explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:2067: Challengers

2018-11-02T16:57:44Z

Echo Hotel:

'''New category elections'''

I've created a new category for elections: [[:Category:Elections]]. Please help and add this category to other comics I've missed so far. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 09:47, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

'''Further discussions'''

''Calling it now'': lots of complaining about campaigning, by folks who prefer jokes. [[User:KangaroOS|Kangaro]][[User talk:KangaroOS|OS]] 06:25, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

There are hidden comics. I've found three so far:
Attack ad comic in north half of Texas.
Ballot measure comic in north half of California.
Gerrymandering comic in north half of Washington.
IronyIsGood 06:16, 2 November 2018 (AEST) {{unsigned ip|108.162.249.184}}

: Steve King comic in north-western Iowa
: St Louis comic on the border of Missouri and Illinois {{unsigned ip|162.158.90.144}}
: "Abigail Spanberger for Congress", just below Richmond, Virginia [[Special:Contributions/172.69.54.165|172.69.54.165]] 08:17, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
: "Only Poll That Counts" comic on border of California and Nevada, South West of Las Vegas [[Special:Contributions/141.101.77.56|141.101.77.56]] 08:21, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
: "I can see my house from here" in Washington DC [[Special:Contributions/172.68.110.88|172.68.110.88]] 09:17, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
: "If elected..." North Western Nebraska. {{unsigned|ManSpider}}
: "Carlymandering plan..." North Washington. {{unsigned ip|162.158.202.88}}

Non-Republican/Democrat candidate found in Alaska, in green - only one I've found so far. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.226.143|172.69.226.143]] 09:08, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
: There is also one southwest of Dallas {{unsigned ip|162.158.202.88}}

'''Serious bug report:'''

This damn thing must be geolocked or something, because apparently not being an American means I can't edit the map. I can't even get around it with a VPN. Help? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.38.214|162.158.38.214]] 10:18, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
:This map will be changed by US citizens on November 6, 2018. Nobody can edit this map at xkcd. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 10:33, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

'''Loading screen'''

please, include the [https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/challengers.png loading screen] in the explanation. --[[User:Valepert|valepert]] ([[User talk:Valepert|talk]]) 11:19, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
:Someone has mentioned it at the first paragraph. This was also the first version uploaded by the BOT: [[:File:challengers.png]]. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 12:09, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

'''Links to politicans'''

I'm not sure if we all haven't recognized that all larger names provide a link to a homepage. Maybe Randall has fixed an error right now. Nonetheless I've mentioned this in the first paragraph. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 12:26, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
:It seems most links just use Google like this example: https://google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&btnI=1&q=kyrsten+sinema+senate+arizona which shows directly the first search result. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 13:41, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

'''What's with all the place names?'''

There are an immense number of placenames on the map - many of these look to be jokes. Maybe specific places you can go to vote or something? What's the deal with that? [[User:SteveBaker|SteveBaker]] ([[User talk:SteveBaker|talk]]) 12:58, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
:These are {{w|List of U.S. National Historic Landmarks by state|US Landmarks}} as mentioned at the first paragraph. If you find a place that doesn't belong to this list it should be mentioned. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 13:10, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
::Some further investigations on the json file gave me this:
::*9 embedded comics
::*17,643 labels, much more than the 2,500 landmarks. This includes all names so far.
::Most links are just links to Google. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 13:41, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
::I just can't believe my hometown in on it... with a wlink to it's wikipedia page. [[User:Linker|Linker]] ([[User talk:Linker|talk]]) 13:49, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
::Besides actual place names, there are a lot of radio stations (Wxxx codes). Also, there's XKCD just on the left of the Boston label (Massachusetts). Is that where Randall lives?
:: There are other things, as well. Next to Ogden, Utah, there's a link to the Wikipedia article for the "Hi-Fi Murders," which is an event, not a landmark. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.143.240|172.68.143.240]] 16:21, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
::I'm pretty sure the landmarks are just all of the wikipedia pages that contain some kind of location information. That's why for example the wikipedia pages "List of largest summits" point to Alaska where the largest summit actually is. Similarly the {w|Xkcd} wikipedia page has a GPS coordinate in the 'Inspired activities' section, which points to Boston, the same place where the XKCD label is on the map. While there might be some easter egg there, I think the grey labels are simply just wikipedia pages with coordinates or other geolocatable texts in their contents. [[User:Sztupy|Sztupy]] ([[User talk:Sztupy|talk]]) 16:54, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

'''Subcomics layout'''

I know the Editor FAQ about tables, but am I the only one who thinks the previous table layout for the subcomics was much easier to read? I find that with the current list layout, it is more difficult to ignore the transcript for those of us who don't need to read it.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.10|108.162.229.10]] 14:31, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
: Could make the transcript collapsible maybe, and also move the images back from thumbnails into the main body, so they are close to the explanations? [[User:Sztupy|Sztupy]] ([[User talk:Sztupy|talk]]) 14:47, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

'''Candidate in wrong place?'''

Noticed Robert Arlett, the Republican challenger for US Senate from Delaware, is listed in Washington DC. --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.62.196|172.69.62.196]] 15:36, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
There are a bunch of errors we are going to need an erreta section. Eastern Iowa has a link to the "murder of Yangjie Li" a murder that happened in 2016 in germany maybe they meant the "Murder of Shao Tong" from 2014 a murder of one Chinese student of another while at university in Iowa.

'''Carlymandering'''
Carly is Canadian, so not eligible to vote in US elections. The result in the Carly district should be zero all tie, usually resulting in drawing lots for the winner. Any non-zero result would be clear evidence of election fraud.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.75.142|162.158.75.142]] 16:27, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

2067: Challengers

2018-11-02T16:37:52Z

Echo Hotel: /* Scholten */ clarification that steve king hasn't "said" anything racist (lately) but endorsed white nationalist parties

{{comic
| number = 2067
| date = November 2, 2018
| title = Challengers
| image = challengers.png
| titletext = Use your mouse or fingers to pan + zoom. To edit the map, submit your ballot on November 6.
}}
To see the full zoomable picture go to the [https://xkcd.com/2067/ original] comic page.

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Would be good to add how some of the subcomics tie to the election (St Louis), and add potential explanation on why they are put to the location they are in (Attack Ads, Carlymandering, St Louis). Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

[[File:challengers_loading_screen.png|thumb|200px|Loading screen]]
This comic shows all challengers (people running in an election who are "challenging" the current office-holder, as well as those running in open seats where a change of party from the previous election would occur) to the {{w|United States elections, 2018|midterm elections}} hold on November 6, 2018. Many larger names provide a link to the homepage of the specific person, or an article about the election that candidate is participating in. The landmarks are taken from {{w|List of U.S. National Historic Landmarks by state|this Wikipedia page}}. Since the map is large there's also a [https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/challengers.png loading screen] present that can be seen while the map is loading.

There are also a total of nine comics embedded into the map at various locations. They are all loaded when you zoom in enough into the map to the appropriate section.

===Attack Ads===
[[File:challengers_subcomic_abernathy_texas.png|thumb|200px|Attack Ads]]

; Location
: '''Abernathy, Texas'''

; Transcript
: [Black Hat and Cueball are talking]
: Black Hat: Starting on November 7th, we're going to blanket the airwaves with attack ads.
: Cueball: Isn't the election on November 6th?
: Black Hat: Yeah, the advertising rates go way down after that.

; Explanation
: {{w|Attack ads}} are campaign advertising that usually attack the opponents' campaign instead of promoting one's own. The comic also refers to the fact that media outlets usually spike their advertising prices during the campaign, and it becomes cheaper afterwards. However there's usually no point in advertising afterwards for a campaign as the polling has already taken place. This may also be a callback to [[1130: Poll Watching]]

===Ballot Measures===
[[File:challengers_subcomic_weed_california.png|thumb|200px|Ballot Measures]]

; Location
: '''Weed, California'''

; Transcript
: [Cueball is holding a piece of paper and talking to Megan]
: Cueball: Question #1 voids all 2018 ballot measures except itself.
: Cueball: Question #2 retroactively lowers the threshold for passing ballot measures to 5%.
: Cueball: Question #3 requires a re-vote on all failed ballot measures a day later.
: Cueball: Question #4 requires a re-vote on all passed ballot measures a day later.
: Cueball: Question #5 bans those annoying phone scammers, but also says that if an odd number of ballot measures pass, Christmas is canceled.
: Cueball: Question #6 makes a "yes" count as a "no" on odd-numbered ballot measures.
: Cueball: Question #7 does nothing but counts as a ballot measure passing.
: Cueball: Question #8 says that-
: Megan: I'm leaving these all blank and voting against whoever approves ballot measures.

; Explanation
: In California during this election apart from the nationwide election there will be also be [https://ballotpedia.org/California_2018_ballot_propositions 12 extra propositions] for the voters to vote on. Sometimes propositions also include changing how voting should be done in subsequent elections. [https://www.vox.com/2016/6/23/11979522/brexit-ballot There are people] who believe proposals on US ballots are asked in a very convoluted way, and could be made simpler.
: In this comic a lot of the proposals sound complex and self-referential as well, therefore Megan just says that she doesn't wish to vote to any of them, and would actually like to ban people creating ballot papers like this. Not voting might also refer to the scenario where people believe none of the choices during an election are good, and instead vote to no-one or deface their ballot papers in protest.

===Carlymandering===
[[File:challengers_subcomic_seattle_washington.png|thumb|200px|Carlymandering]]

; Location
: '''Bellingham, Washington'''

; Transcript
: [Cueball holds a presentation to a group of people including White Hat and Hairbun sitting at an office desk. The presentation shows a map of a district]
: Cueball: Under my new Carlymandering plan, we'll create five red districts, five blue districts, and one district which contains only Carly Rae Jepsen.
: Hairbun: That seems fair.

; Explanation
: This refers to {{w|Gerrymandering}}, a tactic used to re-shape voting district boundaries to make sure one candidate prevails over the other. The name is conflated with {{w|Carly Rae Jepsen}}, a Canadian singer, whose latest single released only a day before the comic was published is called "{{w|Party for One}}". Although the song is about partying (e.g. going out) alone, the joke is that it can also mean a one person political party, and she'll have a full Gerrymandered district where she is the only person.

===House===
[[File:challengers_subcomic_washington_dc.png|thumb|200px|House]]

; Location
: '''Washington, DC'''

; Transcript
: [Cueball is standing in the middle of Washington, DC]
: Cueball: I can see my house from here!

; Explanation
: Comic is probably referencing the {{w|White House}}, the residence of the President, located in Washington, DC.

===Polls===
[[File:challengers_subcomic_primm_nevada.png|thumb|200px|Polls]]

; Location
: '''Primm, Nevada'''

; Transcript
: [A group of five people are standing]
: Blondie: Remember: The only poll that counts is the one on Election Day. And the ones that help campaigns allocate resources. And the ones that drive media coverage and the ones that inform us all about what our fellow members of the public believe. And the ones that...

; Explanation
: During campaign there are usually polling done by survey companies to determine each candidate's chances of winning. This comic refers to the fact that usually the candidate that is behind in the polls usually tells their electorate that these polls don't matter, as they are just surveys and not the actual final result. This is usually to encourage their voter base that it's still worth voting for them. The joke here is that Blondie doesn't finish here but tells the electorate that other polls are actually also important.
: Nevada is one of the states where there is [https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign-polls/414083-poll-dems-hold-slim-leads-in-arizona-and-nevada-senate-races only a slim difference] between the candidates based on polls hence the need for each candidate to rally their supporters and make sure everyone is voting.

===Punish===
[[File:challengers_subcomic_chadron_nebraska.png|thumb|200px|Punish]]

; Location
: '''Chadron, Nebraska'''

; Transcript
: [Megan is standing at a podium with her arm raised]
: Megan: If elected, I vow to find and punish the voters responsible.

; Explanation
: Often candidates make promises of things they will do when they are elected. Vowing to find and punishing people responsible for a certain action, oftentimes criminals, is also common. However, these two things are conflated here to ludicrous effect.
: Putting this comic into Nebraska might refer to the fact that in [https://ballotpedia.org/Nebraska_Death_Penalty_Repeal,_Referendum_426_(2016) 2016 Nebraska voted to repeal the death penalty ban], allowing the reinstatement of the death penalty in the state.

===Scholten===
[[File:challengers_subcomic_storm_lake_iowa.png|thumb|200px|Scholten]]

; Location
: '''Storm Lake, Iowa'''

; Transcript
: Cueball: The midterms are so stressful.
: Megan: I just hope J.D. Scholten wins.
: Cueball: Why?
: Megan: Google Steve King.
: [Cueball looking at his phone]
: Cueball: Yikes.

; Explanation
: J.D. Scholten is a Democratic candidate for Iowa's 4th Congressional District. {{w|Steve King}} is a Republican representative who has stirred controversy due his endorsement of candidates, in other countries, who were members of parties with white supremacist ties.

===Spanberger===
[[File:challengers_subcomic_richmond_virginia.png|thumb|200px|Spanberger]]

; Location
: '''Richmond, Virginia'''

; Transcript
: [Cueball is holding a sign that says: Abigail Spanberger for Congress]

; Explanation
: Abigail Spanberger is a candidate running for Congress in Virginia's 7th district, which includes Richmond. Based on polls she has a chance to beat her opponent, and could be the first Democrat in her district after 50 years of Republican control. Cueball probably tries to encourage people to vote for her on election day.

===St Louis===
[[File:challengers_subcomic_saint_louis_missouri.png|thumb|200px|St Louis]]

; Location
: '''Saint Louis, Missouri'''

; Transcript
: [Two people next to the Gateway Arch are talking]
: Cueball: Ah, Saint Louis. Home of America's largest... Whatever that thing is.

; Explanation
: Saint Louis, Missouri is the location of the {{w|Gateway Arch}}, the largest arch in the United States. (It's also one of the most recognizable arches in Saint Louis, according to [[1368: One Of The]].) Since in this comic they are next to the side of the arch, it is possible its sheer size stops them from determining what it is, although they should probably know.

===Title text===
The title text shows the hint that the reader can zoom in and move over all US-States revealing many details can't be seen at the overall view. Furthermore [[Randall]] does a call to vote: he requests people to take an active part in the elections to change that picture.

==Transcript==
:[A loading screen appears shortly before the large picture has rendered. We can see an American flag in an oval badge with the text:]
:I voted
:[And beneath a text saying:]
:Loading...

:2018 Midterm
:'''Challengers'''
:The bigger the candidate's name, the higher the office and the better their chances of success.

:[In a frame a zoomable map shows all US-States (Alaska and Hawaii are shown in the left lower corner.) The candidates are shown colored mainly in red and blue at different sizes. Each state has many landmarks shown in gray. There are also many comics embedded into the picture.]

:By Randall Monroe, Kelsey Harris, and Max Goodman

:Landmarks from Wikipedia. Success odds estimated from district voting history, special election
:results, and seat ratings. Thank you to Dailykos Elections for their spreadsheets, shaplefiles election
:ratings, and advice, and to @davidshor, @charlotteeffect, and @thedlcc for additional candidate data.

==Trivia==
*The comic [[Design_of_xkcd.com#Header|header]] has changed to:
*:<blockquote>I'm frightened by the direction the President and his party are taking our country. The sea of blue names below represents people who are standing up to them.<br />The best thing you can do to help is to reach out to your friends and family and make sure they have a plan to vote.<br />Find out where to vote: [https://www.vote.org/ Vote.org]<br />See what's on your ballot: [https://www.ballotready.org/ BallotReady.org]</blockquote>
*:This happened on the day this comic came out, as it up till [http://web.archive.org/web/20181101081612/https://xkcd.com/ the day before], had been a different reminder of the election only with the vote.org link.
*The interactive picture does not work in many browsers when using the link ''[https://www.xkcd.com www.xkcd.com]'', only the short ''[https://xkcd.com xkcd.com]'' works properly because the page uses an absolute link to a file ''[https://xkcd.com/2067/asset/map-data.json map-data.json]'' at the domain ''<nowiki>xkcd.com</nowiki>'' which is not allowed from ''<nowiki>www.xkcd.com</nowiki>'' according to {{w|Cross-origin resource sharing}}.
* The internal comics have a kind of "comic" inside the [https://xkcd.com/2067/asset/map-data.json map-data.json] file that contains all of the details shown on the map. All other locations, including politicians and landmarks inside the map-data.json have a kind of "label"
* There are a total of
** 9 subcomics
** 17,643 labels, including:
*** 13,339 landmarks (gray)
*** 2,845 Democratic candidates (blue)
*** 1,456 Republican candidates (red)
*** 3 independent candidates (green)
* The three independent candidates are:
** Alaska Congress candidate Alyse Galvin
** Texas State House District 101 candidate James Allen
** Alabama State Senate District 10 candidate Craig Ford
* The largest names on the map (based on font size) are:
** Michelle Lujan Grisham, Governor candidate for New Mexico (7.187)
** Beto O'Rourke, Texan US Senate candidate (6.773)
** Matt Rosendale, Montanan US Senate candidate (6.773)
** Gretchen Whitmer, Governor candidate for Michigan (6.48)
* There's a landmark label called "Xkcd" near Boston, Massachusetts

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Large drawings]]
[[Category:Interactive comics]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Blondie]]
[[Category:Politics]]
[[Category:Elections]]