Why Is Wikipedia So Ugly? 370
Hugh Pickens writes "Megan Garber writes in the Atlantic that aesthetically, Wikipedia is remarkably unattractive. 'The gridded layout! The disregard for mind-calming images! The vaguely Geocities-esque environment! Whether it's ironic or fitting, it is undeniable: The Sum of All Human Knowledge, when actually summed up, is pretty ugly.' But Wikipedians consider the site's homeliness as a feature rather than a bug. 'Wikipedia has always been kind of a homely, awkward, handcrafted-looking site,' says Sue Gardner, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, adding that the homeliness 'is part of its awkward charm.' Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr have built followings in part because of their exceedingly simple interfaces. Everything about their design says, 'Come on, guys. Participate. It's easy,' while Wikipedia, so far, has been pretty much the opposite of that. 'The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit' might more properly be nicknamed 'the free encyclopedia that any geek can edit.' This is particularly problematic because one of the Wikimedia Foundation's broad strategic goals is to expand its base of editors. While the editing interface is friendly to the site's super-users who tend to be so committed to Wikipedia's mission that they're willing to do a lot to contribute to it, if Wikipedia wants to make itself more attractive to users, a superficial makeover may be just the thing Wikipedia needs to begin growing in a more meaningful way."
Simple is not ugly. (Score:5, Insightful)
Most websites that look awesome have almost no content which is hidden on several pages with lots of ads in between. No thx like it simple.
Re:Simple is not ugly. (Score:5, Informative)
Indeed. I don't get the article at all, what is there to improve on? The layout works, there are images when needed to be informative. The only flaw is that some times it can be hard to find a spesific topic even with knowing a few keywords.
Learning markup (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Learning markup (Score:5, Informative)
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many pages are a horrible mess to edit. For a quick example, see the source of chapter "Early SSDs using RAM and similar technology"
You would imagine that anyone interested in "Early SSDs using RAM and similar technology" would be pretty geeky and not fazed by the markup. And obviously the page was crested by exactly such people.
99% of 99% of articles are just plain text. If you have some facts to contribute, just wrote plain text and you'll be fine. Quite likely someone will come along later and pretty it up. Or if you're really lost, put a comment on the talk page of the article pointing out what you think should be changed and someone more experienced may do it
Much harder to grasp though are the policies -- verifiability, reliable sourcing -- requiring you to cite sources carefully. People who just know facts and write them can do so, but if anyone reviews it or disagrees, it will be quickly deleted.
It's not all fun, I've come across a lot of assholes, vindictive jerks, persistent vandals and just idiots. The system is quite resilient and has evolved mechanisms to cope regardless.
Re:Learning markup (Score:5, Informative)
I think it would be still nice to have a WYSIWYG interface. Actually I'm surprised that something like that is not in place already.
The Wikipedia brass have wanted this to happen for quite some time. There have been extensive discussions on the mailing lists about this. Unfortunately, it's extremely difficult to do from a technical point of view because there is no official specification for Wikicode. The markup format was never defined, it just sort of grew. The only real definition for Wikicode is whatever the PHP parser interprets (and that parser is a pile of spaghetti code). Features like templates and ParserFunctions make a WSYIWYG editor exceedingly challenging to develop without breaking many deployed pages.
Why not an official Wikipedia editing application? (Score:5, Interesting)
An online WYSIWYG editor that would allow saving the page layout (and not just the content) would be a mess. Even Google can't quite manage it with Google Docs, which remain simple when compared to the more complex layout possible with even a simple offline word processor like Abiword, much less full-blown suites like Libre/Open or MS Office.
The better and probably more elegant solution would be to develop an official standalone Wikipedia editor similar in function to an HTML editor, with offline and online capabilities and code and preview modes. Since Wikipedia represents a relatively minute subset of possible web page designs, the Wikipeditor can be forked from an existing free HTML editor like Mozilla Composer.
Just my lazy weekend thoughts ...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with WYSIWYG editors is that the browsers themselves add their own mess of HTML and CSS to the things you edit.
Re:Why not an official Wikipedia editing applicati (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with WYSIWYG editors is that the browsers themselves add their own mess of HTML and CSS to the things you edit.
The problem with WYSWYG is that it's WYSIWYBNAEG.
Markup != presentation, which web "designers" still haven't gotten into their heads in more than fifteen years of fail after fail.
And in the case of Wikipedia, it does so exceedingly well because of its simplicity, not despite it. The less cluttered it is, the more the actual information pops to the front, and the more room there is for actual information.
Those who wants a rounded corner ajax-slowed video blog without all the boring details are free to make them. Don't hijack wikipedia, though. /., but we all noticed how well received that was.
You tried to hijack
Re:Why not an official Wikipedia editing applicati (Score:5, Insightful)
Quite true, however just because a full WYSWYG editor would be a bad idea, doesn't mean you shouldn't have something beyond the primitive plain text. Things like ref's make editing the plain text pretty painful right now, as you simply can't read the text properly when every line is interrupted by three lines of ref hyperlinks and link descriptions. The proper answer should be a proper structured view of the text that makes it clear where tags start and stop, but also keeps the text human readable without looking like random markup soup.
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Things like ref's make editing the plain text pretty painful right now, as you simply can't read the text properly when every line is interrupted by three lines of ref hyperlinks and link descriptions.
Exactly -- this is part of what I was talking about when I pulled the example from the "SSD" article some comments above. So, even if you are a MediaWiki markup ninja, that kind of clutter just hinders you seeing the article in whole.
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I think what you mentioned about allowing people to create and save too much design is a big deal, and something that would end badly.
I've done more than my share of sites for organizations, and without fail, any time you give end users real command over design you end up with awfulness. This usually ends up being somewhere on the front page as little news updates, where it's a real eyesore.
I think smart people saw that coming and did a good job using something resembling an extensive superset of bbcode.
Th
Re:Why not an official Wikipedia editing applicati (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't get this "Wikipedia is Ugly" idea either; I think it looks really good personally. There isn't a bunch of extra flashy crap, just the article text, some tables listing key points concisely, some relevant photos, and finally references at the bottom. Then there's a simple menu on the left, and some tabs to look at the "Talk" page, edit the content, or view the edit history, and a search box plus a link to log in or create an account. What little color there is is muted and very neutral. What's the problem?
I think this is just a bunch of Web 2.0 morons complaining because it hasn't been completely redesigned and uglified for no reason at all, just like Gmail's crappy new interface; change for change's sake.
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On the desktop, it's mostly pretty good, although tables can look a bit poor when not done well. On the mobile, I would go as far as to say it is the single best looking site I've seen.
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When in doubt the KISS principle always wins http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiss_principle [wikipedia.org]. Keep It Simple Stupid, just like same lame arsed journalist trying to drive page views by targeting well known public identity with some lame pointless attack. This article on slashdot should not just be about the appearance of Wikipedia but also about lame hack journalists on the web trying desperately to drive page views before being fired by writing up inane articles that try to hype the journalist by associating t
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Because it's much easier to type:
This is a [[link]] and here is a link to a [[different subject]].
Than it is to type:
This is <a href="\wiki\link">link</a> and here is a link to a <a href="\wiki\something else">different subject</a>.
Re: (Score:3)
That shouldn't be to hard to fix, it's a Wiki after all. Define a syntax, have the parser check it and spout out "syntax error" messages along the way. Leave it to the users to clean it up. This would also be a nice way to introduce new editors to Wikipedia, as fixing syntax errors is easy and unoffensive, so there is less risk of a revert war.
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Wikia afilliated? No, it is it's own separate, private company. It was founded by people who are involved with Wikipedia but that's the extent of it.
Simple is beautiful -- just not on a tablet (Score:5, Insightful)
This kind of comment comes from the same kind of morons who brought us the re-tooling, for instance, of GMail. It was great (to use) the way it was. Now I hear nothing (NOTHING!) but complaints about it (or blank stares which when probed yield statements of powerlessness). If the underlying code was ugly, the first update cycle should have been to upgrade the code in a way that none of the users would notice.
Note to Jimmy Wales: resist the UX-groupthink mob who would tell you to make Wikipedia more tablet friendly. If it's ugly, it's ugly the way the old White Pages were ugly. Ugly and informative. The way a real newspaper used to be ugly (especially the front sections up to where the editorials, letters and Op-Ed pieces lay): ugly, information rich and informative.
Note to the groupthink mob: if you must make something tablet-friendly, make sure it's still screen friendly during the design before you foist it on those of us who haven't caved-in to constant computing through tablet ownership.
<quickly hitting submit before going off and doing something real>...ank
Keep off the flowers (Score:3)
Even better, visualize this request as Michael Jackson returned from the grave to recommend his favorite cosmetic surgeon.
There's a lot of people wh
Re:Simple is not ugly. (Score:5, Insightful)
and The Atlantic is webbug/tracker-ridden hell (Score:5, Interesting)
It's ugly, and the fine Ghostery [ghostery.com] extension tells me that Atlantic page has 15 web bugs and ad trackers from AdThis, Bizo, Chartbeat, Disqus, Doubleclick, Facebook Connect, Facebook Social Plugins, Google +1, Google Analytics, Omniture, Outbrain, Parse.ly, Quantcast, Scorecard Research Beacon, and Twitter Button. Each one of those is another image and/or increasingly, another 10kB of JavaScript crap just so third parties can watch what I'm doing on that page.
A Wikipedia page: not one.tracker or web bug. "You're beautiful to me on the inside."
Re:Simple is not ugly. (Score:4, Informative)
I just type "wiki Desired Item" into the google bar. It works much better than wikipedia's built-in search.
As for editing: Wikipedia's main problem is too many markups. People italicize or bold things that don't need it, or list a long overly-detailed source when all they needed was a simple external link. When I edit the encyclopedia I use plain text as much as possible, and keep any markups as simply as possible, so the lay reader can edit it.
Re:Simple is not ugly. (Score:5, Informative)
I agree. I've never had a negative thought about Wikipedia's look. I like the way it looks. It's clean, useable, and easy on the eyes. It doesn't need anything more. I'd even say it shouldn't add anything more. Clutter is the opposite of information. And the charge that it's difficult to edit is ridiculous.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Simple is not ugly. (Score:5, Insightful)
It sometimes appears that designers don't get this at all. Some of the least usable sites I have seen in the past couple of years were the desginers' own.
Re:Simple is not ugly. (Score:5, Insightful)
And often as not more is less. I can't count the number of beautifully designed artistically creative website designs I have seen - which violate all the rules for design and layout and conveying information ever devised, and have zero content worth actually reading - but *my* its pretty. In many ways a lot of modern websites are a triumph of form over function and not much else.
Wikipedia has a simple layout that works quite well, it is consistent and I think quite easy to read generally. If it takes learning a slightly specialized markup language to encode the data - well then thats a small barrier to entry that might encourage only those who can be bothered to learn how to edit the pages to actually edit the pages.
If editors were let loose with a wysiwyg editor then Wikipedia entries would be a chaos of inconsistent layout and display and effectively unreadable, in very short order.
Re:Simple is not ugly. (Score:4, Insightful)
I wasn't even particularly aware of the design. Now to me, that means they're probably doing something right.
But then I'm the kind of person who doesn't wear a beret or have tarpaulin grommets in my earlobes, so what do I know?
Megan Garber doesn't value functionality (Score:5, Insightful)
Decoration gets in the way of functionality. Wikipedia is probably over-decorated as it is, and adding what Garber wants would make it both slower and less accessible.
In a nutshell, she's clueless on this topic.
Re:Megan Garber doesn't value functionality (Score:5, Funny)
Ah! Another candidate for Editor then.
Re:Simple is not ugly. (Score:5, Funny)
If Wikipedia is ugly, what does that make Slashdot?
By her measure we should all be running away screaming instead of reading useless comments like this one.
Re:Simple is not ugly. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
By her measure we should all be running away screaming instead of reading useless comments like this one.
I tried screaming, but the lameness filter wouldn't let me.
Re:Simple is not ugly. (Score:4, Funny)
Wikipedia's certainly more functional and less bug-ridden.
Re:Simple is not ugly. (Score:5, Insightful)
Adding images will also increase the bandwidth costs.
An encyclopedia is not a dating site !
Re:Simple is not ugly. (Score:5, Insightful)
Most websites that look awesome have almost no content which is hidden on several pages with lots of ads in between. No thx like it simple.
Exactly. I wouldn't even call it ugly; I'd call it utilitarian. That is a good thing for a tool used to search for knowledge. It also makes it much more readily available to minimalistic and text only browsers without much extra work on the part of the maintainers.
Functional is not ugly either. (Score:5, Insightful)
Today everything has to look like it has been released by apple or it's ugly.
I cringe when I see all the resources and battery consumption that go into features like false reflections in metallic buttons on a friggin screen.
I want a website that is designed for quick lookups to be just that, quick! And, it is!
Re: (Score:3)
Most websites that look awesome have almost no content which is hidden on several pages with lots of ads in between. No thx like it simple.
Yea, tell it! So damn fed up with overcoded, bloated, whizzy and utterly useless websites and pages. Megan can just cram this one. Geez.
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Yup. I've had more trouble getting twitter to work in Chrome than I care to detail. I'll take standard html over AJAX any day. Sure, if you're building a fancy application I can see the value in AJAX, but to present content, forget it!
If they wanted to build an AJAX WYSIWYG/M page editor for WP I could see the logic in that. However, the site layout is perfectly readable as it is right now...
Comparison to Facebook (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, but at what cost?
Re:Comparison to Facebook (Score:5, Funny)
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Intelligence barrier to entry.
Wikipedia has a lower limit; Facebook has as upper limit.
Re:Comparison to Facebook (Score:5, Funny)
At the cost of having everybody mediocre and below in there and loosing anybody smart.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
So, will you be visiting the new spiced up Wikipedia then?
Re:Comparison to Facebook (Score:5, Insightful)
And unlike Facebook, Wikipedia's UI seems relatively stable and bug-free, and to me is easier to use. Wikipedia does a great job at presenting information without getting in the way. It's not flashy and doesn't need to be flashy, and can stand alone on the strength of its sheer usefulness without having to have a lot of useless eye candy. The markup they use isn't particularly difficult to work with either.
Re:Comparison to Facebook (Score:5, Insightful)
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How much simpler can you possibly get than what Wikipedia has? There are no drop down menus in obscure places you have to find.
You mean other than Special:SpecialPages?
Functionality from one page to another is the always the same
Special pages don't have talk pages. As a more common case, new users can't edit half the popular pages because they're permanently semi-protected due to persistent IP vandalism. Instead, they have to jump head-first into talk page politics with an {{edit semi-protected}} request.
Re:Comparison to Facebook (Score:5, Insightful)
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The Wikipedia community officially doesn't want nasty. If an editor is persistent in being nasty to you, try one of the several dispute resolution processes listed at Dealing with incivility.
Because that's the first thing a new Wikipedia editor wants to do: deal with "dispute resolution processes."
Wikipedia politics is one of the encyclopedia's most serious problems. In that sense it is like many other open source projects (GIMP especially comes to mind here). Good advice from the outside is refused or re
Re: (Score:2)
There's one thing Wikipedia could learn from Facebook...
How to look like a MySpace profile, circa 2006? I'm looking at you, Timeline.
Written by subject geeks or computer geeks? (Score:5, Insightful)
When it comes to an encyclopedia, I want it to be written by geeks.
I want it to be written by geeks in the subject of the article, not necessarily computer geeks if the subject is not information science or information technology. For example, there used to be (still is?) a perception that articles' "in popular culture" were overpopulated with entries from works loved by the demographic of computer geeks who are willing to take time to learn the markup. When I read a chemistry article, I want it to be written by chemistry geeks. When I read a linguistic theory article, I want it to be written by language geeks. When I read an article on psychology or religion or other social sciences, I want it to be written by experts in the field, not people with a vested interest in discrediting the field.
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Well, I wouldn't even say that WP is run by computer geeks so much as legal geeks or bureaucracy geeks. Or, maybe people who act like computers. I guess you could call them wikipedia geeks.
A typical dispute over what goes on with some article ends up having nothing to do with either common sense or the truth, but rather who can twist the greatest number of WP:STUPID-POLICYs to get their way. Having no life helps a great deal as well, since even the tiniest dispute tends to turn into the 100 years war.
Re:Written by subject geeks or computer geeks? (Score:4, Informative)
There's http://simple.wikipedia.org/ [wikipedia.org]
Why is Jimmy Wales so ugly? (Score:5, Funny)
An appeal from slashdot.org - get some hot employees to pose for the photos
Re: (Score:3)
<flat affect>Apparently they did comparative studies that showed banners with JW received much higher click-throughs and donations than ones with other people.</flat affect>
Subjective nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Subjective nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
Had I never used Wikipedia, I'd probably expect it- going by her description- to look like something basic and ugly from 1997. I mean, "Geocities"? It's nothing like the stereotypical Geocities page (garish and tasteless decorations and backdrops).
I must admit that I hardly ever think of Wikipedia's appearance- it doesn't look plain or boring to me, which would suggest it was underdesigned in the way she implies- it simply isn't a factor. That suggests that they got it right- it's nice and clean, and doesn't distract from the content, while not being gratuitously over-plain.
No, it's not covered in Web-2.0 shading, and there isn't an excess of distracting widgets. In all honesty, I get the impression that the author is really criticising the lack of *cutesiness*, over-designed attempts to appear friendly with "helpful" candy.
I'll definitely concede one point; editing is still too technical. I'm a geek, so I'm happy to directly edit markup, add templates with parameters, etc. However, I have thought quite often while doing this that it's almost certainly not friendly to average non-techie users. The visual editor is a step in the right direction, but it still probably needs more. I'm not talking about dumbing down things, simply saying that if something can reasonably be presented in a non-technical way without too much compromise, then the choice should be there.
Of course, I'd probably rather just edit the markup directly, and I'd want *that* choice to remain too, if it was so wanted.
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is all this is.
The disregard for mind-calming images!
I think she's off her meds.
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Surely sir or madam, you cannot be correct.
She clearly states "Here is an empirical truth about Wikipedia: Aesthetically, it is remarkably unattractive" and I'm sure she wouldn't make such a claim without some sort of double blind study that tests the assertion.
WTF? (Score:3)
Geeks != geeks (Score:2)
So ugly? (Score:5, Informative)
It does prove that, (Score:5, Insightful)
If your site has good content, the people will come regardless. Much better than a really pretty site with crap content, in my opinion. Another example here is, craigslist. I can't stand to even load up craigslist. It looks so freaking awful, yet they have made a fortune off that 1995-html1.0-looking crap.
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Craigslist has crap for functionality though. I understand wanting to keep things local although I completely disagree with it, but how hard can it be to do away with the assumption that everyone lives in one of their predetermined zones (or even close to it) and implement a radius search by zip code?
As it is, it's completely useless to me as I straddle two areas and most listings are too far away. I've tried to buy on there with limited success and little convenience, selling is a excercise in frustratio
Functional (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a complaint I have heard a lot in my programming career. In my own experience, most coders I have worked with are focused on functionality and simplicity; getting as much information out there in as straightforward a manner as possible. Often, this means "ugly" to non-CS people. Personally, I find Wikipedia easy to read and easy to navigate. Sure, it may not have graphics popping out everywhere or things dancing across the screen but when I hit WP, all I want is information.
Now, could it be better? Possibly. It is easy enough to create a new skin for it and give it some zip but I doubt the team would ever make it a default. WP is meant to be accessed on any device, through any type of connection (although it does have some issues in that department).
If I want lots of useless clutter, I will go to any number of large news organizations' websites.
Re:Functional (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess anyone who thinks Wikipedia is ugly will also consider books ugly. Think of it: The typical book has a big, mostly uniform block of text surrounded by unprinted space except for a page number. Most books don't even have images (except on the cover).
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I do think it's important to distinguish between Joe Sixpack thinking something is ugly because it doesn't have dancing kittens and lots of colors and someone with knowledge of design and user interfaces saying something is ugly because it's needlessly complex and is confusing to anyone who hasn't memorized the entire 217-page manual (the UI manual that is, the actual back-end processing daemon obviously has its own 831-page manual with references to important 3rd party documentation explaining just what it
Ugly = subjective (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally, I think it looks clean.
Wikipedia suppors arbitrary themes. (Score:5, Informative)
Go select one or upload your own CSS / Javascript:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering [wikipedia.org]
Form vs. function: Many people do not get it (Score:5, Insightful)
Wikipedia is all function. It is efficient, loads fast, list information well. Improving aesthetics to the detriment of functionality is something seen far too often in the web and it is something done only by idiots. Of which there are many, unfortunately.
Bottom line: Wikipedia is only for those seeking knowledge. All others, please go away, you are not welcome and your criticism is misdirected.
In other words (Score:2)
AJAX and scripts that bog down the server and make it inaccessible to chunks of the population. But it'll be prettier...
Pretty encyclopedia? (Score:3)
30 years ago your typical young kid would say "Britannica is boring. Everyone should use only World Book encyclopedia and only World Book encyclopedia."
Today a young kid might say you should only use About.com.
Wikipedia ugly? (Score:5, Informative)
From the full article :
Here is an empirical truth about Wikipedia: Aesthetically, it is remarkably unattractive.
How is that an empirical truth?
Personally I find the site's design really suited to it's purpose. It's clean, no bright colours or extraneous graphics. The content even though dense is easy to read. It is as far as I'm concerned, perfect for the job it is intended to do.
Now the article after making this broad unsubstantiated statement makes one and only one specific complaint. That editing wikipedia pages is too complex. I agree, it could possibly be easier but wiki markup is the best we have come up with so far. If you have suggestions on how to improve that. That is concrete steps that can make writing wiki pages easier, please share them, most of us are all agog.
Re:Wikipedia ugly? (Score:5, Funny)
How is that an empirical truth?
It's an exact comparison learned by observing Wikipedia from more beautiful websites [timecube.com]. Too bad it's a subjective comparison.
Then again, if that person finds a Wiki page ugly, then he's more than free to use CSS or other stuff to make it look beautiful. perhaps floating elements (already in use), rounded corners, etc. If it remains ugly, then it's obvious that presentation isn't an issue.
Re: (Score:2)
How is that an empirical truth? (Score:2)
Bizarro world (Score:5, Insightful)
if Wikipedia wants to make itself more attractive to users, a superficial makeover may be just the thing Wikipedia needs to begin growing in a more meaningful way.
What? Because it looks pretty, people will start reading an encyclopedia? Are you nuts?
First of all, last time I checked Wikipedia was in the top 10 of most visited websites on this planet. So they seem to be attracting users just fine. And obviously, the one and only thing that matters is the quality of their content. As long as Wikipedia continues to provide great information on basically any conceivable subject, a simple uncluttered layout to access that information is all they need.
Now I get the impression (also by the screenshot) that the article is mainly talking about Wikipedia's homepage. There might be some room for improvement there, but seriously, who goes to Wikipedia to look at the homepage? It's all about the articles. And those pages simply look fine.
If it aint broken (Score:3)
Please dont dont try and 'fix it'. And by fix it I mean make it worse. Adding alot of visual cute feature that slow down download of page will only make it take longer to download. For all that pay per MB of download - its better the less frills the more information. Lets keep wikipedia as a place with a high signal to noice ratio (SNR).
I love wikipedias simple and elegant design that puts the fokus on the information available on a page and with a high SNR. Please dont destroy it.
Perish the thought... (Score:5, Insightful)
To paraphrase a favorite character of mine, "... I'm so sick of (article writers like this) I could vomit...".
Wikipedia has at its core one basic job to do: convey information. Setting aside for the moment the questions of validity of content, sources, spats between editors, astroturfing, etc, the prime question is, how quickly and easily was one able to find what one was looking for and absorb it. This is a task at which I personally feel Wikipedia does a fine job. It is a simple, straightforward visual style that doesn't bolt on any extraneous flash (no pun intended) or style just for flash or style's sake.
By the way, when the article author compares Wikipedia and Geocities visual style and finds similarities, I'm prompted to wonder where the author actually was when Geocities was in its heydey.
As for the complaint about the complexities of editing on Wikipedia: Heaven forbid that when editing one of the great repositories of human knowledge, that the editors should take the time required to learn the skills necessary to do so... seriously, if Wikipedia ever "redesigns" itself to appeal anywhere near the lowest common denominator of the Facebook/Twitter/Myspace generation, I quit.
Re:Perish the thought... (Score:4, Insightful)
By the way, when the article author compares Wikipedia and Geocities visual style and finds similarities, I'm prompted to wonder where the author actually was when Geocities was in its heydey.
Indeed ... if anything, Wikipedia is the anti-Geocities: whereas Geocities was famous for its inconsistency, garish colors, and in many cases, almost complete unreadability, Wikipedia is very consistent and readable (well the form of the articles anyway, if not always the words). This is no easy feat, either, given the many editors and authors, but WIkipedia seems to have evolved reasonably good processes and conventions for moving articles towards consistency. [Geocities, of course, had pretty much zero overall structure or convention.]
SPARKLES, and IN COLOR!? (Score:3, Informative)
Uh, no. The appearance is fine as it is. I think the goal of making it more user-friendly for people who may want to contribute edits is a good idea, but I see nothing wrong with plain, black text on a white background, and a simple grid-like presentation. It's simple, to the point, and not distracting. As far as I'm concerned, sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr are the ones that are ugly. I mean, sure, they aren't using Comic Sans, but I still think their interface is gaudy.
For similar ugliness, take a look at the frames filled with fluff around the margins of the linked "The Atlantic" article. Gaudy and distracting with flashing ads, "subscribe now", "facebook" something-or-other, "newsletters", blah blah blah. There's so much crap on the right side of the article that it protrudes way down the page, beyond the bottom of the actual text, where you also find the standard navigation/credits baseplate far at the bottom (so far down that it's nearly useless). Oh, and look at that. If I enable JavaScript I also get a pop-up that renders on top of everything else and doesn't scroll.
Clean up your own damn site. Then we'll talk about "ugly".
Gender Thing. (Score:2, Funny)
I think it's telling that both TFAs linked in the post are by women. Please keep the creeping feminisation of the media out of Wikipedia!
Re: (Score:2)
Your Trolling skill suffered permanent -2 penalty due to being too obvious.
Need to pick their priorities (Score:3, Insightful)
So Wikimedia needs to make a choice:
-If they simplify the site to make it more accessible, they will probably build a larger, more diverse population of contributors, and will also probably move Wikipedia some distance down the spectrum from "academically valuable tertiary resource" towards "Youtube comments section".
-Or they can keep it the way it is, with a relatively small community of dedicated contributors, which has allowed it to become one of the most valuable and extraordinary creations of the internet age.
Personally I value excellence over political correctness, so I would take the second route.
Less is more (Score:5, Insightful)
May the rapist web designers stay away from one of the jewels of the internet. Less bloat is more usability.
First look at yourself (Score:2)
The website on which the original article is posted also has boxed layout, not-so mind-calming images, some fake popup, and all kinds of annoying mouse hover effects.
Convoluted anyone? (Score:2)
I consider myself a geek, but I want to edit and contribute when the tools are at least as easy as a wordpress blog. I tried to amend something once and it was a waste of my time. It's not intuitive at all.
Facebook's UI is not exceedingly simple... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Facebook is horrible. I find myself googling instructions for the simplest functionality. "Geeky" programming is simpler.
Re: (Score:3)
Functional not Ugly (Score:3)
Add me to the droves of people also saying that Wikipedia is functional, not ugly. I am sick to death of stupid sites that have crap all over them and no content. Pop up s**t, f***ing animated junk on the sides, irritating mouse-overs, and countless other distractions and things to make the site non-functional and slow to load and use.
And each year it is getting worse and worse with all the "web 2.0" so-called innovations. And unlike the past where you could block Flash, or limit Javascript, now we have pretty much no control anymore, other than just breaking the site completely. So PLEASE LEAVE WIKIPEDIA ALONE.
I only want geeks editing anyway. (Score:2)
But then I categorize as 'geek' anyone with sufficiently deep and detailed knowledge of a subject that they can write intelligently on a topic. That includes charismatic lawyers.
Lol? (Score:2)
one of its broad strategic goals is to expand its base of editors
You must be joking. Several times in the past people tried to change the tagline shown below each article tag from "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" to "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit"
And each time the attempt failed when some group of assholes with hidden agenda reverted or opposed the change. They actually do NOT want people to know everyone can edit it. That's the whole truth.
Disagree. (Score:2)
If I need information about something, I go to Wikipedia before I go to the "official" website. That tells you all you need to know. Wikipedia provides the information you want without a lot of cruft. Nothing ugly about that.
Slashdot has Improved My Vocabulary (Score:2)
Thanks to you guys on slashdot, I learned that "monetize" does not mean what the author of TFA thinks. Wikipedia obviously isn't "monetizing" its patrons because the author is using the term incorrectly.
Also, this is probably a revenue-per-click article, as the premise is that Wikipedia is somehow awful, but then lavishes praise throughout TFA. I hate that crap. I can't opt out of their crappy revenue generation mechanism until I've already generated revenue for them...bah!
Re: (Score:2)
wikipedia needs "ease of use for more users" (Score:3)
like it needs advertisement and a a CSR program....
The kind of people who might want a more "wysiwig & feel good" content entry interface are exactly the kind of people who do not contribute to knowledge.
There could certainly be improvement in some elements, for instance I'm sure a plugin to render some biological representation would find some friends.
But ajax driven emoticon entries ? and maybe "like buttons" .... get lots, or even better go to craigslist and try to criticise them, the CEO reaction would probably be fun to see :-)
Have you stoppped beating your wife? (Score:5, Insightful)
Summarizing two different articles (Score:2)
The summary sounds confused, to me.
That's because it's summarizing two different articles: one about the front page and one about the editor.
But then it is a "wiki" and the interface available for editing a "wiki" is not that of facebook/tumblr/twitter.
That's the problem. A lot of people who are experts in the subject of a particular article are not also experts in information technology who are willing to sit down and learn the markup to wikify an article.
Quality bar (Score:3)