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{{trope}}
[[File:xkcd_problem_with_wikipedia_medxkcd problem with wikipedia med.png|link=Xkcd|frame|It's not the destination, it's the journey.]]
 
{{quote|'''Liquid''': I've been up all night doing research.
'''Ocelot''': Research? On what?
'''Liquid''': Well, it was supposed to be on the current geopolitics of modern nuclear weaponry.
'''Ocelot''': This is a [[That Other Wiki|Wikipedia]] page about [[The Rolling Stones|Mick Jagger]].<br />
'''Liquid''': I got slightly sidetracked.|''[[The Last Days of Foxhound]]''}}
 
A trope we can all relate to. You're probably doing it right now,. Or if you aren't, you will be by the time you finish this article.
 
A [['''Wiki Walk]]''' is a train of thought that left the track and is [[Riding Into the Sunset]]. When going for a [[Wiki Walk]] you know where you begin, but no one knows [[Hilarity Ensues|where you'll end]]. Are you a [[Mad Scientist]] building an [[Kill Sat|orbital death ray]]? Well, too bad, inspiration struck and now it's [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot|the world's biggest dancing dish washer with a fully adjustable cup holder]]. You want to have a [[Serious Business|serious]] talk about the Middle East? Within ten minutes you'll be arguing whether [[Star Wars|Darth Vader]] [[Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny|could take]] [[The Lord of the Rings|Gandalf]] [[Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny|in a fight]]. Just want to check the [[Rule of Cool]] page? Before you know it you're adding examples to [[Bungling Inventor]]. You, my friend, have just had a [[Wiki Walk]].
 
The key feature of a [[Wiki Walk]] is that if someone were to see only the beginning and end of the [[Wiki Walk]] it would seem [[Left Fielder|completely random]], while in fact there was a series of thoughts that connected the beginning and end result, or it is at least implied that this is the case.
 
Despite the name, the phenomenon itself has existed since long before wikis -- computerswikis—computers and hyperlinking simply made it faster and easier.
 
If in a mystery, it could easily cause a [[Eureka Moment]], or possibly a [[Bat Deduction]] depending on how out-of-nowhere it feels.
 
A common version of this trope is when a [[Wiki Walk]] is still in progress at the end of a scene, and then we catch the end of the conversation, which usually takes the form of a [[Noodle Incident]], in the beginning of a later scene.
 
A [[Cloudcuckoolander]] is particularly susceptible to these, though we mostly only hear the end result. This is most likely responsible for the stranger half of any [[Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering?]] moment.
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A [[Sub-Trope]] of this is the [[Halfway Plot Switch]], when the plot seems to do this.
 
Named for the ability of anybody to start out on a page and, two or three links later, find himself reading a totally unrelated trope. Definitely an example of [[Truth in Television]]. Often cannot be recreated, as anyone who has spotted an interesting trope en route, planned to come back to it, and then forgotten what it was, will attest. Doing it intentionally for fun is known as "playing Wiki Tag.".
Thankfully however there is the ever helpful "open in new tab" function on your browser...
 
People over at http://thewikigame.com/ have turned this into a game! The objective is to get from one article, to a completly different article in the fewest number of clicks.
 
For an academic paper on the subject (although possibly not a peer-reviewed one -- thereone—there is no title of an academic journal displayed), [http://nlp.stanford.edu/pubs/wikiwalk-textgraphs09.pdf go here.]
 
Here on All The Tropes, Tropers are asked to not leave [[Zero Context Example|Zero Context Examples]]s because (among other reasons) Tropers are incredibly prone to the [[Wiki Walk]].
 
See also [[Browser Narcotic]].
{{examples}}
 
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** By far the best is when she has to say goodbye to a sleeping Ichigo:
{{quote|"Ichigo... there were so many things I wanted to do. Become a teacher... or an astronaut... or open a pastry shop... or go to Mr. Donuts and say 'Give me one of each!'... or go to Baskin Robbins and say 'Give me one of each!' If only there were five of me! Then I could be born in five different towns, and eat five different meals, and have five different jobs. And all five of me... [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|could fall in love with the same guy.]] ... Ichigo. Thank you. [[Tear Jerker|Goodbye.]]"}}
* Yuuki from ''[[Kanamemo]]'' at one points starts rambling about sneezing caused by curses, straw dolls and wood shortage, indicating that something is not quite right with the usually quiet woman -- andwoman—and she indeed collapses from high fever shortly after.
* [[Occidental Otaku|Patty]] from ''[[Lucky Star]]'' mentions [[wikipedia:Otome Road|Otome (Maiden's) Road]] and launches into a description. The screen then [[Split Screen|splits]] to show the [[Wiki Walk]] one of her ([[The Ingenue|naive]]) classmates took when she heard her say "Otome Road" and interpreted it literally.
* An old man in ''[[Nichijou]]'' manages an impressive one about how miserable his life is starting with how nobody came to his online chat party, to people leaving the bus when he got on, to a goof up on a school trip, to insomnia, to gaining weight, and ending on how his last birthday present was a roll.
* In ''[[Durarara!!]]'', Shizuo decides to ask his new Russian [[Sempai-Kohai|Kohai]]/human encyclopedia, Vorona, about Siberia. This somehow morphs into a lecture on cakes.
{{quote|'''Vorona:''' Siberia. The correct pronunciation of which is Сибирь ([sʲıˈbirʲ]), may denote a Federal District of Russia or a wider area. The meanings are many-layered. And in Japan they also call a certain kind of dessert Siberia. Explanations vary as to how the name originated, among which a theory exists that it comes from the delicious fillings inside the Castella resembling the tundra and railways in Siberia. The Castella is said to be the first cake variety to be introduced to Japan. After that the Japanese developed their unique cake culture under various influences from different countries. The variety called the shortcake is also uniquely Japanese. At Christmas the Japanese are especially big on cakes, and on the streets all kinds of cakes send tantalizing smells to my nasal cavity.}}
 
 
== Film ==
* Captain B. McCrea from ''[[WALL-E]]'' receives some major character development using one of these. He starts with "Earth" and ends on "Dancing," after passing through "Sea," "Farms," "Pizza," and "Hoedown."
* In ''[[Finding Nemo]]'' Dory starts to go down this path several times, but she is usually stopped.
* ''[[Monty Python and Thethe Holy Grail]]''. The narrator at the beginning of "Scene 24."
 
 
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** Later imitated by [[Sherlock Holmes]], who was tracking Watson's thoughts at the time.
* [[Bruce Coville]]'s ''[[My Teacher Is an Alien]]'' series perfectly describes the Wikipelunking phenomenon, [[Older Than They Think|many years before wikis existed]]. In it, aliens have developed an integrated virtual reality that is perfectly realistic, and used entirely for research purposes, showing the user whatever they want (basically, Wikipedia meets a [[Lotus Eater Machine]]). The aliens have learned to put time limits on the technology so that no one ''starves to death''.
* The Icelandic monk Sulien, in Dorothy Dunnett's ''King Hereafter'', takes [[Wiki Walk|Wiki Walks]] across the world. For example, in a simple trip from Scotland to Rome, he makes it to Russia, among other places across Europe. And it all seems logical at the time.
** Lampshaded by one of his friends, who notes that "Only Sulien could be shipwrecked on the east coast while sailing from west to further west."
* Richard Meeker's ''Better Angel'' (written in the early 1930s) shows its bookish protagonist taking a Wiki Walk through a paper encyclopedia:
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*** "We're gonna need a whole lotta gnomes!"
* Doug the drug rehab man does this frequently with names of drugs in ''[[Little Britain]]''.
* [[Stephen Colbert]] goes on purposeful [[Wiki Walk|Wiki Walks]] on ''[[The Colbert Report]]'' using [https://web.archive.org/web/20130607110705/http://wikiality.wikia.com/The_DaColbert_Code The DaColbert Code] for purposes ranging from predicting Oscar winners to solving the murder of JFK.
** To date, things the DaColbert Code has [[Prophecies Are Always Right|been right about]] include ten correct Oscar picks and a Presidential election.
* An episode of [[Step by Step]] had Cloudcuckoolander Cody give advice for dealing with a hickey through a crazily meandering chain of word associations, before finally coming back around to "Wear a turtleneck!".
* ''[[QI]]'' is more a televised, bloody funny [[Wiki Walk]] than anything else.
* Constable Frank Gladstone from ''[[The Thin Blue Line]]'' is a master of this, often omitting the intervening steps and just announcing his seemingly random conclusions to his perplexed comrades. His explanation of why fridge magnets are to blame for teen graffiti is a classic.
* In a flashback episode of ''[[The West Wing]]'', Press Secretary C.J. Cregg uses this to remember a reporter's name.
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* [http://xkcd.com/214/ This] [[Xkcd]] shows us the danger of falling into these. (The image is reproduced above, but, as usual with Munroe, the punch line is in the alt-text.)
** And as if that weren't enough... [http://xkcd.com/609/ he made the point again regarding a certain other Wiki].
** He makes the point again in the alt-text of [http://xkcd.com/903/ this] comic. Apparently if start with any article and click the first non-italicized link not in parentheses in every subsequent article, you'll eventually end up at philosophy. One route that works is to start with [[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]] [[wikipedia:The Hitchhikerchr(27)Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radio series)|radio series]].
** If that's not enough, there's the matter of [http://xkcd.com/1051/ being embarrassed by what you have and haven't Wiki Walked to].
* The [[Bungling Inventor]] of ''[[RPG World]]'' started repairing a broken appliance (IIRC, a toaster, please confirm), and ended up building a time machine.
* [http://wondermark.com/420/ This] [[Wondermark]].
* [http://www.explosm.net/comics/1128/ This] ''[[Cyanide and& Happiness]]'' teaches a lesson on why one should not look up time-sensitive matters such as preventing blood loss on [[That Other Wiki]].
* ''[[Twisted Kaiju Theater]]'' [https://web.archive.org/web/20140831051635/http://neomonsterisland.com/tktarkv/vol4/031/1550/1.html makes an actual plot point out of this.]
* [http://www.sheldoncomics.com/archive/051106.html Sheldon]'s grandfather goes from canola oil to Montana mountain goats.
* [http://gigaville.com/comic.php?id=355 Happens to Liquid] in [[The Last Days of Foxhound]].
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* Thanks to [[YouTube]]'s "related videos" section occasionally popping up strange choices, it is entirely possible to do this there. Going from Johann Strauss to Joe Satriani via Yosemite Sam, for example.
* Certain adult video websites that function in a similar way to [[YouTube]] can also cause this effect. Not like you would notice.
* A website, [httphttps://web.archive.org/web/20150130054418/https://www.netsoc.tcd.ie/~mu%7Emu/wiki/ the Six Degrees of Wikipedia], has been coded that will allow you to put in two pages in Wikipedia, and find the shortest path from one to the other. thus taking a Wiki Walk for you.
* In [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDemYnCLDpA this] Natalie Tran video, one of the featured comments from the pervious video claims it takes three clicks to get from the Wikipedia page about her to the one about [[Godwin's Law|Hitler]]. She says she'd like to see proof of this. Viewers were only too happy to oblige. [[Tropes Will Ruin Your Life|You are hereby challenged]] to [[wikipedia:Natalie Tran|try]] without first looking at [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OHm_W8Qf9Q the multiple solutions].
* ''[[The Salvation War]]'' has a gorgon in "Armageddon" (Book 1 of 3) learn of the "invocations of 'goo gul' and 'wiccan pee-dee-ah'" only to fall victim to this effect:
{{quote|"The last was protected by an insidious spell that caused her to constantly lose track of what she was looking for, flipping from page to page until she was reading irrelevant nonsense about 'collectible card games' and 'sonic the hedgehog'."}}
* ''[[Cracked.com]]'' has its own name for this phenomenon: [https://web.archive.org/web/20131106115725/http://www.cracked.com/funny-6646-wikipedia-freefall/ Wikipedia Freefall].
** ''Cracked'' itself can very easily become one of these due to links in the text as well as "recommended" pages at the end of the text.
* ''[[Extra Credits]]'' suggested invoking this as a method to get students to link ideas together in their "Gamifying Education" episode. Of course, they also suggested making sure the students explain why each leap in the walk was valid.
* [[Less Wrong]] is one of these for those who are interested in being rational. There are links in the text of posts to other posts.
 
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== [[Western Animation]] ==
* In ''[[Darkwing Duck]]'', Mr Muddlefoot does this several times through the show.
* An episode of ''[[Pinky and The Brain]]'' shown from Pinky's perspective (complete with his nose in the center of the camera view) reveals that his random responses to Brain's [[Catch Phrase]], "[[Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering?|Are you pondering what I'm pondering]]?" are the end result of [[Wiki Walking]].<ref> Though technically it's the result of Rob Paulsen [[Harpo Does Something Funny|ad-libbing.]]</ref>
* In ''[[Animaniacs]]'', "Chairman of the Bored" a character goes on a long and boring [[Wiki Walk]], he even manages to scare the titular characters with it.
* In the ''[[South Park]]'' episode "Canceled", the scientist (a parody of Jeff Goldblum's character from ''[[Independence Day]]'') who helps the characters discover the purpose of the probe in Cartman's anus (which is a transmissions satellite) makes all his deductions by having an unrelated word or phrase pop into his mind, then [[Bat Deduction|linking seemingly arbitrary ideas together to form the correct solution]].
{{quote|'''Chef:''' Who's havin' buttsex?}}
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== Real Life ==
* Creating one of these is more or less the point of [http://wiki.swil.org/index.php/Telephone_Oracle Telephone Oracle]{{broken link}}
* The game Wikiball (starting at random page and getting to another) is basically one giant Wiki Walk. Nabhani (disambiguation) to [[Avatar: The Last Airbender|Avatar]]? Nabhani----> Oman----> Education----> Humanities ----> Internet ----> BBC----> Broadcasting----> DVD----> video----> Film----> Animation----> Anime----> [[Animesque|Anime-influenced animation]]----> [[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]
** Variants on this game put restrictions on what you're allowed to click on. It is also known as wikiracing, when it is played in a competitive form, with the aim being to get from one page to another either in less time or less clicks than your competitors.
* [[wikipedia:Free association|Free association]] is a form of psychotherapy that, at least in one form, is essentially a mental Wiki Walk. (The game "word association" is a multi-player version of this.)
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20140311095038/http://www.imaginaryyear.com/raccoon/wikipedian_tag.html Wikipedian Tag], which is what happens when you combine Wiki Walking with the game of Tag. Considering the rules have leeway as far as "victory conditions" for the runner(s) go, one could easily append a [[Godwin's Law|runner victory for reaching Hitler]].
* In the [[SoCalization|SoCal]] region, this is generally referred to as "Wiki Surfing."
* This combined with a tabbed browser is one cause of what could be called Wikitabs: tabs so tiny that they're completely indistinguishable (A problem solvable by using the firefox extension "Read it later" instead).
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** And like Wikiwalking, it's created its own game, but more for the spectators than the participant. The goal is to get your teacher to tell stories about their past for the remainder of the class. Some teachers are more cooperative than others, creating a range of difficulties from [[Easier Than Easy]] (new teachers trying to connect to students) to [[Nintendo Hard]] (usually old ladies that actually think they're teaching you something useful).
** Religious studies are much more fun with a co-operative teacher. I once had a class in 6th grade where we talked more about penguins than religion.
* To celebrate [[The Other Wiki]]'s tenth anniversary, [[The BBC]] sent one of it'sits reporters to do a [[Wiki Walk]] against the clock in [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12172367 this article].
** British entertainer [[Bob Monkhouse]] also did this weekly on one of his later shows. Audience members would shout out two subjects at random, and he would improvise a flawless chain of connections every time.
 
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[[Category:Wiki Tropes]]
[[Category:Truth in Television]]
[[Category:WikiAlliterative WalkTrope Titles]]
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
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