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Wikipedia philosophy phenomenon

Last updated: 2025-07-25 02:21:14

Wikipedia philosophy phenomenon

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

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

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 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.
  2. ↑ Fry, Hannah (12 July 2016). "Marmalade, socks and One Direction". BBC Four. Retrieved 30 June 2025.
  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. arXiv:1605.00309. 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. Retrieved 30 June 2025.
  5. 1 2 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.
  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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