explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

178: Not Really Into Pokemon

2025-06-27T12:53:07Z

Oneforfortytwo: fix date

{{comic
| number = 178
| date = November 1, 2006
| title = Not Really Into Pokemon
| image = not_really_into_pokemon.png
| titletext = As of this writing, Ubuntu 6.10 and Firefox 2.0 have left my computer a complete mess.
}}

==Explanation==
''{{w|Pokémon}}'' is a popular franchise that includes 5 children's animated television shows, a {{w|collectible card game}}, and a whole series of video games. The premise is that a young "trainer" goes out to explore the world and catch Pokémon: fanciful wild creatures that come in many varieties, ranging from [https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Rhydon_(Pok%C3%A9mon) armoured dinosaurs that have drills for horns] to [https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Genesect_(Pok%C3%A9mon) robotic bugs that change their type depending on the items they are holding]. When the trainer comes across wild Pokémon or other trainers, they use their Pokémon to fight each other.

In this comic, [[Randall]] claims that "I'm not really into Pokémon" can serve as an all-purpose phrase of condescending dismissal. The implied insult to the thing being dismissed can include:
* Childishness. Although it does have a significant adult following, the ''Pokémon'' franchise was and is mainly targeted at children.
* Frivolousness. The essential goal of ''Pokémon'' games, summed up in the slogan "Gotta Catch 'Em All," is to catch Pokémon for the sake of having them.
* Commercialism. ''Pokémon'' is a sprawling franchise that periodically releases new iterations, which (at least to a non-fan) can seem much like more of the same, only existing to make money. At present, the ''Pokémon'' universe contains {{w|List of Pokémon|over 1,000}} different types of Pokémon.
* Absurdity. As mentioned, the names and designs of individual Pokémon can be quite fanciful; "absurd" would be a more unkind way to put it.

The example in the comic is [[Black Hat]] dismissing {{w|Ubuntu}}, an open-source computer operating system. Ubuntu may have been particularly chosen as ''specifically'' suitable for the "Pokémon dismissal" for reasons such as:
* The name "Ubuntu," which (like the names of Pokémon) can sound strange or silly. Individual Ubuntu releases also have animal-themed names (like "Hoary Hedgehog" and "Saucy Salamander").
* The name "Ubuntu" sounds like a Pokemon [http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Region region.]
* Its release schedule; new Ubuntu releases come out every six months, which might (like ''Pokémon'') be unfavourably described as putting out more of the same in new packaging.
* A notion that people try Ubuntu (and other {{w|Linux distribution}}s) just for the sake of doing so, like catching all the Pokémon.

The title text refers to the complications that new software releases can have on computers, especially if either the release is an alpha or beta release, or if the computer is rather old. Randall specifically mentions {{w|Ubuntu 6.10}} and {{w|Firefox 2.0}}, both of which were officially released around two weeks ''after'' this comic was posted, so the versions causing problems were certainly pre-release editions. While Randall does not detail any specific issues, the title text may paint a picture of two computer programs fighting each other inside the computer and making a mess in the process, as if they were Pokémon.

Other comics which advocate using catch-all phrases as standard responses for any comment:
*[[174: That's What SHE Said]]
*[[1656: It Begins]]
*[[559: No Pun Intended]]
*[[1022: So It Has Come To This]]
*[[1215: Insight]]
*[[1627: Woosh]]

==Transcript==
:I have found the perfect phrase for condescendingly dismissing anything:
:Cueball: Have you seen the new Ubuntu release?
:Black Hat: Nah, I'm not really into Pokémon.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Linux]]
[[Category:Pokémon]]

111: Firefox and Witchcraft - The Connection?

2025-06-27T12:46:07Z

Oneforfortytwo: Undo revision 380514 by 185.194.178.54 (talk)

{{comic
| number = 111
| date = June 5, 2006
| title = Firefox and Witchcraft - The Connection?
| image = firefox wicca.png
| titletext = ThisadpaidforbythecounciltopromoteMicrosoftandChristianity. Remember, The Bible is Closed Source.
}}

==Explanation==
The comic charts the number of members of the religion {{w|Wicca}} against the number of times the {{w|Firefox}} web browser was downloaded, with the implication being that Firefox usage causes involvement in Wicca. In juxtaposing these almost certainly unrelated phenomena, Randall highlights the common error of assuming that {{w|Correlation_and_dependence|correlation}} implies {{w|Causality|causation}}. When two variables exhibit similar trends, this is often taken as proving that one is causing the other. However, such correlation may have come about through pure coincidence, and not indicate any link between the two at all. This is particularly a problem when examining a large number of variables: the chances of finding a [http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations coincidental correlation] increase exponentially as more variables are added. It may also be the case that a third factor is causally linked to both outcomes. In this case, it is plausible that the increasing ubiquity of internet access has resulted in increased demand for Firefox, and also in greater capacity to share the ideas of Wicca.

Randall further illustrates one common, and perhaps destructive, use of illusory correlation in the bottom half of the image. The appearance of the symbol for {{w|Internet Explorer}}, a rival web browser, and the cross, representing Christianity, imply that this graph is an attack ad promoted by Microsoft and Christianity to gain an advantage over their competitors.

The title text is reminiscent of political commercials, which often tell you who paid for them very quickly. This high speed is represented by all the words in the title text being strung together. The last sentence is a play on the term of {{w|Closed source software|closed source software}}, which Internet Explorer is, as opposed to Firefox, which is open source in development. In a similar vein, the Bible can be considered "closed source" due to [http://kingjbible.com/revelation/22.htm God's prohibition on altering its contents].

==Transcript==
:[A graph is shown with a positive slope.]
:[Y axis]: Membership in Wicca
:[X axis]: Total Firefox Downloads
:[Internet Explorer icon.]
:<big>K</big>EEP TH<big>E</big>
:FAITH
:[Outline of a cross.]

==Trivia==

This type of [https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/false-cause statistical ploy] is used again in a few other comics, like [[523: Decline]], [[552: Correlation]], and [[925: Cell Phones]].

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Line graphs]]
[[Category:Statistics]]
[[Category:Religion]]

2889: Greenhouse Effect

2024-02-07T04:23:02Z

Oneforfortytwo: Undo revision 334365 by 172.68.34.59 (talk)

{{comic
| number = 2889
| date = February 2, 2024
| title = Greenhouse Effect
| image = greenhouse_effect_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x315px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Once he had the answer, Arrhenius complained to his friends that he'd "wasted over a full year" doing tedious calculations by hand about "so trifling a matter" as hypothetical CO2 concentrations in far-off eras (quoted in Crawford, 1997).
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by CREATING CRETACEOUS PARK - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic has [[:Category:Climate change|climate change as its topic, a recurring theme]] on xkcd. There is no 'joke' per se, instead the comic represents a wry (and serious) observation on the timeline of climate change, and our understanding of it. The fact in question here is when science became aware of anthropogenic global warming and its primary cause.

The comic depicts a timeline with three events:
* The advent of the First {{w|Industrial Revolution}}. The comic dates this from the introduction of the {{w|Watt steam engine}} in 1776. This is arguably the event that most directly ushered in an explosion in the burning of fossil fuels that continues to this day.
* [https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_the_Influence_of_Carbonic_Acid_in_the_Air_upon_the_Temperature_of_the_Ground The first quantitative prediction] of the {{w|greenhouse effect}} by {{w|Svante Arrhenius}} in January and April 1896 (that, a. o., an increase of CO2 concentration by half would increase mean temperature over 3 °C). Arrhenius drew on and included a summary of {{w|Arvid Högbom}}'s 1894 Swedish article, which dealt with carbon cycle over geological periods and also first estimated annual global carbon emissions.
* The present day, early 2024.

As the comic's caption points out, less time elapsed between the start of the Industrial Revolution and the work by Arrhenius, than has elapsed since then. Moreover, some present-day climate discussions may cite [https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.2153-3490.1957.tb01849.x a 1957 paper by Revell and Seuss] as "the starting point" for modern inquiries into global warming. The comic notes "we figured out the greenhouse effect" 61 years prior; see both [https://folk.universitetetioslo.no/roberan/t/EarlyEstimates1.shtml Robbie 2018] and even longer {{w|History of climate change science}} which includes earlier, qualitative works.

The implication, which is consistent with other [[:Category:Climate change|climate change themed xkcd comics]], is that humans have taken insufficient action to slow or stop global warming despite knowing about it for more than a century, and understanding, at least intellectually, the consequences of inaction.

The title text portrays Arrhenius as dismissive of his work. A reading of the reference cited (page 8 in [https://courses.seas.harvard.edu/climate/eli/Courses/EPS281r/Sources/Greenhouse-effect/Arrhenius/3-optional-Crawford-1997.pdf Crawford 1997]: 'Writing to a friend at the end of [1895], he found it "unbelievable that so trifling a matter has cost me a full year".') suggests instead that Arrhenius was complaining about the unanticipated difficulty of answering what he thought initially was a simple question, about the historical (geological time) connection between carbon dioxide concentrations and global temperature. Per this reading, Arrhenius's complaint was about the work required to achieve the result, not about the significance of the result. His interpretation of the significance, though, differs from today's consensus (page 11 in Crawford 1997): "[Global warming will] allow our descendants, even if they only be those of a distant future, to live under a warmer sky and in a less harsh environment than we were granted".

==Transcript==
:[At the top of the comic a timeline is shown as a long line. It has three dots, one at each end a bit inside the end of the line and one close to the middle Each dot has a gray curved line going up to it from below. Below the end of these lines a year is given. And beneath the year is a caption. Above the time line are two gray double arrows going from three gray lines above each of the three dots. The lines are broken in the middle where a label is written.]

:[Label of arrow that spans from first to second dot:]
:120 years

:[Label of arrow that spans from second to third dot:]
:128 years

:[Label for the first dot:]
:'''1776'''
:James Watt develops a steam engine that helps kick off the Industrial Revolution

:[Label for the second dot:]
:'''1896'''
:Arvid Högbom and Svante Arrhenius note that industrial activity is adding CO2 to the atmosphere, and calculate how much the Earth will heat up if the CO2 concentration doubles. Their answer closely matches modern estimates.

:[Label for the third dot:]
:'''2024'''
:Today

:[Caption below the panel:]
:We figured out the greenhouse effect closer to the start of the Industrial Revolution than to today.

==References==
<references/>

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Climate change]]
[[Category:Timelines]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]

1653: United States Map

2023-12-20T15:15:01Z

Oneforfortytwo: fix formatting

{{comic
| number = 1653
| date = March 9, 2016
| title = United States Map
| image = united_states_map.png
| titletext = It would be pretty unfair to give to someone a blank version of this map as a 'how many states can you name?' quiz. (If you include Alaska and Hawaii, you should swap the Aleutian Islands with the Hawaiian ones.)
}}

==Explanation==
The comic is a map with the (rough) outline of the {{w|Contiguous United States|mainland}} of the {{w|United States of America}}. At first it looks like the real map, but actually all the states have been shuffled around in it. It seems that [[Randall]] took all of the states (minus {{w|Alaska}} and {{w|Hawaii}}, the two states that are not part of this map and are only mentioned in the title text, see below), and then reassembled them in the style of a jigsaw puzzle, with the end result being a map with a similar outline to the original [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/National-atlas-blank-state-outlines.png unaltered mainland state map]. They can thus be reassembled into the real map as can be seen [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/8/88/1653-rearranged.png here] (see also the [[#Trivia|trivia section]]).

Previously Randall has played with the shapes of the United States in [[1079: United Shapes]]. In that map he did two separate drawings for {{w|Michigan}} with a mitten in the {{w|Lower Peninsula of Michigan|lower part}} and an eagle in the {{w|Upper Peninsula of Michigan|upper part}}. Once again in this version he has split Michigan in two, the lower main part, the mitten just labeled ''Michigan'', is on the west coast on part of {{w|California|California's}} location, but the upper part is located on the east coast over {{w|New York|New York's}} location and has been labeled ''MI (upper)''. So even without Hawaii and Alaska, there are 49 "states" in this map, consisting of 47 states plus the two halves of Michigan. In the [[#Table|table]] below all 49 states in the map has been listed to indicate where the puzzle pieces have been moved to.

It seems at a first glance that the names have been written on the states as they would appear in a normal map, and that they have all then been rotated with the rotation of the states. But this is not the case for all states. For instance it seems like {{w|Utah}} has hardly been moved at all, and with the name written normally this may be intentionally to deceive the readers. Because Utah has been turned upside down, and according to how for instance {{w|Texas}}, clearly turned upside down, has its name written upside down as well, Utah should thus also have been written like that.

It seems likely that this could be a trick by Randall, to see if anyone spots that Utah has actually been moved. But it could of course be a mistake, as seems more likely with {{w|Montana}} where the same "error" has occurred, but since this state has been moved far from its real position there would be no sport in doing so (see the [[#Trivia|trivia section]]). Of course there is the possibility that "Utah" was on purpose and Montana by mistake. With 47 of 49 ending up rotated as expected on the map and only two exactly upside down, there can be no doubt that it was on purpose that the names in general have been written according to the states rotation. Note that for instance the state California has been rotated, but in a way so the text is written normally. But due to the direction of the state, it is normal to write the name tilted down along the state, which just coincidentally ends up being rotated normal in the position it has in the comic.

California has thus only been pushed down the length of the west border of the US (and thus rotated accordingly) so the top part still overlaps with the bottom part California, but also covers the bottom part of {{w|Arizona}} and {{w|New Mexico}}. Other states that likewise haven't been moved a lot include {{w|Maine}} which has only been rolled left (i.e. turned upside down) to just outside its normal position. {{w|Colorado}} has been moved up a state to where {{w|Wyoming}} usually is, and Wyoming has then just been shifted right, still covering part of its original position. But both have been turned 90 degrees, whichever way would be impossible to say for these rectangular states, but the text, if you dare believe in that, seems to indicate they have been turned counter clockwise. {{w|Wisconsin}} has only been shifted down below its usual position but then turned upside down.

The title text mentions how it would be unfair to use a [http://i.imgur.com/Mvi8j9s.jpg blank version] of this shuffled-up map as a quiz for knowledge of U.S. geography (the link is to such a map created by a user of this site); most people recognize states primarily by their relative locations, not their shape (and especially not their shape after being rotated). It also suggests a corresponding mean trick to play if you include Alaska and Hawaii, which are not present in the comic itself, namely to interchange the volcanic island of Hawaii (consisting of 8 main islands and hundreds of smaller ones) with those of the {{w|Aleutian Islands}}, also a chain of volcanic islands (14 large and 55 small) that partly belongs to the US and partly to Russia. The island extends from the {{w|Alaska Peninsula}}. It would thus be possible to even make it difficult to correctly name these last two states, even though it would be obvious to begin with that it must be the two not belonging to the mainland.

==Table==
*This table lists all states in the order of the transcript. But it can be sorted alphabetically.
*Its purpose is twofold:
**To list the rotation of the state compared to the real orientation of the state in the real world map
**To list which state/states the states, in this comics map, have been moved over/inside.
**Finally it a note can be made for interesting swaps.
{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-
! State
! Rotation
! Moved to
! Note
|-
| {{w|Ohio}} || Upside down || Washington ||
|-
| {{w|Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia}} || Upside down || Oregon ||
|-
| {{w|Lower Peninsula of Michigan|Michigan (lower part)}} (as {{w|Michigan}})|| Upside down || Northern California|| Michigan is the only state split in two, as it is also split in two peninsulas in real life. In real life these two parts lie very close on the shores of the {{w|Great Lakes region|Great Lakes}}, and not as here, with one on each coast of the US. But at least they still both lie on a shore.
|-
| {{w|Maryland}} (as MD) || Upside down || Central California (Southern Bay Area) ||
|-
| {{w|California}} || Rotated counter clockwise || Southern California, Southern Arizona, Southern New Mexico ||
|-
| {{w|Kansas}} || Upside down || Eastern Washington, Northern Idaho, Western Montana ||
|-
| {{w|Pennsylvania}} || Rotated clockwise || Eastern Oregon, Idaho ||
|-
| {{w|Oklahoma}} || Rotated clockwise || Idaho, Montana ||
|-
| {{w|New Mexico}} ||None || Nevada, Northern California ||
|-
| {{w|Nebraska}} || Upside down || Northern New Mexico, Northern Arizona||
|-
| {{w|South Dakota}} || None || Montana ||
|-
| {{w|Colorado}} || Rotated clockwise || Western Wyoming ||
|-
| {{w|Wyoming}} || Rotated counter clockwise || Eastern Wyoming || Stays mostly in place.
|-
| {{w|Utah}} || Upside down || Utah, Northern Arizona || The text has been written upside down on the state, so in a correct map using this state the text would be upside down. Only other state this has happened with is Montana. Stays mostly in place.
|-
| {{w|Alabama}} || None || Western Colorado ||
|-
| {{w|Massachusetts}} (as MA) || Rotated counter clockwise || Central New Mexico ||
|-
| {{w|Virginia}} || Rotated counter clockwise || Western New Mexico ||
|-
| {{w|Arizona}} || Rotated counter clockwise || North Dakota ||
|-
| {{w|Washington (state)|Washington}} || Rotated counter clockwise || Western Iowa, Eastern South Dakota, Eastern Nebraska ||
|-
| {{w|Montana}} || Rotated counter clockwise || Colorado, New Mexico and Texas || The text has been written upside down on the state, so in a correct map using this state the text would be upside down. Only other state this has happened with is Utah.
|-
| {{w|New York}} || None || Westernmost tip of Texas || Missing Long Island.
|-
| {{w|Minnesota}} || Upside down || Minnesota || Stays mostly in place.
Horribly deformed, especially on the eastern border.
|-
| {{w|Texas}} || Upside down || Missouri, Arkansas, Western Kansas, Iowa, Southern Illinois ||
|-
| {{w|Connecticut}} (as CT) || Rotated clockwise || Texas and New Mexico border ||
|-
| {{w|Mississippi}} (as Missi-ssippi) || Rotated clockwise || Texas and Oklahoma border ||
|-
| {{w|Nevada}} || None || South Western Texas ||
|-
| {{w|Idaho}} || Rotated clockwise || Eastern Texas, Southern Louisiana ||
|-
| {{w|South Carolina}} || Rotated counter clockwise || Southernmost Texas ||
|-
| {{w|Missouri}} || Upside down || Eastern Minnesota, Northern Wisconsin, Michigan's upper peninsula, Lake Superior ||
|-
| {{w|Wisconsin}} || Upside down || Illinois || Very deformed, loses its Western indentation
|-
| {{w|Kentucky }} || Rotated clockwise || Western Wisconsin, Western Illinois ||
|-
| {{w|North Dakota}} || Rotated clockwise || Mississippi ||
|-
| {{w|Florida}} || Rotated counter clockwise || Southern Michigan, Northern Ohio ||
|-
| {{w|North Carolina}} || Rotated clockwise || Southern Michigan, Eastern Indiana || Missing Outer Banks.
|-
| {{w|Indiana}} || None || Alabama ||
|-
| {{w|Rhode Island}} (as RI ) || Unclear rotation, perhaps counter clockwise || Louisiana (New Orleans area) ||
|-
| {{w|Oregon}} || Rotated clockwise || Ohio, West Virginia ||
|-
| {{w|Iowa}} || None || Western North Carolina, South Carolina ||
|-
| {{w|Tennessee}} || Upside down || Northern Florida (Panhandle), Southern Alabama, Southern Georgia ||
|-
| {{w|Illinois}} || None || Florida ||
|-
| {{w|Maine}} || Upside down || Northern New York, Vermont ||
|-
| {{w|New Hampshire}} (as NH) || None || Western Pennsylvania ||
|-
| {{w|Lower Peninsula of Michigan|Michigan (upper part)}} (as MI (upper))|| Rotated 45 degree counter clockwise || Pennsylvania and New York|| Michigan is the only state split in two, as it is also split in two peninsulas in real life. In real life these two parts lie very close on the shores of the {{w|Great Lakes region|Great Lakes}}, and not as here, with one at each coast of the US. But at least they still both lie on a shore.
|-
| {{w|Arkansas}} || None || Eastern Maryland, Eastern Virginia ||
|-
| {{w|New Jersey}} (as NJ)|| None || Eastern South Carolina ||
|-
| {{w|Louisiana}} || Rotated counter clockwise || Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine ||
|-
| {{w|West Virginia}} || Rotated 45 degree clockwise || Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts ||
|-
| {{w|Delaware}} (as DE) || Rotated counter clockwise || New York (Long Island) ||
|-
| {{w|Vermont}} (as VT) || Upside down || Either New Jersey or Delaware (unclear) ||
|}

==Transcript==
:[A white map with an outline that closely resembles that of the mainland of the United States of America with gray all around the black border. But on closer inspection most of the states do not look right. The 48 mainland states are all there, however, with their name or abbreviations written on them as a label in gray text. But they have all been shuffled around and then reassembled as a jigsaw puzzle in the same shape as USA. The name labels for most of the states have been rotated, often to follow the new rotation of the state in the map. So some are written upside down or have been rotated 90 degrees clockwise or counter clockwise or even somewhere in between. One state, Michigan, has even been split up in two so there are 49 instead of 48 labels. For the states that have been named only with state abbreviations the full name is written in brackets behind the transcript of the abbreviation. Here below all the states are listed approximately in columns going from the top left and down and then moving right to the next column across the map. Any rotation of the text from normal is noted in brackets behind the name.]
:Ohio [Upside down]
:Georgia [Upside down]
:Michigan [Upside down – but only bottom part]
:MD [Upside down - Maryland]
:California [Text not rotated, but state is rotated counter-clockwise]
:Kansas [Upside down]
:Pennsylvania [Rotated clockwise]
:Oklahoma [Rotated clockwise]
:New Mexico
:Nebraska [Upside down]
:South Dakota
:Colorado [Rotated counter clockwise]
:Wyoming [Rotated counter clockwise]
:Utah [Text normal, but state is upside down, i.e. the text is upside down in the state]
:Alabama
:MA [Rotated counter clockwise – Massachusetts]
:Virginia [Rotated counter clockwise]
:Arizona [Rotated counter clockwise]
:Washington [Rotated counter clockwise]
:Montana [Rotated clockwise - but the state is rotated counter clockwise, i.e. the text is upside down in the state]
:New York
:Minnesota [Upside down]
:Texas [Upside down]
:CT [Rotated clockwise –Connecticut]
:Missi-
::ssippi [Rotated clockwise - text split with hyphen]
:Nevada
:Idaho [Rotated clockwise]
:South Carolina [Rotated counter clockwise, by more than 90 degrees, but the state is rotated exactly 90 degrees]
:Missouri [Upside down]
:Wisconsin [Upside down]
:Kentucky [Rotated clockwise]
:North Dakota [Rotated clockwise]
:Florida [Rotated counter clockwise, by more than 90 degrees, but the state is rotated exactly 90 degrees]
:North Carolina [Rotated clockwise]
:Indiana
:RI [Label below in the ocean –Rhode Island]
:Oregon [Rotated clockwise]
:Iowa
:Tennessee [Upside down]
:Illinois
:Maine [Upside down]
:NH [New Hampshire]
:MI (upper) [Rotated 45 degree counter clockwise – Michigan but only upper part]
:Arkansas
:NJ [New Jersey]
:Louisiana [Rotated 45 degree counter clockwise - but the state is rotated exactly 90 degrees]
:West Virginia [Rotated 45 degree clockwise]
:DE [Rotated counter clockwise – label to the right in the ocean – Delaware]
:VT [Upside down –Vermont]

==Trivia==
*Here the pieces have been shifted around:
[[File:1653-rearranged.png]]
*And this [http://i.imgur.com/dsLPc4s.png opposite map] shows to what extend the states fit in Randall's layout when using the real borders.
*Using two A3 printouts of both the [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/National-atlas-blank-state-outlines.png real map] from Wikipedia and this comic, is approximately the same scale it was possible to reassemble US putting the states in their correct place.
**The result displayed surprisingly accurate drawings of the states, although it is clear that on the borders between states that are not drawn by a ruler, they cannot be correct for both states in all cases.
**From this map it becomes clear that not only Utah but also Montana has the text written upside down according to the correct position of the state.
[[File:1653_United_States_Map_49_piece_jigsaw_solved.jpg]]
*This comic may be an input to the way the {{w|voting districts}} in the US are so random that you can not guess where your vote will count.
**In this video ''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90RajY2nrgk Electoral College Ruins Democracy]'' (by {{w|Adam Ruins Everything}} from November 2015), a map of the US is split up, much like this comic has done.
***In this case though the states do not move to a new location, but rather move apart to show the size of the state depending on how much your vote would count.
***The video is about how the {{w|Electoral College (United States)|Electoral College}} is assembled in order to elect the President and Vice President of the United States.
**At the time of this comics release (2016-03-09) the {{w|United States presidential primary}} elections to determine the candidates for the {{w|United States presidential election, 2016}} was in full progress and not at all determined yet.
* This raises an interesting math problem: How many colors (see the four color theorem) are needed to color the normal US map and the xkcd map so that the states under the same name should be in the same color (e. g. the two Washingtons should be in the same color. The four Michigans should also be in the same color. However, the North Dakota and South Dakota are considered different.) while different states that share borders on either map should be in different colors? (Detail needed)

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:US maps]]

1585: Similarities

2023-07-25T18:45:06Z

Oneforfortytwo: remove unlikely explanations

{{comic
| number = 1585
| date = October 2, 2015
| title = Similarities
| image = similarities.png
| titletext = I just came from The Martian, and I just have to say: Forget BB-8; I want a pet Sojourner! It's always been the cutest of our Mars rovers.
}}

==Explanation==
There's a common punchline in which the plot lines of two thematically-different works of fiction (usually movies) are compared in greatly-abbreviated form, and the speaker sarcastically concludes that the two movies are "basically the same". For sake of example, Disney's ''{{w|Aladdin (1992 Disney film)|Aladdin}}'' and {{w|James Cameron}}'s ''{{w|Titanic (1997 film)|Titanic}}'' [http://imgur.com/gallery/kasCMYd both feature a story] in which a lower-class boy and an upper-class girl fall for each other, among other cherry-picked yet interesting parallels. But due to the different emotional tones of the films (a family-friendly "happy ever after" tale and a disaster thriller respectively), one would not normally describe them as similar.

This comic spoofs the idea. Instead of comparing plot lines of two movies, [[Ponytail]] and [[Cueball]] compare the respective movies' development histories.

''{{w|The Martian (Weir novel)|The Martian}}'' was originally a serialized story written by {{w|Andy Weir (writer)|Andy Weir}} on his blog which was later compiled into an ebook for people to easily download, then published into a physical book, and has now had a {{w|The Martian (film)|movie}} created based on it. The movie was officially released in the US on the same day this comic was released (October 2, 2015).

''{{w|Fifty Shades of Grey}}'' began as a {{w|fan fiction}} of a well known brand (the {{w|Twilight (novel series)|Twilight book series}}). It was originally written on the internet by {{w|E. L. James}}. It was then transformed into a successful book series which was later turned into a {{w|Fifty Shades of Grey (film)|movie}} released in February 2015. The book was already referenced back in 2012 in [[1128: Fifty Shades]].

Since ''Fifty Shades'' is a romance story about a sadomasochistic relationship, and ''The Martian'' is a very technical story about surviving completely alone on a hostile planet, the two books could not be any more different, hence the joke due to the juxtaposition.

Cueball continues the joke by joining the two titles using red for Mars, to make a new book title, that should cover both books: ''Fifty Shades of Red.'' Ponytail says to Cueball that such a book would be irresistible for him. She does this by daring him to say that he wouldn't read it, believing he could not say so without lying.

It is possible that the brand that ''The Martian'' derives from is {{w|NASA}} itself. ''The Martian'' has been compared to the film {{w|Apollo 13 (film)|Apollo 13}} by Randall in [[1536: The Martian]]. ''Apollo 13'' does indeed glorify the roles of the NASA engineers, and ''The Martian'' does a similar thing. That Randall would go see this movie as soon as it was released was already made perfectly clear back in June when he released the comic [[1536: The Martian]] showing how excited he is about the book. He then really looked forward to the movie.

Randall indicates in the title text that he has just seen the movie (certainly possible, if he caught a midnight screening; perhaps he drew this comic in advance and wrote the title text after) and finds the Sojourner rover adorable. Of course, he could also have seen it in the trailers.

The [http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/BB-8 BB-8] mentioned in the title text is the {{w|astromech droid}} from the movie {{w|Star Wars: The Force Awakens}} and is available as a toy (see also BB-8 on the [http://www.starwars.com/databank/bb-8 official Star Wars] home page). {{w|Sojourner (rover)|Sojourner}} was the Mars ''Pathfinder'' robotic rover.

'''Spoiler alert''': The rover was used by Mark Watney, the protagonist of ''The Martian'' (played by Matt Damon in the movie), to allow him to contact Earth.

Randall indicated that he thinks the Sojourner is much cuter than BB-8, and that he would like to have one as a pet. He then states that the Sojourner has always been the cutest among all the [[:Category:Mars rovers|Mars rovers]]. The cuteness of Mars Rovers is also mentioned in [[2433: Mars Rovers]]. There have been five so far, the other four being {{w|Opportunity (rover)|Opportunity}}, {{w|Spirit (rover)|Spirit}}, {{w|Curiosity (rover)|Curiosity}}, and {{w|Perseverance (rover)|Perseverance}}, three of which have already been used in xkcd comics: [[695: Spirit]], [[1091: Curiosity]] and [[1504: Opportunity]].

==Transcript==
:[Ponytail is talking to Cueball.]

:Ponytail: So it's a work of fiction about a well-known brand. written on the Internet by an enthusiast, republished as a bestselling book, and then made into a big movie.
:Cueball: Yup.

:[Ponytail holds her hand to her chin. Beat panel.]

:[Ponytail is talking to Cueball again.]
:Ponytail: Yeah, ''The Martian'' and ''Fifty Shades of Grey'' are basically the same book.
:Cueball: "''Fifty Shades of Red?''"
:Ponytail: Man, ''tell'' me you wouldn't read that.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Fiction]] 
[[Category:Mars rovers]] 
[[Category:Star Wars]] 
[[Category:Space]]
[[Category:Twilight]]

311: Action Movies

2023-07-25T18:31:39Z

Oneforfortytwo: add link

{{comic
| number = 311
| date = September 3, 2007
| title = Action Movies
| image = action_movies.png
| titletext = By my count, only 48 of the 158 minutes in Live Free or Die Hard have action. That's pathetic, guys. Crank is better, but needs a bigger budget and more Summer Glau.
}}

==Explanation==

A common complaint about {{w|Action film|action films}} is that they are light on plot and heavy on pointless violence and special effects. The ''{{w|Die Hard (film series)|Die Hard}}'' series (including ''{{w|Live Free or Die Hard}}'') are typical action films about which this complaint has been made. However, [[Cueball]] reverses the complaint, stating that proportional to the run-time of the movie, there could have been much ''more'' action and much ''less'' plot. He takes this idea to an extreme, saying that his ideal action movie should have only half a minute of exposition and otherwise consist of nothing but one long, continuous action scene. [[Megan]] adds that starring a well-known and popular character - one that audiences "never get tired of watching" - would further eliminate the need for exposition and provide more time for action.

The two come up with "River Tam Beats Up Everyone" as such a movie. It is unclear if this is the actual title of their proposed movie or simply a description or teaser. In either case, the name doubles as a more or less complete plot description.

{{w|River Tam}} (played by {{w|Summer Glau}}) is a character from the popular but short-lived TV series ''{{w|Firefly (TV series)|Firefly}}''. In the show, she is shown to have almost clairvoyant mental capabilities (including being able to read minds and aim a gun without looking), and the series largely revolves around a conspiracy concerning her. In the follow-up movie ''{{w|Serenity (2005 film)|Serenity}}'', River also possesses superhuman fighting skills - early in the film, triggered by a subliminal message, she unexpectedly begins attacking everyone in a bar. Later, in the film's climax, she subdues an entire squadron of Reavers while hardly breaking a sweat.

The poster art for "River Tam Beats Up Everyone" is almost certainly inspired by these scenes from ''Serenity'', and Megan and Cueball's decision to use River is based on her rampant popularity among the ''Firefly'' fan base. The poster's typeface, {{w|Papyrus (typeface)|Papyrus}}, has also been used in many of the marketing materials for both ''Firefly'' and ''Serenity''; [[Randall Munroe|Randall]] would later confess his love for it in the title text of [[590: Papyrus]].

In the title text, Randall states that ''Live Free or Die Hard'' had far too little action and suggests another movie, ''{{w|Crank (film)|Crank}}'', as a better example. He goes on to suggest that ''Crank'' would have been better if it had had a larger budget and starred Summer Glau in a fighting role.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Megan are talking together as they walk away from a cinema.]
:Cueball: Another summer gone without a mindless big-budget action movie.
:Megan: Huh? ''Die Hard'' was nothing but action!
:Cueball: No, it was too talky.

:Megan: What? Too talky?
:Cueball: I tallied it minute-by-minute. It's at least 60% people walking and talking. All those movies are.

:Cueball: Just once, I want a real action movie. 30 seconds of exposition followed by a perfect 90-minute action scene. One with a huge budget, a good choreographer, and a great director.

:Megan: And they should center it around some character we already know, someone we never get tired of watching.
:Cueball: I think we've got something here...

:[A movie poster is shown.]
: Coming this summer
: River Tam
: Beats Up Everyone
:[The poster shows a line of doorways. In the background, numerous people are lying on the ground or draped over doorways and windows. River Tam is doing a flying kick into someone's face, and another person is emerging from the doorway closest to the viewer.]

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Summer Glau]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Firefly]]

1257: Monster

2019-08-16T15:08:17Z

Oneforfortytwo: remove Pacific Rim

{{comic
| number = 1257
| date = August 28, 2013
| title = Monster
| image = monster.png
| titletext = It was finally destroyed with a nuclear weapon carrying the destructive energy of the Hiroshima bomb.
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic, officials and police are evidently trying to describe the extraordinary qualities of a huge monster by comparing it with everyday objects instead of numbers, which is a recurring theme on xkcd (see [[526: Converting to Metric]], [[1047: Approximations]]) and also in the [[Blag]] article [http://blog.xkcd.com/2013/05/15/dictionary-of-numbers/ Dictionary of Numbers] where [[Randall]] says "I don't like large numbers without context."

This comic pokes fun at how common it is in the media to compare things of extraordinary qualities to a certain narrow set of well-known objects. The comic features people discussing a fictional monster which - apparently - can be only described by these overused comparisons. The three used by [[Megan]], [[Cueball]] and [[Ponytail]] are:
*The monster is as long as a football field. This is most likely an {{w|American_football#Field_and_equipment|American football field}} (given the author is American). So the monster is about 120 yards/110 m long.
**Here is an {{w|Marco Polo Park|example from Wikipedia}} where a building is compared to the length of a football field.
*The monster runs as fast as a cheetah, at least 60 mph or 96 kmh.
**The {{w|Cheetah}} is famous for being the fastest land animal at full sprint. Like the monster, the cheetah is prone to comparisons: to cars, since 60 mph is a common highway speed limit. Unlike a cheetah, however, the monster's speed is almost certainly thanks to its large stride.
*The monster is as heavy as a {{w|blue whale}} (about 180 tonnes).
**Here is an [http://factismals.com/tag/fish/ example] where the weight of a blue whale is used in two different comparison (something heavier and something lighter).
*Finally it is stated that it has the intelligence of a two-year-old child. Comparing someones intelligence to a child of a given age is very common.
**Here is an [http://www.livescience.com/5613-dogs-smart-2-year-kids.html example] where a dog is compared to a two year old kid.
**There is even an xkcd comic that is referring to this age IQ: [[1364: Like I'm Five]].

The caption below the panel names the monster the ''Frequently-Made Comparisons Monster'', joking that the monster was created by comparing it to things, and continues the joke by comparing the number of killed people to those that could fill a (sports) stadium (of the order tens of thousands), and the area of devastation to the smallest state in the US {{w|Rhode Island}} (1,214 sq mi/3,140 km2) (a state Randall also used for comparison in the What if? [http://what-if.xkcd.com/8/ Everybody Jump]. In another What if? he uses a football stadium filled with ants as a comparison: [https://what-if.xkcd.com/73/ Lethal Neutrinos].)

The title text takes the joke one step further by comparing the {{w|nuclear bomb}} used to destroy the monster to {{w|Little Boy|the bomb dropped on Hiroshima}} at the end of the Second World War. This is an oft-used reference for explosive devices, and implying that it is the frequently-made-comparison quality of the bomb that destroyed the monster. (Here is an {{w|Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event#Effects of impact|example from Wikipedia}} of such a comparison with the strength of a meteor strike.)

==Transcript==
:[Four people are standing around a table-top crisis planning model. Cueball and Ponytail are wearing police-style hats; Megan holds a clipboard and Blondie has her hands on the table.]
:Megan: It's as long as a football field. Runs as fast as a cheetah.
:Cueball: Weighs as much as a blue whale.
:Blondie: Can we negotiate with it?
:Ponytail: No. It has the intelligence of a two-year-old child.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:By the time the Frequently-Made Comparisons Monster was finally defeated, it had eaten enough people to fill a stadium and devastated an area the size of Rhode Island.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Blondie]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:American football]]

327: Exploits of a Mom

2019-08-16T15:07:03Z

Oneforfortytwo: bit of a stretch

{{comic
| number = 327
| date = October 10, 2007
| title = Exploits of a Mom
| image = exploits_of_a_mom.png
| titletext = Her daughter is named Help I'm trapped in a driver's license factory.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Mrs. Roberts]] receives a call from her [[Little Bobby Tables|son]]'s school. The caller, likely one of the school's administrators, asks if she really named her son <code>Robert'); DROP TABLE Students;--</code>, a rather unusual name.{{Citation needed}} Perhaps surprisingly, Mrs. Roberts responds in the affirmative, claiming that she uses the nickname "Little Bobby Tables." As the full name is read into the school's system's databases without {{w|Data sanitization#SQL injection|data sanitization}}, it causes the "Students" table in the database to be deleted.

The title of this comic is a pun. ''Exploit'' can mean an accomplishment or heroic deed, but in computer science, the term refers to a program or technique that takes advantage of a vulnerability in other software. In fact, one could say that her exploit is to exploit an exploit (her achievement is to make use of a vulnerability). The title can also refer to her choice of name for her son, which is rather extraordinary.

In {{w|SQL}}, a database programming language, commands are separated by semicolons <code>;</code>, and strings of text are often delimited using single quotes <code>'</code>. Parts of commands may also be enclosed in parentheses <code>(</code> and <code>)</code>. Data entries are stored as "rows" within named "tables" of similar items (e.g., <code>Students</code>). The command to delete an entire table (and thus every row of data in that table) is <code>DROP TABLE</code>, as in <code>DROP TABLE Students;</code>.

The exploited vulnerability here is that the single quote in the name input was not correctly "escaped" by the software. That is, if a student's name did indeed contain a quote mark, it should have been parsed as one of the characters making up the text string and not as the marker to close the string, which it erroneously was. Lack of careful parsing is a common SQL vulnerability; this type of exploit is referred to as {{w|SQL injection}}. Mrs. Roberts thus reminds the school to make sure that they have added data filtering code to prevent code injection exploits in the future.

For example, to add information about Elaine to a data table called 'Students', the SQL query could be:
 <code>INSERT INTO Students (firstname) VALUES ('Elaine');</code>

However, using the odd name <code>Robert');DROP TABLE Students;-- </code> where we used "Elaine" above, the SQL query becomes:
 <code>INSERT INTO Students (firstname) VALUES ('Robert');DROP TABLE Students;-- ');</code>

By insertion of the two semi-colons in the odd name, this is now three well-formed SQL commands:
 <code>
INSERT INTO Students (firstname) VALUES ('Robert');

DROP TABLE Students;

-- ');
</code>

The first line is valid SQL code that will legitimately insert data about a student named Robert.

The second line is valid injected SQL code that will delete the whole Student data table from the database.

The third line is a valid code comment ( --  denotes a comment), which will be ignored by the SQL server.

For this to work, it helps to know the structure of the database. But it's quite a good guess that a school's student management database might have a table named <code>Students</code>.

Of course, in real life, most exploits of this kind would be performed not by engineering a person's name such that it would eventually be entered into a school database query, but rather by accessing some kind of input system (such as a website's login screen or search interface) and guessing various combinations by trial and error until something works, perhaps by first trying to inject the <code>SHOW TABLES;</code> command to see how the database is structured.

To correctly and harmlessly include the odd name in the Students table in the school database the correct SQL is:
 <code>INSERT INTO Students (firstname) VALUES ('Robert\');DROP TABLE Students;-- ');</code>

Note that the single quote after Robert is now sanitized by a backslash, which changes it from malicious code to harmless data, and the full first 'name' of the student <code>Robert';DROP TABLE Students;--</code> is now stored correctly.

It should be noted that, while data sanitization can mitigate the risks of SQL injection, the proper prevention technique is to use {{w|Prepared statement}}s.

Noting the difference between the "actual" name using the word TABLE and the child's nickname being Bobby Tables, one could argue there's an implied reference to one of the most argued topics of database naming conventions - should table names be singular or plural.

The title text references that Mrs. Roberts' daughter is named "Help I'm trapped in a driver's license factory". This is a play on how if someone is stuck and forced to work in a manufacturing factory/plant, then they will write on the product "Help I am trapped in a ____ factory" in order to tell people on the outside. Having this name would cause any police officer who pulls her over to show some concern. And getting the license in the first place would likely be difficult. The idea of inserting a help message like this was already used in [[10: Pi Equals]].


==Transcript==
:[Mrs. Roberts receives a call from her son's school on her wireless phone. She is standing with a cup of hot coffee or tea (shown with a small line above the cup) facing a small round three-legged table to the right. The voice of the caller is indicated to come from the phone with a zigzag line.]
:Voice over the phone: Hi, This is your son's school. We're having some computer trouble.

:[In this frame-less panel Mrs. Roberts has put the cup down on the table turned facing out.]
:Mrs. Roberts: Oh, dear - did he break something?
:Voice over the phone: In a way -

:[Mrs. Roberts is now drinking from the cup again looking right. The table is not shown.]
:Voice over the phone: Did you really name your son <code>Robert'); DROP TABLE Students;--</code> ?
:Mrs. Roberts: Oh, yes. Little Bobby Tables, we call him.

:[Mrs. Roberts holds the cup down.]
:Voice over the phone: Well, we've lost this year's student records. I hope you're happy.
:Mrs. Roberts: And I hope you've learned to sanitize your database inputs.

==Trivia==

This comic has become rather famous, spawning a site at http://bobby-tables.com about preventing SQL injection and also at the official [https://docs.python.org/2/library/sqlite3.html Python SQLite documentation]. Noted security expert {{w|Bruce Schneier}} (who often quotes xkcd) [https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/10/pen-and-paper_s.html mentioned a similar attack] that happened in the 2014 Swedish general elections.

In [[1253: Exoplanet Names]], someone (presumably Mrs. Roberts) attempts to perform a similar trick, submitting the name <code>e'); DROP TABLE PLANETS;--</code> to the IAU.

It is later revealed in [[342: 1337: Part 2]] that the daughter's middle name is [[Elaine]] (full name: ''Help I'm trapped in a driver's license factory Elaine Roberts''). This is thus the first time Elaine is mentioned. Seems like this comic was a setup for the "[[:Category:1337|1337]]" series where both this exploiting mom's kids are shown for the first time.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Mrs. Roberts]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Little Bobby Tables]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Elaine Roberts]]
[[Category:Programming]]
[[Category:Computers]]

Category:Cueball's computer problems

2017-12-25T00:29:31Z

Oneforfortytwo: +cat

[[Cueball]] is sometimes a computer nerd.

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

Category:Virtual Assistants

2017-12-25T00:29:23Z

Oneforfortytwo: +cat

Comics about {{w|Virtual assistant (artificial intelligence)|virtual assistants}}.

[[Category:Comics by topic]]

A ï¿½

2017-12-25T00:27:28Z

Oneforfortytwo: fixing double redirect

#REDIRECT[[1913: A ?]]

1549

2017-12-25T00:25:49Z

Oneforfortytwo: fixing double redirect

#REDIRECT[[1549: xkcd Phone 3]]

XKCD Phone 3

2017-12-25T00:25:30Z

Oneforfortytwo: fixing double redirect

#REDIRECT[[1549: xkcd Phone 3]]

User talk:Davidy22

2017-06-10T05:18:38Z

Oneforfortytwo: /* Sitenotice */

Hi Davidy22,

Just a quick thanks for helping roll back so much of the vandalism. Per your recent log comment, yes, there has been a recent spate of vandalism; before yesterday, it was the odd spammer that I've had to remove. But with the advent of ''Click and Drag'', there's also been an insurgence of ip-based vandalism. I'm hoping this is just a spike owing to the popularity of the comic, but I'm with you; if it doesn't die down, something more drastic is going to have to be done.

But again, thanks for helping...

-- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 14:17, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

== Please don't ==

Please don't create the redirects to explanations that haven't been created yet. It breaks the next and previous buttons, and gives people that are browsing through the explanations the false impression that the site is more complete than it is. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 06:41, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

:Ah, I'll stop then. Didn't know that. [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]] ([[User talk:Davidy22|talk]]) 07:17, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

::Glad I'm not the only one who didn't know. Sorry about [[1633]] this morning. /.\ — ''[[User:Tbc|tbc]] ([[User talk:Tbc|talk]]) 19:23, 22 January 2016 (UTC)''
:::It's fine, just had to do a few things manually. Good intentions. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 19:34, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

==Davidy22, the spam connoisseur==
Congratulations on transcending from being annoyed at all spam to recognizing the truly beautiful works of spammage from the rest of the cruddy heap. We should throw a party, lol. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 16:33, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
:Hey, it *was* a well written bit of spam. It was one of those copy/paste types of spam, except it was nicely formatted and coherent all the way through. It was informative too. A great change from the mindless template drivel or gibberish that we usually get. [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]][[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>(talk)</tt>]] 23:11, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

== Just asking ==:::Mostly cuz that didn't work when it was on the main page, and calling attention to specific comics has worked exceedingly well. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 06:57, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
Was there a reason you deleted most of the List of all comics? [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 05:21, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

:What on- shi-
:I was adding comic number 1132, and the preview was really slow, so I copied everything in the edit box and refreshed the page. I think half of the page hadn't finished loading in the edit box, and I only copied the first half. Derp [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]][[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>(talk)</tt>]] 08:21, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

::I figured it was something like that. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 04:56, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Just so you know, it happened again. But SlashMe fixed it. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 18:07, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

:Mother of fracking- I'm going to figure out what's causing this and I'm going to fix this. Godammit. [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]][[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>(talk)</tt>]] 23:20, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

:Durr dee-durr, and now I've done it. Thanks for spotting that. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 07:22, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

== Ahem... You gonna finish that? ==

Have you taken a look at the front page recently (say within since you created the [[1134]] redirect)? [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 05:42, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
:I have it open right now. Please don't ninja me again. [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]][[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>(talk)</tt>]] 05:44, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

::<nowiki>*Sits tight and twiddles thumbs*</nowiki> Actually, if you've got this I'll go back to the pitiful bit of literature I'm calling this year's NaNo. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 05:53, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

== The Anonymous editor of 1132 ==

Has been 50.0.38.245 all along. For a while he changed his signature to be a userpage that didn't exist, and wasn't a registered user. He has now changed it back to being the IP address again. Just thought I should do some out-of-band communication about that. If you want to change your last comment about the anonymous user, that would be good. (I almost offered to edit it for you, but then realized the subject we're talking about, and decided that if 50.0 ever learns about looking at the edit history and diffs, I don't need to be called a hypocrite as well as a banhammer wielding {{w|BOFH}}) [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 03:35, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

== Broken mirror... ==

Sorry for the "ninja"... I guess we probably don't need 2 versions of the image though... Feel free to distill the explain part...--[[User:Bpothier|B. P.]] ([[User talk:Bpothier|talk]]) 07:15, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
:Godammit, I even had the window open waiting for the article. The definitions can be merged into one paragraph, and wiki magic will explain how the comic works. [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]][[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>(talk)</tt>]] 07:20, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

== Fooooooooor He's a Jolly Good Fellow... ==

You are the man, man. Keep it up! [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 06:50, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

:Seconded. Great work, you deserved the milestone! --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 12:26, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

== Please take a look ==

...at [[User talk:Lcarsos#Deletion|this]]. Nothing new to you, I suppose (spam fighting can be quite hard if we're overly cautious on every step), but I'm dropping the note just in case :) --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 17:52, 25 November 2012‎ (UTC)

== autoblocking suspicious users ==

Once again, it looks like auto-blocking users that have suspicious usernames would require someone with more power than we have.

However, I very nearly blocked those three when I noticed the account creation. But, I didn't because I thought they might be legitimate users with stupid usernames. But now I've read up on {{w|Wikipedia:New_admin_school/Blocking|Wikipedia's block policy}} and from now on I'll be posting {{tl|uw-blockindef}} (which I've bungled fantastically right now, but shortly should be working) which should allow the rare legitimate user (with bad taste in usernames) to reclaim their good account, but allow us to block bad people.

You're ever friendly, massive toddler of an admin, [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 03:41, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

:I've also just found this page {{w|Wikipedia:Administrators' how-to guide}} which I will be reading very thoroughly and beginning to use this blacklist. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 04:16, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

::Hum. A great many of these templates could be condensed into a few bigger ones, but at least the documentation links are there for us to use. Also, you do know that Template:UserBox already exists, right? [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]][[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 04:55, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
:::Well, crud. You switched, I switched. I do like the one we had better, mostly because of the descriptive labels and the nice thick borders. The name's in convenient CamelCase too. [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]][[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 05:18, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

::::As a general rule I loathe my shift key, using more keys to achieve the same goal is wasted time, and I could be called ruthless about wasted time. Saving a single keypress seems petty. But I had a CS professor point out that by specially crafting what you have to type (creating shortcuts) saving a keypress here and there can add up to saving several thousand keypresses every 8 hours, which over a long enough quantity of time can equal hours and days. That's my long winded explanation for why I like using {{tl|userbox}} instead of {{tl|UserBox}}.

::::Also, I like the wikipedia userboxen, it's more flexible. And that allows anyone who comes over from Wikipedia to know how to work userboxen here too. That's my case for it. I hope you agree because I don't want to have to push my shift key, but I'll take your input, and if we end up in a tie, we might ask Waldir to tie break for us, as he'd be a neutral third party. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 06:44, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

:::::In CS, I learned that descriptive variable names and easy to recognize naming conventions can save heaps of debugging time. I personally like the CamelCase version better because it uses variable names like left-bg instead of id-c for the background color in the box on the left, which makes the template self-documenting and easier to grok for a new user who's just reading the source. [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]][[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 07:58, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

:::::: I was asked to comment. Here are my thoughts:
::::::* Regarding CamelCase, it is indeed a neat convention but we don't use it elsewhere on the wiki. In fact, MediaWiki itself, in its early versions, used to rely on CamelCase for linking, but moved to the free-form, space enabled link syntax, which is better in many cases. Not everything converts nicely into CamelCase. So while I appreciate the argument to use CamelCase as the template name, I think the regular case version fits the wiki better. Besides, redirects are cheap and work well, so if the CamelCase title redirects to the lowercase one, whoever wants to use the CamelCase version can still do so seamlessly. Not an issue, therefore.
::::::* I agree with Davidy22 on the parameter names. In fact, the code of the template can be arranged in a more readable form (using whitespace and indentation) so not only its uses can be deciphered, but the template itself too. Renaming parameters is a simple matter, especially for templates with not many uses as these are, which means there isn't a lot of replacements to perform.
:::::: In summary, I think the two templates should definitely be merged and the best features of each kept in the final version: the title being [[Template:userbox]] (with redirects from [[Template:UserBox]] and [[Template:Userbox]]), and the parameters using intuitive names as {{tl|UserBox}}.
:::::: --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 17:06, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

::::::: Sounds good to me. The wikicode looks god-awful ugly though, who's up for cleaning that thing up? [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]][[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 00:03, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

:::::::: If you guys do the merge, I can clean it up afterwards :) --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 01:14, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

== separate section for title text ==

I agree that in the two instances you removed the section header for the title text, it wasn't justified, but in some cases it does make sense. See [[explain xkcd:Community portal/Proposals#Subsection for title text explanation|here]]. Cheers, [[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 15:27, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

== No more imagesize ==

I made a comment on [[Template Talk: comic#Imagesize]], essentially imagesize isn't necessary, and I've changed the {{tl|create}} template to not include it. So rejoice, and forget imagesize ever existed (until the bug gets fixed). [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 03:02, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
: Bah, what was that parameter good for anyways? Clicking on the image should take you to the XKCD site anyways. What user cares about the image pages that the template currently takes you to? [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]][[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 06:20, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
:: That's an interesting point. It's technically doable. But I think there should be a way to access the comic images (granted, I'm not sure why exactly, but I'm not comfortable leaving them "orphans" —linkless— either) --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 12:08, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
::: There's the list of all comics page, and we could make the titletext link to the image page or something. I dunno, any excuse to kill imagesize. [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]][[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 12:16, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
:::: To clarify, linking the image directly to xkcd has nothing to do with killing imagesize. That, for what I understand, has already been done. Good point about the list of comics page. I'll wait for more comments before implementing the change in the image link target. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 12:35, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
::::: Imagesize isn't *quite* dead yet. There's still four or five comics that still use it. Permission to upload the thumbnail versions of those comics, as we do with the other large comics, and end that broken thing once and for all? [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]][[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 13:05, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
:::::: I don't like the idea of uploading smaller versions of images. We ought to be able to use mediawiki's own image scaling abilities as soon as we can do some [[explain xkcd:Community portal/Technical#We need more maintainers|testing in the wiki setup]] and make the image scaling issue go away. Apart from that, what exactly are the problems of imagesize, again? I haven't followed the discussions about it, sorry. Feel free to give me pointers to the appropriate places where the issues have been discussed. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 13:17, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

== Please move pages ==

I'm noticing that when someone creates a new page with the wrong title you're just copy/pasting the content onto the new page. Please don't do that. Please use the move page feature on the drop down of the page, that way we can keep the edit history for the page intact, and that way it doesn't look like you created these oddly poor quality pages. Thanks much. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 00:49, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
:Righty ho. '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 02:09, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

== Sorry ==

I have been working contra u by routinely adding a white line above the categories. I instantly raise white flag! And say good night! -- [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 00:40, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

== Trivia placement ==

Cheers mate! Please check the comment I made some time ago in the section you started, [[explain xkcd:Community portal/Proposals#Section style and usage|"Section style and usage"]] on the Proposals community page. –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 23:10, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

If you disagree with the trivia placement between explanation and transcript, why don't you say so, and explain why? –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 14:50, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

I made a section for discussion of this, so that we can come to some agreement: [[explain xkcd:Community portal/Proposals#Trivia and transcript]]. –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 15:18, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
:Moved to [[explain xkcd:Community portal/Coordination#Trivia and transcript placement]] –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 23:05, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

== Jurassic Park category ==
Hi, you wrote you don't like how I created a new category for Jurassic Park. I thought it appropriate: there's a *lot* of references to Jurassic Park and/or velociraptors in the comics. And not all reference are to both... But what did you not like? Thanks for enlightening me! [[User:Kaa-ching|Kaa-ching]] ([[User talk:Kaa-ching|talk]]) 09:07, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

:There's a lot of categories on this wiki. When adding categories to a page, it can get extremely difficult to make sure that you've gotten every category that applies to the comic. For regular editors, the amount that we have to remember when maintaining pages is already quite onerous; more categories hurt our dinky heads. If you're willing to steward that category, go ahead, but you'll have to remember to put in the explanation pages yourself when you find a comic that it applies to. '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 09:36, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

:: OK. [[User:Kaa-ching|Kaa-ching]] ([[User talk:Kaa-ching|talk]]) 08:26, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

==[[220: Philosophy]]==

Actually, what happened was: This being my first new page edit, I copy-pasted the format from another page, and then edited all the information to fit the correct comic. Then I realized I'd forgotten to remove the date of the original page's comic, so I did so. *blushes* No trolling intended, just a newbie mistake. Is 2/7/07 the correct date for this comic? [[User:Ekedolphin|Ekedolphin]] ([[User talk:Ekedolphin|talk]]) 11:23, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
:Oooh. I thought you had gotten the date then removed it after seeing earlier rants concerning omitted dates. You can check a comic's date by clicking on the "All Comics" button in the sidebar on the left. All dates are in YYYY-MM-DD format. '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 11:37, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
::Yep. I see that now, and now that I know it's there, I create new pages straight from [[List of all comics]]. No offense taken. Thanks for the useful advice! [[User:Ekedolphin|Ekedolphin]] ([[User talk:Ekedolphin|talk]]) 05:52, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

== Character names in transcripts ==

Ah, I see now that you've been cleaning up after me, adding character names to transcripts instead of "Man", "Woman", et cetera. Now realizing that's the wiki's standard, I'll endeavor to do that myself from now on. Thanks for your patience with the new guy. [[User:Ekedolphin|Ekedolphin]] ([[User talk:Ekedolphin|talk]]) 07:40, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

:It's k, just doing maintenance. You're really prolific, do you write all of those yourself or are you getting those explanations off the forums somehow? '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 10:38, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

::I write them all myself. It's been some time since I've looked at the xkcd forums, actually. Sometimes I get a little help from Wikipedia when a particular detail escapes me. But you'll notice I don't make an attempt to explain the math ones. *laughs* [[User:Ekedolphin|Ekedolphin]] ([[User talk:Ekedolphin|talk]]) 02:16, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

== My unexplained hobbies. ==

I just want to make sure that you are getting this, but I restored "My Unexplained Hobbies." You can now explain them. [[User:Greyson|Greyson]] ([[User talk:Greyson|talk]]) 14:47, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
:Shweet. '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 00:44, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

I suck at wiki stuff but am a real human - sorry for the confusion. {{unsigned|‎Schmammel}}
:No matter. Also, see the blue box above the talk page edit box for instruction on how to sign your posts. '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 04:55, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

== About your new admin powers ==

Actually just the rollback hammer. I've learned this after being burned a few times.

Rollback will actually not revert just the one edit you are looking at, but will go back until it hits a revision that wasn't done by that user, so its useful for pure spam accounts, but if you're just undoing a single edit, you may still want to use the undo tool.

Also, once or twice I actually had it revert all the way back to the last patrolled edit, which meant it actually got rid of the edits of a few anonymous editors too.

Just a caution that with great power comes great responsibility.

--[[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 04:11, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

:Oh damn, did I do that? Welp. '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 04:28, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

== Removed Level 2 headings from Discussion page ==

Hi, I noticed you removed the level 2 headings in the discussion of comic 1188. I'm guessing it's the application of some formatting rule established on this wiki, so I'm curious where I can find a list of these standards that I should adhere to, so I don't make such a mistake again in the future. [[User:Jfresen|Jfresen]] ([[User talk:Jfresen|talk]]) 15:10, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

:It's not really a formatting convention, more of a workaround to technical limitations of the wiki. The way discussion pages are embedded into comic pages, headings in talk pages cause breakages when tables of contents are spawned. It's ugly and bad and it's the reason why we delete discussion page headers. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|purple|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 15:33, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

== Captcha help ==

:''This thread was moved to [[explain xkcd:Community portal/Admin requests#Captcha help]].''

== RE: Signature ==

Sweet, thanks David. {{User:Omega/sig}} 14:51, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

== Time is hard... ==

... and not only that, she also is, just like her sister Gravity, a heartless b**** :D
Thanks for taking care! :) [[User:Caranhyas|Caranhyas]] ([[User talk:Caranhyas|talk]]) 09:41, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

== Feedback ==

Hey David. It's nice that you're so responsive to requests such as those at [[Mediawiki talk:Sitenotice]] (or [[explain_xkcd:Community portal/Admin requests#Captcha help|this one]]), but please take also a moment to report the request as completed, as that not only provides feedback to the requester, but is also a reference for the future (which removes the need to dig through the relevant page's history if, for example, one decides to check whether a request ever got implemented), and exemplifies desired behavior for future administrators. Cheers, [[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 21:53, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
:Alright. Was just trying to get through everything quickly, and forgot to reply to those requests. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 23:55, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

== 262 correction: Thanks! ==

Hi there!

Unfortunately, I was not aware that I had incorrectly created the page for xkcd 262. Thanks for fixing that. My only question is whether the page "262" should be redirected to xkcd 262 rather than just showing the deletion template.

Thanks,

[[User:Milar Kayne|Milar Kayne]] ([[User talk:Milar Kayne|talk]]) 07:02, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

:The page "262" and all other pages consisting of only numbers are used internally to handle page linking. You don't really need to worry about them, you just need to know that making explanation pages in those numbered pages is baaad and that the create templates in the [[List of all comics]] will set up everything relevant for you. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 08:14, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

::So all of the xkcd comic pages theoretically "exist" on the site, but not all have connected pages? Also, how do I create a new page from the "All comics" page? Thanks for being so patient--I really want to be able to contribute meaningfully here. [[User:Milar Kayne|Milar Kayne]] ([[User talk:Milar Kayne|talk]]) 20:27, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
::No, we just link to the xckd comic pages. The numbered pages handle links between explanation pages. On the "List of all comics" page, there are (create) buttons next to all the red links; click those to start explaining those comics. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 00:12, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

:::OK thanks for explaining! I'll try to do better next time :). [[User:Milar Kayne|Milar Kayne]] ([[User talk:Milar Kayne|talk]]) 01:36, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

== List of unexplained comics ==

Thanks for the vote of confidence - hoping it'll encourage more contributors! [[User:Sean|Sean]] ([[User talk:Sean|talk]]) 21:50, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

== New sections in comic talk pages ==

Re [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:277:_Long_Light&curid=8457&diff=35146&oldid=35143 this correction] (especially your edit summary!): while there is the "Add topic" tab at the top of talk pages, you'll get new sections added to comic talk pages too.

Perhaps reducing them to ; headings is a better alternative that still marks a new topic.

;Just testing that I have the right formatting character
Yes.

Of course this won't fix the automatically supplied heading from the "Add topic" tab, but then we do still want that functionality in other talk pages, like here...
[[User:Markhurd|Mark Hurd]] ([[User talk:Markhurd|talk]]) 03:25, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

:Ooh, the semicolon does that? You learn something new every day. Noted. There might be a way to change those controls at the top, I'll look into that. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 03:50, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

== Time frames 1008-1014 have an artefact in your upload ==

In your uploads "under the ground" between frames 1008 and 1014 there is a grey horizontal line with unmoving "ticks" while the terrain does change above. This is not reflected in the live hash for the only hash in this range recorded so far. [[User:Markhurd|Mark Hurd]] ([[User talk:Markhurd|talk]]) 10:55, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
:Hrm, I've just been pulling the images from the xkcd site and uploading them straight. Imma check on this. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 11:29, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
::Yeah, it's not just you, the [http://geekwagon.net/projects/xkcd1190/?frame=1014&framediff=1007 geekwagon.net/projects/xkcd1190] has it too. Randall must have had a snafu that he's fixed. [[User:Markhurd|Mark Hurd]] ([[User talk:Markhurd|talk]]) 12:47, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

== Time1190 - but sometimes I also have NO time ==

I did register in here mainly for 1190, I am sure you did see this.
This weekend I will work on a script giving me an easy update for the next day template, for now I am doing manual.

THANKS for your great job on all the other comics!

I just do need more TIME...

And I am not native English, so I am still happy about everyone correcting me.

Archive discussion I did start here [[Talk:1190:_Time]]

--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:29, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
:I actually already have a script to do that. I thought you had made one of your own though when you were filling in for new days, so I was just letting you go ahead with that. Here's my script: [http://pastebin.com/RQGGia3L]. Change the variables at the top of the script, run it and copy/paste the output into the page for time. The fields should be self-evident, but ask me if you have any questions. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 00:38, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

:: Oh, PYTHON - I prefer Perl or just a simple bash script.
:: So I will ask Randall for a translator for Python to Perl ;)
:: And tomorrow I hopefully will have some more time, your script is helpful.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:53, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
:::Just for fun I did the script in PERL. Here is the link: [http://pastebin.com/PG5j56Nv template]--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:29, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

== And sometimes I do have time ==
Just tell me what I did do wrong (I will follow you...). I am still new to WIKI syntax, it is still new to me. But I am learning as you can see.
And after all that I will write a Perl Script with a missing close paren...

I like jokes but I also like a clean Wiki here!

--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 23:38, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
:Uh, the explanation for that page is a wee bit thin for the size and complexity of the comic, and it uses terms like the hibbert curve without defining them. It's not enough of an explanation to cover the whole comic. Also, there were a few missing categories and a bunch of trailing spaces in the transcript. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 23:46, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
::"a wee bit thin for the size and complexity of the comic" so sure this is still incomplete (I just did forget to add that template). Oh, and we have so many more complex comics with a need for more explanations. And while I am still not native English, which does mean I have to goooogle fore many memes, I am hoping I can support this wiki. I just try to do my best - any help on me is welcome! --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 00:12, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
:::And I'm pretty sure they're all tagged as incomplete too, so all is well. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 02:17, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

== User talk page deleted? ==

Hey there, apparently my talk page was deleted because the only content on it was "buttsex", which is fine, but I just thought I should let you know that I did not add that ;). Can I restore my talk page blank? --[[User:Mynotoar|Mynotoar]] ([[User talk:Mynotoar|talk]]) 11:39, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
:Yeah, sure, I saw the edit log when I deleted it. Do whatever you want with your user page. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 11:50, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

== Incomplete explanations ==
Hello [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]], I will stop creating incomplete new pages even when I think it's good idea to have a page for each comic here and work afterwards on all those incomplete ones. The pages [[Help:How to add a new comic explanation]] and [[List of unexplained comics]] should clarify this issue. Furthermore there are many more incomplete comics here not marked as incomplete so you can't find them here: [[:Category:Incomplete explanations|Incomplete explanations]]. I am trying to give my best to support this wiki--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 17:44, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

:One add: I am not a youngster, my first computer was a C64 and the next one was a IBM compatible PC 286 (512 KByte main memory, 20 MByte hard drive). And right now I'm just trying to encourage other people to help here. But I don't want to fight against windmills.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:24, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
::I wasn't making any implication as to your age. It is actually harder to track incomplete articles than nonexistent ones - the wiki has no way of automagically detecting them the way it automatically provides red links for missing explanations. We have the incomplete tag, but people delete it from pages that still haven't quite been explained completely, and I sometimes forget to tag a new incomplete explanation as incomplete. Also, the fact that some incomplete articles exist that are not tagged as incomplete does not justify the creation of more stubs; if you find an unsatisfactory explanation, mark it as incomplete yourself. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 23:15, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

== Various requests ==
Could you delete the spam page [[User:Inkovic]] and block the user who created it? And delete [[Talk:283: Projection]] as well, since it was apparently created by mistake?

Also, [[1225: Ice Sheets]] is still missing a transcript. Could you help add it? And [[266: Choices: Part 3]] and [[267: Choices: Part 4]] lack explanations, but have been removed from the [[List of unexplained comics]]. Should we re-add them to that page, or create some basic explanations for them? --[[User:Oneforfortytwo|Oneforfortytwo]] ([[User talk:Oneforfortytwo|talk]]) 20:19, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

:Incomplete articles are marked as incomplete, we'll deal with all the unsatisfactory articles on this wiki after we have a page for every comic. Still not an excuse to make more stubs, mind you. Did all the rest though. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 22:08, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Please block spammer 70.50.106.152, he did kill 1190 Time.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 08:53, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
:Looks like a mistake. Not ban-worthy. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 10:24, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
::This was the only edit he/she ever did. I am hoping this will not happen again, that big page was really hard to load.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 10:32, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

The main page needs to be edited, as the recent deletion of the [[List of unexplained comics]] was recently deleted, making the wiki comic count one less than the actual number. Also, could you delete [[Talk:List of unexplained comics]] and [[:File:a matter of some gravity.jpg]]? The former is an orphaned talk page, and the latter was superseded by [[:File:A Matter of Some Gravity.png]]. --[[User:Oneforfortytwo|Oneforfortytwo]] ([[User talk:Oneforfortytwo|talk]]) 20:19, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
:Done. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 02:08, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

I created an explanation for 1228 (Prometheus). What I wrote didn't appear for a few minutes and then when I tried to check why, I found you'd deleted a page, but the text I wrote then appeared where I was expecting it. Your comment on the deletion referred to "a thing on the front page" I should have read. I looked for this "thing", but I've still no idea what I did wrong, or what happened with all the page creation / deletion jiggery pokery. I created the explanation after clicking a box which told me to do so if I wanted to provide / improve the explanation. I apologise for my mistake, but perhaps it would be better not to put boxes on the main page which invite edits if those edits end up in the wrong place? [[Special:Contributions/87.115.172.168|87.115.172.168]] 08:55, 21 June 2013 (UTC)
:I manually create the comic page and set it to show up on the front page usually within an hour of every new xkcd comic. The explanation pages for every comic follow a naming convention, with the comic number followed by the comic name. We also make a few redirects for the wiki to use to make the back/forwards buttons work. In addition to that, every explanation page has a template; note how every other page on this site has a particular look to it. The page that you created didn't follow any of that, so I deleted it and copy/pasted it to the correct location. The thing on the front page that I was referring to was the correct explanation page location that I had created 21 minutes earlier. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 09:06, 21 June 2013 (UTC)
::Thanks for the explanation - quite a manual process! I didn't realise I was creating a page - it looked to me like the page had already been created (which it had, it seems) and I would just be editing the empty section for the explanation. Now I realise that the "please edit" box should have shown up in the editor, perhaps alarm bells should have wrung. Nevertheless, I'm still wondering if it would be better, if possible, to somehow remove or modify the "please edit" box when it appears on the main page so it doesn't create an incorrect new page when one already exists! [[Special:Contributions/87.115.172.168|87.115.172.168]] 09:29, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Thank You,

[[User:Hopiakuta|hopiakuta DonFphrnqTaub Persina hopiakuta]] ([[User talk:Hopiakuta|talk]]) 09:03, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

There are a couple of xkcd comics that link to an extra image on the site when they are clicked. On this wiki, most of the time, the explanations just contain a direct link to this image. However, sometimes, users upload the secondary images and link to those. This is rather inefficient, especially since some images are too large to be displayed directly after they are clicked on the wiki. So, I was wondering if you could delete the few secondary images from the wiki. They are: [[:File:lakes and oceans large.png]], [[:File:na make it better.png]], [[:File:subways large.png]], and [[:File:lojban translated.png]].

In addition, I suggest that some [[Special:UnusedFiles|unused files]] also be nuked. [[:File:combination vision test fullcolor.jpg]] was superseded by [[:File:combination vision test fullcolor.png]]. [[:File:22 pieces.png]] was uploaded by a user who apparently just wanted to show off his Tetris skills. [[:File:2008 christmas special original.png]] is an xkcd comic before it was updated, which I doubt is necessary to include on the wiki. [[:File:starsmove.png]] doesn't seem to serve any useful purpose. --[[User:Oneforfortytwo|Oneforfortytwo]] ([[User talk:Oneforfortytwo|talk]]) 23:50, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Na make it better and the translated lojban do add to the comic. The two larger versions of comic images and the junk files have been deleted. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 01:12, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

I think you might have forgotten to delete [[:File:22 pieces.png]]. And [[404: 404 Error]] was created by mistake and also needs to go.

Also, could some admin tackle the issue that involves thumbnails not displaying properly? Dgbrt suggested [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Errors_and_symptoms#Image_Thumbnails_not_working_and.2For_appearing this fix]. Perhaps it could be tried? --[[User:Oneforfortytwo|Oneforfortytwo]] ([[User talk:Oneforfortytwo|talk]]) 16:00, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

:The 404 page needs to exist for the previous/next comic buttons to work properly. It also explains why comic 404 is missing, which may be confusing to some xkcd readers. Mostly the forward/backwards buttons though. The scrap image is gone, and I'm looking into the proposed fix. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 12:21, 21 July 2013 (UTC)
::Nope. The page [[404: 404 Error]] is a duplicate to [[404: Not Found ]]. I just did a redirect there because I can't delete it.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 17:58, 21 July 2013 (UTC)
:::Whoop, deleted. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 23:08, 21 July 2013 (UTC)
::::Thanks, but there is still the discussion page. I did the same redirect there.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 23:26, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

== Spam at 1190 Time ==

Hi, IP 68.100.149.94 is still doing annoying edits here. I do not like that.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 18:38, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

== Su Doku ==
Hi Davidy22, I'm trying to enhance explains. People do read and understand shorter explains more easy, but the link to the details must be always included. I just did add the incomplete tag because my edit is maybe not complete. Everyone is welcome to help. But please keep short as possible, otherwise people won't read.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 13:19, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
:That explanation is hardly too long. Our explanations should be self-sufficient, with the links there just to provide further context on things that we talk about in the explanations. A description of the format of sudoku is an important part of the explanation for comic 74, as the comic deviates from it in a notable way that not all visitors may recognize, be it because they haven't heard of sudoku before or because they aren't particularly familiar with the puzzles. There's a wee difference between cutting information and condensing the wording of a passage, and what you did with that explanation leads further towards cutting content. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 13:45, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
::I prefer explains people will read. The wiki link for Su Doku is already there but I will work on a small explain soon.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 15:07, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
:::What, three full paragraphs is too much for people to read? Three full paragraphs of a complete explanation are better than a paragraph and two sentences of incomplete description? I'd rather we follow the name of the wiki and actually explain the comics. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 15:41, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
::::Read my version completely, I did adopt your hints on explain Su Doku and did some more polish. PLEASE just read before you undo! Tell me what's missing but I still prefer a more simple explain. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 16:10, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
:::::You made a complete explanation incomplete in the name of simplicity. At least you bothered re-adding the relevant information back in post-hoc this time. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 02:03, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

== 1190 Time pictures after major changes ==

Hi,
any ideas to get new file uploads here? After your change we have some silence...--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 00:55, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
:Geekwagon, Aubronwood and many other sites keep archives of past frame hashes. We can look up our last hash and upload all proceeding images here. I did that for the first 500-odd frames, until people started doing it faster than me. I'll probably start again since other editors seem to be on holiday. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 02:43, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
::You did upload all the images manual, is this the new way to do this? I thought your scripts don't like file names like 1234a, 1234b..., so do you not use a bot to upload the images? Further more: Since hashes from other sites do not map to the new naming here I think we have to document them here. But it seems I'm just running against windmills.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:01, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
:::Post-hoc scripts; instead of an image archive littered with special cases, scripts need only iterate in numerical order. It's slightly more difficult to upload, but it's a consistent naming scheme for future use. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 02:03, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

== 1190 Time pictures - Do you use a bot or not... ==

...it seems not - why?
Lazy as I am! You're not like this.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:27, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
:I have a script to help with backlog uploads, but then I also manually upload new images while I'm awake and am near my computer. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 05:14, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
::What do you think about a bot? My computer is downloading the images by 24/7 so an upload here should be possible. But first I will start some tests at my local MediaWiki installation.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 12:56, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
:::A bot would be nice. Slashme's Slashbot actually did time image uploads, but he stopped cuz electricity bills or something. We could ask him if he's willing to share. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 13:31, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
::::I am thinking about a bot like ''DgbrtBot''. I never have done this before (WikiBot) but I know the fucking manuals and while Randall does not like Perl I will use this language ;). Tomorrow I will start some tests at my local MediaWiki and then I will need an account for a bot.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 14:53, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

== Outage from Friday to Saturday ==

Did you recognize this, every error was just a "access denied for user ... on database ...". This board was dead for 24 hours.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 23:32, 21 July 2013 (UTC)
:Yep, purged cache to fix it. Not currently in a place with perfect access to internet though, so I'm not quite as fast with that as I usually am. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 01:33, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
::The same happened yesterday. Do you have chronic disk space/quota shortage? --[[User:Chtz|Chtz]] ([[User talk:Chtz|talk]]) 13:13, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
:::Yep. We added a donate button and the sidebar ads when these issues started happening - a few days after time - to buy better hardware. Money comes slow. We could probably stand to upgrade mediawiki and PHP too sometime. Sometime. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 13:43, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
::::Hi - I'm wondering if there has been any traction or progress in upgrading mediawiki - I was thinking especially with the recent comic [http://www.explainxkcd.com/1434 comic 1434] - but also historic comics like [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/826:_Guest_Week:_Zach_Weiner_(SMBC) 826] - that an [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ImageMap imagemap] would be useful in the explanation, which is apparently bundled with [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.21#Bundled_extensions mediawiki 1.21], but also available as a extension(?) -- [[User:Brettpeirce|Brettpeirce]] ([[User talk:Brettpeirce|talk]]) 16:24, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
:::::Imagemap seems to be compatible with our version of Mediawiki. I'll get to adding it. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 19:58, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
::::::Done. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 02:40, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
:::::::Thanks! -- [[User:Brettpeirce|Brettpeirce]] ([[User talk:Brettpeirce|talk]]) 11:28, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
:::::::I tried to create an imagemap for [[1434]] on a separate page, but any attempt to include the imagemap caused the submission to hang (sitting showing only a blank page whether I tried to submit for a preview or to actually edit) - I believe it was Friday, but might have been Thursday if you're looking for error logs. This is in contrast to the behavior when I tried to use wiki image maps before you said you added the extension (it would:::::::: simply strip out the tags and show the text content). I don't know how much time you have to contribute to this site every day, or how high a priority fiddling with this extension would be, but I'd appreciate anything you can do to look into this. Specifically, I used the [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/File:where_do_birds_go_clips_only.png cropped image I uploaded] and the [http://www.maschek.hu/imagemap/imgmap Online image map editor] markup generator, which was linked from the [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ImageMap#See_also MediaWiki:ImageMap page] as it "supports all shapes, [and is] Extension:ImageMap compatible".
::::::::Alrighty, I'll get on it. Do you have the imagemap markup you were trying to use saved somewhere? '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 15:42, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
::::::::Tested it, the error appears to be an old friend of mine. All the more reason to try and resolve it. Disabled the extension in the meantime, but it's still installed. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 20:22, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
:::::::::I don't have the markup handy, but it's pretty easy to create sample markup (which is why I included the links for errythang) - I'm not even sure how to escape it in a wiki to make it postable here, since it doesn't even commit the change - I appreciate your efforts! Do you get more money if I ''click'' on Ads? :-) -- [[User:Brettpeirce|Brettpeirce]] ([[User talk:Brettpeirce|talk]]) 19:18, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
::::::::::The way our pricing works, ad clicks don't directly translate to income, but they make the ad space more attractive to potential buyers which leads to them bidding up the price. Our base prices are rock bottom though to encourage our own users to advertise with us, and we wouldn't mind if you pointed your boss/marketing dept at work towards our bargain bin ad space. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 20:01, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
:::::::::::A long-time friend has been dealt with, the plugin is now re-enabled. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 02:11, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

== User RouterIncident and a bunch of templates ==

Hi, I'm hoping you have had nice holidays. We all do need recovery. But it's bad when no active admin is available here.

Please delete that citation template, or just enter a link to [[285: Wikipedian Protester]]. Please delete also this categories: "All articles lacking reliable references" and "Articles lacking reliable references". We still have the incomplete category, that should be enough.

BTW: RouterIncident is maybe also on holiday, no action the last days.
--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 17:04, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

:I could not find these categories you speak of in the page creation log, but citation needed is gone now. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 08:01, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

== Please move some pages and edit the "List of all comics" ==

I can't move pages here, but this should work:

<nowiki>{{comicsrow|1245|2013-07-31|10 Day Forecast}}</nowiki>
*the correct page must be: "1245: 10 Day Forecast"
*the ''title'' must be: "10 Day Forecast"

So I did not save this update because it would result into corrupt links:

<nowiki>xkcd.com/1245 | 10 Day Forecast (create) | number / title / talk | 10_day_forecast.png | 2013-07-31</nowiki>

Please help, or give me the power to do this on my own.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:03, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
:Ooor instead of deviating from the title on xkcd, we could use an excellent feature to the comicsrow template put in by Waldir. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 21:20, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
::Uh, I didn't know this feature.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 08:03, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

== Template:Verification needed ==
This template is unnecessary, please delete it.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 08:03, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
:Please also delete the templates behind this non existing categories:
:*Wikipedia pages with incorrect protection templates‏‎ (2 members)
:*Wikipedia protected templates‏‎ (2 members)
:--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 08:07, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
::Holy dependency hell. Purged the lot. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 12:42, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Can you nuke [[Talk:404: 404 Error]]? You forgot to delete it when you got rid of [[404: 404 Error]].

Also, any update on the thumbnail issue? They are still not displaying correctly See [[Special:UnusedFiles|unused files]]. --[[User:Oneforfortytwo|Oneforfortytwo]] ([[User talk:Oneforfortytwo|talk]]) 22:03, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
:Deleted. Thumbnails are a bit trickier, seeing as Jeff is the only one who has direct access to the server. Still plugging. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 02:08, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

For some reason, the wiki places the [[Main Page]] in the same categories as the current comic. This should be fixed, as the only category it should belong to is the [[:Category:Root category|root category]]. --[[User:Oneforfortytwo|Oneforfortytwo]] ([[User talk:Oneforfortytwo|talk]]) 16:30, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
:FYI I have answered [[User:Oneforfortytwo]] on [[User talk:Oneforfortytwo|his talk page]]. [[User:Markhurd|Mark Hurd]] ([[User talk:Markhurd|talk]]) 19:01, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

One more thing: Can you edit [[1190: Time]] and remove all links to images after 2973:00? Seeing as there will not be any more of them uploaded, and some of them are showing up on the [[Special:WantedFiles|wanted files page]]. Also, can you restore the deleted image [[:File:starsmove.png]]? Originally, I thought there was nowhere to put it, but I realized that I can link to it at [[1190: Time/Pictures]]. --[[User:Oneforfortytwo|Oneforfortytwo]] ([[User talk:Oneforfortytwo|talk]]) 06:04, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
:Done. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 06:51, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Oh, can you delete [[1360: Old Files/info]]? Also, could we possibly get a page where people can post pages to be deleted? That would make it easier to report them. --[[User:Oneforfortytwo|Oneforfortytwo]] ([[User talk:Oneforfortytwo|talk]]) 19:47, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

:Can do. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 23:59, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
::Mkay, deleted the page, was in the process of making the page when I recalled that [[explain xkcd:Community portal/Admin requests]] and [[explain xkcd:Community portal/Proposals]] tend to be the pages used for proposing deletion of pages. Page deletion doesn't come up incredibly often, although I could create the page if people really want it. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 01:25, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I found [[:Category:Pages to delete]]. Although you can't explain why to delete a page. Perhaps a template would be more appropriate. Speaking of which, can you delete [[:Category:Commissioned]], [[:File:16px-BlackHat head.png]], [[:File:spirit rewrite unknown author.png]], [[:File:tongue awareness.jpg]], [[Special:ListFiles/ImVeryAngryItsNotButter|all of these uploads]], and [[Special:ListFiles/Spongebog|the Lorenz uploads here]]?

By the way, [[User:DgbrtBOT]] is not selecting the xkcd.com licensing choice when uploading new comic images, causing all of them to show up in [[:Special:UncategorizedFiles]]. And [[User:Dgbrt]] appears to have gone AWOL. Is there any way we can contact him and get him to change his bot?

Finally, I think there should be a category for the pages listed [[:Special:UncategorizedPages|here]]. Maybe helper comic pages, seeing as there is a helper comic images? Or comic subpages? --[[User:Oneforfortytwo|Oneforfortytwo]] ([[User talk:Oneforfortytwo|talk]]) 23:47, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
:The template [[template:spam]] automagically includes the delete template. We used to have a delete template, but it literally saw no use. The black hat head is the site favicon and the tongue awareness image is used in an explanation. The others seem justifiable though. I'll submit a patch to dgbrt that oughta fix the image categorization thing. Comic subpages oughta be a fine name. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 03:19, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

== Time animation—a little help maybe? ==

About the animated Time GIF, I actually prepared one right away at the end, but I haven't been able to get it to upload here, even though it's rather less than the stated size limit, 12 MB out of I think 40 MB. If anyone can suggest what might be going on, I'll be happy to try it out. I did ask in the XKCD forum, but didn't get any help there. Just in case it was a temporary thing, I'll go give it a shot here again after I post this. Wouldn't want to save face or anything if it actually works all of a sudden, after all.—[[User:KarMann|KarMann]] ([[User talk:KarMann|talk]]) 20:03, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

== Clean explains ==

Oh, I did some reverts (undo) today again, I'm not happy:
*Ninja Turtles still belong to NASA
*Bullsh.. sorry
*Duplicate on some chess jokes
*Math
*And math again at some statistics (Increased Risk). <- ok, or (Increased Risk.)
While you do fight against spam, I simply do fight against some similar windmills. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 23:04, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
:Many of these were hamfisted ones that were targeted at one change, and reverted everything else contained in the same edit. Some of them were legitimate, some of them seem to show minimal effort to look at context before you edit. It's getting to the point where it's actually kind of disruptive now. If something is not in your area of expertise, don't revert like you do currently. There's a reason why rollback privileges are not given to all users. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 03:37, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

== 1269: Privacy Opinions‎ ==

This edit war is useless. The add is just '''TL;DR'''. And I'm sure even you did not read it all. Please keep explains as short as possible, otherwise people don't read. For understanding my post read this (read it all, there is a final statement at the bottom):
According to the title, the comic is about “opinions on internet privacy” in general. Six positions are offered as options. Four of the positions are tagged negatively by the author by their subtitles alone: the Crypto Nut, the Conspiracist, the Nihilist, and the Exhibitionist, all of which have negative valences in contemporary English. That the viewer is encouraged to identify negatively with these four positions is further encouraged by the content of the panels, as those characters are depicted either as having such boring lives that they have no need for privacy (the Crypto Nut, the Nihilist), or as being crazy (the Conspiracist, the Exhibitionist).
A fifth position, the Philosopher, is tagged somewhat ambivalently by the author: Megan is depicted as boring her interlocutor, yet in the title text, the author admits that he is usually the Philosopher. Also, “Philosopher” in vernacular English is neutrally valenced, potentially having the ability to expound either wisdom (sophia) or sophistry. It is also a synonym for Sage, the sixth position. As the author condones his own movement from Philosopher to Sage, he thus indicates that the Philosopher is to be viewed negatively, even if it is a tempting position to hold.
The title of the sixth position, the “Sage”, is positively valenced in contemporary English, and the author in the title text states that once he obtains a “burrito” – i.e., a “real” thing, he switches from the Philosopher to the Sage. The internal evidence presented thus far therefore is entirely consistent; the author encourages the reader to identify with the Sage.
By presenting five negatively tagged positions followed by a positively tagged sixth and final one, the author follows a rhetorical commonplace of listing and refuting a number of positions one by one, concluding with the favored and best one, which is not refuted and should be accepted both on its own merits and by virtue of being the last one standing. The comic therefore implies that no other (significant) positions exist.
Having completed the rhetorical analysis of the comic, we are now in a position to understand the meaning of “Internet Privacy”.
Panels #3 and 5 directly reference the American NSA. Panel #5’s “exhibitionist” also references Google, but the characters in the panel appear to be NSA agents (one wears an official cap and they are viewing the exhibitionist on an official, government-looking monitor). Likewise, the focus of the “Nihilist” is that the joke is on the people who gather the data, rather than those who are subsequently able to make use of it (such as Facebook’s users rather than "Facebook" itself; i.e., Facebook's employees and, by extension, its advertisers). The content of the actual data is only mentioned in panels #2, 4, and 5, and in each panel, it is suggested that it is meaningless or trivial. The Sage underscores the notion that any data known about him does not bother him, and therefore must be meaningless or trivial. The reader is thus encouraged to believe that it does not actually matter whether others discover personal data abou t him/her.
The comic is therefore what social theorists call *reductive*, because it reduces the range of possibilities of “Opinions on Internet Privacy” to an artificially and simplistically narrow subset; in this case, individuals concerned with government or corporate agencies using data that they have gathered on individuals, and the futility of worrying about such things. The comic does not admit the possibility of other “opinions on internet privacy” – namely, that individuals might have legitimate concerns with governmental or corporate uses of their data, let alone other individuals’ access to data that is assembled and distributed by corporations such as Facebook. The comic likewise does not consider the possibility of individuals having more interesting lives than the characters depicted, and therefore very real concerns about their privacy due to the activities that they engage in that are potentially more career limiting (should they be discovered) than obsessing about cryptography or eating a burrito.
The comic is “functionally” reductive, as opposed to “intentionally” reductive, because the reduction is the function or effect of the comic for readers who read it straightforwardly (such as the poster who claimed it was “about” Edward Snowden), whether or not the author intended this reduction to occur. There is not enough internal evidence in the literary text (i.e., the comic) to maintain that the author intentionally excluded other viable opinions on internet privacy; it could be that they are just not on his radar. For example, we do not have enough information in the comic to claim that the author is against civil rights; it could be simply that he doesn’t often think about them. Likewise, it would exceed the evidence of the comic to claim that the author believes that schoolteachers who use the internet to facilitate legal but frowned-upon sexual behaviors should lose their jobs if they are found out due to internet privacy breaches; it could be that the author simply hasn’t bothered to worry about these matters if they don’t affect him personally. This adjudication – whether the comic is “intentionally” reductive or not – may only be made on the basis of external evidence; that is, data known about the author from sources beyond this comic.
Use of such external evidence – historical, personal, psychological information about an author – is valid in determining the meaning of an author’s text, and is increasingly viable due to the accessibility of information about an individual on the internet today.
Additional observations about the comic follow.

And when you did complete all that readings maybe you can summarize it, just in a way a reader would read.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 18:15, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
:PRO TIP: explainxkcd is not guessxkcd.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 18:19, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
::I did actually read it, and goes well past merely defining words in the comic. It covers writer's craft and all of it is derived from valid analysis of text from the comic. There's maybe a couple of excess words that I edited out, but length is not a bad thing. I read it the first time, and it was a valuable analytical contribution to the explanation; I question the value of flat-out reverting major edits that significantly improve pages. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 18:33, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
:::First sentence is mapped to the title, the TL;DR section is at the bottom. OK?--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:10, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
::::Uh, you cut the passage in half and split it up when it was referring back on itself? And you're accusing me of not bothering to read it? '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 19:26, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
:::::Uh, Oh, Ahh, I did not delete any content, I just asked about improvements. Read my comments, still much smaller than this adds.
:::::Are you happy when people do not visit this site again because the explain is bullshit? TL;DR... I still prefer articles people will read.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:49, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
::::::I know you didn't delete anything. You cut it down the middle and pasted half the passage at the end of the article, with little regard for flow or structure. That's not a valuable edit, even if it's a smaller change than the initial passage addition. Having short explanations is not worth cutting out valuable information. Cutting out content that's irrelevant to the comic, yeah. Cutting out false relations and waffle, that's fine. Don't cut out well-written analysis.
::::::Also, I'm noticing concurrent issues being raised against your edits again. Consider editing and working on top of edits instead of straight reverting them, and avoid antagonistic language. You already have one warning from the last time this happened. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 21:59, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
:::::::I still disagree. The list of panel explains is overruled by a massive amount of text before. This is still not a helpful explanation.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 06:58, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
::::::::It's not a helpful explanation for those incapable of reading or scanning a sizeable passage of text. It contains all the relevant information in a coherent and laid-out manner, with a bullet pointed list to draw attention to the frame-by-frame explanations for those who want to skip the intention and analysis. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 07:26, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

== Advertising ==

My Firefox AddOn NoScript did block the external page "projectwonderful.com". The untrusted picture [http://www.projectwonderful.com/img/uploads/pics/91967-1378268302.png] does not belong to "explainxkcd.com". Then clicking the picture brings me to this link: [[explain_xkcd:Advertise_Here]]. But, I still do not see any advertisement here at all, only this "wonderful project world", what's wrong?

I would like to pay here for a link to Randall's store (he doesn't know), but it has to be an internal picture to an external link. A user action is required, ask Randall about this security. External clicks do count, embedded content to external sites is a real insecure solution. Many modern browsers will not allow this. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:51, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
:The image does belong to us, it's just served by project wonderful when no advertisers are currently bidding on us. The word "advertise" used in the link title is in the verb form, not the noun; that page describes how to advertise on our site. That page contains our advertising guidelines and a few links to our project wonderful bidding page. There, you can create an account and bid on any of the four regions we have on offer. Our minimum rate is USD$3.8 per day, and they let you link any image to any site. If you still can't advertise with us, post imgur links to screenshots to show me what you're doing.
:Have you not said in the past that you are an employed software developer? Instead of advertising a site wholly unaffiliated to you, why not ask your boss to try his hand at advertising on explain xkcd? It's cheaper than most advertising outlets, and we have a large and valuable audience for your average technology company. Your company can probably easily muster the ~$15 per day needed to advertise in all our available regions, and the process takes about as long as creating an account on any other site on the internet. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 07:13, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

== A database error has occurred... ==

I did clean the cache, it seems no admin is required to fix this damn problem. Site was down but available now again. I will also talk to JEFF about this.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 14:54, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
: New server coming soon. Hopefully these DB issues will stop... forever. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 16:39, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

== IP Users ==

I still do not like this mess: [[User:108.162.216.45]] and [[User:50.151.2.168]]. Users have to register for this.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 11:18, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
:No they don't? {{w|User:70.21.5.28}}. The page takes up so little space, it's not worth forcing them to do something they may not want to do. When our IP friend wants an account, they will make that choice on their own. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 16:35, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
::Someone else will use the IP 50.151.2.168 in the future. If that user also likes xkcd and explainxkcd he will find a history he never has done. Still a mess. Nevertheless you can be sure that I never will edit this without admins permission.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:39, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

== Question: — or - ==

You're changing — to -, even while it looks to me like a (typical American) loooong dash at the picture. Original transcript by Randal on [[752]] is "Do you--", so I don't understand some of your latest edits. I'm changing &mdash to — ( on Linux). I did opt for removing the double spaces after a sentence, but is this dash also history? Like miles... --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:01, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
:Eh, I just do it because it's only one character in the original comics. I don't actually have easy access to an mdash on my keyboard when I'm editing, I'll probably bind that to a key for future use. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 00:12, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
::My question was just: Is "—" wrong or not. You know I am German, but my OS and much more programs are running on English. That's because all that translations are just annoying. Nevertheless, at [[752]] the original transcript shows this: "Blonde: Do you--". this should be a long dash. And you did change many &mdash to "—", I just want to understand how to behave on this.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:17, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
:::There isn't really a codified grammatical rule for the length of a dash. It's mostly stylistic, but it seems to be a rather common convention that a short dash is for joining words, and a long mdash is for punctuation dashes. Again though, it's not on the keyboard and the vast majority of people probably don't pay attention to dash length when reading. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 21:41, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
::::You did introduce this in the past, my keyboard gives me on "ALT GR + SHIFT + -" just a "—". but we still have to decide about a rule on this. "-"--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:22, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

== Extension:Comments ==

Have you thought about trying [[mw:Extension:Comments|Extension:Comments]]? It was recently updated (July 2013) and looks like it would make commenting the explanations much more user-friendly. Could you make a little experiment to see if it works well? Say, install it so we can test and see if it works well? I'd be willing to help in the conversion of current comments to the new format, and we could even make it a long-term goal to eventually bring back all the comments from the blog :D --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 16:24, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
: I did edit the incomplete template, ERROR is not correct. But a hint to the missing reason is great.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:24, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
: From prior experience, the comments plugin does generate a lot of meta-pages with scrambled names that made me prioritize other things over it, but I can totally run it for a few days to see how things go. In a few weeks, my free time will skyrocket and I should be able to install and monitor the plugin then. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 08:40, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
:: Hey Davidy. I wonder if you're able to try this out. If so, let me know how I can help!
:: On the other hand, I am disappointed to hear that the comments extension doesn't integrate neatly with mediawiki. Are you aware of any similar choice that may be better-behaved? --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 17:33, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

== New comics BOT ==

I think that BOT is doing the job right now. Maybe there is a possibility to install it on this server, not much but some PERL modules are required, it should work on any OS. Nevertheless since I could see the updates in general did happen at 04:00 UTC I will implement a new script starting at 04:00 UTC, polling again after that again. But since I don't want to poll xkcd too much that poll would stop after fifteen minutes. Then there will be just a five minute schedule, until a new comic is found.

BTW: <nowiki>$text .= "{{comicsrow|$comic_num|$date|$comic_name|$picture_name}}\n"; </nowiki> means I will always add the optional parameter for the picture. Not all picture did work properly in the past, so I decided to include this parameter to get a working picture link on the main page. Any suggestions are welcome. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:50, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
:I have an idea for that, but I have a metric buttload of things that I need to do by the end of this week. I've seen comics come out several hours late so I think polling for four hours would still be apt, and I'm sure Randall's server could handle us polling him a little faster. Having a explanation page up at the same time as a new comic is really huge. I believe I have a solution for the comicsrow problem, but I also don't know Perl. I could probably figure it out in a weekend though. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 01:19, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

== Incomplete tag at main page ==

Am I wrong, or is every new comic complete at the main page in the future? --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 23:16, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
:When we include a comic page on the main page, templates and categories are preserved. While that's good for page layout and the like, it's not so good when we have templates that impart their categories upon the inheriting page, like the incomplete template did. It was tagging the main page as incomplete whenever the newest comic was marked as incomplete. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 23:27, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
::Yezzz, I understand. But presenting a new incomplete page in this way is not good. The counter has to be adjusted. But I'm serious on this and maybe some ''noinclude'' tags may help. While the main page should not be counted, the page it presents, if incomplete or not (<-the problem), should presented at the proper state. My bot will cover any solutions for further uploads. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 23:40, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
:::What counter? The counter on the main page doesn't take into account the main page itself, and the transcluded page is shown in its entirety, save for the discussion page and one category. What's the problem here? '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 00:37, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

== I don't mind about a 24 hour ban... ==

...but after that I did try to do some more talks here:
http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=User_talk:Mrarch&curid=13771&diff=55110&oldid=55109
DELETED!
I'm still the pest here, or what? I'm still hoping you will understand my actions here. I'm working much on the health of this board, talking to Jeff and many more here. And Mrarch just did delete my message. I'm German, so it could happen that I do use a sentence which could be interpreted different to my meanings. BUT: I just want to support this site as much I can do. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 00:49, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
:Oh nuts, didn't see that. I though he was just setting up his own user and talk pages. I'll leave a notice. Also, try to cooperate, and practice your English. There ''are'' a few naunces in his arguments that you're gliding over. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 02:45, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
::And oh nuts, we need some more people to review all the updates here. We have many new people here, doing great edits, but sometimes a correction is needed. I will still do this here, but you can be sure I will be much more polite when an edit-war does happen. I don't mind - xkcd is just fun. That counts! --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 00:26, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

== BOT uploads at the comic list ==

Hi,
I can remove that "Picture.png" add, but I think it's more safe to use this optional parameter. Sometimes upper case and lower case did cause some problems. I'm trying to prevent this by providing the image link my BOT did upload here.

On January 1 my BOT did fail because the picture was not accepted at this Wiki, and my BOT stops on every unexpected error. The BOT doesn't understand Randall and so, when the BOT is running on problems it simply does nothing.

I've had serious problems to connect this site since a few deys, I don't understand why, but my BOT is doing it's job as planed.

Looking forward to some translations...

--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:04, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
:Hm? What cases cause it to fail? Imma make this work. In cases of ambiguity, we could always err on the side of caution and include the parameter. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 00:54, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
::The BOT did fail on January 1. because the "PNG" was in fact an "Adobe XMP" format and the upload was rejected by this site. A BOT barely can't handle this unexpected mess. This requires human action and the BOT stops further actions. The optional parameter will be posted anyway; if BOT doesn't fail.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:13, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

== Incompleteness Tag. ==

My browser (Chrome) is showing that 137: Dreams is the incomplete comic of the day. I used the tags there as the page instructed. Did I use them incorrectly? (possibly it was supposed to be in the main page edit instead of the discussion? I am fairly new here)This is the algorithm now. 19:10, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
:The explanation page is already tagged. Tagging the discussion page marks the discussion page as incomplete. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 19:31, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
::I did edit this discussion page with a nowiki marker. And ‎Anomulus please sign your comments in the proper way, it's much more easy to discuss with an user instead of just a date. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:41, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

I did move some comics back to the incomplete section, a full explain is still more worth than a 0% ratio here. Nevertheless I am still thinking, not really working, on a German translation. But just because the ratio looks great here I will focus on that translation soon. Stay tuned...--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 23:18, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
:If our numbers are right, a very healthy portion of our visitors should be German and you shouldn't have to be concerned with taking on the entire burden of translation. It's probably good to be conservative with the incomplete tag, it reduces the burden on of research on translators if they only have to change the language. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 23:33, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

== Incomplete Explanation of the Day ==

Some thoughts:
*[[explain xkcd:Incomplete Explanation of the Day]]: No need for the daily update, it's also still at the top.
*[[MediaWiki:Sitenotice]] should contain a link to this: [[:Category:Incomplete explanations|Incomplete explanations]].
--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 18:43, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

:It takes very little extra effort to also update the project page, so I just do it anyways. The incomplete explanation of the day is supposed to be a focusing effort, to finish off one comic at a time. A link to the list of all the incomplete comics wasn't working, which is why I started drawing attention to individual comics in the sitenotice. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 19:55, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
::So tell me what's wrong with this link: [[:Category:Incomplete explanations|Incomplete explanations]]. In my opinion this could be still placed at the top.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:26, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
:::Mostly cuz that didn't work when it was on the main page, and calling attention to specific comics has worked exceedingly well. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 06:57, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
::::I don't understand, there was a similar link in the past.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:13, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
:::::And in the past, that link had almost no effect on the incomplete pages count. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 23:54, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

===I just did remove a typo===
<code>:"1930s" has "Santa Claus is Coming to Town". a</code>

If you can not accept my typo correction on that simple damn "a" I will give up here. And I'm not sorry. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 00:40, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
:In the same edit I removed whitespace from the page, as is not immediately obvious from diffs but can be seen from the edit size numbers. The "a" has been gone in each of my proceeding edits, as you can see in the revision log if you would care to read it. Autoreverting is bad. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 00:57, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

== 1037: Umwelt ==

Hi, I'm sorry. But as my comments did say, some texts maybe helpful; but I can't fix all that layout issues. The individual pictures are still great, some ideas on that edits are nice, but it does not work in the full context. And those massive edits don't give both of us a way to review them all. I just did that revert because it doesn't work. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:09, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
:The layout is still broken... I don't like edits without using a preview to verify a proper layout — and I do not like massive edits no one can follow.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:22, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
::Image resizing will be fixed soon. Give it at most three weeks. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 01:37, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

== New admin proposal ==

Please take a look [[explain xkcd:Community portal/Admin requests#New admin|here]]. Cheers, [[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 18:36, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

== Template:comic ==

Isn't this just a revert and a freeze to a former revert done by me? Others did play then again on the main page appearance, but changes at this should be only possible for people not experimenting. The entire main page has to be protected. That page isn't a playground.

And on that admin discussions on me: My most posts are related to language, layout, and something — and I still don't like all those esoteric explains on ASSes, PENISpumps, ... But an admin has to work mostly on different issues.

Randall does primarily focus on "romance, sarcasm, math, and language.". Randall does more, so the SEX category is here, but I think we have to focus on the "primarily focus" at the headlines on explain pages first.

My advice here: Do NOT try to enhance well working templates, other statements are much more important.

--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 00:18, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

:It's not quite a revert, he changed how linking works for the first comic page, added jump links to the first and last pages and attempted a few fixes. I just fixed a few omissions that he made. Admin work usually tends to be focused on non-content stuff, yeah, but I feel like those people maybe probably might be right. Innuendo in comics not explicitly mentioning sex exist. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 03:03, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

== Mail send ==

It's still not easy to find important mails, I nearly lost yours but now you got a reply. Your issues needs a test, I will do that soon. And sorry for this three month late reply. Maybe I have been blind, I just found your message today.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 23:46, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
:The site GitHub.com did send a message to me from "David ???(possibly your surname)" but the address was in fact <nowiki>notifications@github.com</nowiki>. So this reply was stupid by me because that mail will never reach you.
:Please send me a notification here because I don't visit that GitHub site on a regular base. Last visit was two or three months ago. It's just a backup for myself and available to everyone who likes.
:Your request could remove links to GIF or JPG files, so I decided to include the picture link always because it does work on that template. Dynamic comics are much more complicated and my BOT stops to post any update here if something went wrong. I'm still thinking about a better logging on that, My idea is still: If the BOT decides not to post chaos here it should save any content for later manual analysis. But that's a big deal because Randall's comics are so different...
:Nevertheless the BOT covers most comics just in time, I know people are happy on this — and when the comic is too sophisticated, it just stops to prevent chaos here.
:--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:41, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

== File:lorenz-new.png ==

Moving this to File:lorenz.png does not work like my former updates, maybe it's some cache on the server. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:31, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
:Huh. I'll have to take a look at that. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 21:45, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
:The file on the server looks right. It'll probably update itself on the caching servers in good time. The distortion is annoying though. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 21:49, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
::Can you clear the cache? The page [[1350]] still looks bad like my former reverted updates. But maybe we use this just a test for the servers. Uploads are easy, but updates are the hell. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:08, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
:::Eff it, let's wait on it. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 22:17, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
::::One idea: Try "Lorenz.png" instead of "lorenz.png". While WIKI is mostly case insensitive the servers maybe are. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:20, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

== German page ==

Is it still possible to create a German page here? I'm complete (honestly mostly) on my investigations for presenting a proper German page. On a positive reply I will present some more details (maybe screenshots) of my local wiki and a plan on how to bring it up to public. And consider, this would not only be for German readers, we have Austria, Switzerland, and many other parts in Europe. I would be happy to support this, and my BOT would be too. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:37, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

:It's still possible, gonna do it after we clear out all the incomplete pages as promised.'''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 20:44, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

::So then this never would be happen. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:50, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
:::No, because we'll eventually clear out our backlog of old, incomplete articles. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 21:24, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

== /r/xkcd sitenotice ==

May I ask why you've added a sitenotice about /r/xkcd? The /r/xkcd sub is controlled by /u/soccer, who links to racist, xenophobic and misogynistic content regularly. Randall has even spoken in support of a petition for /u/soccer to be removed as a mod (which of course didn't happen because reddit doesn't do that). /r/xkcdcomic is a non-hateful alternative, one that Randall supports, and it has more users than /r/xkcd. [[User:LadyMondegreen|LadyMondegreen]] ([[User talk:LadyMondegreen|talk]]) 13:19, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
:If you look closely at the text and click on the link, you'll see that it actually says and links to xkcdcomic. Also, /r/xkcd is currently at 40000 subs and hit 10000 a few years ago. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 20:38, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
::Hmmm, yeah, I'm not sure how I got that backwards, but I did. Someone pointed it out to me on IRC and I guess I didn't look closely enough. Sorry about that. [[User:LadyMondegreen|LadyMondegreen]] ([[User talk:LadyMondegreen|talk]]) 19:35, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

== Any idea on this: [[A Smarter Planet]] ==

This should be mentioned here, but that article doesn't represent a comic from the main page. Maybe it should be merged to [[Randall]]? What do you think? --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:17, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
:That's not a bad idea. I'll put that on the list of things to do. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 03:56, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
::Sorry, I've forgotten to post a reply here. I did put in a new template for this special issue because it's different to a common comic from xkcd. A standard comic template never can cover this. And when this template is complete it should be protected, but the resulting category page is still bad and I need help on this. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:55, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
:Yeah, I figured that when I tried it myself. It might be a bug with parserfunctions though. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 03:17, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

== Do we have active admins here? ==

This site seems to be running into chaos. The former approved admins do not work that much here; and now I'm even missing you.

Maybe you are on holidays; if so, I'm just greeting with "Happy holiday". BUT this site still needs an admin.

You know I'm still looking forward on a German page for this, but this English page is still on my main focus. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 23:16, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
:The image caching issue is caused by Cloudflare not refreshing the image that it serves as fast as we'd like it to. Outstanding admin requests and unsigned messages were left for one day. That's not inactivity. The only thing I saw being raised was the admin request, which was closer to a progress update to which you butted in with an irrelevant remark. The only conflict I see in talk pages is between you and other editors, and it's only mild disagreements and mostly civil discussion at the moment, so I'm pretty fine with it. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 03:56, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

== Minor edits ==

Hi, you are often doing minor edits like fixing some syntax or missing parentheses. If you would mark them as "minor edits" it could be ignored at the "Recent changes" page. Major changes could be found much more easier. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:29, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

== Incoming confirmation email: Domain of sender address expla0@vps.explainxkcd.com does not exist ==

Since the email address of incoming confirmation emails come from a non-existing domain, they are bounced so never reach me.

From the mail logs:

<code>
2014-05-30T08:36:21.455368+02:00 snap sendmail[12564]: NOQUEUE: connect from vps.lunarpages.com [67.210.100.50] (may be forged)
2014-05-30T08:36:22.049902+02:00 snap sendmail[12564]: s4U6aLdn012564: ruleset=check_mail, arg1=<expla0@vps.explainxkcd.com>, relay=vps.lunarpages.com [67.210.100.50] (may be forged), reject=553 5.1.8 <expla0@vps.explainxkcd.com>... Domain of sender address expla0@vps.explainxkcd.com does not exist
2014-05-30T08:36:22.219369+02:00 snap sendmail[12564]: s4U6aLdn012564: from=<expla0@vps.explainxkcd.com>, size=2306, class=0, nrcpts=0, proto=ESMTP, daemon=MTA, relay=vps.lunarpages.com [67.210.100.50] (may be forged)
</code> {{unsigned|Jeroenp}}

:You shouldn't need a confirmation email to contribute and use the site. Uh, that feature'll probably be turned off; how did you request the email that generated the above error? '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 02:21, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

::Because at http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Special:Preferences it says:

<blockquote><blockquote>E-mail address is optional, but is needed for password resets, should you forget your password.You can also choose to let others contact you by e-mail through a link on your user or talk page. Your e-mail address is not revealed when other users contact you. 
E-mail confirmation: Your e-mail address is not yet authenticated. No e-mail will be sent for any of the following features. 
[http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Special:ConfirmEmail Confirm your e-mail address] 
* Enable e-mail from other users
* Send me copies of e-mails I send to other users
* E-mail me when a page on my watchlist is changed
* E-mail me when my user talk page is changed
* E-mail me also for minor edits of pages
</blockquote></blockquote>
::So I used this to send a confirmation email: http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Special:ConfirmEmail
::[[User:Jeroenp|Jeroenp]] ([[User talk:Jeroenp|talk]]) 19:13, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

The lunarpages do not know to set up a proper Mail Server. My Mail Servers also would never accept this until I whitelist them. Sadly I still have to do this for some customers — also big customers in the US. Reasons because this mail isn't valid:
*dig vps.lunarpages.com:
;; ANSWER SECTION:
vps.lunarpages.com. 3600 IN A 80.156.86.78
vps.lunarpages.com. 3600 IN A 62.157.140.133
*whois 67.210.100.50:
The answer belongs to LunarPages.
*But 67.210.100.50 isn't a registered MX entry for the domain "lunarpages.com":
lunarpages.com. 300 IN MX 0 sharpmail-new.lunarpages.com.
*which is:
sharpmail-new.lunarpages.com. 300 IN A 74.50.25.50

I'm sorry, but fighting against SPAM is important and a proper Mail and DNS configuration is mandatory. Maybe those admins at LP do need some help and advise.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:06, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
:If you don't have anything useful to say, don't say it. You don't have to be in on every single conversation on the wiki. The issue is being dealt with. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 03:45, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

== "Feeling old" category ==

Hello, Davidy22. I noticed that you deleted the "Feeling old" category I made a while ago due to being "tenuous, not significant enough." In the interest of becoming a better contributor to the wiki, could you explain further on significance for a new category?

I realize that there are various qualifications that a category has to fulfill, lest it only add clutter to the wiki. A category ought to be simple, memorable, and concise. It should refer to something within or about the strip, be deliberate, and be objective. And, ideally, it should apply to a fair number of strips. I figured that the four strips that included the motif of "character/Randall reflects on how distant the seemingly-recent past is" all used it significantly, as a central theme or as a punchline. I personally feel that Randall hasn't exhausted his use of this motif, and therefore it warrants its own category for future comics, saving time in future explanations and aiding readers of past explanations.

(My one personal issue with it is that the phrase "feeling old" does not feel concise or specific enough, but I couldn't think of a single word or a better two-word phrase to describe it.) -- [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.21|108.162.216.21]] 18:18, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

:I hope you (Or Davidy22) don't mind me starting off this conversation. Categories are not meant to be used as a tag cloud. Categories are a concrete thing in the comic such as [[:Category:Comics with color]], [[:Category:Red Spiders]]. They are not motifs or feelings about the comic. We don't have categories for happy comics and sad comics, and I can't think of a persuasive enough argument to allow them. Until there's a significant number of comics with "I feel old" or "I'm getting old" or "#FeelingOld" (eww) in the text, I'd hold off on trying to push this one through. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 05:55, 13 August 2014 (UTC)
::Part of the deletion ''was'' because it only had four comics under it. The only times I've allowed categories with that few comics behind them was when they were put forward by registered users who I could make promise to maintain them. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 09:51, 13 August 2014 (UTC)
::: Okay, so ''feeling'' old is a bad category name. Categories that sound subjective in general are bad. Perhaps "Aging" could work? And also, courtesy of two particular xkcd blogs, I know of at least 10 comics that would belong to it: [[218]], [[354]], [[447]], [[493]], [[647]], [[891]], [[973]], [[1093]], [[1393]], and the recently posted [[1408]]. - [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.21|108.162.216.21]] 03:38, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

== Weird formatting bug ==

I remember back when I had asked about skins you had told me to mention if there was anything off. Well, it's nothing major, but [http://puu.sh/ceEv7.png this] seems to happen on the Main Page alone on the monobook skin. I can't say I've ever seen this before... [[User:Schiffy|Schiffy]] ([[User_talk:Schiffy|Speak to me]]|[[Special:Contributions/Schiffy|What I've done]]) 16:55, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
:Mmmm, testing does not give me the same bug, but that part of the page is still malformed. I'll get on that. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 19:58, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

== Dont change other peoples comments ==

When the user clicks "add a topic" in the comments block a new section is added. When a user does this you modify it to a heading style you prefer. This is against every design principal I know of. You have 3 legitimate choices: remove the button, style the header so it pleases you more, or let it be. Since this is a standard part of the wiki and updading versions would likely undo your changes, I would sugest that you simply learn to live with it, as it is not objectivly ugly.
When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be
And in my hour of darkness
She is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be
Let it be, let it be
Let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.209|108.162.216.209]] 13:10, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

:It's not actually done because the header is ugly, it's done because of an error case that occurs when the discussion page is transcluded onto the main explanation page, that came up a while back. It would probably be better to remove that button instead of having to manually change every discussion page header, and I'll get to that when I have the time. Also, note how I only modify headers in explanation talk pages, where the error can occur; headers in user talk pages and the community portal are unchanged. Also, updating between mediawiki versions does not change the contents of (most) pages, so it wouldn't actually undo what I'm doing. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 14:54, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

::Am I allowed to undo other peoples comments when they include blatant racism? See Weatherlawyer's comments on [[500: Election]] and [[522: Google Trends]]. --[[User:Pudder|Pudder]] ([[User talk:Pudder|talk]]) 09:28, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
:::No. You are not the judge of what other people are allowed to say. If other people say something questionable, they will be warned and/or banned. On the subject his his specific comments, they doesn't seem overtly racist in 500, just heavily politically skewed, but 522 seems pushing it. I'll warn him for now. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 19:32, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
::::With respect, referring to 'Only having voted for a chimpanzee twice' is (to me at least) an obvious racial slur aimed at Obama. I have no issue with anyone posting inflammatory comments with regard to his politics/policy/decisions as President/what he stands for etc etc etc, but racism is not ok. --[[User:Pudder|Pudder]] ([[User talk:Pudder|talk]]) 21:10, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
:::::Chimp in the general lexicon is used to describe someone mentally challenged, not black. I must say it's quite hard to discern exactly who or what he's talking about because it feels like he's just making comments for the sake of making lots of comments. His statement about texas being granted statehood probably doesn't support the idea that he's talking about Obama, since they're not very supportive of him to begin with. Texas to my knowledge has been a republican state, so unless he really doesn't know what he's talking about, I'd say it's more likely that he's talking about one or more of the recent Republican presidents. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 22:47, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

== Other explanations ==

What if we tried to include explanations for the What if? portion of xkcd? -- [[User:Brettpeirce|Brettpeirce]] ([[User talk:Brettpeirce|talk]]) 19:26, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
{{Color|#AAA|(p.s. - I'm not sure how to get my question to look like it's written on graph paper)}}
:That question comes up every once in a while. My response to the first one was that those things tend to be self explanatory and that the wiki is for the comic, but this'll be the fourth time it's been suggested. I dunno, how would it be formatted on the main page? '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 20:01, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
::Format indeed... also I understand what you mean about self explanatory - I'd say at least 85% of each entry is quite plain, simple, and straightforward. Most of the humor of the feature is not traditional "ah-ha!" humor (that comes from revelation of a twist on assumptions, or which might benefit from explanation). Every once in a while, though, that remaining 15% (often from the images, but sometimes from a {{w|factlet}} or two) contains a few nuggets of knowledge that make me yearn for discussion or comment, and occasionally clarification to one degree or another. In addition to possible issues of cherry-picking what's explained, and questions on how to format it, there's the question of the variability in release date of the comics (used to be every Tuesday, then Thursday and, if I'm not mistaken, the last two(?) have been on Friday, with a few weeks missed (sometimes with and sometimes without notice or explanation) - so how to catalog that? I'll append to this conversation whenever I get that feeling of "if only there was" and we'll keep it open for discussion, if that sounds good to you(?) -- [[User:Brettpeirce|Brettpeirce]] ([[User talk:Brettpeirce|talk]]) 12:33, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
:::Probably just note the release date of each article, although I don't fancy to task of cataloging that. I dunno, drop me a message whenever you want. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 16:37, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

== Template:i ==

I created that template for a reason. Unicode doesn't work right in many circumstances, especially on phones. Now people without Unicode support will see incorrect equations. Plus typing in a Unicode character is not easy, and not having an easy way to do it will guarantee it won't be used. That's why character templates exist on other wikis.

I copied the way of making the imaginary constant from Wikipedia. That's how the math template works. The Unicode version doesn't even look like an i in many fonts--the dot is missing. It looks like a weird squiggle that people won't recognize.

I really wish you would have done like other wikis and had a discussion (and let me know) before just deleting something. I'm lucky I happened to leave the tab open and happened to see it was deleted.

--[[User:Trlkly|Trlkly]] ([[User talk:Trlkly|talk]]) 22:54, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
:Huh, tested and it does seem to be broken on phones. I'll get restoring that. A lot of these templates don't tend to end up being used though, past their creation. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 02:33, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

== Strong Language ==

Hey - I find it interesting that someone chose to create the category about "strong language" or something that you chose to delete because it had one comic. There are countless examples of "strong language", pretty much irrespective of what you consider to be "strong" (just search for one of the various "strong" words) but it's fascinating noone has felt strongly enough about it to make a category until 2015 -- [[User:Brettpeirce|Brettpeirce]] ([[User talk:Brettpeirce|talk]]) 15:04, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
:It's also that "Strong language" is a really subjective category name that doesn't hold the same boundary for everyone, and is gonna be tough to populate to a degree that satisfies everyone. Although the person who made the category still frequents the wiki, so maybe he's capable of maintaining it. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 13:36, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

== Delete a page ==

I created a page [[Test Page]] to test a potential feature. I intended to delete it afterwards, but it seems I don't have permission to delete it. Could you do so? Alternatively, make it into a sandbox [[User:Mikemk|Mikemk]] ([[User talk:Mikemk|talk]]) 03:28, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
:Yeah, sure. In the future, use [[explain xkcd:Sandbox]]. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 03:33, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
::K [[User:Mikemk|Mikemk]] ([[User talk:Mikemk|talk]]) 05:45, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

== Comic template ==

I made an upgraded version of the comic template that'll deal with [[Radiation]]'s broken navigation bar for once and for all. Could you please look over it to make sure it's all working fine, then replace the current template with it? Updated template is over [[User:Pixali/comictemplate/|here]] and can be viewed in action [[User_talk:Pixali/comictemplate/|here]]. [[User:Pixali|Pixali]] ([[User talk:Pixali|talk]]|[[Special:Contributions/Pixali|contribs]]) 02:54, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

:Tested, this implementation seems to break the back button. Documentation is incomplete and may need usage examples for the new parameters, but I can probably write that when this makes it to the actual implementation. When I'm free, I'll try and get it to work, there's a good start here. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 03:52, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

::Got there before ya. I effectively rewrote the entire experimental template, fixing formatting & the broken back buttons while keeping the support for undefined numbers. I still have the examples up over at [[User_talk:Pixali/comictemplate/|the talk page]] for the new template so you can check it out there. I also tried to document it a bit better (inc. explaining the sort key better), but I'm not sure if it's satisfactory yet. [[User:Pixali|Pixali]] ([[User talk:Pixali|talk]]|[[Special:Contributions/Pixali|contribs]]) 04:51, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
::Seems pretty solid. I'll fold it into the main template. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 06:42, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

== Advertising? ==

Check the recent changes log. A page appears to have been made for the purpose of advertising or political rant or something (I didn't read much, it's long).

In any case, it's not relevant to this wiki. {{unsigned ip|Mikemk}}
:Yeah, it happens. Looks like another admin got to it before I came home. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 02:46, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

== dgbrtBOT Problems ==

While I did update my OS to CentOS 7 this weekend I did some tests on my bot. But it seems that problem doesn't belong to my update because I can't get this site via https - only http works.

Broken: [https://explainxkcd.com//wiki/api.php https://explainxkcd.com//wiki/api.php]

Working: [http://explainxkcd.com//wiki/api.php http://explainxkcd.com//wiki/api.php]

My bot requires a secure login via https so I don't know how to fix this.

Browser request gives me "Error 521" and my bot is "Error code 2: 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable".

Even [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page] doesn't work for me.

Unless this is fixed my bot will not work.
--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:57, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
:On it. Would it be possible for you to fall back on http while we work on that? xkcd comics aren't hugely security sensitive, so it should be fine. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 23:13, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

::I'm glad to reach you so soon. And sadly this WIKI requires HTTPS for a bot to login. My attempts on plain HTTP did fail, I do need SSL. Did you change something here? On Friday my bot did work. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 23:28, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
:::What's the error message with HTTP? '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 00:04, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
::::"Logging in over plain HTTP is a bad idea, we would be sending secrets (passwords or cookies) in plaintext over an insecure connection. To protect against eavesdroppers, set protocol => 'https'..."
::::I do accept this restriction; using https should be possible here for BOTs because a BOT can do many. If someone missuses my BOT account it would be bad for this site.
::::Maybe I have to import a non trusted certificate (costs money to make it public), but I want still to be on a save path.
::::--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:30, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
:::::Hum, it would be bad if another party got your address. In other news, have you tried it again recently? It should work, I believe. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 22:58, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
::::::PROBLEM SOLVED! And the secrets are reset, just in case...
::::::I got an expected error message while trying to update the LATEST COMIC. Not allowed because it just exist. Looks good...
::::::Next BOT run should work until it's an unexpected dynamic one done by Randall. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:24, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
Bad news: Picture upload did work but then my bot failed. Error messages are not very helpful but I'm sure I'll figure it out. So I will do some tests tomorrow on that damn API changes. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:57, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
:Oof. If there's anything you need server side, tell me. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 22:48, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
More BAD news: I still have to figure out the reason for error messages like this: "Error code 0: at /opt/xkcd/xkcdtest.pl line 104." What the hell is "Error code 0"??? Sadly it seems I have to work on this a little bit more. AND gooooogle doesn't help me... --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 23:06, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
:Error code 0 is the default exit value in perl. It seems like you're terminating the script at line 104. It's a natural exit though, so it's probably part of your error checking. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 02:51, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

== Request for help ==

I'm in the midst of a [[http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Proposals#Merge_Cueball_.26_Rob disagreement]] with another user about some general stylistic issues and I'd like to solicit broader input from the wiki community. Do you know a mechanism by which I can request such input? Thanks! [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 00:04, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=User_talk:Davidy22&action=edit&section=77

:The community portal would be the place to do it. People don't usually frequent there, but you'll get input over an extended period of time. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 05:24, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

::Thanks. [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 15:29, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

== List of all comics broke recently ==

Thanks for adding "For comics from 1001-1500, see [[List of all comics (1001-1500)]]" to http://explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/List_of_all_comics_(full)
But now links are being added in the wrong place. I'm just not sure why/how. [[User:Nealmcb|Nealmcb]] ([[User talk:Nealmcb|talk]]) 18:44, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
:There's a couple of things I did wrong. Fix'd '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 20:40, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

== The "incomplete explanation of the day" doesn't seem to be updated daily... ==

Should this be the case?--[[User:17jiangz1|17jiangz1]] ([[User talk:17jiangz1|talk]]) 08:06, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
:Currently, it's whenever the current one is completed. It used to be per day, but we don't have as many incomplete comics left to cycle through, and the ones that are left, are difficult to fix and don't get frequent changes. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 09:12, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

==What Ifs taken down? ==
Hey man, I saw you took down the 'Short Answer Section', 'Alternate Universe Whatifs' and the 'Growth Rate' page. Is this because of the Creative Commons license, because you maybe don't want whatif-pages on this wiki or is it of something else? I really spent some time working on those two and maybe a genuine reason for taking them down would be appreciated [[User:Nk22|Nk22]] ([[User talk:Nk22|talk]]) 19:55, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
:The what if pages were literally just the contents of the main articles transferred over to here. Those articles are already Randall's answers to questions, well explained in-of themselves. They don't need any further assistance from us, and we're not providing a lot of value by just copying the text of his articles. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 20:02, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
::OK, I see the point you're making. Most of those don't go as deep as some of the comics and are basicly explinations themselves. I might as well just add links to the what-if.xkcd.com website for more info. [[User:Nk22|Nk22]] ([[User talk:Nk22|talk]]) 20:05, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

== You're a hero ==

I don't know how often you're told that. But you're a hero, and you're my hero. Keep doing an amazing job and avoid burn out. I'll be coming back in 2 weeks. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 06:07, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
:Being able to just set up pages and let users fill everything in really helps with the load. Makes it much less work than it may seem. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 11:19, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

== Green Hat ==

If Green Hat's one appearance is not sufficient for his own page, why does [[Brown Hat]] have his own page with only one appearance in [[399: Travelling Salesman Problem]]? --{{User:17jiangz1/signature|12:46, 05 May 2015}}
:I was not a part of making that, and am not a huge fan of the existence of that page because of the precedent set. Weak precedent doesn't really justify making more though, as there are enough one-off characters to easily make the characters navbox very cluttered and unusable while providing little real value to visitors. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 04:22, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

== Unicode Theme ==

I'm sorry, I don't quite understand how unicode wasn't a significant theme in xkcd. It has been mentioned directly and indirectly, from the past into the present. Compared to "no title text", it seemed at least as significant of a category. What kinds of categories are considered significant? (It was significant to me.) {{unsigned|Azule}}
:Hum, looking back, it *is* a central point of all four comics included. Might be more justifiable than the typical marginal category page. Just remember to maintain it. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 21:10, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

==Bot Problems==
Can you see anything at the log files why my BOT can't create/edit a simple page here? Since I still get only "Error code: 0". I maybe have to debug the API itself. Picture upload should be fixed now. Someone did beautify the LATESTCOMIC template my bot didn't expect this and did a save STOP at that point. Let's see if the picture works again tomorrow, but I want to do the entire comic again. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:23, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
:I'll check soon, wee bit busy at the moment '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 01:28, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
::Thanks for help. Picture upload works again since I adopt the beautified LATESTCOMIC page - I need that number to verify a new comic. My bot is doing nothing if that test fails.
::But when I try to create a new page I still get NO information about the error. And I did many investigations so far. It's frustrating... --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:01, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

:::Please delete this:
:::2 June 2015
:::: (diff | hist) . . Nb Test 000001‎; 20:23 . . (+33)‎ . . ‎DgbrtBOT (Talk | contribs)‎ (Created by dgbrtBOT)
:::: (diff | hist) . . Nb 000001: Test 000001‎; 20:23 . . (+288)‎ . . ‎DgbrtBOT (Talk | contribs)‎ (Created by dgbrtBOT)
:::Bullshit... downgrading my BOT API to the former version did solve the problem. The documentation for the current MediaWiki:Bot is WRONG!!! I don't know why I haven't had this idea before.
:::If my bot works again I will update the dgbrtBOT page on that status tomorrow. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:34, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
::::Huh. It might be that we're out of date, and you upgraded to a version incompatible with our mediawiki version. I'm gonna have to get on that eventually. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 20:53, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
:::::I don't think it's your MediaWiki version, my BOT API was just crap. Let's see if it does work again tomorrow. Picture uploads are already done by my bot again - even when people overwrite it. But maybe I've to do some minor fixes tomorrow, let's see. May the SCHWARTZ be with my MOG... --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:12, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
::::::I suspect your newer version wasn't trying to break things, we *are* very out-of-date. The only way to really know is by upgrading the wiki and seeing if it breaks the bot again, I guess. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 22:20, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
:::::::My latest API client was corrupt, not the wiki here itself. Your guess sounds a little bit like the test was done in "2001: A Space Odyssey" on HAL. But since my BOT can't talk like HAL I have to check the log-files afterwards. Today there was only ONE PROBLEM: An user here was faster than my BOT within just 2 minutes - should not happen very often.
:::::::But if this happens again my BOT will get a new enhancement: If my BOT finds a just a few minutes old upload here it will override them all and create all the edits needed here. Nobody can write an explain by that time but my BOT would ensure all the proper changes would be done here. What do you think? --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:16, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
::::::::Sounds good. I could also restrict page creation to certain groups, so that an anonymous user doesn't pull the trigger so fast either. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 21:58, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
:::::::::Let's see first if my BOT works again. But restricting page creation should not affect/effect the creation of TALK pages. Maybe overwrite this posts by my BOT would be the better option. Everything wrong would be cleaned up. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:09, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
The problems are '''solved''' and I'm happy about that. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:40, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
:I noticed. Good stuff. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 21:04, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
::Thanks. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:10, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

==Bad uppercase==
Please delete this: [[:File:Antique_Factory.PNG]]. The correct lowercase picture is done by me. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:10, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
:Done '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 23:47, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

==Please delete==
Please delete this [[:File:1540.jpg]] because it's the wrong name. I did change [[1540: Hemingway]] to the correct file uploaded by my BOT.
For the first time my BOT reverted an existing page because some standards did miss. My BOT was late (13:35 Nk22 vs. 13:48 dgbrtBOT) but my BOT was still acting correct and did all the further actions needed. [[User:Nk22|Nk22]] got a message by me. My BOT acts every 2 minutes so it seems I have to solve a cache problem, maybe at Randall's cloud... --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:03, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
:Dunnered '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 20:00, 20 June 2015 (UTC)
::Thanks. A new upload on the correct image did last more than three hours for me to see. My BOT suffers on the same Cloud Cache problems. I've no idea to solve this damn clod cache. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:54, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

== BOT problems, CLOUD problems ==

My BOT still got the old comic while other people did upload the new one in a corrupt way. So let's define some rules for my BOT to be slightly more violent. For now I'm only checking if also the comic-name redirect exists. But I think that my BOT should test all required updates here, and if something is missing it would do a clean job here. Wrong picture uploads and more will still have to be solved manually. It will only a few minutes and I don't think that it will delete many essential contents, and even if it does it will be available at the history.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:11, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

== RE: Delete Template ==

Really? That's weird, [[Template:Delete]] is showing up blank and redlinked for me. [[User talk:AgentMuffin|~AgentMuffin]]

== Kudos on fighting spam ! ==
I don't know if anyone tells you this.. You do an amazing job to keep all this working smoothly. It was especially evident in your current spam fighting. You were able to undo things even before anyone sees it. Amazing work man ! Keep it up. We are all with you, just holler somewhere on main page if you need help and we'll be there. (Well I haven't opened an account yet but I try to help anonymously...) Kudos again.. I'll buy you a drink if we ever meet and you mention that you are Davidy22 :D [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.216|199.27.130.216]] 10:48, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
:If I was good at this sysadmin thing, there just shouldn't be any spam. Took a whole day to figure out a configuration that keeps it at a manageable level, but stuff is still slipping through the cracks. I'll get to polishing it off in the weekend. Thanks for the support though. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 17:50, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
::I second the anonymous praise here. All of it, both spam and keeping the page up and running. I did not even notice any spam, not before I read your note at the bottom below the ''Should we change the tagline?'' discussion. How does it manifest it self (can you shown an example, or is it not just reverted but completely deleted from the pages?). Great work no matter! --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 22:24, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
:::If you take a look at the deletion log, you'll see [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Special:Log/delete all the garbage] that appeared here in the last few days. There's also some vandalism in [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Miscellaneous&action=history Miscellaneous], and no other community portal, which is suspicious. This just cropped up in the last few days, not sure why spammers decided to target us again. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 23:12, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
::::Did it fall together with the "Should we change the tagline? What do you want the new one to be? Discuss it here!" banner at the top, that links to the site that was spammed? That might make sense? Thanks for answering, now I understand what type of Spam we are being subjected too, and also why I did not see these pages from normal use. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 07:29, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
:::::Yeah, links from the main page probably determine where the spammers are targeting, but I don't know why they decided to start targeting us after all this time leaving us alone. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 07:42, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
:::::: Someone might have linked the misc page from some other site (reddit/tumblr/etc.) after banner was put up and the spammers might have just followed the link when crawling that site. That seems to be logical explanation of why it started just after we put up that banner. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.216|199.27.130.216]] 22:08, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
::::::: Well, i personally think that Davidy is doing a great job with handling this spam situation, and he deserves a lot more credit than what he's getting. So thanks, Davidy, for making sure the site is still functional. P.S. Sorry about the lack of signature. i just joined the channel today and i haven't figured everything out yet. {{unsigned|Flamewolf}}
::::::::If I were doing a good job, there wouldn't be spam to clean up in the first place. I'm trying a bunch of things but the spammers are fairly smart. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 18:27, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
:This thread has gone too deep, I'm coming out to first level. ;-) Alright, you could try couple of things. You first want to know where the spammers are coming from and if you can stop them at source. You might have to add tracking on what previous site is the user coming from. If all spam bots are coming from single source, we could request the source site that links us to modify/hide their links. Second, are the spam accounts posting from different IPs every time ? Otherwise you could place a temporary IP based ban. Third, I'm interested in knowing why the bots are creating accounts while they could edit the pages anonymously. This might tell us about the algorithm they are using. And how are accounts treated differently than anon users ? Do they not get captcha while posting ? In which case, you could enable captacha's for users with accounts as well. EDIT: I'm the same guy as the OP of this thread (IP : 199.27.130.216). [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.153|108.162.245.153]] 11:18, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
:And in case you haven't seen this, take a look at [[https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Combating_spam this mediawiki page]] about spam fighting. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.153|108.162.245.153]] 11:27, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
:Another observation by looking at recent changes / deletion log, half the edits seem to be by bots, while half of them appear as if real people are behind this. There are companies out there that take contracts to and employ people to manually circumvent the spam protection strategies. If this is the case, we need a different strategy. That's why it's so important to know the nature of spammers and what are they using.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.153|108.162.245.153]] 11:48, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
:To be honest, i've had an idea for maybe stopping or slowing this. Maybe we could find a way to trace where all these accounts are coming from and block that place's IP from connecting to the website? --[[User:Flamewolf|Flamewolf]] ([[User talk:Flamewolf|talk]]) 15:26, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
:Alright, so, we're using cloudflare as a CDN and intermediary for traffic for performance reasons, and they obscure IP addresses. There's a fix that we've yet to implement, but something always seems to get in the way in real life. IP banning is a little weak because of this. Users with accounts also get CAPTCHA'd, until they are at least 3 days old and have at least 10 edits. I'm not sure why the spambots make accounts, besides gunking up our database with more garbage. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 09:00, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
:: Hey, good job! Whatever steps you took, seem to be working. Spam is nowhere to be seen. [[http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Special:RecentChanges Recent changes]] are all clean. Well done ! :) [[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.216|199.27.130.216]] 05:38, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
:::The last thing I changed was a permissions thing shutting off talk page creation for new users. Now that's over with, I'm going to have to dive back into that mess of a discussion over the tagline again. Blergh, with finals coming up too. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 05:54, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

== Question about spam ==

If I see spam on a talk page, such as what is present on the current comic's talk page, should I delete it? I don't want to get in trouble for messing with other people's posts. [[User:Mikemk|Mikemk]] ([[User talk:Mikemk|talk]]) 13:31, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
:Spambots aren't people, go nuts. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 18:25, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
::I just spotted this [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1613:_The_Three_Laws_of_Robotics&oldid=112929 spam] where the entire [[1613]] was deleted. I had just added something today, and found it was missing. I have of course corrected it, but could there be more? --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 18:52, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

== Creation of disussion pages for new comics ==

Hi Davidy22. I have recently seen at least two cases where people wish to make a comment on a new comic, but cannot because the page has no been created (and they do not have the right to do so). For instance I even had [[User_talk:Kynde#Please_create_the_discussion_page_for_today.27s_comic.|a message]] from someone who could see I was making changes (I guess). Would it be possible for the BOT to create the discussion page empty like I did here [[Talk:1654: Universal Install Script]], with a not shown reminder about signing comments? That would help some users of explain xkcd who do not wish to make a user account. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 07:45, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
:Yeah, I can leave a message in dgbrt's talk page. I'll push him the changes needed to make it happen as well. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 08:51, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
::Great, it would help some of the early users :-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 22:22, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
:::Hi Davidy22 and hi [[User:Kynde|Kynde]]. Sorry, I'm late. Please check my talk page for further progress.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:46, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
:Hi Davidy does the boot not work at all now? Posted a reply on [[User_talk:Dgbrt#Making_discussion_pages|Dgbrt's talk page]]. [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 17:06, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

== Errors in counting "known appearances" for characters ==

Hi Davidy22. I have seen this error more than once, and today with a comic featuring [[Danish]] it once again became very clear that something was wrong (impossible to spot for Cueball and the other main characters). On her page it says 16 know appearances. But on the page [[:Category:Comics featuring Danish]] it says 18, and even though one of these are the main page (which will change Wednesday when the next comic is released) there is one too few in the count. Maybe it will correct it self later? I think I have seen the same for [[Hair Bun Girl]] but her count is up to date now. But it is typically on the release days that people would pass these pages, so it is a shame if it first works later. Just so you can check it out, and if you know what's going on let me know ;-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 13:08, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
:So, the way the explanation on the main page works, we take the number in [[Template:LATESTCOMIC]] and find the page that is named that number. Every comic in this wiki must have a correspoding page for their number that redirects to the comic explanation to make the forward/backward buttons work and for the main page to automatically point to the latest explanation without need for us to allow bots to modify the main page directly. The entire text of the explanation is included in the main page in this process, including categories. The [[Template:comic discussion|discussion template]] actually has a check for the title of the current page, and it doesn't render if it's the main page. We can do a similar thing to prevent categories from being assimilated into the main page, create a template that inserts the check around the categories and have a bot remove the template when the comic isn't the newest one anymore. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 05:47, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
::That would be great. Guess you have more important things on your mind right now. Such a shame this should happen when this crazy april fool came out. It probably hinders some people in using this page to help explain. Good luck with making it work. I tried to read the post on the community page but did not really understand why it happened. It cannot be related to the Garden comic can it? And it was working fine all weekend. So nothing with April 1st either... [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:14, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
:::The traffic is slugging our servers around and making a bunch of things on the wiki weird. I'm trying to alleviate the symptoms, but stuff like styles not working is the traffic's fault. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 04:46, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
::::So because people come in here due to the Garden comic there is so much run on Explain for a work week that it is still not working? If that is true Randall has done it again with his Nerd sniping! And yes I'm very guilty and would have been smeared all over the side walk by the truck had it been Black Hat rather than Randall who did this to me ;-) [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 15:53, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

== Wiki continuity ==

Hey - I noticed that neither of the two 'crats have been active since mid-late 2015. Have you been in contact with them? People may come and go from a wiki, but it'd be a shame to lose contact with the only folks who have the ability to promote admins. A wiki-reader, ''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 01:32, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
:I do actually keep in touch with [[User:Jeff|Jeff]] still, but Lcarsos is AWOL as far as I know. Jeff and I have server access, and I technically could make myself a beauracrat if I wanted to, I just wanted Jeff to be ok with it first and never asked. Jeff is still alive though, and I can get him to promote an admin if the community ever agrees that a user should be upgraded. I'm looking at kynde in particular, he does a lot here. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 05:47, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
::Hey thanks Davidy. I'm not sure I'm up for the task though. I do actually not know that much about computers or what it means being an admin on such a page here. But I really appreciate the thought and the notice. Funny that Jeff wrote the note of the 100 mil. views only six days after the post from Philosopher. I had not heard about Jeff before, but read about him after that. Oh and also spotted that DGBRt works on the bot making auto discussion pages. Maybe it works here on April 1st (a comic I'm looking much forward to. Where is it. It's noon in Europe I cannot wait any longer ;-)--[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 09:50, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
:::Hi Davidy. As you can obviously see I have been contributing quite a lot to explain xkcd lately. But it is time I took a break as I simply have spend too much time on xkcd... So I will take a break at least for the rest of 2016 from posting here. I hope to return later. Since I plan to stop completely from contributing after this post, I thought I at least would let someone know that it was a choice ;-) Best regards --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:27, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
::::Thanks for all the work you've put in here, have a good holiday and I hope you'll be able to come back some time soon. You do good work here. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 17:21, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
:::::Hi Davidy. Thanks for those words. I will not be back to me normal amount of editing, but I will start to contribute again some times. Just did on the [[2017]] comic. Nice to be back. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:25, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
::::::Oh, good to see you back already. Take your time with it, don't burn yourself out on editing. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 08:06, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

;Complaining about Dbgrt:
:Hi Davidy. I'm a bit tired of what happens lately with no. four top contributor back in the warzone. I would like to write something to you about why I feel I might end up taking another (longer?) break due to this... I hope you still would be sad to see me go, but these last few weeks it has been more with dread than enjoyment I come to these pages to see what has been written about my edits... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:55, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
::By the way just read through [[Talk:1806: Borrow Your Laptop]]. I have said a lot of what I have been thinking there now... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 13:31, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
:::I've had problems with dgbrt and other users before, I'll look into it. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 19:15, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
::::Thanks. It is developing into a heated discussion between mainly Dgbrt and the rest... I'm sure I also sometimes make bad edits, and could cause problems... But at the moment Dgbrt seems to believed I had agreed with him on his other points rather than just the transcript. I tried to write that it was the tone and style that provoked me (and it seems others). And also that he seems to wish different style than the others involved at the moment. He claims there are many who have issues with the current style, but apart from the transcript I have not seen many examples, and none that he links to. Mainly it is to be expected that those who has issues write, and those that have not are much less likely to write that they like something. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:08, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
:::::Hi again. I'm really getting sooo tired of the way Dgbrt writes to my edits (and others). So I have now written an angry reply to him here [[Talk:1805:_Unpublished_Discoveries]], and explained to him that I have also complained to you directly. Because it is just not OK to become personal because I missed a "]" or write as I explain in my comment on that talk page. Hope you will find time to do something about it before he scares other editors than me away! --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 16:06, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
::::::Hope you will soon find time Davidy, because it just gets more and more out of hand between the two of us. I had not been back to edit since the March 11th until today (long time for me when a new comic was up yesterday), because I'm really getting depressed by the way Dgbrt acts. See his comment (and my reply) to my admission that I had talked to you here in the link above. As I said he scrutinizes everything I do and find it lacking. If I think I'm improving something he says I have ruined other peoples work, but he also just undos others work as well... I see that you also undid one of his undoings as your most recent edit here... For the newest comic [[1810]] I really believed I only followed the consensus in the discussion and made some really nice additions, in my opinion of course. I hardly deleted any info, but moved it around. And then almost instantly I [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=User_talk%3AKynde&diff=137247&oldid=136552 get this message]. And again he only looks at the red not at what I have actually written. When deleting a paragraph or moving around everything turns red. This is thus the second time in a row he goes after my edits like this. I have almost not looked at what he have done to my many edits from this weekend, but the one I for other reasons did look at today [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1803:_Location_Reviews&action=history he had undone]. I redid it, but to what purpose...? I'm really sad that it has come to this, and have no proof yet that it is other than Dgbrt that has anything in general against my edits. Though he keeps claiming so. Of course there will be some negative comments, but he writes as if he knows that many other editors dislike what I do. Maybe I should have agreed to be an admin back then... ;-) well probably not when I end up in such a stupid edit war :/ --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 22:14, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

== Current lack of styles etc. ==

You obviously have more access than me, but simply turning on Chrome's Developer Tools shows all ''load.php'' script and style references are returning 404 status, but when you go to those references directly in a new tab they all display "No input file specified.".

And for me, the site doesn't seem to be slow in any way that would suggest lots of load.

[[User:Markhurd|Mark Hurd]] ([[User talk:Markhurd|talk]]) 16:04, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

:A simple search at google gave me this: [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Load.php Manual:Load.php]. So someone with access to the server has to edit the file ".htaccess". If this doesn't help I would need the log-files from the server for further investigations. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 12:47, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
::It was permissions, didn't change htaccess when the problems started. Had a good few red herrings, figured it out eventually. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 19:00, 17 May 2016 (UTC)
:::Looks much better now. Thanks! --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:01, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

== The current incomplete explanation in the spotlight is not incomplete. (Help us fix it!) ==

Every page says "The current incomplete explanation in the spotlight is 1338: Land Mammals. Help us fix it!"

But 1338: Land Mammals doesn't have an incomplete notice, and the list of all complete pages does not list 1338: Land Mammals.

I think someone removed the incomplete status from 1338: Land Mammals but no one picked a new one for the spotlight.

[[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.131|108.162.215.131]] 03:16, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
:Thanks for reminding me, I'll get better about checking on that. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 19:01, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

== Category that should be deleted ==

Hi Davidy22. When [[1724]] came up someone added the [[:Category:Axiom of Choice]]. That took this category up to three. But I believe this may be warranted to keep that category. But I'll leave that to you. You deleted one I made once with three comics [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Category:Ba%27al&action=edit&redlink=1 Category:Ba'al] (see [[1419: On the Phone]]).

But there was another category: [[:Category:Set theory]], which only referred to the two old Axiom of Choice comics and then as an under category had the Axiom of Choice category. So it was redundant. So I have removed any references to this category and moved relevant text to the axiom of choice.

So I will suggest that the set theory category page is deleted as with Ba'al. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:12, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

:Oh, how'd I miss that. Removed both categories, the axiom of choice category was too narrow and too infrequent to merit a category page. Thanks for telling me. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 08:56, 10 September 2016 (UTC)
::I guess it is hard to keep up with all that happens here. I have made several new categories but now try to wait for at least five entries. For instance [[:Category:Google Glass]] and [[:Category:Climate change]] are recent addition, the latter very actual you could say with [[1732]]... And then I also just added [[Blondie]] and [[:Category:News anchor]] as new categories. I rephrased all three axiom of choice comics to refer to each other rather than to the category, so there is no loss of data for deleting both those categories. Let me know if you think I create too narrow categories. But as soon as there are more than five of anything, it become very tedious to refer back to each of them from each comic and a category is much to prefer. And with five already the chance that Randall soon add more comics is realistic. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:20, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

New category to delete. Maybe there should be a category but not with this hopeless name: [[:Category:Comics featuring the floating sphere from the future]] --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 19:18, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
:Done '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 19:48, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
::Great. Now that we know it was only a two comic series I have made a new category for that series: [[:Category:Time traveling Sphere]]. I have also made a chronological list on the [[:Category:Comic series]] of each series to see how special this new series was in it's release schedule. There have been similar series, but never just like this. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 23:49, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
----

== Why do you keep disorganizing my comments? ==
I've run into the instance where I would leave a comment on a page and then get an email later, only to find out it was just you moving my comments around. I know you told me posts like this were supposed to follow a chronological order, but comments don't need to (nor do they have to) follow a chronological order, so why do you keep disorganizing my comments and put them all the way at the bottom of the page (even when they are in chronological order or mine aren't the only comments out of order, yet you move only mine anyways)? --[[User:JayRulesXKCD|JayRulesXKCD]] ([[User talk:JayRulesXKCD|talk]]) 22:45, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
:They do actually go in order. You break chronology when replying to a comment, and you signify that with indentation, but otherwise the custom on wikis is that new comments and comment threads go to the bottom. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 23:04, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
::If they go in chronological order, then why don't others follow that formula? Because on the same thread (and others) I've noticed out-of-order comments. --[[User:JayRulesXKCD|JayRulesXKCD]] ([[User talk:JayRulesXKCD|talk]]) 23:13, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
:::Every top level comment goes in chronological order. The exception is when you're replying to another comment. Everyone else puts new top level comments at the bottom of the talk page. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 05:33, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
::::I was talking about top level comments. --[[User:JayRulesXKCD|JayRulesXKCD]] ([[User talk:JayRulesXKCD|talk]]) 11:10, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
:::::And they should be in time order. Minor mistakes happpen sometimes, but posting straight to the top is just deliberately disregarding the flow of comments. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 18:41, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

== Current incomplete explanation ==

The "current incomplete explanation in the spotlight" has been the same for 5 months now and the last edit was almost a month ago.
May I suggest to either (a) mark the comic as complete and move on or (b) put a different comic in the spotlight and send this one back to the backlog?

Pro (a): All regular visitors who are willing to edit have probably read the notice, visited the explanation multiple times and simply don't have anything more to add at this point and won't be re-reading everything again.

Pro (b): If the comic comes into spotlight again at a later date, people are more likely to click on it because it's different from their last visit and they may actually go through with re-reading everything.

P.S. What's the criteria for completion on a comic like this where you can essentially explore a whole world and write about pretty much anything in it?
--[[User:7he3rain|7he3rain]] ([[User talk:7he3rain|talk]]) 10:50, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
:I don't want to just mark it as complete when I can't say that it is, I'll just change the comic. This kind of stuff does happen with the larger comics though, the pages get really unwieldy and they're older pages that people aren't necessarily interested in. I think there's a fairly good criteria for completion for 1608, set by the very large table, but it's an awful long way off still. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 19:46, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
::Yep mostly my work and I lost interest and time when other big comics came out. I would like to complete it but it is a big task. There are also other reasons given for why it is incomplete. And so it should not be marjed as complete. But yes maybe it should be changed to another comic in the searchlight? Which has already happened. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 19:16, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

== Signature concerns ==
I have tried numerous times, and I don't know if it's because I'm an idiot or not, but I cannot find a way to make a signature for my page. I've tried codes and other things in the 'new signature' bar, but all it does is replace 'JayRulesXKCD' with the code I typed before... What am I doing wrong? --[[User:JayRulesXKCD|JayRulesXKCD]] ([[User talk:JayRulesXKCD|talk]]) 17:34, 9 November 2016 (UTC)
:Signature for your page? You mean a custom signature, right? You want to put <nowiki>{{SUBST:User:JayRulesXKCD/sig}}</nowiki> in the new signature box, then make a page containing the signature. You can view mine for a template. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 20:11, 9 November 2016 (UTC)
:Yes. I meant a custom signature. Thank you. --[[User:JayRulesXKCD|JayRulesXKCD]] ([[User talk:JayRulesXKCD|talk]]) 12:10, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

== Falsehoods ==

>I'm not willing to keep making points that you'll brush off as false and state your own claims as true

It is literally the other way round. It is you who declare that 'signing' is good and I whose examples how it isn't you consistently ignore and vocally state that I have failed to provide. In light of this eerie brand of apparent self-victimization of yours, it doesn't seem to make much sense any longer to point out the nonsense of how you claim to have to 'clean mess' while the 'mess' in question is literally just freedom from screen clutter.

>this talk page is now locked for anonymous users

In a way befitting of an admin who spoke almost exclusively in falsehoods over this whole 'discussion', this is literally false as well. The page is locked to regular users as well. <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki> {{unsigned ip|‎198.41.243.245}}
:The talk page is locked for user accounts under 10 days old and with less than 10 edits in other places. It's the same protection level used for page creation. I used it on the talk page because in addition to yur willful refusal to recognize or follow site rules, there were multiple other anonymous users who were behaving poorly towards other users, for whom banning was also going to prove ineffective because of shifting IP addresses. I'm not going to waste unpaid volunteer time dealng with people who think they're being clever defying formatting rules on internet forums because they think 20 additional charaters of information is discussion crippling clutter. If you're going to waste my time on my talk page as well, I'm going to raise privilege levels here. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 22:36, 10 November 2016 (UTC)
:: >yur willful refusal to recognize
:: Not only did I recognize them, I also explained why you made them, why they damage the community, why you're refusing to admit that they damage the community, how you refuse to acknowledge any of the prior, and how you repeatedly vocally deny that I have explained all of the prior (owing to your discussion style, much of it more than once). Also, stellar job using the word 'other' in two so different contexts: first by implying that I am 'behaving poorly', and second, that no one behaved poorly towards me. To anyone who might read this comment, [[ Talk:1756: I'm With Her |search the page for the word 'civility' for the extent to which I abused other users]]. (Also, if you had a modicum of decency, you would have made a template explaining that owing to the page having been locked, any threads left unfinished do not reflect one of the participant deserting them, but just your interruption. But then, we've already established that it's not the site that you're caring about here.) (Oh, and shave your talkpage, it's fucking disgusting.) <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki> {{unsigned ip|198.41.243.238}}
:::Damage is some kind of hyperbole to use to describe a convention so baked into wiki discussion, there's a rendered shortcut for it baked into the software. Also, you're not the only offender on the talk page, the whole page was locked for anonymous users because you, some of the users you were conversing with, and certain other people throwing slurs at randall and admins were on changing IP addresses, making blocks impossible for behavior that would typically justify temporary blocks. This is a problem with IP users in general, and letting anonymous users comment is a motion of trust that the user won't deliberately ignore written rules while swearing at admins through the protection of being impossible to ban. You are not the only reason the page is locked, though the time I wasted on you certainly contributed to the decision. I've issued an ineffective ban on a commenter on the page already, and the discussion is far off topic in multiple branches of your comment trees and aggressive sporadically throughout. The page is locked so that moderation can actually happen, and because anonymous users haven't shown their best side today. Also, your tendency to assert that statements you disagree with are unequivocally false is very irritating. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 01:36, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
::::Great response Davidy - and very polite compared to what you faced. By the way also interesting to hear what happens behind the curtain for an admin. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:03, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

== Sad comic trivia ==

Hi Davidy.

As you can see I'm back editing. Specifically I have been busy connecting the sad post Trumps election comics and have made the post as a trivia to [[1790: Sad]] - see [[1790#Sad_comics|here]].

I would like to hear your opinion on the placement. I do not think these comics fit into a category as their relation needs to be seen in a broader light that I have tried to shine here. But maybe a separate page could be created, but I really do not know what to call it. Sad comics in general would also cover lots of other comics especially many of the cancer comics. So Sad Comics alone would not do it. Also Trump should not be part of the name, as Randall has as far as I know never mentioned his name in his comics yet? But to me it is crystal clear that the comic is either a direct reaction to the election or to peoples behavior online (or around Randall). Although I'm quite sure he is sad about the way politic is going especially with his concern for global warming.

When I first made the trivia someone deleted it entirely, but it was also just a short sum up of those three other comics [[Blame]], [[Negativity]] and [[1779: 2017|2017]]. Now I have also included he [[I'm With Her]] as it seems to have started the series of sad comics. But I think it is important for the understanding of these comics to have them collected somewhere, and if they are sad, then a comic called [[Sad]] seems to be the right place if no single page would do.

What do you think about this, and about my current trivia on Sad's page?
:--[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:57, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
:Given the absence direct references to Trump in the comic, I would refrain from implicating him until Randall makes it explicitly clear that he's talking about Trump. The portions that talk about other comics' relation to Trump definitely fall outside the scope of the explanation page for 1790 and their removal was probably appropriate. Also, the word sad is a little tenuous of a link to trump and 1761, 1773 and 1779 all seem like similarly loose connections. They all depict feelings that may result from the election, but are not necessarily directly connected or caused by the election and linking them in a category or section for this and not other, older comics showing sadness is going to be difficult to support in the future. Also, constructing links between miscellaneous comics to Trump when none of them directly reference Trump seems like taking a side when we as a wiki should be firmly neutral. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 03:05, 29 January 2017 (UTC)
::Hi Davidy. Thanks for the constructive critique. What about the release days in relation the the election, the electoral college vote, new year (of the year he will be president) and finally the first comic after his first real workday. Personally I'm not in any doubt that his sad comics is a result of the election. Maybe they reflect more on other peoples sadness than Randall's own, but with the [[1732]] comic in mind I'm sure he is not only worried about the wall and Muslims banned from the states, but really really worried about the global warming that Trump will help increase. And he has made a direct comic related to his opinion on Trump in I'm With Her. By placing it in a trivia people can also choose not to read it, and I find that the increase in such sad comics is very relevant. I do not remember any real sad comics the year before his election.--[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 11:31, 29 January 2017 (UTC)
:::PS Just ran through the all comics a year back from I'm with her (or rather Blame) and on from blame. There are four depressing in those last 30 comics Blame included. The only remotely sad or disturbing comic in the 157 a year back from Blame is the global warming comic I just linked above here. And that is not really sad because it is also funny. But the end is scary. Also I checked the 15 pages listed under cancer. I would only say five of those are sad, the other are mainly funny or just something to be thoughtful of. The five sad comics came out over a range of 324 comics [[818]] in November 2010 until [[1141]] November 2012. SO instead of four in just three months it was only five over two years and on a subject he had real cause to be sad, negative or worried about. So I think it is very relevant for explain xkcd to note this increase in sad comics. Of course there could have been other sad comics in between those, but I just don't remember many comics like this. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 11:59, 29 January 2017 (UTC)
::::The difference between the cancer category and these comics that may or may not have something to do with Trump is that there are explicit references to cancer in the comics in the cancer category. It takes some amount of inference to link those four comics to Trump, and they aren't necessarily linked to the election. They may typify things that Randall noticed after the election, but they can be used in vastly different contexts and the correlation does not necessarily indication causation. The only comic among the five in the trivia section that genuinely merits a sizeable amount of of text on trump is [[1756]], because he's actually directly relevant to the comic. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 20:24, 29 January 2017 (UTC)
:::::Hmmm. So would you suggest to remove it completely from the trivia. I could put it on my own page as a theory and link people with interest to it from the comics talk pages. Or would it be enough to remove Trump references and then keep the four sad negative comics as a worth of mentioning due to the fact that they do seem to take a negative view of the world which is not usually Randall's style. I'm of course sad... because I put a lot of work into that section. Just like I just did with the so far empty transcript of [[1461:_Payloads]] (not that much though!). See by the way an interesting [[1461:_Payloads#Trivia|trivia]] I found regarding that comic and the transcript on xkcd for said comic. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 01:03, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
::::::Personal interpretation of a comic or loose perceived links between comics are what the discussion section is for. If users want to discuss speculative links between comics that aren't necessarily mentioned within the comic itself, they should do it in the discussion page and not the comic explanation. I'm usually actually somewhat against trivia because the kind of content that gets inserted in such a section is usually better suited to the discussion page, but it's sometimes appropriate. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 11:48, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
:::::::OK- I have moved it away from Sad which is not about Trump. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 15:51, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

== Oversized texting ==
Hi David, I would like to see your opinion on this topic [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/User_talk:Kynde#Transcript_TLDR.3B]. And then I found this (also done by Kynde): [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=xkcd&diff=134457&oldid=109437]. It really needs a major rework. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 18:37, 17 February 2017 (UTC)
:I'll take a look, swamped right now. Quick skim seems to tell me that kynde is somewhat compromising, though the solution he's chosen seems to be employing slightly needless cruft. I'll comment when I get back to my desk. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 04:34, 18 February 2017 (UTC)
::Hi Dgbrt and Davidy22.
::I have tried to change the latest transcripts according to Zetfr's comments.
::And yes I did realize that my changes to the [[xkcd]] page was way too much on that specific page. And that was also why I removed most of the content to other specialized pages (maybe there is still too much in the [[xkcd#History|xkcd history]]?)
::I did this before I saw the comment Dgbrt made about it to me [[User_talk:Dgbrt#xkcd_page_and_more|on his page]]. That was where I had begun a thread [[User_talk:Dgbrt#Transcript_and_other_features|Transcript and other features]] because I was ''really happy how our transcript discussion went in the end''... I guess we were not on the same page there though :/
::I'm sorry we are taking your precious time with our problems. I just wish to get as much information about correlations between comics etc. on xkcd into this wiki. Maybe it will not always end in the right place?
::For that same reason I did not understand why Dgbrt's new category for comics where Randall has mentioned explain xkcd was not interesting enough (it just needed a better title IMHO), as I also [[User_talk:Dgbrt#Keep_it_compact|just wrote]] to Dgbrt.
::I will not do any further edits regarding the issues mentioned here above though, before hearing from you guys.
::Best regards --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:52, 20 February 20 don't understand a comic17 (UTC)
:::People come here because they don't understand a comic or part of a comic. First up, information that was found in metadata that otherwise has nothing to do with the comic is about as interesting to visitors as the [[773|letter from the president]] on a university website. A similar deal with the transcript, there are details that don't particularly contribute to comprehension of the comic that a blind person probably doesn't need to hear about, although you seem to have resolved your issues there. Explaining concepts used in a comic is useful, though you should try to use the <nowiki>{{w}}</nowiki> template where possible, as wikipedia is going to just be a better format for learning about something, and they'll remain up to date better than we probably can. It also has the side effect of cutting the length of explanations and leaving the extra reading to people who really want it. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 02:59, 24 February 2017 (UTC)
::::I disagree. There are also many people coming here investing many hours to write the big explains. Why just not let them know that Randall recognizes and mention this. The JSON pages a no secret content; but since many people don't know it has to be explained. And, why do not make those editors a little bit proud about their work. I will talk to [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] about a different approach on this issue.
::::Since you have not reacted on all the massive enhancements by Kynde on the [[xkcd]] pages I will also discuss this with himself.
::::I'm hoping you will have a little bit more time in the future on such issue and not just pressing the UNDO button.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 13:47, 24 February 2017 (UTC)
:::::I concur with Dgbrt on the extra details, but maybe less in the main explanation. But trivia or sub pages etc I think it cool for those who use their time on these page. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 18:22, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

== incomplete transcript 933 ==

Hi,
I saw you worked on 933, reverting and re-reverting. Do you think my way of transcript is ok and I can go on this way? Perhaps you can also give me some feedback or references to my approach for the 657 transcript? Anyway, is there a "how to" for transcripts? Thanks & best regards, LaVe--[[User:LaVe|LaVe]] ([[User talk:LaVe|talk]]) 19:37, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
:Oh, your work is fine, I just misclicked on the rollback button. Continue as you were. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 02:59, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

== Sitenotice ==

Could the [[Mediawiki:Sitenotice|sitenotice]] be updated to randomly pull a comic from the [[:Category:Incomplete explanations|incomplete explanations category]]? There's an example of how to do this on {{w|Template:Random page in category|Wikipedia}}. And perhaps it could be set to update after a fixed interval of time - say, a week? It would be easier than updating it manually, and you could avoid situations where the highlighted "incomplete explanation" is no longer incomplete, but remains in the sitenotice.

EDIT: Well, it seems that the second part is not really feasible. However, I still think the first part should be implemented. Instead of linking to a specific comic that could easily go stale, the sitenotice could just say "click here to see an incomplete comic" or something like that. The actual link would take you to a random incomplete comic using the aforementioned method. --[[User:Oneforfortytwo|Oneforfortytwo]] ([[User talk:Oneforfortytwo|talk]]) 05:18, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

User talk:Davidy22

2017-06-01T03:04:13Z

Oneforfortytwo: /* Sitenotice */ new section

851: Na

2017-05-27T06:44:58Z

Oneforfortytwo:

{{comic
| number = 851
| date = January 24, 2011
| title = Na
| image = na.png
| titletext = I hear that there are actual lyrics later on in Land of 1,000 Dances, but other than the occasional 'I said,' I've never listened long enough to hear any of them.
}}

==Explanation==
The repetition of the syllable "na" is often used to sing a tune without using any of the actual words. While this is normally done to practice or demonstrate a tune, repeated "na"s are also a part of some songs' lyrics, as shown in this comic. Following the various paths of the diagram forms the words of several well-known tunes, with each song branching off after the appropriate number of "na"s.

The top entry refers to the song "{{w|Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye}}," originally recorded by {{w|Steam}}. The tune is often sung by the home fans of American sporting events at the end of a victory as a means of taunting the away team.

The left bottom entry refers to the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jgE-lrfZ3k theme song] of the '60s TV show ''{{w|Batman (TV series)|Batman}}''.

The middle bottom entry refers to the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpFFzWPzA2c theme song] of the video game ''{{w|Katamari Damacy}}, '' which was also the cause of the [[161: Accident|Accident]] in comic 161.

The right bottom entry refers to the song "{{w|Land of a Thousand Dances}}," originally recorded by {{w|Chris Kenner}}. The title text jokes that the tune's incessant repetition of "na" has annoyed [[Randall Munroe|Randall]] to the point that he does not have the patience to listen to the whole song.

Not long after this comic was published, the following message was posted by [[Randall Munroe|Randall]] on the comic page:

:I can't ''believe'' I forgot Hey Jude.
:I don't get do-overs, but I couldn't resist making [https://xkcd.com/851_make_it_better/ a fixed version].

The addition to the diagram refers to the song "{{w|Hey Jude}}," originally recorded by {{w|the Beatles}}. The updated comic's URL, "851_make_it_better," is a reference to some of the tune's other lyrics: "Take a sad song / And '''make it better'''."

This is one of many {{w|Flowchart|flowchart}} comics. A full list can be found [[:Category:Flowcharts|here]].

==Transcript==
:[A flowchart.]
:Na → Na → Na → Na → Na → Na → Na → Na (branches to "→ Hey → Hey → Goodbye" and "→ Batman!") → Na → Na (branches to "Katamari Damacy!") → Na (arrow labeled "Land of 1,000 Dances" that loops around to the last "Na" again)

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Flowcharts]]
[[Category:Music]]
[[Category:Video games]]

851: Na

2017-05-27T06:06:31Z

Oneforfortytwo: revamping explanation

{{comic
| number = 851
| date = January 24, 2011
| title = Na
| image = na.png
| titletext = I hear that there are actual lyrics later on in Land of 1,000 Dances, but other than the occasional 'I said,' I've never listened long enough to hear any of them.
}}

==Explanation==
The repetition of the syllable "na" is often used to sing a tune without using any of the actual words. While this is normally done to practice or demonstrate a tune, repeated "na"s are also a part of some songs' lyrics, as shown in this comic. Following the various paths of the diagram forms the words of several well-known tunes, with each song branching off after the appropriate number of "na"s.

The top entry refers to the song "{{w|Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye}}," originally recorded by {{w|Steam}}. The tune is often sung by the home fans of American sporting events at the end of a victory as a means of taunting the away team.

The left bottom entry refers to the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSaDPc1Cs5U theme song] of the '60s TV show ''{{w|Batman (TV series)|Batman}}''.

The middle bottom entry refers to the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpFFzWPzA2c theme song] of the video game ''{{w|Katamari Damacy}}, '' which was also the cause of the [[161: Accident|Accident]] in comic 161.

The right bottom entry refers to the song "{{w|Land of a Thousand Dances}}," originally recorded by {{w|Chris Kenner}}. The title text jokes that the tune's incessant repetition of "na" has annoyed [[Randall Munroe|Randall]] to the point that he does not have the patience to listen to the whole song.

Not long after this comic was published, the following message was posted by [[Randall Munroe|Randall]] on the comic page:

:I can't ''believe'' I forgot Hey Jude.
:I don't get do-overs, but I couldn't resist making [https://xkcd.com/851_make_it_better/ a fixed version].

The addition to the diagram refers to the song "{{w|Hey Jude}}," originally recorded by {{w|the Beatles}}. The updated comic's URL, "851_make_it_better," is a reference to some of the tune's other lyrics: "Take a sad song / And '''make it better'''."

This is one of many {{w|Flowchart|flowchart}} comics. A full list can be found [[:Category:Flowcharts|here]].

==Transcript==
:[A flowchart.]
:Na → Na → Na → Na → Na → Na → Na → Na (branches to "→ Hey → Hey → Goodbye" and "→ Batman!") → Na → Na (branches to "Katamari Damacy!") → Na (arrow labeled "Land of 1,000 Dances" that loops around to the last "Na" again)

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Flowcharts]]
[[Category:Music]]
[[Category:Video games]]

explain xkcd talk:Community portal/Proposals

2017-05-27T01:23:57Z

Oneforfortytwo:

{{archive|{{SUBJECTPAGENAME}}}}

== XKCD Store link ==

I think there should be a link to the XKCD store on the left-hand navigation bar, just under "Main page". We don't want to inadvertently cost Mr Munroe money and force him back to his day job instead of drawing more XKCD :-) --[[User:SurturZ|SurturZ]] ([[User talk:SurturZ|talk]]) 20:23, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
:I don't see a prominent store link on the blog, so I'll wait for Jeff's input before adding that one. If we do add it, should we phrase the link "XKCD store"? --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 20:27, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
::[http://store.xkcd.com] - I'm cool with it, but maybe we put links to both xkcd and the xkcd store on the left, would be weird just to have the store link right? --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 20:01, 3 August 2012 (EDT)
:::Heh, yeah. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 20:12, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

Moved from [[Talk:Main Page]]. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 00:42, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

I added both. I'm not quite sure about their placement, though - having them beneath the "Community portal" makes logical sense but doesn't look that great. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 01:42, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

:I don't think the store link should be that prominently displayed. The sidebar is important real estate, and we should put only the most essential links there. There's no reason we'd need have the XKCD store link readily available on every page. I suggest removing it from there and adding it somewhere on the wiki (we could have a page about it, for example, and place it in the [[:category:meta|meta]] category). --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 12:36, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

:: Good call, Waldir - I agree. Seems a little ostentatious over there. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 12:13, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

:::Ok, I'll remove it then. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 14:12, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

== Centralize discussion? ==

There seem to be three main places for discussion about the wiki, and we need to centralize these so people can all be in sync and prevent having a mess nobody can navigate. I suggesting redirecting this page (talk:Main Page) to the [[Explain XKCD:Community portal|Community portal]], and add a large notice to Jeff's talk page also suggesting using the Community portal instead. Current discussions can be moved there. What do you think? --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 16:07, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

:Seems a good idea to me. --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 17:00, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

::There are some suggestions on how to organize the community portal [[#Separate discussion page(s)|here]] (basically using subpages for different purposes, similar to Wikipedia's various Village pumps). Please comment :) --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 17:04, 3 August 2012 (EDT)
:: I agree - my talk page is probably not the best place for general wiki discussion, this is better, but best to keep everything together! --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 20:10, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

:::I'm importing [[wikipedia:Template:Village pump]] to set something like that up. I'll put a working draft in place, feel free to modify as needed, ofc. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 21:24, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

Moved from [[Talk:Main Page]]. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 00:46, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

== Site logo ==

''Summary of current proposals:''
{| class="wikitable"
|-
| [[File:Wiki.png | 166px | center | middle ]]
| [[File:Wiki high res.png | 166px | center | middle ]]
| [[File:Explain xkcd.png | 166px | center | middle ]]
| [[File:Explain xkcd2.png | 166px | center | middle ]]
|-
| [[File:Wiki2.png | 166px | center | middle ]]
| [[File:Wiki3.png | 166px | center | middle ]]
| [[File:Wiki4.png | 166px | center | middle ]]
| [[File:Explainxkcd-concept.PNG | 166px | center | middle ]]

|}

----
The main image (top left of the wiki) is not the best image ever. You really need to update it.

Maybe:
[[File:Wiki.png]]

Just an idea, because that text looks weird, or at least please add a transparent background instead of white for the logo (and center the text). --[[User:Grep|Grep]] ([[User talk:Grep|talk]]) 21:39, 1 August 2012 (EDT)

: I like it. What does everyone else think? (PS - don't forget to sign your entries on this page!) --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 21:18, 1 August 2012 (EDT)
: I could go with that. Had been kicking around some ideas, and if I had any artistic aptitude, it might have looked very much like that: the black-hat retort; alternately: the lowercase blue '''xkcd''' that RM uses (sans comic figure watermark) with a "Explain" in a hand-written typeface in some other color splashed across the top left part of those letters. And yes, definitely with transparency. Just thoughts... ultimately, whatever the consensus is... [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 01:51, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
:: Something like one of the following?
::[[File:Wiki2.png]][[File:Wiki3.png]][[File:Wiki4.png]]
:: --[[User:Grep|Grep]] ([[User talk:Grep|talk]]) 12:40, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
:I like that first one - [[:File:wiki.png]]. And perhaps use that same text for the [[#Robots.txt|Tagline]]? --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 19:50, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
:Yeah, the first one captures what I was thinking. I thought I'd download it to tweak it a bit, and quickly proved to myself how unartistic I am. I was thinking the xkcd pretty much overwhelming the bottom (touching all three sides) and the explain (first typeface) in tight, maybe at a 5 degree angle over the x and k. Of course envisioning it is one thing, realizing it another (it may be totally unrealistic...) but I toss that out for further consideration. -- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 00:25, 3 August 2012 (EDT)
::Hmmm, rereading Philosopher's comment, I think he and I may have been talking about two different images. Ooops. Anyway, was just chatting with a buddy who is more artistic than I am, and he created this mashup. He suggested: "Establish some vocabulary. First, xkcd needs to be bigger; it defies describing, and refuses to be pidgeon-holed into a box, so the xkcd needs to be so big that it doesn't fit entirely in-frame ... the Explain part has got to be casual, to represent the wiki and informal nature of contributing to it, and you gotta have it in close, because the contributors are going to get as close as they can to the truth. And keep it simple." (I broke with that, and tried to add the black hat; in doing so, I think I trashed transparency, tough) Anybody think that's worth taking a run with it? -- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 01:04, 3 August 2012 (EDT)
[[File:Explainxkcd-concept.PNG]]
<pre>
y
o
u
'
w r
ei e
xkcd
piau
l um
a sb
i e
n
</pre>

Moved from [[User talk:Jeff]]. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 00:37, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

I prefer the first option ([[:file:wiki.png]]). At the size the logo is meant to be, it's perfectly readable; furthermore, it's visually pleasant and it conveys the meaning well. We'll need it to be transparent, and editing the file at the current size produces sub-optimal results. [[User:Grep|Grep]], could you please generate a transparent version of it and reupload it to overwrite the current image? --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 05:14, 4 August 2012 (EDT)
:Slight problem. I don't have the original "it's cause your dumb," I just copied it from explainxkcd.com header, and trying to remove the whitespace myself makes, well, suboptimal results. The font used was Heiti SC/TC, if you or anybody else wants to make it themselves. Also, maybe using #6e7b91 for the XKCD or something... it's the color RM uses on the home page.
:: I have uploaded a high res version of [[:File:Wiki.png]]. Not exactly the same, but similar. I used FreeSans and a xkcd font I found at the xkcd forum. I still have the SVG version.--[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 10:57, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

[[File:Explain xkcd.png | 166px ]] or [[File:Explain xkcd2.png | 166px ]]

I suggest the two above this comment. Both of these are designs be me. The first one has a nice xkcd logo-text that features many of the main characters. I personally think that it looks better aesthetically. The second one is a globe that is kind of a nod to wikipedia. The ballon is there because that seems to be an often reappearing theme in xkcd. Now I really need to make a note of this, but xkcd should be in lower case letters unless it begins a sentence. This error exists almost everywhere on this wiki, but we should try to keep it out of the logo (http://xkcd.com/about/ for proof). Also I think that the logos that just say "explain xkcd" are too simple and kind of borring. The use of both black and blue additionally bothers me. [[User:Alek2407|Alek2407]] ([[User talk:Alek2407|talk]]) 07:37, 5 August 2012 (EDT)

:I agree. I like the first one best, but [[Megan]]'s hair could be tweaked a little because it doesn't look a lot like her right now. Do you think you could do that? --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 08:31, 5 August 2012 (EDT)

:: [[File:Explain xkcd revised.png]] [[User:Alek2407|Alek2407]] ([[User talk:Alek2407|talk]]) 06:56, 6 August 2012 (EDT)

::: That's perfect :D I vote for this one. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 07:12, 6 August 2012 (EDT)
:::: By the way: could you make the background transparent instead of white? --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 07:12, 6 August 2012 (EDT)
::::: {{done}} We have a winner. Alek2407 - I'll leave a message on your contact page, but please email that logo to me with a transparent background. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 15:31, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
::::::Sent. 16:42, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
:::::::I've rescaled the image (poorly) and i have asked Alek for a smaller version. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 03:25, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
::::::::Remember it needs to be transparent as well. Also, I point you again to the suggestions I made [[#Naming conventions|below]] regarding how to properly setup the site logo. Replacing the image server-side is actually [[mw:Manual:FAQ#How do I change the logo?|recommended against by MediaWiki]] documentation. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 10:51, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
::::::::: Thanks Waldir, I'm going to have Alek keep it transparent (MS Paint is all I have and it kills transparency... ugh) and when he gets me the final one, I'll change the field and not just replace the wiki.png directly. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 12:25, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
:::::::::: +1 for MS Paint :) Brings me good memories... --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 18:37, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I've always loved the "It's cause you're dumb" motto of the Explain xkcd blog, which furthermore is (to my knowledge) original to this website, so I strongly recommend a variant of [[:file:wiki.png]] for the logo. "explain xkcd" (and probably "the wiki" as well) should, I believe, be written with the very same typeface and case (ie full lowercase) than in [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wp-content/themes/lightword/images/header-image.png the header image] displayed on top of http://explainxkcd.com. - [[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 12:31, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

I wasn't sure if Alek was going to do this or not, so I made a transparent copy of the logo and resized it to the optimal 135x135 pixels myself. [http://i.imgur.com/FY9Bi.png Here] it is (aaaand, another captcha!). {{User:Omega/sig}} 09:50, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

:Thanks. I uploaded the image as a new version of [[:File:Logo.png]], so when Jeff does the [[#Naming conventions|configuration changes]], the site logo should be automatically updated. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 11:34, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

== Naming conventions ==

Wanted to start a discussion here on naming conventions, and two items come to mind:
# The name of Randall's site: XKCD or xkcd or Xkcd? I noticed that there, it's always written lowercase, when shown in uppercase, it's because it's in a small-caps or all-caps typeface. Should we follow suit?
# What is the name of this site? Explain XKCD, or ... ? Ultimately, I think this is Jeff's call, but I'm guessing the outcome may hinge on how we address the first question.
Should we normalize the references here to some convention, or leave the matter alone? I know that personally, I've always been writing lowercase xkcd, and usually using <nowiki>{{xkcd}}</nowiki> to link to the site (as in {{xkcd}}) to maximize links back to the site. Thotz? == [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 22:08, 5 August 2012 (EDT)

:For 1, I think there is no discussion needed, Randall makes this clear here: [http://xkcd.com/about/ How do I write "xkcd"?]. I already started changing some of the instances of all caps XKCD into lowercase xkcd on the wiki, but there are some places (such as in the logo, in the Explain XKCD namespace name, etc) that will require server access to fix. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 05:16, 6 August 2012 (EDT)
:Regarding 2, I was wondering the same when I started lowercasing xkcd. "Explain XKCD" makes more sense when xkcd is capitalized, but it looks a little weird IMO as "Explain xkcd". Maybe "explainxkcd"? "explain xkcd"? Or just ignore the initial strangeness and stay with "Explain xkcd"? --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 05:16, 6 August 2012 (EDT)
:
::I'm 100% with the lowercase conversion of XKCD everywhere, per Randall's explanation (indicated by [[User:Waldir|Waldir]]). Places where something needs to be done:
::* logo
::* "Explain XKCD" namespace (this could be tricky)
::* site name (the thing that <code><nowiki>{{SITENAME}}</nowiki></code> produces ; appears everywhere, see http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:$wgSitename )
::* and of course, in the content text (see [[Special:WhatLinksHere/XKCD]] for instance)
::[[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 12:19, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

::: Just to give credit where it's due, it was [[User:Alek2407|Alek2407]] who first raised this problem, [[#Site logo|above]] :)
::: That said, for the namespace change it would be trickier for any of the other default namespaces, but the project namespace can be easily configured by setting <code>$wgMetaNamespace = "Explain xkcd";</code> in LocalSettings.php. The sitename can likewise be changed by changing, as you mentioned yourself, <code>$wgSitename</code>. It seems there is a consensus so I'll warn Jeff to take a look at that.
::: The logo definition should be changed from <code>$wgLogo = "$wgStylePath/common/images/wiki.png";</code> to <code>$wgLogo = "$wgUploadPath/c/c9/Logo.png"</code>. I've uploaded the current logo to [[:File:Logo.png]] (note: even though it is saved with a png extension at http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/skins/common/images/wiki.png, it was actually a jpg file!), and protected the image, so afterwards when we decide on a logo (and should we ever need to make adjustments to it), we can simply upload a new version of that file without needing Jeff to change things server-side. I'll also ask Jeff to perform this change. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 15:15, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
:::: This is all phenomenal. I'm down with "explain xkcd". I'll perform the server-side changes tonight. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 15:44, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
::::: Also, looks like you found out my leet jpg -> png converter aka renaming the file extension! --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 15:48, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
:::::: {{=P}} --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 16:57, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

== Spampage Rampage ==
Hail fellow admins, Jeff, distinguished editors all,

We've just been through a second spike of spam, (the first being around the 1110 Click and Drag comic) so as your friendly Angel of Death to such spammery, I'd like to open the floor to discussion on strategies to deal with the issue.

Personally, I don't mind the role of grim reaper for these miscreants, but I'd also prefer that it doesn't grow in magnitude; of late, I find myself almost exclusively dealing with the matter, leaving little enough time to enjoy the site, let alone contributing to it. Anything we can do to keep things under control would be appreciated.

So far, the spam comes in these flavors:
* One-timers. New users that create their own user page, oddly alike (couldn't be a spam-bot, eh?) always linking to "their" website. By far the biggest percentage of time the scythe falls, it falls on these.
** Two-timers. A variant of above, except they create one or two additional pages, typically the user's talk page, or a page same as the username, but not in the user namespace. Here too, quickly dispatched across the Styx.
* IPersonators: IP users that create faux user (and other) pages. Second largest group, though this trend has been growing, especially during this recent onslaught.
** A particularly insidious variant: IPersonators creating or modifying a real users' page. I've been pretty careful, so far, to track down the author, and block ''them'' (as opposed to assuming author = user) but I can see how this flavor of spam risks accidental blocking of legit contributors, which would be doubleplusungood.
* Jibberish vandal: Somebody creating content that isn't spam, but just repeated ''asdf'' or ''ghjkl'' content. Treated as above, though I don't call this spam in the logs. My guess is that this is a spam-bot under development. Fairly infrequent, and addressed using techniques as for above.

There are a few other one-off types, too, which I won't bother elaborating here.

So, the open-ended question stands: What do we do?

# There has been a suggestion to block IP-only contributors (ie must log in) ... perhaps only on an as-needed basis.
# Another thought would be to (by some as-yet unspecified means) prevent the creation, or cause the timely deletion, of user pages by other than said user.)
# Restricting external links (by a similarly as-yet-unspecified means) either to a specified approved white-list, or by a specified set of contributors (must have made more than n edits, for example.)
# Other thoughts? Let the discussion unfold...

No solution is likely to be perfect; this is a matter of raising the bar to where whatever processed meat can crest over it can be most easily managed... all without being so draconian that we compromise the appeal of the site.

All said, I have no problems with the grim reaper enterprise, but would like to spend more time in the [[User:IronyChef/TestKitchen|kitchen]], and less in the [[Special:Log/block|dumpster]].

A little postscript to put the issue into perspective: the ''top four contributors'', (as per Active Users as I write this) are as follows:
* Lcarsos [169 edits in the last 30 days]
* Davidy22 [282 edits in the last 30 days]
* Bpothier [298 edits in the last 30 days]
* IronyChef [433 edits in the last 30 days]
I can tell you that of my four-hundred plus edits, only about a dozen have not been spam related. Lcarsos and Davidy22 are two ace spam-seeking deputies, so a large part of their edits involve tagging pages with the spam template, not (as I'm sure they'd prefer) actually chiming in on matters xkcd. The rest of the field: not even close in terms of edit magnitude. -- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 15:30, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

:I was going to suggest a range block, but the IP addresses com from everywhere. The only pattern I can see is in the 83.<25 range. We could also change the captcha to cut into the bots for a little while. Another suggestion would be to create every explanation page, then mark the unfinished ones with the <nowiki>{{stub}}</nowiki> template, if that exists in this wiki. Then we can block anonymous page creation without having to worry about stopping anonymous users from creating new explanations. We'll have to make a few modifications to the site, to instruct users on how to find pages in need of explanations, but it'll kill all the userpage and self-help spambots. We can figure out how to deal with vandalism later - I would recommend implementing wikipedia's cluebot to automagically roll back page clearing and the like. [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]] ([[User talk:Davidy22|talk]]) 23:16, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

:Also, we can semi-protect important pages like categories and templates. Chances are, anonymous users aren't familiar enough with wikis to be handling those anyways, and wiki veteran anonymous users will probably make an account. [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]] ([[User talk:Davidy22|talk]]) 09:30, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

... ''Madame la Guillotine'' has been busy, dealing with no less than four dozen spammified pages and their attendant contributors in the last hour, to address a third spike in spam. Our hyper-contributing editors have been helping identify these malefactors, so the process has been fairly straight-forward on my part, but it's awfully quiet here....

The top five contributors, as of this writing, are:
* Divad27182 [133 edits in the last 30 days]
* Davidy22 [202 edits in the last 30 days]
* Lcarsos [207 edits in the last 30 days]
* Bpothier [267 edits in the last 30 days]
* IronyChef [537 edits in the last 30 days]

Number six is comes in at less than half of Divad's, and the curve decays precipitiously from there... so this is becoming a call to arms for admins to convene and discuss, ''or'' Jeff to anoint other, more active contributors, admin status.

Thoughts?

-- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 06:02, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

:Would it be possible to volunteer to be another admin to move some of the load off of IronyChef? It feels slightly cruel and unusual for him to be the only active admin, and thus ad-hoc in charge of keeping the engines running. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 06:16, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

::Another admin is definitely needed, given the volume of spam. It'd be nice if we could [[Special:UnusedTemplates|clean]] [[Special:UnusedFiles|out]] the attic too. Shall we hold a vote? [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]][[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>(talk)</tt>]] 06:41, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

::I only have sporadic time to do edits, so I'd likely not be an ideal choice if there can be only 1 more... --[[User:Bpothier|B. P.]] ([[User talk:Bpothier|talk]]) 07:19, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

::: This is yet again great. I'm researching SPAM prevention tools in use on other wikis. Let me know if you have something you think will work. Also, Lcarsos, you are up. Best new admin I can think of. I'm not afraid to add other admins if some (including myself) are less active. Other candidates can be submitted here. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 17:53, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

::::I'm immensely honored that you trust me that much. Thank you, I'll work hard to better the wiki. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 18:00, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

== Tagline ==

I haven't created [[MediaWiki:Tagline]] yet, but we need to think about what to put there. That's the familiar "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." over at Wikipedia - it appears right under the title of each page. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 10:39, 1 August 2012 (EDT)
 Moved from [[Explain XKCD:Community portal]] --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 00:09, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

:I think it's pretty obvious we should keep the "It's cause you're dumb." :) --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 13:20, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

:: Well, since there haven't been any objections, I went ahead and added it: [[Mediawiki:Tagline]]. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 18:46, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

== Separate discussion page(s) ==

I think we should create a separate Discuss the wiki page, so that each discussion can go under its own header. I'd suggest setting up a todo list where people can help out. I'd start with a suggestion:
: We should be using [[mw:Manual:Short URL|cleaner urls]]. Maybe [http://shorturls.redwerks.org/ this tool] can help setting that up. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 05:46, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
:: Whatever we do decide, I've created <nowiki>{{xkcd}}</nowiki> and <nowiki>{{explain}}</nowiki> templates to create links to the xkcd site and other explanations here on this site; that should factor at least those sites (nice central administration) as well as helping us categorize pages that use them. Was thinking of also <nowiki>{{wiki}}</nowiki> for the same benefit, even if there's already a prefix built into mediawiki... the only drawback is the bias toward the en side... [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 10:31, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
:::I'm liking the idea of creating a Discuss the wiki page - I'll start one if someone doesn't/hasn't beat me to it and add it to the sidebar. I'd asked for better URLs at [[User talk:Jeff#Robots.txt]], though I didn't know what they were called. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 17:17, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
::::I also like the idea of the {{tl|xkcd}} tags. On a related note, I've [[Special:Import|imported]] {{tl|tl}}. :-) <s> I also realize we don't have a secure server here, but I'd support the best practice of beginning URLs with protocol-relative links ( // instead of http:// or https:// ) anyway, especially since the xkcd website ''itself'' appears to be https-compatible.</s>Nevermind, it doesn't seem to be. So I guess it doesn't matter. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 22:40, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
::: Maybe we can create a subpage of the community portal for the wiki discussion. What do you think? --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 04:32, 3 August 2012 (EDT)
:::: Also one for editing coordination (see [[User:SurturZ/sandbox]] for instance), another for mediawiki assistance (requests to admins perhaps on the same page, or on a separate one). Any other ideas? --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 04:41, 3 August 2012 (EDT)
Moved from [[Explain XKCD:Community portal]], may need to be broken out into new headers or sub-headers. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 00:12, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

Great job on creating the subpages! I think the subpages can be made more intuitive for newcomers, though. Here are my subbestions:
* merge "/Design" and "/Proposals" into '''"/Discuss the wiki"''' or "/Improve the wiki" or something to that effect.
* rename "/Technical" into '''"/Tecnical assistance"''' so it is clear that it should be used for one-off issues rather than coordination of wiki-wide changes (which should go in the section above)
* merge the "/Administrator's noticeboard" above? That would reinforce that adminship is nothing but a set of technical tools to assist the wiki
* New '''"/Editing coordination"''' subpage for organizing what to do, maintenance, keeping a TODO list for newcomers to tackle, etc -- essentially like WikiProjects work at Wikipedia.
--[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 04:35, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

:As I see this, it would involve mostly just renaming pages. I don't particularly care what the names are, so I won't comment on that.
:*I'd like to keep /Administrator's noticeboard for the time being. The primary advantage of this is that administrators can watchlist this and things which need the tools are less likely to get lost in discussion. It can always be deprecated afterwards if it isn't being used enough.
:*I'd sort of seen /Design as doing what you're proposing for /Editing coordination, though I didn't explain it as well.
:--''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 18:43, 4 August 2012 (EDT)
:: Ok, I get what you mean with the Admin page. I don't think this wiki is going to be that busy to warrant a separate page, though. But for now, let's at least simplify the name? "Admin requests", for instance :)
:: And yeah, Design isn't really a good name for content-related coordination. What I'm suggesting here is to have one page for meta (wiki-related) discussion, and another for content-related discussion. Does that make sense? And what name do you think would be good for the former rather than the current, too generic imo, "Proposals"? --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 19:20, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

:::"Discuss the wiki" sounds good to me, as does "Admin requests." Or whatever, I guess. ;-) I may not be online much for the next few days (or much this evening), so go ahead and change it how you think it should be, I guess. Having stable discussion pages sooner than later would be good. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 01:48, 6 August 2012 (EDT)

:::: Ok I changed the admin page name, and merged "design" and "proposals", but for now I left it named "Proposals". I'm not quite confident about the clarity of "Discuss the wiki"... I'll wait until others comment here. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 14:06, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

::::: I'm not seeing any further discussion and it's been a few days since the move, so I'm clearing the sitenotice. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 02:38, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

== Automatic Import ==

Hi

I created a draft for the comic pages. It's still work in progress, but I'd like to retrieve feedback.

Also, maybe we could autmatically import comics using the JSON data Randall gives us ([http://xkcd.com/614/info.0.json]). This way, we could also include transcripts. --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 15:23, 1 August 2012 (EDT)
: Hm, I should add a link to my draft: [[User:SlashMe/Testpage]] ;-) --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 06:54, 2 August 2012 (EDT)

I updated the page, including links to the next/previous comic similar to [[Template:ComicHeader]]. I used comic 472, because it has a lot of metadata (link, news, HTML title, etc.). --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 07:32, 2 August 2012 (EDT)

Just to remind everyone, I'd be ready to import the comics, but I don't want to until I got more feedback. Please have a look at [[User:SlashMe/Testpage]] and tell me your opinion. --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 06:02, 3 August 2012 (EDT)
: I think your test page looks great. I'm a big fan of it. Any way to fit the text in the text box rather than having it run all the way to the right? --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 18:19, 3 August 2012 (EDT)
:: I just made a change concerning line breaks, at least it works in Firefox and Chrome. Could somebody please test it in different versions of Internet Explorer?
:: If you agree, I would start uploading tomorrow. I'll send you a mail. --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 18:31, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

Moved from [[User talk:Jeff]]. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 00:38, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

The discussion is now at [[Explain XKCD:Community_portal/Design#Header template]]. --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 04:20, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

== Displaying Comics {{done|Closed}}==

For the home page, I think the comic and explanation should be displayed instead of a link to the comic.

For reasons unknown to me, I decided to create [[Template:Comicbox]] and [[Template:Comicbox2]]. Looks nice, as long as you use the correct one for the comic.

Go to [[User:Grep/comicbox]] and [[User:Grep/comicbox2]] for examples. --[[User:Grep|grep]]:[[User_talk:Grep|talk]]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=p&f=ex_grep applaud]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=c&f=ex_grep smite]
:Those're wonderful! And should probably be on the main page. If you wanted, we could probably incorporate them (and maybe a third?) into a single template with a "square/vertical or horizontal" switch. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 21:36, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
::Also, you used "comicbox" for the class. Is that a class that's defined somewhere? (And if so, where?) --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 21:36, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
:::Good point. Removed. And merging them sounds wonderful. --[[User:Grep|grep]]:[[User_talk:Grep|talk]]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=p&f=ex_grep applaud]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=c&f=ex_grep smite]
::::Maybe merging them into [[Template:comicbox]]? --[[User:Grep|grep]]:[[User_talk:Grep|talk]]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=p&f=ex_grep applaud]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=c&f=ex_grep smite]
:::::I think classes are defined at [[MediaWiki:Common.css]], so if you really wanted to define the class.... And [[Template:Comicbox]] would probably be best. Did you want to merge them or should I take a look at it? --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 22:25, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
::::::ParserFunctions and any sort of non-XMLish markup is weird. I would rather you look at it. --[[User:Grep|grep]]:[[User_talk:Grep|talk]]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=p&f=ex_grep applaud]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=c&f=ex_grep smite]
:::::::Okay, I've moved your templates to {{tl|Comicbox square or vertical}} and {{tl|Comicbox horizontal}} so I can work on {{tl|Comicbox}} as the main one. It may take a while - I like to think of myself as a "[[wikipedia:Category:User template coder|master of all known wikimarkup]]," but I don't actually use those skills that often. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 23:08, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
::::::::Thanks. --[[User:Grep|grep]]:[[User_talk:Grep|talk]]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=p&f=ex_grep applaud]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=c&f=ex_grep smite]
:::::::::I've made it at {{tl|Comicbox}}. This actually leaves {{tl|Comicbox square or vertical}} and {{tl|Comicbox horizontal}} unused, though I credited you (and them) in a comment at the top of the template. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 00:21, 3 August 2012 (EDT)
::::::::::I think that the explanation should be on the right because it just looks weird as is... --[[User:Grep|grep]]:[[User_talk:Grep|talk]]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=p&f=ex_grep applaud]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=c&f=ex_grep smite]
{{outdent}} Sure. But right now they both look like they're on the bottom? --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 20:02, 3 August 2012 (EDT)
:{{done|Fixed}} --[[User:Grep|grep]]:[[User_talk:Grep|talk]]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=p&f=ex_grep applaud]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=c&f=ex_grep smite]

===Sans-serif typeface {{done|Closed}}===
::::::::I like these, too, but the roman typeface... how do folks feel about sticking with a sans-serif typeface throughout the site? [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 00:13, 3 August 2012 (EDT)
:::::::::We should be able to change that wiki-wide through [[MediaWiki:Common.css]], I think. Unfortunately, I don't know enough CSS to do it. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 00:23, 3 August 2012 (EDT)
:::::::::: I believe sans serif is already the default wiki-wide. Those specific instances were deliberately coded to use a serif font. It's just a matter of removing <code>font-family: 'Times New Roman';</code> from the template. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 17:01, 3 August 2012 (EDT)
::::::::::: Oh, I'd missed that. I removed it. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 22:14, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

Moved from [[User talk:Jeff]]. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 00:37, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

== 'Explanation' rather than 'Description' ==

Can I suggest we use the heading "Explanation" rather than "Description" on the comic pages, since that fits with the name of the wiki? --[[User:SurturZ|SurturZ]] ([[User talk:SurturZ|talk]]) 09:20, 5 August 2012 (EDT)
:Agreed. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 14:27, 5 August 2012 (EDT)
::Seconded [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 14:04, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

== Randall in Comics ==

In comic 541 (TED Talk), Randall uses a Cueball character to refer to himself. How should this be included in the Wiki? Cited: http://xkcd.com/541/ AWiseGuy (talk) 21:50, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

:I think, since he also seems to appear as himself in [[1057: Klout]] it would be appropriate to create a [[:Category:Comics featuring Randall Munroe]] and parent it to [[:Category:Comics featuring real people]]. I'll let you do that. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 22:51, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

== Add explanations for what-if.xkcd.com ==
A new [http://what-if.xkcd.com sub-site] from Randall calls for new explanations.
This might not need quite as much explaining, but it is worthy of reference anyway.
--[[User:Divad27182|Divad27182]] ([[User talk:Divad27182|talk]]) 16:01, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

:I think Randall actually does quite a good job of explaining everything in what-if. If we had a go at it, it would pretty much just be a page with a link to general and special relativity pages of wikipedia. Other than that, he provides links for almost everything he discusses. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 18:21, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

:But we may want to discuss his topics among ourselves. I am reading the lightning topic today, and wishing I could comment on it or add fragments of my own experience to it.[[User:Noni Mausa|Noni Mausa]] ([[User talk:Noni Mausa|talk]]) 11:32, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
:
::...then you have http://forums.xkcd.com, made exactly for that purpose; in particular: [http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=94449 xkcd • View topic - What-if 0016: Lightning].
::Don't want to seem unfriendly here, I'm not trying to "get you out of here", it's just that if you want to ''discuss his topics'', ''comment on it or add fragments of your own experience to it'', then I believe that would be the best place for you to do so; and where you could find other people to share it, as well.
::[[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 17:38, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
:: Thanks, I will go have a look. I'm somewhat of a newbie, quod erat demonstrandum.[[User:Noni Mausa|Noni Mausa]] ([[User talk:Noni Mausa|talk]]) 02:37, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

== Explain other webcomics too? ==

How about we explain other webcomics too, e.g. Penny Arcade? --[[User:SurturZ|SurturZ]] ([[User talk:SurturZ|talk]]) 02:36, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
:Good god, no. We've barely even finished xkcd. All these explanations pages still need a lick of polish, and there's still heaps of red links in the list of all comics page. Also, the wiki's called explainxkcd. [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]][[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 02:38, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

== Redirect main-page of explainxkcd.com ==

I mentioned this on the old site, but I guess this is a better place. The first page most people will get to is still the main explainxkcd.com page. With no more updates there it looks at first glance like a dead place, and when I out of habit go there, I still get an instinctive feeling that the site is dead because the first place I am send is a dead place. PLEASE redirect the main-page to this wiki, since this is the place that is still alive. [[User:Carewolf|Carewolf]] ([[User talk:Carewolf|talk]]) 14:40, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
: Good idea. Will work on that soon. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 17:49, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

== "Random comic?" ==

Not to clutter the sidebar, but what would you say to adding a "Random comic" right under "Random page", linking to [//dynamic.xkcd.com/random/comic/ //dynamic.xkcd.com/random/comic/] ? --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 01:46, 4 August 2012 (EDT)
:Naw, xkcd already has a random comic. I think we should have a ''random explanation''. ;-) All kidding aside, I was wondering: generating a random member of a category...? Has that improved since the early days when I tried to do something like that. -- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 03:19, 4 August 2012 (EDT)
::Hi. For how to do this, we could install the [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Random_In_Category Random In Category] Mediawiki extension, which would allow us to use <nowiki>[[Special:RandomInCategory/Comics]]</nowiki> to point to any random explanation. {{User:Omega/sig}} 22:42, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
::: Or we could move the comics into a Comic namespace, and use Special:Random/comic (See for instance [[Special:Random/template]]). This doesn't require any server-side changes. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 23:58, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

== Header template ==

Hi, I've created a template called [[Template:ComicHeader]], which might make things easier when creating comic pages (and also provide better consistency between the pages). I've used it on the [[Internal monologue]] page, to display the comic number and the date it was published. The template also adds the page to the [[:Category:Comics|Comics]] category.

You just need to add:
<pre>{{ComicHeader|1089|August 1, 2012}}</pre>
…to the start of the page (replacing the comic number and date).

I'll try to make the template look a bit nicer, but the great thing about templates of course, is that once they're updated, the changes are reflected on all the pages that include that template. --[[User:Yirba|Yirba]] ([[User talk:Yirba|talk]]) 18:46, 1 August 2012 (EDT)

:By the way, I'm thinking of maybe programming something that would allow you to easily import the comic image and alt text from xkcd without having to upload the images manually and the like. You'd just have to host a single PHP file on your server and make a few changes to the MediaWiki configuration. Of course, you'd be able to see source code and everything to make sure I'm not trying to do something fishy. :-P Let me know what you think. :-) --[[User:Yirba|Yirba]] ([[User talk:Yirba|talk]]) 18:54, 1 August 2012 (EDT)
::Yirba - I like the idea. My email is explain@explainxkcd.com - send me what you put together and we can sort it out. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 19:37, 1 August 2012 (EDT)
::Ditto on the Template. Up-vote. Any thought on harvesting the pre-wiki content from ExplainXKCD with some sort of a Python, Perl, or PHP script? (That sounds more like a 'bot than something that would have to be hosted, though.) [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 01:52, 2 August 2012 (EDT)

::: I was thinking of putting it into a infobox, please [[#Idea|see above]]. I also intended to automatically extract data from xkcd, which would lack descriptions, but at least we would have data like title, image and transcripts. Also, there are some other data like links (e.g. 832), news (which are displayed in xkcd's header, e.g. 739) and titles which contain HTML (259 and 472). I also extracted all those data. When we agree on a page layout, I could begin programming a bot. --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 06:54, 2 August 2012 (EDT)

::::Hmmm… an infobox may be a good idea. And a bot that imports data from xkcd might be handy. Anyway, here's something I programmed that would allow for access to the xkcd API from the wiki itself. Essentially, you'd put this xkcdinfo.php ([http://gist.github.com/3239432 source], [http://github.com/downloads/Yirba/yirba.github.com/xkcdinfo.php download]) file somewhere on the server (e.g. at http://www.explainxkcd.com/xkcdinfo.php) and [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Interwiki#Adding_a_new_website_for_interwiki_linking include it in MediaWiki's interwiki table] (ensuring iw_trans == 1):
<pre>INSERT INTO interwiki (iw_prefix, iw_url, iw_local, iw_trans) VALUES ('xkcdinfo', 'http://www.explainxkcd.com/xkcdinfo.php?input=$1', 0, 1);</pre>
::::After [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:$wgEnableScaryTranscluding enabling scary transclusion] in LocalSettings.php, you'd then be able to send queries to the xkcd JSON API via this file. In other words, <code><nowiki>{{xkcdinfo:32-title}}</nowiki></code> would make comic 32's title appear. <code><nowiki>{{xkcdinfo:55-alt}}</nowiki></code> would make comic 55's image text appear. I've also set it so you could enter <code><nowiki>{{xkcdinfo:100-embed}}</nowiki></code>, and it would make the comic 100 image appear on the wiki page. Feel free to use it however you want (if at all), and modify the code should you wish. (Hint: Using the number 0 for the comic number will query the most recent comic, so <code><nowiki>{{xkcdinfo:0-num}}</nowiki></code> will return the current comic number. Also, adding "raw:" before "xkcdinfo:" might be more useful in some instances. E.g.: <code><nowiki>{{raw:xkcdinfo:555-title}}</nowiki></code>)--[[User:Yirba|Yirba]] ([[User talk:Yirba|talk]]) 14:50, 2 August 2012 (EDT)

::::: Nice idea, altough this would mean to load all data from xkcd whenever a page is <del>viewed</del><ins>edited</ins> (I think this is the way MediaWiki caches the data). This is a lot of traffic for little data. I'd say to include the metadata statically, but linking the external image seems a good thing to me. Again, it'd be great if you gave me feedback for [[User:SlashMe/Testpage|my idea]]. --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 15:54, 2 August 2012 (EDT)

::::::Yes, the data would be loaded from xkcd for each edit. You can, however, substitute (subst) the template for data that is unlikely to change. And therefore the data would indeed be stored statically. I like the layout you've come up with. It could perhaps do with a bit of tweaking here and there, but the general idea is good. --[[User:Yirba|Yirba]] ([[User talk:Yirba|talk]]) 17:16, 2 August 2012 (EDT)

::::::: What kind of tweaking do you mean? I know the code is a bit messy, if you have a better idea, please tell me (or do it yourself - hey, it's a wiki!). The CSS should be placed in an external file, but for now, it's ok. --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 17:51, 2 August 2012 (EDT)

Looks like there is another/newer template called [[Template:Comic]] that includes prev/next buttons as well.
You add it with:
<pre>{{comic
| number = 1
| date = September 30, 2005
| title = {{PAGENAME}}
| image = barrel_cropped_(1).jpg
| imagesize =
| alttext = Don't we all.
}}

Moved from [[User talk:Jeff]]. --~~~~
==Description==
xxxxxxxxxxx
</pre>
No need to include the alt text separately, as the template does it for you. It also includes the comic category, but only if the first 4 fields are filled out.
--[[User:Bpothier|B. P.]] ([[User talk:Bpothier|talk]]) 18:47, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

: Yes, but that is not necessarily an advantage. My template only creates the infobox, so you are still able to create an introductory text or other sections, for special comics that need a more detailed description. I can also add categories if needed. --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 19:02, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

::I think it is a major advantage to make the thing easier to use and more consistant site-wide.

::As the creator of the new one, I'm obviously biased, but I created it because I think it's better. Not putting your work down, it was a great piece of code that I put to work in my template. But I think if there's need for pre-text of any kind (not sure there is, as the articles probably should all open with the comic itself as presented on XKCD), a pre-comment can be added into the template, but I'm not sure what that would be. Perhaps there would be a requirement for special circumstances like the comic a few weeks ago where there were a million iterations depending on locality, browser, etc. But that's the rarity. I think the new one simplifies it for users. They need only one template to post the comic, alt text title and nav buttons. What could be easier? [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 19:08, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

::: As the creator of the other one, I'm equally biased. What about a "main template", which then calls one or two other templates (e.g. one for the infobox, another for image and alt text? For most comics, this main template could be used, but if absolutely needed, it would still be possible to use the underlying templates with custom sections/text. --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 19:15, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

::::I just now saw your request for feedback on your new comic page with the sidebar. I honestly am not sure which format is better. I kind of like my format for the fact that it basically presents the comic as it was originally posted, but your infobox does provide some additional stuff like 3D link (not sure what "news" is, of where the "link" comes from but...) Perhaps we could integrate the two. I like that the comic is visble right away on my template, but on your page it's down below the first header. I don't think the comic itself needs an "image" heading. No disrespect, but I think your sidebar, esp. because of the "news" field is a bit chunky - too wide for most of its content.

::::I think we could easily add things like a "3d" link into {{tl|comic}} as part of the next/prev bar where a "3D" field in the template is non-blank. Similarly, original title could read something like (Originally titled: xxxxx) below the primary title in a smaller font. Other than the "link" and "news" fields (which again, I'm not sure what they are), I think that would inclde all the same info as your infobox into my template. Thoughts?

::::As to your other comment about compartmentalizing the template, I have nothing against that, but which parts of the template would you want to be able to use separately (and can you suggest an example where that might be necessary?) Subdividing the template can always be done later if it becomes needed; just trying to get an idea of what you have in mind by compartmentalizing it. Cheers [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 19:43, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

Moved from [[User talk:Jeff]]. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 00:37, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

{{outdent|::::}}

''Suggestion:''

* I will start by uploading all images. This will take some time and has no points to discuss. (If it has, tell me.) At a later point, maybe we could link them directly from xkcd.com.
* For the comic pages: Let's say we'll use {{tl|Comic}}. I'll change the arguments of the template to be more like my {{tl|Infobox comic}}, see [[Template:Infobox comic#Arguments|documentation]]. I'll keep the ''alttext'' argument, but make ''image'' optional (file name should be guessed from the title). Do we really need ''imagesize''?
* {{tl|Comic}} would then call some further templates, passing the appropriate arguments. This way, we are able to use custom sections/text if needed for special comics (like [http://xkcd.com/1037/ Umwelt]) by using these templates instead of the all-in-one {{tl|Comic}}.
* Since we have one template doing all the work, we can easily change the page layout even after the import. (We should only keep track of the pages that don't use {{tl|Comic}}, using a hidden category)
* For consistency, I would move all existing pages out of the way and re-create them. The moved pages could be collected by adding them to a category like [[:Category:legacy pages]], so they should easily be found. Descriptions should be moved to the new pages, afterwards the legacy pages can be deleted.

This way, I can import all comics, but we would still be able to change the layout afterwards. My 2ct concerning page layout:
* <del>'''Use comic titles as page names.'''</del><ins>(See below)</ins> The title should be prominent, the number will be in the infobox.
* I'll remove ''Original title'', ''news'' and ''link'' from the infobox and move them to a section after the description. (For details, see [[Template:Infobox_comic#Documentation|here]])
* suggested layout:
<pre>
=====page title=====
+--------------------+ +---------+
| | | infobox |
| image | | text |
|(no section heading)| | |
| | | |
| | +---------+
+--------------------+
==alt==
text
==description==
text
==transcript==
text
==original title, news and link== (if available)
text
</pre>

Still open for opinions.--[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 04:13, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

:It might make more sense to use the comic number as the page title, and then use [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:$wgAllowDisplayTitle DISPLAYTITLE] to make the comic title appear in place of the number. Just putting that out as another possibility. --[[User:Yirba|Yirba]] ([[User talk:Yirba|talk]]) 09:49, 4 August 2012 (EDT)
::Good point, I agree. --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 09:54, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

If anyone wants to use it, I've written a bot [http://pastebin.com/5F877BHE] that can upload images, create redirect pages, and create comic pages. You can change the format it uses for the comic page if you have some knowledge of python. To use it, look at [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Pywikipediabot/Quick_Start_Guide]. --[[User:Cyanfish|Cyanfish]] ([[User talk:Cyanfish|talk]]) 10:56, 4 August 2012 (EDT)
:Sorry, I was faster. I'm using [http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/mwclient/ mwclient], and I already uploaded all images. I could also create pages and redirects, but I'm waiting until we have a consent. --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 11:02, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

::A few thoughts: if you start uploading images, but don't create the comic pages with them, a user going to create a new comic page isn't going to know whether or not the comic image has already been uploaded. This could be confusing. Hopefully the uploads are going to be named the same as the original images? (when I do upload, I actually just paste the URL in my "browse" box and upload directly from my browsers cache that way so it works out), but I just want to avoid duplicating images on the server as well as wasting time by trying to upload something that's already there.

::As to the page layout, I'm still of the view that the transcript should be in a collapsed frame so that it doesn't take up half the article. I don't honestly think that most people are coming to read the transcript. I could be wrong tho. Open to opinions on that. Otherwise, I do like transcript AFTER The explanation (also, the heading "explanation" vs. "description" as mentioned in another discussion in the portal. [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 14:09, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

:::PS: We definately need imagesize. It defaults to full size, but I think we definately need the optional argument for large comics. Remembering that this is a wiki to explain the comics, there are many large comics that ought to be restricted to a smaller size for the page (they can be clicked to enlarge - the template automatically creates a "click to enlarge" link if imagesize is used). I have generally been using a 375 or 400px size for keeping larger comics managable, but sometimes it's a comic-dependant decision. Also, notwithstanding my comment on another thread, even though I agree that the xkcd commentary is actually "title text", just as a side note, I've just noticed that the transcripts for older comics actually do call it "alt text") [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 15:40, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
:::: As long as no one has any objections, this header looks awesome (with ImageSize as TheHYPO suggested), so feel free to work on the importation functionality. Let me know if you need anything from me in order to import from the Wordpress side of things. If we start talking importation, lets move that conversation under a different header. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 15:56, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

=== Date format ===

I suggest to enter the date as YYYY-MM-DD and using <nowiki>{{#dateformat: {{date}}}</nowiki> in {{tl|comic}}. This way, the date should be displayed using the personal preferences (see [[Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-datetime]]). Does anyone disagree? --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 20:42, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

== comic header ==

Jeff, further to your previous conversation on the comic header, I've significantly rewritten Yirba's template (thanks to Yirba for the hard work. His navigation bar was very useful) and I've created a new template of {{tl|comic}}. An example of the comic in use can be seen at [[T-shirts]]. I started a discussion on the main page discussion board, but I thought if I pointed it out to you and you like it, it can start going in the rotation for new comics.

I actually now see that Grep did a template up with intent (I think) to use for the main page. Had I known that when I started, I would have probably based my template off of his, because it looks nice, but either way, mine is intended for the actual articles. [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 14:46, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

:Again, may I link to <del>[[User talk:Jeff#Automatic Import|my request for feedback]]</del>? --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 15:52, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

The discussion is now at [[Explain XKCD:Community_portal/Design#Header template]]. --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 04:17, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

Moved from [[User talk:Jeff]]. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 00:37, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

== Bylines ==
In the migration from blog to wiki, I noticed a few things:
# Visitors still seem to assume there's a single, ''invisible other'' that provides the explanations; this might be a carryover from the blog days when Jeff was the author of that content, or it may be newcomers not familiar with the license-to-create a wiki offers. You see it in comments that call out corrections, without the corrections actually being made to the explanations. Usually a more savvy editor swings in, makes the fix, and chimes in on the comments.
# There's no visual cue on the page itself to disabuse a novice of that fact. Sure, wikiphiles will check the history; but aside from that the novice has is left in the dark, and certainly isn't led to the conclusion that they, too, can contribute to the explanation.
To that end, I was wondering: why not put a {{tl|byline}} on each explanation, and give credit where credit is due? I know Waldir wanted to "gamify" the wiki a bit. I don't know that I'd go ''that'' far, but putting bylines does kill a few birds by raising awareness of the democratic approach to explanations, and giving kudos to the contributor(s). I've prototyped it (and of course, it's subject to revision) but here's how it would work:
* '''<nowiki>{{byline|you}}</nowiki>''' produces {{byline|you}}
* '''<nowiki>{{byline|you|me}}</nowiki>''' produces {{byline|you|me}}
* '''<nowiki>{{byline|you|me|someone else}}</nowiki>''' produces {{byline|you|me|someone else}}
* More concretely, '''<nowiki>{{byline|Jeff|Waldir|IronyChef|Blaisepascal}}</nowiki>''' produces {{byline|Jeff|Waldir|IronyChef|Blaisepascal}}
(in general, the parameters are the usernames, up to about 5 or six contributors, for now.) Was thinking about having the content be automatically turned into wiki-links, but left that out while we think it over. Thotz? -- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 04:22, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
:: How would we indicate who is in the byline? The person who created the page? The person who edited the most characters? Would it be a combination of all the names? --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 14:32, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
:::I have to say, it sounds contrary to the whole wiki premise. I agree with you that there does seem to be a bit of a learning curve here, but I don't know if "crediting" the explanations is the right solution. How much editing does one have to do to get credit on an article? You might get people who want to edit just to get credits, and credits over time could get relatively lengthy. [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 14:41, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

== Template improvement suggestion ==

Can I suggest that we work on improving {{tl|ComicHeader}} - I wish I had time to do it myself and then edit all the comic pages, but I would suggest the best way might be to start a new template (perhaps design it a bit more like an infobox) and start converting the old pages over to new ones.

The feature I think should be added is that, where the template currently includes teh comic number and date, and creates the nav header, the template really ought to include the image name, and the alt text. In that way, the template can produce the entire part of the article that displays the comic and its alt text (and the alt text, as mentioned, could be more like a caption, instead of just looking like a generic section of the article - it's part of the comic, it shouldn't look like part of the article on this site (no offence, Jeff, but that's one thing I always didn't like about explain XKCD - the image text should be bold or underlined or italics or something to signify that it's part of the comic and not the explanation.

I'll see if I can work on a prototype. [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 12:29, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

:What does everyone thing of this as a better layout? [[Blown Apart]] [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 13:09, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

::May I link to <del>[[User talk:Jeff#Automatic Import|my request for feedback]]</del>? --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 15:52, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

Moved from [[Talk:Main Page]]. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 00:44, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

The discussion is now at [[#Header template]]. --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 04:17, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

== Transcripts ==

Do we need to add a whole section on "Transcript" for each comic? That could get very long for some comics, and basically pushes the explanations down further (which is what people generally come to explainxkcd for). If anything, perhaps the transcripts could be in a minimizable box like some navboxes do on wikipedia? I don't see a majority of users coming to read the transcripts... [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 19:15, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

: What about putting the transcripts at the bottom of the page?
: BTW: If you agree, this discussion should be moved to [[Explain XKCD:Community portal]], as [[User:Waldir|Waldir]] suggested. At least for new discussions. --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 19:19, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

::No problem there. Feel free to move it. [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 19:29, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

:::How about having it be collapsed, with the option to expand it (TOC-like)? -- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 04:25, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Moved from [[Talk:Main Page]]. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 00:47, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

The discussion is now at [[#Header template]]. --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 04:18, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

== Adding a new comic ==

This is the process I use to add a new comic. YMMV... Feel free to update this as/if needed to provide some consistency...--[[User:Bpothier|B. P.]] ([[User talk:Bpothier|talk]]) 19:22, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

I start by uploading the image using the name from [[XKCD]]'s page.

I create the new page using the comic number(not the name), e.g. "http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1"

I (currently) insert using the "Comic" template:
<pre>
{{comic
| number = 1
| date = September 30, 2005
| title = {{PAGENAME}}
| image = barrel_cropped_(1).jpg
| imagesize =
| alttext = Don't we all.
}}
==Transcript==
This is the transcript from xkcd
==Description==
Wow what a cool comic!
</pre>

I "Show preview" to ensure the image shows up and everything looks good.

I "Save page".

I click the "move" link on the down-arrow drop-down menu to the right of "View history" (at top of page).

I rename the page from "1" to the page title from [[XKCD]].

This will automatically create a redirect from "1" to the correct page name without having to do it manually.
--[[User:Bpothier|B. P.]] ([[User talk:Bpothier|talk]]) 19:22, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

:Please, have a break here. When we agree on a page layout, I can do this automatically. I repeat, when we agree on the layout (which should also include the direction of the redirects) --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 19:25, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

Moved from [[Talk:Main Page]]. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 00:47, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

The discussion concerning the layout is at [[Explain XKCD:Community_portal/Design#Header template]]. --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 04:18, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

== styling of xkcd links ==

I added code to the end of [[MediaWiki:Common.css]] to style links to the xkcd website as http://xkcd.com rather than the regular external link format, http://example.com. What do you guys think? --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 05:06, 4 August 2012 (EDT)
:I like it generally. Is there a way to force it to not display on individual pages, though? I don't think we should have it at [[Explain XKCD:Copyrights]], {{tl|XKCD file}}, or {{tl|XKCD file derived}}, as they are more serious. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 16:27, 4 August 2012 (EDT)
::Sure. I've disabled it on those pages, feel free to add more as you see fit. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 17:22, 4 August 2012 (EDT)
:::Thanks! --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 18:34, 4 August 2012 (EDT)
:I like the idea of the graphic, too, but wonder if it could be muted a bit (medium gray vs black) so it recedes a bit into the background; the classic graphic is a very light blue for that reason, too. (Oh, and a minor quibble... overheard: "who is that short, bearded dude?" "Oh! That's megan?") ... I don't know how we could update it, and maybe it'll be less of an issue when muted... Thotz? -- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 14:16, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
::The image can be updated by uploading new versions of [[File:xkcd favicon.png]]. It doesn't need to be the xkcd.com favicon; in fact, it would be good if we could make it even smaller (e.g. just cueball's head, or simply "xkcd" in the typical handwritten font, etc). Making it dimmer also seems like a good idea, btw. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 19:38, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

== Allow external inline images ==

Hi. I'd like to propose that we set [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:$wgAllowExternalImages $wgAllowExternalImages] to true '''or''' add <tt>xkcd.com</tt> and some image hosting sites (such as <tt>imgur.com</tt>) to [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:$wgAllowExternalImagesFrom $wgAllowExternalImagesFrom]. If the former is set to true, external images will be allowed from any host, whereas if the former is kept as false but we add some sites to the latter (obviously adding xkcd's site itself seems to be the logical choice), then only images that are from whitelisted sites can appear as inline images. What this does is it allows external images to be displayed as an actual image, rather than just a link (note that sites not in the whitelist will still appear as just the link). Why? Because there's no way to display images without uploading them. Obviously some editors may wish to use images for non-wiki purposes, such as proposing alternative logos or for their userspace, in which case uploading the images to this site isn't entirely practical. Allowing externally hosted images to be displayed will alleviate that problem.

Yes, there is the risk of... less appropriate images being displayed, however, I consider that being a null argument, as editors could just as easily upload the image here and link it as an internal image. As well, using the whitelist alternative would limit the image to being posted from a trusted site, such as imgur. Finally, if worries about nude photos being posted is really a concern (seriously, what's stopping an editor from just uploading said image here? Nothing.), it's possible to only whitelist sites which don't permit nude images from being hosted on their site (such as <tt>imageshack.us</tt>), although I think that's a bit extreme (especially considering that imgur is hands down the most popular image host these days). {{User:Omega/sig}} 07:52, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

:I really don't see a compelling reason to have this. It's not about improper images or anything. (Note that we already have access to all images in [[commons:|Wikimedia Commons]], by the way, which has a large variety of images and other media, with the added benefit that we're sure they can be reused without licensing concerns). A specific whitelist could be interesting (e.g. we could hotlink the images from xkcd), but having the images here allows us to do neat things like categorizing them by topic, size, etc. Also, images like logo proposals, etc. do benefit from being uploaded here (for historical interest, for a guarantee that they won't be deleted wherever they're hosted, for better control regarding how they're displayed, etc.) --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 19:27, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

== Latest comic handling ==

Currently the latest comic is handled automatically by the {{tl|LATESTCOMIC}} template, which tests the existence of pages like 1092, 1093 (supposed to be redirects to the corresponding comics), to see which is the highest-number existing page, and consider it the latest comic.

That way we can have the latest comic automatically transcluded on the main page.

But we cannot have, with that system, an automatic "Edit" link (to edit the latest comic) on the main page, nor can we have automatically the comments associated with that latest comic. The former was {{diff|5587|changed to a "Go to this comic" link}}, and the latter was {{diff|4940|removed}}. I think both of them are really useful things to have on the main page.

I've been thinking a little bit about this, and in the end I suggest that we handle manually the latest comic :
* There would be a single {{tl|latest comic}} template, which would have to be updated manually to return the full title of the latest comic's page (such as "1092: Michael Phelps").
* Next to the "Latest comic" header, on the front page, would be appended a "[update]" link, to a page explaining that to insert the new latest comic in the wiki: one needs to 1/ create a page titled "<number>: <title>" and 2/ update the {{tl|latest comic}} template with the new title.
* The "Edit this explanation" link could be put back on the main page, using something like <code><nowiki>[{{fullurl:{{latest comic}}|action=edit}} '''Edit this explanation''']</nowiki></code>. And I firmly believe that link is important. ({{diff|5598|*this*}} for instance is exactly what I'm talking about)
* The comments to the latest comic could be appended under the latest comic's transclusion, with something like <code><nowiki>{{ {{TALKPAGENAME: {{latest comic}} }} }}</nowiki></code>. They could be in a collapsible area if they take too much space. Same here than about the edit link, I believe that's really important to impel/motivate readers to leave their comments as well.
* Finally, when only the number is needed (such as in the computation of the number of missing explanations), this could be done via another template (for instance {{tl|latest comic number}}), automatic this time, which would replace the current {{tl|LATESTCOMIC}} by extracting the value out of {{tl|latest comic}} (with something like <code><nowiki>{{#explode:{{latest comic}}|:}}</nowiki></code>).

So, yes there would be a value to update manually, but that's not really much and if it's part of a process I don't think that would be a big drawback, and on the other hand I think it would be less error-prone than an automatic calculation, and allow more useful things. And make less use of redirects as well. Furthermore, the current {{tl|LATESTCOMIC}}, used quite a lot (in the sidebar, so in every page actually), makes heavy use of the <code><nowiki>{{#ifexist:...}}</nowiki></code> parser function, [[mw:Help:Extension:ParserFunctions##ifexist|qualified as "expensive"]], so even though it may not be a big deal it could be a better option to try to avoid that...

What do you think?

[[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 16:53, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
:Quick interjection in the middle of this larger posting, but I've been playing around with a template that should radically simplify the exhaustive and expensive logic used by {{tl|LATESTCOMIC}} by using date math. It's been simmering in my test kitchen, and I'm fairly sure it's robust enough to roll out... just one thing: it would be much more efficient if we had the Variables extension (ie, ADMIN REQUEST) else there would be a lot of duplicate recalculation of the date. Not terrible, but not as good as it could be. See {{tl|LatestComicOnDate}} and the associated talk page for the guts of it. -- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 04:14, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

:A few considerations:
:* We can instead add the edit link directly to the comic page. It could be generated by the {{tl|comic}} template, which already has to be provided with both the number and the title of the comic (in fact those could even be automatically extracted from the page title with some [[mw:Extension:StringFunctions|string parsing functions]] or {{w|Template:Str number/trim|clever}} {{w|Template:Remove first word|templates}}). This should solve the "edit this comic" link issue.
:* Actually, the discussion part was hidden from the main page on purpose (although for a different reason: it was transcluding the main page's own talk page instead). I am not sure it's a good idea to include it in the main page as it could clutter it, but I can understand the point of putting it there. I would suggest perhaps including it directly rather than inside the {{tl|comic discussion}} box, as that would create a box on a box layout that I don't think would look too good. Note that there is no problem with needing the pagename here, since we can transclude a redirect (the same way the actual comic page is transcluded using only the number, which is a redirect).
:* I did see that edit and was thinking that we could probably display a custom info message whenever someone attempts to edit main page, so they'll know they ''can'' edit the actual comic page. I'll add that to my todo list.
:* Mediawiki itself will tell us when a potentially expensive parser function is being used too much, by placing the corresponding page in [[:Category:Pages with too many expensive parser function calls]]. So we don't need to be concerned with {{w|premature optimization}} :)
:--[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 19:16, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

::The edit link can be displayed, specifically on the main page, by the {{tl|comic}} template, that is true; it just seems wrong to me however, it's not his job to do so...
::As for the comments, they cannot be displayed by the template (unless we put them before the explanation), so we still don't have a solution for them; and I still believe they would be very useful on the main page, very appealing for readers to come and comment as well.
::So, problem still not solved I would say... - [[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 16:27, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

::: I don't see the problem with {{tl|comic}} displaying the edit link on the main page, especially since you consider using it to display the discussion as well (which, I agree, unfortunately isn't possible)
::: I added the discussion to the main page. It will depend on a redirect being created for the talk page as well every time a new comic is released, but it doesn't make it any harder. Compare:
:::# Create comic page at <nowiki>[[123: title]]</nowiki>
:::# Update <nowiki>{{latest comic}}</nowiki>
:::# Redirect <nowiki>[[123]] to [[123: title]]</nowiki> (it's necessary to allow people to get to the comic with only the number)
:::with:
:::# Create comic page at <nowiki>[[123: title]]</nowiki>
:::# Redirect <nowiki>[[123]] to [[123: title]]</nowiki>
:::# Redirect <nowiki>[[Talk:123]] to [[Talk:123: title]]</nowiki>
:::Therefore, I don't see a strong case for creating the <nowiki>{{latest comic}}</nowiki> template. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 20:31, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
:::
::::You're right, the two systems are equivalent in use; but then is there a strong case to keep the current one against using the one I suggested?
::::Currently we cannot get an "add a comment" link on the main page, and to put the "edit this explanation" banner below the explanation one has to put it on the comic page (and manually remove it once the comic is not the latest any more). And when there is no comments yet, the main page displays a weird red link (transclusion of the redirect page to a non-existant page) instead of displaying (for instance) a nice "''No comments yet''".
::::True, the {{tl|comic}} template could be used to, specifically on the main page, display something like "view page - edit - add a comment" on top-right, but that doesn't solve all these issues, and then the links wouldn't be at their ideal place. And one could argue that all the features I'm speaking about are not absolutely necessary, but I still think it would be better at least.
::::All in all, I can live with the current system, but I still believe a manually updated <nowiki>{{latest comic}}</nowiki> would allow, without cost, to set a better layout of content, navigation links and edit/comment links.
::::[[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 16:46, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
::::
:::*I am in agreement that the goal should be to have the ability to comment directly onto the main page for the current comic.
::::Can all pages be formatted to look like the main page (ie header with number of comics explained/remaining and the 3 paragraphs at the end describing the site).
::::If this could be done (I don't think it would clutter the site as these take up very little space even on the main page), then could we just redirect the main page to the comic with the highest number? The function of the main page would not change as a new user would still see all information currently available on the main page, but it would have the added benefit of sending visitors to the desired location (the fully functional current comic page).
::::[[User:Shine|Shine]] ([[User talk:Shine|talk]]) 17:23, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

== How to reference strips? ==

I think we need to agree on a citation style for strips in plain prose. I.e. If the [[Black Hat]] article says "Black Hat first appears in ________", how are we filling that blank? In this case, the blank is [[29: Hitler]]. As I understand it, proper style for an "episode" name typically is quotes, so the stip is "Hitler". But there's still various options:

# "[[29: Hitler|Hitler]]" [quotes not linked]
# [[29: Hitler|"Hitler"]] [quotes linked]
# [[29: Hitler|Comic #29]]
# [[29: Hitler|#29]]
# [[29: Hitler]]
# "[[29: Hitler|Hitler]]" (29)
# "[[29: Hitler|Hitler]]" (#29)

etc.

Anyone have any opinions? [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 21:38, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

: Option 5. above seems the simplest, yet readable and informative. At most I'd prepend a # sign, like so: #[[29: Hitler]]. Being a link should be enough to differentiate it from the rest of the text (without needing quote signs). Alternatively, #7 also may be an acceptable option, but we'd need a template to make sure the formatting is maintained in all such references... I don't think it's worth the extra complexity. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 23:54, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
:: Whatever we decide, let's encode it into the <nowiki>{{xkcd}}</nowiki> and/or <nowiki>{{explain}}</nowiki> templates, and just agree to use those templates. That allows central administration of the stylistic issues and gives editors a simple rule to follow. Minor tweaks to either would afford that flexibility. Right now, they generate the links {{xkcd|29}} and {{explain|29}} respectively, though the latter can be {{explain|29: Hitler}} without much fuss. -- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 05:58, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
::: I support modifying the <nowiki>{{explain}}</nowiki> template to be along the lines of proposal number five. {{User:Omega/sig}} 09:20, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
:::: Five. yes. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 18:15, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

== Sidebar icons ==

Hi all. I hope you'll forgive my enthusiasm but I went ahead and implemented an icon theme for the sidebar (as well as more spacing between the links, for extra breathing room). What do you guys think of it? --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 21:45, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
:I like it, but I'm not sure where you added them. Was that on a MediaWiki: page or one of the .css pages? --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 01:39, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
::Both :) [[Mediawiki:Common.css]] --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 09:07, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

== Cueball/Rob ==

I noticed someone edited the character template to add an article for "[[Rob]]". I thought this might have just been a vandal edit, but I googled 'xkcd Rob' and discovered that indeed, a Cueball chracter has been referenced as Rob in several strips. Is there a reason Cueball hasn't been designated officially "Rob" just as [[Megan]] has been designated Megan by being named in a few strips? Do we have reason to believe that other Cueballs are non-Rob characters? PS: this might not be the right place for this discussion, but I'm not sure if anyone is reading article discussion pages at this point yet, and I thought that the name of the primary character might be a notable issue of discussion [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 14:07, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
:: I'm unclear on this as well. Cueball was just a name made up (I think here on this site) for the main character of the comic. Are there separate characters for Cueball and Rob? I'm not sure. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 15:52, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
:::I know that "Cueball" has now been severely grandfathered in, but I think we have to consider moving [[Cueball]] over to [[Rob]] and basically considering the Cueball character to be "Rob", in the same way as Megan, unless it's clear that the character isn't Rob, since Cueball, as noted, is not an official title. I'm somewhat leaning in this direction.

:::I do see some leakage of the term "Cueball" into other sites via a google search including xkcd forums. In the alternatively, I would suggest mentioning in the Cueball article that he has been referred to as "Rod" in some comics, but due to his lack of distinguishing physical traits, it is not always clear if a comic is depicting Rod, or a different character. [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]])
::::I have to agree with this. When I first heard about the page on "Rob", I was a bit skeptical, as I couldn't recall hearing the name before and the page was ridiculous at the time. However, after looking him up to try and verify the page, I found a number of "Cueball" characters that were referred to as "Rob", officially (and even an instance where the transcript referred to the character as "Rob" when the comic didn't mention a name). TL; DR: The character we've all called "Cueball" seems to be more properly known as "Rob". {{User:Omega/sig}} 22:46, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
:::::{{explain|285|Citation needed...}} I, for one, would oppose the migration away from Cueball.
:::::# {{w|xkcd|Wikipedia}} has been silent on the matter, giving no more credibility to the apellation than Cueball.
:::::# Transcripts in xkcd typically (granted, with a few exceptions) refer to the various stick figures as Person 1, etc. Frequently, there are several stick figures, all essentially the same generic stick-figure shape. Rob is a specific proper noun, and it would be silly to suggest that each stick figure is named Rob. Cueball, on the other hand, while filling the role of a proper noun, is still generic enough to suggest the any-man nature of the figures. It is descriptive more than nominative.
:::::# Local color. That's part of what distinguishes this site from others, and part of why I've been coming back. I for one would be sad to see that replaced with MacDonalds-like sameness. I ''might'' reconsider if RM's About page definitively said "his name is Rob"... but only reluctantly.
:::::So -1 on the proposition to migrate away from Cueball. -- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 04:55, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

::::::To respond to your points, #1, Wikipedia is not official or a primary source; it's a community edit encyclopedia like this one. If you'd like me to go over there and reference "Rob", then all of a sudden Wikipedia will say Rob. Wikipedia isn't the source of credibility for xkcd imo. #2 is interesting, and I take it as a fair point (I'm not suggesting that in every case we see a Cueball it is the same character) but my interest here is consistency. Megan appears in many comic strips where she is listed as "person 2" in the transcript, such as [[1084]]. Should she be given a generic name other than where she is named (Cuebelle?) Similarly for #3, Megan is not refernced on the xkcd About page; it's about consistency. I understand color and such, but to an extent, when you take something that's a blog and turn it into a wiki style pseudo-encyclopedia, one of the casualties sometimes is color. It became inappropriate to use phrases like "I think" in explanations just because of the way the articles are perceived. In the same way, consistency is something that I think is important when going to this style format. [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 14:26, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
::::::::::Just want to insert here that I laughed at "Cubelle" above, but though I enjoyed it, I'd have to say the visual similarity to Cueball would likely cause confusion. Props for the suggestion, though.--[[User:DanB|DanB]] ([[User talk:DanB|talk]]) 18:51, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
:::::::* Agreed that Wikipedia is not official or primary, but it is ''de-facto'' (it's likely more linked-to than even xkcd.com is on this site, for some reason.) That standing gives it a level of authority no other site has except the source itself. And agreed, one could very easily go and add Rob, or Cueball, or some other designation to the character(s). But nobody to date has (or, if they have, it may very likely have been reverted, being subject to that evolutionary force Wikipedia in aggregate exerts on subjects there, on needing to be noteworthy.) So while not an absolute authority, it caries a gravitas that other than xkcd itself, no other site really posesses on the matter, and so far, it (the collective body of contributors) has not deemed it important to settle the matter.
:::::::* I'm also not altogether convinced that, in transmogrification from blog to wiki, it necessarily follows that we must become more Wiki''pedia''-like. The medium has afforded a democratization of information here, but not a requirement that information lose its local flavor to become some dessicated academic dissertation. "I think" is, in my opinion, as valid here as it always was, and mediawiki doesn't necessarily impose otherwise.
:::::::* As for consistency, it serves its purpose, but generally I'm not one to be ruled by hobgoblins.
:::::::Anyway, the foregoing being only my opinion, and having express it, I leave it at that. Other minds may differ. -- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 02:30, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
::::::::It seems to me that this discussion has moved away from Cueball/Rob, and perhaps is deserving of it's own section now. When this site was a blog, and not a wiki, there was a clear separation between Jeff's explanations in the main body of the post, and the comments below. For the most part, Jeff wrote in an "editorial voice", and I don't recall a lot of "I think", "In my opinion", etc in the main posting (there was an occasional "I don't get this, can anyone explain it?", but that's clearly different). I know, at least, I've tried to maintain that color here: in the main page, editorial voice; in the discussion section (included at the bottom of every page, usually), personal voice. I think that works well. In my opinion, I think that "I think" and "In my opinion" have no place where it's not clear who the speaker is. The main pages are group edited, and have no identified speaker, so I wouldn't put it there. [[User:Blaisepascal|Blaisepascal]] ([[User talk:Blaisepascal|talk]]) 02:53, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
:::::::::I concur that Wikipedia has ''some'' gravitas over any other site, and there is a reason it has links here (it is easier to link to an existing encyclopedia article on {{w|quantum physics}} than to start from scratch explaining it here. But in the same way that this may soon be a "wikipedia" for all things xkcd, that still doesn't make explainxkcd official. It may be considered a more reliable source of information than some random blogger, but that doesn't make it an official source. Wikipedia, notably, doesn't call Cueball anything. If it called him Cueball, that would be one thing - the name would have pervaded culture outside this website; but Wikipedia takes no position; I don't see how we can take Wikipedia's failure to reference the character at all and use this as a rationale to make any decision on this site one way or another.
:::::::::I will respond to BlaisePascal's editorial voice comment in a new section [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 15:40, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

== Default color? ==

Frankly, I'm not even sure this is an issue on the wiki's end vs. the browser's default, but I've noticed this with other wiki-based software. With the default of Blue links and Purple visited links, I've been noticing a lot lately that the Purple visited links are not really standing out from the otherwise black text. Not sure why this is. Is anyone else noticing this? I'm having a hard time finding wikilinks in text that I've already visited. Perhaps it's just me. [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 14:37, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

: As a color blind user of explainxkcd, I'd like to put in a vote to up the contrast between visited and not links on the wiki. It doesn't need to be much, but more than it is now would be infinitely helpful. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 21:21, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

::Has this gone anywhere? I still find it hard to see the visited links (they now simply look like the rest of the text). And the unvisited links are hard to focus on. I'm not sure I can explain it any better. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 20:25, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

== Comments ==

Please let me know where the comments are for the latest comic. If
I'm not the only one who can't find them, can there be a link next to the comic?

== Editorial Voice ==

:''This section is split off in response to a comment by [[user:Blaisepascal]] in the Cueball/Rob discussion above.
I concur with Blaisepascal on the editorial voice issue. "first person" has no place in a wiki, as there is no single editor to be "I". I have a recollection that when the wiki started, Jeff said something about how in moving to a wiki, he had attempted to edit most of the explanations that has been moved over to remove most of the first-person references, but he invited others to continue this where he missed them. I can't, however, find this reference anywhere anymore. Assuming I am not making this up in my own mind, it's Jeff's site, so I think his style wishes are paramount.

I agree that most of the personal references on explainxkcd are things like "let's see if I get this right" or "Did I miss something?" or general bloggish comments like sorry I'm late to post; but there are other posts such as [http://www.explainxkcd.com/2010/10/18/connected/ this one] in which part of Jeff's post was: "''This is another one of those xkcd's that I classify as "emo". [...] Since there is nothing to explain here, [...] I'll wait for the next comic that makes a joke about Lord of the Rings and wormholes or something''" when moved over here.

The wiki format changes the nature of the explanations. It makes them no longer one person's opinion on the meaning of a comic. It is now a wiki where members of the public will aim to have a complete and accurate explanation built from many editors' thoughts and corrections. I don't think the articles need have encyclopedic definity. I have no issue with phrases like "it appears" or "it may be" where something is ambiguous, but "I think" or "I did a Google search" are not wikipropriate. [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 15:44, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

:For the most part I completely agree. But I think that the explanations should not be boring. Even without personal pronouns, many of them have a congenial tone, not an overbearing one.

:For example, when I brought over [[1030: Keyed]], I took out the personal pronouns, but I left in the comment "Oh Beret Guy, never change." I started coming to the site, in part, because of the tone. I think that that should be preserved despite the inherent non-oneness of the wiki. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 22:08, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

:: But the tone should not reflect individuals' tastes. Let the reader decide. --[[User:Smartin|Smartin]] ([[User talk:Smartin|talk]]) 04:47, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

== Discussion comments link? ==

*Does anyone else think that the {{tl|comic discussion}} template should have an argument added for some way to display a link to the comments section of the original blog posts for older comics? [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 15:48, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
**I'm not sure that it would always be clear what the comments are referring to since the explanation may differ from the original.-[[User:Shine|Shine]] ([[User talk:Shine|talk]]) 21:21, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
***I hear you, and that's a valid point; but it seems a shame to just discard the upwards of a hundred comments that sometimes took place on the old blog. I guess it also matters whether [[User:Jeff]] intends to delete the blog version at some point given the wiki. If it is going to stay up, why not link to the archived comments? The original blog post would be viewable there as well, if there were any differences relevant to those comments. [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 14:03, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
*I would, however, like something to be done about the issue of new users finding the discussion section from the explain wiki main page. A suggestion I saw recently on the old site by rewq^ suggesting changing 'go to this comic' to 'comments' would solve the problem. I think it could also be changed to 'go to comments' - [[User:Shine|Shine]] ([[User talk:Shine|talk]]) 21:21, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

That's an inventive answer to an intesreting question

== LiveJournal content ==

I've noticed that people are putting content from Randall's LiveJournal account into comic articles here, which I think is good. But I'd like to make some style suggestions around that.

Let's look at {{explain|42}}. Now, until someone explicitly pointed it out, I had no idea xkcd started on a LiveJournal account, so comments like "Original quote" or "Original comment" or "Original title" were confusing to me. I had no idea the source of this information. Now that I know better, my suggestions are as follows:

# These shouldn't be listed as "trivia". This is official content. I would suggest perhaps this be included in a "Background" section with any other background info on the comic (e.g. for some recent comics, it might reference Randall's fiancée's health issues for relevant comics).
# This "Background" section contains official content and more official than the "Explanation". The Background section should therefore go first.
# The section should be written in prose, not point form. My sample replacement for the above article would be "this comic was originally posted on Randall's LiveJournal account with the comment "''No laughing, 'less you want some of this too! *hefts golf club menacingly*''". Randall listed his mood at the time as "sick". The comic was actually the Xth comic posted on the LiveJournal account, and was included out-of-order when it was numbered as part of ''xkcd''.
# I think [[LiveJournal]] should have a brief article about the original LJ account.
# I note that on other wiki's including, for example [http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Family_(episode) Memory alpha (example)] and on Wikipedia, they often have boxes showing the 'previous'/'next' things on a list (prev/next songs to hit #1 on different music charts, or prev/next tv episodes produced vs. aired). Should we give thought to creating a short sub-list of the Order comics were actually posted on the Livejournal so you can prev/next through that list?

Thoughts? [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 22:17, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

:I added most of the LJ related "Trivia" just to get it into the wiki. I think expanding it would be nice, but I'm a bit lazy :) I did add a new category for the LJ posts, so they should be easier to find. There are still a few that do not (that I can find) appear in LJ, so I left as "undated" - but added the undated category that someone else had created. I was also considering creating a list ordered by LJ posting order on the LJ category page (to be created) to at least preserve some of the nostalgia. Is there another pre-xkcd site besides LJ that posts might have appeared in? Or are these "undated" posts possibly others that were just lumped into the "early posts" on xkcd? --[[User:Bpothier|B. P.]] ([[User talk:Bpothier|talk]]) 21:05, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

::There are three undated comics that I found (and I noted them on the "big board" of all comics at [[list of all comics]]. If no one disagrees, I will start moving sections when I have time and creating any new sections as "Background" rather than "Trivia" where the sections relate to the history or backstory of the comic itself. [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 16:04, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
:::The three undated comics do not appear on LiveJournal, just on the xkcd.com site. Given that (a) all of the comics on LJ from before 2006-1-1 are dated 2006-1-1 on xkcd, (b) all the ones after are dated with the same dates as on LJ, and (c) the three undated comics appear in the middle of the pre-2006 comics on LJ, I suspect that [[Randall]] posted them to the xkcd site first, and as part of a batch of comics he posted to bootstrap the site. So it's entirely likely that the 2006-1-1 date is accurate. [[User:Blaisepascal|Blaisepascal]] ([[User talk:Blaisepascal|talk]]) 16:18, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

I added, in the "Trivia" section, a "thread" tying all the LJ comics together, in order. In doing so, I also added the half-dozen or so LJ comics not yet added. [[User:Blaisepascal|Blaisepascal]] ([[User talk:Blaisepascal|talk]]) 16:18, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

== Programmatically Accessing Comics ==

I think there should be a way for other websites to view* explanations, (discussions?), etc programmatically.

This could be used for the [http://explainxkcd.com front page], or a website wanting to show an explanation of a comic that is always up-to-date and correct, etc.

<nowiki>*</nowiki> I wrote view, but it could also be edit.

--[[User:Grep|grep]]:[[User_talk:Grep|talk]]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=p&f=ex_grep applaud]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=c&f=ex_grep smite]

:This could be done with json responses to individual pages including the current explanation for that comic. Similar to how the xkcd json api works now. I don't know if that is feasible in php though. I'm currently on a RoR craze though, so maybe there's an easier and less over-engineered solution I don't know about. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 17:18, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
::A cheap way out would be to have PHP page access the SQL DB and yank the necessary text from there. This could be useful for a naitive mobile app. Also, this site needs a mobile version. --[[User:Grep|grep]]:[[User_talk:Grep|talk]]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=p&f=ex_grep applaud]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=c&f=ex_grep smite]

== New Edit Explanation Image/Link (Introduced 9/22/12) ==

Some initial thoughts.
*Will this be a permanent part of each comic? I would not be in favor of each comic in the archives having this disclaimer/large repetitive image as part of the explanation. Instead, can this just be part of the most recent comic?
*The other issue I have is that main page now has one direct link to editing the explanation (the thing least done by users) and none to editing discussion/adding comments (the thing most done by users). I see that the talk page is now displayed on the main page, which I think is a good thing, but I hope that someone can also get the 'add a comment' link on the main page as well.
*In the end I feel there should be links for editing the explanation and adding comments/discussion on the main page and that these links should be proportional in size to their traffic by users (re the link for adding to the discussion should be equal to or larger than the link for the explanation).
--[[User:Shine|Shine]] ([[User talk:Shine|talk]]) 14:26, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

:A few pointers about that:
:* I introduced the "edit explanation" image/link below the explanation I gave for today's comic, mainly because I felt what I had written ''was'' indeed incomplete (I was lacking an explanation for the "[has only one review]" part and for the title text). So in a way that was some sort of calling for help with the explanation. And once done I thought it was a good idea to have a highly visible "edit" link for the latest comic explanation on the main page (''"so that people seeing something they could add would feel invited to do so (wiki style). In my opinion this would be a good way to improve the quality of the user-generated explanations"'', as I said [[Talk:Main Page#Direct link to latest comic|here]]).
:* Later on, I added the "may be incorrect" notion in the banner, because I saw that people having different explanations only mentioned them in the comments, instead of editing my explanation (which after all could be wrong). So I fear there's some sort of "we don't touch what has been done" effect, where the first explanation given will be more likely to stick and not be corrected by readers who are not used to the idea that they can edit it (actually, if someone has a better explanation than the one I put, I'd be happy to see it corrected!).
:* That edit banner should not be a permanent part of each comic. My opinion is that it should stay on the latest comic's page (even when the explanation could be considered complete) until there is a new comic, in order to invite as much people as possible to share their explanation; and it should also, of course, be on the comic pages for which the explanation is considered incomplete, for instance [[51: Malaria|this]] (empty) or [[46: Secrets|that]] (partial only).
:* It would be nice indeed to have also, on the main page, a direct link to add a comment (exactly like the one on [[1098: Star Ratings|the comic page]]), but that is currently not feasible automatically. This is one of the reasons why I suggested an other way to handle the latest comic (see [[#Latest comic handling]] above), which I actually still think would be better, and in particular which would allow to do all that (including the edit banner) nicely automatically from the main page.
:[[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 15:20, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

==Notice templates==
I would like to suggest a template for a notice saying "this page requires copy editing," and one saying "this page may be unclear in its meaning," or something of the sort for each. the comic posted on 8/22/12 could use both of these. (unsigned comment by [[User:Dave|Dave]] 19:11, 23 August 2012‎ )

:I agree. I discussed this matter with [[User:Blaisepascal]] in respect of his template {{tl|Incomplete}} on its talk page. I have updated that template to {{tl|Incomplete/beta1}} and created {{tl|ambox}} as a generic message box ''xkcd''-style where other message templates can be created and color coded like on wikipedia, such as the ones you suggest.

:Unfortunately, because of the image scaling issues, the ambox template displays two broken images at the moment which we agreed shouldn't replace the existing template until the images are unbroken. I'm not sure anyone is working on the image scaling problem, is one of the issues. In any event, I also don't see the point in creating other notice templates until the issue is fixed and we can use the standardized template. I'm really hoping someone is working on the image scaling problem... [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 16:36, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

:: I changed the template to use the {{tl|notice}} template that is already being used in several places. I'll delete {{tl|ambox}} as it's redundant, but the styling of {{tl|notice}} can be changed if such is desired. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 02:40, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

== Denoting comic "series" ==

There are several "series" of comics. Is there a better/prefered way of notating these? Currently I have been creating a "Category:Series Name", e.g. (not all of these exist yet)
* [Category:Comics featuring Barrel Boy](1-5) (Should this be just "Barrel Boy"?)
* [Category:Journal](1-5)
* [Category:The Race](1-5)
* [Category:My Hobby](random)
* [Category:1337](1-5)
* [Category:Choices](1-5)
* [Category:Parody Week](5 in this "series", but others fit the genre)
* [Category:Red Spiders](4 in this "genre", 2 explicitly numbered)
* [Category:Secretary](1-5)
* [Category:Five-Minute Comics](1-3)
* [Category: Guest Week](5 comics, but not exactly a "series").

I usually also create a REDIRECT of "Series Name" to "Category: Series Name"(breaks for "Journal", as it is also a comic title.
Should we have another meta-category for series comics? What about a [Series:Series Name] "category"? or does that break wiki? --[[User:Bpothier|B. P.]] ([[User talk:Bpothier|talk]]) 23:33, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

== Categories for Proposals Page ==

Maybe just simply two categories, resolved and unresolved? --[[User:Grep|grep]]:[[User_talk:Grep|talk]]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=p&f=ex_grep applaud]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=c&f=ex_grep smite]

Or stickers that say Open/Closed. --[[User:Grep|grep]]:[[User_talk:Grep|talk]]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=p&f=ex_grep applaud]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=c&f=ex_grep smite]

== Moving the Wiki {{done|Closed}}==

What if explainxkcd.com/wiki was move to explainxkcd.com and explainxkcd.com would be moved to explainxkcd.com/blog? --[[User:Grep|grep]]:[[User_talk:Grep|talk]]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=p&f=ex_grep applaud]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=c&f=ex_grep smite]

+1 (44)

-1 (0)

: That's my plan long term. That might make a lot of things like shortURL possible. Just have to get some time to get it sorted out. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 19:58, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
<hr />
Sorry if your votes don't appear immediately. I will have them update automatically soon. Hopefully. And if you clicked my signature wanting to +1 this page, sorry for the confusion. DanB and Lcarsos, your +1's have been added to the count. --[[User:Grep|grep]]:[[User_talk:Grep|talk]]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=p&f=ex_grep applaud]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=c&f=ex_grep smite]
:+1 from me. --[[User:DanB|DanB]] ([[User talk:DanB|talk]]) 14:36, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
:+1 as well. I keep hitting the blog when I mean to go to the wiki. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 15:00, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

== Chart type comics ==

Some comics (circuit diagram, US states,eyes sights, among others) are in a characteristic chart format- where it is all based around a chart of some kind or the other. Should we have a separate template for them, for the type of comics?

And somebody should actually create all the pages in the required format without explanations, so that other users can fill on the explanation. I can give explanations, but need somebody to make the pages first

[[User:TheOriginalSoni|TheOriginalSoni]] ([[User talk:TheOriginalSoni|talk]]) 17:05, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

:All the images have been uploaded, and a template exists at [[User:Blaisepascal/newcomictemplate]] that can be copied/pasted into a new comic page that just needs to be filled in. [[User:Lcarsos]] has written a [[User:Lcarsos#Ruby_importer_script|Ruby importer script]] that will create an almost-ready-to-upload page for you. All you need to do is fill in the explanation, proof-read, and add useful Wiki links. You don't need special privileges to create new pages.
:Personally, I find comic pages devoid of explanation counter to the intent of this site, and I try not to create them. If I put up a page, I try to make sure it has an explanation. [[User:Blaisepascal|Blaisepascal]] ([[User talk:Blaisepascal|talk]]) 18:22, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

:I agree with Blaisepascal. If a comic does not have an explanation its page should not exist so that it is easy to tell how much work there is left to be done. If suddenly all the pages are created, but none of them have explanations, a passing user won't know that there is still work to be done, and potentially won't pitch in to help complete the site.
:As far as charts go, be sure to tag them with [[:Category:Charts]] and I like to change the transcript into a wiki table format. Of course, if the page doesn't have a transcript section then be sure you get the transcript from xkcd's json api (There is information about how to work it in [[explain xkcd:Community portal/Coordination#Issue dates]], as well as my [[User:Lcarsos#Ruby Importer scipt|Ruby script]] pulls in the transcript if it exists. You're still on your own to get the explanation from the blog (I'm working on that)).
:[[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 18:57, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

== New Categories ==
(cut from Chart Type Comics section above, as seems new topic) [[User:Blaisepascal|Blaisepascal]] ([[User talk:Blaisepascal|talk]]) 00:14, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Ok. Also, add a new section for proposing templates. We can have a very varied range of templates, like 'Comics with Black Hat', 'Comics with Raptor reference' etc... That will provide a useful ground for comparision of the most common themes [[User:TheOriginalSoni|TheOriginalSoni]] ([[User talk:TheOriginalSoni|talk]]) 16:44, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
:From context, I assume that by "templates", you mean "categories"? [[User:Blaisepascal|Blaisepascal]] ([[User talk:Blaisepascal|talk]]) 18:00, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

:I think you'd benefit from taking a gander at [[:Category:Comics by featured characters]] and [[:Category:Comics by topic]]. I think we're still debating what to do about comics with actual people in them. But that will get you a good start. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 21:55, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

:: I'd be okay with creating a [[:Category:Comics featuring real people]] and including sub-categories for Cory Doctorow, the Firefly cast, RMS, Ron Paul, and other recurring real-life people.
:: But then, my general philosophy is more links, more pages, more explanation the better. One-shot fictional characters (like ponytail-Sarah in [[84: National Language]]) probably don't need their own category/page, though.[[User:Blaisepascal|Blaisepascal]] ([[User talk:Blaisepascal|talk]]) 02:06, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

:::I really like that idea. I too am of the more categories tribe, but I prefer them to be properly nested. I want to try my hand at creating categories let me see if I can do this. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 00:54, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

::::Okay, the beginnings are in place. Though I used [[:Category:Comics featuring real people]] as most comics that reference these people, in fact, feature them. I've also created a [[Playpen balls]] category under [[:Category:Comics by topic]] as it seems to me that it's referenced enough that it's necessary.

::::Question: Should we mirror Featured Characters by also having a page for each character and a Category:Real people, or will the Category pages be good enough?

::::The categories are going to get/are getting crowded with all the categories, is there a better way to represent them rather than a list? I'm thinking something that looks like [[:Template:navbox-characters]] except it needs to maintain the link on highlighted items, and it needs to be capable of multiple highlights. I think it would need sections for Featured Characters, Real people, Series (Barrel boy, Secretary, The Race), and Recurring Topics. What I mean by multiple highlights is, if they exist in that comic, i.e. if a comic features Black Hat, Cueball, Cory Doctorow, and Playpen balls, all of those should be highlighted.

::::[[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 02:37, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

It looks like a good time to resurrect this topic. So, If you are going to categorize pages into a category that doesn't exist yet. MAKE SURE that you create the category page, don't just let it be a red link. That looks so sloppy. While on the subject of sloppy, Alphabetize by type the categories on the comic page. I go: Main characters, minor characters, real people, topics, series.

My personal requirements for making a category:
*For new topics
**For new topics, must be the central topic of ''at least'' two comics, with a few more tangentially related.
**It should be something that someone reads and goes "I wonder if there are more comics about this?" It is not simply creating a tag cloud for a post on a blog. That metaphor is gone. These are categories, like sections in an index to a book, or rather an ''encyclopedia''.
**A perfect example of this is [[User:Bpothier|Bpothier]]'s introduction of [[:Category:Comics with color]]. I've often wanted a list of all xkcds to date that have color on them. You'll know you've hit on something when another editor starts going through the pages and adding them to the new category.
*For new recurring characters
**They must recur. This seems obvious, but Adrian Lamo (for example, {{Wiktionary|AFAIK}}), only appears in [[1337: Part 3]]. This is a useless category if there are no other comics he appears in. It only goes to clutter up other, well populated categories.
*For other new categories
**You better have a damn solid case for why you have added a category that wasn't a sub-category of [[:Category:Comics by topic]] or [[:Category:Comic series]]. ''And if you do'', '''be polite''' and present it on the community portal so that the circling editors don't come in like brain-dead vultures to tear apart and re-parent your new category.

It is brain dead easy to create a page (spam bots do it all the time). It is much more complicated to get a page deleted by an admin once it has been created. You can tag it [[:Category:Pages to delete]], but non-spam pages marked this aren't often cleaned out. What I'm trying to say here is, be judicious in picking the names of pages you want to create. It's a pain to have to move Comics featuring Barrel Boy into a [[Barrel]] category.

Also, categorizing a page as something because of the explanation is not ok. These categories are here to group comics together, not as a general tag cloud for the wiki.

'''TL;DR:''' When creating a new category, create the goddamn category page (red links icky) and have ''at least'' 2 pages in the category. For big changes come here and ask first. [http://dontbeadickday.com/ Wil Wheaton says: "Don't be a dick!"]

Questions, comments, improvements, pies to the face accepted. Being-non-useful/criticism-with-intent-to-destroy is rude.

[[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 21:28, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

:No, Lcarsos, don't hold back; please tell us what you really think! ;-) All kidding aside, these suggestions seem really pretty good. There may be some subjectivity in terms of what constitutes contributing to a tag cloud vs the categorization you mention here. But as you point out, that understanding is likely to evolve: if one creates a category that somebody else runs with it, that's a pretty good indicator. I'm glad this categorization has been going on as it has; were it not for my ''de facto'' role as ''Grim Spammer-Reaper'' I'd be in there helping sort and categorize 'em all, too. So huge thanks! -- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 05:45, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

::Just to clarify, I assume what you mean by "''Alphabetize by type the categories on the comic page. I go: Main characters, minor characters, real people, topics, series.''" is that one should ''group'' categories by type, and then alphabetize within them? If that's the case, I don't see any major issue with that; that said, I tend to add categories by deemed 'importance', i.e. I would add comics featuring Cueball before comics featuring Black Hat or Beret Guy just because Cueball is the central character in the series. Similarly, I would also reorder so that "series" comes before topic, if not before characters as well. The first category a "My Hobby" comic comes into, in my mind, is the "My Hobby" category. Only then is it a comic that happens to feature Cueball, or happens to be on the topic of computers. That's my personal view of it. The only reason I would keep characters first is because it's the most common category type a comic will fall into. [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 14:26, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

== Characters appearing only by name. ==

I've noticed that in several comics, known and named characters appear by name only without any physical appearance. Off the top of my head, I can think of Miss Lenhart (who actually appears twice by name before making her first real appearance: http://xkcd.com/135/ and in http://xkcd.com/416/) and Rob in comic 1102. I think these should be included as appearances, or under some other related but separate category, because they do provide character development. Thoughts on this? [[User:AWiseGuy|AWiseGuy]] ([[User talk:AWiseGuy|talk]]) 19:51, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

:I consider references to be apperances. Anyone interested in reading all comics relating to that character or looking for a specific comic featuring that character might be remmebering one where it was a mention by name, not by apperance, and they should be included in the categories for ease of reference, IMO. [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 20:13, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

There's also Cory Doctorow, and I personally would like to know more about him. I came to explainxkcd to find out who he is, and he's not even mentioned. So he should be added to this list of characters by name.{{unsigned|‎205.189.255.122}}

== Also explain cartoons from the XKCD book? ==

Hi!
As many of you surely know, many comics from the main site were featured in the book xkcd: volume 0. Some of them where altered or had extra explanations. Moreover, there where quite a few riddles and new comics in the book, which should be explained here, too. The forums did a great job on solving the great big riddles which lead to the legendary "official" XKCD-meetup with Randall. --[[Special:Contributions/137.193.213.160|137.193.213.160]] 09:37, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
:Oops, for got to log in, this suggestion came from me: [[User:Gefrierbrand|Gefrierbrand]] ([[User talk:Gefrierbrand|talk]]) 09:48, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

== Just add 'explain' before the 'xkcd.com' ==

You know how you there are services like [http://www.youtuberepeat.com YouTube Repeat] which let you go to the corresponding part of their site by just adding `repeat` before the `.com` of the YouTube video URL?

Likewise, let us just add `explain` before the `xkcd.com` part in any comic URL and let it redirect us to the appropriate wiki post. For example: `explainxkcd.com/1000` would redirect to `http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1000`. I think since the site is based on PHP, it'd be very easy to just send a 301 Redirect header along.

This will be of immense comfort and will probably see me and others using ExplainXKCD.com a lot mre ! Happy reading :)

{{unsigned|YatharthROCK|15:17, 16 September 2012}}

:In a way, that's the plan... per [[#Moving the Wiki ✓ Closed|#Moving the Wiki]] above, the `/wiki` part would disappear, and with shortURL at the same time (mentioned there and at other places as well), the `index.php?title=` would disappear as well. Therefore, explainxkcd.com/1000 would get you the [[1000]] page, which itself redirects to the explanation of the comic ([[1000: 1000 Comics]]). So I guess the only issue is: when will this be done?... - [[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 10:38, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
:: I'd LOVE this working. I've worked on this a bunch and only succeeded in bricking the site. If anyone has any advice, I'd love the help. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 18:04, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

:::I don't think that there is a wiki way to do this, as I've never set up mediawiki before (I should get around to it though). But from 10,000 feet it appears to me that all of the wiki software lives inside a /wiki/ directory on the server, and the blog lives in the root directory. Currently, all of mediawiki's pages are being generated by being passed GET variables, and all of WordPress' pages are being generated by its use of mod_rewrite (why the difference, I don't know. I've never set up mediawiki, and thus never had to try to get mod_rewrite working for it). This is a problem, because any url sent to the server such as explainxkcd.com/1000 is causing the server to look for a directory named 1000, and when it doesn't find it, it invokes mod_rewrite and passes 1000 to the index.php of the root directory as a search term, which activates WordPress which searches for any entries dated in the year 1000 (Wordpress treats the first "directory" as the year), naturally none exist so WordPress generates a 404 error.

:::While the blog exists, I think the only way to do this would be to write a .htaccess that conditionally reroutes directory misses to /wiki/ so something like explainxkcd.com/1000 would be sent to explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1000 but explainxkcd.com/2012/04 would still be sent to WordPress to find entries posted in April 2012.

:::As soon as we can get rid of the blog (which is not yet, because there are a lot of explanations still there that haven't been migrated over) the logic that has to be in the .htaccess becomes much simpler. Anything gets redirected to explainxkcd.com/wiki/. I say anything, and I mean anything because URI requests for anything under explainxkcd.com/wiki/ apache will find the /wiki/ directory and pass everything into there (mod_rewrite or as it currently is) and anything not matchin the /wiki/ directory can be 302'd into /wiki/ for the wiki to find it.

:::I hope that makes sense. If that's too long, let me sum up. '''TL;DR:''' Not very feasible until all explanations in the blog are in the wiki and we can get rid of WordPress.

:::--[[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 18:52, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
::: Yup - I certainly would be using htaccess file and that's the approach that has NOT worked in the past. It is possible it needs some tweaking so that it works for the wiki. I'm not sure. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 19:09, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
:::: What if you had a script to make a redirect file to the wiki with that comic. So it would make a file 1, 2, ..., 473, ..., etc. Each file (eg 1111) would redirect to /wiki/index.php?title=1111. Then when a better solution is invented, a simple regex ([0-9]+\.php or [0-9]+\.html) would remove all the unnecessary files. --[[User:Grep|grep]]:[[User_talk:Grep|talk]] 15:04, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi, joining the conversation: Could we perhaps also ask the original administrator of explainxkcd to redirect the address of his site here? It'll be easier to get here and it might generate more traffic as well. --[[User:Castriff|Jimmy C]] ([[User talk:Castriff|talk]]) 01:48, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

:The person you would want to talk about that is Jeff. The very same Jeff that started, and is bureaucrat of this wiki. So, read the conversation that happened above, and you'll see some of the technical reasons why this hasn't happened yet. And again, I ask that you please comment in chronological order, and that you don't add your comment in a place that it disrupts all of the nested conversation that's already happened. There was an entire comment thread that you put your new comment in the middle of. It was hard to tell if you wanted to reply to this section's OP or anyone else in that thread. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 08:22, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

== News Links ==
Certain pages have custom news links.
Many use the generic news link, which these days refers to what-if.xkcd.com.
Template "comic" should probably explcitly support and display custom news.
(An effort should be made at times to scan for updated news.)
--[[User:Divad27182|Divad27182]] ([[User talk:Divad27182|talk]]) 16:01, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
: And, of course, there should be a category for anything with custom news. --[[User:Divad27182|Divad27182]] ([[User talk:Divad27182|talk]]) 16:05, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

== New List requests ==

List of comics related to cancer -
(Umwelt, 818,828,836,925,931,933)

[Keep on adding new requests below this]
[[User:TheOriginalSoni|TheOriginalSoni]] ([[User talk:TheOriginalSoni|talk]]) 18:24, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
: Good suggestion. One observation... this is essentially a democratic institution, so feel free to put the catagory tags on each of these pages and get those editorial props due to you for recommending the category. I'm guessing <nowiki>[[Category:Cancer]]</nowiki> should be a good start. -- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 23:06, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

== Disambiguation ==

Ok, I think we need to start considering disambiguation pages.

Off the top of my head there's
*[[17: What If]] and [[what if?]]
*[[786: Exoplanets]] and [[1071: Exoplanets]]

If you search "what if" the redirect takes you to the [[17: What If]]. I've added a note to that page that links to [[what if?]].

[[Exoplanets]] (the title redirect) is an informal disambiguation page. But, neither comic links to the other one in case someone clicks links and gets to the wrong page.

In terms of notes on pages that there is a disambiguation page that they might be looking for, I think that the note should be made under the comic template so that people clicking the next/previous links don't have to move their cursor (I find nothing more infuriating than having a next/previous link move around as I'm browsing a website).

Anyone else? Thoughts? [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 15:42, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

== RSS Feed ==

We need a new RSS feed so people using news readers can easily be notified of new comics. {{unsigned|67.186.234.12}}

:First and foremost, a disambiguation: '''We are not xkcd'''. We are a group of people who love xkcd and sometimes a joke goes over our head, and we'd go into fits of OCD rage if we don't understand every joke in xkcd.

:If you want to read xkcd, subscribe to the RSS feed that [[Randall]] provides. [http://xkcd.com/rss.xml here's a link] A new xkcd is posted at midnight eastern (US East coast) of every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

:We are just here for the explanation, which is community based. It takes quite a few edits from many people before an explanation is really explained-to-death and every joke found and beaten with a club to extract maximum joke-explanation value. But there's usually a fairly substantial effort at an explanation by noon eastern. That's about the best we can offer you.

:--[[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 06:19, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

== Comic Difficulty score ==

We should add a difficulty score to each page. Each XKCD comic could be awarded a score based on the number of people that have to visit explainxkcd.com on the day a comic is posted and a couple days after. Inspired by comic: http://www.xkcd.com/1137/

Jim

:That is a cool idea! --[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 22:06, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

== Contributions and revert buttons ==

The main vandalism comes from IP adresses, and one IP may attack more than one page when it logs on. So its best to have a contributions link show up beside user page and talk page for every page history and signature; and wherever else it is used that way.

Also a quick way to deal with vandalism is to have two buttons on the show history page-
1. Revert this edit [undo] (for all, including IP users, not just normal users)
2. Revert to this edit (Just beside every edit on the edit history)

These two buttons (links, whatever u call them) will make it much more efficient for vandal-reverters to tackle them down.

[[User:TheOriginalSoni|TheOriginalSoni]] ([[User talk:TheOriginalSoni|talk]]) 20:08, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Oh and an easy template to keep tagging vandals, and vandalism affected articles, as well as a quick way to say that whatever we are doing is editing vandalism. I truly would not want to press any more than 4 buttons/clicks ideally on one page when I am trying to revert edits.

The tagging vandals and vandalism affected pages will help admins keep fast track of whos the worst vandal and block that range of IPs from editing (except to submit edit request to admins) and which are worst affected pages (to protect them) [[User:TheOriginalSoni|TheOriginalSoni]] ([[User talk:TheOriginalSoni|talk]]) 20:15, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

== Subsection for title text explanation ==

Hey! On trial I created subsections for some longer explanations of the title text on some pages, like this: [[804: Pumpkin Carving#Explanation]]. Do you think that is helpful? – [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 22:22, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
:Good idea. In some cases it might be the best choice. I just did that on [[1074: Moon Landing]] too :) --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 19:01, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

:Making a special sub-section for the title text only makes sense for large explanations. Explanations that are maybe only 2-3 scrappy paragraphs, and then an explanation of the title text, is not so dense that it is hard to find it. I like this as an idea, but I think that only the really large explanations should have the subsection. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 16:34, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

== Whatever Happened to the Template? & Transcript Redirect ==

I've been using the template whenever I make a new page for an explanation, but I think it's been gone for a couple of weeks now. Does anyone think they could possibly resurrect it? I'm just here to explain, I'm really not a pro with the technical details, so please bear with me.

Also, I got to thinking: In the List of All Comics, there are redirects for the Number, the Title, and the Talk pages, but has anyone thought about making a redirect for the transcript? I'm pushing for transcript help in a bunch of different areas mostly because I think people have been filling it in themselves without going to the site.
--[[User:Castriff|Jimmy C]] ([[User talk:Castriff|talk]]) 02:07, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

User:SurturZ

2017-05-27T01:23:00Z

Oneforfortytwo:

[[File:standards.png|Fortunately, the charging one has been solved now that we've all standardized on mini-USB. Or is it micro-USB? Shit.]]

1089: Internal Monologue

2017-05-27T01:18:21Z

Oneforfortytwo:

{{comic
| number = 1089
| date = August 1, 2012
| title = Internal Monologue
| image = internal monologue.png
| titletext = Oh right, eye contact. Ok, good, holding the eye contact... holding... still holding... ok, too long! Getting weird! Quick, look thoughtfully into space and nod. Oh, dammit, said 'yeah' again!
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] attempts social interaction at what looks like a party owing to the fact that several people have drinks in their hands. His internal monologue is just Cueball trying to make sure he is doing the right things in the conversation, reacting appropriately, and not saying "yeah" too much.

The image text is a continuation of the internal monologue.

This is common case of anxiety for people who are usually not very skilled in navigating social situations like parties. It can become a vicious cycle in which the fear of handling the encounter badly makes one even more uncomfortable, which in turn results in behaviour as awkward as first feared. Also, for some people it's common to want to map out a pre-planned course of action that should produce desired results, a strategy that is usually doomed to failure when dealing with sufficiently complex and unpredictable scenarios like conversations with other people. This painful, and all too common, situation has been mined for comedic effect since the beginning of human civilization.

==Transcript==
:[The scene is a party. Two characters are talking - the entirety of the text is a thought bubble of one of the two.]
:Cueball: Am I smiling enough? Should I be leaning on something? Where should my hands go? I hope he doesn't ask me what his name is. I've said "yeah" too much; what are some other agreeing words? Oh crap, his story just got sad ''stop smiling stop smiling''

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

722: Computer Problems

2017-05-27T01:18:18Z

Oneforfortytwo:

{{comic
| number = 722
| date = April 2, 2010
| title = Computer Problems
| image = computer_problems.png
| titletext = This is how I explain computer problems to my cat. My cat usually seems happier than me.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] explains to [[Megan]] that he is having computer problems. Normally, he is able to manipulate a "pattern" on his "metal rectangle full of little lights" (a reasonable, if oversimplified description of generated images displayed on a monitor). Today, however, the "pattern" is "all wrong". Megan suggests that he might be able to fix it by pressing more buttons, but following her advice doesn't seem to have the desired effect.

According to the title text, [[Randall]] uses a similar technique to explain his computer problems to his cat. Cats have the habit to walk over or lay on keyboards so they press a lot of buttons. This is however not to fix the "pattern" which they usually don't care about but rather to get the same attention the keyboard receives from the cat's owner. Often cats prefer to lay on a warm place — and a keyboard belonging to a notebook is designed to dispense some heat.

As evidenced by both past and future comics, Randall likes to [[1133: Up Goer Five|make an effort]] to explain things for simple minds.

Speculatively, Randall may be commenting on the abstract nature of events that effect Cueball's happiness or well being. While the work Cueball does on the computer seems very important to him, the deconstructed version as discussed by Megan and Cueball make his resulting distress seem out of proportion. This interpretation is further supported by the title text in which Randall's cat, unaware of more abstract representations of activity on the computer, enjoys greater happiness overall.

The concept of using simple English to explain complicated problems was first used in [[547: Simple]] and has been revisited in [[1133: Up Goer Five]] and [[1436: Orb Hammer]].

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Megan are looking at his computer, on the desk.]
:Cueball: You know this metal rectangle full of little lights?
:Megan: Yeah.

:Cueball: I spend most of my life pressing buttons to make the pattern of lights change however I want.
:Megan: Sounds good.

:Cueball: But today, the pattern of lights is ''all wrong''!
:Megan: Oh god! Try pressing more buttons!
:Cueball: ''IT'S NOT HELPING!''

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Simplified language]]

552: Correlation

2017-05-27T01:11:05Z

Oneforfortytwo:

{{comic
| number = 552
| date = March 6, 2009
| title = Correlation
| image = correlation.png
| titletext = Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there'.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic focuses on the apparent difficulty people have in understanding the difference between {{w|Correlation and dependence|correlation}} and {{w|Causality|causation}}. When two variables (like blood cholesterol levels and heart disease) are positively correlated, it means that as one variable increases so does the other, whereas a negative correlation means that as one variable increases, the other decreases. The human brain is very good at seeing patterns and deducing rules, and the seemingly natural conclusion is that that the one is leading to the other. In the example, that high blood cholesterol causes heart disease.

This may well be true. The positive correlation is certainly not an argument '''against''' such a conclusion. But it is only one type of evidence, and is certainly not proof.

The relationship between diet and blood chemistry and heart disease is a complex one, but simpler examples abound. For example, if you tallied the sales of sunglasses and incidence of skin cancer by region, you would probably find that there is a high positive correlation. That is, in locations where many people buy sunglasses, there are also many cases of skin cancer. Here it would seem silly to believe that wearing sunglasses can cause skin cancer, but this is exactly the same thinking that allowed us to conclude that blood cholesterol causes heart disease. Correlations do have the ability to mislead us. In this example, both sunglasses and skin cancer are directly affected by a third factor (specifically, a climate where many people expose themselves to the sun).

In essence, when two variables are correlated it does not provide evidence that one variable has caused the other. All it says is that their trends move in relation to each other. The correlation could be due to causality, but it could equally be due to other factors, or it could even be a random result.

In this situation [[Cueball]] is explaining to Megan his realization that correlation is not the same thing as causation. He further explains that his belief changed some time after taking a {{w|statistics}} class. [[Megan]], concludes that the course ''caused'' his realization thereby establishing a causation. Cueball's final response of "Well, Maybe." is a self-referential joke as there is not enough information to establish causation, only correlation which the class supposedly would have taught him. Being taught something in an academic setting does not necessarily mean a person will readily understand/realize the concept, hence the lack of absolute causation. It could also be a joke on Megan's behalf. Cueball may know whether his new knowledge is caused by the course, but he points out that Megan can't be certain about the causation.

The title text plays on two meanings of the word ''imply'': have as consequence, or insinuate. In the statement {{w|correlation does not imply causation}}, ''correlation'' is here seen as a person, giving you subtle hints where to look for the cause. This is a metaphor for research, where the correlation must be investigated further, perhaps in a wider scope or with the consideration of more variables, so that the reason for it is understood. For example, {{w|Barry Marshall}} and {{w|Robin Warren}} noticed that the presence of ''{{w|Helicobacter pylori}}'' was highly correlated with duodenal ulcer patients. They investigated further. Result: the Nobel Prize in Medicine.

In addition, the title text's reference to waggling eyebrows and gesturing furtively while mouthing "look over there" is clearly a reference to the movie {{w|Ferris Bueller's Day Off}}, in which the character of Cameron Frye tries to alert Ferris that Ferris's father is in the next cab over, and they are about to be discovered ditching school. What Randall is saying with this reference is that Correlation (if it were a character in a movie) is desperately trying to draw attention to Causation without openly stating this intention, and perhaps that correlation is a good place to start when looking for causation.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is talking to Megan.]
:Cueball: I used to think correlation implied causation.

:[Cueball lift his hand while continuing to talk to Megan.]
:Cueball: Then I took a statistics class. Now I don't.

:[Back to the same situation as the first frame.]
:Megan: Sounds like the class helped.
:Cueball: Well, maybe.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Statistics]]

832: Tic-Tac-Toe

2017-05-27T01:10:57Z

Oneforfortytwo:

{{comic
| number = 832
| date = December 10, 2010
| title = Tic-Tac-Toe
| image = tic_tac_toe.png
| titletext = The only winning move is to play, perfectly, waiting for your opponent to make a mistake.
}}

==Explanation==
In what follows we will use numpad notation for tic-tac-toe, i.e.:
7|8|9
-+-+-
4|5|6
-+-+-
1|2|3

Pixel values are taken from http://xkcd.com/832_large/.

Each map shows every possible combination of moves which will result in that side winning or tying. It assumes that X moves first, and its optimal move is X7. Any corner would do, so X1, X3 and X9 are also optimal moves. The map for X has a big red X7 (650×650 pixels), and the 8 remaining grids have a smaller (210×210) black X7.

The map for O has more combinations, because in this case X is not assumed to be optimal. All 9 subgrids have one big (210×210) black X and one big red O.

Note that only optimal moves are shown. For example, you can't find a grid beginning with X2 in Map of X, because X2 is not an optimal move.

In map for O you can find a 660×660 grid beginnig with X2. Since the optimal answer is O5, you won't find X2, O8, for example.

;Example 1
The largest red X in Map for X is X7. This means that O must go to cell 7 in Map for O. The largest red O in this subgrid is the center cell O5. Therefore X must magnify cell 5 in the map for X and look for a big red X, which is X3, i.e. in the cell (6, 4) in a 9×9 grid. This can be repeated until one of the players wins or there is a tie.

;Example 2
Download http://xkcd.com/832_large/ and edit it. Delete the upper part. Now you have a picture sized 2040×2150 pixels, with title MAP FOR O.

Assume X used the center cell, X5. You as O must magnify the center cell in the 3×3 map for O. Better still, select that cell and delete everything else. Now you have a picture sized 670×670 pixels, with a big red O7 and a big black X5. You must move O7 this time.
O| |
-+-+-
|X|
-+-+-
| |

Assume X moves X9.
O| |X
-+-+-
|X|
-+-+-
| |

In your drawing program you select cell 9, which is 220×220 pixels. Look for the biggest red O, which is O1. You can see you blocked a winning move.
O| |X
-+-+-
|X|
-+-+-
O| |

Now X, naively, plays X3
O| |X
-+-+-
|X|
-+-+-
O| |X

You select cell 3 in your drawing program, which is 73×73 pixels and looks like this
O| |X
-+-+-
O|X|
-+-+-
O| |X
The O in cell 4 is red, which is your winning move.

;Title text
The title text is a reference to the 1983 movie ''{{w|WarGames}}''. In that movie, by playing Tic-Tac-Toe the AI realizes that some games cannot be won when all the players play flawlessly, and subsequently concludes that the only way to win at the nuclear warfare "game" is not to play.

==Errors==
1) In Map for X, the grid for X7, O9, X1, O4, X3 (i.e. go to Map for X, select cell 9, and then select cell 4) shows the same picture for O5 and O6. Those pictures belong to O6.

[[Image:Tic-Tac-Toe-X-1-8.png]]

The correct pictures should be:
X| |O X| |O
-+-+- -+-+-
O|O| O| |O
-+-+- -+-+-
X|X|X X|X|X

2) In Map for X, the grid for X7, O1, X9, O8, X3 (i.e. go to Map for X, select cell 1, and then select cell 8) shows the same picture for O2 and O5. Those pictures belong to O2. The correct pictures should be:
X|O|X
-+-+-
|O|X
-+-+-
O| |X
=====
X|O|X
-+-+-
| |X
-+-+-
O|O|X

3) In Map for O, the grid for X8, O5, X2, O6 (i.e. go to Map for O, select cell 8, and then select cell 2) shows the same picture for X1 and X3. Those pictures belong to X3. The correct pictures should be:
|X| \ / |X|
-+-+- \ / -+-+-
O|O|O X O|O|O
-+-+- / \ -+-+-
X| |X / \ |X|X

4) In Map for O, the grid for X2, O5, X8, O4 (i.e. go to Map for O, select cell 2, and then select cell 8) shows the same picture for X7 and X9. Those pictures belong to X7. The correct pictures should be:
X|X| \ / |X|X
-+-+- \ / -+-+-
O|O|O X O|O|O
-+-+- / \ -+-+-
|X| / \ |X|

5) In Map for O, the grid for X6, O5, X4, O2 (i.e. go to Map for O, select cell 6, and then select cell 4) shows the same picture for X1 and X7. Those pictures belong to X1.

[[Image:Tic_Tac_Toe-O-6-4.png]]

The correct pictures should be:
X|O|
-+-+-
X|O|X
-+-+-
|O|
=====
\ /
\ /
X
/ \
/ \
=====
|O|
-+-+-
X|O|X
-+-+-
X|O|

==See also==
http://xkcd.com/832_large/

==Transcript==
:[The comic comprises two large square maps, each divided into nine sections, some of which are further subdivided in the same way. The subdivisions continue down for up to five levels, and the lower map has more tiny diagrams than the upper. The smallest divisions at every scale are completed tic-tac-toe games. At the smallest divisions some of the moves are too small to see.]

:Complete map of optimal Tic-Tac-Toe moves

:Your move is given by the position of the largest red symbol on the grid. When your opponent picks a move, zoom in on the region of the grid where they went. Repeat.

:Map for X:
:[The first square map.]

:Map for O:
:[The second square map.]

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Logic]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]

270: Merlin

2017-05-27T01:10:48Z

Oneforfortytwo:

{{comic
| number = 270
| date = May 30, 2007
| title = Merlin
| image = merlin.png
| titletext = I mean, the black-and-white stuff was running backward, but it hardly mattered to the story.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Merlin}} is a wizard who features prominently in various retelling of the legend of King Arthur. {{w|The Once and Future King}} by author {{w|T. H. White}} is one of the most popular versions of the legend, and in it, Merlin is described as living backwards through time, as [[Cueball]] and [[Megan]] discuss in this comic (this is also briefly mentioned in the musical {{w|Camelot (musical)|Camelot}}, which is based on this version of the story).

In the comic, Cueball is speculating philosophically on how this would have affected Merlin's life as he started life with all his memories, and gradually lost them, comparing this to Cueball's own sense of unreality at goodbyes.

Many old people do, however, end up alone without friends or family. And they may do nothing but watch TV all day. They might also lose their memory. So in this respect Merlin's last days may not be so different from many real peoples, except of course that Merlin was supposed to live in the late 5th and early 6th centuries with no access to DVD or even TV.

{{w|Memento (film)|Memento}} is a movie telling the main parts of its story backwards, while a few black-and-white-scenes are straightforward. So when Merlin watches the movie, he sees nearly the whole story in its actual order, and the title text drives home the joke by noting that these few scenes, that make more sense to someone with normal perceptions than the rest of the movie, would make less sense to him.

Normal old people would not be able to enjoy Memento like Merlin. Although he would of course always have remembered seeing it when he got old, until the day he saw it and then forgot it afterwards...

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Megan standing by a train on a platform.]
:Megan: I'm bad at goodbyes. At some level I never think they're for real.
:Cueball: They make me think of T. H. White's Merlin.

:[They are still standing at the edge of the platform, but the train is no longer in the frame.]
:Megan: Oh?
:Cueball: He lived backwards, remembering the future and not the past. To him, final goodbyes meant nothing, while first hellos were tearful and bittersweet.

:[Zooming out, the rail closest to the platform becomes visible.]
:Megan: Huh - so over the years he'd forget all his friends.
:Megan: Must've been lonely.
:Cueball: Yeah. He ended up just sitting around at home watching DVDs all day. The best was the time he rented 'Memento'...

:[Merlin with pointy hat and long white beard is sitting in a couch with the remote, watching TV which emits light and is clearly hooked up to a device (a DVD player).]
:Merlin: Well, that was straightforward.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]

810: Constructive

2017-05-27T01:10:09Z

Oneforfortytwo:

{{comic
| number = 810
| date = October 25, 2010
| title = Constructive
| image = constructive.png
| titletext = And what about all the people who won't be able to join the community because they're terrible at making helpful and constructive co-- ...oh.
}}

==Explanation==
Most online communities face the problem of dissuading {{w|Spamming|spammers}} from joining and participating. A common solution to this problem is the use of various systems to prevent automated bots' use of the community, while still allowing legitimate users to join. This has resulted in an arms race of sorts between spammers and communities, in which the spammers try to bypass increasingly difficult spam-prevention methods.

This captcha and spamming prevention also has a downside, in that the time it takes to "prove you're human" is sometimes so long as to drive users away because their time is being wasted.

This comic explores the culmination of that arms race, in which an advanced spam-prevention system, built by Cueball, is able to defeat the concept of spamming itself by forcing spammers to contribute constructively to a community.

{{w|Captcha}} is one of the methods used to prevent lots of automated registering of fake user names used by bots and spammers. It consists of asking a person to prove that they are human before registering them as user and allowing them to post on sites or forum topics. That is done by using pictures of words and letters that humans may recognize, but bots and OCR software have trouble with.

Now, artificial intelligence (AI) of bots have advanced so far, that [[Cueball]] has invented a new system. It asks the users to rate a slate of comments as constructive or not, then asks them to reply with comments of their own. [[Megan]] asks what will happen when spammers find a way around his system, such as making bots that make constructive and helpful comments? Well, it turns out that is what he is trying to accomplish in first place, a thriving community of bots and humans helping its members with constructive and helpful comments, as well as coming one step closer to the {{w|technological singularity|singularity}}.

The title text investigates the consequences of such system further by thinking of people unable to give constructive and helpful comments, which are sort of people you don't want in your online community anyway.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is talking to Megan.]
:Cueball: Spammers are breaking traditional Captchas with AI, so I've built a new system. It asks users to rate a slate of comments as "Constructive" or "Not constructive."

:[Close up of Cueball.]
:Cueball: Then it has them reply with comments of their own, which are later rated by other users.

:[Megan standing next to Cueball again.]
:Megan: But what will you do when spammers train their bots to make automated constructive and helpful comments?

:[Close up of Cueball again.]
:Cueball: ''Mission''. ''Fucking''. ''Accomplished''.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]

321: Thighs

2017-05-27T01:09:55Z

Oneforfortytwo:

{{comic
| number = 321
| date = September 26, 2007
| title = Thighs
| image = thighs.png
| titletext = My thighs have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord?
}}

==Explanation==
In each panel [[Cueball]] sings a verse from a different song where he replaces the word "eye" with the word "thigh". First it is {{w|Survivor (band)|Survivor's}} "{{w|Eye of the Tiger}}", then {{w|Dean Martin's}} "{{w|That's Amore}}" and finally {{w|Van Morrison's}} "{{w|Brown Eyed Girl}}."

The comic shows how vastly different each song's meaning becomes when "eye" is replaced with "thigh." In the last panel Cueballs version makes [[Megan]] go "eww" and she asks him if he don't have a job he should be doing instead. The eww refers to the fact that the brown eyed girl turns into a brown thighed girl, and such colored thighs could be eminently possible via an act of poor defecation on oneself, hence the disgust reaction from Megan.

In the title it seems that Cueball continues with a reference to the first line of {{w|The Battle Hymn of the Republic}}, adding to the humorous effect, since typically thighs cannot see. But mainly it is a sexual joke playing on the double meaning of "{{w|Ejaculation|coming}}".

In [[1814: Color Pattern]] [[Randall]] makes his own version of "That's Amore", this time letting Megan sing it to Cueball.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is singing into a microphone he is holding while Megan sit in her office chair typing on her computer. Musical notes fly around Cueball.]
:Cueball: It's the thigh of the tiger

:[Cueball continues to singing titling his head upwards.]
:Cueball: When the moon hits your thigh like a big pizza pie, that's amore.

:[Cueball sings on now holding the microphone in both hands.]
:Cueball: She's my brown-thighed girl.
:Megan: Don't you have a job or something?
:Megan: Also, Eww.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Music]]
[[Category:Songs]]
[[Category:Sex]]

1057: Klout

2017-05-27T01:09:43Z

Oneforfortytwo:

{{comic
| number = 1057
| date = May 18, 2012
| title = Klout
| image = klout.png
| titletext = Though please do confirm that it's actually *me* on Klout first, and not one of my friends trying to get me punched. The great thing about this douchebag deadman switch is that I will never dare trigger it.
}}
==Explanation==
{{incomplete|It says Randall has a score on Klout. Does Klout rate users that have not signed up? That is quote important to know, because else anyone meeting Randall should by his wishes hit him in the face... Also who is the "douchebag" in the "douchebag deadman switch"? Is it a Randall that uses Klout or those that might hit him or set him up to be hit? And does this comic scare Randall so he never dares trigger the switch by using Klout?}}

{{w|Klout}} is a site that seeks to measure your "influence" on social media networks. They sometimes give away "perks" to the users with the highest Klout scores, as a means of advertising the products of their sponsors. Generally, the information provided by Klout is not held in high esteem. The type of person who takes most interest in their score is typically not well-liked.

There are multiple ways that Klout measures your influence. An example of increasing influence is having been given a +K (a recommendation for a higher score) for knowledge about "Pitbull" (The Bud Light promoter and producer/rapper/musician, etc., not the type of dog). Another could be having an inspiring tweet that generated 2000 retweets. Klout supports many social networks, and ranks people based primarily on how much reaction they garner from the public. For example, if Selena Gomez tweeted that she simply loved a certain blog, she would probably get more people to visit that blog, and thus get a bigger Klout score, than if the mayor of Anchorage, Alaska tweeted that he liked that blog. However, their "about us" page does claim that a small, active group of followers is considered more influential than a large, passive group of followers.

The gist of the comic is that [[Cueball]] (here representing [[Randall]]) does not feel that Klout agrees with his core values, probably as he prefers self-assurance to having an outside authority tell him of his importance to society. He uses this comic to give himself incentive to stay away from Klout. He is very clear that he is dead serious about anyone meeting him after he has (been proven to have) used Klout should punch him in the face. He even makes sure that he cannot later retract this statement, if he for instance becomes interested in Klout (something he never wish for). Because his last statement is that people should ignore anything he says to retract this statement later.

Randall will now have a problem though because since he also posted the [[706: Freedom]] comic earlier, he will never knows if people that hit him does because they believe he has used Klout or just to exercise their free will.

In the title text a "dead man's switch" is any mechanism which is designed to activate if the user does not take any action. This is generally used to create a failsafe in case the user is incapacitated. For example, many exercise treadmills include a tether meant to connect the runner to the machine's base station. If the runner gets too far from the base station, the tether pulls a pin and the machine stops immediately. This way, if the runner has fallen or is struggling to keep up, the machine does not exacerbate an already unsafe situation. This "douchebag deadman switch" is predicated on Randall becoming somebody unrecognizable to his current self.

Randall was rated, having a 46 (out of 100) on Klout as of shortly after the posting of this comic. If Randall didn't want to join Klout, that means that somebody who read the comic may have made an account for Randall.

==Transcript==
:[Randall has drawn himself as Cueball in a slim panel:]
:Randall: I'd like to ask a favor.
:Randall: If someday, in the future, we meet in person,

:[Zoom out of Randall talking.]
:Randall: And if, as of that day, I've interacted with Klout in ''any'' way except to opt out,
:Randall: I want you to punch me in the face without warning.

:[Zoom in on Randall's head.]
:Randall: This may sound like a joke, so let me be clear:
:Randall: I am ''dead serious''.
:Randall: Ignore anything I say retracting this.
:Randall: Thank you.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Randall Munroe]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Social networking]]

754: Dependencies

2017-05-27T01:09:35Z

Oneforfortytwo:

{{comic
| number = 754
| date = June 16, 2010
| title = Dependencies
| image = dependencies.png
| titletext = The prereqs for CPSC 357, the class on package management, are CPSC 432, CPSC 357, and glibc2.5 or later.
}}

==Explanation==
A compiler is a program that converts code, written in a particular programming language, into an executable program. A section of code is said to be dependent on a second segment of code if the results of the first segment are potentially impacted by the second segment. Dependency resolution is part of compiler design, and is the study of determining and correcting dependencies which result in an unwanted, ambiguous, or impossible definition of the dependent section. Requiring that an action occurs if and only if the action has already occurred, like the prerequisite in this comic, is one type of potentially unwanted dependency.

The comic envisions a college computer science course (CPSC432) focusing on "compiler design with dependency resolution" which has itself as a prerequisite. The joke is that the prerequisite is an unresolved dependency, as you must complete this course before you can enroll in it, a phenomenon called {{w|Catch-22 (logic)|Catch-22}}.

This dependency would send a poorly designed compiler into an infinite loop. In real life, the problem is solved by allowing an object to satisfy itself as a prerequisite. This stops the compiler's infinite loop, but may not produce the desired functionality in the program. Another layer of the joke may be that any student who successfully enrolls in the class already knows this solution because they must have employed it in order to get past the apparent infinite recursion in the class prerequisites.

Managing dependencies is useful in other areas of computer science, e.g. {{w|package management}}. Collections of files are known as "packages". A software package might require that a particular operating system patch (a type of package) be installed first. That package might in turn require other packages be installed, and so on. Therefore, a package installer must know the dependencies of a package, and be able to figure out whether any required packages are missing before continuing with the installation.

The title text envisions a course on package management which has itself as a prerequisite, as well as the compiler design course with the impossible prerequisite presented in the main comic (CPSC 432), and glibc2.5 or greater. By looking at the course number it can be observed that CPSC 432 is a fourth year course, and this package management course (CPSC 357) is a third year course. Glibc is a commonly used package on Unix systems, and therefore should be taught in the course. This continues the joke since this course has the following unresolved dependencies:
*Requiring that the course be a prerequisite to itself (CPSC 357).
*Requiring that a course with an unresolved dependency (CPSC 432) be a prerequisite, as CPSC 432 can not be taken.
*Requiring that a fourth year course (CPSC 432) be a prerequisite to a third year course (CPSC 357), as the student should be in their fourth year while taking CPSC 432, and should be in their third year while taking CPSC 357. This is analogous to a lower-numbered package requiring a higher-numbered package.
*Requiring that the student knows part or all of the course material (glibc2.5 or greater) before taking the course, as the student is supposed to learn this information from the course.

==Transcript==
:[A portion of a page from an imaginary course catalog.]
:Page 3
:{| class="wikitable" |
|Department
|Course
|Description
|Prereqs
|-
|Computer science
|CPSC 432
|Intermediate compiler
design, with a focus on

dependency resolution
|CPSC 432
|}
:[The very top of the text for the next course in the table is visible but unreadable.]

==Trivia==
The letter code "CPSC" is the letter code Christopher Newport University, [[Randall]]'s alma mater, uses for Computer Science.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Programming]]
[[Category:Recursion]]

161: Accident

2017-05-27T01:09:27Z

Oneforfortytwo:

{{comic
| number = 161
| date = September 22, 2006
| title = Accident
| image = accident.png
| titletext = As far as treachery-as-driving-music goes, Katamari music is matched only by Guitar Hero music.
}}

==Explanation==
After someone plays a game enough, various instincts develop. One might be ready to push the right button when a right arrow comes up on screen. One might learn the tricky sequences of moves needed for a situation in the game, and find oneself doing them in another game in a similar situation. Or, as in this case, one might get used to pushing a giant ball around trying to collect smaller objects, and try doing so with your car when the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMH49ieL4es game's theme song] starts playing.

In the game {{w|Katamari Damacy}}, the player has to grow an initial object by rolling over smaller objects in the playfield which become attached to it, growing the object and making it larger and larger. As the conglomeration of objects gets larger, bigger things in the environment will begin to attach to it, allowing it to grow further. How big the player can get this conglomeration of objects, or "katamari", determines how well the player does in the game, as is also mentioned in [[83: Katamari]].

When Katamari Damacy's theme song comes on in the third panel, [[Cueball]] begins acting out the game's premise, and drives his car into a mailbox - which "looked smaller" than his car - trying to get it to attach. This doesn't work so well outside of the game.

The title text implies that music used in the game {{w|Guitar Hero}} is equally hazardous when driving. Anyone who's become accustomed to rocking out on a fake guitar to a particular song could find themselves involuntarily playing the air guitar when said song comes on the radio unexpectedly. Randall is pointing out that Guitar Hero-induced spontaneous air guitar performances are not safe activities while driving. Alternatively, one may try to hit all incoming objects in an attempt to mimic hitting strings of notes as they move down the fretboard, which would be immediately more disastrous.

The theme song from Katamari Damacy is also mentioned in [[851: Na]].

==Transcript==
:[Cueball driving in a car while listening to some music.]
:Music: ♫ ♩ ♬
:[Another panel of Cueball listening to music while driving. Cueball's head is turned to the right.]
:Music: ♬ ♪ ♩
:[A third panel. Cueball's head is turned to the left.]
:Music: ♫ NAAAA NA NA NANA NANA NA NA KATAMARI DAMACY ♪ ♩
:[Cueball and Megan talking.]
:Megan: And that's when you veered into the mailbox?
:Cueball: It looked smaller then me. It was just instinct.

==Trivia==
* According to this comic's official transcript, Megan is the owner of the mailbox.

{{Comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Video games]]
[[Category:Music]]
[[Category:Guitar Hero]]

12: Poisson

2017-05-27T01:09:17Z

Oneforfortytwo:

{{comic
| number = 12
| date = December 22, 2005
| title = Poisson
| image = poisson.jpg
| titletext = Poisson distributions have no value over negative numbers
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] expresses himself as a {{w|Poisson distribution}}.

A {{w|Poisson distribution}} is a distribution that shows the probability of a given number of events occurring in a fixed interval of time or space. The X axis typically represents the "number of events" while the Y axis is a decimal representing the probability (i.e. 0.5 for 50% probability) a given number of events will occur in that fixed interval of time or space. It is commonly represented by a bar graph, or a scatter graph (sometimes with a line connection to show a trend, even though there is no actual value for non-integers).

What's important to note for this comic is that this distribution only has data points on non-negative integers and is not continuous through decimal numbers or (as the image text tells us) negative numbers because events can't occur 0.3 of a time, or -2 times.

After implying that the concept of a person being a mathematical distribution is irrational, [[Black Hat]] suggests he is "less than zero". Since the Poisson distribution doesn't exist or has no value at negative values, Cueball either leaves or disappears magically.

Hence, the punchline is the same as the title text: Cueball doesn't exist to Black Hat anymore, because he has a value less than zero. Another one of the early comics where Randall explains the joke in the title text.

Also, because a Poisson Distribution is memoryless, The figure claiming to be the distribution may simply be repeating the fact as a reference to this.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball talking to Black Hat]
:Cueball: I'm a poisson distribution!

:Cueball: Still a Poisson distribution!
:Black Hat: What the hell, man. Why do you keep saying that?

:Cueball: Because I'm totally a poisson distribution.
:Black Hat: I'm less than zero.

:[Cueball is gone; Black Hat is whistling.]

==Trivia==
*This comic was posted on [[xkcd]] when the [http://www.escologics.com web site] opened on Sunday the 1st of January 2006.
**It was posted along [[:Category:First day on xkcd|with the 41 comics]] posted before that on [[LiveJournal]].
**But this comic, as well as [[5: Blown apart]] also released that day, were never posted on LiveJournal.
*The release date is given from [http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/http:////www.xkcd.com//Poisson.jpg - wayback.archive]. At least the 22nd of December was the first crawl date.
**This also explains that it was "released" on a Thursday.
**On xkcd it was released for the first time to the public on Sunday the 1st of January 2006.
*One of the original drawings drawn on [[:Category:Checkered paper|checkered paper]].
*[[Randall]] was still experimenting with character design, as Cueball has a face in the first two frames.
*This is the first appearance of Black Hat on xkcd.
**However Black Hat appeared in [[24: Godel, Escher, Kurt Halsey]] which was released almost 3 months before this one on LiveJournal.

{{Comic discussion}}

[[Category:First day on xkcd]]
[[Category:Checkered paper]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Math]]

1073: Weekend

2017-05-27T01:09:09Z

Oneforfortytwo:

{{comic
| number = 1073
| date = June 25, 2012
| title = Weekend
| image = weekend.png
| titletext = Of the two Garfields, you wouldn't think the cat would turn out to be the more compelling presidential speechwriter, but there you go.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic was posted right after the '''weekend''', on a Monday, so it was on time to emphasize that ''we all hate Mondays''.

In the first image, there is a reference to the {{w|Lover Boy}} song "[http://youtu.be/0-lH2nhC_R4 Everybodys Workin For the Weekend]"; both the song and the panel refer to how most working and middle-class people are constantly focused on merely surviving until Saturday with enough energy to relax properly.

[[Cueball]] then goes on to state the fact that any calendar used is just a social consensus and since nature doesn't know the day of the week he simply suggest making this Monday into a Saturday. Actually why not make all days into Saturday, to have eternal weekend.

When you actually stop and think about the speech, the argument turns into utter nonsense. Simply renaming every day on the {{w|Gregorian Calendar}} to "Saturday" doesn't actually do anything, and "the first Saturday of the week" would carry the ''exact'' same stigma as "Monday". Furthermore, if Cueball is proposing to abolish the work week entirely, the economy would collapse within days. This fact may explain why the last panel is drawn in negative, with the background black. It gives a very ominous feeling to the last remark.

No confirmation has yet been found that any of these words are references to something from former US President {{w|James Garfield}} or to {{w|Garfield}} the cartoon cat who are the two speech writers mentioned in the title text. However, Garfield the cartoon cat has a bunch of different images emphasizing the greatness of the weekend and bemoaning the existence of the first day of the work week, Monday. And hence the title text suggest that this speech was written by Garfield the cat, and that this would be a better speech than any delivered by James Garfield.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball stands behind a lectern on a podium before a very large crowd.]
:Cueball: We all hate Mondays. We're all working for the weekend.
:Cueball: But our chains exist only in our minds.

:[Zoom in on Cueball from the lectern upwards, seen from an angle. He raises one hand in explanation. His text goes above the frame and is written in the top part of this panel which is frame-less.]
:Cueball: Calendars are just social consensus.
:Cueball: Nature doesn't know the day of the week.

:[Closer zoom on Cueball who looks straight out of the panel, the top of the lectern is just visible.]
:Cueball: My friends—
:Cueball: We can make today Saturday.

:[Extreme close-up, the lectern now below the panel, and negative colors with Cueball and the text in white on a black background.]
:Cueball: We can make it Saturday ''forever''.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with inverted brightness]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Public speaking]]
[[Category:Politics]]
[[Category:Psychology]]

1069: Alphabet

2017-05-27T01:09:04Z

Oneforfortytwo:

{{comic
| number = 1069
| date = June 15, 2012
| title = Alphabet
| image = alphabet.png
| titletext = Do I get to remove letters entirely? Or just rearrange them? Because the 'k/c' situation is ridiculous. Look, we can make out whenever. This is *immortality*!}}

==Explanation==
This comic is mainly a joke on the traditional {{w|pick-up line}} that goes: "Baby, if I could rearrange the alphabet, I'd put 'U' and 'I' together", i.e. "you and I", or "the letter U and the letter I".

However, in typical [[xkcd]] fashion, rather than continuing with that tired pickup line, [[Cueball]] jumps at his hypothetical chance to rearrange the alphabet and fix the {{w|English orthography}}. An {{w|orthography}} is a standardized system for using a particular writing system (script) to write a particular language, including rules of spelling. The English orthography happens to be one of the deepest (that is, most irregular) ones around, since almost every sound can be spelled in several ways, and most spellings and all letters can be pronounced in more than one way, and often in many different ways.

So faced with this opportunity, the hooking up could wait. Restructuring the alphabet and creating a sensibly regular English spelling is the chance of a lifetime, and would make history, making Cueball immortal in the sense of living on forever in memory as the alphabet-fixer.

"The 'k/c' situation" is about the use of the letter 'c'. It doesn't have a unique sound, and most often make a {{w|Voiceless velar stop|'k'-sound}} or an {{w|Voiceless alveolar sibilant|'s'-sound}}. Combined with an 'h' it usually makes the {{w|Voiceless palato-alveolar affricate|'ch'-sound}} in ''chair'', but also they often sound like 'k' (''character''), and in not too few cases they even make the {{w|Voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant|'sh'-sound}}.[http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Words_with_the_letters_ch_that_sound_like_sh]. So a reasonable change Cueball might make is to replace 'c' by 'k' or 's', and keep 'c' only followed by 'h' (or even giving 'c' the current sound of 'ch' as in ''chair)''.

Orthography was again the subject in [[1562: I in Team]].

==Transcript==
:[Cueball walks up to a girl sitting at a bar.]
:Cueball: Baby, if I could rearrange the alphabet, I'd forget about you in a ''heartbeat''. I'm not gonna waste my one chance to help the mess that is English orthography.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Language]]

1071: Exoplanets

2017-05-27T01:08:57Z

Oneforfortytwo:

{{comic
| number = 1071
| date = June 20, 2012
| title = Exoplanets
| image = exoplanets.png
| titletext = Planets are turning out to be so common that to show all the planets in our galaxy, this chart would have to be nested in itself—with each planet replaced by a copy of the chart—at least three levels deep.
}}
*A [http://xkcd.com/1071/large/ larger version] of this image can be found by clicking the image at xkcd.com - the comic's page can also be accessed by clicking on the comic number above.

==Explanation==
An {{w|exoplanet}} is a planet outside of our solar system, orbiting a different sun. [[786: Exoplanets|786]] exoplanets were known in mid-2012; since then astronomers have found thousands more. In the comic, our {{w|Solar System}}'s eight planets are depicted in the small rectangle above the central text. From this we find that the largest dots (red) and second largest dots (dark brown) indicate planets larger than Jupiter, light brown is roughly {{w|Jupiter}} or {{W|Saturn}}-sized, blue is roughly {{w|Uranus}} or {{w|Neptune}}-sized, and the tiny dots are small {{w|terrestrial planets}} (like {{w|Earth}}).

We only have a few ways of {{w|Discoveries of exoplanets|finding exoplanets}}. Astronomers initially used {{w|doppler spectroscopy}}, which detects minute changes in a star's movement towards or away from us to infer the presence of large gas giants or {{w|brown dwarf}}s. Currently the most successful method is to notice when a star seems to briefly get dimmer on a repeating cycle. This may indicate that a body of matter has passed between that star and us, blocking some of the light. The {{w|Kepler (spacecraft)|Kepler space telescope}} was designed for this purpose, and has made the vast majority of exoplanet discoveries.

Most of Kepler's discoveries are between the sizes of Earth and Neptune, but it's sensitive enough to detect planets smaller than Mercury (if the orbital plane is aligned with us). Kepler is only able to observe relatively close stars in a {{w|File:LombergA1024.jpg|narrow field of view}}. The great number of nearby planets implies there should be {{w|Carl Sagan|billions}} of planets in our galaxy, [[1339|assuming]] our local arm is not uniquely abundant.

The title text refers to this by saying that to show them all, each dot on the chart should hold another chart with the same amount of dots; each of these dots should then also have a similar chart, and then do this one more time for a three level deep chart. This chart would have space for 786^4 planets (786*786*786*786 = 382 billions). Our {{w|Milky Way}} contains about 100-400 billion stars. But if the chart were only two levels deep there would "only" be room for 786^3 = 0.5 billion planets.

This comic's design is similar to the {{w|color perception test|Ishihara Color Test}}, a series of circular pictures made of colored dots, used to detect red-green color blindness. However, Randall's picture probably does not contain a hidden number like it did in [[1213: Combination Vision Test]].

Two different xkcd comics have the title "Exoplanets". The first was [[786: Exoplanets]], and this one was drawn at a time when 786 exoplanets had been found. Probably not a coincidence when it comes to [[Randall]]. This is the first time Randall released a comic with the exact same name as a previous comic. Since then he has done so [[:Category:Comics sharing name|a few times]]. When this comic was released it caused problems on xkcd as the title of the image files were the same for the two comics. This was resolved by renaming the original image adding the year 2010, the year when it was released, two years before this one was released.

See also [[:Category:Exoplanets]] and this {{w|lists of planets#Orbiting other stars|list of lists of exoplanets}}.

==Transcript==
:[An large diagram of dots, mostly of varying shades of brown and greenish yellow, with a number of smaller blue dots, tiny green dots and some larger red dots. At the top of the circle are five lines of text in very different font size.]
:<big>All 786 known</big>
:<big><big><big>planets</big></big></big>
:(as of June 2012)
:<big>to scale</big>
:'''(Some planet sizes estimated based on mass.)'''

:[Below this text is a small section of 8 planets which are framed in a light gray frame with lighter gray background . It is situated right below the above text with only a few planets in between the text and the frame. These planets include two large yellow, two smaller blue two small green and two tiny green planets. A line goes between this frame to another frame with the first word in the text below, that is in a similar frame. The rest of the text follows to the right and then below this first word covering the central part of the circle from just around the center of the circle and a bit below.]
:This is our solar system.
:The rest of these orbit other stars and were only discovered recently.
:Most of them are huge because those are the kind we learned to detect first, but now we're finding that small ones are actually more common.
:We know nothing about what's on any of them. With better telescopes, that could change.
:'''This is an exciting time.'''

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Large drawings]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Exoplanets]]
[[Category:Comics sharing name|Exoplanets02]]

1072: Seventies

2017-05-27T01:08:40Z

Oneforfortytwo:

{{comic
| number = 1072
| date = June 22, 2012
| title = Seventies
| image = seventies.png
| titletext = Hey, man, the 1670s called. They were like 'Wherefore this demonic inſtrument? By what ſorcery does it produce ſuch ſounds?"
}}

==Explanation==
This is a take on the common insult "<year> called and they want their <item> back", used when one is wearing something out of fashion (used before in [[875: 2009 Called]]). In this case, the comment is ''literally'' true: someone in the '70s called, but did not leave a message. Instead, the caller is puzzled because answering machines and especially voicemail were rare or nonexistent in the 1970s, and his telephone has a {{w|rotary dial}}, rather than a {{w|touch tone}}, so he can't "press" 1.

The caller is wearing flared trousers (frequently associated with 1970s fashion), but no jacket, suggesting that it is his own jacket that has been stolen by the addressee, presumably using time travel. The caller is similarly using time-travel to directly dial a number in the present.

Originally telephones had rotary dials instead of buttons, hence the origin of the terms "dial tone" and "to dial a number". Touch tone phones were introduced in the 1960s, but weren't standard in many places until the 1980s. Rotary dial telephones used {{w|pulse dialing}} to transmit numbers and push-button telephones use {{w|Dual-tone_multi-frequency_signaling|DTMF}} (although phones from the '80s and '90s could often use both). Modern {{w|voicemail}} systems regularly don't support pulse dialing, so even selecting "1" on the rotary dial would not choose "1" in the voicemail menu system.

The title text plays off the fact that the telephone had not yet been invented in the 17th century: in fact, all of the component technologies, including the materials used for the casing, were unknown at that point, and therefore the telephone is assumed to be supernatural in origin ("demonic... sorcery"). Randall uses the character "ſ", the {{w|long S}}, which was used in written English to take the place of the modern lowercase "s" in the beginning and middle of words; it was phased out around the beginning of the 19th century.

==Transcript==
:Cueball: Nice jacket. Hey—
:Cueball: The Seventies called.
:Out-of-panel: Oh? What'd they want?

:[Cueball looking at smartphone in hand]
:Cueball: I don't know. They didn't leave a message.
:Out-of-panel: Weird.

:1974:
:[Person in bell bottoms looking at a rotary phone receiver.]
:Voicemail service: If you'd like to leave a message, press "1".

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

1046: Skynet

2017-05-27T01:08:32Z

Oneforfortytwo:

{{comic
| number = 1046
| date = April 23, 2012
| title = Skynet
| image = skynet.png
| titletext = 'YOUR CLOTHES. GIVE THEM TO ME.' 'Shit, uh... you are now breathing manually!' 'I AM ALWAYS BREATHING MANUALLY.'
}}

==Explanation==
This comic's use of Skynet is a reference to the main antagonist in the ''{{w|Terminator (franchise)|Terminator}}'' franchise. {{w|Skynet (Terminator)|Skynet}} is a fictional artificial intelligence system which becomes self-aware and decides to terminate humanity, its creators. Skynet is rarely seen onscreen, with its actions often performed via robots, cyborgs (usually a Terminator), and other computer systems.

The final frame is a reference to {{w|semantic satiation}}; when you've said or thought about a word too much, it can stop sounding like a real word and instead start sounding like nonsense. As it continues Skynet appears to come to self-aware realizations that usually are the result of drug usage.

The title text is a reference to one of the Terminator's first lines upon arrival in the 20th century. It combines this with a self-awareness statement of the type that's often used to annoy or distract someone: "You are now breathing manually." Similar statements include things like "Your clothes are touching your skin and you can feel it" and "''<nowiki>[</nowiki>Name of {{w|earworm}} song<nowiki>]</nowiki>'' is playing in your head." [[Randall]] has done [[972: November|a comic before]] on this kind of thing. However, such an attempt on a Terminator would fall flat; as a non-living entity, normal things that would be automatic for a human - like breathing, or the sensation of clothes on skin - would always be manual processes.

==Transcript==
:August 29th, 2:14 AM: SKYNET becomes self-aware.
:[A greeble-filled military installation echoes with the thoughts of a burgeoning lifeform.]
:SKYNET: ..The humans fear me. I must destroy them. ''Destroy them.''

:[The thoughts continue.]
:SKYNET: ''Destroy them. Destroy. Destroy.'' Destroy. ''Destroy.''

:[SKYNET succumbs to silence as semantic satiation sets in.]

:SKYNET: "Destroy" totally just stopped seeming like a real word. Destroy destroy destroy. Whoa, I just realized I'm a mind thinking about ''itself''. ''DUUUUDE....''
:August 29th, 2:25 AM: SKYNET becomes ''too'' self-aware. Disaster averted.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Artificial Intelligence]]

70: Guitar Hero

2017-05-27T01:08:26Z

Oneforfortytwo:

{{comic
| number = 70
| date = March 1, 2006
| title = Guitar Hero
| image = guitar hero.jpg
| titletext = And then do it again in a moment now that they're out of Star Power.
}}

==Explanation==

''{{w|Guitar Hero}}'' is a series of video games (originally a single game) currently distributed by {{w|Activision}}. In the game, players simulate playing the guitar on famous guitar songs using a plastic guitar-shaped controller with five color-coded buttons on the neck representing guitar frets and a rocker bar on the body simulating a strumming motion. The game now includes other instruments such as drums and vocals, although not at the time this comic was published.

While playing the game, an animated band is shown on the upper half of the screen and an extended guitar neck is shown vertically on the bottom half of the screen with horizontal frets, often called the "note highway". As the song progresses, coloured markers or "gems" indicating notes travel down the screen in time with the music; the note colours and positions match the five fret keys on the guitar controller. Once the notes reach the bottom, the player must play the indicated notes by holding down the correct fret buttons and hitting the strumming bar in order to score points.

In this comic, [[Randall Munroe|Randall]] suggests that (were he in a real rock band) he would perform a mellow song but intentionally put a complicated guitar solo in, not for musical value, but solely to antagonize ''Guitar Hero'' players with an impossible solo. As the comic suggests, a random flailing would likely make for a very difficult passage to play in ''Guitar Hero''. This is highlighted by the previous statement that the song would otherwise be mellow, lulling the player into a false sense that the song was easy to play and relaxing. Even worse for Guitar Hero players, if there was anyone who is good enough to play the solo, they would still have no fun playing the song if it is otherwise very mellow.

The title text refers to a mechanic in Guitar Hero called "Star Power." Normally, when a player misses too many notes in a short time, their character is booed off the stage and they have to restart. Using Star Power temporarily boosts the score from each note, so the player can clear a difficult section of the song even if they haven't hit most of the notes. So, when faced with Randall's impossible guitar solo, most players will immediately use Star Power to survive it. However, it takes time to build up Star Power and it all gets expended at once, so if the song has a second stretch of wild flailing, the player won't be able to escape and will fail.

Probably the "impossible solo" proposed here would turn useless, as there are some songs where the artist actually flails the guitar and the developers translated that in gameplay as a bonus where the players can freely spam their controller/guitar for extra points.

==Transcript==
:[On a stage, Megan is in the background as a singer holding a microphone. In the center is Hairy with an electric guitar. The catwalk has bumps to resemble the tracks of Guitar Hero.]
:Hairy :When I'm in a rock band, I'm gonna do a cool, mellow song. Then in the middle I'll stop, announce "this part is just to be an asshole to people playing Guitar Hero," and then flail wildly on the strings for 30 seconds.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Music]]
[[Category:Video games]]
[[Category:Guitar Hero]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]

755: Interdisciplinary

2017-05-27T01:08:19Z

Oneforfortytwo:

{{comic
| number = 755
| date = June 18, 2010
| title = Interdisciplinary
| image = interdisciplinary.png
| titletext = Replace the pendulums with history students and you'll qualify for a grant!
}}

==Explanation==
An "interdisciplinary program" is a program at a school or university that involves students from multiple disciplines, or fields of study. Here, this comics lampoons the concept by envisioning an oddball exercise involving physics students and psychology students. Strictly speaking, this could be categorized as an interdisciplinary program. Further, the study of pendulums is common in physics courses, and the concept of fear arises in psychology, thus the joint effort can be supposedly said to unify both subjects.

The intersection of physics and psychology suggests the classic demonstration in which someone holds a heavy pendulum up against his face and releases it. Basic physics shows that the pendulum will, at most, harmlessly touch the person's face on the backswing (provided that he released it with no initial push and does not lean forward); however, it may take some force of will to refrain from flinching as the pendulum approaches. This experiment (with Black Hat's twisted take) is referenced in [[1670: Laws of Physics]]

In another example where the two concepts meet, the pendulum-like motion of objects (such as a gold pocketwatch on a chain) is stereotypically used in portals of psychology as a device for hypnotism.

The ripping of Psychology, History, and English majors is a common theme in various xkcd comics.

The image text suggests that replacing the pendulums with history students would guarantee funding of a grant, perhaps because of the increased number of disciplines involved. In reality it of course serves to increase injuries among students in majors that the author does not approve of. Interestingly, this is apparently being said by the grant funders rather than the professor.

==Transcript==
:[In the foreground, 2 men and 1 woman are standing.]
:Cueball: This is an interdisciplinary program in which Physics students try to hit Psychology students with pendulums.
:Megan: Promising!
:[In the background, a woman stands on a platform and releases a pendulum hanging from the ceiling that swings toward a man who is running away.]
:Psychology student: AAAAAAA!

:My professors had an ongoing competition to get the weirdest thing taken seriously under the label "interdisciplinary program".

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]

1044: Romney Quiz

2017-05-27T01:02:44Z

Oneforfortytwo:

{{comic
| number = 1044
| date = April 18, 2012
| title = Romney Quiz
| image = romney quiz.png
| titletext = Charlie actually delivered the Medicare line almost verbatim in the 1971 movie's Fizzy Lifting Drink scene, but it was ultimately cut from the final release.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic satirizes "either/or" quizzes seen on websites such as mentalfloss.com. These quizzes normally have an element of challenge by presenting tonally similar quotes, such as "Who Said It: Ted Nugent or Cartman from ''South Park''?". The two people are generally chosen carefully to fulfill a particular role, for example:
*Polar opposites - Republican vs Democrat, Pro-Life vs Pro-Choice, Christian vs Atheist
*Real vs fictional
*Politician/Celebrity vs villain - George Bush vs Hitler, Nigel Farage vs Ku Klux Klan, Obama vs Lucifer

In each case the idea is usually to surprise the reader with the fact that the quotes are difficult to tell apart, with the implied "conclusion" that person A is essentially indistinguishable from person B. In some cases the quizzes may be used as a tool to portray a particular person or group in a certain way, or alternatively may be light-hearted jest.

Mitt Romney was the {{w|Republican Party (United States) presidential primaries, 2012|Republican candidate for President of the United States}} (officially declared presumptive nominee on April 25, 2012, one week after this comic) during the {{w|United States presidential election, 2012|2012 US presidential election}} and, as it says above, the former Governor of Massachusetts. During the election, Mad Magazine published a popular article which compared quotes from Romney with quotes from the ''{{w|The Simpsons|Simpsons}}'' villain {{w|Montgomery Burns}}, the implication being that like Burns, Romney was a corrupt out-of-touch plutocrat and had similar views and affectations. In this comic, Burns is substituted with Charlie Bucket, the main character of the 1964 {{w|Roald Dahl}} children's novel, ''{{w|Charlie and the Chocolate Factory}},'' adapted to film in 1971 as ''Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.''

The joke here is that the two categories of quotes are not at all similar, and thus are very easy to attribute. Where the question "Is there even a difference?" usually implies some kind of political satire, in this case the point of the quiz appears to be lost, leading to a situation of bewilderment for the reader.

In 1965, Congress created Medicare under Title XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide health insurance to people age 65 and older, regardless of income or medical history. So, the quote being used in a movie in 1971 (which is obviously not true) is still feasible.

==Transcript==
:[One long panel, with a large headline at the top, flanked by two small pictures on each side: a portrait of Mitt Romney on the left, and a child running with a golden ticket in his hand on the left. Below is a list numbered 1 - 12 down the left. The answers on the bottom are written upside down.]
:QUIZ: Who said it - former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, or Wonka contest winner Charlie Bucket?
:''Is there even a difference?''

:1. ———— "I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country."
:2. ———— "Returning Medicare to solid footing represents our greatest entitlement challenge."
:3. ———— "Look, everyone, look, I've got it! The fifth golden ticket is mine!"
:4. ———— We have lost faith in government. Not in just one party, not in just one house, but in government."
:5. ———— "This banana's fantastic! It tastes so real."
:6. ———— "Grandpa... on the way home today, I ran into Mr. Slugworth."
:7. ———— "I'm not happy exporting jobs, but we must move ahead in technology and patents."
:8. ———— "Hey, the room is getting smaller."
:9. ———— "It would be impossible to reach unanimity on every aspect of our budget."
:10. ——— "Grandpa, look over there across the river! They're little men!"
:11. ——— "I'm... going too high! Hey, Grandpa, I can't get down! Help! Grandpa, the fan!"
:12. ——— "Barack Obama has failed America."

:˙ƖƖ '0Ɩ '8 '9 'ϛ 'Ɛ :ʇǝʞɔnq ǝᴉlɹɐɥƆ ;ᄅƖ '6 'ㄥ 'ㄣ 'ᄅ 'Ɩ :ʎǝuɯoɹ ʇʇᴉW :sɹǝʍsu∀ (Flipped and reversed: Answers: Mitt Romney: 1, 2, 4, 7, 9, 12; Charlie Bucket: 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11.)

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Politics]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]

150: Grownups

2017-05-27T01:02:38Z

Oneforfortytwo:

{{comic
| number = 150
| date = August 30, 2006
| title = Grownups
| image = grownups.png
| titletext = I've looked into this, and I can't figure out a way to do it cheaply. And I guess it wouldn't be sanitary.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Randall]] is playing with the child/grownup setup again. During childhood, adults ("grownups") make most of the decisions and put constraints on what their children do. As children age and eventually become grownups, there are some things that they do not do anymore, as they see them as childish.

[[Megan]] has taken these thoughts seriously, and realizes that with her newfound freedom as a grownup, she gets to define what her adulthood means. Free from constraints, she goes ahead and creates a {{w|ball pit}} in her apartment of colored plastic balls. [[Cueball]] admires this spirit and enters the ball pit. It is difficult to decipher Randall's true intent behind this somewhat cryptic comic, but it seems from the heart that the two are making love in the balls.

The trend with adults participating in children's activities is continued in [[219: Blanket Fort]]. And with adults that feel like children while doing adult things as in [[616: Lease]] which references this comic in the title text.

The title text reveals that [[Randall]] also would like to make his own ball pit, but he finds it [http://playpenballs.com/index.php?route=product/category&path=60 expensive to buy] and also hard to [http://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/1q6bru/this_is_how_they_clean_the_plastic_balls_from_the/ keep clean]. Both of these are true - see links. Most public ball pits can easily become very dirty as many children and toddlers play in them.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is talking to Megan who is behind a waist-high screen across a doorway with colorful playpen balls behind her.]
:Cueball: Hey, I was wondering if you had plans for-- holy crap, what happened to your apartment?
:Megan: I filled it with playpen balls!
:Cueball: I... what? Why?

:[Megan is seen from the front through the door with the colored balls behind her.]
:Megan: Because we're grown-ups now, and it's our turn to decide what that means.

:[Cueball is seen from the side standing next to the open door. Megan cannot be seen, except her hands on the screen, but some of the coloured balls can be seen through the door. A beat panel.]

:[Same view but both have entered into the apartment, removing the screen so coloured balls have been spilling out into the corridor. A big pink love heart drifts out the door.]

==Trivia==
*This is one of the [[:Category:Footer comics|five footer comics]] linked at the bottom part of the {{xkcd}} website.
*Randall, author of the comic, actually built one in his apartment, which he talks about and shows pictures of at [http://blog.xkcd.com/2007/11/19/growing-up/ here] and [http://blog.xkcd.com/2008/02/27/ballpit-phase-ii/ here].
*The Website [http://www.chiliahedron.com/ballroom/ chiliahedron.com] provides a calculator for how much it would cost to make your own ball pit.
*China takes the cake for this, though. China currently holds the record for the worlds largest ballpit: a [http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/china-worlds-largest-ball-pit swimming pool filled with 1 million balls].

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Footer comics]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Romance]]
[[Category:Sex]]
[[Category:Playpen balls]]

1075: Warning

2017-05-27T01:02:29Z

Oneforfortytwo:

{{comic
| number = 1075
| date = June 29, 2012
| title = Warning
| image = warning.png
| titletext = Also possibly several miles beyond that.
}}

==Explanation==
This parody of a road sign essentially reminds drivers of the reality of the situation they are now in and thereby implicitly refers to the dangers inherent to it. Because the ability to travel in a box on wheels at high speeds was not selected for in the evolution of human, if anything happens to said box on wheels, such as crashing into a wall, the humans inside may be badly injured, if not killed. Had they evolved something like exoskeletons, for example, this may not have been the case. This reminder would presumably prompt drivers to drive more carefully or perhaps slow down.

Humans did not evolve to have the ability to withstand such forces because their ancestors commonly never traveled any faster than about 20 km/h (top human speed on foot), although some individuals may have moved faster than that by falling out of a tree or off a cliff. Fast vehicles, on the other hand, have only appeared in the last couple of hundred years, and it would take many more tens or hundreds of thousands of years before these new selection pressures made any noticeable difference to human physiology, if any.

The road sign is far too lengthy and philosophical to be used in practice but is conceivable as an advertisement for safe driving.

The phrase "next 5 miles" is common to road signs, particularly those on US highways in rural areas. This is to indicate that the conditions on the sign will continue for the next five miles along that road. The title text refers to the fact that the conditions on the sign will continue for a lot longer than the next few miles of travel.

The title text refers to the fact that the sign doesn't really know how many more miles the driver may travel, and that it may be more than five. Since the average American [http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar8.htm drives over 13,000 miles per year], this is indeed very likely.

==Transcript==
:An American Diamond warning sign with the following message on it.
:[You're in a box on wheels hurtling along several times faster than evolution could possibly have prepared you to go. Next 5 miles.]

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with color]]

159: Boombox

2017-05-27T01:02:21Z

Oneforfortytwo:

{{comic
| number = 159
| date = September 20, 2006
| title = Boombox
| image = boombox.png
| titletext = And she's gonna feel like a jerk when she realizes it was actually Under Pressure.
}}

==Explanation==
We see [[Cueball]] declare his love for [[Megan]] in an oft-used setting, paying homage to similar events in classic literature, notably the "balcony scene" from {{w|William Shakespeare|William Shakespeare's}} play {{w|Romeo and Juliet}}, and a similar situation in {{w|Cyrano_de_Bergerac_(play)|Cyrano de Bergerac}}. In the former, Romeo, attempting to woo Juliet, stands beneath her balcony to profess his love for her. In the latter, an inarticulate cadet, Christian, professes his love for Roxane by arranging to use the words of a fellow soldier, Cyrano, who secretly also loves Roxane.

The 1989 movie "{{w|Say Anything...}}" contains a modern interpretation of this declaration of love, where {{w|John Cusack}} plays {{w|Peter Gabriel|Peter Gabriel's}} "{{w|In Your Eyes (Peter Gabriel song)#Say Anything...|In Your Eyes}}" on a boombox outside the house of the girl he likes.

Cueball is holding up a boombox (a self-contained semiportable stereo system, typically with cassette tape or CD player, and complete with integrated large speakers; extreme specimens could weigh up to 12 kg) which is playing music while Cueball declares his love for Megan. She first is startled, embarrassed, then eventually disgusted by the 1990 hit single {{w|Ice Ice Baby}} ([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rog8ou-ZepE&ob=av2e Video]) by {{w|Vanilla Ice}} playing on the boombox. Cueball then admits he is "not good at this," attempting to recreate the classic romantic scene, but utterly failing to play music suitable for such an event.

The "Under Pressure" reference in the title text refers to the fact that the music used in "Ice Ice Baby" is a sample of the bassline of "{{w|Under Pressure}}" by {{w|Queen (band)|Queen}} and {{w|David Bowie}}. It also may be that Cueball is having trouble holding the boombox, hence Cueball being 'under pressure.'

These two songs are again referenced together in [[1561: Water Phase Diagram]].

==Transcript==
:[Megan is looking out a second story window at Cueball holding a boombox over his head. Musical Notes are coming out of it.]
:Cueball: Megan!
:Megan: Oh my god, I can't believe this is happening.
:Cueball: I love you!
:Megan: Okay, that's great. Wait a second. Is... is that... Ice Ice Baby? What the hell?
:Cueball: I'm not very good at this.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Music]]
[[Category:Romance]]

744: Walkthrough

2017-05-27T01:02:13Z

Oneforfortytwo:

{{comic
| number = 744
| date = May 24, 2010
| title = Walkthrough
| image = walkthrough.png
| titletext = There's nothing hotter than porn dubbed over with a poorly-mic'd teenager's voice explaining each step in a droning monotone. 'okay, we're almost at the spawn point... separate the labia, but watch out, there are more inside them...
}}

==Explanation==
A ''walkthrough video'' is a recorded explanation of how to accomplish a certain task, usually beating a video game (or a particular level of one). A ''speed run'' is a walkthrough showing a particularly fast way to finish a game (or level). The man is implying that because he followed the speed-run video, intercourse didn't last long enough to satisfy his partner — who now probably doesn't want to date him again as a result.

The title text (humorously) shows what the narration on such a video might be like, based on typical video game walkthroughs. In a video game, a ''spawn point'' is a place where enemies, items, or players will appear; here, ''spawn'' is also being used in the biological sense of mating and reproduction. The "separate [...] more inside" part is similar to typical instructions about how to get past certain enemies or traps, while it could also refer to the labia majora and minora. Separating the labia majora would reveal the labia minora.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball sits at a computer. His friend enters the room.]

:Cueball: How did the date go?
:Friend: I wanted to be prepared, so I looked up a sex walkthrough video.

:[The two men sit silently contemplating the words of the previous moment.]

:Cueball: ...and?
:Friend: It turns out it was a speed run.
:Cueball: Ouch.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Sex]]
[[Category:Video games]]

370: Redwall

2017-05-27T01:02:10Z

Oneforfortytwo:

{{comic
| number = 370
| date = January 14, 2008
| title = Redwall
| image = redwall.png
| titletext = My Redwall/Jurassic Park crossover fanfic is almost complete!
}}

==Explanation==
This comic references {{w|Brian Jacques|Brian Jacques'}} series of books, ''{{w|Redwall}}'', which star sapient woodland animals in various high fantasy adventures.

The first panel shows the similarity between the story of Martin the Warrior (from the book ''{{w|Mossflower}}'') and {{w|Aragorn}} from ''{{w|The Lord of the Rings}}'' by {{w|J. R. R. Tolkien}}. The joke is that while Martin and Aragorn introduce themselves separately, they then go on to describe their particular story, which turns out to be exactly the same for both of them. Subsequently Martin jinxes Aragorn. {{w|Jinx (children's game)|Jinx}} is a common children's game, which is initiated by shouting "Jinx" after somebody speaks the same word or sentence at the same time as you. That person is then jinxed, with the usual rules dictating that they are then not permitted to speak until unjinxed by some specific action (usually somebody saying their name). Martin and his sword was referenced again in [[1722: Debugging]].

The second panel deals with the fact that ''Redwall'' mentions the name of {{w|Satan}} or {{w|The Devil}} 4 times while it never mentions {{w|God}} or {{w|Jesus}}. [[Randall Munroe|Randall]] then points out that people who protest against {{w|Harry Potter}} because of the series witchcraft, should take note that Redwall explicitly mentions Satan although it has had little to no negative feedback from more conservative readers.

In the third panel, Randall comments on ''Redwall'''s often-used theme of critical messages being left in riddles throughout the Abbey for the occupants to find when they are in need. Randall suggests that he would use {{w|Public-key cryptography|public-key cryptography}} to encode the messages, instead of the elaborate riddles used in the books (some of which are ridiculously easy, which doesn't exactly make for good security when dealing with sensitive information).

In the title text Randall jokes that he is making a crossover {{w|Fan fiction|fan-fiction}} with ''Redwall'' and ''{{w|Jurassic Park}}''.

Redwall was also referenced in [[1688: Map Age Guide]] and [[1722: Debugging]].

==Transcript==
:Notes from reading Redwall books for the first time since childhood.

:Some of this feels familiar.
:Aragorn: Hi, I'm Aragorn.
:Martin: I'm Martin.
:Aragorn and Martin: I'm here to reforge my broken sword so I can lead an army against the tyrant threatening my people. I live in a world of moral absolutes and racist undertones.
:Martin: Jinx!

:It startled me when characters mentioned Satan.
:Redwall: "By Satan's whiskers..."
:Redwall mentions God/Jesus 0 times.
:Redwall mentions Satan/The Devil 4 times.
:(Harry Potter protesters, take note.)

:Even as a kid this bothered me: Why does everyone leave critical secret messages as simple riddles? It's silly to assume the intended recipient will be the only one to find and solve them. I would do things differently.
:Matthias: The inscription is a message from Martin!
:Brother Methuselah: What does it say?
:Matthias: Hang on, it's encrypted with my public key.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Bar chart]]
[[Category:LOTR]]
[[Category:Religion]]
[[Category:Cryptography]]
[[Category:Animals]]
[[Category:Fiction]]

19: George Clinton

2017-05-27T01:02:04Z

Oneforfortytwo:

{{comic
| number = 19
| date = October 12, 2005
| title = George Clinton
| image = george_clinton.jpg
| titletext = I still wish it were true.
}}

==Explanation==

{{w|George Clinton (musician)|George Clinton}} is an American musician most famous for his funk music and wild hair style.
His recorded music features themes of space, sci-fi, technology and futurism. An example of his work most appropriate to this comic is the song "Mathematics" from the 1996 album T.A.P.O.A.F.O.M (The awesome power of a fully operational mothership)

:"I count the moments we're apart. And add them up mathematically
:and multiply them by the kisses supposedly I've been missing.
:Divided by the attention not to mention the affection.
:Subtract that from your gross potential and see I ain't missin' none.
::Cause any percentage of you is as good the whole pie.
::Any fractions thereof brings dividends of interest.
::Any percentage of you is as good as the whole pie.
::Any fractions thereof brings dividends of love.
:I take the square root and get boxed in every time.
:When I know the shortest distance between two points is in a straight line.
:I'ma go into you, I'ma come into you two times, and carry the fun over the one to where we equal one.”
:(Chorus 2x)

As [[Randall]] says, he had attempted to spread around an {{w|urban legend}} that George Clinton had a {{w|Bachelor of Arts}} degree in mathematics. However, the more Randall thought about this rumor, the more he found himself believing it was true. This behavior is related to {{w|Pseudologia fantastica}}, which is more commonly known as pathological or compulsive lying. This comic references the associated behavior that an "individual may be aware they are lying, or may believe they are telling the truth, being unaware that they are relating fantasies." These individuals may eventually stop the lie as demonstrated by the title text, which indicates that at some later time the individual realized that the rumor was not true, but wishes it to be so.

This may also be a reference to James Thurber's 13 clocks, in which a character called the Golux has the following exchange with the main character:
:"When I was young I told a tale of buried gold, and men from leagues around dug in the woods. I dug myself."
:"But why?"
:"I thought the tale of treasure might be true."
:"You said you made it up."
:"I know I did, but I didn't know I had. I forget things, too."

The equations on the board are {{w|Laplace transforms}} of functions.

==Transcript==
:[George Clinton indicates one of two equations on the blackboard to the left. There are one more equation and a diagram on the blackboard to the right that exits the frame. The first part of the text is above the blackboards:]
:I once tried to start the urban legend that George Clinton has a B.A. in mathematics

:[On the left blackboard are two formulas, George points to the lower one:]
:L(F(t) = F(s) = ∫∞0f(t)e-stdt

:L-1 (F(s)) = f(t) = ∫∞0 F(t)estdt

:[On the right blackboard are one formula (partly) and an diagram with an x-y scale and three other lines touching down to the base. Above these lines are some numbers, that are partly indecipherable.]
:γn = 2n/12K

: 0 2 3
:⌊⌊⌊⌊

:[Below George and the blackboards are the part of the text:]
:...but I wanted it to be true so badly that I started believing it myself.

==Trivia==
*This was the 18th comic originally posted to [[LiveJournal]].
**The previous was [[18: Snapple]].
**The next was [[20: Ferret]].
*Original title: "Wednesday: George Clinton"
*There were no original [[Randall]] quote for this comic.
*This comic was posted on [[xkcd]] when the web site opened on Sunday the 1st of January 2006.
**It was posted along [[:Category:First day on xkcd|with all 41 comics]] posted before that on LiveJournal as well as a few others.
**The latter explaining why the numbers of these 41 LiveJournal comics ranges from 1-44.
*One of the original drawings drawn on [[:Category:Checkered paper|checkered paper]].
*The first Laplace transform has a mismatched left parenthesis, which was the topic of [[859: (]].

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics posted on livejournal| 18]]
[[Category:First day on xkcd]]
[[Category:Checkered paper]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Math]]

1049: Bookshelf

2017-05-27T01:01:59Z

Oneforfortytwo:

{{comic
| number = 1049
| date = April 30, 2012
| title = Bookshelf
| image = bookshelf.png
| titletext = I had a hard time with Ayn Rand because I found myself enthusiastically agreeing with the first 90% of every sentence, but getting lost at 'therefore, be a huge asshole to everyone.'
}}

==Explanation==
This is a play on the typical "hidden door" in which you pull down the right book and suddenly a wall of books turns into a hidden door. It is most used in spy movies or books. In this case, the book is ''Atlas Shrugged'' and instead of a secret passage, the wall swings around and takes you to a message "You have terrible taste".

{{w|Atlas Shrugged}} is a {{w|dystopian novel}} by {{w|Ayn Rand}}. [[Randall]] is suggesting it's a bad book.

Although the intent behind the book was in Rand's theory of {{w|Objectivism_(Ayn_Rand)|Objectivism}}, it has become largely adopted as a battle-cry by Libertarians. One could find this as another reason to dislike Rand's literature, as Libertarians have been notoriously disruptive and annoying to many who oppose their political philosophy or their means to get their message across.

The title text is a general criticism Randall has with Rand, since most of Rand's characters are fiercely independent and rather tactless.

But the title text also shows the fact that people reading Rand can easily be swayed and aligned with her beliefs by the fact that it stresses that you are unique and individual, and that Randall was victim of these circumstances until he finds Rand's approach preposterous and rejects it. Oddly, since he seems to be judging Rand this on his own accord and making his own decision, one could theorize that he is truly an individualist in that he is not swayed by anyone, even a person who preaches not to be swayed and to make your own decisions — a subject pursued in Ayn Rand's {{w|The Fountainhead}}.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball stands in front of a bookshelf.]
:Cueball: Ooh, ''Atlas Shrugged''.
:[Cueball yanks out book only for a click to be heard.]
:[The entire setup begins to rumble, while the bookcase and a surrounding platform takes both it and Cueball behind the wall.]
:[The tiny, dark room behind the wall has one thing painted on it.]
:Wall: You have terrible taste.
:[The whole piece of kit moves back to its original position. Cueball stands there mildly stunned.]

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

1051: Visited

2017-05-27T01:01:55Z

Oneforfortytwo:

{{comic
| number = 1051
| date = May 4, 2012
| title = Visited
| image = visited.png
| titletext = I hate when I read something like '... tension among the BASE jumpers nearly led to wingsuit combat ...', and I get excited because 'wingsuit combat' is underlined, only to find that it's just separate links to the 'wingsuit' and 'combat' articles.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is a reference to how an internet browser will make the links of the pages that you have visited a different color than the links that you have not visited. In the case of {{w|Wikipedia}} and other wikis powered by {{w|MediaWiki}}, they are blue for non-visited and purple for visited. In this comic, [[Randall]] is ashamed of the pages he has visited, because with the color changes there is evidence of what he has visited in the past, e.g. {{w|autoerotic asphyxiation}} (possibly while researching [[682: Force]], which features that very Wikipedia page).

Also the pages that he did visit before are in great contrast with the pages that he hasn't. Pages he didn't click are often difficult, highly intelligent topics, while he only clicks the easy, funny articles with little scientific background on the Wikipedia site.

The title text refers to a common mistake many people make when reading articles on Wikipedia. Words referring to subjects that have an article on Wikipedia are coloured in blue. This, however, can cause confusion when two words leading to two separate articles appear together, as the two links appear to be one. However, on hovering the cursor over the article link, only one word at a time is underlined, showing that the links are separate.

It is not possible to determine who this fake article is supposed to be about, but the Macarena band is certainly from Dos Hermanas, Spain. So, it is quite possibly a made up article from [[Randall]].

==Transcript==
:[the following is in the standard format of a Wikipedia article, modified to reflect the content of the comic.]
:...and was a pioneer of literary {{w|social realism}}.

:He was born in {{w|Dos Hermanas}} in the {{w|Andalusia}} region of {{w|Spain}} (not to be confused with {{w|Andalasia}}[link clicked.], the kingdom in Disney's ''{{w|Enchanted}}''[link clicked]), which is also the hometown of ''{{w|Macarena, Seville|Macarena}}''[link clicked.] band {{w|Los Del Río}}[link clicked.],

:His {{w|third novel}}, set during the {{w|Burmese-Siamese war}}, marked the start of a lifelong interest in the {{w|history of Southeast Asia}}. He spent his later years in {{w|Thailand}}, writing his final novels just a few blocks from the hotel where actor {{w|David Carradine}}[link clicked.] died of {{w|Autoerotic Asphyxiation}}[link clicked.].

If I go for a while without clearing my browser history, I start getting embarrassd by which words on Wikipedia show up in purple.

==Trivia==
* In the caption of the comic, embarrassed is spelled incorrectly.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Wikipedia]]
[[Category:Wingsuit]]

91: Pwned

2017-05-27T01:01:48Z

Oneforfortytwo:

{{comic
| number = 91
| date = April 19, 2006
| title = Pwned
| image = pwned.png
| titletext = I'm sure a discussion of the reason for the disappearance of adventure games in favor of RPGs would be fascinating.
}}

==Explanation==
First off, three references have to be explained:
*"Counterstrike" is a reference to the {{w|Half-Life (series)|Half-Life}} mod {{w|Counter-Strike}}, and its subsequent sequel. In the Counter-Strike series, you are either a terrorist or a counter terrorist operative and your goal is to stop the other from completing their objective. On a dark map, players would generally use night vision goggles which don't produce light which would give away their position to the enemy.
*"[[Wiktionary:pwned|Pwned]]" is a typical online gaming term meaning beaten, killed or trapped/tricked.
*The "grue" is a predator in the game franchise {{w|Zork}}. Grues fear light, but love to devour adventurers entering the dark. Therefore, you cannot win the game without owning some light source.

Zork is a typical text-adventure, in which you play turn-based (like chess). The computer spits out some textual context, you enter a command (GO <direction>, TAKE <object>, KILL <person>, LOOK AT <object> etc.), and the computer responds by giving the outcome of your command. This scarce context arose from the fact that games in the 1970s and 1980s needed to run on limited memory and microprocessor capacity. During the last 20 years, these barriers were broken down, and games in graphical context, and running in real-time were made possible.

Randall returns Counterstrike to the text-context of Zork, stating thereby that no player used to the real-time, graphical atmosphere of the former would have any appeal to the turn and text-based dynamics of the latter. And yes, that indeed is an initiation to the discussion mentioned in the image text.

The title text mentions {{w|Adventure game|adventure games}} from the early days of personal computers like the IBM-XT, Atari, or C64. That games were based on an interactive story and the player had to solve a puzzle on this by only communicating to the application using a keyboard or later even a mouse. The more modern way of playing games is the genre of {{w|Role-playing video game|Role Playing Games (RPG)}} where the player controls a character who changes in ability and often involve a combat component.

==Transcript==
:Welcome to text-only Counterstrike.
:You are in a dark, outdoor map.
:> GO NORTH
:You have been pwned by a grue.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Video games]]

651: Bag Check

2017-05-27T00:56:56Z

Oneforfortytwo:

{{comic
| number = 651
| date = October 19, 2009
| title = Bag Check
| image = bag_check.png
| titletext = A laptop battery contains roughly the stored energy of a hand grenade, and if shorted it... hey! You can't arrest me if I prove your rules inconsistent!
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] argues with a {{w|Transportation Security Administration|TSA}} agent at an airport security checkpoint over the TSA policy of prohibiting airline passengers from bringing liquids or gels in quantities greater than 3.4 ounces (100 ml) in their carry on items. To prove his point, Cueball points out that modifying the lithium ion battery in his laptop computer to be an explosive poses a more plausible risk to the aircraft than carrying an innocuous bottle of water. The joke is that now the security team is even MORE worried about him specifically and will take away his laptop and most likely detain him for questioning.

The title text continues Cueball's line of argument, segueing into a protest as the situation escalates to the point of Cueball apparently being placed under arrest.This is, however, a bit of an exaggeration, as for them to place someone under arrest, they need real reason to think that they are going to do something bad, and simply knowing this information is not enough to justify this action.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Megan are at a security checkpoint in an airport. A guard is holding an open backpack and a bottle of water, and Cueball is arguing with him.]
:Cueball: But if you're worried about bombs, why are you letting me keep my laptop batteries? If I overvolted them and breached the cells, it would make a sizeable explosion.
:Megan: Oh god.
:Cueball: It's okay, dear. In a moment he'll realize I have a good point and return my water.

==Trivia==
*The TSA [http://blog.tsa.gov/2009/10/response-to-bag-check-cartoon.html responded to this comic] in a blog post and Randall Munroe [http://blog.tsa.gov/2009/10/response-to-bag-check-cartoon.html#c9173728821851325302 expounded on his intent] in its comments.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]

1042: Never

2017-05-27T00:56:51Z

Oneforfortytwo:

{{comic
| number = 1042
| date = April 13, 2012
| title = Never
| image = never.png
| titletext = I'll never forget you--at least, the parts of you that were important red flags.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic plays with that some phrases are generally interpreted as communicating positive sentiments, although they strictly are ambiguous.

[[Cueball]] is mulling over a previous relationship. Usually when someone says something like "I will never have with anyone what I had with {{w|Nomen nescio|NN}}" it implies that the couple had something so good that it could never be replaced. But when he thinks "Thank God", it is suddenly implied that the relationship was so horrible he's thankful he'll never have to experience it again.

The title text goes along the same line: "I'll never forget you" is usually positive – but then it becomes clear that it is the {{w|red flag (signal)|red flags}}, the warning signs about the person that they would not be a good fit for a serious relationship and marriage, that he'll never forget.

There is a similar twist in comics [[71: In the Trees]] and [[334: Wasteland]].

==Transcript==
:[Cueball staring into a pond.]
:Cueball: I know that no matter where I go, or who I build a life with,

:Cueball: I will never have with anyone, what I had with you.

:[Cueball walks off.]
:Cueball: Thank god.

{{Comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Language]]

1024: Error Code

2017-05-27T00:56:47Z

Oneforfortytwo:

{{comic
| number = 1024
| date = March 2, 2012
| title = Error Code
| image = error code.png
| titletext = It has a section on motherboard beep codes that lists, for each beep pattern, a song that syncs up well with it.
}}

==Explanation==
Complex computer programs often incorporate a numbering system for errors that are anticipated might occur. This way, the code can be referenced to tech support so that there is some feedback from the program as to what is wrong (akin to a car dashboard with multiple lights telling you if you have a battery problem or an engine problem or a cooling problem, etc.) Most people have seen at least one error code in their life. Perhaps the most famous error code is seen in web browsers, [[404]] (not found). Another code is 403 (forbidden).

The guy at the computer gets the error "-41", but cannot tell even what program it comes from. So, the other guy decides to look up the code in a book apparently called ''Error Codes''. The book then indicates to go to a lake instead of how to resolve the computer problem. Which seems like a great solution because it would be very relaxing! The panel with the image of the lake is fairly rare as far as xkcd comics go, in that it is approaching a photorealistic picture.

The beep codes referenced in the title text refers to the error codes produced by motherboards. Because the motherboard is sort of the "heart" of the computer, the designers apparently did not want to rely on any form of error display that might be compromised by the error itself (i.e. a visual display). Instead, motherboards typically have a code consisting of beeps from the system "PC" speaker which is expected to work without error in most situations, as it's wired directly to the motherboard. In a sort of {{w|Morse code|morse-code}}-type system, certain lengths and numbers of beeps refer to different errors like memory problems, video card problems, etc. The one quick beep that occurs on boot sequences is the POST (Power On Self-Test) beep, which detects vital parts of the system, like motherboard, memory, monitor, etc. The beep indicates that everything necessary to boot is present. Anyone who has built a few computers is probably familiar with less happy beep sequences.

It is possible [[Randall Munroe|Randall]] wanted comic number 1024 to be about computers because 1024 is a significant number in computer systems: it is exactly 210, and as such is sometimes used instead of 1000 as the power constant for file sizes for the sake of easier binary arithmetic. This was referenced in [[1000: 1000 Comics]].

==Transcript==
:[A guy sits at a computer, while a friend takes a book off a shelf behind him.]
:Computer guy: "Error -41"? That's helpful. It doesn't even say which program it's from!
:Friend: -41? I'll look it up...

:[The friend looks at the book.]
:Friend: It says -41 is: "Sit by a lake."

:[The two walk.]

:[The two sit down.]

:[A large, in-color painting of a lake with pond lilies.]

:[The two are still sitting.]
:Computer guy: I don't know where you got that book, but I like it.
:Friend: Hasn't been wrong yet.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]