I’m so conditioned to the world of social media apps that when I went on Wikipedia this morning to check when Hofstra renamed itself the “Pride” after years as the “Flying Dutchmen” (it is so fucked up that they changed this), I said, “Wow, did everyone else get this update?” and started texting my friends. That was a pretty quick process, so I finished it before I realized that Wikipedia is a website, and not an app. (Unless there’s a Wikipedia app, which…there probably at least was at some point, right? During the days when companies like Target had forty different apps apiece?) Once I realized that, I had to text all my friends again to say ‘never mind’ and all that, but again, pretty quick process.
Wikipedia changed!
You know how Wikipedia used to have a big table of contents at the beginning of every article? It’s gone. On the mobile, it’s gone. On the condensed desktop display, it’s gone. On the full desktop display? Gone there as well. On the full desktop display there’s a scrollable table of contents on the side which condenses to a click-in menu when you condense the desktop display. Although…
It doesn’t seem to be doing this with every article. Joe Kelly’s Wikipedia page? Still has the old table of contents. Madison Square Garden’s Wikipedia page? Has the new one.
I’m mostly rattled by this because I don’t remember Wikipedia ever changing significantly enough before for me to notice. Wikipedia’s design is one of the biggest constants on The Internet™. But even continents move, I suppose. In fact, I’ve read about that a lot on Wikipedia.
If you would only made financial donations to Wikipedia when they asked, they would not have had to scrub the Table of Contents. It’s your fault.