Wiki rabbit hole

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Illustration of a wiki rabbit hole for a t-shirt Wikipedia Rabbit Hole.jpg
Illustration of a wiki rabbit hole for a t-shirt

The wiki rabbit hole (or wiki black hole) [1] is the learning pathway which a reader travels by navigating from topic to topic while browsing Wikipedia (through hyperlinks in articles) and other wikis. The metaphor of a rabbit hole comes from Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland , in which Alice begins an adventure by following the White Rabbit into his burrow. The black hole metaphor comes from the idea that the reader is powerfully sucked into a hole from which they cannot escape.

After learning or studying outside of Wikipedia, many people go to the online encyclopedia to learn more about the same topic, and then proceed to topics progressively further removed from where they started. [2] Films based on historical people or events often spur viewers to explore Wikipedia rabbit holes. [3]

Data visualizations showing the relationships between Wikipedia articles demonstrate pathways that readers can take to navigate from topic to topic. [4] The Wikimedia Foundation publishes research on how readers enter rabbit holes. [5] Rabbit hole browsing behavior happens in various languages of Wikipedias. [6]

Wikipedia users have shared their rabbit hole experiences as part of Wikipedia celebrations as well as on social media. [7] [8] Some people go to Wikipedia for the fun of seeking a rabbit hole. [9] [10] Exploring the rabbit hole can be part of wikiracing. [11]

In 2024, SmartLess Media debuted WikiHole, a podcast hosted by D'Arcy Carden and featuring "a panel of comedians who fall down a Wikipedia rabbit hole of bizarre and intriguing connections". [12]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wiki</span> Type of website that anyone can edit

A wiki is a form of hypertext publication on the internet which is collaboratively edited and managed by its audience directly through a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages that can either be edited by the public or limited to use within an organization for maintaining its internal knowledge base.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clifford A. Pickover</span> American inventor and author (b. 1957)

Clifford Alan Pickover is an American author, editor, and columnist in the fields of science, mathematics, science fiction, innovation, and creativity. For many years, he was employed at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown, New York, where he was editor-in-chief of the IBM Journal of Research and Development. He has been granted more than 700 U.S. patents, is an elected Fellow for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, and is author of more than 50 books, translated into more than a dozen languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">English Wikipedia</span> English-language edition of Wikipedia

The English Wikipedia is the primary English-language edition of Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia. It was created by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger on 15 January 2001, as Wikipedia's first edition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wikinews</span> Free-content news wiki; project of the Wikimedia Foundation

Wikinews is a free-content news wiki and a project of the Wikimedia Foundation that works through collaborative journalism through user-created content. Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has distinguished Wikinews from Wikipedia by saying, "On Wikinews, each story is to be written as a news story as opposed to an encyclopedia article." Wikinews's neutral point of view policy aims to distinguish it from other citizen journalism efforts such as Indymedia and OhmyNews. In contrast to most Wikimedia Foundation projects, Wikinews allows original work in the form of original reporting and interviews. In contrast to newspapers, Wikinews does not permit op-ed.

A rabbit hole is a rabbit burrow.

<i>Ars Technica</i> Technology news website owned by Condé Nast

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<i>Radiolab</i> American radio program

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of wikis</span>

The history of wikis began in 1994, when Ward Cunningham gave the name "WikiWikiWeb" to the knowledge base, which ran on his company's website at c2.com, and the wiki software that powered it. The wiki went public in March 1995, the date used in anniversary celebrations of the wiki's origins. c2.com is thus the first true wiki, or a website with pages and links that can be easily edited via the browser, with a reliable version history for each page. He chose "WikiWikiWeb" as the name based on his memories of the "Wiki Wiki Shuttle" at Honolulu International Airport, and because "wiki" is the Hawaiian word for "quick".

WikiNodes is an app for the Apple iPad built by IDEA.org. WikiNodes was the first tablet app for browsing Wikipedia using a radial tree approach to visualize how articles and subsections of articles are interrelated. The app displays related items, which spread on the screen, as a spiderweb of icons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">RationalWiki</span> Wiki criticizing religion and pseudoscience

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Larry Sanger</span> American Internet project developer and Wikipedia co-founder

Lawrence Mark Sanger is an American Internet project developer and philosopher who co-founded Wikipedia along with Jimmy Wales. Sanger coined Wikipedia's name, and provided initial drafts for many of its early guidelines, including the "Neutral point of view" and "Ignore all rules" policies. Prior to Wikipedia, he was the editor-in-chief of Nupedia, another online encyclopedia and the predecessor of Wikipedia. He later worked on other encyclopedic projects, including Encyclopedia of Earth, Citizendium, and Everipedia, and advised the nonprofit American political encyclopedia Ballotpedia.

Wikiracing is a game in which players compete to navigate from one Wikipedia page to another using only internal links. It has many different variations and names, including The Wikipedia Game, Wikipedia Maze, Wikispeedia, Wikiwars, Wikipedia Ball, Wikipedia Racing, and Wikipedia Speedrunning. External websites have been created to facilitate the game.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Outline of Wikipedia</span> Overview and topical guide to the free online crowdsourced encyclopedia

The following outline is provided as an overview of and a topical guide to Wikipedia:

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<i>The Signpost</i> English Wikipedias newspaper

The Signpost is the English Wikipedia's online newspaper. Managed by the volunteer community, it is published online with contributions from Wikimedia editors. The newspaper's scope includes the Wikimedia community and events related to Wikipedia, including Arbitration Committee rulings, Wikimedia Foundation issues, and other Wikipedia-related projects. It was founded in January 2005 by Wikipedian Michael Snow, who continued as a contributor until his February 2008 appointment to the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">D'Arcy Carden</span> American actress and comedian (born 1980)

D'Arcy Beth Carden is an American actress and comedian. She is best known for portraying Janet in the NBC sitcom The Good Place (2016–2020), for which she earned a nomination for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, and Greta Gill in the Prime series A League of Their Own (2022). She also played Gemma in Broad City (2014–2019) and Natalie Greer in the HBO dark comedy series Barry (2018–2023).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Down the rabbit hole</span> English language idiom

"Down the rabbit hole" is an English-language idiom or trope which refers to getting deep into something, or ending up somewhere strange. Lewis Carroll introduced the phrase as the title for chapter one of his 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, after which the term slowly entered the English vernacular. The term is usually used as a metaphor for distraction. In the 21st century, the term has come to describe a person who gets lost in research or loses track of time while using the internet.

References

  1. Stockton, Chrissy (January 4, 2014). "The 10 Best Wikipedia Black Holes For Curious People (Who Have No Impulse Control)". Thought Catalog.
  2. Yahr, Emily (January 4, 2018). "Do you fall down a Wikipedia rabbit hole after each episode of 'The Crown'? You're not alone". Washington Post.
  3. Beck, Lia (August 23, 2018). "13 Movies Based On True Stories With Wikipedia Rabbit Holes You'll Spend Hours On". Bustle.
  4. Li, Shirley (December 12, 2014). "WikiGalaxy: A Visualization of Wikipedia Rabbit Holes". The Atlantic.
  5. Allemandou, Joseph; Popov, Mikhail; Taraborelli, Dario (January 16, 2018). "New monthly dataset shows where people fall into Wikipedia rabbit holes – Wikimedia Blog". Diff, a Wikimedia community blog.
  6. Wang, Shan (March 16, 2018). "Why do people go to Wikipedia? A survey suggests it's their desire to go down that random rabbithole". Nieman Lab. Nieman Foundation for Journalism.
  7. "On Wikipedia's 15th birthday, Ars shares the entries that most fascinate us". Ars Technica. January 16, 2016.
  8. Howard, Dorothy (July 22, 2015). "Feed my Feed: Radical publishing in Facebook Groups". Rhizome . Retrieved January 31, 2019.
  9. Bosch, Torie (January 25, 2018). "Rabbit Holes: Exploring the Wikipedia Page of "People Who Disappeared Mysteriously."". Slate Magazine.
  10. "10 Outrageous Wikipedia Articles That Will Send You Down a Rabbit Hole". Thrillist. April 30, 2020.
  11. "Down the Wikipedia Rabbit Hole: The Game! - On The Media - WNYC Studios". WNYC Studios. February 5, 2015.
  12. White, Peter (January 24, 2024). "D'Arcy Carden To Host 'WikiHole' Podcast For SmartLess Media". Deadline. Retrieved February 27, 2024.
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