Main Page
Welcome to the explain xkcd wiki!
We have an explanation for all 1962 xkcd comics,
and only 22
(1%) are incomplete. Help us finish them!
Latest comic
| Namespace Land Rush |
 Title text: You can also just mash the keyboard at random, but you might end up with a gibberish name no one can pronounce. |
Explanation
|
This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Expand the explanation. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. |
When a new web server starts, such as a forum, a social media server or an email portal, the people who sign up get to choose their username on the service, which, in most cases, blocks future users from using those usernames. Common names such as "john" are likely to be taken quickly. This is analogous to the way that land was distributed in America, with the first to claim able to choose the best land.
This comic is a list of usernames Randall suggests should be used if they are available.
The title text is a self-reference to "xkcd", the name of the comic is a purposefully unpronounceable phrase created by Randall.
(Note: for a more serious list of problematic user names to block from a service provider’s point of view, see Hostnames and usernames to reserve as well as RFC 2142.)
Table
|
|
This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Add explanations of the names. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. |
| Entry | Explanation | |
|---|---|---|
| Straightforward (Usernames that a person would use under typical circumstances) | ||
| <Your usual username, if any> | Most internet users will have settled on some unique handle that they try to use across all platforms. Even if this wasn't a new service, most people would try this first. | |
| <Your given name> | More rare is using one's nickname or first name as their username, since the amount of common names will mean many users share a name. Thus, if you can get your given name, you will have a simple username that many others wanted, and without resorting to prefixes or numbers (i.e. Xx_MyName00_xX) | |
| <Your full name> | Similar to your given name, but slightly more unique since a last name and/or middle name is added. | |
| <Initial><Surname> | A common second choice if a given or full name is already in use. | |
| <Surname> | Possibly available if your last name is more uncommon; names like "smith" or "kim" will probably be taken faster than even given names. | |
| Recognizable (Usernames that would make it look like the email came from an official source within the organization named) | ||
| Registering the name "Google" would allow for communicating on the site (or even outside of it) with a name that appears to be an official Google account. For any of the examples in this section, you would select the names for the same reason. This has been done in the past with both humorous and nefarious results. | ||
| iPhone | ||
| BitCoin | ||
| Obama | Impersonating a president, supposedly to send messages as them to make them seem bad (or not). | |
| Canada | ||
| NFL | ||
| Garfield | ||
| <Your city> | ||
| NASA | ||
| <Name of person who runs the service> | ||
| Causing Trouble (Usernames that might cause errors when mixed with the service's back-end code) | ||
| User | ||
| Username | ||
| Name | ||
| You | Many services display "You" as the signed-on user, so naming oneself "You" makes users think that they are you/they are signed on when they aren't. | |
| Guest | Attempts to fool users into thinking that they have a guest account. | |
| Account | ||
| Causing More Trouble | ||
| Admin | Impersonating to be a system administrator will let someone fool people and cause a lot of trouble. In particular, it could be used to obtain SSl certificates by demonstrating ownership of a supposedly internal address. | |
| Administrator | See above. | |
| System | Pretending to be a system-controlled account - might give permissions if the server checks by name. | |
| <Name of service> | ||
| Help | ||
| Error | ||
| Impossible to Say | ||
| Hyphen-Emdash | Could be read "Hyphen hyphen Em dash" or "Hyphen dash em dash" | |
| Dash-8hyphen-8 | Could be read "Dash dash eight hyphen dash eight" or "Dash hyphen eight hyphen hyphen eight". "Hyphen eight" sounds like "hyphenate". | |
| Zero0ne2numeral2 | Could be read "Zero zero one two numeral two" or "Zero zero ne two numeral two" or "Zero oh ne two numeral two". | |
| KrisasinHemsworth | This would be confusing to say out loud, as it would sound like the user was saying that their username was "Chris," spelled the same way that famous actor Chris Hemsworth spells his name. However, the actual username uses the name "Kris," spelled a completely different way than Chris Hemsworth's name, and the phrase "as in Hemsworth" being also part of the username, rather than a clarification of the spelling of "Kris" as would be assumed. | |
| TheWord&Ampersand | This would also be confusing and difficult to communicate, as anyone trying to read the username to someone else would say "The word ampersand ampersand" which could be interpreted as "ampersand&" or "ampersand ampersand". Having the phrase "the word" in front of a symbol makes it quite difficult to communicate which variation of ampersand (word or symbol) is actually being referred to. | |
| ZettaWith3Teees | Read aloud, this would lead the listener to expect a username of 'Zettta'. Clarifying that "with three tees" is text and not description would in turn make it difficult to explain the spelling of 'Zetta' with two 't's, and 'Teees' with three 'e's. | |
| Misc | ||
| <Single Letters> | ||
| <Single Numbers> | ||
| <Common Words> | ||
| <SQL/JS Injection> | Codes such as "Drop Table" intended to cause errors or even damage the service's back-end code. (See Comic 327) | |
| ASDF | ||
| QWERTY | ||
| Yes | ||
| Bot | ||
| Computer | ||
| Blocked | ||
| Deleted | ||
| Jeeves | ||
| Narrator | ||
| Internet | ||
| NPC | ||
| Password | ||
| Permissive Character Sets | ||
| <Space> | ||
| @ é | " " | ||
| <NBSP> | ||
| \ . # " ' | ||
| <RTL override> | The right to left override is an Unicode character which forces text after it to be laid out right to left. Thus, in left-to-right locales, it flips everything after it. This can be rather amusing if permitted. (See Comic 1137) | |
| – - _ / ` ' ` | ||
| <Any emoji> | Current databases are not set up to store emojis as characters. | |
| "," | ||
| &NBSP; | ||
| </HTML> | ||
| </HTML> | ||
| OkThisIsKindOfConfusingButIt's <LessThan\ForwardSlashHTML GreaterThanActualGreaterThan Symbol>Yes,ThatWasAllPartOfThe Name,ButSoIs...Ok,LetMeStartOver" | ||
Transcript
NAMESPACE LAND RUSH CHEAT SHEET
WHEN A NEW SERVICE APPEARS THAT LETS YOU REGISTER A NAME, HERE ARE SOME YOU MAY WANT TO TRY AND GET FIRST:
| Straightforward | Recognizable | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| <Your usual username, if any> | iPhone | |||
| <Your given name> | BitCoin | |||
| <Your full name> | Obama | Canada | ||
| <Initial><Surname> | NFL | Garfield | ||
| <Surname> | (Bold & Slightly Unconventional) |
<Your city> | NASA | |
| <Name of person who runs the service> | ||||
| Causing Trouble |
Causing More Trouble |
Impossible to Say | ||
| User | Admin | Hyphen-Emdash | ||
| Username | Administrator | Dash-8hyphen-8 | ||
| Name | System | Zero0ne2numeral2 | ||
| You | <Name of service> | KrisasinHemsworth | ||
| Guest | Help | TheWord&Ampersand | ||
| Account | Error | ZettaWith3Teees | ||
| Misc | Permissive Character Sets | |||
| <Single Letters> | <Space> | @ é | " " | ||
| <Single Numbers> | <NBSP> | \ . # " ' | ||
| <Common Words> | <RTL override> | – - _ / ` ' ` | ||
| <SQL/JS Injection> | <Any emoji> | "," | &NBSP; | |
| ASDF | QWERTY | </HTML> | </HTML> | |
| Yes | Bot | OkThisIsKindOfConfusingButIt's | ||
| Computer | Blocked | <LessThan\ForwardSlashHTML | ||
| Deleted | Jeeves | GreaterThanActualGreaterThan | ||
| Narrator | Internet | Symbol>Yes,ThatWasAllPartOfThe | ||
| NPC | Password | Name,ButSoIs...Ok,LetMeStartOver | ||
Is this out of date? .
New here?
Last 7 days (Top 10) |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
You can read a brief introduction about this wiki at explain xkcd. Feel free to sign up for an account and contribute to the wiki! We need explanations for comics, characters, themes and everything in between. If it is referenced in an xkcd web comic, it should be here.
- If you're new to wiki editing, see how to edit wiki pages. There's also a handy wikicode cheatsheet.
- Discussion about the wiki itself happens at the Community portal.
- You can browse the comics from List of all comics or by navigating the category tree at Category:Comics.
- There are incomplete explanations listed here. Feel free to help out by expanding them!
- We sell advertising space to pay for our server costs. To learn more, go here.
Rules
Don't be a jerk.
There are a lot of comics that don't have set-in-stone explanations; feel free to put multiple interpretations in the wiki page for each comic.
If you want to talk about a specific comic, use its discussion page.
Please only submit material directly related to (and helping everyone better understand) xkcd... and of course only submit material that can legally be posted (and freely edited). Off-topic or other inappropriate content is subject to removal or modification at admin discretion, and users who repeatedly post such content will be blocked.
If you need assistance from an admin, post a message to the Admin requests board.
