IMO this isn't a good reason. Developers can change the user agent.
I also imagine there could be a no-redirect preference for logged in users. Or even just a special query string you could add to the end of a url.
I sort of remember some of the older MediaWiki desktop themes looking worse than the mobile theme, but it was never enough for me personally to try always using the mobile site at the time. I do still strongly prefer old.reddit.com... For as long as that portal continues to exist.
A random "link to highlight" example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_I_of_Cyprus#:~:text=On%2...
Such a link doesn't work on mobile if it points inside a collapsed section.
That makes directing people to relevant content on mobile really hard, and I end up sending screenshots instead.
EDIT: "Link to fragment"s had the same problem, but apparently, they fixed it. Thanks for that too!
mobile website did not redirect pc users
10 years late at fixing this very basic problem
I was hoping this was a unification of the both layouts as well, that would have been really impressive. The mobile version of the article pages is great, but getting both versions from the same frontend would be an amazing case study.
That said, there is a "desktop" version of the mobile skin, you can get it by appending ?useskin=minerva to a wikipedia url.
isn't "new" pc design that's been around for last couple years pretty much mobile one already? (and thus ugly af)
> Wikipedia’s use of it is surprising to our present day audience, and it may decrease the perceived strength of domain branding
Really? That’s the reasoning, and not the fact that mobile links forwarded to desktop browsers would render the mobile view?!
If you read the more technical internal rationals instead of just the press release, what you said is mentioned as one of the reasons for the change
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Mobile_d...