Couldn't someone just make this into a Chrome Extension? I'd be happy with that.
Wikipedia Redefined
201–210 of 305 posts
Re: Wikipedia Redefined
#202Every 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.
I agree, the majority of commenters have chosen to just rip apart this strong effort at doing something even if it isn't perfect. I've found that a good portion of the wikipedia "community" to be terribly provincial and cliquish. They're like the homeowners associations of the web, they have "their" way of doing it and get almost irritatingly passionate over trivial nonsense (should it be "behavior or behaviour")
There's a billion articles about Linux distros, yet an article about a famous wedding dress gets cut? Yet, on the other hand, many of these same commenters nail Craigslist for their lack of design and defend Wikipedia for it's lack of design.
It seems like nobody is ever happy with anything. If you think Wikipedia is perfect, you're delusional -- no site is perfect. So rather than constant critism, put your money where your mouth is and build your own mock up. Show us how you think it should be rather than continually knocking everyone else.
Sometimes I feel like HN is populated by grumpy old men who haven't had their Metamucil.
Re: Wikipedia Redefined
#203I work at Wikia, which means I work with MediaWiki every day. I was kind of offended by how naive New is New is being. I don't think they have any grasp on the sort of massive scope changes like this would require. Wikipedia is not MediaWiki's only consumer. A lot of communities that use MediaWiki are extremely conservative about the UI, so some of the conservatism is by design. The WikiMedia Foundation is working on…
> And don't get me started on the proposed Wikipedia logo. It looks like the Wikia fractal with way less nodes. I found it offensive that they felt the English 'W' was the only one worth featuring in the logo.
Offensive? Really? Having one's religion insulted is offensive. A "W" shouldn't be.
Re: Wikipedia Redefined
#204I'm glad Wikipedia is nothing remotely like that.
Yeah, I hope it stays more like Craigslist. Simple, ugly and functional.
Re: Wikipedia Redefined
#205I work at Wikia, which means I work with MediaWiki every day. I was kind of offended by how naive New is New is being. I don't think they have any grasp on the sort of massive scope changes like this would require. Wikipedia is not MediaWiki's only consumer. A lot of communities that use MediaWiki are extremely conservative about the UI, so some of the conservatism is by design. The WikiMedia Foundation is working on…
I highly highly doubt that this is an actual appeal by them to change the MediaWiki interface. I see this purely as a publicity stunt / marketing move, intended to get their brand and abilities out there in front of people. And to be frank, I think they're being quite successful at that. UX/practicality aside, most of the components do look good. (though good parts of it remind me of Google, Quora, and other prominen…
> most of the components do look good. (though good parts of it remind me of Google, Quora, and other prominent sites)
I got the exact same aesthetic feeling, too. This redesign reminded of nothing so much as GMail.
Re: Wikipedia Redefined
#206My Page Down key melted from being pressed repeatedly so many times. Fucking designers.
every heard of scrolling?
Re: Wikipedia Redefined
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
The Wikipedia FA's aren't "random". They're a showcase of the best articles on the site, and are p a i n s t a k i n g l y vetted by the WP community. Getting your article on the front page is a very big deal. The FA process is one of the primary drivers of editorial quality on the site.
A big deal for who? Nobody cares except the 5 people involved.
Re: Wikipedia Redefined
#208Tip to anyone looking for a link to the Redefined Wikipedia so you can actually try it out: it doesn't exist.
What they did is a design -- i.e., a document explaining their ideas. There is no working prototype that you can try out. (I was looking forward to trying out the Connection Cloud.)
It wasn't obvious to me that they had a discussion about design but no actual implementation.
Re: Wikipedia Redefined
#209You'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…
I've never once edited a Wikipedia article and have no desire to do so. I'm I'm the epitome of a Wikipedia outsider and I agree with your parent that this is not good design.
It's pretty and minimalist and trendy but it isn't Wikipedia. Honestly, they would have done the same thing with any website. It's just a shallow coating of gloss over what they've labelled as "bad design". There is a lot wrong with this whether you're an insider or outsider. These are my biggest peeves:
Not only do they throw up a huge middle finger to non-English speakers (something I usually don't ever mind but this is almost obscene) but they do it in a way which involves replacing the current system with mystery meat navigation. How is anyone supposed to know the color bar is clickable and not just a ripoff of Vimeo?
The logo... They explain why the current logo is what it is then proceed to basically say "but we don't give a shit, let's use cool fonts and be trendy". The whole concept of the world being a puzzle of knowledge goes right out the window and they carried absolutely no piece of it into the new one. Also, the "w" brands have one major flaw: Wictionary. Every other name is a compound word but Wiktionary isn't a compound word but kind of a half compound word. It sticks out and doesn't make sense like the others (had the others truly made sense to begin with). I know it's a minor detail affecting only one brand but good design is all about the details.
In the end this redesign amounts to nothing but slapping a fresh coat of trendy on a massively popular website. It smacks of arrogance and self importance. I have to say they damn sure know how to make something look pretty and trendy but the way they went about this, especially the subject they chose, made them look pretty terrible now.
Re: Wikipedia Redefined
#210Nice effort, but they don't understand one of the fundamental things about content heavy sites the size of wikipedia - the vast majority of users never even need to go to its home page - they get to the content via direct links from search engines like google. Many these days prefix their google search with "wiki" as well in order to look on wikipedia.