15 Most Bizarre Articles Hiding On Wikipedia
Not all information is informative.
Fourteen years after launching, the English language Wikipedia has just hit 5,000,000 articles. More than every single person in Norway, or one entry a day since about 11000 BC.
But for every interesting and informative write-up about World War II or Benjamin Franklin, there's another that is completely ludicrous and unintentionally hilarious. A lot of these are devoted to subjects that nobody in their right mind would ever need to look up in the first place; how, for example, can someone not grasp a concept as basic as socks?
Just like 95 percent of the Earth's oceans remain unexplored, at least 95 percent of Wikipedia consists of articles you'd never normally stumble upon. But, if you really search for the strangest the website has to offer, there are some completely bizarre and hilarous entries.
15. Toilet Paper Orientation
You probably haven't put more than 15 seconds of thought into the way your toilet paper hangs, but the good folks at Wikipedia sure have. The article "Toilet paper orientation" exhaustively details the controversial debate over if toilet paper should hang in front of or behind the roll.
Sure, that's the kind of thing that might be interesting to compare with friends just to see how your routines differ, but this page breaks the issue down as if it's a textbook chapter about the crisis in the Middle East. In total, it's nearly 3,000 words long. Some of the sections include Social Consequences, Class And Politics, and a list of famous individuals who have advocated for either side.
At one point, the article quotes a "toilet paper enthusiast," whatever the heck that is, and you will not believe the number of actual scientific studies that have been conducted on this topic. Hint: it's way too many.
Easily the best sentence comes towards the very beginning, though: "A generic answer is that it should hang the way the person doing the roll changing prefers." The post really should have just ended there.