# Least useful Wikipedia article?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-useful-wikipedia-article/430908
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [December 22, 2007, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-useful-wikipedia-article/430908 "2007-12-22T05:10:59Z")
**Posts on this page:** 14
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2007, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-useful-wikipedia-article/430908/1 "2007-12-22T05:10:59Z")
What’s the least useful Wikipedia article you’ve ever come across. [This one](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_pear) would be my guess
> [@](#):
>
> **Chinese Pear**
>
> Several different fruits are called Chinese pear.
That’s it.
Can you come up with anything less informative?
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### Author:  [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2007, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-useful-wikipedia-article/430908/2 "2007-12-22T05:28:16Z")
That’s a good one. I’ll be on the lookout–I’m curious now.
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### Author:  [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2007, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-useful-wikipedia-article/430908/3 "2007-12-22T05:56:29Z")
I dunno, do stub articles really count? There’s a plethora of them in the Wiki.
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### Author:  [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2007, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-useful-wikipedia-article/430908/4 "2007-12-22T06:07:48Z")
Nah, the article linked by the OP can’t be the _least_ useful item in Wikipedia; it has a _picture_!
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2007, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-useful-wikipedia-article/430908/5 "2007-12-22T07:08:51Z")
Does anyone care about Kevin and Trudie?
(they’re friends of mine so I started a Wiki page for them)
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### Author:  [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2007, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-useful-wikipedia-article/430908/6 "2007-12-22T18:29:42Z")
The article about Kevin and Trudie may be trivial, but it tells exactly when and from where their radio program is broadcast. I’m not even sure that it’s that trivial, really. Do most local radio programs have Wikipedia pages? How about this page?:
> **[Surrender Dorothy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_Dorothy)**
>
> "Surrender Dorothy" is a famous special effect used in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, where the Wicked Witch of the West flies on her broomstick to write the two-word phrase across the sky. The phrase later attained local fame as graffiti in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area.
> The first appearance of the phrase is in the 1939 version of The Wizard of Oz (it is not in the novel or any previous adaptations). In the scene, Dorothy Gale (Judy Garland) has reached the Emerald City with her comp...
This is mostly about a piece of thirty-year-old grafitti that is no longer readable.
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### Author:  [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2007, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-useful-wikipedia-article/430908/7 "2007-12-22T18:48:03Z")
There was a thread about this a few months ago (suspect I may have started it?) and **Surok** posted the superb [mayonnaise jar](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayonnaise_jar).
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### Author:  [@Garula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Garula)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2007, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-useful-wikipedia-article/430908/8 "2007-12-22T23:57:46Z")
The mayonnaise jar article is only a stub. Clearly, the article merely touches upon the vast reaches of mayonnaise jar related information out there. Is there an expert in the house who can better inform the world on Soviet era mayonnaise jars?
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### Author:  [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2007, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-useful-wikipedia-article/430908/9 "2007-12-23T01:07:58Z")
[Small set (category theory)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_set_%28category_theory%29)
Granted, I’m no mathematician, but can anybody tell me what this means?
> [@](#):
>
> a large set is any set that is not small.
>
> A small set is not to be confused with a small category, which is a category whose collection of objects forms a set.
So if I follow this, a category is a set, but a set can’t be a category, a relationship proven by large objects not being small. Or something.
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### Author:  [@aktep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aktep)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2007, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-useful-wikipedia-article/430908/10 "2007-12-23T01:47:57Z")
[QUOTE=Garula]
The mayonnaise jar article is only a stub. Clearly, the article merely touches upon the vast reaches of mayonnaise jar related information out there. Is there an expert in the house who can better inform the world on Soviet era mayonnaise jars?
[/QUOTE]
[The Russian version of the article?](http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9C%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B5%D0%B7%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D0%B1%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%BA%D0%B0)
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### Author:  [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2007, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-useful-wikipedia-article/430908/11 "2007-12-23T01:55:25Z")
[QUOTE=aktep]
[The Russian version of the article?](http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9C%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B5%D0%B7%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D0%B1%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%BA%D0%B0)
[/QUOTE]
There are poems on that page! I mean, some of that stuff looked like poems, and I ran it through Google translator and sure enough, poems. About mayo jars.
“Russia is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, inside a mayonnaise jar; but perhaps there is a key. That key is…er…creamy mayonnaise-y goodness?”
> [@](#):
>
> **Humor on the bank mayoneznoy**
>
> Plastic from the mayonnaise appears in anecdotes and funny stories, such as:
>
> Melcom we thrown, and fold in the big jar of mayonnaise from custody.
>
> Death Valley mayonnaise jars - window in the clinic.
Those _definitely_ lost something in the translation there.
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### Author:  [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2007, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-useful-wikipedia-article/430908/12 "2007-12-23T02:59:04Z")
[QUOTE=A Monkey With a Gun]
[Small set (category theory)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_set_%28category_theory%29)
Granted, I’m no mathematician, but can anybody tell me what this means?
> [@](#):
>
> a large set is any set that is not small.
>
> A small set is not to be confused with a small category, which is a category whose collection of objects forms a set.
So if I follow this, a category is a set, but a set can’t be a category, a relationship proven by large objects not being small. Or something.
[/QUOTE]
I’d never run into this term before, but it makes perfect sense to me. Unfortunately, it’s a little difficult to explain to a layperson. The key is in the first paragraph:
> [@](#):
>
> Thus, the category of small sets is the category of all sets one cares to consider. This is used when one does not wish to bother with set-theoretic concerns of what is and what is not considered a set, which concerns would arise if one tried to speak of the category of “all sets”.
Set theory and related disciplines can get pretty ugly if you need to worry about whether any particular collection of objects is a set. Working with the category of small sets rather than the category of all sets means that you don’t need to worry about some of the nastier bits that you would otherwise.
My nomination for the most useless Wikipedia article is [Knuckles the Echidna](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knuckles_the_Echidna). It’s not so much that it doesn’t contain any information; in fact, it’s very long. But who would ever care to know so much about a video game character?
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### Author:  [@AmbushBug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AmbushBug)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2007, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-useful-wikipedia-article/430908/13 "2007-12-23T04:28:12Z")
Not so long ago there was a contest held to suggest “Least-Notable Wikipedia Article” as to be judged by the contest holder, Lore Sjoberg.
[http://slumbering.lungfish.com/?p=406](http://slumbering.lungfish.com/?p=406)
Winner (though not qualifying for the contest) was an article for “Pumpkin-Headed Deer”; said article was deleted from WIkipedia about a month later 🙂
Grand Prize winner in the contest was [Cone cow](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cone_cow) which at least still exists.
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### Author:  [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2007, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-useful-wikipedia-article/430908/14 "2007-12-23T04:44:09Z")
[QUOTE=A Monkey With a Gun]
[Small set (category theory)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_set_%28category_theory%29)
[/QUOTE]
> [@AmbushBug](#):
>
> Grand Prize winner in the contest was Cone cow which at least still exists.
Both of those aren’t bad, but both articles contain both internal and external links. I’m not sure they even come close to seven words with absolutely no links to anywhere, unless the picture counts.
[This one](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_chain_cell) has sixteen words and a single, pretty useless link, for instance