Difference between revisions of "1665: City Talk Pages"
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*{{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:Rio de Janeiro#Oh, there's no crime in Rio?}} suggests crime incidence in Rio has been suppressed to promote tourism. | ||
*{{w|Talk:Isfahan}} has many naming proposals. | *{{w|Talk:Isfahan}} has many naming proposals. | ||
− | *{{w|Talk:Chattanooga, Tennessee}} has disputes over crime and notability of residents | + | *{{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. | ||
==Transcript== | ==Transcript== |
Revision as of 06:23, 9 April 2016
Explanation
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This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: So far only listing references to items. A real explanation needs to be written together from this and more. Title text explanation needed. Real life examples of such city talk pages with at least the more realistic part of the content? There need to be a table with each item? If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks. |
The comic makes fun about Wikipedia talk pages. On Wikipedia, every article has a place to discuss the content of the page, called a "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 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.
"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 with a personal agenda to suppress certain information might justify their removal of it by claiming it is "not notable", despite other users' interest. "I think the murderer is reverting my edits" suggests the murders are being committed by one person who is trying to prevent Wikipedia from publishing evidence of them. This raises the possibility that the discussion of the murder visible in the infobox picture was initiated by the murderer.
The 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.
Voltaire was a French Enlightenment writer. As a prominent and very opinionated intellectual, 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 Evelyn Beatrice Hall).
Zootopia is a 2016 Disney film. The fictional city which is the setting and title of the film has a distinctive look which is far from bleak, but since it is a fictional location, it appears that the people who are editing the article are getting desperate to find a non-bleak picture of the city.
1982 Secession refers to Key West, Florida seceding from the United States in 1982 to form the Conch Republic.
Andrew Lloyd Webber is an English composer famous for writing The Phantom Of The Opera. (Webber is also known for writing the music for Starlight Express, a rock opera about anthropomorphized trains, which is probably another factor in the train station joke.) Meanwhile, 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 thus explaining the reason for the roof collapse.
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.
Examples
- Talk:Key West, Florida#What's with the Chicken photo questions the relevance of free range chickens.
- Talk:Rio de Janeiro#Oh, there's no crime in Rio? suggests crime incidence in Rio has been suppressed to promote tourism.
- Talk:Isfahan has many naming proposals.
- Talk:Chattanooga, Tennessee has disputes over crime and notability of residents.
- Talk:Muara Bungo indicates someone repeatedly tried to delete the second-largest city in Jambi, Sumatra.
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 [Hide]
- 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 Weber"?
- 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
![comment.png](/wiki/images/0/03/comment.png)
![comment.png](/wiki/images/0/03/comment.png)
![Icons-mini-action refresh blue.gif](/wiki/images/e/e5/Icons-mini-action_refresh_blue.gif)
Discussion
I redid the numbering in the transcript to be consistent with the comic. Unfortunately that added blank lines around the indented section, which looks a little awkward. Perhaps someone with better markup skills than me can fix it.NotLock (talk) 16:51, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
- You didn't need to say font color blue over and over. Just once for the whole list was enough. Numbermaniac (talk) 00:32, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
So now does Wikipedia have to lock down every talk page to prevent xkcd-inspired vandalism edits? Z (talk) 17:14, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
Aren't all of these points based on actual wikipedia talk pages? I came by to find the links to them. Maybe this is a big Whooosh for me, but i'd bet i'll not be the last person to think this. Harodotus (talk) 17:23, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
- Not ACTUALLY, directly based, no. I believe that Randall is engaging in what Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory declared as being called "reductio-ad-absurdum", taking an idea to an extreme in order to then make fun of it. It's definitely an xkcd staple, we see it often. In this case, Randall has seen ridiculous talk pages, and has come up with even more ridiculous "suggestions" if you will (for example, I doubt there's any city with such a huge murder problem that nobody can find a nice picture without a murder happening in the background). People here could find ridiculous city talk pages and link them here as examples, but it's unlikely any/many will have these exact entries, so linking them would be more of an opinion ("Here's one I personally find ridiculous"), which makes it less than ideal for linking to in what should be a fact-based environment. - NiceGuy1 108.162.218.154 18:07, 8 April 2016 (UTC) I finally signed up! This comment is mine. NiceGuy1 (talk) 09:29, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
- "What sheldon on the Big Bang Theory called" *facepalms hard* Reductio ad absurdem was a logical fallacy and rhetorical tactic long before that godawful show. 173.245.54.64 21:37, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
- Well, of COURSE I know they didn't invent it, I'm just pointing out a more accessible place where people may have heard the concept. And I didn't say he called it that, I said that he DECLARED that it's called that. I never suggested I thought he named it. That's one thing I love about the show, that it brings intelligence out to the masses. - NiceGuy1 108.162.218.154 10:58, 9 April 2016 (UTC) So's this! NiceGuy1 (talk) 09:29, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
- "What sheldon on the Big Bang Theory called" *facepalms hard* Reductio ad absurdem was a logical fallacy and rhetorical tactic long before that godawful show. 173.245.54.64 21:37, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
Andrew Lloyd Webber has two "b"s. Shakhteremeslo (talk) 17:41, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
- Wonder if it is a mistake or to make it look real. Talk pages are probably often filled with spelling errors and mistakes that do not get fixed. So maybe it was intentional. Else it might get fixed in an update later. Mentioned this in the explanation now. Kynde (talk) 19:27, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
Is the "it's apparently not a mistake" line a possible reference to citogenesis? 173.245.54.47 17:43, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
- Probably, that seems to be the only logical explanation for how it's possible for that NOT to be a mistake, LOL! - NiceGuy1 108.162.218.154 18:10, 8 April 2016 (UTC) Also my comment! Oh, and 978: Citogenesis NiceGuy1 (talk) 09:29, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
I assume the reference to the 1982 secession is referring to Key West, FL, which "seceded" from the United States and formed the Conch Republic in April 1982, to protest Border Patrol roadblocks in the Keys. It makes sense to me -- If you have to deal with the Border Patrol, you must be leaving the country. They still celebrate Independence Day every April 23. Miamiclay (talk) 21:57, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
- "Mining disasters" section too long
Why is this comic so bad at mining? 108.162.242.134 17:46, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
I just *couldn't resist* coming to the talk page of this particular comic to say "hello world". LOL -JP 108.162.218.41 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
- I think that's why we're all here. 173.245.54.44 14:06, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
I tried clicking on [HIDE] but it didn't. 162.158.72.197 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
- Too blue (DISCOSS!)
The article has too many hyperlinks. Can we make them green instead of blue? Mike (talk) 22:38, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
Nah they should be red Moderator (talk) 01:39, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
- I think the murderer is here now
He's also reverting my edits? 108.162.218.239 00:15, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
- Random examples
Wikipedia has a special page for random pages in a category. This link finds random pages related to cities, which might help in finding amusing talk pages. .42 (talk) 00:20, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
I just had to go check out the talk page on my hometown. Oh my goodness, I didn't realize... 108.162.221.65 02:03, 9 April 2016 (UTC) sam
- Notability
Notability is not really a criterion for including material in articles. It is a criterion for whether to create an article based on a particular topic. Big difference there. There is plenty of information that will never meet notability thresholds that is perfectly fine to include in an article. Complicating this problem is the fact that many Wikipedians do not understand this distinction. It is therefore an entirely plausible situation that some Wikilawyer would try to suppress useful information by denying its notability. This would not be an actually tenable position, though, and therefore the above "explanation" of it is incorrect and incomplete. 162.158.142.139 02:42, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
- Out of curiosity, what is the wikipedia rule then that prevents facts like "On 12 August, 1989, Famous Person X had a Turkey on Rye sandwich, featuring mustard and pickles" or "City Z has many fire hydrants. Here are the GPS coordinates of each fire hydrant: ..."? Although, that fire hydrant edit would be interesting.... NotLock (talk) 06:48, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
- While the common-sense is most time enough, there is a rule that you can only include things for which you have a source (and not every source is ok, blogs for example may be problematic). There are also rules about the scope of an article, which kind of articles are ok (that topic differs MUCH between the several Wikipedias) and for what Wikipedia is not in general. --DaB. (talk) 12:17, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
- Possible Link to XKCD 463?
While it isn't particularly likely, is it possible that this comic references Voting Machines? The article taking a position on correct condom use is odd, but it is possible there is some metaphor (such as the one in Voting Machines) that involves condom usage that is in the article but isn't visible to us. On a related note, I would love to see this hypothetical Wikipedia article. 108.162.237.254 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
- Andrew Lloyd Webber vs. Frank Lloyd Wright
- Randy, Please add them to the next Bracket! 108.162.237.165 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
Randall did updated Webber's last name in the original comic, maybe this page is up for update (I am not sure how ot properly do it, so can someone who is more experienced in editing do this?) 108.162.219.63 16:50, 16 September 2016 (UTC)