Wikipedia philosophy phenomenon
The Wikipedia philosophy phenomenon, sometimes called the "Philosophy Game", is the tendency that clicking the first hyperlink in the main text of an English Wikipedia article, and then repeating the process for subsequent articles, usually leads to the "Philosophy" article.[1]
History
[edit]The phenomenon was discovered in 2008 by a teenage Wikipedian named Mark J.[2][3]
The phenomenon received widespread attention from a "fun fact" in the xkcd webcomic on 25 May 2011, which led University of Vermont researchers Mark Ibrahim, Christopher Danforth, and Peter Sheridan Dodds to publish 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.[4]
In February 2016, the phenomenon was true for 97% of all articles on Wikipedia,[5] an increase from 94.52% in 2011.[6] Tools have been developed which map links between articles to find where loops end.[3]
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] As of 2017, 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.[7]
See also
[edit]- Wiki rabbit hole – Navigating between topics while browsing wikis
- Wikiracing – Game of traversing Wikipedia pages
- Six degrees of separation – Concept of social inter-connectedness
- Small world network – Graph where most nodes are reachable in a small number of steps
References
[edit]- 1 2 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). "The Joy of Data, Marmalade, socks and One Direction". BBC Four. Retrieved 30 June 2025.
- 1 2 Lee, Amy (14 November 2011). "All Wikipedia Ends In Philosophy, Literally". The Huffington Post. Archived from the original on 2 April 2019. Retrieved 5 August 2026.
- ↑ 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. arXiv:1605.00309. doi:10.1016/j.jocs.2016.12.001. ISSN 1877-7503.
- 1 2 3 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 17 March 2021.
- ↑ Ball, James (10 July 2011). "The Only Way Is Essex + Wikipedia = philosophy". The Guardian. Retrieved 30 June 2025.
- ↑ Gabella, Maxime (17 August 2017). "Cultural Structures of Knowledge from Wikipedia Networks of First Links". Institute for Advanced Study: 5. arXiv:1708.05368.
External links
[edit]
- Extended Mind, 2011 xkcd webcomic where the tooltip notes the Wikipedia philosophy phenomenon
- What happens if you click the first link on every Wikipedia article?, video about the phenomenon on the official Wikipedia YouTube channel (10 June 2026)
