User:DollarStoreBa'al/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)

Do you not learn?

You say that you've learned from your mistakes, yet I don't see any changes. You say that you're an incoming 9th grader and that's somehow an excuse for your immaturity, but I'm also a 9th grader and can compose myself perfectly fine. You say that you won't do the same mistakes again, yet you still create useless pages. How many more are you going to create? I really don't want to be yelling at you like this, but I just don't think you'll be able to change without it. FYI, I've marked User:DSB and the /C pages for deletion. Grow up. 42.book.addict^{Talk to me!} 21:41, 27 August 2025 (UTC)

Look. You aren't a bad person. In fact, I wholeheartedly believe that your passion can turn into a positive thing for this wiki. The thing is, you have a tendency to try to fix things by doing even more things, often panicking and making the situation worse. I've already told you this before, but I'll reemphasize it for you. TAKE A BREAK. Go for some walks. Work on your homework. Talk to people. Hang out with some friends. Don't just spend all your time on here. Trust me, I made the same mistake before. I would recommend a couple days of rest. See how it feels! It might hurt in the beginning, but nobody NEEDS you on here so badly to work on things to the point of such fanatic editing. I don't think Kynde, FaviFake, or any of the other editors hate you, to be honest. We're all just annoyed that you seem to not listen to our advice and keep on making the same mistakes. It's fine to make mistakes-that's how we learn! But you need to stop worrying so much and just step away from the screen for a bit. (Also, I'd recommend talking to a friend or a trusted adult. Your /PRIVATE page seems to be filled with quite a bit of self-hatred. Don't listen to that voice in your head. She's a bitch and none of it is true. I've dealt with poor mental health too. In fact, that's one of the reasons why I had left for so long. You should try to get these feelings out in a healthy way, instead of taking it out yourself or spending all your time online. Nobody thinks you're stupid. You just need to learn how things are done around here. If that's on a steep learning curve, so be it. Just keep on pushing through, and listen to people more.) And finally, you can make subpages, but try to reduce the number that you have. Think to yourself before you make one: do I TRULY need this? Will it help me out positively in the long run? If not, just put it in another section of your userpage (or make a proper sandbox!). Thank you for coming to my TEDTalk, and I wish you all a good night. Tori, signing off. 42.book.addict^{Talk to me!} 04:05, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

Take a break / Hey, our kid is pretty great / Run away with us for the summer / Let's go upstate / Eliza, I've got so much on my plate / We can all go stay with my father

There's a lake I know (I know) / In a nearby park (I'd love to go) / You and I can go when the night gets dark / I will try to get away

Such a good song, Lin cooked with that one. --DollarStoreBa'al^converse 13:03, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

are you ok?

do you need help? raeb 06:11, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

Would you prefer to get a Blog?

User pages are sufficient to give an idea of who you are, and User Talk ones for people to talk to you about your contributions/etc.

Maybe create sub-pages if you have a relevant site-related project and need 'a space' for them. Such as, as an off-the-wall example, "a list of all the instances of comics that have less than the average number of vowels in them". Perhaps in the hope that it'll be appreciated and made into a more regular page.

But from what I've seen of your 'contributions' this week, none of that applies. Drunk-typing? Well, probably not if you're still so far underage that you probably don't have decent access to anything stronger than wine-gums, but definitely you weren't in full control of your keyboard. We've other people on here, as young as you, and have had even younger ones. If we can actually believe what anybody reveals about theirselves. (I'm a 111-year old hobbit, by the way.) You've been one of the most immaturely-acting people here who haven't actually been obviously trying to vandalise this site, and I'm sure you've strained the patience of pretty much everyone.

But you're not the first to go a little wild, like this. And - dare I say it - some of those who went on to be mainstays of this site got over the novelty of "anyone can edit (almost) anything", and possibly a rush of teenage hormones messing up their judgement. May I suggest you take a deep breath and work out what it is that you're doing that is creating such friction and push-back? I've seen you being a reasonable contributor before, and it's not even been all bad over the last week or so.

And you may have personal life changes going on. Those hormones, issues at home/school/elsewhere, general worries about the state of the world that you're growing up into... maybe a combination of them, or some of these things even causing some of the others. It happens. You're not alone ...even if one of the key issues is actually in feeling alone! But this is not necessarily the place to try to reshape the world like this.

How about you stick a little more to just xkcd matters, for the time being. There are plenty of other ways, and places, to run through whatever it is that you might be going through, and it might be best to balance things a bit more 'worklike' here than too much 'at play', like it looks like you're doing at the moment. Rebalance back to 'just enough of each' later.

And if you do get somewhere to blog, you'll even have a lot more control. Create anything you want (more or less, within the T&Cs of the service), not worrying about other people editing it, and probably even later cleanly delete anything you no longer want (with no pesky Page History open for everyone to read). You could even put a link to your blog here in your User space, if you want to. At least the blog that you want to connect to yourself here. (You can have an xkcd-adjacent one, and one to cry out in anguish if you so wish. And a third to... well, you get the idea.) And the skills to maintain blog code is a bit more 'real-world' than the purely wiki-related markup you learn here, and you can still learn the wiki-markup in parallel with getting to grips with HTML or other popular Content management system markup, giving you a few more useful lifeskills that merely being eventually a master wiki-guru.

How does that sound? Please do stay, but please also consider if everything you're doing is strictly necessary. I see I'm not the only one driven to try to explain this to you. And for some reason I thought I might be able to quickly suggest a solution to this little quandry. (No, it hasn't actually been that quick, has it.) If you really don't like what I say here... delete it. And I'll say no more. Or just tell me to mind my own business. I've probably got some other things to do around here, if our other old-hand editors don't get there before me! 92.17.62.87 22:34, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

I really should, shouldn't I... I'll try to find one. Yesterday and today have mainly been focused on What If? Chapters and a potential new project with Tori (Have you met her? She's lovely) about Sigs. Today has mainly been the latter, with a bit of the former, and some sig ideas I've been working on. I've been trying to stick to more useful matters. For example, /WORKPAGE currently contains drafts of some unfinished What If? Chapters I've been working on. So, I have been attempting to work on more xkcd-related matters. Is it ok if you could

But, I shall heed your advice. I shall get a blog (not blood, autocorrect). Do you have any recommendations for where to start?

One last thing: Could you show me one of the apparent 'drunk typing' incidents? I edit on my school Chromebook, so I wouldn't be surprised if the keyboard decided to be weird. Thank you for the advice! Once, again, I shall heed it. --DollarStoreBa'al^converse 22:51, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

Oh, and by the way, I will not delete this thread. Also, how do you access the internet in Valinor?

'Drunkeness', or whatever it was, was very evident in something like here. More mundane 'misuse of the keyboard' issues are the times you add multiple linefeeds between very simple statements. You need to do two line-feeds to 'separate the paragraphs', any more than that is not normally visually necessary at all, and can look like you weren't even paying full attention at the time, however well-written the line-fragments between are. If it weren't for the fact that there were actual (sort-of-)discernable words in there, the 'drunk' one could also have perhaps been a "cat walked on my keyboard" issue. Were you and the cat both trying to use the keyboard? (Or one of you trying to walk on it, the other trying to type on it. One way round or the other?) I think it's that kind of thing that got people initially concerned about you. Help us to help you (to help yourself?), maybe. 92.17.62.87 02:10, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

i don't think the help is strictly necessary, but, as I said before, do you have any suggestions for places to make a blog? --DollarStoreBa'al^converse 18:30, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

I don't blog, so nothing from personal experience. I bet you could use some Google-Fu (or Bing-Fu, or DuckDuckGo-Fu, or AltaVista-Fu, or AskJeeves-Fu, or...) to find a few such solutions, then look at all their offerings (check their wikipedia pages..? and, yeah, add some Wiki-Fu to the previous list of ways in which to search) and decide which one works for you. Or which two or three, and try them out with either completely identical aims in mind or initially split up your interests (one's your sports-appreciation, another is about what your favourite TV is, a third being your humorous observations about things you see every day, ...), then you can keep running the one(s) that turn out to work for you.

You know what you currently want, better than me or aanyone. 92.17.62.87 23:50, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

If you need a blog, and don't know what platforms to use, I'd recommend making a Google Site or Wordpress blog. 42.book.addict^{Talk to me!} 19:10, 3 September 2025 (UTC)