Wikipedia is getting a new look for the first time in 10 years. They did user research and found that most of the new users confused and overwhelmed by the left side bar:
Main menu/sidebar: readers were unable to understand the purpose of the Menu on the left hand side of the site, noting in particular that they did not understand the items in the menu (e.g. Related changes, Special Pages). They felt that it was not relevant for them.
Article tools: readers did not understand the terminology and concept of most of the article tools (e.g. Talk, Contributions).
Web is changing, friends. I personally miss sidebars when everything you need was there at hand and wasn’t buried under menus inside menus. Looks like I’m just getting old.