It was mildly annoying how en.wikipedia.org would redirect to en.m.wikipedia.org on mobile, but en.m.wikipedia.org wouldn't redirect to en.wikipedia.org on desktop. So when a mobile user sent me a link, I had to go and manually delete the '.m' in order to view it nicely. But I guess it makes sense since desktop developers need to be able to see the mobile site sometimes.
I have always hated "m." domains for exactly this reason. They almost exclusively go one-way, mobile users get redirected to the mobile domain but desktop users never get redirected back, and all too often not only was the mobile version of the site objectively worse from the perspective of a desktop user but even the link to go back manually was either hard to find or nonexistent.<p>Wikipedia was one of the worst offenders, but lots of sites screwed this up in exactly the same way, and I feel it was a predecessor to modern "mobile first" web platforms that either treat desktop as second-class users or actively don't want desktop users.
There was a period I can recall, maybe 2010 to 2020 most prominently, when a subset of HN readers strongly preferred the mobile Wikipedia site, even on desktop, and would always use ".m" linking to Wikipedia articles in comments threads. This also seemed to happen in reddit threads during that decade.<p>I sort of remember some of the older MediaWiki desktop themes looking worse than the mobile theme, but it was never enough for me personally to try always using the mobile site at the time. I do still strongly prefer old.reddit.com... For as long as that portal continues to exist.
Yeah, in the olden days, there was no max-width for desktop wikipedia, so the readability was not good.
> But I guess it makes sense since desktop developers need to be able to see the mobile site sometimes.<p>IMO this isn't a good reason. Developers can change the user agent.<p>(I also imagine there could be a no-redirect preference for logged in users. Or even just a special query string you could add to the end of a url.)
Tapping the share button (on mobile) instead of copying the link always used the non-mobile address, AFAICT.
I use the mobile page on desktop. Less clutter is always welcome.
> But I guess it makes sense since desktop developers need to be able to see the mobile site sometimes.<p>That is not at all the reason; did you read the article?.<p>Also web developers can just use devtools to simulate a mobile browser.
That's a welcome development albeit late, but more importantly, they should address the "can't link to a highlight" problem on mobile. When all sections are collapsed by default, browser won't scroll to the relevant section.<p>A random "link to highlight" example: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_I_of_Cyprus#:~:text=On%2010%20June%20Henry%20rewarded%20the%20Genoese%20with%20momentous%20concessions" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_I_of_Cyprus#:~:text=On%2...</a><p>Such a link doesn't work on mobile if it points inside a collapsed section.<p>That makes directing people to relevant content on mobile really hard, and I end up sending screenshots instead.<p>EDIT: "Link to fragment"s had the same problem, but apparently, they fixed it. Thanks for that too!
You also can't search for text in collapsed sections.
The link in your comment works perfectly fine for me in Chrome Android, and highlights the part
About 10 years late, I can't think of any websites other than Wikipedia still doing the mobile domain.
YouTube?
Twitch?
FaceBook?
GSMArena? There are lots.
<a href="https://m.xkcd.com/" rel="nofollow">https://m.xkcd.com/</a> is one example that I actually find useful.<p>(Well, the mobile view is useful. Not sure whether splitting it off into its own domain is useful.)
Very touching current XKCD. <a href="https://xkcd.com/3172" rel="nofollow">https://xkcd.com/3172</a>.<p>Guess this also means I’m getting old as I remember the earlier comics about his partner going through this. I think this is the first one I read after I became a “weekly reader”: <a href="https://xkcd.com/1141" rel="nofollow">https://xkcd.com/1141</a>.
I agree. AFAICT there is no way to view a comic's alt-text on mobile on the desktop site. (Also, the desktop site is way too zoomed out.)
late for what?
Incredible that no one from Google noticed this as a regression from their side and either put a workaround in or contacted Wikimedia.
Great job.<p>I was hoping this was a unification of the both layouts as well, that would have been really impressive. The mobile version of the article pages is great, but getting both versions from the same frontend would be an amazing case study.
The mobile site is relatively unpopular among editors, i think there would be a riot if they did that.<p>That said, there is a "desktop" version of the mobile skin, you can get it by appending ?useskin=minerva to a wikipedia url.
wdym?<p>isn't "new" pc design that's been around for last couple years pretty much mobile one already? (and thus ugly af)
The new one (called vector-2022) is much closer to mobile stylings, but not the same. The mobile skin is called minerva. On top of that the mobile site makes some changes to the content to simplify it, and replaces some elements.
Nice engineering work and very clear write-up. I love these types of optimizations.<p>BTW found this writeup on the Wikipedia CDN: <a href="https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/CDN" rel="nofollow">https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/CDN</a>
Finally! But…<p>> Wikipedia’s use of it is surprising to our present day audience, and it may decrease the perceived strength of domain branding<p>Really? <i>That’s</i> the reasoning, and not the fact that <i>mobile links forwarded to desktop browsers would render the mobile view</i>?!
It's surely much less of a problem than most non-technical users wondering why Wikipedia URLs start with "en" instead of "www".
I'd be surprised if anyone but the oldest non-technical users had any idea what the "www" was or why it would or wouldn't be at the front of a URL. It takes zero technical knowledge to understand "en" indicates the language and probably rarely comes up since you can use www or omit the en and links mostly just work.
They might wonder (although I doubt it), but it’s nothing actionable.<p>With m., they used to see a mobile layout that’s a really poor fit for a desktop screen and that they would have manually switch out of via some relatively obscure button.
Hey, when you spend over $100 million a year to run your website, that's the kind of thoughtful analysis one might expect.
The mobile view is a really pleasant reading experience on desktop.
> Really? That’s the reasoning, and not the fact that mobile links forwarded to desktop browsers would render the mobile view?!<p>If you read the more technical internal rationals instead of just the press release, what you said is mentioned as one of the reasons for the change<p><a href="https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Mobile_domain_sunsetting" rel="nofollow">https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Mobile_d...</a>
Subdomains for mobile sites were almost as dumb as www2 www3 for load balancing.
BUG: show the Table of Contents (TOC) in mobile mode<p>Users probably especially want to deep link to #headings on mobile devices
Now it's your turn YouTube…