Hacker News Reader

More space = wasted spaced. Better fonts = bigger fonts wasted space, markdown support = no one asked for it

In web 2.0 or 3.5.. We hide information from the user and fill up the page with space for full screens while designing for mobile. Wikis want to expose information / link ideas.. encourage browsing pages. Most sites want you to scroll down aimlessly.

All three of the designs you referenced have a lower information density and poorer design qualities than mediawiki. While mediawiki is not the "best" design it could be, you are going in the wrong direction.

As someone else said, if it isn't broke, don't fix it.

A wiki doesn't need to be Web 2.0. The content is nearly completely static once it gets rendered server-side.