It's not 'actually' DNS, no, but it's sort of like CNAME redirection, except Wikipedia's the authority instead of the (first) domain name.

> Also, am I just needlessly splitting hairs?

Since the linked README doesn't even mention "IP", I suspect the author misunderstands what "DNS" is about, and this is actually a search tool, and the headline is bad.

DNS is for associating various information with domain names, and looking that information up. Yes, the most popular information to associate with a domain name is IPv4- and IPv6-addresses via A and AAAA fields; but CNAME records exist as well, you know.

This is not even CNAME, more like a Redirect header in DNS (if this was actually a thing, that is).

Still, this is arguably a domain name system, just one that isn't compatible with the DNS as we know it.

Many record types contain hostnames as values. So many that it isn’t even worth listing all of them here.

It's not actually DNS

Wikipedia is acting as a system for domain name retrieval.

Right, but DNS doesn't retrieve domain names. It uses domain names to retrieve other information.

In DNS, domain names are the keys. In this system, domain names are the values.

Allow me to introduce you to CNAME records.

Sure it’s a very narrow form of DNS...

Its host aliasing