Difference between revisions of "User talk:Dgbrt"

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* [[User talk:Dgbrt/2013|2013]]
 
* [[User talk:Dgbrt/2013|2013]]
 
* [[User talk:Dgbrt/2014|2014]]
 
* [[User talk:Dgbrt/2014|2014]]
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* [[User talk:Dgbrt/2015-2017|2015-2017]]
  
== Comics featuring real people ==
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== Create comic page in lieu of DgbrtBOT ==
  
Hi Dgbrt. I saw that you deleted the Category: Comics featuring real people from [[1536: The Martian]]. I may tend to agree with this decision. But the "real" people in that comic was the mentioning of Matt Damon, which was why I did not delete it myself. I just made a comment about this here on the [[:Category talk:Comics featuring real people|Talk: Comics featuring real people]] page because I think people use this category in two ways. I'm not sure which way would be more correct. Shall the real-person be part of the comic or is it enough just for hem to be mentioned in the comic. In other featured people categories it is enough for them to be mentioned. See for instance [[:Category:Comics featuring James]]. Maybe that category is also wrongly used/named though? It could have been called something other than featured. (Mentioning James). I'm open for both interpretations of these categories... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 09:54, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
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I could see [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1969:_Not_Available&action=history here] that the bot seemed to have failed this time (or did RamenChef fail to wait long enough?) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:41, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
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:Ah sorry, saw your comment in the [[Talk:1969: Not Available|Discussion]] now. Great if it has been fixed. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:47, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
  
== Subsections ==
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== ReCAPTCHA ==
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ReCAPTCHA v1 has expired, and since no one replied on the admin forum, I asked Kynde, and he told me to come to you. So can you upgrade it to v2? Thanks. [[User:Herobrine|Herobrine]] ([[User talk:Herobrine|talk]]) 13:05, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
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:Hi [[User:Herobrine|Herobrine]], this is bad. Also email notification doesn't work since a long time. All admins are nonexistent since months and I don't have access the the server. I will check what I can do with the BOT account. But there is not much hope. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 15:00, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
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::Oh... ok. But if I remember correctly, I think one of the admins (I think Jeff?) has a twitter account, but I don't have one and I can't ask on twitter. Could you like contact him that way? And maybe tell him to add a few admins to deal with problems like this? Thanks! [[User:Herobrine|Herobrine]] ([[User talk:Herobrine|talk]]) 10:18, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
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:::Hi [[User:Herobrine|Herobrine]], I don't have a twitter account too, but I will sign in when things go worse. And this will happen in the future when all admins are still absent because:
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:::*The next invoice for the web-service at Cloudflare must be paid.
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:::*The name registration at namecheap.com will expire on 2018-08-10.
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:::And it seems that there is no advertising here on the left. So we definitely need new admins here to address these and other issues. I would apply for this, but not alone. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 13:07, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
  
Let's go to the talk page, then. [[User:Xhfz|Xhfz]] ([[User talk:Xhfz|talk]]) 15:36, 2 September 2015 (UTC)  
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Hello Dgbrt, I saw your message both here and on Wikipedia. Messaging me on my talk page is enough, I'll see it in my feed reader. Unfortunately, I can't do anything about recaptcha as I don't have ssh access to the server. --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 15:25, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
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:Thanks for your reply [[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]]. You don't have ssh access but as an Administrator you are maybe able to send an email to the relevant persons. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 16:09, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
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::Unfortunately, I don't have [[User:Jeff|Jeff]]'s email address either. --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 06:47, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
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'''The problem is solved.''' --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 14:50, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
  
Note that you were the one who began destroying the sections. That's violent, too. [[User:Xhfz|Xhfz]] ([[User talk:Xhfz|talk]]) 15:42, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
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== I'm here ==
:Sorry, I was just working on a proper layout. Pro-Tip: Use ctrl+f ;) . And all was beginning when you were destroying my layout at the transcript. I don't agree on that. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 15:48, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
 
  
== [[:File:land mammals.png]] ==
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I'm sorry Dgbt (and all my other friendly editors/helpers!)
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Let me know what needs to be done and I'll work through it.  I'm going to try to be much more proactive and logged in.  It's been a busy few months.  Please accept my apologies.
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The main complication with reCaptcha is that to upgrade to use ReCaptchaNoCaptcha, I'd have to upgrade the wiki.  I'm not opposed, it is just a larger work effort than I thought!  We are also quite a bit behind! --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 03:18, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
  
I would like to use it for my blog. What are the terms of use? -- Maria [[Special:Contributions/162.158.114.222|162.158.114.222]] 21:22, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
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== A slight technical problem ==
  
== Making discussion pages ==
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The image size for comics is a bit off, the zoom is weird and there's some space to the right of the screen... Not sure what to do about it, but as an admin now (congratulations, by the way!) you should be able to deal with it. [[User:Herobrine|Herobrine]] ([[User talk:Herobrine|talk]]) 13:06, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
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:Hi [[User:Herobrine|Herobrine]], what is weird? Please give an example of what's wrong and how it should be. BTW: To be an admin just means more work ;) --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 13:20, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
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::It seems that there's only one problem left, rather than the three I mentioned before, but it's still a problem. For example, normally pages should be like this, where there's a sidebar to the left, and the rest is the page you're viewing. But now for comic explanations, there's an empty sidebar on the right side of the screen that shouldn't be there, and the page itself has been squeezed so now it only takes up about 60% of the screen's width. [[User:Herobrine|Herobrine]] ([[User talk:Herobrine|talk]]) 01:24, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
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:::Sorry for the delay, but it should be fixed now. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 16:38, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
  
I've recently restricted page creation for new users, which means that sometimes new users can't make a discussion page. Could you make the bot make empty talk pages for new comics as well? I'll push something to your git repo soon, right after I'm done with finals. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 08:52, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
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== Unicode issues with the Bot ==
:Hi [[User:Davidy22]], I'm sorry but mail notification didn't work. Please give me a reply here so I can see if the notification works. And tell me, if there is still a need to change the BOT. If so, it will be available by Friday. But before that I will create a comic named "dgbrtTEST" and ask you to delete it.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:44, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
 
::Alright, will do. The changes are probably still preferred. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 19:50, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
 
:::Thanks for your reply, mail notification is working again. I will do the changes and let you when I've done the test.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:02, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
 
:::The update is done. I've done some local tests and I'm happy with this. At [https://github.com/dgbrt/explainXKCD_update github] you can see the current script with some more changes I've done in the past.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:36, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
 
::::Should it already work on todays [[:Category:April fools' comics|April Fools' Day comic]]? (I'm really looking forward to that). It will be great when it does, cool that you take the time to work on the update. I have spotted a couple of times recently where someone has either [[Talk:1653: United States Map|waited in anticipation]] for the discussion page to be created, have used the explanation to [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1659:_Tire_Swing&oldid=115473 post what should have been a comment] and even once had a user [[User_talk:Kynde#Please_create_the_discussion_page_for_today.27s_comic.|writing on my talk page]] to get me to create the page for them to use. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:02, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
 
  
While I'm still waiting for the next update to give me a prove to my successful update on talk-pages, Randall gave us this April fool:
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Hi, your bot doesn't handle UTF-8 in the alt-text well, as seen on today's comic [[2038]] :P This is a known problem with the xkcd api, which double-utf-8-encodes everything. I believe I've read your bot is programmed in Perl, so I may be able to help fix this. There is a module on CPAN to fix this automagically, [https://metacpan.org/pod/Encode::DoubleEncodedUTF8 Encode::DoubleEncodedUTF8] [[User:Gir|//gir.st/]] ([[User talk:Gir|talk]]) 13:23, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
:The xkcd April 1st comic is currently experiencing technical difficulties.
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:'''E''': I've sent you a PR; https://github.com/dgbrt/explainXKCD_update/pull/3 [[User:Gir|//gir.st/]] ([[User talk:Gir|talk]]) 13:44, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
:Status update: Please stand by.
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::I was replying at the same time:
:Status update: This is fine. Everything is fine.
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:Thanks, you can find the GitHub link here: [[User:DgbrtBOT]]. The latest changes are a little bit ugly because I've had to find a fast solution on the forced https connection. Nonetheless the unicode issue is well known, until now I simply was too lazy. And reading the warnings at the DoubleEncodedUTF8 module tells me it should be solved in a better way.
:Status update: Everything is on fire.
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:I'm not sure, but my CentOS environment looks good:
:Status update: Searching for calendar systems in which Saturday is April 1st.  
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:<code>env | grep LANG</code> gives me
It seems Randall is on serious problems. But I'm happy about this honest message.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 01:24, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
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:<code>LANG=en_US.UTF-8</code>
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:The Perl script already has <code>binmode STDOUT, ':utf8';</code> which was needed so maybe the same for <code>STDIN</code> could help. Any ideas? I have a Wiki at my PC for testing. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 14:26, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
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The problem is solved and the script successfully tested. Thanks for the help. And if Randall reads this: You probably can fool the BOT by using double encoded UTF at the comic name. But I believe the corresponding image URI wouldn't work. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 14:26, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
  
Only for my own documentation, the current schedule is this Sunday night. My BOT keeps an eye on this. Randall says:
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==Signature==
:The Friday xkcd comic is currently experiencing technical difficulties [Editor's note: Everything is on fire] and has been delayed until Sunday night.  
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Oops, sorry for forgetting my signature in my comment on "1047: Approximations", and thank you for adding it. [[User:Redbelly98|Redbelly98]] ([[User talk:Redbelly98|talk]]) 01:27, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
But since this will not be a standard comic I don't know what my BOT will do.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:55, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
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:You're welcome but there is absolutely no need to apologize. Errare humanum est. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 14:42, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
::Hi Dgbrt, yes that was some kind of April Fool's joke he came up with there. But what about your bot afterwards. Seems like Davidy22 created the page for todays comic manually? Has you changes broken the bot? [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 16:27, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
 
  
==Transcript and other features==
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== Elections ==
Hi Dgbrt - hope this is not going to be TL;DR? :-)
 
  
I take further discussion on our part regarding transcript to your page, because I think we have written enough on my talk page on transcripts. If any one else will continue that discussion there that's fine, it would also be nice to have input from someone else than just us two and Zetfr.
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Regarding your new [[:Category:Elections|Category:Elections]]...
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<br>Is it comics like this you wish to include? [[1130: Poll Watching]]? Guess anything Nate Silver is about it?
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<br>Just added [[500: Election]]... question is if election category is to be a subset of politics and that some politic comics that are "only" about election should then not also be directly in politic category? Sometimes there is more to it than election, but not really in the election comic for instance --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 12:30, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
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:Thanks for your work. I've written "...in politics or elsewhere" because I think it may belong not only to politics. "1130: Poll Watching" definitely belongs to this category, it's even politics. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 12:56, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
  
I can see that you have been quite active this year, as compared to the last half year before (and also with a long break before that?) Will you have time to be more active from now in general? Welcome back anyway ;-) Just took a month and a half of [[User_talk:Davidy22#Wiki_continuity|complete break]] from Explain xkcd my self up until just after this New Year.
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== Thanx. ==
  
I believe we got of on a wrong foot, both long ago I think, and also just now when I was annoyed at you for writing on my page regarding transcripts (and the TL;DR comment). So I'm really happy how our [[User_talk:Kynde#Transcript_TLDR.3B|transcript discussion]] went in the end, and thanks for the last comment from earlier today. And as I said there I did not read all you refereed to before answering the first couple of times, sorry again for that.
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Thanx for the tweeking and the signing of my entry in 2066.[[User:Naraht|Naraht]] ([[User talk:Naraht|talk]]) 21:07, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
  
Nice to hear from Zetfr as one who really uses the transcripts. When I first found this page it took me some time to appreciate the importance of the transcript.
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== Purge? ==
  
I know you have much more knowledge about what's possible with computers as your [[User:DgbrtBOT|DgbrtBOT]], which is great, shows me. (And thanks for adding [[#Making discussion pages|creation of discussion pages]] to it). Also I like the way you made the [[:Category:Explain mentioned by Randall|Explain mentioned by Randall]] category. That is great. Cool that I made that happen by finding it for [[Payloads]].
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On the main page, there's a line below the Latest Comic block that states "Is this out of date? Clicking here will fix that."
  
Maybe we should try to write a dedicated page on what the transcript on Explain xkcd is for; who may use it for reading comics; who for understanding other parts of the comics; and why they make sense regarding searching for specific things, not necessarily mentioned in text or our explanation. Something that could be referred to when people ask about transcripts, and also to explain why we should not just use a transcription of Randall's transcript for several reasons (naming of characters for instance) and because all text should be included for normal length comics, and at least all text in the extended transcript for huge comics (this was also what Zetfr suggested). Those type of full transcripts could also be mentioned there. As well as link to explanation of Randall's own transcripts.
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This link contains an action parameter value of "purge" in the URL.  Do you know what this actually does?  Is it somehow related to the caching system, or does it just force the main page to recheck the latest comic number?
  
I have recently added lots of info on xkcd's design on the [[xkcd]] page. But it became cluttered (TL'DR :-) so I have created two new pages from that info here: [[Design of xkcd.com]] and also the [[Transcript on xkcd]] I just mentioned above. The page for "our" transcripts could thus need one called ''Transcript on Explain xkcd'' like I also mentioned above.  
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Just curious, as I thought it might be useful for refreshing the cache when investigating an issue like an updated image that isn't being shown immediately. Thanks for any insight! (Oops, forgot to sign my edit!) [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 17:58, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
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:Purging affects only the cache at this Wiki but not at Cloudflare. A purged page here will produce a new hash and thus also the Cloudflare cache will be expired. You can do this at every page here by adding "?action=purge" to the end of the URL; or if there is already a parameter with a question mark it should be "&action=purge". Nonetheless, editing a page and changing only one single character will have the same effect.
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:For pictures this is different because there is a page for the image:
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:*<nowiki>https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/File:reminders.png</nowiki>
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:and the image itself:
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:*<nowiki>https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/2/2c/reminders.png</nowiki>
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:You can purge the first link because it's rendered through the PHP engine but the second link is just a static image and the Cloudflare cache assumes that this doesn't change often. This helps to keep the traffic at the Wiki server much lower. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 18:04, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
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::Awesome and thorough answer! I appreciate you taking the time to explain it so well. [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 18:20, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
  
I think keeping track of history and deviations on the main page etc. is important and fun for some people. But of course it should be hidden away for those that search for it, and not in "your" face, when all you wish to know is what [[Chess Notation|chess win-los notation]] is.
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==2003: Presidential_Succession==
  
Cheers --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 19:13, 18 February 2017 (UTC)
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In the explanation for [[2003: Presidential_Succession]], I just noticed that a number of users have updated the "List of specific individuals" section based on events since the comic was published, even though the section heading states that the list is as of the date the comic was published. Specifically, someone removed Serena Williams from the list because of a loss in July 2018, someone removed a whole section on the Royal family (which might be appropriate, but I don't know for sure), and several users changed a number of government people as a result of election results in November.
  
:oohh, start reading... (check timestamp)--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:13, 18 February 2017 (UTC)
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I was going to try to revert each of the changes back to the original list ,but there are also changes that are probably appropriate in other areas of the explanation. Do you know of a way to revert only those changes that were not appropriate, while retaining others that are appropriate? [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 15:46, 5 January 2019 (UTC)
:...pending...
 
:....ready. Answering all the questions will take a little bit longer. (check timestamp) --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:20, 18 February 2017 (UTC)
 
  
For further discussions I will divide my answers to several headlines.
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:I decided to just manually revert each change made that was not appropriate, so you can disregard my question. I also added '''bold''' highlighting to the text in the opening paragraph that the list is as of the date of the comic to let people know that they should not update the names based on later events. One of the edits was to remove members of the royal family from the list. I left those names off of the updated list, as that makes sense to me. [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 17:37, 5 January 2019 (UTC)
  
===dgbrt stopped posting here and only continued supporting dgbrtDOT for a proper page generation and all what belongs to this issue===
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::Many thanks for your work. The explanation always belongs to the date when the comic was published. Any further developments may be mentioned by that manner, but in general that's trivia because it doesn't explain the comic itself in it's context. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:16, 5 January 2019 (UTC)
I was often annoyed when I mentioned that texting should be short as possible. Huhh, I was censoring content... Everybody can say everything... So I felt like what Randall mentioned in many comics (youtube comments, you name it...). Even many explains are TL;DR and sometimes really OFF TOPIC. And most of that content belongs to only one user: Kynde. Sorry, but now I figured out your edits did not annoy only me. This just an honest answer from me. More technical discussions shouldn't run this way; I will open separate subsections for those. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:49, 18 February 2017 (UTC)
 
:Just like to add that I'm not the only one who writes more than other people think is needed... See the latest [[1800|comic]] and it's [[Talk:1800: Chess Notation|discussion]]. I have only added the categories for that one... I was thinking the same as those two last comments, but after reading your answers here I did not wish to join in that conversation. :/ --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 19:52, 19 February 2017 (UTC)
 
  
===Transcripts===
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==1732: Earth_Temperature_Timeline==
A transcript is perfect when someone who doesn't know the image is reading this ''feels'' the same as someone who simply looks at that picture. Is that possible? NO! Look at a picture showing some clouds... What do you see? The same as me? NO! Can you describe all the differences we both see? NO! So, not the cloud shape is important, it's just a cloud. If there is some importance on the shape it goes into the explain section. (I have no specific comic in mind on this). --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:14, 18 February 2017 (UTC)
 
===[[xkcd]] page and more===
 
I mentioned this to [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]]. You should talk to others here before editing those essential pages! If I've seen this by the time you edited this a simple UNDO would have been my reaction. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:24, 18 February 2017 (UTC)
 
===Keep it compact===
 
Did I miss some essentials?--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:31, 18 February 2017 (UTC)
 
:Hi Dgbrt. I have read your comments. Thanks for the input. I do not have anything specific to say at the time. Sorry you feel like this though.
 
:I have one question not related to the above. What happened to your new category? I can see Davidy deleted it. Sorry about that. I liked the idea. I did not have time to look at your other finds. If it is not a big trouble for you I would appreciate if you wrote the numbers on the comic here (no links needed). --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 19:32, 19 February 2017 (UTC)
 
::Hi Kynde, the reason given by Davidy22 was: "Mangled category name, and we don't make categories based on things that aren't in the comics." I wonder why the second criteria doesn't fit to the three LiveJournal categories. And I'm sure there are more "categories based on things that aren't in the comics". Nevertheless the comics are:
 
::*[[1571: Car Model Names]]
 
::*[[1555: Exoplanet Names 2]]
 
::*[[1509: Scenery Cheat Sheet]]
 
::*[[1491: Stories of the Past and Future]]
 
::*[[1488: Flowcharts]]
 
::*[[1461: Payloads]]
 
::*[[1446: Landing]]
 
::--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:52, 19 February 2017 (UTC)
 
:::Thanks Dgbrt. I think his first point is valid, but that would have been easy to fix. Maybe he just did not care to do so? I really think it is relevant, and considers posting these in the trivia of the first and linking from the others to that trivia. And on Randall's page we could make a note saying that although he has nothing personal to do with this site, he has acknowledged its existence at least seven times. Although it has not been out in the open but only behind the scenes for those who really study the comic. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:38, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
 
::::PS Just posted a comment to [[User_talk:Davidy22#Oversized_texting|your thread]] on Davidy's page. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:59, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
 
  
== #1811 ==
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Ok, hate to bug you again, but I have an odd question about [[1732:_Earth_Temperature_Timeline]] and its comic image, which is 740 × 14,889 in size.
  
Hi Dgbrt,  
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This past week, when I viewed this comic, the image was not displaying, and it wouldn't display even when I clicked on the image file link on the image page (the thumbnail was OK though).  I was getting what I thought was a server error instead, and the problem was clearly not due to something in the explanation page.  I thought maybe something was wrong with the image file, but I was able to download it and open it in my local image viewer program. I was considering what I might be able to do to resolve the issue, but not knowing why it wasn't opening, I put it off...
  
I was editing the page and had different views in the READ and EDIT - in the EDIT, everything was on the right place, but the page didn't fit.
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However, now it's working fine again on the comic page, and I'm not sure what to make of the previous problem.
I suppose there were some editing overlaps?
 
I'll try again tomorow.  
 
gute Nacht :-) --[[User:LaVe|LaVe]] ([[User talk:LaVe|talk]]) 21:17, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
 
:Thanks for your message and good night... And stay tuned, my poor Nerd Sniping victim.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:25, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
 
  
==Uploading corrected comic image files==
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Have you seen similar issues like this in the past? Any thoughts on what might have caused it? I considered whether it might be helpful to actually split the image into separate slices and add them to the comic with some slider effect to view just a slice at a time, but I thought that might be too much effort for a wiki environment.  Any thoughts? [[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 05:28, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
 +
:Please copy and paste the server error message or do a screen shot. But maybe it was just a local problem with your browser. Other comic images still did work? And click on the navigation title to see the original at the xkcd site. It also has the huge image directly embedded, thus I think we also should do so. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 17:15, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
  
Dgbrt,
+
== Protection from antisemitic troll ==
  
Thanks for helping out a newbie like me. Earlier today I attempted to upload an updated image for #1796. It didn't go as smoothly as I expected, so I hope you can tell me if I was doing it correctly.
+
Hi, good thing to short-term protect the new pages. However at the same time someone with the account truth revealer has registered... also still on other posts back and forth editing (with antisemitic content from IP-users) happens: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2120:_Brain_Hemispheres&curid=21799&diff=170762&oldid=170760 is it possible to also block for stuff like that? like slowing down the capabilities to do multiple edits for IP-users? --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 16:22, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
 +
:This is a bad solution because many - sometimes even most - editors are just IPs. This action today is just a signal to that vandal. Further older discussions are here: [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests#SOON_THE_TRUTH_WILL_BE_REVEALED|Admin requests at the Community portal]]. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 16:32, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
  
First, I downloaded the updated png file from xkcd to my system. Then I clicked on the on-screen image to access the "File:" page, then clicked on the upload link to replace the png file with the one I downloaded. After selecting the image file and adding a short description, I uploaded the new image file. The File: page showed the new image revision in the history table, but opening the new image file from there just returned the old version, even despite me refreshing the image in my browser. Thinking I had accidentally uploaded the old version, I reverted my update. I then looked at the downloaded image file, which was the new version.
+
==DgbrtBOT failed 2019-08-30==
 +
Hi Dgbrt. The bot failed yesterday on [[2196: Nice To E-Meet You]]. Have you noticed it? --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 09:29, 31 August 2019 (UTC)
 +
:It began working again at [[2252: Parenthetical Names]]. So 56 comics or about 19 weeks of downtime...? Did you fix it? --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 09:26, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 +
::It was not continuesly down from August onward. It started again right on 2nd September: [[2197: Game Show]] and did work until Friday, 13th December: [[2241: Brussels Sprouts Mandela Effect]] (maybe it is supersitious about Friday the 13th?) - [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/DgbrtBOT&target=DgbrtBOT see contributions page of the bot] --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 09:36, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
  
At this point, I was confused - maybe using my tablet to upload the image from my server resulted in the tablet uploading a local temp copy instead of the remote server file. So I repeated the upload from my laptop, hoping it would work correctly this time, but got the same result.
+
== Possible problem with the PHP installation ==
  
I then left a note on the Talk page for 1796 to find out if I was making some rookie mistake and left it for the time being. Now, I see that the corrected image file is being displayed. I don't know if an admin corrected the problem behind the scenes or if this is a case of caching preventing the updated image from being used until some expiration period had passed. Do you have any insight for me? --[[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 21:16, 8 June 2017 (UTC)
+
Dgbrt, I had an exchange of posts on the SlashMe talk page because that is the only administrator with any Wiki contributions shown in 2020 (for example you were in March 2019 and Jeff in April 2019). SlashMe confirmed the problem I identified but had no solution, and suggested that I reach out to you. The exchange is copied below. --[[User:JohnB|JohnB]] ([[User talk:JohnB|talk]]) 00:38, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
:Sorry I'm late. My answer is here: [[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht talk]] --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 12:24, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
 
::So it was a cache problem! Maybe the upload screen could contain a note to that effect so new uploaders like myself know to give it time. --[[User:Ianrbibtitlht|Ianrbibtitlht]] ([[User talk:Ianrbibtitlht|talk]]) 12:52, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
 
:::Nice idea but it's not easy to change a standard template from MediaWiki. And I don't have access to this files on the server.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 13:30, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
 
::::Nonsense! It's trivial to edit a standard template in MediaWiki. Just edit [[MediaWiki:Uploadtext]]. You can find the appropriate page to edit by going through http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Special:AllMessages&dir=prev&offset=Userrights-unchangeable-col.  Note that MediaWiki pages can only be edited by [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Special:ListUsers&group=sysop sysops/bureaucrats], but they don't need login access to the server to do it. [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]) 02:11, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
 
:::::As I've told, I don't have access to this. I suggest you add an admin request here: [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal|Community portal]].--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 08:22, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
 
:::::If you have a concrete suggestion for the note, please tell, I might add it then. --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 19:08, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
 
::::::Thanks [[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] for your support. The known problem is that an update for a picture will result in the same URL which is already in the cache at the server cloud. Only when that cache is expired (maybe hours - I don't know) the update will be visible. So the text could be like this:
 
::::::*INFORMATION FOR UPDATES: Please be patient after uploading an update. When your upload is shown in the history everything is fine but the former version is still stored in the cache and shown to everybody for a while.
 
::::::Any better idea?--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:53, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
 
  
== Editing others' markup ==
+
=== Really really difficult to get to the What If? page in the Wiki ===
 +
The name of the page is '''what if?''' but if you make an internal link the usual way, as here: [[what if?|<nowiki>[[what if?]]</nowiki>]], you get a mostly blank page with the message ''No input file specified''. It would appear that page names with a question mark break something.  The failed form is what is used on the disambiguation page [[What If|<nowiki>[[What If]]</nowiki>]], and so following the page link from there fails.  What does work is this internal link: [[whatif|<nowiki>[[whatif]]</nowiki>]], but when you get there and click what links here, that fails as described above.  If you really really want to get to the what links here page for the what if? page, you have to use an external link, as [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Special:WhatLinksHere?target=what_if%3F&namespace%3D|<nowiki>[https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Special:WhatLinksHere?target=what_if%3F&namespace%3D]</nowiki>].  But but but.  On all those pages that it says link to the what if? page, the links are broken as described above.
  
Dgbrt: Please stop editing other people's markup and removing it, as you have so far done twice to me in [[Talk:1850:_Air_Force_Museum]]. If you think there's something wrong with boxes, perhaps that is an OK opinion to have, but please state it. Don't make unilateral changes. And where the markup has important semantic significance (as it does here!), removing it is not acceptable. You could perhaps have replaced it with something else. But removal? No. And you did not use an edit summary. That's not OK, use an edit summary to explain yourself when you are changing someone else's work. I will revert your change again. But I don't want to edit war, but it is simply untenable for you to go changing the meaning of a comment I have made on a talk page. That misrepresents my thoughts and ideas and is not OK. Stop! (p.s. above, in the other section, you made two claims. I refuted one of them, and you responded as if I had questioned the second one, which I did not. That's not a good argument style.) [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]) 13:52, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
+
My opinion is that the way to fix at this problem is to rename the what if? page to have no question mark, and then to visit all the pages in the old linked to list and update their links to the new page name. Ugh.
:Oh, I'm sorry. It looked like an editors error. Formatting like this is not common in a discussion section. In general bold and italic attributes are enough. Think about: Your post is not the only important one there. We also try to start a new section only with a semicolon to avoid a TOC an other side effects. And sorry again, I don't understand your "two claims" issue.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 18:58, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
+
--[[User:JohnB|JohnB]] ([[User talk:JohnB|talk]]) 22:45, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
  
:: Thank you. It should not have looked like an editor's error if you were paying attention. And while that reasoning might have worked the first time, it just doesn't cut it the second time. Just look at the history:
+
:I have looked a little bit into it and it seems to be a configuration issue with the PHP installation. However, I don't have a definite solution for that and even if I had, I don't have access to the server and wouldn't be able to change it. I think [[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] has. Try reaching out to him. --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 22:58, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
  
  13:53, 17 June 2017‎ [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]| [[Special:Contributions/JohnHawkinson|contribs]]) ‎ m . . (+1)‎ . . (Undo revision 141463 by Dgbrt (talk). No. See your talk. And use an edit summsary. And don't change other people's meanings.)
+
::One more data pointThe redirect page [[whatif|<nowiki>[[whatif]]</nowiki>]] redirects using the [[what if?|<nowiki>[[what if?]]</nowiki>]] syntax that fails every place else, but when redirecting it actually worksGo figure. --[[User:JohnB|JohnB]] ([[User talk:JohnB|talk]]) 00:47, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
  08:25, 17 June 2017‎ [[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt        |talk]]| [[Special:Contributions/Dgbrt        |contribs]]) ‎ . . (-1)‎ . .
 
  01:48, 17 June 2017‎ [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]| [[Special:Contributions/JohnHawkinson|contribs]]) ‎ m . . (+5,176)‎ . . (Oops. Somehow restored an old version by mistake.)
 
  01:47, 17 June 2017‎ [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]| [[Special:Contributions/JohnHawkinson|contribs]]) ‎ . . (-5,175)‎ . . (Restore markup removed by Dgbrt in 141375. Use an edit summary! The markup had meaning. Don't conflate my words with a quotation.)
 
 
 
 
 
:: There was no slew of intervening edits. Reversion of your change was clearly explained in the edit summary, and cited you by name and your revision by number.
 
:: Since you are a regular contributor here, you really should be using an edit summary every single time. I understand that the standards for wikis are relaxed here, because most editor aren't familiar with them and we want to make it easy for everybody, but you are an experienced editor so should be held to a higher standard.
 
:: Your comment about "your post is not the only important one there" makes no sense to me. In this case the box carries the section, and I think it served as a useful frame of reference for all the subsequent discussion. I agree boxes aren't pretty, but they're cheap and easy. If there's some local convention of appropriate markup that would serve the same semantic role, I don't object. I'm sure we could do something nice with tables, but that's a lot of unnecessary work, I think.
 
:: I'm aware that the wiki suggests sections should be "used sparingly." It doesn't give any guidance for that judgement. But it's disturbing to hear that you think the reason is aesthetic. That's a problem because sections have clear semantic meaning in wikis and not using them mean you cannot use semantic tools that understand them. If the feeling is that the section font is too big, the right answer is to edit the CSS and change the section font, not to say "don't use sections." Similarly for TOCs, I don't know what is wrong with a TOC, but you can suppress or move them for individual articles, or disable them globally, if that's the desired effect. Again, not a reason to not use sections.
 
:: On the other hand, I didn't revert your conversion from a section to a semicolon/boldface, because it didn't have a significant effect on the meaning of my words, unlike your wholesale removal of the markup around the quotationSorry I have gone on too long. [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]) 19:43, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
 
:::Hey, I've removed one space (at the beginning of a line) at a comment page. And I said sorry. It's OK now. And when you want to discuss layout rules please talk to the admins at the [[explain_xkcd:Community_portal|Community portal]]. It's not my invention.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 23:11, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
 
::::Sorry it was lengthy (once space—twice!). If not your invention, is there some documentation of these rules? Your talk page is the only place I've seen them (other than "sparingly"). [[User:JohnHawkinson|JohnHawkinson]] ([[User talk:JohnHawkinson|talk]]) 23:44, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
 
:::::Sadly there is no guide, in the past I've just adopted many from admins (not many here these days) and others. So just check some other articles, you will see chaos but also a recurring layout. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 00:23, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
 
:::::: I'm a bit late on my input on this but many of the standard practices in this wiki are not codified, they've been built from gradual consensus and precedent, occasionally we've written some of these out but the community isn't active enough for us to put all these unspoken guidelines into writing. Basically by reading a bunch of the previous comic pages and some of the edit reasoning of long standing revisions you should get a good idea of where the wiki stands. --[[User:Lackadaisical|Lackadaisical]] ([[User talk:Lackadaisical|talk]]) 16:13, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
 
 
 
== wgUseInstantCommons ==
 
$wgUseInstantCommons = true; has been added to LocalSettings.php. --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 00:41, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
 

Revision as of 00:47, 12 July 2020

See the history for more:

Create comic page in lieu of DgbrtBOT

I could see here that the bot seemed to have failed this time (or did RamenChef fail to wait long enough?) --Kynde (talk) 20:41, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Ah sorry, saw your comment in the Discussion now. Great if it has been fixed. --Kynde (talk) 20:47, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

ReCAPTCHA

ReCAPTCHA v1 has expired, and since no one replied on the admin forum, I asked Kynde, and he told me to come to you. So can you upgrade it to v2? Thanks. Herobrine (talk) 13:05, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Hi Herobrine, this is bad. Also email notification doesn't work since a long time. All admins are nonexistent since months and I don't have access the the server. I will check what I can do with the BOT account. But there is not much hope. --Dgbrt (talk) 15:00, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
Oh... ok. But if I remember correctly, I think one of the admins (I think Jeff?) has a twitter account, but I don't have one and I can't ask on twitter. Could you like contact him that way? And maybe tell him to add a few admins to deal with problems like this? Thanks! Herobrine (talk) 10:18, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
Hi Herobrine, I don't have a twitter account too, but I will sign in when things go worse. And this will happen in the future when all admins are still absent because:
  • The next invoice for the web-service at Cloudflare must be paid.
  • The name registration at namecheap.com will expire on 2018-08-10.
And it seems that there is no advertising here on the left. So we definitely need new admins here to address these and other issues. I would apply for this, but not alone. --Dgbrt (talk) 13:07, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Hello Dgbrt, I saw your message both here and on Wikipedia. Messaging me on my talk page is enough, I'll see it in my feed reader. Unfortunately, I can't do anything about recaptcha as I don't have ssh access to the server. --SlashMe (talk) 15:25, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply SlashMe. You don't have ssh access but as an Administrator you are maybe able to send an email to the relevant persons. --Dgbrt (talk) 16:09, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
Unfortunately, I don't have Jeff's email address either. --SlashMe (talk) 06:47, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

The problem is solved. --Dgbrt (talk) 14:50, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

I'm here

I'm sorry Dgbt (and all my other friendly editors/helpers!) Let me know what needs to be done and I'll work through it. I'm going to try to be much more proactive and logged in. It's been a busy few months. Please accept my apologies. The main complication with reCaptcha is that to upgrade to use ReCaptchaNoCaptcha, I'd have to upgrade the wiki. I'm not opposed, it is just a larger work effort than I thought! We are also quite a bit behind! --Jeff (talk) 03:18, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

A slight technical problem

The image size for comics is a bit off, the zoom is weird and there's some space to the right of the screen... Not sure what to do about it, but as an admin now (congratulations, by the way!) you should be able to deal with it. Herobrine (talk) 13:06, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Hi Herobrine, what is weird? Please give an example of what's wrong and how it should be. BTW: To be an admin just means more work ;) --Dgbrt (talk) 13:20, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
It seems that there's only one problem left, rather than the three I mentioned before, but it's still a problem. For example, normally pages should be like this, where there's a sidebar to the left, and the rest is the page you're viewing. But now for comic explanations, there's an empty sidebar on the right side of the screen that shouldn't be there, and the page itself has been squeezed so now it only takes up about 60% of the screen's width. Herobrine (talk) 01:24, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Sorry for the delay, but it should be fixed now. --Dgbrt (talk) 16:38, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Unicode issues with the Bot

Hi, your bot doesn't handle UTF-8 in the alt-text well, as seen on today's comic 2038 :P This is a known problem with the xkcd api, which double-utf-8-encodes everything. I believe I've read your bot is programmed in Perl, so I may be able to help fix this. There is a module on CPAN to fix this automagically, Encode::DoubleEncodedUTF8 //gir.st/ (talk) 13:23, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

E: I've sent you a PR; https://github.com/dgbrt/explainXKCD_update/pull/3 //gir.st/ (talk) 13:44, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
I was replying at the same time:
Thanks, you can find the GitHub link here: User:DgbrtBOT. The latest changes are a little bit ugly because I've had to find a fast solution on the forced https connection. Nonetheless the unicode issue is well known, until now I simply was too lazy. And reading the warnings at the DoubleEncodedUTF8 module tells me it should be solved in a better way.
I'm not sure, but my CentOS environment looks good:
env | grep LANG gives me
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
The Perl script already has binmode STDOUT, ':utf8'; which was needed so maybe the same for STDIN could help. Any ideas? I have a Wiki at my PC for testing. --Dgbrt (talk) 14:26, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

The problem is solved and the script successfully tested. Thanks for the help. And if Randall reads this: You probably can fool the BOT by using double encoded UTF at the comic name. But I believe the corresponding image URI wouldn't work. --Dgbrt (talk) 14:26, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Signature

Oops, sorry for forgetting my signature in my comment on "1047: Approximations", and thank you for adding it. Redbelly98 (talk) 01:27, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

You're welcome but there is absolutely no need to apologize. Errare humanum est. --Dgbrt (talk) 14:42, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Elections

Regarding your new Category:Elections...
Is it comics like this you wish to include? 1130: Poll Watching? Guess anything Nate Silver is about it?
Just added 500: Election... question is if election category is to be a subset of politics and that some politic comics that are "only" about election should then not also be directly in politic category? Sometimes there is more to it than election, but not really in the election comic for instance --Kynde (talk) 12:30, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for your work. I've written "...in politics or elsewhere" because I think it may belong not only to politics. "1130: Poll Watching" definitely belongs to this category, it's even politics. --Dgbrt (talk) 12:56, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanx.

Thanx for the tweeking and the signing of my entry in 2066.Naraht (talk) 21:07, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Purge?

On the main page, there's a line below the Latest Comic block that states "Is this out of date? Clicking here will fix that."

This link contains an action parameter value of "purge" in the URL. Do you know what this actually does? Is it somehow related to the caching system, or does it just force the main page to recheck the latest comic number?

Just curious, as I thought it might be useful for refreshing the cache when investigating an issue like an updated image that isn't being shown immediately. Thanks for any insight! (Oops, forgot to sign my edit!) Ianrbibtitlht (talk) 17:58, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

Purging affects only the cache at this Wiki but not at Cloudflare. A purged page here will produce a new hash and thus also the Cloudflare cache will be expired. You can do this at every page here by adding "?action=purge" to the end of the URL; or if there is already a parameter with a question mark it should be "&action=purge". Nonetheless, editing a page and changing only one single character will have the same effect.
For pictures this is different because there is a page for the image:
  • https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/File:reminders.png
and the image itself:
  • https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/2/2c/reminders.png
You can purge the first link because it's rendered through the PHP engine but the second link is just a static image and the Cloudflare cache assumes that this doesn't change often. This helps to keep the traffic at the Wiki server much lower. --Dgbrt (talk) 18:04, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
Awesome and thorough answer! I appreciate you taking the time to explain it so well. Ianrbibtitlht (talk) 18:20, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

2003: Presidential_Succession

In the explanation for 2003: Presidential_Succession, I just noticed that a number of users have updated the "List of specific individuals" section based on events since the comic was published, even though the section heading states that the list is as of the date the comic was published. Specifically, someone removed Serena Williams from the list because of a loss in July 2018, someone removed a whole section on the Royal family (which might be appropriate, but I don't know for sure), and several users changed a number of government people as a result of election results in November.

I was going to try to revert each of the changes back to the original list ,but there are also changes that are probably appropriate in other areas of the explanation. Do you know of a way to revert only those changes that were not appropriate, while retaining others that are appropriate? Ianrbibtitlht (talk) 15:46, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

I decided to just manually revert each change made that was not appropriate, so you can disregard my question. I also added bold highlighting to the text in the opening paragraph that the list is as of the date of the comic to let people know that they should not update the names based on later events. One of the edits was to remove members of the royal family from the list. I left those names off of the updated list, as that makes sense to me. Ianrbibtitlht (talk) 17:37, 5 January 2019 (UTC)
Many thanks for your work. The explanation always belongs to the date when the comic was published. Any further developments may be mentioned by that manner, but in general that's trivia because it doesn't explain the comic itself in it's context. --Dgbrt (talk) 21:16, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

1732: Earth_Temperature_Timeline

Ok, hate to bug you again, but I have an odd question about 1732:_Earth_Temperature_Timeline and its comic image, which is 740 × 14,889 in size.

This past week, when I viewed this comic, the image was not displaying, and it wouldn't display even when I clicked on the image file link on the image page (the thumbnail was OK though). I was getting what I thought was a server error instead, and the problem was clearly not due to something in the explanation page. I thought maybe something was wrong with the image file, but I was able to download it and open it in my local image viewer program. I was considering what I might be able to do to resolve the issue, but not knowing why it wasn't opening, I put it off...

However, now it's working fine again on the comic page, and I'm not sure what to make of the previous problem.

Have you seen similar issues like this in the past? Any thoughts on what might have caused it? I considered whether it might be helpful to actually split the image into separate slices and add them to the comic with some slider effect to view just a slice at a time, but I thought that might be too much effort for a wiki environment. Any thoughts? Ianrbibtitlht (talk) 05:28, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

Please copy and paste the server error message or do a screen shot. But maybe it was just a local problem with your browser. Other comic images still did work? And click on the navigation title to see the original at the xkcd site. It also has the huge image directly embedded, thus I think we also should do so. --Dgbrt (talk) 17:15, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

Protection from antisemitic troll

Hi, good thing to short-term protect the new pages. However at the same time someone with the account truth revealer has registered... also still on other posts back and forth editing (with antisemitic content from IP-users) happens: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=2120:_Brain_Hemispheres&curid=21799&diff=170762&oldid=170760 is it possible to also block for stuff like that? like slowing down the capabilities to do multiple edits for IP-users? --Lupo (talk) 16:22, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

This is a bad solution because many - sometimes even most - editors are just IPs. This action today is just a signal to that vandal. Further older discussions are here: Admin requests at the Community portal. --Dgbrt (talk) 16:32, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

DgbrtBOT failed 2019-08-30

Hi Dgbrt. The bot failed yesterday on 2196: Nice To E-Meet You. Have you noticed it? --Kynde (talk) 09:29, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

It began working again at 2252: Parenthetical Names. So 56 comics or about 19 weeks of downtime...? Did you fix it? --Kynde (talk) 09:26, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
It was not continuesly down from August onward. It started again right on 2nd September: 2197: Game Show and did work until Friday, 13th December: 2241: Brussels Sprouts Mandela Effect (maybe it is supersitious about Friday the 13th?) - see contributions page of the bot --Lupo (talk) 09:36, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Possible problem with the PHP installation

Dgbrt, I had an exchange of posts on the SlashMe talk page because that is the only administrator with any Wiki contributions shown in 2020 (for example you were in March 2019 and Jeff in April 2019). SlashMe confirmed the problem I identified but had no solution, and suggested that I reach out to you. The exchange is copied below. --JohnB (talk) 00:38, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

Really really difficult to get to the What If? page in the Wiki

The name of the page is what if? but if you make an internal link the usual way, as here: [[what if?]], you get a mostly blank page with the message No input file specified. It would appear that page names with a question mark break something. The failed form is what is used on the disambiguation page [[What If]], and so following the page link from there fails. What does work is this internal link: [[whatif]], but when you get there and click what links here, that fails as described above. If you really really want to get to the what links here page for the what if? page, you have to use an external link, as [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Special:WhatLinksHere?target=what_if%3F&namespace%3D]. But but but. On all those pages that it says link to the what if? page, the links are broken as described above.

My opinion is that the way to fix at this problem is to rename the what if? page to have no question mark, and then to visit all the pages in the old linked to list and update their links to the new page name. Ugh. --JohnB (talk) 22:45, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

I have looked a little bit into it and it seems to be a configuration issue with the PHP installation. However, I don't have a definite solution for that and even if I had, I don't have access to the server and wouldn't be able to change it. I think Dgbrt has. Try reaching out to him. --SlashMe (talk) 22:58, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
One more data point. The redirect page [[whatif]] redirects using the [[what if?]] syntax that fails every place else, but when redirecting it actually works. Go figure. --JohnB (talk) 00:47, 12 July 2020 (UTC)