Editing Talk:Sad comics

I understand that the author of this page is trying to draw a connection between Randall's expressed mood and Donald Trump's presidential career, but honestly, this entire page is shaky at best (and nonsense at worst). Many of the comics listed seem to have been picked at random - even the page itself acknowledges that they have nothing to do with anything. It's unclear what the page is trying to say, there's no coherence to any of it, and really this just seems to be an extremely flimsy excuse to complain about Trump. [[User:Hawthorn|Hawthorn]] ([[User talk:Hawthorn|talk]]) 12:44, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
:I agree, while it is clear that Randall is not happy (not even closely) with Trump as the president of the US, but the connection of every not-optimistic comic from the last 2.5 years to it seems abit constructed to me as well. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 03:51, 18 April 2019 (UTC)
:I totally agree, too. Imho this page requires a clean-up. But since this page is more or less a personal project of one contributor I would like to give the author of the page a chance to re-evaluate these "connections" before anyone else goes wild here. Or what do you think? [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 11:53, 18 April 2019 (UTC)
::With the new comic that even mentions Trump it is clear that this is still on Randall's mind. Also because three people who disagree about the page writes here, that is not a consensus. Only people who are agaqinst this page evey comes to the talk page. I had not even seen it before Hawthorn alerted me on this discussion (thanks for that). Yes I'm not a fan of Trump, but that has nothing to do with the fact that Randall is also not a fan. Which is made 100% clear a couple of times. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:00, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
::: ''"With the new comic that even mentions Trump it is clear that this is still on Randall's mind."'' - actually, that is ''not'' necessarily clear, for the simple reason that Trump is the President of the country that Randall lives in. He's literally one of the most important people in the USA; his decisions would affect Randall's life (and therefore, his comics) ''regardless'' of how Randall feels about him.
:::The real issue is that we simply ''can't'' speculate on Randall's feelings. Not only is it impossible to say anything with any degree of veracity, it's actually a bit insulting to Randall. How can we presume to know how he's feeling? What if we say something that isn't quite right (or completely wrong)? Would ''you'' trust a random person to interpret and voice your thoughts and feelings - even if they thought they were right?
:::Now if Randall ''expresses'' a negative opinion about Trump in a comic, that's different. That's what we're here for, because that is an actual fact that we can explain, with context as necessary. At that point, it is perfectly acceptable to note a pattern of Randall's expressed negativity over Trump. [[User:Hawthorn|Hawthorn]] ([[User talk:Hawthorn|talk]]) 12:53, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

== This page should be deleted ==

I still believe that this page is useless and is merely the confused voice of a single contributor, trying to pass off their own personal opinion under the banner of ExplainXKCD-approved consensus, as if it's agreed fact. Well, I haven't agreed, and I know that many others do not agree either; and to be honest it's just embarrassing to have well-written, factual articles hijacked and muddied by someone's confused personal agenda.

I don't have anything against Kynde; he seems to be a well-meaning contributor, which is why I've held off from doing anything. But, I do now intend to remove every reference to this page from any ExplainXKCD articles that contain one. You can find these by searching "sad comics" in the search bar. [[User:Hawthorn|Hawthorn]] ([[User talk:Hawthorn|talk]]) 12:50, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
:Well of course I disagree. There are so many connections between these comics. Then you would have to make a lot of work to connect those from the beginning of the Sad comics. This page collect the comics that directly or indirectly refers to Trump and Randall's mood after the election. I'm glad you do not have anything against me. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 07:55, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
::Maybe the page should not be deleted, but restructured and changed, e.g. made into a category that clearly says Donald Trump and is a subpage of politics. It would be only referenced in the various comics that really directly (naming him) or indirectly (talking about US presidency while he is in office/running for office). This would make it objective instead of vaguely connected to Randalls feelings, and also would make it clear for anyone visiting the site, what it is about before reading it. It could still have a paragraph (or more) about the conclusion that Randall is not a fan of Trump. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 08:53, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

== I've removed all references to this page ==

I removed all references to the "Sad comics" page from all articles I could find that contained one. [[User:Hawthorn|Hawthorn]] ([[User talk:Hawthorn|talk]]) 22:28, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

I have once again removed references to sad comics from the rest of the wiki. It seems some of [[User:Hawthorn|Hawthorn]]’s edits were reverted without discussion or explanation. As I see it, consensus is against the reintroduction of the sad comics links. If any user wants to reintroduce the links, that decision should be discussed on this talk page beforehand. I have watchlisted every page I edited tonight to avoid stealth reverts.
[[User:HisHighestMinion|HisHighestMinion]] ([[User talk:HisHighestMinion|talk]]) 08:16, 29 December 2022 (UTC)
:When I saw how much reversion was being done, I suspected vandalism (or at least ideological opposition). And my opinion isn't much more charitable after looking at various bits of what is removed, at the very least it is editorialising. I'm very, ''very'' tempted to restore everything, but I'd rather a named user of known standing do so, and perhaps make an executive decision on the few edge-cases. But I wish to express my strong opposition to trying to wipe this whole section/discussion out, en-mass. Too much, far too much. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.206|172.71.178.206]] 17:00, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

I've been away from the site for some time, so I haven't kept an eye on these "Sad comics" - indeed, I assumed the matter was resolved when I removed the references back in 2019. However, checking the history (and ignoring the vandalism, which seems unrelated), it looks like Kynde did indeed revert all of my edits 3 years later on 19th January 2022, with little to no explanation. Example of one such reversion [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1761:_Blame&diff=prev&oldid=224834 here]. Thank you to [[User:HisHighestMinion|HisHighestMinion]] for fixing the articles again.

The only word of explanation from Kynde seems to be in his edit comments, where he says "Highly disagree!" or words to that effect. I'm going to assume that Kynde means he disagrees with the edit comments I made while reverting his changes, which were somewhat scathing. What exactly Kynde found fault with, or why he waited 3 years to mass revert my changes, I don't know.

To [[User:Kynde|Kynde]]: I don't really know what your motivation is. You're an active and enthusiastic contributor to this site, and that's commendable. So I have a hard time reconciling that with the Trump stuff, which is ''absolute garbage''.

Let me be clear that your political agenda has absolutely no place on ExplainXKCD - and it's baffling to me that you don't know or recognize that, considering that you are one of the site's top contributors ''and'' an admin. Honestly, ''you'' should be the one clamping down on this, not me. It feels bizarre to me that I'm the one explaining to you how you're vandalizing your own wiki.

Let me try to put it this way: this Trump stuff? It's unfair on everyone.

* It's unfair on other editors, who may not share your views, who do not wish for you to speak for them, and who understand the importance of neutrality on a wiki.
* It's unfair on readers, who come here to be entertained and educated, and are having to wade through and unpick your political agenda (which you're disguising as encyclopedic material) before they can enjoy learning about Randall's work.
* It's unfair on Randall himself, who has not consented to you interpreting his politics or ideology for him.
* It's even unfair on the people who ''share'' your political views, because you are ''incredibly bad at expressing them''. Your pieces about Trump sound like the desperate ramblings of a lunatic, and nobody will take them seriously. Even if I wanted someone to add biased political material to this wiki, it wouldn't be you because ''you're bad at it''.

The entire Sad comics page is unsanctioned, conspiratorial drivel. You're unable to directly say what you want because you're forced, by the medium of this wiki, to be encyclopedic - resulting in this incredibly weird page full of disconnected, meaningless correlations that you are pulling out of nowhere in order to push your agenda. The fact that you're having to do that should clue you in to the fact that this wiki is the wrong place to be doing it.

If that's not clear, here's an example from the Sad comics page:

<blockquote>
Although this comic may look like an easy joke, there is ''panic and existential paralysis'' if you turn your focus more than two thirds towards the big picture (of the world). For instance during the days just before this comics release an {{w|Legal_challenges_to_Executive_Order_13769#State_of_Washington_v._Trump|American judge}} (February 3rd) and two days later {{w|Legal_challenges_to_Executive_Order_13769#Proceedings in the Ninth Circuit|several big companies}} went against {{w|Executive Order 13769|Trump's decision}} of banning people from seven countries from entering USA. 

There have thus been many reasons to panic since his inauguration if one follows the news in any way.
</blockquote>

I'd like to point out what you did here: You found a random thing in one of Randall's comics, then found some random real-world thing related to Trump, then correlated the two and claimed that this is in some way meaningful.

This is nonsense. This is ''embarrassing''. This is what the most loony of conspiracy loons do. Aren't you embarrassed by this? I know I am. I don't want to be associated with this kind of drivel. It's terrible, and it's also jarring to see this stuff on a wiki which goes out of its way to be factual. Indeed, that's one of the main sources of humor on ExplainXKCD - the juxtaposition between XKCD's comedy and ExplainXKCD's reductionism. Our commitment to rigor and factuality is why the joke works.

I hope I've made myself clear enough. Like I said before, I have nothing against you. You seem to be a genuine contributor who generously puts time and effort into this site. That's great. But I think you're so wrong on this point that it baffles me.

[[User:Hawthorn|Hawthorn]] ([[User talk:Hawthorn|talk]]) 19:47, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

== ‘24 Election ==

Obviously if Trump wins the 2024 election (of which he very might, unfortunately), we may face another barrage of “Sad” comics. Get ready, contributing editors. [[User:SilverTheTerribleMathematician|SilverTheTerribleMathematician]] ([[User talk:SilverTheTerribleMathematician|talk]]) 06:02, 29 December 2022 (UTC)