Let’s rewind to four month ago.

Connor Chew, a good friend and fellow card enthusiast, introduced me to a card game: Cactus.

Long story short, while on a cruise playing cards with friends, possibly golf — it’s uncertain, he and his sister modified the rules and Cactus was born.

Cactus is really fun.

I’ve personally played at least one hundred games, and it’s become popular among friends.

When the game was only known by ten or so people, there wasn’t much confusion on the rules. And if there confusion, it could often be clarified immediately because we were playing with the person who created the game.

However, one of our friends taught their siblings how to play and later realized the rules they had been taught were incorrect.

This prompted an interesting idea, what if we created a Wikipedia page for Cactus?

A Wikipedia page could serve as the source for the official rules and clear any confusion.

And thus the four month journey began.

Step One: Document the rules of Cactus.

Step Two: Create an account on Wikipedia.

Step Three: Edit 10 articles on Wikipedia.

Note: This was an unexpected step. It turns out, before submitting a page for review you must edit ten articles.

Step Four: Submit your drafted article for review by the Wikipedia cohort of editors.

Step Five: Get rejected because of the lack of reliable sources (This step is optional, and definitely not optimal) .

Step Six: Pivot.

In an attempt to increase credibility we did two things:

1. Had our friends write about the game.
2. Find a site dedicated to card games, and get the rules of Cactus posted there.
   

Intro our champion, fellow card enthusiast and —for all intended purposes— hero John McLeod who runs Pagat.com.

We crafted an email sequence with five steps, follow up emails are essential, asking him to put the rules of Cactus on his site.

Step Seven: Third party site publishes Cactus rules.

Celebrate! After multiple email exchanges, the official rules of Cactus are public and established!

Step Eight: Resubmit to Wikipedia.

In an attempt to start with a clean slate, we created a new account on Wikipedia with a less suspicious user name, the former was Cactusempire14, we decided to go with a cool Cardenthusiast14.

Edited 10 more articles, adding the source mentioning Cactus directly and…

Step Nine: Get rejected, again.

Unless some book publishes mentioning Cactus or it’s spoken about in the media, we lack the credibility and proper sourcing needed for a Wikipedia page.

Regardless, the legacy of Cactus lives on.

And if you’re up for the challenge, follow the official rules to play a new age of card games.