Difference between revisions of "explain xkcd:Community portal/Proposals"

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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:::I do see some leakage of the term "Cueball" into other sites via a google search including xkcd forums. In the alternatively, I would suggest mentioning in the Cueball article that he has been referred to as "Rod" in some comics, but due to his lack of distinguishing physical traits, it is not always clear if a comic is depicting Rod, or a different character. [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]])
 
:::I do see some leakage of the term "Cueball" into other sites via a google search including xkcd forums. In the alternatively, I would suggest mentioning in the Cueball article that he has been referred to as "Rod" in some comics, but due to his lack of distinguishing physical traits, it is not always clear if a comic is depicting Rod, or a different character. [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]])
 +
::::I have to agree with this. When I first heard about the page on "Rob", I was a bit skeptical, as I couldn't recall hearing the name before and the page was ridiculous at the time. However, after looking him up to try and verify the page, I found a number of "Cueball" characters that were referred to as "Rob", officially (and even an instance where the transcript referred to the character as "Rob" when the comic didn't mention a name). TL; DR: The character we've all called "Cueball" seems to be more properly known as "Rob". {{User:Omega/sig}} 22:46, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
  
 
== Default color? ==
 
== Default color? ==

Revision as of 22:46, 14 August 2012

Community Portal
Dialog-information on.svg

Proposals (+post)
Place for ideas and suggestions to improve the wiki's design and organization on general issues.

Preferences-system.svg

Technical (+post)
Technical issues regarding the site, including bug reports or MediaWiki extensions requests.

Edit-find-replace.svg

Coordination (+post)
Community-managed page for coordinating content editing and maintenance tasks.

Tools-hammer.svg

Admin requests (+post)
Problems requiring assistance from an admin. User problems, changes to protected pages, etc.

Help-browser.svg

Miscellaneous (+post)
Place for general chit-chat about virtually anything that doesn't fit anywhere else.

View all community portal sections at once here
Hyperlink-internet-search.svg

Tagline

I haven't created MediaWiki:Tagline yet, but we need to think about what to put there. That's the familiar "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." over at Wikipedia - it appears right under the title of each page. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 10:39, 1 August 2012 (EDT)
Moved from Explain XKCD:Community portal --Philosopher Let us reason together. 00:09, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

I think it's pretty obvious we should keep the "It's cause you're dumb." :) --Waldir (talk) 13:20, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
Well, since there haven't been any objections, I went ahead and added it: Mediawiki:Tagline. --Waldir (talk) 18:46, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Separate discussion page(s)

I think we should create a separate Discuss the wiki page, so that each discussion can go under its own header. I'd suggest setting up a todo list where people can help out. I'd start with a suggestion:

We should be using cleaner urls. Maybe this tool can help setting that up. --Waldir (talk) 05:46, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
Whatever we do decide, I've created {{xkcd}} and {{explain}} templates to create links to the xkcd site and other explanations here on this site; that should factor at least those sites (nice central administration) as well as helping us categorize pages that use them. Was thinking of also {{wiki}} for the same benefit, even if there's already a prefix built into mediawiki... the only drawback is the bias toward the en side... IronyChef (talk) 10:31, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
I'm liking the idea of creating a Discuss the wiki page - I'll start one if someone doesn't/hasn't beat me to it and add it to the sidebar. I'd asked for better URLs at User talk:Jeff#Robots.txt, though I didn't know what they were called. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 17:17, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
I also like the idea of the {{xkcd}} tags. On a related note, I've imported {{tl}}.  :-) I also realize we don't have a secure server here, but I'd support the best practice of beginning URLs with protocol-relative links ( // instead of http:// or https:// ) anyway, especially since the xkcd website itself appears to be https-compatible.Nevermind, it doesn't seem to be. So I guess it doesn't matter. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 22:40, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
Maybe we can create a subpage of the community portal for the wiki discussion. What do you think? --Waldir (talk) 04:32, 3 August 2012 (EDT)
Also one for editing coordination (see User:SurturZ/sandbox for instance), another for mediawiki assistance (requests to admins perhaps on the same page, or on a separate one). Any other ideas? --Waldir (talk) 04:41, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

Moved from Explain XKCD:Community portal, may need to be broken out into new headers or sub-headers. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 00:12, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

Great job on creating the subpages! I think the subpages can be made more intuitive for newcomers, though. Here are my subbestions:

  • merge "/Design" and "/Proposals" into "/Discuss the wiki" or "/Improve the wiki" or something to that effect.
  • rename "/Technical" into "/Tecnical assistance" so it is clear that it should be used for one-off issues rather than coordination of wiki-wide changes (which should go in the section above)
  • merge the "/Administrator's noticeboard" above? That would reinforce that adminship is nothing but a set of technical tools to assist the wiki
  • New "/Editing coordination" subpage for organizing what to do, maintenance, keeping a TODO list for newcomers to tackle, etc -- essentially like WikiProjects work at Wikipedia.

--Waldir (talk) 04:35, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

As I see this, it would involve mostly just renaming pages. I don't particularly care what the names are, so I won't comment on that.
  • I'd like to keep /Administrator's noticeboard for the time being. The primary advantage of this is that administrators can watchlist this and things which need the tools are less likely to get lost in discussion. It can always be deprecated afterwards if it isn't being used enough.
  • I'd sort of seen /Design as doing what you're proposing for /Editing coordination, though I didn't explain it as well.
--Philosopher Let us reason together. 18:43, 4 August 2012 (EDT)
Ok, I get what you mean with the Admin page. I don't think this wiki is going to be that busy to warrant a separate page, though. But for now, let's at least simplify the name? "Admin requests", for instance :)
And yeah, Design isn't really a good name for content-related coordination. What I'm suggesting here is to have one page for meta (wiki-related) discussion, and another for content-related discussion. Does that make sense? And what name do you think would be good for the former rather than the current, too generic imo, "Proposals"? --Waldir (talk) 19:20, 4 August 2012 (EDT)
"Discuss the wiki" sounds good to me, as does "Admin requests." Or whatever, I guess.  ;-) I may not be online much for the next few days (or much this evening), so go ahead and change it how you think it should be, I guess. Having stable discussion pages sooner than later would be good. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 01:48, 6 August 2012 (EDT)
Ok I changed the admin page name, and merged "design" and "proposals", but for now I left it named "Proposals". I'm not quite confident about the clarity of "Discuss the wiki"... I'll wait until others comment here. --Waldir (talk) 14:06, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
I'm not seeing any further discussion and it's been a few days since the move, so I'm clearing the sitenotice. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 02:38, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Automatic Import

Hi

I created a draft for the comic pages. It's still work in progress, but I'd like to retrieve feedback.

Also, maybe we could autmatically import comics using the JSON data Randall gives us ([1]). This way, we could also include transcripts. --SlashMe (talk) 15:23, 1 August 2012 (EDT)

Hm, I should add a link to my draft: User:SlashMe/Testpage ;-) --SlashMe (talk) 06:54, 2 August 2012 (EDT)

I updated the page, including links to the next/previous comic similar to Template:ComicHeader. I used comic 472, because it has a lot of metadata (link, news, HTML title, etc.). --SlashMe (talk) 07:32, 2 August 2012 (EDT)

Just to remind everyone, I'd be ready to import the comics, but I don't want to until I got more feedback. Please have a look at User:SlashMe/Testpage and tell me your opinion. --SlashMe (talk) 06:02, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

I think your test page looks great. I'm a big fan of it. Any way to fit the text in the text box rather than having it run all the way to the right? --Jeff (talk) 18:19, 3 August 2012 (EDT)
I just made a change concerning line breaks, at least it works in Firefox and Chrome. Could somebody please test it in different versions of Internet Explorer?
If you agree, I would start uploading tomorrow. I'll send you a mail. --SlashMe (talk) 18:31, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

Moved from User talk:Jeff. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 00:38, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

The discussion is now at Explain XKCD:Community_portal/Design#Header template. --SlashMe (talk) 04:20, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

"Random comic?"

Not to clutter the sidebar, but what would you say to adding a "Random comic" right under "Random page", linking to //dynamic.xkcd.com/random/comic/ ? --Philosopher Let us reason together. 01:46, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

Naw, xkcd already has a random comic. I think we should have a random explanation. ;-) All kidding aside, I was wondering: generating a random member of a category...? Has that improved since the early days when I tried to do something like that. -- IronyChef (talk) 03:19, 4 August 2012 (EDT)
Hi. For how to do this, we could install the Random In Category Mediawiki extension, which would allow us to use [[Special:RandomInCategory/Comics]] to point to any random explanation. Omega TalkContribs 22:42, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
Or we could move the comics into a Comic namespace, and use Special:Random/comic (See for instance Special:Random/template). This doesn't require any server-side changes. --Waldir (talk) 23:58, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Header template

Hi, I've created a template called Template:ComicHeader, which might make things easier when creating comic pages (and also provide better consistency between the pages). I've used it on the Internal monologue page, to display the comic number and the date it was published. The template also adds the page to the Comics category.

You just need to add:

{{ComicHeader|1089|August 1, 2012}}

…to the start of the page (replacing the comic number and date).

I'll try to make the template look a bit nicer, but the great thing about templates of course, is that once they're updated, the changes are reflected on all the pages that include that template. --Yirba (talk) 18:46, 1 August 2012 (EDT)

By the way, I'm thinking of maybe programming something that would allow you to easily import the comic image and alt text from xkcd without having to upload the images manually and the like. You'd just have to host a single PHP file on your server and make a few changes to the MediaWiki configuration. Of course, you'd be able to see source code and everything to make sure I'm not trying to do something fishy. :-P Let me know what you think. :-) --Yirba (talk) 18:54, 1 August 2012 (EDT)
Yirba - I like the idea. My email is [email protected] - send me what you put together and we can sort it out. --Jeff (talk) 19:37, 1 August 2012 (EDT)
Ditto on the Template. Up-vote. Any thought on harvesting the pre-wiki content from ExplainXKCD with some sort of a Python, Perl, or PHP script? (That sounds more like a 'bot than something that would have to be hosted, though.) IronyChef (talk) 01:52, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
I was thinking of putting it into a infobox, please see above. I also intended to automatically extract data from xkcd, which would lack descriptions, but at least we would have data like title, image and transcripts. Also, there are some other data like links (e.g. 832), news (which are displayed in xkcd's header, e.g. 739) and titles which contain HTML (259 and 472). I also extracted all those data. When we agree on a page layout, I could begin programming a bot. --SlashMe (talk) 06:54, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
Hmmm… an infobox may be a good idea. And a bot that imports data from xkcd might be handy. Anyway, here's something I programmed that would allow for access to the xkcd API from the wiki itself. Essentially, you'd put this xkcdinfo.php (source, download) file somewhere on the server (e.g. at http://www.explainxkcd.com/xkcdinfo.php) and include it in MediaWiki's interwiki table (ensuring iw_trans == 1):
INSERT INTO interwiki (iw_prefix, iw_url, iw_local, iw_trans) VALUES ('xkcdinfo', 'http://www.explainxkcd.com/xkcdinfo.php?input=$1', 0, 1);
After enabling scary transclusion in LocalSettings.php, you'd then be able to send queries to the xkcd JSON API via this file. In other words, {{xkcdinfo:32-title}} would make comic 32's title appear. {{xkcdinfo:55-alt}} would make comic 55's image text appear. I've also set it so you could enter {{xkcdinfo:100-embed}}, and it would make the comic 100 image appear on the wiki page. Feel free to use it however you want (if at all), and modify the code should you wish. (Hint: Using the number 0 for the comic number will query the most recent comic, so {{xkcdinfo:0-num}} will return the current comic number. Also, adding "raw:" before "xkcdinfo:" might be more useful in some instances. E.g.: {{raw:xkcdinfo:555-title}})--Yirba (talk) 14:50, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
Nice idea, altough this would mean to load all data from xkcd whenever a page is viewededited (I think this is the way MediaWiki caches the data). This is a lot of traffic for little data. I'd say to include the metadata statically, but linking the external image seems a good thing to me. Again, it'd be great if you gave me feedback for my idea. --SlashMe (talk) 15:54, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
Yes, the data would be loaded from xkcd for each edit. You can, however, substitute (subst) the template for data that is unlikely to change. And therefore the data would indeed be stored statically. I like the layout you've come up with. It could perhaps do with a bit of tweaking here and there, but the general idea is good. --Yirba (talk) 17:16, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
What kind of tweaking do you mean? I know the code is a bit messy, if you have a better idea, please tell me (or do it yourself - hey, it's a wiki!). The CSS should be placed in an external file, but for now, it's ok. --SlashMe (talk) 17:51, 2 August 2012 (EDT)

Looks like there is another/newer template called Template:Comic that includes prev/next buttons as well. You add it with:

{{comic
| number    = 1
| date      = September 30, 2005
| title     = {{PAGENAME}}
| image     = barrel_cropped_(1).jpg
| imagesize = 
| alttext   = Don't we all.
}}

<small>Moved from [[User talk:Jeff]]. --~~~~</small>
==Description==
xxxxxxxxxxx

No need to include the alt text separately, as the template does it for you. It also includes the comic category, but only if the first 4 fields are filled out. --B. P. (talk) 18:47, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

Yes, but that is not necessarily an advantage. My template only creates the infobox, so you are still able to create an introductory text or other sections, for special comics that need a more detailed description. I can also add categories if needed. --SlashMe (talk) 19:02, 3 August 2012 (EDT)
I think it is a major advantage to make the thing easier to use and more consistant site-wide.
As the creator of the new one, I'm obviously biased, but I created it because I think it's better. Not putting your work down, it was a great piece of code that I put to work in my template. But I think if there's need for pre-text of any kind (not sure there is, as the articles probably should all open with the comic itself as presented on XKCD), a pre-comment can be added into the template, but I'm not sure what that would be. Perhaps there would be a requirement for special circumstances like the comic a few weeks ago where there were a million iterations depending on locality, browser, etc. But that's the rarity. I think the new one simplifies it for users. They need only one template to post the comic, alt text title and nav buttons. What could be easier? TheHYPO (talk) 19:08, 3 August 2012 (EDT)
As the creator of the other one, I'm equally biased. What about a "main template", which then calls one or two other templates (e.g. one for the infobox, another for image and alt text? For most comics, this main template could be used, but if absolutely needed, it would still be possible to use the underlying templates with custom sections/text. --SlashMe (talk) 19:15, 3 August 2012 (EDT)
I just now saw your request for feedback on your new comic page with the sidebar. I honestly am not sure which format is better. I kind of like my format for the fact that it basically presents the comic as it was originally posted, but your infobox does provide some additional stuff like 3D link (not sure what "news" is, of where the "link" comes from but...) Perhaps we could integrate the two. I like that the comic is visble right away on my template, but on your page it's down below the first header. I don't think the comic itself needs an "image" heading. No disrespect, but I think your sidebar, esp. because of the "news" field is a bit chunky - too wide for most of its content.
I think we could easily add things like a "3d" link into {{comic}} as part of the next/prev bar where a "3D" field in the template is non-blank. Similarly, original title could read something like (Originally titled: xxxxx) below the primary title in a smaller font. Other than the "link" and "news" fields (which again, I'm not sure what they are), I think that would inclde all the same info as your infobox into my template. Thoughts?
As to your other comment about compartmentalizing the template, I have nothing against that, but which parts of the template would you want to be able to use separately (and can you suggest an example where that might be necessary?) Subdividing the template can always be done later if it becomes needed; just trying to get an idea of what you have in mind by compartmentalizing it. Cheers TheHYPO (talk) 19:43, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

Moved from User talk:Jeff. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 00:37, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

Suggestion:

  • I will start by uploading all images. This will take some time and has no points to discuss. (If it has, tell me.) At a later point, maybe we could link them directly from xkcd.com.
  • For the comic pages: Let's say we'll use {{Comic}}. I'll change the arguments of the template to be more like my {{Infobox comic}}, see documentation. I'll keep the alttext argument, but make image optional (file name should be guessed from the title). Do we really need imagesize?
  • {{Comic}} would then call some further templates, passing the appropriate arguments. This way, we are able to use custom sections/text if needed for special comics (like Umwelt) by using these templates instead of the all-in-one {{Comic}}.
  • Since we have one template doing all the work, we can easily change the page layout even after the import. (We should only keep track of the pages that don't use {{Comic}}, using a hidden category)
  • For consistency, I would move all existing pages out of the way and re-create them. The moved pages could be collected by adding them to a category like Category:legacy pages, so they should easily be found. Descriptions should be moved to the new pages, afterwards the legacy pages can be deleted.

This way, I can import all comics, but we would still be able to change the layout afterwards. My 2ct concerning page layout:

  • Use comic titles as page names.(See below) The title should be prominent, the number will be in the infobox.
  • I'll remove Original title, news and link from the infobox and move them to a section after the description. (For details, see here)
  • suggested layout:
=====page title=====
+--------------------+ +---------+
|                    | | infobox |
|       image        | |  text   |
|(no section heading)| |         |
|                    | |         |
|                    | +---------+
+--------------------+
==alt==
text
==description==
text
==transcript==
text
==original title, news and link== (if available)
text

Still open for opinions.--SlashMe (talk) 04:13, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

It might make more sense to use the comic number as the page title, and then use DISPLAYTITLE to make the comic title appear in place of the number. Just putting that out as another possibility. --Yirba (talk) 09:49, 4 August 2012 (EDT)
Good point, I agree. --SlashMe (talk) 09:54, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

If anyone wants to use it, I've written a bot [2] that can upload images, create redirect pages, and create comic pages. You can change the format it uses for the comic page if you have some knowledge of python. To use it, look at [3]. --Cyanfish (talk) 10:56, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

Sorry, I was faster. I'm using mwclient, and I already uploaded all images. I could also create pages and redirects, but I'm waiting until we have a consent. --SlashMe (talk) 11:02, 4 August 2012 (EDT)
A few thoughts: if you start uploading images, but don't create the comic pages with them, a user going to create a new comic page isn't going to know whether or not the comic image has already been uploaded. This could be confusing. Hopefully the uploads are going to be named the same as the original images? (when I do upload, I actually just paste the URL in my "browse" box and upload directly from my browsers cache that way so it works out), but I just want to avoid duplicating images on the server as well as wasting time by trying to upload something that's already there.
As to the page layout, I'm still of the view that the transcript should be in a collapsed frame so that it doesn't take up half the article. I don't honestly think that most people are coming to read the transcript. I could be wrong tho. Open to opinions on that. Otherwise, I do like transcript AFTER The explanation (also, the heading "explanation" vs. "description" as mentioned in another discussion in the portal. TheHYPO (talk) 14:09, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
PS: We definately need imagesize. It defaults to full size, but I think we definately need the optional argument for large comics. Remembering that this is a wiki to explain the comics, there are many large comics that ought to be restricted to a smaller size for the page (they can be clicked to enlarge - the template automatically creates a "click to enlarge" link if imagesize is used). I have generally been using a 375 or 400px size for keeping larger comics managable, but sometimes it's a comic-dependant decision. Also, notwithstanding my comment on another thread, even though I agree that the xkcd commentary is actually "title text", just as a side note, I've just noticed that the transcripts for older comics actually do call it "alt text") TheHYPO (talk) 15:40, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
As long as no one has any objections, this header looks awesome (with ImageSize as TheHYPO suggested), so feel free to work on the importation functionality. Let me know if you need anything from me in order to import from the Wordpress side of things. If we start talking importation, lets move that conversation under a different header. --Jeff (talk) 15:56, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Date format

I suggest to enter the date as YYYY-MM-DD and using {{#dateformat: {{date}}} in {{comic}}. This way, the date should be displayed using the personal preferences (see Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-datetime). Does anyone disagree? --SlashMe (talk) 20:42, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Displaying Comics

For the home page, I think the comic and explanation should be displayed instead of a link to the comic.

For reasons unknown to me, I decided to create Template:Comicbox and Template:Comicbox2. Looks nice, as long as you use the correct one for the comic.

Go to User:Grep/comicbox and User:Grep/comicbox2 for examples. --Grep (talk) 21:03, 2 August 2012 (EDT)

Those're wonderful! And should probably be on the main page. If you wanted, we could probably incorporate them (and maybe a third?) into a single template with a "square/vertical or horizontal" switch. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 21:36, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
Also, you used "comicbox" for the class. Is that a class that's defined somewhere? (And if so, where?) --Philosopher Let us reason together. 21:36, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
Good point. Removed. And merging them sounds wonderful. --Grep (talk) 21:47, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
Maybe merging them into Template:comicbox? --Grep (talk) 21:49, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
I think classes are defined at MediaWiki:Common.css, so if you really wanted to define the class.... And Template:Comicbox would probably be best. Did you want to merge them or should I take a look at it? --Philosopher Let us reason together. 22:25, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
ParserFunctions and any sort of non-XMLish markup is weird. I would rather you look at it. --Grep (talk) 22:42, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
Okay, I've moved your templates to {{Comicbox square or vertical}} and {{Comicbox horizontal}} so I can work on {{Comicbox}} as the main one. It may take a while - I like to think of myself as a "master of all known wikimarkup," but I don't actually use those skills that often. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 23:08, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
Thanks. --Grep (talk) 23:42, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
I've made it at {{Comicbox}}. This actually leaves {{Comicbox square or vertical}} and {{Comicbox horizontal}} unused, though I credited you (and them) in a comment at the top of the template. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 00:21, 3 August 2012 (EDT)
I think that the explanation should be on the right because it just looks weird as is... --Grep (talk) 07:42, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Sure. But right now they both look like they're on the bottom? --Philosopher Let us reason together. 20:02, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

 Fixed --Grep (talk) 15:39, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Sans-serif typeface

I like these, too, but the roman typeface... how do folks feel about sticking with a sans-serif typeface throughout the site? IronyChef (talk) 00:13, 3 August 2012 (EDT)
We should be able to change that wiki-wide through MediaWiki:Common.css, I think. Unfortunately, I don't know enough CSS to do it. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 00:23, 3 August 2012 (EDT)
I believe sans serif is already the default wiki-wide. Those specific instances were deliberately coded to use a serif font. It's just a matter of removing font-family: 'Times New Roman'; from the template. --Waldir (talk) 17:01, 3 August 2012 (EDT)
Oh, I'd missed that. I removed it. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 22:14, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

Moved from User talk:Jeff. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 00:37, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

comic header

Jeff, further to your previous conversation on the comic header, I've significantly rewritten Yirba's template (thanks to Yirba for the hard work. His navigation bar was very useful) and I've created a new template of {{comic}}. An example of the comic in use can be seen at T-shirts. I started a discussion on the main page discussion board, but I thought if I pointed it out to you and you like it, it can start going in the rotation for new comics.

I actually now see that Grep did a template up with intent (I think) to use for the main page. Had I known that when I started, I would have probably based my template off of his, because it looks nice, but either way, mine is intended for the actual articles. TheHYPO (talk) 14:46, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

Again, may I link to my request for feedback? --SlashMe (talk) 15:52, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

The discussion is now at Explain XKCD:Community_portal/Design#Header template. --SlashMe (talk) 04:17, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

Moved from User talk:Jeff. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 00:37, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

Template improvement suggestion

Can I suggest that we work on improving {{ComicHeader}} - I wish I had time to do it myself and then edit all the comic pages, but I would suggest the best way might be to start a new template (perhaps design it a bit more like an infobox) and start converting the old pages over to new ones.

The feature I think should be added is that, where the template currently includes teh comic number and date, and creates the nav header, the template really ought to include the image name, and the alt text. In that way, the template can produce the entire part of the article that displays the comic and its alt text (and the alt text, as mentioned, could be more like a caption, instead of just looking like a generic section of the article - it's part of the comic, it shouldn't look like part of the article on this site (no offence, Jeff, but that's one thing I always didn't like about explain XKCD - the image text should be bold or underlined or italics or something to signify that it's part of the comic and not the explanation.

I'll see if I can work on a prototype. TheHYPO (talk) 12:29, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

What does everyone thing of this as a better layout? Blown Apart TheHYPO (talk) 13:09, 3 August 2012 (EDT)
May I link to my request for feedback? --SlashMe (talk) 15:52, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

Moved from Talk:Main Page. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 00:44, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

The discussion is now at #Header template. --SlashMe (talk) 04:17, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

Transcripts

Do we need to add a whole section on "Transcript" for each comic? That could get very long for some comics, and basically pushes the explanations down further (which is what people generally come to explainxkcd for). If anything, perhaps the transcripts could be in a minimizable box like some navboxes do on wikipedia? I don't see a majority of users coming to read the transcripts... TheHYPO (talk) 19:15, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

What about putting the transcripts at the bottom of the page?
BTW: If you agree, this discussion should be moved to Explain XKCD:Community portal, as Waldir suggested. At least for new discussions. --SlashMe (talk) 19:19, 3 August 2012 (EDT)
No problem there. Feel free to move it. TheHYPO (talk) 19:29, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

Moved from Talk:Main Page. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 00:47, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

The discussion is now at #Header template. --SlashMe (talk) 04:18, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

Adding a new comic

This is the process I use to add a new comic. YMMV... Feel free to update this as/if needed to provide some consistency...--B. P. (talk) 19:22, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

I start by uploading the image using the name from XKCD's page.

I create the new page using the comic number(not the name), e.g. "http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1"

I (currently) insert using the "Comic" template:

{{comic
| number    = 1
| date      = September 30, 2005
| title     = {{PAGENAME}}
| image     = barrel_cropped_(1).jpg
| imagesize = 
| alttext   = Don't we all.
}}
==Transcript==
This is the transcript from xkcd
==Description==
Wow what a cool comic!

I "Show preview" to ensure the image shows up and everything looks good.

I "Save page".

I click the "move" link on the down-arrow drop-down menu to the right of "View history" (at top of page).

I rename the page from "1" to the page title from XKCD.

This will automatically create a redirect from "1" to the correct page name without having to do it manually. --B. P. (talk) 19:22, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

Please, have a break here. When we agree on a page layout, I can do this automatically. I repeat, when we agree on the layout (which should also include the direction of the redirects) --SlashMe (talk) 19:25, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

Moved from Talk:Main Page. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 00:47, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

The discussion concerning the layout is at Explain XKCD:Community_portal/Design#Header template. --SlashMe (talk) 04:18, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

styling of xkcd links

I added code to the end of MediaWiki:Common.css to style links to the xkcd website as http://xkcd.com rather than the regular external link format, http://example.com. What do you guys think? --Waldir (talk) 05:06, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

I like it generally. Is there a way to force it to not display on individual pages, though? I don't think we should have it at Explain XKCD:Copyrights, {{XKCD file}}, or {{XKCD file derived}}, as they are more serious. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 16:27, 4 August 2012 (EDT)
Sure. I've disabled it on those pages, feel free to add more as you see fit. --Waldir (talk) 17:22, 4 August 2012 (EDT)
Thanks! --Philosopher Let us reason together. 18:34, 4 August 2012 (EDT)
I like the idea of the graphic, too, but wonder if it could be muted a bit (medium gray vs black) so it recedes a bit into the background; the classic graphic is a very light blue for that reason, too. (Oh, and a minor quibble... overheard: "who is that short, bearded dude?" "Oh! That's megan?") ... I don't know how we could update it, and maybe it'll be less of an issue when muted... Thotz? -- IronyChef (talk) 14:16, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
The image can be updated by uploading new versions of xkcd favicon.png. It doesn't need to be the xkcd.com favicon; in fact, it would be good if we could make it even smaller (e.g. just cueball's head, or simply "xkcd" in the typical handwritten font, etc). Making it dimmer also seems like a good idea, btw. --Waldir (talk) 19:38, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

'Explanation' rather than 'Description'

Can I suggest we use the heading "Explanation" rather than "Description" on the comic pages, since that fits with the name of the wiki? --SurturZ (talk) 09:20, 5 August 2012 (EDT)

Agreed. --Waldir (talk) 14:27, 5 August 2012 (EDT)
Seconded TheHYPO (talk) 14:04, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Allow external inline images

Hi. I'd like to propose that we set $wgAllowExternalImages to true or add xkcd.com and some image hosting sites (such as imgur.com) to $wgAllowExternalImagesFrom. If the former is set to true, external images will be allowed from any host, whereas if the former is kept as false but we add some sites to the latter (obviously adding xkcd's site itself seems to be the logical choice), then only images that are from whitelisted sites can appear as inline images. What this does is it allows external images to be displayed as an actual image, rather than just a link (note that sites not in the whitelist will still appear as just the link). Why? Because there's no way to display images without uploading them. Obviously some editors may wish to use images for non-wiki purposes, such as proposing alternative logos or for their userspace, in which case uploading the images to this site isn't entirely practical. Allowing externally hosted images to be displayed will alleviate that problem.

Yes, there is the risk of... less appropriate images being displayed, however, I consider that being a null argument, as editors could just as easily upload the image here and link it as an internal image. As well, using the whitelist alternative would limit the image to being posted from a trusted site, such as imgur. Finally, if worries about nude photos being posted is really a concern (seriously, what's stopping an editor from just uploading said image here? Nothing.), it's possible to only whitelist sites which don't permit nude images from being hosted on their site (such as imageshack.us), although I think that's a bit extreme (especially considering that imgur is hands down the most popular image host these days). Omega TalkContribs 07:52, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

I really don't see a compelling reason to have this. It's not about improper images or anything. (Note that we already have access to all images in Wikimedia Commons, by the way, which has a large variety of images and other media, with the added benefit that we're sure they can be reused without licensing concerns). A specific whitelist could be interesting (e.g. we could hotlink the images from xkcd), but having the images here allows us to do neat things like categorizing them by topic, size, etc. Also, images like logo proposals, etc. do benefit from being uploaded here (for historical interest, for a guarantee that they won't be deleted wherever they're hosted, for better control regarding how they're displayed, etc.) --Waldir (talk) 19:27, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Latest comic handling

Currently the latest comic is handled automatically by the {{LATESTCOMIC}} template, which tests the existence of pages like 1092, 1093 (supposed to be redirects to the corresponding comics), to see which is the highest-number existing page, and consider it the latest comic.

That way we can have the latest comic automatically transcluded on the main page.

But we cannot have, with that system, an automatic "Edit" link (to edit the latest comic) on the main page, nor can we have automatically the comments associated with that latest comic. The former was changed to a "Go to this comic" link, and the latter was removed. I think both of them are really useful things to have on the main page.

I've been thinking a little bit about this, and in the end I suggest that we handle manually the latest comic :

  • There would be a single {{latest comic}} template, which would have to be updated manually to return the full title of the latest comic's page (such as "1092: Michael Phelps").
  • Next to the "Latest comic" header, on the front page, would be appended a "[update]" link, to a page explaining that to insert the new latest comic in the wiki: one needs to 1/ create a page titled "<number>: <title>" and 2/ update the {{latest comic}} template with the new title.
  • The "Edit this explanation" link could be put back on the main page, using something like [{{fullurl:{{latest comic}}|action=edit}} '''Edit this explanation''']. And I firmly believe that link is important. (*this* for instance is exactly what I'm talking about)
  • The comments to the latest comic could be appended under the latest comic's transclusion, with something like {{ {{TALKPAGENAME: {{latest comic}} }} }}. They could be in a collapsible area if they take too much space. Same here than about the edit link, I believe that's really important to impel/motivate readers to leave their comments as well.
  • Finally, when only the number is needed (such as in the computation of the number of missing explanations), this could be done via another template (for instance {{latest comic number}}), automatic this time, which would replace the current {{LATESTCOMIC}} by extracting the value out of {{latest comic}} (with something like {{#explode:{{latest comic}}|:}}).

So, yes there would be a value to update manually, but that's not really much and if it's part of a process I don't think that would be a big drawback, and on the other hand I think it would be less error-prone than an automatic calculation, and allow more useful things. And make less use of redirects as well. Furthermore, the current {{LATESTCOMIC}}, used quite a lot (in the sidebar, so in every page actually), makes heavy use of the {{#ifexist:...}} parser function, qualified as "expensive", so even though it may not be a big deal it could be a better option to try to avoid that...

What do you think?

Cos (talk) 16:53, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

A few considerations:
  • We can instead add the edit link directly to the comic page. It could be generated by the {{comic}} template, which already has to be provided with both the number and the title of the comic (in fact those could even be automatically extracted from the page title with some string parsing functions or clever templates). This should solve the "edit this comic" link issue.
  • Actually, the discussion part was hidden from the main page on purpose (although for a different reason: it was transcluding the main page's own talk page instead). I am not sure it's a good idea to include it in the main page as it could clutter it, but I can understand the point of putting it there. I would suggest perhaps including it directly rather than inside the {{comic discussion}} box, as that would create a box on a box layout that I don't think would look too good. Note that there is no problem with needing the pagename here, since we can transclude a redirect (the same way the actual comic page is transcluded using only the number, which is a redirect).
  • I did see that edit and was thinking that we could probably display a custom info message whenever someone attempts to edit main page, so they'll know they can edit the actual comic page. I'll add that to my todo list.
  • Mediawiki itself will tell us when a potentially expensive parser function is being used too much, by placing the corresponding page in Category:Pages with too many expensive parser function calls. So we don't need to be concerned with premature optimization :)
--Waldir (talk) 19:16, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
The edit link can be displayed, specifically on the main page, by the {{comic}} template, that is true; it just seems wrong to me however, it's not his job to do so...
As for the comments, they cannot be displayed by the template (unless we put them before the explanation), so we still don't have a solution for them; and I still believe they would be very useful on the main page, very appealing for readers to come and comment as well.
So, problem still not solved I would say... - Cos (talk) 16:27, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
I don't see the problem with {{comic}} displaying the edit link on the main page, especially since you consider using it to display the discussion as well (which, I agree, unfortunately isn't possible)
I added the discussion to the main page. It will depend on a redirect being created for the talk page as well every time a new comic is released, but it doesn't make it any harder. Compare:
  1. Create comic page at [[123: title]]
  2. Update {{latest comic}}
  3. Redirect [[123]] to [[123: title]] (it's necessary to allow people to get to the comic with only the number)
with:
  1. Create comic page at [[123: title]]
  2. Redirect [[123]] to [[123: title]]
  3. Redirect [[Talk:123]] to [[Talk:123: title]]
Therefore, I don't see a strong case for creating the {{latest comic}} template. --Waldir (talk) 20:31, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

How to reference strips?

I think we need to agree on a citation style for strips in plain prose. I.e. If the Black Hat article says "Black Hat first appears in ________", how are we filling that blank? In this case, the blank is 29: Hitler. As I understand it, proper style for an "episode" name typically is quotes, so the stip is "Hitler". But there's still various options:

  1. "Hitler" [quotes not linked]
  2. "Hitler" [quotes linked]
  3. Comic #29
  4. #29
  5. 29: Hitler
  6. "Hitler" (29)
  7. "Hitler" (#29)

etc.

Anyone have any opinions? TheHYPO (talk) 21:38, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Option 5. above seems the simplest, yet readable and informative. At most I'd prepend a # sign, like so: #29: Hitler. Being a link should be enough to differentiate it from the rest of the text (without needing quote signs). Alternatively, #7 also may be an acceptable option, but we'd need a template to make sure the formatting is maintained in all such references... I don't think it's worth the extra complexity. --Waldir (talk) 23:54, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
Whatever we decide, let's encode it into the {{xkcd}} and/or {{explain}} templates, and just agree to use those templates. That allows central administration of the stylistic issues and gives editors a simple rule to follow. Minor tweaks to either would afford that flexibility. Right now, they generate the links xkcd 29 and xkcd 29 respectively, though the latter can be xkcd 29: Hitler without much fuss. -- IronyChef (talk) 05:58, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
I support modifying the {{explain}} template to be along the lines of proposal number five. Omega TalkContribs 09:20, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
Five. yes. --Jeff (talk) 18:15, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Sidebar icons

Hi all. I hope you'll forgive my enthusiasm but I went ahead and implemented an icon theme for the sidebar (as well as more spacing between the links, for extra breathing room). What do you guys think of it? --Waldir (talk) 21:45, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

I like it, but I'm not sure where you added them. Was that on a MediaWiki: page or one of the .css pages? --Philosopher Let us reason together. 01:39, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
Both :) Mediawiki:Common.css --Waldir (talk) 09:07, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Cueball/Rob

I noticed someone edited the character template to add an article for "Rob". I thought this might have just been a vandal edit, but I googled 'xkcd Rob' and discovered that indeed, a Cueball chracter has been referenced as Rob in several strips. Is there a reason Cueball hasn't been designated officially "Rob" just as Megan has been designated Megan by being named in a few strips? Do we have reason to believe that other Cueballs are non-Rob characters? PS: this might not be the right place for this discussion, but I'm not sure if anyone is reading article discussion pages at this point yet, and I thought that the name of the primary character might be a notable issue of discussion TheHYPO (talk) 14:07, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm unclear on this as well. Cueball was just a name made up (I think here on this site) for the main character of the comic. Are there separate characters for Cueball and Rob? I'm not sure. --Jeff (talk) 15:52, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
I know that "Cueball" has now been severely grandfathered in, but I think we have to consider moving Cueball over to Rob and basically considering the Cueball character to be "Rob", in the same way as Megan, unless it's clear that the character isn't Rob, since Cueball, as noted, is not an official title. I'm somewhat leaning in this direction.
I do see some leakage of the term "Cueball" into other sites via a google search including xkcd forums. In the alternatively, I would suggest mentioning in the Cueball article that he has been referred to as "Rod" in some comics, but due to his lack of distinguishing physical traits, it is not always clear if a comic is depicting Rod, or a different character. TheHYPO (talk)
I have to agree with this. When I first heard about the page on "Rob", I was a bit skeptical, as I couldn't recall hearing the name before and the page was ridiculous at the time. However, after looking him up to try and verify the page, I found a number of "Cueball" characters that were referred to as "Rob", officially (and even an instance where the transcript referred to the character as "Rob" when the comic didn't mention a name). TL; DR: The character we've all called "Cueball" seems to be more properly known as "Rob". Omega TalkContribs 22:46, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Default color?

Frankly, I'm not even sure this is an issue on the wiki's end vs. the browser's default, but I've noticed this with other wiki-based software. With the default of Blue links and Purple visited links, I've been noticing a lot lately that the Purple visited links are not really standing out from the otherwise black text. Not sure why this is. Is anyone else noticing this? I'm having a hard time finding wikilinks in text that I've already visited. Perhaps it's just me. TheHYPO (talk) 14:37, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Comments

Please let me know where the comments are for the latest comic. If I'm not the only one who can't find them, can there be a link next to the comic?