How do I access the main page of a wiki? This isn't redefined, it's ju…

That's what Accept-Language[1] is for. They can just serve the right version of the page based on its value. And yes, I know it's annoying when sites just assume you speak the browser language but remember this would just set the default one in the text box, nothing else. Presumably, if you're using a browser in English you can also recognize the word "English" and change it to something else. [1]: http://www.w3.org/…

Not everyone accesses the internet on their own computer.

Seriously though, I never see the wikipedia front page. I either go through a link in google, start with 'en.' in the address bar, or start typing 'wiki' and choose a previous link. All of these are easier and more portable across browsers and OSs than the knowledge required to change your language locale.

Re: Wikipedia Redefined

#169

Post by vacri »

flixic wrote: post #92

Oh dear... New! is a fairly... new.. advertising agency from my country, Lithuania. They are trying to become better known, so this is without a doubt a targeted publicity stunt ("Look how well it worked for Dustin Curtis to redesign American Airlines! I guess we can do something similar!") And as that, it's pretty bad. Not only did they showed poor design (in a sense of "how it works") skills, but also left a bad im…

That makes it even more puzzling that they would put so much focus on having the English language dominate the redesign.

Re: Wikipedia Redefined

#170

Post by adam »

neilk wrote: post #119

Every now and then a designer comes along and says they're going to fix Wikipedia. And those of us who've tried either are polite or roll our eyes.... However, this person has some legitimately great ideas. I love how the design is far more reader-centric. I'm not sure why I need a history of articles that I read (browsers do that very well these days), but the 'highlighted' text is a cool idea. You can start thinkin…

Thank you for your thoughtful comments. I'm not the designer, but recognize this for what it is - a thought piece that obviously required some fairly significant effort to put together. Some items have issues as you point out, but there are also some very intelligent ideas here and that was the point - to put something out there credible for discussion.
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