WikiTok cures boredom in spare moments with wholesome swipe-up Wikipedia article discovery:
On Wednesday, a New York-based app developer named Isaac Gemal debuted a new site called WikiTok, where users can vertically swipe through an endless stream of Wikipedia article stubs in a manner similar to the interface for video-sharing app TikTok.
It's a neat way to stumble upon interesting information randomly, learn new things, and spend spare moments of boredom without reaching for an algorithmically addictive social media app. Although to be fair, WikiTok is addictive in its own way, but without an invasive algorithm tracking you and pushing you toward the lowest-common-denominator content. It's also thrilling because you never know what's going to pop up next.
WikiTok, which works through mobile and desktop browsers, feeds visitors a random list of Wikipedia articles—culled from the Wikipedia API—into a vertically scrolling interface. Despite the name that hearkens to TikTok, there are currently no videos involved. Each entry is accompanied by an image pulled from the corresponding article. If you see something you like, you can tap "Read More," and the full Wikipedia page on the topic will open in your browser.
For now, the feed is truly random, and Gemal is currently resisting calls to automatically tailor the stream of articles to the user's interests based on what they express interest in.
"I have had plenty of people message me and even make issues on my GitHub asking for some insane crazy WikiTok algorithm," Gemal told Ars. "And I had to put my foot down and say something along the lines that we're already ruled by ruthless, opaque algorithms in our everyday life; why can't we just have one little corner in the world without them?"
[...] Gemal posted the code for WikiTok on GitHub, so anyone can modify or contribute to the project. Right now, the web app supports 14 languages, article previews, and article sharing on both desktop and mobile browsers. New features may arrive as contributors add them. It's based on a tech stack that includes React 18, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, and Vite.
And so far, he is sticking to his vision of a free way to enjoy Wikipedia without being tracked and targeted. "I have no grand plans for some sort of insane monetized hyper-calculating TikTok algorithm," Gemal told us. "It is anti-algorithmic, if anything."
(Score: 2) by liar on Thursday February 13, @04:49PM (4 children)
"Well darkness has a hunger that's insatiable
And lightness has a call that's hard to hear" (Indigo Girls
Closer to Fine). Sooner or later the siren call of money...
Noli nothis permittere te terere.
(Score: 2) by The Vocal Minority on Friday February 14, @05:33AM (2 children)
Am I a real lesbian now?
(Score: 3, Funny) by liar on Friday February 14, @07:37PM (1 child)
Well, Washington declared that gender is set at conception, and all eggs are female till 6 weeks, so... yeah?
Noli nothis permittere te terere.
(Score: 2) by The Vocal Minority on Saturday February 15, @02:56AM
But I'm not American....you insensitive clod.
(Score: 3, Funny) by driverless on Friday February 14, @09:48AM
Nah, just wait till someone comes up with Pr0nTok.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Mojibake Tengu on Thursday February 13, @05:07PM (2 children)
I am not quite sure if addiction to random is any safer than addiction to structure.
Rust programming language offends both my Intelligence and my Spirit.
(Score: 4, Informative) by khallow on Thursday February 13, @07:42PM (1 child)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by corey on Thursday February 13, @11:29PM
It's an interesting idea. Wonder if it'll get any traction. I feel like I should get my 10yro kids onto this, before they hear about TikTok and start asking to use that and anything else online. Nah.
I find Wikipedia addictive anyway. Isn't it called the Wikipedia Rabbit Warren? Where you start by looking up, say, The Foo Fighters, then an hour later you're reading about the history of the Incas, after reading about pumpkins for a while.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday February 13, @05:49PM (1 child)
It's kind of like 4chan /b/ except with less pr0n and glowie threads and more wikipedia.
Its amusing to consider if 4chan added a new board named /wikipedia/ with careful janitorial effort.
The UI of a near infinite list of nearly random content is actually a pretty old idea. Prior art like 4chan is not quite random, thats the innovative part.
(Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Thursday February 13, @06:24PM
In old times, every mainframe console actually used a hardcopy printer for logging everything, on paper.
That's my perspective of infinite listing. And scroll back availability.
Boxes of paper system logs have been put in store for months and years.
Unfortunately, post-modern terminals lack of hardcopy feature completely. Unix syslogging sucks, trivially hackable.
Infinite scroll feeds in html are just some poor reinvention.
Rust programming language offends both my Intelligence and my Spirit.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday February 13, @08:50PM (2 children)
"Ferberite
Ferberite is the iron endmember of the manganese–iron wolframite solid solution series."
WHAAAaaaaaaa? It sounds sexy in the same way that women thought Liberace was sexy...but not.... or........
....what?
;)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 13, @10:18PM (1 child)
Stop it now, you're just being ludicrous!
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday February 13, @11:07PM
at ludicrous speed!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hendrikboom on Friday February 14, @03:33AM
I find myself wondering if I would want to go to a website to read such a random decorative Wikipedia stream, or whether I would just like to run it on my own machine, having it fetch Wikipedia articles and displaying them to me.
Come to think of it doesn't the Wikipedia already have a feature where it displays a randomly chosen article? Though it isn't quite as decorative.
Are there other websites that could be explored with such a tool?
-- hendrik