906: Advertising Discovery

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Advertising Discovery

Title text: When advertisers figure this out, our only weapon will be blue sharpies and "[disputed]".

Explanation

In this comic, the advertisers have figured that people would take any statement for granted if the ad had many Wikipedia-style references, because in the encyclopedia, a well-referenced text usually indicates credibility, since the many sources agree with the article. Using that, the advertisers can try to achieve credibility by adding reference tags to the description of the product, despite the lack of actual cited articles.

The title text references a policy in Wikipedia where users can add tag "Disputed" next to a suspicious source; in the comic, people would write [disputed] in blue next to a reference tag to inform others about lack of credibility of this new marketing tactic.

Transcript

Advertising discovery:

[Person sits at computer, reading an ad on the screen. The bracketed superscripts are blue.]

Ad: Turgidax® triples^[2] your penis size overnight,^[2][5] improving both your sexual attractiveness^[2][7] and your cardiovascular health.^[7][8][9]

Person (thinking): Sounds legit.

Caption: Wikipedia has trained us to believe anything followed by little blue numbers in brackets.

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Discussion

It's only trained Wikipedia veterans who believe that. Most people have no idea what the square brackets mean. Davidy²²[talk] 01:45, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

^{[citation needed]} Promethean (talk) 02:17, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

You could just do this: ^{[citation needed]} Beanie (talk) 10:49, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

^{[Dubious:Discuss]} 120.145.27.228 17:23, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

This just in. Wikipedia veterans are gullible idiots.

I knew it all along. Cflare (talk) 21:47, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

On the other hand, What if? has conditioned the readers to assume that anything with a ^{[Citation Needed]} sign next to it is an obvious fact and doesn't need a citation. Caeleste Alarum (talk)

vice versa, the Wikipedia geeks all get a heart attack when reading What if? (or Explain Xkcd) for the first time. Dontknow (talk) 04:19, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

THE FOOTNOTES AREN'T IN A VALID ORDER IF THE BIT SHOWN IN THE COMIC IS THE ONLY PART OF THE AD! sorry, just needed to vent that annoyance. 162.158.63.60 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

To poster of above comment: If I wanted to know who made this edit, I wouldn't be able to. Please use ~~~~ to sign your posts or, if you have done so, edit your signature to link to your userpage. Sorry if I'm coming across as harsh, but I want to look at a comment and see who made it. Sincerely, ^{)|(}Quill_{)|(} 19:51, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

As a Wikipedia editor, I found myself constantly trying to click on the pseudo-markup, or floating the mouse over it to see what it was referencing. Nitpicking (talk) 03:00, 12 September 2021 (UTC)