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Comment by domdip | Hacker News Reader

There's a similar game in which you ask "what is the smallest positive integer that doesn't have a dedicated Wikipedia page?"

And then you can ask what happens when that number gets its own Wikipedia page...

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This is known as the interesting number paradox: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interesting_number_paradox

From there, the description of the Berry paradox is good for a laugh: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berry_paradox

I was going to cite that if nobody else did; I didn't realize it had its own Wikipedia page.

N is the smallest number without a wikipedia page. A page is created to document this fact. N+1 is now the smallest number without a wikipedia page.

But if you created the page for N, that was its only feature of notability. If you create a page for N+1, N is now no longer notable. But that means also means that N+1's page is both inaccurate and not notable, and so it must be deleted. N is now once again the smallest number without a wikipedia page.

So rather than creating an infinitely increasing set of pages, I think you end up toggling forever between N and N+1

I'm pretty sure being the smallest number without a Wikipedia page does not fit the Wikipedia notability criteria for an article, so the article for N would never be approved.

This is how you lose editing privileges.

(...either 2551 or 7563, depending on if you allow things like "7562 Kagiroino-Oka")

I think N would retain a Wikipedia page. When you add a page for N+1, you update the page for N to include a history section: "N was the smallest number without a wikipedia page, until December 8, 2014, when N+1 became the smallest number without a wikipedia page."

There is no particular reason to think that N+1 does not have a wikipedia page. The next page without a number might be, I dunno, N+3454327.

That's true, but doesn't actually change my logic at all

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