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Friday, October 31, 2014
Use WikiTweaks to avoid distractions on Wikipedia
Want to stay focused when reading about a topic on Wikipedia, but your
curiosity is piqued by the links in the text? Check out this Chrome
extension to stay on track.
Visiting Wikipedia to look up information on one topic generally
means reading up on several others. The links within the text body are
meant to be useful, but can sometimes turn into a huge time sink.
Web comic xkcd illustrates
this situation perfectly in "The Problem with Wikipedia." Sometimes,
it's just too tempting to click those links to learn about something
else.
If you want to stay focused when you're checking out a specific topic, Lifehacker recommends
using WikiTweaks for your Chrome browser. WikiTweaks adjusts the
formatting of each entry on Wikipedia and adds pop-up summaries of those
tempting links, keeping you on the right page.
To get started, install a copy of WikiTweaks for your Google Chrome browser.
A summary pops up for the link
Head
to a topic on Wikipedia. This example will work with panna cotta. As
you can see, there are lots of links within the text to tell you about
other topics such as: Italian, simmering and even gelatin. Just mouse
over one of the links and a small summary will appear. This summary has
been pulled from the first paragraph of the Wikipedia entry for that
topic.
WikiTweaks button has a recent Wikipedia history.
Another
difference you may notice is the formatting of the entire Wikipedia
page. Now there is less space in the left and right margins, which makes
more use of your screen real estate. Lastly, if you click the
WikiTweaks button, you'll see a list of recently viewed Wikipedia
entries.
This extension makes Wikipedia more user-friendly by
helping you find out what a linked word refers to, without losing track
of what you went to the site for in the first place.
Give it a try and leave your thoughts in the comments.
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