Play The Wikipedia Game

Play The Wikipedia Game

Before I start, I should point out that The Wikipedia Game is barely a game. That said, those “cookie clicker” type “games” are also barely games, and this “game” is far more involved than those. Possibly. Or not.

How to play The Wikipedia Game

It could not be more simple. The aim of the game is to browse Wikipedia and NOT end up on the Linguistics page. Why this particular page? Because this page is special, and I’ll explain in a bit. For now, you need to follow these few rules:

  1. Make sure you’re on en.wikipedia.org
  2. Click “Random Page” on the left hand links menu
  3. On whichever page that comes up, click the first “proper” link in the first paragraph on the page
  4. On the next page, do the same
  5. ???
  6. Linguistics!

By “proper” link, I mean, nothing to do with disambiguation links, no pronunciation, no “redirects from”, no footnotes, or anything like that. For example:

Wikipedia Example

Ignore all the links on the left and very top – these are not in the first paragraph. Ignore the “For the journal, see…” and “For other uses…” links, as they too are not in the first paragraph. The first link to actually follow is “scientific”.

You’ll soon start to see that, eventually, all roads lead to Linguistics. Here’s an example game:

Start Random Page: Macrotes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macrotes

First link is Geometridae
which redirects to Geometer moth

First link is family
which links to Family (biology)

First link is biological classification
which redirects to Taxonomy (biology)

First link is Ancient Greek

First link is Greek
which redirects to Greek language

First link is Modern Greek

First link is colloquially
which links to Colloquialism

First link is word

First link is linguistics

Now at this point, we have reached Linguistics. Shall we carry on and see why Linguistics is special?

First link is scientific
which links to Science

First link is knowledge

First link is awareness

First link is conscious
which links to Consciousness

First link is quality
which links to Quality (philosophy)

First link is Latin

First link is classical language

First link is literature

First link is cultura
which links to Culture

First link is Ancient Roman
which links to Ancient Rome

First link is Italic
which links to Italic peoples

First link is Indo-European
which links to Proto-Indo-Europeans

First link is Proto-Indo-European language

First link is linguistic reconstruction

First link is unattested
which links to Attested language

Where the first link is… linguistics

DING DING DING!

I then tried it many more times, knowing as soon as I reached any page already on this list, I’d eventually end up at Linguistics again. Pages about chemists, American Football teams, cheese, Hebrew, some dead game show host, a track from an album by a band I’ve never heard of, some festival in Germany, a type of psychic phenomenon. Everything ended up, eventually, at Linguistics.

How did you fair? Have you managed a starting page that never reaches this page? What was it?

Disclaimer: Obviously Wikipedia is a fluid medium and is subject to change at any time, so this “game” may stop working or, if they lay the pages out differently, may not even be possible to play.

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