If you take any Wikipedia 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 tried this starting with "Land Ordinance of 1785"
United States Congress
United States of America
federal
political
collective decisions
individuals
person
human being
taxonomically
science
knowledge
facts
information
sequence
mathematics
quantity
property
modern philosophy
philosophy
GPS Modernization
Global Positioning System
Satellite Navigation
Electronics
Science
Knowledge
Fact
Information
Sequence
Mathematics
Quantity
Property
Modern Philosophy
Philosophy
Web development
web site
web page
document
non-fiction
narrative
Latin
Italic languages
Indo-European languages
language family
language
communication
meaningful
Philosophy
I just tried Los Angeles Lakers and got to Mathematics, but not philosophy. Smashing Pumpkins got me to Language.
Grand Canyon took me to mathematics.
White House took me to mathematics.
I started with philosophy,
and ended up with Kevin Bacon!?!
> I started with philosophy,
>
>
> and ended up with Kevin Bacon!?!
Damn!.....now I spit coffee all over my monitor. Very funny.
What did it take, about six tries?
I started with Warren Ferris and stopped when I hit philosophy
Too many people afflicted with testicular paralysis (numbnuts) are allowed to contribute (and correct others') copy to that site. To my dismay, one journalism or "artsy" outfit here at LSU actually signed some sort of agreement with them for contributions to be authored by undergraduates.
I've seen some pieces in that website that reference me, but I certainly would not contribute to it muchless consider using anything published there.
I consider it well-organized misinformation and garbage.
"Paper" will also get you there. It took a long time, but it got there eventually.
I found the Reason
Wild Bill Hickok
American Old West
Western United States
U.S. State
Federated State
Constitution
State
Social Science
Scholarly Method
Philosophy
Reason
I'm not as down on Wikipedia as Cliff is. In most cases, it tells you what to expect from more authoritative sources and gives you links to some of them or at least suggests good keywords to search for them.
It is really amazing that bad stuff usually does get weeded out faster than it creeps in. If you see something wrong, you can edit it and reference a source. There are some controls for when controversy arises. I have edited 15 or 20 articles and have them on a watchlist. In only one did I get into an argument over the changes and we reached a wording that was acceptable after a few back-and-forth rounds.
"I consider it well-organized misinformation and garbage."
Isn't that a pretty large generalization? Would you eschew all information available there/
Certainly there is truthful or accurate content on Wiki, or any other such site.
You think everything read in a textbook is true?
The trick is to be able to identify what's good and what's not.
In the Western Hemisphere, technical papers that reference the site are laughed at. Therefore, I consider it a useless site. Not worth the effort to even look at what's posted there. Some academics in Eastern Europe use it sparingly because they have very limited access to the internet (Big Brother watching them, as I understand).
I just do not trust it.
Well, I would agree with them (and you) with regard to using it for any type of serious reference paper.
If that's your ONLY frame of reference, then by all means avoid Wiki.
But if someone asked me who led the major leagues in batting in 1938, or who played the bartender in the movie "Casablanca", I can't think of a better place to go.
> I started with Warren Ferris and stopped when I hit philosophy
I guess you read the book on him? Great read.
yEAH,if you look at the discussion page, you can see where I lodged my complaints on the content. I will edit the page when I have time.
I fully agree with Sicilian. A few decades ago, your starting place was Encyclopedia Britanica. You didn't cite it in your papers, but it gave you an overview and told you what you should be looking for in other sources. Wikipedia now serves that function quite well, and has many times as many entries, on a vast array of topics.
I agree SC, and further, if I wanted to look something up more serious, I might start there and see if there is reference to other published material. It's a great place to start and to share information.
> I started with philosophy,
>
>
> and ended up with Kevin Bacon!?!
Strange, I ended up with Francis Bacon.
> ..... testicular paralysis (numbnuts)...
lol!
