Wikipedia philosophy phenomenon
The Wikipedia philosophy phenomenon is the tendency that English Wikipedia articles' first hyperlink, when clicked in a chain, will end in a loop at the article for 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.
Other languages
[edit]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
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ a b Collins, Nathan (9 May 2016). "All Wikipedia Roads Lead to Philosophy, but Some of Them Go Through Southeast Europe First". Pacific Standard. Retrieved 29 June 2025.
- ^ Fry, Hannah (12 July 2016). "Marmalade, socks and One Direction". BBC Four. Retrieved 30 June 2025.
- ^ 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.
- ^ Ball, James (10 July 2011). "The Only Way Is Essex + Wikipedia = philosophy". The Guardian. Retrieved 30 June 2025.
- ^ a b Lamprecht, Daniel; Dimitrov, Dimitar; Helic, Denis; Strohmaier, Markus (17 August 2016). Evaluating and Improving Navigability of Wikipedia: A Comparative Study of Eight Language Editions (PDF). OpenSym, Berlin, Germany: Association for Computing Machinery. doi:10.1145/2957792.2957813. ISBN 978-1-4503-4451-7. Archived (PDF) from the original on 4 September 2023. Retrieved 30 June 2025.
- ^ Gabella, Maxime (17 August 2017). "Cultural Structures of Knowledge from Wikipedia Networks of First Links". Institute for Advanced Study: 5.
External links
[edit]- Wikipedia:Getting to Philosophy, original source of the discovery
- Extended Mind, 2011 xkcd in which the hover text references the Wikipedia philosophy phenomenon
- Clip from The Joy of Data, 2016 documentary where mathematician Hannah Fry talks about "getting to philosophy"
- "How One Small Change Broke Wikipedia's First Link Rule", 2024 YouTube video essay
