Wikiracing

"Wiki Wars" redirects here. For rounds of conflicting editing on Wikipedia, see List of edit wars on Wikipedia.

Wikiracing is a game in which players compete to navigate from one Wikipedia page to another using only internal links.^[1][2][3] It has many different variations and names, including The Wikipedia Game, Wikipedia Maze, Wikispeedia, Wikiwars, Wikipedia Ball, Wikipedia Racing, and Wikipedia Speedrunning.^[4] External websites have been created to facilitate the game.^[5]

Wikiracing requires speed, accuracy, and luck. Players must start on a random or chosen page and navigate to another page using only internal links.

The Seattle Times has recommended it as a good educational pastime for children^[6] and the Larchmont Gazette has said, "While I don't know any teenagers who would curl up with an encyclopedia for a good read, I hear that a lot are reading it in the process of playing the Wikipedia Game".^[7]

The Amazing Wiki Race has been an event at the TechOlympics.^[8]

The average number of links separating any English-language Wikipedia page from the United Kingdom page is 3.67. Thus, it has been occasionally banned in the game. Other common rules such as not using the United States page increase the game's difficulty.^[9]

The rules of Wikiracing can be used as a method for studying aspects of Wikipedia.^[10]

Variations

Wikiracing has several variations, but here are a few examples :

• Speed Wiki, in which participants face off to reach the final page (agreed in prior) in a limited time. The first opponent who manages to reach the goal within the time limit wins the game.^[11]
• Click Wiki, in which participants are racing to reach the final page with as few clicks as possible or with a certain amount of clicks allowed.
• Wikispeedia, which has the same rules as the basic wikiracing game, but involves data collection for the Data Science Lab research, a research group of the School of Computer and Communication Sciences of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Lausanne, Switzerland.^[12]

See also

• Crowdsourcing – Sourcing services or funds from a group
• Gamification – Using game design elements in non-games
• Six degrees of separation – Concept of social inter-connectedness of all people
• Virtual volunteering – Online volunteering
• Volunteer computing – System where users donate computer resources to contribute to research
• Wikipedia community – Volunteers who create and maintain Wikipedia
• Wiki rabbit hole – Navigating from topic to topic while browsing wikis