Testwiki:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-04-26/Humour
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|The law of hats|By Widefox
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- This essay was originally created by Template:U as Wikipedia:Law of hats.
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Laws of hats
- 0th law: Every article evolves until it gains a hatnote.[note 1][note 2][1][2]
- 1st law: Disambiguation scales with articles.[note 3][note 4]
- 2nd law: Every disambiguation page evolves until it gains a hatnote.[note 5]
- 3rd law: Disambiguation disambiguation is needed.[note 6][note 7]
- Notes
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How-to
{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Filler image-v2|image=File:Tophat.jpg|caption=}} Template:Hatnote Template:Main Allowed, considering:
- 0th: If you want it, better put a hat on it.[3]
- 1st: Create
two256[notes 1] disambiguation pages to offset every article created. Double that every two years.[notes 2][notes 3] - 2nd: Prevent your dab page going extinct with one well chosen hatnote as early as possible.[notes 4]
- 3rd: Don't panic.Template:Dn
- More notes
Template:Reflist Template:Clear
Current research
The Disambiguation Singularity
{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Filler image-v2|image=File:Hat shop.jpg|caption=Artist's impression of an article near The Disambiguation Singularity}} Template:Confused The Disambiguation Singularity – a term used cautiously, as it is ambiguous – singularity may refer to:
- The article density where disambiguation becomes infinitely dense
- The infinitely massive job of disambiguation
- Rumours of 26 dimensions of disambiguation needed to have a disambiguation of everything
- or, The consequences of reaching the end of evolution, but without sources it isn't possible to write articles and safely put hatnotes on
"Arts and entertainment" problem
{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Filler image-v2|image=File:Emu_size.png|caption=Evolution time-series prediction (when we can only access "Arts and entertainment")}} Template:Further The "Arts and entertainment" problem is disambiguation page section overloading – research on the scaling of dab pages is ongoing. Current assumptions are a solution to the NP-hard problem of popular culture overloading or "Arts and entertainment" disambiguation page section overloading, which may refer to:
- The Use of previously unambiguous terms for the titles of notable new popular culture, thereby overloading the previously unambiguous terms.
- Remakes thereof, or remakes of remakes etc
- Some numerical solutions do not converge on the number of hatnotes required to successfully disambiguate those topics.
- A practical consideration is that due to the unfortunate coincidence of Arts and entertainment being listed at the top of dab pages, but with exponential growth, they must at some point expand at a rate faster than readers can scroll, thus preventing access to all but Arts and entertainment.[4] As only primary topics would be accessible, disambiguation may attain The Disambiguation Singularity.
See also
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- Zawinski's law of software envelopment – "Every program attempts to expand until it can read [e]mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can."
- More's law – the law that inspires more laws
- Graham's number – once the largest number, now considered negligible
- Worth's law – is it worth reading more laws?
- Human evolution – coincidence we're wearing hats nowadays? (see image)
- Reductio ad absurdum – Latin, isn't it
Further reading
- The Selfish Hatnote – a 2017 book on Wikipedia's evolution by Wikipedians.[5]
- Wikipedia:Three Laws of Wikipedia
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- ↑ Magioladitis' law March 9, 2012 Hypothesis: "Due to expansion of Wikipedia all pages will end up having a hatnote to a dab page. At least all pages without parentheses in their title." User:Magioladitis
- ↑ Similar to Zawinski's law of software envelopment "Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can."
- ↑ Put a ring on it (disambiguation)
- ↑ Howto articles could be written about that, but similarly would not be reachable.
- ↑ The Selfish Gene
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