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Comment by crotchfire | Hacker News Reader

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crotchfire·

The real wikipedia renders (perfectly!) without javascript.

This does not render at all without javascript.

Not an alternative.

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It doesn't even run on mobile because the sidebar takes up all the space and the main content is squeezed to the side. Even more disappointing to learn that what is essentially a static webpage doesn't render without JavaScript. This is not going anywhere with that kind of attitude (not testing on mobile, relying 100% on JavaScript).

I thought it was just me - I even tried different mobile browsers. You’d think before you wrote a whole article about how bad Wikipedia is you’d at least make your site work on mobile. (And I have js turned on - the site is just one long column of unreadable text)

This seems to be a common problem with the fediverse ecosystem.

Not an alternative for you maybe, but a fine alternative for over 99% of the rest of the world running javascript in their browser.

99% of the users you're talking about won't see any benefit in switching to this alternative from Wikipedia anyway, so what's your point?

His point that the javascript-turner-offers are a vocal, but very small minority.

The mobile issue here is big, and the fact that this effort is just another attempt following a long string of previous failures and has a small chance of success, but that's something different.

Wikipedia is one of the few initiatives where not being satisfied with 99% accessibility is absolutely warranted. If your goal is to dethrone it, you have to bite that bullet.

It also renders like garbage on mobile, which makes it useless for about 50% of the world. Not a great start.

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