Editing Talk:2380: Election Impact Score Sheet

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Please vote, everyone! #Hashtag. ''(Unsigned. Whoever you are.)''

Cool, how to convince citizens of other countries to vote for this shitsotrm?

I always told myself that if I ever joined Twitter (rather than 'browse-lurked' the feeds  of people of interest, as I do now) I would use #hashtag a lot, and other ironic self-referential things in order to stop myself taking it too seriously. Nice to know I'm on the same wavelength with Randall, but now I must further delay my inevitable signing up until I've got something newer and better in mind! [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.61|162.158.158.61]] 00:06, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

This "as if you voted again!" should not be confused with the stuff that Trump keeps yammering about. :-) [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 02:44, 3 November 2020 (UTC)


Why is Alaska four points?? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.79|162.158.62.79]] 03:20, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

:Alaska is only three, but who knows, it's not a close race there according to 538. They also have higher than average voter turnout too.
[[Special:Contributions/172.69.42.92|172.69.42.92]] 03:37, 3 November 2020 (UTC)
:Not sure. However, according to [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_and_territories_of_the_United_States_by_population wikipedia]] they have the 3rd lowest population per electoral vote ratio (of the proper states), meaning that an alaskan vote in theory counts more than a texan one (which has the highest ratio). But don't ask me. I am a European with no big clue about that complicated US election system. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 06:29, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

It seems that "538" is a reference to https://fivethirtyeight.com which seems to be a USA election news aggregation website. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.80|108.162.216.80]] 07:30, 3 November 2020 (UTC)
:0h, and on a second look 538 is mentioned.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.80|108.162.216.80]] 07:38, 3 November 2020 (UTC)
::Uhm 538 is the number of electors in the United States electoral college, which FiveThirtyEight is named after, so it is not a reference to that program. But the note about Nate Silver of course is about him and his website. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 13:22, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

I don't know if Randall knew about or intended the reference, but there is a website http://hashtaghashtag.org/, describing itself as "#Hashtag is dedicated to political analysis and long-form opinion pieces on politics and public policy." Or maybe he just wanted to be a smart-ass with the #Hastag. [[User:Bischoff|Bischoff]] ([[User talk:Bischoff|talk]]) 07:47, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Before "Hashtag" existed, "#' was sometimes just called "hash". Once it was combined with a word (e.g. "#blart") and use to tag things like tweets, the combined unit was called a "hashtag" (i.e. a tag containing a hash symbol). At some point "#blart" changed from being read as "hash blart" (essentially reading the individual symbols that make it up) to "hashtag blart" (the meaning of the combined symbols), sort of how "$10" is read as "ten dollars" rather than "dollar-sign ten". But then taking the reading "hashtag blart" and back-applying it to the text "#blart" has produced the use of the term "hashtag" for the "#" symbol. Hopefully this won't go around the circle again and make "hashtagtags".
:Really, though, '#' is still just called "hash". The "-tag" part refers to the whole string making up a topic description tag for the comment/tweet/blurb/whatever. "Hashtag" refers to a tag denoted by a hash symbol, and "#hashtag" prompts the system to link the user to other tweets by people discussing adding semantic meaning to user-generated text. Great for those of us who are super into text markup and metadata (though really, who isn't?). [[User:Kjmitch|Kjmitch]] ([[User talk:Kjmitch|talk]]) 19:01, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

== Printable version ==

I would argue that the "[Click for printable version]" should be hyperlinked with the link to https://xkcd.com/2380/election_impact_score_sheet.pdf

Let me see if I can do that by myself.

== Added an "Actual Effect" column to the table. ==

Too early to say much about much, but eventually something like "(Pennsylvania narrowly went for) Trump, but did not stop Biden's win" or "(...) Trump, giving vital EVs to support his second term". Conversely, if it ever flips, what it meant for Biden. - I leave the content open to our future selves to fill in, but I suggest short, snappy and factual only, given the prior column's more wordy vague speculation from ahead of time. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.105.250|141.101.105.250]] 15:40, 5 November 2020 (UTC)


== Nate Silver ==
I wonder how many letters Nate Silver actually got following this comic.