explain xkcd:Community portal/Admin requests/Archive 2

explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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This is an archive of past discussions about explain xkcd:Community portal/Admin requests and is kept for historical purposes. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current discussion page.
 
 

Requesting File Uploader Privilage

Hi! I am a new user here but I've noticed that comic 1969 needs to have a copy of the "green plugin" and "broken picture" (note that both Chrome and Firefox are open-source so they can be safely taken). I have edited other pages in the meantime. I hope that you consider this but I understand if you wouldn't give that privilage bue to my recentness. - Oe (talk) 12:26, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

After a small amount of edits you will be autoconfirmed and get the privilege. --Dgbrt (talk) 14:14, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

reCAPTCHA needs updated to v2

As of April 4, 2018, reCAPTCHA v1, which is what the site currently uses, has been shutdown. Thus, any reCAPTCHA requests now come back as valid. The site needs updated to reCAPTCHA v2. See here for more. Creepy Jeff (talk) 14:52, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for your info. This is a known issue but we have to wait for an admin with server access. --Dgbrt (talk) 14:24, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

It's done. Dgbrt (talk) 13:53, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

Watchlist

I'm not sure if it's supposed to happen, but apparently whenever I edit a page it is automatically added to my watchlist, and I have to remove it, which is quite annoying. Can you guys fix it? -- Herobrine (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Since the latest update some default user preference are changed. Just go to "Preferences" -> "Watchlist" and deselect "Add pages and files I edit to my watchlist". --Dgbrt (talk) 12:18, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
Besides the preference mentioned ny dgbrt, there's also a checkbox below the editing window asking whether you want to watch this page. --SlashMe (talk) 14:34, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Category for deletion

Please delete Category:Social interactions. (which is not Category:Social interactions). It appears to have been created in error. For now, I've redirected it to the correct category. Sensorfire (talk) 23:44, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

Damn typos... Thanks for help, it's done. --Dgbrt (talk) 09:31, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

CSS class for Template:notice

Hi, can someone from the admins please add a class attribute to the 'notice' template? I use custom stylesheets in my browser, but I can't nicely change the looks of the templates without such an attribute. 172.68.51.226 14:09, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

I don't like to change extensions because when it gets an update all changes are gone. But for customizing styles you also can use the ID "siteNotice" for that DIV tag. --Dgbrt (talk) 13:00, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
Hmm, unsure what you are talking about. The 'notice' templates are just a table with inlined CSS rules, no DIVs with IDs anywhere I can see. 172.68.50.196 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
Please don't forget to sign your comments. You should have provided this link: Template:notice. I thought about the sitenotice. Unless it's overwritten by a parameter named class you now can use the class "notice_tpl". Maybe that helps. --Dgbrt (talk) 13:25, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
Youre the best! Thanks! 172.68.50.196 17:19, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Non-creatable user page.

Although I have made various edits and have been a member for about 5 days now I still have not been autoconfirmed, and can therefore not make my userpage. Furthermore, I have to keep solving CAPTCHAs which is really annoying. Please help. Kwonunn (talk) 22:34, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

And of course right as I post this I go to see if I can do anything to fix it myself, and suddenly it works... Weird. Anyway thanks! Kwonunn (talk) 22:37, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
It seems your "userpage" is highly important to you. This wiki mainly focuses on explaining comics, I hope you will do too. --Dgbrt (talk) 23:40, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
I'm sorry for making it seem like I care alot about my userpage. I understand the goal of this wiki, and have been working on explaining comics left and right. Kwonunn (talk) 16:59, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

Please block 108.162.246.95

This IP seems genuinely interested in maintaining the site, and has some positive changes like removing needlessly gendered language. That said, they also use the hard-r n-word consistently in the summary section when reverting vandalism. I know I haven't contributed to this page before but seems to me that using such a slur five times in a single day is enough to warrant at least a talking to. - BobbingPebble (talk) 06:09, 08 February 2019 (UTC)

Sorry for my late answer. The IP addresses belong to a proxy and not a specific user, thus blocking one IP wouldn't help. --Dgbrt (talk) 17:56, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

SOON THE TRUTH WILL BE REVEALED

I’ve seen this message a lot lately, along with anti-Semitic conspiracy theory vandalism. I would just like to request something to be done if possible. Along with general vandalism, I’ve also seen “Stop violating my free speech”, “Nobody cares, snowflake”, “JEW SHILL” in the incomplete tag, and more. I’m not sure what this is, it seems to be coming from different IPs, and is a hassle all around. EDIT: I’ve been looking at some of the profiles doing it, they all had a few grammar edits for months, before suddenly chiming in with the same themes and message. I don’t know why, if it’s hacking or just one guy, or what. Netherin5 (talk) 17:35, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your report. This is a problem at all open communities, and when this happens it's up to everybody to keep an eye on it and do the proper changes. Single pages can be protected, but that's not what we want at an open Wiki. And read the section just above, IP addresses do not belong to a specific person. --Dgbrt (talk) 19:05, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
So is there no policy or means for blocking destructive users? I just removed anti-Semitic material from today's comic. Elusis (talk) 16:31, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
Users can be blocked but not anonymous IPs. Since this is an open Wiki (like Wikipedia) only single pages can be protected so that only registered users or, even more restricted, only admins can edit. In general it's up to the community at this Wiki to keep the content "clean", but since it's a problem lasting for a couple of weeks I'll follow the recent changes more closely. I'm sure we can handle this.
BTW: Please do not delete the entire incomplete tag, just change the content. --Dgbrt (talk) 19:34, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
I think this is bad enough that it is worth semiprotecting the current comic's article, at least for a few days or until this dies down or both. Of course this may push vandalism elsewhere. (Or maybe we could increase the captcha degree?) JohnHawkinson (talk) 03:13, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
The latest comic is always the article with the most current edits done by registered users and IPs likewise. Semiprotecting would result in losing half of the editors. A CAPTCHA is used to determine whether or not the user is human and more steps would also annoy all the other editors with no account. There is no proper way to protect pages by a program, blocking phrases is possible but at the next comic Randall uses the same... --Dgbrt (talk) 19:42, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
I agree with all of the above. It's a balance between pain for legitimate editors and appropriately frustrating the vandals and improving the site's quality for real users. I would say that the the pain of the current incident justifies a bit more pain for editors who choose not to register. (On the other hand, the vandalism has not continued at the pace I had expected it to). I'm not sure what you mean by "but at the next comic Randall uses the same," but maybe it's best not to explain. Thanks. JohnHawkinson (talk) 19:57, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
It's over now, but it's not over forever. It happened in the past and will happen again in the future. But this wasn't really vandalism, other users still were able to add useful content. Nonetheless removing that nonsense over and over is highly annoying. And my last remark in an example: A future comic about youtube comments containing exactly the same phrase is always possible. How do we know if a sentence is valid or not? Automatically blocking some phrases would destroy that explanation. --Dgbrt (talk) 20:29, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
We would know because, in that relatively unlikely case, an editor would post here on the Admin noticeboard that their legitimate edit was being blocked, and then an administrator would confirm that it was appropriate and remove the block. Easy enough. JohnHawkinson (talk) 21:09, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
Just reverted it again from 2120: Brain Hemispheres https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2120:_Brain_Hemispheres&oldid=170698. If possible, a block for 162.158.106.6 (https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Special:Contributions/162.158.106.6) might be helpful. PvOberstein (talk) 18:39, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
One incident today, it's still annoying but also not that much. I've deleted your text from that "user" page because it isn't a user page. This IP can be used by many other people not signed in because it belongs to a proxy server farm we use to reduce the load on our own server. Check this WHOIS excerpt:
NetRange: 162.158.0.0 - 162.159.255.255
CIDR: 162.158.0.0/15
NetName: CLOUDFLARENET
Because it looks like it's always the same address I believe that this specific IP serves for a region in the world with not much more other visitors here, but there are maybe other explanations. Nonetheless it doesn't belong to a specific user. --Dgbrt (talk) 20:02, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
Even though the IP doesn't belong to a specific user, it seems that only this specific user has been attempting to edit from it recently, so the collateral damage from blocking the IP would be limited. Especially where the result of the block is that a would-be editor would need to register and then could edit, rather than being fully blocked at all times. In any case, doesn't it make sense to put up some (escalating?) warnings on the IP's talk page, just as would be done on Wikipedia? ("Please refrain from making unconstructive edits to Wikipedia. Your edits appear to constitute vandalism and have been reverted.", "Please stop your disruptive editing. If you continue to vandalize Wikipedia, you may be blocked from editing", "You may be blocked from editing without further warning the next time you vandalize Wikipedia."). Putting us in a place where we have given fair warning about a block is a much better position to be in, even if we ultimately don't go ahead with a block. And the collateral damage by showing a warning to innocent users from the same IP is pretty minimal. I didn't see what was on the talk page that you deleted, so maybe I'm missing something (also puzzled why it was deleted rather than reverted). Thanks. JohnHawkinson (talk) 20:37, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
This isn't a war and thus there is no need to accept "collateral damages". A proper action would be protecting the page against unsigned users, but one single bad edit does not legitimate such a protection. And BTW: The latest comic is explained really bad. Isn't it better to focus on this rather than fighting on one annoying dumb editor (only one today)? And one more: Wikipedia is blocking IPs but if that editor uses a VPN or his/her ISP provides dynamic IP-addresses this also doesn't help. --Dgbrt (talk) 21:20, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

Hey, we got bots.

About ten accounts labeled “(fill-in-the-blank) review” we’re just created. Almost certainly bots, given that the fill-in-the-blanks are usually products. I suggest removing them. Netherin5 (talk) 11:45, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

More of them, now they’re posting.

Please block Krishna12

Please block Krishna12 for spamming links to external sites and vandalism. Herobrine (talk) 10:26, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

New accounts

As mentioned by Netherin5, recently there have been a lot of (fill in the blank)review accounts created, and some are vandalizing pages. Kinda similar to that Quickbooks company a while back with a lot of banned accounts. I'm wondering if it would be possible to add a new rule that shows up when creating new accounts? Maybe "Account names cannot contain advertisements" or something similar. Also, those accounts need to be banned, regardless of whether they've vandalized pages or not. Herobrine (talk) 06:51, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

For some reason they seem to be really attracted like moths to the talk/discussion page of 2133. Is it possible to protect it from freshly registerd users?
Also, as far as I know their purpose is not to make people use the links they post, but to increase the rating of their webpages for search engines, by having many inbound links. Do they achieve this when their posts are just reverted? Wikis do track all changes, so the link is still "there" in the history...Lupo (talk) 08:19, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Spam in discussion section for #2139

See: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:2139:_Email_Settings&diff=173008&oldid=173006

Request File Upload

Hi,

I got a screenshot on 4/22/2019, 2:24pm, of the search mentioned in Randall's that went up a little late that day, showing the bicycle wheel as the first result.

Could you either give me permission to create new pages, so that I can upload the image, or upload it for me?

- IPFS when my laptop is running: https://ipfs.io/ipfs/Qmf1a9NFFAcgWRUe45Ueg4FggXTUAd9BHMgEqWp23izchU

- imgur: https://imgur.com/a/8nHemgW

Thanks.

Looks like another spammer

I happened to click on the recent changes button instead of the random page button (because the random button on xkcd seems broken AGAIN), and from 1:30 to 14:53 GMT (around 9:30 pm to 10:53 am EST), someone made, like, thirty accounts. Should someone keep an eye on them?

Please block user 162.158.106.102

In 2148: Cubesat Launch, this user made some anti-Semitic/conspiracy edits. https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2148:_Cubesat_Launch&diff=prev&oldid=173813 172.68.211.244 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Scroll up a bit and see the "SOON THE TRUTH WILL BE REVEALED" section and the one above that. Dgbrt has a detailed explanation regarding this vandal. Herobrine (talk) 08:48, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

Randall's new book HOW TO-- attempting to reach out to Admins

There is a very good chance that I am not doing this correctly, so I apologize in advance. I work for Riverhead Books, the publisher of Randall's forthcoming book HOW TO, and I'd like to get in contact with the admins to discuss some possible pre-publication opportunities. If you are at all interested, please reach out via email to [email protected]. Thank you, and apologies again! -- Riverheadbooks (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

If this is legit (which I'm not sure of), that sounds like a very interesting opportunity. It would be interesting to see which e-mail was used to create the account Riverheadbooks. @Jeff @Dgbrt What do you think? --SlashMe (talk) 08:33, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Protect 538: Security

Someone finds it very funny to constantly change wrench to wench in 538: Security. I think it has even be edited on all the comments. Can that page please be protected? --Lupo (talk) 06:20, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

No tweets since December

@explainxkcd hasn't tweeted since late last year. I tried asking Jeff on Twitter DMs, but then I saw he hadn't tweeted since 2016. Is he still around? I am trying to figure out how many hits the main page gets per day on average. 172.69.23.87 20:10, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Mistake in transcript of comic # https://www.xkcd.com/2205/ from September 20, 2019.

The transcript shows the equation in the cartoon as:

d=2π(r1*r2)/2

The expression shown in the cartoon is actually:

d=2π(r1+r2)/2 { = π(r1+r2), the twos cancel each other}.

The arithmetic mean of the two radii is:

R = (r1 + r2)/2

If the authors meant to say the geometric mean of the two radii, the expression would be:

R = SquareRoot(r1*r2)

However, Randall may have been testing the viewers attention by using the letter "d" in the equation shown in the cartoon. The equation he wrote in the cartoon corresponds to the circumference, C of a circle of mean diameter D where

C = π D, and

D = 2 R = 2*[(r1 + r2)/2], so that

C = 2 π [(r1 + r2)/2].

Thank you, G. A. Miranda

I fail to see your point. The transcript is correctly noting what Randall has written in the comic. That is all the transcript should do. Maybe the explanation should include what you write? But not the transcript. Kynde (talk) 10:45, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Made new account, no "user page"?

Just joined the wiki proper after viewing it for years, but for whatever reason my user page and talk pages are both redlinks and I can't figure out how to put content in them. Am I missing a step, or is there something going on under the hood that I was too impatient to wait for? Menoshe (talk) 22:08, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

User:Menoshe My understanding is that new accounts don't come with a user page or talk page by default (this is the case on Wikipedia as well). It should be possible for you to click on the redlinks to create your user page and talk pages, though. Ahiijny (talk) 14:01, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
I put an explanation on your Talk page. - Frankie (talk) 12:28, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
Hi Menoshe, in addition to Frankie's instructions, there is a new page explain xkcd:Autoconfirmed users, which mentions that you need 10 edits under your belt, as well as being a member for 3 days (also mentioned here, but says 1 week), then you will become an "autoconfirmed user" and gain the permission to create your user page. – Yfmcpxpj (talk) 02:32, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Under the comic that was up when these new adds began appearing in the middle of the text there is the following section in the discussion: Google Adds. Please see this,a nd try to keep adds in the side bar, as to not loose users! Kynde (talk) 10:39, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

I just noticed this as well 😕 Did something change? Ahiijny (talk) 14:05, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Edit War Policy?

Is there an official policy for resolving edit wars? https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=977:_Map_Projections&action=history - Frankie (talk) 19:44, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

Block spam user 30x30_Total_Transformation_Review

Would it be possible to block/ban user 30x30_Total_Transformation_Review (their contributions) for spam ?

Thanks :) AlexRNL (talk) 09:44, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

 ✓ Done  --SlashMe (talk) 21:49, 31 December 2019 (UTC)
Thanks! AlexRNL (talk) 21:34, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Accidentally released my IP address, is it possible to get rid of an edit?

I know is a weird request but it somehow logged me out while I was editing the page for comic 1815 and now my IP address is in the edit history. Can the edit be undone and deleted? Thanks. --DoubleDenial (talk) 11:55, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

No need to do that. If you look up the IP address, you will find out that it will belong to cloudflare, as all IP adresses which are shown here, as any edits are rerouted that way. --Lupo (talk) 15:17, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

explain_xkcd:Editor FAQ

Please consider to protect this page. —162.158.88.92 06:24, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Problem user

User:Zooph Special:Contributions/Zooph -- Every single contribution is page blanking, spamming random text, etc. He also uploaded nonsense files, overwriting existing comics. --108.162.216.54 23:29, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

A Couple of Issues

1. Google seems to have changed something in AdSense again, and the ads have been appearing in random positions again since December, 2019. This page might have a solution? It's been quite a while, and the ads are still broken. 2. New site called xkcd.wtf is blatantly stealing/scraping explanations from our site and posting it with a new theme. Not sure if it's a mirror or just Ctrl+C Ctrl+V. Is this even legal? Herobrine (talk) 09:33, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Protect page

Please could someone protect the Category:Incomplete_explanations page? It has been the target for lots of spam adverts recently and I see no reason why this page should be editable. AlChemist (talk) 10:46, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

sockpuppet alert

By chance at Special:RecentChanges, I noticed this huge spate of new accounts being created more or less all at once:

Now, there's a chaaaaance those are all legit, but someone might want to keep an eye on them... —Scs (talk) 14:03, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Ads appearing within articles

Since October 2019 the site has had a problem with ads appearing within articles, first discussed at Talk:2220:_Imagine_Going_Back_in_Time/Ads. I believe several users attempted to contact the admins about them before they went away on their own (including at least one section above on this very page). However, the ads returned starting from the beginning of April 2020 and don't seem to have gone away since then.

Could someone look into this? The site is borderline unusable without an ad-blocker at this point. Arcorann (talk) 08:50, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

It's nearly October 2020, so we're approaching a year with this issue still unresolved. Is this just how the site is going to be now? Opalmagpie (talk) 19:16, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Altering Username

I just created an account here, and it seems that the first letter of my username was automatically capitalized. If capitalizing the first letter is necessary, is it possible to edit my username so that the "k" is capitalized so that my username is "NK1406?" I know that this is a rather petty question but I do find it slightly annoying.

How to advertise-- advertise bidding link doesn't work

Hi-- I'm looking to advertise with you in the near future, and at the bottom of the following page, the link for bidding gave me a not found error. Is there an updated link? How to advertise? Thanks!

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/explain_xkcd:Advertise_Here

Project Wonderful, the advertising network described on the Advertise Here page, shut down in 2018. There is discussion about the new exclusive advertising deal on the talk:Advertise Here page. Explain Xkcd would very likely find itself in a better situation if there was a new mechanism for advertisers to propose better deals (e.g. bid on space) compared to the current exclusive deal. --Mwarren (talk) 14:54, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Incomplete Transcripts

On the main page, it notes how many are incomplete. However, that is only the incomplete explanations; there are many more that have incomplete transcripts (around 70ish). can we/could you change it so that it lists the total incomplete transcripts and explanaitons? -Donthaveusernametalk

The new welcome template takes care of that. — The 𝗦𝗾𝗿𝘁-𝟭 talk stalk 06:13, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Please ban Kazvorpal

User:Kazvorpal Back during the COVID series, Kazvorpal did a large number of very politically motivated edits. His user page shows a great deal of political bias as well. I feel like the community would be better off without him.162.158.75.165 09:13, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

Can you provide some examples of inappropriate edits (links to diffs)? – Yfmcpxpj (talk) 00:46, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

2275: Coronavirus Name

" The mortality rate in China is only relevant if one lives in an area with a primitive socialized health care system. As with SARS, it won't turn out to have a significant death rate among people infected in the US who are not elderly or immunocompromised. Perhaps, in fact, a zero death rate outside of that high risk group. « Kazvorpal (talk) 21:32, 3 March 2020 (UTC) @kazvorpal your comment is inappropriate for several reasons, including "primitive" and deprecating socialized medicine. Since there've already been deaths among the small group of known cases in the USA, it's way too early to calculate mortality rates here. Cellocgw (talk) 16:24, 4 March 2020 (UTC) There is nothing inappropriate about pointing out the primitive nature of the poorest provinces of China, nor the very factual failures of socialized medicine. As for the US, there have been no cases of someone dying here who was actually infected here. And there's no reason to believe that when they do occur, the mortality rate will turn out to be much worse than the flu. « Kazvorpal (talk) 04:31, 8 March 2020 (UTC)" " Let's inject a little sanity here: Trump's "talking point" about it being no on par with the flu is, for once, correct. Most people who are infected have mild symptoms, or none at all. In fact, that's how it's suddenly turned out that the spread is so much greater than previously reported: Because most people never even know they have it. Given this, the mortality rate is a tiny fraction of what was previously reported, perhaps 0.3% instead of 3%. And it was only ostensibly 3% in a primitive region where some people still have dirt floors, and almost nobody is willing to deal with their socialized health care system except in an emergency. Therefore most of the infected were not showing up for treatment, only those in serious trouble. In fact, the vast majority of those who have died are elderly or immunocompromised, exactly the same group who are killed in the tens of thousands each year by the flu, in the US. So no, this has been a tempest in a teapot, stirred up by the unscientific CDC in order to pad their budget, the way they do periodically with a new fake pandemic threat. SARS, West Nile, bird flu, h1n1, and ebola...no competent epidemiologist would ever seriously have expected those to become a threat in the US, or anywhere else outside of primitive regions. But the CDC has continued to redouble their unearned budget on this fraudulent fearmongering. As I learned when consulting for such ilk in DC, "Fear Equals Funding". Oh, and no, 90,000 cases only make it a "significant disease" in the way that another coronavirus, the common cold, is significant. It's not significantly dangerous. In fact, it really is just a strong kind of common cold. « Kazvorpal (talk) 21:32, 3 March 2020 (UTC)"

[1] "The point is that because of all the coverage of the Coronavirus all other world problems are pushed to the back of peoples mind. And considering that the virus is likely not really that bad, most people recover faster than from the flu, this is a lot of fuss for nothing. " "Covid-19 typically has much milder symptoms that a flu, and with zero lethality for young people and very low for peiple up into their 60s. It is though somewhat more contagious than a flu, and is more dangerous to old people and people with respiratory problems to begin with. But so is the flu, and this Corona season, will most likely see many more death caused by the flu than by Coronavirus. But society does not go into overdrive every year during the flu season..." User:Kynde also is problematical.

Spam by "Knit cap"

The user "Knit cap" has made an account 24 hours ago and is making nonsense or destructive edits since then. Can someone please do something against that? Fabian42 (talk) 13:22, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Their edits so far should be cleaned up now. Some were actually helpful, but most weren't or also randomly deleted other parts on the way. Fabian42 (talk) 13:32, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Non Numbered Comics?

I was looking at the explanation for "Syndication" and was wondering if there were any other comics with no number.

Yes, there are other such comics, such as XKCD Marks the Spot. Such comics can be found at Category:Extra comics. — The 𝗦𝗾𝗿𝘁-𝟭 talk stalk 04:23, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Sad Comics page deletion

Several users objected to the sad comics page (Talk:Sad_comics) as being the work of a single editor and having very little basis in fact. Deletion was suggested in May 2019, but nothing was done at the time. Since then, the page has not improved. I believe it is time to delete it. HisHighestMinion (talk) 22:23, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Discussion page for Category:Furries

There is no discussion page for furries, and creating one would allow a more centeralized place for discussing the topic, allowing resilution of some argumentes I have seen. Wikieditor431 (talk) 18:29, 22 January 2021 (UTC)Wikieditor431

Can't create my own userpage

Are users on this Wiki required to have some level of confirmation to edit their own userpages? Elli (talk) 10:44, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

To create, yes. To edit, no. (You actually need that level of confirmation to create any page.) I'll create it for you. Danish (talk) 23:38, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
Oh never mind, someone already did :P Danish (talk) 23:39, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

New Character Section

Hello, I created a thing for Beret Girl and was wondering if it was allowed. If it is, could you add it to the little character table thing? Thanks! --Char Latte49 (talk) 23:06, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Added. Also created the relevant category and added the pic to the character images category. Danish (talk) 23:37, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Deletion of test file

Can someone please delete File:BeretGirltest.png? I made it to test a different Beret Girl pic but don't have permission to delete it. Danish (talk) 23:46, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

I added it to the category Category:Pages to delete — The 𝗦𝗾𝗿𝘁-𝟭 talk stalk 17:40, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
Thanks Danish (talk) 17:41, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
Done. --SlashMe (talk) 13:26, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Removal of "incomplete" tags

I have noticed that User:1337-PI has recently removed most "incomplete" tags without adressing the issues mentioned in the respective tag. While in some cases I would agree to that removal in most cases I think this should be reverted en masse. I don't want to ignite an edit war, thus I'm posting this here. Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 11:54, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

I agree. I've started going through their edits Danish (talk) 22:59, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Oops, my template is redundant.

At the time I made Template:Date, I did not know about ~~~~~ or changing your signature in preferences. Now I know. Please delete the template. {)|(}Quill{)|(} 13:51, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Done. Also, it's common to use --~~~~ (with two dashes) as your signature. --SlashMe (talk) 21:03, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

Systematic sabotage

It looks like User:Beanie seems to be systomatically sabotaging entries. Their work should be removed in bulk.

^ unsigned comment...

Beanie has made a lot of good edits. Anyone want to point out a specific entry which got sabotaged?

ProphetZarquon (talk) 16:51, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

New Bot Access

Hello, I've created a new account (TheusafBOT), which I plan to use for automatic page creation if DgbrtBOT stops working. The source code can be found at https://github.com/theusaf/explainxkcdbot. I have already tested it with a private Wikimedia server. Currently, the bot is not turned on.

Just wondering, are the _2x images okay to be uploaded and used, if the imagesize field is specified at the non-scaled image size, or is there a reason this wiki prefers the standard size?

Also, is there a specific time zone that should be used for the dates?

theusaf (talk) 05:17, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

We still need to complete some explanations like this one:

I think we should change the banner to show a comic that's still incomplete, like Hoverboard or somthing. Sure (talk) 21:38, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps even have the banner show a random comic with the incomplete tag? EvilGeniusSkis (talk) 02:37, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Spam in a talk page. Not sure what the rules on removing it are.

I noticed spam in Talk:217:_e_to_the_pi_Minus_pi And I don't know if I am allowed to delete it, or does a mod/admin have to? If I am allowed to delete it, do I have to leave a "spam was here, deleted by:______________" note? edit forgot to sign EvilGeniusSkis (talk) 02:31, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Spadvervandal?

I just reverted an edit (see [2] for this) that I edit-conflicted with, and then repasted my Talk ramble afterwards (darn, missed the ((unsigned)) tag I meant to add to the prior editor's work...), rather than silently squash it with a full copy of all the original. No sign that they did any other edits (cursory glance only) but I may have missed/not yet been able to see, any other blatant attempts. As an ip, hoping this is the best way to immediately respond to this, in the hot coincidental moment of discovery. 162.158.159.125 08:15, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Might be worth a (Semi-?)Protect status....

...or at least keep an eye on this obviously attractive bit of potential advertising real-estate: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Facebook&action=history (And it's truly scary the number of 'named' accounts you keep getting. I mean, I'm happy to contribute as an IP only, but there's a huge number of never-used accounts being created every day. Just sayin'!) 172.70.85.227 21:30, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

Map Age Guide no longer marked "incomplete"

Can we change the message at the top of the page to stop referencing #1688? It's not clear what more could possibly done to make that explanation more "complete", especially since no sub-section is marked "incomplete" anymore.

Can't create my own userpage 2

Yeah no, can't create userpage. Nor can I create my custom css page. Radish (talk) 19:27, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

It that still a problem Radish? Sometimes you need to be member some time before you can create a new version. Kynde (talk) 16:23, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Are there any active admins left on Explain xkcd

Seems like you have all abandoned the page? If not please comment in my talk page Kynde (talk) 16:30, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Out of 10 admins, only 4 have made contributions during 2021 (none in 2022 yet): User:Waldir, User:Jeff, User:Lcarsos and User:SlashMe (following my own signature:) Lupo (talk) 18:13, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Request for semi-protection of 2611

User:X K C D, created hours ago, is repeatedly adding =This is the last xkcd comic.= right before ==Explanation== in the page 2611. Can we block this user or semi-protect 2611? Thank you. WriterArtistCoder (WriterArtistCoder) 22:03, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

They also edited the xkcd page stating that a disaster happened today. A website does not blow up like that without someone noticing. Btx40 (talk) 22:13, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
IMO, no point. Smells like the same vandal who was page-blanking within the last 24-hours. Both made "I'm doing stuff!"-type posts to admin pages (I reverted the other, I'm removing this one in this edit). Attention-seeker whose boredom and basic patheticness may just move to some other vandalism tomorrow (with a fresh account, probably). In the meantime, we just deal with all bad-faith edits, as usual. 172.70.162.147 23:33, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

I'm done vandalizing. 🎄 (talk) 22:42, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
Plainly not done vandalizing. Now doing it to the new current comic as well as other comics to just be a pest. Mapron01 (talk) 23:12, 29 April 2022 (UTC)
If you want my unasked-for opinion, as one who has undone her fair share of vandalism over time, I think our best weapon is the community. A few times I've gone to do that and been told it's already been reverted (no ideas how many times it's happened the other way).
I don't want to give the numpty involved any clues as to what to do to make themselves even more of a pest, but a few of the solutions being proposed would hurt our combined response more than their vicarious pleasures. And that's all I feel I can say over a necessarily open channel like this, but it'll have to do. 172.69.79.223 10:10, 30 April 2022 (UTC) (Yes, an IP user, but you'll take it in the spirit that's intended, I hope.)

That is not the vandal's IP address, and it should NOT be blocked. Please see Talk:Main_Page#Set_up_X-Forwarded-For_for_correct_IP_address_reporting. BytEfLUSh (talk) 10:33, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

request for block

Got a troll: Special:Contributions/162.158.107.84 --Trublu (talk) 08:17, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

User vandalizing rapidly

Hello - the user linked below is rapidly vandalizing a number of pages. They should be blocked and their contributions reverted. Thank you!The link may not be working but their username is X. K. C. D. and you can see my reverts of two of their edits in my contribution history. Special:Contributions/X._K._C._D.

Seconded. I've been going through and reverting some of their changes manually but it would be great if the admins could systematically revert all of their changes. As of this message they are still vandalizing the pages at a rate of ~15 pages every few seconds. The pages vandalized are random in order, and the character count (i.e., how many "craps" are being added) seems somewhat random as well. The character count varies with mean 245508.6, median 244880, and standard deviation 2065.2 based on the last few minutes of edits, which may make it difficult to block changes based solely on edit character count. Jrfarah (talk) 22:46, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
From the bot code, it looks like if the site went down for even a few seconds, the bot would stop working. I'm going to try to DoS the site for a minute or so. 108.162.245.215 22:52, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
The solution should just be to block this user. ⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu (talk) 22:52, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Vandalism

DECRAPPING CODE:

<div style="display: none">crap crap </div>

When you're undoing the vandalism: Add this ↑ at the BEGINNING of every page, before all the other source code!(edit: Hopefully this code isn't needed anymore, as the vandalism is reverted.)

On multiple pages, it seems that the user X. K. C. D. has been vandalizing, replacing proper pages with content that just says "crap" thousands or more times, and this is being a very big pain to those who just want to read the explanations. I have been reverting these changes, but it would be much better if an admin were to block these types of edits or the user. Examples include 736: Cemetery and 737: Yogurt. It also seems to be relatively recent, as they appear at the top of the recent changes page. Edit: forgot to sign: ⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu (talk) 22:51, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

I've also been reverting, but this entity has vandalized literally hundreds. Any admins still active? Nitpicking (talk) 22:48, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
Yeah, I saw, thanks for helping out, I tried to find anything else, but this user seems to only be spamming, and they don't have a talk or user page yet. Also wondering if admins are still active. ⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu (talk) 22:57, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
this is getting a smidge ridiculous, even if the admins are completely inactive you'd think there would be something in place preventing a user from making 26 250kb replaced-page-with edits in the same minute. is the captcha even working? (they're a script kiddie, btw: User:X._K._C._D./common.js) --172.70.114.229 22:55, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
Why is running scripts even allowed? Besides, I'm sure someone could build a bot to combat scripts THIS simple... ⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu (talk) 22:57, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
I'm also wondering why scripts are enabled, and how the CAPTCHA is not preventing this. What is even the point of having a CAPTCHA if it does not stop this exact behavior? Nothing in the vandal's script is even attempting to evade the CAPTCHA. Jrfarah (talk) 23:17, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
Further edit: this user is editing at this very moment, pages I just reverted are being vandalized again. SOMEONE SOLVE THIS! ⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu (talk) 23:00, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
Can confirm. Page I reverted <30 minutes ago (1758:Astrophysics) has been re-vandalized.
This is insanely fast, I also wonder how he bypasses the captcha when the script doesn't even do anything about the captcha Jmc1994 (talk) 23:05, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
: Possible that this page ([3]) is the origin; user X K C D writes "(Being autoconfirmed is fun! No CAPTCHA to slow me down! Can I run a bot?)" yesterday. Indicates multiple accounts. Jrfarah (talk) 23:21, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
The bot just crapped on this page. Can someone tweet at @explainxkcd? Nitpicking (talk) 23:19, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
My attempt to warn about this was slowed down by the fact that I had to complete a CAPTCHA. The irony is tasteless. Jrfarah (talk) 23:20, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

What possible reason could anyone have for crapping on the pages? >:(

I genuinely have no idea, probably because they felt like vandalizing the page due to auto-confirmation Jmc1994 (talk) 23:28, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Wow, more than half of comics have been vandalized. 172.70.131.106 23:32, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

I- w t f. We need a counter-script. I have contacted a friend of mine who is insanely good at coding (no response yet) about a counter-script. This is definitely a problem we can solve, but having admin would make it so much simpler. ⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu (talk) 23:34, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
I think I know how to fix it: Make articles fail to edit when there's a space after the whole article content Jmc1994 (talk) 23:37, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
<div style="display: none">crap</div> at the top of each page should stop it.172.70.131.106 23:38, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
Won't this simply make the 'crap's invisible? The problem still remains of the contents of the page being missing. Jrfarah (talk) 23:41, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
No, that would be put at the top of an uncrapped page to make the bot think it had already been crapped and leave it alone. 172.70.131.106 23:49, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
I see, brilliant. Jrfarah (talk) 23:50, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
I put it on the latest comic a couple hours ago, and it hasn't been crapped since then. 172.70.131.106 23:52, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
I'll start adding it to the pages I revert as well. Jrfarah (talk) 23:58, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
A page with the de-crappifer was re-crapped: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1758:_Astrophysics&action=history deeply unfortunate, I wonder why it didn't work. It did seem to slow it down. Jrfarah (talk) 00:22, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
RESOLVED ⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu (talk) 00:37, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
That works, one way to revert changes might be pretty close to the original script, just with edits for reverting changes and detecting the username. ⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu (talk) 23:39, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
Requesting 10 random pages yields only 2 that have not been crap-ified. We can't manually keep up with the bot. Reversions we make are undone in minutes. Jrfarah (talk) 23:40, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
Yeah, it's too fast. Luckily its only the actual comic pages... We also need a banner that says the pages are vandalized (like the "we still need to complete" ones. ⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu (talk) 23:42, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
It appears that the user account has been deleted. I can't seem to access even their empty page anymore. Now if only we could get rid of the common.js page...but the user seems to have multiple accounts so I don't even know how effective this would be. Jrfarah (talk) 23:44, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
How typical. Running away. ⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu (talk) 23:45, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
No, the account hasn't been deleted; the bot just crapped its own user page. 172.70.131.106 23:47, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
Looking at the page: Special:Contributions/X._K._C._D it says "User account "X. K. C. D" is not registered." which would suggest the account was deleted. Jrfarah (talk) 23:51, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
You missed a period. Special:Contributions/X._K._C._D 172.70.131.106 23:54, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
Aw nuts, you're totally right. My bad. Jrfarah (talk) 23:56, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
We need a proper talk page for this. ⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu (talk) 23:45, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
Fully agreed. We also need a way for the admins to be notified about something like this sooner. We seem to have very little power beyond just manually changing the pages back. Jrfarah (talk) 23:48, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
Also need to monitor recent edits page in case one of their alt accounts tries as well. ⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu (talk) 23:47, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Less than 1000 comics remain. :(

Added

crap

(de-crappifier suggested by 172.70.131.106) to this page since we got crapped again. Jrfarah (talk) 00:00, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Also, while I was doing this, site briefly 503-ed. Not sure if caused by the bot spam, or the suggested DOS to disrupt the bot. Jrfarah (talk) 00:02, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
I'm the one who suggested a DOS. I tried it (never thought a DoS could be used to try to help the site being DoSed), and it slowed the bot down for a while (never stopped it). I made it 503 more than normal temporarily, so one bot would probably have been stopped. Apparently the vandal has multiple tabs running the bot. Also, even if we did take the site down long enough to stop all the bots, the vandal would probably just restart them after the site came back up. If the 503s recently were from a DoS, it wasn't mine. 172.70.131.106 00:11, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
Much appreciated, even if it didn't work, that's helpful information. Jrfarah (talk) 00:13, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
As a side-note, this site regularly 503s, for me, even in normal times. Not even just in the hot half hour when a latest comic is perhaps receiving most interest.
Being there in the initial outbreak (I reverted tens, maybe even 100 or so, of pages until I was warned by an edit-page top that a page already was reverted and I could see others were reverting) I was amazed that I only got a couple of these. So it's clearly not something of a DOS (and inadvertant DDOS from the reverters) in reality, just internal failings. Unless there's a lot of Read-Only (e.g. scraping) activity at normal times that uses up server processor cycles/etc.
Unfortunately, the vandalism cycle we just saw was of a kind that I had feared the moron concerned would eventually resort to, and always a risk. Nice to see the community (and, thankfully, at least one administrator) capable of stepping up to counter it. Nice to know you all, even if just as random strings/semi-random numbers on a screen. 172.70.86.44 10:05, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
The DoS wasn't a slashdot-effect-style accidental DDoS; it was an actual intentional HTTP request flood denial of service attack that I ran against the wiki that I used to try to crash the bot. (The bot had a bug that makes it stop completely until it is manually restarted by the vandal if the wiki goes down for even a second or two.) My attack did take the site down and almost certainly did crash the bot, but as soon as the attack ended, the vandal restarted the bot. (We were hoping the vandal was leaving the bot running unattended, but it turns out they were actively monitoring it.)
The attack I attempted was a simple page request flood from Termux on my Android phone, but it did actually make the site 503 for almost every request for several minutes. It almost certainly would have taken the bot down completely had the vandal left it unattended, but that was not the case. Vandalism stopped while the site was inaccessible (obviously), but quickly started again after my phone froze, stopping the attack. I didn't have access to a laptop or desktop at the time; I probably could have kept the site down longer with a "real" computer. (BTW, it's a bit concerning that an attack from a single phone can take the site down, even for a few seconds; an admin should probably look at that as well.) Regardless, given the manual intervention by the vandal, I would have had to keep the site down long enough for an admin to block the bot in order for my attack to actually work, but the site being down would have kept the admin from doing anything or asking me to stop. Because the bot wasn't running unattended like we had hoped, a long-term attack would have done more harm than good. 108.162.246.212 05:08, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

The de-crappifier has failed on at least one page: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1758:_Astrophysics&action=history Jrfarah (talk) 00:21, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Uh oh ⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu (talk) 00:23, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
No, it didn't fail; it just needs to be the very first thing on the page (that was after the comic template) 172.70.179.20 00:25, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
Great catch, that's my bad. I fixed it on the pages I implemented it incorrectly (including this one). Jrfarah (talk) 00:28, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
I tried putting the code with a space after "crap" as well in case, not sure if it really matters. ⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu (talk) 00:31, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Also this is possibly unrelated, but since when were there only 785 xkcd comics... Main Page ⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu (talk) 00:23, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

It's just counting all of the ones in the category, which is a dwindling number given the vandalism. PaintspotInfez (talk) 00:26, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
Ah, ok, thanks. ⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu (talk) 00:31, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

After the bot stops, how long will it take to fix everything? 172.70.179.20 00:29, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

There seem to be ~10 of us actively aware of this and running interference. It takes about 30 seconds to revert a page, so naively we might think 2613 pages x 30 seconds / 10 people ~ 2-3 hours, likely spread out over a day. Hopefully the admins can step in and simply revert all the edits from all of the accounts associated with this nonsense. Jrfarah (talk) 00:32, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
I have a friend working on a script that may be able to fix this. ⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu (talk) 00:33, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
A script would be amazing. Without a script or admin help, we may very well spend hours fixing everything, only for our mystery troll to create a new account and start the process all over again. That would be the most tedious possible hell. Jrfarah (talk) 00:41, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Isn't it possible to protect/lock pages once uncrapped?

Probably ⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu (talk) 00:58, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
I believe it needs to be requested, though. Since the admins aren't here, that's the problem. ⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu (talk) 01:01, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

The vandal has adjusted their bot to deal with our uncrapping code. I'll see if I can make an uncrap script, but no promises. 4D4850 (talk) 01:04, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

I see the adjustment you're referring to, in Revision as of 00:53, 4 May 2022. But why does this negate our uncrapping code? Also side note, very distasteful that the vandal apparently has not had enough fun or wasted enough time. Jrfarah (talk) 01:10, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
They changed their bot to look for two craps in the beginning of the text, and our current one has only one crap, meaning it doesn't work with the newest version of their bot. 4D4850 (talk) 01:15, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
That's so...crappy. Jrfarah (talk) 01:45, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Is there any way to find contact information about the person who is running the bot?Anonymouscript (talk) 01:12, 4 May 2022 (UTC)


Looks like they might be blocked: User:X._K._C._D./common.js Jrfarah (talk) 01:47, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Contributions show no new edits from the bots in the last ten minutes: Special:Contributions/X._K._C._D.Jrfarah (talk) 01:48, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
I think the admin is rolling back the changes; the number of crapped explanations has dropped from 85% to 61% in the last few minutes. Big thanks David! Jrfarah (talk) 01:53, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

As of 10:20 PM EST, 3 May 2022, random sampling shows less than 10% of pages vandalized (2/30). Worst of it seems to be over.

Number of comics not vandalized: 3293

Now, why is the "All comics" category missing 4 comics. What is an easy way to check which they are.Soulus (talk) 02:35, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
Off the top of my head, I know that there's a skipped comic number that makes the latest comic number actually off by one as a count of how many comics there are. Going to be a while till we find the other 3 though Davidy²²[talk] 03:00, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
I actually found all 3, doing an one line edit refreshed them into the category. Since each page in the category has 200 entries, you can just check that the comic number of the first comic in each page ends with a '1'. If it ends with a '2', then the missing comic is in the previous page of 200. With two columns per page you can narrow it down to 100.
I'm very confused about the last missing one, each page has 200, there are 13 full pages, and the last page has 14. That equals 2614, but it still says 2613. Oh well. Soulus (talk) 04:48, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks so much to everyone that helped, there is now a page for this (in case you haven't seen). ⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu (talk) 13:01, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

NEW VANDAL USERNAME ALERT, NEW VANDAL USERNAME ALERT. User: Ex Kay Cee Dee. sorry to be the bearer of bad news. 172.69.69.250 17:24, 4 May 2022 (UTC)Bumpf

De-vandalized pages

Please put in numerical order and with timestamps in UTC.

  • 1 - 17 (AS OF 5-4-2022, 00:57 UTC)
  • 100 - 150 (AS OF 5-4-2022, 01:04 UTC)
  • 641 - 650 (AS OF 5-4-2022, 00:46 UTC)
  • 740 - 742 (AS OF 5-4-2022, 00:46 UTC)


I wrote a quick script in Python that goes through every XKCD and checks if its been crapped. It makes a list of the ones that need fixing (with URLs) and outputs them as a text file. Here's the script: https://pastebin.com/6Wz7wtFN. I'm running it now and I'll update when it returns an actual percentage crapped. Feel free to use to measure our progress. Jrfarah (talk) 00:57, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
nice ⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu (talk) 01:02, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
The script finished--"1979 found, corresponding to 75.7 percent." That's pretty terrible. Over 3/4 of the site defaced. Jrfarah (talk) 01:04, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
BRUH ⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu (talk) 01:05, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
Pretty much :( Jrfarah (talk) 01:07, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Saying "Users: You can help combat this!" is just encouraging people to waste their time. We *really* shouldn't be encouraging people to battle with a bot, unless they have a counter-vandalism script, at least until the bot is banned. Therefore, I'm going to edit it. Soulus (talk) 02:01, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

I generally agree with this; I think the best thing we can do is characterize the problem. It's futile to try and out-edit the bot while it's still running. That being said, if people are editing anyways, it's good to a) keep track of what's been fixed and b) let them know to add the one-liner at the top that seems to dissuade the bot. Jrfarah (talk) 01:06, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
Yeah. Link this page (with the section included (explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#De-vandalized_pages)), but asking them to help is a bit much. Just let them know about the problem. ⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu (talk) 01:07, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
I like the banner, and thanks for updating it with the count. Is there a way to link this discussion in the banner as well, so people can get caught up on what we know/don't know? Jrfarah (talk) 01:11, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll reword it with a link rather than deleting it. Soulus (talk) 02:01, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
Much appreciated! Jrfarah (talk) 01:38, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
Eventually we'll want to cut that link because it's not strictly related to the actual comic Davidy²²[talk] 03:00, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
Fair point! Jrfarah (talk) 17:33, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Hello! I'm a relatively new user, and I have next to no coding experience, so I'm essentially useless in this situation, but I'd like to help. Is there anything I can do? - WhimsicalUsername

Looks like things are getting sorted. But once everything gets back to normal, check out the "Incomplete Explanations" list and help us fill some in :) Jrfarah (talk) 01:54, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
Okay, will do. And I'm amazed at how fast you guys fixed this, I love this site and hadn't realized how much work it takes to keep up. - WhimsicalUsername

Also check out HERE to help.

It seems that Davidy22 has stopped the bot. Time to start mass reverting, guys. Soulus (talk) 02:01, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks so much to everyone that helped, there is now a page for this (in case you haven't seen). ⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu (talk) 13:01, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

An invisible "Crap" at the start of many pages.

Now that the vandalism has been resolved, there are a number of pages with a stop-gap solution of <div style="display: none">crap at the start of the page.

This code created an invisible word "crap" at the start of the page, which is silly, and likely confusing for people who use screen readers.
Is there a simple method for searching for which comics contain these divs?

I would also like to suggest that we acquire some more regular admins & just more in general, to avoid this stuff in the future. Soulus (talk) 04:18, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Follow-up, absolute hero Davidy22 is currently removing those div tags. Big ups to them. Soulus (talk) 04:35, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
Going to have to be a little more active than I have been in the last few years to figure out a regular to promote, been a long while since the last promoted admin Davidy²²[talk] 04:39, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
We have been missing you those last 4,5 years Davidy22. Also Dgbrt disappeared more than 3 years ago. Since then no admin has been active until today. Great you are back. Hope we can find a solution. Was first made aware of the crap right now. But yesterday we had different spam on the front page... No idea if this was related? Kynde (talk) 09:15, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
Word it's nice to see you still around. Still reading around the logs to see what went on these last few days. Davidy²²[talk] 13:43, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks so much to everyone that helped, there is now a page for this (in case you haven't seen). ⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu (talk) 12:59, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

User creation log

Hello everyone! I know this has already been said, but it was lost in the recent vandalism crisis. There is a large influx of generic usernames (probably sockpuppets) being created, many with the same "first-name/last-name/number" format that is also seen on reddit bots. I worry that we are under another attack, possibly from the same person or some of the many recent vandals. I have seen a couple posts about this but no real attention. If there is some reason (e.g. the wiki has a built in name autogenerator like many video games) please tell me. -- Mushrooms (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I actually remember this pattern well, back when I was active there would be an endless stream of spam accounts that would create a new account, create a user and talk page filled with ads and replace the body of some pages with ads too. If they're only getting as far as user creation then it looks like they haven't evolved to being able to get past the anti-spam measures that I set up five years ago. They're all automated ad bots, if they haven't gotten better in five years they probably aren't breaking through any time soon. Davidy²²[talk] 13:43, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
As a long-time editor/monitor of the site (albeit never bothered to get an account, as you can see) I can confirm that the tsunami of (mostly) never-used generic accounts has been like that for... a long time. (Continuous tsunami? That's just a flow, right?) It always dominates any glance at the Recent Changes page (when it isn't covered with fallout from the Bot vandalism, as today), though handily compressed into a single long entry per day-boundary.

I did an analysis, once, of the various names and I think I identified at least three different pseudorandom-name templates in active use, but I wouldn't know many different backends shared a common root of formatting (e.g. the FirstLastNumber one) or how many single 'attack systems' were equipped with differing families of variation.

I was going to do a frequency/interval/seasonal breakdown, which might have revealed any interleaved or simultaneous poking in, but I think I found something else to draw my totally undeserved interest before I got that far... ;)
Anyway, nice to see that the tsunami/flow is (probably) just a lot of intercepted fire-and-forget interactions, not saving up 'valid' logins for some indeterminate time in the future. Could be worse. 172.70.86.64 14:24, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
There's actually a couple of different patterns to the ad spam. I could drop the barriers for a day if you're morbidly curious enough to want to see what the name patterns you're looking at correspond to, or the maybe deletion log still catalogs the couple thousand of spam pages I deleted, but that's probably buried under 5 years of admin activity in between Davidy²²[talk] 14:47, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Some more strange accounts are being created, with usernames in the format of four random letters followed by "Naipt". For instance: ZoobNaipt, KrdoNaipt, PrxxNaipt, XcroNaipt. Vandalbane (talk) 19:05, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Something like that (either <changingstring><staticstring> or vice-versa, but a different Static one) was a pretty dominant pattern during my analysis (me=172.70.86.64, above). The changing string was a non-trivial incremental change (beyond "aaaa","aaab","aaac",etc, but not far off, maybe implying the gaps were being used in account-spamming elsewhere, or that failed here for trivial but random reasons), but there's no obvious sequence in the current flock (maybe a more cryptographic progression, or just rand()ed).
As to seeing what the dropped barriers reveal, Davidy22, not too keen on that (at least not just for that reason) but I may well deep-dive the historical stuff when I have time. I already planned to refresh my memory of the old analysis. Maybe I can even extract more insight (with hindsight...) from the black box mysteries that are the account-spamming machines. Just for fun! 162.158.159.121 19:45, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

checkuser (from explain xkcd:Crap)

Does this wiki have checkuser enabled? It might be able to highlight if this guy has any other accounts. Schiffy (Speak to me|What I've done) 14:38, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Hmm. This needs to be checked. ⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu (talk) 16:56, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

- idk how to use wiki but can confirm Ex Kay Cee Dee is griefing loads AlphaTwo (talk) 17:31, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

- Grrrrrrr. >:(

Crappy vandal seems to be back

The vandal described at explain_xkcd:Crap seems to be back, now using the User User:Ex_Kay_Cee_Dee A block may be appropriate

I mentioned this on the info page and but I'll also reiterate here: publicizing the code for the bot and basically giving a tutorial for what it does and how to use it may have been a tactical mistake. Jrfarah (talk) 18:02, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

That's probably true. ⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu (talk) 19:27, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
Over six hundred comics have been re-vandalized. Jrfarah (talk) 18:21, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
Not a—f***ing—again. ⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu (talk) 19:27, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
Can you re-post the monitor? ⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu (talk) 19:34, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Gah you beat me. User:Ex_Kay_Cee_Dee/common.js here's the script. ⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu (talk) 19:26, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
I also noticed that Ex Kay Cee Dee seems to be marking the revisions as patrolled, as seen here. ⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu (talk) 19:49, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Just got how the new troll account got confirmed. They did a bunch of tiny edits on the Crap explanation page, adding crap and then reverting it, something like 5 times, until they got confirmed so they could run the bot. 172.70.55.6 21:45, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

We could just up the auto-confirmation requirements, but that wouldn't really help. We could also build a detector that sees if a random substring inside the article is repeated more than X times in the new edit, do not allow the edit. ⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu (talk) 15:25, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
While that would stop attacks we have seen, you can be sure that this would immediately be counter-countered, etc.
I know what I'd like to detect/block (actually, several things, like a broad-spectrum antibiotic) that might kick in for this and various other vandal-plans.
But I'm not going to give the culprit any clues what to aim to get around in advance of those who can do something hopefully coming up with something like this in a timely fashion. I will just trust that anything I cannot help with will be worked out anyway, if/when needed doing in future. 172.70.86.64 23:00, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
I was just going to take away $wgAllowUserJs and bump the autoconfirm limit, getting autoconfirmed status is still manual and having to spend an hour doing captchas on accounts that have to cook for longer should make it a lot less fun to get restarted Davidy²²[talk] 03:27, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

New Vandal (from explain xkcd:Crap)

User Ex Kay Cee De is using a similar, but obfuscated bot. I think we need a counter-bot that undoes the last change to a page if it has been crapped. If someone can analyze it, here is a link to the code: User:Ex_Kay_Cee_Dee/common.js. Can anyone explain how to undo an edit with a bot so someone can create a bot account, or even better, just make their own bot? 4D4850 (talk) 19:14, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Ugh yes, this is getting really annoying. ⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu (talk) 19:29, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
It would be good to have an admin nearby... --Trublu (talk) 19:31, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
Yeah, I asked on Davidy22's page whether we could have some new admins to increase the time covered by admins. ⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu (talk) 19:35, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
Try using de-obfuscators? I'm doing that right now. ⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu (talk) 19:41, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
don't have time to do that myself, but quickly parsing through it it appears to be the same logic as yesterday, only now it appears he is checking for a lower case e, the parent function is even still called vandalize - u/kuros_overkill
He's back - I've just reverted about 10 and he's crapified 100 in that time. Can he be blocked? Kev (talk) 20:07, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

I would try to write a counter-bot, but I'm more experienced in Java and not JS- and even then I'm still learning. Sorry :( Lunar DM (talk) 20:52, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

I am 4D4850's IP (see below for evidence), and I've implemented and am running this. 172.70.130.121 21:02, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

decrapification idea

Idea for decrapification (i dont really know js or wikicode so idk if this is feasable) but maybe have a bot that reverts all current pages that have the word "crap" in them more than say, twice in a row? 172.70.110.121 19:59, 4 May 2022 (UTC)Bumpf

That should work, although the vandal could fairly easily change the word from "crap" to "poop" and bypass that. Maybe if the size changes by more than 50% in a single edit, revert? 172.70.126.221 20:19, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
there was a script posted to the r/xkcd that would just go through the user edits and undo them. I don't have time to updated it for the new user, or verify that it actually works, but if someone wants to take a stab here it is: https://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/uhtikr/comment/i78l092/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 - u/kuros_overkill
I am the IP of 4D4850, and I have implemented this. I know you're unlikely to believe me, so at User:4D4850/common.js you will find this code exactly:
var cssSelectorForEditTextBox = 'textarea'
var cssSelectorForSaveChangesButton = '#wpSave'
var cssSelectorForMainContent = '#mw-content-text'
var cssSelectorForEditLink = '#ca-edit > span:nth-child(1) > a:nth-child(1)'
var cssSelectorForHistLink = '#ca-history > span:nth-child(1) > a:nth-child(1)'
var links = document.links

function unvandalize() {
    if (window.location.href.includes('edit')) {
        // The current page is an "edit" page
        // uncrap it
        document.querySelector(cssSelectorForSaveChangesButton).click()
    } else if (window.location.href.includes('history')) {
        // the page is crapped and we are in hist
        undo();
    } else if (document.querySelector(cssSelectorForMainContent).textContent.indexOf('{') !== -1 || window.location.href.includes('common.js')) {
        // The current page is a regular "read" page, but it has already been uncrapped or is common.js
        // Go to a random page
        window.location.href = 'https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Special:Random'
    } else {
        // The current page is a regular "read" page, and it has been crapped
        // Go to its "hist" page so it can be uncrapped
        document.querySelector(cssSelectorForHistLink).click()
    }
}

function undo() {
    toUndo = links[14]
    toUndo.click()

}
unvandalize();

It is currently running. EDIT: It now doesn't depend on spaces or the word crap. 172.70.130.121 21:00, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Nice. Now if only we could counter the original script... (continuously crapping then un-crapping is a solution, but not the best) ⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu (talk) 21:15, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
and he just put two spaces between each crap to try to get around this script, and it looks like he pulled the timer, changed setTimeout to document.body.onLoad. u/kuros_overkill
Bot is now displaying new behaviour, crapping pages that were scrapped previously. And at the very end adding .;'"?!

Do we have enough admins?

Do we need people like me to volunteer to support the site by becoming an Admin? How many admins are there?

First: if you want to volunteer to being an admin, you need an an account (you may, but since you didn't sign), two, you need to be trustworthy (again, not saying you aren't). There are currently ten admins (see the top of the page), but only one is active. ⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu (talk) 20:07, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
Three, I have to remember the etiquette around ~s Kev (talk) 20:08, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
lol ⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu (talk) 20:27, 4 May 2022 (UTC) (i feel like a signature is too much for this simple of a reply lol)
Aren't you supposed to sign EVERY reply? It's just four tildes 172.70.178.115 01:57, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Behaviour to look out for/ ban

I was doing some thinking and remembered somehing I saw this morning, which is how the new account got auto confirmed. Over on the Crap explanatory page, they added crap, then reverted, then reverted their revert and so on, until they got confirmed.172.70.55.6 21:51, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

There's new vandal behaviour, the current comic is being reverted to a Nostalgia Critic one. On reversion, anonymous user is reverting back to it. Kev (talk) 23:03, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

I started a new page and I don't know what to do

I spotted a new comic and the bot hadn't added it yet so I did but it isn't appearing in the next/previous and I didn't read the article on starting a new page and I think I broke it I'm scared I'm ok if you boot me off the site jusp please fix the page. SqueakSquawk4 (talk) 23:28, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

Don't worry, people can fix these things (are fixing, have been fixing, will have been already intending to fix, etc) and it's always a big thing to do your first New comic edit (or so I observe!)
And good-faith edits with even massive errors in aren't a bootable offence. I mean, if they were, there'd be no editors left and the IP range 0.0.0.0-255.255.255.255 would probably also be blocked! :P 172.70.85.177 08:22, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
...and talking of massive errors, somehow I squished the following. (I got no edit-conflict warning! Perhaps because I edited the pre-midnight revision of the page. Whoops.) Reinstating. 172.70.90.211 08:41, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
Making the page gets us most of the way there, full instructions at User:DgbrtBOT. Davidy²²[talk] 01:57, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

Impersonator to be dealt with?

Currently just one (undone) vandalism under the name ("VandaIbane", with capital I for the l). Special:Contributions/VandaIbane The 'true' Vandalbane seems to be an ad hoc helpful soul's throwaway account, don't know if they were specifically targetted because of a handful of actual counter-vandalism edits, or far more randomly.

It may be just a one-off variation on past stupidities, or it might be a tactic angling to be employed more widespread. The more you know, right? Couldn't think of a better place to mention it than here, however. 172.69.79.153 23:11, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

Banned Davidy²²[talk] 01:40, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

Ongoing vandalism

There appears to be a ton of vandalism going on right now from someone in the 108.162 IP range (exact address is changing continuously). I'm currently trying to revert their edits. JBYoshi (talk) 19:47, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

The IP ranges seem to have changed; it looks like the user is proxied through Cloudflare, so IP bans may not help. Some personal attacks have also begun, so I'm stopping reverting those edits in hopes that the user will get bored. JBYoshi (talk) 20:08, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
Yeah, we can only revert when there's IP vandalism, upshot is it takes them longer to commit vandalism than it does for us to revert because presumably they never get the captcha cleared. Davidy²²[talk] 01:17, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
Is this whoever impersonated the sole active administrator and changed mainpage? I discovered I don't have enough privileges to revert that page. Nitpicking (talk) 11:06, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
The main page is protected and if anyone's been using my name, I missed the edit. The only way you can edit the actual main page is by being an actual admin. Did you mean the comic that was transcluded onto the main page at the time? You can follow the link to edit that page, which you probably do have permission to edit. Davidy²²[talk] 11:26, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

VANDAL

vandal alert! 162.158.107.30

Ongoing vandalism by 👖🔥

Is there some way admins can just say "revert all changes by the user "👖🔥" that don't cause a versioning conflict with later changes"? Or at least delete the account? It's still running rapidly, I can't keep up trying to manually revert the page replacements.-- 162.158.146.175 (talk) 17:59, 11 May 2022 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Hi, Maybe we can right so anti vandal code?-- 162.158.146.175 (talk) 18:32, 11 May 2022 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Blocked and reverted —theusaf (talk) 18:50, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
Trial by (pants on) fire, it seems... Congrats on your promotion (and Kynde, etc) and you're doing a good job! Had to stop my own effort when I saw you had got in there already in several cases I was trying to revert. I'll keep an eye out for any remnants. (I presume you nullified the common.js... It got scrolled off the bottom of the changes list I had been working from. And I can't do anything about it myself so I'm not going to go looking for it again.) 172.70.86.44 18:56, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
I was just coming to ask about this, then I realized that the moron was already blocked so it was probably just a matter of time. Thanks Theusaf! Is there anything I can do to help in this and future incidents other than just reporting them?--Twisted Code (talk) 19:07, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
Unfortunately, reporting and reverting them are currently the only things you can do. I'm trying to look into a more permanent solution, however. —theusaf (talk) 19:10, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
how badly (or often) do normal users need to be able to upload highly obfuscated JavaScript files to their user sub pages? or make user names that consist of only emojis? those would be my first 2 thoughts. Well, and obviously it wasn't the most sophisticated edit either...--Twisted Code (talk) 19:27, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
I would assume that most of those are choices made by MediaWiki and can't be changed individually for each wiki. But it would be good if I was wrong and an admin could disable those features. Shockeray (talk) 19:37, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
Maybe, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's just the opposite of that considering how useful such access control features would be on Wikipedia (or any other major user of the software). This isn't an isolated problem as far as wikis go.--Twisted Code (talk) 20:14, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
It looks you mass reverted them before I even made it to 50 theusaf. XD At least I can feel like I helped. Shockeray (talk) 19:16, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

Can we please get a block?

162.158.107.30

i mentioned it earlier but they did a new wave

IP bans are a bit problematic because they change, hit bystanders etc, for IPs the main deterrent is how it takes the IP user 10 minutes of captcha solving to commit vandalism that is almost instant for an admin to clean up. Davidy²²[talk] 07:53, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
Even as the IP who undid the prior version of the Memo Spike Connector (plus recognise the comments on 28/Apr and 8/Apr as mine, and possibly other reverts of that nature that I didn't bother to write anything 'witty' for), I am still tempted to support a semi-protect of that exact page. It's obviously being revisited by the same external IP-type person/script, even if it's not a consistent IP for the sakes of any blocking. I think someone has also occasionally attacked Redirect pages with similar (useless) "Improve your webtraffic" spam with not even a means to take them up on the offer¹, as both myself and others have revoked those changes a number of times. ((¹ - I mean, if it's true ad-spam, it's useless. Could just be plain vandalism/tester-code that happens to use ad-like text in its replacement process. Hard to tell which.))
But, in general, I would find it awkward if an 'Ex Kay Cee Dee'-type spammer could still do nasty things but lazy ol' me (never bothering to get an account, despite being on here for years) could not undo it... at least upon that specific page and others of its kind. I of course flatter myself that I'm the only one who would bother (very much proven wrong, recently!) and I have no good reason not to announce myself properly with a named-account, really.
...but this is my long-winded opinion, for what it's worth. Not that you need take much notice of it. I support what's best as a whole, and if you somehow square that circle and it leaves me on the wrong side of the boundary then I'll work on where that leaves me. Just sayin'... 162.158.34.221 11:28, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

"The author of xkcd" just crapped all over a page: 1907: Immune System Nitpicking (talk) 02:09, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

Not just there, but already sorted by now (and by then, I think, but don't know when you spotted it and then how long it took to respond) and mostly reverted before I even realised it had happened. Good community! Including the necessary and proportional admin response/mop-up. Makes me glad to be on this particular corner of the webosphere. 172.70.85.211 11:18, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
Sorted by me, in fact, before I came here. By posting in this section I was requesting that the offending account be blocked. Nitpicking (talk) 12:17, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

Probable serial spammer

See: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=California&action=history

Currently (as I write) two superficially similar spam-attempts (two different named accounts, which I found were created 16th May and early on 18th May, in advance of either attempt) used to replace the usual redirect. Conceivably could continue with further accounts they have recently created, and not dissimilar to other occasional title-only-redirect-page rewrites, but uncommonly close in time. Not my first revert being unreverted, though, so could just be a co-inky-dink... (Yeah, right(!))

Apart from the banishment of the accounts involved (probably to no ultimate effect, as they're likely one-shot disposables) I don't know what to suggest except to progressively add extra protections to the redir-page(s) that get hit by this, which could be a near-sisyphean task in its own right and still leave the remainder open to meddling (or closed to all useful editing too!). But I checked the details anyway, and so this is just a courtesy FYI unless you're already likely to investigate the "four changes, zero characters changed" article history for yourself, without needing my pointer to it. 172.70.162.155 19:43, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

Oh, actually, these are the spam bots. Only two versus the sheer number that sign up, might have gotten lucky on the captcha.Davidy²²[talk] 10:42, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

Another spammer

Looks like we have another spambot User:Explain xkcd server admin (edits), who is putting "crap crap crap" on all the pages, probably using a script. Need a block and then a mass revert. Natg19 (talk) 21:57, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

Looks like they are using this script : User:Explain xkcd server admin/common.js. Natg19 (talk) 22:02, 20 May 2022 (UTC)
How does that bypass the captcha? 172.70.206.89 01:08, 21 May 2022 (UTC)
That user's been blocked now (as of 2:45, shortly before this was written). Time for clean-up! But we clearly need a better longterm solution that allows us to be proactive rather than reactive, which is difficult but probably not impossible. It occurs to me that a rather unpleasant solution that should hopefully work somewhat would be to never disable the captcha. Ncpenguin (talk) 02:50, 21 May 2022 (UTC)
I stated it at the technical portal, but that doesn't seem to get much attention nowadays, but one solution would be to add mw:Extension:AbuseFilter. In any case, I've written an extremely crude script that should expedite things by allowing for one-click undos and adding one-click "revert" buttons onto contributions lists (almost like a poor-man's rollback); see explain xkcd:Community portal/Coordination#One-click undo script for reverting vandalism for more details. CRLF (talk) 03:10, 21 May 2022 (UTC)
I feel like the troll has been thwarted for now, as all of their recent attempts at registering an account have resulted in a speedy block, and all their IP contributions are undone quickly. I think captcha for all users will be more annoyance than it is worth. I really do hope the abuse filter plugin is installed, as I think it will further throttle the most blatant vandalism we have been seeing. Also, is there any way to prevent users from adding scripts that can edit pages to their commons.js page? Vandalbane (talk) 05:06, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

"Crap" vandal is likely back

User:Xray_Kilo_Charlie_Delta is vandalising pages and has a vandal script in their commons.js page.

N.B. Troll now blocked.

N.B.2. Troll evaded ban and is harassing me using IP address 172.70.130.245. Vandalbane (talk) 02:41, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Please protect

Please protect Template:Citation_needed, high-visibility template that the troll seems to have found and vandalized. Vandalbane (talk) 02:29, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Blocked IPs

Three IPs are currently blocked. They need to be unblocked, because IPs here are not tied (or even necessarily correlated) with users due to the reverse proxy. They typically don't affect the intended blockee, but they do affect helpful users. Anticrap (talk) 20:29, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

It does make sense that we shouldn't block the IPs since they don't actually impede the vandal, but are there any actions we can take against the troll when they edit while logged out? Vandalbane (talk) 01:46, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
I don't think it's possible to do anything but revert. IPs are slowed down by the CAPTCHA, so one autoconfirmed user should easily be able to revert an IP's edits almost immediately. One solution would be to get rid of the Cloudflare proxy, but that would make the site even more vulnerable to DoS than it already is. Anticrap (talk) 16:48, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
Another solution, which would probably be unpopular but might help, would be to require accounts for editing. That way there's always an account to block, although blocks could still be circumvented by creating new accounts. The account creation process would at least slow trolls/the crapper down. Anticrap (talk) 17:00, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
I personally think the trolling isn't quite severe enough to where we'd do something that drastic. I feel the best course of action is to revert the troll, block their accounts, and try to avoid feeding them.
Also, why are we vulnerable to DoS? Vandalbane (talk) 00:31, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
During the First Crap Attack (before I had an account), I tried to stop the crap bot by DoSing the site (there's a bug in the crapbot that makes it stop until it's manually restarted if the site goes down for even a few seconds), and I was able to take it down for several seconds with a single bash command running on my smartphone. (It did disable the bot while the site was down and for a few seconds afterwards, but then the operator apparently restarted it.) For obvious reasons, I won't share the command here, but it was fairly simple. I didn't really "exploit" anything, I just overloaded the server. Anticrap (talk) 02:28, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Protection against administrators?

What would happen if an administrator started crapping? How much damage could they do? --172.70.178.27 16:29, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

They could block anyone who tried to undo their crap, including other admins. They could also protect pages after crapping them. IIUC, only Jeff could help at that point, because all the other admins would be blocked but he has server access. Once he came along, he should be able to block and desysop the crapper, unprotect all the pages that the crapper-admin protected, and then reverting would be like it always is. Let's avoid this scenario. Anticrap (talk) 17:18, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
See Special:ListGroupRights. Admins have unblockself which means that admins could unblock themselves to continue to revert vandalism (though of course a rogue admin could also unblock themselves too). CRLF (talk) 03:37, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
Oh yeah, you're right. So it wouldn't be *too* catastrophic, but still much worse than a regular user crapping. BTW CRLF, would you mind looking over the changes I suggested at explain xkcd talk:Crap? Anticrap (talk) 03:46, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
@Anticrap: I will take a look. CRLF (talk) 18:11, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
I think our admins are trustworthy, but just in case, it could be a good idea to remove that permission, as admins have gone rogue before on other wikis. Vandalbane (talk) 04:40, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
I wouldn't remove unblockself from all admins. At most I would make two classes of admins with and without that right. Not having that right just means victory for the fastest blocker. A rogue admin would just need to block all other admins (e.g. while everybody is offline) to became the sole admin.--Pere prlpz (talk) 18:16, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
Yeah, it'd be more dangerous to remove that IMO. The way enwiki does it is that blocked admins can only block the admin that blocked them (if that makes sense), so the worst that could happen is a deadlock where all admins are blocked, but I'm not sure how that's implemented (can't see anything obvious on its ListGroupRights.) CRLF (talk) 18:19, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

I just got promoted to admin together with two others. None of the old admins are active. Davidy22 has been back for a short time and managed to get us three new admins promoted. I'm quite sure it is none of the admins that are responsible for this crap. You can check our rights [[[Special:ListGroupRights|here]] Kynde (talk) 20:17, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

I did a little "interview" with the troll, and they told me that they have an account here that they use for constructive edits and vandal-fighting. I don't think it's likely, but it is remotely possible we have a rogue admin. Vandalbane (talk) 20:51, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
I agree. I doubt they meant an admin account, but the possibility is concerning. Hopefully we convinced them to stop. Anticrap (talk) 20:56, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
Much to my chagrin, I came back a little while after the "interview" to see that they had restarted the crapper. Fortunately they were blocked by then, but cleanup still had to be done. I hope they don't return again, if they do, I might try again to open a dialog, but some people just can't be reasoned with. As for the admin situation, it's good we have more than one admin, and if anyone has any evidence that the crapper is actually an established user, it should be presented and we will deal with it. Vandalbane (talk) 21:01, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Vandalbot is back

Vandalbot is back under the username User:Donald Trump. Vandalbane (talk) 17:11, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

I was allerted on my talk page and have blocked the user now. And seems all his crap has been uncrapped already? Kynde (talk) 20:08, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
I just looked at his edits. He made one edit 6 days ago. Then today he made 8 edits where he made one and then reverted him self. I guess the time and the number of edits was enough for him to get started with crapping. He was active fora bout 2,5 hours and managed 5050 edits. More than one every 2nd second for that duration. I have no idea how other people revert it just as fast, guess they also have bots? Kynde (talk) 20:35, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
They use User:CRLF/OneClickUndo.js. (Unfortunately I couldn't because I'm not autoconfirmed yet.) Apparently the crapper used the same code to info all of their edits (not just their uncrap edits), which both dramatically increased the disruption and prevented much clean up while the bot was running. Anticrap (talk) 20:43, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Vandal spambot is back. Again.

The spambot that keeps vandalizing pages with the word "crap" repeated thousands of times has come back. This time it seems to be under the name Donald Trump. We're going to need to put up more effective defenses against this kind of vandalism, as they're evidently not deterred by the current methods this site uses to deter vandalism. At least do something to prevent singular users from making several very large edits very quickly. I prefer to read xkcd via this wiki and am getting quite annoyed by the spamdalism. -- TinyDeskEngineer (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Current rate seems to be about 20-50% vandalized. Ncpenguin (talk) 17:55, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
Should be stopped for now...Kynde (talk) 20:14, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Is the vandalism bot reverting anti-vandalism edits new?

The new contributions page is being flooded with reversions by the spambot. Has it done that before? -- TinyDeskEngineer (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

That's new behavior. The crapper seems to have modified an anti-crap tool and used it to revert decrappers. It makes decrappification a lot harder. Anticrap (talk) 20:18, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

HELP

Vandal is back, and WHY IS THIS PAGE COVERED WITH A GIANT IMAGE?!?!?!?! ⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu — Tᵃˡᵏ 19:24, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

the file should be but I can't find that anywhere. UH OHH172.70.38.41 19:29, 26 May 2022 (UTC)Bumpf
Seems like it was inserted but then when used it lagged to disappear just as when an image is changed it takes some time before the new version is up. I have blocked the latest crap account Donald Trump after I got a message about him. Hope it was also him that was responsible Kynde (talk) 20:00, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
Seems that one of his actions was to edit signature template pages, adding that image. Hopefully, these changes have been reverted. -- Theusaf (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
And the image links to the log out page. If I had to guess it was the person who keeps coming back to vandalize all of the pages. I have no idea what advantage that would give them, but it's the most obvious answer. User:Tiny Desk Engineer

Client-side security

I think the common.js changes will, long-term, do more harm than good. The crapper could bypass them in ways that would also prevent us from seeing the bot code. I don't want to give the crapper any ideas, but it is possible. Not trying to hinder crapping using site JS won't prevent them from doing that, but it would avoid encouraging them do do it. Anticrap (talk) 20:25, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

The best solution to this in the long term, in my view, is to install the edit filter extension. It can thwart the crap vandal, as well as another recurring IP vandal I've seen around. Vandalbane (talk) 20:57, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
Yes, that is definitely a good idea. Anticrap (talk) 21:00, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
Says the person who now has another permabanned account after creating a common.js page with the spam script that didn't do anything and tried to cover it up by blanking it. Davidy²²[talk] 18:25, 27 May 2022 (UTC)
How exactly should we thwart this guy then? Just ban new accounts? Or should we take proactive measures? Vandalbane (talk) 21:07, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Crapping

How did Afkzoa crap without a common.js page? 172.70.178.47 18:51, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

The common.js file is actually kind of just a convenience that can be replicated with browser tools which they figured out how to use after they got another account banned when common.js stopped working. I did make some other requests to jeff alongside flipping the wg js flag, he just switched that one flag to false because that was easy probably, can ping again. Davidy²²[talk] 18:56, 27 May 2022 (UTC)
In that case, since they can just use other ways to run the crapping script I don't see the point. I really do think the best way forward is to either install AbuseFilter or otherwise set up a workflow that lets us quickly go from recent changes monitoring to an admin blocking. CRLF (talk) 21:20, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Please block

Please block User:The_password_to_all_of_my_accounts,_including_this_one,_is_either_lobilo_or_p and User:Crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap_crap as they are extremely likely to be sockpuppets. Vandalbane (talk) 20:42, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

And User:Father_and_daughter_incest_sex While False (talk) 22:21, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Spambot account

User:MonikaForeman16 replaced a redirect page with promotional content. Vandalbane (talk) 01:12, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

  • sigh* this crapper/spammer/vandal is getting really obnoxious. 108.162.246.154 01:29, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
I don't think it's the crapper. There's been some bot creating lots of accounts, you can see them at the new user log. There's been some discussion on the accounts further up on this page, and they seem to be spam accounts that are trying to create and replace pages with promotional content. The accounts rarely edit, even though this one did. Our antispam measures usually stop them. Vandalbane (talk) 01:36, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Oh, okay. It still doesn't make any of it any less... crappy. 172.70.131.128 02:08, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Questions about reporting users

I noticed yet another account User:Dαvidy22 which is obviously trying to impersonate an administrator (notice the greek alpha 'α' instead of lowercase Latin 'a'). This is obviously an attempt at impersonation and likely a sockpuppet.

I'm looking into more constructive ways to report new troll accounts, and I'd like some help from an admin or established user as to how to handle troll, spam, and impersonation accounts. I don't want to clutter this noticeboard, so I'm wondering if having a single thread or page to report users would be more efficient. I also don't want to feed the trolls, and so I'm also thinking about if there are any situations where simply doing nothing and waiting for a block is a better choice. Thanks, Vandalbane (talk) 03:04, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

An admin userpage can also get an admin's attention and some of the admins have less cluttered talk pages than this page. An admin will probably catch spam when it happens though. Davidy²²[talk] 03:23, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
I know a vandal-account did this quite severely, a few weeks ago, and it was reverted, but cleaning up (archiving, maybe, to a suitable sub-page) all non-outstanding issues might be an onodous but streamlining task. Ideally, it should be an admin doing it (now we have several active, which is better than having none...), especially if the archive area is intended to be just straight 'copy of what was removed' for whatever reason (solved/insoluble/not a solvable problem/not even a problem/no longer an issue/CNR/whatever). Anyone wishing to resurrect such a discussion they find is current can ask for it to be retransposed back, in various ways.
You could go to town on the classification system (put all "Please block+delete this vandal account" requests in their own historically-recording page?) or just ad-hoc them to whatever single bit-bucket you apply to any/all of the more open Community Portal pages that have so many old bits to them (this section is number 173 on this very page, according to the URL above, and is that zero-rooted even?) that still deserve to be searchable through, but are unlikely to be wanted to be (directly) commented upon very much at all.
Big task, of course. But a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, etc. So just a suggestion. 172.70.162.147 04:11, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
I'd personally advocate for moving all old threads to an archive to clean things up. As for the vandal accounts, a special page for reporting vandals makes sense, but it would need to be done in a way that avoids feeding the trolls.
And, while we're here, I might as well point out User:Crappificator. Vandalbane (talk) 16:59, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

In the latest User Creation Log summary, there are a number of 'not just a failed Spam account' names, I see. Including, but not limited to:

  • Bane, bane, vandalbane! <- Inspired by you, again, VB. I'm sure you're flattered...
  • Randall9344‎ <- Could just be a 'NameDigits' coincidence, but I doubt it!
  • Δονε κραππινg‎ <- A probably insincere use of hellenic script, in a message many an xkcd reader will effortlessly understand.

(...you know, the seeming ease of creating an account here is probably one of the reasons I've never bothered with one myself, even after years of (hopefully positive) contribution... Perverse, I know. Says more about my default mindset than the situation, however.) 172.70.91.128 19:57, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Two of a small series of vandalisms on the same page done by [[[Special:Contributions/Vandalbanе|an imposter account]] (looks like 0xD0B5 character to visually fake the "e"). FYI. The two current changes it did (a vandalism and correcting errors in the vandalism) are reverted, together with subsequent ASCII art insertion that certainly doesn't work on my screen, but maybe does in the originator's own choice of font... But obv. the account is eminantly bannable. 172.70.91.82 18:34, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

New idea for the trolls

I'm having a talk with the trolls that have been showing up recently in the hope that I can help redirect them away from vandalism. If anyone thinks this is counterproductive or out of line, please inform me. Vandalbane (talk) 02:18, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Insofar as the (personally presumed) single person behind the Crapping and various sideline puppets (almost certainly the three I just mentioned in the above section, but I'm not welded to the conviction that it's the one person, or even that all those behind everything I think might be are actually all truly disrupters), I think the conversation we had with (presumedly) that same person under the 'Donald' identity and the subsequent willingness to still mess things up, 'just because', shows that there's not much hope of useful dialogue.
Just like "include <foo> in your edit-summary and I won't revandalise it again" never really was honoured, and it was soon obvious that it was more of a mistake to presume it might.
I don't think it is necessarily counter-productive, but I'd bet good money that it will at least be non-productive. I'd happily let you continue (not that I'd have any authority, or even enough of a convincing presence, to stop you) but I think it'll be ineffective whilstsoever the stroked ego(s?) of the other end of the conversation don't find a more interesting hobby. 162.158.159.43 20:17, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
So, during a conversation with User:Bane, bane, vandalbane!, the crapper appeared on the now-deleted talk page, verified their identity by logging into an old account and editing its talk page, and claimed that the User:Bane, bane, vandalbane! was not them. If the crapper is sincere, then we have two distinct trolls. I've also noticed IPs editing articles to insert meme references (e.g. Nostalgia Critic, "amogus", "thrembo", "sojyak", "quandale dingle"), and I suspect that these IPs may be related to last night's disruptor. I'm not really sure if we have multiple trolls, or one multifaceted troll. I feel that as long as all the trolls are blocked, it doesn't matter too much.
About User:Δονε κραππινg, I posted some advice to the troll (or trolls) on the same now-deleted talk page, but when I went to sleep, there was no acknowledgement of my advice, and in the morning the page was gone, so I have no idea if they ever read it. They may have seen some truth, or they may be trolling us again. If the troll is present, and did read my advice: Please do keep your word. If the troll won't listen, I'll go back to ignoring them, as tempting as debating them can be. I don't want to make trolling more fun.


TL;DR: The person I spoke to last night might not have been the crapper. The crapper themself later showed up, and I tried to give them advice, but it might have been deleted before the crapper saw it. There might be more than one troll, but maybe not. The crapper indicated they're done trolling here, I'm hope they're sincere. Vandalbane (talk) 21:04, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
And a troll showed up saying they'd quit their activities if this page is deleted. I guess that particular troll isn't convinced. wI'm a bit sad, but not surprised. Vandalbane (talk) 22:43, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Is there anything else we can do to prevent vandalism?

There's been quite a significant uptick in vandalism recently, and I don't feel we have any effective tools to combat it. I believe one of the biggest issues here is due to the way logged-out editing works on this wiki. Blocks are completely ineffective at slowing vandals, and IP editors can vandalize with basically nothing we can do to thwart them other than revert-warring. Is there a better way?

There's been some discussion of installing AbuseFilter, but I'm not sure anything became of it. We could disable logged-out editing, but that would likely be counterproductive as we get lots of legitimate contributions from logged-out users. If there's a way to switch to location-based IPs, we could rangeblock problematic users as well as proxies. Does anyone have any ideas? 162.158.78.145 16:11, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

Maybe something could be set up where you can't do more than, say, 1 edit every 20 seconds? It would make certain tasks annoying, but perhaps it would also be possible to make it so some users don't have that limit? 172.69.69.207 14:12, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Rollback

Does the rollback permission exist on this wiki? Vandalbane (talk) 17:00, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

Admins have rollback privileges, a role for it could be helpful to give to regular users to make reverting the spam a bit easier Davidy²²[talk] 17:02, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
This discussion was also started at the technical portal.. anyway, you'd need a sysadmin to modify the config variables (mw:Manual:User rights). CRLF (talk) 03:59, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

Is he done?

Is he User:Δονε κραππινg? Riolu The Furry (talk) 14:04, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

What does that mean? 172.70.131.128 21:05, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
??? 172.70.210.49 23:35, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Comic page "Lightning Distance" causing MediaWiki errors

I don't know exactly what's happening, but every time I try to view the page for the xkcd comic under that name, I get a message about an internal MediaWiki error. This happens consistently when either visiting the page via search or by clicking the Random Page link, and presumably in all other situations as well. Something about the contents of that page might be what's causing that error. --Tiny Desk Engineer (talk) "My user page can't be vandalized if it never existed" 20:26, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

Okay, it seems like the comic "Trig Identities" is also doing that. Huh. --Tiny Desk Engineer (talk) "My user page can't be vandalized if it never existed" 21:43, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
Checked "Lightning Distance" for myself. No obvious errors for me. (From version history, it's the latest one time-/change-stamped as (cur | prev) 18:02, 2 June 2022‎ Theusaf (talk | contribs)‎ m . . (5,929 bytes).)
I did note, on scanning down the perfectly acceptible page, that the Talk/Discussion inclusion had a lot of formulae in it (not yet chevked Trig Identities", but I can imagine the same might be true there too). Is something like MathML in use, and that failing in your case (but not mine)? Just an idea...
Though how it would not like you, when it likes me, sounds more like something tied to your user account (and not tied to the 'generic' one that I'm using as a not-logged-in person). 162.158.159.87 22:49, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

Please redirect What if? to what if

@Heading re Talk:2644: fMRI Billboard. 172.70.211.36 13:23, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

Done Kynde (talk) 08:00, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

More reports

July 20, 2022: The site has obviously been vandalized with an offensive, racist post. It needs to be purged ASAP. -- [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]]) (please sign your comments with ~~~~) This guy is spamming the site. I'm doing what I can to stop him, but he needs to be banned. -- [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]]) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Things have been done, but obviously the bored idiot with no life wanted to feel needed in the world for another 15 minutes. 172.70.162.5 20:59, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Protect Latest Comic

In an edit war with a vandal. I think he's proxying my IP or something, since his edits seem to be coming from the same IP as mine. 108.162.245.131 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

You're both(?) proxying through the same gateway, more like. As you can see, there's always those ready to undo anything stupid that's done. 172.70.85.115 23:19, 20 July 2022 (UTC)
Could we get 2648: Chemicals semi-protected or something? It would stop the IP user from inserting the Nazi propaganda and racism for a while. (Yes, I know that I'm an IP user too and so I would be blocked from the page, but it would be worth it to slow down the vandal.) --172.70.131.164 05:28, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
And please do it fast. 172.70.131.164 06:38, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
I have semi protected for one day, to only auto confirmed users. Also I blocked the IP for three days. Not sure this will help anything? I have also tried to contact Davidy22 as he knows more about what to do. Kynde (talk) 08:11, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Seems to be still going on. It might be worth it to keep the latest comic extended-protected, or even full-protected if that fails. 162.158.79.120 20:39, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Something is seriously broken

Relatively simple edits are being silently discarded, not just while attempting save, but preview and show changes too. Help! 172.70.214.185 21:04, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

There’s some edit protection going on right now, due to spammers. Make an account and you should have more luck 172.70.130.91 00:41, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
That worked, thanks. Mad props for fighting the good fight. I wish I could explain face to face to the vandal how much this site means to me. Liv2splain (talk) 02:32, 22 July 2022 (UTC)~
Welcome aboard :-) Kynde (talk) 12:18, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
If anyone else is having trouble with their edits being silently discarded, can you explain what kind of edits you made that got removed? theusaf (talk) 02:21, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
Figured out the problem, should hopefully not discard valid edits anymore —theusaf (talk) 02:25, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
Cool I had the problem yesterday and thought it had to do with my semi protection of the newest comic, and removed it. But that was not the case. I found out that if I edited a section it failed, but if I edited the entire page it worked. Does this makes sense to you Theusaf? Kynde (talk) 12:18, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
Yeah. I had written some code to try to prevent some of the spam, but didn’t take into account that you could edit sections, etc. That code has been removed —theusaf (talk) 13:54, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Real name (and not username) displayed in Active Users box???

I noticed that I was one of the most active users in the last week, which is neat. I also noticed that the name listed in the Active Users box, while linking to User:GreatWyrmGold as expected, displays my real-world, legal name. I find that somewhat distressing. I notice that I'm not the only one who has this issue; at time of posting, I see two other real-world legal names that don't match their users' respective usernames in the Active Users box.

Is there anything we can do about this? Some admin we can contact? At least an explanation for why my legal name is showing up? Because it doesn't seem ideal.

P.S. I did take a screenshot of the issue. I considered uploading a version of that with all legal names redacted to demonstrate the problem, but I can't actually figure out how to do that. (Despite editing this wiki a fair bit, I'm not very good at it.)

There's a space in "Preferences" for your "Real Name". Have you filled that in? Elizium23 (talk) 00:13, 4 August 2022 (UTC)
...huh. Wonder when I did that. GreatWyrmGold (talk) 22:09, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

My wiki is being crapped

My wiki (which I unfortunately can't link to for privacy) is being very severely vandalized, with edits identical to the "crap" vandalism here. I remember that the crap code was published here for use by anti-crap-bot developers, and that several developers published their own anti-crap bots, but I can't find either the crap code or the code to any anti-crap bots. Are either of those available anywhere? 141.101.76.231 03:14, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Those efforts were mostly ineffectual edit warring against the bot. The measure that actually dealt with the issue was increasing the autoconfirmed edit requirement to edit without being captcha'd from 10 to 50 so that the vandal would have to spend half an hour solving captchas before they can start the bot up, and banning their new accounts liberally. Just make it enough of a waste of time to start the bot up versus the amount of time it takes for you to clean up so that they give up. This script[4] that comes with mediawiki should revert everything that a vandal did in one shot after you ban an account. Davidy²²[talk] 09:59, 5 August 2022 (UTC)
Okay, thank you. So there's no way to stop/slow the crapping without inconveniencing humans? 172.70.131.12 17:23, 5 August 2022 (UTC)
You can make it more of a challenge (or worth less) to edit a given behaviour, and less so for acceptable ones. If there's an apparent panacea published then you can be sure that any determined vandal will then deliberately change their attack to avoid being caught/cured by it, because some people are just like that. But it's easier to deal with 'bot issues (per adaptation).
I don't know of your Wiki has the same volume of spam-worthy accounts, but we have arious obviously auto-generated names (of various formats) that get created and then never (successfully!) post anything, and that's thanks in part to some mildly inconvenient roadblocks to prevent what appears to be fire-and-forget spam code that some organisation(s) have clearly decided should perpetually target wikis such as this. And very little of it gets through (maybe once or twice in a blue moon, ignoring some of the other types of spam that seem to have a manually-controlled method of posting). At the expense of minor inconvenience to someone like me, and less than that to someone who bothered with a legitimate account on a regular basis and hasn't red-flagged themselves in any way.
So, swings and roundabouts, as it were. Without knowing where your Wiki is, can't begin to guess if there's any more specific advice we could give, jt'll depend a lot on what kind of (non-vandal) user userbase you have, for one thing. 162.158.34.217 18:59, 5 August 2022 (UTC)
The newly created wiki Neography got spammed on its third day. 162.158.166.231 09:02, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

I still can't edit my user page

I still can't edit my user page. How many more pages must I edit to get auto-confirmed? ColorfulGalaxy (talk) 14:21, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

I've created your user page for you. You can find the requirements for auto-confirmation at explain_xkcd:Autoconfirmed_users —theusaf (talk) 17:35, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

Vandalism

The current comic is getting repeatedly vandalised. —While False (speak | museum) 05:29, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

Racial slur vandalism

Just a second ago I reverted someone adding a racial slur for Jewish people to the page for comic 2770. Just worried this person is going to come back and trying to let the admins know to watch out for it. 172.70.131.161 06:13, 3 May 2023 (UTC)


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