Talk:3268: Offside

IWantChechmate made a video on this exact subject. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucGhD2hC_6s&t=479s 107.128.24.23 01:28, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

Finally the site's back! GSLikesCats307 (talk) 09:36, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

How long was it down? I did not realize it was down until it must have been down some time, and now when I'm back it is up and must ha<ve been for at least three days. Thought I had been thrown out... Which would have been bad given I'm the only active admin... Kynde (talk) 11:55, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

It was down completely for most of a week, then it came back up for just an hour or so, went down again, and then came back but no edits could be committed for a few days more. 82.13.184.33 12:04, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

It was last Monday (6th) that I think it went totally belly-up. There'd been a bit of the recently expected "Cannot access at this time" awkwardness over the preceding weekend, IIRC, but then a few few more edits (and half a dozen of the those spam-type/never-posting 'new users' creating accounts) happened sometime on the Monday.

The message led me to believe that someone had managed to delete a vital caching/indexing page at the very heart of the Wiki (not normally directly accessed by readers/editors, which I put down to being overloaded with traffic and maybe even a stealth attempt to try to update the software version (hacking in, hence the overloading, but doing a bad job of patching it).

But, with the information given just today, I've decided it's probably just that the regular Wiki backend had just tried to update this file while being right up to the storage limit and so had deleted/renamed the old one, but then had no room to create the new copy. So ended up functionally bricked (for everything other than just reading).

Three or four 'mirrors' popped up (luckily, it was still readable, so could be 'unofficially copied') and then Jeff was finally contacted and something was done to get the original site-backend working again (maybe deleting some old 'deleted pages' more permanently? - that'd be one of my own possible 'fixes', if I had the access to do so).

But then there was the problem of at least two 'active' versions (and I lost track of two of the other mirrors, but the fourth was always RO anyway).

It might have been better to have had an ETA on it, but the notice added to the two main sites as they were temporarily locked for editing was encouraging. And I know that there's going to have been a lot of work (and even more planning and decision-making!) behind what happened next.

There's a few problems with the enhanced anti-BOT measures (I'm going to have to copy this message to text-buffer, so I don't have to retype this from scratch if/when the repeated Validation process prevents me from posting anywhere as easily as I used to be able to ((yep, I had to do just that!)) ), and maybe a few other things that need looking at, but I think we're over the worst of the recent hump. And you should definitely consider being (co-)Admin again, Kynde. I know you can't always be here, and you may not be able or willing to take on the more onerous tasks with the far more in-depth Admin levels, but you've proven yourself reliable where it counts. (It's up to the current sysop(s) and bureaucrats, of course, and my word means absolutely nothing. But they look willing, I'm saying this to persuade you, not them. :) 92.23.5.229 21:04, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

Hi Kynde, please see explain xkcd:Site Transfer Announcement. Contact me, I'd love to talk! Celene (talk) 19:05, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

"Cleats"? Them's studs, my guy. Yorkshire Pudding (talk) 12:12, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, I know what you mean. "Cleats", to me, suggests rows of linear (mostly transverse) protusions, like on the bottom of walking boots/shoes (though modern ones of those also go for 'studded' elements), rather than clumps of spikes/truncated-spikes.

But I suspect we're separated-by-a-common-language, again, with the 'Merkin terminology being otherwise. 82.132.236.148 14:22, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

Could this be related to "Chess But You Can't Go Offside" by iwantcheckmate, which came out a couple days before the comic? They seem closely related in theme and time, in a way I haven't seen anywhere else, but at the same point they also seem to have slightly different interpretations of the offside rule (this comic seems to interpret it by the rank of defenders, while the video interprets it by board distance to the nearest defender). 198.73.70.136 18:34, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

Is this at all a realistic game situation? Say, what was the last move of Black? 2001:2062:19e:3700:5281:40ff:fe97:7efa (talk) 10:07, 13 July 2026 (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I came here to say the above (unrealistic game situation). I cannot construct a scenario where black's last move could not have been to take the queen with check. I believe the position is possible and legal though.

The prior move itself must have been a capture on e8, likely also a forced move due to check. 52.213.77.206 07:28, 15 July 2026 (UTC)

Could this be related to Norway's offside in Brazil v. Norway the day prior? In the full broadcast, you could see the Norwegians were clearly excited about their goal and then realizing they offsided, so it fits the comic perfectly. 193.69.216.164 17:39, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

"Its original purpose was to deter certain undesirable playing styles, such as "goal hanging", that were considered unsporting" Is that true? I thought it was more that football shares common ancestry with rugby and originally it was not legal to pass forward at all, so the offside rule is a relaxed version of that. 51.142.178.58 13:58, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

The rules of predecessor games varied widely, from no offside law at all (in one example, two players were permanently positioned near the opponent's goal), through to very strict versions that prevented you being in front of the ball at all, regardless of where the ball was played to. But all those various rules (apart from the no offside, obviously) were themselves intended to discourage players from hanging around in extreme offensive positions because it was considered unsporting. When the rules of Association Football were codified, they selected one approach to curtailing this behaviour; when those of Rugby Football were codified they chose another. 82.13.184.33 14:54, 23 July 2026 (UTC)