About wikiqo
A reading room for the free encyclopedia — kept with the rigour of a research library and painted in the colours of a pride parade. Catalogue-clean on the outside, all of Wikipedia on the inside.
What this is
wikiqo is an independent reader for Wikipedia. It borrows the best habit of a great research library — set the work in front of you cleanly, cite it honestly, then step out of the way — and pairs it with something libraries have always quietly kept: a place for everyone, in every colour.
Type a title and you get a catalogue-style result. Open it and the article arrives in a calm reading column, figures intact, original authorship credited and a single click away. No accounts, no clutter, no gatekeeping — just the encyclopedia, served with care.
Why the colours
wikiqo now flies the full rainbow on every page, not just this one. A reference desk can be rigorous and joyful; knowledge has always been more welcoming when it is allowed to be bright. Consider the whole site a reading room fitted with the good stained glass.
The palette is the classic six-stripe pride spectrum — red, orange, amber, green, blue, violet — wired through every gradient, glow, and accent. It is a small, deliberate way of saying that open knowledge and an open door belong together.
Principles on the shelf
Open by default
Knowledge wants to be read. Everything here rides on Wikipedia's open API and stays free to reach — no paywall, no account, no permission slip.
Clean reading
Articles arrive stripped of clutter: the text, the figures, and a calm serif column built for actually finishing the page you opened.
Fast access
Read it like a card catalogue — type a title, get the record, start reading. The heavier machinery only loads once you reach for it.
Always attributed
Every article credits its authors and links straight back to the original on Wikipedia, under the same CC BY-SA licence the encyclopedia uses.
Built to be legible
High-contrast type, keyboard-friendly controls, and reduced-motion support. A reading room should welcome everyone who walks through the door.
Proudly independent
wikiqo is an unaffiliated labour of love. It answers to its readers, flies its own colours, and has nothing to sell you.
Start in the stacks
Millions of articles, no library card required.
wikiqo is not affiliated with the Wikimedia Foundation. Article text is drawn live from the Wikipedia REST API and remains the work of its authors under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.