explain xkcd:Community portal/All

Community portal
Proposals Create a new topic! Place for ideas and suggestions to improve the wiki's design and organization on general issues	Technical Create a new topic! Technical issues regarding the site, including bug reports or MediaWiki extensions requests	Coordination Create a new topic! Coordinating community-wide tasks, such as the creation of new categories or the layout of explanations	Admin requests Create a new topic! Problems requiring assistance from an administrator. User problems, changes to protected pages, etc	Miscellaneous Create a new topic! Place for general chit-chat about virtually anything that doesn't fit anywhere else V T E
View all Community portal sections at once

This is the single-page edition of the Community portal. Conversations are transcluded, so if you watchlist this page you will not be notified of new posts or comments. Instead, watchlist each community portal individually.

This page has an archivearchives. Discussions are usually archived after they have remained inactive for a long time or they are no longer relevant. The list of the various archives is available at the top of each Community portal section.

Proposals

Proposals Place for ideas and suggestions to improve the wiki's design and organization on general issues, such as adding a feature to the wiki or creating a new character or template. Create a new topic!

This page has archives. Discussions are usually archived after they have remained inactive for a long time or they are no longer relevant. Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4

Multiple Blondies, Merge Blondie/Lenhart

Blondie can be three different people: the generic Blondie, Miss Lenhart, and Mrs. Roberts (who only appeared in the 1337 series and 327: Exploits of a Mom). My proposal is to change Blondie's name to Miss Lenhart, but separate Mrs. Roberts and Blondie, as they are different people. Merging Miss Lenhart and Blondie would be similar to how Cutie and Megan were merged after Megan was named a few times. User:YZ100 00:57, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

Sounds good! I don't see why we'd need to keep using our own name when Randall has given her a different name. FaviFake (talk) 14:53, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

Hmmm... not a lot of thought put in here, before the mass rejig actually happened. The same person who is explicitly a Math(s) teacher in some comics is also explicitly not into mathematics in at least one other (and instead has a Linguistics degree under her belt). Wish I'd said something, now, but I was already involved in the above discussion and didn't want to cause any more fuss than I had to. Oh well. Done now. (Or at least the 'easy' bit, but I suspect the other page-merging will be happening soon enough.) 81.179.199.253 16:54, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

Well, that comic is particular because Blondie is used a news anchor. Iirc, Randall almost always uses either Cueball or Blondie to portray news anchors, and that comic had two news anchors so he had to use both. And even before the merger, the Miss Lenhart page said: "She may or may not represent the same character from comic to comic". I'll add that fun fact to the page though. FaviFake (talk) 19:35, 10 May 2026 (UTC)

I agree with User:FaviFake. The only recurring characters in xkcd who represent the same character across comics are Black Hat, Danish, Beret Guy, and technically White Hat. Miss Lenhart can do different things, and arguably it is possible for her to work part-time. But since xkcd doesn't have a fixed timeline, like in 1139: Rubber and Glue, 1753: Thumb War, or 2869: Puzzles, where people like Black Hat and Ponytail appear as kids, so it is possible for here to work as a news anchor in the past, if not part-time. The Miss Lenhart page says Cueball is used more commonly as a news anchor, and this could be because Lenhart works part-time. User:YZ100 21:12, 10 May 2026 (UTC)

I gave just one case, of several, where - similarly to "Rob is a Cueball, but a given Cueball isn't necessarily a/the Rob" - an aspect of character tied heavily to Miss Lenhart isn't one that agrees with all Blondies. My perspective remains that Miss Lenhart (when established as such) is notably as much a separate entity from generic-Blondie as Mrs Roberts is another, and we previously we had this decent distinction of definite-Misses Lenharts, definite-Mrs Robertses and all other generic Blondies that were neither suggested to be (at least part of the time) mathematics teachers nor hacker-moms.

Then there's the separate issue, in that same Meteorologist comic, that the Blondie/whoever (like Cueball) clearly isn't even really a News Anchor (part time or otherwise), and actual TV meteorologists/weather-presenters (even budding/probationary ones, who should have started off by being actual meteorologists who then are seen as suitable candidates to dip their toe into being a media personality) tend to be entirely different people from the journalists who present the news. The lesson is that justifying a positive truth from the the comics is tricky, but inconsistencies support various negative truths mmore practical

In the end, there's pretty much as much logic to consider all (ex-)Blondies to be Mrs. Roberts, instead. Or, as a better combination of matches, some are Lenhart and some are Roberts. (Or, a better-match/lesser-mismatch, would leave at least some Blondies as still 'only' a generic Blondie) Though the decision has been made now, so I was only here to point out some of the various problems invoked but apparently not even considered. 81.179.199.253 22:42, 10 May 2026 (UTC)

In 1985: Meteorologist, Lenhart has a Linguistics degree and she teaches grammar in 3229: Grammar. She isn't limited to just math, like how she teaches science in 3132: Coastline Similarity. Besides, being a math teacher and a mathematician are not the same thing. User:YZ100 4:50, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

You are of course begging the question, by insisting that the person/people with a Linguistics/Grammar background is Miss Lenhart, then using that as further proof as to why you are correct to say they are all the same person. Try not to do that. 82.132.221.157 13:37, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

Page for What if? questions

Let's make a page for What if? questions we all have and take some of those questions to send to Randall? This may also help revive the blog articles. Does anyone have any other ideas? YZ100 4:38, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

I think that Randall might be working on some other projects. Added a question onto User:FaviFake's page in regards to whether or not What If? will be continued in the future. tori :3^{talk to me!} 19:00, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

He doesn't really work on any projects like What if? 2 or What if? x10 anymore and the blag was discontinued. He works on the video series these days. But the whole point of What if? is for him to answer our questions. User:YZ100 22:43, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

Clearing up how to become a trusted user

As a new user myself, the tiny section on why you can't make a user page yet is vague and annoying. Few edits? How many? Who makes you a trusted user, what is the process, etc are questions that many people ask. Just saying it would be nice for a better explanation on how to become a trusted user. Thanks :) Black Hat's Hat (talk) 18:08, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

Not that it is my decision on how to approach this, I (as you can see from my non-username status, being far from being an official 'trusted user') prefer the vague nature.

If you define a line, then people will delibretely push right up to this line. Either in this kind of case where someone desires to get the enhanced abilities (for good or ill) and will do the exact minimum necessary to get to that point, or for limits of behaviour (such as being told "you may call your fellow forumites <beep>, <boop> or <censored>, but using <nastier word> is an instabanning offence>").

The actual criteria for page-creation abilities is not that difficult to achieve (and have been explicitly mentioned elsewhere), but is not just a single threashold. I might liken it to "it's better to travel hopefully than arrive", in that until the very point that someone realises that they have accomplished the ability to create new pages (any new pages, not just their own userpages), you have probably eased yourself into how the site works and appreciated its general construction and will then only create new pages that they have some amount of genuine justification for wanting to create (to save others having to clear up after some "Template:Cool, I can create new pages!" splurge, or similar...)

Ok, so it's not exactly a guaranteed method of getting a more considerate userbase, but it's better than automatically treating it as a 3246: Speedrun and missing out on the more general atmosphere there is to be had here.

Also, it doesn't at all stop you getting User Pages set up, right now. You just need to mention that you'd like them - as you maybe just have done - and any pre-established user can decide that they're happy to create them for you... if that's all you want to actually create, then you might never do any more and just continue to edit exactly as you're currently editing.

The point at which you realise that you can create new pages (you hit a redlink, by accident or curiosity, and get given the option to unredlink it ...whether or not you then go through with it) can then be just give you a fuzzy feeling and a realisation that you've 'arrived'.

...but, again, this is just my view. Having seen many new users, and come to admire many of those that stuck around and have done great things. I would gladly see you as one of them, even if I would advise against undue impatience on the way to getting there. Having checked your activity, I will say that you're not too far off, but I'll not enumerate exactly how distant that point will be... That'd be like setting up a finishing tape and encouraging you to recklessly sprint for it. ;) 81.179.199.253 20:49, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

Makes sense ☃ Black Hat's Hat (talk) 17:48, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

Thanks! This helped me create my user page! YZ100 (talk) 17:23, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

"It's 'cause you're dumb"

In another conversation, I said: "Why is Black Hat saying it? He's a classhole, so he knows a better way to insult than just saying "It's 'cause you're dumb." It would make more sense if Danish were saying it, as she was never given to be a classhole." I stand by my statement. Either delete it or make Danish say it. YZ100 (talk) 22:38, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

I'd go for deleting it. I've never understood it. FaviFake (talk) 10:38, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

If we are not going to make it make sense, remove it. Not only is it mean, but Randall himself celebrates knowledge in 1053: Ten Thousand. Change it to something else. YZ100 (talk) 00:00, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

It does actually makes sense. It is humorous. It definitely has a long history, with there being comprehensive discussions about this ten years ago, and longer.

But that's just my interpretation. Is the proposal that it 'just' be deleted (I'll let you work out how), or is that that you replace it with something else (ditto), whether that's someone else saying that, BH saying something else or a completely new scenario altogether?

Whatever your wish, make some effort to convince people. 81.179.199.253 00:59, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

There's been talk about this about 12 years ago. Check explain xkcd talk:Community portal/Proposals. TL;DR is that this was the original motto decided on by the original creators of this blog back when it was a blog, and was moved over to the wiki when we made the migration to MediaWiki. I would not be against changing/deleting it, but this is certainly something of great significance in regards of our history and requires a clear consensus within the community. tori :3^{talk to me!} 01:01, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

Logo and tagline changes

SUMMARY: We are changing 3 things: The icon: we strongly recommend an SVG logo so that it can scale correctly. However, if you can only create a PNG/JPG file, the image should be square and 100×100 pixels. The wordmark: this should be a landscape monochrome image (wider than it is tall). This is a graphical version of the name "explain xkcd". Please remember that the name of the wiki is all lowercase (or all uppercase), so do not capitalise the "e" or "xkcd" differently from the rest of the wordmark. This should also be an SVG, with a width of 124px height of 32px. The tagline: this is shown below the name of the page. It is currently "explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb" (Learn why). You can propose a new tagline in #Better tagline. ㅤ The tagline can also be shown underneath the wordmark, although this is optional. This is an example of a Vector2022 compliant logo:

We're planning on switching the default skin from Vector (V10) to the modern Vector 2022 (V22), but unfortunately, our current site logo and all logo proposals are designed around V10. V10 logos are generally a single large squarish image, which is why we have the name of the site in the logo, but in V22, you need an small square icon section, and then a separate wordmark section for the site's name.

This is also an opportunity to change or redesign the site's current tagline, "Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb", which has been controversial, since you need to create a tagline image regardless.

As such, we are now hosting a logo redesign contest! For more on the logo's design requirements, see wgLogos.

Please upload any logo proposals into the category Category:Explain xkcd logo proposals with the format "proposalname_[icon/wordmark/tagline]". We strongly recommend an SVG logo so that scaling can happen correctly. For example, you might name a wordmark image "AbbyProposal_wordmark.svg". If your proposal contains a full icon/wordmark/tagline set, give them the same proposal name, but you can also upload individual components if you want.

Icon and wordmark redesign

To see the current icon and wordmark proposals, see current explain xkcd logo proposals. To create a new proposal, follow the instructions:

HOW TO UPLOAD YOUR LOGO PROPOSAL: Click this link and click "Browse...". You can upload individual components or the entire icon/wordmark pair if you want. If you don't have an account or you don't have permission to upload files, upload the proposal at https://wetransfer.com and leave a comment below. We will upload it for you! In "Destination filename", give it a name like "NAME_OF_YOUR_PROPOSAL_icon/wordmark.svg". In "Summary", paste this text exactly: [[Category:Explain xkcd logo proposals]]. You can optionally also describe the proposal. Click "Submit". If you did it correctly, it should appear in this gallery.

I created a new logo proposal but I'm not sure how to upload my SVG to the given category. Can anyone help? I've uploaded the file but I'm not sure how to put it into the category. Here's the link: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/File:MorpheusProposal_icon.svg Morpheus (talk) 02:21, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

You just have to add "[[Category:Explain xkcd logo proposals]]" to the bottom of the page.

I should note, though, that the icon on the new logo will be much smaller than the current logo, so your proposal doesn't really work. Ideally you want to avoid having the sitename in the icon, because that's for the wordmark. Celene (talk) 08:39, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

I assumed icon meant the one that went on the top left of the site...what's the proper name for that? And is that one even up for replacement? Morpheus (talk) 00:32, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

The proper name is "icon", yes, it's up for replacement. As I said, the current site logo is designed for V10, which means that it's a large squarish image with the name of the site on it. This doesn't work for the V22 skin, because it's designed for the logo to be much smaller and to have the name of the site be in a separate "wordmark" section next to it.

Check out https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page on desktop for an example icon/wordmark pairing. Icon is to the left, wordmark is to the right. Celene (talk) 22:08, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

to confirm, the existing logo will remain in effect for users of Vector 2010? or, do we get the wordmarkless section of the new logo - Vaedez (talk) 10:56, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

Ideally the new icon-wordmark pair could be adapted for a square size, but I suspect we'll end up with two different logos until someone develops a better square logo. FaviFake (talk) 14:49, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

Maybe this is a stupid idea, and I don't know if this violates copyright, but maybe the Wikipedia puzzle globe from Malamanteau could make a good explain xkcd logo. It represents a wiki, in that the puzzle globe is synonymous with Wikipedia, almost certainly the most famous wiki, and it represents xkcd in that it is part of an xkcd comic. 97.121.204.141 22:22, 12 August 2026 (UTC)

Unfortunately the logo is really old and not great. We'd have to upscale it but it still wouldn't look great. And I think we'd want at least one of the characters in the logo. FaviFake (talk) 10:45, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

Before I went to bed last night I was thinking making a version with Beret Guy popping out of the globe; which could combine the wiki-implications of the globe with BG's manic energy, if y'all'd like me to submit that. 7amiþ moi · 💬 · 📊 17:35, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

Submit it! The important thing is to get every idea among the proposals, we can always refine it later UnfixedCuttlefish (talk) 21:45, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

I really like this idea! I actually had one similar to this, albeit a bit simpler, just a stick figure with a Wikipedia-like globe for their head. I made a sketch of it a few days ago and I'm actually working on making a vector version of it now! I don't think I can share images here yet but I'd really like to submit it once I'm done, though I will say I do find this idea more fun! AltaKarl (talk) 17:42, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

Please do! The instructions for uploading as a non-registered editor are at the top of this section! FaviFake (talk) 09:15, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

I haven't permission to upload files so I have stuck my proposal on imgur, if someone could do the admin for me :] The source file is SVG (which imgur doesn't support, happy to provide by another means if needed), and elements are traced directly from comics so there are licensing implications of that UnfixedCuttlefish (talk) 21:52, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

Submitted both yours and mine. 7amiþ moi · 💬 · 📊 01:12, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

i really love your design and would like to put my support behind it C: tori :3^{talk to me!} 04:37, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

Whose, Unfixed Cuttlefish's? 7amiþ moi · 💬 · 📊 05:13, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

Ack, posted the reply on the wrong message…I meant yours with the Wikipedia puzzle globe. tori :3^{talk to me!} 15:08, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

Better tagline

See the history of the current tagline and the opposition to it at explain xkcd:Tagline

Debate the tagline rename suggestions below! Celene (talk) 08:03, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

Tagline: "Explain xkcd. And then explain the explanation." ;o) 82.13.184.33 08:44, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

Love this one Morpheus (talk) 02:44, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Tagline: "Explainxkcd. Because nobody is an expert in everything Randall says."

I love your idea. Here's mine: Because no one is an expert in everything Randall says.[citation needed] YZ100 (talk) 23:19, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

Strong support (but use Template: Citation needed, but without the blue text) Velocifyer (talk) 22:24, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

Tagline: "Explain xkcd. It's 'cause you're just not Randall." Morpheus (talk) 02:48, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

(I don't have problems with the "'cause you're dumb", actually. And noting that I'm sure that you're not needing to ask for taglines to be SVGed and uploaded, but I can work something out for me and the contributor above if you want.) 92.23.5.92 19:27, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

Tagline: "Explainxkcd. Often misattributed to Mark Twain". - reference to XKCD 1942 (Memorable Quotes) 66.212.64.105 22:30, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

I kind of like "explain xkcd: [citation needed]" since it's the main gimmick of the site, but I'm also inclined to keep the original tagline Celene (talk) 22:51, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

i also don't have an issue with the original. however, if changing it is inevitable, i would favor the [citation needed] joke, but i think it would work best as a suffix to a sentence. (e.g. "It's 'cause your dumb.^{[citation needed]}) -- somefan (talk | contribs) 23:06, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

I would actually prefer "It's 'cause you're dumb.^{[citation needed]}" over the status quo ("It's 'cause you're dumb.") with the rationale that it's much less likely to be taken the wrong way (I don't mind the original tagline either, but I can't deny it comes across as hostile, because other people have complained about it before) and exemplifies our character as a community.

I think I mentioned my preference previously in the Discord. Really, there's nothing to lose, and everything to gain, by tacking a {{cn}} onto the end of the tagline. Eunakria (talk) 23:25, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Yes. I'm not on the Discord, but I agree with you here. While I don't dislike the current tagline, and I like the idea of a rotating tagline, if we're changing it and we can't make it rotate, we should absolutely do this.

Also, I will now be joining the Discord. RadiantRainwing (talk) 04:00, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

i'm now leaning towards this as being a good modification! i was thinking of something like that, but i can't see any how it would make the statement be more likely to be taken correctly (if also meaning "nonhostile"). my interpretation is that this just adds insult to insult (LOL), as ^{[citation needed]} is jokingly used by Randall in his books and blog when declaring obviously true statements, which i find funny :) -- somefan (talk | contribs) 04:28, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

Some What If? articles do use ^{[citation needed]} in this fashion, notably what if? 27 ("Death Rates") which subverts the prior use of the joke in What If?

[...] This means the death rate among humans who were not members of The Beatles is significantly higher than the 50% death rate among humans who were.

I expect this significant^{[dubious–discuss]} fact^{[citation needed]} will pave the way^{[citation needed]} for a great deal^{[dubious–discuss]} of important^{[citation needed][dubious–discuss]} research.

Also, you'd be facing an uphill battle trying to make the assertion that "people are stupid" in the context of xkcd, insofar as 1386: People are Stupid.

Eunakria (talk) 14:22, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

tbh for awhile now i've felt like the tagline would benefit from being a link to a page explaining that the tagline doesn't actually think you're dumb, it's meant in jest/sarcastically; i think my vote has to be for one of:

• the original tagline unmodified but the text is a link to "here's why this might read as an insult, here's why it isn't an insult" explicit tonal clue-in
• the original tagline with [citation needed], where the text inside the brackets is a link to the aforementioned tonal clue-in
• rotating tagline with the first bulletpoint as one of the rotated values, or if not rotated, a user preference to revert to the old tagline (i'd accept a usercss method of undoing whatever the new tagline is as well)

- Vaedez (talk) 10:42, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

In the vein of this, something along the line of <Comic Title>^{[citation needed]} may be interesting. I'm not sure this would work very well as a tagline, but maybe there is room somewhere for something that updates depending on the current page you are on. DarkAndromeda31 (talk) 23:51, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

What if we made the tagline rotating, like it is at mezzacotta.net? (example: here, then reload the page a ton) That way we can get every single reference and gag in there. If not, how about this tagline: "Explain xkcd: It's because you're not as smart as you're supposed to be.^{[citation needed]}" 7amiþ moi · 💬 · 📊 04:20, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

The rotating tagline is probably the best choice if it's possible. Foo (talk) 14:26, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

A rotating tagline would be fun, but we need a few good options. I've done something similar before, specifically a rotating tagline in the footer of Skin:Citizen with all of the options being mediocre puns. I don't know if that fits the vibe of this wiki, which already has its own sense of humor in article text. Eunakria (talk) 01:35, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

I'm minded of the "... histories of X an Y" postscript to Dwarf Fortress. Or, closer to home, a 2243-like way of 'mixing something up' dynamically, with but a little thought for the possibilities (possibly multi-path, rather than simply permutational). 92.23.5.92 22:21, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

One new idea: "I hope we've learned something today." (a reference to 169) 7amiþ moi · 💬 · 📊 05:52, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

Technically you don't need to have a tagline image (see the MediaWiki documentation wiki for an example of this) and you can still have a regular below-the-page-header tagline without a tagline image. Foo (talk) 14:19, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

To be clear, the wordmark (which will be displayed in V22 instead of a standard square logo) and optional revised tagline (to replace "it's 'cause you're dumb") are two separate things we want. Eunakria (talk) 14:24, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

^{Explain xkcd: You're one of today's lucky 10,000!}

Short, less insulting, and references a comic! What's not to love? DryPHB (talk) 17:30, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

This was one of the ones proposed in the original proposal; the main objection I saw was that no one knows who this 10000 is. (I like it though.) 7amiþ moi · 💬 · 📊 00:54, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

This is the best one yet, but it's not perfect because you still need to have read the comic in order to understand it. However, it's certainly better than the current one. FaviFake (talk) 14:07, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

I support this one as well. I think that the current tagline also requires some prior knowledge of Black Hat's classhole nature to not be offended. Capycapybara (talk) 06:42, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

I was about to suggest this as a tagline myself. I think it is an iconic and positive sentence that represents what we're about. Maplestrip (talk) 10:19, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Couldn't agree more with this as a suggestion and with the supporting reasons others have given - much more in tune with the ethos of xkcd and knowledge, in my opinion.

Not necessarily relevant - I get that this is an American site - but to British English ears, calling someone "dumb" I think is more unpleasant than it perhaps is to US residents. Although we obviously understand the American idiom, used in British English, it's more likely to retain its original meaning, and therefore equates people who cannot speak with stupidity. 87.115.198.74 14:10, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

I like this one! Addressing FaviFake's point that you need to have read the comic for it to make sense, maybe the tagline could link to the comic, like so:

^{Explain xkcd: You're one of today's lucky 10,000!}

What does everyone think of that? 68.132.88.17 23:06, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

My main issue with this one is that the “10000” in the comic specifically refers to Americans, while explainxkcd has an international audience. 84.226.147.179 20:18, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

I really enjoy the thrust of this, but I would make it slightly more explainxkcd-POV, e.g. ^{Explain xkcd: Nurturing today's lucky 10,000.} -Pinkgothic (talk) 08:55, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

Tagline: "Explain xkcd: Because jokes are funnier when you explain them." (paigefile) (talk)

@Celene, when is the deadline for proposals? 2601:600:9080:C6B0:CCFA:46D6:B28A:5D65 01:44, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

I don't actually have a firm deadline set but I'd appreciate if you could get it in within two weeks from now Celene (talk) 00:10, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

I like the ideas of rotating taglines and of course "lucky 10,000." A proposal based on [1], "Majors in the Universe". A second suggestion might be based on [2]: "Both physics and stamp collecting!" Ideally, we'd have a tagline that truly represents the wonder of learning. Maplestrip (talk) 10:29, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

ExplainXKCD: Overly verbose explanations for somewhat simple jokes Ciciinho (talk) 00:19, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

I think the current tagline is fine. It's a grade school level insult at worst, and I don't think we need to change a good tagline for something that maybe four people will get offended by. 2A04:4E41:3801:BEA3:0:0:AF8C:BEA3 01:00, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

There were definitely more than four people who were offended by it, see explain xkcd:Tagline. FaviFake (talk) 01:05, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

I do quite like the rotating taglines idea, this is a list of sample taglines I made:

• It's 'cause you're dumb^{[citation needed]}
• You're one of today's lucky 10,000!
• A wiki of romance, sarcasm, math, and language
• An xkcd for everything, and an explanation for every xkcd
• Overanalyzing stick figures. For science!
• Overthinking webcomics so you don't have to
• Robert'); DROP TABLE explanations;--

Celene (talk) 01:27, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

The first one aside, here are some:

• You're one of today's lucky 10,000!
• A wiki of romance, sarcasm, math, and language
• An xkcd for everything, and an explanation for every xkcd
• Overanalyzing stick figures. For science!
• Overthinking webcomics so you don't have to
• Robert'); DROP TABLE explanations;--

(Here are ones I added:)

• Randall understands his comics best.
• It's 'cause you're not Randall. (Someone else said this)
• Someone is wrong on this page. Help us fix it!
• Not everyone understands xkcd.
• Romance, Sarcasm, Math, and Language: Explained! (I found this in another discussion, can't remember which)
• Explained in Ten Hundred Words.
• Because jokes are funnier when explained. (Someone else said this)
• What if the internet suddenly didn't exist?

Also, we should change the icon because Black Hat wouldn't say some of these. YZ100 (talk) 5:23, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

I love "You're one of today's lucky 10,000" and "It's 'cause you're dumb [citation needed]", here are some more basic ideas for taglines I've thought of:

• waking up the sheeples
• enriching your search history since 2009
• because science is hard
• complex solutions to simple problems
• with questionable moral (yet scientific!) values
• 0 days since last cool bug sighting
• overengineering, overthinking, overanalyzing (or overdramatizing, if that's a word)
• science joke. you should probably move along.

They definitely need some refining, though. Till (talk) 13:29, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

I thought of some other ideas. They still need work, though:

•It's 'cause our code's compiling

•It's 'cause you're close to a cat

Capycapybara (talk) 12:41, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

"Explain xkcd: perhaps the second website you looked at this morning " 2A0A:EF40:512:2C01:4FBB:976A:1658:C7C7 21:17, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

"Not the website we wanted, but the website we needed." (The 'we's can be substituted with 'you's if preferred.

"Because Knowing is 49.998% the battle."

"Because your grandparents never had it this good!"

"The Internet's most esoteric rabbit hole."

"Doomscrollers vote it a solid π out of 5."

@McFlyDallas 2607:FB91:274C:89B5:AD2:257:6EBA:4DAB 23:14, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

Are any of these references to actual comics? Because otherwise I don't really think they fit the explain xkcd vibe. FaviFake (talk) 13:59, 12 August 2026 (UTC)

It seems most of these proposed rotating taglines reference a specific comic, so I think we should add a link to the comic somwhere in the tagline. For example, if someone doesn't know what "waking up the sheeples" references, readers should be able to get to the comic. But I don't want the link to be too prominent. Where should we put it? FaviFake (talk) 13:37, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

Perhaps in situ with the text, e.g. "waking up the sheeples"? (oh man do I miss template:Tq) We could tone down the link contrast a bit. 7amiþ moi · 💬 · 📊 05:13, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

Or maybe a hidden link? The text could remain grey but become underlined if someone hovers over it. Or it could not even become underline, but still change the cursor! So people who know the reference who don't hover over it won't notice a link, but the people who want to know more or to select it to put it on google will notice that their cursor changes.

Feel free to create template:Tq, I miss it terribly as well! FaviFake (talk) 11:58, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

For the taglines, those sound like good ideas.
As to Template:Talk quote inline, I tried to re-create it, but as you can see it currently just dumps the code out:

My suspicion is that #invoke doesn't work, for whatever reason; two of the dependent templates (sigh), Template:error, Template:Encodefirst also just spew out code. Can someone please check it out, and if it still doesn't work, @FaviFake, can you please delete Template:Talk quote inline, Template:error, Template:Trim, and Template:Encodefirst. Really sorry for this mess. 7amiþ moi · 💬 · 📊 08:08, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

No worries! I deleted all of them except template:trim, which actually works! FaviFake (talk) 14:45, 12 August 2026 (UTC)

Well at least it wasn't a total failure Template:emoji 😁 7amiþ moi · 💬 · 📊 17:08, 12 August 2026 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to a tagline that references a specific comic (whether it links to it or not), provided the joke work to some extent without knowing the comic. I do however object to the several suggestions that refer to Randall by name, since his name isn't very prominent anywhere in the comics themselves/on the xkcd website. UnfixedCuttlefish (talk) 12:38, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

V22 complaints

i oppose the changing of the skin. 2022 is much uglier than 2010. Lettherebedarklight (talk) 17:07, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

@Lettherebedarklight As I explained in EX:CPT#Editing improvements (WikiEditor + VisualEditor), we are not changing the skin for everyone, we're only changing the default skin, which will mostly affect logged out users to improve their experience. As I explained in that discussion, you prefer V10, remember there's a huge bolded "Switch to old look" button right in the sidebar so you can switch back in literally 1 click. Worth remembering that most of our readers are logged out or never touch the preferences (or even know there are preferences they can tweak), so it's best if we make the experience as welcoming as possible to them, especially when all it takes to go back is 1 click. The needs or preferences of power users shouldn't determine what the average readers sees. FaviFake (talk) 00:16, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

@FaviFake Can you add support for mobile devices? Explain xkcd appears uncomfortably wide on my smartphone, and Reader Mode removes all edit functionality and some of the formatting. HaruruChanDesu (talk) 01:55, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

if so, i would very much prefer this to not be automatic-detection (or at least, have a user preference to disable it while logged in) as i tend to hate mobileized interfaces and find them harder to navigate, and the 'switch to desktop mode' toggle doesn't always work even though i have it globally enabled in my browser - Vaedez (talk) 10:23, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

Seconded, please for the love of god don't change the default skin, it works perfectly fine Tux1 (talk) 06:23, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

It certainly does not "work perfectly fine". According to the WMF, Vector 2010 didn't match the expectations, was cluttered and not intuitive, and didn't highlight the community side, among other things:

1. The desktop interface did not match the expectations created by the modern web platforms. It felt disorienting and disconnected. Navigation and interface links were organized haphazardly.
   • Readers were unable to understand the purpose, terminology, and concepts of available tools such as the main menu, user menu, and page tools.
   • Editors found the hierarchy of the navigation to be confusing for newcomers.
   • Editors and other contributors wanted easier access to tools they used frequently.
   • Editors expressed interest in having fewer but more prominent ways to begin contributing.
2. There was clutter that distracted users from focusing on what they came for. It was challenging for readers to focus on the content. New editors were unable to use their intuition to perform simple tasks not related to reading.
   • Too much information density and navigational elements on the page made it difficult to focus on a particular reading or editing task.
   • Readers found it difficult to navigate the page and spent a lot of time scrolling.
   • Readers found it difficult to search for information that is relevant to them.
   • Readers wanted to have an easy way to view the table of contents throughout the page.
   • Character count per line was more than three times the recommended value.
3. A very small percentage of readers understood how wikis functioned. Many readers were not aware that the content they were reading was written by volunteers and updated frequently, or that they could potentially contribute as well.

You can read more about it at these pages:

• mw:Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements/Features/Limiting content width
• mw:Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements/Repository/Wikimania Stockholm research report
• mw:File:Desktop Improvements Report 2.pdf
• Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Deployment of Vector (2022)/More about Vector (2022)#About
• mw:Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements#Before, the interface…

If you don't like it, that's a different question, and you can just click the huge bolded "Switch to old look" button. But it objectively does not work perfectly. FaviFake (talk) 14:04, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

Vector 2022 doesn’t work on mobile devices, either. The lack of support for small screen widths makes makes reading Explain xkcd an ultimatum between straining your eyes to read tiny text and scrolling left and right and left and right and left and right and left.

If Vector 2022 actually supports mobile devices, please implement it correctly so that it woks on Explain xkcd. HaruruChanDesu (talk) 04:41, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Works better than Vector 2010 iirc but will probably want a distinct default mobile skin (and subdomain) like Minerva Neue Celene (talk) 07:52, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Vector 2010 actually has smaller non-collapsible sidebars, so V22 is marginally better to use on mobile devices because the actual content is more narrow and you can just zoom into it more, and most buttons are slightly bigger so they're easier to hit. But yes, a mobile-native skin is of course much preferable, but that doesn't have anything to do with the skin used on desktop. FaviFake (talk) 19:41, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

i debate the objectivity of your "objectively does not work perfectly", while conceding perfection is impossible, as this is a 1172: Workflow situation for me and i've spent a considerable amount of time wrestling with the "modernized" interface for usability reasons which i have not with the "classic". - Vaedez (talk) 10:32, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

If anyone cares, I subjectively prefer our current skin (Vector 2010) over Vector 2022. Then again I can change it on my settings so it's not too troublesome. 189.159.39.228 05:05, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

Here's something. I'm using the V22 interface currently, but not in dark mode. This is because, when I attempted to switch over to dark mode, I found out that the page displayed on the main menu is completely broken. The background is still in the typical 'light mode' style, but the text is changed to white, making it unreadable. DollarStoreBa'al (talk) 16:12, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

DSB, I have this code in my commons.css, which I think fixed this problem. Try it! 7amiþ moi · 💬 · 📊 05:01, 15 August 2026 (UTC)

Technical

Technical Technical issues about the explain xkcd wiki, including bug reports, site stability, or requests for new gadgets or features. Create a new topic!

This page has archives. Discussions are usually archived after they have remained inactive for a long time or they are no longer relevant. Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3

Please replace Cloudflare bot fight mode with something else, like anubis.

I understand that “View History” is very resource instensive on old MediaWiki versions. However please instead of using CloudFlare Bot Fight Mode/Super Bot Fight mode, use Anubis because it is way easier. It took me 30 seconds of CloudFlare pages to log in, because it discriminates against weird browser configurations.

Using Anubis works fine for the Arch Linux wiki, and it uses FLOSS javascript and does not discriminate against weird browser configurations. (most bots use chromium anyways.) Anubis acts as a reverse proxy, that you are supposed to have another reverse proxy on top of. (I recommend caddy, but any TLS terminating reverse proxy works.)) -- Velocifyer (talk) 12:26, 13 July 2026 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I just wrote a long support for Anubis instead of the Cloudflare solution, explaining that I see no problems with it (unlike as stated on Reddit) in various other places I frequent, whereas this system seems to not be working on Android (with latest versions of Chrome or Firefox both tried), right now I'm on Windows (Firefox) and it seemed to work, however (going via the same internet connection).

However, on posting it immediately went through (re-)verification and then brought me back to the Edit. And backing up did not give me a chance to re-post (a trick sometimes I have needed to use when Anubis has decided it needs to do its daily/weekly renweal at some time inbetween going into an Edit and Submitting it (the only real occasional problem I've had with that system).

Now, I'm rewriting this, just to see if I can post anything at all, leaving out some of the old post and adding these new observations. (Will take a Paste Buffer copy in case it seems necessary/possible to try again.)

I will repeat my thanks for actually getting this fixed.

I'll also repeat that the "500 changes, 7 days" setting in Recent Changes says "No changes uring the given perio match these criteria." - but won't go into my fuller analysis of this, right now. (If I can actually post, at all, I can better go into it more fully under a new Section Header.)

Anyway, let's give it a try. If you're reading this, it (eventually) worked! 92.23.5.229 18:57, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

I don't have Bot Fight mode on, I have Managed Challenge on, though, for certain pages. I'll try to see what I can do. Celene (talk) 19:18, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

Yep, it does work (under Windows), at least that time. (I just had it re-request verification, right now, so I had to re-paste what I had precautionarily paste-buffered.)

Hpwever, for additional reference:

1. Android and Chrome browser (latest version) wants Verifying every time I try to get into an Edit page, and sometimes on other pages. It's a 'Verifying Loop', the tickbox wants ticking, so I tick it, it whirs, then it goes back to the tickbox needing ticking, repeat ad infinitum. (Occasionally it gives me a "Why is this veritication taking so long?" page.)
   • As a non-Edit-page example: from the Recent Changes page (that displayed, at least with only 50 changes - see below), I chose a "diff" link, and it went into the Verifying Loop. I backed out and the Recent Changes page now gave me the Verifying Loop. Had to revisit the Main page to even get back to Recent Changes.
2. Android and Firefox browser (latest version, again) goes into "Performing security verification" briefly then seems to return to the page that I wished to Edit. (On a couple of occasions, it's crashed the whole browser.)
3. Windows and Firefox browser initially seemed ok, but seems to want it (reverification) more frequently than I think is necessary.

Noting that I went to the Troubleshooting page for the Verification check, very early on (under Android) and did the 'direct' test-check and it was perfectly happy. Not sure why it is less happy with explainxkcd, though I think I've worked out that the settings may have been made to make it even more Verifying for any page with "edit" element in the URI (I can see why that would be a choice), so maybe the site-specific Verification requirements has been set far higher than default? I'm just guessing. Maybe can be toned back? Not sure if that'll help the Android situation, for me.

Anyway, just giving more information, while I have it. 92.23.5.229 19:39, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

I just had the issue that the Cloudflare thingy is "eating" edits when switching to preview mode. I made a lengthy edit on some comic's explanation and before submitting it I wanted to check if it was alright in preview mode. Clicking the "Show preview" button moved me to cloudflare and after returning my edit was entirely gone. Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 13:52, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

Yup, had the same issue a few days ago. FaviFake (talk) 17:07, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

Made some changes to cloudflare config, should hopefully be much less aggressive now. Additionally, it should stop eating edits (it's now only on for GET requests) and should be entirely disabled for logged in users. If there continue to be problems, please let me know. Celene (talk) 23:13, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

Recent Changes problems.

So... going to Recent Changes gives me the expected list (by default, "50 changes, 7 days" and not-bots as a separate default. Switching (without changing anything else) to 500 changes tells me that there are no results at all, and that's how it stays as I retreat back down through 250, etc, until back to the default 50. Suspect that it's due to technically not even having 500 changes to list (in the current incarnation, perhaps ignoring pre-migration examples), and looking for the last 500 changes gets a "not found" error that triggers the "not found anything" error.

Additionally suspect that it's an issue that will vanish once there are 500 changes to be found. With or without the limitation of 7 days, or any other of the available limits, encompassing/excluding the search-set. So it'll probably work properly by next week. But, again, FYI. Especially if it's something that will still need active fixing. 92.23.5.229 19:39, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

New Users situation?

I think the old-site protections against spam-account usage are a bit more permeable now. See User:Geoffreydixon15, and one more of today's new users has a similarly suspicious "Hey, here's a link!" pattern.

All new users, so far today, also have name-patterns that look like random bot/patsy-concoction, like was never completely stopped, previously, but at least included a wait-and-post-count threshold before they could start laying down user-pages (and thus often never did).

But it's not like I can be entirely sure, just going by long experience, without wanting to test any of the limits myself. I now seem to have more difficulty making genuine edits, so I just hope that spammers aren't having a reduced amount of oversight. 92.23.5.229 23:08, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

Heya, this was fixed yesterday. New users now can't create pages. FaviFake (talk) 17:07, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

Editing improvements (WikiEditor + VisualEditor)

Hi everybody, I've made some improvements to the editor. We now have WikiEditor (the bar on top of the editor) and VisualEditor (this is only enabled on content pages, but you can switch between source and visual editor as you please).

Some topics for discussion:

1. Should we add CodeMirror? This would enable optional syntax highlighting in the source editor, which some people may want
2. Should we add DiscussionTools? This might make discussion easier by adding reply/subscribe UI
3. What non-default configurations should we add to the editor improvements to make it more suitable for explain xkcd?

Celene (talk) 20:42, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

I'd like to throw my hat into the ring and vouch for CM. To reiterate what I said on the Discord: it's negligible extra burden on the server (serving an extra static file that weighs in at just over 230 KiB compressed) and fully optional for the client. Not to mention, with wikitext being such a non-obvious syntax, highlighting helps a lot.

I won't argue for VE until the server load situation is fully under control. I haven't used DT extensively (requires MariaDB/compatible afaik, I usually deploy w/ SQLite) but it will probably reduce the number of Please sign your comments with ~~~~

Eunakria (talk) 01:37, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

Never mind, apparently this is a lie. StructuredDiscussions (fmr. Flow) was incompatible with SQLite, and is now deprecated with DiscussionTools as a replacement, which supports all databases (SQLite schema here) Maybe I should give it a shot. Less said about explain xkcd, of course. Eunakria (talk) 02:32, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

CodeMirror seems like an easy win here, it makes editing wikitext a lot less painful to read. DiscussionTools also absolutely sounds worth it given how much of this wiki runs on talk page discussions. To quote Sodium on the explain xkcd:Discord, "I'd appreciate DiscussionTools. I've gone 'hmm I maybe should write a comment' but then gone 'ah it's too much work' and moved on". I bet most commenters feell the same way; I certainly do!

On top of all this, I think it'd be worth switching the default skin over to Vector 2022 as well. I've been using it here for a while now and haven't run into any template bugs, everything renders exactly as it should. And it's so nice! The reading experience is much better with the sticky table of contents, the shorter line lengths that are much easier to read, the sticky header, and the larger search bar.

And if anyone tries it and decides they prefer V10, remember there's a huge bolded "Switch to old look" button right in the sidebar so you can switch back in 1 click. Worth remembering that most of our readers are logged out or never touch the preferences, so it's best if we make the experience as welcoming as possible to them, also to attract new editors! The needs or preferences of power users shouldn't determine what the average readers sees.

Given we're already shaking things up with the editor, this feels like a good time to make the switch and get everyone used to both changes together. FaviFake (talk) 15:47, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

There's a "switch to old look" link, somewhere? Can't see it, but I'd rather like to regain some of the old-style features/functionality from the original site's Recent Changes page, and maybe, I'm thinking, any retroskinning would help do that. 92.23.5.92 17:56, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

I was actually curious about this since I distinctly remember it being a thing. It was removed in 2025 but it's still a thing in REL1_43 and as such in the copy of V22 this wiki deploys. It's no longer present on WMF wikis, since I guess they're officially comfortable with V22 being the new default for everyone.

With that, it's entirely a matter of taste. Both are available for logged-in users and you can choose whichever skin you like. It goes without saying the wiki in its current state is not suited for V22 dark theme, but not many templates need to be modified. Mostly it's just swapping out old colors for CSS variables. This userstyle goes a long way toward making V22 dark theme usable (although the proper solution would be to modify the actual templates that use inline styles):

.skin-theme-clientpref-night .comic-content,
.skin-theme-clientpref-night .disctemp,
.skin-theme-clientpref-night .notice,
.skin-theme-clientpref-night :has(#Latest_comic) + div {
    background-color: var(--background-color-neutral-subtle,#f8f9fa) !important;
    border-color: var(--border-color-base,#a2a9b1);
}

.skin-theme-clientpref-night .notice2 {
    background-color: var(--background-color-destructive-subtle, #ffe9e5) !important;
    border-color: var(--border-color-base,#a2a9b1);
}

.comic-content > tbody > tr:nth-child(1) > td,
.comic-content > tbody > tr:nth-child(3) > td > span {
    color: var(--color-emphasized,#101418);
}

Eunakria (talk) 05:04, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

Nah, I definitely don't think it's "entirely a matter of taste". V22 is objectively more accessible as it adheres to modern web design standards such as the sticky header, sticky TOC, and especially the much shorter line length which is proven to make reading easier. And I'm willing to bet most explain xkcd readers don't have an account, so they won't be able to choose their preferred skin. Clicking "Switch to old look" is an extremely minor burden to place on power users in favour of giving our readers a vastly more accessible and usable web interface, imo. FaviFake (talk) 13:54, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

Alright, I've added CodeMirror, Echo, and DiscussionTools.

Also, while investigating why DiscussionTools didn't work on the Community Portal, I discovered that in Template:Community links there was previously illegal HTML in the template, I've now fixed this and DiscussionTools works now. However, it doesn't work on the transcluded discussion sections in the main content pages, probably I will just have the discussion section point toward the actual talk page but I have been feeling very under the weather today and have a huge headache, so I'm not doing that right now.

I honestly kind of prefer V10 to V22, although it might be possible to configure V22 to preserve the things I like about V10 or to create a custom skin? Will look into this further. Celene (talk) 02:05, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

Actually—thought about this some more and realized it was mostly the absence of a logo that bothered me and in all other regards I prefer V22. Unfortunately, our current site logo and all logo proposals are all designed around V10, and we'd need to update it to V22. V10 logos are a single square image, but in V22 you need an icon section (square), a wordmark section, and an optional tagline, (both wordmark tagline are much wider than tall) meaning that we'd need to separate the imagery and branding. Unfortunately, none of the proposals at Category:Explain xkcd logo proposals work well for this, but it might be a good idea to announce some sort of logo redesign contest in the coming future. Celene (talk) 08:07, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

Strange loss of multi-diff information from Recent Changes

With viewing the Recent Changes page via the URI https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Special:RecentChanges?limit=500&days=7&enhanced=1&urlversion=2 (thus showing back to 13 July), the latest change for the page Category:Cursed Connectors currently shows up as "18:56 Category:Cursed Connectors (diff | hist) +20 66.9.166.220 (talk)" (manually added links to 'diff' and 'hist' links, and minor formatting, these things being most relevant to this issue).

As can be seen in the History (as it is now, and even after changes you can scroll back), and also in the (single-edit) diff-page, the prior edit (in the same minute, by the same user, who was making a minor correction to their addition of the latest comic information in the Cursed Connector context table) did not appear in the Recent Changes list, which typically merges multiple (same-day) qualifying changes. e.g. in the line "13:55 explain xkcd:Community portal/Technical 3 changes history +2,033 [Eunakria; FaviFake (2×)]"

That's with the default Page-Style applied. Simply copied (with no attemmpt to add most of the formatting/etc) from the no-style version of the page, we have a line:

18:56 Category:Cursed Connectors diffhist +20 66.9.166.220 talk

...which represents only the second edit by 66.9.etc. Whereas the 'full' version of the 'compressed' Portal/Technical edits will display as:

13:55 explain xkcd:Community portal/Technical 3 changes history +2,033 [Eunakria; FaviFake (2×)]

13:55 (cur | prev) −395 FaviFake talk contribs (fixed! thanks so much Eunakria)

13:55 (cur | prev) +656 FaviFake talk contribs

05:04 (cur | prev) +1,772 Eunakria talk contribs (→Editing improvements (WikiEditor + VisualEditor): Add reply)

...i.e. the basis for the 'summary line' and then the component lines that get rendered hidden, unless and until further investigated/expanded upon by one of several different means.

Not that it wasn't easy enough for me to work out that I was viewing the Cursed Connector page having been re-edited from a prior edit, but... I should, by all rights have been getting a "2 changes" diff-page. In a similar manner to the "3 changes" currently correct (at least until I post this, when it will become a "4 changes" one, at least...) for this page's Recent Changes.

I have no filters set. And also it is not a Bot edit anyway, one of the obvious reasons to exclude an edit. And, as can be seen by Favi's double-edit here at 13:55, it should not be deciding to compress same-user-same-minute edits, even if it would have been a proper thing to merely ignore the first instance (rather than make it equivalent to a "2 changes" automatic double-diffed link) and present it as being an edit chain starting from an edit point that the Recent Changes should have also encompassed (i.e., given enough room in both limit= and days=, then everything back to the midnight of the day concerned).

Not quite sure what the basis is of this strange behaviour, or if it has caused me any problems in the past (by being given a truncated history of the "latest n changes" to a page that I'd have expected). I don't even know that it is not just a perfectly normal variation of behaviour that I have just been entirely oblivious to in all other cases. But it seems to be 'wrong' and not working as (previously?) advertised. But I document my findings here in case anyone else has either a similar concern or an easy answer regarding this issue. I'm also not excluding the possibility that nobody cares/considers it worth commenting about. Or that (for some reason that may or may not also be considered 'strange') it just isn't happening to anyone else anyway. But FYI. 92.23.5.92 20:43, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

Could you post a simpler TLDR without subclauses? I can't understand your question, if you have any. FaviFake (talk) 20:39, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

Apologies for not replying, to try to clarify it for you. I did not even see this update in the Recent Changes list. Which might have been my fault for just not seeing it, or else might have been another incarnation of the very issue I was reporting.

The issue at hand being that the Recent Changes list seemed not to have been displaying all the Changes.

I noticed this only when reviewing an apparent single change and it became obvious that the 'diff' was indicating that it was a re-edit of a prior change that should have been included in the diff-page I would have followed.

I don't know enough about the in-depths mechanics of the wiki backend to fully diagnose the possible cause, or possibly work out if it is my error in adapting to the 'improved' site. (Not sure I like this new inline editor, but... I'm giving it a go anyway!) However, from Celene's response below, it looks like I gave enough information for it to make enough sense to someone who does.

Not that I know it's fixed yet, but I'll take the confidence of that 'fixed!' reply at face-value for now. ;) 92.23.5.92 19:14, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

Specifically it's due to a weird interaction between a recent update to MariaDB and MediaWiki where writes get dropped sometime and then not retried. This is theoretically on MediaWiki to fix but they have not done so yet, luckily there is a compatibility setting that fixes this. Celene (talk) 21:57, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out! This should hopefully be resolved now. Celene (talk) 07:43, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

Template:template

I don't know anything of the decision behind this, but noting that Template:template is now redirecting to Template:tl, after one of many refinements. (On Wikipedia, it is indeed Template:Template link, hence the short-form name of the link, though it has for a vast majority of the time been just Template:template here.)

I would have thought that the practice should instead be that the shortcut term redirects to the full page, for all the obvious reason. But maybe I'm not party to some new thinking about this. Is this, then, something that needs to be done with everything else (e.g. {{Citation needed}} -> {{cn}}, or one of the other initialisms that may be prefered)? Or is it something that should be switched again, in this case? 92.23.10.248 23:45, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

Agreed, I had used the shorter form because it had a longer history. But you're right, and I moved it back to template:Template FaviFake (talk) 14:46, 12 August 2026 (UTC)

PSA: MediaWiki page IDs have changed

This will be of interest or concern to almost no one, but:

Doubtless as a result of the recent big rehosting shift, all articles on explainxkcd.com appear to have different MediaWiki page IDs than they used to.

For example, our article 3250: Flag Design used to have MediaWiki page ID 30166, but it's now 5110. You can see the page ID for an article (among other metadata) by clicking on the "Page Information" link under "Tools" on the left sidebar.

I discovered this while updating the cross-site links on Wikidata. For example, on their page Q140129320, the "explain xkcd ID" identifier shows the old MediaWiki page ID of 30166, not the new ID 5110.

Presumably the point of tracking MediaWiki page IDs like this is that, if the title text of a page changes for whatever reason, the page ID won't. Here we have sort of the opposite situation, in that the titles have stayed the same, but the page IDs have all changed.

But with that said, I'm not sure that's why Wikidata tries to record MediaWiki page IDs for its cross-site links such as "explain xkcd ID", after all. In this case, at least, it doesn't actually use the page ID in its links — it uses the page title, so the old link still works. (Actually, many of the older links have issues, for a different reason, which I'll be correcting at some point.)

I hasten to add — I probably should have opened with this — that I am not complaining here; I am not reporting this as a problem that needs to be fixed, or anything like that. This is an almost-invisible implementation detail, an inevitable consequence of the recent migration, of concern to probably almost no one. I'm reporting it here just in case there are any other oddballs out there who might want to know. —Scs (talk) 16:45, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

Yes, I've noticed this as well. When navigating to page that contains a [[Special:Diff/]] link, the target obviously doesn't work and it send the user to a completely different diff. But I don't think this should be changed; almost nobody uses diff links. FaviFake (talk) 19:37, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

Well, I have used diff-links. But usually for "oh, by the way..." Talk items or similar that have needed to address my own or others' specific edits (why I did something, or looking into why someone else did, usually). In the manner that I've seen others do it, 'cos that's probably where I picked up the habit! They have probably looong since become unnecessary comments only of historic interest, so I'm absolutely not concerned about them needing to be 'corrected' in hindsight.

Perhaps, though, if I'm remembering the circumstances correctly (haven't actively checked), some more permanent usages of {{diff}} may be in comics updated after publication/similar, where the diff-template may have been used to point to the exact-same-name-but-since-overwritten image of the old version for a Trivia link to what the pre-change version might have been. (Not applicable when the new image was uploaded as a "v2" different file, of course.)

It would be fairly simple to just check for every page with a usage of diff and review them all... with Comic Explanation pages as the highest priority. Most of the Community Portal sub-pages are likely to have many smatterings of "hey, <this happened>!" by people (like myself), but probably don't need trying to work out what they should now be (might be fairly impossible, anyway). Those sitting in Comic Talk and User Talk pages are probably not worth bothering with unless anything stands out as seeming important enough to not only dig into the correct number but also to deal with the long-standing issue that was highlighted. - In short, I also don't expect very many edits to arise out of any review of this situation. But maybe a handful can and should be, even if not the exact ones I'm imagining will arise. 92.23.10.248 18:57, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for tipping me off on this, it is *possible* I could find the original page IDs and do something about that, but it seems like it would be a complicated operation. Celene (talk) 00:40, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Yeah I really don't think it's necessary, there are much more important issues we should worry about, like the RSS feed. FaviFake (talk) 15:20, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Damn you're right! I think I have used a diff link at least once or twice in the Trivia of one of the Category:Comics edited after their publication. Someone should check those sometime. FaviFake (talk) 15:19, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Coordination

Coordination Page for coordinating community-wide tasks among the explain xkcd wiki members, such as the creation of new categories, the layout of explanations, and maintaining a consistent writing style. Create a new topic!

This page has archives. Discussions are usually archived after they have remained inactive for a long time or they are no longer relevant. Archive 1 Archive 2

File sizes

Hey, just noticed that a lot of the older xkcd comic files, especially the ones done by hand back when DgbrtBOT and TheusafBOT created yet, are all ___.png, while nowadays TheusafBOT uploads ___-2x.png files. Should we change the old files and make them all 2x, or should we just keep it like that? 42.book.addict (talk) 17:20, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

IMO (for what it's worth), leave them as they are. Anybody really wanting the _2x version (where they exist, as they haven't all got them) can grab them from the source site.

It's actually a bit wasteful to upload the _2x and constrict them to display at non-2x sizes (and not to restrict them will often cause Explain-page misrendering that needs resolving again), but it was a fairly recent choice made by Theusaf to change their 'bot to upload the _2x rather than the long-term practice of the 'standard' size. Regularising everything would be require one image upload and (at least!) one page-source change to handle the change and I can think of just one maybe good reason to do so, vs. several fairly reasonable reasons not to bother.

On balance, it'd be a thankless task, and probably create problems for other people. I know that, if you think you have time to do it, you might take this as a challenge... but I honestly think it's not worth it. Let TheusafBOF do its thing (and Theusaf, or others, intervene when it hits a new odd exception that breaks its purposeful current uploading policy) and leave the old stuff alone. Until, and unless, there's a legitimate reason to update individual comic images (e.g. Randall posted corrections; like prompted a recent re-upload, though that needed redoing anyway..!). 172.69.194.95 21:08, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Possible new "superheroes" category

i don't edit this wiki very often, but i recently decided to make a "superheroes" category since i was surprised we didn't have one already. i've been going thru the archives and adding comics, but today i noticed a bunch of the edits were reverted by one person with the reason "no such category". do i need to do something to get the category approved or were the reversions incorrect? 216.145.71.130 21:03, 29 April 2026 (UTC)

As the reverter, I'm suggesting that the way this is normally done is to notice the need and suggest that it is created, listing (at least some of) the cases.

While anyone with page-creation capabilities (not you, and not me) can "unredlink" the category, it'd be useful to make sure it's not just being created because of one person's vague moment of inspiration.

Not to say that you're unjustified, in this case, just that you hadn't gone any way to try to justify it. And it's better to do that. (The old phrase "better to ask forgiveness than permission" isn't really applicable here.) I'll happily help repopulate the new category, if and when it is decided to get created. Just it was being done the wrong way round.

Someone else mentioned that its name might need rethinking, and that's one of the aspects. Yes, it can be renamed, but still much better to be right to start with.

So I think it should be open to discussion... enough to convince someone else to make it a valid category, then start adding them back in again.

If I've picked them all up, BTW, I think the following are your candidates:

• 273: Electromagnetic Spectrum - (just copied from below, not sure without checking... maybe Superman?)
• 663: Sagan-Man‎‎ - "Sagan-Man", as per title
• 700: Complexion‎‎ - Batman
• 980: Money‎‎ - Batman mentioned
• 1004: Batman‎‎ - natch
• 1010: Etymology-Man‎‎ - "Etymology-Man", of course (In comic)
• 1012: Wrong Superhero‎‎ - and again
  • Category:Etymology-Man‎‎ - and his own category (of just two appearances...)
• 1384: Krypton‎‎ - Superman in comic
• 1394: Superm*n‎‎ -sprt-of Superman
• 1415: Ballooning - Spiderman in comic
• 1434: Where Do Birds Go - Superman mentioned in title text
• (Feel free to edit in any more, anybody!)

...so, along with any other finds, if it looks like we need Category:Comics containing superheroes (or similar) then your existing work hasn't gone to waste. 81.179.199.253 21:42, 29 April 2026 (UTC)

for archiving's sake, there's also 273: Electromagnetic Spectrum, 1415: Ballooning, and 1434: Where Do Birds Go.

1434: Where Do Birds Go has nothing to do with-- Oh, sorry! the title text mentions it. I have added where the superhero shows up in the list. Again, sorry! 14231423 (talk) 02:31, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

So, I agree that 1415: Ballooning and 1434: Where Do Birds Go have superheros and should be added but 273: Electromagnetic Spectrum should not, there is no superhero as far as I can see. I have not removed it from the list if I am incorrect. 14231423 (talk) 02:31, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

it would be nice to have character pages for specific superheroes like superman and batman (and, evidently, etymology-man), but "superheroes" in general is a topic, not a character. as for the name, it's in line with categories like Category:Aliens, Category:Demons, and Category:Sysadmins which are plural and don't start with "comics featuring". we do have Category:Comics featuring children, but it seems like an oddball to me (maybe because it's more of a meta-category for the characters page than one intended for casual browsing? dunno.)

should we continue discussing this here, on the character page talk, or somewhere else? i must admit i don't understand the organization. 216.145.71.130 22:09, 29 April 2026 (UTC)

The wiki can be a bit inconsistent, because it's been going for a while and not everyone has gone with the same 'house style' (which may have changed over time, too). We have Category:Comics with babies, for example, and also Category:Comics with cursed items. While there are various "Category:Comics featuring <named characters, both real and fictional>", which would have more suited Etymology Man and could (if we so wish) serve for Batman, Superman, etc, individually.

I'm actually fairly ambivalent, but I think that it should at least have other voices agree on which way it all goes. Saves too much after-the-fact 'corrections'. But you don't want to be talking just to me about this, so I'll shut up now, and await some of the 'big hitter' accounts to weigh it all up. It doesn't need to be done right now. A couple more hours, at least... ;)81.179.199.253 22:40, 29 April 2026 (UTC)

Responding to 216.145.71.130 I think thatCategory:Comics featuring children is named like that because children does not end in a s like superheros 14231423 (talk) 02:31, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

no response about where to talk about this yet, so i'm just going to loop the other comment in here. changing the name to be more indicative as well. 64.189.140.8 07:20, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

Sounds like a nice category to me. FaviFake (talk) 09:22, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

Seems quite relevant to me. Don't really see an issue with using the category name "superheroes" tori :3^{talk to me!} 16:31, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

here's the remaining ones i picked up:

• 1648: Famous Duos - batman and robin
• 1792: Bird/Plane/Superman
• 1848: Glacial Erratic - superman (title text)
• 1904: Research Risks - supervillains in general
• 1970: Name Dominoes - superman and batman (slightly up-right from the center)
• 2230: Versus Bracket - batman vs. superman and justice league vs. teen titans
• 2367: Masks - batman, spiderman, and mysterio (possibly scarecrow as well, no idea what his lore is)
• 2396: Wonder Woman 1984
• 3146: Fantastic Four

151.141.68.154 19:21, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

since there's been no further comments i went ahead and remade the category. if anyone with permissions can un-redlink it that'd be nice. 64.189.140.61 00:49, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

You didn't "remake the category" because, as you say, they're redlinked until someone has sufficient reason to unredlink them. That's not the way we do things here, as explained, or else anyone could do something like Category:64.189.140.61 likes creating categories and expect it to be created without any consideration of need.

I'm not opposed to the category, in principle, but the only reason I'm not (re-)reverting all those pre-emptive new redlinks is because it's too much effort right now. Which is not the best reason for failing to uphold such practical standards. Well intentioned as you are (and I don't know why nobody else supported you by instating it 'properly'), some here may see your approach as akin to vandalism. 82.132.237.108 10:28, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

I, unlike OP, have done quite a bit more preparatory work for the potential category.

See all the following edits:

*663: Sagan-Man, 700: Complexion, 980: Money, 1004: Batman, 1010: Etymology-Man, 1012: Wrong Superhero, 1384: Krypton, 1394: Superm*n, 1415: Ballooning, 1434: Where Do Birds Go, 1648: Famous Duos, 1792: Bird/Plane/Superman, 1848: Glacial Erratic, 1904: Research Risks, 1970: Name Dominoes, 2230: Versus Bracket, 2367: Masks, 2396: Wonder Woman 1984, 3146: Fantastic Four and Category:Etymology-Man

Note that I have done three things:

1. Chosen the Category:Comics featuring Superheroes variation, to match (among other more individually-aimed ones) the category name used in Category:Comics featuring major characters‏‎, Category:Comics featuring minor characters‏‎, Category:Comics featuring politicians and Category:Comics featuring real people‏‎. Consider this my official and reasoned suggestion for what the Category should be named. Subject to any further discussion on this matter (before implementation).
   • Yes, there are other inconsistencies to this. But then I'd also argue that Category:Etymology-Man really should have echoed the standard that resulted in Category:Comics featuring Kidball, too, as well the same (more historically or not) for Knit Cap, Cueball, Little Bobby Tables, etc.
2. I've added a 'category sort index' word, for grouping in the eventual automatic category listing. This is an optional extra, and I used "multiple" for those comics that weren't (easily) just one individual Superhero, but listed those that were involved in the next thing I did. If you prefer normal comic (or category) name-order, you could remove this pipe-option. Or, ideally, cut'n'paste it into any post-category comment just for editor referencing.
3. I have (where it seemed necessary, which is most of the time) added an apprioriate editor-'comment' after the category. Because I can't use HTML comments within HTML comments, I've rendered these with "(!-- .. --)" surrounds, which need fixing to use </> instead once the current commented-proposal surround is removed.
   • Note, im particular one of them... 1904: Research Risks, I think it was... where the comment made was that I don't think it qualified for Superhero, as it only references the concept of a Supervillain.

i.e. each (commented) placeholder should be easy to make into whatever (uncommented) implementation is agreed upon.

Now, please, OP and everyone else, do not just revert (or otherwise apply) a currently non-existent category 'in the hope' that it's correct and someone with an account will just unredlink it for you as a 'done deal'. Even if I were an account-holder (of suitable, no onerous, vintage) I would not just 'make it happen' without at least some proper discussion. Can't speak for what named-users might do, off their own backs, naturally. My opinion (informed or otherwise) doesn't have any particular weight, and it's still possible I can't persuade anyone (who matters) to adopt all of my own suggestions. 81.179.199.253 20:03, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

two account-holders said they approved of the idea. if this isn't proper discussion, what do you want me to do?

also, aside from flukes like Category:Comics with cursed items (which should be changed imo), the "comics featuring" name is just to avoid clashing with character pages: for instance, we named it Category:Comics featuring real people because Category:Real people was taken. "Superheroes" isn't taken; we don't have any character pages for superheroes in the first place. Category:Etymology-Man is a miniseries category, not a character category. (it has the same comics as a character category would have, granted, but it's not treated like one in any way -- hence the name!) 64.189.140.56 04:13, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

Speaking for myself, I respect both Favi and tori's opinions, and I'm even (generally) in favour of this category. But nobody who can make it so that it isn't redlinking (simple enough... by now, even you could have done it, entirely on your own) has done so.

My (and others', it looks like) point has always been that it has for a long time been a fairly matter of fact process to announce "hey, I think this, this and this should be made to have that Category", some minor discussion occur, refinements/additions considered, then it gets done. If it doesn't, it's because of lack of buy-in and nobody was convinced.

Some things still might get done far too hastily/improperly (various Category inconsistencies are 'obvious') and the Pages To Delete tags get rolled out (where page-renaming isn't sufficient), but Deletions are even rarer than Renames (in part because of the rights required to do so), and both are outweighed by the creation of instances of what might just be considered as 'personal pet project pages' by some. That way lies indefinite expansion and random 'forgotten' stubs left all over the place, so if I have one personally overriding attitude to this whole thing, it's that of caution. I'd rather remove a redlink (otyer than abset User and User Talk ones in signatures) than let it temptingly sit there inviting the next near-newbie to create it 'because they can' (as demonstrably happens with the User/User Talk ones, anyway), regardless

(I haven't yet even decided upon my own username that I might use, after maybe more than a decade contributing here, which probably tells you more about me than anything else. Can't speak for others still posting via IP, like yourself.)

This is not me 'pulling rank', I must add. I have no 'rank' to pull, by my own decision. I'm just a random IP (as are you/any others not named yet) who just tries to do my best to do what limited things I can do to make this site operate smoothly. It was supposed to be a simple explanation of the established community convention that has tended to work well enough, and was never supposed to become 'IP-vs-IP combat', and I really hope still isn't, despite our clearly conflicting drives on how to reach the same sort of 'final' ideal (minor details varying). And I've had my own fair share of "wouldn't it be nice to have <some feature>?" not going anywhere, which I live with because this isn't 'my' site but a community one. (A strange community, naturally, but one of the better ones, out of all those I dabble in.)

That's the long-winded reply only here to try to explain (my, at least) previous long-winded replies. I'll leave the whole "Comics featuring" stuff undiscussed (save that, by consistency, yes, if Etymology-Man had enough appearances to merit a character page, some rearranging probably wouldn't go amiss to do the same as "Cueball"!="... featuring Cueball", etc). It's not a full on "386: Duty Calls"-type scenario, but I thought it worth a 'quick' last note as to where I'm coming from. It wasn't supposed to be this long! Sorry for wasting everyone's time, though. Even the like-minded ones? 82.132.237.17 14:49, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

New series/category: "Obvious analysis results"/"Genetic testing"

I was looking through the doctor Ponytail comics and noticed that at least 4 comics have a really similar premise and ending:

• 830: Genetic Analysis
• 1839: Doctor Visit
• 1840: Genetic Testing Results
• 2620: Health Data

They start with Cueball being analysed or genetically tested, and they all end with an obvious result. Could this be a new main Comic series (especially the last three), or maybe a new category like Category:Genetic testing? Comic series sets out these criteria for considering a series of comics:

All comic series are intentionally created by Randall as part of a series. This is usually inferred from sequential numbers in the titles (such as in Stargazing), similar patterns in the comics' titles (as in xkcd Phones) or captions (Cursed Connectors), release dates purposefully deviating from the normal schedule (Journal), a partnership with other artists (Guest Week) or companies (A Smarter Planet), or Randall bundling certain related comics in one page (The Boy and his Barrel).

Also, there are likely many more comics following a similar pattern. Could you list any that you find so we can decide what to call this new category/series? FaviFake (talk) 16:08, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

New category: Alcohol

I propose a new category for comics on topic of alcohol and alcohol consumption (beer, wine, vodka, etc.), which should be a subcategory of Category:Food.

Proposed members (alcohol in comic):

• 273: Electromagnetic Spectrum
• 323: Ballmer Peak
• 518: Flow Charts
• 558: 1000 Times
• 617: Understocked
• 621: Superlative
• 653: So Bad It's Worse
• 696: Strip Games
• 826: Guest Week: Zach Weiner (SMBC)
• 915: Connoisseur
• 1100: Vows
• 1528: Vodka
• 1534: Beer
• 1645: Toasts
• 1649: Pipelines
• 1774: Adjective Foods (?)
• 1862: Particle Properties (?)
• 2108: Carbonated Beverage Language Map (?)
• 2437: Post-Vaccine Party
• 2661: Age Milestone Privileges
• 2729: Planet Killer Comet Margarita

Optional members (alcohol in title text):

• 2487: Danger Mnemonic
• 2636: What If? 2 Countdown

Optional members (only state of being drunk is mentioned):

• 589: Designated Drivers
• 930: Days of the Week
• 1506: xkcloud
• 1625: Substitutions 2

The list above is probably not complete. 37.31.42.127 18:44, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

Admin requests

Admin requests Welcome to your mother's basement! Problems requiring assistance from an administrator. User problems, changes to protected pages, obtaining user rights, etc. Create a new topic!

This page has archives. Discussions are usually archived after they have remained inactive for a long time or they are no longer relevant. Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3

Do you want expxkcd.com?

I did a thing over a decade ago, and I'm happy to keep the expxkcd.com domain/redirect working as is if that's what you want, but it feels... strange, and somewhat rude on my part, that I've been hoarding this domain when it ought to belong to the wiki. Would you like to have it?  greptalk04:55, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

That's you? Nice to meet you! I occasionally use it (a handy shortcut), though probably not as much as it deserves to be used.

(For those who don't know, BTW, a handy shortcut if you're viewing "xkcd.com/999", say, is to simply change that to "expckxd.com/999" and it brings you to "https://explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/999:_Cougars". Or whatever page you were on. Simple, but effective. Maybe even a good replacement for Googling "xkcd 999" and choosing the explainxkcd site 'result' over Randall's original? Anyway, I'm certainly very happy to promote this, for as long as it still works.)

As to handing it over. To who? We're a little short of active 'top level' admins, especially the person who owns this site's domain. (As recently confirmed, it's being renewed annually, but the person behind it seemingly isn't wanting to interact with us.)

If you want my, inconsequential, vote on this matter... I say that you're entitled to hold onto it for as long as you don't wish to abandon it for any other reason. - Though let us know if you do actively want to let it go, as maybe some (trusted, usernamed) user here might want to take it up. And better that than it expiring and being bought up by an awkward cybersquatter-with-ads place (or worse!) to catch me out the next time I or anybody else will use it out of (admitedly infrequent) habit. 92.23.2.228 20:40, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Mobile mode?

It seems the site now (it's been a month or so since my last visit) is only providing the desktop version of wiki pages, which are almost unusable on a mobile phone (need to zoom in and then keep flipping left to right). What happened to mobile mode? 2A01:CB08:82C3:1A00:989A:DBDC:903E:9CF9 21:21, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

Hadn't noticed this, but then maybe thats because I don't ever browse in portrait mode, if that's what you do?

As to what's changed, there's been no noted overarching changes to any 'publically visible configuration files' of this specific site over that time period, so far as I've seen. And no reason to believe that anyone's been poking around in the backend configuration files that aren't shown up as Recent Changes of any kind.

But I have noted that Wikipedia itself is no longer serving "m.wikipedia.org"-domain pages to the mobile browser, as default (though it is showing mobile-'optimised' versions of the pages, which I find annoying and seems even harder to switch back to serve 'desktop pages' if I need them). So I'm wondering if there's been some change out in the wider 'mediawiki' world that is used as a stylesheet/whatever dependency for the whole wiki-world family, even this rather outdated setup?

A secondary idea is that the browser has updated (for both of us) to render or otherwise handle the pages differently. I know I've updated both the browsers I use on mobile, and they never really explain the actual changes behind these updates. It'd not be the first time that something has been 'improved' like that. I've had to enable legacy settings, sometiems, in order to keep it working (vaguely) like I was used to when the update has revamped the UI in ways that I'm sure some people liked but that I really didn't. 2.98.65.8 21:54, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

Any change in the software, display, server, or MediaWiki version would have to be done by the owner User:Jeff, who is currently absent. 42.book.addict^{Talk to me!} 22:14, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

Why does everything useful need Jeff...

--DollarStoreBa'al^converse

21:28, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

Removing disruptive material

Regarding disruptive material, namely comments on talk pages that are off-topic, trolling, unconstructive: can/should editors remove them? Elizium23 (talk) 15:29, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Define 'disruptive'.

In general, we do not remove anything that is not vandalism, spamvertising or downright illegal. And while we may adjust the formatting of what others have written (re-headering/de-headering according to the needs of the page; a minimal correction of well-intentioned but badly implemented markup; moving around into an old/new alternate location that's more apt; etc), we don't remove mere 'nonsense' (that would potentially include a lot of comments, including many in-jokes).

If they're signed, then let old comments stay unless there's very good reasons for removing them. If they're not properly signed, sign them (either copy and convert the markup from someone else's 'normal' sigtext, replacing as necessary the username/IP and date of the actual author and datestamp that applies, or use {{unsigned}}/{{unsigned ip}} to do likewise) or whatever tidying up (moving things, adjusting whitespace) resolves the problem.

The whole Talk/Discussion page of a comic is expected to be less 'neat' than the main/Explanation. You can mercilessly rephrase, rewrite or even remove prior attempts at comic explanation, but the chatter about (and around, and perhaps even despite) the comic should be considered 'as is', every bit of it directly attributed as it is/should be to the various contributors responsible.

If you find that it's being abused, raise the issue. If I discover something that really shouldn't be there, I'll probably remove it myself. Or 'denature' the troublsome bit, if it's not all bad. If I see things removed for no given/good reason, I will as likely restore them. If there's a clash of opinions, I'd defer to the decision of certain named individuals (though most of them have been here for less time than me, I'm content to stay at the 'housekeeping' level, and leave dictating the (initially unwritten?) policy changes to others). 82.132.238.49 16:37, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Who is "we"? What you mean "we"? I hope you realize, random IPv4, that I am part of this "we", and my account is permanent, and I consider those removed comments to be disruptive. I also hope that you accept responsibility for wasting everybody's time. You are wasting everyone's time who comes to try and read those discussion pages. We are honestly sick of wading through crap comments that are spammy, or trolls, or just purely disruptive, and have nothing to do with the topic or subject, especially don't want to be arsed to improve the article with their suggestions. Just a long string of "first!!1 lol" posts is counter-productive and unconstructive. You restore these comments, because why? Because they are cute and funny and we're 12 years old here? I don't know. But you also say the "policy" is "unwritten" and I have a big problem with that. If I cannot refer to a written policy that will guide me in terms of keep/delete disruptive comments, then I will lean towards deleting, over and over again, because your shitty justification on the Admin Portal talk page does not constitute a policy, random IPv4 with no reputation. Elizium23 (talk) 16:44, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

"We", for me, is the community consensus. You are part of "we", but (like me) just one small part. And you are very new here, hence we/I understand your eagerness to enforce things that aren't actually desired to be enforced. 82.132.238.49 17:37, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

I am not, actually, "very new here", as I have been editing this explainxkcd wiki since 2021 -- that's five years, do the math -- and I've been reading explainxkcd for longer than that, and reading xkcd for over a decade. Thank you very much. YOU are new here, however: nobody knows what the hell you did before a couple weeks ago. Elizium23 (talk) 10:48, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

Wow. A whole five years. Or more, apparently... but at least we're not trying to apply the argument from ignorance to your claim. And yet clearly still unaware of so much.

Quickly checking (because I can, and I apologise that there's no practical reciprocal check for you to use against me/others of my ilk) 73 of your 129 edits, so far, were this January, after large gaps between any obvious 'active visits' before that. Suddenly you've been doing more than three times more editing in each of several consecutive days than you ever did in various other occasional days (even whole months) beforehand.

Making yourself felt. Though you're clearly starting to annoy people here. Even 'proper users'. If you want my advice, which you probably don't, I'd do more reading and less assuming. This does not mean that your opinion is worthless, but it does mean that you're possibly over-reacting and definitely overreaching.

Perhaps you're importing "standard practice" from a different site, where you're probably a fully upstanding pillar of that community. You certainly give me the impression of this, though you might as well have been just any new user up until fairly recently. Trying too hard. 81.179.199.253 19:03, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

The "we" who are "honestly sick of wading through crap comments [etc]" isn't so obviously something.

If you want my personal opinion, I could happily do without "First"s, and never see one again. But when a "First" is happily subverted, often in the very spirit of xkcd, that's become a part (and just one aspect) of our typical community reaction. In moderation, it's part of the glue. And you don't need to pay any attention to it.

If someone ruins the 'article', fix it. But if you look back though the comments to the many prior articles you'll find many things that (I suspect) you'd disagree with. Ask yourself: is it worth going on a potentially one man crusade, or perhaps you can understand why there is jocularity expressed in the discussion page for a (usually) humorous cartoon.

Similarly, as another example, the "incomplete, by a BOT TOPICALLY RELEVENT QUIP" header is never intended to stay there forever, but has been humorously subverted over time as its original purpose (filling in all the gaps in explanation) has dwindled. There's no rush to remove it (it was put there by the (struckout) BOT that automates the article creation, and doesn't even start with the reasons the nearly blank page is incomplete). This is more now just a community thing. I like to think that someone who checks in just once a week will get to see the JOKE added for each new explanation they hadn't read before... And, though most comic descriptions will likely never be complete (edits of even single-digit comic explanations are forever possible), I certainly wouldn't think bad of anyone who made de-Incomplete a comic of a month old or more. But it's a long standing tradition, that new readers perhaps don'tunderstand. (If they stick around, perhaps they will.)

Finally, like I said, I'm not living on my reputation. I don't care that I'm indistinguishable from A.N.Other IPv4. (Still, at least I'm not an IPv6, the scum of the earth! (/jk)) I'm not trying to claim authority here. I'm just the one who happened to check the site and found your query and first attempted to convey a bit of background knowledge, as you were good enough to ask everyone in such an open manner. Perhaps the next response will be from someone like Kynde (or even others such as Favi/42/Ba'al/etc, with apologies to all the rest I might have mentioned instead), and you will find their reasoned response less "shitty". I'd not be surprised to find that it's fairly similar to mine, though, so do feel free to insult them exactly as much as you have me, for consistency's sake.

Deleting "over and over again" is perhaps the least useful thing you could do, though. At some point there's going to be someone having to make a decision over whether the deleting repeatedly is better or worse than the restoring repeatedly. I've only restored things once (I noted, after the fact, that someone else had previously restored one of the things, today, before you deleted it the second time for me to then see that and reverse it). Once another 'username' gets involved, we'd both have to accept where it goes from there. Better a reasoned discussion than a battle, of course. Which I do hope can happen here. (The discussion, that is, not the battle.) 82.132.238.49 17:37, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

You want a policy to refer to? Please see here. 42.book.addict^{Talk to me!} 22:11, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Fully agree with the IP here. I've added your first comment to the FAQ and rephrased it a bit :) FaviFake (talk) 08:33, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

So basically, you have just now "updated policy" unilaterally based on a few people agreeing here. Three days ago the policy gave no prohibition on deleting disruptive material.

With this response and enshrining this into policy, you are basically telling constructive editors that you enjoy wasting our time. We have to read and scroll through absolute bullshit and nobody can remove it from our view, because you think it is valuable to "possibly preserve in-jokes" within the b.s.

You are utterly wasting our time and you are proving that you hate regular editors with accounts, and you care more about trolls and spammers than about editors who are trying to do something constructive here. You are wasting our time, our free time, our volunteer time, that we're trying to give to this wiki. Elizium23 (talk) 10:46, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

'Our'? Ok. 81.179.199.253 19:03, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

Yes, I've updated the FAQ, which is technically not a policy, to reflect the rough community consensus regarding leaving talk page comments as they are, to avoid future editors being confused by our talk page practices. Off-topic comments have been allowed since the literal creation of this wiki as they were a direct replacement for the comment section under the original blog's posts, iirc. FaviFake (talk) 16:52, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

I think I understand where Elizium23 is coming from. Official enwiki policy is that talk pages are only for collaboration, not for discussing the article's topic itself. The way I see it, we have a couple options as to how we can proceed. We can make it so that our talk pages are only for collaboration between editors on how to write up our explanations, as proposed by Elizium23. I am against this idea, as it prevents people from easily commenting about it. These so-called "off-topic" comments are much more frequent than proposals as to how to improve an explanation, so I believe that they should be held as priority. If we do go forward with Elizium23's idea, we can use the Community Portal. Either we can make a new forum, or we can use the Miscellaneous one. New topics/headers can be created every time a comic is created (by TheusafBOT perhaps? We can't really force Theusaf to do anything though and that'll be up to his discretion) and we can have archives for each month's comics. I don't like this because it is inaccessible, hard for people comment after some time, and requires more effort on our part to "organize" our discussions. ALthough the policy change I added is new, I would believe this is the consensus of the community. If you would like to see if anybody else would like to add their comments/opinions to this issue, I would be fine with that, given that we make a decision in a timely manner. 42.book.addict^{Talk to me!} 03:35, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Sadly, it seems that you do not, in fact, understand where I am coming from. For starters, I never proposed here anything such as you describe. You have created another strawman to set on fire. So if you continue to wilfully misinterpret your volunteers who are weighing in here, then that is your loss. I simply object to the material that is time-wasting, obviously disruptive, far off-topic. I do not know where else you would corral it to, and I do not much care. Nobody would follow such a policy "hey guys, if it's spam or trolls or in-jokes then post it <over here> instead!" That is a ridiculous expectation of spammers and trolls. But it is, evidently, expected for them to continue wasting our time. Elizium23 (talk) 09:26, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

The only way I see this is that you are insisting that we have to change the way we have done things for over a decade. You barge in here, make a couple edits to make yourself look like a longtime editor, then demand that we completely revamp this wiki. If you don't have a solution to this so-called "problem", please leave us alone. I see no consensus from the community that these comments are an issue, other than you. My comment was merely trying to find a way to implement a solution to your woes while still respecting the opinions of commenters. (please excuse my new signature, this is still the same person). tori :3^{talk to me!} 16:38, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

One of my personal mantras: Don't fix problems that don't exist. --DollarStoreBa'al^Converse (BLM) 16:53, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

Oh, I see, “because it’s always been this way” is the best way to set policy here. This is why your front page fills with pornography and your wiki has a constant stream of spammers creating new accounts without any gatekeeping. You are manufacturing a truckload of strawmen against me. Now, you falsely accuse me of somehow attempting to defraud you? That is idiotic and reprehensible. Why would I even do that. Just where did I insist to “completely revamp this wiki”? All I said is that I created my account several years ago, and I am, by no means, new around here, and you have no idea whether I have made edits without using this account. Compared to random IPv4 with 3 weeks’ reputation. Get real. Elizium23 (talk) 01:10, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

You're demonstrating that you are almost entirely unfamiliar with this site and its community. Do we have many automated spam accounts created, very much yes. Do we have those spam accounts actually spam us, very much no. Without wishing to be blasé about it, I suspect that we're getting the same amount of attempts to create bogus accounts as any other similar web-facing site, but perhaps foiled at a different point, so more obvious. And yet, the through-put of actual spam is far lower than a number of various other places I could mention.

The spam and vandalism that we get seems to be almost entirely from non-automated interference, for which there is never an easy blanket protection, and yet is often quickly dealt with either by the regular visitors' manual reversion or various automated addons of our own.

So please take your sarcasm somewhere else. You are welcome to be here, but your tilting against windmills (without even a single Sancho Panza to humour you) can get repetitive. I speak only for myself (and 'however many weeks' this particular IP might have been around), but I feel comfortable that the only generally arguable matter is whether I (or anyone else?) should have been trying to humour you in the first place. 81.179.199.253 14:19, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

Hey so did we reach a consensus on if blatantly disruptive comments and/or trollposts should be removed lol? I can't really tell because the discussion here kinda devolved into blatantly disruptive commenting. Eyetorus (talk) 05:51, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

Well, I think a reasoned response to an unreasoned (but not clearly written-to-be-wrong) one is better than saying nothing but being censorious.

If it's a genuine opinion, then there may be discussion and understanding, where "vanishing" it just makes them worse (and likely to arbitrarily remove things they do not understand/comprehend).

If it was a troll, they could just keep reposting, without logical refutations ever appearing next to their contributions, and anyone spotting those might be dragged into the rabbit-hole if there's no "yeahbut" response clearly demolishing the falsehood.

It's a tricky balance, though. And I'm assuming you're talking of comic Talk contributions (as you just removed an 'argument/counter-argument’ pair from one). The other issue of potential comic Explananation back-and-forths are best dealt with to acknowledge (reasonable) opposing viewpoints, instead of leaving the 'wrong' thing there and following it up with the 'right' counterproposal so that readers learn from the (potentially evolving) dialogue.

And we can't always agree on "disruptive material", so that's still a conversation that's ongoing. 81.179.199.253 12:19, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

Umm, yeah. Different heights of bar for Talk and within comic explanations themselves.

Talk is essentially chat, chat is cheap, but also free-speech (within various limits) should apply. And better "jaw jaw" than "war war". Nothing wrong with honest disagreements. Can always shove a complex set of arguments and counter-arguments into a sub-page (or a time-limited set, in the case of the 2016 I'm With Her discussion page). But you don't have to trawl (or troll!) through the full Talk page for a comic.

Discussions can be rewritten if you don't like a prior rewrite (too much, not enough, not the right interpretation at all), but someone else can have their own issues with your version. Be embracing of such things. Which can be tricky if your opinion is that what's there is too embracing of too many alternative interpretations, admittedly. ;) 82.132.236.209 13:44, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

That's

HELP!

In the (perhaps brief) period between Explain XKCD down times, I'd like to post a message to the Powers That Be: WE NEED HELP!

We have lots of problems:

• The system keeps going down, and if (when?) it doesn't happen to come back up on its own there's nobody who could fix it
• The comic for July 6 never posted, probably because things are decaying quickly
• We're running extremely old versions of the software (MediaWiki 1.30.0 from June 2019, and PHP 7.2.34 from November 2017), so there are likely bugs and security fixes we're missing. But, there are no active people with access to the underlying system.
• We have no active administrators, so there's no way for us to handle unusual situations (e.g. vandalism)
• We have no active bureaucrats, so there's no way for anyone to become an administrator
• Someone's paying for the hosting of this, but there's no clarity on who (Jeff?), and no way the rest of us could contribute to the expenses
• A new XKCD was posted yesterday, but there's no new page for it, probably because the system is broken.
• Even posting this message was fraught, as the system bailed multiple times (more than ten) before finally allowing me to post
• Even logging in seems to be broken, as I discovered when (as suggested on the error page) I logged out and tried to log back in. (I had to post this anonymously)

Hundreds of people have put thousands of hours into creating and editing the pages on this wiki, and it's sad that the foundation is decaying. We could use Special:Export to export pages, but that only exports the text, the process would be tedious and error-prone, and it would be difficult to get a new community anywhere near as strong as the existing one.

Please: we need any or all of the following...

• An active bureaucrat who can promote qualified users to admin status
• Someone active who has access to the underlying machine, and who could participate in a conversation about upgrading the software
• A way to back up the database and images so that if the whole system goes belly-up we have a chance of recreating it elsewhere.
• A way to support the hosting/maintenance of this Wiki

I, along with others, have been pleading for help for years. Is there anyone out there who could help? -- 74.104.147.14 01:16, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

There are some people working on a replacement which should resolve most of these issues (explainingxkcd). They are also trying to reach out to Jeff to discuss domain name transfer. —theusaf (talk) 01:32, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

"We have no active administrators, so there's no way for us to handle unusual situations (e.g. vandalism)"

...not strictly true. Even I, a humble IP, can deal with much of the vandalism (which is actually not that unusual). And have done.

What you're probably talking about is unusual situations which are likely not intended as direct vandalism (more probably accidental damage, even by legitimate actions, or damage as the result of carelessness by someone trying to do something else priblematical), which does indeed need anything up to a superuser-level of access to the server.

As to your other points, nothing really there that hasn't already been discussed beforez as you note. I feel your angst for the situation, but the things actually being done to overcome this were already happening before your post. Jeff seems to have been stirred enough to fix the things that only Jeff can fix, several whole-site copies have already heen made (possibly causing some of the timeout problems we've recently had, ironically) and if the full migration to one or other of these mirrors occurs then it was due to the urgency reaching a peak at the start of the week. I can only suggest "watch this space" (or, perhaps if things go sour again before they get 'fully fixed', some of the other spaces set up by other offshoots of the community).

Basically, Patience padawan... The wheels are turning, or perhaps are even being created in order that they may eventually turn. There's already several "it's broke, so I'll bring it back to life my own way!" efforts been started, though I think we might possibly have had just the one declared as the hopeful continuation effort. (Which, as theusaf says, may end up eventually looking seemless. Except, perhaps, for updating the effective wiki-engine so that ancient bugs are finally squished and we instead only need to worry about the inevitablevtotally new vulnerabilities.)

If and when we get a full transfer, though, do expect 'new' old problems. I can imagine them not quite managing to prevent the new-user spam. e.g. note the hhigh background rate of user account creation on this server, probably automated, most of which then seem to be successfully prevented from posting their automated spamvertising. As soon as "explainingxkcd" becomes a similar target (if they don't stick to account-creation-by-email), or 'answers' to the traditional flow of scripted traffic still aimed at "explainxkcd", I'm hoping that they already have the script-stopping resources in place to similarly bar new-user-spamming like that. Otherwise the place will be covered in the unblocked stuff (perhaps some gets undone again by theusafBOT’s efforts, the rest is down to the rest of us, as per usual).

But ke sera, sera... I can only guess where we go from here. Possibly it's an educated guess, but it could still be utterly wrong. 82.132.236.148 11:19, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

(It was I who posted the "HELP" anonymously; I've managed to login since then.) Excellent news. Add me to the list of people willing to help, and thanks. -- Dtgriscom (talk) 12:43, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Congratulations to User:42.book.addict and User:ToasterLightning on their recent ascension:
User rights log
This is a log of changes to user rights.
01:26, 11 July 2026 Jeff (talk | contribs) changed group membership for 42.book.addict from (none) to administrator
21:58, 10 July 2026 Jeff (talk | contribs) changed group membership for ToasterLightning from (none) to administrator
Although things seem to be more stable around here lately so I don't know exactly what's going on. JohnHawkinson (talk) 02:36, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

Seeking edit-war adjudication.

Leaving it (at least, myself leaving it) at this point, with apologies for reverting the reverted reverting reversions already, I believe that we have someone who is just messing around and does not even have a legitimate reason.

Note that I restored some aspects of the Talk page that... did not 'add much' to the conversation. I did that as a matter of principle (they weren't against any of the stricter rules, though I wouldn't have written them myself). I'm willing to defer to "they're better off not there" opinions at an Admin-level (or, at the very least, a named-user of long standing), but the irony of an IP user having to complain over another IP user's choice of edits is not lost on me, even if I feel I have the higher (or at least above sea-level) ground, in this case.

What's betting that, by the time I post this, the edit linked above has been re-reverted? Not going to edit-war directly on that, any more, though happy to discuss this. Either with the other party, if they care to, or anybody tangibly more authoritative who might wish for an open dialogue about it. But I'm cooling myself off, so it'll be tomorrow before I can respond to any responses. By which point, naturally, it may well be moot. 92.23.5.92 00:33, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

Likewise, I have tried a number of times to reinstate deleted comments on that page, and to engage with the deleter, both through the edit log and through the comments themselves, to no effect. I would note that while some of the comments they've deleted are arguably of a comedy / attention-seeking nature that doesn't add much to the discussion, others are more substantial, and it doesn't even seem to be the same ones each time, which is more suggestive of vandalism than a reasoned attempt to remove content they don't think should be there. 82.13.184.33 08:28, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

Add autoconfirmed permissions

Hello! I have a logo design proposal for the contest, but I can't upload the file since I don't have the autoconfirmed user right. Could someone give it to me? I used to IP edit so I'm not as much of a newcomer as I seem to be. (Also, the current autoconfirmed criteria, 1 week and 50 edits, seem really high; on Wikipedia they're just 4 days and 10 edits.) Foo (talk) 14:14, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

@Foo I don't seem to be able to assign rights to other users, but if you upload the logo to a iimage hosting site like imgur.com we can upload it for you! FaviFake (talk) 00:00, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

News Feed

If explainxkcd has a newsfeed, my news reader (NetNewsWire) cannot find it. If one does not exist could you add a newsfeed to the website? RSS is probably the simplest. Inquirer (talk) 04:13, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

Inquirer We have an RSS feed, but it's currently broken. Read explain xkcd:Community portal/Technical/Archive 3#RSS FEED for more. It'll pop back into the left sidebar once it works again. FaviFake (talk) 19:41, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

3284 was updated to fix the eggcorn

Randall recently updated 3284 to replace "reign" with "rein". Can someone who has file overwrite rights change the current image to the new one? Thanks! 7amiþ moi · 💬 · 📊 05:19, 14 August 2026 (UTC)