User:Lcarsos/My First Explanation

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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A guide to giving new editors a running start. This isn't my first time writing an explanation, it's to help you (the new editor) create a beautiful explanation page, without making the other editors twitch and swoop in to fix your page.

Step 1[edit]

It's dangerous to go alone! Click this link: List of all comics

  1. Find a comic that needs to be imported.
  2. Note the date on the right of the table.
  3. Click the create link.
  4. Put the date in American format (later we might be able to change this into a wiki date that can be customized depending on the region, like Wikipedia does).
  5. Fill out the {{comic}} template
  6. Use the image name on the List
  7. LEAVE | imagesize = BLANK
  8. Open up the xkcd page for the comic
  9. Get the titletext from the page source (leave page source open for Step 2)

Step 2[edit]

  1. Get the transcript from the xkcd page (and remove extra characters, and format for here)
  2. Now write your explanation (if there is an explanation on the blog use/expand from there, check the comments for information)
  3. Linkificate-ify!!! Add links to Character pages, Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Know Your Meme, TVTropes, Urban Dictionary, scientific papers referenced, and more, LOTS OF LINKS!
  4. Add character categories, and topics, if it's in a series, add the series

Step 3[edit]

  1. Add a summary comment in the summary, that's meaningful

Now and only now can you click on "Save Page"

Step 4[edit]

Go back to the List of all comics

  1. Create page redirects (links to the right of the title) with #REDIRECT [[###: Title of Comic]]
Why create the page redirects? The number redirect is required for the next and previous buttons to work (so people browsing can find the page). The title redirect is so that someone that types in the title of the comic is taken directly to the explanation rather than a landing page asking "Didn't find anything called 'Title of Comic'. Did you actually mean ###: Title of Comic?" that makes people angry when such an obvious association was skipped by the search engine, we try to make the search engine look smarter.

Finish Line[edit]

And that's it. But, if you submit before your page is done, very cranky editors make cranky comments as they update the page to the correct modern format. And you don't want that. (Cranky editors swoop in like hungry vultures to fix pages, and might leave notes on your user talk page that you're doin' it wrong)