Editing 1665: City Talk Pages

{{comic
| number    = 1665
| date      = April 8, 2016
| title     = City Talk Pages
| image     = city talk pages.png
| titletext = I don't think the Lakeshore Air Crash Museum really belongs under 'Tourist Attractions.' It's not a museum--it's just an area near the Lake Festival Laser Show where a lot of planes have crashed.
}}
==Explanation==
The comic makes fun of Wikipedia talk pages. On Wikipedia, every article has a place to discuss the content of the page, called a "{{w|Help:Using talk pages|talk page}}". This comic presents the table-of-contents of the talk page of an article about a city, showing all headers and subheaders used by Wikipedia editors to organize discussions by topic. Unusually, many subsection headers are used to react directly to previous subsections (i.e. "Not how Wikipedia works"; "Also bleak"). While some of the topics are normal for a talk page (e.g. "Origin of city's name"; "Discuss: New picture") others are increasingly absurd. The topics discussed suggest that the city has many problems and is a bad place to live in or visit.

The topics show a common problem at Wikipedia's talk pages: People often use them as a place to talk about the ''subject'' of the article, but it is for talking about the ''article'' itself. Someone near the top of the talk page is suggesting a better name for the city.

The article repeatedly refers to "the murders", suggesting that the city might be well-known for them. It seems that the editors cannot agree on how notable "the murders" are. "Not that notable" refers to Wikipedia's general criteria for including information in articles. "Notable" is technically incorrect, as Wikipedia's {{w|Notability on Wikipedia|Notability}} guideline only applies to whether an article can be written on a larger subject. "{{w|WP:UNDUE|Undue weight}}" is the appropriate guideline for article content. Material which is not noteworthy should be removed; however, different editors often disagree about what is notable, which may result in text being inserted and then removed (an "edit war"). Someone creates a section on how "all cities have murders." While true, most cities would not have a series of them so well-known that when someone talks about "the murders" any reader could be expected to know what they are talking about, making this sound like an attempt to make the city sound nicer than it is. "I think the murderer is reverting my edits" suggests the murders are being committed by ''one person'' who is influencing how they are shown on Wikipedia - perhaps trying to prevent Wikipedia from publishing evidence of them or possibly publicise them by adding ''more'' information about them. This raises the possibility that the discussion of the murder visible in the infobox picture may have been ''initiated by the murderer''.

The {{w|WP:Infobox|infobox}} is a short fact sheet that many articles in the (English) Wikipedia have; it generally includes the main image illustrating the subject of the article. The question of which picture is best for the prominent infobox can cause arguments, as it is preferred to be high-quality, accurate, and pretty. It seems that the people who are editing the article are getting desperate to find a non-bleak picture of the city. When a non-bleak picture is added, it turns out to be from the 2016 Disney film ''{{w|Zootopia}}'' (e.g. The fictional city which is the setting and title of the film has a distinctive [http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/disney/images/4/43/Zootopia_City_Full.jpg look] which is far from bleak, but is not a picture of the city.), which is also known as ''Zootropolis'' in some European countries and ''Zoomania'' in Germany. 

It is discovered that the photograph of the city has a murder in it. Instead of forwarding the picture to law enforcement, someone uses the image editing software Photoshop to erase the murder so the picture might be less objectionable. It appears that murders are so common in the city that any random photograph of the city has a chance of showing a murder, to the point where a second photo proposed as a replacement for the infobox picture is found to show ''another'' murder.

{{w|Voltaire}} was a French Enlightenment writer. As a prominent and very opinionated intellectual, [https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Voltaire#Misattributed he gets a lot of quotes falsely attributed to him]; most famously, he did not actually say "I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" (that was {{w|Evelyn Beatrice Hall}}). Restaurants {{w|Restaurant#Modern format|as they are understood today}} only developed near the end of Voltaire's life in the 18th century, and Voltaire is not known for writing about food establishments.

The city apparently is a mining town and there have been multiple mining disasters. An editor is complaining that this section is too long, but another editor points out that this is because there have been so many mining disasters that a large section is needed to cover the topic. It is absurd to attribute local mining disasters to the city being "bad at mining," mainly because such disasters are significant tragedies for the worker communities in which they occur.

"1982 Secession" refers to Key West, Florida symbolically seceding from the United States in 1982 to form the {{w|Conch Republic}}, a {{w|micronation}}. Presumably the city discussed in the article did something similar, or the user posting this is confused and trying to discuss the article for Key West.

A known problem on Wikipedia is "{{w|WP:COATRACK|coatracking}}", where people use articles to promote topics that are not strictly the subject of the article (perhaps by writing far more about them than is necessary, when they could just be mentioned in passing). Here, it emerges that someone used this article to express a completely irrelevant and weirdly dubious opinion on condom use.

{{w|Andrew Lloyd Webber}} is an English composer famous for writing ''The {{w|Phantom Of The Opera}}''. Webber is also known for writing the music for ''{{w|Starlight Express}}'', a rock opera about anthropomorphized trains, which is probably another factor in the train station joke. Meanwhile, {{w|Frank Lloyd Wright}}, who shares his middle name and last initial, was an American architect, who designed more than 1,000 structures. As it turns out it was the composer who was responsible for the train station. Another editor announces that they're putting a mention of a collapse of the station roof (presumably recently), the implication being that Andrew is a lot better at composing than architectural engineering.

In the title text, it emerges that the Lakeside Festival's eponymous Laser Show is so impressive that it has caused a number of aeroplanes to crash. This refers to the dangerous behavior of deliberately aiming laser pointers at aircrafts, as they can be distracting or even blinding to the pilots, putting the flight at risk. The article has been promoting a location as the "Lakeshore Air Crash Museum", despite it having no such official status, and seems to just be the local scene of multiple accidents resulting from the recklessly recurring laser hazards.

==Examples==
*{{w|Talk:Key West, Florida/Archive 1#What's with the Chicken photo}}: ''If there is a reason like Key West likes to raise chickens, or rather it's people do it should be noted in the article otherwise it the photos serves no purpose[.]''
*{{w|Talk:Rio de Janeiro#Oh, there's no crime in Rio?}}: ''What PR group promoting tourism to Rio has done an insanely good job of preventing this page from having any mention of Rio's horrendous constant warfare in the favelas[?] The truth hurts sometimes, but it's better than denial.''
*{{w|Talk:Kirkcaldy/Archive 1#Derivation of the name}}: ''More likely, it seems to me, is that the name derives entirely from pre-Gaelic sources (e.g. Pictish and/or Brythonic) and is more likely to come from something like "caer" (fort, camp) + "caled" + "dynion" - or, indeed, "caledonii" - where the latter elements mean either "hard men" or "Caledonians"[.]''
*{{w|Talk:Isfahan#Requested move}}: ''Isfahan → Esfahan — The Esfahan pronounce is correcter.''
*{{w|Talk:Chattanooga, Tennessee/Archive 1#Crime}}: ''Besides, it's doubtful Chattanooga didn't have gangs until the summer of 2003.''
*{{w|Talk:Muara Bungo#Recent Editing Events}}: ''Please do not flag this page for deletion.''
*[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Arvada,_Colorado&oldid=1195359543#%22Police_scandal%22_section_is_libelous,_biased_and_does_not_have_proper_attributes,_making_it_one_man's_opinion Talk:Arvada, Colorado#"Police scandal" section is libelous, biased and does not have proper attributes, making it one man's opinion]: ''Please show us in Attribution 17 where it says that "several members of the Arvada police" were convicted of "previous criminal conduct." Please show us in Attribution 17 where it says that it cost the city "close to half a million dollars defending the criminal actions of one police officer alone ... " If you do not have an attribution, it is only YOUR OPINION.''
*{{w|Talk:Sutton-in-Ashfield# }}: ''And about the Ashfield show? Worth menioning? It's got steadily worse over the years, they don't even have ferrets there anymore. :(.''
*{{w|Talk:Abergele#Untitled}}: ''YES THIS IS RELEVANT!!! I MAY NOT BE FAMOUS TO YOU BUT I AM TO OTHER PEOPLE, I AM WELL KNOWN IN THE DENBIGH AREA, AND RECENTLY BEEN IN THE LOCAL PAPERS, SO IS THAT GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU! BY DANIEL JONES! PEACE OUT!''
*{{w|Talk:Tucson, Arizona/Archive 4}}:
** {{w|Talk:Tucson, Arizona/Archive 4#Chicago-style pizza|#Chicago-style pizza}}: ''I heard you can get Chicago-style deep dish pizza even in Tucson! Is this true? If so, it probably should be added to the article.''
** {{w|Talk:Tucson, Arizona/Archive 4#Crime?|#Crime?}}: ''Um...I heard this place is kinda dangerous.''
** {{w|Talk:Tucson, Arizona/Archive 4#Jan. 8 2011|#Jan. 8 2011}}: ''Shouldn't the headline-indicated shooting be included?''
** {{w|Talk:Tucson, Arizona/Archive 4#What's with all the snow?|#What's with all the snow?}}: ''Why are there three photos showing snow in the vicinity of Tucson? I know snow is an event for us, but I think other Wikipedians know what it looks like.''

==Transcript==
:[Caption above the panel:]
:I love reading the Wikipedia talk pages for articles on individual cites

:[A list of contents for a Wikipedia talk page regarding an article about a city. Except for the header and the square brackets, which are written in black text, the rest is in a blue font.]
:::Contents [<font color="#0746ad">hide</font>]

<div style="color:#0645ad;">
:1 Origin of city's name?
::1.1 Idea for a better name
::1.2 Not how Wikipedia works
:2 Too much promotion of the lake festival
:3 Should we mention the murders?
::3.1 Not that notable
::3.2 All cites have murders
:4 Quote verification:  Even if Voltaire did visit (unlikely), why would he get so angry about our restaurants?
:5 Discuss:  New picture
::5.1 Current one looks awfully bleak
::5.2 Gray sky
::5.3 What about this
::5.4 Also bleak
::5.5 Maybe this place just looks that way
::5.6 Found a better picture, more colorful
::5.7 That's a shot from Disney's ''Zootopia''
:6 "Mining disasters" section too long
::6.1 Not really Wikipedia's fault
::6.2 Why is this town so bad at mining?
:7 Infobox picture:  I just realized you can see a murder happening in the background
::7.1 This city is terrible
::7.2 Photoshopped out murder
::7.3 Can someone just take a better picture
::7.4 Okay, uploaded a new picture
::7.5 Wait, never mind, I just noticed there's a murder in this one, too
:8 1982 secession still in effect?
:9 I think the murderer is reverting my edits
:10 Why does this article take '''''any''''' position on correct condom use, let alone such a weird and ambiguous one?
:11 Train station "Designed by Andrew Lloyd Webber"?
::11.1 They probably mean Frank Lloyd Wright
::11.2 I thought so too, but it's apparently not a mistake
::11.3 Didn't know he did architecture
::11.4 Roof collapse
</div>

==Trivia==
In the [http://web.archive.org/web/20160408153019/http://xkcd.com/1665/ original version of the comic], ''Webber'' was incorrectly spelled ''Weber''. This was a mistake by [[Randall]], as it has since been corrected.

In 2022, Randall [https://twitter.com/xkcd/status/1501650939140362241 commented on Twitter that] "I don’t usually laugh at my own comics, but every time I stumble on this one and read through it again, it gets me".
{{comic discussion}}
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