User:Solipsist

The Wiki-Link Game

If you are trying to waste time by visiting Wikipedia you might be dissatisfied with the Random page link due to the high likelihood of arriving at some obscure little town in Arkansas (hopefully fixed in next version of Wikipedia which looks like it might have article categories).

As an alternative why not try The Wiki-Link Game. Here are the rules.

Wiki-Link Rules

1. Pick a whole number between 1 and ... well anything you like really but something less than 10 and more than 3 is likely to give best results. If this is the first time your played, try picking the number 5.
2. Make a note of your number and stick to it - lets call it N.
3. Choose a starting page, either a favourite article or something from the Random page link.
4. Now read the article (or just skim read) until you reach the Nth link. Only count links in the body text of the article - that is, ignore any backward-redirect links or anything in a disambiguation section unless the whole article is only a disambiguation page, ignore any links in the header or footer or side bars. If the page starts with a right aligned table or picture caption that contains links, you have to decide whether they count or not - its up to you; we are only wasting time after all. (For the official rules on which links count and which don't for different styles or article see the addendum A ~ 326 pages yet to be written).
   1. If your page doesn't have N links, you loose (the short page ending).
5. Follow the link...
   1. If you arrive at a page your have already visited since the start of a run, you loose (the infinite loop ending).
   2. If you arrive at a new page, go back to step (4) and keep playing.

What to see along the way

OK so you will always loose eventually. So perhaps the game is really to find the starting page and N that gives you the longest run before you hit an infinite loop ending or a short page ending. Here are some other things to look out for on your journey;

• What value of N gives the best results.
• Which pages are the strange attractors, that is the pages which you always seem to end up at (for example, most year pages such as 1990 are strange attractors).
• When you follow a link do you end up at the page you expected? If you hit an unnecessary disambiguation page you've got a copy-edit opportunity to improve that link
• Which starting page gives you the weirdest random walk linking subjects you would never have thought were connected.

Extra ways to loose

Once you have played the Wiki-Link Game a couple of times, you might be tempted to try these alternative ways to loose;

• If you go back and edit a page to add a link in order to avoid a short page ending or infinite loop ending, you loose (the nobody likes a cheater ending)
• If whilst following a page your really feel you have to edit a page to update it or add an obviously missing link which really, really should be linked, you partially loose (the no longer wasting time quite so much ending).
• If you decide you have to download the Wikipedia database and write a computer program to find the answer to the following questions, you loose (the computer nerd ending, though still valuable time wasting and you just know somebody is going to do it)
  • What is the best value of N
  • Which starting page gives the longest run for N=1...20
  • Which pages are the strongest strange attractors
• If you decide you have to download the Wikipedia database and write a computer program to solve the Wiki-Link Game before you have even played it once, you loose (the you loose, you loose, you loose ending).