Degrees of Wikipedia

Tim Twittered recently about Degrees of Wikipedia games so I thought I’d share the one we play at work.  You can certainly play alone or with a group.

Pick a Goal: However you want to, animal, vegetable, mineral.  Movies, dinosaurs, bad-ass presidents (Teddy Roosevelt is the only answer,) whatever. Think charades. Have everyone throw a suggestion into a manila folder and take turns choosing. If I’m playing solo, sometimes I come up with something and if I’m feeling uninspired I hit Random Page.

Roll the Theoretical Dice: Hit Random Page. This is your starting point.

Play: Work your way towards the goal in as few links as possible.  Set a time or link limit if you want to.  We usually use five minutes as a rule because there’s still ten minutes of break left over to smoke a cigarette.  I kind of approach a solo game as more of an exercise in reading stuff I know nothing about and don’t impose any time restrictions on myself.  Sometimes the relationships between links are more interesting than the pages themselves.

It’s simple for sure but it makes me think so hard that my brain hurts, which is good. When we play in the office it’s amazing how people’s specialties are highlighted.