[HN Gopher] Wikipedia Speedruns ___________________________________________________________________ Wikipedia Speedruns Author : mahami Score : 205 points Date : 2022-09-15 12:36 UTC (10 hours ago) (HTM) web link (wikispeedruns.com) (TXT) w3m dump (wikispeedruns.com) | tristor wrote: | 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" ] | HideousKojima wrote: | 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 | epicide wrote: | 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. | howenterprisey wrote: | Wikipedia, unsurprisingly, has a page on this: https://en.w | ikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Getting_to_Philosoph... | capableweb wrote: | Which, ironically, doesn't work for that page. You end up | in a loop rather than getting to philosophy. | boomboomsubban wrote: | 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. | agweber wrote: | '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. | SllX wrote: | Knowledge also forms a loop going from: Knowledge -> | Procedural knowledge -> Descriptive knowledge -> Knowledge. | gibspaulding wrote: | 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. | epicide wrote: | I think it might be provable that you'll eventually hit a | loop. | | EDIT: I suppose one disproof would be the existence of | articles that don't have a second link. | digitalmk wrote: | For someone who didn't exactly excel in chemistry, this was | rough: | | "Automotive industry" to "Pi bond" Time: 145.773 Seconds | | Number of links visited: 13 | | The path you took: [ "Automotive industry", "Industry | (economics)", "Product (business)", "Raw material", "Foundry", | "Hydrogen gas porosity", "Hydrogen", "Diatomic molecule", | "Molecule", "Chemical bond", "Bond length", "Molecular geometry", | "Covalent bond", "Pi bond" ] 145.77300000000002 | ianhawes wrote: | "John F. Kennedy" to "Chemical formula" | | 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" ] | kgeist wrote: | I clicked "I'm feeling lucky" and the very first link in the | very first page led me to the ending article, took me 5 | seconds. Lucky indeed. | harel wrote: | Twitter to Gambia... That was way more fun than I thought it | would be... | Breadmaker wrote: | :-) | | "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" ] | Breadmaker wrote: | This is the next olympic sport. | | "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" ] | dmix wrote: | There should be ranking charts for each combination. | davikr wrote: | "Magazine" to "Periodical literature" Time: 1.113 Seconds | | Number of links visited: 1 | | The path you took: [ "Magazine", "Periodical literature" ] | | :) | klyrs wrote: | Well, that was fun, but the inability to go back without | completely restarting was a little frustrating. | RockRobotRock wrote: | This might be considered a feature since it makes it harder. I | noticed you also can't Ctrl+F anywhere. | boomboomsubban wrote: | 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. | dmix wrote: | This was a fun one: | | --- | | "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... | dmix wrote: | "New Delhi" to "Marseille" | | 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... | Emma_Goldman wrote: | Very cool. My first go was similar: | | "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" ] | [deleted] | jaqalopes wrote: | This is fun, we used to do something like this in high school | called Five Clicks to Jesus, which is exactly what it sounds | like. | | I find this particular version a bit tedious because you aren't | allowed to Find on a page. What good is having a timer if I can't | go fast? Why punish me twice for reaching a dead end page by | making me read the entire thing to discover that I need to go | back? | slaymaker1907 wrote: | I think it's an interesting restriction. The one thing I object | to is not having sources and especially "See also". Most of the | time I can get things within 10 clicks even with the | restrictions. | that_guy_iain wrote: | 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" ] | mgraczyk wrote: | Pretty cool! Some of these are very fun to think about, where to | look to find the most likely connection and trying to come up | with intermediate concepts that would likely link two thinks. | Like linking "Analytics" to "Surrey" my first thought was "bank" | since it's close to both Analytics and the UK. | zichy wrote: | I know some friends who would prefer to play this in their native | language, so I can't wait for the i18n: | https://github.com/wikispeedruns/wikipedia-speedruns/issues/... | SllX wrote: | "Chromosome" to "BBC One" Time: 78.910 Seconds | | 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. | SllX wrote: | Damn. So I just lost one. | | 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. | schoen wrote: | I used "What Links Here" to find this (just to confirm that | it can be done, not that I could find it myself). ROT13: | | uggcf://ra.jvxvcrqvn.bet/jvxv/Nhfgenyvn | | uggcf://ra.jvxvcrqvn.bet/jvxv/Pnaoreen | | uggcf://ra.jvxvcrqvn.bet/jvxv/Nhfgenyvna_Angvbany_Obgnavp_Tne | qraf | | uggcf://ra.jvxvcrqvn.bet/jvxv/Nhfgenynfvna_Iveghny_Ureonevhz | | I would probably not have been able to find this without | using the reverse link feature. | speeder wrote: | My first attempt already was rather easy, I even forgot to jump | to my target on first article by using table of contents and | instead manually scrolled down. | | "Americans" to "Pop music" Time: 54.945 Seconds | | Number of links visited: 3 | | The path you took: [ "Americans", "Culture of the United States", | "Michael Jackson", "Pop music" ] | egello wrote: | oh boy! I remember playing this game several years ago. | | 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" ] | mypastself wrote: | Fun! I got lucky: | | -- | | "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. | zouhair wrote: | So you cheated. You are not allowed to use the browser find | tool. | ouid wrote: | Nah, he just ran the any%. | RainaRelanah wrote: | > You can't use the browser find tool. | | From the rules. | mypastself wrote: | D'oh! Missed that. | | I'm sure the number of links would have been the same, but it | would take much longer... | dwringer wrote: | 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. | thebetatester wrote: | We used to play this in high school but it was always how many | clicks to get to Nazi. We were a clever bunch. | agluszak wrote: | So apparently it tracks pressing "CTRL+F", but it you select | "find in page" from the menu in your browser that's fine. I guess | there's no way for a website to track that anyway. | abejfehr wrote: | Reminds me of the Wiki Game: https://www.thewikigame.com/ | cdong wrote: | This is an awesome game that I played many years ago with | friends. I think this is an amazing way to reconnect with friends | and just have fun at times | doomlaser wrote: | 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 | cpeterso wrote: | "Impersonal verb" to "September 11 attacks" | | Time: 101.131 Seconds | | Number of links visited: 5 | | The path you took: [ "Impersonal verb", "English language", | "United States", "List of states and territories of the United | States", "New York City", "September 11 attacks" ] | willis936 wrote: | I remember calling this Wikipedia Golf. | qqqwwweeerrr wrote: | Haha, we used to call it Wikipedia Racing. | aaronharnly wrote: | I think Golf is the "fewest clicks" variation. I haven't played | the "least time" version, but it seems fun too! | pxeger1 wrote: | I find it much more interesting to play by fewest links clicked. | Having a timer running is too much pressure. | totoglazer wrote: | Agreed - feels like fewest links requires more thought and less | manic clicking. | Harvy wrote: | Have you tried... Marathon mode? Conserve your clicks but | take your time | mediumcat wrote: | If you want to see if your run could have been optimized, Six | Degrees of Wikipedia is a neat tool for that. | | https://www.sixdegreesofwikipedia.com/ | [deleted] | jstx1 wrote: | Not being able to search the page you're on kind of takes away | from the fun. | aaron695 wrote: | fernandotakai wrote: | Best run so far: | | --- "Performative verb" to "Mammal" | | Time: 41.101 Seconds | | Number of links visited: 4 | | The path you took: [ "Performative verb", "Verb", "Grammatical | gender", "Human", "Mammal" ] | kickofline wrote: | My best run so far: --- "BugGuide" to "Macintosh" | | Time: 30.698 Seconds | | Number of links visited: 6 | | The path you took: | | [ "BugGuide", "Website", "Web browser", "Safari (web browser)", | "Mac OS X Panther", "MacOS", "Macintosh" ] | churchill wrote: | JasonFruit wrote: | "Synonym" to "Cantons of Switzerland" Time: 79.737 Seconds | | 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" ] | piaste wrote: | Easiest one so far: "Cricket" to "Economics", 5 links in 30 | seconds via London. | | Hardest: "Iceland" to "FIPS", 160 seconds because I spent way too | much time looking for anything IT-related on Iceland's page, then | decided to try the USAF link and got in through "command and | control". | macNchz wrote: | Many years ago as a junior developer, some of the very first non- | trivial Python code I wrote was an effort to do this | programmatically. It was fun! I remember working on it over time, | trying to make it faster and more clever. I learned a ton about | graph traversal, parsing HTML outside a browser context, data | structures for caching/memoization, and Python itself. | perch56 wrote: | "Computer network" to "Niger" Time: 257.660 Seconds | | Number of links visited: 3 | | The path you took: [ "Computer network", "Internet Assigned | Numbers Authority", "Time zone", "Niger" ] | wolframhempel wrote: | Haha, loving it. "Gastropoda" to "Basque language" Time: 111.094 | Seconds | | Number of links visited: 5 [ "Gastropoda", "Taxonomy (biology)", | "Ancient Greek", "Language family", "Language isolate", "Basque | language" ] | wolframhempel wrote: | 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" ] | FillardMillmore wrote: | Oh man, this is a lot of fun | | "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)" ] | ezoe wrote: | This is the random task I can't solve it. To go to the | "Australian Plant Name Index" seems to be an impossible task. | | https://wikispeedruns.com/play/quick_play?prompt_start=Cleve... | AdamH12113 wrote: | 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. | TactiFail wrote: | 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 | [deleted] | howderek wrote: | 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. | squeaky-clean wrote: | 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. | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikirace | nicky0 wrote: | 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. | bena wrote: | The tutorial is infuriating. It tells you to do a thing, but then | doesn't let you do it unless you click next, which isn't | apparent. | | 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. | driscoll42 wrote: | There was a good article from six degrees of wikipedia | (https://www.sixdegreesofwikipedia.com/blog/search-results-an...) | which would show the ideal path and be cheating, but fun to | compare optimal vs what was found. | sedatk wrote: | Also, there's this: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Getting_to_Philosoph... | Nadya wrote: | 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" ] | Taniwha wrote: | pfft - we used to do this in paper encyclopedias in middle school | anuvrat1 wrote: | This is fun!! | | "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" ] ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-09-15 23:00 UTC)