Developer Lyra Rebane created Xikipedia, a web app that displays Wikipedia entries in a social media-style feed drawn from Simple Wikipedia. The app uses a local recommendation algorithm to suggest content based on user interactions without collecting or sharing data.
Xikipedia algorithmically generates the feed from Simple Wikipedia content. The landing page states, “It is made as a demonstration of how even a basic non-[machine learning] algorithm with no data from other users can quickly learn what you engage with to suggest you more similar content.” This approach ensures the system adapts to individual preferences through direct engagement patterns observed within the session.
The algorithm operates entirely locally on the user’s device. The landing page further explains, “No data is collected or shared here, the algorithm runs locally and the data disappears once you refresh or close the tab.” This design eliminates server-side tracking and preserves user privacy by confining all processing and storage to the browser environment.
Users control the feed by selecting specific categories, which can include custom categories defined by the user. Each post consists of a summary extracted from the corresponding Simple Wikipedia entry. Liking a post influences future recommendations, as Rebane explained: it increases the probability of displaying posts from the same category, its parent categories, and articles linked within the original entry.
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Tapping or clicking any post directs users to the full Simple Wikipedia article for complete reading. The selection process draws from articles at random, which means extended scrolling through the feed exposes users to not-safe-for-work material present in some entries.
Initial access requires loading approximately 40 MB of data, resulting in a brief waiting period before the feed becomes interactive. This data volume encompasses the necessary text, images, and structures pulled from Simple Wikipedia to populate the endless scroll capability.
Simple English Wikipedia provides the content foundation with more than 278,000 articles available. This extensive corpus supplies hundreds of thousands of potential posts for users to explore through continuous scrolling.
Updates to Simple Wikipedia occur less frequently than those to the main Wikipedia edition. For instance, the discography section on one musician’s page lacked entries for their two most recent albums, reflecting the slower revision cycle of the simplified version.
Xikipedia serves as a platform for discovering new topics, akin to the function of StumbleUpon, where users encounter varied articles as a gateway to further research on Simple Wikipedia.
