[HN Gopher] Unifying our mobile and desktop domains
___________________________________________________________________
Unifying our mobile and desktop domains
Author : todsacerdoti
Score : 179 points
Date : 2025-11-25 17:07 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (techblog.wikimedia.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (techblog.wikimedia.org)
| janpio wrote:
| Great job.
|
| 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.
| bawolff wrote:
| The mobile site is relatively unpopular among editors, i think
| there would be a riot if they did that.
|
| That said, there is a "desktop" version of the mobile skin, you
| can get it by appending ?useskin=minerva to a wikipedia url.
| Akronymus wrote:
| I use that trick to still get the vector layout. No version
| past that is to my personal liking.
| bawolff wrote:
| If you log in, you can set it in your preferences so its
| sticky.
| NooneAtAll3 wrote:
| wdym?
|
| isn't "new" pc design that's been around for last couple years
| pretty much mobile one already? (and thus ugly af)
| bawolff wrote:
| 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.
| lxgr wrote:
| Finally! But...
|
| > Wikipedia's use of it is surprising to our present day
| audience, and it may decrease the perceived strength of domain
| branding
|
| Really? _That's_ the reasoning, and not the fact that _mobile
| links forwarded to desktop browsers would render the mobile
| view_?!
| pr337h4m wrote:
| The mobile view is a really pleasant reading experience on
| desktop.
| lxgr wrote:
| Admittedly, it does make for some good impromptu neck
| exercises on any typical screen.
| bawolff wrote:
| > Really? That's the reasoning, and not the fact that mobile
| links forwarded to desktop browsers would render the mobile
| view?!
|
| 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
|
| https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Mobile_d...
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| It's surely much less of a problem than most non-technical
| users wondering why Wikipedia URLs start with "en" instead of
| "www".
| autoexec wrote:
| 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.
| lxgr wrote:
| They might wonder (although I doubt it), but it's nothing
| actionable.
|
| 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.
| account42 wrote:
| > but it's nothing actionable
|
| Of course it is, they just need to drop the pretense that
| English is not the default.
| loeg wrote:
| Hey, when you spend over $100 million a year to run your
| website, that's the kind of thoughtful analysis one might
| expect.
| sedatk wrote:
| 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.
|
| A random "link to highlight" example:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_I_of_Cyprus#:~:text=On%2...
|
| Such a link doesn't work on mobile if it points inside a
| collapsed section.
|
| That makes directing people to relevant content on mobile really
| hard, and I end up sending screenshots instead.
|
| EDIT: "Link to fragment"s had the same problem, but apparently,
| they fixed it. Thanks for that too!
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| You also can't search for text in collapsed sections.
| flexagoon wrote:
| The link in your comment works perfectly fine for me in Chrome
| Android, and highlights the part
| SchemaLoad wrote:
| About 10 years late, I can't think of any websites other than
| Wikipedia still doing the mobile domain.
| layer8 wrote:
| YouTube? Twitch? FaceBook? GSMArena? There are lots.
| sedatk wrote:
| m.youtube.com and m.facebook.com redirect you to main
| "m-less" domain when on desktop. That was the greatest
| problem with Wikipedia. You had to experience that mobile
| layout on desktop unless you edited the address line and
| reloaded the page.
| SoKamil wrote:
| m.wikipedia.org was a feature, not a bug. The interface is
| good on desktop. For some time, before Wikipedia did a
| desktop site rework, this was my go-to frontend.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| late for what?
| sedatk wrote:
| Late for fixing design and UX bifurcation.
| NooneAtAll3 wrote:
| pc website redirected mobile users from the very beginning
|
| mobile website did not redirect pc users
|
| 10 years late at fixing this very basic problem
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| again though... late for what? it's not like someone else
| came along, did it better, and now wikipedia is some
| dwindling anachronism
|
| they didn't jump on the shifting trends immediately, got to
| it eventually when it was the clear path, and implemented
| it in a completely reasonable way... they may have actually
| benefited quite a bit for directions to settle
| NooneAtAll3 wrote:
| > implemented it in a completely reasonable way...
|
| ...no? A LOT no?
|
| one-way pc/mobile redirect is not reasonable, whatsoever
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| the current result, not the previous state
| eru wrote:
| https://m.xkcd.com/ is one example that I actually find useful.
|
| (Well, the mobile view is useful. Not sure whether splitting it
| off into its own domain is useful.)
| encrypted_bird wrote:
| 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.)
| RealStickman_ wrote:
| Long press on the image to get the alt-text on desktop xkcd
| encrypted_bird wrote:
| I've been following that webcomic for 15 years. How the
| crap have I never noticed that before??
| Insanity wrote:
| Very touching current XKCD. https://xkcd.com/3172.
|
| 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": https://xkcd.com/1141.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| Now it's your turn YouTube...
| porphyra wrote:
| 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.
| sfRattan wrote:
| 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.
|
| 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.
| porphyra wrote:
| Yeah, in the olden days, there was no max-width for desktop
| wikipedia, so the readability was not good.
| internetter wrote:
| I still use the old site and personally prefer it
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| > But I guess it makes sense since desktop developers need to
| be able to see the mobile site sometimes.
|
| IMO this isn't a good reason. Developers can change the user
| agent.
|
| (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.)
| booi wrote:
| You would just change the dimensions using the browser
| devtools no user agent faking needed
| eru wrote:
| I'm not sure dimensions are all that's different?
|
| Your website might want to present a different interface
| for people using mouse and keyboard than for people using
| tiny touch screens? Even if the number of pixels in the
| browser window is otherwise the same.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| I think Wikipedia redirected based on user agent, but yes,
| whatever, point is if you're a developer you can use the
| browser devtools to simulate whatever you need.
| wolrah wrote:
| 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.
|
| 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.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| The m. was still better than the (thankfully short-lived) fad
| of everyone buying a .mobi or similar domain for their mobile
| site.
|
| Like the subdomain was RIGHT THERE.
| andrepd wrote:
| > But I guess it makes sense since desktop developers need to
| be able to see the mobile site sometimes.
|
| That is not at all the reason; did you read the article?.
|
| Also web developers can just use devtools to simulate a mobile
| browser.
| phkx wrote:
| I use the mobile page on desktop. Less clutter is always
| welcome.
| ncruces wrote:
| Tapping the share button (on mobile) instead of copying the
| link always used the non-mobile address, AFAICT.
| fowl2 wrote:
| Incredible that no one from Google noticed this as a regression
| from their side and either put a workaround in or contacted
| Wikimedia.
| westurner wrote:
| BUG: show the Table of Contents (TOC) in mobile mode
|
| Users probably especially want to deep link to #headings on
| mobile devices
| bhouston wrote:
| Nice engineering work and very clear write-up. I love these types
| of optimizations.
|
| BTW found this writeup on the Wikipedia CDN:
| https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/CDN
| xnx wrote:
| Subdomains for mobile sites were almost as dumb as www2 www3 for
| load balancing.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-11-26 23:02 UTC)