Wikipedia talk:Six degrees of Wikipedia

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[edit] Miscellaneous old, unsorted comments

Interesting, but should be meta, I think. Tuf-Kat

Definitely meta. If someone else--e.g. Wired--wrote about it, then we could report on it, but wikipedia is not the place for original research. Koyaanis Qatsi

As a warning to anybody currently working on this page: I'm going to move it to meta in about half an hour. --Camembert

Post challenges here and move them to the main SDOW page when you solve them.

I found two pages randomly and tried to link them in the shortest chain possible. My results so far: Pecatonica, Illinois to F. Matthias Alexander

Alexander was born in Tasmania, which is why I went in that direction. But perhaps there's a shorter route.

MatrixFrog

Should backlinking be allowed? In other words, can the "What links here" of any page be allowed in the chain? If so the Pecatonica to Alexander challenge above is solved with only two more steps (... to "What links to Tasmania" [how do you link to that page?] to F. Matthias Alexander)

MatrixFrog

Probably should be on meta but it is an interesting read. FearÉIREANN 01:36 14 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I was going to move it to meta (per my comment above), but Erik's got in before me and moved it here. I suppose it'll do, mumble grumble. --Camembert

I'd be equally interested in whether this works for contributors. For example, JTD has mentioned before that he knows Charles Haughey, and I used to work with Haughey's niece. Deb 12:38 14 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I used to live next to Tia and Tamara Mowry. And my father used to be a John Schneider's mechanic. :) --mav

On the challenge front; I got these random pages: Bloom Township, Pennsylvania and Philosophy of science. Shouldn't be too hard, maybe via Ben Franklin or someone. But I've got to go, a couple of brewskies are waiting for me. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo stick 15:13 18 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Indeed, you can go from Bloom Township, Pennsylvania to Clearfield County, Pennsylvania to Pennsylvania to Benjamin Franklin to Scientist to Scientific method to Philosophy of science. 6 degrees exactly ;)

Perhaps there should be a ban on using the links from one year page to another, as this would make some links incredibly easy...

Here's a challenge, then - two random pages came up with Ship of Fools (website) to Nakiri bocho -- ALargeElk | Talk 13:19, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

And done, though only with the use of lists, which may be cheating: Ship of Fools (website) to April Fool's Day to China to Japan to List of Japan-related topics to List of Japan-related topics L-Z to Nakiri bocho. -- ALargeElk | Talk 15:45, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Another random challenge - Statistical arbitrage to Local churches. The sites actually came up the other way round, but it seemed too tough as only one article links to statistical arbitrage. -- ALargeElk | Talk 15:58, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Not really. ~25-35 articles link there: Pages that link to Statistical arbitrageS♦s♦e♦b♦a♦l♦l♦o♦s (Talk to Me) 23:15, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

On the project page, one of the sample chains gives cloaca to Robin Williams. There is no link to Robin Williams on the cloaca page currently, and I find it difficult to iamgine how this was ever the case! --bodnotbod 16:07, Jul 17, 2004 (UTC)

Time for Litefantastic to justify himself again. I saw on Inside the Actors' Studio, that Williams said 'cloaca' was his favorite word. Really. Somebody must have seen the footnote I made on the 'cloaca' page and thought I was off my rocker. I am, but that's not the point. The point is that there is a bona fide link between Cloaca and Robin Williams. Of course, if you still think it's utter nonsense to make a Six Degrees link on that kind of logic, I really can't blame you. -Litefantastic 00:57, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Fair enough. --bodnotbod 14:27, Jul 18, 2004 (UTC)

Who wants to link NWA: Extreme Canadian Championship Wrestling to oranges? 68.4.3.209 16:05, 22 April 2007 (UTC) NWA: Extreme Canadian Championship Wrestling>Canada>United States>Orange Juice>Oranges S♦s♦e♦b♦a♦l♦l♦o♦s (Talk to Me) 23:16, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Source code for six-degrees tool

The link given for the source code of the six-degrees tool does not actually do the search for links. It is merely a cgi wrapper that gives a Web interface to another script called "linksc". --Patrick D 04:45, Nov 11, 2004 (UTC)

Linksc is the links client and talks to linksd, the server. You can find the source for both at [1]. The front-end part (degree.cgi) has been replaced with something else now, the source of which isn't available yet, but I am working on it (honest...) — Kate Turner | Talk 04:50, 2004 Nov 11 (UTC)
The six degres tool doesn't work. What am I missing? -Litefantastic 15:37, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Could you be more specific than "doesn't work"? :-) — Kate Turner | Talk 01:06, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)
http://kohl.wikipedia.org/kates-tools/sixdeg.action gives
Wiki does not exist
From Meta, a wiki about Wikimedia
This wiki does not exist yet. Perhaps you are looking for one of our other projects:...
-- Chris Q 11:20, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Hmm, looks like someone (not me of course. ahem.) put the wrong URL in. Try the new fixed version ;-) — Kate Turner | Talk 22:38, 2004 Dec 3 (UTC)
Still no good. -Litefantastic 12:07, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] This should be removed

  1. The category would be infinite
  2. It's ludicrous- I could easily come up with United States and World War II, which have only one degree of separation obviously.

--naryathegreat | (talk) 05:38, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

  • Not removed but cut down. We are tending a bit towards list cruft here. Further, does not this page render all the special cases irrelavant as they all now have only two degrees of seperation (via this page). --Salix alba (talk) 08:36, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
    • This page is irrelevant, as the links are all in the article namespace. Thryduulf 10:26, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
      • Thats a shame ;-(. There is quite an interesting logical problem of how to list such occurences without breaking the condition. See Googlewhacking. --Salix alba (talk) 18:09, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Anagrams anyone?

e.g. Rats to Chinese Zodiac to Orion (constellation) to Star.

Strictly speaking, that's not a palindrome; a true palindrome would be very, very difficult, as if

Rats to Noiro to Orion to Star...! Bill 00:55, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Oops, Now finding a true palindrome chain would be awesome, but I guess this is just an anagram. -- pcrtalk 01:48, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Kevin Bacon

How is Kevin Bacon not mentioned on this page at all? -- Hugh 17:45, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I second a motion for his adition. Binerman 06:21, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Status of tools

  • The six degrees tool has not worked for some time. Its response to any query is invariably "error:Could not connect to links server".
  • The Omnipelagos tool sometimes produces weird results if you choose articles that didn't exist when the database was updated (in December 2005). For example, if you type "musical improvisation" (which was created in May 2006) it assumes that you meant to type "Michel Colombier". Very strange! Emails to the bug and feedback addresses at Omnipelagos both bounced (user unknown).

Zerrakhi 03:53, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Shortest Unnatural Chains

Pants to Bill Gates and LSD to Shakespeare don't work as its written here... --Akov 01:06, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Late Night Thoughts on Articles Encountered on Wikipedia

As I random-walked through Wikipedia, ready to call it a night, I stumbled on Wikipedia:Six degrees of Wikipedia, Wikipedia:Wiki Game, Wikipedia:Wiki-Link Game, Wikipedia:Wikington Crescent and Wikipedia:Wikirace. What an amazing cluster!

Wikipedia:Six degrees of Wikipedia is a good example of something that verges on nearly meaningless pop Wiki-culture. Why meaningless? It would be easy enough to go into these chains & intentionally reduce the degrees of separation by creating a few additional relevant links; I’m sure someone must already have yielded to this temptation at least once. So one ponders what merit any of the chains listed in this article might have…

Which leaves one pondering the notability of this article. Notability criteria suggest that:

“A topic is notable if it has been the subject of multiple, non-trivial published works from sources that are reliable and independent of the subject itself and each other. All topics must meet a minimum threshold of notability in order for an article on that topic to be included in Wikipedia. This requirement ensures that there exists enough source material to write a verifiable, encyclopedic article about the topic.”

This article cluster certainly lacks external reference and verges on serious cruftiness—unimportant details. Appears to be an artifact of the early Wikipedia days when something like this was considered notable enough; today this article would be prodded and gone in a week…

Perhaps it is an example of a new category of notability: pioneer material. Old material which has “stood the test of time”—3 years in this case—accretes merit by virtue of extended existence.

Ah well, not going to resolve this tonight (or anytime soon); time to get some sleep. In the morning light I’ll no doubt dismiss this as just another of my curmudgeonish rants. May all your Wiki-contributions have at least as much merit as “Six degrees of Wikipedia”.

Skål - Williamborg (Bill) 18:31, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] disambiguation pages allowed?

As per the mars to mars example. Simply going through the mars disamb page seems trivial, whereas tracing a series of "real" links from the planet to the candy bar is, well, as amusing as anything on this page is capable of being. human 23:40, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I vote no. The Mars-to-mars example is unchallenging. Note that the Galaxy link is too using an disambiguation page, and therefore should be disqualified. 85.227.226.168 11:50, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
Removed the renaming of that Galaxy disambiguation page into just "Galaxy" which I suspect was done just to give the impression the author had found something interesting... Also marked these chains clearly. 85.227.226.168 11:54, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] speedy

This game seems to get re-invented about once a week! Here are some AfDs which can be cited to justify speedy deletion:

-- RHaworth 23:40, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

And WikiBall. Alan Liefting 20:51, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
This one is mentioned specifically here: Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not for things made up in school one day#That_infamous_game. Also, it's been around for a long time. This is definitely not a candidate for deletion, but clones of it are. Oren0 20:59, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Wow, this "article" still exists? Color me flabbergasted. Huw Powell (talk) 23:36, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Seem to have had a spate recently: Wiki Race 2008 May 29, Degrees of Wikipedia June 3, Three Clicks to Jesus June 5 and Wiki racing June 7. — RHaworth (Talk | contribs) 18:27, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Six and Degrees

Yeah I was just playing around with the Siz Degrees of Wikipedia Tool and I found that while degrees could be connected to six in 6 steps [2], the opposite (six to degrees) could not be achieved after 10 steps [3]. Is this just due to an out of date database, or can you really not link six to degrees in under 10 steps? Guycalledryan 08:23, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

There are no links to degrees from any Wikipedia articles, so the answer is that you can't. However, the path between 6 and degree is pretty straightforward. Graham87 08:34, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Also, the topology of Wikipedia is a kind of asymmetric directed graph which means that "A links to B" does not necessarily imply that "B links to A". So that difference doesn't surprise me in the least. --Rodhullandemu (talk - contribs) 01:48, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] People, not articles

The "Six degrees of separation" should ideally be about people (or users, here) not Wikipedia articles. Your views? --AltruismTo talk 11:26, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I think you may be missing the point. No, it should be about articles. Oren0 17:09, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. This game is a variant on the seperation theory, not an aplication of it. The game is aobut articles. Ahhh, We used to play this at school; after chem class, me and the oether nerdy guys would tell each other just how ludicrously off-topic we could get in as few clicks as possible. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.30.132.2 (talk) 11:03, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Six degrees of Wikipedians

I think that it also will be fun to check how we, wikipedians, are separated. When two editor co-edited an article, the distance between them is one. For example, I co-edited Algebraic Geometry (book) with User:Spacepotato and s/he co-edited Arroyo Seco with User:Magi Media. This gives the distance between me and Magi Media to be two (or it may be one). Bot edits and obvious vandalisms may be excluded.

I'd be happy with that, except that too many people edit Wikipedia. Why not try, "Me one edit after you". For example, take this excrept from the recent revision history of 2007:

(cur) (last) 19:06, 2 June 2008 RandomOrca2 (Talk | contribs) (126,725 bytes) (→Deaths: Move Menotti image, even though he died in February it works better this way) (undo) (cur) (last) 06:18, 2 June 2008 Cosmic Latte (Talk | contribs) m (126,725 bytes) (→March: npov: people are people.) (undo)

So then it continues with RandomOrca2. And so on and so on. 24.87.56.142 (talk) 03:29, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Or you could do before. In that case it continues with Cosmic Latte. 24.87.56.142 (talk) 03:31, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Found new chain???

10 degree: Valindaba -> Pretoria -> English -> English people -> United Kingdom -> Culture of the United Kingdom -> Elizabeth I of England -> Cultural depictions of Elizabeth I of England -> Civilization IV -> Civilization Revolution —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12345 lewis (talk • contribs) 04:42, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tool not working

The six degrees tool doesn't work. It gives me the message "The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.". I don't want to use the other tool listed, because it's very outdated. Are there any other tools I can use, or will it just start working on its own? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.5.116.115 (talk) 02:15, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

suggestions anyone? User talk:jayusa

Here's a good tool: http://www.netsoc.tcd.ie/~mu/wiki/ it should work well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.87.56.142 (talk) 03:17, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Just some odd ideas

Death to Windows Vista

Faces to Feces

Mouse to Moose

George Washington to Washing machine

452 BC to Charon (moon)

Ken Jennings to Hat

Andy McDonald to John Wilkes Booth —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.87.56.142 (talk) 23:21, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

So, can you find these link-em's? They're just odd ideas... 24.87.56.142 (talk) 23:27, 1 June 2008 (UTC)