Talk:Six degrees of separation
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[edit] Game removed
Wikipedia game is an online version of Six degrees using the Wikipedia encyclopedia.
- Removed form the article, since it's a self-reference. Still a fun game. -- Netoholic @ 06:22, 2004 Dec 12 (UTC)
[edit] Tool removed
I'm afraid I'm going to remove the automatated (Kate's tool) version too. It no longer works, and there seems little likelihood of it returning any time soon, for policy reasons (ref). -- John Fader 02:00, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Updated description
The very lean description on this site attributed the term Six Degrees of Separation to Stanley Milgram, which is incorrect. I've updated the description with more accurate and fleshier background. -ShashankTripathi 10:16, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)
What about the movie "6 Degrees of Separation" with Will Smith?
Shouldn't "a chain of acquaintances that has no more than four intermediaries." actually say FIVE intermediaries? --216.58.0.55 15:12, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
[edit] practical applications of the theory
The 'six degrees of separation' theory has been practically applied in research as well as problems such as HIV infection among hard to reach populations. You can read about one such application in the Cornell University website http://respondentdrivensampling.org
- Another practical application is that you can link George W Bush to any problem in the world, large or small, with at most six connections —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.121.245.155 (talk) 04:31, 5 December 2006 (UTC).
[edit] Be sure to be really straight forward
Since these are concepts that are "unbelievable" until accepted, we need to make very straightforward conclusions in this article. For example, "Anyone can connect to any person in the world through an average maximum of six mediaries, or, including both you and he, 8 people." Because my wife and I read this and neither of us knew whether the combined total was 6, 7, or 8 people. Second, under genealogy, "So if you can trace your genealogy back on all lines for 32 generations, you have a large enough tree to include a common ancestor with every single person on Earth, including those in extremely remote areas." Anyway, part of my point is the phraseology is a bit abstracted, and part of my point is it's hard to tell when it's referring to 6 generations including you or 6 generations removed from you. I suspect "six degrees" is the latter, and genealogy uses the former; and that may be a problem.
[edit] removed from the article
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- [revision: 2005/Sep/11: It's actually six intermediaries. That's why it's called 6 degrees.... I in fact once developed a mathematical proof for this (logarithmically), but lost my paper notes.]
--R.Koot 20:25, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
[edit] 32 Generations?
Can someone provide a citation for this ridiculous-looking assertion?
- I could believe it of a European population, perhaps. But 1200 years for any two humans is utterly absurd, and contradicts the claims at Most recent common ancestor. That article does claim that the MCRA for modern Europeans lived in 1000 AD, which might be the source for this ridiculous 32 generations bit. --Saforrest 15:08, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Jerry Root ?
I don't get the Jerry Root thing .. is it a joke ? If it is, I'm not getting it.
[edit] Copyright issue?
This page looks very similar to http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci932596,00.html, which is copyright protected. Is this a copyright issue or - as I hope - not? --badpazzword [registered user but not logged in]
- I agree. I don't know what to make of it - most of this text is verbatim. -TarenCapel 03:31, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Origin of 6 degrees?
The article on Stanley Milgram suggests that his small-world experiment was the source of the "6 degrees of separation" theory. This article suggests that the theory was proposed earlier, in the 20's. Can anyone clarify?
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- I believe this is flawed. I read about s/1 actually talking about being connected even to eskimos and jungle tribes. hello? It could possibly be the case, that in todays(2006) world, everybody having internet access, has 6DOS to everyone else with internet access. but never ever could you include the people in rural or even remote regions like the amazon or central australia. And in the 20s, that's just bullshit eurocentrism. Any port worker in Boston is connected to any merchant banker in Shanghai(both being port towns) ? In the 20s? Give me a break.-- ExpImptalkcon 21:41, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Excerpt of Karinthy's short story "Láncszemek (Chains)"
It can be found here (in Hungarian): http://members.iif.hu/visontay/ponticulus/rovatok/humor/nexus.html
[edit] Copyright infringement
This page plagiarizes the entry in WhatIs.com, the IT encyclopedia. The entry from WhatIs.com is reproduced here, word for word. Can the user community find a resolution to the issue? I didn't want to delete this entry on Wikipedia outright, but something needs to be done. The WhatIs definition isn't even mentioned here. See the following link for reference: http://searchsmb.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,290660,sid44_gci932596,00.html
- The site you mention looks like one of those information dumps that pull stuff from Wikipedia.
- Except that it's not. WhatIs.com is one of the most trusted sites for enterprise professionals on the planet. WhatIs.com editors have written every definition within the database. In this case, an editor wrote the definition years before Wikipedia even existed publishing it on October 17, 2003. This issue has been before the Wikipedia community and Wikimedia Foundation for nearly a month now without any action. Please address the lack of attribution or remove the plagiarized material.
[edit] Restart
I have confirmed that the article is taken from WhatIs.com and that the date sequence is such that we need to start over from scratch. There is a lot of scholarship on the subject and I have confidence that the community can get this article back in shape in no time; however, please be mindful of others' intellectual property rights. Sorry for the inconvenience, but that is how it goes sometimes.--BradPatrick 19:24, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
- Couldn't be bothered to fix it yourself, though, eh? Easier to bitch about (possible) copyright infringement than to actually do something constructive. Typical behavior from the Wiki types: Lots of interest in red tape and voting and silly arbitrations, but not much effort spent actually building an encyclopedia.
[edit] Perplex City
Does anyone know a man named Satoshi pictured at this address: http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=16148
[edit] Lost
Shouldn't there be references to Lost here? It does seem to explore the fact that everyone on the Island is connected.- JustPhil
13:48, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
- You are absolutely right, everybody seems to be connected - that is actually the premise of the show. But before you mention that here, remember what your touching points between SDOS and Lost are: "connectedness" and.... mhhmm.. that's it. so, for example you could talk about the royal families of europe, or any other group with much "connectedness", and the relevance to this article would be the same: NONE.-- ExpImptalkcon 21:35, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Wikipedia game
I agree that it doesn't belong in the article, but I put in a link to the page regarding the game on the See Also section. This is because I personally came to the article looking for a reference to the game, so I feel like you need to have a reference to it somewhere. Feel free to share your opinion if you disagree.--CountCrazy007 19:24, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
