Talk:2801: Contact Merge

Same person.

All three of them...Tier666 (talk) 08:32, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Why is he only using John's first name when talking about him, as if Surf King should know who that is, when it's clear they've "never met"? Shouldn't it be: My phone keeps wanting to merge you with my friend John Smith? 172.71.178.30 07:46, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Because he's spectacularly unaware, and assumes that everyone that he 'knows' also know each other?172.70.90.110 08:16, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

This is the first XKCD in a long time that I have absolutely no understanding of. Who is Surf King? Even Google doesn't bring anything up (I assumed it was someone well known in the USA but unknown to the few of us that don't live in that country). Please someone post an explanation soon! 162.158.74.46 09:06, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

No one in particular. Just someone named John. The short explanation is that his phone figured out that "Surf King" and "John" are the same person/contact while Cueball remains ignorant. 627235 (talk) 09:18, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

I see now. I think I was reading too much into it. I usually assume Randall is operating on a level far above my own! 172.69.79.146 10:02, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

I took the "4 years" thing to mean that Cueball had been chatting with SurfKing for 4 years (not an idle chat, but still actively used), and has somehow missed the fact that it's his friend John he's been talking with the whole time. 172.70.38.25 11:51, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes, and I think it's probably a group chat. It might not be that unusual for someone to use a nickname in a group chat (maybe because someone else gave them that nickname). The group chat context might also make it more likely that a context would have been established where Cueball might expect that everyone would know who "John" was, though as pointed out above, Cueball is pretty clueless.Mwphil (talk) 11:56, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Adding, I think it has to be a group chat because it would be too strange even for Cueball if he started a one-on-one chat with Surf King without knowing who he was, but if some friend added them both to a chat this situation might make sense. Mwphil (talk) 12:05, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

One more, sorry: This *has* to be a group text because Cueball is @-ing Surf King. You don't need to @ someone if they're the only other person you're talking to. (Also Surf King must be pretty annoyed if he's managed to break out the bold italics in a group text, I don't think most texting services support that.) Mwphil (talk) 12:11, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

(Comment below edit-conflicted by sub-thread thisnisvindented to... Adding this replybafter, but same timestamp.)

I deliberately left "group chat" unsaid (i.e. leaving it open) because of the lack of correspondants' avatars on the non-self side of the conversation, which seems to be a standard for both actual and xkcdified representation. Though 'tagging' SurfKing might indicate a more broadcast chat, it's as possible/polite to say in a one-to-one (like starting a letter "Dear Aunty Emma", though the envelope it was in was clearly addressed to her). ((This bit written before edit-conflict with Mwphil's triple-indent, above. But answers it anyway, possibly.))

Anyway, likely possibly its a grouping-agnostic 'chatroom' type thing (or conversation handler) whereby you invite/include at least one other person and it threads all messages with the same full set of contacts together for easy reading (and possible separation from derivative conversations with additions/removals from that set, unless it allows retroactive inclusion/chucking). As said below, I've used many different chat-type methods (though not directly with the "speech bubble" UI as visual theme) and I think we can't pin this down to a particular family of P2P interfaces. But I find the respective thought processes of the two participants (both inside and outside the screenshot shown) more interesting than the more nebulous decisions as to UX/functionality. Strangely for me, being that I'm much more comfortable thinking about code than people where it's just something involving myself.

But, of course, open to be re-rewritten. 172.70.85.35 12:22, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Done a significant rewrite/expansion to the explanation. My experience of "bubble chats" like the comic is restricted only to screenshots (or illustrations, like this) so I'm extrapolating a lot from all the variations that exist, plus adding extensive IRC/BBS experience which is linked by cross-pollination (pre-web/Web-1.5/etc forming a clear basis for Web2.x and App-based paradigms now handle instant/asynchronous short-form messaging conventions). If I'm totally wrong, I'm sure you'll rip out the bad bits. Wanted also to suggest the possibility that if John hasn't actually been seriously using Surf King for a while (but still has pull-/push-notifications active), it was only Cueball's necro that got him to go back into whatever chat-handler that was set up to handle his surf-dude chat. But it was already very unweildy an Explanation, so I'll only leave this bit of my imagination here - to be more easily ignored/dismissed. 172.70.85.35 12:22, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

The title text implies that Cueball (still unaware of the reality of the sitution) has had second thoughts about the compatability of Surf King/John with himself - I disagree with this. I think what the title text is saying that even though Cueball now knows John and Surf King are the same person, he still thinks they wouldn't like each other - this is philosophically confusing to Cueball, and suggests that John has subtle self-hatred issues which only became obvious thanks to Cueball's mistake. Hawthorn (talk) 13:22, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

three dots

I don't think the three dots are Surf King not deigning to respond. Aren't three dots (in some chat things?) what you get when someone is typing but hasn't sent the message yet? So Surf King has started to try to respond to this but is too flabbergasted to finish his comment. Mwphil (talk) 12:03, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

I thought there could be three things they could represent:

• Surf King "had no words" to Cueball's inane reality-ignoring comment, it's his version of 'eye rolling'. Which Cueball didn't understand (fully/correctly).
• The "your party is typing" symbol. (Although that shouldn't be still there once further messaging (to and from that party) have been added to the chat-sequence.)
• It's a conversation-manager indication of time passed.
  • And/or that further messages existed in this spot but that are ellided in this view (leaving intro message, for context, and the current foot of the conversation).

To me, the first makes most sense (flabberghasted and did type something). The second looks wrong (reason given). The third is clear from context (the time passing), though there's a problem with the alternate/additional 'third' point being that it doesn't help the joke of this being a four year (mostly no-contact?) conversation where Surf King has seemingly forgotten things while Cueball has no grasp of the temporal dislocation.

But YMMV. And because I wasn't totally sure I tried to write what I wrote to cover all three main ideas. (It wasn't really dealt with at all when I started my edit regarding it. Any further informed change is of course perfectly welcome, but at least you now have my half-considered lines of thought about all this.) 172.71.178.153 12:39, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

...Forgot to mention the fourth (separate) interpretation I also had.

• It's a response so long that it's been collapsed behind an icon. Though usually that'd be the first bit of it being shown with an "<expand>" or "<read more...>", as a tappable hotspot, this might not be the case here.

But if it's a collapsed paragraph of a long "no, they're both me, you know this because when we last met I..." reply, then it seemingly also went ^Whoosh==>_{Cueball's head}, at least by the time four further years had passed. 172.70.85.62 13:10, 13 July 2023 (UTC)