Wikiracing is a game which the players
race
Race, RACE or "The Race" may refer to:
* Race (biology), an informal taxonomic classification within a species, generally within a sub-species
* Race (human categorization), classification of humans into groups based on physical traits, and/or s ...
towards the goal of traversing from one
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...
page to another using only
internal links. It has many different variations, described further down in the article, and names, including The Wikipedia Game, Wikipedia Maze, Wikispeedia, Wikiwars, Wikipedia Ball, Litner Ball, Wikipedia Racing, and Wikipedia Speedrunning. External websites have been created to facilitate the game.
''
The Seattle Times
''The Seattle Times'' is a daily newspaper serving Seattle, Washington, United States. It was founded in 1891 and has been owned by the Blethen family since 1896. ''The Seattle Times'' has the largest circulation of any newspaper in Washington (s ...
'' has recommended it as a good educational pastime for children 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".
The Amazing Wiki Race has been an event at the
TechOlympics and the Yale Freshman Olympics.
The average number of links separating any English-language Wikipedia page from the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
page is 3.67. Thus, it has been occasionally banned in the game. Other common rules such as not using the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
page increase the game's difficulty.
As of 2005, a website and game known as ''The Wiki Game'' has been created, allowing players to Wikirace against each other in a server, for more points and recognition on the server. The game achieved more recognition as Internet stars such as
Game Grumps
''Game Grumps'' is an American Let's Play web series hosted by Arin Hanson and Dan Avidan. Created in 2012 by co-hosts Hanson and JonTron, Jon Jafari, the series centers around its hosts playing video games. After Jafari left the show in 2013 to f ...
played it on their channels. There is a version on the
App Store
An App Store (or app marketplace) is a type of digital distribution platform for computer software called applications, often in a mobile context. Apps provide a specific set of functions which, by definition, do not include the running of the co ...
as well, in which players can do a variety of Wikirace styles from their phone.
Variations
Wikiracing has many different variants, but the two most popular ones are:
''Speed Wiki'', in which participants compete to reach the finish page (previously concurred upon), within a limited time. The first to reach the final page within the time limit is thereby crowned the winner.
''Click Wiki'', in which participants race to reach the final page with the fewest clicks or within a certain number of clicks.
''The Wikipedia Game,'' detailed o
Wikipedia’s Twitter pagean
Protocol.com is a game where Internet users can challenge themselves to find one path from one
Wikipedia article
Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read reference ...
to another.
See also
*
Six degrees of separation
Six degrees of separation is the idea that all people are six or fewer social connections away from each other. As a result, a chain of "friend of a friend" statements can be made to connect any two people in a maximum of six steps. It is also k ...
*
Crowdsourcing
Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digita ...
*
Gamification
Gamification is the strategic attempt to enhance systems, services, organizations, and activities by creating similar experiences to those experienced when playing games in order to motivate and engage users. This is generally accomplished thro ...
*
Virtual volunteering
Virtual volunteering refers to volunteering, volunteer activities completed, in whole or in part, using the Internet and a home, school, telecenter, or work computer or other Internet-connected device, such as a smartphone or a tablet computer, tab ...
*
Volunteer computing
Volunteer computing is a type of distributed computing in which people donate their computers' unused resources to a research-oriented project, and sometimes in exchange for credit points. The fundamental idea behind it is that a modern desktop co ...
*
Wikipedia community
The Wikipedia community, collectively known colloquially as Wikipedians, is an informal community that volunteers to create and maintain Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia. Since August 2012, the word "Wikipedian" has been an '' Oxford Diction ...
References
External links
*
Wikipedia's Wikirace project page
*
Wikipedia's Wiki Ladders project page
{{Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Online games