Most controversial Wikipedia articles, as measured by total size of talk page archives (en.wikipedia.org)

submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by wombat@hexbear.net to c/chapotraphouse@hexbear.net

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This page lists Wikipedia pages by the total amount of text in all of their talk page archives put together. It is the best measure there is for determining how much squabbling has gone on behind the scenes for a given page.

Here is a ranking of all 63 of the listed pages that are actual articles (as opposed to policy/administrative/user pages), in descending order:

Donald Trump
Intelligent design
Climate change
Barack Obama
United States
Jesus
Race and intelligence
Catholic Church
Circumcision
Homeopathy
Muhammad
Gamergate (harassment campaign)
Chiropractic
Abortion
Monty Hall problem
Gaza War (2008-2009)
Evolution
Prem Rawat
Sarah Palin
India
Israel
World War II
Christ myth theory
Mass killings under communist regimes
Jehovah's Witnesses
September 11 attacks
Cold fusion
Climatic Research Unit email controversy
Armenian genocide
Anarchism
Atheism
Falun Gong
Neuro-linguistic programming
Jerusalem
Control of cities during the Syrian civil war
Kosovo
British Isles
Transcendental Meditation
United Kingdom
George W. Bush
Christianity
COVID-19 pandemic
Libertarianism
Acupuncture
Thomas Jefferson
International recognition of Kosovo
Israel and apartheid
Adolf Hitler
United States and state terrorism
Syrian civil war
List of best-selling music artists
Julian Assange
Russo-Georgian War
Historicity of Jesus
Second Amendment to the United States Constitution
Tea Party movement
List of common misconceptions
Murder of Meredith Kercher
Genesis creation narrative
Taiwan
Hillary Clinton
Electronic cigarette
Michael Jackson

Bubbling under (present in earlier versions; I have gone back to 2015 so far here, though the page history goes back to 2010):

0.999...
European Union
Chronic fatigue syndrome
Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections
Shakespeare authorship question
Fascism
Astrology
The Holocaust
Joseph Smith
Chelsea Manning
List of scientists who disagree with the scientific consensus on global warming [NOTE: now deleted]
Gibraltar
Ayn Rand
Fox News
Shooting of Trayvon Martin
Human
Canada
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
Race (human categorization)
Iraq War
Elvis Presley
Islam
Philosophy
Terri Schiavo case
Black people
White people
Palestinians
Mitt Romney
HIV
Occupy Wall Street
Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy
Elizabeth II
Asperger syndrome
Centrifugal force
Transnistria

top 50 comments

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[-] Tomorrow_Farewell@hexbear.net 45 points 5 months ago

Monty Hall problem

Really not sure where there can be any controversy.

Israel

How could a page about a math problem end up more controversial there than a page on Pissrael?

0.999...

This is hilarious. How is this in any way controversial? Every person who diligently studies calculus for just a few weeks understands that 0.999... = 1, and why.

[-] Erika3sis@hexbear.net 48 points 5 months ago

I haven't actually read any of the talk pages but I'm reckoning that the Monty Hall problem and 0.999... is just people going limmy-what

[-] DrCrustacean@hexbear.net 26 points 5 months ago

You don't even need calculus, you need fractions. 1/3 = .333..., 2/3 = 0.666..., then 3/3 = 0.999...

[-] Tomorrow_Farewell@hexbear.net 24 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

You need to prove that 0.333... is, indeed, 1/3 (and also that 0.999... = 0.333...*3) for that. Without being familiar with any sort of construction of real numbers, i.e. without understanding what real numbers are, you are just going to be doing a lot of hand-waving.
But yes, if one already accepts that 0.333... = 1/3, then that proof works. However, if one understands the reasons why 0.333... = 1/3, there are easier ways to prove that 0.999... = 1. Or, rather, why 0.999... = 1 is obvious to such people.

And sure, one might be familiar with any of those constructions without studying calculus, but if one does study calculus, they are going to study what real numbers are.

Also, fun fact for the onlookers: every repeating decimal represents a rational number, and every rational number can be represented by up to two repeating decimals (counting terminating decimals as repeating here). This can be generalised to natural bases other than 10, as well. Furthermore, if you have a repeating decimal that represents some rational number x, such that -1 <= x <= 1, then x = p/10^n^+x/10^n^, where p is some integer and n is a natural number, from where it follows that x = p/(10^n^-1).
Some examples:
-0.999... = 9/10+0.999.../10 => 0.999... = 9/(10-1) = 9/9 = 1
-0.123123123... = 123/10^3^+123123123.../10^3^ => 0.123123123... = 123/(10^3^-1) = 123/999

More generally, when working with other natural bases, we have (x = p/b^n^+x/b^n^) => (x = p/(b^n^-1)), where b is the base. As such, 0.111... (base 2) = 1/10+0.111.../10 (base 2) => 0.111... (base 2) = 1/(10-1) (base 2) = 1/1 = 1.

[-] davel@hexbear.net 6 points 5 months ago

Yeah 1/3 being periodic is just an artifact of using base 10, because 10 isn’t evenly divisible by 3. If you use say base 60 as the Babylonian did then the artifact vanishes.

[-] Tomorrow_Farewell@hexbear.net 6 points 5 months ago

Not sure about calling it an 'artifact'. Repeating digital representations of numbers are still a thing in every relevant base.

[-] davel@hexbear.net 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Yes repeating happens in every base because every base has integers not evenly divisible by its base. Whether a fraction repeats is a particularity of which base is chosen to represent it.

[-] BJyXJe4LhZetOzA0@hexbear.net 37 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

race and intelligence being 7th most controversial Wikipedia article is crazy

[-] Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net 21 points 5 months ago

Race and intelligence even being a page is crazy

[-] SSJ2Marx@hexbear.net 16 points 5 months ago

Weekly reminder that Wikipedia was created by a bunch of libertarians and that outlook is 100% present in their power user community.

[-] BJyXJe4LhZetOzA0@hexbear.net 5 points 5 months ago

for sure

[-] Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net 34 points 5 months ago

Mass killings under communist regimes

Is there one for capitalism?

Centrifugal force

"Fucking gravity"

[-] Tachanka@hexbear.net 26 points 5 months ago

Is there one for capitalism?

Nope because capitalism just happens lol. It's never consciously implemented heheh. It's just human nature hahaha. stop asking questions lmfao. nobody's ever been killed for profit muahahaha

[-] AOCapitulator@hexbear.net 32 points 5 months ago

Transnistria

This is that tiny country that is self governing and their president takes the average salary and drives around in a 40 year old rust bucket right?

[-] Tomorrow_Farewell@hexbear.net 18 points 5 months ago

Transnistria

Ah yes, the, as western liberals call it,

Russian-occupied territory in Moldova

[-] Torenico@hexbear.net 13 points 5 months ago

Yes, and recently the country was removed from Google Maps and now it appears as Moldavian territory (cope mechanism)

[-] joaomarrom@hexbear.net 29 points 5 months ago

redditpedia

[-] NewAcctWhoDis@hexbear.net 25 points 5 months ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Monty_Hall_problem/Arguments

I don't have any meaningful commentary on this other than "lol"

[-] joaomarrom@hexbear.net 6 points 5 months ago

JFC, I remember having online arguments with people over this twenty years ago lmao

I'm not even exaggerating, it's been twenty years and people are still going on about this fucking thing

[-] itappearsthat@hexbear.net 8 points 5 months ago

the funniest thing I've read is that if you present the monty hall problem to pigeons they get it immediately and switch every time because they literally dgaf and just want the food reward

[-] quarrk@hexbear.net 6 points 5 months ago

I just learned about this problem now. Took me a minute, but it makes sense when I think about my logic in certain card games where you're making decisions based on new cards being entered into play.

[-] SSJ2Marx@hexbear.net 6 points 5 months ago

I would switch but I also feel in my bones with 100% certainty that if I ever got on a game show I would do all the correct things and lose anyway just through bad luck.

[-] Tomorrow_Farewell@hexbear.net 4 points 5 months ago

I read one attempt at the refutation of the widely-known solution, and it's quite hilarious.

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[-] LocalMaxima@hexbear.net 21 points 5 months ago

Sarah Palin in the top 20?

[-] DavidGarcia@feddit.nl 19 points 5 months ago

yeah I was wondering about that too. she probably has someone hired to scrub her record clean. I can't think of any other reason why she would still be that relevant in this metric.

[-] PKMKII@hexbear.net 21 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

The most confusing one to me is the best-selling music artists. It’s just an amalgamation of record sale data, not sure where the controversy would be coming from.

[-] Ram_The_Manparts@hexbear.net 11 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I actually had a conversation about this on another forum just the other day and it was surprisingly difficult to find a clear answer. Like every single source people looked up said something different, kinda strange really.

[-] Tachanka@hexbear.net 20 points 5 months ago

wikipedia mods who police their favorite articles will literally just archive the talk page if the conversation isn't going their way. it's amazing how some articles you can get away with shit talk for years but other articles it gets scrubbed day 1. Some articles you'll get banned for vandalism on the fucking talk page and they'll invoke the "wikipedia is not a forum" nerd rule, while other articles you'll see completely forum-tier discussion going on for years and years in the talk page, dating back to like 2004.

[-] InevitableSwing@hexbear.net 17 points 5 months ago

On the F-35 talk page I complained about what was missing. It's my custom to complain on the talk page. If stuff gets fixed - great. If not - oh, well. I don't want to argue or get into an edit war. It works well for me. But that talk page was different. Within about an hour my comment was - I don't remember the term - "refractored" or something. They hid it.

[-] batsforpeace@hexbear.net 16 points 5 months ago

curious, so there is a sizable amount of editors arguing in favor of Homeopathy?

[-] BountifulEggnog@hexbear.net 22 points 5 months ago

Some of these have to just be because the defenders are rabid, even if there's not a lot of them.

[-] batsforpeace@hexbear.net 8 points 5 months ago

oh right, I think I'll check a few of these talk pages later

[-] davel@hexbear.net 15 points 5 months ago

We should never have allowed the Germans English fluency.

[-] ashinadash@hexbear.net 13 points 5 months ago

Chronic fatigue syndrome

What fr? Why?

[-] CindyTheSkull@hexbear.net 16 points 5 months ago

Most people who have it know why, and it has to do with the large swathes of chuds (and libs too) who insist it isn't real, just in your head, an excuse to be lazy, etc. etc. Almost any chronic illness that is hard to diagnose and can't be pinned with complete unambiguous medical certainty to a single clear cause gets that sort of treatment. There are still so many people who don't even believe Lyme disease is real.