Six Degrees of Wikipedia

[GhastMaster]

I occasionally find playing a fun game by myself.

It works very much the same as Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. However I click links in Wikipedia articles to get from one to the other. I do not limit myself to six links. I just try to get there with as few steps as possible. I do not use the search function, any of the common page elements on the left side, or external links.

Example: Cantina to Alpha Centauri

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantina
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_station
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_of_...anchester)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aerospace_museums
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennedy_Sp...or_Complex
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Centauri

I think this could be a fun challenge for children or a group competition. Getting to rather obscure articles would be more difficult of course. Restricting "List" pages would make it more challenging.

While writing this I found a wikipedia article for this exact subject. There is a whole page for wikipedia games.

Interestingly, some chains can take many more steps to link in reverse.

[eppie]

I occasionally find playing a fun game by myself.

I did this myself a few years ago as well. And just like you I also saw I wasn't the only one.

It is a nice mix of strategy and speed. I think adding a time element would be fun. Do it as fast as possible but every extra page you visit costs you a few min or something.

[Lissa]

Someone proved that if you go 17 articles deep, you always end up at a specific page, IIRC, it's philosophy.

[GhastMaster]

#1 on hacker news right now is a link to a website to show the links. It is a pretty popular post.

https://www.sixdegreesofwikipedia.com/?s...20Centauri

https://www.sixdegreesofwikipedia.com/
https://news.ycombinator.com/

[bimbys]

Good to know I am not the only one lost in Wikipedia. One page leads to another and next thing I know, I am in the deep Wikipedia web looking for more enlightenment.
But if I really want to absorb what I am learning, I write about it on my website that I made using the hpage website builder. Try it too. You can create a free website at hPage.com

[kandrathe]

Get from Maze to Comstock Laws in 5 steps or less.