Micek’s Tumblelog points out the fun and addictive nature of playing 6 degrees of separation using Wikipedia. The object of the game is to pick two random articles and see who can connect them using the fewest links. The game makes sense, since the nature of Wikipedia is to start looking up avacados and ending up reading about the bubonic plague. My friend and I have been playing against each other. For example:
Robert Hawkins > Pennsylvania > Lehigh University > Anthropology > Paleoanthropology > GHR von koenigswald > NG 6
For shits and giggles, let’s see who can get from Avacado to Bubonic Plague in the shortest amount of steps.
EDIT: Holy crap you guys are too good. That’s what happens when I don’t pick truly random articles. Ok, have a challenge:
Battle of Montreal to Barangay Health Volunteers, Phillippines
16 comments
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Paul Gowder
April 27, 2009 at 2:38 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Trivial! Avocado –> Bacteria –> Bubonic Plague.
Michael
April 27, 2009 at 2:38 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
A friend and I played a similar game but it died due to being too time-consuming!Avocado to Bubonic Plague? Too easy :)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A…http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S…http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G…http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B…
Michael
April 27, 2009 at 2:39 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Damn — beaten by a whole order of magnitude!
Jen
April 27, 2009 at 2:44 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
You guys are way too good. Try the harder one!
Paul Gowder
April 27, 2009 at 3:05 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
That’s a hard one. Not too hard for my wikipedia ninja skills, mind, but it requires a long route running through wikipedia system pages and other near-cheating techniques. :-)Battle of Montreal War of 1812 Category:Wars involving the United StatesPhilippine-American WarTalk:Philippine-American WarWikipedia:Tambayan Philippines Wikipedia:Tambayan Philippines/Cleanup listingBarangay Health Volunteers, PhilippinesRahr!
Jeremiah
April 27, 2009 at 3:20 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Isn’t efficiently hacking through relational data systems a form of intelligence?Paul > All
mynabyrd
April 27, 2009 at 3:22 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
This is unfair!! This is /exactly/ the kind of thing you don’t blog about as a courtesy to other bloggers. I’m never gonna be able to post on a regular basis now… damn, I was just getting into a good habit there.lol, jk. I love your blog, keep it up. :)
Paul Gowder
April 27, 2009 at 3:30 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
The true victory in this game would be to edit the origin page in some plausible fashion to include a direct reference to the destination page.
JoVee
April 27, 2009 at 3:43 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I think going through the talk pages is slightly cheating, personally.Also, I agree with Paul totally that the best win is to edit in a plausible direct link. :)
Stephen
April 27, 2009 at 4:03 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Ha – beat this:Battle of MontrealRandom articleBarangay Health Volunteers, PhillippinesDoesn’t seem to work very often though…
alitheiapsis
April 27, 2009 at 6:50 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Haha, my friend told me that you can connect every article on Wikipedia to Jesus’ in six steps or fewer. I blogged some examples here: http://alitheiapsis.wordpress….I like to think his was more profound because it shows the pervasiveness of religion in our culture…or something. I think the best way to play this version is to click random article twice and try to connect the dots.
locksmyth
April 27, 2009 at 12:05 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Battle_of_MontrealUnited_StatesWorld_Health_OrganizationCategory:Medical_and_health_organizationsBarangay_Health_Volunteers,_PhilippinesLess the 6, booya!
Anonymous
April 27, 2009 at 12:49 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
another funny one is translating into a script you can’t understand (farsi, chinese, hebrew, etc) clicking on several links… then translating back to see where you are.
locksmyth
April 27, 2009 at 5:12 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I just noticed wikipedia pages have a toolbox that contains a “what links here”. I feel very very silly searching for my 6 degrees the hard way now.
bunny
April 27, 2009 at 5:17 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
There’s actually a website that finds shortest wiki paths for you x.x This was on slashdot a while back, even: http://www.netsoc.tcd.ie/~mu/w…
Paul Gowder
April 27, 2009 at 7:24 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Locksmyth, what’s annoying is that the “what links here” page for Barangay Health Volunteers does not list that category page. Grrr!