User talk:FaviFake

Hey there, feel free to send me a message :)

Objects table

Thanks for replying. The current table in the main text looks good, but still it is a description or just enumeration of game objects, not an explanation (or in some cases: partly an explanation). Supposing we keep the current structure, it is possible to add explanations for the planet names in the Explanation column. For example, first sentence of the second paragraph is a good explanation for the Uzumaki planet's name. On the other hand, Andal has only a description (what it looks like and what features are present on the surface) and no explanation (that it refers to Animorphs series of books). There's also a question where one should put explanations of items and messages. Some do not need an explanation ('You found a stick'), but most do: what they mean and what they refer to, both in xkcd context (such as when there's a comic about the thing) and in general context. I hope you understand the difference between description and explanation. Maybe there's also some misunderstanding resulting from a language barrier; English is not my native language.

What is also missing in the table are many structures or objects found on the planets and, most importantly, dialogues or monologous of the characters, which contain many puns and references, and also hints for the player. There's simply no place for them in the current structure. Making more columns may be messsy. That's why I proposed making several tables covering different aspects.

Please take my remarks as proposals to improve the structure and not as a criticism or request for you to make everything right and fill every cell of the table. I think we need to create a clear structure for everyone else to fill in with details; but also to provide good examples to follow.

Technical remarks:

• In my opinion, the filename column is not needed, it does not appear anywhere while playing, it's in source code only. Better remove it to have more horizontal space for the rest. The names given to the planets by the editors of the explanation page shown in the Description column are fine.
• Coordinates are also not useful for a regular player, who does not use some Javascript addition/cheats, maybe remove it as well; textual directions in Explanation column are sufficient.

-- Malgond (talk) 19:59, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

> Thanks for replying. The current table in the main text looks good, but still it is a description or just enumeration of game objects, not an explanation (or in some cases: partly an explanation). Supposing we keep the current structure, it is possible to add explanations for the planet names in the Explanation column. For example, first sentence of the second paragraph is a good explanation for the Uzumaki planet's name. On the other hand, Andal has only a description (what it looks like and what features are present on the surface) and no explanation (that it refers to Animorphs series of books).

Hey! Yeah, that's the state of the table right now, and I 100% percent agree with everything you're saying here. All planets and items that need an explanation should be explained and not just described. I mostly just copied and pasted the "planet description/explanations" from the old list to the table: creating the table was way more painful than i thought. I was actually surprized to see that nobody explained what Andal referred to, but I don't know anything about it so more knowledgeable people will have to chip in on that

>There's also a question where one should put explanations of items and messages. Some do not need an explanation ('You found a stick'), but most do: what they mean and what they refer to, both in xkcd context (such as when there's a comic about the thing) and in general context. I hope you understand the difference between description and explanation.

I do! And I wish other people could help here. I'm not sure if you've seen it, but this is the banner i put above the table:

---

ALL ITEM EXPLANATIONS NEED TO BE TRANSFERRED FROM THE OLD PLANET LIST TO THE NEW TABLE
We are currently switching from a disorganized list (below, inside the green banner) to the new organized table, but the explanations for specific items are missing from the new table. Please help by copying the item explanations from the old list and adding them to the new table in this format:
The item message – ''Where to find it – Explanation, such as references etc''
Example: You found a cheese platter (Your tanks recharge faster) – Next to the cell tower – The cheese is a reference to 1234: Cheese

---

OTHER ISSUES:

• upgrades that end in "???" need to be replaced by the exact upgrade message shown to the user.
• the "Tiles (X, Y)" column for planet coordinates is empty

As you can see, the explanations should be put right next to the items and messages. Unfortunately no one has started to add them to the table yet

> Maybe there's also some misunderstanding resulting from a language barrier; English is not my native language.

Your English is excellent :)

> dialogues or monologous of the characters, which contain many puns and references, and also hints for the player. There's simply no place for them in the current structure. Making more columns may be messsy. That's why I proposed making several tables covering different aspects.

Almost all the dialogues are on the 2765: Escape Speed/Transcript page, so I guess they should be added there. I don't know if they're already here, I haven't looked at it enough

The transcript is not the place for explanations. Puns and references shall be explained elsewhere. I continue working on the transcript but there's still quite a way to go. -- Malgond (talk) 5 May 2023

> Please take my remarks as proposals to improve the structure and not as a criticism or request for you to make everything right and fill every cell of the table. I think we need to create a clear structure for everyone else to fill in with details; but also to provide good examples to follow.

Yeah; i totally get everything you said. In my last reply I think I was a bit too rude for some reason, maybe it's because I just finished the table and was tired.

>* In my opinion, the filename column is not needed, it does not appear anywhere while playing, it's in source code only. Better remove it to have more horizontal space for the rest. The names given to the planets by the editors of the explanation page shown in the Description column are fine.

• Coordinates are also not useful for a regular player, who does not use some Javascript addition/cheats, maybe remove it as well; textual directions in Explanation column are sufficient.

I was heavily inspired by the table in the 2712: Gravity explanation, which included these. I kind of agree that the filename could be removed, and the filenames could be added to the planet name or explanation, i didn't think about that. About the tiles, someone might use them someday, but if the column keeps remaining empty, i don't mind seeing it disappear

I really liked your ideas, if you don't mind I'll copy and paste this discussion in the actual comic discussion page and see what others think --FaviFake (talk) 21:37, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Update: I found a way and added all the coordinates, and moved the planet filenames to the Planet Name column to make more space for the other columns :)

Hi, what about dividing planets and objects like in my experiment? There's plenty of horizontal space for explanations and the entries are quite compact vertically. I also think about color-coding the different Types of game objects. -- Malgond (talk) 5 May 2023

Hmm, I think it looks a little messy and maybe too complicated. Do any other comics have two different tables? Also, I'm personally not a fan of mixing items, landscapes, and people. I think most people reading the table are there to get an overview of the planets and what they contain. Do we really have to explain everything in such detail? FaviFake (talk) 14:09, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

We do not have to follow other explanations too closely, we could use a new form if it seems clearer and better. The current form has no place neither for explaining items nor for dialogues/monologues. More columns could be problematic (specifically in today's world of high and narrow screens of smartphones). Should we explain everything? Well, it us up to collective "us". Personally, I would like someone explain a few puns/dialogues I do not understand.

For now, there's only a handful of people still interested in somehow finishing the explanation for this huge comic. Maybe if we two can agree on some format we could put it in discussion page and ask for votes. (Discussion needs a cleanup, BTW). -- Malgond (talk) 22:00, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

Hey, I'm back. I see you're enhancing your example table, and iI was wondering, do you plan to move your edits to the actual article after you're done and use the test to see how the formatting looks? Isn't it easier to just add them to the main page directly? Just wondering. If you want I can help you port them over :)

Keeping the contents of the table on your talk page and then porting them over afterwards could lead to a loss of information added after you started editing your user page FaviFake (talk) 13:11, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

I'm back too. Yes, I intend to put it in the main article, but I am a bit shy to replace a lot of your work; I've asked for opinions in the talk page. Let's see how it sorts out. Maybe someone has a still better idea. -- Malgond (talk) 21:50, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

Oh. I think the structure of the current table in the article is better than the one you've been working on: for example, it's easier to sort for items, is more compact, and is just one. Why don't you just add a "transcript" column like the table on 2712: Gravity to put what things and people say, and add the rest of the information on the respective columns? Personally, I think you're making it a little bit too complicated. FaviFake (talk) 15:26, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

Typo?

Rephrasing, yes, but I don't think this fixes a typo, or any other error. No problem with the change, but weird reason. 172.71.242.87 16:21, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

Yeah you're right, I think I just didn't want to type a long reason for such a small change. FaviFake (talk) 16:39, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

Haltones

"They're not **predominantly** gray, the two main colors are just white and black. Sometimes he uses the gray color just like when he uses any other color" ... It didn't say that they were predominantly grey(/'gray'), any more than it said that they'd be predominently black (as Category:Comics with inverted brightness, often, in preference to white). The point being that even the most "black and white" images aren't monochrome, but have degrees of grey at the boundaries, with smoothly antialiased boundaries between the full black of the line (or filled area) and the full white of the background (or inverted detail). You'll see this if you zoom in, with your favourite image editor. And very often in images with a default RGB colourspace, even if the effective pallette employed covers just greyscale values. But greys actually do feature a lot, too (often the first choice of non-black-and-white, for slight lessening of prominence, as opposed to 'red pen' increased visibility). So it's technically inaccurate to describe them as pretty much monochrome. But how to convey this in <...counts...> less than 157ish words? 172.71.242.173 16:35, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

The wiki page says

"xkcd comics are usually plain, predominantly black-and-white line drawings, but sometimes they make use of hues beyond the usual monochrome colors, even if it is just red-penned annotations.

I think it's enough, since, even if grey is more used than other non-monochrome colors, I don't believe it's so important that it needs to be included as a "third" main color. If Randall uses many bright colors, that he will obviously also use simpler hues of grey when needed. What do you think? FaviFake (talk) 16:51, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

Aside from the antialising edging gradient, I just used the Random Page link and landed on something with functional greys, an unusual use of 'Post-It' yellow, an unremarkably "just black pen" comic and then more functional grey. I'd argue against "monochrome" as a description, as clearly there is more than just #000000 and #FFFFFF, often enough, in an actual fill-colour/broad-brush context. Even if that's #808080 or another no-hue shade. (I was expecting to land on a "grey pen" comic to assess, after enough clicks but, having seen what I got in the random first handful, I saw no need to go on.)

And "monochrome" can be/often is coloured. Sepia photographs or "night vision" green displays are perfect examples of monochrome (with or without halftones/dithering/whatever). As is 267: Choices: Part 4 (other Choices comics may be considered "duotone", in different ways).

Maybe "...are often drawn as black shapes on white, or occasionally white shapes on a dark background, but may feature at least one additional highlighting shade or an even fuller colour pallette." Does that sufficiently cover that whole breadth of use? 172.70.86.154 19:48, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

Childish slang.

Agree with you on the recent change that you (generic 'you', not you 'you'!) sound infantile, any which way, upon use of the words mentioned. Which is how it was still said before the revert in that version of edit. But with "pretty gay" and "retarded" are infantile and offensive slang for "foolish" or "contemptible", you miss the point. Foolishness is just one distant contender for what "pretty gay" is often intended to mean (even if not actually being used for someone/something 'effeminate'). And "retarded" is more in the whole "thick, stupid, dumb" line of insult than "contemptible" (which is more "horrible, dislikable, repulsive"..?).
Personally, I also thought it better with not actually defining insults (correctly or otherwise), as it adds power to them. I can call someone a "numpty" in jest, for example, and colloquially that might be understood as the low-level insult (if that) which it is intended to be. But if I start to bandy around its dictionary definition then it becomes more of a seriously accusatory description.
Just my opinion. Not really understanding the latest revert when it had seemed to be improved (if anything) in the version you reverted away. Just putting it there. I know you're doing a lot of editing (good stuff!) just wondering if you considered this one carefully enough in your obvious zeal. 172.71.182.89 16:31, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Addendum. Meant to say, if you decide to undo/reform your own revert (I won't do it, but on the offchance you see my point), I'd have not said "commonly used". They're used in slang, but I don't think we can say how frequently they pop up. They're "used in slang" (and also not in slang, or at least not insulting slang, where "gay" has a long history of just meaning "happy", whilst "retarded" is often to do with decceleration/minimised acceleration of physical systems) but I'm not sure they're no more than minority words in the whole world of such language. They depict a subset of insult-givers (like the character in the comic, for whom it adds a certain additional characterisation) amongst all the many and varied insult-givers, and Randall surely chose such semi-bowlderised terms to not have to write any of all the far worse words he might also have done. 172.71.94.31 16:46, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

IP page to delete

I didn't see your thinking about why the Deletion category was not needed there. And, believe me as an IP myself, I've never known anything useful being said on an IP's User or User Talk page. With that example not breaking the pattern any. 172.70.85.131 00:41, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

I just don't think there's a reason to delete it, it's useful to have a previous talk page if the IP continues to edit and people want to communicate with them FaviFake (talk) 10:51, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

"The IP" is whichever one of 'us' happens to land on that particular Cloudflare route.

I'm not going to go back and find out which IP it represents, to check if it's in their current stock of connected gateways, but it might not be. Or it was even (depending on date) a pre-Cloudflare 'straight' access unproxied and thus no longer seen, even if the exact same editor on the exact same IP lucked on their initial gateway.

Certainly it won't map to a meaningful 'user', chances may even be that it doesn't map to any user. IP-version User/User Talk pages are anachronisms pretty much as soon as they're created. Or before, if based upon trying to contact an author of an older edit. I was on 172.70.85.131, above, but who knows (before I submit it) what this reply's sign-off will say.

And a one-shot editor may never ever see the results of any conversation that was tried to be started. Whereas I might see any response, anywhere, that contextually makes it plain that they're talking about an edit I once made.

Honestly, I think it'd be worthwhile checking every IP-focussed namespace page and archiving anything truly interesting that found itself in there in some other central location then condemning them all to deletion. Maybe, if possible, prevent their creation too. But I don't have the ability to do anything (except sift through them for any of the very rare gems of quality, but I wouldn't be able to do anything about it from there on in, so...

...not gonna do anything more about it (I can't, other than reinstate the To Be Deleted membership, whch I won't bother with), but I hope you understand my perspective on this. I've seen you become a very useful member of the community, who I generally respect for your input and tweaks to the site, and don't expect you to take instruction from li'l ol' me (not even working with an established identity). Just consider this as food for thought, and leave it at that if you wish. 162.158.34.19 20:12, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

RTL/LTR: "...but I think it refers to me"

Yeah, it does. The point being that we might not do anything about the smartarses who vandalise knowingly (and I don't see a problem with what you otherwise did), but when someone thinks they have unique and funny joke (along the lines of putting "Citation needed"s everywhere) they might spot the comment and then realise how we've seen it all done before so refrain from the prank. I can't even recall how many times we have had to revert things, but best to put off the casual comedian, and it won't change the outcome either way for the dedicated vandal with their blood up and looking to cause trouble. 141.101.98.107 20:00, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

I guess you're right, I just thought it was very clear for everyone that rendering an entire article unreadable was an act of pure vandalism, but I guess an editor comment doesn't hurt. FaviFake (talk) 10:53, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

The reason "the image size wasn't there"?

...because it didn't need an image-size restriction, originally? Compare the previous and current version sizes. Nice to have a (huge!) high-res headshot, no doubt, but clearly that's why you found that it now needs artificially constraining... No actual mystery. 172.70.85.63 17:16, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Yeah you're right, I just assumed every comic had the image size to be future-proof. The weird thing was that the "imagesize: " part was already there, but there was no value. Anyway, nothing important.

Just out of curiosity, are you the same IP guy from #IP page to delete?--FaviFake (talk) 18:43, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

I disagree with Oxford commas.

"For breakfast I had some bread, toast, and jam." - A legitimate(ish) case of ", and ". Or "I created the world, and saw that it was good." I otherwise prefer to suscribe to replacing all non-final conjunctions in sequence with commas but not adding one before the ultimate (remaining) conjunction. That's like having "Fish, and chips", where it isn't an actual afterthought. And best to rephrase or repunctuate (e.g. with super-listing semicolons to separate) if you have confusing comma-breakout clauses that so easily clash (or lead you down funny garden paths) with Oxford Commas. My opinion, but this is why syntax is clearer when leaving out OCs. 172.70.85.93 13:59, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

I just think it's better to use it everywhere to avoid any possible confusion. If we used it half the time, it would be inconsistent. But it's no big deal.

Similarly, no big deal. Except that it looked like an error. You've done a lot of useful changes, recently... A lot... Which is not a bad thing, I must add. Occasionally I've seen what (I thought!) you intended to say, and I've helped out with a misplaced word or two. And I honestly do not feel like OCs read correctly in many circumstances. How would you even OC something like "...you should paint it red, yellow or, maybe, orange"?

The comma already does a lot of heavy lifting, four or five different uses can occur in the same sentence, with it commonly doing duty as a sub-clause parenthetical (except without the clear open/close distinction of an actual parenthetical) as well as conjunction-replacement within a list. You will find many instances of non-OCed lists on the site. In fact I find the "Please note that all contributions to explain xkcd..." bit, below this edit box, to be the exception and not the rule.

Anyhoo... I 'corrected' an example, but did not re'correct' it once you made it obvious what rule you were working to. I think you're less right than me, naturally, even if I wouldn't say that you're more wrong. ;) But I thought I'd make you a brief note of my thoughts rather than edit-warring the issue. Less brief, now, but I hope you still take it in good humour. (Oh, yeah, I'm sort of Ok with Oxford Spelling, insofar as it's mostly what I use naturally. Except for the "-ize" bit. That and their Comma are totally against how I was taught at school, a number of decades ago. :P ) 172.71.242.71 15:26, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

You really seem to care about this a lot more than I do, if you want feel free to revert my edit back. I'm not even sure why we're here talking about commas lol

I'm no expert and I just like commas. Thanks for checking my edits, I think I've seen a few of your corrections. I have a lot of free time at the moment and I seem to like fixing up unorganized things here --FaviFake (talk) 21:42, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Science Girl/Hairbun

You may have noted that several of the Talk pages attached to those you changed already had discussions about whether someone was Hairbun or (a possibly grown-up version of) Science Girl, and you had people like Kynde support the change to treating her as Science Girl. No skin off my nose, but I'm not sure your arguments are strong enough to support your broad sweep changes in that regard. I think I'd side with "bun with trailing hair" being SG (regardless of apparent age/maturity, as the description only really says usually a child, whether you take that as prescriptivist or descriptivist) but not enough that I'd reverse your considerable efforts in this matter. But on the off-chance that you hadn't noticed the prior discussions and conclusions, before making your own assessment. FYI, only. 172.71.178.204 14:01, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

I will properly reply to you tomorrow since it's midnight here. Btw thanks for letting me know these hyperlinks were rendered correctly, and for fixing my 1 typo (after i corrected 100)

Guys, some things may be being taken too seriously. Assuming this was the 'one error', yeah, the Pedant's Curse hits us all, that's the point. Easy to see how it was done (read as "a Category:Interactive..." rather than "an interactive", or whatever). Happens to the best of us, when concentrating on loads of other things. Not sure about the Jill thing, at all, myself, but that discussion is probably for soewhere else. 172.69.79.158 22:22, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Nonononono I wasn't serious when I thanked you about the typo, I was also just kidding. I was joking about how after I corrected a ton of typos I added one more.

On the main topic you brought up: I think Jill's main characteristics (I'll talk about why I renamed her) are that she is a child, she is usually interested in science, and has always one or two buns with trailing hair. Hairbun isn't as defined as Jill: she just has a bun. This is what the page Hairbun (written entirely by Kynde, I haven't reformatted to remove the bullet points yet), say about the bun:

---

• Her appearance, apart from her glasses, can also change.
  • In 703: Honor Societies, 708: Sex Dice, 1511: Spice Girl, 1601: Isolation and in every instance in 1608: Hoverboard her hair looks somewhat different, curly and with some kind of ponytail, but since her main distinguishing characteristic is the hair bun, these comics are included.

[...]

• There are some characters with hair buns that are not Hairbun:
  • Since she is a grown woman, she should not be confused with Jill or any other small girls with hair bun like in 1584: Moments of Inspiration.

---

And on the Page for Jill, before I ever touched it, it said:

• As she is usually also clearly a child she usually cannot be confused with Hairbun

---

Kynde mentioned 1511: Spice Girl and 1601: Isolation as featuring Hairbun and not Jill, but they look exactly like a grown-up Jill. Plus, on the gallery section on Hairbun (I'm working on adding back a better one since the old one was kinda broken UPDATE 11:13, 8 July 2023 (UTC): Added the gallery back with vector images), this was the first picture of Hairbun:

So, to recap: Hairbun has always had a version with a bun with trailing hair, but it was inconsistent between comics, so I settled on Jill is a girl that always has trailing hair and Hairbun is an adult that sometimes has trailing hair.

On the topic of renaming Jill:

• I searched the wiki for Jill and found 3 discussions. One of them ended up "why world we even create a page for that girl, there aren't many comics featuring her.", but didn't criticize the name too much iirc
• We did the same thing for Danish. The only time she was given any name ("Danish in the sense of "darling" iirc), that was the name used.
• If we change our minds and Jill also becomes a woman, we don't have to remove the "girl" part.
• I'm not sure about this, but I think she's slowing being added more and more outside science comics.

Wow this was long --FaviFake (talk) 10:20, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

In reply to this query...

There's the Welsh, at the very least! (Well, you did ask! Even if it's truly not so relevent. ;) ) 172.70.86.159 11:29, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Lol. TIL! --FaviFake (talk) 20:13, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Plural animals

Following on from Ferret->Ferrets, what about the last remaining singular that is Category:Apatosaurus? (I must admit, all your edits/re-edits are making my head spin, as worthy as they often are, but this seems like the next logical step that I thought you might have done to finish that particular neatening job.) But I'll leave it up to you as to whether it's Apatosauruses, Apatosaurii or whatever else you might consider most appropriate... ;) 172.70.85.98 10:15, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

I actually thought about it, and I came to the conclusion that I don't know what the plural of that word is. Feel free to research if there's a "right" word and rename that category :)

> (I must admit, all your edits/re-edits are making my head spin,

Yeah I don't really organize everything I want to change beforehand, so whenever i notice a little thing is missing, I add it to every page that needs it. I guess it's easier to review my edits in bulk from a page's version history lol --FaviFake (talk) 10:53, 24 August 2023 (UTC)