Welcome to the first Friday Wikipedia Challenge!
Based on an idea I got from my friend Hannah, this is a fun opportunity to waste some time at work... and maybe learn a thing or two in the process.
Here's how it works: You will be given two Wikipedia pages: a start point and an end point. Your challenge is to get from the start point to the end point by clicking on Wikipedia links, going from page to page until you get to the end point.
It's like the Kevin Bacon game for nerds.
This is your mission: Get from Point A to Point B, then in a comment post the titles of the articles, in order, that you linked to, followed by the total number of steps. (1 step = 1 link; your starting page doesn't count as a step but your ending page does.)
A quick example: Going from New York Stock Exchange to Shirley MacLaine:
New York Stock Exchange - New York City - Entertainment Industry - Film - Actors - Academy Awards - Best Actress in a Leading Role - Shirley MacLaine
7 steps.
(That probably isn't the shortest or most creative route, but it was what I could do in 5 minutes.)
There will be two contest winners:
1. The Short Route Award. This is just numerical, the quickest way from Point A to Point B. Whoever does it in the lowest number of steps wins this.
2. The Scenic Route Award. The most creative route, as voted on by your comment recommendations. In order to win, the route must be no more than 10 more steps than the shortest route (i.e., you can't go on a massive "world tour" of Wikipedia).
But this isn't 'Nam, Smokey, it's the Wikipedia Challenge. There are rules.
1. No cheating. Any link added to Wikipedia after the contest begins will be considered suspect, and doubly so if it's a non-sequitur. Use the links that are there rather than editing in your own.
2. No category pages. For those who aren't familiar with category pages, they look like this: just lists of link after link after link. That's a lot less fun than going through actual articles.
3. Post your whole path in your comment, as well as the number of steps you took, regardless of whether you're going for the short-route award or the scenic-route award.
Going backwards from the end point to the start point in order to find connections is not only allowed, but encouraged; however, in order to be a valid entry for the contest, you must go from the start point to the end point, since Wikipedia links aren't necessarily reciprocal (i.e., the "Shirley MacLaine" page links to "actor," but "actor" doesn't directly link to "Shirley MacLaine.")
So, without further ado: This week's Wikipedia challenge.
Start Point:
Richard Belzer
Played Detective Munch on Homicide, various Law & Order series, Arrested Development, and The X-Files.
End Point:
Boron
An element with atomic number 5 and the atomic symbol B, a metalloid.
Let the contest begin!