Wikipedia talk:How many legs does a horse have?

Old mock
I'm not sure that WP:HORSE is the best acronym for this page - the first place I saw it, (without having read the policy), I thought it meant "I think Statement A is horse shit". Maybe WP:LEGS would be better. Maybe I have a dirty mind. -- stillnotelf   is invisible  23:40, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Done. --  stillnotelf   is invisible  02:25, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Wasn't it Gertrude Stein that (who, which) said? "A rose is a rose is a rose." Well, the real moral is: shit by any other name is still shit. Call it a rose, call it whatever you want, it is still shit. But we must recognize serious epistemological issues here. What I perceive as shit (usually brown, always smelly: unpleasant and noxious to the human sensory organ called the nose) you, dear reader, may perceive as a rose. Example: you are a dung beetle, and you perceive that ball o' shit over there as "better than a rose", it is life itself. And prove to me that you are not a dung beetle? Good luck, etc.

I do truly believe that this "policy" should be called the "horseshit" or "bullshit" policy. We have a good source now, thanks to a certain renounced (woops, renowned moral) philosopher at Princeton. I will add this source to the policy. wvbaileyWvbailey 22:18, 18 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I would have thought that the definitive "rose is a rose" would have been Shakespeare in Juliet's balcony speech where she mused "that which we call a rose/By any other word would smell as sweet". There is a lot to be said, however, for the duck test, i.e. If a bird looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then you can infer that it is indeed a duck, even if it is not wearing a label that explicitly states its identity. -- Alias Flood 23:40, 18 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I will research the rose quote and get back to you. wvbaileyWvbailey 23:03, 19 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Indeed it was Gertrude Stein. This from Bartlett's Familiar Quotations: "Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose." Sacred Emily, 1913. I have no idea what it means. Nobody knows what any of her writing means. That must be why it's considered so good.wvbaileyWvbailey 18:36, 27 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I think the horse/legs example illustrates the point without as, uh, crude a reference. The problem is that bandying words like "horseshit" around quickly gets one accused of personal attacks or of being a dick.  Personally, I curse fluently, so I'd never be offended; but many people would be offended by a WP:SHIT policy.  Using weaker words should help with that problem.  --  stillnotelf   is invisible  23:21, 18 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I do agree that, to label someone's writing "bulls**t" or "horses**t" might seem a bit ... what shall we say? ... aggressive? But to label someone a "dick" is pretty rough too. Better to label someone's writing "bulls**t" (bullticky? bumsuck?) than to label the person who wrote it "a dick", unless of course they are a dick, in which case it's completely justified ... right? What I will do is actually read the reference that I quoted, i.e. "On Bullshit" and report back; I have a cc right before me. (Novel concept, this?) Whether the 5-legged horse problem and the duck problem and the rose-as-sh*t problem are the one-in-the-same has become unclear to me. So much philosophy, so little time. wvbaileyWvbailey 23:03, 19 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I read the book (truly. Not the easiest read, actually). I also noted that Bullshit is a page in Wikipedia. The book itself observes that bullshit is more an enemy to truth than a lie because, after enough practice the bullshitter comes to believe his bullshit and every word he says or writes is suspect. This causes me to wonder exactly what the "Legs" parable means. Does it mean: "To thine own perceptions be true?" To have the courage to shout: "The emperor has no clothes! And horses have four legs and you can't talk me out of it!" Back in mid '60's when I came east to college I had a couple of the college secretaries convinced that Denver was still a stockade fortified to keep Indian attacks at bay. But one in particular refused to believe it. If I'd been writing my history of the West on wikipedia should she have written in response: "LEGS!" Or "Bullshit!" or what exactly?wvbaileyWvbailey 18:36, 27 April 2006 (UTC)


 * After much cogitation I will now render my opinion (I think that "rendering" means boiling down dead beast-bodies into fat: yes, my trusty Webster's does indeed corroborate this usage...) that this is the "WP:Horselegs" policy, so much kinder a moniker than the "WP:horsesh*t" or "WP:bullsh*t" policy. wvbaileyWvbailey 22:50, 9 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Done, the alternative abbreviations/links are a done dudu. If they don't work mea culpa, then flagellate me with a wet noodle, etc. wvbaileyWvbailey 03:50, 30 July 2006 (UTC)


 * You're right, calling someone a dick is aggressive - the page says Telling someone "Don't be a dick" is something of a dick-move in itself, so don't bandy the criticism about lightly. It is also an assumption of bad faith to cite this policy when a weaker statement is sufficient. So...yes...you're right :) --  stillnotelf   is invisible  23:36, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I find some humor in discussion of what to call an essay whose subject is It doesn't matter what you call it... John Reid 02:48, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Abraham Lincoln
Shouldn't this essay credit the actual source? 72.199.30.31 16:04, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

If you can "prove" the source is Lincoln with a verifiable attribution (as in: look in book xyz on page pqr) is Lincoln, well then, of course he should get the credit. wvbaileyWvbailey 21:31, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Best article in wikipedia
"How do I nominate thee? Let me count the ways ...." [How do I nominate thee? Lemme know the ways! thanks, wvbailey!]Wvbailey 23:18, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree, that nuke almost made me spit out my coffee. A very fine piece of work. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.162.33.43 (talk) 05:54, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I also agree (and might add that the nuke was well played), but at the same time I'm just trying to figure out how I ended up here when I searched "horse with three legs"...--Macks2008 (talk) 14:11, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

What If Its a Mutant Horse?
Let's say it had a birth defect and it was born with a double-leg in the back of it's head. Then it would have five legs! --68.192.46.244 (talk) 00:35, 10 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Indeed it would. To examine this conundrum we have to resort to philosophy. How many horses do we have to examine before we can assert that "For all horses: 'Horses have five legs?' " Suppose we live in an odd place (say: New Hampshire USA) where there's lots of granite and therefore radioactivity and therefore plenty of mutants. Or an even worse place: center Wyoming where there's a huge, abandoned open-pit uranium mine (been there, seen it, seen the uranium oxide, seen the workers with their little geiger counters) with all its dust etc and so there's lots of mutants (haven't been there in years but hear rumors, so let's pretend, go with me here ...). Ergo the wild horses (and the ranchers' cows, etc) now all have 5 legs. Let's say that you, dear reader, have lived in such a place all your life (virtually impossible, as there's nothing out there, but go with me here ... this is philosophy, after all). Thus all your experiences of horses is one of "five-legged horse." Then as far as you're concerned: "All horses (cows, sheep, dogs, cats, chipmunks, squirrels, etc) have five legs." As far as you're concerned, this assertion is not bullshit, this is fact. What is "fact"? Again, so much philosophy, so little time. Look what happened to Aristotle: he was a philosopher and then he died. Proof of the (non-bullshit) fact that: If you philosophize then you die. Bill Wvbailey (talk) 21:34, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

What if you redefine "leg" to include tails?
Essentially, make "leg" synonymous with "appendage" or "extremity". It's perfectly valid, in theory, to redefine a word in a very specific way, as long as all parties involved accept the redefinition. Once that condition is met and you redefine it, you've redefined it. That's how animals became deer in England, in a manner of speaking. After all, there's nothing about the concept of a leg, or the written word, or the sounds of the word, that inextricably tie them to a strict, immutable definition. Äþelwulf Talk to me. 08:25, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
 * You know a true or false prophet by his fruit. (Matthew 7:16) And you know a leg by the weight it bears. A kangaroo has five legs by this definition, but a horse or dog or calf still has four. --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 02:36, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

The Nuke
Just curious as to why thats there, it seems out of place yet its hilarious. --Flyingcandyman (talk) 22:38, 31 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I have no idea. Let's keep it. :-D -70.171.224.249 (talk) 03:00, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

What is the purpose of this nonsense?
If this was a real quote from Lincoln then I have just lost respect for his idiotic logic. When **WE** redefine something and **WE** agree on it then for the purpose of that discussion it counts as whatever we agree to count it as. You can't redefine something and then state the definition doesn't count. This whole page has become a mockery of real logic for what purpose? 99.251.114.120 (talk) 15:14, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * If Lincoln was an idiot, what does that make you? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:33, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * In my case, it is to make me laugh on a cloudy, gloomy day! WPEQ thanks the creators of this page!   Montanabw (talk) 19:01, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Philosophical Discussion
Robert Stalnaker, in his extremely influential paper "Assertion" (1978), discusses the example. His develops a semantics to deal with assertions to which different truth-values are given depending on the context (e.g. "a horse has five legs" is true in a language in which a tail is counted as a leg, false in some languages in which it doesn't). His solution to the riddle (to be precise, he rather takes the riddle as an example) exploits what at the time was a new tradition in linguistics, called two-dimensional semantics. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.242.143.129 (talk) 01:49, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 April 2019
When Googled "How many legs does a horse have?", this article's direct answer is 6. Please change how this is formatted so it responds with 4. MSWS (talk) 06:10, 14 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Google uses unknown methods to extract that information, it doesn't appear possible to influence what it extracts. – Þjarkur (talk) 16:19, 14 April 2019 (UTC)
 * It looks like google supports opting out of snippet pages for individual pages, but that's not something that can be done using mediawiki. The only option seems to be to WP:NOINDEX the page, which might be overkill.  It is also possible to flag misleading snippets on google, but I don't know if they'll actually handle it.  I don't think editing the page to remove the specific thing google inlines is a good idea, just because google might change how they index it (and in the mean time it makes the essay confusing).  Or maybe a direct answer could be added to the nutshell section and we can hope google prefers that one -- I'll try this (and temporarily revert the other edit). --Pokechu22 (talk) 17:46, 14 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Just because google gives an incorrect answer to a question does not mean we need to no index this page. Also No indexing this page doesn't allow the other option, in a nut shell, to be given a try.  User:MSWS is probably related to the accounts that were vandalizing this page a few days ago and why it is semi-protected right now.  ~ GB fan 09:13, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I already did try the nutshell, and it did not work. But I'll drop it for now; I don't really care too much about this.  I'm pretty sure an image of the search results or something is going around (I found out about it over here but that didn't gain any traction so there are probably other such posts) which is probably why people are seeing it. --Pokechu22 (talk) 15:59, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
 * If you believe this page should not be indexed, you will need to get consensus to do so. Right now you don't have consensus to make this change.  ~ GB fan 10:21, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
 * For the record, both and myself each tried adding it independently (in fact conflicting more or less).  I know that isn't strictly a consensus but I'm not the only one interested in trying noindex here. --Pokechu22 (talk) 16:31, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I saw the meme floating around which prompted me to look into all this. I've checked, and Google is still doing it. Given the page's secondary status, I believe it is quite appropriate to try the NOINDEX approach, and as such I have placed back the omnibox with a bit more concrete information. User:GB fan, I believe that the consensus is that we should try this to see if it works, given the people in favour of it. If you wish to try a different approach, you will need to outline what you want to do, and not just revert. ~ fl 01:09, 28 April 2019 (UTC)
 * This isn't our problem, it is Google's. We shouldn't be trying to fix Google's problem.  Since this is already out there, no indexing will stop it from finding this page but it won't stop the meme.  We are spending to much time on something that doesn't need to be fixed.  ~ GB fan 12:05, 28 April 2019 (UTC)
 * , has it right below. People performing the search are not doing it actually find out how many legs a horse has, they are doing it because of the meme.  ~ GB fan 12:07, 28 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Agreed, it's for Google to improve their infobox generating algorithm not for Wikipedia editors to try to catch each glitch, and there's no actual harm coming from it in the meantime since no one is going to actually think horses have 6 legs. O0factuallycorrect0o (talk) 13:42, 28 April 2019 (UTC)
 * We can point the finger all we want about who is really to blame, and how Google should up their game (which they should). However, I think that there is a somewhat of a reputation problem here. I doubt the average person can grasp the subtlety of WP: namespaced pages, and what it looks like from the outside is someone has vandalised Wikipedia with dumb inaccurate information and Google has picked it up. The fact that it also seems like no Wikipedia editor has "fixed" said vandalism makes it look even worse. I don't think it's wise to give detractors any ammunition, given a perception some people have of Wikipedia being inaccurate. Regarding NOINDEXing, Google does not seem to publish information on how to delist infobox content (that we can use), however they are quite clear that in general, using NOINDEX is the approach for blocking indexing in general, thus I think it is the best tool we have. Balancing these concerns with the fact that this is an incredibly niche page, I am of the firm belief that using noindex is the right approach here. I've seen User:BLDM has reverted my addition saying consensus is required. I've left a talk page message in the hope they can come and discuss that consensus here. ~ fl  23:44, 28 April 2019 (UTC)
 * As mentioned by other users, the majority of search traffic is (hopefully) not legitimately trying to figure out how many legs a horses have. Given that, arguing that this is a non-negligible reputation problem isn't very fair.
 * My overall opinion is that we shouldn't be trying to fix a problem that is outside of Wikipedia. I'm sure there are many other pages that create similar problems for search engines, and adding NOINDEX to all of them isn't a very good solution. Perhaps there's a channel to raise this issue with Google. BLDM (talk) 00:01, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
 * In my view, it doesn't matter that the traffic is non-legitimate, because if it's not legitimate, it is likely people checking to see if the meme is true. When they do find it is true, I think that does have a reputational impact for the reasons stated above. While I understand the idealistic reasons why we shouldn't have to fix this, this idealism is getting in the way of a simple, obvious, pragmatic solution to a problem. I think the fact we're not willing to implement that pragmatic approach also reflects pretty poorly on us. ~ fl 00:10, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Further to this, I agree that this is not a *good* solution, but it is likely a successful solution. User:BLDM, can you outline why, for this page here and now, we shouldn't take the action that probably fixes the problem? If it's a minor problem, then I don't see why it's necessary to oppose it so. ~ fl 00:29, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
 * This solution carries consequences, some of which may not be very obvious. Perhaps past discussions on applying NOINDEX need to be reviewed. BLDM (talk) 00:48, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, but linking me to a trove of discussion on the topic is not constructive. If you're aware of these non-obvious consequences, please outline them. If not, then it's not a very strong argument. I'm aware of what noindex does on normal webpages, and as far as I'm aware Wikipedia isn't treated differently. What are you concerned about? Black-holing a niche essay on Wikipedia policy doesn't seem particularly risky, particularly since it's the internal policy links that are the most important for these documents. ~ fl 00:58, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Sorry, just trying to provide a potentially helpful reference.
 * We know what NOINDEX does from a technical standpoint. I'm (we're?) not aware of what the full consequences are, and that's what bothers me. A solution doesn't need to be applied immediately (if at all), so I think it's important that we don't rush this. BLDM (talk) 01:09, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
 * From what I understand, NOINDEX is used all over the place on Wikipedia for content we'd like to hide, like the user/talk pages of banned users, some BLP talk pages, etc. I do think that the reputational damage continues for the longer that the article is up, however minor we might think that effect is. I don't know what additional information we could gather to further assuage you, as I think what's likely to happen is the discussion will just stall, as it's not likely new information will come to light. Given that noindex is restricted to the single page, it seems like the easiest way to find out about anything possibly negative is to just NOINDEX it and keep an eye on it. I don't know any mechanism whereby anything worse than a page delisting could occur? ~ fl 01:36, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Applying a solution and waiting to see if it causes problems is a reckless strategy. I'll await further input from other editors, as it doesn't seem we're making much progress. Do note that I'm not the only editor raising an objection here. BLDM (talk) 01:50, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

I haven't even heard a good reason why the content of this page needs to be hidden from Google. Google says this page says something it doesn't say and people have noticed it. If someone can reason out the question, How many legs does a horse have?, they already know how many legs a horse has. If they do ask the question and believe the google answer of 6 is correct, we can't fix stupid. ~ GB fan 01:55, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
 * No, we can't fix stupid, but we can most definitely the giant "six legs - Wikipedia" that is currently being displayed to people. That is what I have an objection to. *We're* the ones that look stupid. It reflects very poorly on us to have that massive banner with Wikipedia right under it.
 * And BLDM; if we want to get empirical, I am on the side of the bucket load of evidence that NOINDEX works just fine on many hundreds of pages all over the wiki. You are just bringing up vague concerns and saying they should somehow have equal weight. They don't. It is impossible for anyone to argue against your position because your position has no substance to it. If you're not willing to substantiate your concerns, I don't see why they should be given much weight. ~ fl 02:54, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
 * We know that NOINDEX will successfully remove the snippet result - that's not what I'm concerned with.
 * I'm still of the opinion that this isn't our problem to solve, and that we shouldn't be playing Wikipedia PR by trying to protect the site's reputation. If people somehow view Wikipedia negatively because of a single out-of-context Google snippet result... that's on them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BLDM (talk • contribs) 12:17, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Is there a particular reason as to why this page should not be NOINDEXed? Sure, it may be Google's problem and not ours, and sure I've done my due diligence by reporting it to Google, but why would Google care? Adding NOINDEX takes five seconds and doesn't turn us into the Wikipedia PR Department, and it stops giving fodder to the meme. People who are seriously asking how many legs a horse have (hey, you can't make assumptions about everyone) would want to see Horse, which is indexed, not this essay, and I don't particularly see why this essay needs to be indexed by search engines. This essay is for Wikipedia use only, and if someone outside of Wikipedia wants to find the passage that this essay is based on (handily cited as "Criticisms on "A Criticism on Averaging Accounts""), we're better off serving them on Wikisource, not a Wikipedia project page. — k6ka  🍁 ( Talk ·  Contributions ) 13:34, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
 * The answer is: I like to use search engines other than Elasticsearch for finding essays and discussions and NOINDEX interferes with that.  — Dispenser 15:09, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

I think I found a relative simple fix for this. The article Horse didn't actually mention how many legs a horse has. So I added that small piece of information to the article in the Anatomy section. Someone Not Awful (talk) 23:06, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Looks like Google fixed this :) BLDM (talk) 22:10, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

As someone that just came here from a DIFFERENT search engine that probably would've also stopped indexing this page had you gone through, I'm very glad you all decided not to noindex this page (that is what happened, right? Or does duckduckgo just ignore it? This whole reply kinda depends on this presumption). Reading it has resulted in the best laugh I've had all month and, if I may be so bold, your collective conclusion concerning who owns the burden of fixing the issue, was right: Google. As a (student) software developer, I believe the onus to fix a bug is always (with possible exceptions for extenuating circumstances) on the developer, and while I'm not sure how prepared I am to accept that responsibility myself, I think it worked out in this case. Google screwed up, but it didn't escalate to the point of a libel lawsuit did it?

Worrying about Wikipedia's reputation, furthermore, wouldn't have really helped anything. I've tried explaining to people why Wikipedia isn't "bad" (despite understandably being rejected as a *"credible"* academic source) and that it has verifiability guidelines, and while some will listen... others, not so much. As unfortunate as it is, I don't think one Search Engine Optimization change to a minor page (even one that happened to get a bit of mostly temporary attention over a meme) will change that. Some of them, well, arguing with them is comparable to arguing with someone on tumblr; it's the "I want to bang my head on a glass window because glass fragments in my skull are less painful" sort of frustration, you know?

Thank you to everyone involved in this debate, on both sides (and so ya'll don't miss my "nod" of appreciation -assuming I use this correctly, and really sorry if this is an unwanted notification for any of you-: ) --Macks2008 (talk) 15:32, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I realized after reading down a bit (like, the next-to-last Talk topic) that you actually did noindex the page, but it was removed later. Nonetheless, my thanks still applies; it's nice to see a civil debate on the Internet once in a while (granted Wikipedia, by its nature, tends to bring out cooperation in people anyway)--Macks2008 (talk) 20:38, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

Amazing page
I gotta say this page is amazing and I can't beleave that. I am giving this page a 1934589761984576119345897619845761193458976198457619999999999994568746534829/10 MoMoCool2005 | Talk•••Contributions 13:42, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Very nice.  Nixinova   T   C  20:40, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Removing the noindex
The page shouldn't be non-indexed because it's unlikely anyone is actually searching google for how many legs a horse has because they don't know. If they are, they're probably trying to find the current infobox which will disappear if it's noindexed. O0factuallycorrect0o (talk) 10:07, 28 April 2019 (UTC)
 * O0factuallycorrect0o you won't believe it, but that's how I ended up here. And no, I didn't ask it myself but this went viral, as Google suggests horses have six legs, per this page. :) --Aleksey Chalabyan a.k.a. Xelgen (talk) 18:50, 28 April 2019 (UTC)
 * , I am confused as to what you mean. Did you get here because you were trying to figure out how many legs a horse has?  Or did you get here because you heard that google gives out bad information based on this essay?  I hope it is the latter.  Your response to me seems o say both things.  ~ GB fan 19:24, 28 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is used by all age groups including young kids who are just learning about the world, so don't make assumptions of the knowledge level of searchers. Someone Not Awful (talk) 23:16, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

I mean, if things like this are happening, makes sense that we'd want to stop Google from indexing this page. — k6ka  🍁 ( Talk ·  Contributions ) 02:05, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
 * User:k6ka I'd encourage you to get involved in the discussion above about it. ~ fl 03:16, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 29 April 2019
The horse has only 4 legs Rijishapk (talk) 11:56, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes it does and that is what this page says. Google is taking a snippet of this page that it actually doesn't say.  ~ GB fan 12:07, 29 April 2019 (UTC)