Wikiblame

Live here: https://whatisjason.com/wikiblame/

Wikiblame is a client-side SvelteKit app that loads any Wikipedia article and renders it in a "blame view" similar to a code editor's git blame.

The result is a normal-looking Wikipedia article with an extra left-hand column. Each line or logical row is annotated with the date it was introduced, the revision link, and hover text showing the editing username and edit summary.

What this app does

• Accepts a Wikipedia article title or URL
• Fetches the article content from Wikipedia's public APIs
• Parses and sanitizes the rendered HTML client-side
• Computes a line-level blame mapping using revision metadata and diffing heuristics
• Renders the article with a prepended blame gutter
• Links blame dates back to the exact Wikipedia revision
• Shows username + comment/log on hover

Why this app exists

Wikiblame makes historical attribution visible at a fine-grained level. It helps users inspect which revision introduced a given sentence, paragraph, or line in a Wikipedia page, without leaving the article view.

Architecture

• SvelteKit powers the client-side app shell
• The app is fully client-side and does not require a custom backend
• Article HTML is retrieved from Wikipedia using browser fetch
• A browser DOM parser is used to preserve article structure
• DOMPurify or equivalent sanitization should be used before rendering
• Revision blame is derived by comparing page revisions and mapping line content to edits