Re:Show HN: Infinite Scroll Wikipedia
by network2592 on Friday January 14, 2022 @01:50AM
(#29931341)
Thanks for sharing. This is a definitely a refreshing take on media feeds.
What is the logic for generating the feed? Is there some link hopping from article to article? Or is it based on some usage data (eg what article is more popular than usual today)? Or perhaps there is some altogether different logic?
Re:Show HN: Infinite Scroll Wikipedia
by r3trohack3r on Friday January 14, 2022 @09:16AM
(#29934635)
Each article is stored as a separate json file (0.json, 1.json, …, n.json). I have a static file containing the total number of articles. I download that file first, and then Math.random() to pick each entry.
I built it partially as a habit breaker.
I noticed I use social media (mostly) for information discovery. I asked myself what information I’m trying to discover and worked backwards to a healthier relationship with that discovery mechanism from there. Ended up with Wikipedia as a good source of information and then tried to build a similar mechanism to social media scrolling on top of it.
It’s an alternative to doom scrolling social media for me, where the fun facts are actually fun, little to no social outrage, and there isn’t any FOMO - the same content will always be there tomorrow.