Wikipedia

Wikipedia:Six degrees of Wikipedia

See also: Wikipedia:Wiki Game and Wikipedia:Wikipedia games
Note that some of the article chains listed here have changed since they were added to this page.

There is a popular hypothesis, known as six degrees of separation, holding that any two people are separated by a chain of no more than six acquaintances. Studying the characters of Wikipedia to see whether something similar obtains among its articles, Six Degrees of Wikipedia aims to be a compendium of the following things:

  • The items separated by the longest minimal chains in the encyclopedia (especially where these are more than four links long). The shortest known chain between the two items should be specified. Generalisation over time, where possible, seems to produce the shortest chains. Failing this, try generalisation over space to reduce chain length.[clarification needed]
  • The most intuitively remote items separated by short chains—chains of fewer than six articles, anyway. That is, these should be items that have no obvious connection but which, nonetheless, can be linked between very quickly in Wikipedia. This is a much more subjective category, but should still be interesting; it may be enough to describe these as "interestingly" or "oddly" short chains.
  • Chains between two articles selected at random (using Special:Randompage). Since these can often be uninteresting, think twice about actually adding these to this page.
  • Articles that can be proven to have no chain between one another. This is the search for the potential outlier that could prove the hypothesis at least capable of being in a state of "incorrect". Intuition suggests that there shouldn't be any, but that is in fact why we need to search for it/them.

Rules

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We will accept only links between actual articles, not "Talk" pages. (If this approach still allows many uninteresting connections, it might be worth restricting it in further ways, such as disallowing articles on years or decades completely, or any other type of article that might be considered "too general". For now, though, we will not worry about these.)

Be sure to specify the direction the chain runs in by using, for example, the right-arrow character (→), which can be found below the "edit window" when editing pages. If you cannot use the arrow character, you can just use the word "to".

Using date-to-date links (e.g., 1996 → 1993) is "uninteresting" and should be avoided. Similarly, using country-to-country links (e.g., Japan → China) is uninteresting and should be avoided as well.

Tampering with articles for the sole reason of changing their degrees of separation is discouraged for the purposes of this project; we aim to clarify how Wikipedia is as it evolves, not to set forth that it should be more or less so. That being said, if this page brings to your attention a "missing link" that really should be in an article, feel free to correct it (and make the corresponding change to this page, as well).

Other versions

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Popular versions of this game include The Wiki Game

The Wiki Game Is a Real-time and multi-player version, and contains different game type challenges that include random start and end goals. CCTV[dead link] awards points and badges for both creating and solving puzzles. Each time a user solves a puzzle they are awarded points based on the average amount of clicks it has taken. The harder the puzzle, the more points are awarded. Each puzzle can be voted "up" or "down" by other players, based on whether or not they like it, which results in points being given to or taken from the creator of the puzzle. Players are also awarded badges when reaching certain point-total milestones.

Surprisingly short chains

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Eight-degree chains

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Sybra fuscotriangularis → Defrocking → Anglican Communion → Algeria → Savage Islands → Lamiinae → Apomecynini → Sybra → Sybra fuscotriangularis

Compound of ten octahedra → Antiprism → Archimedes → Aphrodite → Aethiopia → Aethiopia (beetle) → Apomecynini → Paranicomia → Paranicomia similis

Seven-degree chains

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  • Confirmed April 12, 2024
  • Confirmed Janurary 1st, 2024
  • Confirmed November 1st, 2023.
  • Confirmed October 17th, 2022.
  • Confirmed September 12th, 2019.
  • Tested on 29 February 2020.
  • Tested on 7 September 2020.
  • Tested on 11 December 2020
  • Tested on 3 March 2021
  • Was eight degrees, only 7 as of March 8th, 2021.
  • Tested on 15 July 2021
  • Tested on 5 April 2022

Individual paths


Delphi Community School Corporation

School


Geographic coordinate system

Coordinate system


30th parallel north

Circle of latitude that is 30 degrees north of the Earth's equator


Savage Islands

Macaronesian archipelago in the North Atlantic


Lamiinae

Subfamily of insects


Onciderini

Tribe of beetles


Cacostola

Genus of insects


Cacostola strandi

Species of beetle

Six-degree chains

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Five-degree chains

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  • Article deleted.

Four-degree chains

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  • Page deleted by a PROD.

Three-degree chains

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Two-degree chains

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Surprisingly long minimal chains

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Twelve steps claimed

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Eleven steps claimed

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Ten steps claimed

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The only article-space link to ZZZ, List of all three letter acronyms, is orphaned. smurrayinchester(User), (Talk) 10:15, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Snoring → Uvulopalatopharyngoplasty → Abbreviation → List of acronyms → List of acronyms: Z → Zzz Eventhorizon51 (talk) 04:57, 14 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Eight steps claimed

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Seven steps claimed

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Six steps claimed

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Five steps claimed

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Four steps claimed

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Surprisingly long reverse path

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Shortest "unusual" chains

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Where is the link to Star Trek on Natural Environment? Avraham 03:01, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(many obvious other chains from this e.g.:) Dick Cheney → George W. Bush → Osama bin Laden → Sunflower

  • Just...what.

Chains between two random pages

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Charyyapadas to Broadstairs

Oatcake to Ukrainian I

The Payolas to Marvin Liebman

Kick to The Face

Adolphe Joseph Thomas Monticelli to Classical theory

Sobhuza II of Swaziland to Binnenalster

Vin Mariani to Capital virtues

Baltasar Carlos, Prince of Asturias to Saurodactylus

Hal Colebatch to Liard River

Cyber Team in Akihabara to Mount Carmel Cemetery

Sweet Polly Oliver to Committee of Public Safety

Velociraptor to Jewish services

Coenzyme Q to Rawlins, Wyoming

Gerald Posner to Michel Tremblay

Solna to Mohammad Abaee-Khorasani

Pokémon to Boston Molasses Disaster

Common Grackle to Ambassador Hotel

Ylistaro to Streptococcus pneumoniae

Julius Caesar to Rafael Cordero (educator)

Marsupial to Bridge

Frank Drake to Ramsey Island

Proof by verbosity to Rudraige

Walter Richard Parker to 85

Don Beebe to Haji Ali Dargah

Shoichi Nakagawa to Tallest buildings in Australia

Molson Coors to Chemical elements named after places

Clarkefreak ∞ 22:25, 8 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hollycombe Steam Collection to Tithonus

Clarkefreak ∞ 03:39, 18 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Crawford Notch to Ferdinand von Saar

Visualization (cam) to Defeated nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court

ad nauseum to Coyville, Kansas in six steps:

Back → The Future

List of names of the official languages of the European Union in the official languages respectively to GoldenEye (song)

Zoe Stark → Port Everglades

Blue Nile Falls → John Norquist

Venice Commission → Dahntay Jones

Principality of Capua → Grant Waite

HMAS Brisbane (D 41) → Medical University of Lublin

Fish → Growth hormone


Ashvin → Antarctica does not have any paths less than 10.

Antarctica → Snow Patrol does not have any paths less than 10.

Bowling for Dollars → Essex County, Ontario

Bowling for Dollars → WJW → Essex County, Ontario

Caboose (Red vs. Blue) → Heterochromia

Foreign relations of Cameroon → Baktykozha Izmukhambetov Foreign relations of Cameroon > United Nations > United Nations member states > Kazakhstan > Nursultan Nazarbayev > Baktykozha Izmukhambetov SalaSkan 01:48, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Qwilfish to University of Indonesia

Rei Ayanami to Crime & Punishment

Maund to Chapare River

Northern Qi to P.H.U.Q.

River Deben → Earth Is Room Enough

William Elfving → Emergency (Philippine TV program)

Piano Sonata in E-flat major, D. 568 (Schubert) to William Coffey

Pikachu → John Madden

Counterfeit banknote detection pen → Juryszewo.

Nikki Coghill → Dedicated (Lemar)

Goat Cheese → Barack Obama

Elisabeth Parr, Marchioness of Northampton → 4774 Hobetsu

ETAOIN SHRDLU → Fonejacker

Walt Disney to The Hollies

Miranda Cosgrove to Journey (band)

Wednesfield to Quilaco

Gene Hamilton to 3-Faced Elva

Forest Thrush to Bird (disambiguation)

Pytor Iylich Tchaikovsky to Pelican Eel

Courtland to Hunter of Stars

Pat Tillman to Jesus in Islam

Six Degrees to Kevin Bacon

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Rules: (1) The destination is Kevin Bacon, in precisely six links; the more obscure, the better. (2) No, but no, film- or acting-related links are allowed. I'm starting off with:

Afterlife no longer links to Kevin Bacon

Philadelphia now has a separate page for notable persons so this is now seven degrees.

See also

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  • WikiDistrict A now defunct real-time wikipedia path calculator
  • The Wiki Game A Real-time and multiplayer version of the game where the player has given maximum time-limits to get from one wikipedia page to another. Players compete in real time. Players are assigned random names and can register and choose a permanent nickname.
  • Six degrees tool
  • Wikispeedia An implementation of the game with an additional research purpose.
  • Lost in Wikipedia - BBC News Magazine article on 'Wiki-chaining'
  • Six Degrees of Wikipedia
  • Jitendran, K; Akash, S; Aswin, N; Rajesh Kumar, T (2021-05-01). "Six by Two Degrees of Wikipedia using BFS Algorithm". Journal of Physics: Conference Series. 1916 (1): 012232. doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1916/1/012232. ISSN 1742-6588.
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