https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=141.101.106.95&feedformat=atomexplain xkcd - User contributions [en]2024-03-29T06:53:27ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.30.0https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1533:_Antique_Factory&diff=94762Talk:1533: Antique Factory2015-06-03T13:09:40Z<p>141.101.106.95: </p>
<hr />
<div>Fist.<br />
<br />
<p>The reference to inexorable passage of time reminds me of [[209: Kayak]] [[User:Effy|Effy]] ([[User talk:Effy|talk]]) 11:55, 3 June 2015 (UTC)</p><br />
<p>The briefcase seems to be slightly different from the third panel to the fourth. Is this just a drawing difference, or something significant? [[User:Technetium|Technetium]] ([[User talk:Technetium|talk]]) 12:29, 3 June 2015 (UTC)</p><br />
<br />
Arguably, the premise of the comic is that while an antique ''may'' be something old that has been in storage (e.g. an attic, or an otherwise unused spare room) for most of its time since it was actually new, some would consider that less desirous than an item that was thoroughly used when new, and has acquired signs of wear and tear (or even an actual patina, rather than the perfect surface of the freshly manufactured goods) over a significant proportion of its existence.<br />
<br />
Indeed, fake antiques of various kinds are subjected to intense (and artificial) 'usage' to give them the look of age that they lack, to add to the authentic-looking (but actually deliberately 'back-dated') construction methods that were used. Or even to make up for this being done wrong.<br />
<br />
In this comic, however, there's no sign of criminal intent. It seems that contemporary pieces of furniture are being 'used' (the chair sat on, which may be fair enough; the table sat ''at'', which is a somewhat more intangible process) roughly in line with how a then-contmporary antique would have been used, when new, with no intention to accelerate or artifice the 'aging' process. Normally one would not consider this a cost-effect business model, but this argument has never troubled the character before, so why should it now?<br />
<br />
(I leave it up to someone else to summarise this idea in the main explanation. If they agree with it.) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.106.95|141.101.106.95]] 13:09, 3 June 2015 (UTC)</div>141.101.106.95https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1532:_New_Horizons&diff=947201532: New Horizons2015-06-02T23:20:43Z<p>141.101.106.95: /* Explanation */ Plurality agreement.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1532<br />
| date = June 1, 2015<br />
| title = New Horizons<br />
| image = new_horizons.png<br />
| titletext = Last-minute course change: Let's see if we can hit Steve's house.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
''{{w|New Horizons}}'' is a NASA mission launched in 2006 to study the dwarf planet {{w|Pluto}} and its moons. Its closest approach to Pluto will be on July 14, 2015 [http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/index.html]. In April and May 2015, it captured the first images of Pluto with enough resolution to see some details on Pluto's surface [http://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-s-new-horizons-sees-more-detail-as-it-draws-closer-to-pluto]. These images are similar to the second pane of the comic, with Pluto shown as a gray dot only a few pixels wide.<br />
<br />
''{{w|Dawn (spacecraft)|Dawn}}'' is a NASA mission launched in September 2007 to study the asteroid {{w|4 Vesta|Vesta}} and dwarf planet {{w|Ceres (dwarf planet)|Ceres}}. Its closest approach to Vesta began on July 16, 2011 by the {{w|Dawn_(spacecraft)#Vesta_approach|Vesta approach}}, and entered orbit around Ceres on 6 March 2015. And in fact the pictures of Ceres are still in a much better resolution like in this comic [[1476: Ceres]], but these images are also still mysterious.<br />
<br />
On the day this comic was published, ''New Horizons'' was at 0.34 AU from Pluto and 32.55 AU from the Sun [http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Mission/Where-is-New-Horizons/index.php]. One AU ({{w|Astronomical unit}}) is the approximate distance of Earth from the Sun, or about 150 million kilometers. <br />
<br />
Distances from the Sun ({{w|semi-major axis}}): Vesta 2.36 AU; Ceres 2.77 AU; Jupiter 5.20 AU; Pluto 39.26 AU.<br />
<br />
A {{w|Gravity assist|slingshot maneuver}} is a technique where a spacecraft is maneuvered or accelerated with the help of a gravitational field. In the comic, presumably someone named Steve made the calculations for the New Horizons spacecraft to accelerate toward Pluto using {{w|Jupiter}}'s gravity.<br />
<br />
In the first panel we see [[Cueball]] and [[Ponytail]] standing in front of a computer monitor and observing a series of images sent back from ''New Horizons'' as it approaches the planet. As the image resolution increases, it's obvious that the spacecraft is in fact approaching Earth, not Pluto. They blame this unexpected result on Steve, who apparently miscalculated the Jupiter slingshot maneuver, leading the probe to slingshot back on an incorrect trajectory towards Earth instead of towards Pluto. Needless to say, this is a huge embarrassment, especially in front of the successful ''Dawn'' team, who were the first to get a probe to visit a dwarf planet.<br />
<br />
The title text suggests the team is considering crashing the probe into Steve's house as punishment for his errors.<br />
<br />
This is likely the same Steve from [[809: Los Alamos]] (set in 1945), given the similar contexts. If so, his calculations may be even more erroneous due to senile dementia.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Cueball and Ponytail are standing in front of a large computer console. Cueball's hands are on the keyboard; both are looking at the screen.]<br />
:Cueball: We made it! After all these years, ''New Horizons'' is finally revealing the surface of Pluto!<br />
:Ponytail: Take ''that'', ''Dawn'' team.<br />
<br />
:<nowiki>[</nowiki>In the next four frames, we see photos, entirely black except for a circle in the middle. The circle is initially small, indistinct and appears in shades of grey; the successive circles are larger showing more color and shade variation. In the last, we see a blurry but recognizable outline of Africa, the Middle East and part of Western Asia, along with some clouds. The lighting pattern suggests that it is daytime in Africa, sometime in the northern summer.<nowiki>]</nowiki><br />
<br />
:Cueball: OK, who did the calculations for the Jupiter slingshot maneuver?<br />
:Ponytail: (facing away from the computer console) Dammit, Steve...<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<!-- Include any categories below this line. --><br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics with color]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]<br />
[[Category:Space]]</div>141.101.106.95https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1511:_Spice_Girl&diff=89546Talk:1511: Spice Girl2015-04-13T08:01:10Z<p>141.101.106.95: </p>
<hr />
<div>Not being shouted (from without, at either cueball or his female companion) by a post-apocalyptic crowd, surely, but by Cueball (from within, at the post-apocalyptic person of whom he is currently trying to deny entry whilst possibly necessary weaponry is being loaded)... Or so I read it. If that makes sense. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.4|141.101.99.4]] 05:43, 13 April 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
It does look like that, but the caption states "through a door". -- microslayer<br />
<br />
The little lines around the origin point of the speech "bubble" is usually used in XKCD to indicate that the sound is coming through the surface or offscreen (see Writers Strike (360) and Time Vulture (926)). -Pennpenn [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.155|108.162.250.155]] 06:52, 13 April 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:Except that I read the ''caption'' as meaning "through a door" by our Cueball, i.e. what someone like him would be shouting ''out'', plosively. (It's "through the wall", anyway, if that's a 'through something' speech-bubble-originator-indicator (like the "THUMP"s are) rather than 'rather loudly' emphasis that I'd expect to be associated with Cueball. They are shown differently, with the non-THUMP indicator not really having the same appearance as all the other ones otherwise mentioned. Even in the very same panel.) Anyway, just my POV. Needs an Official Transcript to be sure, I suppose. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.4|141.101.99.4]] 07:12, 13 April 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
<br />
I don't know much about the Spice Girls, but the comic seems to be referring to two; Is there a "merciful" Spice Girl? Is there one likely to "start a war"? And is there a "war" that is specifically to do with the Spice Girls? -[[Special:Contributions/141.101.106.95|141.101.106.95]] 08:01, 13 April 2015 (UTC)</div>141.101.106.95https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1511:_Spice_Girl&diff=89545Talk:1511: Spice Girl2015-04-13T08:00:33Z<p>141.101.106.95: </p>
<hr />
<div>Not being shouted (from without, at either cueball or his female companion) by a post-apocalyptic crowd, surely, but by Cueball (from within, at the post-apocalyptic person of whom he is currently trying to deny entry whilst possibly necessary weaponry is being loaded)... Or so I read it. If that makes sense. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.4|141.101.99.4]] 05:43, 13 April 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
It does look like that, but the caption states "through a door". -- microslayer<br />
<br />
The little lines around the origin point of the speech "bubble" is usually used in XKCD to indicate that the sound is coming through the surface or offscreen (see Writers Strike (360) and Time Vulture (926)). -Pennpenn [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.155|108.162.250.155]] 06:52, 13 April 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:Except that I read the ''caption'' as meaning "through a door" by our Cueball, i.e. what someone like him would be shouting ''out'', plosively. (It's "through the wall", anyway, if that's a 'through something' speech-bubble-originator-indicator (like the "THUMP"s are) rather than 'rather loudly' emphasis that I'd expect to be associated with Cueball. They are shown differently, with the non-THUMP indicator not really having the same appearance as all the other ones otherwise mentioned. Even in the very same panel.) Anyway, just my POV. Needs an Official Transcript to be sure, I suppose. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.4|141.101.99.4]] 07:12, 13 April 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
<br />
I don't know much about the Spice Girls, but the comic seems to be referring to two; Is there a "merciful" Spice Girl? Is there one likely to "start a war"? And is there a "war" that is specifically to do with the Spice Girls?</div>141.101.106.95https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1511:_Spice_Girl&diff=895431511: Spice Girl2015-04-13T07:58:26Z<p>141.101.106.95: /* Explanation */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1511<br />
| date = April 13, 2015<br />
| title = Spice Girl <br />
| image = spice_girl.png<br />
| titletext = Haha, you'll see!<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{Incomplete|Seriously, way more text needs to be added}}<br />
[[Randall]] is making a statement against internet quizzes, such as [http://www.buzzfeed.com/lyapalater/which-spice-girl-are-you#.gbkv2p3jDX 'What Spice Girl Are You?'] as if they were being shouted through a post-{{w|Apocalypse|apocalyptic}} door by an angry crowd. If these messages were said at a charged time, the stakes would be higher and each word would be fraught with dangerous meaning.<br />
<br />
The title text refers to lyrics from the {{w|Spice Girls|Spice Girls'}} debut single {{w|Wannabe (song)|"Wannabe"}}:<br />
<br />
: So, here's a story from A to Z<br />
: You wanna get with me, you gotta listen carefully<br />
: We got Em in the place who likes it in your face<br />
: You got G like MC who likes it on a...<br />
: Easy V doesn't come for free, she's a real lady<br />
: '''And as for me, haha, you'll see!'''''<br />
<br />
These lyrics function as a little introduction to the then less well known Spice Girls, with the final line taking a threat-like tone in this new context. It probably doesn't help that the Spice Girl who sung this verse was Scary Spice.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Cueball is trying to barricade a door with his own body and Megan loading a shotgun behind some sort of box]<br />
:'''''THUMP THUMP'''''<br />
:Offscreen, from behind wall: Which Spice Girl Are You?!<br />
:Offscreen, from behind wall: The merciful one, or the one who started this war?<br />
<br />
:Footer: When I see those quiz titles, I like to imagine they're being shouted through a door in a postapocalyptic dystopia.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}</div>141.101.106.95https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1499:_Arbitrage&diff=864591499: Arbitrage2015-03-16T16:31:01Z<p>141.101.106.95: /* Transcript */ Changed bold to italics (As it appears in comic)</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1499<br />
| date = March 16, 2015<br />
| title = Arbitrage<br />
| image = arbitrage.png<br />
| titletext = The invisible hand of the market never texts me back.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
In economics and finance, arbitrage is the practice of taking advantage of a price difference between two or more markets to make risk-free profit by buying in the market with a lower price and simultaneously selling in the market with the higher price. In real-world {{w|Market liquidity|liquid financial markets}}, the possibility of arbitrage ensures that there is only a single price for a given product, since if a product is available for a low price in one market and a high price in another, the buying and selling by arbitrageurs will bid the price up in the low-price market and down in the high-price market until the prices are equal.<br />
<br />
The place where [[Cueball]] and [[Hairy]] are eating is giving away unlimited free chips, effectively a market selling chips for $0. Hairy is taking advantage of this fact to turn a profit for himself by collecting the chips and attempting to resell them elsewhere. Any price higher than $0 would make him a profit. In the real world, one wouldn't be allowed to carry large bags full of chips out of the restaurant, nor would there be many buyers for chips taken from a restaurant in this manner, so this is not expected to work. In financial terms, the extreme illiquidity of the chip market is what allows the obvious arbitrage opportunity to persist indefinitely. Another related issue is the poor {{w|fungibility}} of chips. Chips that are factory-sealed in a bag or served in a restaurant are served in a context where cleanliness and food safety practices can be assumed to have been followed. Chips sold from an open bag by some random person do not have that expectation associated with them and would not be expected to command as high a price as they do in a restaurant transaction.<br />
<br />
In the title text, Randall suggests that society only functions because we don't take people like Hairy out "to dinner", i.e., we generally have an aversion to dealing with people with such extreme self-interest, bordering on sociopathic behavior. A distinguishing feature of social animals, rather than animals simply sharing a habitat, is that they perform tasks that benefit their group. All such societies rely on some situations where the individual is not working purely on short term self interest. The payoff for this is generally that co-operation makes things better for the group as a whole. Most people would find Hairy's behavior embarrassing and shameful, and thus would not socialize with people who behave like that. By rejecting such individuals, society protects itself from such people.<br />
<br />
In economics, the invisible hand is a metaphor used by Adam Smith to describe unintended social benefits resulting from the individual actions of self-interested parties. In the context of arbitrage, the "invisible hand" compels all of a given fungible substance to be sold for the same price, as a result of the actions of individuals like Hairy who are only seeking personal profit.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Cueball and Hairy are sitting at a table with a bowl of chips in the middle. Hairy has one hand in the bowl of chips, and the other hand behind him in a large bag marked "Chips".]<br />
:Hairy: ''They're'' the ones giving chips away!<br />
:Hairy: If they don't see the arbitrage potential, sucks for them.<br />
<br />
:[Below the main frame]: In a deep sense, society functions only because we generally avoid taking these people out to dinner.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]</div>141.101.106.95https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1497:_New_Products&diff=86035Talk:1497: New Products2015-03-11T07:52:25Z<p>141.101.106.95: </p>
<hr />
<div>Seems to me that the humor on the first two is based on engineers and programmers not understanding the general public's needs and wants. Also based on how engineers may find products "exciting" based on how novel the product's functionality is, not based on how useful that functionality is. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.150|108.162.215.150]] 07:02, 11 March 2015 (UTC)MW<br />
* It seems to me to be a bash on various makes, remakes, re-remakes, /(re-){2,}remakes/ and sequels of sequels that become very successful. —[[Special:Contributions/141.101.106.95|141.101.106.95]] 07:52, 11 March 2015 (UTC)</div>141.101.106.95https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1490:_Atoms&diff=849791490: Atoms2015-02-23T15:41:34Z<p>141.101.106.95: /* Explanation */ Changed `cartoon` into `comic`</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1490<br />
| date = February 23, 2015<br />
| title = Atoms<br />
| image = atoms.png<br />
| titletext = When I was little I had trouble telling my dad apart form the dog. I always recognized my mom because she had a bunch of extra plutoniums in her middle. I never did ask her why ...<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
In this comic, [[Megan]] is preparing a sample of what appears to be some mineral for {{w|elemental analysis}}. It seems to be some kind of {{w|silicate}} containing a small amount of {{w|iron}} (a common example of this would be {{w|red sandstone}}), and she is running a test to see if it contains {{w|beryllium}} (a rarer element whose best-known natural form is as a component of {{w|emerald}}).<br />
<br />
[[Beret Guy]] seems to be able to tell what elements the substance is composed of just by eyeballing it, making him perhaps the perfect elemental analysis instrument. Megan finds this bizarre and asks him what is wrong with him. He states that he suspects he contains too much {{w|zinc}} because people think he is weird, missing Megan’s point: what is weird is not Beret guy’s zinc content, but his tendency to apparently see everyone as clouds of atoms.<br />
<br />
The comic continues the theme of Beret Guy’s naive misunderstandings of scientific terminology turning to be literally true: in a previous [[1486: Vacuum|comic]] his ill-informed misinterpretation of the notion of energy in the vacuum resulted in him gaining significant superpowers.<br />
<br />
In the title text, the concept is taken even further: Beret Guy found his dad indistinguishable from a dog; and apparently could recognize his mother only because she contained {{w|plutonium}} ― a very unusual occurrence that cannot possibly occur in nature ― either she had an {{w|Radioisotope thermoelectric generator|RTG}}-powered pacemaker (a few hundred were made in the 1970s), or she was the victim of {{w|unethical medical experimentation#Plutonium experiments|unethical medical experimentation}}. Thus the probable reason for his abnormality.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:Beret guy: What’re you doing?<br />
:<br />
:Megan: Testing a sample for beryllium.<br />
:Beret guy: That? Yeah, there’s a bunch of berylliums.<br />
:Megan: How do you know?<br />
:<br />
:Beret guy: Look at it! See? Tons of oxygens and silicons, a few irons but definitely some berylliums too! Can’t you see them?<br />
:<br />
:Megan: No, I can’t see a list of the atoms in a thing by looking.<br />
:Beret guy: How do you tell what things are?<br />
:<br />
:Megan: This is ridiculous. Look at me. What do you see?<br />
:Beret guy: You have tons of metal in your face. Lots of fillings, I guess?<br />
:<br />
:Megan: What’s wrong with you?<br />
:Beret guy: Too many zincs? I’ve always worried I had too much zincs and everyone thought I was weird.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]</div>141.101.106.95https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1489:_Fundamental_Forces&diff=849171489: Fundamental Forces2015-02-22T18:28:28Z<p>141.101.106.95: /* Transcript */ Added future-proofing</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1489<br />
| date = February 20, 2015<br />
| title = Fundamental Forces<br />
| image = fundamental_forces.png<br />
| titletext = "Of these four forces, there's one we don't really understand." "Is it the weak force or the strong--" "It's gravity."<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
[[Cueball]] is acting here as someone teaching physics at a basic level, perhaps a high school science teacher. He seems to understand the general idea of the {{w|Fundamental interaction#Overview of the fundamental interaction|four fundamental forces}}, but his understanding gets progressively more sketchy about the details. The off-panel audience, probably a student or class, is interested, but quickly begins to realize Cueball's lack of understanding. Instead of acknowledging the problem directly, Cueball simply blusters onwards.<br />
<br />
The comic also outlines how progressively difficult it gets to describe the forces. {{w|Gravitation|Gravity}} was first mathematically characterized in 1686 as {{w|Newton's law of universal gravitation}}, which was considered an essentially complete account until the introduction of {{w|general relativity}} in 1915. The {{w|Electromagnetism|electromagnetic force}} does indeed give rise to {{w|Coulomb's law}} of {{w|electrostatics|electrostatic}} interaction (another {{w|inverse-square law}}, proposed in 1785), but a much more comprehensive description, covering full {{w|Classical electromagnetism|classical electrodynamics}}, was only given in {{w|Maxwell's equations}} around 1861. The {{w|strong interaction|strong}} and {{w|weak interaction|weak}} forces cannot easily be summarized as comparably simple mathematical equations. It's possible that Cueball does understand the strong and weak interactions, but is completely at a loss when he tries to describe them. <br />
<br />
The strong force doesn't act directly between {{w|proton}}s and {{w|neutron}}s but between the {{w|quark}}s that form them. Unlike gravity and electromagnetism, the strong force retains the same strength with increasing distance. Between protons and neutrons there is a residual strong force, analogous in some ways to the {{w|van der Waals force}} between molecules. This residual strong force is carried by {{w|pion}}s and does decrease rapidly and exponentially with distance due to the pions having mass.<br />
<br />
The weak force is much weaker than electromagnetism at typical distances within an atomic nucleus, and has a short range, so has very little effect as a ''force'', but has the property of changing one particle into another. It can cause an up quark to become a down quark, and in the process release a high energy electron and neutrino. This is known as beta decay, a form of radioactivity. Over even shorter distances the weak interaction and electromagnetism are essentially the same.<br />
<br />
The title text refers to the fact that it is gravity that appears to be the simplest and easiest to understand of the four forces, but turns out to be the {{w|Quantum_gravity|hardest to reconcile}} with a coherent (quantum) understanding of {{w|Theory of everything|all four forces together}}.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Cueball is holding his hands up while giving a lecture to an off panel audience.]<br />
:Cueball: There are four fundamental forces between particles: <br />
::(1) '''''Gravity''''', which obeys the inverse square law:<br />
::: F<sub>gravity</sub> = G m<sub>1</sub>m<sub>2</sub>/d<sup>2</sup><br />
<!-- When math arrives, use the following:<br />
::: <math>F_{gravity}=G\frac{m_1m_2}{d^2}</math> --><br />
:Off panel audience: OK...<br />
<br />
<br />
:[Cueball is still holding his hands up while continues the lecture to the off panel audience.]<br />
:Cueball: (2) '''''Electromagnetism''''', which obeys ''this'' inverse-square law:<br />
:::F<sub>static</sub> = K<sub>e</sub> q<sub>1</sub>q<sub>2</sub>/d<sup>2</sup><br />
<!-- When math arrives, use the following:<br />
::: <math>F_{static}=K_e\frac{q_1q_2}{d^2}</math> --><br />
::...and also Maxwell's equations<br />
:Off panel audience: Also what?<br />
<br />
<br />
:[Zoom in on Cueball as he continues the lecture to the off panel audience.]<br />
:Cueball: (3) The '''''strong nuclear force''''', which obeys, uh ...<br />
:::...well, umm...<br />
::...it holds protons and neutrons together.<br />
:Off panel audience: I see.<br />
:Cueball: It's strong.<br />
<br />
<br />
:[Cueball finishes the lecture to the off panel audience and spreads out his arm for the final remark.]<br />
:Cueball: And (4) the '''''weak force'''''. It [mumble mumble] radioactive decay [mumble mumble] <br />
:Off panel audience: That's not a sentence. You just said “Radio-<br />
:Cueball: – '''''And those are the four fundamental forces!'''''<br />
<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Physics]]</div>141.101.106.95https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Proposals&diff=84823explain xkcd:Community portal/Proposals2015-02-20T21:22:10Z<p>141.101.106.95: /* LaTeX (Or MathML, TeX) support? */</p>
<hr />
<div><noinclude>{{Community portal}}</noinclude><br />
<br />
== Add unexplained strips ==<br />
<br />
At the moment, browsing through the explanations using the previous and next buttons is interrupted whenever there's an explanation missing.<br />
<br />
I think adding a page with the strip fr all of those with a short message like "no one has explained this yet, want to give it a shot?" would make the wiki easier to browse through and will get more strips explained faster.<br />
<br />
:I don't think that would happen. If suddenly it was much easier for people to skip over pages that had no explanation, I think they would do exactly that, skip right over it. On the same side of that coin, If suddenly there are no longer any red links on the [[List of all comics]] then everyone perusing that page assumes that all the comics have been explained and don't need to contribute any more. It's astonishing how quickly an [[589: Designated Drivers|embedded]] red link gets an explanation page created simply to get rid of the red link.<br />
<br />
:Secondarily, ''many'' of the pages created recently aren't being created with their numerical and titular redirects. Without the numerical redirect, the comic template can't find that there is a previous/next comic to link to. Every once in a while somebody will go through and try to notice all the pages that don't have their redirects created but it's an unscientific process that only happens occasionally. If we could get every joe blow that comes in and vomits up a poorly done explanation to create the redirects I wouldn't be quite as annoyed at their lack of show-don't-tell-manship. But, since they can't be bothered to put the date in the comic template, I doubt we'll ever get people to create the redirects.<br />
<br />
:'''TL;DR:''' No more red links, no more work gets done on the back catalog.<br />
<br />
:--[[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]<span title="I'm an admin. I can help.">_a</span> ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 14:28, 21 December 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== xplainkcd.com ==<br />
<br />
When I first saw this site I thought it should definitely be at xplainkcd.com or at least redirect from that url {{unsigned|115.166.22.158|12:45, 3 January 2013 (UTC)}}<br />
<br />
: I like that idea! --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 13:28, 3 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:Yeah! If it's possible, it would be cool! At least as a redirect. -- [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 15:46, 3 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:Not technically the same thing, but I just took [http://expxkcd.com http://expxkcd.com]. More explanation is given on the website itself. {{User:Grep/signature|05:10, 29 March 2014}}<br />
::We do that with explainxkcd.com as well, but yay shorter URLs! Mind if I use that for our social media links? '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 06:45, 29 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
:::I had no idea that you did that, but sure, go ahead! If you want, I can change any DNS records if you wish to have it go directly to you guys. {{User:Grep/signature|07:16, 29 March 2014}}<br />
:::In case you were wondering, I just did the following: <code>^/([0-9]+)(/large)?/?$</code> {{User:Grep/signature|07:25, 29 March 2014}}<br />
::::Hrm. We're just matching with <code>^(\d+)/?$</code>. You can keep ownership of the URL if you want, unless you have traffic concerns or whatever and you want us to handle it, which we're very capable of doing. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 08:47, 29 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I have made http://www.xkcd.ga and http://www.xkcd.tk both forward to http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page. Is this ok? [[User:17jiangz1|17jiangz1]] ([[User talk:17jiangz1|talk]]) 08:49, 26 December 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Section style and usage ==<br />
<br />
I am new here and I'm trying to get up to speed with the culture. I have a few questions about how and where to use sections (== this ==). I am more willing to go with (and enforce) whatever norms there are here, but I have not seen them actually discussed. <br />
<br />
# '''Is it OK to create sections in Discussion pages?''' I have been told no, but there are many examples extant of this usage in this Wiki and indeed in Wikipedia.<br />
# '''Section title case''' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Capital_letters#Acronyms Wikipedia's style guide] recommends sentence case, not title case. There are many title cased section headers here. <br />
# '''Links''' I do not have a reference for this but it seems to me putting links in section code (== [[<span style="color:blue"><nowiki>this</nowiki></span>]] == ) is bad form. <br />
<br />
Last note -- it's understood if these bylaws have not yet been written. I can see that a few of you have made a huge personal investment to make this Wiki what it is today, and that is a credit to you all -- this is awesome! As a long-time aficionado of xkcd I applaud your work and look forward to further collaboration.<br />
--[[User:Smartin|Smartin]] ([[User talk:Smartin|talk]]) 04:15, 4 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:As a general rule, we stick to the standard format that existing pages follow, with an optional trivia section below the transcript. Some zealous editors like to add other sections though, which tend to be for the most part unneeded or redundant. If something you want to add doesn't help to explain the comic in some way, but the inclusion of which would somehow still add to the page, *and* it doesn't fall under the trivia category, a new section is warranted. This isn't the case most of the time though, so editors usually fold the content of extraneous sections into "Explanation" or "Trivia." We have no policy on links in titles, and they're allowed so long as they are appropriate; the link is useful and can't be folded into the section itself. And we use title case for titles cuz it just makes sense. '''[[User:Davidy22|<span title="I want you."><u><font color="purple" size="2px">David</font><font color="green" size="3px">y</font></u><sup><font color="indigo" size="1px">22</font></sup></span>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 05:08, 4 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:We generally do not (or at least, discourage) use sections on the talk/discussion pages for explanation pages. This is purely for looks. The comic discussion section of the explanation page looks/feels wrong if there are level 2 section breaks in the transclusion. Also, if the [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Table_of_contents Table of Contents] starts showing up on a page, such as on [[Click and Drag]] the sections created on the talk page also show up in the TOC. This gets confusing, and this is why we prefer not to use them on explanation talk pages. Everywhere else we follow standard wiki format and do use sections on the discussion pages.<br />
<br />
:Personally, I think that links in section titles looks wrong, but I choose not to be the dictator of style in this matter. :p<br />
<br />
:Please feel free to make edits. The worst that happens is someone reverts your edit. If it's a big enough issue and/or you don't seem to be learning from what people are fixing about your edits someone will leave a comment on your talk page. That's it. We might leave a nasty-gram in the edit summary, but oh well. We only ban for malicious intent. Honestly working to better the wiki is good, even if sometimes we grumble about it.<br />
<br />
:--[[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]<span title="I'm an admin. I can help.">_a</span> ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 07:00, 4 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
::Oh, I just looked at your talk page. I completely forgot that that happened. Don't worry about it. Learning the ropes is part of the experience. Do make edits, and if they're wrong, we'll nudge you in the right direction. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]<span title="I'm an admin. I can help.">_a</span> ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 07:18, 4 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I have been moving some trivia sections to directly below the explanation, in order to make it more consistent, and easier to survey and maintain. Often the dividing line between trivia and explanation is not entirely clear, and in articles without a trivia section the end of the explanation very often contains trivia-like information. (e.g. [[1155: Kolmogorov Directions]]) -- [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 10:13, 4 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
===Title case doesn't make any sense===<br />
At first sight title case in titles just makes sense. However title case '''never''' makes sense. It's worse than all caps. Besides, only Americans and children like title case. [[Special:Contributions/190.96.48.48|190.96.48.48]] 20:04, 10 August 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Protip ==<br />
<br />
Anyone for adding ''Protip'' as a [[:Category:Comic series|Comic series]]. I have found five so far: [[653]], [[711]], [[1022]], [[1047]] and [[1156]]. (There are also a few comics with a protip title text.) -- [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 10:25, 4 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:I think that qualifies as a recurring topic (thus worthy of a category), but not as a series, where you can see a clear sequence. In fact, [[:Category:My Hobby|My Hobby]] has the same limitation, for what I suggest it to be removed from [[:Category:Comic series]]. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 11:42, 4 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
::Seconded. Looks general and common enough to be a category. '''[[User:Davidy22|<span title="I want you."><u><font color="purple" size="2px">David</font><font color="green" size="3px">y</font></u><sup><font color="indigo" size="1px">22</font></sup></span>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 14:57, 4 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:::Okay, great! Do you think that the ones with a "protip:" title text should be included? Besides, I think I might be the one responsiple for moving My Hobby from [[:Category:Comics by topic|Comics by topic]] to Comic series. I felt that all the My Hobby comics were about different topics, but maybe i've got to narrow an interpretation of the word "topic". -- [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 15:31, 4 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:::: Can you link to the protip-in-title-text comics?<br />
:::: As for My Hobby, note that categories aren't mutually exclusive. They can be in the "my hobby" topic, and each of them further categorized as appropriate: music, math, etc. Makes sense? --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 03:45, 5 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::: I just searched for protip in the xkcd search bar. Here: [[1084]], [[427]]. And yes, makes sense. I've moved My Hobby back to "by topic". -- [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 12:06, 5 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Category: Sports ==<br />
<br />
How about creating a new "Sports" category? [[User:Ekedolphin|Ekedolphin]] ([[User talk:Ekedolphin|talk]]) 15:31, 28 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Well, maybe. Everyone aren't so keen on new categories here. Which comics are you thinking of, for a start? –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 20:32, 28 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
::We definitely need to reach an agreement as a community on when to create new categories. Something simple like a minimum of 3 (or, say, 5) existing comics. Since we're already at the proposals' portal... what do you guys think about that? --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 21:44, 28 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::My opinion: Five would be enough to qualify. [[User:Ekedolphin|Ekedolphin]] ([[User talk:Ekedolphin|talk]]) 09:31, 29 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
::::I vote for four. But it should also be a reasonable thing to categorize, like sports, not like "sports with Cueball containing at least three anagram words". Wich sholdn't be a problem. :) But the best name choice could be tricky sometimes. e.g. "Film & television", Film & TV", "Film", "Films", or "Movies"? –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 12:59, 29 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::<br />
::::Agreed, five should be enough to create the category without having to discuss it. - [[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 00:50, 26 February 2013 (UTC)<br />
: OK, let's start with [[588: Pep Rally|588]], [[1092: Michael Phelps|1092]], [[904: Sports|904]] and [[1107: Sports Cheat Sheet|1107]]. Should be able to find a few more. [[User:Ekedolphin|Ekedolphin]] ([[User talk:Ekedolphin|talk]]) 05:00, 29 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
::Yeah, it's a broad subject so there are probably several more. -[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 12:59, 29 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::I found another one, sort of, in [[929:Speculation|929]] (although it hasn't been explained yet). Should I get the ball rolling (no pun intended) on setting up the category? Don't wanna do it unilaterally and get yelled at. ;) [[User:Ekedolphin|Ekedolphin]] ([[User talk:Ekedolphin|talk]]) 06:18, 30 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
::::I think you should. On a wiki, getting stuck in discussions which die without a conclusion, to the point that motivated people give up without having done anything, is definitely counter-productive, and phrases like [[wikipedia:Wikipedia:Be bold|Wikipedia:Be bold]] are here to remind us of that. Seems like people agreed that you ''could'', and after a while nobody said that you ''shouldn't'', so I'd say do it. - [[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 00:50, 26 February 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Category: Sex ==<br />
<br />
I think we should also create a Sex category. There's no ''doubt'' we can find more than three examples. I'll start looking for them and post the ones I find in here; again, I don't wanna create a large category by myself without community consent. [[User:Ekedolphin|Ekedolphin]] ([[User talk:Ekedolphin|talk]]) 09:20, 2 February 2013 (UTC)<br />
*OK, the ones for Category: Sex that I've found so far are [[443]], [[219]], [[550]], [[1026]], [[575]], [[468]], [[592]], [[320]], [[1101]], [[417]], [[713]], [[672]], [[230]], [[436]], [[940]], [[532]], [[649]], [[176]], [[1006]], [[596]] and [[717]], and I'm sure there are many more. Should we create this category? [[User:Ekedolphin|Ekedolphin]] ([[User talk:Ekedolphin|talk]]) 23:17, 3 February 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:Same as [[#Category: Sports|above]], do it. Oh, already did; well, all the better. - [[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 00:53, 26 February 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
==New character==<br />
As per [[Talk:1178: Pickup Artists]], the character with hair has appeared in quite a few comics now, and he's starting to become a recurring character. Shall we go ahead with inaugurating him into our list of regular characters, and what name shall we assign him? Current candidate names include Hairy and Harry. Anyone? '''[[User:Davidy22|<u><font color="purple" title="I want you">David</font><font color="green" size="3px">y</font></u><font color="indigo" size="4px">²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 00:07, 26 February 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
: I like Harry :) --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 01:04, 26 February 2013 (UTC)<br />
::Cos made a point in the discussion on [[Talk:1178: Pickup Artists]] that Hairy is directly descriptive, whereas Harry is not obvious to visitors. On the other hand, not all names are descriptive ([[Danish]]) and I think this wiki is entitled to create some xkcd-in-culture, and not just describe. And Harry is quite funny.<br />
::I wonder: has [[Randall]] ever called him anything at all in the transcript? –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 21:52, 26 February 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::Well, he's not named in a any official transcripts, but he's already called Harry in quite a few comic explanations. Then again, I do like having a more descriptive name for him. Shall we hold this up to a vote? '''[[User:Davidy22|<u><font color="purple" title="I want you">David</font><font color="green" size="3px">y</font></u><font color="indigo" size="4px">²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 23:29, 26 February 2013 (UTC)<br />
::::I think we should wait a little for a few more viewpoints to crop up. Also, can someone link to some more comics he's been featured in? I've got [[1028: Communication]], [[1027: Pickup Artist]] and [[1178: Pickup Artists]]. –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 23:41, 27 February 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::::I actually like what that anon said: ''Curly''. Second choice: Hairy (being descriptive, a la Black Hat, Beret, Cueball, etc.) While there's talk about in-culture, we've done that with the names Cueball, Beret, etc. It's my opinion that the only names that should be "real" proper names are those that are named in the comic. Megan, Miss Lenhart, etc. Danish (as is discussed below) isn't truly a proper name, but you could argue it's a meta-description (one attributed by Black hat.) So that's my vote: yes for '''Curly''' or '''Hairy''', no for Harry. [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 05:21, 2 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::That's right, [[Danish]] is not descriptive, but 1/ that name was suggested because the character [[515: No One Must Know|was called that way in the comic]], which is a tiny bit like a name given by the author (at least more than Harry which we have completely made up), and 2/ in that case it's hard to find a descriptive term: use something that revolves around her black hair (her only descriptive feature), and you easily mix up with [[Megan]]; the only graphical difference is that her hair is ''long'', but what kind of name can you make out of that?<br />
:::For this new character, I suggest Hairy because it comes as the easy solution with every advantage: descriptive, easy to understand, and it's not ugly... I actually see no reason to resort to a made-up name like Harry.<br />
:::[[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 22:29, 27 February 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
: '''Alright. So the discussion's been had, and the most oft recommended name appears to be Hairy. All in favor, say aye. If more than 1/3 of editors agree and we have more than 6 votes, Hairy it is.''' '''[[User:Davidy22|<u><font color="purple" title="I want you">David</font><font color="green" size="3px">y</font></u><font color="indigo" size="4px">²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 05:58, 2 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
:# '''Aye''' '''[[User:Davidy22|<u><font color="purple" title="I want you">David</font><font color="green" size="3px">y</font></u><font color="indigo" size="4px">²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 05:58, 2 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
:# '''Aye''' [[User:Guru-45|Guru-45]] ([[User talk:Guru-45|talk]]) 06:14, 2 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
:# '''Aye''' to Hairy. [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 15:43, 2 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
:# '''Aye'''. Harry would be a nice nod to the fact that he's actually hairy, but indeed it's better to avoid inside jokes. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 17:05, 2 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
:# '''Aye'''. I'm convinced! –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 17:52, 3 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
:# '''Aye'''. Hairy. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]<span title="I'm an admin. I can help.">_a</span> ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 20:52, 3 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
::Hooray! We now have a [[:Category:Comics featuring Hairy]], with four pages already! Does anyone feel compelled to create "[[Hairy]]", with a brief description and a nice profile pic like the other characters? –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 22:58, 3 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Ambiguous characters ==<br />
<br />
I've been thinking about the problem of the ambiguity of characters. "Is this really Cueball even though he has an eye and half a nose?", "This is very likely ''not'' x." "Darnit, these arn't Cueballs, these are Randall and his friends!", and so on. The character ambiguity is standard for xkcd (not less so in the early ones), and comes from the very loose or "free" way Randall uses his characters to be whatever he needs at the moment. It's simply often impossible for us to know whether he had e.g. "Cueball" or himself in mind, when drawing a particular comic (and I'd say: probably often both).<br />
<br />
I want to suggest that we in general have a likewise rather loose policy towards including characters in the categories for the comics. So that reasonably ambiguous cases should be included in e.g. (does she have a ponytail?) This is not because I believe this or that to really be this or that; I just don't believe in objective truth (here!). I feel that when doing research :) on a character, the borderline cases are often the most interesting ones, and you want to be able to find them through the "Comics featuring miss x"!<br />
<br />
I came to think this through now, when I wanted to (and did) list two comics with [[Miss Lenhart]] (?) where she was drawn but not named. Any thoughts on this in general? Other case studies? –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 21:17, 5 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
:My take has always been that [[Cueball]], for example, has not been a specific character. There is not ''a'' cueball, per se, distinct from any other cueball... indeed, there are several comics with several cueballs in-frame, and that is the point. I see the cueball character as a wildcard character (pun intended) ready to stand in for anybody (and ''not'' necessarily just Randall; I think those readers who suggest "this ''is'' Randall" are missing the point; he's way more META than that...) [[Megan]], while slightly less generic, still remains the female wild-card significant-other, while Curls seems to be a not-significant-other female used to illustrate a relationship that is transient. Other characters come and go, and when it's important to visually distinguish them from others in the frame, they're given additional characteristics, to wit [[Hairy]], [[Ponytail]], etc.<br />
:Unfortunately, that viewpoint is not commonly held, so I daresay I'm in the minority here.<br />
:-- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 14:18, 6 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Note at the top, about the server error ==<br />
<br />
:''This thread was moved to [[MediaWiki talk:Sitenotice]]''<br />
<br />
== Category: Flowcharts ==<br />
<br />
Hello, the line "Randall has made use of flowcharts before." in today's comic explanation made me want a [[:Category:Flowcharts|flowcharts category]] to navigate into...<br />
<br />
As it didn't exist, I proceeded to create it, but as the log says, [[User:lcarsos|lcarsos]] deleted such a category in November, saying ''"Insufficient differentiation from Category:Comics with charts, diluting the depth of comics tagged charts"''.<br />
<br />
I don't agree with that, and I think we could profit from such a subcategory. I found those pages fitting it:<br />
* [[94: Profile Creation Flowchart]]<br />
* [[210: 90's Flowchart]]<br />
* [[488: Steal This Comic]]<br />
* [[627: Tech Support Cheat Sheet]]<br />
* [[844: Good Code]]<br />
* [[851: Na]]<br />
* [[854: Learning to Cook]]<br />
* [[1195: Flowchart]]<br />
<br />
So? - [[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 10:59, 5 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Weell if you're willing to take charge of the category and personally make sure it's added to all relevant comic explanations, go ahead. The usual objection to making new categories is that we admins can't remember all the categories when we're reviewing new explanations, but it's K if you're willing to take up that responsibility yourself. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 11:17, 5 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
:<br />
:: OK. I did it without waiting for further replies, because I think it will be especially profitable today (to viewers).<br />
:: It doesn't seem a big issue to me if the correct category is not added when a new explanation is made: a passing editor will do it later on... But hey, I'm OK with taking special care of adding pages to this category.<br />
:: [[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 12:28, 5 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
::: I just want to add that Cos' view is indeed the appropriate way to work in wikis: there is no concept of a single author for a page, category, or piece of text, and the workload is meant to be distributed among several editors: it is not necessary that any single editor remembers all existing categories, or knows the wiki markup by heart, or knows how to work with all the features of mediawiki, etc. The reason why wikis can be edited by anyone is precisely a recognition that there *will* be errors and any page can be improved somehow. That reasoning against categories should, IMO, be abandoned, or at most only kept as the opinion of some editors. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 22:00, 6 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Isnt there a page which lists all the categories? If not, there should be one, and it should be accessible to all. Such a page could be useful when trying to quick-add categories to comics. [[Special:Contributions/117.194.83.155|117.194.83.155]] 13:43, 24 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Yes, there is. [[Special:Categories]]. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 14:07, 24 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
::Of course, there's a gazillion of 'em, over several pages, so I understand any reluctance to add new categories (having just suggested a new one myself which I feel is justified, but knowing that the upkeep needed may be the key point of contention so remaining philosophical about it).<br />
::A solution perhaps to carry over from another locale that I frequent is to have a "Categories of Character" page, a "Categories of Object" one, perhaps "Categories of Event", and a "Categories of Publication". For each new comic someone can easily check the shorter Character categories list against those present, the Object list against itemsin use, Events, etc, and of course the Publication one has the "Tuesday Comic"/equivalent, and other date-based ones (although isn't that automatic from templated creation? ...never added a comic, but would imagine it is). After that it's a trawl through the miscelania categories (perhaps a meta-category just for them?). But, yeah, a lot of work to set up. Wouldn't wish it on anyone who wasn't already willing to do it, and I remain an anon-IP person right now so can hardly commit ''myself'' as volunteer maintainer of this. [[Special:Contributions/178.98.31.27|178.98.31.27]] 17:20, 22 June 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== I've removed "add a comment!" from Discussion heading ==<br />
<br />
This does move it to above the line, and the rule stops early. Undo my change if that's more bothering than when the TOC is displayed as "add a comment!Discussion"... <br />
<br />
I don't know how to automatically treat level 2 headers as level 3. That may be why Discussion was a level 1 heading earlier.<br />
[[User:Markhurd|Mark Hurd]] ([[User talk:Markhurd|talk]]) 11:16, 14 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Actually I now noticed there was a short edit war at {{tl|comic discussion}} over whether it should be a level 1 heading, just for this reason. [[User:Waldir]] seems to have conceeded... [[User:Markhurd|Mark Hurd]] ([[User talk:Markhurd|talk]]) 11:25, 14 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:: No edit war, hence no (intentional) concession. I reverted a change once, and didn't notice the change being re-implemented by another user. In any case, it is irrelevant now since we actively discourage using headers in talk pages precisely so that they don't display in the TOC for the main comic page, where the discussion page is transcluded to (see the discussion [[#Section style and usage|above]]). This might not scale well for comics that generate lots of discussion. It might be worth discussing our customs (and perhaps write them down somewhere) before performing such changes. What do others think? --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 11:49, 14 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Time: The Table ==<br />
<br />
Right now on the page [[1190: Time]], we have a whole bunch of tables in the form image-time-hash. The tables take up heaps of vertical space and all have to be collapsed to even be remotely traversible. I propose that we aggregate all the images into one table after Time ends, like so:<br />
<br />
{| class="wikitable plainlinks table-padding"<br />
|-<br />
!Image<br />
!Time<br />
!Image<br />
!Time<br />
!Image<br />
!Time<br />
!Image<br />
!Time<br />
|-<br />
|[[Media:time.png|00:00]]||01/00:00||[[Media:time.png|10:00]]||01/10:00||[[Media:time.png|20:00]]||01/20:00||[[Media:time.png|30:00]]||AND MOAR SAMPLE DATAS<br />
|-<br />
|[[Media:time.png|00:30]]||01/00:30||[[Media:time.png|10:30]]||01/10:30||[[Media:time.png|20:30]]||01/20:30||[[Media:time.png|30:30]]||AND MOAR SAMPLE DATAS<br />
|}<br />
<br />
The hash values aren't really a part of the comic, they're gibberish for the most part and they take up space that could be used to compact the table, as shown above. Even if we are conservative and make the table only five columns wide to account for smaller screens, we've divided scrolling time by five and eliminated much of the need for annoying collapsed tables and section headers for each day. Constructing the table shouldn't be particularly hard either, as all our current data is in nice regular tables with clear patterns that are easy enough to parse through. <br />
<br />
I'm putting this here because the organization of the frame entries would be unintuitive and difficult to change from the edit window, which would make it a poor choice when we're still expanding it and don't even know how long the comic will continue for. It's merely a space-saving trick for after we're sure that the comic is over. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 09:26, 16 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:Oh and it'd be really nice if other people could also upload images if you're awake and a new one rolls by. There's gaps in the image record every time I wake up, and I dun likey. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 11:34, 20 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Good work so far; go ahead make it better! :) –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 08:34, 24 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
==Featured Explanation, and Archival?==<br />
<br />
* Wikipedia has featured content. Now that we are close to reaching the goal of all comics explained, I think it makes more sense to have a "featured explanation" which would serve as a sort of a marker for a complete and good explanation. Many comics, and almost all charts are not fully explained/not a good quality explanation.<br />
<br />
* We should set up archival of discussion of the most discussed pages, like this one. Its not very pleasing to see comments from July 2012 still lying around here. It becomes hectic at some point.<br />
<br />
Just my 2 cents, feel free to discuss. Cheers,<br />
[[Special:Contributions/117.194.88.180|117.194.88.180]] 13:36, 24 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:We dedicate this wiki to explaining xkcd, and we do actually have a featured comic feature; it changes every week on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and we usually manage to fill out the explanation for it within an hour or so of it going up. The most recent comic tends to be the one that most people visiting the wiki care about, so we give it prime space on the front page so they can find it easily. xkcd updates frequently enough that there isn't really that big of a time window for us to feature an article on our front page. Also, we're a volunteer project with quite a bit less manpower than Wikipedia.<br />
:We do need to archive talk pages though. Some of these are getting ridiculously long. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 14:04, 24 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
::I agree with Davidy22. Archiving topics can be done by anyone, by moving resolved threads to the portal section's corresponding [[explain xkcd talk:Community portal/Proposals|talk page]]. We could start with the threads marked "✓ Closed". [[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 17:42, 1 May 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:: The reason I asked for a "featured explanation" was because many of the comic explanations we currently have are sub-par, and we're almost at our initial goal of explaining all comics. A "featured explanation" would drive our editors towards the goal of having complete and good explanation towards all comics, and would allow us to know which explanations need elaboration.<br />
:: P.S. My definition of complete explanation would be - To have a good explanation, To have all categories relevant, To link to any comics related and To explain any technical portions of the comic.<br />
:: [[Special:Contributions/117.194.82.49|117.194.82.49]] 07:45, 8 May 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::That message on the front page is going to link to all the pages marked by the incomplete template. If you find an unsatisfactory explanation, please mark it with <nowiki>{{incomplete}}</nowiki> '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 07:54, 8 May 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::: By my definition, I think all comics will be incomplete. An incomplete template will be focused more towards improving the worst explanations, while a featured one will be to improve the best ones. Since we already have the former, we should focus on the latter. Just my 2 cents. [[Special:Contributions/117.194.85.82|117.194.85.82]] 06:55, 9 May 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Split the list of all comics ==<br />
<br />
[[List of all comics]] is getting larger and larger, which makes it hard to read and hard to edit. How about splitting into parts, say [[List of all comics/1-1000]], [[List of all comics/1001-2000]], etc., or something to that effect? --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 17:39, 1 May 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
: Done. [[Special:Contributions/117.194.88.176|117.194.88.176]] 10:03, 9 May 2013 (UTC)<br />
::Great job, thanks! [[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 11:09, 9 May 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::And I've added back [[List of all comics (full)]], which allows, for example, listing all comics by alphabetical order.[[User:Markhurd|Mark Hurd]] ([[User talk:Markhurd|talk]]) 17:29, 10 May 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Sidebar ads ==<br />
<br />
''Moved from [[Talk:Main Page]] –– [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 08:06, 4 May 2013 (UTC)''<br />
<br />
Are they generating significant money? The ones I see are pretty sleazy looking and/or scammy - "Power Companies Hate this Device! - click here to break the laws of thermodynamics!" and "Debt relief program click here to lose more money". How much money are they generating? Can you set any selections to remove the sleazy ads? [[User:J-beda|J-beda]] ([[User talk:J-beda|talk]]) 18:30, 3 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Do we have sleazy sidebar ads? Since when? Thanks Google Chrome and AdBlock, I had no idea! –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 07:47, 14 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
::People give 20$ a pop to get a bunch of clicks on explainxkcd, and Jeff uses that money to buy a faster server with a hard drive that doesn't have less space than a public toilet with an elephant in it. It'd be really nice if you didn't turn on adblock, the money is appreciated. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 08:47, 14 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::It's a question of me not turning it off specifically every time I visit this site. More importantly, I do think people would be more likely to click the "donate" if it weren't irrelevant ads around it. –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 19:29, 14 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::Generating money is a great thing. Getting "20$ a pop to get a bunch of clicks" is a bit unclear. Do the ads only generate revenue when clicked on? So EXKCD only gets money when someone actually falls for the sleazy ads? I know lots of people do not like Google - but at least their adsense stuff is relevant to the content of the website, which might generate some legitimate traffic for a legitimate advertiser.... [[User:J-beda|J-beda]] ([[User talk:J-beda|talk]]) 11:48, 19 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
::::Welllll, I didn't pick the ad supplier. You could bring it up with [[User talk:Jeff|Jeff]] if you want, I think he picked the ad provider on basis of which one had a mediawiki plugin or something. If you can link Jeff to a quick and easy way to put adsense on mediawiki, he should change it quickly enough. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 14:21, 19 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::::And I also gather then that they are only a temporary thing? -- [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 08:27, 24 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
::::::Until we can buy a server that doesn't poop itself every time a new comic is released, the ads are staying. If you want them to go away sooner, throw more money at Jeff. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 09:25, 24 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
::::::: The ads are crap. For sure. Wish I didn't have to run them, but I don't trust donations alone to hold up continually some better hosting. The ads really don't bring in that much $$$. I had google adsense before, but Google shutdown my adsense account for unnamed reason after 1 week. This new ad service is way sketchier. If you all think they don't have a place here, I'll ax 'em. --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 16:02, 24 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
::::::: Thanks for the info Jeff. How much ad money are we talking about? Is it calculated on how many ads are displayed or how many are clicked-through? How close to the goal is the server fund? How about a Kickstarter campaign for the server? $10 gets your name on a thankyou webpage or something like that. [[User:J-beda|J-beda]] ([[User talk:J-beda|talk]]) 17:32, 24 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::::::: It ain't much, last I looked it was $2 or $3 in 2 weeks. I believe it is based on clicks, it is not nearly as clear as Google adsense. I'm not really interested in doing a Kickstarter. I think the donations will cover the initial start up, I just want to be able to cover the monthly costs as well. A few things are still up in the air. --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 16:24, 25 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::::::::Can you find a way to show the donations and ad income on the site, to make it transparent? ––[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 15:30, 30 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
::::::::: How about a donation amount that you'll take to turn it (the annoying unethical scummy ads) off for a year? Give me a dollar value and I might step up for the good of us all! [[User:J-beda|J-beda]] ([[User talk:J-beda|talk]]) 16:28, 3 May 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Economic transparency ==<br />
<br />
I think this is very important: How can we make the donations and ad-income transparent, so that we all can see when and how much money is coming in, and how far we are from reaching our goal? – [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 00:35, 24 May 2013 (UTC)<br />
: Sounds fine to me, I think I can put something together. --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 15:52, 28 May 2013 (UTC)<br />
::Hi, may I bump this issue? Or maybe you have done something, and I missed it? Anyway, I would still appreciate it! –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 17:43, 22 February 2014 (UTC)<br />
:::Numberssss. I'll get on with it, just need less homework and a few more numbers. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 07:54, 23 February 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I would like to respectfully file a complain. I find the banner advertisement of background checks distasteful. [[User:Benjaminikuta|Benjaminikuta]] ([[User talk:Benjaminikuta|talk]]) 05:10, 15 July 2014 (UTC)<br />
: Hey [[User:Benjaminikuta|Benjaminikuta]] - I am the one who approved those ads. But, since you have filed a complaint about them, I have gone ahead and removed them. Thanks. --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 12:52, 15 July 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I thank you. [[User:Benjaminikuta|Benjaminikuta]] ([[User talk:Benjaminikuta|talk]]) 03:36, 17 July 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Using <nowiki><nowiki></nowiki></nowiki> in transcripts to improve accuracy ==<br />
<br />
In the transcripts, <nowiki>[[lines]]</nowiki> are being changed to [lines] in order to avoid auto-linking. Why not just surround these with <nowiki><nowiki></nowiki></nowiki> tags and avoid the problem entirely? --[[User:Epauley|Epauley]] ([[User talk:Epauley|talk]]) 04:18, 16 June 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Because it takes less time to type and single brackets are just as readable as double brackets to visitors. It's also a bit more readable in the editor. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 09:55, 16 June 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Category: (Barred/banned from?) Conferences ==<br />
<br />
I come here after realising I erroneously posted (in reply) to the Main page Talk, being anonymous (or at least IP-only) and without a list of qualifying articles to support me, just yet, but still wish to put forward the above category before I forget. There's no apparent equivalent, that I found, but it's definitely a recurring meme. I should be back (named or otherwise) with my suggested list of members, if someone else doesn't get there first, but I thought I'd start with the placemarker. [[Special:Contributions/178.98.31.27|178.98.31.27]] 16:41, 22 June 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Ok, so I got the bee in my bonnet and spent a few minutes actually looking into this. Revising "Barred from Conferences" (actually more often "Banned" or even "Thrown out of"/equivalent) to just "Conferences", the subset of comics that I can easily find that are involved is *[[153]], *[[177]], *[[365]], *[[410]], *[[463]], *[[541]], [[545]], [[685]], [[829]] and [[867]], but I'm sure there are more recent ones that I didn't spot/recall. One alternative title to "Conferences" is "Presentations", and I'm sure if I'd searched for that I'd have found more potential candidates (less some that might ''exit'' the renamed category). The asterisked ones ''do'' deal with being barred/banned/thrown out/etc, making it still a suitable category in its own right, IMO, but I'll leave it up to your combined musings to decide. [[Special:Contributions/178.98.31.27|178.98.31.27]] 17:07, 22 June 2013 (UTC)<br />
::I add [[690]] to the list. --[[User:Chtz|Chtz]] ([[User talk:Chtz|talk]]) 08:12, 13 September 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
::: Great suggestions! I created [[:Category:Public speaking]] and [[:Category:Banned from conferences]]. I also added [[Wikipedian Protester]] to the mix, of course :) --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 21:59, 13 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Strip Title ==<br />
<br />
For someone who commonly browses explainxkcd in place of xkcd, and hence often see the strips for the first time here rather than the parent site, I find it somewhat odd that the 'Title Text' is so poorly displayed given how critical it can be to the strip.<br />
<br />
I propose that, while retaining the given name (perhaps moving it top left), the title text be enlarged and relocated to being over the strip as originally intended. {{unsigned ip|175.41.133.18}}<br />
:The title text is placed very well at bottom of the image.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 07:20, 6 September 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:I would have to agree with Dgbrt, it's placed nicely at the bottom, and there is no need for it to be moved. My reasoning is that you never actually read the title text first, you read it last. Making it <code>text-align: left;</code> does not make sense, because the image is centered (just like on xkcd.com). I also believe that there is no need for it to be re-sized, mainly due to the fact that it is slightly larger than the title text (for me, at least). {{User:Grep/signature|05:18, 08 September 2013}}<br />
<br />
:Plus, if you hover over the image, it's the same as on xkcd.com {{User:Grep/signature|06:13, 08 September 2013}}<br />
<br />
:I also agree with Dgbrt and Grep. The title text is kind of a bonus and should not be emphasized more than on the original page. On the original site you only see it before the image, if you have very slow internet access (or very fast eyes) --[[User:Chtz|Chtz]] ([[User talk:Chtz|talk]]) 08:06, 2 October 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Sections in talk pages ==<br />
<br />
Is there a reason why there are no sections in talk pages? It is not a very big deal, but especially for longer talk pages it would make editing be much handier, especially when using the preview function (not having to find the section every time). Also it automatically adds a description to the history (thus makes it more easy to look for certain edits, or decide by just looking at the [[Special:RecentChanges]], if a comment should concern you. --[[User:Chtz|Chtz]] ([[User talk:Chtz|talk]]) 08:01, 2 October 2013 (UTC)<br />
:When discussion pages are transcluded by the comic discussion template, section headers carry over from talk pages and bad things happen. Using ; to denote headers instead of equals signs works well, and doesn't share transclusion pain. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 08:04, 2 October 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== references ==<br />
<br />
Any chance we can add [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Cite/Cite.php cite.php] to this wiki? Most pages don't need it, but some comics take on a life of their own and being able to add reference tags would be really helpful for those. [[User:LadyMondegreen|LadyMondegreen]] ([[User talk:LadyMondegreen|talk]]) 01:33, 9 October 2013 (UTC)<br />
: Cite has been added to the wiki. Thanks for the suggestion! --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 01:35, 17 October 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Stylized writing ==<br />
<br />
I understand that this wiki isn't as formal as wikipedia or sites like that but it seems that there are a few questionable practices:<br />
<br />
1. The use of questions - when a non-rhetorical or unnecessary question is entered into the explanation.<br />
<br />
2. Extremely painted/biased view points - when there is obvious bias in the tone of the explanation of the contributor, in other <br />
words; a lack of neutrality.<br />
<br />
3. Extreme repetition/rehashing - the explanation restates things and makes for a long and tedious read when a more straight-forward explanation is possible and clearer.<br />
<br />
4. The general informality - "This one's an easy one" "This is simple" "this one's straightforward" "You're an idiot for not understanding this one" etc.<br />
<br />
5. Many other practices that make the explanation hard to read, difficult to understand, or plain ugly.<br />
<br />
I know that there are disparaging view points on how a comic should be explained, but please let's clean up the site a bit, acknowledge each view point and report on all of them and then tighten up the sloppy writing. Carry out arguments in the talk section, not the explanation. Perhaps we could first try to say the majority view point on the interpretation and then write the alternate explanations, of course this would bring up the debate on which is the majority explanation. Either way, more complete, logical explanations should be given more credence. --[[User:Lackadaisical|Lackadaisical]] ([[User talk:Lackadaisical|talk]]) 00:25, 23 October 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:I agree with 2-5. 1, on the other hand, is sometimes useful and can contribute the to explanation, although 1 is still a very good point. I would say that you should edit it to have "arguments in the talk" be a 6th point as well. Unfortunately, though, we are not all logical, comic-understanding machines here, so minor deviations of these rules are still to be expected. But I think that overall, these are good rules, even if 2/3 are sort of part of 5.<br />
:[[User:Lackadaisical|Lackadaisical]], please sign your post with <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki><span style="float: right;">{{User:Grep/signature|23:55, 22 October 2013}}</span><br />
<br />
:I understand the use of questions in certain parts. And it was probably better to put the others as sub-categories to five but I wanted to show some common things that can be easily fixed. I know that some explanations require a lot of text and extensive research because of the abstract subjects Randall deals with and that it's difficult to be completely standardized but I think it would be good for us to try to come up with some general things to try to avoid to help the explanations "flow" --[[User:Lackadaisical|Lackadaisical]] ([[User talk:Lackadaisical|talk]]) 00:25, 23 October 2013 (UTC)<br />
::Most of that isn't intentional, it's just an awful lot of labor to copy check all the explanations. I've been going through all the current articles and fixing consistency issues, the worst being wrong transcript/title text/dates and the most benign being wikilinks, spelling and trailing spaces. I'm at 682 so far, but my next pass will be on actual language and content, and it'll probably take longer. It takes a while though, and you can totally work on improving language in articles if you want to. Some explanations were pulled from the old blog, some were written and just got lost in the changelog. Copy editing everything we have so far is a very labor-intensive job, and the only way to really deal with it is to knuckle down and do it, or form a wikiproject and hope to heaven that visitors feel charitable enough to join in on it. I'd *probably* push to finish up all our incomplete articles first though, just because that's more directly related to the purpose of the site; tone and style probably comes second to having correct explanations. That doesn't mean you can't do it yourself, it's just that I'll probably only dedicate the subheader on the main page to one project at a time and our current biggest bugbear hasn't been solved yet. I could put up a sitenotice to see if that speeds the process up any. I'll do that when I get back home. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 03:31, 23 October 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Easy redirect to comic? ==<br />
<br />
I've been thinking, and there is one thing that would make navigating to the explained comics easier. My method of browsing is I'll see the comic on xkcd.com first, and if there is something curious about it that I don't quite understand, I'll come here. Sometimes it can be a bit troublesome, going to the homepage and then navigatiing to the right comic. Not too bad, but I'd like an easy way to go direct. So I was thinking, what if you had a redirect such that if you typed in, for example, www.explainxkcd.com/505, you would get redirected to http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=505:_A_Bunch_of_Rocks. That would mean that you could get to the comic just from adding an "explain" to the start of the xkcd.com URL. I don't know if that is at all possible, but it would be pretty handy if it happened. Thoughts?<br />
[[User:Alcatraz ii|Alcatraz ii]] ([[User talk:Alcatraz ii|talk]]) 03:01, 25 October 2013 (UTC)<br />
:[http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Technical#Redirect_from_explainxkcd.com.2F1234 That's actually already on the to-do list.] I'm testing it right now and we should have it up soon. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 04:02, 25 October 2013 (UTC)<br />
:: Awesome :) [[User:Alcatraz ii|Alcatraz ii]] ([[User talk:Alcatraz ii|talk]]) 03:26, 1 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::Whoop, forgot to mark this as complete. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 04:37, 1 November 2013 (UTC) <br />
:::: Done! Copy this and drag it to your bookmarks bar: |javascript: var url = document.URL; document.location = url.replace('xkcd.com','explainxkcd.com');| {{unsigned ip|173.245.52.29}}<br />
:::::The feature requested here has also long since been implemented. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 22:20, 4 April 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Increase support via prominent display of copyright and license for text submitted to explainxkcd ==<br />
<br />
XKCD itself is rather liberally licensed, and gets lots of good will from that. As it says on the bottom of every page "This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License." For details see [http://xkcd.com/license.html xkcd - A Webcomic - License].<br />
<br />
But I found nothing on most pages of explainxkcd about copyright or licensing, and it discouraged me from contributing or donating. Finally, as I was writing this proposal up, I found a link on the editing page here: [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=explain_xkcd:Copyrights explain xkcd:Copyrights - explain xkcd] saying that "''The Explain XKCD wiki is generally licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license (CC-BY-SA-3.0)''". That notice should be more prominent on the site, with at least a link on each page. [[User:Nealmcb|Nealmcb]] ([[User talk:Nealmcb|talk]]) 15:27, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:This should be mentioned at the main page, including a reference to the xkcd origin.<br />
:BTW: NO DOUBLE SPACES after a sentence. Are you US guys still using a typewriter? It's not rendered at a web page and stupid like Gallons, Miles, Foots, and much more unique US behaviours. But that's just a joke beside.<br />
:The licence hint is much more important, you are just correct.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:12, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::Added a creative commons icon to the footer of the page, next to the powered by mediawiki button. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 22:16, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== New Comics Bot ==<br />
<br />
Would there be need for such a thing?<br />
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.231.52|108.162.231.52]] Synthetica<br />
:Nice idea, I never thought about that before. I will do some tests on existing comics to check if this could reduce the current number of error posts for a new article. When that is ready and working I will talk to some admins. My bot account [[User:DgbrtBOT|DgbrtBOT]] was originally intended for [[1190: Time]] picture uploads, but I never have used it because Time was over. Creating the new pages should be easy in general, avoiding errors will cost some more work. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:31, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::If you can get dgbrtBOT to do that, that'd help us an awful lot. It'd allow us to get rid of the ifexist cases in template:LATESTCOMIC as well, since the bot could change automatically that whenever a new comic goes up. It'll also help us get new comics down almost the moment they pop up, since the bot could sample several times a minute until a comic is posted. So long as it gets the general pattern right so that we have a correct page set up, we're good. An admin can come in sometime later to clean up categories and image urls and other piddly easy-to-fix details. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 20:54, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::I will work on this next weekend, just local scripts and no updates here. I also will talk about my results before any automatic updates will be activated. My first focus is on creating the new pages in the general pattern, LATESTCOMIC and also the page "All comics" are maybe a bonus later. And of course all my scripts will be open source.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:44, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::::The first version is ready and I will test it at my local wiki. If everything goes well I could activate it for Wednesday (2013-11-13). LATESTCOMIC and "All comics" are on my roadmap, but first I want produce correct new pages here. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:00, 10 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::::Righty ho. Here goes. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 20:36, 10 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
Even when my automatic local wiki test did fail today, just a damn wrong password, I will activate the bot here for Wednesday. It will only run from 4:00 PM until 8:00 PM UTC. You will not see my possible updates at [[Special:RecentChanges]] unless you click ''Show bots'' at the top of that page. LATESTCOMIC and "All comics" are not covered, but this is at my TODO list until this test will be successful. Give me a '''GO''' or '''NO-GO''' for this test.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:49, 11 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Easily a GO, I'll be ready to clean up if anything goes wrong. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 22:08, 11 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::So be ready on Wednesday for the clean up. My worst case is ''it simply does not work'', second worse scenario is still that I could delete some contend already posted here, but I'm trying to avoid this. ''Huston'', the countdown clock is counting. I'm joking about this because I really want to be confident about this ''BOT'' or ROBOT or uncontrolled action here.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 00:28, 12 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::The bot can't do anything that I can't reverse. I can even restore a backup from an hour before the bot's edits if it manages to break the database. How quickly does it poll xkcd, by the way? '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 07:53, 12 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
First live test here (comic 1289). Please delete this page: [[Simple_Answers:_1289]]. Since my local wiki did not provide this templates I could not see this error before. In general the bot will update pages differ to any existing pages, but when it is not changed no update will happen. I'm fixing this errors at my script and do a second test here soon. I want to see it's producing correct pages until the bot will do it's work when I'm sleeping.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:31, 12 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Ok, test are done here, BOT is scheduled for the next update. Polling is every five minutes on Mon, Wed, and Fri from 04:00 until 08:00 UTC. Let's see how it will work.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 23:08, 12 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::Couldja ramp that up to once/twice a minute, push the start time back by an hour, and the end time by a few hours? Also, is it possible to terminate it once it finds a comic for a certain day? '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 01:45, 13 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::It worked! Though it posted the comic 5 minutes past post time. We has technology now, we can afford to poll faster and closer, yeah? '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 05:32, 13 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
Uhh, it worked... I will increase the polls when I'm more confident about the release times. Today it was approx. 05:00 UTC (GMT) or 01:00 EST (Randall's time zone). Looks like he is still at daylight saving time, would have been 00:00 EDT. The polls will be increased to one minute when I'm sure about the Standard Release Time (SRT). Next steps for the next update on Friday are:<br />
:The "All comics" page.<br />
:The LATESTCOMIC template.<br />
--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:54, 13 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:The LATESTCOMIC template is included for the next run, it just simply has to return a number. But it's still the most critical part because if it does not work the Main Page is broken. I will change this to a better solution using that IFEXIST syntax soon. The list of all comics is still at my ToDo list. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:06, 14 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::The desired content of the LATESTCOMIC template should be just the comic number. If we can get out of having to poll multiple IFEXIST statements to find the latest comic, that would be a fantastic boon to our server performance. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 04:43, 15 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::OK, it did work today so I will not change this. Next step is the list for all comics.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 11:10, 15 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
Next run will include an update on the "All comics" page. I'm crossing my fingers. When this update is also successful I will document my Bot at the Bot user page [[User:DgbrtBOT]]. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:15, 17 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Oh, I forgot this detail: The bot is starting at 00:00 EST (RLT - Randall local time), which is 04:00 UTC and 05:00 MET for me. It polls every 5 minutes until 23:55 MET (22:55 UTC, 18:55 RLT) the main page until a new comic is found. I do not poll the comic number because I want to avoid 404 message logs at the servers.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:30, 17 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Something went wrong there. That's gonna need fixing. I am enjoying the looks of the apparently faster polling though. Maybe you could also set the start time to 00:00:05 EST to catch the on-time xkcd releases within ten seconds? '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 05:33, 18 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::Uh, what a mess. I will do some more tests at my local wiki. At the next time I will do a check against the number from the LATESTCOMIC template, only the next number will be processed. The test against my local history did fail because of some cleanups after testings.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 08:18, 18 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::I don't like mess. So the BOT got many more checks before posting here but the bot was starting at 05:00 local time for me. I'm really asleep at that time. The mess here was covered, but I do need another GO for the next attempt. Otherwise I will just do a test to my local wiki.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:35, 18 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
No GO so far, my next test will run only at my local wiki.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:16, 19 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:My script is here: [https://github.com/dgbrt/explainXKCD_update explainXKCD_update]. At my current test "explainxkcd.com" is commented out and "localhost" is active. Since I don't like mess and the bot does act while I am sleeping the next update must be done manually here. I'm hoping the bot will be ready for the next update on Friday.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:15, 19 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::Bot is ready for Friday, everything went smooth at my last local test today. The bot did find the latest comic at 04:05 UTC and all essential pages were properly created. So I will activate it for this site again. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:57, 20 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
Bot did work as expected. So I name it release 1.1337, the next planed release will be 2.1337 (beta) because of this two issues:<br />
*"Include any categories below this line." will be removed because it doesn't make any sense any more.<br />
*BETA: I want to use the full template features at [[List of all comics]], just ensuring that the pictures are working properly. No need for this at the most comics, but the BOT doesn't cover all possibilities on corrupt file names like we have had in "Pi vs. Tau". The picture was without that dot. My bot just shows the real link it did upload here.<br />
I'm pretty sure we will have some issues on this bot, but for general pages it should work. So the bot will be active on Mon,Wed,Fri from 0:00 EST (or EDT) every five minutes until it did found a new comic, on success the bot does not poll any more.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:51, 22 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Aww, it's a bot. It doesn't need to rest or take time off to do other stuff. It can totally poll once or more times per minute. Also, if you set the start time to a few seconds after midnight, Randall time, when he uploads a comic on-time, you'll get it within a few seconds as opposed to having to wait for the next polling. As for the image names, maybe you could convert spaces in the comic name to underscores, compare the two comic names you have and use that to decide which version of the template to use? '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 23:08, 22 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::I have to avoid that the bot is running twice, Internet Timeouts and more. And the comics are also published later sometimes. Look at my release [https://github.com/dgbrt/explainXKCD_update 1.1337], release 2.1337 will be later, Maybe I should start at 2 minutes after 0:00, but let's see right now how the bot does work. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 00:38, 23 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
Uhh, what a huge discussion here. The bot will get a major update soon: Scheduler does start it once and until a comic is found and uploaded it here or an other limit is reached (maybe the end of the day) the bot will poll by a small delay. But every poll is still an entire download from the main page, When a new comic is found bot stops.<br />
:Why, you could use http://xkcd.com/info.0.json, right?[[Special:Contributions/108.162.231.52|108.162.231.52]] 07:38, 2 December 2013 (UTC)Synthetica<br />
::The BOT performs perfect and I prefer to analyze the original page. A title text like the one from today (a text showing a link) will be covered in the future.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 10:35, 2 December 2013 (UTC)<br />
A great enhancement would be also covering a new comic like 1190 Time was. I'm looking forward on this, some ideas, it does require a complete analyse of the page and then finding some strange content. <br />
--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 23:05, 27 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Require description for 'incomplete' tags ==<br />
I've been trying to fix some of the incompletes, but several explanation pages I've come across are tagged incomplete without any reason given. The reason should be a required part of the tag. --[[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.223|173.245.52.223]] 03:35, 7 December 2013 (UTC)<br />
:This incomplete tags are just older than the recent change of that template. Current adds require a description, but it's not easy to figure out all that old reasons. If someone does find a reason, please just add it. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:22, 7 December 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Should there be a subwiki to cover the shop links that appear above the comic? ==<br />
<br />
The current one (as of writing) is [http://imgs.xkcd.com/store_news/store_gd_b11_1ze4.png] but this is a different than the usual, and there was also a third in between these.<br />
[[User:Rsranger65|Rsranger65]] ([[User talk:Rsranger65|talk]]) 06:00, 8 December 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Those are very ephemeral. They aren't going to exist for very long, I don't know how valuable it would be to archive that stuff. We could probably do it, but having to figure out another naming convention and all for advertisements doesn't appeal to me at the current moment. If you can flesh it out, I'd love to see how you think we should do it. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 07:24, 8 December 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== New Character ==<br />
<br />
OK, I think we need a name for the character with a goatee and glasses in comics [[435: Purity]], [[796: Bad Ex]] and [[964: Dorm Poster]] as well as possibly others. Edit: oh and I suggest Goatee and Glasses Guy, but I'm open for suggestions Edit 2: also in [[826: Guest Week: Zach Weiner (SMBC)]] Halfhat {{unsigned|Halfhat}}<br />
edit 3: Another sighting [[954: Chin-Up Bar]] [[User:Halfhat|Halfhat]] ([[User talk:Halfhat|talk]]) 16:57, 13 January 2014 (UTC)<br />
: In the transcript, he is called "Person with Glasses and a Goatee" --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 15:39, 21 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
:: "Glasses Guy", "Goatee Guy" are both probably descriptive enough! --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 15:41, 21 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== What If Comics ==<br />
<br />
Hi, I was thinking, maybe at some point we should do the comics in the ''What If?'' section, like [http://what-if.xkcd.com/imgs/a/36/cornstarch_bitcoins.png this one.] [[User:Halfhat|Halfhat]] ([[User talk:Halfhat|talk]]) 20:01, 13 January 2014 (UTC)<br />
: Start creating the pages for them! --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 15:36, 21 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
: I think I can start creating one or two pages for What If, if that helps... [[User:Daniel Carrero|Daniel Carrero]] ([[User talk:Daniel Carrero|talk]]) 16:14, 5 April 2014 (UTC)<br />
:: If nobody has any problem with it, I'm gonna give it a try later. :) [[User:Daniel Carrero|Daniel Carrero]] ([[User talk:Daniel Carrero|talk]]) 13:14, 8 April 2014 (UTC)<br />
:::I thought they were already pretty self-explanatory though. Also, how are we gonna organize and present them? '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 16:31, 8 April 2014 (UTC)<br />
::::I totally agree with David: Read the entire What-If page and follow the links provided by Randall. No one of us can do that better in depth. But an overview page for this site is maybe not a bad idea, we just need a proper link here — a link at the main menu on the left. Translations to other languages are just another issue. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:37, 8 April 2014 (UTC)<br />
:::::Yes, I was thinking of an overview, summarizing the contents and discoveries of each what if page. Not to mention, we could also organize what if pages by categories, such as physics/love.<br />
:::::Would you like me to post here an example of what I would write? That way we can decide if it's worthy of creating an actual page. [[User:Daniel Carrero|Daniel Carrero]] ([[User talk:Daniel Carrero|talk]]) 12:53, 9 April 2014 (UTC)<br />
:Adding pages for What If? posts would be very helpful. Although the articles themselves are obviously self-explanatory, there are almost as many subtle references, running gags, and in-jokes in What If? posts these days as in the comics themselves.<br />
I often visit explain xkcd when I feel like I'm missing an inside joke or a pop culture reference in a comic, and it would be very helpful to many people (especially those from other cultures/subcultures) to have the same service.<br />
For example, today's What If? contains multiple allusions to the Superman Movie, a running Citation Needed joke, and a whole comic that is a not-so-subtle dig at Elon Musk and the Hyperloop. It would be awesome if the community here at explainxkcd could tackle stuff like that.<br />
Anonymous 20:05, 31 July 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Transcripts ==<br />
<br />
The whole point of the transcripts is to have those who are unable to view images to still be able to read the comic, right?<br />
<br />
Then why is it required to stick to strictly official transcripts, where sometimes rewriting them slightly would make them flow better or otherwise get the ideas across better? I've tried rewriting a few, but they get reverted. I think that having easier-to-understand transcripts would be more important than strictly following official transcripts; what do you think? (For a few examples, see [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=207:_What_xkcd_Means&diff=60061&oldid=57400 this edit] and [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=995%3A_Coinstar&diff=59862&oldid=57316 this edit]. [[User:Zowayix|Zowayix]] ([[User talk:Zowayix|talk]]) 17:38, 19 February 2014 (UTC)<br />
:We use the original transcript to try and deduce original author intent if it's unclear from the image. I remember one comic where Beret Guy was off in the distance and it was difficult to distinguish him from the image, but the official transcript said it was him. We don't stick to the original transcript if it's obviously wrong, or it has typographical errors: see [[Laser Scope]]. Those edits seem to be mainly targeted at language and clarity, and should be fine. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 23:06, 19 February 2014 (UTC)<br />
::Would it be helpful to have another (optional) section for expanding on the official transcripts? I too think it could be helpful, especially for complex images (such as 1079/United Shapes [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1079]). Or does supplemental description belong in the Explanation sections? Cheers. [[User:Karenb|Karenb]] ([[User talk:Karenb|talk]]) 23:00, 20 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
:::Naaah, how many people even know there's an original transcript? If the original is wrong, change it. If your additions begin to verge on explanatory, move eet to the trivia/explanation sections. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 00:52, 21 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== "Characters in this Comic" section ==<br />
<br />
Should there be a "Characters in this Comic" section in each comic explanation? (I feel like this should be longer but don't have anything else to say.) [[User:Z|Z]] ([[User talk:Z|talk]]) 23:33, 11 May 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:There is a Category section at the bottom of each comic. Just scroll down and you will see any character belonging to a specific comic. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:50, 12 May 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Adding the Radiation chart from XKCD ==<br />
<br />
Hi <br />
As there are already other comics with explanations even though they are not part of the number system.<br />
This one does not seem to have any yet:<br />
http://xkcd.com/radiation/<br />
And as it is very alike the Money strip (the unexplained of the week) so I think it should be explained as well.<br />
If you agree please add it as I'm not sure how to do that.<br />
<br />
Best regards<br />
:[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 18:47, 7 June 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Reddit comments? ==<br />
<br />
There should be a link in each comics explanation page somewhere linking to the comment section for the relevant comic on /r/xkcdcomic or reddit.<br />
:The reddit comments page isn't ''that'' close to what we do though. If this is more popular, we'll do it, though there'll need to be a fair bit of post-hoc editing since I don't think there's a standard URL scheme for all the past comics. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 03:15, 23 June 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Not insulting new users ==<br />
<br />
I am writing a response to a vulnerability assessment. I have included a link to http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/936 noting that it contains a good explanation of the relative security of passwords vs passphrases. I just noticed that the top of that page contains "Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb." Looks like I'll have to find a different site to link to. --[[User:Pascal|Pascal]] ([[User talk:Pascal|talk]]) 17:33, 28 June 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Category: Wishes ==<br />
<br />
[http://explainxkcd.com/1391/ Several] [http://explainxkcd.com/1086/ comics] [http://explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/152:_Hamster_Ball now] [http://xkcd.com/879/ exist] that talk about wishes - probably more. Should there be a category for this? [[User:Z|Z]] ([[User talk:Z|talk]]) 23:22, 7 July 2014 (UTC)<br />
:Doesn't seem significant enough. If you promise to maintain the category you can make it yourself, although it will be cleared out if it gets neglected as new comics are released. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 15:20, 8 July 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== RSS feed ==<br />
<br />
Is there an RSS feed (or some equivalent) of Explain XKCD available? It's helpful for those using feed readers, and superior to the primary XKCD RSS since there are explanations and the mouse over text is transcribed for the lazy. Thanks [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.154|108.162.219.154]] 08:24, 28 August 2014 (UTC)<br />
:[http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Special:NewPages&feed=atom&hideredirs=1&limit=90&offset=&namespace=0&username=&feed=&tagfilter= Why yes, we do!] It's the regular new pages log that all wikis have. It's a little ugly at the moment, and sometimes junk gets in there when a bot chucks spam at us, so a nicer feed is in the works, but the linked one should do you excellently for now. When the nice one is done, you'll see it in the sidebar below the "Help" button. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 11:31, 28 August 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Navigation Pane Link - Categories ==<br />
<br />
How about having a link to the "Special:Categories" page in the navigation pane?<br />
<br />
A fair amount of effort has gone into categorising the comics, and at the moment it isn't particularly obvious how to browse by category. Is this worth doing?{{unsigned|Pudder}}<br />
:Space on the sidebar is on a premium. I dunno, I'd probably be against it, but I want to hear what other admins say as well. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 16:45, 29 September 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Alternate realities what if would benefit from a wiki entry ==<br />
<br />
The what if entry from the end of November 2014 providing excerpts from alternate reality what ifs would benefit from an explain page. <br />
I suspect these may have been typos that have been made into jokes, but some of the humor might not be apparent to all. <br />
I doubt I have access (or maybe know how) to set it up myself. <br />
<br />
Cheers {{unsigned ip|199.27.133.42}}<br />
<br />
: Made it. Check out [[What If: 120: Alternate Universe What Ifs]]. [[User:17jiangz1|17jiangz1]] ([[User talk:17jiangz1|talk]]) 09:10, 26 December 2014 (UTC)<br />
::We don't actually have a structure for what if pages in general, so I'll have to take that down, but when we do we can make pages for every what if. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 09:57, 26 December 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Secondary URLs? ==<br />
<br />
I have made http://www.xkcd.ga and http://www.xkcd.tk both forward to http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page. Is this ok? [[User:17jiangz1|17jiangz1]] ([[User talk:17jiangz1|talk]]) 08:50, 26 December 2014 (UTC)<br />
:While we probably won't advertise them because we can't guarantee the uptime of third-party URLs, and they add an additional redirect layer and lack our shortened URL features, you're free to purchase and link URLs to us independently. We are not owned by Randall and as such cannot claim to actually be xkcd, so I'm not hugely comfortable with you using the plain name "xkcd" to link to us; a url in the format http://www.xkcd.[TLD] should by rights link to the main xkcd site, but no trademark claim has been made or likely will be made, so you should be fine with doing whatever you want to do with URL redirects '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 09:57, 26 December 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== LaTeX (Or MathML, TeX) support? ==<br />
<br />
[[1489:_Fundamental_Forces|In the most recent comic at the time of posting]], there was use of formulae, being:<br/>F<sub>gravity</sub> = G m<sub>1</sub>m<sub>2</sub>/d<sup>2</sup><br/>F<sub>static</sub> = K<sub>e</sub> q<sub>1</sub>q<sub>2</sub>/d<sup>2</sup><br/><br />
There are probably many more comics using formulae that cannot be rendered properly without the use of LaTeX or something. The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Displaying_a_formula help page on Wikipedia] says that the following should work:<br/><math>F_{gravity}=G\frac{m_1m_2}{d^2}</math><br/><math>F_{static}=K_e\frac{q_1q_2}{d^2}</math><br />
Provided that one has to set <source lang="php" enclose="none">$wgUseTeX = true;</source> in [[mw:Manual:LocalSettings.php|LocalSettings.php]]. Is there any reason for this to be disabled? If there is, is there any alternative? —[[Special:Contributions/141.101.106.95|141.101.106.95]] 21:18, 20 February 2015 (UTC)</div>141.101.106.95https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Proposals&diff=84822explain xkcd:Community portal/Proposals2015-02-20T21:18:53Z<p>141.101.106.95: /* LaTeX (Or MathML, TeX) support? */ new section</p>
<hr />
<div><noinclude>{{Community portal}}</noinclude><br />
<br />
== Add unexplained strips ==<br />
<br />
At the moment, browsing through the explanations using the previous and next buttons is interrupted whenever there's an explanation missing.<br />
<br />
I think adding a page with the strip fr all of those with a short message like "no one has explained this yet, want to give it a shot?" would make the wiki easier to browse through and will get more strips explained faster.<br />
<br />
:I don't think that would happen. If suddenly it was much easier for people to skip over pages that had no explanation, I think they would do exactly that, skip right over it. On the same side of that coin, If suddenly there are no longer any red links on the [[List of all comics]] then everyone perusing that page assumes that all the comics have been explained and don't need to contribute any more. It's astonishing how quickly an [[589: Designated Drivers|embedded]] red link gets an explanation page created simply to get rid of the red link.<br />
<br />
:Secondarily, ''many'' of the pages created recently aren't being created with their numerical and titular redirects. Without the numerical redirect, the comic template can't find that there is a previous/next comic to link to. Every once in a while somebody will go through and try to notice all the pages that don't have their redirects created but it's an unscientific process that only happens occasionally. If we could get every joe blow that comes in and vomits up a poorly done explanation to create the redirects I wouldn't be quite as annoyed at their lack of show-don't-tell-manship. But, since they can't be bothered to put the date in the comic template, I doubt we'll ever get people to create the redirects.<br />
<br />
:'''TL;DR:''' No more red links, no more work gets done on the back catalog.<br />
<br />
:--[[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]<span title="I'm an admin. I can help.">_a</span> ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 14:28, 21 December 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== xplainkcd.com ==<br />
<br />
When I first saw this site I thought it should definitely be at xplainkcd.com or at least redirect from that url {{unsigned|115.166.22.158|12:45, 3 January 2013 (UTC)}}<br />
<br />
: I like that idea! --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 13:28, 3 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:Yeah! If it's possible, it would be cool! At least as a redirect. -- [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 15:46, 3 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:Not technically the same thing, but I just took [http://expxkcd.com http://expxkcd.com]. More explanation is given on the website itself. {{User:Grep/signature|05:10, 29 March 2014}}<br />
::We do that with explainxkcd.com as well, but yay shorter URLs! Mind if I use that for our social media links? '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 06:45, 29 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
:::I had no idea that you did that, but sure, go ahead! If you want, I can change any DNS records if you wish to have it go directly to you guys. {{User:Grep/signature|07:16, 29 March 2014}}<br />
:::In case you were wondering, I just did the following: <code>^/([0-9]+)(/large)?/?$</code> {{User:Grep/signature|07:25, 29 March 2014}}<br />
::::Hrm. We're just matching with <code>^(\d+)/?$</code>. You can keep ownership of the URL if you want, unless you have traffic concerns or whatever and you want us to handle it, which we're very capable of doing. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 08:47, 29 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I have made http://www.xkcd.ga and http://www.xkcd.tk both forward to http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page. Is this ok? [[User:17jiangz1|17jiangz1]] ([[User talk:17jiangz1|talk]]) 08:49, 26 December 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Section style and usage ==<br />
<br />
I am new here and I'm trying to get up to speed with the culture. I have a few questions about how and where to use sections (== this ==). I am more willing to go with (and enforce) whatever norms there are here, but I have not seen them actually discussed. <br />
<br />
# '''Is it OK to create sections in Discussion pages?''' I have been told no, but there are many examples extant of this usage in this Wiki and indeed in Wikipedia.<br />
# '''Section title case''' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Capital_letters#Acronyms Wikipedia's style guide] recommends sentence case, not title case. There are many title cased section headers here. <br />
# '''Links''' I do not have a reference for this but it seems to me putting links in section code (== [[<span style="color:blue"><nowiki>this</nowiki></span>]] == ) is bad form. <br />
<br />
Last note -- it's understood if these bylaws have not yet been written. I can see that a few of you have made a huge personal investment to make this Wiki what it is today, and that is a credit to you all -- this is awesome! As a long-time aficionado of xkcd I applaud your work and look forward to further collaboration.<br />
--[[User:Smartin|Smartin]] ([[User talk:Smartin|talk]]) 04:15, 4 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:As a general rule, we stick to the standard format that existing pages follow, with an optional trivia section below the transcript. Some zealous editors like to add other sections though, which tend to be for the most part unneeded or redundant. If something you want to add doesn't help to explain the comic in some way, but the inclusion of which would somehow still add to the page, *and* it doesn't fall under the trivia category, a new section is warranted. This isn't the case most of the time though, so editors usually fold the content of extraneous sections into "Explanation" or "Trivia." We have no policy on links in titles, and they're allowed so long as they are appropriate; the link is useful and can't be folded into the section itself. And we use title case for titles cuz it just makes sense. '''[[User:Davidy22|<span title="I want you."><u><font color="purple" size="2px">David</font><font color="green" size="3px">y</font></u><sup><font color="indigo" size="1px">22</font></sup></span>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 05:08, 4 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:We generally do not (or at least, discourage) use sections on the talk/discussion pages for explanation pages. This is purely for looks. The comic discussion section of the explanation page looks/feels wrong if there are level 2 section breaks in the transclusion. Also, if the [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Table_of_contents Table of Contents] starts showing up on a page, such as on [[Click and Drag]] the sections created on the talk page also show up in the TOC. This gets confusing, and this is why we prefer not to use them on explanation talk pages. Everywhere else we follow standard wiki format and do use sections on the discussion pages.<br />
<br />
:Personally, I think that links in section titles looks wrong, but I choose not to be the dictator of style in this matter. :p<br />
<br />
:Please feel free to make edits. The worst that happens is someone reverts your edit. If it's a big enough issue and/or you don't seem to be learning from what people are fixing about your edits someone will leave a comment on your talk page. That's it. We might leave a nasty-gram in the edit summary, but oh well. We only ban for malicious intent. Honestly working to better the wiki is good, even if sometimes we grumble about it.<br />
<br />
:--[[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]<span title="I'm an admin. I can help.">_a</span> ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 07:00, 4 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
::Oh, I just looked at your talk page. I completely forgot that that happened. Don't worry about it. Learning the ropes is part of the experience. Do make edits, and if they're wrong, we'll nudge you in the right direction. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]<span title="I'm an admin. I can help.">_a</span> ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 07:18, 4 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I have been moving some trivia sections to directly below the explanation, in order to make it more consistent, and easier to survey and maintain. Often the dividing line between trivia and explanation is not entirely clear, and in articles without a trivia section the end of the explanation very often contains trivia-like information. (e.g. [[1155: Kolmogorov Directions]]) -- [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 10:13, 4 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
===Title case doesn't make any sense===<br />
At first sight title case in titles just makes sense. However title case '''never''' makes sense. It's worse than all caps. Besides, only Americans and children like title case. [[Special:Contributions/190.96.48.48|190.96.48.48]] 20:04, 10 August 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Protip ==<br />
<br />
Anyone for adding ''Protip'' as a [[:Category:Comic series|Comic series]]. I have found five so far: [[653]], [[711]], [[1022]], [[1047]] and [[1156]]. (There are also a few comics with a protip title text.) -- [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 10:25, 4 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:I think that qualifies as a recurring topic (thus worthy of a category), but not as a series, where you can see a clear sequence. In fact, [[:Category:My Hobby|My Hobby]] has the same limitation, for what I suggest it to be removed from [[:Category:Comic series]]. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 11:42, 4 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
::Seconded. Looks general and common enough to be a category. '''[[User:Davidy22|<span title="I want you."><u><font color="purple" size="2px">David</font><font color="green" size="3px">y</font></u><sup><font color="indigo" size="1px">22</font></sup></span>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 14:57, 4 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:::Okay, great! Do you think that the ones with a "protip:" title text should be included? Besides, I think I might be the one responsiple for moving My Hobby from [[:Category:Comics by topic|Comics by topic]] to Comic series. I felt that all the My Hobby comics were about different topics, but maybe i've got to narrow an interpretation of the word "topic". -- [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 15:31, 4 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:::: Can you link to the protip-in-title-text comics?<br />
:::: As for My Hobby, note that categories aren't mutually exclusive. They can be in the "my hobby" topic, and each of them further categorized as appropriate: music, math, etc. Makes sense? --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 03:45, 5 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::: I just searched for protip in the xkcd search bar. Here: [[1084]], [[427]]. And yes, makes sense. I've moved My Hobby back to "by topic". -- [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 12:06, 5 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Category: Sports ==<br />
<br />
How about creating a new "Sports" category? [[User:Ekedolphin|Ekedolphin]] ([[User talk:Ekedolphin|talk]]) 15:31, 28 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Well, maybe. Everyone aren't so keen on new categories here. Which comics are you thinking of, for a start? –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 20:32, 28 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
::We definitely need to reach an agreement as a community on when to create new categories. Something simple like a minimum of 3 (or, say, 5) existing comics. Since we're already at the proposals' portal... what do you guys think about that? --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 21:44, 28 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::My opinion: Five would be enough to qualify. [[User:Ekedolphin|Ekedolphin]] ([[User talk:Ekedolphin|talk]]) 09:31, 29 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
::::I vote for four. But it should also be a reasonable thing to categorize, like sports, not like "sports with Cueball containing at least three anagram words". Wich sholdn't be a problem. :) But the best name choice could be tricky sometimes. e.g. "Film & television", Film & TV", "Film", "Films", or "Movies"? –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 12:59, 29 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::<br />
::::Agreed, five should be enough to create the category without having to discuss it. - [[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 00:50, 26 February 2013 (UTC)<br />
: OK, let's start with [[588: Pep Rally|588]], [[1092: Michael Phelps|1092]], [[904: Sports|904]] and [[1107: Sports Cheat Sheet|1107]]. Should be able to find a few more. [[User:Ekedolphin|Ekedolphin]] ([[User talk:Ekedolphin|talk]]) 05:00, 29 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
::Yeah, it's a broad subject so there are probably several more. -[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 12:59, 29 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::I found another one, sort of, in [[929:Speculation|929]] (although it hasn't been explained yet). Should I get the ball rolling (no pun intended) on setting up the category? Don't wanna do it unilaterally and get yelled at. ;) [[User:Ekedolphin|Ekedolphin]] ([[User talk:Ekedolphin|talk]]) 06:18, 30 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
::::I think you should. On a wiki, getting stuck in discussions which die without a conclusion, to the point that motivated people give up without having done anything, is definitely counter-productive, and phrases like [[wikipedia:Wikipedia:Be bold|Wikipedia:Be bold]] are here to remind us of that. Seems like people agreed that you ''could'', and after a while nobody said that you ''shouldn't'', so I'd say do it. - [[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 00:50, 26 February 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Category: Sex ==<br />
<br />
I think we should also create a Sex category. There's no ''doubt'' we can find more than three examples. I'll start looking for them and post the ones I find in here; again, I don't wanna create a large category by myself without community consent. [[User:Ekedolphin|Ekedolphin]] ([[User talk:Ekedolphin|talk]]) 09:20, 2 February 2013 (UTC)<br />
*OK, the ones for Category: Sex that I've found so far are [[443]], [[219]], [[550]], [[1026]], [[575]], [[468]], [[592]], [[320]], [[1101]], [[417]], [[713]], [[672]], [[230]], [[436]], [[940]], [[532]], [[649]], [[176]], [[1006]], [[596]] and [[717]], and I'm sure there are many more. Should we create this category? [[User:Ekedolphin|Ekedolphin]] ([[User talk:Ekedolphin|talk]]) 23:17, 3 February 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:Same as [[#Category: Sports|above]], do it. Oh, already did; well, all the better. - [[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 00:53, 26 February 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
==New character==<br />
As per [[Talk:1178: Pickup Artists]], the character with hair has appeared in quite a few comics now, and he's starting to become a recurring character. Shall we go ahead with inaugurating him into our list of regular characters, and what name shall we assign him? Current candidate names include Hairy and Harry. Anyone? '''[[User:Davidy22|<u><font color="purple" title="I want you">David</font><font color="green" size="3px">y</font></u><font color="indigo" size="4px">²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 00:07, 26 February 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
: I like Harry :) --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 01:04, 26 February 2013 (UTC)<br />
::Cos made a point in the discussion on [[Talk:1178: Pickup Artists]] that Hairy is directly descriptive, whereas Harry is not obvious to visitors. On the other hand, not all names are descriptive ([[Danish]]) and I think this wiki is entitled to create some xkcd-in-culture, and not just describe. And Harry is quite funny.<br />
::I wonder: has [[Randall]] ever called him anything at all in the transcript? –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 21:52, 26 February 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::Well, he's not named in a any official transcripts, but he's already called Harry in quite a few comic explanations. Then again, I do like having a more descriptive name for him. Shall we hold this up to a vote? '''[[User:Davidy22|<u><font color="purple" title="I want you">David</font><font color="green" size="3px">y</font></u><font color="indigo" size="4px">²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 23:29, 26 February 2013 (UTC)<br />
::::I think we should wait a little for a few more viewpoints to crop up. Also, can someone link to some more comics he's been featured in? I've got [[1028: Communication]], [[1027: Pickup Artist]] and [[1178: Pickup Artists]]. –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 23:41, 27 February 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::::I actually like what that anon said: ''Curly''. Second choice: Hairy (being descriptive, a la Black Hat, Beret, Cueball, etc.) While there's talk about in-culture, we've done that with the names Cueball, Beret, etc. It's my opinion that the only names that should be "real" proper names are those that are named in the comic. Megan, Miss Lenhart, etc. Danish (as is discussed below) isn't truly a proper name, but you could argue it's a meta-description (one attributed by Black hat.) So that's my vote: yes for '''Curly''' or '''Hairy''', no for Harry. [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 05:21, 2 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::That's right, [[Danish]] is not descriptive, but 1/ that name was suggested because the character [[515: No One Must Know|was called that way in the comic]], which is a tiny bit like a name given by the author (at least more than Harry which we have completely made up), and 2/ in that case it's hard to find a descriptive term: use something that revolves around her black hair (her only descriptive feature), and you easily mix up with [[Megan]]; the only graphical difference is that her hair is ''long'', but what kind of name can you make out of that?<br />
:::For this new character, I suggest Hairy because it comes as the easy solution with every advantage: descriptive, easy to understand, and it's not ugly... I actually see no reason to resort to a made-up name like Harry.<br />
:::[[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 22:29, 27 February 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
: '''Alright. So the discussion's been had, and the most oft recommended name appears to be Hairy. All in favor, say aye. If more than 1/3 of editors agree and we have more than 6 votes, Hairy it is.''' '''[[User:Davidy22|<u><font color="purple" title="I want you">David</font><font color="green" size="3px">y</font></u><font color="indigo" size="4px">²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 05:58, 2 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
:# '''Aye''' '''[[User:Davidy22|<u><font color="purple" title="I want you">David</font><font color="green" size="3px">y</font></u><font color="indigo" size="4px">²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 05:58, 2 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
:# '''Aye''' [[User:Guru-45|Guru-45]] ([[User talk:Guru-45|talk]]) 06:14, 2 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
:# '''Aye''' to Hairy. [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 15:43, 2 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
:# '''Aye'''. Harry would be a nice nod to the fact that he's actually hairy, but indeed it's better to avoid inside jokes. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 17:05, 2 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
:# '''Aye'''. I'm convinced! –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 17:52, 3 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
:# '''Aye'''. Hairy. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]<span title="I'm an admin. I can help.">_a</span> ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 20:52, 3 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
::Hooray! We now have a [[:Category:Comics featuring Hairy]], with four pages already! Does anyone feel compelled to create "[[Hairy]]", with a brief description and a nice profile pic like the other characters? –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 22:58, 3 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Ambiguous characters ==<br />
<br />
I've been thinking about the problem of the ambiguity of characters. "Is this really Cueball even though he has an eye and half a nose?", "This is very likely ''not'' x." "Darnit, these arn't Cueballs, these are Randall and his friends!", and so on. The character ambiguity is standard for xkcd (not less so in the early ones), and comes from the very loose or "free" way Randall uses his characters to be whatever he needs at the moment. It's simply often impossible for us to know whether he had e.g. "Cueball" or himself in mind, when drawing a particular comic (and I'd say: probably often both).<br />
<br />
I want to suggest that we in general have a likewise rather loose policy towards including characters in the categories for the comics. So that reasonably ambiguous cases should be included in e.g. (does she have a ponytail?) This is not because I believe this or that to really be this or that; I just don't believe in objective truth (here!). I feel that when doing research :) on a character, the borderline cases are often the most interesting ones, and you want to be able to find them through the "Comics featuring miss x"!<br />
<br />
I came to think this through now, when I wanted to (and did) list two comics with [[Miss Lenhart]] (?) where she was drawn but not named. Any thoughts on this in general? Other case studies? –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 21:17, 5 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
:My take has always been that [[Cueball]], for example, has not been a specific character. There is not ''a'' cueball, per se, distinct from any other cueball... indeed, there are several comics with several cueballs in-frame, and that is the point. I see the cueball character as a wildcard character (pun intended) ready to stand in for anybody (and ''not'' necessarily just Randall; I think those readers who suggest "this ''is'' Randall" are missing the point; he's way more META than that...) [[Megan]], while slightly less generic, still remains the female wild-card significant-other, while Curls seems to be a not-significant-other female used to illustrate a relationship that is transient. Other characters come and go, and when it's important to visually distinguish them from others in the frame, they're given additional characteristics, to wit [[Hairy]], [[Ponytail]], etc.<br />
:Unfortunately, that viewpoint is not commonly held, so I daresay I'm in the minority here.<br />
:-- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 14:18, 6 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Note at the top, about the server error ==<br />
<br />
:''This thread was moved to [[MediaWiki talk:Sitenotice]]''<br />
<br />
== Category: Flowcharts ==<br />
<br />
Hello, the line "Randall has made use of flowcharts before." in today's comic explanation made me want a [[:Category:Flowcharts|flowcharts category]] to navigate into...<br />
<br />
As it didn't exist, I proceeded to create it, but as the log says, [[User:lcarsos|lcarsos]] deleted such a category in November, saying ''"Insufficient differentiation from Category:Comics with charts, diluting the depth of comics tagged charts"''.<br />
<br />
I don't agree with that, and I think we could profit from such a subcategory. I found those pages fitting it:<br />
* [[94: Profile Creation Flowchart]]<br />
* [[210: 90's Flowchart]]<br />
* [[488: Steal This Comic]]<br />
* [[627: Tech Support Cheat Sheet]]<br />
* [[844: Good Code]]<br />
* [[851: Na]]<br />
* [[854: Learning to Cook]]<br />
* [[1195: Flowchart]]<br />
<br />
So? - [[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 10:59, 5 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Weell if you're willing to take charge of the category and personally make sure it's added to all relevant comic explanations, go ahead. The usual objection to making new categories is that we admins can't remember all the categories when we're reviewing new explanations, but it's K if you're willing to take up that responsibility yourself. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 11:17, 5 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
:<br />
:: OK. I did it without waiting for further replies, because I think it will be especially profitable today (to viewers).<br />
:: It doesn't seem a big issue to me if the correct category is not added when a new explanation is made: a passing editor will do it later on... But hey, I'm OK with taking special care of adding pages to this category.<br />
:: [[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 12:28, 5 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
::: I just want to add that Cos' view is indeed the appropriate way to work in wikis: there is no concept of a single author for a page, category, or piece of text, and the workload is meant to be distributed among several editors: it is not necessary that any single editor remembers all existing categories, or knows the wiki markup by heart, or knows how to work with all the features of mediawiki, etc. The reason why wikis can be edited by anyone is precisely a recognition that there *will* be errors and any page can be improved somehow. That reasoning against categories should, IMO, be abandoned, or at most only kept as the opinion of some editors. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 22:00, 6 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Isnt there a page which lists all the categories? If not, there should be one, and it should be accessible to all. Such a page could be useful when trying to quick-add categories to comics. [[Special:Contributions/117.194.83.155|117.194.83.155]] 13:43, 24 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Yes, there is. [[Special:Categories]]. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 14:07, 24 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
::Of course, there's a gazillion of 'em, over several pages, so I understand any reluctance to add new categories (having just suggested a new one myself which I feel is justified, but knowing that the upkeep needed may be the key point of contention so remaining philosophical about it).<br />
::A solution perhaps to carry over from another locale that I frequent is to have a "Categories of Character" page, a "Categories of Object" one, perhaps "Categories of Event", and a "Categories of Publication". For each new comic someone can easily check the shorter Character categories list against those present, the Object list against itemsin use, Events, etc, and of course the Publication one has the "Tuesday Comic"/equivalent, and other date-based ones (although isn't that automatic from templated creation? ...never added a comic, but would imagine it is). After that it's a trawl through the miscelania categories (perhaps a meta-category just for them?). But, yeah, a lot of work to set up. Wouldn't wish it on anyone who wasn't already willing to do it, and I remain an anon-IP person right now so can hardly commit ''myself'' as volunteer maintainer of this. [[Special:Contributions/178.98.31.27|178.98.31.27]] 17:20, 22 June 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== I've removed "add a comment!" from Discussion heading ==<br />
<br />
This does move it to above the line, and the rule stops early. Undo my change if that's more bothering than when the TOC is displayed as "add a comment!Discussion"... <br />
<br />
I don't know how to automatically treat level 2 headers as level 3. That may be why Discussion was a level 1 heading earlier.<br />
[[User:Markhurd|Mark Hurd]] ([[User talk:Markhurd|talk]]) 11:16, 14 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Actually I now noticed there was a short edit war at {{tl|comic discussion}} over whether it should be a level 1 heading, just for this reason. [[User:Waldir]] seems to have conceeded... [[User:Markhurd|Mark Hurd]] ([[User talk:Markhurd|talk]]) 11:25, 14 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:: No edit war, hence no (intentional) concession. I reverted a change once, and didn't notice the change being re-implemented by another user. In any case, it is irrelevant now since we actively discourage using headers in talk pages precisely so that they don't display in the TOC for the main comic page, where the discussion page is transcluded to (see the discussion [[#Section style and usage|above]]). This might not scale well for comics that generate lots of discussion. It might be worth discussing our customs (and perhaps write them down somewhere) before performing such changes. What do others think? --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 11:49, 14 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Time: The Table ==<br />
<br />
Right now on the page [[1190: Time]], we have a whole bunch of tables in the form image-time-hash. The tables take up heaps of vertical space and all have to be collapsed to even be remotely traversible. I propose that we aggregate all the images into one table after Time ends, like so:<br />
<br />
{| class="wikitable plainlinks table-padding"<br />
|-<br />
!Image<br />
!Time<br />
!Image<br />
!Time<br />
!Image<br />
!Time<br />
!Image<br />
!Time<br />
|-<br />
|[[Media:time.png|00:00]]||01/00:00||[[Media:time.png|10:00]]||01/10:00||[[Media:time.png|20:00]]||01/20:00||[[Media:time.png|30:00]]||AND MOAR SAMPLE DATAS<br />
|-<br />
|[[Media:time.png|00:30]]||01/00:30||[[Media:time.png|10:30]]||01/10:30||[[Media:time.png|20:30]]||01/20:30||[[Media:time.png|30:30]]||AND MOAR SAMPLE DATAS<br />
|}<br />
<br />
The hash values aren't really a part of the comic, they're gibberish for the most part and they take up space that could be used to compact the table, as shown above. Even if we are conservative and make the table only five columns wide to account for smaller screens, we've divided scrolling time by five and eliminated much of the need for annoying collapsed tables and section headers for each day. Constructing the table shouldn't be particularly hard either, as all our current data is in nice regular tables with clear patterns that are easy enough to parse through. <br />
<br />
I'm putting this here because the organization of the frame entries would be unintuitive and difficult to change from the edit window, which would make it a poor choice when we're still expanding it and don't even know how long the comic will continue for. It's merely a space-saving trick for after we're sure that the comic is over. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 09:26, 16 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:Oh and it'd be really nice if other people could also upload images if you're awake and a new one rolls by. There's gaps in the image record every time I wake up, and I dun likey. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 11:34, 20 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Good work so far; go ahead make it better! :) –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 08:34, 24 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
==Featured Explanation, and Archival?==<br />
<br />
* Wikipedia has featured content. Now that we are close to reaching the goal of all comics explained, I think it makes more sense to have a "featured explanation" which would serve as a sort of a marker for a complete and good explanation. Many comics, and almost all charts are not fully explained/not a good quality explanation.<br />
<br />
* We should set up archival of discussion of the most discussed pages, like this one. Its not very pleasing to see comments from July 2012 still lying around here. It becomes hectic at some point.<br />
<br />
Just my 2 cents, feel free to discuss. Cheers,<br />
[[Special:Contributions/117.194.88.180|117.194.88.180]] 13:36, 24 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:We dedicate this wiki to explaining xkcd, and we do actually have a featured comic feature; it changes every week on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and we usually manage to fill out the explanation for it within an hour or so of it going up. The most recent comic tends to be the one that most people visiting the wiki care about, so we give it prime space on the front page so they can find it easily. xkcd updates frequently enough that there isn't really that big of a time window for us to feature an article on our front page. Also, we're a volunteer project with quite a bit less manpower than Wikipedia.<br />
:We do need to archive talk pages though. Some of these are getting ridiculously long. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 14:04, 24 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
::I agree with Davidy22. Archiving topics can be done by anyone, by moving resolved threads to the portal section's corresponding [[explain xkcd talk:Community portal/Proposals|talk page]]. We could start with the threads marked "✓ Closed". [[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 17:42, 1 May 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:: The reason I asked for a "featured explanation" was because many of the comic explanations we currently have are sub-par, and we're almost at our initial goal of explaining all comics. A "featured explanation" would drive our editors towards the goal of having complete and good explanation towards all comics, and would allow us to know which explanations need elaboration.<br />
:: P.S. My definition of complete explanation would be - To have a good explanation, To have all categories relevant, To link to any comics related and To explain any technical portions of the comic.<br />
:: [[Special:Contributions/117.194.82.49|117.194.82.49]] 07:45, 8 May 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::That message on the front page is going to link to all the pages marked by the incomplete template. If you find an unsatisfactory explanation, please mark it with <nowiki>{{incomplete}}</nowiki> '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 07:54, 8 May 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::: By my definition, I think all comics will be incomplete. An incomplete template will be focused more towards improving the worst explanations, while a featured one will be to improve the best ones. Since we already have the former, we should focus on the latter. Just my 2 cents. [[Special:Contributions/117.194.85.82|117.194.85.82]] 06:55, 9 May 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Split the list of all comics ==<br />
<br />
[[List of all comics]] is getting larger and larger, which makes it hard to read and hard to edit. How about splitting into parts, say [[List of all comics/1-1000]], [[List of all comics/1001-2000]], etc., or something to that effect? --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 17:39, 1 May 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
: Done. [[Special:Contributions/117.194.88.176|117.194.88.176]] 10:03, 9 May 2013 (UTC)<br />
::Great job, thanks! [[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 11:09, 9 May 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::And I've added back [[List of all comics (full)]], which allows, for example, listing all comics by alphabetical order.[[User:Markhurd|Mark Hurd]] ([[User talk:Markhurd|talk]]) 17:29, 10 May 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Sidebar ads ==<br />
<br />
''Moved from [[Talk:Main Page]] –– [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 08:06, 4 May 2013 (UTC)''<br />
<br />
Are they generating significant money? The ones I see are pretty sleazy looking and/or scammy - "Power Companies Hate this Device! - click here to break the laws of thermodynamics!" and "Debt relief program click here to lose more money". How much money are they generating? Can you set any selections to remove the sleazy ads? [[User:J-beda|J-beda]] ([[User talk:J-beda|talk]]) 18:30, 3 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Do we have sleazy sidebar ads? Since when? Thanks Google Chrome and AdBlock, I had no idea! –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 07:47, 14 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
::People give 20$ a pop to get a bunch of clicks on explainxkcd, and Jeff uses that money to buy a faster server with a hard drive that doesn't have less space than a public toilet with an elephant in it. It'd be really nice if you didn't turn on adblock, the money is appreciated. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 08:47, 14 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::It's a question of me not turning it off specifically every time I visit this site. More importantly, I do think people would be more likely to click the "donate" if it weren't irrelevant ads around it. –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 19:29, 14 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::Generating money is a great thing. Getting "20$ a pop to get a bunch of clicks" is a bit unclear. Do the ads only generate revenue when clicked on? So EXKCD only gets money when someone actually falls for the sleazy ads? I know lots of people do not like Google - but at least their adsense stuff is relevant to the content of the website, which might generate some legitimate traffic for a legitimate advertiser.... [[User:J-beda|J-beda]] ([[User talk:J-beda|talk]]) 11:48, 19 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
::::Welllll, I didn't pick the ad supplier. You could bring it up with [[User talk:Jeff|Jeff]] if you want, I think he picked the ad provider on basis of which one had a mediawiki plugin or something. If you can link Jeff to a quick and easy way to put adsense on mediawiki, he should change it quickly enough. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 14:21, 19 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::::And I also gather then that they are only a temporary thing? -- [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 08:27, 24 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
::::::Until we can buy a server that doesn't poop itself every time a new comic is released, the ads are staying. If you want them to go away sooner, throw more money at Jeff. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 09:25, 24 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
::::::: The ads are crap. For sure. Wish I didn't have to run them, but I don't trust donations alone to hold up continually some better hosting. The ads really don't bring in that much $$$. I had google adsense before, but Google shutdown my adsense account for unnamed reason after 1 week. This new ad service is way sketchier. If you all think they don't have a place here, I'll ax 'em. --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 16:02, 24 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
::::::: Thanks for the info Jeff. How much ad money are we talking about? Is it calculated on how many ads are displayed or how many are clicked-through? How close to the goal is the server fund? How about a Kickstarter campaign for the server? $10 gets your name on a thankyou webpage or something like that. [[User:J-beda|J-beda]] ([[User talk:J-beda|talk]]) 17:32, 24 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::::::: It ain't much, last I looked it was $2 or $3 in 2 weeks. I believe it is based on clicks, it is not nearly as clear as Google adsense. I'm not really interested in doing a Kickstarter. I think the donations will cover the initial start up, I just want to be able to cover the monthly costs as well. A few things are still up in the air. --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 16:24, 25 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::::::::Can you find a way to show the donations and ad income on the site, to make it transparent? ––[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 15:30, 30 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
::::::::: How about a donation amount that you'll take to turn it (the annoying unethical scummy ads) off for a year? Give me a dollar value and I might step up for the good of us all! [[User:J-beda|J-beda]] ([[User talk:J-beda|talk]]) 16:28, 3 May 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Economic transparency ==<br />
<br />
I think this is very important: How can we make the donations and ad-income transparent, so that we all can see when and how much money is coming in, and how far we are from reaching our goal? – [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 00:35, 24 May 2013 (UTC)<br />
: Sounds fine to me, I think I can put something together. --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 15:52, 28 May 2013 (UTC)<br />
::Hi, may I bump this issue? Or maybe you have done something, and I missed it? Anyway, I would still appreciate it! –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 17:43, 22 February 2014 (UTC)<br />
:::Numberssss. I'll get on with it, just need less homework and a few more numbers. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 07:54, 23 February 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I would like to respectfully file a complain. I find the banner advertisement of background checks distasteful. [[User:Benjaminikuta|Benjaminikuta]] ([[User talk:Benjaminikuta|talk]]) 05:10, 15 July 2014 (UTC)<br />
: Hey [[User:Benjaminikuta|Benjaminikuta]] - I am the one who approved those ads. But, since you have filed a complaint about them, I have gone ahead and removed them. Thanks. --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 12:52, 15 July 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I thank you. [[User:Benjaminikuta|Benjaminikuta]] ([[User talk:Benjaminikuta|talk]]) 03:36, 17 July 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Using <nowiki><nowiki></nowiki></nowiki> in transcripts to improve accuracy ==<br />
<br />
In the transcripts, <nowiki>[[lines]]</nowiki> are being changed to [lines] in order to avoid auto-linking. Why not just surround these with <nowiki><nowiki></nowiki></nowiki> tags and avoid the problem entirely? --[[User:Epauley|Epauley]] ([[User talk:Epauley|talk]]) 04:18, 16 June 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Because it takes less time to type and single brackets are just as readable as double brackets to visitors. It's also a bit more readable in the editor. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 09:55, 16 June 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Category: (Barred/banned from?) Conferences ==<br />
<br />
I come here after realising I erroneously posted (in reply) to the Main page Talk, being anonymous (or at least IP-only) and without a list of qualifying articles to support me, just yet, but still wish to put forward the above category before I forget. There's no apparent equivalent, that I found, but it's definitely a recurring meme. I should be back (named or otherwise) with my suggested list of members, if someone else doesn't get there first, but I thought I'd start with the placemarker. [[Special:Contributions/178.98.31.27|178.98.31.27]] 16:41, 22 June 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Ok, so I got the bee in my bonnet and spent a few minutes actually looking into this. Revising "Barred from Conferences" (actually more often "Banned" or even "Thrown out of"/equivalent) to just "Conferences", the subset of comics that I can easily find that are involved is *[[153]], *[[177]], *[[365]], *[[410]], *[[463]], *[[541]], [[545]], [[685]], [[829]] and [[867]], but I'm sure there are more recent ones that I didn't spot/recall. One alternative title to "Conferences" is "Presentations", and I'm sure if I'd searched for that I'd have found more potential candidates (less some that might ''exit'' the renamed category). The asterisked ones ''do'' deal with being barred/banned/thrown out/etc, making it still a suitable category in its own right, IMO, but I'll leave it up to your combined musings to decide. [[Special:Contributions/178.98.31.27|178.98.31.27]] 17:07, 22 June 2013 (UTC)<br />
::I add [[690]] to the list. --[[User:Chtz|Chtz]] ([[User talk:Chtz|talk]]) 08:12, 13 September 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
::: Great suggestions! I created [[:Category:Public speaking]] and [[:Category:Banned from conferences]]. I also added [[Wikipedian Protester]] to the mix, of course :) --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 21:59, 13 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Strip Title ==<br />
<br />
For someone who commonly browses explainxkcd in place of xkcd, and hence often see the strips for the first time here rather than the parent site, I find it somewhat odd that the 'Title Text' is so poorly displayed given how critical it can be to the strip.<br />
<br />
I propose that, while retaining the given name (perhaps moving it top left), the title text be enlarged and relocated to being over the strip as originally intended. {{unsigned ip|175.41.133.18}}<br />
:The title text is placed very well at bottom of the image.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 07:20, 6 September 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:I would have to agree with Dgbrt, it's placed nicely at the bottom, and there is no need for it to be moved. My reasoning is that you never actually read the title text first, you read it last. Making it <code>text-align: left;</code> does not make sense, because the image is centered (just like on xkcd.com). I also believe that there is no need for it to be re-sized, mainly due to the fact that it is slightly larger than the title text (for me, at least). {{User:Grep/signature|05:18, 08 September 2013}}<br />
<br />
:Plus, if you hover over the image, it's the same as on xkcd.com {{User:Grep/signature|06:13, 08 September 2013}}<br />
<br />
:I also agree with Dgbrt and Grep. The title text is kind of a bonus and should not be emphasized more than on the original page. On the original site you only see it before the image, if you have very slow internet access (or very fast eyes) --[[User:Chtz|Chtz]] ([[User talk:Chtz|talk]]) 08:06, 2 October 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Sections in talk pages ==<br />
<br />
Is there a reason why there are no sections in talk pages? It is not a very big deal, but especially for longer talk pages it would make editing be much handier, especially when using the preview function (not having to find the section every time). Also it automatically adds a description to the history (thus makes it more easy to look for certain edits, or decide by just looking at the [[Special:RecentChanges]], if a comment should concern you. --[[User:Chtz|Chtz]] ([[User talk:Chtz|talk]]) 08:01, 2 October 2013 (UTC)<br />
:When discussion pages are transcluded by the comic discussion template, section headers carry over from talk pages and bad things happen. Using ; to denote headers instead of equals signs works well, and doesn't share transclusion pain. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 08:04, 2 October 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== references ==<br />
<br />
Any chance we can add [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Cite/Cite.php cite.php] to this wiki? Most pages don't need it, but some comics take on a life of their own and being able to add reference tags would be really helpful for those. [[User:LadyMondegreen|LadyMondegreen]] ([[User talk:LadyMondegreen|talk]]) 01:33, 9 October 2013 (UTC)<br />
: Cite has been added to the wiki. Thanks for the suggestion! --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 01:35, 17 October 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Stylized writing ==<br />
<br />
I understand that this wiki isn't as formal as wikipedia or sites like that but it seems that there are a few questionable practices:<br />
<br />
1. The use of questions - when a non-rhetorical or unnecessary question is entered into the explanation.<br />
<br />
2. Extremely painted/biased view points - when there is obvious bias in the tone of the explanation of the contributor, in other <br />
words; a lack of neutrality.<br />
<br />
3. Extreme repetition/rehashing - the explanation restates things and makes for a long and tedious read when a more straight-forward explanation is possible and clearer.<br />
<br />
4. The general informality - "This one's an easy one" "This is simple" "this one's straightforward" "You're an idiot for not understanding this one" etc.<br />
<br />
5. Many other practices that make the explanation hard to read, difficult to understand, or plain ugly.<br />
<br />
I know that there are disparaging view points on how a comic should be explained, but please let's clean up the site a bit, acknowledge each view point and report on all of them and then tighten up the sloppy writing. Carry out arguments in the talk section, not the explanation. Perhaps we could first try to say the majority view point on the interpretation and then write the alternate explanations, of course this would bring up the debate on which is the majority explanation. Either way, more complete, logical explanations should be given more credence. --[[User:Lackadaisical|Lackadaisical]] ([[User talk:Lackadaisical|talk]]) 00:25, 23 October 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:I agree with 2-5. 1, on the other hand, is sometimes useful and can contribute the to explanation, although 1 is still a very good point. I would say that you should edit it to have "arguments in the talk" be a 6th point as well. Unfortunately, though, we are not all logical, comic-understanding machines here, so minor deviations of these rules are still to be expected. But I think that overall, these are good rules, even if 2/3 are sort of part of 5.<br />
:[[User:Lackadaisical|Lackadaisical]], please sign your post with <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki><span style="float: right;">{{User:Grep/signature|23:55, 22 October 2013}}</span><br />
<br />
:I understand the use of questions in certain parts. And it was probably better to put the others as sub-categories to five but I wanted to show some common things that can be easily fixed. I know that some explanations require a lot of text and extensive research because of the abstract subjects Randall deals with and that it's difficult to be completely standardized but I think it would be good for us to try to come up with some general things to try to avoid to help the explanations "flow" --[[User:Lackadaisical|Lackadaisical]] ([[User talk:Lackadaisical|talk]]) 00:25, 23 October 2013 (UTC)<br />
::Most of that isn't intentional, it's just an awful lot of labor to copy check all the explanations. I've been going through all the current articles and fixing consistency issues, the worst being wrong transcript/title text/dates and the most benign being wikilinks, spelling and trailing spaces. I'm at 682 so far, but my next pass will be on actual language and content, and it'll probably take longer. It takes a while though, and you can totally work on improving language in articles if you want to. Some explanations were pulled from the old blog, some were written and just got lost in the changelog. Copy editing everything we have so far is a very labor-intensive job, and the only way to really deal with it is to knuckle down and do it, or form a wikiproject and hope to heaven that visitors feel charitable enough to join in on it. I'd *probably* push to finish up all our incomplete articles first though, just because that's more directly related to the purpose of the site; tone and style probably comes second to having correct explanations. That doesn't mean you can't do it yourself, it's just that I'll probably only dedicate the subheader on the main page to one project at a time and our current biggest bugbear hasn't been solved yet. I could put up a sitenotice to see if that speeds the process up any. I'll do that when I get back home. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 03:31, 23 October 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Easy redirect to comic? ==<br />
<br />
I've been thinking, and there is one thing that would make navigating to the explained comics easier. My method of browsing is I'll see the comic on xkcd.com first, and if there is something curious about it that I don't quite understand, I'll come here. Sometimes it can be a bit troublesome, going to the homepage and then navigatiing to the right comic. Not too bad, but I'd like an easy way to go direct. So I was thinking, what if you had a redirect such that if you typed in, for example, www.explainxkcd.com/505, you would get redirected to http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=505:_A_Bunch_of_Rocks. That would mean that you could get to the comic just from adding an "explain" to the start of the xkcd.com URL. I don't know if that is at all possible, but it would be pretty handy if it happened. Thoughts?<br />
[[User:Alcatraz ii|Alcatraz ii]] ([[User talk:Alcatraz ii|talk]]) 03:01, 25 October 2013 (UTC)<br />
:[http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Technical#Redirect_from_explainxkcd.com.2F1234 That's actually already on the to-do list.] I'm testing it right now and we should have it up soon. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 04:02, 25 October 2013 (UTC)<br />
:: Awesome :) [[User:Alcatraz ii|Alcatraz ii]] ([[User talk:Alcatraz ii|talk]]) 03:26, 1 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::Whoop, forgot to mark this as complete. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 04:37, 1 November 2013 (UTC) <br />
:::: Done! Copy this and drag it to your bookmarks bar: |javascript: var url = document.URL; document.location = url.replace('xkcd.com','explainxkcd.com');| {{unsigned ip|173.245.52.29}}<br />
:::::The feature requested here has also long since been implemented. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 22:20, 4 April 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Increase support via prominent display of copyright and license for text submitted to explainxkcd ==<br />
<br />
XKCD itself is rather liberally licensed, and gets lots of good will from that. As it says on the bottom of every page "This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License." For details see [http://xkcd.com/license.html xkcd - A Webcomic - License].<br />
<br />
But I found nothing on most pages of explainxkcd about copyright or licensing, and it discouraged me from contributing or donating. Finally, as I was writing this proposal up, I found a link on the editing page here: [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=explain_xkcd:Copyrights explain xkcd:Copyrights - explain xkcd] saying that "''The Explain XKCD wiki is generally licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license (CC-BY-SA-3.0)''". That notice should be more prominent on the site, with at least a link on each page. [[User:Nealmcb|Nealmcb]] ([[User talk:Nealmcb|talk]]) 15:27, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:This should be mentioned at the main page, including a reference to the xkcd origin.<br />
:BTW: NO DOUBLE SPACES after a sentence. Are you US guys still using a typewriter? It's not rendered at a web page and stupid like Gallons, Miles, Foots, and much more unique US behaviours. But that's just a joke beside.<br />
:The licence hint is much more important, you are just correct.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:12, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::Added a creative commons icon to the footer of the page, next to the powered by mediawiki button. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 22:16, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== New Comics Bot ==<br />
<br />
Would there be need for such a thing?<br />
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.231.52|108.162.231.52]] Synthetica<br />
:Nice idea, I never thought about that before. I will do some tests on existing comics to check if this could reduce the current number of error posts for a new article. When that is ready and working I will talk to some admins. My bot account [[User:DgbrtBOT|DgbrtBOT]] was originally intended for [[1190: Time]] picture uploads, but I never have used it because Time was over. Creating the new pages should be easy in general, avoiding errors will cost some more work. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:31, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::If you can get dgbrtBOT to do that, that'd help us an awful lot. It'd allow us to get rid of the ifexist cases in template:LATESTCOMIC as well, since the bot could change automatically that whenever a new comic goes up. It'll also help us get new comics down almost the moment they pop up, since the bot could sample several times a minute until a comic is posted. So long as it gets the general pattern right so that we have a correct page set up, we're good. An admin can come in sometime later to clean up categories and image urls and other piddly easy-to-fix details. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 20:54, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::I will work on this next weekend, just local scripts and no updates here. I also will talk about my results before any automatic updates will be activated. My first focus is on creating the new pages in the general pattern, LATESTCOMIC and also the page "All comics" are maybe a bonus later. And of course all my scripts will be open source.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:44, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::::The first version is ready and I will test it at my local wiki. If everything goes well I could activate it for Wednesday (2013-11-13). LATESTCOMIC and "All comics" are on my roadmap, but first I want produce correct new pages here. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:00, 10 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::::Righty ho. Here goes. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 20:36, 10 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
Even when my automatic local wiki test did fail today, just a damn wrong password, I will activate the bot here for Wednesday. It will only run from 4:00 PM until 8:00 PM UTC. You will not see my possible updates at [[Special:RecentChanges]] unless you click ''Show bots'' at the top of that page. LATESTCOMIC and "All comics" are not covered, but this is at my TODO list until this test will be successful. Give me a '''GO''' or '''NO-GO''' for this test.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:49, 11 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Easily a GO, I'll be ready to clean up if anything goes wrong. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 22:08, 11 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::So be ready on Wednesday for the clean up. My worst case is ''it simply does not work'', second worse scenario is still that I could delete some contend already posted here, but I'm trying to avoid this. ''Huston'', the countdown clock is counting. I'm joking about this because I really want to be confident about this ''BOT'' or ROBOT or uncontrolled action here.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 00:28, 12 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::The bot can't do anything that I can't reverse. I can even restore a backup from an hour before the bot's edits if it manages to break the database. How quickly does it poll xkcd, by the way? '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 07:53, 12 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
First live test here (comic 1289). Please delete this page: [[Simple_Answers:_1289]]. Since my local wiki did not provide this templates I could not see this error before. In general the bot will update pages differ to any existing pages, but when it is not changed no update will happen. I'm fixing this errors at my script and do a second test here soon. I want to see it's producing correct pages until the bot will do it's work when I'm sleeping.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:31, 12 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Ok, test are done here, BOT is scheduled for the next update. Polling is every five minutes on Mon, Wed, and Fri from 04:00 until 08:00 UTC. Let's see how it will work.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 23:08, 12 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::Couldja ramp that up to once/twice a minute, push the start time back by an hour, and the end time by a few hours? Also, is it possible to terminate it once it finds a comic for a certain day? '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 01:45, 13 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::It worked! Though it posted the comic 5 minutes past post time. We has technology now, we can afford to poll faster and closer, yeah? '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 05:32, 13 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
Uhh, it worked... I will increase the polls when I'm more confident about the release times. Today it was approx. 05:00 UTC (GMT) or 01:00 EST (Randall's time zone). Looks like he is still at daylight saving time, would have been 00:00 EDT. The polls will be increased to one minute when I'm sure about the Standard Release Time (SRT). Next steps for the next update on Friday are:<br />
:The "All comics" page.<br />
:The LATESTCOMIC template.<br />
--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:54, 13 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:The LATESTCOMIC template is included for the next run, it just simply has to return a number. But it's still the most critical part because if it does not work the Main Page is broken. I will change this to a better solution using that IFEXIST syntax soon. The list of all comics is still at my ToDo list. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:06, 14 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::The desired content of the LATESTCOMIC template should be just the comic number. If we can get out of having to poll multiple IFEXIST statements to find the latest comic, that would be a fantastic boon to our server performance. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 04:43, 15 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::OK, it did work today so I will not change this. Next step is the list for all comics.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 11:10, 15 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
Next run will include an update on the "All comics" page. I'm crossing my fingers. When this update is also successful I will document my Bot at the Bot user page [[User:DgbrtBOT]]. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:15, 17 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Oh, I forgot this detail: The bot is starting at 00:00 EST (RLT - Randall local time), which is 04:00 UTC and 05:00 MET for me. It polls every 5 minutes until 23:55 MET (22:55 UTC, 18:55 RLT) the main page until a new comic is found. I do not poll the comic number because I want to avoid 404 message logs at the servers.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:30, 17 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Something went wrong there. That's gonna need fixing. I am enjoying the looks of the apparently faster polling though. Maybe you could also set the start time to 00:00:05 EST to catch the on-time xkcd releases within ten seconds? '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 05:33, 18 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::Uh, what a mess. I will do some more tests at my local wiki. At the next time I will do a check against the number from the LATESTCOMIC template, only the next number will be processed. The test against my local history did fail because of some cleanups after testings.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 08:18, 18 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::I don't like mess. So the BOT got many more checks before posting here but the bot was starting at 05:00 local time for me. I'm really asleep at that time. The mess here was covered, but I do need another GO for the next attempt. Otherwise I will just do a test to my local wiki.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:35, 18 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
No GO so far, my next test will run only at my local wiki.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:16, 19 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:My script is here: [https://github.com/dgbrt/explainXKCD_update explainXKCD_update]. At my current test "explainxkcd.com" is commented out and "localhost" is active. Since I don't like mess and the bot does act while I am sleeping the next update must be done manually here. I'm hoping the bot will be ready for the next update on Friday.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:15, 19 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::Bot is ready for Friday, everything went smooth at my last local test today. The bot did find the latest comic at 04:05 UTC and all essential pages were properly created. So I will activate it for this site again. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:57, 20 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
Bot did work as expected. So I name it release 1.1337, the next planed release will be 2.1337 (beta) because of this two issues:<br />
*"Include any categories below this line." will be removed because it doesn't make any sense any more.<br />
*BETA: I want to use the full template features at [[List of all comics]], just ensuring that the pictures are working properly. No need for this at the most comics, but the BOT doesn't cover all possibilities on corrupt file names like we have had in "Pi vs. Tau". The picture was without that dot. My bot just shows the real link it did upload here.<br />
I'm pretty sure we will have some issues on this bot, but for general pages it should work. So the bot will be active on Mon,Wed,Fri from 0:00 EST (or EDT) every five minutes until it did found a new comic, on success the bot does not poll any more.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:51, 22 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Aww, it's a bot. It doesn't need to rest or take time off to do other stuff. It can totally poll once or more times per minute. Also, if you set the start time to a few seconds after midnight, Randall time, when he uploads a comic on-time, you'll get it within a few seconds as opposed to having to wait for the next polling. As for the image names, maybe you could convert spaces in the comic name to underscores, compare the two comic names you have and use that to decide which version of the template to use? '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 23:08, 22 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::I have to avoid that the bot is running twice, Internet Timeouts and more. And the comics are also published later sometimes. Look at my release [https://github.com/dgbrt/explainXKCD_update 1.1337], release 2.1337 will be later, Maybe I should start at 2 minutes after 0:00, but let's see right now how the bot does work. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 00:38, 23 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
Uhh, what a huge discussion here. The bot will get a major update soon: Scheduler does start it once and until a comic is found and uploaded it here or an other limit is reached (maybe the end of the day) the bot will poll by a small delay. But every poll is still an entire download from the main page, When a new comic is found bot stops.<br />
:Why, you could use http://xkcd.com/info.0.json, right?[[Special:Contributions/108.162.231.52|108.162.231.52]] 07:38, 2 December 2013 (UTC)Synthetica<br />
::The BOT performs perfect and I prefer to analyze the original page. A title text like the one from today (a text showing a link) will be covered in the future.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 10:35, 2 December 2013 (UTC)<br />
A great enhancement would be also covering a new comic like 1190 Time was. I'm looking forward on this, some ideas, it does require a complete analyse of the page and then finding some strange content. <br />
--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 23:05, 27 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Require description for 'incomplete' tags ==<br />
I've been trying to fix some of the incompletes, but several explanation pages I've come across are tagged incomplete without any reason given. The reason should be a required part of the tag. --[[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.223|173.245.52.223]] 03:35, 7 December 2013 (UTC)<br />
:This incomplete tags are just older than the recent change of that template. Current adds require a description, but it's not easy to figure out all that old reasons. If someone does find a reason, please just add it. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:22, 7 December 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Should there be a subwiki to cover the shop links that appear above the comic? ==<br />
<br />
The current one (as of writing) is [http://imgs.xkcd.com/store_news/store_gd_b11_1ze4.png] but this is a different than the usual, and there was also a third in between these.<br />
[[User:Rsranger65|Rsranger65]] ([[User talk:Rsranger65|talk]]) 06:00, 8 December 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Those are very ephemeral. They aren't going to exist for very long, I don't know how valuable it would be to archive that stuff. We could probably do it, but having to figure out another naming convention and all for advertisements doesn't appeal to me at the current moment. If you can flesh it out, I'd love to see how you think we should do it. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 07:24, 8 December 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== New Character ==<br />
<br />
OK, I think we need a name for the character with a goatee and glasses in comics [[435: Purity]], [[796: Bad Ex]] and [[964: Dorm Poster]] as well as possibly others. Edit: oh and I suggest Goatee and Glasses Guy, but I'm open for suggestions Edit 2: also in [[826: Guest Week: Zach Weiner (SMBC)]] Halfhat {{unsigned|Halfhat}}<br />
edit 3: Another sighting [[954: Chin-Up Bar]] [[User:Halfhat|Halfhat]] ([[User talk:Halfhat|talk]]) 16:57, 13 January 2014 (UTC)<br />
: In the transcript, he is called "Person with Glasses and a Goatee" --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 15:39, 21 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
:: "Glasses Guy", "Goatee Guy" are both probably descriptive enough! --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 15:41, 21 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== What If Comics ==<br />
<br />
Hi, I was thinking, maybe at some point we should do the comics in the ''What If?'' section, like [http://what-if.xkcd.com/imgs/a/36/cornstarch_bitcoins.png this one.] [[User:Halfhat|Halfhat]] ([[User talk:Halfhat|talk]]) 20:01, 13 January 2014 (UTC)<br />
: Start creating the pages for them! --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 15:36, 21 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
: I think I can start creating one or two pages for What If, if that helps... [[User:Daniel Carrero|Daniel Carrero]] ([[User talk:Daniel Carrero|talk]]) 16:14, 5 April 2014 (UTC)<br />
:: If nobody has any problem with it, I'm gonna give it a try later. :) [[User:Daniel Carrero|Daniel Carrero]] ([[User talk:Daniel Carrero|talk]]) 13:14, 8 April 2014 (UTC)<br />
:::I thought they were already pretty self-explanatory though. Also, how are we gonna organize and present them? '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 16:31, 8 April 2014 (UTC)<br />
::::I totally agree with David: Read the entire What-If page and follow the links provided by Randall. No one of us can do that better in depth. But an overview page for this site is maybe not a bad idea, we just need a proper link here — a link at the main menu on the left. Translations to other languages are just another issue. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:37, 8 April 2014 (UTC)<br />
:::::Yes, I was thinking of an overview, summarizing the contents and discoveries of each what if page. Not to mention, we could also organize what if pages by categories, such as physics/love.<br />
:::::Would you like me to post here an example of what I would write? That way we can decide if it's worthy of creating an actual page. [[User:Daniel Carrero|Daniel Carrero]] ([[User talk:Daniel Carrero|talk]]) 12:53, 9 April 2014 (UTC)<br />
:Adding pages for What If? posts would be very helpful. Although the articles themselves are obviously self-explanatory, there are almost as many subtle references, running gags, and in-jokes in What If? posts these days as in the comics themselves.<br />
I often visit explain xkcd when I feel like I'm missing an inside joke or a pop culture reference in a comic, and it would be very helpful to many people (especially those from other cultures/subcultures) to have the same service.<br />
For example, today's What If? contains multiple allusions to the Superman Movie, a running Citation Needed joke, and a whole comic that is a not-so-subtle dig at Elon Musk and the Hyperloop. It would be awesome if the community here at explainxkcd could tackle stuff like that.<br />
Anonymous 20:05, 31 July 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Transcripts ==<br />
<br />
The whole point of the transcripts is to have those who are unable to view images to still be able to read the comic, right?<br />
<br />
Then why is it required to stick to strictly official transcripts, where sometimes rewriting them slightly would make them flow better or otherwise get the ideas across better? I've tried rewriting a few, but they get reverted. I think that having easier-to-understand transcripts would be more important than strictly following official transcripts; what do you think? (For a few examples, see [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=207:_What_xkcd_Means&diff=60061&oldid=57400 this edit] and [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=995%3A_Coinstar&diff=59862&oldid=57316 this edit]. [[User:Zowayix|Zowayix]] ([[User talk:Zowayix|talk]]) 17:38, 19 February 2014 (UTC)<br />
:We use the original transcript to try and deduce original author intent if it's unclear from the image. I remember one comic where Beret Guy was off in the distance and it was difficult to distinguish him from the image, but the official transcript said it was him. We don't stick to the original transcript if it's obviously wrong, or it has typographical errors: see [[Laser Scope]]. Those edits seem to be mainly targeted at language and clarity, and should be fine. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 23:06, 19 February 2014 (UTC)<br />
::Would it be helpful to have another (optional) section for expanding on the official transcripts? I too think it could be helpful, especially for complex images (such as 1079/United Shapes [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1079]). Or does supplemental description belong in the Explanation sections? Cheers. [[User:Karenb|Karenb]] ([[User talk:Karenb|talk]]) 23:00, 20 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
:::Naaah, how many people even know there's an original transcript? If the original is wrong, change it. If your additions begin to verge on explanatory, move eet to the trivia/explanation sections. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 00:52, 21 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== "Characters in this Comic" section ==<br />
<br />
Should there be a "Characters in this Comic" section in each comic explanation? (I feel like this should be longer but don't have anything else to say.) [[User:Z|Z]] ([[User talk:Z|talk]]) 23:33, 11 May 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:There is a Category section at the bottom of each comic. Just scroll down and you will see any character belonging to a specific comic. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:50, 12 May 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Adding the Radiation chart from XKCD ==<br />
<br />
Hi <br />
As there are already other comics with explanations even though they are not part of the number system.<br />
This one does not seem to have any yet:<br />
http://xkcd.com/radiation/<br />
And as it is very alike the Money strip (the unexplained of the week) so I think it should be explained as well.<br />
If you agree please add it as I'm not sure how to do that.<br />
<br />
Best regards<br />
:[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 18:47, 7 June 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Reddit comments? ==<br />
<br />
There should be a link in each comics explanation page somewhere linking to the comment section for the relevant comic on /r/xkcdcomic or reddit.<br />
:The reddit comments page isn't ''that'' close to what we do though. If this is more popular, we'll do it, though there'll need to be a fair bit of post-hoc editing since I don't think there's a standard URL scheme for all the past comics. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 03:15, 23 June 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Not insulting new users ==<br />
<br />
I am writing a response to a vulnerability assessment. I have included a link to http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/936 noting that it contains a good explanation of the relative security of passwords vs passphrases. I just noticed that the top of that page contains "Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb." Looks like I'll have to find a different site to link to. --[[User:Pascal|Pascal]] ([[User talk:Pascal|talk]]) 17:33, 28 June 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Category: Wishes ==<br />
<br />
[http://explainxkcd.com/1391/ Several] [http://explainxkcd.com/1086/ comics] [http://explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/152:_Hamster_Ball now] [http://xkcd.com/879/ exist] that talk about wishes - probably more. Should there be a category for this? [[User:Z|Z]] ([[User talk:Z|talk]]) 23:22, 7 July 2014 (UTC)<br />
:Doesn't seem significant enough. If you promise to maintain the category you can make it yourself, although it will be cleared out if it gets neglected as new comics are released. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 15:20, 8 July 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== RSS feed ==<br />
<br />
Is there an RSS feed (or some equivalent) of Explain XKCD available? It's helpful for those using feed readers, and superior to the primary XKCD RSS since there are explanations and the mouse over text is transcribed for the lazy. Thanks [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.154|108.162.219.154]] 08:24, 28 August 2014 (UTC)<br />
:[http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Special:NewPages&feed=atom&hideredirs=1&limit=90&offset=&namespace=0&username=&feed=&tagfilter= Why yes, we do!] It's the regular new pages log that all wikis have. It's a little ugly at the moment, and sometimes junk gets in there when a bot chucks spam at us, so a nicer feed is in the works, but the linked one should do you excellently for now. When the nice one is done, you'll see it in the sidebar below the "Help" button. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 11:31, 28 August 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Navigation Pane Link - Categories ==<br />
<br />
How about having a link to the "Special:Categories" page in the navigation pane?<br />
<br />
A fair amount of effort has gone into categorising the comics, and at the moment it isn't particularly obvious how to browse by category. Is this worth doing?{{unsigned|Pudder}}<br />
:Space on the sidebar is on a premium. I dunno, I'd probably be against it, but I want to hear what other admins say as well. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 16:45, 29 September 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Alternate realities what if would benefit from a wiki entry ==<br />
<br />
The what if entry from the end of November 2014 providing excerpts from alternate reality what ifs would benefit from an explain page. <br />
I suspect these may have been typos that have been made into jokes, but some of the humor might not be apparent to all. <br />
I doubt I have access (or maybe know how) to set it up myself. <br />
<br />
Cheers {{unsigned ip|199.27.133.42}}<br />
<br />
: Made it. Check out [[What If: 120: Alternate Universe What Ifs]]. [[User:17jiangz1|17jiangz1]] ([[User talk:17jiangz1|talk]]) 09:10, 26 December 2014 (UTC)<br />
::We don't actually have a structure for what if pages in general, so I'll have to take that down, but when we do we can make pages for every what if. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 09:57, 26 December 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Secondary URLs? ==<br />
<br />
I have made http://www.xkcd.ga and http://www.xkcd.tk both forward to http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page. Is this ok? [[User:17jiangz1|17jiangz1]] ([[User talk:17jiangz1|talk]]) 08:50, 26 December 2014 (UTC)<br />
:While we probably won't advertise them because we can't guarantee the uptime of third-party URLs, and they add an additional redirect layer and lack our shortened URL features, you're free to purchase and link URLs to us independently. We are not owned by Randall and as such cannot claim to actually be xkcd, so I'm not hugely comfortable with you using the plain name "xkcd" to link to us; a url in the format http://www.xkcd.[TLD] should by rights link to the main xkcd site, but no trademark claim has been made or likely will be made, so you should be fine with doing whatever you want to do with URL redirects '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 09:57, 26 December 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== LaTeX (Or MathML, TeX) support? ==<br />
<br />
[[1489:_Fundamental_Forces|In the most recent comic at the time of posting]], there was use of formulae, being:<br/>F<sub>gravity</sub> = G m<sub>1</sub>m<sub>2</sub>/d<sup>2</sup><br/>F<sub>static</sub> = K<sub>e</sub> q<sub>1</sub>q<sub>2</sub>/d<sup>2</sup><br/><br />
There are probably many more comics using formulae that cannot be rendered properly without the use of LaTeX or something. The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Displaying_a_formula|help page on Wikipedia] says that the following should work:<br/><math>F_{gravity}=G\frac{m_1m_2}{d^2}</math><br/><math>F_{static}=K_e\frac{q_1q_2}{d^2}</math><br />
Provided that one has to set <source lang="php" enclose="none">$wgUseTeX = true;</source> in [[mw:Manual:LocalSettings.php|LocalSettings.php]]. Is there any reason for this to be disabled? If there is, is there any alternative? —[[Special:Contributions/141.101.106.95|141.101.106.95]] 21:18, 20 February 2015 (UTC)</div>141.101.106.95https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1487:_Tornado&diff=84567Talk:1487: Tornado2015-02-16T08:53:47Z<p>141.101.106.95: </p>
<hr />
<div>Are we sure this is cueball? it seems like it might be just a generic newscaster cartoon. <br />
[[User:Reywas|Reywas]] ([[User talk:Reywas|talk]]) 07:41, 16 February 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Can a weather expert verify the claim that a tornado will destroy a merry-go-round? From what little I read and understood (Weather is confusing, and there was no graph!), a F0 or F1 tornado would not destroy it. From my estimations, a merry-go-round weighs 1350kg (2976.24054 lbs). Thanks, [[Special:Contributions/141.101.106.95|141.101.106.95]] 08:53, 16 February 2015 (UTC)</div>141.101.106.95https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1487:_Tornado&diff=84566Talk:1487: Tornado2015-02-16T08:53:03Z<p>141.101.106.95: </p>
<hr />
<div>Are we sure this is cueball? it seems like it might be just a generic newscaster cartoon. <br />
[[User:Reywas|Reywas]] ([[User talk:Reywas|talk]]) 07:41, 16 February 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Can a weather expert verify the claim that a tornado will destroy a merry-go-round? From what little I read and understood (Weather is confusing, and there was no graph!), a F0 or F1 tornado would not destroy it. From my estimated, a merry-go-round weighs 1350kg (2976.24054 lbs). Thanks, [[Special:Contributions/141.101.106.95|141.101.106.95]] 08:53, 16 February 2015 (UTC)</div>141.101.106.95https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1487:_Tornado&diff=845651487: Tornado2015-02-16T08:39:30Z<p>141.101.106.95: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1487<br />
| date = February 16, 2015<br />
| title = Tornado<br />
| image = tornado.png<br />
| titletext = Nearby, there were also no injuries when a multi-vortex tornado hit one of those spinning teacup rides.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Explanation needs more detail.}}<br />
A {{w|Carousel|merry-go-round}} (or carousel) is an amusement ride consisting of a slowly rotating circular platform with seats for riders. These seats are traditionally wooden horses. The seats usually rotate slowly, as, like most amusement rides, it is for children. The implication is that the tornado would make the merry-go-round spin much faster, creating the "Fun" and "Awesome" experience described in the comment, but in reality it would either destroy the merry-go-round or damage it in a way that would keep it from spinning (such as by breaking an axle or bearing).<br />
<br />
A spinning teacup ride consists of several circular units ("teacups") that seat around ten people each. They rotate around their center axis, while simultaneously orbiting the center of the entire ride, exposing people to acceleration in rapidly shifting, seemingly random directions. The reported tornado had multiple vortices, similarly rotating around a common center, that attached themselves to each of the "teacups", also spinning them faster than normal operation of the ride would have. This is, of course, even less likely (to happen, and to result in no injuries if it did) than the single-vortex tornado on the merry-go-round.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Cueball stands in front of a small village holding a microphone]<br />
:Cueball: The tornado touched down directly over a merry-go-round, in what victims are calling a "fun" and "awesome" disaster.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}</div>141.101.106.95https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1487:_Tornado&diff=845581487: Tornado2015-02-16T08:34:26Z<p>141.101.106.95: /* Transcript */</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1487<br />
| date = February 16, 2015<br />
| title = Tornado<br />
| image = tornado.png<br />
| titletext = Nearby, there were also no injuries when a multi-vortex tornado hit one of those spinning teacup rides.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Explanation needs more detail.}}<br />
A merry-go-round is an amusement ride consisting of a slowly rotating circular platform with seats for riders. The implication is that the tornado would make the merry-go-round spin much faster, creating the "Fun" and "Awesome" experience described in the comment, but in reality it would either destroy the merry-go-round or damage it in a way that would keep it from spinning (such as by breaking an axle or bearing).<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[Cueball stands in front of a small village holding a microphone]<br />
:Cueball: The tornado touched down directly over a merry-go-round, in what victims are calling a "fun" and "awesome" disaster.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}</div>141.101.106.95