Editing 1665: City Talk Pages

| 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.

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}}". In this case, the comic talks about the talk page of an article about a city. While some of the topics are quite normal for such a page (e.g. the quality of the images) others are not (e.g. too many murders and mine disasters in the city). 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 at 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. Material which is not noteworthy should be removed; however, different editors often disagree about what is notable, resulting in conflicting edits as text is inserted and then removed (an "edit war"). Someone replies that "all cities have murders". While true, many cities in low-crime countries 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 an image illustrating the subject of the article. The question of which picture is best for the infobox (because this image is so prominent) can cause edit wars. It emerges 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 will 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}}).

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}}. 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. (Zootopia is called Zootropolis in many European countries for trademark reasons.)

The city apparently is a mining city and there have been some 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. {{w|Mining}} is the extraction of minerals or substances from the earth's crust. People often use mining as a means of employment. These people are called {{w|miners}}. Sometimes there are many miners in one area who mine a lot of product. Then mining might become the main export of a city. These cities are called {{w|mining communities}}. In this comic, it is implied that the city being discussed is a mining city. A {{w|mining disaster}} is a unfortunate happenstance that can lead to a miner's {{w|death}}. Mining accidents are bad things that can occur in a variety of different ways. Causes of death from a mining accident can include {{w|suffocation}}, {{w|explosion}}, {{w|poisoning}}, and {{w|crushing}}.  

{{w|1982 Secession}} refers to Key West, Florida seceding from the United States in 1982 to form the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conch_Republic Conch Republic].

A known problem on Wikipedia is "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 the article on a city expresses a dubious opinion on condom use. This is against several Wikipedia policies: it would be irrelevant to the article and sounds like an editor's attempt to publicise their views.

{{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, and as a result the station roof has collapsed.

In the comic ''Webber'' is spelled ''Weber''. This could be a mistake by [[Randall]], (but then it is likely to be corrected later...) More likely Randall did this for the sake of realism as this is what can be expected by people writing in a talk page on Wikipedia, where errors are not necessarily corrected as they would be in the main article.

*{{w|Talk:Key West, Florida#What's with the Chicken photo}} questions the relevance of free range chickens.

*{{w|Talk:Rio de Janeiro#Oh, there's no crime in Rio?}} suggests crime incidence in Rio has been suppressed to promote tourism.

*{{w|Talk:Kirkcaldy}} discusses naming.

*{{w|Talk:Isfahan}} has many naming proposals.

*{{w|Talk:Chattanooga, Tennessee}} has disputes over crime and notability of residents.

*{{w|Talk:Muara Bungo}} indicates someone ''repeatedly'' tried to delete the second-largest city in Jambi, Sumatra.

*{{w|Talk:Arvada, Colorado}} held a heated argument considerably longer than the article, concerning the existence of a scandal in the police department. A year later, one editor deemed the issue unimportant and removed it entirely.

*{{w|Talk:Sutton-in-Ashfield}} discusses the cultural significance of town landmarks.

*{{w|Talk:Abergele}} has residents arguing over who should be included.

*{{w|Talk:Tucson, Arizona}}:

** ''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.''

** ''Um...I heard this place is kinda dangerous.''

** ''Shouldn't the headline-indicated shooting be included?''

** ''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.''

:[Caption above the panel: ]

:::Contents [<font color="blue">Hide</font>]

:<font color="blue">1 Origin of city's name?

:11 Train station "Designed by Andrew Lloyd Weber"?

::11.4 Roof collapse</font>