Wiki-Fu Tournament

[beagle]

Thankee kindly.

Your challenge is to get from:

Caffè macchiato

to

Gallifrey


Just to prove it's not really in a separate universe I've checked it can be done (in a ridiculous seven steps excluding endpoints).  You must be able to beat that.

[Aggie]

Thanks beagle - and props for offering a seven-step confirmation.  You are still eligible to submit an entry for this round.

I would assume that in some way, shape, or form it's possible to get from any article to any other article (in an infinite number of steps), but if anyone finds an unlinkable set of articles (without resorting to programming) they will be awarded an honourary 10th-degree black belt in Wiki-Fu.


Question: Do we ban disambiguation pages?

[beagle]

I would assume that in some way, shape, or form it's possible to get from any article to any other article (in an infinite number of steps)

Ah, but Gallifrey hides behind the transduction barrier, and was destroyed in the Time War, but no-one know when that was/willen might be, or whatever the appropriate tense is.

What happens if links are destroyed by Davros during the course of the competition? It all gets very heavy and may require deploying a paradox engine.

Question: Do we ban disambiguation pages?

No strong feelings on that. They've never attacked me...

[Aggie]

My knowledge of British Sci-fi doesn't make it much past Red Dwarf, I'm afraid. 

My thinking on disambiguation pages is that they may allow linking of rather unrelated articles by name; however, this requires a step through the page and finding a link to the disambiguation page itself (fairly rare), so they may not be overly efficient and probably can be deemed allowable Wiki-fu. Probably should keep anything open for the moment, until any particular method becomes disruptive (actually, I can think of a method that may allow Swato and Zono to get the jump on us in some cases, but I won't mention it).


Can't do much better than 7 steps, myself:

0 Caffè macchiato
1 Barleycup
2 United Kingdom
3 Television in the United Kingdom
4 Doctor Who
5 Gallifrey

[beagle]

That's way better than mine:

In reverse order...

Gallifrey
continent
earth
world
country
list of countries
italy
coffee
cafe machiato

I'm not thinking laterally enough.  I think it's between you, Swato and any resident cafe sci-fi experts.

[Aggie]

Well, you're still eligible to enter a forward-order pathway (reverses do not count).  Partial overlap of paths is fair game.  I have found so far that the easiest way is to find a midpoint to work from (UK in this example); I worked it backwards for a while, but it wasn't much help (tried to work through Guinness, but I don't think the forward links would have been easy).

I'm more cafe than sci-fi, that's for sure, but the British obsession with Dr. Who made the second half of the path straight-forward.  Took a bit of clicking to find a UK-based coffee link.

[beagle]

Not much hope unless there's a Dr Who episode synopsis linking coffee and Gallifrey...

[Griffin NoName]

cafe machiato
milk
milky way
Gallifrey



** I dont quite understand all the details of this game but I assume each item has to have a link on the wiki page to the same item in the next wiki page - ie. link to link to link etc. If that's right, then my submission works.

[Aggie]

Each article must contain the link to the next article - i.e. one could click through from start to finish.  This is based on my habit of wiki-wandering, starting on one article and ending up somewhere seemingly unrelated.

Not sure - is there a link to Gallifrey in the Milky Way article?  I failed to spot it, but if so, you are a WIKI-FU MASTER! The link from Gallifrey to Milky Way is not sufficient, because it's only one-way.

[beagle]

Not sure - is there a link to Gallifrey in the Milky Way article? 

Something of an oversight, given the Time Lords' continuing meddling there.

I don't think we're going to beat your your route unless someone's created  Caffè Dalek, but there's still Deutsche-Brain's contribution. Maybe there's a German wiki hyper-route (as you hinted).

[Swatopluk]

I won't even try.
Wkipedia discourages articles that have no link pointing towards them. It's in the guidelines for new articles that one should create at least one link (although two or more are desired).
Btw, there are several ways through Gilbert and Sullivan related articles to Gallifrey 

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

I'm going to nitpick Griffin's linkage. "Milk" is mentioned in the Milky Way article, but isn't a link.

Caffe Macchiato
Coffee
Europe
Earth
Gallifrey

[Griffin NoName]

I hadn't picked up on the links having to be both back and forwards, as it were, so I agree my entry is a dud.

[Aggie]

I hadn't picked up on the links having to be both back and forwards, as it were, so I agree my entry is a dud.

Forwards only, actually.  One-way is OK, provided it's click-through from start to finish. Start at point A, click, click, click, click to point B.

Scrib, where's the Earth-Gallifrey link?



btw, I'm out all day - beagle is calling the win on this one.

[Swatopluk]

My first attempt:

caffe macchiato
1. coffee palace
2. United Kingdom
3. Arthur Sullivan
4. Pirates Of Penzance
Gallifrey