explain xkcd:Community portal/Proposals/Archive 4

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

Visual Editor?

I, being a nerd in high school, edit on more than just this wiki. For example, I edit on Wikipedia. On Wikipedia, the default editing mode is a visual editor, which automatically converts your wikitext into the final product in real time. It's useful on many levels, and would save all of us a lot of time (I've spent at least 2 hours total fixing broken wikitext). I feel that using this tool would increase overall productivity in the wiki, and probably lessen the amount of people who are intimidated when attempting to edit, allowing more people to join and contribute to the community. --DollarStoreBa'al^ConverseMy life choices 22:43, 7 August 2025 (UTC)

Good luck telling that to jeff! --FaviFake (talk) 12:22, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

Ugh. Well, he's gotta come back eventually, right? He's paying for the domain, after all. --DollarStoreBa'al^ConverseMy life choices 16:43, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

Or maybe he just forgot and we actually don't want him to come back. Who knows! --FaviFake (talk) 16:45, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

Name one person who wants Jeff to just not come back. Either way, I want him back, and I suggested this just in case. This would also be really cool for me, as I joined after jeff's last known user page edit in 2018. --DollarStoreBa'al^ConverseMy life choices 23:31, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

Jeez that was a joke. Ofc I want him back lol. FaviFake (talk) 20:09, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

still no response from Jeff or any of his friends on: Reddit, X/Twitter; GitHub; Bluesky; Mastodon; and email. Oh, and I asked some person on YouTube with the username lcarsos (as in the other 'crat on here) but I think that he deleted my comment on his video (multiple times). (just a little fyi) 42.book.addict^{Talk to me!} 18:17, 19 August 2025 (UTC)

Does he even remember this? Maybe they all got struck by lightning at the same time while calling someone who just sneezed and saying 'bless you'. --DollarStoreBa'al^converse 16:28, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

Unicode emoji support

This suggestion was made in response to the discussion above. I was completely unable to realize that FaviFake was joking. I feel that Unicode emojis would drastically improve the wiki and allow for more detailed conveyance of thoughts and feelings, and prevent catastrophic misunderstandings not unlike the one above. Other people have insulted me due to the fact that I was unable to convey enough emotion. --DollarStoreBa'al^ConverseMy life choices 17:18, 19 August 2025 (UTC)

Text-only media, like this, always has the issue of not being understood, but if someone forgets (or consciously declines) to put a "/s" or ";)" in there, they'll probably also not add an emoji.

Of course, one person's very dry humour might go so far over the head of another person that not even a strong hint helps, whereas another's sense of fun might be so obvious that gilding the lilly even sends the wrong message about it. 92.23.2.228 20:03, 19 August 2025 (UTC)

I don't understand your suggestion. 😕 The site appears to allow such emojis to be included; I just copied and pasted. There's also the HTML entity option, e.g. 😕. 😕 Or are you asking that the site include code to make it easier to insert emojis? BunsenH (talk) 16:57, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

Custom User-based Signature Template

DollarStoreBa'al and I came up with a pretty interesting idea: a template called "sig" that can hold the signatures of other users. This is to allow users to have signatures longer than 255 characters, which is the hard limit set by MediaWiki. To call the template, we can use {{sig|User:XYZ}} and encode the template with wikitext so that each user's signature can be pasted in without confusion. To make things even easier, users can adjust their signatures in Preferences to call this template so that the 4 tildes (~~~~) can still be employed. If enough positive feedback is received, I would love to work on it with the community. If anybody is interested in helping out, please mention it! The template could also function as a signature museum, where you can view other user's custom signatures and get inspiration. 42.book.addict^{Talk to me!} 16:50, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

Update. I have found another solution. By creating a sig page, you can call {{User:XYZ/sig}}, which enables you to literally copy-paste whatever's in that page into another page. This was first discovered, I believe, by User:Omega. I don't believe we need the template anymore, but the signature museum would still be cool! 42.book.addict^{Talk to me!} 19:10, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

Not quite sure what it will do. Seems to me that for instance you and DollarStoreBa'al^converse already have very advanced signatures (using Dollar's here as another example). My own preferences would be a normal signature, where it is easy to see who has made the comment and where the links takes me... But since you can already make this complicated signatures anyway, I'm not as such opposed to the idea. Am I correct in assuming I need to do something in order for this to be possible as the only active admin at the moment? As I will not come by here regularly, then let me know when there has been some relevant activity. Not just a reply to these questions here. But once some other than you two has chimed in. Else I might forget to come back to look! (I wrote this and then had an edit conflict with 42. So maybe this is not relevant anymore? But I will post it now none the less. But this was as a reply to the first proposal) Kynde (talk) 19:16, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

Hi Kynde. Yes, I believe that we don't need your assistance anymore. The need for a template is erased by the existence of /sig pages, and we can create a museum by ourselves. Thanks for trying and chiming in, though! 42.book.addict^{Talk to me!} 19:18, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

I do believe the template would work fine... that way it wouldn't show the full wikitext of the signature. --DollarStoreBa'al^converse 19:46, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

bad bad bad bad idea, the sig character limit is 255 for a reason, see WP:SIGLENGTH.

a sig template is an even worse idea, because every instance of it will call #ifexist, an expensive parser function. these make a page take even longer to load, which this wiki definitely does not need. also, expensive fucntions are capped at 500, so you're making a maximum of 500 signatures (not counting other templates). raeb 04:50, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

As well as the WP:SIGLENGTH bit, if anybody actually cares about the precedent set by 'mother Wikipedia' then various other dos-and-don'ts from Wikipedia:Signatures might well apply to some extant personal signatures, from the "don't make it look like it's not your signature" through to being inconsiderate of the colour-blind and those otherwise vision-limited.

It also gives some nice demonstrations of what can be done (within reason). Though I still say that just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should. "Looks complicated, codes simply" would be my suggestion. Elegance of spirit, not a bloomin' juggernaut, if you're inclined to take my advice at all. You can still use personally distinctive signatures, and probably should. (Though, quite possibly, by the middle of next week, half the latest Talk comments are going to have orange-background. Don't care about that possibility, as much as I's like having vaguely recognisable namepage and timestamp bits to it that don't take effort to discern properly either when rendered or in raw code.) I have simple tastes, perhaps more than others... 82.132.247.193 05:45, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

Fully agree with raeb here, the last thing we need is more server load.

If you transclude them, then there's the server load and maximum transclusion problem.
If you substitute the template each time, the issue of hard-to-parse editing views gets worse. It's already annoying having to mentally "remove" your html codes when adding a comment, and we also don't have the VE, which would hide the code. FaviFake (talk) 13:52, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

I got edit conflicted, dangit. Anyway, both your complaints are either invalid or could easily be solved. The #ifexist limit could easily be bypassed if we simply delete the signatures of people who haven't contributed in, say, 6 months. The wikitext complaint is also invalid. Using the template as a signature would simply show {{User:XYZ/Sig}}, not the wikitext required to display the signature.' Sincerely, --DollarStoreBa'al^converse 14:14, 3 September 2025 (UTC)

Hi

simply delete the signatures of people who haven't contributed in, say, 6 months

What?!

Also, my 1st point wasn't mainly about #ifexist but about server load. It's as if you were adding the amount of code roughly equivalent to {{incomplete}} to every single page you commented on, multiple times on the same page. This absolutely causes a ton of unnecessary server load. Imagine adding {{incomplete}} hundreds of times to dozens and dozens of talk pages across the entire wiki. The software needs to keep all of them up-to-date. FaviFake (talk) 16:47, 3 September 2025 (UTC)

What's wrong with deleting signatures? They can just make a new one, and 6 months seems like a good cutoff for 'they aren't coming back.' I know Tori was away for more than 6 months, she's an exception. The server load is an issue though. Maybe we need to wait for that until Jeff is able to fix the current server issues. --DollarStoreBa'al^converse 17:26, 3 September 2025 (UTC)

I randomly drop in every 6–12 months, for what it's worth. Maplestrip (talk) 13:52, 5 September 2025 (UTC)

Why penalize people who only occasionally contribute? What does it buy us? -- Dtgriscom (talk) 17:49, 3 September 2025 (UTC)

DSB, the Template is a horrible idea, ok? I slept on it and after further reflection, it really doesn't add much. People can always subst in signatures through <nowki>{{_}}</nowki>, and it'll also strain the server way too much. There's also a reason why sigs are capped at 255 characters-it'll become impossible to read talk pages if everyone had hulking 1000+ character sigs (like the one that I created). Please stop fixating so much on this specific idea. Also, it is quite rude to penalize people who only occasionally edit (and I don't want to be a special case or something like that-please stop treating me as some godly figure who is better than everyone else.) 42.book.addict^{Talk to me!} 19:02, 3 September 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, you're right. The 255 character limit stands. Thread over, back to explaining. --DollarStoreBa'al^converse 14:46, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

Explain XKCD Discord/Social Media Server?

I was experiencing Cloudflare errors in the past 24 hours that had prevented me from accessing this website. It's working now, but I'm worried that something else would happen again. Would anybody be interested in organizing a group chat/server or something of the like outside of Explain XKCD? I would personally love if it was on Discord, as it's easy to use, convenient, is built great, and I use it often. If anybody else has suggestions, I'd be open to hear them! 42.book.addict^{Talk to me!} 20:24, 12 September 2025 (UTC)

Me too. It greatly worried me. If you want, I can set up a discord server. Personally, I prefer discord as it's very simple and has a clean interface. Again, only if you're interested. --DollarStoreBa'al^converse 15:38, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

Here you go! 42.book.addict^{Talk to me!} 00:38, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

NICE! I wonder if we should message Kynde and see if he'll add it to the global messages. The more people, the better. --DollarStoreBa'al^converse 01:17, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

I didn't want to influence your original choice, but it would have been nice if you'd have chosen something less 'commercial', as a platform. Hope it helps, just don't forget about everyone else! 82.132.238.131 09:07, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

Discord is free. I feel it should be easy for everybody to join, even if they didn't already have discord. --DollarStoreBa'al^converse 12:53, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

"Freemium" would be a better description, with all the Nitro-mandating stuff. But I already deleted my more specific past observations about all that. And see no point in resurrecting my original Discord presence as you probably can do more chatting about the rest of us without too many random strangers like me turning up, whatever the other IP-onlies decide to do. ;) 82.132.246.82 17:18, 17 September 2025 (UTC)

Updating the global message board

Moved from User_talk:Kynde#Updating_the_global_message_board FaviFake (talk) 19:40, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

I am excited to announce that explainxkcd now has a discord server! I was wondering if you could add it to the global message board (idk what it's called, actually. The one with the incomplete explanations message.) to include the discord invite link? The more people who join, the better, just in case cloudflare decides to have those issues again. --DollarStoreBa'al^converse 13:01, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

Hi. you did not include the link? Also I would like to know if other frequent editors think this is a great idea? Not all who edit here wish to be contactable on other platforms. I do understand where you wish the message to be though, and if this is a good idea we can put it there. I'm not certain what other people thinks though? --Kynde (talk) 13:12, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

I, for one, think it's a good idea. It's managed by Tori, so it's in very good hands. The only thing I'm afraid of is that discussions may not take place here, but I don't think that's enough of a reason not to promote it.

The link is at User:42.book.addict, in the second notice. I think we should say something like

In case this site goes down, we have created a Discord server as an emergency form of communication. (link)

We aren't "excited to announce" a backup form of communication. Discussions must be public, not on external sites. This is merely a backup. I think it can then be removed from the sitenotice after a month or less, and mentioned on another page somewhere else, discretely. FaviFake (talk) 15:23, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for chiming in FaviFake. Can you find a good place for this, because I would like to link to a local page from the sitenotice. I do realize that people will have to go to this discord before problems arises, but I guess that is the way it ism and that wont change no matter how we announce it. --Kynde (talk) 15:49, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

But 42 does intend for this to be used as "a fun place to connect with each other". Leaving it discrete would make it impossible for this to happen, because people won't see it. Also, for the record, FaviFake, 42 and I were. Multiple people. Me and her. That's how the English language works. --DollarStoreBa'al^converse 16:41, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

Yes you two are the ones who wishes for it and FaviFake was the first to chime in. Don't patronize me please! --Kynde (talk) 16:44, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

I have no idea what you're saying regarding the "English language", but please refrain from saying... whatever that was.

But 42 does intend for this to be used as "a fun place to connect with each other"

Could you stop talking on behalf of 42? I believe you've been asked many times not to do that. You can either tell us what you think, or let others speak for themselves. 42 isn't a goddess and is able to engage in this conversation without someone "defending" her opinions.

I'll create explain xkcd:Discord but need to think more about how this is supposed to be pitched. I do not want people to be incentivised to use a private, inaccessible discord server to, for example, talk about the newest comic. --FaviFake (talk) 19:32, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

I moved this discussions back here because it's relevant to the entire wiki, not just Kynde' talk.

Moved from User_talk:Kynde#Updating_the_global_message_board FaviFake (talk) 19:40, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

Sorry, I was just trying to simultaneously defend both of our opinions and state the facts. Also, thank you to FaviFake for moving this conversation to the proposals. This seems to be happening with Kynde's talk page a lot recently. (that being twice, but I've never seen it happen before, soo...) --DollarStoreBa'al^converse 20:02, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

Hi, it's me. The "global message board" DSB was referencing to is the site notice. If Kynde could add it in the format that FaviFake said, that would be great! Also, I had thought that the server could be a fun place for us to bond/talk, but that can obviously be conducted in DMs. FaviFake's reasoning for having all conversations on-site makes perfect sense to me. 42.book.addict^{Talk to me!} 20:35, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

So THAT'S what it's called! I am one of today's lucky 10,000. --DollarStoreBa'al^converse 23:35, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I'm wrong or not, but I think of the discord as 2 things:

A backup form of communication
An informal place to hang out with fellow readers and editors.

Again, please correct me if I'm wrong. --DollarStoreBa'al^converse 15:23, 18 September 2025 (UTC)

Dark theme?

I saw a post about this in the archives that went unanswered, so I'll ask it here: Why doesn't the wiki have a dark theme? I feel it would be very useful for those who don't want to be blinded by editing. Wikipedia's got one, and it looks great! --DollarStoreBa'al^converse 15:27, 18 September 2025 (UTC)

Dark mode IS a thing. You need to create a common.css page to use it though. Copy paste in this to get dark mode (make sure to hit "Show preview" to test it out before you save!):

/* NQH's totally cool and amazingly radical dark mode */ /* Licensed CC0-1.0, no rights reserved. */ /* Sets everything to dark background. */ body * {background-color: #111 !important; color: #DDD !important;} div.mw-body, div.mw-body * {background-color: #222 !important;} /* Vector */ .mw-wiki-logo {background-color: #00000000 !important; filter: invert(100%);} /* Monobook */ div#column-one > div#p-cactions > div.pBody > ul > li > a {background-color: #222 !important;} /* Modern */ div#mw_header, div#mw_header h1#firstHeading {background-color: #000 !important;} div#mw_content {background-color: #222 !important;} /* Cologne blue */ /* Diff. */ td.diff-context, td.diff-context * {color: #777 !important; border-color: #333 !important;} td.diff-deletedline {border-color: #F33 !important;} td.diff-addedline {border-color: #3F3 !important;} del.diffchange-inline {color: #F55 !important;} ins.diffchange-inline {color: #5F5 !important;} /* Numbers in history view. */ span.mw-plusminus-pos {color: #5F5 !important;} span.mw-plusminus-neg {color: #F55 !important;} strong.mw-plusminus-pos {color: #0F0 !important; font-size: 1.2em;} strong.mw-plusminus-pos {color: #0F0 !important; font-size: 1.2em;} /* Links. */ a[href$="redlink=1"] {color: #F00 !important; text-decoration: line-through !important;} a:not([href$="redlink=1"]) {color: #88F !important;} a:visited:not([href$="redlink=1"]) {color: #AAF !important;} a:hover:not([href$="redlink=1"]) {color: #AAF !important; text-decoration: underline !important; font-weight: bold !important;} a:active:not([href$="redlink=1"]) {color: #FFF !important; text-decoration: underline !important; font-weight: bold !important;}

--42.book.addict^{Talk to me!} 19:01, 18 September 2025 (UTC)

In response to DSB, in your userpage... The links being white... Which links? See the "/* Links. */" section. The various links are #F00 (red, the invalid ones), #88F (light blue), #AAF (lighter blue), or #FFF (white). If you don't like them, change them.

The other things can probably be fixed if we know exactly what you're getting and what you actually expect. Also a good idea to check for typos/miscopying, via basic troubleshooting. 82.132.246.204 22:43, 18 September 2025 (UTC)

I got edit-conflicted with... seemingly no change. Anyway, I found a better version which I now use. It's much cleaner and looks like it belongs. Only issue is that the sidebar templates have inverted colors? But very minor. --DollarStoreBa'al^converse 01:24, 19 September 2025 (UTC)

CODE!!!

/* WikimediaUI Dark Mode
 *
 * Wikimedia Design Team 2019-2021
 * Original authors:
 * - Volker E. – [[User:Volker_E._(WMF)]]
 * - Alex Hollender
 * - MusikAnimal
 * - Carolyn Li-Madeo
 * - Jdlrobson
 *
 * Original at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Volker_E._(WMF)/dark-mode.css
 * Version for Gadget CSS skin override usage only.
 * Basically removed of all interaction element styles and
 * set to `html` instead of JS injected `.client-dark-mode` class.
 *
 * Last updated: 2021-04-20
 *
 */

/** To prevent 'jumping' effect within #p-personal in Vector/Monobook. Overrides [[MediaWiki:Gadget-dark-mode-toggle-pagestyles.css]] **/
body.skin-vector-legacy :not(#pt-darkmode) + #pt-watchlist::before,
body.skin-monobook :not(#pt-darkmode) + #pt-watchlist::before {
	content: "Light mode";
}

@media screen {
	
/* set height for monobook and timeless, because the filter in FF needs dimensions to get it to apply */
html {
    height: 100%;
}

/* Filter needs to reside on `html`, see https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T221425#5153917 */
html,
/* All other selectors have `filter` double-applied to turn back to “normal” by inheritance */
html img:not( .mw-invert ),
html video:not( .mw-invert ),
html ogvjs:not( .mw-invert ),
html svg:not( .mw-invert ),
html iframe:not( .mw-invert ),
html .mw-no-invert,
html .cdx-no-invert,
html td .diffchange,
html .wvui-typeahead-suggestion__thumbnail,
html .skin-minerva .mw-notification-visible .mw-notification-content,
html .oo-ui-searchWidget-results .oo-ui-iconElement-icon,
html .list-thumb,
/* Extensions */
html .media-viewer .image img,
html .media-viewer .mw-file-description img {
	filter: invert( 1 ) hue-rotate( 180deg );
}

/* Reset overrides, needed where double application above isn't working. */
/* Vector modern */
html .skin-vector .mw-logo-wordmark,
html .skin-vector .mw-logo-tagline,
html .skin-timeless .mw-wiki-title > img,
html .wvui-icon svg,
html .mw-ext-score img,
html .skin-invert img,
html .skin-invert-image img,
html .mw-hiero-table img {
	filter: none;
}

/* Backgrounds */
html table,
html table.ambox-content,
html table.toccolours,
html .mw-notification,
html .mwe-popups,
html .infobox,
html .toc,
html .thumbinner,
html figure[typeof~='mw:File/Thumb'],
html figure[typeof~='mw:File/Frame'],
html figure[typeof~='mw:File/Thumb'] > figcaption,
html figure[typeof~='mw:File/Frame'] > figcaption,
html .wikitable,
html .cbnnr-main,
html .cx-callout,
html .overlay.media-viewer,
html #simpleSearch,
html #simpleSearch #searchInput,
html #siteNotice #centralNotice .cnotice {
	background-color: #ddd;
}

/* Borders */
html body,
html h1,
html h2,
html h3,
html h4,
html h5,
html h6,
html table.ambox-content,
html table.toccolours,
html .mw-notification,
html .infobox,
html .toc,
html .thumbinner,
html figure[typeof~='mw:File/Thumb'],
html figure[typeof~='mw:File/Frame'],
html figure[typeof~='mw:File/Thumb'] > figcaption,
html figure[typeof~='mw:File/Frame'] > figcaption,
html #mw-head,
html #mw-panel,
/* Vector 2022 uses a transparent border for margin collapsing
(T312822) so don't apply this rule there */
.skin-vector-legacy #content.mw-body,
html #simpleSearch,
html #simpleSearch #searchInput,
html #siteNotice #centralNotice .cnotice {
	border-color: #cdcbc8;
}

/* Links */
/* Links: normal */
html a,
html .vector-menu-tabs li a,
/* Backwards compatible VectorTabs, deprecated in MW v1.35. */
html .vectorTabs li a,
html .toctogglelabel,
html .mw-parser-output a.external,
html .mw-parser-output a.extiw,
html .mw-parser-output a.extiw:active,
html #mw-panel .portal .body li a {
	/* color: #69f; Proposal below for level AA conformance, see also https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T233266
	   `#36c` is transformed by :root `filter` to be closer to chosen `#69f`. */
	color: #36c;
}

/* Links: visited */
html a:visited,
html .mw-parser-output a.extiw:visited,
html #mw-panel .portal .body li a:visited {
	/* color: #709bbd; Proposal below uses to-be-standardized color from https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T213778 */
	color: #6b4ba1;
}

/* Links: red */
html a.new,
html .vector-menu-tabs li.new a,
html .vectorTabs li.new a {
	color: #ff6e6e;
}

/* ::: Special Element Treatments ::: */
/* Image thumbnails */
html .thumbimage,
html figure[typeof~='mw:File/Thumb'] > :not(figcaption) .mw-file-element,
html figure[typeof~='mw:File/Frame'] > :not(figcaption) .mw-file-element {
	border: 0;
}

/* Content image (thumbnail) SVGs */
/* `*not( .mbox-image )` exception doesn't work for unclear reasons */
html .image img[ src*='svg' ],
html .mw-file-description img[ src*='svg' ],
html img[ src*='Wiktionary-logo'] {
	background-color: #fff;
	border-radius: 1px;
}

/* Dealing with false positives from selector above */
html .mw-echo-ui-notificationItemWidget-icon img[ src*='svg' ],
html .mbox-image .image img[ src*='svg' ],
html .mbox-image .mw-file-description img[ src*='svg' ],
/* Emoji generated by [[Template:Emoji]] */
html .emoji .image img,
html .emoji .mw-file-description img,
/* Vote symbols on Talk pages */
html .image img[ alt^="Symbol" ],
html .mw-file-description img[ alt^="Symbol" ] {
	background-color: transparent;
}

/* Page previews */
html .mwe-popups {
    box-shadow: 0 30px 90px -20px rgba( 0, 0, 0, 0.3 ), 0 0 1px #000;
}

html .mwe-popups.flipped-y:after,
html .mwe-popups.flipped-x-y:after {
	border-top: 11px solid #ddd;
}

html .mwe-popups.mwe-popups-no-image-pointer:after {
	border-bottom: 11px solid #ddd;
}

/* Contributions menu */
html .cx-callout-1:after {
	border-bottom-color: #ddd;
}

/* Mobile Wikipedia logo mobile header */
html .branding-box img {
	filter: brightness( 0 );
}

}

@-moz-document url-prefix() {
    body {
        background: #000;
    }
}

@-moz-document url-prefix() {   
	@supports (overflow-clip-margin: 1px) {     
		body {
			background: #fff;
		}   
	}
}

--DollarStoreBa'al^converse 13:27, 19 September 2025 (UTC)

Page Creation site notice for new accounts

Many, many, many new people come around and ask other users about how to create their own user pages. Personally, I think we could stop the confusion by coding a different type of 'you do not have permission to create this page' error for new accounts, which would look something like this:

'To create new pages, your account must be at least a week old and have 50 edits. You can search for this page title in other pages, or search the related logs, but you do not have permission to create this page.'

Just a thought, in case admins can do that without Jeff's involvement. --DollarStoreBa'al^converse 20:02, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

I'd {{Actual citation needed}} on the "many"s, unless you're aware of off-site discussions about this one. It's actually pretty infrequent, so I feel you must be counting over several years, having found a number of historic examples dotted around on pages such as this. That said, it is currently as much an FAQ as anything else (as actually mentioned there, for anyone who bothers to read it). And we do sometimes get a new-users, the ones freshly post-validated to create pages merrily 'helping out' all those they think need their help in that regard.

Can I suggest that we do not have the exact number of edits so prominantly, though. Within the last day, as a matter of fact, we seem to have had someone making many useless edits (mostly of the form of adding extra spaces into seemingly random places within seemingly random articles), possibly in order to have created a new page of their own. And that's really not to the spirit of things. Inviting, or at least suggestively hinting, the possibility of near-vandalism (hopefully not actual vandalism) for the impatient who just see it as a 'target' to try to reach. And the truly and genuinely eager to contribute can easily have clocked up that number of edits to existing pages with no edit-tallying motive by the time the mandatory week has also expired.

The caveat, I know, is that saying "a week and a certain number of edits", aluded to but unspecified, will have the some of the same uselessly-editing people chasing an arbitrarily high edit-tally in order to be 'ready' for the week finishing. But that kind of person is already of the wrong initial mindset. And people desperate to create new pages with perhaps little more than a week of having, in most other respects, full editing rights (which is only marginally more than IPs like me have, as there only a few key places that I am prevented from editing) tend to find themselves likely to be contributing to the Category: Pages to Delete list (perhaps courtesy of more established editors).

On balance, perhaps the page you mention should instead briefly contain a link to the existing FAQ section, via link text explaining that there are reasons, but "see here" for details, or similar non-specific wording. Anyone who hasn't read the FAQ could benefit from being aware that it exists. And if anything ever changes (rise or fall of the time or tally limits, even removal or addition of specific criteria), the FAQ will probably be sooner updated with the new details before anyone thinks to edit the 'error page' again (a particular page that long-established users will have rarely, if ever, seen). Assuming, of course, even that anyone can edit that level of page content right now. 82.132.184.204 23:08, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

I don’t have time to read ip's comment but i definitely think the number shouldn't be so public, and i don’t see a need. i would support a small editnoce for letting users know they have to vaguely contribute more. FaviFake (talk) 16:17, 1 October 2025 (UTC)

Some suggestions surrounding the use of the {{unsigned}} and {{unsigned ip}} templates.

Where I just reference the {{unsigned}} template, there should also be an obvious extension of the same principle to the {{unsigned ip}} one as well.)

These are some interelated proposals, that could be implemented singly/incrementally (as desired and agreed upon). But might deserve doing in 'one go', at least the agreed upon elements. I'm just putting each bit into different subsections for isolated discussion (or ignoring) of the specific merits/otherwise of each. 2.98.65.8 21:33, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

TD;DR;s added, if you don't like the author's original verbosity. 82.132.244.30 19: 07, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

Aesthetic/semantic change

Issue: Not often, but sometimes, comments that are 'unsigned'-tagged (with the words "please sign your comments with ~~~~") invokes retrospective use of ~~~~ by those who take the words at face value. This can result in a (previously) 'unsigned' message having a later timestamp than its replies, or later 'top level' messages more immediately signed by their editors.

The more 'proper' way to replace an {{unsigned}} tag, for those that want to, would be to copy-paste a valid signature of the same type and replace the username(/IP) and datestamp as already (usually!) given in that initial pester-tag. But this is by no means made obvious in the above message.

Proposal: Wording to be changed to something like "in future, please sign your comments with ~~~~", or "this comment should have been signed with ~~~~". Or other wording, to be agreed upon, to make as snappy as the original ("was not signed with ~~~~"). The aim is to omit the implicit request to anachrnistically sign, however.

Overall effect: Any change to the template(s) will transclude to what would probably be an overwhelming majority of Talk pages (at a guess), plus other 'discussion' pages like these Portal ones. But there's no change in functionality or any individual page-updating, just the slightly different text when viewing in future.

Note1: the {{unsigned}} template already takes a (rarely used) third parameter, which overwrites the "please sign..." message (i.e. {{unsigned|<username>|<timestamp>|<alternate message>}}, and it'd still be overwritten exactly the same wherever that has been applied.
Note2: it also would not rewrite the text given of any originally "subst:"ed version of the template, but that's a completely different issue.

Justification: The need may be slight, but it's also a trivial tweak to implement (or even to trial) with a marginal but maybe useful long-term gain. But we'll need a proper discussion of what wording to move to, or else that it's not necessary. 2.98.65.8 21:33, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

Case in point the few edits that led up to here. Didn't really 'spoil' any actual chronology but shows how easily it is obeyed wrongly. 2.98.65.8 18:04, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

TL;DR;: Change the text from "please sign your comments with ~~~~", slightly. 82.132.244.30 19:07, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

Additional templates to complement 'unsigned' ones

Issue: Retrospective 'honest faking' of previously missing signatures is mildly awkward, as mentioned above. It's easy to get wrong, even easier to just not bother at all with it. (Either leave 'unsigned' or create the issue from the prior item.

Proposal: Complement the template usage {{unsigned|<username>|<timestamp>}} with one that is {{retrosigned|<username>|<timestamp>}}. Take the same parameters (except the 'alternate pester text') but return just the effective ~~~~-style format, now no longer with the 'please sign...'-type appended message.

There are a number of possible uses for this:

user1 forgets to sign; user2 spots this, invokes {{unsigned}} to it; user1 acknowledges their goof, by simply changing the template-invocation of "unsigned" to "retrosigned" and the rendered page is left neater (any "whoops, my bad!" apologies can be given in the edit-comments, as unused third-parameter, etc, if they wish),
user1 forgets to sign; user1, themself, spots this (before anyone else) and applies this as easily as they would apply a {{unsigned}}. Slightly easier than 'honest faking' that involves the valid copypaste-method (again, with "whoops!, my bad!" opportunities, should they feel like it),
user1 forgets to sign; user2 spots this; knows that it's an oversight by a regular contributor who just slipped up, and there's no reason to make it a 'pester message'; so user2 just goes straight to using Template:retrosigned, and doesn't bother with the 'pestering' or 'blaming' implications inherent in Template:unsigned),
user1 forgot to sign ...a decade ago or more!; We know that (for example) User:Jeff is unlikely to benefit from being reminded/pestered/shamed, so it just seems better to let the more recent editor 'retrosign' any such example that gets discovered,
or possibly, with care, and honesty: someone, as newusername, wishes to associate themselves with comments made by oldusername, or even any given ip-address contrinution they previously used; that's something I wouldn't do myself, but I could see the appeal.

Note1: my method (and that of others?) to edit in an 'unsigned'-tag is to copy the header info from the appropriate diff page's column, paste that text (containing datestamp and ID of contributor, together with some other textual cruft) as unsigned-tag parameters, rearrange edit ("timestamp" then "userid", with a few extra characters, becomes "|userid|timestamp" parameters), the same method would entirely work with the retrosigned version too.
- This, however, does not contain the "(UTC)" timezone info that ~~~~ would give by default, so a similarly direct retroactive 'fake' will also lack this. Eagle-eyed readers might pick up on this. Which isn't an issue that concerns me. (One could always manually append " (UTC)" to the second-param, or after the template itself, even if I don't think it worth the bother.)
Note2: It doesn't reproduce the appearance of anyone's custom signature, if they had one that should have been invoked. But also a trivial differemce, having resolved the whole issue of "no longer being unsigned".
- Should anyone really care to reproduce a custom/non-standard signature, they can still do so (on their behalf or someone else's). This is just the quick and easy

Justification: The idea is to allow for the 'tidying up' of the front-facing pages with less convoluted and more honest back-end edits. I don't expect, or want, anyone to retrospectively convert historic 'unsigned' tags just for the sake of it, but it adds a tool to the kit of anyone who is already prepared to 'correct' these things (their own, or others) in any given page-source.

I'd potentially use it for long-standing editor's lapses (the "Template:retrosigned" version), to feel less guilty about apparently nagging them about it. Or upon myself (the "Template:retrosigned ip" version), if I slipped up, to feel less guilty for going back in and 'honestly faking' what I had forgotten to sign, but (as noted above) there are several other applicable uses. 2.98.65.8 21:33, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

TL;DR;: Let there be "retrosigned" and "retrosigned ip" to be used where {{unsigned}} and {{unsigned ip}} are not (any longer) what is needed somewhere. 82.132.244.30 19:07, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

Tracking parameter underutilisation

Issue: Early implementation, and sometimes more recent, of the {{unsigned}} template may use its most basic {{unsigned}} form with no parameters given. This gives an 'error', of sorts, due to having no official check-and-fallback upon not being given the username parameter. The error is visual only, and may have been allowed/forced to happen as a way to force its correction (though, at least until recently, it sees not to have done this as much as it should have).

Other times, perhaps immediately after the first parameter (contributor name) started to be routinely added, {{unsigned|username}} is used without the timestamp parameter that we now mostly take for granted.

(While the current third parameter, the 'alternate "pease..." text' is entirely an optional and a mostly unused feature, future changes may require/encourage further elements (perhaps 'named parameters') and leave our default "unsigned|username|timestamp" format lacking.)

I've been known to update any discovered 'bare bones'-unsigned formats, if I find any in pages I edit. Someone else seems to have adopted it as a task of its own, recently. This relies upon spotting the non-standard (or at least non-modern) usages.

Additionally, there is the in getting the rather ugly -- [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]]) (please sign your comments with ~~~~) 'error' for all no-param versions that exist.

Proposal: Firstly, just implement the 'catch' code upon the (lack of) first parameter. Make it 'fail cleanly', or at least less 'errorlike'. This is trivial to implement (i.e. {{{1|}}} instead of {{{1}}}). (I'd do that right now, if I could.)

Secondly, within the 'failover' half of the 'non-parameter' parsing, give it a Category: membership.

I have several possible suggestions for the style of Category membership:

If the 'userID' isn't given, perhaps "Category:Unsigned no-UserID", if the 'timestamp' isn't given, "Category:Unsigned no-timestamp", and any others.
- Note: the system could be extended to other templates, such as "Category:Incomplete no-reason" or perhaps "Category:Comic no-image", but that's not officially part of this suggestion.
More simply, just have "Category:Unsigned-error", without specifying. (Or even "Category:Template-error" for far more generalised use.)
Differently specific, use the category re-indexing (something like [[Category:Template-error|blah]]) for handy grouping-with-differentiation

Obviously, the appropriate category-page needs to be there to show any (and all) invocations. Similar to the Category:Incomplete explanations one, etc, it would invite action to remove membership as examples are sorted.

Justification: This is a solution for 'meta-problems', really. Which 'category membership' option is used would define how much additional editing(/correcting) this might prompt for historic problems, as well as identifying improperly added new template-invocations. But it might be good to know exactly how wide or narrow a scope people might wish to apply to this, before going ahead and creating many new 'error' categories... one even just the single catch-all one. 2.98.65.8 21:33, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

TL;DR;: Make it easier to find 'incompletely implemented' templates (initially the Unsigned ones), so they can be fixed by anyone who would like to. 82.132.244.30 19:07, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

This looks AI-generated. FaviFake (talk) 18:36, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

Really? Unless AIs are doing 'accidentally on purpose' typos, I think it just looks like someone with more ideas trying to burst out onto the page than they can easily (and accurately) summarise. And I'm also that type of person, so I can easily relate. There, but for the grace of ~~God~~ any-unspecific-generalised-universal-force-of-non-deterministic-fate goes I! 82.132.245.237 18:50, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

Added a "Too Long; Didn't Read;" summary to each, as I understand the intents. ;) Now I'm wondering if there are any other things I might do that for! 82.132.244.30 19:07, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

Banning the phrase "WhatsApp"

I've noticed that lately, much of our vandalism has come out of scamvertisements asking you to contact the scammers on WhatsApp. As I don't believe Randall has ever actually used WhatsApp, and as such it is unneeded, I feel we should just prevent any edits containing the word 'WhatsApp' from going through if the edit removes more than 90% of the page's byte count (let's be honest, nobody is going to delete that much from a page). --DollarStoreBa'al^converse 17:37, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

The standard protection is to have user:theusaf to refine/expand what theusafBOT reacts to. Which it seems they occasionally do.

I don't know whether they're paying attention, but I'd hope they'd pick up on such things. Given that it's the Feedback/etc comics that regularly get spammed like this, I'd hope they'd at least try to see what someone else reverted in leiu, and adapt accordingly, when they get the time.

I don't know the various sets of exact criteria in use (some seem generally obvious enough, key patterns and keywords involved) and I think something to at least start with "blanked page and replaced with ...", on specific sets of pages, as an edit comment could be a good predictor with minimal false-positives. But I wouldn't want to explicitly suggest that (or your idea), lest the more attentive spammers made a trivial change to their future edit plans to by-pass it.

...though I frankly think those responsible in this case don't care/think too much about it, it's more for all the other things I'd rather leave trivially unguessable how to get round. 82.132.244.138 18:30, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

I'll look into this. —theusaf (talk) 22:34, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

Hey look, an admin that isn't Kynde! That's... actually the first time I've seen an admin that isn't Kynde in person. Cool! --DollarStoreBa'al^Converse 17:15, 7 November 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm not super active in the discussions, but I occasionally edit and check that by bot is still working and not destroying anything. The whatsapp check has been added. —theusaf (talk) 05:00, 13 November 2025 (UTC)

SKIBIDI-POP PA-DOOP TA-DA TAAAA!!!!* --DollarStoreBa'al^Converse 14:48, 13 November 2025 (UTC)

Adblock popup

This wiki uses ads as a way to make money and keep the website up, and many people use adblockers (the absolute state of YT ads is insane). So, why don't we add one of those AdBlock popups that they have on some sites? Maybe the message could be:

So, about that AdBlock...

explain xkcd uses ads to keep our server online. Please consider turning off your AdBlock so we can continue providing quality explanations. Thanks!

This would be an optional thing and easily closable, but it could provide at least a bit of extra revenue. Maybe we could also make a 'thank you' screen for people who do actually turn off their adblocker (it would only pop up once, after they turn off the AdBlock):

Thank you for turning off your adblocker!

Sincerely, the explain xkcd community.

What do you guys think? --DollarStoreBa'al^converse 15:58, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

Adblockers often also can block anti-adblock popups, but sure, go ahead. I guess you could also ask for donations to run the site. Same caveat applies. - an adblock user. None (talk) 20:47, 14 December 2025 (UTC)

categories template

Hear me out: I've been doing a lot of category adding to mostly files that are uncategorized (BTW, we have a 11,000-12,000 backlog of pages-any help (or maybe a bot!) would be greatly appreciated). I think that we should make a template called Category or "cat" so that we can add categories faster. Of course, HotCat exists, but it only renders when there are already existing categories. For all the uncategorized files/pages, we would have to manually add it in. My strategy currently is moving my mouse to the edit button, clicking it, hit return to make a whitespace (for organization), hitting CTRL-V, moving my mouse to the "Save changes" button, and clicking it. And that's only for the really repetitive ones, like the comic images or Hoverboard or Time. Does anybody have any thoughts/objections to this? Of course, we would still need to edit, but it would be a lot easier than typing out [[Category:___]] IMHO. Additionally, I've studied up a bit of template code (Lua) and I've sort of fleshed out some code. I don't really know if it works, but if there's anybody more experienced feel free to look through it! I've included Pages to delete (ptd) and Helper comic images (hci) as examples.

{{#ifeq:{{{1}}}|ptd| [[Category:Pages to delete]] }} {{#ifeq:{{{1}}}|hci| {{#if:{{{2|}}} | [[Category:Helper comic images ({{{2}}})]] | [[Category:Helper comic images]] }} }}

Thanks, --42.book.addict^{Talk to me!} 10:17, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

That's actually a good idea! So, it would be: {{cat|Helper comic images (1190)}}? That would be quite convenient. --DollarStoreBa'al^Converse 20:53, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

As written, I read it as...

If "ptd" in the first spot, i.e. {{cat|ptd}}, that would give the Pages To Delete category.

If "hci" in the first spot, i.e. {{cat|hci}}, then it would instead Helper Comic Images

If "hci" in the first spot and a number in the second, i.e. {{cat|hci|1234}}, then it would instead give you Helper Comic Images (1234).

There are maybe a few minor issues with it, as written. I'd use {{{1|}}}, for starters, and nest it so that any non-specified (including blank) param would give out an obvious mis-use error result. And you'd probably end up having {{cat|<whatever>}} sitting in your paste buffer (or would {{subst:cat|<whatever>}} be better?) exactly the same as you'd have had the basic Category, anyway.

But I really wouldn't know where it sits in the 1205: Is It Worth the Time? scale... Almost a "death by supernova neutrinos" issue, I suspect... ;) 78.144.255.82 21:37, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

I would use a switch instead of an if, like

<includeonly>[[Category:{{subst:#switch:{{{1}}}
| ptd = Pages to delete
| hci = Helper comic images {{subst:#if: {{{2|}}} | ({{{2}}}) }}
| {{{1|}}}
}}]]</includeonly>

It should be used with {{subst: because otherwise the category won't be able to be removed normally, but it technically works without it. The substs before the ifs make the resulting wikitext nicer, as otherwise when the overall template is used with {{subst:, it inserts the if statements directly. Consequently, it must be enclosed in includeonly's to prevent the substitution from occurring when the template is saved. It will also default to inserting the category with the name of the first argument, but it is longer to type using the template like this ({{subst:cat|All comics}}) than just typing the category directly ([[Category:All comics]]).

If having an obvious error message is desired, you could replace the default case (the {{{1|}}}) with something like ]] Invalid argument for [[Template:cat. guess who (if you desire conversing | what i have done) 05:02, 16 December 2025 (UTC)

All fo this sounds good! I don't have the time to look into this but Firestar233 is incredible with templates so i trust their code will work! FaviFake (talk) 18:41, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

New Character Proposal for Kid Cueballs

I'm somewhat new to editing, though I've been using this wiki for some time now. And I've noticed that with comics such as 3178, whenever a kid is represented by Cueball the transcript says "a Cueball like kid" which is long and slightly annoying to read. So I propose giving the kid a name that's shorter and easier to use but still let's the reader know that a kid is being represented by Cueball: Kidball.

Thoughts? -- MikeTheNewGuy (talk) 13:25, 17 January 2026‎ (UTC)

Hi, Mike; welcome to ExplainXKCD. BTW, I added your signature to your comment.

But, on-topic: this sounds like an interesting idea. But, in your mind, is this "Kidball" always the same kid, rather than a type of kid? Would you expect that if you see "Kidball" in a new comic he'll behave the same way? If not, then I wouldn't add this name. -- Dtgriscom (talk) 13:32, 17 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for adding my signature, I’m gonna have to remember to do that.

What I had in mind with Kidball was that most of the time he’s the same kid (since most of the time he only appears in Miss Lenhart’s class, at least that’s where he’s been the majority of the times I’ve seen him), but is occasionally used to represent someone else; in the same way that Cueball appears to be the same person most of the time, but Randall occasionally uses him to represent someone else. And using “Kidball” in the explanations/transcripts might be more efficient than “a Cueball like kid”.

And yes, if I saw him in a new comic, I would expect him to more or less behave the same way, unless it’s clear that he’s representing someone else.MikeTheNewGuy (talk) 18:04, 17 January 2026 (UTC)

I'm not sure; let's see what others think. -- Dtgriscom (talk) 18:11, 17 January 2026 (UTC)

I do think that he can and should be named, as he's very similar to Jill, even if she has more personality than him. And Kidball is an amazing name! FaviFake (talk) 18:01, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

I concur. 42.book.addict^{Talk to me!} 21:57, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

Me too. I'm not trusting myself with the actual page creation, so somebody else will need to create it. (sorry, just don't want to mess things up) --DollarStoreBa'al ^Converse 22:51, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

I've made them. See Kidball and Category:Comics featuring Kidball. I've also changed the header of this thread for more clarity. 42.book.addict^{Talk to me!} 01:40, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

Thanks! Anyone up for populating it? FaviFake (talk) 08:14, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

I'll try to see if I can find the time (and motivation) to do so this week. 42.book.addict^{Talk to me!} 03:07, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

I just went through Category:Comics featuring children and added about 9 to Category:Comics featuring Kidball. We're getting there! Maxcodes (talk) 14:34, 15 February 2026 (UTC)

Should comics with multiple Kidballs be placed in Category:Multiple Cueballs, or should a new category be created? Maxcodes (talk) 12:37, 15 February 2026 (UTC)

(First, I made it markup as a "visible category link", as you intended, rather than the invisible category membership that normally happens, hope you don't mind.)

A further question is if a comic was Multiple Cueballs, by dint of having a Cueball and a now-IDed-as-Kidball, is it still Multiple Cueballs? 82.132.239.239 13:26, 15 February 2026 (UTC)

We've only just got to the point where we're naming this character Kidball; I'd say don't complicate the situation just yet. Too many categories makes the categories less useful. -- Dtgriscom (talk) 13:52, 15 February 2026 (UTC)

Children are rarely alone, normally being with other children and/or with one or one-or-more adults. So Category:Comics featuring children covers Multiple Kidballs.

I'd say that Multiple Cueballs is a notable 'common strangeness' that I think it's useful to continue note, for various reasons, but multiple non-Cueball characters (e.g. how 1000 has it, in-extremis) aren't worth all the various different character-specific 'multiple' categories. (And, yes, an adult Cueball and a Kidball should not be "Multiple Cueballs".) 81.179.199.253 18:29, 15 February 2026 (UTC)

Agreed. Multiple Cueballs is usually for unusual cases where there isn't a different main character other than cueball. A bald kid and a bald adult are two different people. FaviFake (talk) 16:52, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

Bring back mboxes!

Mboxes (do read that link) are message boxes that prompt editors to edit. They say things such as, "Please help expand this page." However, they aren't on this wiki!

So, there are a few different templates resembling mboxes:

are just a few I've seen.

I just don't think this is the way! Also, I checked {{ambox}} and it said it was deleted. However, the proposal archive isn't working and I can't check the reason. So I can't see why we aren't using them!

Here are a few arguments for mboxes:

Mboxes can be different types, such as a notice or an alert, or even an incomplete notice, with a type attribute.
Mboxes are DRY, they're reusable.
Mboxes are used on Wikipedia, and other sites I'm sure, so using them here will make it more comfortable for new editors coming from other sites such as Wikipedia.
Using mboxes will make styling all alerts easier. (OK YES I ADMIT IT I WANT MY USER STYLES)

So why aren't we using them? I'm thinking that if this topic gets enough support, we can bring mboxes back, and start transitioning old alerts to mbox variants.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. Maxcodes (talk) 14:38, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

The discussion, as you said, is in the archive: explain_xkcd_talk:Community_portal/Proposals#Notice_templates. FaviFake (talk) 16:58, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

Transcripts

ATTENTION!

THIS:

Blah blah BLAH BLAH blah blah Wordssss…………

(Fill in blahs with your own words! Choose your own adventure fun!)

Is not a transcript!

I’ve had the impression that transcripts were for blind people (well, not just blind people) and making transcripts like the one above is only making things harder for people who may read aloud for blind people. Use things like [bold text] or [italics] or [comic in red text].

Idk wh6 I wrote this it just been bothering me. 2600:4040:52f7:9a00:cdb5:8d4d:4a6c:9917 (talk) 16:58, 24 February 2026 (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I've always wondered who the transcripts are even for. Since both the comics and the transcripts are in the same medium, those who are blind wouldn't be able to see the transcript. I guess they could have it read to them, but it's still confusing. As far as I know, it's just a thing that very early editors used to do, and the tradition stuck. What's the reasoning behind the transcripts? --DollarStoreBa'al^Converse (BLM) 14:22, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

There exists the screen reader, which (at least until you start to trust AI, and there are undoubtely some good AI ATs out there that do this, these days, but are trained more to help with RL situations, like "what items are on the shop shelf I'm currently standing in front of?", not stick-figures and line-art...) can't do anything useful with the non-meta contents of an image but will happily speak out a transcript.

It probably also helps, even if you don't need it spoken out for you, if you have a hankering of searching for a particular comic and you know some written words in it that might not necessarily be quoted verbatim in the Explanation. The text being all there in the Transcript section means you can get this site (or perhaps your caching search-engine of choice) to find it, without even relying on someone having decided to quote it directly elsewhere (which is often not good and/or necessary for an Explanation/Discussion/Trivia section contribution).

If you're really lucky, you can even search for some random visual thing, as long as it's been mentioned, without relying upon it havng already had a thoroughly populated Category... That relies upon any useful example having the same exact wording in the Transcript (and/or Explanation), but it's better than if you don't have any Transcripts at all.

There are other useful things, a bit less obvious. Yet perhaps you could argue the presence of the Transcript may not actually be that vital... I don't know if anyone here does even use a screen-reader (but is still interested in webcomics ...a very visual medium). And there are probably other ways to get the other other advantages of the Transcript. Perhaps we could just make sure everything currently Transcripted is added to the Explanation (though that seems wasteful, and might make the Explanation far less useful/readable, having to fight past the obligatory in-depth explanation of whether Cueball's arm is raised in a particular panel or not...). But currently the Transcript exists, for those that need (or like) it, and also anybody who doesn't can just ignore it.

And unless you're going to fold all Transcripts into the rest of the Explanation, it seems rather strange to just stop creating them. Honestly, it's probably half the fun for some people. And even another 'First!'-brag for users to bag, without being actually so crass as to edit anything just to say "First!" ;) 81.179.199.253 19:58, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

I still do think that the people who need a screen reader would be interested in webcomics, although there probably exists a small population of people who are. Also, screen readers do not necessarily need to use AI in anything except for the voice. --DollarStoreBa'al^Converse 20:09, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

Not sure if you're agreeing with me or not there. You may have missed a "not" or something in there somewhere. And screen-readers don't need any AI (as we would currently expect it), although doubtless the last few years development of LLM/GenerativeAIs has probably improved them from 'dumb phonology' (with quirks that users would have to get use to) to actually saying things more eloquently and even correctly voice non-homophonic homographs correctly...

But, anyway, there's the other reasons for a Transcript, even if I don't know if anyone does bother to use SRs. 81.179.199.253 20:45, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

I did, indeed, accidentally miss a 'not'. I DON'T think that those who need screen readers would be interested in webcomics. --DollarStoreBa'al^Converse 20:55, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

You'd be surprised. Just take a look at this discussion: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Miscellaneous#Sightless_readers_offended_by_the_.22It.27s_.27cause_you.27re_dumb.22_tagline. Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 13:00, 9 April 2026 (UTC)

...I stand corrected. Also, I have an opinion about that discussion after reading it. --DollarStoreBa'al^Converse 13:57, 9 April 2026 (UTC)

New search algorithm?

I was searching for a specific comic based on some words from the transcript. I was looking for 2134: Too Much Talking and was searching "new opinions". INSTEAD of getting only results which had the phrase "new opinions", I got every comic which had the word 'new' or 'opinion' ANYWHERE in its explanation or transcript. I got over 100 hits and had to go through each preview individually, which was quite annoying and took far too long. I think there should be a function or option that you could turn on which makes it so, when you search "new opinions", it only displays pages with the search term and doesn't display anything which only contains a part of it. This happens every time I try to search. --DollarStoreBa'al^Converse 14:04, 9 April 2026 (UTC)

You probably searched for (quote)new opinions(unquote), but you'll find that you'll get exactly what you wanted from (quote)"new opinions"(unquote) with the literal quotes.

Like I did, by ending up on the page https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?search=%22new+opinions%22&title=Special%3ASearch&go=Go just now.

Note that searches just for (quote)new(unquote) or just for (quote)opinions(unquote) return many (thousands!) of matches. (quote)new opinions(unquote) 'only' seems to return 42 examples (now including this page?). This would include examples of "opinion new" ordering or even totally separate uses like if any a phrase like "...relying upon old opinions, rather than new facts..." was used. An actual example, is the following search-result snippet:

..., with no real bearing on most peoples' lives, a lot of people have strong opinions on the topic. One on side, people argue that planets should have a consiste ...with such debates, to the point of damaging their relationship, is nothing new for this couple.

I don't know how we'd even update/change the search-algorithm.

And, note, it'd annoy those who are already used to what subtle ways there are to be either more or less finicky in a desired search. Searching for mention of "dog leads"? The (unquoted) search for "dog lead" might be better to find "he has a dog on a lead" without (normally) getting pages that say something like "a heavy element, like lead". A quoted-search, or an assumption that the user would have wanted a quoted-search, would miss the first example.

There may be various other tricks and tips to search-formatting. The use of "+" before a particular term used to (on Google) force that as a required match, when it might have included "does not include..." on a page that contains every other word, just not that one. But this site doesn't seem to have the full (traditional) Google-Fu behaviour, that also included things like (quote)-dog lead(unquote) that could get you (mostly) the metal or connecting cable references to lead without so.much of the additional pet-restraint homonym, but then the Google algorithm has also changed so much over the years (Natural Language Processing and even more AI-based methods, rather than a more obvious codified 'markup' to one's search terms where it was the user's initial knowledge that more limited the search, intentinally or otherwise). 82.132.238.115 16:53, 9 April 2026 (UTC)

Excessive verbosity

Should we have a category and community portal link to it for explanations which are considered excessively verbose to the point of deteriorating their usefulness to the readers? 2603:800C:1200:596A:A08E:FCB1:F968:D433 20:18, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Define excessive. (Also: Define insufficient.) 81.179.199.253 21:09, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

He never even said "insufficient". He said that making a whole essay as a response (I'll link some examples below) is a waste of time because all the text is overwhelming and it becomes harder to pick out the important parts. By the way, he may be referring to you, as you tend to make very long responses (read: not necessarily a bad thing).

Some examples:

--DollarStoreBa'al^converse 21:18, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Indeed. "Insufficient" was was seaid by me (IPv4), not IPv6. The point being that I'm not sure what amount of paring down would satisfy them, and what amount would be problematic to them.

If some information is there but looks superfluous to someone, they might remove it. If the information is not there but seems necessary, some other person might add it. And everyone has different ideas.

And in the two editing examples (and the example that wasn't me), they aren't even Explanation additions, which I'm sure (but will happily be corrected on) wasn't what the suggestion was about. Also, I make no apologies for being verbose enough to encopass a complicated issue, when I think it merits it, especially in Talk. There's also occasion to cut down/rationalise things (in Explanations), especially when multiple editors have added a concept here, an example there, a caveat at the end, etc, which might be best rewritten from scratch.

Face it, we who seek to "explain xkcd" have many things to say, whether we we're Nerd Sniped or just happen to think of something interesting but unmentioned. And those who wish xkcd to be explained may have many questions (even if they don't say what they are. Perhaps I personally err more on maintaining a verbosity (that can be skipped over by the impatient reader) rather than risk being too laconic (and leave out something that others would want/need to be said).

I consciously tried to convey all of what I've just said by just five words, you'll notice. Maybe ten words would have been better? 81.179.199.253 00:10, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

I did actually define it, plain as day! Excessive verbosity is "excessively verbose to the point of deteriorating [an explanation's] usefulness to the readers."

Please I know this has been something of a pattern for years now, and I don't know who all is involved or how many, of course, but could you please try showing some restraint? For example, when you're typing a long paragraph and you're not 100% sure it would make the explanation clearer or more helpful in some concrete way, would you please consider posting it on the talk page and asking others whether they think it should be added, or at least ask others for help with brevity? 2603:800C:1200:596A:FDFE:A728:80A:5859 01:00, 17 April 2026 (UTC)

They do have a point, IPv4. Many of your comments exceed 1,000 bytes in length, and most go above 500.

1)"If some information is there but looks superfluous to someone, they might remove it." Most people are probably going to be encouraged not to edit other people's comments (see here)

2)"In the two editing examples, they aren't even explanation additions..." That's precisely the point. Large additions to explanations are fine, if it all relates to the comic in some way. Large talk page replies, however, are much harder to navigate.

3)"Perhaps I personally err on maintaining a verbosity (that can be skipped over by the impatient reader) rather than risk being too laconic (and leave out something that others would want/need to be said)." The issue is that all the important things are sprinkled throughout your explanation and can't be skipped.

If you do insist on being as verbose as you are, perhaps it would be a good idea to add a TL;DR? Just a thought.--DollarStoreBa'al^converse 13:19, 17 April 2026 (UTC)

Ahoy there, from IPv4-land, again. I think you're misreading something. You're talking about Talk: comments being overlong. I'm not sure anyone else is.

The OP says "...for explanations which are considered excessively verbose..." (my emphasis added). Only in the more recent "...would you please consider posting it on the talk page and..." suggestion is OP mentioning Talk:, and that's as a suggestion of doing that instead of being wordy in the Explanation.

I also disagree that my two highlighted additions (this and this) are overlong. Not as short as they could be, but only significantly so by not saying things I wanted to say. Whether I not I should have, is another matter.

Not much more to add, that hasn't already been mentioned. So I won't. Have a nice day! 81.179.199.253 18:41, 17 April 2026 (UTC)

((Hi, I'm not the above IPv4, but I am someone you used as an example. And I could respond to DSB's comments (that edit-conflicted with me writing the following), as I think they are arguments directed against me too, but that would add another half hour or more of writing, down-editing, reviewing, adding back in things that I should not have edited out, etc. So, instead, I'm just prepending this little blurb. But it seems like I'm of a like mind/modus operandi as the other protagonist here. Though was reluctant to jump in to comment on this 'suggestion' right from the start. But here I am now. Sorry!))

No, sorry. You're still being subjective there, as already said by someone else. If people add more information, it's generally because they think that such information is missing. Or responding to comments (or interpretations) from others who hadn't already 'got it'.

I absolutely don't mind if my attempts to explain something are re-edited to be less wordy than I might have left them, though. That's the nature of wiki-editing. And, if someone removes or wrongly paraphrases something (of mine, or anyone else), I reserve the right to go back and make it correct once more.

The exception is with Talk comments:

Other than totally removing something that totally violates site policy, you do not remove or edit someone else's Talk contribution, beyond any peripheral formatting (e.g. adding a missing signature, correcting a clear indentation misalignment or, with very great care, making it more readable as far as newlines, bulletpoints, tabulation, etc, if the OA cocked that up) and never change the substantive text... even for spelling.
Things written in Talk are not part of the Explanation and should not be assumed to be read by anyone reading the Explanation.
They also need not be as 'perfect' as one might try to write in an Explanation, be they either more jokey, full of spelling/grammar errors. This is not the "voice of the site, for we are legion", but individually attributable (more or less) voices that may display confusion, authoritativeness, malapropriate terminology, the desire to say "FIRST!" and/or complaints about everyone else doing any or all the the other things.
Should someone happen to make a cogent point in Talk, it almost never is suitable to just copypaste their exact words (less the signature - if there was any!) into the main Explanation (or even within the 'incomplete'-notification. If they thought it was ready for the Explanation, they'd have written it there, and probably used a different phrase (I write from experience, here!)
And there is very little reason to go through the collaborative editing process on Talk, with multiple versions (and critiques) of the 'concept' text being left for everyone to see all the false starts and mis-steps and the like. When the very idea of the main Wiki page is that it's a collaborative editing place that gets refined to the best result it can be (or, maybe, just one of the 'least worst' ones), without all the messy re-versioning details on show (but still there in the History, for the curious).

(And I note that DSB highlit one of my Talk contributions, above, as an example of overloquaciousness... Strangely, one that looked somewhat appreciated, unless that was actually intended as sarcasm, but lacked sufficient markup to reveal that as its purpose. Yes, it was significantly longer than the first response (which I think was good, as far as it went), but I thought that *maybe* a few more details wouldn't go amiss. In leiu of possible further questions that might have occured without.)

So, no. I reject your request to 'discuss things in Talk, i advance' any time I think I might not be adding a perfectly cromulant smattering of knowledge. I know that I will never write laconicallg enough to please every reader, especially without making it so streamlined that someone else will have to request (or fulfill) further expansion to it.

"Should we have a category"? Maybe. What are you thinking? Some template-led thing, used either like the {{Actual citation needed}} or {{incomplete}} ones, or somewhere betwixt the two, in application/functionality? What if some adds an {{Excessive verbosity}} tag and someone disagrees enough to remove it again? Are we back to arguing it out in Talk (like we do already), and/or whole paragraphs being pre-emptively removed (like is done already), or are we supposed to stop doing that and instead populate the tag with 'reason=' information?

Not entirely sure what the "community portal link to it" is about, though. Adding a way to get to this section? Or adding a link to each tagged example from this section?

The observation, in several ways, needs further explanation and elaboration (totally unintended, but I just realised how ironic that is!). Can I (and my fellow word-technicians, such as the prior responder) possibly shave off a word or two? Probably. But I personally try (amongst other editing issues) to address inconsistencies and gaps in information that I see have not yet been addressed. If someone wants to improve on what I add, within a comic page, then they can. Better something there, imperfect, than just lacking because of the possibility of some arbitrary word-/paragraph-limit being breached due to my 'interference'. 82.132.236.33 14:44, 17 April 2026 (UTC)

I created [[Category:Excessive verbosity]] and mentioned it at the end of explain xkcd:Community portal. I have a plan to fill it with initially the 20-30 worst offending explanations using AI, but I need to run some experiments first. Liv2splain (talk) 08:59, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

What actual criteria will assess the issue of "worst offending", can I ask? I ask this seriously, but I might as well tell you that I predict that you won't have a cogent answer. Especially if you're going for the same enumeration as that graph that was created. 81.179.199.253 20:55, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

Whether the text is too verbose to serve the readers as a copyedit for brevity could. (By the way, did you know in the year 1600 the typical English written sentence had about 50 words?) Liv2splain (talk) 04:55, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Poking my nose back in... Is the valuation then based upon something like "we asked 100 readers to rank the readability, and used IRV to produce the community-accepted order of best to worst"? Or "nominate your fifty worst examples, and the ones with most votes get looked at", Either of those would be awkward to organise properly.

Or are we asking an AI (multiple times, and/or multiple AIs) to do this ranking, knowing that AIs are ineffably tied to their training data in ways that can be unpredictably spurious. (As an example, it could mark down anything written by an IP, having identified that as a key indicator, if given the option. Like the cases of AIs 'learning' to diagnosing illnesses based upon the presence of a measuring scale in a diagnostic photograph, or a certain type of acute medicine hospital name in the past treatment records.) What would it make of the sentence "Colourless green dreams sleep furiously", and would it know if it is even a contextually apt statement or not, for any given usage?

The 50 words thing is interesting, if that's the key to your suggestion, but hardly a good scale for multiple reasons. Case in point: your first sentence is 16 words. It is brief. It also took me a while to realise it wasn't an accidentally unfinished "Whether <foo> could <bar>" enquiry, and a couple of other garden-path mis-steps, before realising its grammatic intent.

Counting words isn't enough. Short sentences more readable? (Or it is non-linear.) Correct horse battery staple! Must be grammatical, naturally. Not comic joke call-back. But what about punctuation? Commas in right places. Semi-colons: good or bad? Is this paragraph readable? All statements, four words. It is fun writing. But not easy, regardless. Fluid reading remains uncertain. Seems stilted to me. Sesquipedalian loquaciousness preponderantly undisallowed. You get the idea..?

The truth is that there's no easy (non-subjective) measure of readability, and whatever you do use to measure it may have little connection to understandability, practical meaning or actual accuracy/relevence, and attempts to enhance any or all of the latter may require some loss of mere 'brevity'. This is not to say that I consider my own contributions unimprovable, just that they (should) say what I intend them to say, and to the extent I intend to say them. 82.132.238.56 10:16, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Why not simply use the incomplete tag? My main contribution to this wiki in the last months was to cut down explanations to the point. If I stumble upon an explanation that I feel is too bloated but I don't have the time or energy to do it myself at that moment I add the incomplete tag, mention that the explanation needs to be shortened and done. Oftentimes I do it then myself some time later and remove the tag again. I don't see the point of a new category. Speaking of bloating up stuff... ;) Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 08:53, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

I agree, for what it's worth. 82.132.238.56 10:16, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Agreed. It should simply say which part of the explanation needs works, and what exactly it needs. FaviFake (talk) 12:26, 25 April 2026 (UTC)

Alright, per this discussion i deleted Category:Excessive verbosity and removed a link to it from explain xkcd:Community portal. FaviFake (talk) 23:31, 14 July 2026 (UTC)