https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/api.php?action=feedcontributions&feedformat=atom&user=BJ4RN0explain xkcd - User contributions [en]2026-04-17T10:55:13ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.30.0https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2782:_Wikipedia_Article_Titles&diff=3145452782: Wikipedia Article Titles2023-05-30T11:20:17Z<p>BJ4RN0: Fixes typo in transcript</p>
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<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 2782<br />
| date = May 29, 2023<br />
| title = Wikipedia Article Titles<br />
| image = wikipedia_article_titles_2x.png<br />
| imagesize = 402x439px<br />
| noexpand = true<br />
| titletext = I would never stoop to vandalism, but I'm not above discreetly deleting the occasional 'this article contains excessive amounts of detail' tag.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Created by MERYL STREEP'S SECOND SEAGULL. This article does not yet have too much detail. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}<br />
This comic is a chart reflecting where various Wikipedia articles (real or imagined) might rank in how effectively they would act as {{w|clickbait}} for [[Randall]].<br />
<br />
{{w|Meryl Streep}} is a famous and widely acclaimed American actress. Randall apparently has little interest in reading about her, comparatively speaking, placing her article on the first tick of eleven, with more interest indicated further down the chart.<br />
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Randall appears to have slightly more interest in reading about seagulls, on the next tick, which on Wikipedia redirect to the {{w|Gull}} article, because "seagull" is a common colloquial synonym. Two more ticks down from "seagull" on the scale indicating his increasing interest level, he suggests that a hypothetical Wikipedia link to "Meryl Streep (seagull)", which according to {{w|Wikipedia:Article titles#Precision|Wikipedia article title conventions}} could likely refer to a notable seagull also named Meryl Streep, would be more interesting to him.<br />
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A further three ticks beyond on Randall's interestingness scale is a hypothetical link to an article about a "Meryl Streep Seagull incident", which while possibly not conforming to current {{w|Wikipedia:Article titles#Descriptive title|Wikipedia's requirements for sufficiently descriptive article titles}}, might refer to a notable event that occurred during the 2001 production of {{w|Anton Chekhov}}'s play, ''{{w|The Seagull}}'', at the {{w|Delacorte Theatre}} in which Streep was a lead actress (see "[https://playbill.com/article/the-seagull-opens-its-wings-in-central-park-aug-12-com-98105 The Seagull Opens its Wings in Central Park].") According to an [https://www.salon.com/2001/08/27/seagull/ August 27, 2001 article in ''Salon''], "a 40-ish man was found dead in the bushes from a single gunshot wound near the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, just yards away from where [Streep's co-star] {{w|Philip Seymour Hoffman}} offs himself with a single gunshot wound every night as Konstantin Gavrilovich in Anton Chekhov's ''The Seagull.''" However, there is no hint of any direct connection between Streep and the deceased, so absent any clear evidence of such reported in {{w|Wikipedia:Reliable sources#News organizations|reliable news sources}}, it is extremely unlikely that Wikipedia editors would create or allow an article with a title suggesting there may be, as that would violate their {{w|Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons|Biographies of Living Persons policy}}. Alternatively, such an article could be about an incident in which a seagull notably caused Meryl Streep problems, a time when Meryl Streep notably caused problems for a seagull, or both.<br />
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The final imagined Wikipedia page is a {{w|Wikipedia:Disambiguation|disambiguation page}}, depicted as four tick further down and thus even more likely to be quickly clicked. Disambiguation pages are only necessary when there are multiple notable articles of sufficiently similar names which must be listed with clarifying details to avoid confusion. In this case, it may indicate that other variations of the aforementioned situations occurred in multiple incidents. However, the titles of disambiguation pages rarely appear in links, as you usually reach them as a result of a search for an ambiguous term such as "{{w|go}}". Note that disambiguation pages are not articles.<br />
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The title text suggests that Randall is an {{w|Deletionism and inclusionism in Wikipedia|inclusionist wikipedian}}, and as such is not above occasionally deleting editorial message boxes claiming that their article contains too much detail.<br />
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==Transcript==<br />
:[A chart is shown with a vertical axis with eleven evenly spaced ticks. There is no arrow on the line but a divided arrow is to the left of the axis pointing down. In the division there is a label. There are five ticks that have labels. Above the chart there is a title in two lines with the top line in larger font:] <br />
:<big>Hypothetical Wikipedia Article Titles</big><br />
:Ranked by how quickly I would click on them<br />
:Arrow label: More quickly<br />
:1st tick: Meryl Streep<br />
:2nd tick: Seagull<br />
:4th tick: Meryl Streep (seagull)<br />
:7th tick: Meryl Streep seagull incident<br />
:11th tick: Meryl Streep seagull incident (disambiguation)<br />
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{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]<br />
[[Category:Charts]]<br />
[[Category:Rankings]]<br />
[[Category:Wikipedia]]<br />
[[Category:Clickbait]]<br />
[[Category:Animals]]</div>BJ4RN0