explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

1963: Namespace Land Rush

2018-03-07T18:23:53Z

162.158.58.159: Added explanation for </HTML> and ","

{{comic
| number = 1963
| date = March 5, 2018
| title = Namespace Land Rush
| image = namespace_land_rush.png
| titletext = You can also just mash the keyboard at random, but you might end up with a gibberish name no one can pronounce.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|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 [https://ldpreload.com/blog/names-to-reserve Hostnames and usernames to reserve] as well as [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2142 RFC 2142].)

==Table==
{{incomplete|Add explanations of the names. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
{| class="wikitable"
!style="width:30%"|Entry
!style="width:70%"|Explanation
|-
!colspan=2|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.
|-
!colspan=2|Recognizable (Usernames that would make it look like the email came from an official source within the organization named)
|-
|Google
|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 [https://twitter.com/BiIIMurray humorous] and [http://www.chicagotribune.com/bluesky/technology/ct-russian-twitter-account-tennessee-gop-20171018-story.html nefarious] results.
|-
|iPhone
|
|-
|Facebook
|
|-
|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>
|
|-
!colspan=3|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
|
|-
!colspan=2|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
|
|-
!colspan=2|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 {{w|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.
|-
!colspan=2|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 [[327|Comic 327]])
|-
|ASDF
|
|-
|QWERTY
|
|-
|Yes
|
|-
|Bot
|
|-
|Computer
|
|-
|Blocked
|
|-
|Deleted
|Some services like Reddit keep up user posts and data after account deletion, marking the content as submitted by the user "[Deleted]" or "Deleted".
|-
|Jeeves
|
|-
|Narrator
|
|-
|Internet
|
|-
|NPC
|
|-
|Password
|
|-
!colspan=2|Permissive Character Sets
|-
|<Space>
|
|-
|<nowiki>@ é | " "</nowiki>
|
|-
|<NBSP>
|
|-
|<nowiki>\ . # " '</nowiki>
|
|-
|<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 [[1137|Comic 1137]])
|-
|<nowiki>– - _ / ` ' `</nowiki>
|Includes both the em-dash and the hyphen, which are easily confused, as well as the grave accent (`) and the apostrophe ('), which are easy to confuse. Besides being highly unusual for user names and confusing, some of these symbols (like the grave accent) have special meanings in languages like Javascript and can therefore cause bugs or even security issues on web pages.
|-
|<Any emoji>
|Current databases are not set up to store emojis as characters.
|-
|","
|In CSV files this separates one column or data item from another. This could cause bugs if the usernames are used as part of a CSV file since the next column on the row could be left blank filled with other data.
|-
|<nowiki>&NBSP</nowiki>;
|The special entity in HTML (web page language) for a non-breaking space, or a space that prevents an automatic line-break at its position. When rendered as part of an HTML page without sanitization, this would only display a space.
|-
|<nowiki></HTML></nowiki>
|This is trying to inject code for the web page using the user name. If the user name is not sanitized and does not have special characters encoded, this HTML end tag could end the HTML document, leading to page errors.
|-
|&LT;/HTML&GT;
|&LT; and &GT; are special character entities in HTML that represent < and >, repectively. So all together, when rendered as part of an HTML document, this would print "<nowiki></HTML></nowiki>" Although this would look similar to the previous <nowiki></HTML></nowiki> entry, it would be unlikely to cause problems as the symbols are not interpreted if encoded as special entities.
|-
|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:

{|
!colspan=3|Straightforward
!colspan=2|Recognizable
|-
|colspan=3|<Your usual username, if any>
|Google||iPhone
|-
|colspan=3|<Your given name>
|Facebook||BitCoin
|-
|colspan=3|<Your full name>
|Obama||Canada
|-
|colspan=3|<Initial><Surname>
|NFL||Garfield
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|<Surname>
|colspan=2 rowspan=2|(Bold & Slightly Unconventional)
|<Your city>||NASA
|-
|colspan=3| 
|colspan=2|<Name of person who runs the service>
|- style="vertical-align:bottom;"
!Causing Trouble
!colspan=2|Causing More Trouble
!colspan=2|Impossible to Say
|-
|User
|colspan=2|Admin
|colspan=2|Hyphen-Emdash
|-
|Username
|colspan=2|Administrator
|colspan=2|Dash-8hyphen-8
|-
|Name
|colspan=2|System
|colspan=2|Zero0ne2numeral2
|-
|You
|colspan=2|<Name of service>
|colspan=2|KrisasinHemsworth
|-
|Guest
|colspan=2|Help
|colspan=2|TheWord&Ampersand
|-
|Account
|colspan=2|Error
|colspan=2|ZettaWith3Teees 
|-
!Misc!! 
!colspan=3|Permissive Character Sets
|-
|colspan=2|<Single Letters>
|<Space>|| 
|<nowiki>@ é | " "</nowiki>
|-
|colspan=2|<Single Numbers>
|<NBSP>|| 
|<nowiki>\ . # " '</nowiki>
|-
|colspan=2|<Common Words>
|colspan=2|<RTL override>
|<nowiki>– - _ / ` ' `</nowiki>
|-
|colspan=2|<SQL/JS Injection>
|<Any emoji>
|style="text-align:center;"|","
|<nowiki>&NBSP</nowiki>;
|-
|ASDF||QWERTY
|<nowiki></HTML></nowiki>
|style="text-align:right;" colspan=2|&LT;/HTML&GT;
|-
|Yes||Bot
|colspan=3|OkThisIsKindOfConfusingButIt's
|-
|Computer||Blocked
|colspan=3|<LessThan\ForwardSlashHTML
|-
|Deleted||Jeeves
|colspan=3|GreaterThanActualGreaterThan
|-
|Narrator||Internet
|colspan=3|Symbol>Yes,ThatWasAllPartOfThe
|-
|NPC||Password
|colspan=3|Name,ButSoIs...Ok,LetMeStartOver
|}

{{comic discussion}}

1963: Namespace Land Rush

2018-03-07T17:52:11Z

162.158.58.159: Added explanation for "Deleted"

{{comic
| number = 1963
| date = March 5, 2018
| title = Namespace Land Rush
| image = namespace_land_rush.png
| titletext = You can also just mash the keyboard at random, but you might end up with a gibberish name no one can pronounce.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|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 [https://ldpreload.com/blog/names-to-reserve Hostnames and usernames to reserve] as well as [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2142 RFC 2142].)

==Table==
{{incomplete|Add explanations of the names. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
{| class="wikitable"
!style="width:30%"|Entry
!style="width:70%"|Explanation
|-
!colspan=2|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.
|-
!colspan=2|Recognizable (Usernames that would make it look like the email came from an official source within the organization named)
|-
|Google
|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 [https://twitter.com/BiIIMurray humorous] and [http://www.chicagotribune.com/bluesky/technology/ct-russian-twitter-account-tennessee-gop-20171018-story.html nefarious] results.
|-
|iPhone
|
|-
|Facebook
|
|-
|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>
|
|-
!colspan=3|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
|
|-
!colspan=2|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
|
|-
!colspan=2|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 {{w|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.
|-
!colspan=2|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 [[327|Comic 327]])
|-
|ASDF
|
|-
|QWERTY
|
|-
|Yes
|
|-
|Bot
|
|-
|Computer
|
|-
|Blocked
|
|-
|Deleted
|Some services like Reddit keep up user posts and data after account deletion, marking the content as submitted by the user "[Deleted]" or "Deleted".
|-
|Jeeves
|
|-
|Narrator
|
|-
|Internet
|
|-
|NPC
|
|-
|Password
|
|-
!colspan=2|Permissive Character Sets
|-
|<Space>
|
|-
|<nowiki>@ é | " "</nowiki>
|
|-
|<NBSP>
|
|-
|<nowiki>\ . # " '</nowiki>
|
|-
|<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 [[1137|Comic 1137]])
|-
|<nowiki>– - _ / ` ' `</nowiki>
|
|-
|<Any emoji>
|Current databases are not set up to store emojis as characters.
|-
|","
|
|-
|<nowiki>&NBSP</nowiki>;
|
|-
|<nowiki></HTML></nowiki>
|
|-
|&LT;/HTML&GT;
|
|-
|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:

{|
!colspan=3|Straightforward
!colspan=2|Recognizable
|-
|colspan=3|<Your usual username, if any>
|Google||iPhone
|-
|colspan=3|<Your given name>
|Facebook||BitCoin
|-
|colspan=3|<Your full name>
|Obama||Canada
|-
|colspan=3|<Initial><Surname>
|NFL||Garfield
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|<Surname>
|colspan=2 rowspan=2|(Bold & Slightly Unconventional)
|<Your city>||NASA
|-
|colspan=3| 
|colspan=2|<Name of person who runs the service>
|- style="vertical-align:bottom;"
!Causing Trouble
!colspan=2|Causing More Trouble
!colspan=2|Impossible to Say
|-
|User
|colspan=2|Admin
|colspan=2|Hyphen-Emdash
|-
|Username
|colspan=2|Administrator
|colspan=2|Dash-8hyphen-8
|-
|Name
|colspan=2|System
|colspan=2|Zero0ne2numeral2
|-
|You
|colspan=2|<Name of service>
|colspan=2|KrisasinHemsworth
|-
|Guest
|colspan=2|Help
|colspan=2|TheWord&Ampersand
|-
|Account
|colspan=2|Error
|colspan=2|ZettaWith3Teees 
|-
!Misc!! 
!colspan=3|Permissive Character Sets
|-
|colspan=2|<Single Letters>
|<Space>|| 
|<nowiki>@ é | " "</nowiki>
|-
|colspan=2|<Single Numbers>
|<NBSP>|| 
|<nowiki>\ . # " '</nowiki>
|-
|colspan=2|<Common Words>
|colspan=2|<RTL override>
|<nowiki>– - _ / ` ' `</nowiki>
|-
|colspan=2|<SQL/JS Injection>
|<Any emoji>
|style="text-align:center;"|","
|<nowiki>&NBSP</nowiki>;
|-
|ASDF||QWERTY
|<nowiki></HTML></nowiki>
|style="text-align:right;" colspan=2|&LT;/HTML&GT;
|-
|Yes||Bot
|colspan=3|OkThisIsKindOfConfusingButIt's
|-
|Computer||Blocked
|colspan=3|<LessThan\ForwardSlashHTML
|-
|Deleted||Jeeves
|colspan=3|GreaterThanActualGreaterThan
|-
|Narrator||Internet
|colspan=3|Symbol>Yes,ThatWasAllPartOfThe
|-
|NPC||Password
|colspan=3|Name,ButSoIs...Ok,LetMeStartOver
|}

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:1782: Team Chat

2017-01-07T21:18:21Z

162.158.58.159:

This is an xkcd about why the majority is wrong. ;) [[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.238|108.162.229.238]] 16:32, 6 January 2017 (UTC) seirl

F1rst. Jokes aside, wrote you guys something to work with. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.107.198|141.101.107.198]] 16:34, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
Sixi
:See [[1258: First]] and [[269: TCMP]]. Well funny enough you were neither the first to edit the page nor the talk page :-) Thanks for the start, but try to not delete the incomplete tag, but just write first draft or add what you can see is missing. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 16:40, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
::Good points for future edits! Appreciated. ♪ [[Special:Contributions/141.101.107.198|141.101.107.198]] 16:45, 6 January 2017 (UTC) -Sixi

I find it funny how I'm editing the article, fixing the incomplete parts, then all of a sudden (as soon as I click "enter", I must add), someone's already fixed the incomplete parts, and there was a "conflict with the edit". :P --[[User:JayRulesXKCD|'''JayRules''XKCD''' ]][[User talk:JayRulesXKCD|what's up?]] 18:47, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

My first addition here, tried to explain skype vs slack and the title text. Feel free to roast me constructively :D Hope I didn't go too deep in Slack, thought most people don't know it and my little experience may help :) Also hope my unix tools explanation won't offend too many people; I'm a happy screen user myself, but it does have quite a bit of a learning curve. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.96.88|141.101.96.88]] 19:20, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Well, at least not [http://tools.suckless.org/ii/ ii] [[Special:Contributions/172.68.11.47|172.68.11.47]] 02:13, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Well, I think Randal is slightly off, it more goes like this:

2006: The company officially use Messenger - Except all of development ignores it and use IRC

2009: The company officially use Skype - Except all of development ignores it and use IRC

2012: The company officially use Linq - Except all of development ignores it and use IRC

2014: The company officially use Slack - Except all of development ignores it and use IRC

2016: The company officially use Teams - Except all of development ignores it and use IRC

[[Special:Contributions/162.158.88.200|162.158.88.200]] 10:45, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
:You forgot to add the part where it says that in 2018 they finally migrate... but to {{w|Discord (software)|Discord}}. --[[User:JayRulesXKCD|'''JayRules''XKCD''' ]][[User talk:JayRulesXKCD|what's up?]] 12:54, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
:: randall didnt mention discord? smh [[Special:Contributions/162.158.58.159|162.158.58.159]] 21:18, 7 January 2017 (UTC)