Social:Wikipedia philosophy phenomenon

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Short description: Wikipedia linking tendency

2013 crawl on Wikipedia, from a random article to "Philosophy"

The Wikipedia philosophy phenomenon, sometimes called the "Philosophy Game", is the tendency that English Wikipedia articles' first hyperlink, when clicked in a chain, will end in a loop at the article "Philosophy".[1] The concept was discovered by Wikipedian Mark J.[2]

The phenomenon first received widespread attention from a "fun fact" in the xkcd webcomic on 25 May 2011, which led to University of Vermont researchers Mark Ibrahim, Christopher Danforth, and Peter Sheridan Dodds publishing a paper on the matter.[1] The research found that the first link generalises the topic and eventually leads to "Philosophy":

So while a great many [First Link Network] paths flow to "Philosophy" [...], the accumulation is not the result of many articles directly referencing "Philosophy." Instead, first links flow towards "Philosophy" as the ultimate anchor, by generalizing from specific to broad.[3]

In 2011, more than 93% of English Wikipedia articles led to "Philosophy".[4] In 2016, this was true for 97% of articles.[5]

Other languages

Some other language Wikipedias, like the German, French and Russian editions, also led to "Philosophy" like the English Wikipedia. Others, like the Dutch and Japanese editions, did not.[5] The concepts with highest centrality to first link networks in European language Wikipedias are sciences, such as "Psychology" for Italian Wikipedia,[5] while East Asian languages are connected by concepts such as humans or Earth.[6]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Collins, Nathan (9 May 2016). "All Wikipedia Roads Lead to Philosophy, but Some of Them Go Through Southeast Europe First". Pacific Standard. https://psmag.com/news/all-wikipedia-roads-lead-to-philosophy-but-some-of-them-go-through-southeast-europe-first/. 
  2. ↑ Fry, Hannah (12 July 2016). "Marmalade, socks and One Direction". https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0418hfr. 
  3. ↑ Ibrahim, Mark; Danforth, Christopher M.; Dodds, Peter Sheridan (1 March 2017). "Connecting every bit of knowledge: The structure of Wikipedia's First Link Network". Journal of Computational Science 19: 21–30. doi:10.1016/j.jocs.2016.12.001. ISSN 1877-7503. 
  4. ↑ Ball, James (10 July 2011). "The Only Way Is Essex + Wikipedia = philosophy". The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/jul/10/only-way-essex-wikipedia-philosophy. 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Evaluating and Improving Navigability of Wikipedia: A Comparative Study of Eight Language Editions. OpenSym, Berlin, Germany: Association for Computing Machinery. 17 August 2016. doi:10.1145/2957792.2957813. ISBN 978-1-4503-4451-7. http://www.daniellamprecht.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Evaluating-and-Improving-Navigability-of-Wikipedia-a-Comparative-Study-of-eight-Language-Editions.pdf. Retrieved 30 June 2025. 
  6. ↑ Gabella, Maxime (17 August 2017). "Cultural Structures of Knowledge from Wikipedia Networks of First Links". Institute for Advanced Study: 5. 



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