Wiki-Fu Tournament

[Aggie]

The principal is similar to Six Degrees of Separation.  The winner of each round gets to specify two wikipedia articles by title, and every player tries to determine the quickest route via in-article links: 

Toadfish
Greek language
Christianity
Monastery


When you've found what you think is the quickest path, post it.  Players may only enter one path per round; the shortest path wins. New players can join at any time, until a round is declared closed by the current champ.  Ties result in a rematch, with the current champ giving the next pair of words.


Here's the first one:

Tourist Attraction

to

Caffè macchiato

[Swatopluk]

I assume the route has to go in one direction and it is not allowed to use an article as intermediate that both ends point to (but not the other way).

[beagle]

Tourist Attraction
Ethnic enclave
Italy
Italian cuisine
Caffè macchiato

[Aggie]

I assume the route has to go in one direction and it is not allowed to use an article as intermediate that both ends point to (but not the other way).

Interesting question. I think it should go one-way only (although it may help to sketch out the pathway by working in reverse).  Each article used must contain a link to the next article on the list.

I'm also contemplating whether or not we should allow use of the "see also" list or if the links must be in the text of the article (open to suggestions).  The latter would be a more 'pure' form of wiki-fu but not really reflective of how one uses it in the context of the LPWB game, which was the inspiration.

Beagle has so far beat the admittedly wandering path I took to set up this round (I think I took a loop through List of fried dough foods at some point  ).

Awaiting challengers - alternate routes of the same length count as a tie.

[Swatopluk]

And changing a wikipedia entry to achieve a shortcut should be right out too!

[Aggie]

I'd like to think we are not that devious. 
(I'm a wiki-voyeur, I watch avidly but don't f#ck with the articles)


C'mon everyone...  enter a path.  I've just confirmed that a win is still possible.  If I don't see an alternate entry in 20 hours (I'm gone tomorrow), I will award the win to beagle.  Neatly done path, btw.

[beagle]

Neatly done path, btw.

Thankee kindly. Pity the path via Dolly Parton and RB211 didn't work though.

[Swatopluk]

My first attempt is longer (but could be easily shortened by expanding one of the articles* )

rest area
cafeteria**
coffeehouse
coffee

*or linking a word that occurs in the text but is not linked.
**why is no coffee mentioned here?

[beagle]

It wouldn't be hard (but would be cheating ) to write a program which, starting from the destination page, used the "what links here" to backtrack with an ever increasing set of pages until the source was encountered.

[Aggie]

**why is no coffee mentioned here?

'Cause cafeterias are for food.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

As opposed to coffeshops?

[Aggie]

You need food after a coffeshop, methinks.

Care to enter a path?  There's still the opportunity to win (and yes, I'm plugging this game heavily to establish a field of competitors).

[Swatopluk]

Tourist attraction
library
Italy
coffee
Caffe Macchiato

at least drawn level with beagle

[beagle]

at least drawn level with beagle

Curse you Red Baron!

Does that means one chooses the source and one the destination?
What if three or more draw? Waypoints?

Edit:

Rematch apparently. Going to take all my willpower not to write that program...

[Aggie]

Does that means one chooses the source and one the destination?
What if three or more draw? Waypoints?

Actually, I like this as otherwise draws could go on indefinitely. We'd need more players to pull this off. 

Alternatively, we could allow the winner to pick only the NEXT word (blindly), and make the previous round's destination the starting point.  In the case of a tie, waypoints will be invoked, which reduces pre-determination of a path.  Let's try this for the next round. 

In any case, Beagle has been declared the winner for this round as Swato's first (and official) guess was longer.

My best path was:

Tourist Attraction
Hospitality Industry
Cafe
Caffè macchiato (via the coffee portal at the bottom of the cafe article).

I was excluded for this round, but we will be all in for the next one, once Beagle supplies a destination point.