Another good one in a similar vein is https://www.geoguessr.com/ — Guess where you are in the world from a random location by hopping around through unlabeled Google Streetview data
Cleveland,Canada,North America,Northern Hemisphere,North,South,Australia,Flora of Australia,Nothofagus,Plants of the World Online,International Plant Names Index,Australian Plant Name Index
Cleveland,List of sovereign states,Australia,Flora of Australia,Eucalyptus,Eucalyptus camaldulensis,Australian Plant Census,Australian Plant Name Index
It is harder than it needs to be because the Taxon Identifiers at the bottom of the page of plant species is missing from the wikispeedruns rendering of the page. That box seems to pretty consistently link to APNI.
The bottom box is against the rules, as well as "See Also" and sidebars. Links from the article text only. Wikispeedrun just renders it without the rulebreaking sections.
There's also some common house rules. No ctrl+f and no back button are fun.
For me ..... Cleveland,United States,Flag of the United States,National flag,Royal Standard of the United Kingdom,Commonwealth realm,Australia,Biodiversity action plan,Biodiversity,Global Biodiversity Information Facility,Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG),Global Biodiversity Information Facility,Biodiversity informatics,International Plant Names Index,Australian Plant Name Index
Interesting game! Not being able to go backwards makes it much harder.
It took me a very long time, but I eventually found it by going through (abbreviated) botany -> taxonomic database -> Encyclopedia of Life -> Atlas of Living Australia -> CSIRO -> Australian National Botanic Gardens -> Australian Plant Name Index.
The path you took:
[ "John F. Kennedy", "Harvard University", "List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation", "Nobel Prize", "Nobel Prize in Chemistry", "Chemistry", "Chemical equation", "Chemical formula" ]
Without using the browser find tool I suddenly realize it's nothing like how I usually use Wikipedia. I have to scan a lot differently to find what I'm looking for. I'm not sure if that's a positive or negative thing, since arguably using the find tool biases what we read toward what we want to see rather than something objectively true.
This was interesting, this was the last one I did. Reminds me of the "Degrees of separation" rule on Wikipedia that any article is within 5 or 6 clicks of something about WW2.
-----
You found it!
Here's how you did:
"Diesel engine" to "Ethnic group"
Time: 19.686 Seconds
Number of links visited: 4
The path you took:
[ "Diesel engine", "Rudolf Diesel", "Second French Empire", "French people", "Ethnic group" ]
Also reminds me of how if you click the second link of a Wikipedia article (and the second link of every subsequent page) you'll always end up on Philosophy
More info on this? Unless I'm misunderstanding something, in my own test, this isn't true. You can hit loops, e.g. the page for Russia goes to Eastern Europe which goes back to Russia.
I just tried it from a random page and thought it was going to work when I hit "knowledge", but ended up with a loop too. I think it's more of a truism than actual provable fact.
'Wikipedia trivia: if you take any article, click on the first link in the article text not in parentheses or italics, and then repeat, you will eventually end up at "Philosophy".'
Stems from https://xkcd.com/903/ alt-text. Might not be the original source, but that's where I know it from.
It worked for me? Either something changed in the past five minutes or one of us messed up. I did the first link as the article mentions, not the second. That could also be the issue.
My mistake. On my second time at "formal science," "science" was an already clicked hyperlink, and the dark blue is really close to black on my phone causing me to miss it.
Looking at the result for others, mines doesn't look so good.
"Australian Recording Industry Association" to "National Register of Historic Places listings in South Carolina"
Time: 285.376 Seconds
Number of links visited: 16
The path you took:
[ "Australian Recording Industry Association", "Australia", "Oceania", "Region", "List of regions of the United States", "Grand Strand", "South Carolina", "Fort Sumter", "Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie National Historical Park", "National Historic Site (United States)", "National Register of Historic Places", "List of U.S. National Historic Landmarks by state", "List of National Historic Landmarks in South Carolina", "St. James Episcopal Church (Santee, South Carolina)", "National Register of Historic Places", "United States National Register of Historic Places listings", "National Register of Historic Places listings in South Carolina" ]
"Tamil language" to "Republican Party (United States)"
Time: 95.330 Seconds
Number of links visited: 9
The path you took:
[ "Tamil language", "Indian subcontinent", "United Nations geoscheme for Asia", "United Nations", "Member states of the United Nations", "United States", "List of states and territories of the United States", "Alabama", "Alabama Republican Party", "Republican Party (United States)" ]
I've found the trick for these - unless a more obvious/direct path exists (eg. you get two somewhat related topics) is to try and find the Nazis first. I tried to go from Arabic to Science/Mathematics but that didn't pan out so pivoted to the Nazis which were only 3 degrees of separation away.
----
"Grammatical tense" to "Scientific method"
Time: 150.046 Seconds
Number of links visited: 9
The path you took:
[ "Grammatical tense", "Arabic", "List of languages by total number of speakers", "Language shift", "Anti-German sentiment", "World War I", "Nazism", "Pseudoscience", "Science", "Scientific method" ]
Also, I challenge everyone to break this record:
"History of Christianity" to "University of Cambridge"
Number of links visited: 2
[ "History of Christianity", "University of Oxford", "University of Cambridge" ]
The path you took:
[ "Ditransitive verb", "Grammar", "Linguistics", "Science", "Fall of the Western Roman Empire", "Edict of Milan", "Edict of Thessalonica", "Arianism", "Jesus", "Pauline epistles", "Paul the Apostle" ]
I needed to go from 700 to “Australasian Virtual Herbarium”.
Getting from 700 to South Australia or Adelaide is no big deal. The problem is trying to find a single Wikipedia page that actually links to the Wikipedia page for the Australasian Virtual Herbarium rather than to their website (or just referencing it without any link text).
I suppose I could go in somewhere and add it myself, but that would be cheating. So after 670 seconds, I’m throwing in the towel on this one. If anybody finds a way, let me know, but I may take a crack at this one again later this evening.
So it is possible, just very very challenging. I haven’t plugged it into a translator and it’s been a while since I deciphered ROT13 by hand, but looking at that first one I’m guessing that’s Australia itself just based on the pattern?
Country pages tend to have a lot of links to a lot of different topics. So if it’s on that page, that’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack, and it may not even be obviously labeled to begin with since link text can be anything on a MediaWiki.
If anyone wants to make a go at this and post their time and link count here, I may have some free time this weekend to try and challenge it. None this evening I’m afraid.
Particularly on mobile, where lots of small links next to each other is a minefield. I went to click the winning link one match only to click the line below, causing me to quit playing.
102 comments
[ 1.5 ms ] story [ 167 ms ] threadhttps://wikispeedruns.com/play/quick_play?prompt_start=Cleve...
It is harder than it needs to be because the Taxon Identifiers at the bottom of the page of plant species is missing from the wikispeedruns rendering of the page. That box seems to pretty consistently link to APNI.
There's also some common house rules. No ctrl+f and no back button are fun.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikirace
Interesting game! Not being able to go backwards makes it much harder.
Time: 54.809 Seconds
Number of links visited: 7
The path you took: [ "John F. Kennedy", "Harvard University", "List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation", "Nobel Prize", "Nobel Prize in Chemistry", "Chemistry", "Chemical equation", "Chemical formula" ]
—
"Federal Information Processing Standards" to "Cuba"
Time: 38.630 Seconds
Number of links visited: 2
The path you took: [ "Federal Information Processing Standards", "List of FIPS country codes", "Cuba" ]
—
Immediately searched by the string “countr” on the first page.
From the rules.
I’m sure the number of links would have been the same, but it would take much longer…
"Advanced Audio Coding" to "Butterfly"
Time: 82.087 Seconds
Number of links visited: 7
The path you took: [ "Advanced Audio Coding", "Bell Labs", "C (programming language)", "Compiler", "Debugging", "Software bug", "Moth", "Butterfly" ]
-----
You found it!
Here's how you did:
"Diesel engine" to "Ethnic group"
Time: 19.686 Seconds
Number of links visited: 4
The path you took: [ "Diesel engine", "Rudolf Diesel", "Second French Empire", "French people", "Ethnic group" ]
EDIT: I suppose one disproof would be the existence of articles that don't have a second link.
Stems from https://xkcd.com/903/ alt-text. Might not be the original source, but that's where I know it from.
At "Branches of science" it links back to "Formal science".
Keep in mind, you need to click on "first non-parenthesized, non-italicized link" in the article text itself.
If you tell a person to do a thing, you have to let them do it. If you want people to click the "next" button instead, you tell them to do that.
Here's how my run went:
"800 (number)" to "Video game" Time: 155.120 Seconds
Number of links visited: 9
The path you took: [ "800 (number)", "Factorial prime", "Integer", "C (programming language)", "Operating system", "Computer program", "Programmer", "Flight simulator", "Space flight simulation game", "Video game" ]
"Australian Recording Industry Association" to "National Register of Historic Places listings in South Carolina" Time: 285.376 Seconds
Number of links visited: 16
The path you took: [ "Australian Recording Industry Association", "Australia", "Oceania", "Region", "List of regions of the United States", "Grand Strand", "South Carolina", "Fort Sumter", "Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie National Historical Park", "National Historic Site (United States)", "National Register of Historic Places", "List of U.S. National Historic Landmarks by state", "List of National Historic Landmarks in South Carolina", "St. James Episcopal Church (Santee, South Carolina)", "National Register of Historic Places", "United States National Register of Historic Places listings", "National Register of Historic Places listings in South Carolina" ]
"Tamil language" to "Republican Party (United States)" Time: 95.330 Seconds
Number of links visited: 9
The path you took: [ "Tamil language", "Indian subcontinent", "United Nations geoscheme for Asia", "United Nations", "Member states of the United Nations", "United States", "List of states and territories of the United States", "Alabama", "Alabama Republican Party", "Republican Party (United States)" ]
----
"Grammatical tense" to "Scientific method" Time: 150.046 Seconds
Number of links visited: 9
The path you took: [ "Grammatical tense", "Arabic", "List of languages by total number of speakers", "Language shift", "Anti-German sentiment", "World War I", "Nazism", "Pseudoscience", "Science", "Scientific method" ]
Number of links visited: 5 [ "Gastropoda", "Taxonomy (biology)", "Ancient Greek", "Language family", "Language isolate", "Basque language" ]
"Ditransitive verb" to "Paul the Apostle"
Time: 133.395 Seconds
Number of links visited: 10
The path you took: [ "Ditransitive verb", "Grammar", "Linguistics", "Science", "Fall of the Western Roman Empire", "Edict of Milan", "Edict of Thessalonica", "Arianism", "Jesus", "Pauline epistles", "Paul the Apostle" ]
"National Collegiate Athletic Association" to "Myanmar"
Time: 63.695 Seconds
Number of links visited: 6
The path you took: [ "National Collegiate Athletic Association", "Student athlete", "Amateur", "Olympic Games", "International Olympic Committee", "Thailand", "Myanmar" ]
---
"Domain name" to "Creative Commons license" Time: 90.194 Seconds
Number of links visited: 8
The path you took: [ "Domain name", "Website", "Adobe Flash Player", "Browser game", "Free-to-play", "Freemium", "Open source", "Creative Commons", "Creative Commons license" ]
https://wikispeedruns.com/quick_run/finish?run_id=72581&play...
Time: 64.282 Seconds
Number of links visited: 6
The path you took: [ "New Delhi", "Capital city", "Cantons of Switzerland", "French language", "Northern France", "France", "Marseille" ]
https://wikispeedruns.com/quick_run/finish?run_id=73745&play...
"West Virginia" to "Austria-Hungary"
Time: 50.962 Seconds
Number of links visited: 8
The path you took: ["West Virginia", "United States", "North America", "Continent", "Eurasia", "Europe", "World war", "World War I", "Austria-Hungary" ]
Number of links visited: 10
The path you took: [ "Chromosome", "DNA", "Life", "Animal", "Systema Naturae", "Carl Linnaeus", "Chelsea Physic Garden", "Chelsea, London", "United Kingdom", "BBC", "BBC One" ]
This is pretty sick.
I needed to go from 700 to “Australasian Virtual Herbarium”.
Getting from 700 to South Australia or Adelaide is no big deal. The problem is trying to find a single Wikipedia page that actually links to the Wikipedia page for the Australasian Virtual Herbarium rather than to their website (or just referencing it without any link text).
I suppose I could go in somewhere and add it myself, but that would be cheating. So after 670 seconds, I’m throwing in the towel on this one. If anybody finds a way, let me know, but I may take a crack at this one again later this evening.
uggcf://ra.jvxvcrqvn.bet/jvxv/Nhfgenyvn
uggcf://ra.jvxvcrqvn.bet/jvxv/Pnaoreen
uggcf://ra.jvxvcrqvn.bet/jvxv/Nhfgenyvna_Angvbany_Obgnavp_Tneqraf
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I would probably not have been able to find this without using the reverse link feature.
Country pages tend to have a lot of links to a lot of different topics. So if it’s on that page, that’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack, and it may not even be obviously labeled to begin with since link text can be anything on a MediaWiki.
If anyone wants to make a go at this and post their time and link count here, I may have some free time this weekend to try and challenge it. None this evening I’m afraid.
Chromosome,DNA,William Astbury,London,United Kingdom,BBC,BBC One
"Voiceless bilabial plosive" to "Rotten Tomatoes"
Time: 98.637 Seconds Voiceless bilabial plosive,English language,African-American Vernacular English,Tupac Shakur,Nothing but Trouble (1991 film),Rotten Tomatoes
Number of links visited: 10
The path you took: [ "Synonym", "Morpheme", "Linguistics", "Language", "Language family", "Indo-European languages", "Germanic languages", "German language", "Swiss Standard German", "Switzerland", "Cantons of Switzerland" ]
https://www.sixdegreesofwikipedia.com/