explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2929: Good and Bad Ideas

2024-05-11T20:49:55Z

162.158.38.216: /* Table of the entries */ Giving a comparative sortability. Fuller explanation given in markup comment, in case future editors need to know. Not changed anything else, visually, except for the added column-sorting marks.

{{comic
| number = 2929
| date = May 6, 2024
| title = Good and Bad Ideas
| image = good_and_bad_ideas_2x.png
| imagesize = 595x522px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = While it seemed like a fun prank at the time, I realize my prank fire extinguishers full of leaded gasoline were a mistake.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD- Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This is a scatter plot comparing how good an idea sounds to how good the idea is. For example, leaded gasoline sounded like a good idea due to its anti-knocking effects, but is a bad idea due to lead toxicity. Fake prank fire extinguishers both sound bad and ''are'' bad, as they can make a dangerous situation worse. Putting mold on infections sounds like a bad idea, but some molds, like ones containing penicillin, have helpful antibiotic effects.

The title text combines leaded gasoline and a fake prank fire extinguisher into something worse than either. The fire extinguisher is fake and releases flammable material onto the fire, and there is additional lead toxicity.

===Table of the entries===
{| class="wikitable sortable"

|-
! Idea !! What it means !! How good it sounds !! How good it actually is !! Explanation
|-
|{{w|Leaded gasoline}}||Adding {{w|Tetraethyllead|tetraethyl lead}} as an antiknocking agent to allow for increased performance||data-sort-value="+65%"|++||data-sort-value="-95%"|---||Leaded gasoline was introduced in the early 1920s to allow higher pressures and temperatures in an engine without causing {{w|Engine_knocking|detonation (knocking)}}, allowing for increased fuel efficiency and engine performance; it also works to prevent engine valve wear. In essence, it artificially raises the {{w|octane rating}} of the fuel, reducing the need for fuel refinement, thus reducing waste and/or expense. Lead, however, is both toxic and bioaccumulative, meaning that lead released into the air over decades built up to harmful levels in people (as well as other animals) and almost certainly contributed to a host of health issues. Some scientists even hypothesise that {{w|Lead–crime hypothesis|crime levels are influenced by lead exposure}}. (It should be noted that this only "[sounded] like a good idea" due to deliberate campaigns to obscure the known dangers).
|-
|{{w|Bloodletting}}||Releasing "bad blood" from the veins||data-sort-value="-90%"|---||data-sort-value="-100%"|---||You need (most of) your blood. Losing [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK542273/ more than 15%] of a person's total blood volume results in adverse effects. Bloodletting was performed as a medical procedure for at least 2000 years until the 19th century. The idea was to withdraw blood to balance the body's "humors". Despite this long history, the notion that bleeding someone is bad now seems like basic common sense, and it's now well-understood that blood-letting (outside of {{what if|98|certain rare and specific cases}}) does no good, causes significant harm and quite certainly causes many deaths.
|-
|{{w|Asbestos}}||Mineral which does not burn, tolerates extremely high temperatures and forms small fibers. These qualities make it excellent for insulation and fire protection||data-sort-value="+90%"|+++||data-sort-value="-80%"|---||Asbestos was used extensively in ships and buildings throughout most of the 20th century. Unfortunately, the microscopic fibers that make up asbestos greatly increase the risk of {{w|Asbestosis|lung disease}} and cancer when inhaled, causing its use to be banned in most countries.
|-
|Extension cords with prongs on both ends||allows easy connection between 2 female connectors||data-sort-value="+5%"|0 (neutral)||data-sort-value="-80%"|---||Prongs on both ends would make it easier to plug the extension cord in on either side. But once plugged into an outlet, the other end becomes a serious shock hazard, as seen in [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L08LjkN1k70 this Backyard Scientist video]. Short circuits (both ends connected to outlets supplying power) would be much more likely, resulting in more sparks, fires and damage to wiring.
|-
|Stair kayaking||Riding down a flight of stairs in a {{w|kayak}}||data-sort-value="-60%"|--||data-sort-value="-75%"|---|| Stair kayaking is a stunt where a person positions a kayak at the top of a flight of stairs and then, using their paddle to push off, [https://youtu.be/46BjHAxgddU?t=154 rides the kayak down the stairs]. This poses significant easily foreseeable risks of injury or death, as well as being very bad for the kayak, which is designed to ride on {{w|Kayak|water}}, not stairs.{{Citation needed}}
|-
|Fake prank fire extinguishers||Intentionally placing empty or otherwise non-functional {{w|fire extinguisher|fire extinguishers}} as a {{w|practical joke}}.||data-sort-value="-105%"|---||data-sort-value="-85%"|---|| The idea of placing fake fire extinguishers as a prank, presumably so that a person who thinks they are grabbing a real fire extinguisher will instead find a decoy, sounds, and indeed would be, very dangerous and potentially life-threatening for many people. In the United States, (and presumably most countries), this would also be a felony in most, if not all, jurisdictions. This exact scenario was depicted in the 2001/Season 3 Christmas episode of Family Guy, where Brian failed to put out a fire because the fire extinguisher shot fake snakes instead, acting as further fuel to the fire. An example of a similar situation, although not intended as a prank, can be found [https://twitter.com/ThatSamWinkler/status/1657154071051239424 here].
The title text expands this idea by having the prank fire extinguishers filled with (leaded) gasoline. This is literally adding fuel to the fire.
|-
|Always saying what you think||...regardless of the feelings of others or other considerations||data-sort-value="+65%"|++||data-sort-value="-60%"|--||Openness and honesty are seen as positive character traits in people. Taking it to the extreme of ''always'' telling people what you think has been {{w|Radical_honesty|espoused by some}}, but can lead to awkward, unpleasant or dangerous situations. It may harm your relationship with the other person if they don't like what you think, or they may reply without concern for ''your'' feelings or other considerations. Keeping negative thoughts to yourself or telling "white lies" can be considered a better alternative in some situations.
Unrestrictively saying what you think to somebody in power (a boss, soldier, dictator, drunk) can negatively impact your earning potential, health or freedom, even if you have a point. Or else, on the offchance that your (first) thoughts are less correct, [https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/17/remain-silent/ "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt."]
|-
|Replying to spammers||Clicking on the "Reply" button from {{w|spam email}}s and writing (and sending) a reply (or worse, clicking on the links in these emails)||data-sort-value="-50%"|--||data-sort-value="-50%"|--||At best, you confirm your email address and identify yourself as someone likely to respond to such messages and so encourage the spammers to deluge you with more messages. At worst, the spammer may extract sensitive information about you, make you a victim of a scam or gain control of your computer.
|-
|{{w|Solar car}}s||Having {{w|Solar panel|solar panels}} on the car's surface (mostly hood and roof) for power generation||data-sort-value="+95%"|+++||data-sort-value="-35%"|-||Powering electric vehicles with solar panels seems like an excellent idea: it would provide power with no increased land use, and theoretically could allow a vehicle to operate indefinitely without being fueled or charged. However, such vehicles would require power storage (due to power requirements, weather conditions, shade from roadside features and nighttime driving), adding significant weight. Adding solar panels to a plug-in or hybrid vehicle would add cost, weight, manufacturing complexity and maintenance requirements. Solar panels on moving cars are less efficient than in stationary installations, where they can be aimed at the Sun, and subject to damage from both collisions and road debris; even without these problems, the size of automobiles relative to their power requirements would sharply limit the car's range (unless it was a normal electric vehicle with supplemental solar panels). Solar cars do exist (the {{w|World Solar Challenge}} is a competition for such cars), but as a practical form of transportation, the negatives likely outweigh the positives. See also [[1924: Solar Panels]].
|-
|{{w|Heelys|Heelies}}||Heelys are shoes with an inline skate wheel built in to the sole, at the heel. ||data-sort-value="+25%"|+||data-sort-value="-40%"|-||Heelys allow the wearer (usually children) to shift between normal walking and rolling like being on skates. This sounds like fun but [https://abcnews.go.com/Health/Exercise/story?id=3242181&page=1 has been suggested] to be a potentially significant injury risk.
|-
|{{w|Prequel|Prequels}}||A work of fiction (often a movie) telling the "story before the story" of another work.||data-sort-value="+75%"|+++||data-sort-value="-15%"|-||More of a good story sounds great on the surface, and audiences who are invested in a set of characters and/or a setting often love the idea of finding out what led up to certain events. But there are several pitfalls. Spin-offs of a popular property are often low-quality cash grabs. Prequels, specifically, are constrained by the fact that they have to lead to the story that's already been released, which can lead to contrived storytelling. There's less room for suspense, since the future of the storyline has already been established. There's a tendency to invent or fill in detailed backstories, which can undermine character arcs and/or destroy the mystery and nuance of certain characters. And, since they tend only to be made where the original is already well-received, regression to the mean tends to mean they are more likely than not to fail to live up to expectations. Prequels can be good, but there are a lot of ways they can go wrong.
|-
|Transitions® lenses||A brand name for {{w|Photochromic_lens|photochromic lenses}} in glasses or contacts, which get darker (like sunglasses) in bright light.||data-sort-value="+30%"|+||data-sort-value="-20%"|-||Photochromic lenses are clear lenses that darken when exposed to UV light, then turn clear again when the UV is removed. The advantage is that wearers of glasses don't need to have separate (prescription) sunglasses or contacts. However, the process is relatively slow (about a minute) so not so useful when there is a quick succession of shade and bright light, as in a forest or when driving. If used in a car, the windscreen filters out UV light to some degree, which prevents the glasses from darkening as required. Finally, the process is temperature dependent, so in hot weather the glasses don't become as dark, and in cold weather they might stay dark for too long.
|-
|Cutting pizza in squares||Cutting (a presumably round) pizza in squares||data-sort-value="-25%"|-||data-sort-value="-20%"|-||Most people cut pizza into wedges and hold it by the crust. Cutting it into squares could allow for more pieces to be shared, if the resulting wedges would be too thin to be practical. However, pieces near the center will have no crust to hold it by, getting cheese and sauce all over your fingers. Cuts around the edge will probably leave smaller leftover scraps which are mostly crust. While hardly a disaster like the other items in its quadrant, square pizza pieces are just not very useful and rather inefficient. Cutting a rectangular pizza into squares might not suffer from the problems above, but, unless the pizza itself is square and cut only into four squares, some people will end up with a higher crust-to-topping ratio than others. Cutting a round pizza into squares is popular in Chicago and is sometimes called tavern-style or party-cut and some<sup><nowiki>[</nowiki>''{{w|Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Words_to_watch#Unsupported_attributions|who?}}''<nowiki>]</nowiki></sup> [https://www.bonappetit.com/story/real-chicago-pizza-tavern-style consider it the real Chicago style pizza] [https://destinationeatdrink.com/the-real-chicago-style-pizza-isnt-deep-dish/ rather than deep dish pizza].{{Dubious}}
|-
|{{w|Project Orion (nuclear propulsion)|Project Orion}}||Study by the U.S. government looking into nuclear pulse propulsion for spacecraft.||data-sort-value="-95%"|---||data-sort-value="-25%"|-||Using repeated nuclear explosions to generate motion sounds bad for both the spacecraft and everything else, especially with a ground launch, but there are ways to address a lot of the concerns, so it isn't as bad as it sounds. Project Orion's theorized specific impulse and thrust would also be far higher than anything chemical rockets can accomplish. The efficiency of Project Orion is extremely low, however, and the {{w|ablation}} issues are extremely difficult to overcome.

See also [[2423: Project Orion]].
|-
|{{w|Soup}}||Soup||data-sort-value="0%"|0 (neutral)||data-sort-value="0%"|0 (neutral)||Soup is probably one of the oldest foods created by prehistoric cooks. Many people enjoy it, though some consider many soups somewhat lacking as a meal on their own, or boring.
|-
|{{w|Washer-dryer|Combo washer dryers}}||A device that combines a washing machine and laundry dryer||data-sort-value="+80%"|+++||data-sort-value="+20%"|+||Better at space efficiency, but worse at each task than separate devices and unable to do both tasks in parallel (useful when you have more than one batch of laundry).
|-
|Cutting sandwiches diagonally||Cutting sandwiches made with rectangular sliced bread diagonally||data-sort-value="+30%"|+||data-sort-value="+20%"|+||[https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/math/a32690399/triangles-rectangles-best-way-cut-sandwich-math/ Generally] [https://www.npr.org/2009/11/28/120914097/rectangles-vs-triangles-the-great-sandwich-debate regarded] as the superior way to slice a sandwich, providing more aesthetically pleasing display of the contents, better support in the hand and fewer all-crust bites. Required in the assembly of a club sandwich,{{Actual citation needed}} where the diagonal components are stacked again.
|-
|{{w|Diverging diamond interchange}}s||Road junction where the two (sets of) lanes cross over to switch sides (so if you normally drive on the right, now you drive on the left), then switch back to normal after the junction||data-sort-value="-30%"|-||data-sort-value="+15%"|+||Highway engineers believe the shape improves safety and traffic flow through the interchange because switching to the other side facilitates merging to and from the other road in the junction. However, the shape appears to be insanity to an unfamiliar driver, who may assume that driver confusion would lead to increased accidents.
|-
|Toasting sandwiches||Making a sandwich first and then cooking it, as in a dedicated {{w|Pie_iron|sandwich toaster}}, a {{w|toaster oven|toaster oven}}, frying pan or under a grill.||data-sort-value="+45%"|++||data-sort-value="+50%"|++||The grilled cheese sandwich is a familiar form to most people, and many other sandwiches are improved by toasting as a final step. Others, such as the {{w|western sandwich|Western}} or {{w|club sandwich|club}} are prepared using toast. The {{w|peanut butter, banana and bacon sandwich|Elvis}} is a specific case of a sandwich that normally wouldn't be toasted, but is improved by it - peanut butter, bacon, banana and jelly, with the assembly lightly fried.
|-
|{{w|Crumple zone}}s||Areas of a car that are designed to deform in a controlled way in case of a crash. ||data-sort-value="-55%"|--||data-sort-value="+55%"|++||Most people's intuition would be that stronger cars are safer, and intending parts of a vehicle to collapse ''by design'' might seem crazy. But engineered crumple zones are designed to gradually absorb the kinetic energy in a vehicle collision and protect the passenger cabin. The result is that the occupants experience less intense deceleration and ideally without the damage significantly compressing the shell around them. This significantly reduces the danger of injury or death from higher speed crashes.
|-
|{{w|Sliced bread}}||Bread, sliced by the baker before packaging for sale||data-sort-value="+95%"|+++||data-sort-value="+65%"|++||It's far more convenient for making sandwiches or toast, but unfortunately pre-sliced bread will go stale faster and some applications may be better off thicker or thinner than the slices provided. Sliced bread is often used as a comparator for how good something is, using the phrase 'the best thing since sliced bread'.
|-
|{{w|Pizza}}||Pizza - a dish made by arranging ingredients on thin dough and cooking it, usually cut diagonally||data-sort-value="+55%"|++||data-sort-value="+75%"|++||Pizza is a widely popular dish throughout much of the world, uncontroversial {{w|Anchovies_as_food|except}} {{w|Pineapple|certain}} [https://www.taste.com.au/recipes/nutty-choc-pizza-fresh-berries/2c0220a4-8463-45ff-b2ba-ac7e5012a006 toppings].
|-
|Eating citrus fruit while at sea||Having a supply of {{w|citrus fruit}} on long sea journeys, especially during the {{w|Age of Sail}} ||data-sort-value="0%"|0 (neutral)||data-sort-value="+75%"|+++||For a long time, {{w|Scurvy|scurvy}} was a danger to sailors, who generally subsisted on a monotonous diet of shelf-stable foods with low vitamin content while on long voyages. Most citrus fruits are rich in vitamin C, which prevents scurvy. Eating orange or lemons doesn't seem like a significant activity one way or the other, but it's an easy way to prevent a disease that causes serious ill-health and possibly a painful death.
|-
|Putting mold on infections||Seemingly a reference to the ancient practice of pressing moldy bread against infected wounds||data-sort-value="-110%"|---||data-sort-value="+60%"|++||While this sounds like a good way to get a fungal infection, with the correct mold this is a primitive way to obtain an antibiotic. Certain fungi naturally produce antibiotic substances, and this is where humans discovered {{w|penicillin}}.
|-
|Wheels on luggage||Some luggage bags have small wheels inset on their frame and a carrying handle.||data-sort-value="+100%"|+++||data-sort-value="+90%"|+++||A relatively simple fitting for rigid or semi-rigid luggage that substantially eases its transport over long distances on flat surfaces such as travel terminals.
|-
|{{w|Heat pump}}s||A technology that moves heat energy from a cold area to a warm area, most familiar as the technology that keeps a refrigerator cold. It can be used to heat a home interior in winter or cool it in summer.||data-sort-value="+55%"|++||data-sort-value="+95%"|+++||Unlike traditional furnaces, heat pumps do not generate heat (beyond a small overhead). Instead, they move existing thermal energy from a coolable environment across to a warmable one. This allows a space to be heated with significantly less energy use than a furnace or resistance heater that generates heat directly from chemical or electrical energy. Because these units are usually operated by electricity, they can provide heating with renewable energy (potentially using {{w|thermal energy storage}} for load-shifting), reduce or eliminate the need for natural gas connections and prevent several risks that come with traditional furnaces (such a carbon monoxide leaks and fires). In addition, heat pumps can operate in the reverse direction as air conditioners, so a single unit can be designed to both heat and cool a building. It sounds like a good idea and works out better than expected in real life.
According to [https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/02/14/1068582/everything-you-need-to-know-about-heat-pumps/ MIT Technology review]:
<blockquote>Heat pumps today can reach 300% to 400% efficiency or even higher, meaning they’re putting out three to four times as much energy in the form of heat as they’re using in electricity. For a space heater, the theoretical maximum would be 100% efficiency, and the best models today reach around 95% efficiency.</blockquote>

See also [[2790: Heat Pump]].
|-
|{{w|Laser eye surgery}}||Surgical techniques using lasers for precision cutting in the eyeball.||data-sort-value="-60%"|-||data-sort-value="+90%"|+++||In the popular imagination, lasers are often thought of as something used for destroying their target. Firing them into people's eyes, then, does not sound like a great idea. However. this technology has substantially improved the eyesight of millions of people worldwide by allowing the treatment of eye problems otherwise only corrected by lenses or entirely untreatable. Randall has previously commented on laser eye surgery, amongst other ideas both good and bad, in [[1681: Laser Products]].
|-
|{{w|Fecal transplant}}s||Transfer of portions of the {{w|Gut microbiota|gut microbiome}} of a healthy person to the sterilized gut of an ill person.||data-sort-value="-110%"|---||data-sort-value="+95%"|+++||The gut microbiome is a collection of organisms that lives in our guts. It can influence our health. It is responsible for the last stages of digesting our food. It can also produce neurotransmitters that are carried by blood to our brain influencing our behavior, and play a role in disease immunity, among other systemic effects that are still not well understood. A healthy microbiome can be destroyed by bad eating habits, unhealthy lifestyles, infections or the use of antibiotics. Sometimes it may be beneficial to completely sterilize the gut and then take a sample of a healthy biome from another person. A sample is enough, as the organisms will multiply. As long as the patient eats correctly, the microbiome after transplant should develop correctly.

It sounds bad because we tend to think of our feces as something gross, to be discarded, and other people's bacteria as infectious. It is called fecal transplant as our feces contain about 50% of gut bacteria, but nowadays the sample usually takes the form of a coated pill that is applied rectally.
|-
|}

==Transcript==
:[Two axes with double arrows cross each other in the middle. At the end of each arrow, there are labels. Scattered over the chart are 28 entries. Below these entries are given for each of the four quadrants, plus three that are on the Y-axis. For each quadrant the entries are listed in reading order, top to bottom left to right.]

:[X axis from left to right:]
:Sounds like a good idea
:Sounds like a bad idea

:[Y axis from top to bottom:]
:Actually a bad idea
:Actually a good idea

:[Top left quadrant (sounds like a good idea, actually a bad idea):]
:Leaded gasoline
:Asbestos
:Always saying what you think
:Solar cars
:Heelies
:Prequels
:Transitions® lenses

:[Top middle (actually a bad idea):]
:Extension cords with prongs on both ends

:[Top right quadrant (sounds like a bad idea, actually a bad idea):]
:Bloodletting
:Fake prank fire extinguishers
:Stair kayaking
:Replying to spammers
:Cutting pizza in squares
:Project Orion

:[Center (neutral):]
:Soup

:[Bottom left quadrant (sounds like a good idea, actually a good idea):]
:Combo washer dryers
:Cutting sandwiches diagonally
:Toasting sandwiches
:Sliced bread
:Pizza
:Wheels on luggage
:Heat pumps

:[Bottom middle (actually a good idea):]
:Eating citrus fruit while at sea

:[Bottom right quadrant (sounds like a bad idea, actually a good idea):]
:Diverging diamond interchanges
:Crumple zones
:Putting mold on infections
:Laser eye surgery
:Fecal transplants

==Trivia==
*A much leaner version of this comic appeared in the first [[What If? (book) | "What If?" book]], chapter "Weird (and Worrying) Questions from the What If? Inbox, #9".

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Scatter plots]]
[[Category:Rankings]]
[[Category:Food]]

Talk:422: A Better Idea

2024-05-06T09:56:53Z

162.158.38.216:

Why ''almost''? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.217|173.245.55.217]] 16:39, 4 December 2013 (UTC)BK
:Maybe because Cueball realizes that this prom brings him to an ordinary life, no LAN parties any more, but he just wants go back to that parties.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:58, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
:My guess is it's because high school itself isn't ''necessarily'' all that pleasant (though your mileage may vary); would you really enroll in four more years of high school just for a single LAN party in formal attire at the end? Even if you could be the appropriate age for the duration? The title text indicates that he doesn't ''quite'' consider the trade-off likely to be worth it. [[User:Nyperold|Nyperold]] ([[User talk:Nyperold|talk]]) 20:00, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

This could be looked at as exactly the reverse as well, and I don't see any clear way to pick one over the other as the intended meaning of the strip. Cueball could have simply dumped his date and gone to the LAN party. Now in hindsight he regrets that he chose the LAN party over the possibility of a continued relationship with his prom date. (Who we assume would have dumped him on the spot!)[[User:ExternalMonolog|ExternalMonolog]] ([[User talk:ExternalMonolog|talk]]) 21:27, 21 January 2014 (UTC)ExternalMonolog
:Why are we assuming Cueball is the one interested in the LAN part instead of Megan? The comic gives no indication whether Cueball, Megan, or both are enticed by the prospect. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.69.169|162.158.69.169]] 21:19, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
I always assumed that "LAN party in formal attire" was a joke that combined "LAN party" and "lawn party in formal attire."[[User:Birdsinthewindow|Birdsinthewindow]] ([[User talk:Birdsinthewindow|talk]]) 02:32, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

if you can find more than one use of "promenade" outside of a dictionary or name then i'll believe that "prom is short for promenade" is something worth including [[User:Certified_nqh|Me]]{{citation needed}} 02:13, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
:What? I mean, {{wiktionary|prom|wiktionary's 'prom'}} says outright "a clipping of 'promenade'". I can understand why you might not accept that if you're descriptivist and not prescriptivist. But not accepting a "name" (if I understand you correctly; I'm sure you miswrote that, somehow) sumultaneously makes you a ''prescriptivist'' and not a ''descriptivist''. Where does that even leave you?
:And what even is the problem? Checking the edit history, it looks like you just didn't believe that "prom" was a shortened form of "promenade". If it isn't (and there's no good reason to believe that, as there's no obvious alternate etymology given to explain it or any sign of mystery/argument amongst etymologists) all the professional ''and'' crowd-sourced analyses of it that one can check appear to have been misled. If you have proof of it coming from "promotional", or whatever alternative you think it is, then add that.
:Or are you just wanting not to explain "Prom"? Perhaps you think 'everyone knows' (well, maybe everyone does, having seen countless US teen-focussed TV shows, if not actuallybbeing from the US and steeped in that culture already), but that's not necessarily true in other cultures. Tell me at a younger age ahout "the prom", and I'd think of {{w|BBC Proms|something else derived from "promenade"}}, not "the end of year school disco" (or, if I had been born only slightly earlier, possibly the invitational school tea-dance that alternated between the Girls' Grammar and the Boys' Grammar and was probably much more like a US prom than the merged/non-selective school's disco ever was).
:I'd never put all the above in an explanation, as it's too wordy and experience-specific, but I ''would'' expect not to lack the basic link onwards for anything that perhaps a reader might need a little nudge to explain. There also seem to me to be no good reason to remove a quick aside/link that might be helpful and doesn't really expand the basic explanation appreciably. As long as it's right, and (waiting to be proven wrong...) I think that's established, and perhaps even you believe it now? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.95|172.69.194.95]] 08:59, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
:...all that too, but as the [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=422:_A_Better_Idea&diff=341349&oldid=341348 reverter in question], I was mostly responding to the basic disbelief expressed in the [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=422:_A_Better_Idea&diff=prev&oldid=341348 original change], demonstrating it with a (I thought/still think) acceptable source to satisfy them. Maybe it was a mis-reason by them, and they really thought it was excessive information. (No, I don't think so either. Also never attended a prom, myself. Back then '70s Disco Nights just being called "Disco Nights". :P But thank you to Buffy The Vampire Slayer for explaining the concept to me!) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.38.216|162.158.38.216]] 09:56, 6 May 2024 (UTC)