WikiParty

Daily challenge #17 · 25 September 2026 · English Wikipedia

Kursk → Divergent evolution, Elections in Australia, ISO/IEC 29119

On 25 September 2026 WikiParty players started on Kursk and had to find Divergent evolution, Elections in Australia and ISO/IEC 29119 in any order using only Wikipedia links. 6 players played it and 5 found every target. The fastest route took 4:40 with 31 clicks.

The articles

  • Start
    KurskKursk is a city and the administrative center of Kursk Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Kur, Tuskar, and Seym rivers. It has a population of 440,052 (2021 census). Kursk is the oldest city in the oblast, recorded in 1032 as part of the Kievan Rus'. It became the seat of a small eponymous principality in the 13th century, before passing to Lithuanian rule in the late medieval period, and then to Moscow in the early modern period. Kursk has served as the seat of regional administration since 1779. The area around Kursk was the site of a turning point in the Soviet–German struggle during World War II and the site of the single largest battle in history.
  • Target
    Divergent evolutionDivergent evolution or divergent selection is the accumulation of differences between closely related populations within a species, sometimes leading to speciation. It can occur when two populations become separated by some barrier and become subject to differing selective pressures and potentially genetic drift. If sufficient evolutionary distance accumulates, the derived populations may become reproductively incompatible through various types of physiological or behavioral barriers. Charles Darwin discussed an early version of the concept at length, but the American naturalist J. T. Gulick (1832–1923) was the first to use the term "divergent evolution" specifically, and it has since become a foundational concept in evolutionary biology. Examples of divergence in nature are the adaptive radiation of the finches of the Galápagos, changes in mobbing behavior of the kittiwake, and the evolution of the modern-day dog from the wolf. The term can also be applied in molecular evolution, such as to proteins that derive from homologous sequences in diverged populations. Two or more genes that descend from a single ancestor and reside in diverged populations are said to be orthologs, and those duplicated prior to speciation are said to be paralogs. Paralogs can be further distinguished as alloparalogs or symparalogs. The degree of divergence between various homologous sequences is a common metric for estimating past divergent selection on them. Importantly, sequence divergence can occur without effects on fitness, thus resulting in drift rather than adaptive divergence, as is the case in silent mutations, some synonymous substitutions, or in stable mutation-selection balance. It is the position of Motoo Kimura's neutral theory and later Tomoko Ohta's nearly neutral theory that the large majority of divergent molecular evolution across the tree of life is effectively neutral with regards to fitness.
  • Target
    Elections in AustraliaElections take place periodically to elect the legislature of the Commonwealth of Australia, as well as for each Australian state and territory and for local government councils. Elections in all jurisdictions follow similar principles, although there are minor variations between them. The elections for the Australian Parliament are held under the federal electoral system, which is uniform throughout the country, and the elections for state and territory Parliaments are held under the electoral system of each state and territory. An election day is always a Saturday, but early voting is allowed in the lead-up to it. Part IV of Chapter 1 of the Australian Constitution briefly deals with eligibility for voting and election to the federal Australian Parliament. It does not prescribe how elections should be conducted. Election campaigns and associated political advertisements are subject to some regulation. Public funding of political parties and party registration was introduced in 1983. Voting for the federal and each state and territory parliament is compulsory for Australian citizens over the age of 18. Voting is almost entirely conducted using paper ballots. The informal vote is not usually significant, but a donkey vote is more common, and may have a deciding impact in marginal seats.
  • Target
    ISO/IEC 29119ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119 Software and systems engineering -- Software testing is a series of five international standards for software testing. First developed in 2007, released in 2013, and revised in 2021, the standard "defines vocabulary, processes, documentation, techniques, and a process assessment model for testing that can be used within any software development lifecycle."

Results

6players
5found every target
6:44median finish time
33.6average clicks

Solutions

Want to try it first? Play the challenge, then come back. Open a route below to see it.

Fastest route: 4:40 by Sluggish_Cobra
  1. Kursk
  2. Russian language
  3. Russia
  4. List of countries and dependencies by area
  5. Australia
  6. Elections in Australia
  7. Election
  8. Group decision-making
  9. Mathematics
  10. Knowledge
  11. Experiment
  12. Hypothesis
  13. Scientific method
  14. Natural science
  15. Biology
  16. Evolutionary biology
  17. Divergent evolution
  18. Species
  19. Taxonomy (biology)
  20. Biology
  21. Scientific study
  22. Scientific method
  23. Hypothesis
  24. Scientific method
  25. Applied science
  26. Outline of applied science
  27. Outline of computer engineering
  28. Software engineering
  29. ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 7
  30. List of ISO standards
  31. List of ISO standards 28000–29999
  32. ISO/IEC 29119
Fewest clicks: 23 by Plato8888
  1. Kursk
  2. Russia
  3. North Asia
  4. Pacific Ocean
  5. Australia (continent)
  6. Australia
  7. Parliament of Australia
  8. Australian House of Representatives
  9. Electoral system of Australia
  10. Elections in Australia
  11. Australia
  12. Australia (continent)
  13. Southern Hemisphere
  14. South America
  15. Ecuador
  16. Galápagos Islands
  17. Evolution
  18. Divergent evolution
  19. ISSN
  20. International Organization for Standardization
  21. List of IEC standards
  22. List of ISO standards
  23. List of ISO standards 28000–29999
  24. ISO/IEC 29119
Most used stepping stones

Articles between the start and the targets that the most players passed through:

  1. Australia (6 players)
  2. Russia (6 players)
  3. List of ISO standards (5 players)
  4. List of ISO standards 28000–29999 (5 players)
  5. Evolution (4 players)
  6. Software engineering (4 players)
Most popular first click
  1. Russian language (3 players)
  2. Russia (2 players)

Leaderboard

#PlayerTargetsTimeClicks
1Sluggish_Cobra3/34:4031
2Plato88883/35:4823
3MouseWithBeer3/36:4432
4Cool_Owl3/311:5838
5xroads423/315:5144
6Turbo_Raven2/310:3832