Wikipedia talk:N degrees of separation

This article survived a vote for deletion, the archive of which can be found at Votes for deletion/N degrees of separation.

Lets use this page for questions and comments. Lets put a line in-between new discussions in order to separate the discussion leaving the page easier to navigate and cleaner looking. Update: for some time I was using the Cologne Blue skin which did not include a line break after the main heading, so the line break isn't necessary any more, sorry and thanks!!!

Long or Short
Hey. Question, what is the goal? The shortest path possible? And are categories allowed to be used? - RoyBoy [&#8734;] 05:10, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * Hmm, thank you for raising this question. The goal depends on whatever you choose I guess! My idea for this page was also inspired by the six degrees of separation experiment that was replicated and announced that there are certainly alot more than six degrees of separation between any given number of people. So, if you want to find the shortest path between two randomly generated pages, the longest path, or just the most interesting I leave that up to you and all fellow Wikipedians. I may want to move this page out of the Department of FUn and into another home, but i have not as of yet found a home. Any suggestions, refer them to either this or my talk page. Jaberwocky6669 20:14, Feb 3, 2005 (UTC)

How about it's a contest
Is anyone interested in making it a bit of a contest. In my little mind there would be an administrator who posts two random pages at a given time and date, then the first person to post the shortest path wins. Winner posts the next two random pages at the next given date and time. It could be one per day, per week, whatever. Just a thought... --Iwonderandiwander 07:39, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * Are you an administrator? I like it, let's go for it! Jaberwocky6669 16:00, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)

Random generation
I have read before about random numbers. What I found was that a string of random numbers chosen by a human and a string chosen by a computer are very different things. The human chosen string jumps wildly all over the place, and the computer chosen string is quite similiar with repeating numnbers and numbers that are not far from each other. I wonder if the random page generator chooses pages that are similiar to each other? So far, the pages that have been generated at the project page have been in the same general vicinity of each other. The first randomly generated page and the second are british related articles. Which brings to mind my question, what exactly is random? Jaberwocky6669 04:19, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)

Categories
I can't object to using categories to reach the goal, because it still shows that two seemingly topics are in fact closely related. Jaberwocky6669 20:34, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)

Suggestions
Okay, so this seems kind of fun, it's moving along. I have a couple of suggestions, let me know what you think. --Iwonderandiwander 08:02, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * 1) We ought to break the game page up with headings, so the current challenge is easy to get to.
 * 2) Besides having fun, the point is to improve the Wikipedia. To that end, when there's something that you think ought to link somewhere and it doesn't, then finish the challenge, then go back and add the link or clarify the offending article.
 * 3) I object to using categories and dates as paths, but that's just me. I'm not interested in making that kind of rules.
 * 4) We should rewrite the rules summary at the top of the page. It doesn't make much sense to the point that we've developed the game.
 * I agree totally and as a matter of fact just before I read this I thought about the heading idea too. Just a few nights ago I wikified a link (see: Fastnet Rock). I do think categories make it way too easy, but i have went that path before. Maybe we should make some goals extra challenging and state whether categories and dates are allowed or not.  Also, I have been looking over the summary at the top of the page.  If you want to help just change some stuff around, and we'll see.  Jaberwocky6669 20:06, Feb 21, 2005 (UTC)

Hmm, Should I...?
Rearrange all of the entries in order to make the newest entry appear at the top???? Jaberwocky6669 04:13, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)


 * No. siafu 04:40, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Why not? Jaberwocky6669 20:46, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)


 * Leave it like it is; there are unfinished entries throughout that others are invited to finish; it's better if one has to scroll through them to get to the newest entry, lest they be forgotten. siafu 20:58, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

nitpick
hm, the title is wrong. it should either be "N degrees of separation" or "Nth degree of separation". (you may also want to consider removing the article space redirect). Nice idea, though, but I thought there was an automatic tool to do this, somewhere offsite? dab (&#5839;) 08:55, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * ah, I found its traces on google, it used to be at  (e.g.) http://kohl.wikimedia.org/kates-tools/sixdeg.action?from=Firefox&to=Safari

but seems to be offline now. dab (&#5839;) 08:57, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Thank you for bringing the name to my attention. If I change it will that affect the other links that already point to the page?? Oh, I almost forgot, what is the article space? Jaberwocky6669 09:10, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)


 * Broken links shouldn't be a problem, since the old page Nth degrees of separation should redirect to the new one (N degrees of separation. In addition, the links can then be changed. In fact, I'll go ahead and move the page now, since there don't seem to be any objections. The article space is the main space; the page http://en.wikipedia.org/Nth degrees of separation (in the article namespace) redirects here to http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Nth degrees of separation. Pages in the Wikipedia namespace have "Wikipedia:" before the title. &mdash; Knowledge Seeker &#2470; 08:06, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Page moved from Nth degrees of separation to N degrees of separation. The old page redirects here. All links have been updated. &mdash; Knowledge Seeker &#2470; 08:26, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Here it is: http://download2.wikimedia.org/tools/six_degrees (useful for checking, not to replace the fun of the game, obviously). fabiform | talk 15:12, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Awesome! I'm glad this thing exists!  I doubt that I would have to check the validity of someones game though...  Jaberwocky6669 17:11, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)

Newest idea
Now as the page has grown past my initial expectations I wonder if I would benefit from archiving the old entries? Any ideas, comments? Jaberwocky6669 09:18, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)

Muppet
As in, I am a one. Sorry, I misunderstood the rules, and thought that it was enough that there be a link between the one page and another in either direction. Of course that's not true, you have to be able to go from one to the other following the links. Belly Button fluff links to Autralia, but not the other way round, funnily enough. :) So I've moved some of the ones I finished back to the main page and removed my links. Foolish boy. --Bwmodular 11:21, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * Hey man, don't worry about it. It's no problem.  But just for the future, don't remove rounds that you've completed to the archive page, let me do that.  Jaberwocky6669 20:25, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)

Update!
Recently someone provided the link to [Six Degrees of Wikipedia]. It is a search engine that will find the shortest distance between two pages. I will use it from now on whenever I wish to check to see if a certain path truly is the shortest. You can use it too of course anytime and anywhere. I guess someone could always come along and use it cheat with and ruin the fun for everyone else, but it's no matter they would get bored after long anyways. Jaberwocky6669 20:30, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)

Orphans
A recent entry (Cloud N. Candy --> Caruse Mille-Rêves) features an orphaned page. (Caruse Mille-Rêves) I think this means that you can't complete this one without editing another page to link to the orphan. Is that correct? --Bwmodular 12:47, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Well, as long as the links are relevant links then it's fine. The purpose of this page is to be both useful and fun! Thanks for pointing that out. I will be on the lookout for that in the future... Jaberwocky6669 18:33, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)

Cheating
Couldn't you just put a link there, call it one degree, and it be good? Or am i hitting the sake too hard? --MilesProwler 16:41, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Lists
I say that Lists are out too, not just dates and cats. =) Penwhale | Blast the Penwhale 23:05, 8 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Up until now everyone overlooked the lists. Good point! Jaberwocky6669 23:26, September 8, 2005 (UTC)


 * Because the one I provided -can- be done w/o using a list. The current solution uses a list. =) -- Penwhale | Blast the Penwhale 15:43, 9 September 2005 (UTC)


 * guess the main question is: did you have fun? Jaberwocky6669 16:49, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

Template:N Degrees
How could I create a template that would allow anyone to simply add this code to a page:

 

Which would then display as:

== --> ==  *Start: Start (example)   *Goal: Goal (example)  Contributed by: ~ --> -->  -->  -->  Finished by:

I have a good idea how to go about making a template but I'm stumped on how to make it display the start and goal. Jaberwocky6669 00:39, 3 October 2005 (UTC)


 * It could work, perhaps we should look at some other templates and figure out how we can do something like this. Perhaps look at the copyvio template would help. --Penwhale | Blast the Penwhale 08:30, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Ahh, looking at the copyvio template I believe that it could be done like this:

Jaberwocky6669 14:15, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

So, I will try this and see if it works:

==((start)) --> ((goal))==  *Start: ((start))   *Goal: ((goal))  Contributed by: ~ --> -->  -->  -->  Finished by:

Template test:

{| style="text-align:center; border:2px solid #C0FFC0; background-color:#FFBF00;"
 * - padding:1em;padding-top:0.5em;"
 * style="font-size: 110%"|

Example -->
Contributed by: --> -->  -->  --> Finished by:
 * Start: Example
 * Goal:


 * }

Dammit!!!! Jaberwocky6669 00:31, 4 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Those double parentheses you're using are actually supposed to be double braces. RSpeer 00:45, 4 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Ahh, thanks man! Appreciate it... now I'll try that... Jaberwocky6669 00:52, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Success!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Jaberwocky6669 | &#x260E; 02:25, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

{| style="text-align:center; border:2px solid #C0FFC0; background-color:#FFBF00;"
 * - padding:1em;padding-top:0.5em;"
 * style="font-size: 110%"|

Example -->
Contributed by: --> -->  -->  --> Finished by:
 * Start: Example
 * Goal:


 * }

Ambiguity
Are the rules for this ambiguous? I would love to change them and make them better for everyone. In fact, you could change them! Go ahead, be bold, I won't tell anyone. Jaberwocky6669 | &#x260E; 17:03, 19 October 2005 (UTC)