I recall people in the past spending their day reading random Wikipedia trivia. Overal the knowledge is rather useless.
this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2025
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Maybe, but you will win more pub quizzes and it's better than brainrot content
Useless? Knowledge for the sake of itself is worth pursuing.
Is it though?
Depends on what you're into, what you do, etc... Could be the difference between winning Final Jeopardy and not. Or being able to identify Alessandro Gazzi by name in a police lineup, for example.
I mean you can just swipe if it’s not your jam. I think this is a great idea.
There is no knowledge that is not power.
Knowledge is a good in and of itself
Usless knowladge is still better than tiktok https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/07067437221082854
Still better than endless tiktiok scroll, me thinks
Due to shitty company pokicies where I worked, I once had a 6 month stint of reading Wikipedia 4-6 hours a day out of boredom and fuck yeah did I learn a lot of bew things. Sure, not everything sticks, but it's enough
As opposed to spending the day reading social media where the knowledge is useful?
Because Tiktok is so much better.
This is exactly what I needed
WikiTok > TikTok
I know it needs to maintain the Wiki name for branding purposes, but WikTok meshes better.
Alternatively WikiToko would be cute
That's actually really cool. I like that the dev has expressed that he doesn't want to make the algorithm addictive and just keep it random 😅
"Some people just wanna watch the world learn."
Would be cool if the official Wikipedia mobile app integrated this functionality! It does have a 'random articles' card, but it's nothing like this.
Not sure 'addiction' is being defeated here, though 😆 Like if I'm addicted to sausages, giving me bacon instead isn't really solving the root of the issue. The issue being those sexy, sexy pigs.
The addiction isn't being defeated, it's just being redirected from something worthless to something useful. Well, at least less useless.
Everyday I read wikipedia and everyday, I learn something new. Fucking love this free resource
I see the dev don't want recommendation algorithm. All good to avoid the recommendation bubble, but a category/tags might be nice instead of random everything.
endless feed
to fight algorithm addiction
endless
feed
to fight algorithm addiction
Uuuuuh that's not the way to fight an addiction, right? Who is this person working for, exactly?
Think of it as taking methadone instead of heroin.
Think of it as a methadone clinic for doomscrollers.
If methadone was also educational 🌈⭐
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I don’t think there’s an algorithm involved actually. Just lovely facts.
Well, there has to be some kind of algorithm. Even picking a random Wikipedia article technically is an algorithm, just not one that adapts to the user
True, but outside CS the word has come to refer to a certain brand of complex heuristics or ML inference.
Web 1.0 cures web 2.0 again.
Saw this posted in a ADHD com a few days back. Every comment was just like "oh no...". I opened it and like 20 minutes later realized, oh no. I can and have spent many entire days just reading Wikipedia and following linked subjects. So much so I run out in areas. I can't handle a lot of visual and audio stimulation, short form content is such a nightmare for me, can't watch it. But give me pages of the most dense info and I'm hooked. I just need the option to download every paper referenced from every Wikipedia page I visit.
WikiTok
Not sure if there's an app yet, I found one on the Android store by Arakassia...
Most "apps" are just http web hooks to a regular website backend with extra tracking telemetry. So a website working as a PWA should be enough for everyone.
I hate how everything has to be a fucking app, because it doesn't need to be.
If phone OSes made it so there's less friction to save a web page as an icon on your desktop it would help to resolve that issue I think.
It’s so easy, even on iOS. Just tap share and add to Home Screen. It’s probably just as easy on android.
Yep, you're 100% right. Not sure why I thought it was high friction. I feel like I confused trying to put an icon for an image on my home screen (gym app's sign in QR code) with sending a web page to the home screen.
It's very easy.
Chrome let's you do "install" websites to home screen, Firefox allows saving shortcuts to home screen.
The annoying thing is that you can't save them to the app drawer (at least on vanilla android), so if you have a clean home screen you have to sacrifice that.
I think that's only partly true as companies, especially big ones, want the telemetry and control of a native app instead of just a web page
Proper PWA websites save very well to phone home screens (like voyager for Lemmy!)
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On android:
- Open link in Firefox.
- Tap the three dots.
- Tap "add to start screen"
There's your app!
On iOS through Safari:
Tap the Share icon
Scroll down a little.
Add to Home Screen.
Profit?
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This is awesome. :3
This is pretty awesome. I do see the need to be able to add categories of interest. Like follow history, the arts, etc. Cool regardless.
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Just found this article that for some reason has me dying of laughter: ICBM address
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If someone made this for TV Tropes, I would never get anything productive done again
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