xkcd

by **Armitando** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:02 am UTC

Alt text: Wikipedia trivia: if you take any article, click on the first link in the article text not in parentheses or italics, and then repeat, you will eventually end up at "Philosophy".

I wonder how this affects readers of Uncyclopedia.

by **Brooks Hatlen** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:04 am UTC

It's surprising how much I use Google and Wikipedia in live chats or texting. Not really to sound smart, just to give my friends the information they need and SHOULD be able to find on their own using the same methods.

by **doogly** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:06 am UTC

It is actually true if you start at "Spark Plug." It is not necessary to check any other page.

by **suweid** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:06 am UTC

Blew my extended mind right off! It's true! I tested on three articles!

by **doggitydogs** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:07 am UTC

"0903," not "#903."
Uncyclopedia is out? Well, I guess it's back to just plain cyclopedia. Wait... I have it in a ZIP file. Take that, Oscar Wilde.

by **A_of_s_t** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:07 am UTC

Armitando wrote:Alt text: Wikipedia trivia: if you take any article, click on the first link in the article text not in parentheses or italics, and then repeat, you will eventually end up at "Philosophy".

This idea has really taken off lately...

by **sargeras0000** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:08 am UTC

The alt text is incorrect. There are several articles ("computer software" and "oral history" for instance) that will trap you in loops.

It's rather funny - I'd talked about this with a friend of mine a couple days ago, and I've spent the last few looking for those loops and planning to write some code to find all of them.

by **Chandani** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:08 am UTC

Heh... Randall must be reading the forumand stuff.
Either that, or the forum thinks like Randall. Get out of our heads?

by **ducksan** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:08 am UTC

Dear lord, the philosophy trivia works. Took several dozen links at most, starting from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and it came dangerously close a couple of times beforehand.

by **wgrandbois** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:09 am UTC

Well, it works with today's featured article pretty quickly. Fascinating.

by **SenderMage** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:09 am UTC

That's amazing, I started on today's featured article, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and it did end in philosophy! It came close, then went away from it for a few pages, then I was at philosophy! I'm going to try it with random articles too, this is very entertaining.

Edit: just saw ducksan's post, we did the same thing

by **Hobbes_** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:10 am UTC

I was on a Wikipedia article when I saw this and tried it with success though it took over 10 (and I think over 20 iterations). If anyone here with some time and a stronger CS knowledge base than I wrote a script to run a little monte carlo test on this I would love to see the results on typical number of clicks needed...

by **Armitando** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:10 am UTC

"Paleolithic" will lead to a loop.

by **jodokast34** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:10 am UTC

It's not true. Check out the infinite loop between "Puppet" and "Puppeteer", one that I found on my second random article search. Did Randall not check or is it a meta-joke?

by **black_hat_guy** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:10 am UTC

Wow. Only 22 links from Dominique Strauss-Kahn to philosophy.

by **sargeras0000** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:12 am UTC

Armitando wrote:"Paleolithic" will lead to a loop.

If one disregards a link to Wiktionary, "autarky" and "self-sufficiency" are looped.

by **The Scyphozoa** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:12 am UTC

Um, okay. I think we need to boycott this forum until Randall comes up with stuff himself. That's either a weird coincidence or just awfully pathetic.

by **jnc314** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:12 am UTC

I knew I saw this somewhere recently....

http://imgur.com/gallery/mqlKD

or

http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/hgkdl/mindblown/

if you prefer

by **gruene** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:12 am UTC

Found an exception to the "Philosophy" rule:

Thoroughfare leads to Road, which in turn leads back to Thoroughfare.

Also interesting. The path to philosophy went through mathematics in almost every case.

by **SmoothBlade** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:13 am UTC

half the reason chat rooms and help forums exists is to make other people to look something up for you. and in reaction to that, thats why http://lmgtfy.com/?q=http%3A%2F%2Flmgtfy.com%2F exists

by **drmeehan** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:13 am UTC

sargeras0000 wrote:The alt text is incorrect. There are several articles ("computer software" and "oral history" for instance) that will trap you in loops.

It's rather funny - I'd talked about this with a friend of mine a couple days ago, and I've spent the last few looking for those loops and planning to write some code to find all of them.

Oral history leads to a loop but computer software leads to philosophy.

by **sargeras0000** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:13 am UTC

gruene wrote:Found an exception to the "Philosophy" rule:

Thoroughfare leads to Road, which in turn leads back to Thoroughfare.

Also interesting. The path to philosophy went through mathematics in almost every case.

It tends to be through either that or science, in my experience.

by **Nicad** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:14 am UTC

I can say that it does work with Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy.

EDIT: and it does, in fact, go through Mathmatics.

by **ARandomDude** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:15 am UTC

Ew Safari/Mac.

by **sargeras0000** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:15 am UTC

ARandomDude wrote:Ew Safari/Mac.

I think that's Chrome on a Mac :\

by **fljared** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:16 am UTC

Actually, this should work for almost any article given enough time, due to simple random chance. Also, tested out "Computer Software" Got to philosphy.

by **wigglyworm91** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:16 am UTC

This is like a child playing the "WHY" game. When they ask WHY enough you have to answer "JUST BECAUSE".

Hence, philosophy.

by **rpgamer** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:18 am UTC

sargeras0000 wrote:
gruene wrote:Found an exception to the "Philosophy" rule:

Thoroughfare leads to Road, which in turn leads back to Thoroughfare.

Also interesting. The path to philosophy went through mathematics in almost every case.

It tends to be through either that or science, in my experience.

I got there through math and science.

I started on the Steve Irwin Wiki, since that's where I was at the time.

by **sargeras0000** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:18 am UTC

fljared wrote:Actually, this should work for almost any article given enough time, due to simple random chance. Also, tested out "Computer Software" Got to philosphy.

Are you counting the italicized text with the link to the disambiguation?

by **twistees** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:20 am UTC

No, the loops everyone is pointing out are not exceptions to the rule. They are places where Wikipedia can be improved by some judicious editing.

by **MrScientist** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:20 am UTC

The roll over text reminds me of a wikipedia game we used to play. The aim was to get to the page on "Nazi Germany" from a random page. First you click random article, and then you use an internal link from that page to navigate to the next page. You continue using the internal links until you get to Nazi Germany. You can pretty much get there within 5 clicks or less from any random article.

by **weendex** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:21 am UTC

So far I am 4/4 with the link game, all four have reached philosophy through mathematics.

by **sargeras0000** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:21 am UTC

twistees wrote:No, the loops everyone is pointing out are not exceptions to the rule. They are places where Wikipedia can be improved by some judicious editing.

No reason they can't be both, no?

At least - exceptions till the exceptions are fixed.

by **BlandSauce** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:22 am UTC

I can verify the alt text is true for ISO/IEC_8859-1. (Just something I had bookmarked)
And it went through Mathematics.

A way to make this a game could be finding the page that is the most hops away from philosophy (without loops, of course).

by **Draco18s** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:23 am UTC

sargeras0000 wrote:The alt text is incorrect. There are several articles ("computer software" and "oral history" for instance) that will trap you in loops.

It's rather funny - I'd talked about this with a friend of mine a couple days ago, and I've spent the last few looking for those loops and planning to write some code to find all of them.

You're half right. Oral History leads to a loop ("Wikipedia's guidelines" is not italics or parened!) and ends up at Typography -> Typesetting -> Font -> Typography. Ignoring that it's an even smaller loop between Oral History and the Oral History Society.

Computer software on the other hand follows this path:

Computer software -> Computer programs -> Instruction set -> Computer architecture -> Computer science -> Information (at this point I already knew it lead to "philosophy," as I had ended up here before) -> Sequence -> Mathematics -> Quantity -> Property (philosophy) -> Modern philosophy -> Philosophy

History of the world also loops.

by **Alexor** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:25 am UTC

Dang, I just can't seem to reach philosophy. I keep getting trapped in the Greek Loop, as I've come to call it.

by **Nicad** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:25 am UTC

I find it interesting that the alt text seems to be more of a focus of discussion than the actual comic.

by **twistees** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:26 am UTC

sargeras0000 wrote:
twistees wrote:No, the loops everyone is pointing out are not exceptions to the rule. They are places where Wikipedia can be improved by some judicious editing.

No reason they can't be both, no?

At least - exceptions till the exceptions are fixed.

Maybe Wikipedia should add a tag "This article does not conform to the XKCD #903 rule. Please consider rewording to ensure compliance."

by **sargeras0000** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:26 am UTC

Draco18s wrote:You're half right. Oral History leads to a loop ("Wikipedia's guidelines" is not italics or parened!) and ends up at Typography -> Typesetting -> Font -> Typography. Ignoring that it's an even smaller loop between Oral History and the Oral History Society.

Computer software on the other hand follows this path:

Computer software -> Computer programs -> Instruction set -> Computer architecture -> Computer science -> Information (at this point I already knew it lead to "philosophy," as I had ended up here before) -> Sequence -> Mathematics -> Quantity -> Property (philosophy) -> Modern philosophy -> Philosophy

You count all parentheses, then? I'd been just counting the explanatory ones like "(German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland, pronounced [ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant] ( listen))" that are basically as content-less as the introductory italics.

And boxes? My, my, you're a sly one.

EDIT: Check "computer software" again, will you?

POST SCRIPT: Aww. I was going to change it back.

by **Draco18s** » Wed May 25, 2011 4:28 am UTC

Nicad wrote:I find it interesting that the alt text seems to be more of a focus of discussion than the actual comic.

...I have just wasted 20 minutes trying to find a counterexample which is not a loop.

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