This is the premise of Xikipedia, a new site created by the developer Lyra Rebane. When you sign onto Xikipedia, it will prompt you to select a few different areas of interest from topics like places, nature, human sexuality, or art. As you scroll, there’s the option to “like” topics and articles you pass, which makes them more likely to show up in the feed. “Social media algorithms nudge you into bubbles scarily fast, and I wanted to create an experience that would demonstrate that in a similar, yet different context,” Rebane tells The A.V. Club over email about the project’s inspiration. “I ended up choosing Wikipedia because I figured it had good content and metadata for what I had planned—I did not want to use anything ml/ai for this project, so it was a perfect fit.”
Though Xikipedia is plenty fun to play with, Rebane doesn’t have plans to expand it beyond its current form. “I don’t plan on turning this into an app—it’s a lot of hassle and requires active maintenance, which is annoying,” she explains. “I make my web projects mostly for people to have fun, and I have no intentions of monetizing any of it, so it doesn’t make sense to expand to making apps due to all of the extra baggage that comes with that.” And besides, Wikipedia already has an app of its own, if you’re into that sort of thing. You can check out Xikipedia here, though for the optimal doom-scrolling experience, we’d recommend trying it out on mobile.
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