Six degrees of Spam

Get to spam from...
Note to self: Try out the proposed challenge myself first next time.

-governor (7)
-wild plants (7)
-cooking (6)

All of these actually have the same 5 last links, and it looks like you can't avoid the email > spam link...

The question is, is there a way to get to spam OTHER than through email? Bayesian, filter, algorithms--nope.

Eggs, bacon and . . .

I can only get 7 for cooking:

cooking > reference > language > Indo-European > etymology > history of language > email > spam

I think, however, we should have an official rule about these contests. A schedule, numbering and announced winners!

Spam > British > Biography > Memoir > Cooking.

Not an email in sight!

No, that doesn't work in reverse. It's cooking to spam, not spam to cooking.

I got 6 now:

cooking > reference > computers > systems administration > email > spam

@ tim
My reference > spam track (which I have had to use in all three cases) goes: references > computers > system administration > email > spam

you found it yourself while I was typing, I see XD

Your history of language > email lnk might warrant some research, though

@ Lilithcat
You're doing it backward...

Oops! Sorry, misread your first post.

Then there's Ham to Spam:

Ham > Technology > Computers > System Administration > email > spam

But try to get from Green to Eggs to Ham....

That's good.

All I could do was

Cooking > Italian > Grammar > language history > history of language > email

Of course, language history and history of language should be combined. (When I change how tags are stored and can make that faster.)

Using history of language bothers me, however. It doesn't go. It's using tag "noise."

A_musing: I had to try your Green to Eggs to Ham challenge (Message 9):

Green > Easter > Eggs > Cooking > Drink > Beer > Homebrew > Ham (8) ... I'm sure there's got to be a shorter way from Eggs to Ham though!

To continue the digression, you can do Green > Eggs > Cooking > Ham. The Ham Book: A Comprehensive Guide to Ham Cookery isn't in the first 10,000 books tagged cooking, but it's there.

You can also get directly from Cooking to Spam, via Hawaii's Spam Cookbook.

(Corrected because I was backwards.)

I think (and if I'm wrong, somebody tell me, please) the point of this particular challenge is only using the tags in the "related tags" box for each ...

My fault, sorry!

Here's the worst part--I publish puzzles for a living, and we get so many errata letters from people who don't read directions properly. Oh well-that's what I get for playing on the computer during reading-before-bed time.

No worries, I was just afraid I'd been making it unduly complicated for hours, haha! Puzzles are great fun ... although I'm afraid this new procrastination tool on LT in the middle of a semester is not going to be healthy! :-)

Well, that is a variation. A tricky one indeed.

Eggs to Ham is surprisingly hard - perhaps because in the tags Ham mainly relates to Ham radio. Green to Eggs - easy! Great jbd - I haven't found anything shorter.

The best I could do. I really don't like using "script," but there it was...

eggs > easter > script > radio > ham

I tried very hard to go through "top" (a mysterious tag that just barely makes the cut). Top connects to various and sundry, but I couldn't do better than

eggs > food > diet > naturopathy > fasting > Christian Hedonism > top > ham

I think the easter > script link has to do with the undeciphered Easter Island script

Ooooh. Well it's valid then!

Aesthetically, I prefer it when you get where you're going via specification and generalization, pivots rather than shifts in meaning. "Scripts" is a good example of a tag with more than one meaning. (Leather has at least three.)