The scale is astounding. I was briefly interested in the person that caused the error then immediately realized it was irrelevant because if a mechanism doesn't exist to catch an issue like that, then any company is living on borrowed time.

whyyy does wikipedia not redirect mobile links to the desktop website when you have a desktop UA?

Why do they have a separate mobile website at all instead of writing proper CSS to make one website work on all devices?

Because people on desktops asking for the mobile site should be able to view the mobile site.

The url specifically asks Wikipedia to serve the mobile site.

Well when I follow a desktop link on my phone, it redirects me to the mobile version, despite the URL specifically asking to serve the desktop site, it just doesn't work the other way around. Plus I never asked to see the mobile site, I followed a link someone else posted

Why do people spam the mobile URL, leading me to degraded reading experiences?

See also: Every time a small error in a spreadsheet has caused a huge problem https://eusprig.org/research-info/horror-stories/