Author Topic: Wikipedia's crappy new website!  (Read 5158 times)

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Offline Zero999Topic starter

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Wikipedia's crappy new website!
« on: January 20, 2023, 10:51:18 pm »
What's with all the white space?

I hate websites like this. Is there a plug-in or something to get rid of that crap and bring the old site back?
 

Offline tom66

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Re: Wikipedia's crappy new website!
« Reply #1 on: January 20, 2023, 10:58:04 pm »
If you log in, you can go back to the old style as a theme.  (It's called Vector, and it's very similar to Monobook too.)

But given the revolt so far I expect there to be a reversal or modification of the style.  I also am not a massive fan; whilst the modern look is a bit 'cleaner', it's reduced the usable area of the screen so much!
 
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Offline Zero999Topic starter

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Re: Wikipedia's crappy new website!
« Reply #2 on: January 20, 2023, 11:02:53 pm »
If you log in, you can go back to the old style as a theme.  (It's called Vector, and it's very similar to Monobook too.)

But given the revolt so far I expect there to be a reversal or modification of the style.  I also am not a massive fan; whilst the modern look is a bit 'cleaner', it's reduced the usable area of the screen so much!
I don't have an account and have no intention of creating one.

Is there a revolt? If so, I'm glad it's not just me!
 
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Offline tszaboo

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Re: Wikipedia's crappy new website!
« Reply #3 on: January 20, 2023, 11:37:12 pm »
If you log in, you can go back to the old style as a theme.  (It's called Vector, and it's very similar to Monobook too.)

But given the revolt so far I expect there to be a reversal or modification of the style.  I also am not a massive fan; whilst the modern look is a bit 'cleaner', it's reduced the usable area of the screen so much!
I don't have an account and have no intention of creating one.

Is there a revolt? If so, I'm glad it's not just me!
Haven't you seen? It's now more welcoming for all those woke happy people on this picture. Look at how happy they are.
 
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Offline tom66

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Re: Wikipedia's crappy new website!
« Reply #4 on: January 20, 2023, 11:40:54 pm »
I don't have an account and have no intention of creating one.

Well, you'll have to enjoy the default style then.  You could create an account with a 10 minute mail type address, you don't need to provide any PII.
 
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Offline Infraviolet

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Re: Wikipedia's crappy new website!
« Reply #5 on: January 21, 2023, 02:04:34 am »
I've seen the new interface too. In my browser a lot of any article page is now taken up by a very fat left-side sidebar with article contents listed in a very ugly manner. I'm shocked wikipedia has changed like this, I think their original formatting had become a classic interface replicated by many other websites (particularly encylopedic type websites on all manner of subjects) on account of its practicality. I think, despite the issues many wikipedia articles and the foundation's leadership have had, that the old interface and styling had almost come to symbolise "trust" in some sense too "here is a website that just wants to provide you text and images rather than show off their web design skills". Very, very stupid of wikipedia to change the interface.
 
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Offline SiliconWizard

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Re: Wikipedia's crappy new website!
« Reply #6 on: January 21, 2023, 02:05:59 am »
It sucks, just like the new eBay search sucks. Same kind of completely dumb design.
 

Offline Canis Dirus Leidy

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Re: Wikipedia's crappy new website!
« Reply #7 on: January 21, 2023, 04:35:48 am »
Is there a revolt? If so, I'm glad it's not just me!
So far, it is possible to evade the party line by manually adding "useskin=vector" option to URL, or with user script.
 
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Offline sleemanj

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Re: Wikipedia's crappy new website!
« Reply #8 on: January 21, 2023, 06:18:11 am »
The design isn't great, but it's not terrible either.

If you want less side-whitespace (and easier eyes) zoom in a bit, it's responsive and will eliminate the side-whitespace to make better use as the zoom increases.

Being middle-aged, I zoom most sites these days, including EEVBlog which I have set at 175%

CTRL-mousewheel zooms, for those who don't know these things.
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Offline magic

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Re: Wikipedia's crappy new website!
« Reply #9 on: January 21, 2023, 09:45:11 am »
Haven't you seen? It's now more welcoming for all those woke happy people on this picture. Look at how happy they are.
Reminds me of Terry Davis somehow :-DD

Anyway, this new layout actually makes better use of screen estate for me. I browse with MalwareScript disabled by default. The old sidebar with language choices has disappeared (I can still change language in the top right corner, good enough) and the new sidebar with ToC does not appear (and neither does the stupid banner).

Try it - life gets better without MalwareScript :-+ 8)


(Also, Wikipedia has a far worse problem with content than with design :P)
 

Offline Calambres

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Re: Wikipedia's crappy new website!
« Reply #10 on: January 21, 2023, 10:03:00 am »
So far, it is possible to evade the party line by manually adding "useskin=vector" option to URL...

more precisely "?useskin=vector" as in

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page?useskin=vector
 
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Offline voltsandjolts

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Re: Wikipedia's crappy new website!
« Reply #11 on: January 21, 2023, 11:02:52 am »
I like the shorter word count per line and zooming uses all screen space, if that annoys.
 
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Online PlainName

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Re: Wikipedia's crappy new website!
« Reply #12 on: January 21, 2023, 12:17:06 pm »
Zooming enlarges the font and stuff.

I think the issue is not the white space per se,  but the reduction of content in order to have that white space. If the content were naturally smaller (that is, there was little of it) then the white space would be fine. Zooming in doesn't increase the content density back to what it used to be, it just distributes the white space between the letters instead.
 

Offline tom66

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Re: Wikipedia's crappy new website!
« Reply #13 on: January 21, 2023, 12:28:53 pm »
There's a very simple way to fix the skin - just give an option to expand the content to fill the full page.
 

Offline hans

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Re: Wikipedia's crappy new website!
« Reply #14 on: January 21, 2023, 05:39:36 pm »
Half of the internet is designed in this retarded way. Some sites only occupy 50% of screen width on a 1080p screen, so that's 25% on 4K with same DPI settings. I zoom into 150% on most sites as it relieves some eye strain. It's kind of strange since a lot of webdevs claim to make fluid layouts that are suitable for mobile, small and large displays. But then they are still able to produce this kind of crap. It's very annoying.

But honestly less annoying than some other website features: like cluttered navigation systems, high amounts of padding, websites that are completely decorated in ads (hmm, maybe that's why people use adblock to get a sane internet, and maybe that's why they reserve all that empty space?)..
Or shit like hover dropdown menus drive me crazy, they are the worst (goodbye accessibility for the less well coordinated among us, and goodbye usage on phone)

I've used a restyling plugin for many years with custom CSS scripts, but as soon the news got out that the plugin was infected I uninstalled it and didn't look back. Going to large efforts of customization only makes my system installations less portable across multiple machines or reinstalls, which is also something I've started to hate since it increases the effort threshold to switch systems for me (I daily drive 3-4 computers on a day).
 

Offline magic

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Re: Wikipedia's crappy new website!
« Reply #15 on: January 21, 2023, 05:43:16 pm »
Some sites only occupy 50% of screen width on a 1080p screen
Wide screens are another idiocy and a problem in itself which has nothing to do with web design.
I miss 4:3.
 
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Offline DimitriP

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Re: Wikipedia's crappy new website!
« Reply #16 on: January 21, 2023, 09:07:57 pm »
Some sites only occupy 50% of screen width on a 1080p screen
Wide screens are another idiocy and a problem in itself which has nothing to do with web design.
I miss 4:3.

You can say that again!!
The only reason I don't miss 4:3 is I USE 4:3 :)

The other cure for the wide screen blues is to have enough space so at least one monitor is in portrait mode. Makes reading datasheets and TLDR posts so mush easier :)
And of course, last but not least ,I almost never use maximized windows especially on a wide screen, unless watching video.
As for people that "need" to have a "clean" desktop" with only a single window or tab displaying at a time maximized, they make pills for that.
 

   If three 100  Ohm resistors are connected in parallel, and in series with a 200 Ohm resistor, how many resistors do you have? 
 
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Offline Zero999Topic starter

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Re: Wikipedia's crappy new website!
« Reply #17 on: January 21, 2023, 09:42:53 pm »
I like the shorter word count per line and zooming uses all screen space, if that annoys.
That's personal preference and was possible to achieve with the old website by resizing the window. See the attached screenshot, showing the old site in a window sized to give the same number of words per line as the new one, including the tab bar at the side as a bonus. There is no reason to bugger it up for everyone.
 

Offline Marco

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Re: Wikipedia's crappy new website!
« Reply #18 on: January 21, 2023, 09:50:12 pm »
I don't have an account and have no intention of creating one.

Is there a revolt? If so, I'm glad it's not just me!
Do you use tampermonkey or similar? There are scripts.
 

Offline magic

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Re: Wikipedia's crappy new website!
« Reply #19 on: January 21, 2023, 09:55:16 pm »
Just disable scripts ::)

This way it works better than the old version.
:-+ from me for this change.
 

Offline Zero999Topic starter

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Re: Wikipedia's crappy new website!
« Reply #20 on: January 21, 2023, 10:03:49 pm »
I don't have an account and have no intention of creating one.

Is there a revolt? If so, I'm glad it's not just me!
Do you use tampermonkey or similar? There are scripts.
I've just installed them, but it won't help me at work, where they're blocked.
 

Offline SiliconWizard

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Re: Wikipedia's crappy new website!
« Reply #21 on: January 21, 2023, 10:12:40 pm »
I like the shorter word count per line and zooming uses all screen space, if that annoys.
That's personal preference and was possible to achieve with the old website by resizing the window. See the attached screenshot, showing the old site in a window sized to give the same number of words per line as the new one, including the tab bar at the side as a bonus. There is no reason to bugger it up for everyone.

Giving users a choice? It's not the XXth century anymore! :-DD
 

Offline tszaboo

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Re: Wikipedia's crappy new website!
« Reply #22 on: January 21, 2023, 11:22:44 pm »
Some sites only occupy 50% of screen width on a 1080p screen
Wide screens are another idiocy and a problem in itself which has nothing to do with web design.
I miss 4:3.
Buy an ultrawide screen, and have 2 browser side-by-side.
Or a super ultrawide, 32:9 and use it instead of 3 monitors.
 
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Offline T3sl4co1l

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Re: Wikipedia's crappy new website!
« Reply #23 on: January 21, 2023, 11:39:27 pm »
[Screenshot: 1920x1080]
Eeesh, who reads at maximum screen size?

Narrow columns are more readable; it's good design on their part.

(Related: surprised no one's complained that this forum renders poorly >2440px, at least on the default theme.  Perhaps there is some hope left after all?...)

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Offline james_s

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Re: Wikipedia's crappy new website!
« Reply #24 on: January 22, 2023, 12:15:18 am »
I absolutely hate that style, it has been all the rage for close to a decade now. Text and graphics floating free in a sea of blinding white. A dimmer shaded background and some lines or shadows to break things up into logical groups makes everything so much easier on the eyes.
 


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