Spend more time on Wikipedia NOW!

Originally published on July 1, 2026

Screenshot showing the article for Google's former motto, "Don't be evil", shared by Depths of Wikipedia — The article for Google's former motto, "Don't be evil", shared by Depths of Wikipedia (Depths of Wikipedia)

"It's what the internet was supposed to be. It has this hacker ethos of working together and making something."

- Annie Rauwerda, creator of Depths of Wikipedia (Kambhampaty)

If you couldn't tell by my absurd amount of links or my blurb about how it's my favorite thing humanity has ever done, I love Wikipedia. It does everything good that the internet can. It provides free and open-source information to everyone. It fosters a sense of community. It enables learning about both simple and complex concepts. It does all this for free, equally, and democratically for everyone, regardless of other societal issues. I think that Wikipedia could be the solution to a good chunk of people's problems with the current web.

Photo showing a cow with antlers atop a power line pole. Wikipedia contains other images and articles that are comparably chaotic or udderly amoosing. — "A cow with antlers atop a power line pole. Wikipedia contains other images and articles that are comparably chaotic or udderly amoosing." (Wikipedia / CC BY-SA 4.0)

Wikipedia offers an alternative to the doom-filled time hogs that are social media apps. I've been spending a lot more time on the Wikipedia app as of late. The app offers a home screen, which contains a featured article, recently trending articles, fun facts, recently heavily updated articles for things in the news, things that have happened on this day of the year in the past, and a picture of the day from the Wikimedia Commons. Swipe right and you'll find swipe-able curated articles based on your interests and habits for you to read. Recently they've even started to add daily games for you to play and learn with. I've used the for you page to replace social media scrolling in the short five minute spans of time I have while waiting for something. I will learn everything.

Diagram showing the etymology of lowkirkuinely — The etymology of lowkirkuinely (Wiktionary / CC BY-SA 4.0)

"If I'm gonna be misinformed I want to be misinformed BY THE PEOPLE"

- Cacophony Kid (Depths of Wikipedia, CacophonyKid)

Throughout your time in academia, you've likely been told time and time again about how untrustworthy Wikipedia is as a source. Nowadays you're more likely to find people citing ChatGPT over Wikipedia (Topaz et al., Vaan and Stuart, Cerullo). I'm not about to advocate for you to cite Wikipedia considering the real fear of an ever-changing editable encyclopedia, but lots of the fear around it as a source is unfounded. Go to literally any article and you'll see that every single source is cited, both in text and at the bottom (Wikipedia). There's nothing stopping you from stealing those sources for yourself; I know I have. They've taken a harder stance against AI-generated text than a lot of reputable news outlets (Wikipedia, Becker et al.). I've used Wikipedia as a jumping-off point for research more times than I can count. Controversial and important articles are locked so that people can't vandalize them (Wikipedia). All other vandalism is normally fixed within minutes, if not seconds (Wikipedia).

Screenshot showing the article for the List of lists of lists — Wikipe-tan Of Mice and Men-ing a personified Wikinews (ArtemisiaGentileschiFan / CC BY 4.0)

There's a lot more we could all be doing with Wikipedia. You can download all of Wikipedia to access it locally with Kiwix. There's a plethora of Wikipedia-based games floating around, with my favorites being Redactle and Wikipedia Gacha. You could use the features in the app I just mentioned. You could follow their accounts on social media. Follow Depths of Wikipedia, which posts strange and interesting articles and photos and hosts live shows. You can also find interesting articles on the Unusual Articles article or on the Archive. If you have any information to add or photos to share, considering adding them.

Screenshot showing the article for "United States involvement in regime change", with a notice stating "This article may be too long to read and navigate comfortably." — The article for "United States involvement in regime change", shared by Depths of Wikipedia (Depths of Wikipedia)

It may seem obvious that I'd now suggest you to donate to Wikimedia, however I don't recommend you do that. At least do your research first. Wikipedians often discourage you to donate, as Wikimedia (Wikipedia's parent) has more than enough money to sustain themselves. When they run ads saying they're running out of money, they're deceiving you (Harrison, Wikimedia, Wikipedia). They are still a foundation though, not a corporation or something, so it's not like your money is going to a bad cause. Maybe look into donating to the Internet Archive or just a normal charity instead. Full disclosure: I have donated to them in the past, before I knew about this controversy.

"[Shigeru] Miyamoto enjoys rearranging furniture in his house, even late at night. He also stated that he has a hobby of guessing the dimensions of objects, then checking to see if he was correct, and reportedly carries a measuring tape with him everywhere. In December 2016, Miyamoto showcased his hobby on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, while also performing the Super Mario Bros. theme on guitar with The Roots during the same show."

- Article for Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of Mario, the Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong, Star Fox and Pikmin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigeru_Miyamoto / CC BY-SA 4.0)

"[Svante] Thunberg is named after an ancestral cousin, Svante Arrhenius, who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1903."
"Arrhenius was the first to use the principles of physical chemistry to estimate the extent to which increases in the atmospheric carbon dioxide are responsible for the Earth's increasing surface temperature. His work played an important role in the emergence of modern climate science."
"Thunberg did not initially support his daughter's school strike for the climate, which began in August 2018."
"In September 2018 Thunberg said "Greta forced us to change our lives, I didn't have a clue about the climate. We started looking into it, reading all the books."

- Articles for Svante Thunberg, father of Greta Thunberg, and Svante Arrhenius, founder of climate science - showing that Greta Thunbergs father didn't pay mind to the climate crisis before her daughter did despite the fact that he was named after the person who discovered it (Wikipedia / CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikipedia / CC BY-SA 4.0)

"January 13 - President Bush chokes on a pretzel and faints."

- Article for "Timeline of the George W. Bush presidency (2002)" (Wikipedia / CC BY-SA 4.0)

"Kelsey Bornstein's classmates bully her because she is the first person their age to grow large breasts. However, instead of menstruating, Kelsey becomes a werewolf."

- Article for "Boobs (short story)" (Wikipedia / CC BY-SA 4.0)

"The proposed nuclear destruction of the Moon has been rejected by astronomers on several grounds: the nuclear arsenal of mankind would fail to do more than crack the Moon's crust; if successful, the heating of Earth's atmosphere by a hail of falling lunar debris would be destructive to all life; and an increase, not decrease, in the Earth's wobble without a stabilizing Moon, leading to an Earth axial tilt of 45 degrees and more drastic seasons would occur."

- Article for Alexander Abian (Wikipedia / CC BY-SA 4.0)

"A website dedicated to the dessert [pudding], online since the mid-1990s and consisting only of a low-quality image of it, became famous in Brazil for its humorous and longstanding nature. In 2015, it was hacked by the Islamic State."

- Article for Pudding (Wikipedia / CC BY-SA 4.0)

I've found way too many articles that have piqued my interest to put them all on this post. Lots of them were found via Depths of Wikipedia. Here are some of them:

And some meta articles about Wikipedia itself: