Talk:2683: Fan Theories

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
Revision as of 13:54, 12 October 2022 by 172.70.110.231 (talk)
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To me, the title text seems to be referring to the opposite kind of fandom compared to what the current explanation says. 141.101.76.203 06:54, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

Given the constant stream of manchildren vandalizing this, could an admin please restrict editing access to logged in users? 172.68.110.143 07:50, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

manchildren
You mean the xkcd fandom? Fephisto (talk) 16:45, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

I am 100% behind calling hypotheses 'fan theories'. Fephisto (talk) 16:45, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

To the person who inserted the {{Citation needed}} initially unsuccessfully by [[citation needed]], and complained in their edit summaries that no other place uses our formatting (of {{}}s)... That's how Wikipedia implements it (or at least the actual Citation Needed... see below) and [[]]s/[]s are for more general hyperlinking (internal and external). You aren't thinking of some BBCode plugin for forums, are you? They will use [tags] and [tag][/tag], and I could imagine a popular tweak to the tag-handler to not require writing [sup][[u][color=#whatever]citation needed[/color][/u]][/sup], or similar, every time someone wanted to parody (or properly apply?) the meme...
...although, reading your intention, did you instead intend to use the explainxkcd version that is {{Actual citation needed}}? I can imagine another editor removing it, anyway, but I just moved it the more accepted side of the punctuation. 172.70.85.49 18:41, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

I think this comic might also be a comment on the following phenomenom: a lot of spectacular ideas that were once regarded as not really significant, "fringe", or even dubious by the mainstream scientific community two or three decades ago are now seriously pursued by science - mostly because the kids whose imagination was fired up by those ideas have now grown into scientists themselves, who can decide on their own what things to research. The idea that life might exist in the Europa ocean is a prime example for this: It was once mainly science fiction, popularized by Arthur C. Clarke in his 2010 and 2061 odyssey novels, but has since become a serious research subject. Similar things might be said about the time, energy and money that is nowadays devoted to SETI or to the search for primitive life on Mars. Scientists in the 60s and 70s would have probably fallen out of their chairs in shock if they knew. (note that I am all in favour of looking for aliens, but scientists in the 60s and 70s were much more interested in planetary geology and stuff like that). --172.70.247.38 09:01, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

The inclusion of Kuhn's work as part of the explanation seems odd. This may be because I don't know his work and thus don't see how this is connected to the comic and especially how merely mentioning it actually helps explaining the comic. I removed that part unless someone comes up with some actual explanation why this is relevant. Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 11:12, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

this suggests a "how to annoy" category w/ 2036 and 2654 (and possibly 2118, though the "expert shouting at cueball" part is absent) --172.70.110.231 13:54, 12 October 2022 (UTC)