Speedrunning Wikipedia Links
Given Start = Pizza, Target = Moon landing:
- Scan
Pizzafor a broad hub link →Italy(geographic hub). - From
Italy→United States(another major hub, likely linked via history/culture). - From
United States→NASA(government agency link common in US articles). - From
NASA→Moon landing(direct link, NASA runs the program).
Path: Pizza → Italy → United States → NASA → Moon landing (4 clicks).
Progress:
- Step 1: Identify the Start and Target article's core category (science, history, geography, person, pop culture, etc.)
- Step 2: Find the fastest "hub" from Start — a broad, highly-linked concept (a country, century, major field of study, war, religion, or famous figure)
- Step 3: Find the fastest hub that connects toward Target, ideally working backward from Target too (meet-in-the-middle)
- Step 4: Chain hubs together, preferring the fewest total jumps
- Step 5: State the final path and click count
Core heuristic: work both directions.
- Forward from Start: what's the most "exit-rich" link in this article (country, era, discipline, war, continent)?
- Backward from Target: what broad categories would plausibly link to Target? (e.g., Target "Black hole" is reachable from "Physics," "Astronomy," "General relativity")
- The optimal path usually meets in the middle at a mega-hub: a country, a century/decade, a major war, a scientific discipline, a religion, or a prominent historical figure.
Hub tiers (most to least connective):
- Major countries (United States, France, China, Germany, United Kingdom)
- Time periods (20th century, Middle Ages, Renaissance)
- Broad disciplines (Physics, Mathematics, Biology, Philosophy)
- World wars / major historical events
- Prominent people (frequently cross-linked: Einstein, Napoleon, Aristotle)
- Universal concepts (Human, Earth, Science, Energy, Language)
Only use links that plausibly exist in real article text — don't invent connections; reason about what a Wikipedia article on that topic would realistically link to (infobox fields, opening paragraph, "see also" categories).
Example 1:
Input: Start = Coffee, Target = Ancient Rome
Output: Coffee → Ethiopia → Trade → Ancient Rome (3 clicks). Reasoning: Coffee's origin links to Ethiopia; Ethiopia/trade history links to ancient trade routes; Ancient Rome is a top-level link from major trade/history articles.
Example 2:
Input: Start = Microprocessor, Target = Philosophy
Output: Microprocessor → Computer science → Logic → Philosophy (3 clicks). Reasoning: Microprocessor links to Computer science (direct field link); Computer science links to Logic (foundational discipline link); Logic is a core branch of Philosophy, linked in its opening paragraph.
Example 3:
Input: Start = Skateboard, Target = Moon
Output: Skateboard → United States → Apollo program → Moon (3 clicks). Reasoning: Skateboard's invention/history links to United States; US space history links to Apollo program; Apollo program directly links to Moon (landing site).
- Always prefer broad geographic or disciplinary hubs over narrow, specific articles — they have exponentially more outbound links.
- When stuck, pivot through "century" or "country" pages — nearly everything eventually links to one.
- For person-to-person routes, route through nationality, field, or era (e.g., Einstein → Germany/Physics → target's field).
- For object-to-abstract routes (e.g., Pizza → Black hole), route: object → origin country/culture → science/discovery link → field → target.
- Keep paths to 3-5 clicks; if a plan exceeds 6, re-evaluate your hub choice.
- State assumptions about link existence honestly — flag any jump that's a guess rather than a near-certainty.
- Don't assume Ctrl+F-style shortcuts exist in the actual game — the real play-mode blocks in-page search, so your plan must rely on genuinely visible, logical links, not just any string match.
- Don't chain through overly obscure or narrow articles — they rarely link onward to broad hubs and create dead ends.
- Don't skip the backward pass from Target — forward-only planning often misses a shorter route.
- Don't invent links that wouldn't realistically appear in an article's prose or infobox (e.g., don't assume "Pizza" links directly to "Quantum mechanics").