How One Small Change Broke Wikipedia's First Link Rule

[@not_David]

How did you get from the 'Banana' wiki page to 'Neptune' (the planet)? (edit: y'all are way better at this than I am, I thought 7 was pretty good -_-) Also, please do not edit wikipages for the link games. The analysis here was just for a bit of fun and at no point did I edit any pages, please respect wikipedia :)

[@weird_autumn42]

4 clicks! Banana -> India -> ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) -> Timeline of Solar System exploration -> Neptune

[@not_David]

wow I think thats the best I've seen so far

[@spacechemsol4288]

@@not_David Banana -> (Water)purification -> Water -> Neptune For some reason Water is the only one thats not a link in the daily values section or it would be 2

[@kales901]

Banana->outside->rocketship->space->Neptune

[@themechanicalentry8353]

Banana -> photosynthesis -> sunlight -> neptune!

[@FissionCube]

fun fact about the moth thing, theres this tumblr blog that will remove all letters except CGAT from a given post, run them through the genome database and find the closest match. and because most of the animals whose genome has been fully sequenced are moths, most posts will end up as a species of moth. so like it may not be the moth game on wikipedia but it is the moth game in genome databases.

[@not_David]

woah thats really cool, thank you for pointing it out, I want to check that out now

[@FissionCube]

@@not_David its called hellsitegenetics !!

[@not_David]

@@FissionCube *checking it out* thank you!

[@everydaygremlin]

OMG HELLSITEGENETICS MENTION!!!!!!!!!!!

[@kijete]

hellsitegenetics my beloved

[@soulcantspeech]

fun fact: this video started at wikipedia and networks and ended at philosophy, just like all good video essays and all good wikipedia articles

[@marckraemer6919]

Not anymore... i broke the cycle again

[@Monkeymario.]

i got from oneshot to philisophy

[@someonelucas2688]

1:54 Banana to Neptune can be done much quicker even, Banana -> radioactivity -> neptunium-237 -> Neptune is only 3 links

[@not_David]

thats really good holy

[@macguy8093]

Nice job! I got it in five: Banana -> South Asia -> United Nations -> Earth Day -> Solar System -> Neptune. I was aiming to connecting with Earth and Solar system quickly.

[@tufonkin2707]

4: Banana -> Manganese -> spectral lines -> planets -> Neptune

[@raleghstreet]

banana -> agustus -> venus -> classical planet -> neptune

[@stef2499]

Wow, i did it on 5

[@Hyp3rSachi]

i love how upon watching the intro i went to wikipedia and tried it myself and the first thing i tried was NGE (i'm obsessed with the show), and then later in the video is listed as the first example of a page that does lead to philosophy lmao

[@hubbletrubble7875]

i am also obsessed with evangelion

[@not_David]

I'm really glad you enjoyed it! Like I said before I was very happy to see how different our two independent approaches were when tackling this topic. Thank you for your video :)

[@alastairward2774]

A click on the random link generator gave me Rosebud Formation which did indeed lead to philosophy.

[@AramarkSupervisor]

Isn't that sci-fi? How can a sci-fi show not link to philosophy eventually?

[@IsaqueFontinele]

The fact that all this analysis could grant you a published article, but instead we have a nicely explained video, is awesome! Thanks for the great work done!

[@notoriouswhitemoth]

Why do all roads lead to philosophy? Because if you're picking something at random and always asking the first question you come across, you're inevitably going to end up talking about why ideas are what they are, which is what philosophy is. It's equivalent to a toddler responding to everything with "why?" Because they're learning to ask questions.

[@appa609]

not quite. The reason why articles lead to philosophy is the start of wikipedia articles tends to identify the subject with a more general category to which it belongs. Philosophy is in many ways the most general thing.

[@notoriouswhitemoth]

@@appa609 that's a distinction without a difference.

[@wyndonguylikestrains]

I think it’s more because a lot of concepts in philosophy also appear in certain sciences and in concepts (like awareness) it’s random chance if they mention their importance to Phyllis phy or science first certainly nowadays waited towards philosophy due to the existence of the game

[@frank_calvert]

i love this analysis of it, it doesnt seem too true but i like it

[@TheMagicDragon-mm5dr]

@notoriouswhitemoth You just destroyed an entire paragraph with 6 words lmao

[@Zaro2008]

I think the example at the beginning shows it perfectly. Orange juice > Orange > Fruit > Botany > Science > Scientific method > Empirical evidence > Proposition > Philosophy It gets more and more fundamental unti we end up at philosophy, the most fundermental concept

[@kiranaun9593]

This implies that Ancient Greek is more fundamental than philosophy

[@salemsaberhagan]

More accurately, philosophy is a very nebulous concept. For example, saying that philosophy is bullshit IS ALSO A PHILOSOPHY so someone who says that is a philosopher.

[@hedgehog3180]

I don't think you can really call them fundamental, as is said in the video this is more about explaining the concept. To explain what a fruit is you need to explain botany, to explain that you need to explain science, to explain that you need to explain empirical evidence and so on. It's essentially the first thing you need to mention to explain this concept to someone who doesn't know anything about it.

[@supernerd1999]

Proposition right now leads to philosophy of language > Analytic philosophy > Analysis > System > Environment (systems) > Science, which forms a loop at Science

[@lavafixer8477]

⁠@@supernerd1999analytic philosophy leads to philosophy. edit history is funny haha

[@Carhill]

"How important is philosophy actually?" Truly a question for the ages..

[@JimTheCurator]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphilosophy There's an article about that!

[@iamdigory]

Philosophy asks two questions: "what are the most important questions" and "what are the answers to them" so philosophy is the most important subject, even if you argue something else is the most important you are doing philosophy.

[@finixmoon127]

@@iamdigory Common philosophy W

[@PeterPrevos]

Philosophy had a baby and they called it science.

[@angeldude101]

@@PeterPrevos Science is just experimental philosophy.

[@Nibiri3304]

fun fact: apparently, they got so fed up with people changing it that they just straight up somewhat placed some sort of a guard on the pages connecting to philosophy (mainly with the reasoning of the edits not actually contributing to the page or something), meaning they'll just straight up undo any edits that try to break the rule

[@miceforkfigs5680]

I think the sad thing is that this sort of network topology is all but extinct. Most internet links are generated based on your personal behavior profile and thus is unique to you and the algorithm rather than a generalization of all of us. This tends toward a closed loop concentric on the limits of your individual knowledge which is not conducive to learning.

[@YandiBanyu]

I love that you mention you just edit the page locally as that could actually make some wikipedia moderator panic 😂

[@nicholsonastrid]

that detail really took me out 😂

[@Blackdiamondprod.]

What?

[@alonewanderer4697]

@@Blackdiamondprod.17:57 read

[@Blackdiamondprod.]

@@alonewanderer4697 no, the way that the sentence was phrased.

[@metrik1b.257]

I dont understand what your saying

[@onenameddome9247]

Now the next question we could ask is, "Is this true in all languages?". Is there some other center in other languages, have other languages even a center or comparable structur?

[@not_David]

This is what I wanted to focus the video on before the network 'broke'! I think its a great question but its limited by the fact that a) many non-english wiki articles are just translation of english articles, and b) many non-english languages just dont have that many articles :( I would love to know this too though.

[@fIayff]

@@not_David German articles, for example, also have (had?) the philiophy rule. But it had way more outliers cause of less moderation of the articles. Many were just bad articles, so you often got stuck in self referencing, no references, abatriary shit, and so on

[@Pieter31]

Trying this for the Dutch language for a bit has landed me mostly in a loop containing Science, but I've also ended up in small loops starting with Knowledge, Existence and Reality

[@vharmi.]

Done this a couple of times in Swedish, and it's a bit tricky what should count as the first link. Do name etymologies written in parentheses count? Do links in image descriptions count? I said no to both of these and found that the vast majority of articles get caught in a loop that includes philosophy, namely Science - Knowledge - Theory - Contemplation - Philosophy - Science Here are some trends I noticed as to why this happens. Articles about people almost always start with a date, which leads to Gregorian calendar - Calendar - Standard - Knowledge Articles about places tend to lead to State - Social organization - Social science - Science or Geography - Science Articles about organisms tend to lead to Biology - School of thought - Philosophy Some other notable loops where things end up are bodies of water getting caught in Chemical element - Atom - Chemical element, and buildings getting stuck on Sweden - Scandinavian peninsula - Sweden As another sidenote, without the language clause, pretty much every article gets caught in the Greek - Classical Greek loop.

[@kkamau5479]

​@@not_David you can also see what the network of last links looks like either last in article or last in first section

[@iamsushi1056]

the xkcd ruleset is first non-italicised, non-parenthesis'd link in the article, which is pretty consistent in most languages

[@not_David]

oooh, I didn't know about this. I knew there is the famous 'x is just applied y' comic, but I didn't know about this one.

[@hedgehog3180]

@@not_David Wait do you not read XKCD?

[@iamsushi1056]

@@not_David it’s in the title/alt-text of xkcd 903: Extended Mind

[@SupersuMC]

Don't forget non-purple. That's part of my ruleset, at least.

[@geeksdo1tbetter]

​@@iamsushi1056 how do I find/see the alt text on my tablet? (I am an old, please be kind.)

[@zsh6986]

The fact that it is now the “awareness” game is a big win for idealism

[@conejitorosada2326]

What does the "big win for idealism" mean?? I'm not very aware of that whole side of the world or philosophy but it sounds interesting to learn more about

[@itsAstraLys]

@@conejitorosada2326 sounds like you have to do some reading on Wikipedia

[@Adelie_in_Grey]

update, they changed it back and now Awareness links to Philosophy again

[@merri.d]

I'm beginning to think 'maybe the connections were the friends we made along the way' is the ultimate conclusion to networking theory.

[@Artyomi]

"What makes Philosophy so special" - I guess answering that is the entire point of philosophy

[@Victoriafaes]

philosophers have been pondering that exact question for ages lmfao

[@hedgehog3180]

The game is rigged since even questioning the usefulness of philosophy makes you a philosopher.

[@Victoriafaes]

@@hedgehog3180 its funny in a way, cuz like the statement "god i hate philosophy its useless" has the incredible retort of "ah, but youve just become part of it, youre one of us now"

[@PluetoeInc.]

@@Victoriafaes muhahaha

[@maxkho00]

@@Victoriafaes No, expressing personal feelings isn't the same as making positive claims or logical arguments. Expressing one's personal feelings on anything wouldn't count as philosophy.

[@AnotherRoof]

I first heard about this in a talk by Hannah Fry about eight years ago. I check in on it now and then -- it switches between being broken / philosophy fairly often. When it is broken, I find that introductory paragraphs of neighbouring articles are written a bit more ham-fistedly which makes me think that people break it on purpose. "Philosophy" might be arbitrary, but it happened organically and there's something worth preserving about that!

[@not_David]

I didn't know she made a video about it until very recently actually. I watched it and really enjoyed it! My only disappointment about an opening paragraph is that I wish the page of 'Wikipedia' would be like 'If you are reading this, you are on Wikipedia'.

[@rz2374]

@@not_David Wikipedia's guidelines actually tell you not to refer to Wikipedia in a meta way in the articles, because people may use articles for things outside of Wikipedia

[@TheMasonX23]

Ooh, I love Hannah Fry! I'll have to check out her video as well. Also, I think it would be great if you did some more graph theory videos, I love your ability to explain complicated maths topics!

[@redpanda1065]

@@not_David Awareness now links to Perception, which ends up at Philosophy through philosophy of logic, so it's gone back to philosophy

[@blaze-zee-wolf]

Wikipedian here! Really enjoyed the video (found it a bit humorous seeing you go to the user's talk page rather than the article's). I never really thought about just how important links are to finding various topics.

[@not_David]

Someone else pointed it out to me as well! Like I said in the video I wasn't really familiar with this aspect of wikipedia so I just assumed that is what it referred to, but I was wrong. If I had known I would have included it in the video :(

[@blaze-zee-wolf]

@@not_David I totally understand! I never really considered that someone might get the 2 talk pages confused until you showed it in your video. It's honestly something we Wikipedians don't usually think about as we always know what we're talking about, but we never consider what an outside might make of what we say.

[@Californ1a]

@@blaze-zee-wolfIt's probably the difference between saying "the" talk page (meaning the article) vs "my" talk page (meaning the user's). Editors will instinctively know which talk page just by "the" or "my", but outsiders will probably always end up on a user's talk page regardless of how it's referenced because of the talk link right next to the user's signature in the comment they're reading, unless their comment includes a link to the article's talk page. There would probably also be some confusion with talk archives once they do end up on the right page. Also tbh when I first saw the title of this video I thought it was going to be something about editing policy or a manual of style type of thing regarding what the first link on a page should or shouldn't be, similar to how the first occurrence of the article title is bolded.

[@nixfriarr]

The relevant section of the relevant talk page is: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Awareness#Alterations_of_the_Lede's_Opening

[@blaze-zee-wolf]

@@nixfriarr Oh I know. I"m a wikipedia editor so I already saw it.

[@TrynityMirell]

I would absolutely love a behind the scenes/how this was produced video for all the animations and layouts. I work on large physical networking infrastructure, and having a way to animate this way would be so incredibly helpful for presentations, it’s far easier to retain if it’s not relatively bland static network diagrams.

[@not_David]

A lot of it was done using Gephi which I think is a solid first step. Gephi has a lot of problems but its a good starting point and its free. From there I typically export the nodes positions and links and import it into blender. From there its a bit less straightforward because I dont yet have a good pipeline for this, it seems to change with every video.

[@notarealyoutubeaccount799]

Remember when I said your channel was going to blow up back when you posted the coffee fractal video? I mean cmon this video has been out for 2 days and it’s at a quarter of a million views. You’re doing a great job, and people are loving it. So cool to see the traction you’re getting, you deserve it!

[@sweetaplle]

Taken from the wikipedia page for awareness at the moment: Awareness is the *perception* or *knowledge* of a *physical entity* , *phenomenon* , *concept* , or *social construct* .[1] The concept in *psychology* [1] and *philosophy* [2] is often synonymous to *consciousness* .[3] However, one can be aware of something without being explicitly conscious of it, such as in the case of *blindsight* .[1] So not only is Philosophy not the first link, but at the moment, it's the eighth link. However, Perception then leads to Sense, then Biological system, Biological network inference, Inference, Reason, Logic, Logical reasoning, Logical consequence, Concept, Abstraction, Rule of inference, Philosophy of logic, and finally, Philosophy. The game lives on, as of writing this comment.

[@me-myself-i787]

Not anymore. OivinF reverted it.

[@Trev625]

@@me-myself-i787 Yeah they're calling it sabotage lol. Probably gonna lock down the page for a while

[@Muhammed_English314]

Time to hack Wikipedia and delete the philosophy article...

[@jdelacruz14791]

I think it's because the person who made that change didn't really give an adequate explanation for doing so in the article's talk page. The way wikipedia works is that you make a proposition to change the article, and then provide arguments to reach a consensus with their community

[@eljanrimsa5843]

No link to philosophy in the whole first paragraph of Awareness anymore. But a big discussion about this video in the Talk page. And a semi-protect to calm things down.

[@rz2374]

It's only gotten worse. Analytic philosophy no longer goes to philosophy, and takes a long path to the awareness path currently.

[@not_David]

oh wow you're right! That must have been a very recent change, I checked analytic philosophy very recently. Though because it went into a different 'lobe' it didn't split the network into two as far as I can tell, but it would have joined two of the three lobes I think.

[@C-aFilms]

Analytic philosophy? not linking to philosophy????????

[@littlebubby1]

It now goes Analytic philosophy -> Contemporary philosophy -> Western philosophy -> Philosophy (if you ignore the initial templates)

[@danmakufan]

Mathematics -> Number Theory -> Pure Mathematics -> Mathematics form a loop now

[@Grassel1234]

@danmakufan That's really stupid. No broader links at the beginning of the article, only special fields. This definitely needs to be fixed! For the sake of logical article structure

[@eliassimon666]

As of 8 hours after this video went up, that first sentence is changed entirely, but still preserves the chain: Awareness > Perception > Latin > Classical language > Language > Communication > Information > Abstraction > Rules of inference > Philosophy of logic > Philosophy

[@sammarks9146]

Honestly, I'm surprised "Awareness" takes that long to get to Philosophy. The two seem pretty linked.

[@goomygaming980]

​@@sammarks9146to be fair you can only use the first link

[@rohitkasyap_]

If you observe, most of the wiki pages have 'language' in the first(this topic is talked about in the video). So eventually in the end Language > Communication > Information > Abstraction > sequence emerges no matter which wiki page you open. So ignore, 'language' and check. As of 23rd Aug 2024, the first link from Awareness is Philosophy ... Awereness > Philosophy lol! (In philosophy and psychology, awareness is a perception or knowledge of something.[1] The concept is often synonymous to consciousness.[2] However, one can be aware of something without being explicitly conscious of it, such as in the case of blindsight.[1])

[@carykh]

Really cool video, i love seeing the graphs of Wikipedia laid out like that!

[@not_David]

Thank you, that means a lot! Slightly amusing story -- someone commented on this video a couple of months back that they thought I sounded like you. I don't know to what extent that is true, but that was how I found out about your channel and I've been enjoying since then haha Thanks again :)

[@irxosm1]

Hey cary :D

[@M4ximumCheese]

Why do you have like no likes

[@custodeon]

The article for "Dietary fiber" leads to a loop between the articles for "Abstraction" and "Concept" without the language exclusion rule, or a loop between "Branches of science" and "Formal science" with the language exclusion rule.

[@DanilsonCarvalho]

This video has single-handedly introduced me to how node mapping works, the ins-and-outs of Wikipedia, general societal differences, and many other rabbitholes I ought to revisit when I'm older. Good video, would watch again!

[@not_David]

These are my favourite types of comments, thank you :)

[@9tydegreez]

I specifically tried the philosophy game with my probably most visited Wikipedia article, that of the 2020 US Presidential Election. I tried it before you mentioned that the game was broken, and indeed it was on the awareness loop and never reaches philosophy. Once you started mentioning the second and third link networks, I decided to try them out. The second link rule led to a pretty big loop, either the green or pink one from the chart. Then after watching a bit more of the video I tried the third link network and arrived at...philosophy. It then went on a long string leading to a 2-page loop between "law" and "legislature".

[@9tydegreez]

Update, it now goes to Philosophy by a slightly longer route that doesn't include awareness anymore, due to someone editing the page for Declarative knowledge to say "factual awareness" instead of "awareness of facts", thus switching the order of the links.

[@DusaltyVH]

I think one of the reasons it's called "The philosophy game" is that among the articles in the big loop Philosophy holds most meme value given the context.

[@Oscar4u69]

so... you're saying philosophy is a "info hazard"? I'm calling SCP rn

[@thewhitefalcon8539]

​@@Oscar4u69 secure containment philosophy

[@sage5296]

Ngl I always thought it was cuz Philosophy linked directly to itself, no idea where I got that from tho, maybe I just guessed lol

[@Lwhale.3797]

Just as a KZbin video, I am so impressed. This is an absolute triumph of research, editing, engagement, insight and personality. I’m honestly bummed this is the first video of yours I’ve seen. What a great watch.

[@not_David]

comments like these make the effort worth it, thank you!

[@natebrimnersmith4889]

thank you so much for linking all the music and making it so easy to find, the first song was an immediate banger and I was like Oh lord if this is some obscure licensed stock music that’ll be impossible to track down I’ll be so sad. you made it so easy to listen to it and i love you for that!!

[@not_David]

Thank you! The music is an important part of the video to me, so I really want to make sure people are able to find the artists and support them. I'm glad you like the songs :)

[@Thedarkknight2244]

I remember when wiki first came out and being stuck in a rabbit hole for hours of just clicking on links on stuff I didn’t understand

[@CrabSully]

Wikipedia of course isn't reliable, but it's still often my starting point for a topic. It'll give a good general overview that can be a launching point.

[@m1n3craftPCtut0r1al]

Banana > radioactive decay > earth > planet > Neptune Great video!

[@SylviaRustyFae]

Someone else commented a slightly shorter one, from radioactive decay to neptunium (i think 137) to neptune

[@m1n3craftPCtut0r1al]

@@SylviaRustyFae darn! I wonder if that’s the click limit for this then

[@SylviaRustyFae]

@@m1n3craftPCtut0r1alThe pinned comment has a bunch of folks answers; lots of them tied with the other one i said here, but no one with fewer links. There are apparently several ways to do it the shortest way tho, not just thru neptunium

[@VoIcanoman]

Banana > climate change > greenhouse effect > Jupiter > Neptune.

[@CosmotecXD]

Banana > Radioactive Decay > Solar System > Neptune

[@Janne_Mai]

I'll second everyone else - the animation on this video made it really easy to watch! It's recognizable and feels "natural" (less clean/perfect), good job!

[@not_David]

thank you, I know its not to everyones liking and thats okay. I was happy with how it turned out and am happy to hear the over all response is positive

[@saltiestsiren]

I edit Wikipedia pages (mostly small changes or seeking out/checking the validity of cited sources) and the site itself is extremely imperfect. And the talk pages are frequently filled with people arguing about changes, flags ("This article is blahblahblah and this flag can be removed when the issue is fixed"), the validity of sources, if an article is written too subjectively, whether certain information should be added or not, and so on and so forth. Wikipedia always needs more editors so if anybody's interested it's worth learning about.

[@LighterGreenGaming]

This video must have been an insane undertaking. Impressive.

[@not_David]

it was... an effort.... thats for sure haha. Thank you, I hope you enjoyed it :)

[@U.Inferno]

12:24 I think the graph theory reasoning is ultimately second fiddle to one psychological reason: It's amusing. "It all comes back to philosophy" is its punchline. The perception of Philosophy as a field as people waxing about the nature of things ad infinitum then having the internet's encyclopedia basically have random bullshit tie back to it is like... peak philosopher bullshit.

[@not_David]

Yeah I agree, my intention here wasnt so much to imply that this was because of graph theory, but rather that we can use graph theory to look at the consequences of the system. It might be second fiddle, but I really wanted to play that second fiddle haha

[@sheeshert]

I would not be surprised if philosophy and psychology were switched to intentionally break this rule. If you spend even a brief amount of time in Wikipedia talk pages you'll realize that Wikipedia editors hate fun, and will remove/change things with the sole reason of making the website less fun (likely due to some misguided attempt to make Wikipedia more academic and widely-respected).

[@megaing1322]

It's ... unclear. It appears the editor who changed the order does have an actual argument for the new order, but there is an ongoing edit war and I don't find the argument all that convincing. It's essentially "In psychology, awareness has an actual definition, so it's more relevant" (if I am understanding the argument correctly)

[@not_David]

Were you able to actually find their argument? I wasn't able to and then I saw a comment later on that said another person wasn't able to find their argument either and so changed it back.

[@TheArcv2]

@@not_David The argument for the change is stated in an article comment with an appeal refute the argument in the talk page if you disagree edit: its also on the talk page under: "Alterations of the Lede's Opening"

[@not_David]

@@TheArcv2 Interesting. It doesn't actually matter to me which way it goes. I think its actually really interesting for either approach and I think its cool that people are talking about it and that we can study what the effects of just that one link are. It made the video way more interesting :) edit: I actually also disagree with the person that changed it back from psychology to philosophy. There actually isn't a rule (as far as I can tell) that all articles need to go to philosophy. There is a rule that all articles regarding philosophical concepts should recurisvely lead to philosophy, but that just shifts the debate to whether or not 'awareness' or 'psychology' are concepts related to philosophy. Interesting discussion, but not one I have a horse in the race in.

[@mr.diorit6288]

@@not_David Ok so here is the story how I understand it: - Closetside made this change where he changed the definition in the opening and the order of psychology and philosophy - Then this got reverted by multiple people and reinstated by Closetside multiple times - Then Rockstone35 reverted it again and said: "I'm not sure why user:Closetside unilaterally changed the ordering on this page, but the original ordering was stable for a long time; if it is going to change, it requires an RFC, not a random fiat." - Then Closetside opened this discussion (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Awareness#Alterations_of_the_Lede's_Opening) where argued for his change while really entered the debate with him - The reverting and reinstating between Closetside and Rockstone35 kept going - Until resulting in another talk (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Awareness#(Closed)_Request_for_Comment_on_ordering_of_philosophy_and_psychology) which already got closed few hours after opening and it seems because of wiki bureaucracy this order of psychology and philosophy will stay now

[@Chris-P.-Bacon-III]

The fact that a video discussing the degree of separation from any article to Philosophy... and then segwaying into a discussion on what the findings of this little experiment says about us, as a species, from a philosophical perspective... is not lost on me. I'd heard of this game a long while back and thought nothing of it, but I see now that there was more than met my eye. So thank you -- for showing me that, once again, I am a fool who fails to recognize the worth of seemingly trivial things. Your insight is fervently appreciated.

[@anarchysammichh]

The editing in this video is actually insane, you're incredibly underrated!

[@not_David]

Thank you :) I'm genuinely shocked by the amount of people subscribed even if its not, comparatively speaking, a huge amount. I feel very much adequately rated.

[@WestsideGunnnn]

That editor that said: “see talk page” when reverting that edit, was referring to Talk:Psychology. The page is used to discuss possible improvements and changes in the page.

[@BrotherCheng]

I honestly don't understand how the creator can make a long video about Wikipedia, write lots of code to parse the database, without understanding how the Talk page works, tbh. It's on every page and core to how Wikipedia discourse on edits work.

[@adwaawddw4730]

@@BrotherChengas a Wikipedian, Wikipedia is ridiculously nonsensical and hard to get right. The press usually doesn't. This guy actually did pretty good.

[@furuisamumoto]

Yup, it should be the article talk page. I believe this video creator check the editor talk page instead. For those who are interested about that talk, you can check it here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Awareness#(Closed)_Request_for_Comment_on_ordering_of_philosophy_and_psychology

[@airl10]

Wouldn't they be referring to Talk:Awareness?

[@9600bauds]

​@@BrotherChengit's simple: most people don't edit wikipedia, and most of those that do, just do a couple of small unprofessional edits without even knowing the talk page exists

[@pokemonsuper9]

I did a run at the start right after you explained the rules, my random article was "Lee White (American Football)" and it took me 22 jumps to get to Philosophy

[@petercoolbaugh6850]

You should click link N where N is how many times you've landed on the same page during the same exploration. So the second time you get to a page you click on the second link, potentially breaking infinite loops!

[@not_David]

oooh interesting idea

[@gcewing]

I like this rule! It fixes the current situation with Awareness, since the second link there is Philosophy. Although it might be necessary to put a limit on N, otherwise you could potentially keep going for a very long time before concluding that you aren't going to get to Philosophy.

[@jaelwyn]

@@gcewing Would be an arbitrary limit; you will at some point run out because you will hit a page more times than it has outbound links, which is the new terminal condition. Although how exactly you would describe that network would be… interesting, most networks have either a single outbound vector / edge (the first link game) or care about all outbound vectors (full network propagation / reachability analysis).

[@Jbugbugs]

the editing is insane! huge props to you, you deserve all the recognition :) keep creating!

[@not_David]

Thank you :) nice comments like that make the work worth it lol

[@jonathancardy9941]

Pages with no links aren't necessarily discouraged or incorrect. More that these tend to be new articles that need more work, including adding links. There are processes within Wikipedia's volunteer community to find and link underlinked articles. And yes a proportion of new articles do get deleted, but its more that articles that merit deletion often are unlinked than the converse.

[@m_arto]

I don't know how much this means, but you are genuinely my favourite academic channel. I love the visual, the narrative, and topics selected. However, the both the humour, and examples really resonates with me. I love games, anime, speedrun, and many of the little bits and "easter eggs" you leave on your videos really make a difference. I honestly laugh so hard watching you, and click as fast as youtube lets me. I would only drop your video for a Summoning Salt or Bismuth video, and that's saying a lot. Just keep it up, you are doing amazing

[@not_David]

I mean as soon as i uploaded I went and rewatched the Tetris video by Summoning Salt for the hundreth time, so I consider your comment very high praise

[@NFSHeld]

16:15 Just for your understanding: The "talk" link your animated cursor is hovering there belongs to the user "Closetside", hence it's in the brackets behind their name. That is a page where you can talk to the user, ask them directly. It's kind-of an in-between between forum topic (public and directed at everyone) and a PM (private and directed at a single person). A user talk page is a public page directed at one person (initially, others may join). Since the matter regarded the article content though, any discussions around it are located at the talk page of the article. You find it as one of the two tabs above the content of the article, right under the title (see 15:32). Or in general, if the article is found at "/wiki/Subject", then the corresponding talk page is "/wiki/Talk:Subject". So what Closetside was referring to is that they left a section on the talk page of "Awareness" that explains why they think the order should by "psychology and philosophy" instead of the other way round. Side note, regarding the talk page: I haven't checked, but I KNOW Wikipedia, so I'm willing to bet that people had a PASSIONATE discussion about this absolutely unimportant and trivial thing like the link order. There is probably some self-stipulated rule that explains why it should be one way or the other. And they will not tolerate anyone calling them out about that there's probably more people caring about the philosophy game than about their self-stipulated rule. In other words, less people give a sh*t about their logical order than care for the fun order. But hey, it's Wikipedia, it's not meant to be fun to be part of that community. 🙂

[@DumbMuscle]

Quick summary of the talk page to save people's time: The swap was because the definition agreed on for Awareness in that page comes from psychology, so listing that first made sense in that context. The arguments for not listing it first basically come down to "but the philosophy game!", so were pretty much dismissed (but not before someone tried to escalate it into a wider request for comment before having an actual discussion on it). And then this video kicked off a whole bunch of discussion, during which people pointed out that changes to other parts of the network meant awareness reaches philosophy anyway, and there are general calls to just get on with editing for content rather than to optimise the first link game.

[@OptimusPhillip]

The fact that "Philosophy" was in a loop was, in fact, what clued me into it being the key point of the video when I stopped at the beginning to try it. When I arrived at "Philosophy" for the first time (from "Teramachi temple ruins" in 21 steps, btw), I didn't realize its significance and just kept going... until I arrived at "Philosophy" for a second time. Also, for anyone curious, my results for the second, third, and fifth link games (starting from "Teramachi temple ruins" and going until I entered a loop) were "Society", "Phrase", and "Sign language", respectively.

[@Dumpy332]

In Hindi Wikipedia, it is small loop: philosophy -> argument -> philosophy

[@RandomIndyWrestling]

Hi! Wikipedia (English language) administrator here. I do a lot of content creation, and when dealing with improving articles, one of the first things to do is to check the lede sentence (the first one) explains etat the article is about as if you had no knowledge of the subject (such as clicking "random article"). To me, if you keep asking what something is l, eventually, it has to come to our page on understanding what things are. Those loops, if they only have links to other pages in that series are called "walled gardens", which are deprecated.

[@mantasunray]

the editing on this video is insane. as a design student i'm mesmerized

[@lourensed]

the editing that goes into these visualizations is insane, on top of the research behind it. props

[@Mage_Chartreux]

Btw, I really appreciate you taking the time to write captions for your hearing impaired viewers. I did notice a few typos ('appriciate' and 'your' being two that I remember).

[@not_David]

accessibility is really important to me (and also I like to watch with CC on haha). Thank you for pointing those out! I make the captions from the script where I often don't initially care about spelling. I'll make a moment to fix those, thank you!

[@Mage_Chartreux]

​@@not_David I forgot to mention that I'm in the vein of viewers who make use of captions! I usually make do with the auto-generated captions or listen to KZbinrs whose pronunciations I've learned (since I just struggle with audio processing, not really hearing impairment lol), and it's always very nice to see a KZbin who has the time, energy, resources, and care to add captions to their videos, especially when it's about something as interesting as this ;)

[@SylviaRustyFae]

​@@Mage_Chartreux Also same boat with APD and captions bein a godsend when theyre good One of my fave youtubers is Tom Scott, and honestly i love the whole TechDiff crew, but a large part of why i love Tom Scott is his rant on captions tellin other youtubers to stop buyin lambos with their youtube earnings and buy some goddamn subtitles That and he ofc puts his money where his mouth is, he buys some subtitles for his vids and theyre the best bcuz theyre even colour coded based on who is speaking; makin it even easier to follow

[@Janne_Mai]

I also found a few typos, enough to be noticeable but not bad enough to make them harder to read for me.

[@forever_stay6793]

19:33 I literally made a whole playlist of videos that teach math with not math and all of your videos are included! I genuinely love videos like these that introduce more complicated math topics with simpler, real life examples and end with me having a little existential crisis. Also I love graphs. Btw have you seen the "I made a graph of Wikipedia" video? The longest path found was 166 links long!

[@not_David]

The one by adumb? Yes I did and I loved it! I reached out to them to chat about it. I had started the data collection and analysis for this video back in December but it took a while due to my internship. Was super happy to see his video when it went up and that we took such different approaches.

[@forever_stay6793]

@@not_David That's so cool! I agree that it's great to see different ways of analyzing the same thing

[@D7mh76]

As a person with difficulties to see small objects. I really appreciate what you did in 7:22 . it is the small details, but actually helps. Keep going

[@not_David]

Thank you! One of the last steps I do is to do an 'accessibility check'. I'm sure there is a bunch of stuff I miss but that was one of the last edits I made in the video before uploading. Thank you for letting me know it was useful to someone :)

[@rendiggietydog]

i had to pause halfway through to come and say that oh my god your editing work is INSANE. like this is an absolutely BEAUTIFUL VIDEO, both aesthetically and in ur very clear visualisation of information!! that plus the very well written script and amazing research makes this such an incredibly well done video, im kinda floored hahahah

[@not_David]

Thank you for these very kind words :) they make the effort worth it haha

[@cameronwizner9187]

incredible video dude, and that ending was excellent. Can't decide if I want to go out and explore the world or sit at my computer and explore my own wikipedia graph patterns

[@not_David]

go outside! Take a walk while I'm replying to youtube comments -_-

[@forever_stay6793]

Omg same now I want to click through Wikipedia links for the rest of the day...

[@josukehigashikata1481]

Spectacular editing

[@not_David]

thank you best boy josuke higashikata

[@pineapplerindm]

it's not just the editing, every frame is a 1950s swiss poster or something

[@adumb_codes]

This was a super cool video (insane editing btw) and interesting analysis! I know first hand how frustrating it can be to work with the Wikipedia data and know this couldn't have been easy

[@not_David]

I'm really glad you enjoyed it! Like I said before, I was really happy to see how we took very different approaches to the same topic. Thank you for your video :)

[@TheZoltan-42]

Let me summarise: "If you want to talk about a topic but instantly get bogged down on what it is, then when you define it, you do the same again, then you end up endlessly philosophising without ever having a meaningful discussion on any of the topics."

[@dodie-poopsco.6893]

i read the talk pages about the changes in the Wikipedia article of awareness and literally that is what it has devolved into lmao

[@isaacm4159]

Eh quite the opposite "philosophizing" about it leads to deeper understanding of what it is.

[@peterisawesomeplease]

Note that this has been a long running wikipedia debate on many pages. For a long time now people have been editing pages to try to make the connection to philosophy stronger even at the expense or readability of the articles. I remember a debate about this in the logic article. Generally people have given up fighting back though.

[@not_David]

Yeah I saw someone else mention this. Personally I'm more for readability over arbitrarily linking to philosophy. When I asked 'should they' link to philosophy, it was more in the context of the network as is -- i.e., given so many articles lead to philosophy, does it make sense that some don't. But there is the more general question of should that many articles lead to philosophy to begin with.

[@filedotnix]

I love the style you used for this video. A lot of educational content ends up taking the 3blue1brown style, but this is super unique and fits the kind of style you'd expect from a video about Wikipedia. Keep it up!

[@not_David]

Thank you :) I try to look outside of the science community for inspiration and it can be tough sometimes but comments like yours make it worth it

[@a_shahid]

Using that picture for dog at 7:38 is wild 💀

[@gmdille]

Came here to see if anyone else had said the same... Poor Alexander and Nina :(

[@dr.cheeze5382]

Oh, is this some terrible anime lore I shouldn't learn about?

[@a_shahid]

@@dr.cheeze5382 well. The general story of the anime is nice. This is more of a sad and effed up side story. The anime is fullmetal alchemist brotherhood.

[@superuser3026]

I wanted to let you know that this video was wonderful. Recently I've had a hard time finding new, interesting science-esk videos on KZbin or ones that retain my interest. I know that when you post I'm in for a treat. Thank you so much for making such great content!

[@not_David]

Those are very kind words, thank you :)

[@FiltyIncognito]

Years ago I discovered through Nature magazine that during its earlier days it was called Natural Philosophy... which turns out was actually what 'science' used to be before its rebranding. ...which in and of itself is hugely interesting, counterintuitive to the spirit of philosophy while at the same time increasing the effectiveness in dispersing into general understanding, and both tragic and wonderful that 'science', a widely known key to philosophy, hides its connection but also leaves itself open to spontaneous discovery by passionate knowledge seekers.

[@copythekat]

I decided to try this halfway through the video, proceeded to reach analytical philosophy, panicked as it didn't have philosophy but continued to reach awareness, to get in a loop that only ends in awareness

[@WoolyCow]

i just wanted to say this video is beautifully made! the introduction of reflectiveness was a great touch on your little avatar guy, and the visualisations, as always are second to none :D

[@KuroOnehalf]

Visualizers are extra fancy this time. Looks awesome.

[@obonyxiam]

for 16:14 i went to the talk page and essentially there's one discussion there linking to a different discussion, where the reason for putting psychology first is that awareness is to do with the mind and psychology is the study of the mind, so it should be placed first (because it's more relevant)

[@not_David]

If I am looking at what you are looking at (its big blocks in pink) - there is a discussion now, but it its only 2 days old. At the time of writing and when the person had originally changed it, it wasn't there (actually I believe another person in the changes log commented it wasn't there as well).

[@obonyxiam]

@@not_David it's different to that one! in that pink block, the third party links to this discussion which happened before: en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AAwareness&diff=1229940248&oldid=1229936803#Psychology this must be what the person was referring to

[@PetesGuide]

@@not_DavidOlder entries in talk pages are sometimes archived. The revision comment or should have included a link to the exact comment.

[@Holgast]

16:25 What you were hovering over there was the editing user's Talk page, not the article's talk page. Go to any article and click the 'talk' page in the top bar and that's what they're referring to.

[@56independent]

16:17 The talk page isn't the one in brackets; it's the one of the editor. The talk page is the "talk" link a 16:35, right next to "article"

[@JacobFrancisco-on3qk]

12:52 Awareness > Psychology > Science > Scientific method > Empirical evidence > Proposition > Philosophy of language > Analytic philosophy > Contemporary philosophy > Western philosophy > Philosophy

[@wileysneak]

Just feel like someone should explicitly say:- please don't edit wikipedia links for link games

[@not_David]

great point, that should have been said in the video. I will update the pinned comment. Thank you!

[@candyman4769]

They already did

[@wileysneak]

@@not_David hey thank you! and great video btw :)

[@oldcowbb]

"last link" would solve the "page with less then two links" problem

[@not_David]

yeah im really bummed I hadn't thought of that -_-

[@Whytho2000]

DOUGDOUG did a couple of streams going off about how Clicking random articles a bunch he was likely to find a Moth article. Which is insane.

[@loololollool]

It's pretty wild to see what kind of edit war this caused lmao - The editor that started all of this (mentioned in 16:24) is supposed to be retired/semi-retired when this video was posted, pulled them out of retirement then back again - The talk page pretty much exploded right around this video (it started getting traction around June 19 when another editor tried to argue about it) - Consensus in the talk page is that it didn't really matter that it was changed BEFORE the video (the editor that tried to argue got a sternly worded comment of "why drag so much attention to this when there's no discussion at all" in an RFC lmao) - After people started commenting that the ordering didn't really matter at all in the days after this video, it was reverted back to philosophy to preserve the original order. (TL;DR: If the change was based on some personal value judgement of the editor, just stick to alphabetical ordering for now) - Awareness now points to "Philosophy" now as the first link at the moment (July 26, 2024)

[@not_David]

Hahah, wow. I briefly looked at the talk pages but not enough to get a sense of what was going on. Thank you for the summary!

[@Sundrobrocc]

Your editing style is insanely refreshing-I've literally never seen anything like it. Absolutely earned the new sub :) This was so fun to watch

[@not_David]

Thank you for the kind words :)

[@DerEchteMarzel]

The TALK page can be reached in 16:38 in the upper left under the header "Awareness".

[@KevinLarsson42]

The ending became very philosophical, pun intended

[@baylen8695]

Your largest loop as mentioned in the video has actually changed as well. Though it does still lead back to philosophy. it goes: Philosophy-Existence-Reality-Universe-Space-ThreeDimensional-Geometry-Mathematics-Theory-Reason-Consciousness-Awareness-Philosophy. Which is now 12 links.

[@tomasskocek8196]

I wondered if this works also in other language versions of Wikipedia. So I did a littler research on Czech Wikipedia. There it works exactly the same way, but instead of philosophy all roads lead to science.

[@zzzaphod8507]

15:25 might be clearer to say "raises the question" as "begs the question" has an alternate meaning

[@appa609]

This map keeps changing. When I mapped it in high school there was main loop of like 6 articles including philosophy, epistemology, logic, and a few more.

[@yohan2.098]

I did some research and apparently it was changed because: *"Altered word order for ease of reading"* Also, after the previous persons edit was reverted, it was broken again by another person because, this time: *"While the terms are often synonymous, they aren't always. Also awareness is an activity of the mind, and psychology is the study of mind and behavior. I also removed a circular definition of awareness because it contained "aware"."* also : Psychology goes before philosophy because a definition of psychologists, not philosophers, is used. Do NOT switch the order without discussing it on the talk page (Talk:Awareness).

[@ghoqyew]

I checked Wikipedia right now, and it seems like Awareness can go to Philosophy now: It goes Awareness, Psychology, Mind, Perception, Sense, Biological system, Biological network inference, Inference, Reason, Logic, Logical reasoning, Logical consequence, Concept, Abstraction, Rule of inference, Philosophy of logic, and finally, Philosophy.

[@ghoqyew]

Update: It seems like an edit war(?) on the Mind page is affecting whether its first link is to Perception or to Thought. If it links to Perception, then it eventually reaches philosophy. If it links to Thought, it loops back.

[@noahpe6260]

The Wikipedia article was already edited so now the loop goes knowledge -> awareness of facts -> awareness -> psychology -> study -> knowledge

[@mz_mahid]

now they swapped the understanding and awareness in the awareness of of fact page which lead back to Philosophy.

[@itsonlycleob3317]

1:18 His Arm 😂

[@jacob.19]

7:37 don't remind me of that episode of fma 😭

[@TaylorBurke4]

wow this was a fantastic video, I didn't expect so much interesting content from a concept I'm already somewhat familiar with

[@not_David]

thank you for the kind words :) glad you enjoyed it

[@Bluehawk2008]

It's a question of taxonomy. Philosophy is essentially the study of everything, the most abstract idea possible, and the first link in any given article about something specific is usually taking you out by one layer of abstraction. When you abstract any particular thing away far enough, you should arrive at philosophy.

[@aaronl19]

4:56 Having your favourite hockey team mentioned in a random video is always a whiplash but I love it [ Let’s go Oilers :) ]

[@joko_crafting]

I've tried it a few times, but 90% of time I'm stuck in a loop of "Formal science" - "Branches of science" (English article's)

[@michaelb4415]

Video essays about Wikipedia are my favorite gender

[@Arnaz87]

the evangelion style edit at the end with wikipedia rotating over everything is gorgeous

[@seventy_eight]

this video essay has been added to the video essay banger club (3 entries were placed before this)

[@not_David]

I am honoured

[@shiny4984]

funnily enough "the moth game" does actually exist, and it consists of clicking the "random article" button until you get a moth, which usually only takes around 5-10 tries

[@jonas1015119]

16:20 the article talk page, not the users talk page

[@soad3838]

@10:48 hemispheres and lobes are not the same thing

[@not_David]

Yes thats a great point, I was using 'lobe' in a loose sense of the word (i.e.: a curved or rounded projection or division) to tie it back to the terminology i was using in the wikipedia network.

[@LifeAsANoun]

the human condition is having a distinct perspective of reality which is limited to such an extent that, if we're both aware and honest, we understand that we cannot know anything; thus, it shouldn't be a surprise for any honest dive into knowledge to terminate at philosophy. the importance of placement within this conceptual connective tissue for the links is very interesting. I fully assumed that it wouldn't matter which position the link held (1st, 3rd, etc.). very nice.

[@MetallicMutalisk]

Yeah, I remember this philosophy link game. There's another wikipedia link game, though. You can make it in 3 or 4 steps from any article to Hitler, but you can choose from any link. The Hitler link game.

[@Anna-Pukite]

What's wrong with apple juice? :(

[@lowlevelm]

Everything

[@Anna-Pukite]

@@lowlevelm I'm not taking that as an answer. Do you not like the taste? Does it smell weird to you? Do you not like the color? I want to know.