p2pnet - rss feed: Six Degrees of Wikipedia
p2pnet news | Cool Stuff:- A researcher at Trinity College Dublin has come up with a way to let users map the links between Wikipedia pages, says Wired Campus.
Six Degrees of Wikipedia, modeled after Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, determines degrees by articles that link to each other, says the story, adding:
“For example, how many clicks through Wikipedia does it take to get from ‘Gatorade’ to ‘Genghis Khan’? Three: Start at ‘Gatorade,’ then click to ‘Connecticut,’ then ‘June 1,’ then ‘Genghis Khan’.”
Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, “is based on a variation of the concept of the small world phenomenon and states that any actor can be linked through his or her film roles to actor Kevin Bacon,” explains the Wikipedia, adding:
“The game requires a group of players to try to connect any film actor in history to Kevin Bacon as quickly as possible and in as few links as possible. The game was played across various college campuses in the early 1990s.”
Stephen Dolan, who created Six Degrees of Wikipedia, also used the code to find out which Wikipedia article is the’center’ of Wikipedia, “that is, which article is the hub that most other articles must go through in the ‘Six Degrees’ game,” says Wired Campus.
Not including lists (eg, years), “the article closest to the center is ‘United Kingdom,’ at an average of 3.67 clicks to any other article,” says the story.
Billie Jean King and United States are next with an average of 3.68 clicks and 3.69 clicks, respectively, it says.
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.Stumble It!
Wired Campus - 6 Degrees of Wikipedia, May 28, 2008
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May 29th, 2008 at 10:40 am
I had no idea who the hell Billie Jean King was. Now I know, and also why the hell a tennis player entry ended up being a hub the size of a country… The incredibly long article (would you like to know about every professional match she ever played? This seems like it) is among the most extensively citing and linking one I have ever seen. She seems to have quite a devoted following of meticulous wikipedians.
May 29th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
The thing with “BJ” King was basically “yay women, we rule, men drool, rwar.” zzz