Random Flavors of Pocky #02: How do you get from whale watching to an extended look into the communist permutations of Superman?*
The short answer? Wikipathing.
The long answer? Wikipathing. But with an explanation as to what the hell ‘wikipathing’ is.
Long, long ago, in a galaxy… wait. Wrong explanation.
Okay, so one day, a couple of years ago, I noticed that one of my best friends, Player 2, had been on my other computer for hours, unmoving. That in itself wouldn’t have been strange, but he didn’t have a game controller in his hand, like he often did.
I asked him what he was doing, and he mumbled, “Wiki.”
I looked over, and there he was, reading an article (I don’t remember what on) intently. As I watched, he got to the bottom, then scrolled back up and clicked on a link somewhere in the body. I watched for a bit longer (well, not the whole time, I went back to my desk and came back every so often) and noticed that he kept going to other Wikipedia articles.
I asked him how long he had been doing this, and he said, “A couple of hours.” He then explained that he just felt some kind of compulsion to click on interesting links that kept him in Wikipedia.
I’ve talked to other people about it since then, and many of them mentioned similar habits. I myself have occasionally gotten caught up in the info-fest that is Wikipedia.
I know that the original name for the web, “World Wide Web” was supposed to reflect the idea that a person would go from one page to another, but I have to wonder how often that is the case these days. CNN and other commercial sites rarely link to sites other than their own, and understandably so – why give competitor’s sites the hits?
And so, that day, I came up with the term Wikipathing – to reflect the strange trail of information a person blazes when they hit good old Wikipedia.
So, what’s the strangest Wikipath you’ve ever gone down?
* I don’t know if this path is actually possible, but you never know.
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September 11th, 2007 at 1:20 am
There is a Software called Pathway where you can trace your steps and clicks in Wikipedia, save those ‘maps’ and create ‘knowledge-clouds’.. http://pathway.screenager.be/
very usefull if you do a lot in wikipedia, or fun to browse wikipedia with it.
It is for MacOSX only, but maybe there is a Windows version somewhere.
September 11th, 2007 at 10:11 am
I went from Michael Moore to NORAD to Cold War to Hitler. Logically that must mean that an interest in Michael Moore inevitably leads to Nazis.
Moore-Franken ‘08
~Dante Hicks~
September 11th, 2007 at 10:18 pm
Yes, that chain is possible. I just did it in less than 15 minutes.
Whale Watching
Natural Resource
Solar Radiation
Sun
Science Fiction
Superman
History of Superman
Alternate Versions of Superman
Superman: Red Sun
This has been a clarification by a total and complete nerd, who has too much time on his hands when he’s at work ‘watching’ a computer lab.
September 12th, 2007 at 10:42 pm
Foppel: Oh, that’s quite interesting. Thank you very much for pointing it out! I’ll have to check it out when I get a Mac… Heh.
Dante: That is about as frightening as the path I imagined for the title. At least the Nazis had cool uniforms.
Sadrach: That… that is a very, very frightening realization. And yet, not surprising. Thanks for checking it, though, I WAS actually curious.
September 19th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
This might be a little stale a topic, but I, “J2″ actually Wikipath’ed ONTO Wikipedia! I went from my Espn fantasy football stats to the day’s article page, which linked to a avant-garde restaurant, which had a tea that came from the Ming Dynasty, and led me back to The Wiki!
I chuckled when I realized it. But then, that’s just everyday, blaise “surfing the Internet” isn’t it?
September 20th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
I have a friend that can “connect” any two topics in wikipedia in ten jumps or less. The best I’ve seen was World Of Warcraft and Scat Sex, in only six jumps. I have no idea how he did it, he just..did.