User talk:DollarStoreBa'al

Hi! Talk here if you want, my life is ever-changing. swears are fine :)

Smash!

You've been squished by a whale!
Don't take this too seriously. Someone just wants to let you know you did something really silly.

General Chitchat and such

Hey, as per your comment on Main Page#Create my user page, I created your pages. Welcome to the wiki! Please always remember to sign your comments with --~~~~, and ask in the Community portal if you don't know something. If you want, you can read the the Editor FAQ! Welcome. --FaviFake (talk) 18:02, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks! DollarStoreBa'al (talk) 19:11, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

hi btw :) ⯅A dream demon⯅ (talk) 15:11, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

hello, how are you doing this fine morning, my dear fellow? DollarStoreBa'al (talk) 16:03, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

Hiyo

I'm trying to lurk less and be friendly so I just thought I'd ah drop in :) ⯅A dream demon⯅ (talk) 15:53, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

Bello. me editor guy who edit much. edit fun! DollarStoreBa'al (talk) 17:00, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

hahahahaha edit fun indeed. ⯅A dream demon⯅ (talk) 15:20, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

Question: How do you add those user boxes that you have on your page? Those would be nice to have. DollarStoreBa'al (talk) 16:52, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

copy and paste this and remove the nowiki tag:

{{Userbox | border-c = #255 | border-s = 1 | info-s = 9 | id = alastor jumpscare | info = [[User:Definitely Bill Cipher|This user has a pet cannibal deer.]] | float = left}} and replace it with what you desire, for example:

{{Userbox | border-c = #255 | border-s = 1 | info-s = 9 | id = ;) | info = [[User:DollarStoreBa'al|This user _____ ]] | float = left}}

⯅A dream demon⯅ (talk) 14:50, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

Dude thanks! DollarStoreBa'al (talk) 13:48, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

You're very welcome dear. WEE WOO ⯅A dream demon⯅ (talk) 14:18, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

Wow

Am I so cool that I got a mention on your user page just because I showed you how to make userboxes? I mean, if I am... thanks. ⯅A dream demon⯅ (talk) 14:44, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

Yes. Yes you are. DollarStoreBa'al (talk) 15:43, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

YAY TYSM i will get you free jambalaya for you immediately due to that (if you're into that) ⯅A dream demon⯅ (talk) 14:19, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

No need. Also, I see you're from Louisiana. DollarStoreBa'al (talk) 03:44, 29 March 2025 (UTC)]]

Haha or maybe I just like jambalaya :). Also you are not 4029 hHHA ⯅A dream demon⯅ (talk) 14:17, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

The 5s and Es and Os

Reply to this if you've figured out what the meaning of the thingy on my user page is.

it's base 3 Caliban (talk) 09:07, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

 :O ⯅A dream demon⯅ (talk) 14:31, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Nope! I'll give you a hint: talk to sam. DollarStoreBa'al (talk) 14:33, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

https://voca.ro/1Akmh0zRqa8Q Caliban (talk) 16:02, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

uhhh...DollarStoreBa'al (talk) 20:41, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

sorry, that's not it. Don't know what to say to that.DollarStoreBa'al (talk) 17:54, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

You have one week! Hint: beep boooop --DollarStoreBa'al^ConverseMy life choices 16:30, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

Morse code? BobcatInABox (talk) 19:33, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

Morse code of what? You are very, very close.--DollarStoreBa'al^ConverseMy life choices 20:47, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

Time's up! If you put this into [1] and click play, you get the intro to Bad Apple. --DollarStoreBa'al^ConverseMy life choices 14:44, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

It's better than 2869: Puzzles BobcatInABox (talk) 11:11, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Want to do some repetitive work?

Hey dollar, I noticed you're very active here! I don't have a ton of time, but I recently overhauled the template {{comic}} to add many new features. While we figure out Header text, would you be interested in editing the contents of about 50 pages (the early xkcd comics) to make these new features work? It's a lot of repetitive work, you'd just need to make the same small edits on 50 pages. (If you're interested in why the OG comics were in a different order, see LiveJournal). Just let me know and I'll finish the documentation for the template! --FaviFake (talk) 17:13, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

What exactly would I be doing to get these features to work? DollarStoreBa'al (talk) 17:18, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

If it isn't super-complex wikitext things I can totally help! --DollarStoreBa'al ^Converse 19:21, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Right so you'd just need to move things around and remove some useless code. This process adds a second white navigation bar at the bottom to browse the OG comics in the original order. You can follow this example. The steps are:

Start from comic number 4:

1. Based on the short sentence written above the explanation, add "ognumber =", "ogprev =", and "ognext =" (so the navbar can work)
2. Add "oglink =", and move ONLY the link from "before" to "oglink" (so from HTTPS://..... until the end of the link, move that to "oglink")
3. Now, from the edit preview, copy the original title.
4. Delete everything in "before =" now that you moved the link
5. Add "ogtitle =" and paste the original title that you copied.
6. Finally, in "titletext", add two couples of apostrophes ('') in these places: https://imgur.com/a/BewKKr1
7. Now save the changes, and click the new white "Next >" button you just created to go to the next one!

And you're done! It's much simpler when you try it. Of course you don't have to do it, feel free to work on the header text! --FaviFake (talk) 20:41, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

me am do. --DollarStoreBa'al ^{ConverseFaviFake (talk) 11:05, 26 April 2025 (UTC)com/wiki/index.php/S--FaviFake (talk) 11:05, 26 April 2025 (UTC)pecial:Contributions/DollarStoreBa%27al My life choices} 20:51, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Oh and I added friendly errors for when you forget to add one of the "og" labels. Just note that if you don't provide "ognumber", the cool white navbar won't show up. Remember to always insert a pipe before a label, like this "| ognumber =". And once you get to comic 55 you're done! That's the last one --FaviFake (talk) 20:58, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Hey, I don't really understand where I'm supposed to put these. --DollarStoreBa'al ^{ConverseMy life choices} 21:01, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Nevermind, I got this. --DollarStoreBa'al ^{ConverseMy life choices} 21:05, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Erm nope the OGnumber, OGprev, and OGnext you should take from the first sentence above the explanation. For example 24 says it's sixth. Anyways, I found a pretty big bug in the template, so I guess we should stop until it's fixed. The Original title doesn't show up! Arghhh! I'll fix it.

I'll let you know when you can continue. Thanks! --FaviFake (talk) 21:18, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

alright, sounds good! Dang tho. Let me know and I'll get right back to it. --DollarStoreBa'al ^{ConverseMy life choices} 13:45, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

Hey, I, um, undid all your edits because they broke the template haha. I guess this was more complex that I thought! Don't worry, I'll finish them myself over time. I'm more experienced than I thought it seems! Thanks for trying to help anyways! --FaviFake (talk) 18:52, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

Reviewing them, it seems you were not isolating the link correctly and leaving there some HTML elements that closed other open HTML elements that weren't finished! It did look, interesting, at least! --FaviFake (talk) 18:55, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

So sorry about that, I noticed those random Html elements. Thought they were part of the bug. oops. --DollarStoreBa'al^ConverseMy life choices 22:45, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

No worries! --FaviFake (talk) 11:05, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

My Mistakes

Your signature is in violation of WP:SIGAPP

Hey, I wanted to let you know that your current signature doesn't follow WP:SIGAPP (specifically the first bullet point). Kindly change it. Thanks. --FaviFake (talk) 12:48, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

Changed to 14pt. --DollarStoreBa'al^ConverseMy life choices 13:02, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

Any height that's taller than the other text on the page disrupts the way that surrounding text displays. 14 px is no better. --FaviFake (talk) 13:25, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

FINE --DollarStoreBa'al^ConverseMy life choices 15:14, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

That still disrupts the page flow... I think you signature is already more eye-catching than any other signature on this entire wiki, why do you want to increase its height too? --FaviFake (talk) 15:19, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

I thought the issue was the height? Doesn't the wiki use 12pt font, which that Sig is? --DollarStoreBa'al^ConverseMy life choices 15:27, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

I don't know, I just noticed that it does increase the space between two lines. It might be the superscript's fault then. Well, at least the current one is much better than before. --FaviFake (talk) 15:49, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

Mass-deleting links

Hay, just letting you know that maybe you've misunderstood the "incomplete" notice. You shouldn't delete every link on the page until there are no links left, but rather include these links, if they're helpful, directly into the explanation, as explained in the editor faq. Thanks! --FaviFake (talk) 18:09, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

Creating someone's User pages, without being asked

In short, not worth the bother. You were helped, above, because you asked (and now, obviously, have become capable of doing the creation yourself, within a very short time). But this wiki is littered with "Welcome, I created your User pages for you" (including for IPs, which is particularly unuseful), where the user concerned has not then used them. However active an editor they are, if they don't know/care about them then it's effort done for nothing. 172.70.86.130 08:50, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

Yup, I also pointed it out. In case you missed my reply to your message, here's a copy:

”It's relevant to note that we only create User pages when people explicitly ask for them. On the other hand, User talk pages are created if you want to talk to that specific member privately."--FaviFake (talk) 15:03, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

Sorry about that. Just trying to help! --DollarStoreBa'al (talk) 15:34, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

NEWS

Hey uhhh does anyone know about this? Should we make explanations for these? --DollarStoreBa'al^ConverseMy life choices 20:48, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

Google's Ai says there are multiple exclusive comics for the textbook, but I've only been able to find Inside Body, shown here:

Just so you know, the standard method for announcing something, big or small, to the community is to create a post in te community portal. Just so you don't have to copy and paste every message and reach a wider audience. --FaviFake (talk) 15:50, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

Why [...] is DSBContribs a thing?

Did you seriously have to create a page in the main namespace with the sole purpose of redirecting to your user contributions page?

Firstly, the main namespace is supposed to be on-topic. Why, you may ask? Because "DSBContribs" literally appears in the search results for "D" alongside "DSBSig/sandbox" (???), right between DNE (comic #259) and Danger Mnemonic (comic #2487).

User specific stuff should really go as sub-pages of your user page, and nothing is stopping you from directly linking to your contribs page in your signature instead of using a pointless redirect.

As I've read more of your talk page I've realised you're [...] 86.143.223.93 13:48, 4 August 2025 (UTC)

Highly disagree on the tone but agree with the message. I redacted the message and scheduled both for deletion, use your user page for this. thanks! --FaviFake (talk) 19:38, 4 August 2025 (UTC)

Sorry about this. At the time, I did not know subpages even existed. Thank you random IP for the advice, even if slightly unhinged, and thank you FaviFake for getting to those deletions. I would have done those deletions eventually. I created DSBContribs to save characters on my signiature, assuming that the pages would not show up on the search (linking to special:contributions:DollarStoreBa'al is much longer than linking to DSBContribs). Evidently, I was wrong. I created DSBSIG/sandbox while trying to create a sandbox page and being stupid. That was me trying to work out the wikitext to create a signature. I have perfected my signature now, and these pages are no longer needed. The 'FINE' comment was meant to be a joke. Maybe that would have worked better with a rolling eyes emoji and an 'ugh'. I will be putting this into the 'my mistakes' section of my talk page as this was definitely a mistake. Thanks for bringing my attention to this! Gratefully yours, --DollarStoreBa'al^ConverseMy life choices 05:01, 6 August 2025 (UTC)

By the way, I looked at your little message Mr. IP man. First, I see where you're coming from. I am a little bit immature, this is true. However, this should probably come as an expectation with someone going into 9th grade. This has been acknowledged on my user page and my comment on 3123. Please do your research. Second, swears are fine for basically all purposes EXCEPT to insult people. The fact that you are willing to insult someone who you think is an 8-year-old shows how mature you truly are. Maybe you are the one who should, as you put it 'grow the fuck up'. Thank you, and have a good day. Sincerely, --DollarStoreBa'al^ConverseMy life choices 05:01, 6 August 2025 (UTC)

Hi, it's me (on a different IP because I'm at home now).

I'm sorry for being so aggressive in my original comment, I thought you were a grown adult, not a teen. ("think is an 8-year old" is incorrect btw, I was saying you were "acting like an 8 year old", but that itself was too harsh).

I made stupid mistakes too when I was around your age, and I should have assumed good faith rather than take such an aggressive tone.

Sorry for that, and good luck with school! 90.219.64.93 13:50, 10 August 2025 (UTC)

I accept your apology with open arms. I truly hope we can work together to improve the wiki in the future. Best regards, --DollarStoreBa'al^ConverseMy life choices 19:11, 10 August 2025 (UTC)

Possessive and contracted "its"/"it's".

This also confused me, oh so many years ago. Then I was given a handy way of knowing which was the exception, which has served me well, and I've never had to second-guess myself. (Naturally, I've probably typoed/thinkoed it wrong, unconsciously... But since then I've never had a moment of doubt when I've deliberately kept myself/others correct.) Maybe it'll help you. - I tried to summarise it in the edit I made to the message concerned, but not enough space to do it justice...

1. The possessive version is "its". It is one of a number of "irregular possessives", "his" instead of "him's"/, "hers" instead of "her's", "theirs" instead of "they's"/"them's".
   • Basically all the very common and basic pronoun-based possessives that (as I think of it, although not entirely correctly) were added to the language long before anybody actually tried to regularise the use of possessives, so just stuck that way. If it belongs to "him", "her", "me" "you", "us", "them" and "it", you're in the realms of using a completely irregular possessive, none of which use apostrophes.
   • Personally, I think that "one" (the equally 'basic', IMO, impersonal pronoun) should be included in that. Not for the likes of Ones' complement (that's belonging to (a number of) digit-ones), but in the "one is speaking sense. But (as noted in that last link), it isn't. So don't do that.
2. This leaves the contractive version as the one that uses the apostrophe. With two interesting caveats:
   • There are irregular contractions. The word "forecastle" contracts to "fo'c'sle" or "fo'c's'le", which is a lot more overkill than other similarly complicated contractions. And "will not" becomes "won't" (or, some suggest, just "wont", though that's also a different word), despite not having the right set of letters in the right order to remain after (at least) the "not"->"n't" contraction.
   • In reporting speech, where someone says "it's just something I want to say", use it without fear. But, when writing, I find that (except for very casual use, essentially speaking in text ...or of course when tending to write in abbreviations/limited space) it's [sic] just much better to write "it is", in full. Can't(cannot) be written wrong, couldn't(/could not) be read wrong.
3. Oh, and then theres "its'", the plural-(non-irregular-)possessive, which could be used in certain circumstances... "There are loads of its in this text, without apostrophes... please check that each its' punctuation is correct!". But... not a common occurance. (Far less than "belonging to the word 'it'", the sole reason to use possessive "it's".) ;)

...TL;DR;, irregular possesive "its" because of all the other irregular possessive pronouns that have words of their own. And you might just find it easier to uncontract "it's", most of the time, especially if you're still not entirely sure about it. (Or, perhaps, you're happy to not let go of such a minor degree of gravitas, and it's not transcriped real-world enunciation, which might even feature such monstrosities as "couldn't've" as the contraction of "could not have"!)

Don't know if that helps, or is understandable, but there you are. Overexplained and overly rambling, as it is..! 92.17.62.87 21:51, 22 August 2025 (UTC)

While you have way too much time on your hands, it'sn't (it is not) hard to understand, so thank you! As I said, it's basically my only grammatical flaw, so this helps tremendously. Damn my brain and its grammatical irregularities. Its a pleasure to talk with you! Sincerely, --DollarStoreBa'al^ConverseMy life choices 00:40, 23 August 2025 (UTC)

Definitely didn't just make a mistake on an it's. After reading a full page worth of why not to. --DollarStoreBa'al^ConverseMy life choices 00:44, 23 August 2025 (UTC)

excuse me

but it appears you have discovered that I was a spammer in a past account or maybe this account. who's to say anymore? anyway i'm trying to fix that hehe ⯅A dream demon⯅ (talk) 14:02, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

template

What is a template? What’s a

Whack! You've been whacked with a wet trout. Don't take this too seriously. Someone just wants to let you know that you did something silly.

and

Smash!

You've been squished by a whale!
Don't take this too seriously. Someone just wants to let you know you did something really silly.

?
If it looks weird, click edit ^April_fools^update!(talk) 12:20, 7 August 2025 (UTC)

I'm assuming you're asking what a template is and not about sea life. Templates are basically shortcuts that we use for commonly used things. For example, {{cn}} creates ^{[citation needed]}. You can create one pretty easily. I made those because they're commonly used on Wikipedia, and wanted to transfer them here. --DollarStoreBa'al^ConverseMy life choices 13:41, 7 August 2025 (UTC)

how can I create one? ^April_fools^update!(talk) 13:21, 7 August 2025 (UTC)

Here's something that may be able to help: --DollarStoreBa'al^ConverseMy life choices 13:43, 7 August 2025 (UTC)

thxxxxxxxxx ^April_fools^update!(talk) 13:46, 7 August 2025 (UTC)

You are very welcome! I hope you are excited to start contributing to the wiki! --DollarStoreBa'al^ConverseMy life choices 13:46, 7 August 2025 (UTC)

By the way, please don't be afraid to ask me any questions at all. If I can, I will help! --DollarStoreBa'al^ConverseMy life choices 13:48, 7 August 2025 (UTC)

, which is {{Thx$store}} (if I can call you that)

Template Tips

Ok. Sorry, needed to get that out of my system. Thank you for the supplement. Truly. It's a good warning. Just please don't start randomly insulting people towards the end. This is a wiki. Speak the facts, and nothing more. In this case, the facts are:

• Templates are easy to create.
• It's useful to learn from other templates.

Those are the facts. Now, you're done. Don't go on to insult them about how they're too stupid to do something useful.

No insult intended, no mention at all of stupidity, just the obvious eagerness. Tried only to give caution not to run before you've learnt how (and, ideally, where) to walk. All edits show up, to anyone looking. The initial query had not been answered, when I started the reply, and I had to hastily rewrite things to fit back in on the end.

To the above, I'd add:

• Know what purpose your template will have.

That way you're less likely to create something that you later regret, give or take a rename/delete. (If you want anything totally deleted, it may take a long time, a meanwhile you can only edit it 'clear', but still findable and the history checkable.) Most templates are not there to add pictures of sealife, but to grease the wheels of common (or not so common) Explanation page scenarios. And we might even thank you for a good shortcut for something we maybe never realised was needed before.

For a more technical 'manual', Help:A quick guide to templates might be a useful next read, and from there jump around into other Help: items. There's a lot you can do, though you certainly won't want to use it all right from the start. Take your time and know why you're doing something, as well as what'.

Good luck for the future, I've probably said as much as you need me to say for now. 82.132.246.73 17:39, 7 August 2025 (UTC)

While this is very useful, it would be nice if you posted this on User:Aprilfoolsupdate!'s talk page. He's the one learning the ropes, and it would probably be very useful to him. --DollarStoreBa'al^ConverseMy life choices 17:47, 7 August 2025 (UTC)

Requests/favors

If you need anything done, reach out to me! I'll let you know what I can do to help you! --DollarStoreBa'al^ConverseMy life choices 19:49, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

Hi DollarStoreBa'al, are you good enough to have the link to my user page? ^April_fools^update!(talk) 01:57, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

Done! --DollarStoreBa'al^ConverseMy life choices 15:56, 18 August 2025 (UTC)