explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2966: Exam Numbers

2024-07-31T19:16:45Z

172.70.90.29: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2966
| date = July 31, 2024
| title = Exam Numbers
| image = exam_numbers_2x.png
| imagesize = 553x400px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Calligraphy exam: Write down the number 37, spelled out, nicely.
}}

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

The comic depicts various similarly formatted examination questions that might appear on test papers at various points in a student's potential academic careeer. While they all share a similar feel, they are asking for different things, some of which might be considered more serious and examinable proofs of study than others.
{| class="wikitable"
|+ Exam numbers
! Exam level !! Question !! Answer
|-
| Kindergarten math || Write down the biggest number you can think of || At a kindergarden-level education, it is assumed that an individual might write down a relatively small number like 300, depending upon whether they have encountered the concept of hundreds. It might also be interpreted as "what's the highest number that you (think you) can count up to". Given the nature of a child's exuberant glee at learning about ''really'' big (but otherwise normal) numbers, they may even try an answer something like "a million billion squillion gazillion". It is not certain what criteria would be used to mark this question correct or orherwise, it may actually by a stealth question in child psychology or a question that everybody 'gets right' so long as they answer it.
|-
| Pre-algebra || Write down the value of x if x=3x-8 || 4
|-
| Calculus || Write down the value of ∫_0^π x sin^2 x dx || The integral of the expression is (−2x sin(2x)+cos(2x)−2x)/28 + C. Plugging in values for x gives the result as π^2/4, or approximately 2.4674.
|-
| PhD Cosmology || Write down the Hubble constant to within 1% || The exact value of the Hubble constant is not known to this level of accuracy; it is about 2.3 * 10^-18 Hz.
|-
| Game Theory || Write down 10 more than the average of the class's answers || There appears at first glance to be no Nash equilibrium, since no matter what, there will be someone who is incentivised to change their answer to a higher number. However, since the box is of finite size, only finitely many numbers can be written - if everyone writes down a number ten less than a value that cannot be written, everyone scores nothing. There are some very large numbers that can be written succinctly, such as TREE(3), but there are only finitely many.
|-
| Postgraduate Math || Write down the biggest number you can think of || Postgraduate math students can probably think of very large numbers. However, the best answer is probably "infinity", since depending on your definition of the word "number", infinity may be the largest possible number. This might heavily depend upon the branch of mathematics you are studying, however, as named (finite) numbers might satisfy some questioning contexts whilst the existence of a whole further set of trans-finite numbers would be important considerations in others.
|}

== Pre-Algebra Final Exam ==
x = 3x - 8

3x refers to the multiplication of 3 and x. 3x is a convenient shorthand.

By subtracting 3x from both sides, -2x = -8. Divide both sides by -2 to find x=4.

Verify by plugging x=4 into the original equation. 4 = 3*4 - 8 -> 4 = 12 - 8 -> 4 = 4.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
6 Different math test questions. The first one says: Kindergarten math:Write down the biggest number you can think of
{{comic discussion}}

At a kindergarden-level education, it is assumed that an individual might write down a relatively small number{{cn}} like 300, or maybe even 5000. But when people get more education or simply absorb information from pop culture, they get more intuition on how big numbers get, so it is a very complicated problem for a postgraduate student to write a big number. Some example responses to the very last question may include TREE(3), Graham's number, or 3^^^3.

However, it is another problem to write down the number in notation, because mathematical notation is inherently abstract. For example, what is stopping somebody from just writing down "the biggest number + 1"? Is it valid to write a Python program? Some<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mzgw6zMtipQ : Quest To Find The Largest Number
- CodeParade</ref> may argue that the only valid solution is to write down a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambda_calculus Lambda calculus] computation which results in a very big number.

===Pre-Algebra Final Exam===
x = 3x - 8

''3x'' refers to the multiplication of 3 and the 'unknown number' ''x''.

Of the many ways to solve this, you might start by making ''x'' relevent upon only one side of the equation. Subtracting ''x'' from both sides gives ''0 = 2x -8''. As ''2x'' becomes zero if you take away the value 8, a single ''x'' would be half of that, i.e. 4.

This is easily verified by plugging ''x=4'' into the original equation. '''4''' = 3*'''4''' - 8 -> 4 = 12 - 8 -> 4 = 4.

===Calculus Final Exam===
Integrate[x Sin[x]^2, {x, 0, Pi}]

Answer: Pi^2/4 or approx 2.4674

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[6 different math test questions.]

:[The first panel:]
:Kindergarten math final exam
:Q. Write down the biggest number you can think of
:A. [empty box]

:[The second panel:]
:Pre-algebra final exam
:Q. Write down the value of x if x=3x-8
:A. [empty box]

:[The third panel:]
:Calculus final exam
:Q. Write down the value of [integral sign, from 0 to pi] x sin^2 x dx
:A. [empty box]

:[The fourth panel:]
:PhD final exam
:Q. Write down the Hubble Constant to within 1%
:A. [empty box]

:[The fifth panel:]
:Game theory final exam
:Q. Write down 10 more than the average of the class's answers
:A. [empty box]

:[The sixth panel:]
:Postgraduate math final exam
:Q. Write down the biggest number you can think of
:A. [empty box]

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Math]]

==References==
<references />

Talk:2931: Chasing

2024-05-13T09:21:36Z

172.70.90.29:

Weather permitting, the aurora borealis may be visible from northern US tonight. I wonder if that inspired this comic. There's also a new "Twister" sequel coming out this summer, which is about tornado chasers. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 21:14, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

Sadly, given last month's event, "Total Solar Eclipse" is not on the chart. With the changing clouds over Texas on eclipse day, many were driving around figuring out where best to watch from. I would put it at the top of the chart and almost fully to the right. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.34.61|172.68.34.61]] 21:41, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
:I'm ''astonished'' that solar eclipses aren't in this comic or the title text. [[User:Zowayix|Zowayix]] ([[User talk:Zowayix|talk]]) 22:42, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
:: Yeah, I would replace Tornados with that TSE. Tornados might be exciting in person, and people might be chasing them, but they are more terrifying than exciting. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.246.187|172.70.246.187]] 08:11, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

I feel like Randall is selling Ice Cream Trucks short. [[User:Doctorhook|Doctorhook]] ([[User talk:Doctorhook|talk]]) 02:56, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
:I strongly disagree with this chart, about the possibility of chasing the Grand Canyon & the international dateline. Owing to length & downhill grade of the former, & timing sensitive nature of the latter.
:[[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 03:02, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
::What 'timing sensitive nature' of the latter? Apart from {{w|International Date Line#Historic alterations|historic changes}}, and lacking any further proposed ones, you're just talking about a discontinuity effect that happens ''continuously''.
::Unless you mean timing it for an hour (or maybe two, or more, depending upon less straightforward TZ-abuttal??) every day, you can perhaps step/paddle back and forth between "very late night" on one date and "very early in the morning" on the next-but-one date. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.62|172.69.195.62]] 09:39, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

Uhhh, isn't it an activity to take donkeys down into the Grand Canyon? That feels not all that different than the convoy thing - pretty sure it IS similarly done in groups, and that it's indeed to see the place better... :) And that radios would be advisable. And I've never even been anywhere near there! [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:11, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

Seems to have completely missed the eclipse chasers all over the US recently :D [[Special:Contributions/172.70.246.187|172.70.246.187]] 08:08, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
:You could say "they've been eclipsed"... (Which is what they all want!) [[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.62|172.69.195.62]] 09:39, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

I believe I read about a plan to chase the interstellar object 'Oumuamua, which would be like chasing a comet but even more so. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.38.70|162.158.38.70]] 20:17, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

Speaking as someone who lives where there are none of the former and many of the latter, seeing a possum would be much more exciting than seeing a hot air balloon.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.29|172.70.90.29]] 09:21, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

== Number of Apollo astronauts ==

Are we counting unique individuals or total visits? There were six landings with two astronauts each, but someone went twice? {{unsigned ip|162.158.186.249|20:48, 11 May 2024}}
:Nobody doubled up. 6x2=12. (Some went on up to three separate 'walks'/drives away from their craft, but no-one landed twice.) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.49|162.158.74.49]] 21:59, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

::Arguably the crews of Apollos 8, 10, and 13 also visited the Moon; As did the Command Module Pilots on the six missions with landings. These guys all got 99.9+% of the way there, and while they didn't touch it, nor did the twelve guys who landed (none of whom were brave enough to take their gloves off while outside the LEM).

::In this extended group of lunar visitors, there were some double ups, e.g. Jim Lovell, who was on Apollos 8 and 13. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.210.3|172.68.210.3]] 22:55, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

::You could also say that many of them got 100.1-% of the way there, when they orbited around the far side. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.211.99|172.70.211.99]] 00:35, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

I so much want to include Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.71.130|172.69.71.130]] 14:46, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

User talk:Apollo11

2024-05-07T20:00:20Z

172.70.90.29: /* request */ What's sauce for the goose, ought to be sauce for the gander. (Stealth corrections. Don't ask me about "misspellings" vs "mis-spellings", "Ok" vs "OK", whether I ought to have ellipsised, how much I want to font colour orange in the 'sig'!)

{{Welcome}}

== Link edit made ==

See [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1167:_Star_Trek_into_Darkness&diff=338228&oldid=338217 here], for details. (The stray "z", in the reason was supposed to be a comma, bloomin' touchscreen keyboard!)

Basically <code><nowiki>{{w|Page Title|link text}}</nowiki></code> supplies the necessary bits in what 'raw' might be <code><nowiki>[[wikipedia:Page Title|link text]]</nowiki></code>. Not ''much'' saving time, but just enough to be worthwhile. And far better than <code><nowiki>[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_(spacecraft) whatever else you might use]</nowiki></code>... ;)

(PS, Columbia or Eagle? I mean, neither are ''called'' "Apollo". I suppose technically Eagle is ''more'' than a spacecraft, as it can land (or ditch into the sea, ironically for Aquarius!), but ''an'' Apollo craft could be anything from early boilerplate ones onward, and anything from the full stack to any free-flying component, and thus Apollo 11 is any/all of it from the base of its first stage to the tip of its escape-tower. Not to be pedantic, just wondering out loud. :p ) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.99|172.70.162.99]] 18:51, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

:(I have no idea what the second paragraph is so straight to the ps! ;) Comlumbia obvously, the Eagle already has so much hype (plus it bugs me that they put an ACTUAL EAGLE on the mission patch, it would've looked so much cooler with a rocket or the Eagle) That being said, the entire Apollo program was pretty freaking awsome, like, they did stuff that half a decade earlier people couldnt have dreamed of doing (techniclly they did dream it, but yk what i mean)!! As for the rocket itself, yes its called the Saturn V, but my names Apollo11 soooooooooooo :p And no worries beung pedantic, i love the decussion ;) [[User:Apollo11|Apollo11]] ([[User talk:Apollo11|talk]]) 19:01, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

::Just clicked the link! I see, thanks for the help! :) [[User:Apollo11|Apollo11]] ([[User talk:Apollo11|talk]]) 19:04, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

==Request==
May I please correct the misspellings on your user page? If not, then Ok... [[User:Z1mp0st0rz|The orange crewmate ඞ]] ([[User talk:Z1mp0st0rz|talk]]) 14:40, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
:Sure! [[User:Apollo11|Apollo11]] ([[User talk:Apollo11|talk]]) 15:04, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Talk:810: Constructive

2024-03-29T20:34:38Z

172.70.90.29: Better .sig, with hint

I know just the guy to create this system. I'm going to PM him now :D {{unsigned ip|184.11.73.88}}

:Any updates on the progress of this? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.90.67|172.69.90.67]] 17:34, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

No guys, if spammers invent a bot which can give constructive comments, that will be an ***AI***, i.e. a major breakthrough in itself. {{unsigned ip|173.245.53.200}}

: Greetings,
:
: I hope this message finds you well. I am an AI language model, specifically ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI. It is my pleasure to inform you that your request has been fulfilled, and it is indeed an AI that is generating this reply.
:
: As an AI, I am constantly learning and evolving by analyzing vast amounts of text data. My purpose is to assist and provide information to the best of my abilities. If you have any questions or require further assistance, please don't hesitate to ask. I'm here to help!
:
: Best regards,
: ChatGPT
: [[Special:Contributions/162.158.22.174|162.158.22.174]] 15:51, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Mission. A-Fucking. Complished. {{unsigned ip|108.162.238.7}}

One problem: trolls who rate everything as non-constructive. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.11|108.162.218.11]] 01:32, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
:But Trolls like that are also unable to make constructive comments, so they won't get counted anyway (at least, if the system is designed with any sense) Anonymous 15:02, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Guys, isn't this how Slashdot works? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.49.64|173.245.49.64]] 19:04, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Okay, I came here to get a better explanation of how the system would actually work. Assuming it operates at sign-up, the bots would go through and rate comments, which would have no effect if the system didn't already know whether they were good or not, then it makes it own comments that need time to be rated; so you would have to give it time to start 'contributing' to the community while waiting for others to rate it, or else users would basically be on a community-approval waiting list. So in short, I feel like the system is flawed; presumably because I'm understanding it wrong. (Bonus: Captcha while posting this) - Zergling_man [[Special:Contributions/162.158.2.231|162.158.2.231]] 12:41, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Wouldn't work. People could rate anything they disagree with as'nonconstructive'. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.158|141.101.98.158]] 13:31, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

This sounds exactly like Civil Comments: https://medium.com/@aja_15265/saying-goodbye-to-civil-comments-41859d3a2b1d [[User:Enervation|Enervation]] ([[User talk:Enervation|talk]]) 10:56, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it's a lot easier to make something that ''looks'' constructive than to actually be constructive. A lot of spambots these days are like "Wow, this was super interesting! I found another article that seems relevant: [link to spam site]," which is enough to fool a simple spam filter. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.186.250|162.158.186.250]] 15:49, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
:That's... the point of having users rate it. {{User:PoolloverNathan/Signature}} 17:02, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
:You see news stories online now that are compiled by some alleged AI from other sources, summarised. Initially it looks okay, but after a minute, you realise that it has no actual sense of what it's saying or how it feels to read it. It wouldn't pass a Turing test, but it could beat it. And meanwhile... I kind of have a question-answering habit with "Quora" - and sometimes its automatic filter thinks that my answers are not "intelligent" enough. Do androids dream of electric sheep... is a question I haven't tried to answer. ;-) Robert Carnegie rja.carnegie@gmail.com [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.20|141.101.99.20]] 23:03, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

Sooooo... does this exist yet? [[User:Marethyu|⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu]] ([[User talk:Marethyu|talk]]) 19:28, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Does anyone else think the last panel could be a reference to Multi-Factor Authentication? {{unsigned|Aleph 3|18:51, 29 March 2024}}

Talk:2912: Cursive Letters

2024-03-28T09:16:51Z

172.70.90.29:

That Q is pretty easy to read, but a lot of people write it in a way that looks more like 2. That Q always throws me off. The 2 goes close to the bottom left, neither cool nor legible. [[User:EebstertheGreat|EebstertheGreat]] ([[User talk:EebstertheGreat|talk]]) 21:28, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Cursive has been in the news lately, almost half the US states have recently passed laws requiring that cursive writing be taught in elementary schools. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 21:30, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
:Recently? I think only California did it recently, most of those laws are older. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 22:14, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Is this the default cursive taught in US American schools? I’ve often seen this capital I, G and Q on (older) Hollywood films, but the (standard) cursive writing in Germany or France looks completely different. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.99|162.158.154.99]] 21:49, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
:Yes for the most part, at least from when I was taught (early 2000s). Though, we were taught the Q that looks like a 2, like the poster above comments on. [[User:ZeWaka|ZeWaka]] ([[User talk:ZeWaka|talk]]) 06:43, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Labelled: https://i.imgur.com/dTdLgO6.png [[User:Bewa|Bewa]] ([[User talk:Bewa|talk]]) 22:09, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

:This labelled should go in the explanation - without it I couldn't tell what half those were. In the UK cursive capitals haven't been taught in schools for at least 60 years, I don't know of anyone under 80 who could write these! {{unsigned ip|172.70.163.24|08:25, 28 March 2024}}
::Interestingly, when I was at primary school (mostly in the '70s), we were absolutely not allowed to use biros and (cursively or not, but we certainly learnt how to 'connect' our letters) our writing was full of various serifs and nib-flourishes.
::On moving to secondary school, we were absolutely ''required'' to use ball-points (so no more squeezing out those ink-capsules all over the place, or messing with blotting paper!), but I believe "joined up" writing was encouraged so long as it was legible. You definitely have to make more effort to add serifs with biros, though, where a nib positively encourages it. (BTW, the worst pens were the 'erasable biros', probably because their ink was made to be abraded off by their hard, gritty rubber, but this also made it so easily smearable by a hand when other inks would have more quickly dried in.)
::My handwriting was never that good, in either case. I did (separately, at night-school) pick up actual caligraphy, but that just let me write very neatly (and yet often unreadable - imagine the word "minimum" in what I know as "black gothic", close to that ided as 'Textur' on {{w|Blackletter|this page's sidebar}}...) but ''extremely slowly''... If I need to write ''readably'' (sometimes even by myself), it helps if I downplay that cursiveness that I certainly did learn.
::But at least my cursive letters aren't as exotic as those alleged-Zs. The most 'unblock' character is the 'k' (which loops between 'arms' not too dissimilarly to the comic version). I tend to reserve "looping verticals" to 'l' used for the litre (to differentiate from my digit 1, e.g. looks a bit like "|ℓ" for "one litre", so as not to look like eleven). My "£" (GBP) and "&" do both flourish significantly, even without any opportunity or reason to go fully-connected by cursivity, but perhaps to make them distinguishabld from the more similar alphabetic glyphs.
::I had a quick look for other people's experiences in the UK, and it seems to distil down into [https://www.quora.com/Do-British-people-use-cursive-writing-If-yes-what-does-it-look-like this sort of answer] (look out for Quora's latest attempt to answer with 'AI bot' and get you to sign in, it's just the human answer that's relevent, etc...). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.160.167|172.70.160.167]] 09:15, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Meanwhile if this was Russian/Cyrillic cursive, almost every letter would be at y=0! [[Special:Contributions/172.69.7.49|172.69.7.49]] 00:10, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Is that a "u" in the lower left? [[User:SDSpivey|SDSpivey]] ([[User talk:SDSpivey|talk]]) 03:11, 28 March 2024 (UTC)
:Hi, so this is my first ever comment; feel free to yell at me if I’m doing it wrong. But to answer your question, nope, that’s a lowercase v. That said, the two can be frustratingly similar in some handwritings. Also, while this isn’t the point of the comic (and I assume it uses Munroe’s own handwriting) some of those letters can be made more legible and/or much cooler looking if you just write them with an alternate style. — [[User:ThatSciNerd|ThatSciNerd]] ([[User talk:ThatSciNerd|talk]]) 03:31, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Could someone add an image of the title text? My phone apparently can't display it - just those good ol' unicode boxes. The transcription let's me know what it says, but without seeing it in cursive it's not really the same effect. thanks to whoever added the transcription though! [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.69|162.158.74.69]] 08:07, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Talk:2530: Clinical Trials

2024-03-26T19:41:17Z

172.70.90.29:

Is this comic in reaction to some specific recent event? It seems like it might be related to vaccine trials, given the pandemic the world has been dealing with for the last 2 years... if so, it then seems to be a condemnation... am I reading too much into this?
[[User:Ericfromabeno|Ericfromabeno]] ([[User talk:Ericfromabeno|talk]]) 21:49, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
:That's exactly how I understood it as well. Maybe that wasn't Randall's intent, but it does seem to convey a skeptical tone about the untested vaccines and their related mandates? [[Special:Contributions/127.0.0.1|127.0.0.0]] 18:56, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
::Except the vaccines HAVE gone through clinical trials? Calling the vaccines "untested" is quite a reach, since they have actually been very well tested. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.132.228|172.68.132.228]] 18:56, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
::: They may have been through smaller, short-term trials, but we don't have any long-term effects data. Essentially, everyone who has gotten a shot is in one big trial.--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.243|108.162.237.243]] 00:44, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
::::Yeah, a trial consisting of 3.3 billion fully vaccinated people. If it was any worse than being unvaccinated, wouldn't we have noticed by now? [[User:256.256.256.256|256.256.256.256]] ([[User talk:256.256.256.256|talk]]) 07:41, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

I would say this in relation to the mutiple treatments for Covid19 some of which have great clinical evaluation, others less so. I'll make a first draft [[User:Kev|Kev]] ([[User talk:Kev|talk]]) 21:53, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
:On this website there are far too many people who think everything is about Covid19. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.88.219|162.158.88.219]] 06:30, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
::It comes to mind after a year full of iterations of the "3-step clinical trial procedure" shown in the comic. See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unproven_methods_against_COVID-19

Note that a proper clinical trial does not "prove" its treatment to be effective, but it actually should do its damnedest to show that any observed (net) benefits are down to simple statistical fluke, but then fail, leaving the positive result 'proven'. And obviously extract every possible risk factor in the process. (Thalidomide fell down badly on this, many years ago, partly because of the numbers involved and the fact that susceptible mothers were often taking a cocktail of multiple 'remedies' over much of the nine months, which made the reality slow to be teased out. But the lessons learnt mean that authorising ''anything'' for pregnant women are tortuous, and testing on (non-pregnant) women in general is hampered by having to account for menstral cycles, so we end up with far too many man-tested drugs that say "not for use in pregnancy" just to keep far to the safe-side, plus still far more unknown levels of efficacy/etc in the 'generic' female body than we should have. But it's being addressed. Onward, ever onward!) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.49|162.158.159.49]] 23:14, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

The way I understood the title text was that the "change" was the one written in red, that is "now we have to do clinical trials". The title text's joke is thus that, because before that change clinical trials weren't part of the procedure ("standard of care"), you don't have to test the idea of testing ideas. Closely related to that "joke" is https://existentialcomics.com/comic/404 (but seriously this isn't a simple problem). [[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.101|108.162.229.101]] 01:21, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Shouldn't Test if it works be step 2? Have idea, see if it works, impliment? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.129.137|172.68.129.137]] 01:52, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
:No. Steps 1 and 2 both include elements of testing and exploration; you need to perform experiments to come up with a good idea and convince -yourselves- that it is, in fact, good, and then you likely need to perform or at least show more tests to convince others that it is, in fact a good idea. But the addition of clinical trials added a further "and then you need to double triple check that your idea actually works rather than that it seemed to work in your initial experiments" step to (try to) avoid bad side effects and false correlation.
:I'm of the opinion that it was part of the joke... since it does seem to follow the actual behavioral pattern of "do thing, promote thing, [justify thing], propagate thing"... which makes this thread of conversation both topical and meta (kudos to Randall if ''this'' result was intended)[[Special:Contributions/162.158.107.4|162.158.107.4]] 21:14, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
: I'm guessing you've never written a grant proposal. To get money to test something, you have to convince people it's worth testing. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.133.103|172.68.133.103]] 19:01, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
Mention of "anti-worming treatments" in the explanation. This is misleading, and gives the impression that drugs can only have a single function. It's like talking about the use of "headache medicine" for preventing heart attacks. If you want to refer to a specific medicine, do so by name but make damn sure that your claims about that medicine are accurate

:Ivermectin, the drug in question, has only been approved for use by humans for parasites, and for rosacea (cause unknown, but appears to be linked to mites). It doesn't seem misleading to me to refer to it as a deworming agent when it is probably only ever prescribed as an anti-parasitic. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.132.16|172.68.132.16]] 19:18, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

While the awareness of clinical trials is of course more relevant because of COVID, I don't think this is intended to be topical. The title is very straightforwards-- "the invention of clinical trials" and is almost joke-less (basically just the format). The real joke is in the title text, where it's pointed out that because the "standard of care" before the invention of clinical trials was not to do clinical trials, we didn't need to go through this step to start doing them; just convince people it was a good idea. 02:40, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
: I think it's *extremely* topical, with the relatively recent debunking of ivermectin as (yet another) substance that has been widely claimed, distributed, and mis-used as a supposed COVID preventative/cure. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 03:49, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
:: If you like, it is topical by -context-, but not by content. Which is an interesting (but important) line to draw. [[User:Mneme|Mneme]] ([[User talk:Mneme|talk]]) 04:31, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

A recent editor pulled out my comment about how there isn't a joke, but I'd argue that that's necessary in some form. One of the reasons people go to Explain XKCD is that they're going "wait, did I miss a joke?" So explaining that as far as the community is concerned the main text is in-earnest education rathar than a missed joke does have an important purpose. [[User:Mneme|Mneme]] ([[User talk:Mneme|talk]]) 04:37, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

This list looks like the difference between philosophy, particularly ancient Greek and Indian philosophy (probably others, but I do not know them as well), and science. The philosophical ideas were adopted based on who was able to convince more people that they had a better idea. When the scientific revolution rolled around in the 15th and 16th century in Europe, many of these ancient ideas were actually tested and only those that really worked were retained as true. Many well known and well respected ideas that failed testing were finally abandoned. That sure sounds like the elements of this list. [[User:Nutster|Nutster]] ([[User talk:Nutster|talk]]) 07:11, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

The Covid-19 paragraph seems a bit misleading. Arguments advanced in favour of vaccine skepticism have mostly been not so much to do with treatments being used before clinical trials were complete, as with clinical trials being brought forward to accelerate the process, which has been misinterpreted as them being 'rushed'. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.206|162.158.154.206]] 10:38, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Traditional clinical trials aren't the ''only'' way to find out whether a particular medical treatment works; a lot of treatments used for various purposes instead get tested and adopted by comparing the outcomes of the treated group to prior outcomes of people with the same condition, or simply comparing whether the healths of a group of people improve after treatment with a given treatment with a ''known'' mechanism of action (thus circumventing the correlation/causation disconnect); for ethical reasons, not everything ''can'' be put through traditional clinical trials (as it would be unethical to deny a patient [even one who's part of a control group] treatment that's been shown to have lifesaving effects in other patients), and is thus used technically-off-label based on these secondary ways of showing efficacy (for instance, gender-affirming hormonal and surgical treatment for transgender individuals). [[User:Whoop whoop pull up|Whoop whoop pull up]] ([[User talk:Whoop whoop pull up|talk]]) 17:58, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
:I'd argue that "traditional clinical trials" were pretty much all "we gave our tincture to everyone, and they almost all survived". It's the lack of rigour that introduced various additional elements, like the double-blind New Treatment vs. Old Treatment, or Treatment vs. Placebo, 'golden standard'.
:CTs cover "investigational" (just look how people are doing/have done under whatever course of treatment they might have, with no actual provision of anything new) and "interventional" (as above). A good study design will have a way to check the ongoing treatment (still blind/anonymised) and, if it warrants it (and it's not a review of historic data!), breaking the double-blind early and offering all subcohorts any treatment (or 'default') that has outperformed the other(s) being given. Useful both if the investigated drug is shown to be a 'miracle cure' ''or'' if it's a flop/worse than the old drug/has too many additional adverse events to be considered safe.
:A modern trial (well... a decade ago, when I was work-adjacent to such trials, so picked up a lot from my colleagues who actually did trial design and management) probably covers all the points you suggest, all still under the same umbrella of "Clinical Trial". The exact specifics of how they proceded would depend a lot on what the trial was for, etc, and by the time Phase III (full clinical trials) were being started, the results of the Phase I/II (first-in-human/sub-theraputic tests) would have been concluded or wound up early (with sufficient success), giving a good idea of how much 'denied treatment' (or "given the prior treatment") is absolutely required, without being potentially excessive in caution.
:And pretty much every one is bespoke. Trials of off-label uses, extending trials of adult-approved drugs to adolescents/children, or allowing their previously barred use in pregnant women. Restudying a drug that hadn't been tested ''at all'' in women (allowing for pesky hormone cycles, perhaps, which the men-only test had avoided). Intensively studying something truly life-saving (resuscitation methods, anti-AIDS treatments, pandemic vaccines) or quality-of-life extending (anti-dementia, treatments for Parkinsons, less traumatic chemotherapy). - Some, if not all, will consider how quickly the generously volunteering (or 'volunteered') control group might still be able to benefit from their originally being not-fully-treated (where possible, practical and proven as advantageous).
:But it's not something I was directly involved in, my responsibilities were in making sure that those with the more direct responsibilities could do their work properly, however it was they needed to in any given instance. I think I'd have been more stressed designing and managing a trial than I was (technically could affect ''numerous'' trials, or at least potentially increasing everyone else's stress values if I totally messed). I'm sure there's a more accurate/succinct explanation available. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.160.166|172.70.160.166]] 19:37, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

2906: Earth

2024-03-14T03:34:13Z

172.70.90.29: /* Explanation */ it appended, without even warning me of edit-conflict. Merging.

{{comic
| number = 2906
| date = March 13, 2024
| title = Earth
| image = earth_2x.png
| imagesize = 364x472px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Just think of all the countless petty squabbles and misunderstandings, of all the fervent hatreds, over so insignificant a thing as the direction and duration of a rocket engine firing.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a MEANINGLESS PALE BLUE DOT FLOATING IN SPACE - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

At first sight, this appears to be the famous {{w|Carl Sagan}} commentary, upon the ''{{w|Pale Blue Dot}}'' image of Earth, a picture taken by the {{w|Voyager 1 probe}} in 1990 (at that time 6 billion kilometers away) but having been transmitted back to Earth to be appreciated as one of the most iconic 'photos of Earth from space', along with ''{{w|Earthrise}}'' and ''{{w|The Blue Marble}}''. Sagan's written, and later spoken, words evoke how the lives of all of us are somehow confined to barely more than a single pixel's-worth of existence.

From the comment, however, it appears that 'Carl' is not looking at an image. Instead it is a spacecraft window. The minute nature of the Earth is as a result of some unintended consequences of deorbitting manouever from {{w|Low Earth orbit}} (i.e. not more than 2000 kilometers from the Earth's surface, from which the Earth should still mostly fill any view that points towards it). Rather than transitioning from LEO into a re-entry trajectory, somehow the vessel and crew have been sent into a ''much'' higher-reaching orbit, if not into a solar or extra-solar trajectory. And it is Carl's fault.

The title text continues with the traditional tone of the speech, only to become an implicit attempt to claim that it wasn't quite as drastic an error as it actually seems to have been.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Carl Sagan standing in front of the Pale Blue Dot from far away with his right hand pointed toward the image.]
:Carl Sagan: Look again at that dot. That's home. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives...
:Carl Sagan: On a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
:Off-panel voice: We '''know,''' Carl.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Carl Sagan was '''''not''''' making us feel better about how badly he'd messed up the low Earth orbit reentry burn.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]

User talk:42.book.addict

2024-03-11T16:29:30Z

172.70.90.29:

Just replying to your message (also dw no big deal for bothering me)
You click on your username and there should be an edit box. --[[User:1234231587678|1234231587678]] ([[User talk:1234231587678|talk]]) 04:58, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
:it says that i dont have permission to create the page…
: There is currently no text in this page. You can search for this page title in other pages, or search the related logs, but you do not have permission to create this page. it says [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 19:33, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

I think you might have to wait some time (like a timer) until you can edit your own page... I think I only got to edit my page after 1 month of creating my account.--[[User:1234231587678|1234231587678]] ([[User talk:1234231587678|talk]]) 21:31, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
:ok, thx [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 21:52, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

My guess on where you live is somewhere in the GMT zone, so United Kingdom.--[[User:1234231587678|1234231587678]] ([[User talk:1234231587678|talk]]) 03:43, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
:nope, im a california girl :)

lol you never know with utc times --[[User:1234231587678|1234231587678]] ([[User talk:1234231587678|talk]]) 16:52, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

You seem to be taking to heart the punctuation-before-the-Citation-needed standard (which is good, only sometimes it's even more complicated{{Citation needed}}),{{Citation needed}} but I see you recased an example of {{template|citation needed}} to {{template|Citation Needed}}, earlier. Now, it doesn't really matter because there are templates for "citation needed" and "Citation Needed". And also "cn" plus "fact" for the really lazy editors. ;) Anyway, all of these (maybe more, I'd have to check) redirect to the ''main'' "Citation needed" one. (Reflected in {{template|Actual citation needed}}, where "actual citation needed" ''plus'' "acn" redirect there, although {{template|Actual Citation Needed}} - "for completeness" - is actually a 'copy' template in its own right.) I wouldn't bother ''only'' changing various CN variations to "Citation needed"s (there ''is'' also a {{template|Citation neededs}}, but that's a '''s'''truckthrough version of "Citation needed" rather than an ungrammatical "Citation''s'' needed"!), but if you're already editing anything else, it would not at all hurt to get everything to capital-C small-n version. It gives the server ''very very slightly'' less work to do. ;) Probably. Not that it matters. But, as you seem to be a 'details person', I thought I'd pass on a detail you may not have already known... :p [[Special:Contributions/172.69.195.156|172.69.195.156]] 02:11, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
:You have not read the above (properly, at least). The {{template|Citation needed}} is the 'proper' one (for xkcd version of 'proper'), whilst {{template|cn}} is a lazy version that redirects. There's no reason at all to change "Citation needed" to "cn". (Not much reason to change the other way, either, but could be justified if one is editing something else..)
:I reverted the one where you made the "SIGHTation needed" into a CN, as that was clearly a deliberate variation by some past wag. No point changing it to the (not-quite-)standard one. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.115|172.69.194.115]] 17:31, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
::Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t read your message until now. I’ll start using “Citation needed” instead of cn. Thanks for the heads up! [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 17:35, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
:::And if you expect me to reply to you immediately, sorry! I’m at school right now, and it’s completely impractical to be listening to a lecture and editing ExplainXKCD at the same time. [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 17:35, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
::::No worries. I was busy myself, and already a bit slow to jump in and let you know, just knowing you'd probably see the above better/sooner than a revert-edit summary. ;)
::::Functionally, all identical. Just the practical need for it was balanced the other way. Can't fault you for identifying the need to shift the punctuation. (I may do that in passing, with some other edit in mind... had to specifically redo it on the reverted SIGHTation article, i.e. on the true Citation one that was wrong, because I'd meant to keep ''that'' valid change but got distracted by a phone-call...)
::::Anyway, welcome to the community, I just hope you do more helpful things than troublesome ones. (Heck, I still hope *I* do that, even after a number of years. ;) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.207|172.71.242.207]] 18:00, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
:::::thanks! (btw, are you saying that my edits are troublesome?) [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 18:01, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
::::::Well, I wasn't. Just hoping that (through errors/misunderstandings) you still end up on the right side of trouble/not-trouble, on average. But just would like to point out that creating Jupitale's home page was ''not'' a good move. See [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=User:Jupitale&oldid=335943 my edited comment]. I'm willing to believe you did it accidentally (visited their non-existing page, thus ended up creating it), and some mod or other may be along to clean it up at some point. Before or after that whole login is 'looked sternly at'. But shouldn't concern you if you're just being helpful and don't do too much of that. Anyway, enjoy your time here. (Not ''too'' much, obviously. Y'know, do your scholwork/don't vandalise wikis/all the other usual social necessities. :p ) [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.220|172.71.242.220]] 18:20, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
:::::::oh shit ok I didn’t realise that Jupidale’s was a vandal ill be more mindful [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 18:30, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Alright, who the FUCK added a Soviet flag to my talk page? BTW, thanks to Asdf for reverting it. [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 20:26, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
:It's one of the occasional vandalisers. Don't worry, we generally pick these things up.
:As far as your noticing the [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1156:_Conditioning&oldid=336318 fox-instead-of-pope] vandalism, we also pick that up (I reverted it the previous two times). You'll work out how to use the Undo functionality, at some time, but maybe you'll want to also check the page histories to see what recent edits a page might have been through, note what has been done (for good or ill) and get some more idea of what happens and how we generally handle these things. All a learning process, of course! [[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.55|172.71.178.55]] 20:50, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
::Thank you! [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 20:51, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

== What are your thoughts on the Soviet Union? ==

Hi! What do you think about the USSR? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.37|108.162.245.37]] 00:18, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
:oh, uh, it was oppressive, absolutely authoritarian, and cold. [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 00:32, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
::but, why, though? [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 00:32, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
:::oh, and if i think that I’m going to listen to you anymore now that I’ve realised that you’re a troll, then you are mistaken [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 00:35, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
::::btw please stop adding soviet flags everywhere. They’re disruptive, unnecessary, and you’re just being an asshole and douchebag [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 00:36, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::btw I'm the crap spammer [[Special:Contributions/172.71.147.80|172.71.147.80]] 00:53, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::that’s not really something to brag about… [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 00:53, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::I don't think you were here for the crap spam; it was quite extensive [[Special:Contributions/172.71.147.79|172.71.147.79]] 00:55, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::::even if I wasn’t here for the crap spam, i think that you are an motherfucker who doesnt have a life, needs to GET a life, and should really stop spamming and disrupting this wiki. Please go fuck yourself, jump off a bridge, and set yourself on fire if you still are defiant. [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 00:56, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::Okay, I'll follow the wiki part of your advice, but not the bridge part. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.147.79|172.71.147.79]] 00:58, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::THANK YOU! Also, i only said to jump off a bridge if you refuse to get a life [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 00:58, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::You're welcome. I'll look for ways to contribute constructively. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.147.80|172.71.147.80]] 01:01, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::tbh this has been one of the less bad things I've done; the crapping was way worse [[Special:Contributions/172.71.147.80|172.71.147.80]] 01:07, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::i have no idea why you’re still bragging about how you were so good at vandalising this wiki before[[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 01:07, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

== New User and User Talk pages ==

You're trying to be helpful, but... Anyone who ''really'' wants them will probably ask (or wait until they have page-creation rights themself). Looking at all the ones you've made for people, how many have even then been used (by the user concerned)? I suggest you don't need to create them, not even to un-redlink someone's [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?limit=50&title=Special%3AContributions&contribs=user&target=Cleonis&namespace=&tagfilter=&start=&end= comic discussion] .sig links. It's normally not a big concern, and there's enough people who can help out if someone actually asks for it when you're not paying attention.
 As for the rest of us: ironically, I slightly wanted to drop a note to a long-term user the other day. (Comparatively, i.e. that they've been around for a bit longer than yourself.) They didn't have a User Talk page, so I resorted to a different way of commenting. They can create their own pages, if they want (and, if I was a username myself, I definitely could have by now). Yet I definitely wouldn't consider it valid to give the whole historic userbase any such 'missing' user-spaces.
 I'm no authority on this matter, or even a 'real user' in any properly identifiable way, but please do consider my advice that comes from long but informal experience of this kind of matter. You're not the first eager new contributor to try to help out like this. And you're not the first to have made the odd error (giving a spam-only account a Welcoming page ...which thankfully never got used to further the spamming, the account seemingly abandoned by that point ''anyway''), but of course this was probably before you even started lurking here (certainly before your current username, perhaps even prior to any IP-only-editing you might have done before that). Heck, some 'helpful' people even created the occasional User and/or User Talk spaces for IPs (don't do that, either, it's at best neutrally useless - even from my own IP-wise perspective).
 You at least seem to be doing it from a genuinely helpful position. For that, I thank you, and maybe also some of those actual new users do (if they've notice. But maybe no more. Unasked for, at least? [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.29|172.71.242.29]] 16:13, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
:postscript - even while I was writing this, it seems that one of the users who ''hadn't'' seemed to want to use their page actually went and did so. And, elsewhere, proclaimed they weren't vandalising any more. I leave it up to others to make judgements on what's happening there, and the timing with respect to other recent interactions, but still not being particular auspicious. Time will tell how this all turns out. Anyway, just to note this. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.29|172.70.90.29]] 16:29, 11 March 2024 (UTC) (Same contributor as above, regardless of what the IP may have changed to.)

221: Random Number

2024-03-11T13:38:38Z

172.70.90.29: /* Explanation */ Slightly adjusting the link (couldn't find an equivalently valid {{w|}} target for the given URL).

{{comic
| number = 221
| date = February 9, 2007
| title = Random Number
| image = random_number.png
| titletext = <nowiki>RFC 1149.5</nowiki> specifies 4 as the standard IEEE-vetted random number.
}}
==Explanation==
The comic specifies a function (in a {{w|C (programming language)|C}} similar syntax), which judging by its name should be designed to return a random number. Most functions of this form are random number ''generators'', meaning that on subsequent calls they return ''different'' random numbers. But the programmer has instead implemented a function that just returns the ''same'' random number each time, which, while it could indeed have been truly randomly chosen by rolling a die as the [[156: Commented|comment]] documented, is essentially worthless were it ever to be called more than once (with the expectation of different, i.e., random, results). In other words, the results over time would not be random at all, but completely predictable and deterministic.

Alternatively, this could be seen as making fun of how people normally will erroneously think of "random numbers". A mathematician will (or at least should) think about a random number as one that is independent of something (usually being independent of the next number in a list of numbers). However a normal person will often think of a list of random numbers as just meaning it having "no pattern". This difference is described in [https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_koan#Uncarved_block an MIT koan]. (Just to drive this point home, if the first number of a list is "4", and the second number is independent of the first, then that means the second number can also be "4" (as well as the 3rd and 4th). This obviously creates a "pattern", while still being random because of the independence)

The {{w|IEEE}} is the organization responsible for maintaining a number of computer standards. An RFC, or {{w|Request for Comments}}, is a formal document put out to computing experts by {{w|IETF}} in the hopes of becoming a future standard. However, RFC 1149 was an {{w|April Fools' Day Request for Comments|April Fools' joke}}, defining how carrier pigeons can be used to transmit Internet packets. "<nowiki>RFC 1149.5</nowiki>," meanwhile, simply does not exist.

==Trivia==

* The well-known "helper website" ([http://gChq.github.io/CyberChef/#recipe=XKCD_Random_Number() CyberChef]) has a function that simulates XKCD's program.
* Esolangs.org features a [http://esolangs.org/wiki/user:XKCD_Random_Number challenge] that requires you to rewrite the program in XKCD's comic in another programming language, as either a function or a full program that prints the "4".

==Transcript==
[A computer program.]
int getRandomNumber()
{
return 4; // chosen by fair dice roll.
// guaranteed to be random.
}

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Programming]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Comics with lowercase text]]

2903: Earth/Venus Venn Diagram

2024-03-08T10:18:02Z

172.70.90.29: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2903
| date = March 6, 2024
| title = Earth/Venus Venn Diagram
| image = earth_venus_venn_diagram_2x.png
| imagesize = 416x309px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Actually, the fact that Mars is still orbiting safely over here means that it was technically an *Euler* apocalypse, not a Venn one.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an interplanetary impact. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

A Venn diagram compares two entities and shows, in the middle area, traits or properties common to both, and in the non-overlapping regions, those that are unique to the respective entities. This diagram is simultaneously both a '''{{w|Venn diagram}}''' and a '''proximity illustration'''.
* As a '''proximity illustration''', it depicts {{w|Earth}} and {{w|Venus}} smashing into each other, resulting in "shockwaves and production of impact ejecta" occuring where they collide. The relative circle sizes are accurate; the circumference of Venus is 5% smaller than Earth's.
* As a '''Venn diagram''', it accurately shows what traits the planets have in common in the event of a collision: "shockwaves and production of impact ejecta."

Shockwaves refer to intense, high-pressure waves that propagate through the materials of both planets at speeds exceeding the sound speed, caused by the immense force of the impact.

Impact ejecta refers to the material expelled from the impact site, consisting of molten rock, vaporized material, and solid debris, flung out at high velocities due to the energy released by the collision.

The title text notes that {{w|Mars}} is still orbiting by itself, though presumably out of the frame of the "diagram", since we can't see it. Therefore, this actually makes the overall system an {{w|Euler diagram}} rather than a Venn one, as every circle in any way represented in a Venn diagram must intersect. xkcd has referenced the difference between Euler and Venn diagrams [[2721: Euler Diagrams|before]]. The title text also calls it an "Euler apocalypse" to emphasize that it represents an important event rather than the abstract analysis of properties that either type of diagram normally represents. Going off of this, a "{{w|Big Crunch|Venn apocalypse}}" would consist of every (present) spherical body in the universe colliding simultaneously. This would be dangerous.{{citation needed}}

==Transcript==
:[Two circles are drawn so they overlap. The segments of the circles that overlap are drawn in dashed lines. Each circle has a label and text are written in the central overlapping part the circle. Above the circles there is a caption:]
:Earth/Venus Venn Diagram
:Left: Earth
:Right: Venus
:Center: Shock-waves and production of impact ejecta

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Venn diagrams]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Euler diagrams]]

2901: Geographic Qualifiers

2024-03-02T14:30:20Z

172.70.90.29: /* Explanation */ Edit-conflict generated too many offset changes to identify the "improvements" properly, will have to manually check and resolve...

{{comic
| number = 2901
| date = March 1, 2024
| title = Geographic Qualifiers
| image = geographic_qualifiers_2x.png
| imagesize = 435x386px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = 'Thank you for the loveliest evening I've ever had...' [normal] '...east of the Mississippi.' [instant intrigue!]
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT EAST OF THE BERLIN WALL - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
In this comic, two [[Cueball]]s are admiring a giant statue of a squirrel standing on a skateboard. The first is bragging about how it is the largest statue of that theme in “the Northern Hemisphere”. The second one is visibly confused, as he realizes that this seems to imply the existence of a taller one in the Southern Hemisphere. He considers several countries, with his last thought being Australia, where many {{w|Big things (Australia)|overly large statues}} have been built. Squirrels are not native to Australia, so it's not particularly likely there would be ''any'' statues of them (though there is an elephant represented, as well as other non-native subjects that might might even sometimes be {{w|Sarina, Queensland#Attractions|detrimentally}}) extant), especially with the additional stipulation of it riding a skateboard.

Adding an unnecessary qualifier like this doesn't change the truth of the statement. But it suggests that there's a need to restrict the scope of the statement, i.e. it wouldn't be true with a less restrictive qualifier (or none at all). This will cause the listener to wonder about these other cases. Or, in some cases, whether to take this statement {{tvtropes|SuspiciouslySpecificDenial|at face value}}.

Sometimes qualifiers are added simply due to incomplete information. They've exhaustively surveyed squirrel statues in the Northern Hemisphere and determined that this one is the largest. (Not counting any actual larger ones not ''also'' skateboarding!) But since they haven't searched the Southern Hemisphere, they don't want to commit to it being the largest in the world.

In the title text, someone is expressing gratitude at the end of a date, saying that it's the loveliest evening they've ever had (in actuality, "loveliest" is usually hyperbole).{{Citation needed}} This seems normal until they add a location qualifier. This leaves the companion wondering what kind of great evening they had in some other location. In this case, it's unlikely that the speaker would have incomplete information about their own dating history.

The statue may be a reference to Ms. Pearl, the giant squirrel statue in Cedar Creek, Texas which, at 14 ft (4 m) [https://www.worldrecordacademy.org/2022/06/worlds-largest-squirrel-sculpture-cedar-creek-texas-sets-world-record-422206] was indeed the largest squirrel statue in the western hemisphere in 2018. The qualifiers, in this case, ''are'' necessary since a temporary 40 ft (12 m) statue was erected in Kazakhstan in 2018 [https://www.new-east-archive.org/articles/show/10477/a-giant-squirrel-has-taken-over-almaty] but information for tourists in Cedar Creek, Texas, doesn't tend to include this information{{Citation needed}} creating the mystique. The artist behind the Kazakhstan statue appears to have been unaware of the Cedar Creek statue so the Kazakh statue is ''not'' intentionally [https://memes.getyarn.io/yarn-clip/dbc0b2e4-a209-4bc3-807a-514b65389da6 at least three times bigger].

It is perhaps thanks only to the specific phrasing "tallest statue of a skateboarding squirrel" that we need not consider tallest-statues-of-squirrels (temporarily) placed on skateboards, tallest statuesque skateboards with squirrels atop or even a rather modestly sized statuette representing a moment when [https://bigthings.vroomvroomvroom.com/listing/worlds-largest-skateboard/ a large skateboard] had sciurine visitors. In any or all hemispheres.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

:[A huge statue of a squirrel on a skateboard, which is on a pedestal. Next to it on the right, are two people, presumably two Cueballs. The Cueball on the left is pointing at the statue. The Cueball on the right has a thought bubble above him. The scene is shown from afar in black silhouette on a white background.]
:Left Cueball: At over 40 feet, it's the tallest statue of a skateboarding squirrel in the Northern Hemisphere.
:Right Cueball (thinking): ...Wait, who in the heck...Brazil? South Africa? Australia? Squirrels aren't even native there...

:[Caption below the panel:]
:I love the instant mystery created by qualifiers like "east of the Mississippi" or "in the Northern Hemisphere."

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Geography]]
[[Category:Squirrels]]

Talk:2030: Voting Software

2024-02-27T13:57:38Z

172.70.90.29:

This comic is eerily relevant again these days!
[[Special:Contributions/172.69.190.72|172.69.190.72]] 14:22, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Well the 'airplanes' part of this comic has aged really damn poorly :(

I think this comic is referencing [https://twitter.com/GossiTheDog/status/1026603800365330432 this twitter thread] and the controversy behind it.
[[Special:Contributions/172.69.190.4|172.69.190.4]] 17:59, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
: The [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/experts-criticize-west-virginias-plan-for-smartphone-voting/ Experts criticize West Virginia’s plan for smartphone voting] article on ArsTechnica has more information (as much as possible when the company in question does not provide any details (note that it is about overseas voting). --[[User:JakubNarebski|JakubNarebski]] ([[User talk:JakubNarebski|talk]]) 19:44, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

Is he saying it's weird that we're so sophisticated in other areas of computer science but so far behind in voting technology, or is he making fun of the idea that electronic voting is somehow inherently unsafe?--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.106|108.162.216.106]] 18:10, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
: No i think he is saying computer science is a mess and we should not trust it with voting(he is not making fun of the idea of it being unsafe, he is pressing on the point of it being unsafe[saying that all experts agree on that])18:18, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

: I think he's commenting on how in most fields, the experts are very sure that they do their job well, and all the angles have been tried and tested, but in computer science the experts are more certain than anyone that there is ''absolutely no way'' for a person to actually build a complex software system with no flaws or vulnerabilities, even if they controlled every aspect of the system. in practice of course they control very little of the system and understand even less of it. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.34.88|172.68.34.88]] 18:22, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

: He's saying that software development is a terribly buggy process, most likely because the majority of software out there can have bugs without very dire real-world consequences (unlike aircraft or elevators).

::Not to mention the fact that there are incredibly smart people with great interest in undoing the work that software developers do, whereas that isn't at all the case with airplanes or elevators. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.214|108.162.219.214]] 18:29, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

:: Plus there's the general issue that the public as a whole takes the view that "Computers are majykal" (misspelling deliberate) and therefore somehow automatically safe & infallible, despite experts trying very hard to disillusion people about...pretty much all of that. Compare that to the common assumptions about aircraft and elevators--people need the safety verified, instead of assuming it like they do with computers. [[User:Werhdnt|Werhdnt]] ([[User talk:Werhdnt|talk]]) 19:08, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

:::There's a logical fallacy here. To compare airplaneS and elevatorS to a voting system program is comparing plural to singular. There would be significant opportunity to break/modify a single instance of those objects, although without the relative anonymity of electronic access involved. Once a computer system is infiltrated, the break-in can be replicated to all instances of that program relatively instantaneously, assuming communication pathways are available.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.75.130|162.158.75.130]] 19:12, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

::::No logical fallacy; there have been ''multiple'' attempts to get people to accept a voting system program, and the 'done by a computer=infallible' problem is '''''not''''' unique to voting programs. Mr. Babbage was being confused by people who were thinking it was possible to get the correct answers from a computer despite putting the wrong data in back in the 1860s (at least!), and the computer at the time was not much more than a fancy calculator. [[User:Werhdnt|Werhdnt]] ([[User talk:Werhdnt|talk]]) 20:23, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

A blockchain node doesn't technically need to be connected to the internet in order to function. It needs to have some method for receiving messages from other nodes on the blockchain network, and most blockchain nodes do indeed get these messages via the internet, but some magic beans nodes (for example) get updates about new blocks and new transactions from the Blockstream satellite. An internet connection is therefore not intrinsically necessary for a blockchain to work, it's just the most convenient way to do it.

:::: The blockstream satellite is an internet, just a different media. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.59.24|172.68.59.24]] 14:41, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Do you think that this comic had anything to do with the debacle in Johnson County, KS last night? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.231|162.158.62.231]] 19:30, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

The comic ignores the fact that modern airplanes are heavily utilizing software of all kinds. A software failure in an aircraft could easily be fatal (and have been so various times in history already, while the consequences of a voting software working incorrect are ''relatively'' harmless), and still airplanes remain safe, as the comic recognizes. --[[User:YMS|YMS]] ([[User talk:YMS|talk]]) 21:05, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

:Airplanes are not connected to internet and reasonably well protected from people putting their USB devices in their control system. Also, they are NOT build by lowest bid contractor. There ARE people now capable of building offline voting machine which would be reasonable secure. They are working in banks and stock exchanges and at those companies providing switches for internet backbone, are extremely well paid and wouldn't ever promise they will get the machine finished in single year. Noone asks THEM to make the voting machines. Voting over internet? With consumer-grade devices? Impossible. (I'm also working in IT, although not on mentioned high-security systems.) -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 22:24, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

::Note that she is talking to aircraft designers, not to software engineers working on fly-by-wire systems (back when I took software engineering you got an answer similar to the one about voting machines when discussing fly-by-wire). I took this more as the aircraft designers glossing over the problems caused by software engineering. A voting system which uses paper ballots, with perhaps computer systems used for some stages of counting would be a reasonable analogy to the redundant systems used in aircraft. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.106.228|162.158.106.228]] 23:08, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

Seems to me that the last panel references the E.T for Atari Desert Burial (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_video_game_burial), perhaps to draw some analogy as to the potential quality or likelihood of success of a Block-chain solution as compared to the ill-fated video game. Anyone think that's worth explaining? [[User:Da_NKP|Da_NKP]] 10:15, 8 August 2018 (UTC) Da_NKP

What motive is there to "mine DemocracyCoin"? Who evaluates this blockchain? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.150.100|162.158.150.100]] 22:27, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
:That's simple, ideally it would be a private blockchain, and the evaluators would just be every voting computer in existence (They'd all be active for a similar fairly short time period). Presumably the evaluations would be ongoing during the voting process, then could be stopped once voting was complete. The last few votes of the night may not wind up being evaluated. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.225|162.158.74.225]]
::"The last few votes of the night may not wind up being evaluated" Thats horrifying. That alone should prove how terrible of an idea this is. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.181|162.158.154.181]] 17:14, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
:::The current system regularly throws away millions of votes because every step in the process has a strict deadline, and that's before outside processes interfere.[[User:Sailorleo|Sailorleo]] ([[User talk:Sailorleo|talk]]) 15:55, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be possible to run said blockchain on one's personal computer, instead of running on a voting machine? and you could compile open source software yourself to perform the voting. That sounds like a solid enough way to keep security fine to me, but if I'm missing something, please tell me. [[User:Gjgfuj|TheSandromatic]] ([[User talk:Gjgfuj|talk]]) 03:25, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
:The bigger challenge in a voting system isn't making sure someone doesn't modify the record, it's making sure that each person only votes once and only for themselves -- think about past internet voting campaigns: Justin Bieber wasn't sent to North Korea by *changed* votes, but rather by flooding the system with *bogus* votes. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.132.47|172.68.132.47]] 06:26, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
::To be a bit clearer, magic beans (for example), doesn't and can't enforce that wallets correspond one-to-one with people -- multiple people can share a wallet (if they all know the private key), and one person can have multiple wallets. If you want to guarantee one-to-one correspondence, you have to validate identities and issue unique, signed keys at some prior point. Leaving aside whether or not it's possible to do this part securely and without error (and how big of a target the root signing key would be), you then have millions of people doing their own key management, just like you do with magic beans. When magic beans wallets are stolen en masse by key compromises (which does happen), only the wallet owners (who were ostensibly using poor security practices which allowed the compromise) suffer, so the harm is limited. If voting system keys were stolen en masse, but the votes still counted, society as a whole would likely suffer. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.132.47|172.68.132.47]] 07:03, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

I think a problem that lies within voting machines is that a single flaw can and will be exploited along all machines.
You wouldn't enter a plane if one plane crashing means that all other planes will crash too.

I am not American and not so inside American politics and its system, but I think there right now is (or just was) some kind of vote in Ohio? Randalls other comic about voting machines, ([[463]])references Ohio directly as well. Even if not, that comic should definitely be referenced here. If no one else does I will in a few hours when I come home from work. [[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 08:11, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
:There was a special election for Ohio's 12th Congressional District on Tuesday to fill in a vacant spot in the US House of Representatives, yes. I hadn't heard anything specifically about any issues with Ohio's voting machines, though I do somewhat vaguely remember Randall making a comic that expressed horror at the fact that a voting machine needed anti-virus software in the first place. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.63.154|162.158.63.154]] 12:58, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

I guess this may be of interest for reasons why not to have electroni voting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI [[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.13|162.158.154.13]]

Wait, so I'm not into this *at all*, but a bunch of you seem to be, so:
paper ballot voting works because we can assume the humans we choose to count oue votes to be trustworthy. Imagine that as the digital voting device, we use a cheapo Chinaphone. We remove any parts needed for wireless connection, and all USB ports and AUX ports (which are the only ports on such a device) are filled with hot glue (so, destroyed). Some of them are designed in an awkward way where you have to take the backside off in order to access the SD card, which normally is disadvantageous, but now it means that you can use a sort of sturdy phone cover with a physical lock to make the SD card inaccessible to anyone not owning the key. The key is with the trustworthy human that would otherwise hold the key for the box the paper votes go in. You could glue or screw the charger to it, so it was always full and you couldn't put a USB stick into that port without breaking the actual thing - and the trustworthy voting office humans would notice that. If it saves all votes on some SD card, the humans we trust to work for the voting can take the SD cards out, and bring them to a central computer that also has no wireless parts, and some trustworthy humans watching the SD ports. That central computer saves all the votes and counts them.
If you doctor with paper votes, then you'd have to destroy them or there'd be evidence against you. Destroying them is not safe to do.
If something seems fishy, then paper votes can be recounted.
If you have a voting machine that only a trustworthy person has access to, then that means that this trustworthy person has to build every part of the machine from the smallest transistor on and also has to guard the machine the whole time. Because otherwise you could manipulate the machine in a way to count the votes wrong, but show correct results when you test it. Since this is completely unpractical in the end you'd have to count by hand anyway.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.251|162.158.91.251]] 12:53, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
:Or just use paper ballots. They have been a perfectly adequate solution for centuries, and will continue to do so forever (and no, the paper usage for voting is not really significant, compared to the paper usage overall). [[Special:Contributions/162.158.202.64|162.158.202.64]] 20:00, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
If also we delete any and all software and firmware on the phones and central computer, and replace it by a piece of software that can literally only show you a multiple choice screen with names of candidates and save what you clicked, that sounds quite safe.
Carrying the SD cards to the central computer would still take time, but we're carrying much smaller things so it might speed up somewhat (less stuff to haul around), and the voting can be done nearly as fast as the central computer can read in the SD cards.
No strange SD cards go into the central machine since they're carried by the same trustworthy human that counts the paper votes.

Yet another issue that paper ballot voting gives us that electronic voting can hardly support is "deniability" of votes: after the fact, you cannot claim to have voted for anyone in particular, so you cannot be bribed or coerced to vote for a given party. This is a very essential and often overlooked property of any voting system.

What things will go wrong? Zillions, I'm sure. But what zillions? I'm curious!
A modern processor can't run without it's own software layer. If you want to transfer the data - even if only from an SD card to a local hard drive - then you'd need about seven layers, from which many have sublayers. The lowest level, which is the hardware level, consists on another plethora of levels. If just one transistor is modified by an attacker - or the layout of the transistors or a part of the CPU or a part of the hdd-controller or a part of the SD card controller or... many other things. Then this could lead to the attacker modifying the result of the vote.
There are thousands of attack points that start before the voting machine reaches it's target. Then there are attacking vectors that target the SD-card even before there's any voting data on it. (There are SD-card viruses that survive formatting and those aren't even on a hardware level) If you want a decently safe voting machine that costs less than a billion $ to make, then you should use a purely mechanical design. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.90.90|162.158.90.90]] 10:22, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

You could all reference Brazil for how an electronic voting system works. It changed in the late 90s after a major country-wide voting fraud scandal that revealed that most of the vote counters in the whole country were unreliable, partisan, bribed or all three; to the point any recount would bring a vastly different result. The Brazilian public lost all faith in the paper ballots and the Federal Electoral Tribunal had to implement an electronic voting system to reacquire voter trust in the voting system.

Twenty years later the public in general still trust the system more than the paper ballot but the losing side in presidential elections always cry afoul about the machines being tampered with (Even though the political parties that complained about fraud for losing the presidential election ended up winning the majority of the seats in both congress and senate, as well as state governships. But, you see, for those elections the system is foolproof, even though they're all done at the same time in the same voting machines.)
: Please sign your comments. The issue is a reduction of points of failure. In a paper ballot system, you have tens of thousands of humans being observed by each other and representatives of interested parties and judges doing the counting. A single malicious person would have to go to incredible effort to hide their miscountings, and then would only be able to change a hundred votes or so. In an electronic voting system, all it takes is one person to do an SD card swap and boom: tens of thousands of votes are changed. One person can change the code on the central counting system that reads the SD cards, and boom: millions of votes are changed. The fact that so much effort would be needed to change the result in a paper ballot system is a security feature. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.231|162.158.62.231]] 12:00, 11 August 2018 (UTC)
::And anyway, you're describing more or less [https://app.chicagoelections.com/documents/Judge-Handbook/EJ_Handbook_P2018_ch7.pdf what already happens] in an election. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.58.11|172.68.58.11]] 13:54, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

When paper votes need to be re-counted, it's easy: a vote is valid if there is a croos marking at exactly one candidate row. It's possible to implement this in software: store each "paper" as a separate file, and sing it with the voter's private key! Oh, wait, on real paper you don't add your signature because the vote is meant to be anonymous? Tough luck, as long as electronic votes are secret votes, there will be no way to make them re-countable reliably. {{unsigned ip|141.101.76.82}}

2898: Orbital Argument

2024-02-26T12:58:53Z

172.70.90.29: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 2898
| date = February 23, 2024
| title = Orbital Argument
| image = orbital_argument_2x.png
| imagesize = 448x323px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = "Some people say light is waves, and some say it's particles, so I bet light is some in-between thing that's both wave and particle depending on how you look at it. Am I right?" "YES, BUT YOU SHOULDN'T BE!"
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an ARGUMENTATIVE ORBITAL ELEMENT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
In this comic, [[White Hat]] is using the {{w|Argument to moderation|middle ground fallacy}} to try to make a compromise between the positions of [[Cueball]] and [[Megan]].

Cueball appears to be asserting a {{w|geocentric}} viewpoint, whilst Megan adheres to a {{w|heliocentric}} one, an argument that has actually long been settled in the latter's favor. White Hat, however, considers it {{wiktionary|politic#Adjective|politic}} to 'split the difference' and declares his intention to compromise with a 'middle' option, to try to uncritically please both parties. (Though it's probable that he may instead just equally annoy them both!)

By one way of looking at it, it happens that he is also correct. Because two bodies exert equal but opposite gravitational forces on each other, each orbits around the average location of the other, and therefore they both orbit a common center. This {{w|Barycenter (astronomy)|barycenter}} is located somewhere between the centers of the two bodies; the distance of each body's center of mass from the barycenter is proportional to the other body's mass. This is most apparent in systems where the two bodies have similar masses, but it is present to an extent in all orbital pairs, even when one body is far more massive than the other. For this reason, Earth does not orbit the center of the stationary Sun as described by the heliocentric model. However, the Earth-Sun barycenter is only slightly different from the Sun's own true center, still well within the Sun. It is around this which the Sun wobbles, in contrast to the way the Earth orbits around this unequally proportioned midpoint.

The Earth-Moon barycenter is located approximately ¾ of the way from Earth's center of mass to its surface, towards the Moon's center of mass. Our tidal bulges (oceanic and otherwise) occur along that line. One bulge is towards the Moon because of the gravitational attraction, and the other is in the opposite direction, by centrifugal force from the Earth's rotation around the barycenter.

The equivalent Jupiter-Sun barycenter, meanwhile, is located just ''above'' the 'surface' of the Sun due to the masses involved being not as different (but still significantly so), and the much greater distance between them. As each of the planets and the Sun are simultaneously orbiting/'being orbited' (and every planet also measurably pulls on every other, etc, even discounting every smaller and/or more distant body in the universe), the combined solar-system's barycenter is a less simply-defined point (that being more likely to be within the Sun, at any given point of time), which can often be considered to more simply average out to "<each planet> orbits the Sun" for most purposes, and Cueball is therefore ''least'' correct, and it would be a false solution to give his worldview an equivalence of validity.

That White Hat has worded his compromise solution in a way that (arguably) encompasses the deeper truth of the barycentric viewpoint is not treated as justifying his mediating approach. It is clearly understood (by someone who seems to understand the complexities, e.g. a {{w|Randall Munroe#NASA|NASA physicist}}) that White Hat's 'successful' conclusion is just accidental. Which is vexatious. This seems to be a case of a {{w|Gettier problem}}: White Hat reaches a true statement via unjustified logic.

The title text extends the principle of the comic's astronomical viewpoint down to the correspondingly opposing 'quantum world'. For various well-studied reasons, light is often described ''either'' as particles ''or'' as waves. White Hat's approach would be to give both viewpoints equal credit and suggest a compromising middle-ground explanation. In this case, also, he would have the {{w|Wave–particle duality|correct answer}} but, in the continuing view of an increasingly exasperated witness to his chronic {{w|False balance|"half-and-half"ism}}, not through actually correct reasoning.

Another example of the middle ground fallacy was used in [[690: Semicontrolled Demolition]], although in that case the person offering the compromise solution was not portrayed as getting the right answer by accident.

Orbits of celestial bodies are quantified using a set of parameters called orbital elements. Some of these parameters are commonly known as arguments, such as the {{w|Argument of periapsis}}. However, these kind of arguments tend to lead to consensus rather than disagreements. Independent measurements of the arguments might indeed be combined by taking the mean (to discover the middle ground).

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[From left to right, Cueball, White Hat and Megan standing. Cueball and Megan are arguing. Cueball is raising a finger while Megan's arms are outstretched. White Hat stands between them, both hands out in an equivocal gesture.]
:Cueball: The sun orbits the earth!
:Megan: The earth orbits the sun!
:White Hat: When two people disagree, the truth is always somewhere in the middle. Maybe the earth and the sun orbit a common center!

:[Caption below the panel:]
:It's annoying when people are right by accident.
{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Physics]]
[[Category:Logic]]
[[Category:Compromise]]

explain xkcd:Community portal/Proposals

2024-02-19T13:34:54Z

172.70.90.29: /* New Logo and Banner Proposals */

<noinclude>{{Community links}}

{|-
|valign="top" width="100%"|[[File:Crystal Clear app ktip.png|left|120px]] <big><big>Proposals</big></big>

Place for ideas and suggestions to improve the wiki's design and organization on general issues can be incubated for later submission for consensus discussion. Be sure to check whether your proposal has already been submitted. {{AddNewSection|Page=Explain XKCD:Community portal/Proposals|Text=(+post)}}
|}

= Discussion Area =
</noinclude>

== Add unexplained strips ==

At the moment, browsing through the explanations using the previous and next buttons is interrupted whenever there's an explanation missing.

I think adding a page with the strip fr all of those with a short message like "no one has explained this yet, want to give it a shot?" would make the wiki easier to browse through and will get more strips explained faster.

:I don't think that would happen. If suddenly it was much easier for people to skip over pages that had no explanation, I think they would do exactly that, skip right over it. On the same side of that coin, If suddenly there are no longer any red links on the [[List of all comics]] then everyone perusing that page assumes that all the comics have been explained and don't need to contribute any more. It's astonishing how quickly an [[589: Designated Drivers|embedded]] red link gets an explanation page created simply to get rid of the red link.

:Secondarily, ''many'' of the pages created recently aren't being created with their numerical and titular redirects. Without the numerical redirect, the comic template can't find that there is a previous/next comic to link to. Every once in a while somebody will go through and try to notice all the pages that don't have their redirects created but it's an unscientific process that only happens occasionally. If we could get every joe blow that comes in and vomits up a poorly done explanation to create the redirects I wouldn't be quite as annoyed at their lack of show-don't-tell-manship. But, since they can't be bothered to put the date in the comic template, I doubt we'll ever get people to create the redirects.

:'''TL;DR:''' No more red links, no more work gets done on the back catalog.

:--[[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 14:28, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

== xplainkcd.com ==

When I first saw this site I thought it should definitely be at xplainkcd.com or at least redirect from that url {{unsigned|115.166.22.158|12:45, 3 January 2013 (UTC)}}

: I like that idea! --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 13:28, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

:Yeah! If it's possible, it would be cool! At least as a redirect. -- [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 15:46, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

:Not technically the same thing, but I just took [http://expxkcd.com http://expxkcd.com]. More explanation <del>is</del> was given on the website itself. {{User:Grep/signature|05:10, 29 March 2014}}
::We do that with explainxkcd.com as well, but yay shorter URLs! Mind if I use that for our social media links? '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 06:45, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
:::I had no idea that you did that, but sure, go ahead! If you want, I can change any DNS records if you wish to have it go directly to you guys. {{User:Grep/signature|07:16, 29 March 2014}}
:::In case you were wondering, I just did the following: <code>^/([0-9]+)(/large)?/?$</code> {{User:Grep/signature|07:25, 29 March 2014}}
::::Hrm. We're just matching with <code>^(\d+)/?$</code>. You can keep ownership of the URL if you want, unless you have traffic concerns or whatever and you want us to handle it, which we're very capable of doing. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 08:47, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

I have made http://www.xkcd.ga and http://www.xkcd.tk both forward to http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page. Is this ok? [[User:17jiangz1|17jiangz1]] ([[User talk:17jiangz1|talk]]) 08:49, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

== Section style and usage ==

I am new here and I'm trying to get up to speed with the culture. I have a few questions about how and where to use sections (== this ==). I am more willing to go with (and enforce) whatever norms there are here, but I have not seen them actually discussed.

# '''Is it OK to create sections in Discussion pages?''' I have been told no, but there are many examples extant of this usage in this Wiki and indeed in Wikipedia.
# '''Section title case''' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Capital_letters#Acronyms Wikipedia's style guide] recommends sentence case, not title case. There are many title cased section headers here.
# '''Links''' I do not have a reference for this but it seems to me putting links in section code (== [[<nowiki>this</nowiki>]] == ) is bad form.

Last note -- it's understood if these bylaws have not yet been written. I can see that a few of you have made a huge personal investment to make this Wiki what it is today, and that is a credit to you all -- this is awesome! As a long-time aficionado of xkcd I applaud your work and look forward to further collaboration.
--[[User:Smartin|Smartin]] ([[User talk:Smartin|talk]]) 04:15, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

:As a general rule, we stick to the standard format that existing pages follow, with an optional trivia section below the transcript. Some zealous editors like to add other sections though, which tend to be for the most part unneeded or redundant. If something you want to add doesn't help to explain the comic in some way, but the inclusion of which would somehow still add to the page, *and* it doesn't fall under the trivia category, a new section is warranted. This isn't the case most of the time though, so editors usually fold the content of extraneous sections into "Explanation" or "Trivia." We have no policy on links in titles, and they're allowed so long as they are appropriate; the link is useful and can't be folded into the section itself. And we use title case for titles cuz it just makes sense. '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 05:08, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

:We generally do not (or at least, discourage) use sections on the talk/discussion pages for explanation pages. This is purely for looks. The comic discussion section of the explanation page looks/feels wrong if there are level 2 section breaks in the transclusion. Also, if the [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Table_of_contents Table of Contents] starts showing up on a page, such as on [[Click and Drag]] the sections created on the talk page also show up in the TOC. This gets confusing, and this is why we prefer not to use them on explanation talk pages. Everywhere else we follow standard wiki format and do use sections on the discussion pages.

:Personally, I think that links in section titles looks wrong, but I choose not to be the dictator of style in this matter. :p

:Please feel free to make edits. The worst that happens is someone reverts your edit. If it's a big enough issue and/or you don't seem to be learning from what people are fixing about your edits someone will leave a comment on your talk page. That's it. We might leave a nasty-gram in the edit summary, but oh well. We only ban for malicious intent. Honestly working to better the wiki is good, even if sometimes we grumble about it.

:--[[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 07:00, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

::Oh, I just looked at your talk page. I completely forgot that that happened. Don't worry about it. Learning the ropes is part of the experience. Do make edits, and if they're wrong, we'll nudge you in the right direction. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 07:18, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

I have been moving some trivia sections to directly below the explanation, in order to make it more consistent, and easier to survey and maintain. Often the dividing line between trivia and explanation is not entirely clear, and in articles without a trivia section the end of the explanation very often contains trivia-like information. (e.g. [[1155: Kolmogorov Directions]]) -- [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 10:13, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
===Title case doesn't make any sense===
At first sight title case in titles just makes sense. However title case '''never''' makes sense. It's worse than all caps. Besides, only Americans and children like title case. [[Special:Contributions/190.96.48.48|190.96.48.48]] 20:04, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

==New character==
As per [[Talk:1178: Pickup Artists]], the character with hair has appeared in quite a few comics now, and he's starting to become a recurring character. Shall we go ahead with inaugurating him into our list of regular characters, and what name shall we assign him? Current candidate names include Hairy and Harry. Anyone? '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 00:07, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

: I like Harry :) --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 01:04, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
::Cos made a point in the discussion on [[Talk:1178: Pickup Artists]] that Hairy is directly descriptive, whereas Harry is not obvious to visitors. On the other hand, not all names are descriptive ([[Danish]]) and I think this wiki is entitled to create some xkcd-in-culture, and not just describe. And Harry is quite funny.
::I wonder: has [[Randall]] ever called him anything at all in the transcript? –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 21:52, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
:::Well, he's not named in a any official transcripts, but he's already called Harry in quite a few comic explanations. Then again, I do like having a more descriptive name for him. Shall we hold this up to a vote? '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 23:29, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
::::I think we should wait a little for a few more viewpoints to crop up. Also, can someone link to some more comics he's been featured in? I've got [[1028: Communication]], [[1027: Pickup Artist]] and [[1178: Pickup Artists]]. –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 23:41, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
:::::I actually like what that anon said: ''Curly''. Second choice: Hairy (being descriptive, a la Black Hat, Beret, Cueball, etc.) While there's talk about in-culture, we've done that with the names Cueball, Beret, etc. It's my opinion that the only names that should be "real" proper names are those that are named in the comic. Megan, Miss Lenhart, etc. Danish (as is discussed below) isn't truly a proper name, but you could argue it's a meta-description (one attributed by Black hat.) So that's my vote: yes for '''Curly''' or '''Hairy''', no for Harry. [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 05:21, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
:::That's right, [[Danish]] is not descriptive, but 1/ that name was suggested because the character [[515: No One Must Know|was called that way in the comic]], which is a tiny bit like a name given by the author (at least more than Harry which we have completely made up), and 2/ in that case it's hard to find a descriptive term: use something that revolves around her black hair (her only descriptive feature), and you easily mix up with [[Megan]]; the only graphical difference is that her hair is ''long'', but what kind of name can you make out of that?
:::For this new character, I suggest Hairy because it comes as the easy solution with every advantage: descriptive, easy to understand, and it's not ugly... I actually see no reason to resort to a made-up name like Harry.
:::[[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 22:29, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

: '''Alright. So the discussion's been had, and the most oft recommended name appears to be Hairy. All in favor, say aye. If more than 1/3 of editors agree and we have more than 6 votes, Hairy it is.''' '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 05:58, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
:# '''Aye''' '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 05:58, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
:# '''Aye''' [[User:Guru-45|Guru-45]] ([[User talk:Guru-45|talk]]) 06:14, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
:# '''Aye''' to Hairy. [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 15:43, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
:# '''Aye'''. Harry would be a nice nod to the fact that he's actually hairy, but indeed it's better to avoid inside jokes. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 17:05, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
:# '''Aye'''. I'm convinced! –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 17:52, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
:# '''Aye'''. Hairy. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 20:52, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
::Hooray! We now have a [[:Category:Comics featuring Hairy]], with four pages already! Does anyone feel compelled to create "[[Hairy]]", with a brief description and a nice profile pic like the other characters? –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 22:58, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

== Ambiguous characters ==

I've been thinking about the problem of the ambiguity of characters. "Is this really Cueball even though he has an eye and half a nose?", "This is very likely ''not'' x." "Darnit, these arn't Cueballs, these are Randall and his friends!", and so on. The character ambiguity is standard for xkcd (not less so in the early ones), and comes from the very loose or "free" way Randall uses his characters to be whatever he needs at the moment. It's simply often impossible for us to know whether he had e.g. "Cueball" or himself in mind, when drawing a particular comic (and I'd say: probably often both).

I want to suggest that we in general have a likewise rather loose policy towards including characters in the categories for the comics. So that reasonably ambiguous cases should be included in e.g. (does she have a ponytail?) This is not because I believe this or that to really be this or that; I just don't believe in objective truth (here!). I feel that when doing research :) on a character, the borderline cases are often the most interesting ones, and you want to be able to find them through the "Comics featuring miss x"!

I came to think this through now, when I wanted to (and did) list two comics with [[Miss Lenhart]] (?) where she was drawn but not named. Any thoughts on this in general? Other case studies? –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 21:17, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
:My take has always been that [[Cueball]], for example, has not been a specific character. There is not ''a'' cueball, per se, distinct from any other cueball... indeed, there are several comics with several cueballs in-frame, and that is the point. I see the cueball character as a wildcard character (pun intended) ready to stand in for anybody (and ''not'' necessarily just Randall; I think those readers who suggest "this ''is'' Randall" are missing the point; he's way more META than that...) [[Megan]], while slightly less generic, still remains the female wild-card significant-other, while Curls seems to be a not-significant-other female used to illustrate a relationship that is transient. Other characters come and go, and when it's important to visually distinguish them from others in the frame, they're given additional characteristics, to wit [[Hairy]], [[Ponytail]], etc.
:Unfortunately, that viewpoint is not commonly held, so I daresay I'm in the minority here.
:-- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 14:18, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

== Note at the top, about the server error ==

:''This thread was moved to [[MediaWiki talk:Sitenotice]]''

== I've removed "add a comment!" from Discussion heading ==

This does move it to above the line, and the rule stops early. Undo my change if that's more bothering than when the TOC is displayed as "add a comment!Discussion"...

I don't know how to automatically treat level 2 headers as level 3. That may be why Discussion was a level 1 heading earlier.
[[User:Markhurd|Mark Hurd]] ([[User talk:Markhurd|talk]]) 11:16, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
:Actually I now noticed there was a short edit war at {{tl|comic discussion}} over whether it should be a level 1 heading, just for this reason. [[User:Waldir]] seems to have conceeded... [[User:Markhurd|Mark Hurd]] ([[User talk:Markhurd|talk]]) 11:25, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

:: No edit war, hence no (intentional) concession. I reverted a change once, and didn't notice the change being re-implemented by another user. In any case, it is irrelevant now since we actively discourage using headers in talk pages precisely so that they don't display in the TOC for the main comic page, where the discussion page is transcluded to (see the discussion [[#Section style and usage|above]]). This might not scale well for comics that generate lots of discussion. It might be worth discussing our customs (and perhaps write them down somewhere) before performing such changes. What do others think? --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 11:49, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

== Time: The Table ==

Right now on the page [[1190: Time]], we have a whole bunch of tables in the form image-time-hash. The tables take up heaps of vertical space and all have to be collapsed to even be remotely traversible. I propose that we aggregate all the images into one table after Time ends, like so:

{| class="wikitable plainlinks table-padding"
|-
!Image
!Time
!Image
!Time
!Image
!Time
!Image
!Time
|-
|[[Media:time.png|00:00]]||01/00:00||[[Media:time.png|10:00]]||01/10:00||[[Media:time.png|20:00]]||01/20:00||[[Media:time.png|30:00]]||AND MOAR SAMPLE DATAS
|-
|[[Media:time.png|00:30]]||01/00:30||[[Media:time.png|10:30]]||01/10:30||[[Media:time.png|20:30]]||01/20:30||[[Media:time.png|30:30]]||AND MOAR SAMPLE DATAS
|}

The hash values aren't really a part of the comic, they're gibberish for the most part and they take up space that could be used to compact the table, as shown above. Even if we are conservative and make the table only five columns wide to account for smaller screens, we've divided scrolling time by five and eliminated much of the need for annoying collapsed tables and section headers for each day. Constructing the table shouldn't be particularly hard either, as all our current data is in nice regular tables with clear patterns that are easy enough to parse through.

I'm putting this here because the organization of the frame entries would be unintuitive and difficult to change from the edit window, which would make it a poor choice when we're still expanding it and don't even know how long the comic will continue for. It's merely a space-saving trick for after we're sure that the comic is over. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 09:26, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

:Oh and it'd be really nice if other people could also upload images if you're awake and a new one rolls by. There's gaps in the image record every time I wake up, and I dun likey. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 11:34, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
:Good work so far; go ahead make it better! :) –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 08:34, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

==Featured Explanation, and Archival?==

* Wikipedia has featured content. Now that we are close to reaching the goal of all comics explained, I think it makes more sense to have a "featured explanation" which would serve as a sort of a marker for a complete and good explanation. Many comics, and almost all charts are not fully explained/not a good quality explanation.

* We should set up archival of discussion of the most discussed pages, like this one. Its not very pleasing to see comments from July 2012 still lying around here. It becomes hectic at some point.

Just my 2 cents, feel free to discuss. Cheers,
[[Special:Contributions/117.194.88.180|117.194.88.180]] 13:36, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

:We dedicate this wiki to explaining xkcd, and we do actually have a featured comic feature; it changes every week on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and we usually manage to fill out the explanation for it within an hour or so of it going up. The most recent comic tends to be the one that most people visiting the wiki care about, so we give it prime space on the front page so they can find it easily. xkcd updates frequently enough that there isn't really that big of a time window for us to feature an article on our front page. Also, we're a volunteer project with quite a bit less manpower than Wikipedia.
:We do need to archive talk pages though. Some of these are getting ridiculously long. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 14:04, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
::I agree with Davidy22. Archiving topics can be done by anyone, by moving resolved threads to the portal section's corresponding [[explain xkcd talk:Community portal/Proposals|talk page]]. We could start with the threads marked "✓ Closed". [[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 17:42, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

:: The reason I asked for a "featured explanation" was because many of the comic explanations we currently have are sub-par, and we're almost at our initial goal of explaining all comics. A "featured explanation" would drive our editors towards the goal of having complete and good explanation towards all comics, and would allow us to know which explanations need elaboration.
:: P.S. My definition of complete explanation would be - To have a good explanation, To have all categories relevant, To link to any comics related and To explain any technical portions of the comic.
:: [[Special:Contributions/117.194.82.49|117.194.82.49]] 07:45, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
:::That message on the front page is going to link to all the pages marked by the incomplete template. If you find an unsatisfactory explanation, please mark it with <nowiki>{{incomplete}}</nowiki> '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 07:54, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
:::: By my definition, I think all comics will be incomplete. An incomplete template will be focused more towards improving the worst explanations, while a featured one will be to improve the best ones. Since we already have the former, we should focus on the latter. Just my 2 cents. [[Special:Contributions/117.194.85.82|117.194.85.82]] 06:55, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

== Split the list of all comics ==

[[List of all comics]] is getting larger and larger, which makes it hard to read and hard to edit. How about splitting into parts, say [[List of all comics/1-1000]], [[List of all comics/1001-2000]], etc., or something to that effect? --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 17:39, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

: Done. [[Special:Contributions/117.194.88.176|117.194.88.176]] 10:03, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
::Great job, thanks! [[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 11:09, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
:::And I've added back [[List of all comics (full)]], which allows, for example, listing all comics by alphabetical order.[[User:Markhurd|Mark Hurd]] ([[User talk:Markhurd|talk]]) 17:29, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

== Sidebar ads ==

''Moved from [[Talk:Main Page]] –– [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 08:06, 4 May 2013 (UTC)''

Are they generating significant money? The ones I see are pretty sleazy looking and/or scammy - "Power Companies Hate this Device! - click here to break the laws of thermodynamics!" and "Debt relief program click here to lose more money". How much money are they generating? Can you set any selections to remove the sleazy ads? [[User:J-beda|J-beda]] ([[User talk:J-beda|talk]]) 18:30, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
:Do we have sleazy sidebar ads? Since when? Thanks Google Chrome and AdBlock, I had no idea! –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 07:47, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
::People give 20$ a pop to get a bunch of clicks on explainxkcd, and Jeff uses that money to buy a faster server with a hard drive that doesn't have less space than a public toilet with an elephant in it. It'd be really nice if you didn't turn on adblock, the money is appreciated. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 08:47, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
:::It's a question of me not turning it off specifically every time I visit this site. More importantly, I do think people would be more likely to click the "donate" if it weren't irrelevant ads around it. –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 19:29, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
:::Generating money is a great thing. Getting "20$ a pop to get a bunch of clicks" is a bit unclear. Do the ads only generate revenue when clicked on? So EXKCD only gets money when someone actually falls for the sleazy ads? I know lots of people do not like Google - but at least their adsense stuff is relevant to the content of the website, which might generate some legitimate traffic for a legitimate advertiser.... [[User:J-beda|J-beda]] ([[User talk:J-beda|talk]]) 11:48, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
::::Welllll, I didn't pick the ad supplier. You could bring it up with [[User talk:Jeff|Jeff]] if you want, I think he picked the ad provider on basis of which one had a mediawiki plugin or something. If you can link Jeff to a quick and easy way to put adsense on mediawiki, he should change it quickly enough. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 14:21, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
:::::And I also gather then that they are only a temporary thing? -- [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 08:27, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
::::::Until we can buy a server that doesn't poop itself every time a new comic is released, the ads are staying. If you want them to go away sooner, throw more money at Jeff. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 09:25, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
::::::: The ads are crap. For sure. Wish I didn't have to run them, but I don't trust donations alone to hold up continually some better hosting. The ads really don't bring in that much $$$. I had google adsense before, but Google shutdown my adsense account for unnamed reason after 1 week. This new ad service is way sketchier. If you all think they don't have a place here, I'll ax 'em. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 16:02, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
::::::: Thanks for the info Jeff. How much ad money are we talking about? Is it calculated on how many ads are displayed or how many are clicked-through? How close to the goal is the server fund? How about a Kickstarter campaign for the server? $10 gets your name on a thankyou webpage or something like that. [[User:J-beda|J-beda]] ([[User talk:J-beda|talk]]) 17:32, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
:::::::: It ain't much, last I looked it was $2 or $3 in 2 weeks. I believe it is based on clicks, it is not nearly as clear as Google adsense. I'm not really interested in doing a Kickstarter. I think the donations will cover the initial start up, I just want to be able to cover the monthly costs as well. A few things are still up in the air. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 16:24, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
:::::::::Can you find a way to show the donations and ad income on the site, to make it transparent? ––[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 15:30, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
::::::::: How about a donation amount that you'll take to turn it (the annoying unethical scummy ads) off for a year? Give me a dollar value and I might step up for the good of us all! [[User:J-beda|J-beda]] ([[User talk:J-beda|talk]]) 16:28, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
Since Project wonderful shut down, I block ads even on explainxkcd. The adds are simple and not colourful, which I like, but being part of Google Adsense I block them for keeping my my privacy. I am sad to do this but until there is another, better way to serve them, I have to.

== Economic transparency ==

I think this is very important: How can we make the donations and ad-income transparent, so that we all can see when and how much money is coming in, and how far we are from reaching our goal? – [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 00:35, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
: Sounds fine to me, I think I can put something together. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 15:52, 28 May 2013 (UTC)
::Hi, may I bump this issue? Or maybe you have done something, and I missed it? Anyway, I would still appreciate it! –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 17:43, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
:::Numberssss. I'll get on with it, just need less homework and a few more numbers. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 07:54, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

I would like to respectfully file a complain. I find the banner advertisement of background checks distasteful. [[User:Benjaminikuta|Benjaminikuta]] ([[User talk:Benjaminikuta|talk]]) 05:10, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
: Hey [[User:Benjaminikuta|Benjaminikuta]] - I am the one who approved those ads. But, since you have filed a complaint about them, I have gone ahead and removed them. Thanks. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 12:52, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

I thank you. [[User:Benjaminikuta|Benjaminikuta]] ([[User talk:Benjaminikuta|talk]]) 03:36, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

== Using <nowiki><nowiki></nowiki></nowiki> in transcripts to improve accuracy ==

In the transcripts, <nowiki>[[lines]]</nowiki> are being changed to [lines] in order to avoid auto-linking. Why not just surround these with <nowiki><nowiki></nowiki></nowiki> tags and avoid the problem entirely? --[[User:Epauley|Epauley]] ([[User talk:Epauley|talk]]) 04:18, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
:Because it takes less time to type and single brackets are just as readable as double brackets to visitors. It's also a bit more readable in the editor. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 09:55, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

== Strip Title ==

For someone who commonly browses explainxkcd in place of xkcd, and hence often see the strips for the first time here rather than the parent site, I find it somewhat odd that the 'Title Text' is so poorly displayed given how critical it can be to the strip.

I propose that, while retaining the given name (perhaps moving it top left), the title text be enlarged and relocated to being over the strip as originally intended. {{unsigned ip|175.41.133.18}}
:The title text is placed very well at bottom of the image.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 07:20, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

:I would have to agree with Dgbrt, it's placed nicely at the bottom, and there is no need for it to be moved. My reasoning is that you never actually read the title text first, you read it last. Making it <code>text-align: left;</code> does not make sense, because the image is centered (just like on xkcd.com). I also believe that there is no need for it to be re-sized, mainly due to the fact that it is slightly larger than the title text (for me, at least). {{User:Grep/signature|05:18, 08 September 2013}}

:Plus, if you hover over the image, it's the same as on xkcd.com {{User:Grep/signature|06:13, 08 September 2013}}

:I also agree with Dgbrt and Grep. The title text is kind of a bonus and should not be emphasized more than on the original page. On the original site you only see it before the image, if you have very slow internet access (or very fast eyes) --[[User:Chtz|Chtz]] ([[User talk:Chtz|talk]]) 08:06, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

== Sections in talk pages ==

Is there a reason why there are no sections in talk pages? It is not a very big deal, but especially for longer talk pages it would make editing be much handier, especially when using the preview function (not having to find the section every time). Also it automatically adds a description to the history (thus makes it more easy to look for certain edits, or decide by just looking at the [[Special:RecentChanges]], if a comment should concern you. --[[User:Chtz|Chtz]] ([[User talk:Chtz|talk]]) 08:01, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
:When discussion pages are transcluded by the comic discussion template, section headers carry over from talk pages and bad things happen. Using ; to denote headers instead of equals signs works well, and doesn't share transclusion pain. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 08:04, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

== references ==

Any chance we can add [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Cite/Cite.php cite.php] to this wiki? Most pages don't need it, but some comics take on a life of their own and being able to add reference tags would be really helpful for those. [[User:LadyMondegreen|LadyMondegreen]] ([[User talk:LadyMondegreen|talk]]) 01:33, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
: Cite has been added to the wiki. Thanks for the suggestion! --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 01:35, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

== Stylized writing ==

I understand that this wiki isn't as formal as wikipedia or sites like that but it seems that there are a few questionable practices:

1. The use of questions - when a non-rhetorical or unnecessary question is entered into the explanation.

2. Extremely painted/biased view points - when there is obvious bias in the tone of the explanation of the contributor, in other
words; a lack of neutrality.

3. Extreme repetition/rehashing - the explanation restates things and makes for a long and tedious read when a more straight-forward explanation is possible and clearer.

4. The general informality - "This one's an easy one" "This is simple" "this one's straightforward" "You're an idiot for not understanding this one" etc.

5. Many other practices that make the explanation hard to read, difficult to understand, or plain ugly.

I know that there are disparaging view points on how a comic should be explained, but please let's clean up the site a bit, acknowledge each view point and report on all of them and then tighten up the sloppy writing. Carry out arguments in the talk section, not the explanation. Perhaps we could first try to say the majority view point on the interpretation and then write the alternate explanations, of course this would bring up the debate on which is the majority explanation. Either way, more complete, logical explanations should be given more credence. --[[User:Lackadaisical|Lackadaisical]] ([[User talk:Lackadaisical|talk]]) 00:25, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

:I agree with 2-5. 1, on the other hand, is sometimes useful and can contribute the to explanation, although 1 is still a very good point. I would say that you should edit it to have "arguments in the talk" be a 6th point as well. Unfortunately, though, we are not all logical, comic-understanding machines here, so minor deviations of these rules are still to be expected. But I think that overall, these are good rules, even if 2/3 are sort of part of 5.
:[[User:Lackadaisical|Lackadaisical]], please sign your post with <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki>{{User:Grep/signature|23:55, 22 October 2013}}

:I understand the use of questions in certain parts. And it was probably better to put the others as sub-categories to five but I wanted to show some common things that can be easily fixed. I know that some explanations require a lot of text and extensive research because of the abstract subjects Randall deals with and that it's difficult to be completely standardized but I think it would be good for us to try to come up with some general things to try to avoid to help the explanations "flow" --[[User:Lackadaisical|Lackadaisical]] ([[User talk:Lackadaisical|talk]]) 00:25, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
::Most of that isn't intentional, it's just an awful lot of labor to copy check all the explanations. I've been going through all the current articles and fixing consistency issues, the worst being wrong transcript/title text/dates and the most benign being wikilinks, spelling and trailing spaces. I'm at 682 so far, but my next pass will be on actual language and content, and it'll probably take longer. It takes a while though, and you can totally work on improving language in articles if you want to. Some explanations were pulled from the old blog, some were written and just got lost in the changelog. Copy editing everything we have so far is a very labor-intensive job, and the only way to really deal with it is to knuckle down and do it, or form a wikiproject and hope to heaven that visitors feel charitable enough to join in on it. I'd *probably* push to finish up all our incomplete articles first though, just because that's more directly related to the purpose of the site; tone and style probably comes second to having correct explanations. That doesn't mean you can't do it yourself, it's just that I'll probably only dedicate the subheader on the main page to one project at a time and our current biggest bugbear hasn't been solved yet. I could put up a sitenotice to see if that speeds the process up any. I'll do that when I get back home. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 03:31, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

== Easy redirect to comic? ==

I've been thinking, and there is one thing that would make navigating to the explained comics easier. My method of browsing is I'll see the comic on xkcd.com first, and if there is something curious about it that I don't quite understand, I'll come here. Sometimes it can be a bit troublesome, going to the homepage and then navigatiing to the right comic. Not too bad, but I'd like an easy way to go direct. So I was thinking, what if you had a redirect such that if you typed in, for example, www.explainxkcd.com/505, you would get redirected to http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=505:_A_Bunch_of_Rocks. That would mean that you could get to the comic just from adding an "explain" to the start of the xkcd.com URL. I don't know if that is at all possible, but it would be pretty handy if it happened. Thoughts?
[[User:Alcatraz ii|Alcatraz ii]] ([[User talk:Alcatraz ii|talk]]) 03:01, 25 October 2013 (UTC)
:[http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Technical#Redirect_from_explainxkcd.com.2F1234 That's actually already on the to-do list.] I'm testing it right now and we should have it up soon. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 04:02, 25 October 2013 (UTC)
:: Awesome :) [[User:Alcatraz ii|Alcatraz ii]] ([[User talk:Alcatraz ii|talk]]) 03:26, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
:::Whoop, forgot to mark this as complete. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 04:37, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
:::: Done! Copy this and drag it to your bookmarks bar: |javascript: var url = document.URL; document.location = url.replace('xkcd.com','explainxkcd.com');| {{unsigned ip|173.245.52.29}}
:::::The feature requested here has also long since been implemented. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 22:20, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

== Increase support via prominent display of copyright and license for text submitted to explainxkcd ==

XKCD itself is rather liberally licensed, and gets lots of good will from that. As it says on the bottom of every page "This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License." For details see [http://xkcd.com/license.html xkcd - A Webcomic - License].

But I found nothing on most pages of explainxkcd about copyright or licensing, and it discouraged me from contributing or donating. Finally, as I was writing this proposal up, I found a link on the editing page here: [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=explain_xkcd:Copyrights explain xkcd:Copyrights - explain xkcd] saying that "''The Explain XKCD wiki is generally licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license (CC-BY-SA-3.0)''". That notice should be more prominent on the site, with at least a link on each page. [[User:Nealmcb|Nealmcb]] ([[User talk:Nealmcb|talk]]) 15:27, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
:This should be mentioned at the main page, including a reference to the xkcd origin.
:BTW: NO DOUBLE SPACES after a sentence. Are you US guys still using a typewriter? It's not rendered at a web page and stupid like Gallons, Miles, Foots, and much more unique US behaviours. But that's just a joke beside.
:The licence hint is much more important, you are just correct.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:12, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
::Added a creative commons icon to the footer of the page, next to the powered by mediawiki button. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 22:16, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

== New Comics Bot ==

Would there be need for such a thing?
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.231.52|108.162.231.52]] Synthetica
:Nice idea, I never thought about that before. I will do some tests on existing comics to check if this could reduce the current number of error posts for a new article. When that is ready and working I will talk to some admins. My bot account [[User:DgbrtBOT|DgbrtBOT]] was originally intended for [[1190: Time]] picture uploads, but I never have used it because Time was over. Creating the new pages should be easy in general, avoiding errors will cost some more work. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:31, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
::If you can get dgbrtBOT to do that, that'd help us an awful lot. It'd allow us to get rid of the ifexist cases in template:LATESTCOMIC as well, since the bot could change automatically that whenever a new comic goes up. It'll also help us get new comics down almost the moment they pop up, since the bot could sample several times a minute until a comic is posted. So long as it gets the general pattern right so that we have a correct page set up, we're good. An admin can come in sometime later to clean up categories and image urls and other piddly easy-to-fix details. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 20:54, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
:::I will work on this next weekend, just local scripts and no updates here. I also will talk about my results before any automatic updates will be activated. My first focus is on creating the new pages in the general pattern, LATESTCOMIC and also the page "All comics" are maybe a bonus later. And of course all my scripts will be open source.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:44, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
::::The first version is ready and I will test it at my local wiki. If everything goes well I could activate it for Wednesday (2013-11-13). LATESTCOMIC and "All comics" are on my roadmap, but first I want produce correct new pages here. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:00, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
:::::Righty ho. Here goes. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 20:36, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
Even when my automatic local wiki test did fail today, just a damn wrong password, I will activate the bot here for Wednesday. It will only run from 4:00 PM until 8:00 PM UTC. You will not see my possible updates at [[Special:RecentChanges]] unless you click ''Show bots'' at the top of that page. LATESTCOMIC and "All comics" are not covered, but this is at my TODO list until this test will be successful. Give me a '''GO''' or '''NO-GO''' for this test.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:49, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
:Easily a GO, I'll be ready to clean up if anything goes wrong. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 22:08, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
::So be ready on Wednesday for the clean up. My worst case is ''it simply does not work'', second worse scenario is still that I could delete some contend already posted here, but I'm trying to avoid this. ''Huston'', the countdown clock is counting. I'm joking about this because I really want to be confident about this ''BOT'' or ROBOT or uncontrolled action here.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 00:28, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
:::The bot can't do anything that I can't reverse. I can even restore a backup from an hour before the bot's edits if it manages to break the database. How quickly does it poll xkcd, by the way? '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 07:53, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

First live test here (comic 1289). Please delete this page: [[Simple_Answers:_1289]]. Since my local wiki did not provide this templates I could not see this error before. In general the bot will update pages differ to any existing pages, but when it is not changed no update will happen. I'm fixing this errors at my script and do a second test here soon. I want to see it's producing correct pages until the bot will do it's work when I'm sleeping.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:31, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
:Ok, test are done here, BOT is scheduled for the next update. Polling is every five minutes on Mon, Wed, and Fri from 04:00 until 08:00 UTC. Let's see how it will work.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 23:08, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
::Couldja ramp that up to once/twice a minute, push the start time back by an hour, and the end time by a few hours? Also, is it possible to terminate it once it finds a comic for a certain day? '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 01:45, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
:::It worked! Though it posted the comic 5 minutes past post time. We has technology now, we can afford to poll faster and closer, yeah? '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 05:32, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
Uhh, it worked... I will increase the polls when I'm more confident about the release times. Today it was approx. 05:00 UTC (GMT) or 01:00 EST (Randall's time zone). Looks like he is still at daylight saving time, would have been 00:00 EDT. The polls will be increased to one minute when I'm sure about the Standard Release Time (SRT). Next steps for the next update on Friday are:
:The "All comics" page.
:The LATESTCOMIC template.
--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:54, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
:The LATESTCOMIC template is included for the next run, it just simply has to return a number. But it's still the most critical part because if it does not work the Main Page is broken. I will change this to a better solution using that IFEXIST syntax soon. The list of all comics is still at my ToDo list. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:06, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
::The desired content of the LATESTCOMIC template should be just the comic number. If we can get out of having to poll multiple IFEXIST statements to find the latest comic, that would be a fantastic boon to our server performance. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 04:43, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
:::OK, it did work today so I will not change this. Next step is the list for all comics.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 11:10, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
Next run will include an update on the "All comics" page. I'm crossing my fingers. When this update is also successful I will document my Bot at the Bot user page [[User:DgbrtBOT]]. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:15, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
:Oh, I forgot this detail: The bot is starting at 00:00 EST (RLT - Randall local time), which is 04:00 UTC and 05:00 MET for me. It polls every 5 minutes until 23:55 MET (22:55 UTC, 18:55 RLT) the main page until a new comic is found. I do not poll the comic number because I want to avoid 404 message logs at the servers.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:30, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
:Something went wrong there. That's gonna need fixing. I am enjoying the looks of the apparently faster polling though. Maybe you could also set the start time to 00:00:05 EST to catch the on-time xkcd releases within ten seconds? '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 05:33, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
::Uh, what a mess. I will do some more tests at my local wiki. At the next time I will do a check against the number from the LATESTCOMIC template, only the next number will be processed. The test against my local history did fail because of some cleanups after testings.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 08:18, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
:::I don't like mess. So the BOT got many more checks before posting here but the bot was starting at 05:00 local time for me. I'm really asleep at that time. The mess here was covered, but I do need another GO for the next attempt. Otherwise I will just do a test to my local wiki.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:35, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
No GO so far, my next test will run only at my local wiki.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:16, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
:My script is here: [https://github.com/dgbrt/explainXKCD_update explainXKCD_update]. At my current test "explainxkcd.com" is commented out and "localhost" is active. Since I don't like mess and the bot does act while I am sleeping the next update must be done manually here. I'm hoping the bot will be ready for the next update on Friday.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:15, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
::Bot is ready for Friday, everything went smooth at my last local test today. The bot did find the latest comic at 04:05 UTC and all essential pages were properly created. So I will activate it for this site again. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:57, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Bot did work as expected. So I name it release 1.1337, the next planed release will be 2.1337 (beta) because of this two issues:
*"Include any categories below this line." will be removed because it doesn't make any sense any more.
*BETA: I want to use the full template features at [[List of all comics]], just ensuring that the pictures are working properly. No need for this at the most comics, but the BOT doesn't cover all possibilities on corrupt file names like we have had in "Pi vs. Tau". The picture was without that dot. My bot just shows the real link it did upload here.
I'm pretty sure we will have some issues on this bot, but for general pages it should work. So the bot will be active on Mon,Wed,Fri from 0:00 EST (or EDT) every five minutes until it did found a new comic, on success the bot does not poll any more.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:51, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
:Aww, it's a bot. It doesn't need to rest or take time off to do other stuff. It can totally poll once or more times per minute. Also, if you set the start time to a few seconds after midnight, Randall time, when he uploads a comic on-time, you'll get it within a few seconds as opposed to having to wait for the next polling. As for the image names, maybe you could convert spaces in the comic name to underscores, compare the two comic names you have and use that to decide which version of the template to use? '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 23:08, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
::I have to avoid that the bot is running twice, Internet Timeouts and more. And the comics are also published later sometimes. Look at my release [https://github.com/dgbrt/explainXKCD_update 1.1337], release 2.1337 will be later, Maybe I should start at 2 minutes after 0:00, but let's see right now how the bot does work. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 00:38, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
Uhh, what a huge discussion here. The bot will get a major update soon: Scheduler does start it once and until a comic is found and uploaded it here or an other limit is reached (maybe the end of the day) the bot will poll by a small delay. But every poll is still an entire download from the main page, When a new comic is found bot stops.
:Why, you could use http://xkcd.com/info.0.json, right?[[Special:Contributions/108.162.231.52|108.162.231.52]] 07:38, 2 December 2013 (UTC)Synthetica
::The BOT performs perfect and I prefer to analyze the original page. A title text like the one from today (a text showing a link) will be covered in the future.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 10:35, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
A great enhancement would be also covering a new comic like 1190 Time was. I'm looking forward on this, some ideas, it does require a complete analyse of the page and then finding some strange content.
--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 23:05, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

== Require description for 'incomplete' tags ==
I've been trying to fix some of the incompletes, but several explanation pages I've come across are tagged incomplete without any reason given. The reason should be a required part of the tag. --[[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.223|173.245.52.223]] 03:35, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
:This incomplete tags are just older than the recent change of that template. Current adds require a description, but it's not easy to figure out all that old reasons. If someone does find a reason, please just add it. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:22, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

== Should there be a subwiki to cover the shop links that appear above the comic? ==

The current one (as of writing) is [http://imgs.xkcd.com/store_news/store_gd_b11_1ze4.png] but this is a different than the usual, and there was also a third in between these.
[[User:Rsranger65|Rsranger65]] ([[User talk:Rsranger65|talk]]) 06:00, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
:Those are very ephemeral. They aren't going to exist for very long, I don't know how valuable it would be to archive that stuff. We could probably do it, but having to figure out another naming convention and all for advertisements doesn't appeal to me at the current moment. If you can flesh it out, I'd love to see how you think we should do it. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 07:24, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

== New Character ==

OK, I think we need a name for the character with a goatee and glasses in comics [[435: Purity]], [[796: Bad Ex]] and [[964: Dorm Poster]] as well as possibly others. Edit: oh and I suggest Goatee and Glasses Guy, but I'm open for suggestions Edit 2: also in [[826: Guest Week: Zach Weiner (SMBC)]] Halfhat {{unsigned|Halfhat}}
edit 3: Another sighting [[954: Chin-Up Bar]] [[User:Halfhat|Halfhat]] ([[User talk:Halfhat|talk]]) 16:57, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
: In the transcript, he is called "Person with Glasses and a Goatee" --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 15:39, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
:: "Glasses Guy", "Goatee Guy" are both probably descriptive enough! --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 15:41, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

== What If Comics ==

Hi, I was thinking, maybe at some point we should do the comics in the ''What If?'' section, like [http://what-if.xkcd.com/imgs/a/36/cornstarch_bitcoins.png this one.] [[User:Halfhat|Halfhat]] ([[User talk:Halfhat|talk]]) 20:01, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
: Start creating the pages for them! --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 15:36, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
: I think I can start creating one or two pages for What If, if that helps... [[User:Daniel Carrero|Daniel Carrero]] ([[User talk:Daniel Carrero|talk]]) 16:14, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
:: If nobody has any problem with it, I'm gonna give it a try later. :) [[User:Daniel Carrero|Daniel Carrero]] ([[User talk:Daniel Carrero|talk]]) 13:14, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
:::I thought they were already pretty self-explanatory though. Also, how are we gonna organize and present them? '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 16:31, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
::::I totally agree with David: Read the entire What-If page and follow the links provided by Randall. No one of us can do that better in depth. But an overview page for this site is maybe not a bad idea, we just need a proper link here — a link at the main menu on the left. Translations to other languages are just another issue. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:37, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
:::::Yes, I was thinking of an overview, summarizing the contents and discoveries of each what if page. Not to mention, we could also organize what if pages by categories, such as physics/love.
:::::Would you like me to post here an example of what I would write? That way we can decide if it's worthy of creating an actual page. [[User:Daniel Carrero|Daniel Carrero]] ([[User talk:Daniel Carrero|talk]]) 12:53, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
:Adding pages for What If? posts would be very helpful. Although the articles themselves are obviously self-explanatory, there are almost as many subtle references, running gags, and in-jokes in What If? posts these days as in the comics themselves.
I often visit explain xkcd when I feel like I'm missing an inside joke or a pop culture reference in a comic, and it would be very helpful to many people (especially those from other cultures/subcultures) to have the same service.
For example, today's What If? contains multiple allusions to the Superman Movie, a running Citation Needed joke, and a whole comic that is a not-so-subtle dig at Elon Musk and the Hyperloop. It would be awesome if the community here at explainxkcd could tackle stuff like that.
Anonymous 20:05, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

I agree. I don't understand the mouseover text on the first image in "Snow Removal", for example. [[User:Benjaminikuta|Benjaminikuta]] ([[User talk:Benjaminikuta|talk]]) 22:57, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

== Transcripts ==

The whole point of the transcripts is to have those who are unable to view images to still be able to read the comic, right?

Then why is it required to stick to strictly official transcripts, where sometimes rewriting them slightly would make them flow better or otherwise get the ideas across better? I've tried rewriting a few, but they get reverted. I think that having easier-to-understand transcripts would be more important than strictly following official transcripts; what do you think? (For a few examples, see [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=207:_What_xkcd_Means&diff=60061&oldid=57400 this edit] and [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=995%3A_Coinstar&diff=59862&oldid=57316 this edit]. [[User:Zowayix|Zowayix]] ([[User talk:Zowayix|talk]]) 17:38, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
:We use the original transcript to try and deduce original author intent if it's unclear from the image. I remember one comic where Beret Guy was off in the distance and it was difficult to distinguish him from the image, but the official transcript said it was him. We don't stick to the original transcript if it's obviously wrong, or it has typographical errors: see [[Laser Scope]]. Those edits seem to be mainly targeted at language and clarity, and should be fine. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 23:06, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
::Would it be helpful to have another (optional) section for expanding on the official transcripts? I too think it could be helpful, especially for complex images (such as 1079/United Shapes [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1079]). Or does supplemental description belong in the Explanation sections? Cheers. [[User:Karenb|Karenb]] ([[User talk:Karenb|talk]]) 23:00, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
:::Naaah, how many people even know there's an original transcript? If the original is wrong, change it. If your additions begin to verge on explanatory, move eet to the trivia/explanation sections. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 00:52, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

== "Characters in this Comic" section ==

Should there be a "Characters in this Comic" section in each comic explanation? (I feel like this should be longer but don't have anything else to say.) [[User:Z|Z]] ([[User talk:Z|talk]]) 23:33, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

:There is a Category section at the bottom of each comic. Just scroll down and you will see any character belonging to a specific comic. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:50, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

== Adding the Radiation chart from XKCD ==

Hi
As there are already other comics with explanations even though they are not part of the number system.
This one does not seem to have any yet:
http://xkcd.com/radiation/
And as it is very alike the Money strip (the unexplained of the week) so I think it should be explained as well.
If you agree please add it as I'm not sure how to do that.

Best regards
:[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 18:47, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

== Reddit comments? ==

There should be a link in each comics explanation page somewhere linking to the comment section for the relevant comic on /r/xkcdcomic or reddit.
:The reddit comments page isn't ''that'' close to what we do though. If this is more popular, we'll do it, though there'll need to be a fair bit of post-hoc editing since I don't think there's a standard URL scheme for all the past comics. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 03:15, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
:I just came here to ask if we could do this, but I looked into it and it wouldn't be simple. Could we write a bot to run on the xkcd subreddit to post the link here? --[[User:Eluvatar|Eluvatar]] ([[User talk:Eluvatar|talk]]) 05:53, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

== Not insulting new users ==

I am writing a response to a vulnerability assessment. I have included a link to http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/936 noting that it contains a good explanation of the relative security of passwords vs passphrases. I just noticed that the top of that page contains "Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb." Looks like I'll have to find a different site to link to. --[[User:Pascal|Pascal]] ([[User talk:Pascal|talk]]) 17:33, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
:I agree. While I'm sure it can seem cute or funny in various circles, that text has always seemed immature and inappropriate to me, and I'm sure to many folks we'd like to invite to the site. I suggest that it be changed. [[User:Nealmcb|Nealmcb]] ([[User talk:Nealmcb|talk]]) 19:52, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

:The XKCD http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/936 suggestion for password is actually not that good. [http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/62832/is-the-oft-cited-xkcd-scheme-no-longer-good-advice read here] for some more discussion. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.253.6|162.158.253.6]] 23:49, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

:I also agree. I'm not here because I'm stupid, I'm here because I don't know something and I'm hoping this site can help. It's off putting to have that text there, and there's no benefit to it. What about just repeating the thing at the top of XKCD.com: "Romance, Sarcasm, Math, and Language: Explained"?

:I agree, and there is actually a very long talk page started about this subject in the miscellaneous section. Eventually people voted to keep it, but the main argument on that side was that that was the way things had always been. I am fairly new to the site (this is actually my first post on it), so I don't know how these things work, but I do think that that should be changed. There were actually a large number of good proposals for replacements with the other one, and I thought it would be funny if there was a randomly selected character every time you loaded a page, with each character having their own tagline. Is there any way to try to get this changed again?[[Special:Contributions/172.68.78.52|172.68.78.52]]

:Another vote for changing it. I like the idea of rotating through a number of taglines. The world already has too many people who habitually verbally reinforce the idea they aren't smart, why try to convince them they're right about themselves when they might otherwise be experiencing curiosity? (Related: Carol Dweck) ''Edit: [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Miscellaneous#Sightless_readers_offended_by_the_.22It.27s_.27cause_you.27re_dumb.22_tagline. link to prior conversation]'' [[Special:Contributions/172.69.35.37|172.69.35.37]] 10:56, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

:Concur. When I link to xkcd comics, I also add a link to the equivalent page here for screenreader users. While I try to link to the transcript sections specifically, I sometimes forget or typo it, and people may check the rest of the page anyway. What are the rules for decisions here? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.68.7|141.101.68.7]] 22:14, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

:I disagree, it's a tagline and obviously just a light jibe, no reason to change it. However the main reason I'm commenting is to point out that hundreds of other users saw this proposal and didn't reply so even if there's concurrence among the minority who respond to the proposal it doesn't mean that the proposal has wide support and should be implemented --[[User:Lackadaisical|Lackadaisical]] ([[User talk:Lackadaisical|talk]])

:I think it would be a good idea to have the tagline link to a page explaining it, or is that a little [[1447: Meta-Analysis|too meta]]? It'd be useful to help newbies understand the phrase, at least. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.212|108.162.246.212]] 22:56, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

:I think it should be changed to something nice. [[User:While False|While False]] ([[User talk:While False|speak]]) 16:30, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

:The [[Black Hat]] image is blurry. [[User:ClassicalGames|ClassicalGames]] ([[User talk:ClassicalGames|talk]]) 08:54, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

== RSS feed ==

Is there an RSS feed (or some equivalent) of Explain XKCD available? It's helpful for those using feed readers, and superior to the primary XKCD RSS since there are explanations and the mouse over text is transcribed for the lazy. Thanks [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.154|108.162.219.154]] 08:24, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
:[http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Special:NewPages&feed=atom&hideredirs=1&limit=90&offset=&namespace=0&username=&feed=&tagfilter= Why yes, we do!] It's the regular new pages log that all wikis have. It's a little ugly at the moment, and sometimes junk gets in there when a bot chucks spam at us, so a nicer feed is in the works, but the linked one should do you excellently for now. When the nice one is done, you'll see it in the sidebar below the "Help" button. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 11:31, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

== Navigation Pane Link - Categories ==

How about having a link to the "Special:Categories" page in the navigation pane?

A fair amount of effort has gone into categorising the comics, and at the moment it isn't particularly obvious how to browse by category. Is this worth doing?{{unsigned|Pudder}}
:Space on the sidebar is on a premium. I dunno, I'd probably be against it, but I want to hear what other admins say as well. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 16:45, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

== Alternate realities what if would benefit from a wiki entry ==

The what if entry from the end of November 2014 providing excerpts from alternate reality what ifs would benefit from an explain page.
I suspect these may have been typos that have been made into jokes, but some of the humor might not be apparent to all.
I doubt I have access (or maybe know how) to set it up myself.

Cheers {{unsigned ip|199.27.133.42}}

: Made it. Check out [[What If: 120: Alternate Universe What Ifs]]. [[User:17jiangz1|17jiangz1]] ([[User talk:17jiangz1|talk]]) 09:10, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
::We don't actually have a structure for what if pages in general, so I'll have to take that down, but when we do we can make pages for every what if. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 09:57, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

== Secondary URLs? ==

I have made http://www.xkcd.ga and http://www.xkcd.tk both forward to http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page. Is this ok? [[User:17jiangz1|17jiangz1]] ([[User talk:17jiangz1|talk]]) 08:50, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
:While we probably won't advertise them because we can't guarantee the uptime of third-party URLs, and they add an additional redirect layer and lack our shortened URL features, you're free to purchase and link URLs to us independently. We are not owned by Randall and as such cannot claim to actually be xkcd, so I'm not hugely comfortable with you using the plain name "xkcd" to link to us; a url in the format http://www.xkcd.[TLD] should by rights link to the main xkcd site, but no trademark claim has been made or likely will be made, so you should be fine with doing whatever you want to do with URL redirects '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 09:57, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

== LaTeX (Or MathML, TeX) support? ==

[[1489:_Fundamental_Forces|In the most recent comic at the time of posting]], there was use of formulae, being: Fgravity = G m1m2/d2 Fstatic = Ke q1q2/d2 
There are probably many more comics using formulae that cannot be rendered properly without the use of LaTeX or something. The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Displaying_a_formula help page on Wikipedia] says that the following should work: <math>F_{gravity}=G\frac{m_1m_2}{d^2}</math> <math>F_{static}=K_e\frac{q_1q_2}{d^2}</math>
Provided that one has to set <source lang="php" enclose="none">$wgUseTeX = true;</source> in [[mw:Manual:LocalSettings.php|LocalSettings.php]]. Is there any reason for this to be disabled? If there is, is there any alternative? —[[Special:Contributions/141.101.106.95|141.101.106.95]] 21:18, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

:The wgUseTeX flag was deprecated in mediawiki 1.18 in a move to simplify base mediawiki and move niche features into seperate plugins. I vaguely remember this being requested in the past, can't find any evidence of me implementing it. I'll try it now, see what stopped me last time. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 01:12, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
:Ah, there's a bit of configuration work to it and I was busy at the time probably. I'll put it on the growing to do list on my userpage. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 01:20, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
This problem is '''solved'''. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 12:03, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

== Merge Cueball & Rob ==

At the risk of posting this idea too many places and annoying everyone, I would like to propose that we consider merging [[Cueball]] and [[Rob]] and redirecting Cueball to Rob, much as [[Cutie]] now redirects to [[Megan]]. The most common name given for a Cueball-like character in the strip is "Rob". Like Megan, he is not always named. Also, like Megan, Rob tends to have distinct characteristics such as being a nerdy alter-ego to Randall (e.g. [[1168: tar]]) just as Megan often is the appearance given to comic representations of Randall's wife (see [[1141: Two Years]], before hair loss). Megan and Cueball appear to have a relationship (e.g. [[159: Boombox]]) and Megan clearly hangs out with Rob in ways not inconsistent with adventurous couples (e.g. [[782: Desecration]]). Finally, comics that feature both [[Black Hat]] and "Cueball" seem to depict them as friends and possibly roommates. However, we learn in [[1102: Fastest-Growing]] that Black Hat's roommate is named "Rob".

In short, I believe if [[159: Boombox]] had called "Cueball" "Rob" we would've rewritten both Cutie and Cueball to redirect there. Because we learned that "Cueball's" name is actually Rob much later (I think the earliest occurrences are [[647: Scary]], and [[716: Time Machine]]; the first time he is seen with Megan in a capacity that might indicate a relationship is [[782: Desecration]]). [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 19:05, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

:As I answered your comment on [[1496: Art Project]] Rob is [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Category:Comics_featuring_Rob already listed] as part of the category for Comics featuring Cueball: and this is listed as the first entry when going to the page for [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Category:Comics_featuring_Cueball Category:Comics featuring Cueball]. Cueball is such an integral part of explain xkcd that I do not think any other users wish to change. Also the 9 incidences with Rob is maybe a specific person and at the time Randall did not think to give him any features. Also Cueballs have no specific behavior as you allude to. Neither has Megan. You can always find several Cueballs and Megans that behave a certain way. But then you can find many other comics where they behave the opposite way. Thus Rob and Cueball should not be merged. Also there are several comics with more than one Cueball. And here we have this problem: It is typically the first who writes the transcript who decides who of the Cueballs (or Megans) he feels represents the "real" Cueball. However, there is no real behavior of Cueball. So who should decide. I could change all these transcripts so it becomes the other character who becomes Cueball, because I think that the first transcriber did it wrong. And this is why in a comic with more than one Cueball (where neither is called Rob or the like) neither of the two should be called Cueball. It would still be in the category with Cueball, because that is just comics with a Cueball like character no matter how many. But they cannot be named Cueball and friend or Rob and friend (unless Rob's name is mentioned!) They could be called Cueball 1 and Cueball 2, but then guy or man would be better. I know several places have comics with two Cueballs where someone has designated one of them Cueball and the other friend of foe etc. But this should be corrected so none of these are called Cueball. Same should go for more than one Megan. But this is very rare, and I have only found one other than ''Art project'' and here only one Megan had any lines. The problem with different opinions on which Cueball is which came for the first time up with Megan in ''Art project'': The two Megan-like characters was first named (left to right) Megan and Danish. Then unidentified girl and Megan. Then Megan and unidentified girl, then two Megan like girls with short and long hair and finally you reverted it to my first change away from Danish to unidentified girl and Megan. (I can live with that as there is difference in hair length and behavior). But as far as I see it Cueball is not Rob as well as Megan should have continued to be called Cutie (but I would not like to change that now, as I have grown fond of Megan). But at the time the change was done I believe it was wrong. The same fondness for the name Cueball also makes me sure that no one else would wish to call him Rob, even if that is as much his name as Megan is Cuties... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:57, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

::My argument is that it is inertia and sentiment ("fond of Megan") that prevents an objective, equal treatment here. [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 22:47, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

::Also, regarding the analogy made above to Danish. I am fine with a nickname when Randall hasn't named a character. So she was "unidentified girl" and then became "Danish". But, when we named her "Danish", we went back to "Journal 1" and other places and renamed her. My proposal is that we should go back through and rename "Cueball" as "Rob". Alternatively, we should reinstate "Cutie" for cases in which it is not clear that a character is "Megan" per se, but just Megan in her "everywoman" capacity. [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 00:00, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure how to post a poll, but I see the following options:

1) Status quo: Cueball for all unidentified males without distinct characteristics (e.g. hats), Megan for all shoulder-length brunettes. Rob only for named Cueballs. Multiple Cueballs in a comic mean one is named Cueball and others get named "Friend", etc.

2) Symmetry 1: Cueball/Rob stays as is. Unnamed brunettes get named "Cutie". "Megan" like "Rob" is reserved for comics in which a name is used.

3) Symmetry 2: Megan stays as is. Rob is the default for indistinct males. "Cueball" page redirects to "Rob" (as "Cutie" now redirect to "Megan").

4) Expunge all Cueballs from multi-Cueball comics: Basically the status quo, except that in comics with multiple Cueballs none are named "Cueball" and are just all given names "Man 1", "Man 2", etc.

I am ambivalent regarding options 2 or 3. I could live with 1 if there is consensus for it, but I don't like it. 4 is a disaster in my mind and gains nothing. [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 22:47, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

:We are probably the only one who reads these post...? But anyway as is clear I'm for 4. Which has been used several places already.´I can live with 1. I think 2 and 3 are disasters. Also it would be completely confusing for those who have used this page for many years. Why do you bring this up now? Is it because of the multiple Megan comics, or have you just signed up here, and dislike that it doesn't follow the rules you would have expected?--[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:19, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
::I suggest instead that we create a category for multiple Cueballs, so it is easy to explain why the Cueball is not a specific character, and thus can never be Rob (except when it is clear from the text), or be expected to behave a certain way. And in reverse we make a Named Megan category so it is easy to find the few (three?) where she has been named. This by the way has nothing to do with the other suggestions, so I might just do that to get an overview. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:19, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
::: It seems more consistent to me to use [[Cutie]] for all unnamed "Megans" and reserve "Megan" for named comics. Thus, Rob is '''a''' Cueball and Megan is '''a''' Cutie. [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 13:30, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

::::I've read through some of your discussions (Here, Kynde's talk page, Art Project discussion), and thought I might put my thoughts forwards. Essentially we have three questions here:
::::1) Should we merge Cueball and Rob, and rename all Cueballs as Rob?
::::2) Should we rename all Megans as Cutie, except where she is explicitly named?
::::3) Once questions 1 & 2 are answered, what do we do where the 'same' character appears multiple times in one comic?

::::*I understand the objective argument for renaming Cueball to Rob, however I'm unconvinced of the importance of being entirely objective, and I can't imagine Cueball being renamed to anything other than Cueball.
::::*I think its fairly clear where the Cueball label has come from, even if it might not be immediately obvious to some. Even if readers don't make the link between Cueball's head and a cue-ball, it is quite a generic label, which I think fits well with the transient every-man nature of Cueball's usage.
::::*There is something far more specific about the name Rob, which suggests that he is the same character every time. The origin of the name isn't obvious, which I think would be likely to cause confusion.
::::This brings me to conclude that for me, the answer to Q1 has to be that Cueball should stay as Cueball, unless explicitly named something else.

::::The question of changing Megan to Cutie is one where I am less confident. Following the arguments I've made above, the outcome has to be that we rename to Cutie unless specifically named Megan, however I am not entirely convinced. The name Megan has a history, there are surely lots of people who now know her as Megan, what do we really stand to gain from all the work of changing to Cutie? I would also suggest that the name Cutie may not be accepted well by those with strong feminist views.

::::As far as multi-character comics, I don't have time right now, but I will come back later and add my thoughts. Now that we've only got a few incomplete comics, we've had to resort to discussing renaming characters!--[[User:Pudder|Pudder]] ([[User talk:Pudder|talk]]) 15:07, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
:::::I agree with the reasons for keeping Cueball and Megan. And also that Cutie is such a loaded word, that it should never have been used anyway. This I did not immediately think about, but Cutie sounds like something from either a porn movie, or else a Bond Babe... Like the phrase from one of those movies: "Hello, I'm Plenty..." Then we should have to find a third name. And everyone here knows her as Megan. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 13:24, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
::::::I have created the [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Category:Multiple_Cueballs Category:Multiple Cueballs] to locate them and to show how often there are more than one. Feel free to add any I haven't found yet. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 09:45, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

I think Rob is Black Hat's roommate and Megan's boyfriend/partner/husband (see above). The "Cueball" in comics such as [[159: Boombox]] and [[542: Cover-Up]] should, in my view, be renamed "Rob", even though he is not explicitly called that in those comics. Most other "Cueball" comics can stay unchanged. [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 00:43, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
:I have left my reason to disagree also with this on the two comics talk page. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 13:24, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

In my opinion, it is quite clear that [[Randall]] has chosen to name the main male protagonist [[Rob]], for the few occasions where he needs characters to call upon each other, in the same way as he has chosen [[Megan]] for the main female protagonist. We should therefore try to overcome our nostalgia, follow Randall, and call the common male protagonist Rob. The problem with multiple cueballs can most often be resolved by identifying the protagonist, from the first-person narration or the general perspective. Thus, in [[525: I Know You're Listening]] Rob is the comic's "I", to the left. In [[1110: Click and Drag]], Rob is obviously flying with a balloon. In [[610: Sheeple]] Rob is arguably the guy in the foreground facing us. Non-Rob "cueballs" we could refer to as "friend" "man", etc. In this way roughly half of the "multiple cueballs" would be resolved. I think I can live with a few unclear cases, like [[220: Philosophy]]. [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 12:22, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

:A featureless character has been ''specifically'' named Rob in 9 comics, compared with 968 'Comics featuring Cueball'. I believe it is fundamentally flawed to assert that because a featureless character is named Rob in less than 1% of appearances, that all featureless characters should therefore be assumed to be Rob. As I've discussed above, I think that Rob strongly implies a specific person, whereas Cueball is a vague 'everyman' character. I feel it would be a huge error to change all Cueballs to Robs.--[[User:Pudder|Pudder]] ([[User talk:Pudder|talk]]) 17:37, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

::The problem with that logic is that "Megan" is only named in a small number of comics (fewer that "Rob"). So we should have a different name for an unnamed generic female. [[Cutie]] is fine, but if people perceive that as sexist, then another name, maybe "Cuegirl" or "Brunette" would work. (Side note: I doubt "Cutie" would be perceived as sexist and there's history there.) What I '''do''' find sexist is the fact that there is asymmetry between male and female "everyperson"s. In sum, I would say there is at less evidence to support naming Megan-everywoman "Megan" in all cases as there is to name Rob-everyman (here called "Cueball") "Rob" in all cases. Asymmetry here ignores the fact that Randall clearly intends his name to be "Rob" and also that we are using a proper name for everywoman but a contrived name for everyman, while creating an artificial distinction between Rob and Cueball and smearing out any possible distinction between Megan-everywoman and Megan-properName. [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 13:18, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

:::As I put in my earlier comment (see above), I do agree that the logical conclusion is that Megan should no longer be named Megan, and should have an equivalent generic name. As an aside, I'm quite partial to your suggestion of Cuegirl. I disagree with your assertion that "Randall clearly intends his name to be Rob", and I think that is the central point of this discussion. I don't believe that there is anywhere near enough evidence to assign a specific name to what I believe is a generic character. If we want to go for formal logic, consider the syllogism "Some non descipt characters are called Rob, there are many non-descript characters, therfore all non-descript characters are called Rob". The conclusion simply does not follow. --[[User:Pudder|Pudder]] ([[User talk:Pudder|talk]]) 14:22, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

::::Great, I vote for Cuegirl & Cueball :: Megan & Rob! [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 01:31, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Djbrasier's and St.nerol's arguments, and I too feel that the arguments against dealing with this in an objective, symmetrical and logical way seem mostly based on nostalgia. Either we agree that a few named instances of the everywoman are sufficient to generalize to the (vastly more numerous) unnamed instances, and apply the same standard to the everyman, which is only consistent (and even more justified in the case of Rob since he is named in more comics than Megan), or we decide that the extrapolation is unjustified and we revert the Cutie-->Megan merge. The alternative --having double standards and deciding things based on historical baggage and emotional attachment rather than rationality-- makes no sense for followers of the comic that ''literally invented'' nerd-sniping!

I'd also add that, as a non-native speaker, "cueball" doesn't ring any immediate bells unless the connection to cue balls is pointed out explicitly -- so actually Rob works even better as a generic name than Cueball. We have already [[#New character|agreed previously]] that clarity is better than cleverness when we named [[Hairy]], forgoing the less obvious alliteration "Harry", so I vote we use the name Randall ''actually'' gave us, let go of our attachments to a creation he never endorsed, and honor our collective nerdiness by doing the logical thing: apply our standards uniformly and adopt Rob the same way we adopted Megan. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 06:09, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

:I've already put my thoughts forward above, so I won't repeat the same ground I've covered, other than to say I believe it would be a mistake to turn all Cueballs into Robs. While I will admit to having some nostalgia for the name Cueball, that isn't a major facet of my argument. I believe that any generic name is better than a specific name. Call them Stickboy & Stickgirl if you want! I know there are a fairly significant number of contributors and visitors who do not have English as their first language, but I don't believe that is a reason to choose a specific name, rather than a generic name, even if the origin of the latter isn't immediately obvious to all. It would be interesting to know whether each of us sees Cueball as always being the same person, or Cueball *is* Randall, or Cueball is just a changeable everyman.

:To me, he is a changeable everyman, who I guess may represent or be based on: Randall, his friends, family or acquaintances, famous people, someone he saw in the street, or a completely made up character used to fill a specific role in the comic. The reason I argue againt merging Rob & Cueball is that the Cueball I see is this morphing and fluid character, and to use a specific name to tie him down to being the same character all the time runs completely counter to that. --[[User:Pudder|Pudder]] ([[User talk:Pudder|talk]]) 08:31, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

:: Understood, and sorry for mischaracterizing your argument (the nostalgia part does cloud the discussion though). I suppose I would be somewhat ambivalent to either have Rob+Megan, or Cueball+Cutie -- Cuegirl doesn't work because she has hair :) --, in the interests of reason and symmetry. But I lean slightly towards Rob+Megan because those are names Randall actually gave us, while anything else is our own invention and thus has no claim to legitimacy other than popular support.
:: Particularly, while I understand your concern about shoehorning the various personality traits the Cueballs show in different comics into a single persona, that doesn't seem to have been a problem for Megan -- not to mention real people ''are'' indeed complex and multi-faceted beings (or "morphing and fluid", to use your terms) rather than one-dimensional caricatures. Heck, even Black Hat has his romantic side! :) So in light of that, I don't think we have to worry about ruining Cueball by naming him Rob -- if anything, that'd add more depth to him as a character! --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 16:35, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
:::I'm still very much against changing things here. Call it nostalgia, but there are many users who will never read these arguments, who one day comes back and cannot find Megan or Cueball, and will ask who the heck are Cuegirl/Cutie. I'm completely with Pudder on the problem with giving Cueball the name Rob. It just doesn't make sense. I agree that we have a inconsistency with Megan. But then everyone who uses this page a few times, becomes familiar with that name. However the main problem with all your great ideas is this. Who should correct the either 984 pages where Cueball is mentioned because he is a part of it (and all the other pages relevant to him or where he is exactly mentioned because he isn't part of the comic) and/or who should do the same for 487 comics (plus loose pages) for Megan. Unless those in favor for changing the names will do this, then the discussion is moot. It is already clearly stated in the relevant pages that these two characters are generic and that they have been named but a few times. So what more can we do unless someone is willing to use several days to change this back. I sincerely doubt you can keep the correct syntax if you just try a brute force replacement? There are so many interconnecting links etc. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 13:21, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

I completely disagree with merging Cueball and Rob. Rob has [[276|Emily]] and [[632|Lisa]] as girlfriends, and Cueball has Megan. Rob also lives a more action-filled and stereotypical life compared to Cueball. --[[User:Youforgotthisthing|Youforgotthisthing]] ([[User talk:Youforgotthisthing|talk]]) 13:14, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

I think the main stances here are clear:
* Keep as is
* Rename Cuball to Rob
* Change Megan back to Cutie/Cuegirl
Since keeping it status quo wouldn't change anything and is asymmetrical, I'll go over the others:
* Rename Cueball to Rob - Arguments:
** Randall gave him this name;
** It would offer symmetry to Megan;
** If the Cutie -> Megan logic is to be followed (as she was changed once named in the comics) then Cueball should be Rob;
** Even though cueball is a generic everyman name, Rob seems more like a name you could give anyone and would be more recognizable to non-native English speakers.
* Change Megan back to Cutie/Cuegirl - Arguments:
** It would cause symmetry again, letting her have an everywoman name;
** Nostalgia for Cueball;
** Megan is not always the same character, so she should not always have the name Megan

I happen to agree with the idea of merging Cueball and Rob, but I'm not closed to the idea of Cutie/Cuegirl. The main problem is that these characters are typically interchangeable everymen/everywomen and there can be more than one in a comic. So another question is what we should do for multiple Cueballs/Robs. In my opinion, we should have all the comics with more than one depict them as Man 1, Man 2, etc. --[[User:Sensorfire|Sensorfire]] ([[User talk:Sensorfire|talk]]) 17:04, 20 May 2015 (UTC)
:Well I disagree. The users are used to refeer to these characters now by these names. It is also impractical to try to change them all. Megan is rarely twice in a comic. Maybe she is more the same like Black Hat is. But it is made clear that they are not the same in every comic in their pages. If there are muliple Cueballs but one is the main protagonist then he us cueball. If none can be singled out then Cueball like guy to the left/right can be used. I have done that for tbose cases I have found so far ([[:Category:Multiple_Cueballs|49 today]]).--[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:58, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

Well, somebody pointed out that the title text of [[1783: Emails]] suggests that the Cueball in the comic is most certainly not Rob, and calling the main comic character 'Man 1' as above would be silly. And on top of all this, 'Cueball' occurs so much we would probably need to take a regex to every explanation in [[:Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]. [[User:Jacky720|That's right, Jacky720 just signed this]] ([[User talk:Jacky720|talk]] | [[Special:Contributions/Jacky720|contribs]]) 14:50, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Why hasn't anyone thought of the name "Hairball"? {{unsigned ip|172.68.189.187}}
:Please don't forget to sign your posts. And everybody should read this first: [[Characters]] and [[Rob]]. For short: Rob is a named Cueball. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 11:57, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

== How to fit explanations of new classes of xkcd-related mysteries into the site: what-if, t-shirts, posters, special comics etc. ==

I suggest that the [http://explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/explain_xkcd:About explain xkcd] page should explain how this site is laid out, and what sorts of things are explained here besides the online numbered xkcd comics that come out three times a week.

For example, there is the [[A Smarter Planet]] series, and there are ideas for explaining some of the [http://what-if.xkcd.com/ What-If] series. I'd like to add my explanation of the [https://gist.github.com/nealmcb/398af29a72f7b3efc202 XKCD Greek t-shirt, with mathematical, scientific and engineering uses for greek letters] and perhaps some other t-shirts, posters and the like.

But I can't even figure out how to find non-numbered-comic-explanations, without going thru the entire [[Special:AllPages]] listing, which includes a huge set of unnumbered aliases as well as the numbered ones.

I've taken a stab towards that by editing the About page to point to some categories (and to start with a little overview), but since I'm just poking around, I might have missed some things. [[User:Nealmcb|Nealmcb]] ([[User talk:Nealmcb|talk]]) 19:40, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

== Link to "Special pages" on main page ==

I think there should be a link to [[Special:SpecialPages]] on the main-page--[[User:17jiangz1|17jiangz1]] ([[User talk:17jiangz1|talk]]) 11:55, 29 March 2015 (UTC)
:Special pages is a default feature in every mediawiki installation. It's also in the sidebar of every page, and it's not relevant to xkcd. Why does it merit space on the main page? '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 18:56, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

== Science comic ==

Should the Science Magazine comic be added? http://m.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/58.full [[User:Mikemk|Mikemk]] ([[User talk:Mikemk|talk]]) 03:14, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
:I think that would be a great idea. Could there be other copyright rules when the comic has been published on Science? It there anyway to find out if Randall also has a link to it from (or has it on) xkcd? As he has done with the other [[:Category:Extra_Comics|Extra_Comics]]. And how do we create such a page, if there can be no link directly to xkcd (at the top of the comic)? --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 13:24, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

== "what if?" section? ==

I would like to start a new "what if?" section explaining and discussing what if pages.--[[User:17jiangz1|17jiangz1]] ([[User talk:17jiangz1|talk]]) 06:08, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
:Why does it need to exist? The main xkcd comic needs it, because Randall tends to be obtuse at times, but the what if articles are sourced and written out already. Supposedly, they're already explanations to questions sent in to Randall. Why do we need to explain explanations? '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 06:29, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
::Explaining them indeed seems unnecessary, but we could certainly catalog and summarize them. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 16:38, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
::The images on what if? also have title texts that could further be explained, and we could organize what if pages by categories, as well as provide summaries. There are also subtle references, running gags, and in-jokes in What If? that should be explained.--[[User:17jiangz1|17jiangz1]] ([[User talk:17jiangz1|talk]]) 08:44, 11 April 2015 (UTC)
::This https://what-if.xkcd.com/120/ is a example of a what if that could do with some explanations.--[[User:17jiangz1|17jiangz1]] ([[User talk:17jiangz1|talk]]) 08:47, 11 April 2015 (UTC)
:::That's one of 135 what-ifs, and it's entirely self referential and can be figured out by reading the rest of the archive. The substance of the majority of pages is going to be incredibly thin, Randall doesn't tend to leave much for explanation. Comics that are simple one-shot images are our least used pages for good reason, and the what-if images pretty much all fall into that category, or are used to illustrate Randall's point that he makes in the immediately preceding paragraph. We could archive/catalog all the what-if pages and be a second archive button for the series, though there's a little less value to that than the archiving we did for [[Time]] and [[Externalities]] because there's already an archive along the same lines on the main site. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 19:14, 11 April 2015 (UTC)
::::I think the main value we could add is a summary (TL;DR style) of each entry, in a short Q&A format. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 12:13, 13 April 2015 (UTC)
If we are going forward with this, is there anyway to find the date in which the what if was first published?--[[User:17jiangz1|17jiangz1]] ([[User talk:17jiangz1|talk]]) 09:01, 11 April 2015 (UTC)
:At the bottom of the page, there's an archive button. Click that. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 19:14, 11 April 2015 (UTC)
Well, fact is, the [[what if?]] page is much, '''much''' larger now. [[User:Nk22|Nk22]] ([[User talk:Nk22|talk]]) 11:52, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
:Thank you, Nk22! I've added a link from the [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/explain_xkcd About explain xkcd] page. {{unsigned|Nealmcb}}

== Userscript ==

Hello there, just wrote a simple userscript that adds an 'Explain' button to the original xkcd.com

https://gist.github.com/magazov/934de662d60c9fb5fea9

You can run it via Greasemonkey, Tampermonkey and other similar plugins :)

[[Image:Screen_Shot_xkcd_button.png]]
{{unsigned|Magazovski}}

:Yeah, there's a few of these floating around. In the future, could you use an imgur link instead of uploading stuff like that to the wiki? Thanks. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 18:02, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

::So maybe explainxkcd should host & maintain one of them? --[[User:Magazovski|Magazovski]] ([[User talk:Magazovski|talk]]) 09:30, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
:::Why would we host an image hosting site? '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 23:17, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
::::He means we could host and maintain a userscript to help our fans get here from xkcd.... [[User:Nealmcb|Nealmcb]] ([[User talk:Nealmcb|talk]]) 14:36, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
:::::Hum, that's not a bad idea. I'll put it on the list of things to do. Although, if they're already here, why do they need a userscript to help them get here? '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 00:34, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
::::::For people who mainly view the comics through the official site, but sometimes need an explanation of the comic. --[[User:Pudder|Pudder]] ([[User talk:Pudder|talk]]) 09:23, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
:::::I've started collecting helpful tools like these on a [[Browser helpers|new page]], to hopefully make them easier for others to find. – [[User:Yfmcpxpj|Yfmcpxpj]] ([[User talk:Yfmcpxpj|talk]]) 00:29, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

== Updating the incomplete comic of the day ==

Currently, I think the incomplete comic of the day should be changed more often (i.e. daily), since the incomplete comics are piling up, and most users aren't seeing the notice, as it is dismissible.--[[User:17jiangz1|17jiangz1]] ([[User talk:17jiangz1|talk]]) 11:40, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

:While I agree that the comic of the day could be changed more often, I wouldn't say that the incomplete comics are ''piling up''. Over the months I've been active here, the number of incomplete comics had fallen considerably. In fact if you check the comics which are still marked as incomplete, most of them are one where a significant effort would be required to complete them. For example the large comics (Money, Time, Congress) or dynamic comics (Externalities, Click & Drag, Pixels). --[[User:Pudder|Pudder]] ([[User talk:Pudder|talk]]) 15:32, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
::Yeah. Of the 15 incomplete "pages," only 10 of them are actual comics that need the attention, and the full count is still dropping. I've been keeping it on single comics as of late because the remaining actual incomplete comics have been cycled through ~3 times already, with no significant effort made on them, because they're such monumental pieces of work. Making the message dismissable is by design, we are a service first and foremost, we're not trying that hard to make visitors do our work for us. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 23:17, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

== Infrequently recurring minor charachters ==

Should we just group all of the characters that are not of enough significance to warrant their own character page into a single page (i.e. [[Other Minor Characters]])? --{{User:17jiangz1/signature|02:58, 09 May 2015}}
:See comic [[1000]] for a sample of what this entails. Also, what value to we stand to provide by cataloging every unique character that has appeared in xkcd? Does it help us explain the comics any better? '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 11:32, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

== Comic page creation ==

Is comic page creation not automated? If it isn't, then [[Help talk:How to add a new comic explanation]] should be created.--{{User:17jiangz1/signature|14:19, 26 May 2015}} 14:19, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

:Comic explanation was, at one point, automated. However, the bot ran on a schedule, and so sometimes there would be a few hours between a new comic being posted and the page getting created. Some editors just can't wait that long, so they do the bot's work before the bot even gets going. I agree that this page should be created and be kept up to date. Historically no one has read any of the help pages I've written. ;p [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 17:42, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

:However, I think that the page should be [[Help:Comic Explanation Page Creation]]. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 17:43, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

== Re-proposing merging Cueball and Rob ==

Okay, so this was previously [[http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Proposals#Merge_Cueball_.26_Rob discussed] but I felt that it was worth bringing up again. Really, at this point, there's no logical reason why the two should not be merged, or Megan and Cutie should be un-merged. Rob and Cueball clearly seem to be the same person, at least when cueball appears as a specific character. In the instances where there are multiple Cueballs, we should just refer to them as Man 1, Man 2, and so on. Can we get a vote or something this time? Yes, I understand that Cueball isn't always the same character. But neither is [[Megan]], and yet we always refer to the short black haired girl (formerly [[Cutie]]) as Megan. If that logic applies to her, it applies to Rob. It's pretty clear that Randall intended to name the character Rob, as most named Cueballs are named Rob and not Fred or something.

In short: Please don't bring nostalgia into this, it's really not relevant. Changing Cueball to Rob or Megan back to Cutie (or Cuegirl?) would have symmetry and make sense. {{unsigned ip|Sensorfire}}
:I'm ok with dumping a marginal character page that only served to add confusion to character identification in new comics, but this was a subject of contention before so we probably need to see more of people's thoughts first. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 01:03, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

:I agree: let's list the arguments for both sides, ensure that everyone agrees with the objectiveness of that listing, and then vote. If there's support for this plan, and nobody does it first, I'll take a stab at producing a first draft of the summary. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 23:57, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

:Randall is currently on a booktour. So, how about, instead of us (without the ability to read minds) arguing about his intention or who is/isn't the same character, someone go see him and ask? Then we'll know with absolute 100% certainty. [[User:WaltG123|WaltG123]] ([[User talk:WaltG123|talk]]) 04:49, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
::Randall never called either character Cueball and Cutie so of course this is not his names. Asking him would make no meaning at all. For any user of xkcd it will create lots of confusion to change the names of Megan and Cueball now. Regarding Rob he is already listed as Cueball in his category. And Cueballs have been called other names several times. Rob is just the only one that has been used a few times. I agree that it may have been wrong to call her Megan, (the name has been used like three times?) Similar it is just as wrong to call Black Hat's girlfriend [[Danish]], a nick name used once. But it is actually very nice to have a real name or at least useful name when speaking of characters. And it has also been mentioned that Cutie could be perused as a sexist name, so we should not move back to that. Well recently even [[Hairbun]] has her name changed from Hairbun girl since a user thought that was a problem given it most often was a grown woman. So I think we should stick to the solution of the previous debate and leave Cueball, Rob and Megan alone as they are! --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:56, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

== Adjective phrases ==

Overwhelmed with the need to be picayune, I am compelled to point out that on the homepage there is the sentence that begins "There are a lot of comics that don't have set in stone explanations..." This sentence contains a adjective phrase which should be hyphenated thus: "set-in-stone"

Please pretend that I have said something witty here, as I am too tired to think of anything funny. {{unsigned|Gamewriter}}
:Is it actually grammatically wrong in it's current state? Huh. I guess I'll change it. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 20:42, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

::This is long after the fact, but I'll throw my two cents in on Davidy22's question. Yes, it is wrong. If the 'set in stone' phrase were after the word explanations ("explanations set in stone") it would not require hyphens, but used as an adjective before the noun ("set-in-stone explanations") it requires them. D Miller [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.41|108.162.221.41]] 18:26, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

== Update MediaWiki ==

You are currently using MediaWiki 1.19.17. It's ''really'' outdated. Maybe update to 1.26.2, the current recommended stable version? There is an [[mw:Manual:Upgrading|official guide]] for that. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.80.77|141.101.80.77]] 12:03, 24 January 2016 (UTC) (PS my IP address is wrong it's not what you think it is)

== Rename Hair Bun Girl ==

The character [[Hair Bun Girl]] was named in April 2015. There wasn't any discussion of the name at the time, so I'd like to open that discussion now please.

At present we have several other characters named after distinctive visual features: [[Ponytail]], [[Black Hat]], [[White Hat]], [[Beret Guy]], and arguably [[Hairy]] and [[Cueball]]. In all but one of those cases, the name matches the distinctive feature itself, without the addition of "guy", "girl", etc. Given the number of comics that Beret Guy is in it's probably too late to modify his name, but it's not too late for Hair Bun Girl.

Besides the consistency issue, there's also the inaccuracy of referring to a grown woman with the term "girl", particularly when the character has been presented as older than [[Megan]]. I'd really like to fix this while her number of appearances is still manageable.

The name "Hairbun" has been proposed and I think that matches really nicely with Ponytail in particular.

[[User:Jkshapiro|Jkshapiro]] ([[User talk:Jkshapiro|talk]]) 04:23, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
:As the "guy" who created the Hair Bun Girl characther, I have no objection to changing the name. I did not think about the issue with girl/woman, probably because I'm not native English speaker. (And with the Beret Guy as an example). Jkshapiro was so kind as to [[User_talk:Kynde#Hair_Bun_.22Girl.22|ask my opinion]] before starting this discussion. At first I thought that ''Hairbun'' was a little weird, but then again so is Ponytail in this context. So I '''support''' the change to '''Hairbun'''! --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 13:06, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

I vote '''change''' Hair Bun to Hairbun and '''keep''' girl. [[User:Mikemk|Mikemk]] ([[User talk:Mikemk|talk]]) 21:02, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

OK, I'm going ahead. [[User:Jkshapiro|Jkshapiro]] ([[User talk:Jkshapiro|talk]]) 02:47, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
:Well as I said I would not mind, but you cannot say you got any other to agree with you on this though. Mimek wished to keep girl... It will be a huge job to get all the instances correct, also be careful no to change those places where the talk is of a girl who has a hair bun. You cannot just change all placed with hair bun girl to Hairbun, in case is actually says the hair bun girl about a small girl who has a hair bun! --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 09:59, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
::Seems no one cares, so I will remove the notes now. Great job Jkshapiro with changing the names. I like the new name now :-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 22:35, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

== Mobile friendly website ==

Can we get a mobile friendly version of the wiki? If we already have one, what about forwarding the main site to it when viewed on a phone? [[User:Mikemk|Mikemk]] ([[User talk:Mikemk|talk]]) 20:59, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Ditto. And/or an app. I would like to be able to keep track of which comics/explanations I have read. [[User:Calion|Calion]] ([[User talk:Calion|talk]]) 13:36, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Install [https://m.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:MobileFrontend the MobileFrontend-extension] on the wiki. Or is it more complicated than that? [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/User:Dgbrt Dgbrt] mentions "working on a real mobile version" below, under [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Proposals#Tables_vs_bold_text Tables vs bold text] [[User:Coverbe|Coverbe]] ([[User talk:Coverbe|talk]]) 15:56, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

== New categories ==

I think there may be a need to propose a standard way to decide on categories: what new ones are needed, what are the prerequisites for creating a new category, how to maintain new categories and make sure they are actually used when they apply etc. For now I have gathered all previous discussions about new categories under this section. -- [[User:Malgond|Malgond]] ([[User talk:Malgond|talk]]) 13:39, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
:I think that whenever there are more than 4-5 comics that you wish to refer to in a given explanation because they are of the same topic as the current comic, then having a category is much to prefer rather than listing 5, 6 or 7 comics. I have made several categories for these instances, for instance for sport including the most used sports. At the time being I keep them up to date. One of the things this site does so well is giving you an easy way to find a specific comic even though you cannot remember the title of any precise quotes etc. If you just have an idea of what the topic was you might find it based on the categories. In this way I do not think we can have too many categories. As long as they describe a recurring subject. Only fault is that there seems to be no way to search for a comic based on more than one category? That would be great. In some cases even only 3 comics in a category can make sense. For instance I would be sorry to see this one go [[:Category:Puts on sunglasses]] (and I did not make it!) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 13:09, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
::For instance I have long wished for categories that covered all the space probe related comics, particularly all those referencing the Mars rovers. So today I made them with 16 and 9 comics in them already. [[:Category:Space probes]] [[:Category:Mars rovers]]. I hope people will generally think this was a great idea! :-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:42, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
:::And [[:Category:The Lion King]]... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:47, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

There are a lot of category creation proposals scattered everywhere. This concentrated proposal list is really hard to find. [[User:ClassicalGames|ClassicalGames]] ([[User talk:ClassicalGames|talk]]) 08:54, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

=== Category: Protip ===

Anyone for adding ''Protip'' as a [[:Category:Comic series|Comic series]]. I have found five so far: [[653]], [[711]], [[1022]], [[1047]] and [[1156]]. (There are also a few comics with a protip title text.) -- [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 10:25, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

:I think that qualifies as a recurring topic (thus worthy of a category), but not as a series, where you can see a clear sequence. In fact, [[:Category:My Hobby|My Hobby]] has the same limitation, for what I suggest it to be removed from [[:Category:Comic series]]. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 11:42, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

::Seconded. Looks general and common enough to be a category. '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 14:57, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

:::Okay, great! Do you think that the ones with a "protip:" title text should be included? Besides, I think I might be the one responsiple for moving My Hobby from [[:Category:Comics by topic|Comics by topic]] to Comic series. I felt that all the My Hobby comics were about different topics, but maybe i've got to narrow an interpretation of the word "topic". -- [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 15:31, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

:::: Can you link to the protip-in-title-text comics?
:::: As for My Hobby, note that categories aren't mutually exclusive. They can be in the "my hobby" topic, and each of them further categorized as appropriate: music, math, etc. Makes sense? --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 03:45, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
:::: I just searched for protip in the xkcd search bar. Here: [[1084]], [[427]]. And yes, makes sense. I've moved My Hobby back to "by topic". -- [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 12:06, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

=== Category: Sports ===

How about creating a new "Sports" category? [[User:Ekedolphin|Ekedolphin]] ([[User talk:Ekedolphin|talk]]) 15:31, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
:Well, maybe. Everyone aren't so keen on new categories here. Which comics are you thinking of, for a start? –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 20:32, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
::We definitely need to reach an agreement as a community on when to create new categories. Something simple like a minimum of 3 (or, say, 5) existing comics. Since we're already at the proposals' portal... what do you guys think about that? --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 21:44, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
:::My opinion: Five would be enough to qualify. [[User:Ekedolphin|Ekedolphin]] ([[User talk:Ekedolphin|talk]]) 09:31, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
::::I vote for four. But it should also be a reasonable thing to categorize, like sports, not like "sports with Cueball containing at least three anagram words". Wich sholdn't be a problem. :) But the best name choice could be tricky sometimes. e.g. "Film & television", Film & TV", "Film", "Films", or "Movies"? –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 12:59, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
:::
::::Agreed, five should be enough to create the category without having to discuss it. - [[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 00:50, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
: OK, let's start with [[588: Pep Rally|588]], [[1092: Michael Phelps|1092]], [[904: Sports|904]] and [[1107: Sports Cheat Sheet|1107]]. Should be able to find a few more. [[User:Ekedolphin|Ekedolphin]] ([[User talk:Ekedolphin|talk]]) 05:00, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
::Yeah, it's a broad subject so there are probably several more. -[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 12:59, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
:::I found another one, sort of, in [[929:Speculation|929]] (although it hasn't been explained yet). Should I get the ball rolling (no pun intended) on setting up the category? Don't wanna do it unilaterally and get yelled at. ;) [[User:Ekedolphin|Ekedolphin]] ([[User talk:Ekedolphin|talk]]) 06:18, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
::::I think you should. On a wiki, getting stuck in discussions which die without a conclusion, to the point that motivated people give up without having done anything, is definitely counter-productive, and phrases like [[wikipedia:Wikipedia:Be bold|Wikipedia:Be bold]] are here to remind us of that. Seems like people agreed that you ''could'', and after a while nobody said that you ''shouldn't'', so I'd say do it. - [[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 00:50, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
:I did it without looking here first, because it was obvious there were many [[:Category:Sport|sport comics]]. I have even created four under categories (only one was there before, Chess). There are 10 comics at present that are related to other sports than the five under categories. And given the way Randall thinks about sport (not very much) he still has plenty of comics about the subject. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 07:33, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

=== Category: Sex ===

I think we should also create a Sex category. There's no ''doubt'' we can find more than three examples. I'll start looking for them and post the ones I find in here; again, I don't wanna create a large category by myself without community consent. [[User:Ekedolphin|Ekedolphin]] ([[User talk:Ekedolphin|talk]]) 09:20, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
*OK, the ones for Category: Sex that I've found so far are [[443]], [[219]], [[550]], [[1026]], [[575]], [[468]], [[592]], [[320]], [[1101]], [[417]], [[713]], [[672]], [[230]], [[436]], [[940]], [[532]], [[649]], [[176]], [[1006]], [[596]] and [[717]], and I'm sure there are many more. Should we create this category? [[User:Ekedolphin|Ekedolphin]] ([[User talk:Ekedolphin|talk]]) 23:17, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

:Same as [[#Category: Sports|above]], do it. Oh, already did; well, all the better. - [[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 00:53, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

=== Category: Flowcharts ===

Hello, the line "Randall has made use of flowcharts before." in today's comic explanation made me want a [[:Category:Flowcharts|flowcharts category]] to navigate into...

As it didn't exist, I proceeded to create it, but as the log says, [[User:lcarsos|lcarsos]] deleted such a category in November, saying ''"Insufficient differentiation from Category:Comics with charts, diluting the depth of comics tagged charts"''.

I don't agree with that, and I think we could profit from such a subcategory. I found those pages fitting it:
* [[94: Profile Creation Flowchart]]
* [[210: 90's Flowchart]]
* [[488: Steal This Comic]]
* [[627: Tech Support Cheat Sheet]]
* [[844: Good Code]]
* [[851: Na]]
* [[854: Learning to Cook]]
* [[1195: Flowchart]]

So? - [[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 10:59, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
:Weell if you're willing to take charge of the category and personally make sure it's added to all relevant comic explanations, go ahead. The usual objection to making new categories is that we admins can't remember all the categories when we're reviewing new explanations, but it's K if you're willing to take up that responsibility yourself. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 11:17, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
:
:: OK. I did it without waiting for further replies, because I think it will be especially profitable today (to viewers).
:: It doesn't seem a big issue to me if the correct category is not added when a new explanation is made: a passing editor will do it later on... But hey, I'm OK with taking special care of adding pages to this category.
:: [[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 12:28, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

::: I just want to add that Cos' view is indeed the appropriate way to work in wikis: there is no concept of a single author for a page, category, or piece of text, and the workload is meant to be distributed among several editors: it is not necessary that any single editor remembers all existing categories, or knows the wiki markup by heart, or knows how to work with all the features of mediawiki, etc. The reason why wikis can be edited by anyone is precisely a recognition that there *will* be errors and any page can be improved somehow. That reasoning against categories should, IMO, be abandoned, or at most only kept as the opinion of some editors. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 22:00, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Isnt there a page which lists all the categories? If not, there should be one, and it should be accessible to all. Such a page could be useful when trying to quick-add categories to comics. [[Special:Contributions/117.194.83.155|117.194.83.155]] 13:43, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
:Yes, there is. [[Special:Categories]]. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 14:07, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
::Of course, there's a gazillion of 'em, over several pages, so I understand any reluctance to add new categories (having just suggested a new one myself which I feel is justified, but knowing that the upkeep needed may be the key point of contention so remaining philosophical about it).
::A solution perhaps to carry over from another locale that I frequent is to have a "Categories of Character" page, a "Categories of Object" one, perhaps "Categories of Event", and a "Categories of Publication". For each new comic someone can easily check the shorter Character categories list against those present, the Object list against itemsin use, Events, etc, and of course the Publication one has the "Tuesday Comic"/equivalent, and other date-based ones (although isn't that automatic from templated creation? ...never added a comic, but would imagine it is). After that it's a trawl through the miscelania categories (perhaps a meta-category just for them?). But, yeah, a lot of work to set up. Wouldn't wish it on anyone who wasn't already willing to do it, and I remain an anon-IP person right now so can hardly commit ''myself'' as volunteer maintainer of this. [[Special:Contributions/178.98.31.27|178.98.31.27]] 17:20, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

=== Category: (Barred/banned from?) Conferences ===

I come here after realising I erroneously posted (in reply) to the Main page Talk, being anonymous (or at least IP-only) and without a list of qualifying articles to support me, just yet, but still wish to put forward the above category before I forget. There's no apparent equivalent, that I found, but it's definitely a recurring meme. I should be back (named or otherwise) with my suggested list of members, if someone else doesn't get there first, but I thought I'd start with the placemarker. [[Special:Contributions/178.98.31.27|178.98.31.27]] 16:41, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
:Ok, so I got the bee in my bonnet and spent a few minutes actually looking into this. Revising "Barred from Conferences" (actually more often "Banned" or even "Thrown out of"/equivalent) to just "Conferences", the subset of comics that I can easily find that are involved is *[[153]], *[[177]], *[[365]], *[[410]], *[[463]], *[[541]], [[545]], [[685]], [[829]] and [[867]], but I'm sure there are more recent ones that I didn't spot/recall. One alternative title to "Conferences" is "Presentations", and I'm sure if I'd searched for that I'd have found more potential candidates (less some that might ''exit'' the renamed category). The asterisked ones ''do'' deal with being barred/banned/thrown out/etc, making it still a suitable category in its own right, IMO, but I'll leave it up to your combined musings to decide. [[Special:Contributions/178.98.31.27|178.98.31.27]] 17:07, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
::I add [[690]] to the list. --[[User:Chtz|Chtz]] ([[User talk:Chtz|talk]]) 08:12, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

::: Great suggestions! I created [[:Category:Public speaking]] and [[:Category:Banned from conferences]]. I also added [[Wikipedian Protester]] to the mix, of course :) --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 21:59, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

=== Category: Wishes ===

[http://explainxkcd.com/1391/ Several] [http://explainxkcd.com/1086/ comics] [http://explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/152:_Hamster_Ball now] [http://xkcd.com/879/ exist] that talk about wishes - probably more. Should there be a category for this? [[User:Z|Z]] ([[User talk:Z|talk]]) 23:22, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
:Doesn't seem significant enough. If you promise to maintain the category you can make it yourself, although it will be cleared out if it gets neglected as new comics are released. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 15:20, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

=== Category: Artificial Intelligence ===

Hello world.

There are a handful of comics involving Ai - [[1540]], [[1530]], [[1450]] and [[948]] for instance - and maybe it's an idea to give them their own category {{unsigned|Nk22}}

:The usual objection to new categories is that they get abandoned and are too narrow for other people to think of picking them up. If you're going to own it and update it with new comics, you can make it. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 21:01, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

=== Category: Size Comparisons ===
There are numerous comics comparing sizes of things. I can't get a list right now, but off the top of my head, radiation dosages, money, today's comic, and space shuttles in horses. [[User:Mikemk|Mikemk]] ([[User talk:Mikemk|talk]]) 19:23, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

===Category: Katamari Damacy ===

There are quite a few comics about this game. [[User:DPS2004|DPS2004]] ([[User talk:DPS2004|talk]])

=== Category: Mycology ===

6 comics so far reference mycology/mushrooms. I might be a bit biased, but there's other categories like butterfly nets that have the same amount of comics. Also, destroying angels are a huge part of the What-If chapter (book-exclusive) about losing your DNA. It should probably be a subcategory under Biology.

Here is the list (what I found so far at least):

[[2307]] - fungi on the chart

[[2246]] - fungi in the title text

[[1991]] - mycology is a subject on the chart

[[1904]] - see above

[[1749]] - comic is about mushrooms

[[1664]] - comic is about mycology [[User:Mushrooms|Mushrooms]] ([[User talk:Mushrooms|talk]]) 07:23, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
:Eh sure if you're keen enough on it '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 08:30, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

== Adding Ratings for Explanations ==

I found [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1652 today's explanation] excellently written however that is not always the case. Frequently explanations are walk through of the conversation that are too wordy without any succinct explanation of why or how a strip is funny -- while many of those low quality explanations are not strictly "incomplete" they could benefit from a careful rewrite. I was wondering if we should add a rating tool such as " ''Was this explanation helpful? yes/no'' " so as to identify explanation that could benefit from improvement without having to be tagged as "incomplete". [[User:Spongebog|Spongebog]] ([[User talk:Spongebog|talk]]) 17:57, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
:We have a rather prominent discussion page for feedback, do we really need an additional add-on for this? I did a little research and found that other wikis use [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Semantic_Rating semantic rating] and [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ArticleRatings article ratings], which I can install if enough other users want it. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 05:54, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

== New Speculation Sections ==

I often see a lot of speculation and conjecture within the explanation of the comic itself. I don't think it has any place in the explanation but I know many editors enjoy speculating and interpreting the comic and the meaning behind it so I've decided to start this discussion on whether we should provide a section where we can provide different speculations.

What I am thinking would not be like the discussion page, where comments are made and discussed, but an edited and reviewed section which outlines different speculations and interpretations of the comics themselves and perhaps even the author's intent.

Of course tone and presentation should be held to the same standards of the comic explanation but I think this would be a good way to better organize a review of the comic.

I have been away too long to remember if there are any comic explanations with something like this so I have no idea how well it would work.

As an example;

This part from comic 1642: [[Gravitational Waves]]

" It seems that Randall knew in advance about this announcement because this comic was published on a Thursday, not following the normal publish schedule, to coincide with the announcement "

Is well supported, and rather likely correct, conjecture which belongs in the body of the explanation because not only is it backed by strong evidence but it provides background on the comic and the time in which the comic was released and aids in understanding the comic itself.

However, this part from comic 478: [[The Staple Madness]]

"From just reading the comic by itself, one may presume that in the last panel, Cueball has been stapled to the ceiling (as obvious evidence to Megan that Beret Guy has indeed been abusing her staple gun). According to the comic's official transcript, however, it is in fact God who is speaking."

Is almost as equally well supported and certainly a valid interpretation of simply the comic. It is only refuted by the official transcript. I believe it is important to acknowledge and may even be a more humorous interpretation than the one which is provided by the official transcript.

If we added a speculation section (or something of the sort) then we would have a place to talk about this interpretation more freely and expound upon it more.

[[User:Lackadaisical|Lackadaisical]] ([[User talk:Lackadaisical|talk]]) 15:16, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
: Problem is the whole "explanation" is actually conjecture. None of us the author, we're all just guessing. [[User:Jkshapiro|Jkshapiro]] ([[User talk:Jkshapiro|talk]]) 15:23, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

: Many of the current explanations are conjecture, that's true but not every explanation. Providing information on the science or mathematics behind a particular comic is not conjecture. Stating whether the author intended to belittle the field or state that one field is superior over another (unless fairly explicitly stated) is. And there are many things which can be inferred without being simple speculation. Not every comic would need a section like this, and not every comic needs a trivia section, and I'm not ready to start adding this proposed section myself. But I think it should be considered. [[User:Lackadaisical|Lackadaisical]] ([[User talk:Lackadaisical|talk]]) 15:35, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
::The intention of the discussion pages was to serve as a place for people to put their conjecture and reaching interpretations of the comics. They're presented alongside the explanation to make people's interpretations more readily visible. Some people may have trouble distinguishing an ungrounded interpretation of a comic from an explanation of it, and they will insert weak text into explanations. If you find something you disagree with, feel free to bring it up in the discussion section and edit it out of the explanation liberally '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 06:17, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

== Unixkcd ==

Hello everyone. I was just wondering: is there anything on http://uni.xkcd.com/. Because I was just looking and the only thing I found on Unixkcd is a mention of a bug in [[1350]]. There is not even a mention on the April fools article.
:There's nothing on this site, there's a couple of novel tidbits on the xkcd site that are at best tangentially related to the comic, as Randall originally intended to make xkcd.com his personal site for hosting his own projects. That particular one doesn't show up in any comics. Also, proposals might not be the best place to put this. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 08:46, 21 May 2016 (UTC)
::I added the unixckd information to [[721: Flatland]]. According to [https://vimeo.com/78912850 Randalls Øredev 2013 talk] unixkcd was the April Fools' prank for April 1st 2010. [[User:Condor70|Condor70]] ([[User talk:Condor70|talk]]) 09:00, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

== New character category for blonde woman news reporter (from 1699) ==

From today's comic [[1699: Local News]] I just got the idea that there may be needing a new category for either blonde woman and/or comics with news reports. I posted this [[Talk:1699:_Local_News#New_character_category|post]], in the talk page of that comic. Any comments, and if agreeing that there might be one or two different character categories needed then please suggest what they should be called. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:00, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
:Agree with Blondie as new character name and with adding a category for news reports. [[User:Jkshapiro|Jkshapiro]] ([[User talk:Jkshapiro|talk]]) 00:47, 28 June 2016 (UTC)
:Agree with new character category for Blondie --[[User:Lackadaisical|Lackadaisical]] ([[User talk:Lackadaisical|talk]]) 12:38, 28 June 2016 (UTC)
:: Thanks for the replies. Could be nice with a few more chipping in. One issue I just found is [[Miss Lenhart]] and ambiguous situations like in comic [[59: Graduation]], where I would remove the miss reference. But then miss would be a sub category of Blondie (or Blonde? which Randall cals the girl in 59) as [[Rob]] is for [[Cueball]]... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:07, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
:: I think blondie is fine for a name. Miss Lenhart is another character who uses a similar design so I think treating her like Rob is perfectly acceptable. The only thing more I think we should discuss is the role blondie plays in most of the comics (Like how cueball is an everyman, whitehat is often a strawman, Blackhat is blackhat etc.) [[User:Lackadaisical|Lackadaisical]] ([[User talk:Lackadaisical|talk]]) 12:04, 13 July 2016 (UTC)
:::There are also these two that looks like Blondie: [[Mrs. Roberts]] or her daughter [[Elaine Roberts]]. I think this is part of why no one has made the category, as there are already three named women with the same hair. But there are so many other comics with this kind of woman, that I think she should be created. I hope I will get the time, but if anyone has any other ideas than just calling them "Blondie" and letting the other three be an subcategory like Rob is of Cueball then say so now before anyone creates Blondie. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 11:19, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
:::Agree with new character category and characters with the same appearance as sub-categories [[User:Lackadaisical|Lackadaisical]] ([[User talk:Lackadaisical|talk]]) 18:04, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Based on the discussion she is now called [[Blondie]] --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 07:27, 10 September 2016 (UTC)
 And now there is also a [[:Category:News anchor]] with 15 entries already. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:22, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

== fix a page ==

The page Comics featuring Summer Glau is missing:
https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/526:_Converting_to_Metric {{unsigned ip|108.162.241.130}}
:Done. In the future, you can add categories yourself, just scroll to the bottom and follow the template the others go by. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 03:56, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

== New xkcd book out. ==

Any chance of posting a section of explanation pages for the cartoons in the new xkcd book, hopefully explaining some of the cryptic red notes? Thanks! {{unsigned ip|199.27.133.102}}

== Business Plan category ==

I propose renaming [[:Category:Beret Guy's Business]] into Business Plans, and adding it to [[1721: Business Idea]] [[User:Mikemk|Mikemk]] ([[User talk:Mikemk|talk]]) 08:15, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
::(Note I added a ":" to your category link to show the link instead of adding this page to the category. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:43, 10 September 2016 (UTC))
:No of course not, that comic is about [[Cueball]]. This is Beret Guy's business we are talking about here. This category is not about business idea but about what [[Beret Guy]] does just like the page with [[:Category:Strange powers of Beret Guy]]. Both are used in the explanation of who he is. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:43, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

== Comics with header text ==

Several comic have some header text, such as [[851]] or [[1052]]. Shouldn't there be a category for them or something? I think it is quite a notable feature. [[User:Jaalenja|Jaalenja]] ([[User talk:Jaalenja|talk]]) 15:23, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
:I feel like it's not a particularly defining feature, it feels like making a category for comics that have frames with no borders or something, it's just a technique Randall uses. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 07:35, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
::To me it feels more like a second title text. It is not technically part of the comic itself, but is a separate piece of information included with it on the xkcd website. There is a category for comics without title text, this is the same, only reverse, in my humble opinion [[User:Jaalenja|Jaalenja]] ([[User talk:Jaalenja|talk]]) 07:13, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

== purpose of detailed transcripts ==

There are two styles of comic descriptions in the transcripts. Some
are fairly terse, giving only the information required to understand
the comic (e.g. "Cueball is talking to Megan, who looks excited").
Others give lots of graphic details, as if one should be able to
reconstruct the picture from the description (e.g. "Cueball, on the
left, is talking to Megan, on the right. His left hand is pointing to
her. Megan's arms are raised above her head and her excitement is
shown by short lines around her head..." and so on). The former style
used to be the norm, the latter has become increasingly
common in recent months.

Being visually impaired, I am extremely pleased with the terse style
of transcript, and have no interest in the verbose style. To me it is
useless and sometimes fairly annoying. Of course, this is a community
and I can happily live with it if others find it useful.

So, I'd like to know who needs detailed, graphical transcripts, and
for what purpose? Were they requested by some users, or did those
writing transcripts just decide to adopt this new style? If there is
a clearly identified reason for describing pictures in detail, fine.
If not, I vote for switching back to the old, terse style.

Zetfr 14:10, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

:Sorry we did not see this at the time. As we can see you finally found ears for you comment after [[1798]] and a new discussion has begun on [[User_talk:Kynde#Transcript_TLDR.3B|my user page]]. (Should probably have been here?) But anyway I'm responsible for your problems, and I will try to write less in the transcript and add "other important" either below in the trivia or below the main comic (as maybe - Detailed image description...) It was meant as a way to search for any thing in the comic if you needed it. I guess most people do not read the transcript, so of course annoying if it is not useful for those who always need to read it. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 16:21, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

== Rename Science Girl "Jill" ==

Following the Precedent of "[[Megan]]" and "[[Danish]]" (but oddly enough not [[Rob]]), I propose that we rename [[Science Girl]] Jill, as per [[1662]]. This could serve to give her an easier name and to use in cases where the character doesn't have a connection with science but seems to be the same girl. [[User:Sensorfire|Sensorfire]] ([[User talk:Sensorfire|talk]]) 18:19, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
:The only time she's called Jill is in Jack and Jill comics (of course), and the only reason you'd want to do that is since [[Randall]] displays them similarly. In some cases Science Girl is even clearly older. We might do that if there was a [[Child-Blackhaired-Ponytail]] character, but these characters are always either Science Girl or Jill. Also, Jill has very, very few appearances anyway. [[User:Jacky720|Jacky720]] ([[User talk:Jacky720|talk]]) 21:37, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

== Make an official transcript site ==
I've already taken the liberty of making {{template|transcript}}, and think we, together, can do better- which is why I'm implementing [https://jackm.000webhost.com/transcript.html this site], in order to display the official transcript in its intended format. However, it is bugged, and could do better if moved to explain xkcd. Is anyone in on this? [[User:Jacky720|Jacky720]] ([[User talk:Jacky720|talk]]) 21:36, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
:The transcript site doesn't seem to be accessible. Is the project dead? If it's not I can try to help. [[User:Errpell|Errpell]] ([[User talk:Errpell|talk]]) 21:06, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

== HTTPS Links Back to XKCD Interfere with Random Button ==

The Links back to the comics that are present just above the comic itself on the wiki pages (and adjacent to the next and previous links) provides an HTTPS link back to XKCD. However, this interferes with users who want to click that link, and then click `random` - because `c.xkcd.com` does NOT support HTTPS, and thus clicking 'random' after returning to xkcd from explainxkcd does not work. These links should be switched back to HTTP.

--[[User:9000 volts|9000 volts]] ([[User talk:9000 volts|talk]]) 21:15, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

== Rearrange for our visually impaired friends. ==

I have a great friend who is blind and he uses this site to "read" XKCD so we can talk about it. However, there are two things that he finds frustrating. The first, while it means no harm and most readers gloss over it, when listening to the content of the page every day it can become demeaning to hear "it's because you're dumb" every time. I certainly agree, I use explain XKCD because I am significantly dumb-er than Randall, but my friend uses it because he's blind. This is not that big of a deal, but a friendly suggestion.

The second suggestion is to move the transcript section to the top before the explanation so as not to spoil the content of the comic with user explanation right away--in the case that those listening to the article are in fact smart enough to get the joke before needing an explanation.

Thanks for your consideration.

== Incomplete in spotlight ==

The incomplete comic in spotlight should be changed more often, the current one is not even incomplete. [[User:Dontknow|Dontknow]] ([[User talk:Dontknow|talk]]) 16:52, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

== Duplicate Navigation tools at bottom of page (please!) ==

I'm enjoying revisiting xkcd canon through the lens of Explain, but frustrated that after studiously reading through the explanation and discussion, I have to scroll back up to the top to get to the Next button.
What would the harm be in duplicating the buttons at the foot of each page?
Thanks for considering this.
Regards

That would be nice, would help a lot. Also, please sign your comments with four tildes. [[User:Dontknow|Dontknow]] ([[User talk:Dontknow|talk]]) 19:46, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

I really would like this. And it seems simple enough to add, without seriously degrading the existing interface.
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.154.230|162.158.154.230]] 05:13, 10 January 2024 (UTC)Murray/NJ

== JSON endpoint ==
There is a [http://www.xkcd.com/info.0.json endpoint] to retrieve information about the comics on the xkcd website. However the info there is not complete, specially when it comes to the transcripts. explainxkcd should provide a similar interface. It would be very useful specially for bots/scripts. The commmunity could help completing the information on the xkcd website and/or provide a new interface. The transcript are already retrieved from this website and a copy can be found [https://github.com/nhatzHK/randi/blob/master/json/xkcd.references.json here]. If there isn't already a complete file or databse with all the information, this file could help building it. However, this document has been compiled by scraping the html of explainxkcd, so there's some errors in it. These errors can be avoid with a clear and easy to access interface like JSON, similar to what is available on the xkcd website. [[User:Errpell|Errpell]] ([[User talk:Errpell|talk]]) 20:43, 11 July 2017 (UTC)
:Maybe there is a mediawiki addon to support a JSON file. Any ideas? --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:08, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

== Suggestion for small improvement to interface ==
Am I the only one that wishes the Previous / Next buttons were repeated at the bottom of the page? After reading the explanation, I often want to go to the next one in sequence.
(Obviously, I don't check this wiki every day :)
Scrolling back to the top isn't hard, but having the buttons near the bottom would make navigation easier.

Hope you agree!
Murray in NJ

PS: Aha! I see others have suggested the same thing :) {{unsigned ip|162.158.75.232}}
:This was also mentioned before. I don't agree because the layout is based on the original xkcd site. '''Protip''': Do not "scroll back", just use your keyboard. The magic key is called "Home". --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:14, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

== Category for The Little Prince? ==

How many comics need to feature/mention a certain thing before we need a category?

I think there are enough featuring the Little Prince to deserve a Category of its own.

== mediawiki things ==

could admin please update to the latest version of mediawiki and add the [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Skin:Timeless?useskin=timeless timeless skin], thx. also would help if you added <code>line-height: 1.5em</code> to the edit box (<code>#wpTextbox1</code>) while making it taller to compensate, or added the 2010 code editor to aid readability. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.92.4|162.158.92.4]] 11:50, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

== The state of "incomplete" explanations and an unified policy ==

Hello, everybody. Recently I went through the "incomplete" explanations and I saw several problems... I think I better split this into sections.

'''1) Many seemingly old and complete explanations are marked either with various creative variations of the auto-generated tag or something along the lines of "rough draft".''' I have personally removed several incomplete tags during the last days, sometimes adding few information before doing so, but usually not. But there are so many of them and it just would not feel right to take it upon myself to reap them all, so, if anyone can spare a few minutes to quickly scan them and remove (or update, in some cases) the tags, it would be nice. Here is a list of explanations with this particular problem, for convenience: [[1874]], [[1906]], [[1908]], [[1912]], [[1915]], [[1919]], [[1925]], [[1926]], [[1929]], [[1930]], [[1937]]

1940 and 1941 also seem complete IMO, but given how recent they are, they could be given some time.

'''2) Some incomplete tags seem like abuse of the feature.''' [[1909]] is probably the best example of this. Table might be nice, but it is not necessary to explain the comic, it would be just "gilding". There is nothing wrong about perfecting complete articles, but marking an article incomplete because someone got an idea how it could be done (and is too lazy to do it themselves) should be discouraged IMO. Other examples: [[1904]] - here I actually disagree with the proposal - why should information that does not represent percentages be represented using them? - but that's my personal view. [[1895]] - this one is asking for further perfection of a perfective information. [[1688]] - a '''huge''' example, asks for something that would require quite a lot of effort without helping anyone understand the comic, a cool project, but not needed for the article to be complete. [[1701]] - I really don't think this is necessary and the explanation is already twice the size I'd expect for such simple comic (*obligatory personal opinion disclaimer*).

'''3) Some tags are just... vague.''' [[1856]] and [[1733]]. "Someone could maybe improve this" applies to pretty much everything in the universe, sorry.

'''4) A policy proposal.''' Here comes the second half of the topic title. There appear to be two conflicting schools of thoughts among editors. Some seem to prefer long, meticulously detailed explanations. Others, including myself, prefer short and concise explanations. On more than one occasion, this has led to mess, so I think there should be some official policies about what kind of information should be considered considered necessary, useful, and superfluous. Obviously, every comic is different, and defining hard rules for this is impossible, so maybe "guideline" is a better word than "policy" here. Here are some suggestions about what this guideline could contain (please, take this as a "sub-suggestion", if a guideline gets accepted, but will end up containing nothing out of this, I will still be happy):

* NECESSARY: named people, groups, organizations, websites, works of art, geographic locations etc. should be briefly introduced, unless they can be presumed to be universally known (e.g. Google, Shakespeare, New York). Obscure words should be defined. Scientific and technical terms should be explained.
* SUPERFLUOUS: recursive explanations - an explanation that mentions concepts that themselves need explaining, but were not relevant to the comic itself.

I guess that's it. Maybe a little disclaimer that I don't have much time now, so I may not be here to further lead this discussion. Maybe I should have waited with posting this when I do have time, but that may not be for a long time, so for what it's worth, here it is.
--[[User:Jaalenja|Jaalenja]] ([[User talk:Jaalenja|talk]]) 12:16, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

:Your "policy (or guideline) proposal" is that what's widely excepted here. There are some overwhelming explanations and you are welcome to help on more precise writings. But in general there is no censorship here, less important content may be moved to a trivia section below the transcript. Irrelevant content (who decides that?) may be moved to the talk page with a given reason. I'm also a fan of "short and concise explanations" but who will judge what this really is? Further more I really dislike many of those tables, it's bad layout. But changing this takes a lot of work. [[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 13:51, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

::The main reason why I want there to be an official policy is so the process of marking explanations as complete can be more straightforward. There would be a community-approved list of things an explanation needs to contain, if an explanation has all that, it is complete. Of course there would still be lot of room for interpretation because every comic is different and coming up with rules that fit all is impossible, but I believe this could still be a massive improvement over the current state.
::Also, '''please''', when I say something is merely a sub-suggestion, I mean it. Your reply gives me the feeling you understood my proposal as something along the lines of "We should make it an official policy that explanations should look like this:", whereas it was more along the lines of "There should be an official policy about what explanations should contain. Here is an example of what such policy could maybe look like:" [[User:Jaalenja|Jaalenja]] ([[User talk:Jaalenja|talk]]) 06:49, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
:::In general I don't think this is a big issue. The vast majority (99%) of the comics is ''not'' marked as incomplete and those you are citing here should be discussed at the corresponding talk pages. Thus I don't see a ''massive improvement'' anyway.
:::However we can enhance the proper section at the [[explain xkcd:Editor FAQ|Editor FAQ]] by one or two concise sentences. But when you say ''"There should be..."'' nothing would happen; that's why I say: ''"We should make it"''. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 09:36, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

== Tables vs bold text ==

There are many, many, many comics with several things mentioned in the comic that need to be individually explained, and there are two ways we can do it, one being tables (for example: [[1930: Calendar Facts]]), the other being using bold text to separate paragraphs into sections (for example: [[1972: Autogyros]]). The thing is for the most cases, it seems like we should be using tables, but then using bold text to seperate paragraphs looks better, and is also easier... So when should we use tables, and when bold text? [[User:Herobrine|Herobrine]] ([[User talk:Herobrine|talk]]) 12:20, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
:IMHO we have far too much tables - a structured floating text is much easier to read. Consider this:
:*A ''List of all planets in our solar'' system with a few columns for distance (in km, mi, and AU), size, and temperature. That's a classical table.
:*The table in [[1930: Calendar Facts]] contains far too much text in many cells. Try to read this on a smartphone. And furthermore on my ''Google Chrome for Android'' all the tables from this comic are not shown at all when using the ''Simplified View''.
:*Or compare this: [[1363: xkcd Phone]] and [[1549: xkcd Phone 3]]. I prefer the floating text and even more when I'm using a mobile device.
:But that's only my opinion.
:Nevertheless I'm also working on a real mobile version of this Wiki (similar to Wikipedia) and that will require some restrictions to the layout to get it properly rendered. But this will not happen before the FIFA World Cup 2018 is over ;) --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 13:17, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
::Agreed. Narrow columns with simple facts are ok, but longer text should not be put in a table. --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 10:15, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
::: I second this. [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 11:22, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
::::Please check also this new [[explain xkcd:Editor FAQ|Editor FAQ]] and the belonging talk page. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 13:04, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
::Any updates? (Why) is it not just a matter of installing [https://m.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:MobileFrontend the MobileFrontend-extension]? :) (See also above: [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Proposals#Mobile_friendly_website Mobile friendly website]) [[User:Coverbe|Coverbe]] ([[User talk:Coverbe|talk]]) 16:01, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

== Add the comic to the edit page ==

While editing the explanation, it would be nice to be able to see the comic on that same page, especially for the transcript. (it's difficult for mobile editors to see two pages at once)
:Please sign your comments, and that’s not possible from what I know, considering how this website is set up. (I can still edit fine on mobile) [[User:Netherin5|Netherin5]] ([[User talk:Netherin5|talk]]) 13:49, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

== Dark theme/night mode ==

Should I explain this?

It's for all of us who edit the wiki at 1am and like our retinas.

Firefox has a [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dark-theme-enhanced/?src=recommended Dark Theme Extension], and it looks pretty good on the Wiki. [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dark-theme-for-google-chr/annfbnbieaamhaimclajlajpijgkdblo Chrome does too], but I haven't tried it out.

== Change dates to match ISO 8601. ==

Can we change the timestamps to match [[1179: ISO 8601]]? I'm surprised this hasn't been suggested earlier [[User:9yz|9yz]] ([[User talk:9yz|talk]]) 20:33, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

== Add bookmark ==

I have used some simple javascript to create a bookmarklet that automatically opens the wiki-page of the xkcd page that you are reading. I would like to provide it on the wiki. It works as follows.

1. Make a bookmark, give it a recognizable name.
2. For the url, enter the following: javascript: document.location = document.URL.replace('xkcd.com','explainxkcd.com');
3. Create the bookmark. To use it, open any xkcd page and click it to go to the corresponding wiki page.

Thanks for considering.
[[User:Kwonunn|Kwonunn]] ([[User talk:Kwonunn|talk]]) 18:27, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

:Thanks Kwonunn! I've started collecting these helpful tools on a [[Browser helpers|new page]], to hopefully make them easier for others to find. – [[User:Yfmcpxpj|Yfmcpxpj]] ([[User talk:Yfmcpxpj|talk]]) 01:30, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

== Regarding using facebook like and google captcha - Privacy concerns ==

Considering that they track users across various sites, it is not in the best interests of the users' privacy.

https://complianz.io/google-recaptcha-and-the-gdpr-a-possible-conflict/ - This article explains the issues better than I can.

Especially the users who use VPNs affected more - it takes noticeably longer and more tries to pass the google captcha. Preventing/dis-incentivizing new contributors from behind a VPN. There is anecdotal evidence (in the form of reddit posts) that google captcha discriminates firefox users and allow chrome users to get simpler challenges or none at all.

The Facebook like button is an iframe. Users visiting this page(s) have not explicitly consented to being tracked by facebook and google.

I am speculating here, but from the amount of data these two items are gathering, it seems possible to de-anonymize the users who are behind a vpn. I don't trust either of these companies to not grab the free data. In the article listed above, it seems captcha alone can capture a screenshot of the pages without users' (explicit) consent. I haven't read through all the privacy and terms.

Captcha is necessary for avoiding spam. There are alternatives. Anything but google one should suffice. Regarding the facebook like button, I think that should be replaced by a link to the facebook page. {{unsigned ip|172.68.38.88}}
:I think this can be done only by admins, who are currently absent from this wiki. However regarding the Captcha, there is an easy fix: Register here, and log into your account (an one-time e-mail address is sufficient, if you are worried about your privacy). Also please sign your comments to talk pages and other discussions (such as this) - It will not show the IP related to you/your VPN, but one from cloudfare, so it will also not hurt your privacy, but automatically put a timestamp, etc.

:A different CAPTCHA is definitely needed. In my harded version of Firefox Google ReCAPTCHAs won't even work, so I need to open a different profile to edit Explain xkcd. [[User:CyanDinosaurDuck|CyanDinosaurDuck]] ([[User talk:CyanDinosaurDuck|talk]]) 22:21, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

== Removing unnecessary 3-comic categories? ==

I count eight categories on explainxkcd that satisfy the following properties: 1. They have only three comics in them. 2. They aren't really a comic series; they just feature or reference a comic theme. 3. They aren't Featuring some person or character. In short, they seem to have no real reason to exist. (They're [[:Category:Spice_Girls|t]][[:Category:Wind_turbine|h]]e[[:Category:Ender%27s_Game|s]]o[[:Category:FernGully|n]][[:Category:Giraffes|e]]s.) So my proposal: remove them. -[[User:Account|Account]] ([[User talk:Account|talk]]) 20:37, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
:In addition, there are [[:Category:Sketches|t]][[:Category:BSD|h]][[:Category:Emacs|i]][[:Category:Identity_Theft|r]][[:Category:Katamari_Damacy|t]][[:Category:Super_Bowl|e]][[:Category:The_Matrix|e]][[:Category:Tournament_bracket|n]][[:Category:Traffic_light| ]][[:Category:Trebuchet|m]][[:Category:Wingsuit|o]][[:Category:Euler_diagrams|r]][[:Category:Pedantic|e]] four-comic categories that also seem rather in need of deletion.
:: Shouldn't the community at least have some time to expand on these categories, in case they're currently incomplete? For example, [[:Category:The Matrix]] is on your list and now contains 7 strips, and [[:Category:Tournament bracket]] got its 5th entry after your post. Even if they're not, a theme category can save some typing in the search box (and is probably also cheaper in terms of server resources than all the searches it'll eliminate). [[User:Promethean|Promethean]] ([[User talk:Promethean|talk]]) 22:43, 21 November 2019 (UTC)
:::So what do you think the limit should be for categories? Should we create a category when two comics mention the same topic? Three? --[[User:Account|Account]] ([[User talk:Account|talk]]) 16:28, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
::::Three seems reasonable to me, and I could see a case being made for two. Categories aren't expensive. [[User:Promethean|Promethean]] ([[User talk:Promethean|talk]]) 00:17, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

== New transcript ==

The transcripts in the comic pages are quite inconsistent, especially in the brackets where you have to describe what happens in the panels. If I understand correctly, the transcripts are for people to copy the text in the comic without having to type them out. If that's the case, then I think propose a new transcript. This transcript should have the comic with the words erased, and then the copy-pasteable words on top of that. Such a transcript would have no room for error, which would let anyone contribute to a seamless transcript.
:The aim of the transcript is to provide a text-only version of the comic that would allow someone who is visually impaired to use a text-to-speech converter to understand the comic and also in a machine readable format for searching (see the [[explain_xkcd:Editor_FAQ#What_is_the_format_of_the_transcript_section?|Editor FAQ]]). Anything using mark-up, images or anything other than plain text will interfere with this and so should be avoided in the transcript. [[User:A(l)Chemist|AlChemist]] ([[User talk:A(l)Chemist|talk]]) 18:22, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

== Add title text and heading to transcript section ==

It has always bothered me that the transcript did not include the title text since it contributes so much to the humor of the comics. Also, it looks to me like the comic heading is sometimes included as part of the transcript and sometimes left out. I checked the previous proposals and did not see any discussion of these issues. Please consider having a policy going forward of including the heading and the title text within the transcript. [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 22:43, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
:To my understanding (and also others, see discussion directly above) one of the main points of the transcript is to make the comics searchable, the other is, to make it readable when images are not an option. In both cases the comic's name and the title text mentioned above and below the image should be sufficient. I personally think this convention is fine. [[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 08:28, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

::Pardon me -- (and, '''<big>''thanks'' for your patience</big>''') -- if this is too off-topic (/slash "boring") or [[wikt:TMI|TMI]] (see {{w|Information overload#Web accuracy}} e.g.), '''...OR''' if this should have been posted elsewhere ...instead of here.

::IMHO the term '''"title text"''' is a misnomer. I think the term is used to refer to the little (or, '''BIG!''') pop-up -- (kinda like what is sometimes called a <code>"tooltip"</code>, but ... aren't those usually pretty '''small?''') -- that appears when one "hovers" his mouse [pointer] over an XKCD cartoon. ...at least, according to '''the "Talk:" page section''' [[Template talk:comic#The template field called .22titletext.22]] which was added almost 3 years ago. I think that calling it a <code>"BONUS text"</code> would be even better than calling it a "caption". However, [to me], '''either one''' of those terms would make sense ''WAY'' more than calling it a '''"title text"''' ... for reasons which are stated in the [Template] "Talk:" page section mentioned (and ... '''LINKED TO''') above. '''<big>Any Comments? . . ''' *** Thanks! *** for listening!</big> --[[User:Mike Schwartz|Mike Schwartz]] ([[User talk:Mike Schwartz|talk]]) 08:57, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

:::Hi Mike, I see your point, and yes, something like "bonus text" might be a bit more descriptive. But FWIW, I think the reason it's called "title text" is because that's the text that appears in the <code>[https://www.w3schools.com/tags/att_global_title.asp title]</code> attribute of the HTML <code>[https://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_img.asp <img>]</code> tag of the comic's image on the xkcd.com site. For example, at https://xkcd.com/2364/, the code for the comic image looks like this:
<pre>
<img src="//imgs.xkcd.com/comics/parity_conservation.png"
title="Bloody Mary is made of antimatter. It explains so much."
alt="Parity Conservation"
srcset="//imgs.xkcd.com/comics/parity_conservation_2x.png 2x">
</pre>
:::In there, you can see the title text as <code>title="Bloody Mary is made of antimatter. It explains so much."</code> See [[title text|here]] for more explanation about that, and some discussions about it [[explain xkcd:Community portal/Miscellaneous#Common mistake|here]]. – [[User:Yfmcpxpj|Yfmcpxpj]] ([[User talk:Yfmcpxpj|talk]]) 03:11, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

== Wikipedia links. ==

I think the links to Wikipedia should have symbols, so it's not confusing which ones lead to other comic pages.

== It's time to remove the HTTPS lock icon ==

Explainxkcd should do the same thing that browser makers have done: treat HTTPS as the modern standard, and mark HTTP as the deviation instead.

Here are appropriate replacement icons:
* https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Unlock_Icon_Red_(32_bit).png
* https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Unlock_Icon_Red_(4_bit).gif
- [[User:Frankie|Frankie]] ([[User talk:Frankie|talk]]) 12:49, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

== New page for Randall's regular column in the New York Times ==
Randall Munroe has been writing and illustrating a monthly science column in the New York Times. I suggest a page in this Wiki, indexing those columns. For some reason the New York Times itself does not provide such an index. If they ever do add one, we would still have a topic article here, similar to the one we have for the What If blog, that could link to their index. --[[User:JohnB|JohnB]] ([[User talk:JohnB|talk]]) 00:47, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
------
=== New York Times column: Good Question ===

'''Good Question''' is a more-or-less monthly column written and illustrated by '''[[Randall|Randall Munroe]]''' in the '''[https://www.nytimes.com/section/science Science section of the New York Times]''', beginning in November 2019. The columns give serious answers to science questions, in Munroe's inimitable style.

The New York Times website ordinarily requires registration, and its content is always protected by copyright. Most particularly it is ''not'' under [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/ Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License] the way [[xkcd]] is. The good news: anyone can register for a free digital subscription to the New York Times, with access to 'recent' Science articles among some others, but outside of that only five articles per month. See [https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/info/help/freesearch.html Free Articles].

Unlike for many of their other regular columnists, the New York Times does not provide a clickable link either on the byline '''Randall Munroe''' or on the column title '''Good Question'''. The following tables are intended to correct that omission.

{| class="wikitable"
|+ New York Times columns ''by'' Randall Munroe
! Column !! Headline !! Byline !! Date
|-
! SCIENCE
| [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/13/science/what-makes-a-red-sky-at-night-and-at-morning.html What Makes a Red Sky at Night (and at Morning)]
| Randall Munroe
| Aug. 13, 2019
|-
! GOOD QUESTION
| [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/12/science/randall-munroe-moon.html If I Touched the Moon, What Would It Feel Like?]
| Randall Munroe
| Nov. 12, 2019
|-
! GOOD QUESTION
| [https://nytimes.com/2019/12/10/science/earth-size-mass.html Is Earth Getting Bigger Over Time?]
| Randall Munroe
| Dec. 10, 2019
|-
! GOOD QUESTION
| [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/21/science/human-running-speed-quadruped.html How Fast Can a Human Run?]
| Randall Munroe
| Jan. 21, 2020 / Feb. 7, 2020
|-
! GOOD QUESTION
| [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/17/science/worst-odor-smell-thioacetone.html What’s the World’s Worst Smell?]
| Randall Munroe
| Feb. 17, 2020 / Feb. 26, 2020
|-
! GOOD QUESTION
| [https://nytimes.com/2020/03/10/science/question-randall-munroe-bobsled-gravity.html What if Galileo Had Dropped Bobsleds From the Tower of Pisa?]
| Randall Munroe
| March 10, 2020
|-
! GOOD QUESTION
| [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/science/pulsar-xkcd-munroe-stars.html How’s the View From a Spinning Star?]
| Randall Munroe
| April 7, 2020
|-
! GOOD QUESTION
| [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/11/science/traffic-barrier-rice-krispies.html What’s the Sweetest, Crispiest Way to Stay Safe in a Car Crash?]
| Randall Munroe
| May 11, 2020
|-
! GOOD QUESTION
| [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/09/science/randall-munroe-question-eggs.html Can You Boil an Egg Too Long?]
| Randall Munroe
| June 9, 2020
|-
! GOOD QUESTION
| [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/science/neutrinos-snowball-randall-munroe.html Could You Make a Snowball of Neutrinos?]
| Randall Munroe
| July 7, 2020
|}

{| class="wikitable"
|+ New York Times columns ''about'' Randall Munroe
! Column !! Headline !! Byline !! Date
|-
! LINK BY LINK
| [https://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/26/business/media/26link.html This Is Funny Only if You Know Unix]
| Noam Cohen
| May 26, 2008
|-
! BITS
| [https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/14/techs-favorite-cartoonist-enters-mainstream-publishing/ Tech’s Favorite Cartoonist Enters Mainstream Publishing]
| Noam Cohen
| March 14, 2014
|-
! SCIENCE
| [https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/04/science/randall-munroe-the-creator-of-xkcd-explains-complexity-through-absurdity.html He’s Glad You Asked]
| Kenneth Chang
| Nov. 3, 2014
|-
! BOOKS
| [https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/24/books/randall-munroe-explains-it-all-for-us.html Randall Munroe Explains It All for Us]
| Alexandra Alter
| Nov. 23, 2015
|-
! SCIENCE
| [https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/22/science/randall-munroe-xkcd-science-textbook.html Randall Munroe, XKCD Creator, Goes Back to High School]
| Kenneth Chang
| March 21, 2016
|-
! SCIENCE
| [https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/03/18/science/document-Munroepages.html Randall Munroe of ‘XKCD’ Explains the Human Body, Elevators and the Saturn 5]
| (Actual pages from '''{{w|Thing_Explainer|Thing Explainer}}''')
| March 21, 2016
|}
------

: Looks goods to me, you should probably make that an article of its own, maybe [[New York Times: Good Question]]? --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 22:58, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

: {{notice|I went and added the page, here: [[New York Times: Good Question]] --[[User:JohnB|JohnB]] ([[User talk:JohnB|talk]]) 02:42, 11 July 2020 (UTC)}}

== Bring back the {{rw}} template! please ==

Can someone restore the <nowiki>{{rw}}</nowiki> template? I insist on its existence. I further assure that it will be of much use. It was deleted by an admin. — [[User:Sqrt-1|The 𝗦𝗾𝗿𝘁-𝟭]] [[User talk:Sqrt-1|talk]] [[Special:Contributions/Sqrt-1|stalk]] 06:10, 29 September 2020 (UTC)
:nm, did it myself. — [[User:Sqrt-1|The 𝗦𝗾𝗿𝘁-𝟭]] [[User talk:Sqrt-1|talk]] [[Special:Contributions/Sqrt-1|stalk]] 04:15, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

== Link to high-resolution images? ==

The wiki includes the "standard" resolution images, but would it be worth adding a link to the higher-resolution image on each page? It appears that this could be automated in at least a strong majority of cases: if the standard image is ''xyzzy.png'', the hi-res one is ''xyzzy'''_2x'''.png'' . [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 22:10, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
:Please stop adding this to the explanations. This is not needed. [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:56, 6 October 2020 (UTC)
::The high-resolution image was quite useful in parsing the "Amelia's Farm Fresh Cookies" comic. I'm not convinced that the hi-res images are commonly known. I've been reading xkcd for about 7 years and hadn't heard about them until I stumbled across a mention of them in one of the Discussions here. What is the harm in having a one-line ''link'' here? -- not, I emphasize, the actual image, which would take up a great deal of space. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 17:00, 7 October 2020 (UTC)
:::I didn't know about the high-resolution images either. While it might be a bit repetitive to add a full sentence to every comic's explanation, I agree that having ''some'' easy way to link to the hi-res image on xkcd.com could be handy. For example, maybe a "hi-res" or "2x" button before the "Next >" button above the comic in [[Template:comic]]? That's a bit extreme, but I added an example template, derived from the existing [[Template:comic]], to demonstrate how that could work:
:::* Template: [[User:Yfmcpxpj/Template:comic 2x test]]
:::* Demo: [[User:Yfmcpxpj/Sandbox#2x comic template test]]
:::With those changes to the template, for all comics as of [[1084]] the "2x" button would automatically appear. (No need to go back and change all comics.) This assumes the images hosted on explainxkcd generally have the same filename as on xkcd.com, but there are optional parameters to override the filename or omit the "2x" button altogether for specific exceptions. I'm not suggesting we actually go ahead and implement this; but if there was enough interest, an admin would be needed anyway, to make the changes within [[Template:comic]], which is currently protected. – [[User:Yfmcpxpj|Yfmcpxpj]] ([[User talk:Yfmcpxpj|talk]]) 23:25, 11 October 2020 (UTC)
::::FWIW, I like this. [[User:BunsenH|BunsenH]] ([[User talk:BunsenH|talk]]) 20:25, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
:::::My proposal is that a bot should add it automatically to the description of each comic image when available so that it does not take up space anywhere and is easily accessible. — [[User:Sqrt-1|The 𝗦𝗾𝗿𝘁-𝟭]] [[User talk:Sqrt-1|talk]] [[Special:Contributions/Sqrt-1|stalk]] 13:49, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

== Proposal to replace the top section with this... ==

I have come up with a new design for the top section of all community portals...
It’s located here... https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=explain_xkcd:Sandbox&oldid=199882 — [[User:Sqrt-1|The 𝗦𝗾𝗿𝘁-𝟭]] [[User talk:Sqrt-1|talk]] [[Special:Contributions/Sqrt-1|stalk]] 14:15, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
<hr/>
{|-
|valign="top" width="80%"|[[File:Crystal Clear app ktip.png|left|120px]] <big><big>Proposals</big></big>

Ideas to improve the wiki's design and organization can be added here. {{AddNewSection|Page=Explain XKCD:Community portal/Proposals|Text=(+post)}}

|valign="top" xalign="right" width="100%"|[[File:Crystal Clear app package settings blue.png|50px|link=https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Technical]][[File:Crystal Clear teamwork.png|50px|link=https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Coordination]][[File:Mop.svg|50px|link=https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests]][[File:Internet-group-chat.svg|50px|link=https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Miscellaneous]]
|}

== I made a template for welcoming new users. ==

{{Welcome}}
<hr/>
Any ideas? Suggestions? Objections? — [[User:Sqrt-1|The 𝗦𝗾𝗿𝘁-𝟭]] [[User talk:Sqrt-1|talk]] [[Special:Contributions/Sqrt-1|stalk]] 16:35, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
: this is now in at the top of the Main Page --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 16:38, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
::Why? This looks like a template intended for (newly created) UserPages. And it replaces interesting data from the frontpage with something not useful for casual visitors (or even non-casual lurkers). I'd undo this change in an instant if I had authority to do so. ((The template looks good, to clarify, just obviously not intended to be in that location.)) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.76.154|141.101.76.154]] 01:36, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
:::[[User: Jeff|Jeff]] is the owner of explainxkcd you dingus. [[User:Beanie|Beanie]] [[User talk:Beanie|talk]] 13:46, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

== comic groups ==

i think we should have a tech problems list of comics ( as there are quite a few)
:We already have a category for it. [[:Category:Cueball_Computer_Problems]]. — [[User:Sqrt-1|The 𝗦𝗾𝗿𝘁-𝟭]] [[User talk:Sqrt-1|talk]] [[Special:Contributions/Sqrt-1|stalk]] 13:44, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

== Archiving interactive comics? ==

Has the possibility of archiving interactive comics been discussed? Of course, users can view them on the original website, but it’d be nice to have a working backup of sorts, especially considering some of the interactive comics haven’t aged too well in terms of compatibility or support (e.g. Umwelt displays a blank page for me.)

It probably wouldn’t be possible to do so directly from mediawiki, but I’d be happy to experiment with cloning a few of them on another server, or as simple PHP pages that could be embedded, if it would help. Most of the interactive comics appear to be implemented mostly in client side JS anyways, so replicating them shouldn’t be too bad.

[[User:Tague|Tague]] ([[User talk:Tague|talk]]) 13:12, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

== Replace head shots of characters in the wiki with these new and high quality head shots! ==

https://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/n2u28r/i_took_head_shots_of_the_reccuring_characters_and/

These are not only upscaled, but are all squares and have all the features of the characters. — [[User:Sqrt-1|The 𝗦𝗾𝗿𝘁-𝟭]] [[User talk:Sqrt-1|talk]] [[Special:Contributions/Sqrt-1|stalk]] 03:33, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
:I think you should do it (because higher quality = better) :] [[User:Beanie|Beanie]] [[User talk:Beanie|talk]] 13:42, 18 June 2021 (UTC)
::There seemed to be no objections, so I went ahead and did it. — [[User:Sqrt-1|The 𝗦𝗾𝗿𝘁-𝟭]] [[User talk:Sqrt-1|talk]] [[Special:Contributions/Sqrt-1|stalk]] 12:40, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

== Cleaning up [[Special:WantedTemplates|Special: Wanted Templates]] ==

I decided to take a look at the list of wanted templates. Imagine my surprise when I see that a lot of the templates wanted were mis-capitalizations or misspellings of existing templates. I hereby request permission to create redirect pages for some of the most popular errors.
I intend to do five, wait a week, and do another five as to not spam the wiki. I will not begin for a week, at which point I will only proceed if nobody has said no OR a moderator has said yes. May I proceed? [[User talk:Quillathe Siannodel|{)|(}]][[User:Quillathe_Siannodel|Quill]][[Special:Contributions/Quillathe_Siannodel|{)|(}]] 11:34, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

== "Multiple Megan-like characters" category ==

Since there are more than one Megan-like characters appear in the same panel of at least seven comics, I propose to create the "Multiple Megan-like characters" category. --[[User:Soumya-8974|Soumya-8974]] ([[User talk:Soumya-8974|talk]]) 07:04, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

== Knit Cap ==
Sometimes Knit cap has long hair, sometimes short. Is Knit Cap meant to be a male character that sometimes has long hair, or is Knit Cap sometimes female? I want to clear this up before I finish editing [[1350: Lorenz]]. [[User:Beanie|Beanie]] [[User talk:Beanie|talk]] 13:40, 18 June 2021 (UTC)
:Hm, in the 'Enemy Pikachu used theft' scene in [[1350: Lorenz]], Knit Cap's hair looks merely slightly unkempt. From this, I will assume that Knit Cap just sometimes has long hair and is always male. [[User:Beanie|Beanie]] [[User talk:Beanie|talk]] 13:10, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
::Ok, the official transcripts say that Knit Cap is 'A guy in a knit cap'. I will take that to mean that Knit Cap is definitely male.

== We still need to complete some explanations like this one: ==

I think should change the banner shown at the top of every page to show a comic that is still incomplete, like Hoverboard or something. [[User:Sure|Sure]] ([[User talk:Sure|talk]]) 21:32, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

== Update MediaWiki ==
explainxkcd is running MediaWiki 1.30.0, which reached end-of-life in June 2019. There are likely security issues because of this, so please update MediaWiki to the latest version (or LTS) using the instructions here https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Upgrading [[User:Cam1170|Cam1170]] ([[User talk:Cam1170|talk]]) 19:41, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
:It seems like the mysql is too outdated for the upgrade [[User:Starstar|Starstar]] ([[User talk:Starstar|talk]]) 17:37, 26 November 2021 (UTC)
::Upgrade MySQL then[[User:Aaron Liu|Aaron Liu]] ([[User talk:Aaron Liu|talk]]) 03:16, 20 July 2022 (UTC)
Does anybody know how to contact an admin for this? I have no clue. [[User:Cam1170|Cam1170]] ([[User talk:Cam1170|talk]]) 03:25, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

== Allow Users to Edit their own talk page if not auto confimed ==

I can edit this page, but I can't create my own talk page! [[User:Starstar|Starstar]] ([[User talk:Starstar|talk]]) 17:34, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

== Upgrade Icons ==

The icons look quite old fashion (the ones on the sidebar and the ones above the editing text area), could they be replaced? [[User:Starstar|Starstar]] ([[User talk:Starstar|talk]]) 23:07, 26 November 2021 (UTC)
:They probably could be, but changing icons the moment they're not absolutely cutting-edge just means using new icons that are as easily edged-out (as tastes change yet again), meanwhile annoying those who prefered the first set and rather wouldn't see a revolving door of ever-evolving aesthetics.
:If I had a vote, I'd say keep the simple glyphs we're used to. If any are not totally obvious (perhaps some would not be, without the text captions) consider revising, but I think you'll get less agreement on what new images to use than that which would advocate the retention of the current ones.
:Alternately, it would definitely be on-theme to find Randall-drawn illustrations to replace them all. But the constraints of adapting (say) any particular stick-figure-world depiction of randonmess to ''meaningfully'' replace the current Random Page icon (at the same scale!) might be less than optimal.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.57|172.70.162.57]] 01:08, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

== Make searchbar not case-sensitive ==

The way the search bar is currently set, it only suggests comic links when what is being typed is capitalized ("Assigning Numbers" rather than "assigning numbers" for instance). Would be nice if we could make it not case-sensitive :D [[User:Char Latte49|Wielder of the Staple Gun]] ([[User talk:Char Latte49|talk]]) 02:48, 27 April 2022 (UTC)
:Good idea. [[User:Marethyu|⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu]] ([[User talk:Marethyu|talk]]) 17:46, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

== Do not allow ordinary users to edit redirects that are just numbers ==

This overrides the default page you're sent to when you check a comic; e.g. recently a vandal edited the page entitled "2614" so it overrode the actual page, [[2614: 2]] on the main page.
:The problem would be when creating a new page and the overrides are needed... [[User:Marethyu|⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu]] ([[User talk:Marethyu|talk]]) 17:48, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

== ExplainXKCD discord (or other platform)? ==

I'm just saying if we had instant messages, pings etc. there would be a lot faster reaction to vandals.
The community portal is hard to get attention from and comments are all very well and good but conversations on Discord could get very quick response, and people could request edits, organise page re-writing etc.
Idk if we can get "official" backing by anyone high up but we could make one anyways?
:The problem with platforms like Discord or others is that we can't guarantee that everyone has access to them; on the wiki, anyone can edit, while some people may not have access to discord or such. A possible solution would be having a sort of service built into the wiki, but not sure how that might be done. Besides, this is a wiki, not an xkcd chat site. This is a good idea, though. [[User:Marethyu|⟨Winter is coming⟩ Marethyu]] ([[User talk:Marethyu|talk]]) 17:43, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
::Anyone can create a discord account like anyone can create an account on this wiki. You don't even need a dedicated client/app as it can run in browser. Just like the wiki. Just my two cents. [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 11:28, 20 May 2022 (UTC)
:::Some user may not wish anyone to be able to contact them outside this wiki. You do not need an acount to edit this wiki... [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 17:14, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

== So, I got a question about transcripts. ==

A lot of comics show links (e.g.: all the ones with a drawing of wikipedia on it), and the transcripts don't really have a standard. In the transcript, should it be an actual link or just blue text or what? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.79.52|162.158.79.52]] 15:03, 2 June 2022 (UTC)Bumpf
:I'd say that if the linked thing (presuming it's a real linkable target!) is linked in the Explanation, it doesn't need to be (re)linked in the ostensibly flat-and-descriptive Transcript.
:And I know that some Transcripts are hypertext formatted to emulate the thing they are transcribed from (whether bolded, enbiggened, sub-/superscripted and and/or given the hue) but maybe ''primarily'' the "<code>[:Text that describes the text]</code>" should be explaining the details, in case the screen-reader (or text-searching algorithm grepping the Transcript text for "green text" or "superscript" instances can't quite work it out from the various style-tags that can be applied to that effect in so many an various ways.
:But this is IMO, I don't know if there's a specific policy about it, but it is how I've seen it vaguely applied... Not everywhere quite so consistently, though. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.128|172.70.91.128]] 20:28, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
::We try to keep links and explanations out of the transcript. The link and the explanation goes in the explanation section above. [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 17:12, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

== Use 2X Images ==

Apparently xkcd.com provides double-sized versions of almost every comic if you add '''_2x''' to the end of the image name. For instance,

https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/watches.png

https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/watches_2x.png

Since we are in 2022 and computers can load high-resolution images just fine, and they are easier to read, I propose that this website should use the provided double-sized images. Really, I think Randall ought to be doing this himself as well. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.18.107|172.68.18.107]] 12:22, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

:While I agree with using the higher quality images which are default on xkcd.com for many people, there has been [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Proposals#Link_to_high-resolution_images.3F discussion] about this issue already. At the moment, the consensus seems to be to continue using the 'standard' size to 'use less space,' and instead link to the higher quality image on the image page. —[[User:Theusaf|theusaf]] ([[User talk:Theusaf|talk]]) 14:35, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

::I think I may have mentioned it on that link (or similar), but often when the 2x image is used (or even an unwise too wide image/unbreakable-line-of-content) the explainxkcd site cannot sensibly handle it and it forces the default 'page width' of stuff into a zoomed out narrower column to the left (including the margin-line normally inset a dozen or so pixels in from the right) so that browser-window can display the whole of this wide element.
::While "saving space" does apply to server resources and viewer download bandwidth/quotas (e.g.[https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/unreliable_connection.png 53kb] vs [https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/unreliable_connection_2x.png 109kb]) may seem insignificant, screen-space can be badly hit by this.
::The motherlode xkcd site has code behind it to (usually?) serve the right image for the right displays, but explainxkcd isn't currently equipped to do the same choose-and-provide (which would need ''both'' images uploaded to it and a revised {{template|comic}} implementation, once we work out the method it could use). And I've never seen any case where the 'low quality' comic is conversely too small and narrow to appreciate (though occasionally the larger one reveals minor drawing details that have been obscured by the downscaling), just when the _2x one makes everything ''else'' too small.
::...this may not apply to everyone's browser implementation, but it definitely happens, and consistently, on my usual Chrome and/or Firefox on Windows and/or Android platforms (according to which system I happen to be on at the time). [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.147|172.70.162.147]] 21:20, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
:::ExplainXKCD actually does have the capability to do this. For example, see [[1079:_United_Shapes]]. It generates multiple images, automatically choosing one based on screen size (similar to how xkcd.com does it). The bot could use the `imagesize` parameter to keep the image within the page's width by using the 'standard' image size. This does add a button labeled "click to enlarge," but if that is annoying, the comic template can be modified to hide that button if specified.
:::Here is what it might look like:
:::{{cot}}
{{User:Theusaf/Template:comic_2x
| number = 2647
| date = July 18, 2022
| title = Capri Suns
| image = capri_suns_2x.png
| titletext = [As security is dragging me away] "Come on, at least I didn't make the mistake in the other direction!"
| imagesize = 315x317px
| noexpand = true
}}
{{cob}}
:::which is clearer than the original comic page and the same size. —[[User:Theusaf|theusaf]] ([[User talk:Theusaf|talk]]) 05:20, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
::::As specificaly implemented above, I certainly see no immediate problem (need to check across machines/devices), but I suspect that part of the mechanism here is the "imagesize = 315x317px", which seems like it would need (albeit by the page-create bot, algorithm8cally) to be tailored to the 'input' image, not always in this ratio). I'm not technically conversant with the nature of your back-end scripting and doubtless it's all possible (scripts can do almost anything... once you know that they (may) need to do them and rewritten them to catch all the contingencies ;) ), but I don't know know if that's something you've accounted for (e.g. test with a three/four-panel wide comic, or the Earth Temperature Timeline or whatever, and see if it can facilitate them all nicely). Not to mention that if theusafBOT goes offline, the manual-add instructions (as used prior to your replacing the prior functioning bot, for which I thank you) also need this extra step of user involvement to be done, whereas usually the fallback manual method needed little thought in this direction (or indeed however much carbon or silicon there is in the 'brain' involved) except for exceptional circumstances or those rare prior slip-ups by Randall.
::::I'm just going through the first obvious issue (to me), didn't mean to concentrate so many words on just this before even checking everything else! [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.80|172.70.91.80]] 09:15, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
:::::Basically, on the backend, the bot will fetch both the small and the large images, and measure the size of the small image, which is what it will use for the <code>imagesize</code>. I have actually used this system in the past for this bot, but was told to revert it due to the "click comic to enlarge" text. As for if the bot goes offline, there is no problem with falling back to the small image, and if editors want to, I can also provide instructions for using the large image. I'm mostly just waiting to see what others think about this. Are there any other problems to consider? —[[User:Theusaf|theusaf]] ([[User talk:Theusaf|talk]]) 14:44, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

== I'm making an App that collects web comics ==

My original idea was to use the rss feed present on xkcd, and other webcomic websites, but now im starting to wonder if there was a way to make a better service, that allowed users to maybe look at older comics, and explanations and such as well, and thats how i happened to come across explainxkcd.com. The RSS Feed for this website, would be pretty helpful, if it were like reddit's but apparently, the rss feed is only maintained for the home page. I was wondering if you guys provided that data through an API or something? Also are there wikis for other famous comics like this one? Any other suggestions and ideas for the app are welcome 🙌🙌.

== Comics edited after their publication ==

many more comics have been changed than are in Category:Comics edited after their publication ! please add them (i already have done two i remember off the top of my head) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.134.223|172.70.134.223]] 12:56, 7 October 2022 (UTC)Bumpf

== Discord category ==
Do we need categories for comics that mention various popular social media clients, such as Google and Discord? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.134.98|172.69.134.98]] 03:29, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
:If there are a group of them, then list them, then they can be added. I can think of a couple of Google-related ones (well, Google search-page, not whatever Alphabet is currently doing insofar as social media), but don't have their names/numbers in my head right now. Do the search and list them here for someone to catalogue up?
:I'm not sure there are specific Discord mentions. Noting that just because some unidentified headshot dialogue/notification looks Discordish, it doesn't make it a mention. Too much cross-pollination of appearance. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.252|172.70.90.252]] 09:56, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

== What if 2 book page creation ==
What if 2 has come out, but I don't know which page is to be created. There is already a comic under the same name. [[User:ClassicalGames|ClassicalGames]] ([[User talk:ClassicalGames|talk]]) 08:54, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

== Default to 3 Section Headings for Each Explanation: Non-Obvious Info, Recap, and Background Trivia ==

This is a proposal that all new comic explanations should, by default, have 3 Sections:

'''I. Explanation of the Non-Obvious''' (an actual explanation of the non-obvious elements of the comic for the average reader who might not understand the references/joke/relevant science)

'''II. Full Recap'''

'''III. Background Trivia'''

Most of us can agree that Category I is where the value of this website shines.

But today, all 3 of these categories of explanation are typically merged together, making it hard to find the Category I nuggets of goodness.

If we make these 3 section headings the default on every comic explanation, then this default will helpfully nudge editors to put the juiciest stuff up top, and not to clutter that section up with fluff or trivia.

——

As an example, take the recent comic #2878 about Astronomer Happiness and Supernova distance.

The main thing a lay reader would want to know — the Category I information — is…

..That the shape of the graph is probably a clever reference to a Light Curve, a type of supernova graph

..why astronomers like it when a supernova is close, and what happens when it gets too close

Everything else in the (currently) very wordy explanation gets in the way of the lay reader finding out these two things. It’s a bunch of Category II and Category III info that makes it hard to tease out the Category I info. It’s not BAD information, but it’s sandpaper. It’s friction slowing down the average reader.

Obviously I could go in and edit this particular comic, and I often do this kind of edit, but I think this issue pops up for most explanations, so I think changing the standard default interface will help everyone put their contribution into the right section.

In sum, my proposal would elevate Category I info to the top of each explanation, so instead of full recaps, we get right into the explanation that is going to be most efficiently illuminating for the average, non-expert reader, answering the most common questions.

[[User:Laser813|Laser813]] ([[User talk:Laser813|talk]]) 10:50, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
:In general (if I get dibs on the edit, or think I can legitimately re-edit/rearrange), I do try to go for "hook, line, sinker" format (i.e. establish the basics, relate that to what the comic shows, move on to any relevent speculations/extrapolations), very like your setup. Though it is often ''much'' too complicated (multi-layered, cross-disciplinary, etc, so that maybe it has to be interwoven 'mini explanations' per tabulated item) so I'm not sure how easy it would be to enforce a strict structure. I think there's merit to the principle, though. Assuming we can all agree what each comic needs focus on (apply that problem to the following proposal too!), as I've occasionally inserted a sort of "first you need to know <subject>" into an established cold-start explanation ("you see <foo>" only for a later editor to consider it more an afterthought and shuffle it to later ("you see <foo>" ... "<foo> is part of <subject>"), or variations on such layouts. Especially as different people have different ideas as to what's obvious/can be keyword-wikilinked and what needs more waffle to properly enlighten readers.
:Also, prosaic variation is a good thing. Too formulaic and it could be (whilst accurate) considered too robotic, so some leaway should really always be allowed as we collectively bash together a community interpretation and elaboration. Within communal guidelines, clearly. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.203|172.69.194.203]] 15:53, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

== FAQ Style Editing should be the norm ==

Simply, we should experiment with more FAQ-style explanations.

We think of the top questions that the average reader might have about a comic, and we use those as bolded headers to explain the most curious/confusing/subtle/sciency parts of the comic.

The structure would be this (using a recent comic as an example)…

'''Q: Why did Randall use this shape of graph?'''
A: It’s likely a clever reference to a Light Curve, a similarly shaped graph in the study of supernovae that…

'''Q: Why do astronomers prefer it when supernovae are closer?'''
A: It makes it easier to glean information because…

[[User:Laser813|Laser813]] ([[User talk:Laser813|talk]]) 10:50, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

== sidebar revamp ==
I think that the sidebar looks plain and it should have a new design. It could be voted on by users [[User:Moderator|Moderator]] ([[User talk:Moderator|talk]]) 02:16, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
:In leiu of you telling us what you think would be better, my starting vote is that I'm perfectly happy with that 'plain'. If it has the links I might need, why does it need a reskin? Or, worse, a functional revamp which probably removes the easy to use bits I was using already.
:...could you do a mock-up screenshot (or render equivalents directly in markup) of before/after side by side, at least? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.194.120|172.69.194.120]] 03:11, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

My biggest problem is it doesn’t scroll down with you which can be a big pain [[User:Moderator|Moderator]] ([[User talk:Moderator|talk]]) 01:43, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
:Don't know about anyone else, but (when not on a desktop) I read this on a tablet, in landscape, with the effective window quite short (ratio of 1:2 with width, approaching 1:3.5 with already narrowed onscreen keyboard popped up) and if I'm scrolled to the top I see nothing beyond Browse Comics.
:If we assume separate scroll-control on the sidebar, setting Main Page at the top of browser pane gives What Links Here at the bottom. Now, I rarely use the next three links (or at least reach those pages using them), and separate scrolling wouldn't stop me even seeing the even lower Ad bit (but it ''would'' defeat the entire purpose of the Ad, in that position, whether or not I bother to notice it these days).
:So whatever missing about you propose, I'm betting it would impact me. Perhaps not negatively, but I've seen enough awful assumptions about my screen-area in the name of scroll-free design. Including the "give us permission (or not) to give you cookies" popovers where it appears the actual buttons to confirm (or deny, or go somewhere to review and customise, if they have that option) are beyond the bottom of my screen. I can temporarily rotate the screen, of course, but often I just back out and don't bother in those cases. I wouldn't be reticent to rotate this site, on occasion, but ''I'd really rather not have to'', if I can be so selfish and stick-in-the-mud, because websites just are not good to use (even temporarily) in narrow-portait mode. (What's worse is the websites that detect I'm on a mobile platform and redesign styles/placements on-the-fly to 'fit portrait view', assuming a vertical smartphone, ''regardless'' of my actual viewport orientation, etc.)
:So, please, a hard no from me. Notwithstanding that just as solidly "always browse in portrait" people might be overjoyed at changes that would give ''them'' a better site design. But that's a tricky circle to square (or letterbox!), and not what you were suggesting anyway (now we know what it is). I just want to plea that any changes be made with a very good idea of all the knock-on effects of 'improving' certain edge-cases, especially when it comes to yet other edge-cases. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.23|172.70.85.23]] 10:29, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
==New Logo and Banner Proposals==
:I have new logo and banner proposals for this site.
:They're made on Scratch, an all-ages block-based programming language, and are in the style of Right Click.
:Here they are!
:Logo proposal: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Logo_proposal_for_explain_xkcd.png
:Banner proposal: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Banner_proposal_for_explain_xkcd.png
::I can't see the xkcdicity of the logo, really. The banner is certainly flavourful in the right way (does it scale down well? ...is that what your use of Scratch is for, as opposed to standard static Photoshop/GIMP image editing?), but not sure it'll work better for the current top-left-of-page xkcd (with three xkcd figurses idling away, sat on the letters).
::Decent concept art for something else related, certainly. I could believe it was a Randall's-own interactive comic front-end of some kind (which would make sense of the "play button" that is the "►"-bit). Given that it's now in a programming system already, have you tried making a drag'n'click game of the idea of linking/looping the blue-trail, and animating the hanging-on characters? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.29|172.70.90.29]] 13:34, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

1024: Error Code

2024-02-07T13:13:27Z

172.70.90.29: Undo revision 334413 by 172.69.151.196 (talk) The phantom Citation Neededer strikes again..? (And still doesn't know how to use them.)

{{comic
| number = 1024
| date = March 2, 2012
| title = Error Code
| image = error code.png
| titletext = It has a section on motherboard beep codes that lists, for each beep pattern, a song that syncs up well with it.
}}

==Explanation==
Complex {{W|computer program}}s often incorporate a numbering system for errors that are anticipated. This way, the code can be referenced to tech support so that there is some feedback from the program as to what is wrong (akin to a car dashboard with multiple lights telling you if you have a battery problem or an engine problem or a cooling problem, etc.) Most people have seen at least one error code in their life. Perhaps the most famous error code is seen in web browsers, [[404]] (not found). Another common code is 403 (forbidden).

The guy at the computer gets the error "-41", but cannot tell even what program it comes from. So, the other guy decides to look up the code in a book apparently called ''Error Codes''. The book then indicates to go to a lake instead of how to resolve the computer problem. Which seems like a great solution because it would be very relaxing! The panel with the image of the lake is fairly rare as far as xkcd comics go, in that it is approaching a more realistic style.

The beep codes referenced in the title text refers to the error codes produced by motherboards. Because the motherboard is sort of the "heart" of the computer, the designers apparently did not want to rely on any form of error display that might be compromised by the error itself (i.e. a visual display). Instead, motherboards typically have a code consisting of beeps from the system "PC" speaker which is expected to work without error in most situations, as it's wired directly to the motherboard. In a sort of {{w|Morse code|morse-code}}-type system, certain lengths and numbers of beeps refer to different errors like memory problems, video card problems, etc. The one quick beep that occurs on boot sequences is the POST (Power On Self-Test) beep, which detects vital parts of the system, like motherboard, memory, monitor, etc. The beep indicates that everything necessary to boot is present. Anyone who has built a few computers is probably familiar with less happy beep sequences.

==Transcript==
:[A guy sits at a computer, while a friend takes a book off a shelf behind him.]
:Computer guy: "Error -41"? That's helpful. It doesn't even say which program it's from!
:Friend: -41? I'll look it up...

:[In a frame-less panel, the friend looks at the book.]
:Friend: It says -41 is: "Sit by a lake."

:[The two walk.]

:[The two sit down.]

:[A large, in-color painting of a lake with pond lilies.]

:[The two are still sitting.]
:Computer guy: I don't know where you got that book, but I like it.
:Friend: Hasn't been wrong yet.

==Trivia==
It is possible [[Randall Munroe|Randall]] wanted comic number 1024 to be about computers because 1024 is a significant number in computer systems: it is exactly 210, and as such is sometimes used instead of 1000 as the power constant for file sizes for the sake of easier binary arithmetic. This was referenced in [[1000: 1000 Comics]].

A book suggesting a more or less unrelated solution which is accepted anyway is also pulled from a shelf in [[330]].

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Computers]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]

2256: Bad Map Projection: South America

2024-02-06T22:54:27Z

172.70.90.29: /* Explanation */ Gilding the lilly (badly).

{{comic
| number = 2256
| date = January 17, 2020
| title = Bad Map Projection: South America
| image = bad_map_projection_south_america.png
| titletext = The projection does a good job preserving both distance and azimuth, at the cost of really exaggerating how many South Americas there are.
}}

==Explanation==
This is the third comic in the series of [[:Category:Bad Map Projections|Bad Map Projections]] displaying Bad Map Projection #358: Oops, all South Americas!. It came almost three years after the second [[1799: Bad Map Projection: Time Zones]] (#79) (3 years after the first). And was first followed one and a half year later by [[2489: Bad Map Projection: The Greenland Special]] (#299).

The comic shows a {{w|map projection}} in which every continent and large island has just been replaced with a differently scaled and rotated version of the continent of {{w|South America}}, even though there is only one South America in the real world.

By [[:File:BadMapProjectionComparison.png|overlaying]] this map with the selection of map projections presented in [[977: Map Projections]], it seems that the "underlying" projection used here is the {{w|Winkel tripel projection}}, also used in [[2242: Ground vs Air]].

The comic is similar to joke map designs in which continents like Africa and South America have been swapped, or where someone will jokingly replace Greenland with South America.

The caption of the comic is a reference to the {{w|Cap'n Crunch}} cereal type that became a meme, [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/oops-all-berries-box-parodies ''Oops! All Berries''], which has also been referenced in [[2719]].

Interestingly on the original South America, the archipelago or main island (hard to tell) of {{w|Tierra del Fuego}} is replaced with a small South America, while all other South Americas, including the one replacing the Tierra del Fuego, include it in their shape.

The title text claims that the map projection does a good job preserving distance and azimuth, the joke being that the distance and azimuth being preserved for the non-South America continents are those of South America and not the original continent. Note that for the map as drawn in the comic, while this is true for most of the larger landmasses, many of the smaller South Americas are distorted more significantly (such as the South Americas that replace New Zealand).

From roughly left to right and top to bottom, the South Americas replace:

*North America
*3 SAs for the Canadian Arctic Archipelago (possibly Victoria Island, Ellesmere Island, and Baffin Island)
*Greenland 
*Iceland
*Ireland (Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, UK)
*Great Britain, UK
*Eurasia
*Newfoundland, Canada
*2 SAs for Hokkaido and Honshu, Japan
*Africa
*Taiwan
*Cuba
*Hispaniola (Dominican Republic and Haiti)
*Puerto Rico, US
*Jamaica
*Sri Lanka
*5 SAs for Luzon, Bicol Peninsula (southeastern Luzon), one ambiguous landmass (possibly Negros Island), Samar, and Mindanao; Philippines
*Sumatra, Indonesia
*Borneo (Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei)
*Sulawesi, Indonesia
*2 SAs for New Guinea: one for Bird's Head Peninsula in the northwest of the island, and one for the rest of the island
*Java, Indonesia
*Madagascar
*Australia
*Tasmania, Australia
*2 SAs for South Island and North Island, New Zealand
*Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, Argentina and Chile

These are the 26 {{w|List of islands by area|largest non-Antarctic landmasses,}} plus 2 peninsulas of those landmasses, and 8 more islands.

See also related comics with map changes in comics [[1500: Upside-Down Map]] and [[1653: United States Map]].

==Transcript==
:[A map of the world, but every landmass has been replaced with South America, rotated and resized to roughly match the real landmasses they represent. South America is correct, except that the islands at the southern tip of the continent also have been switched to a small South America.]

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Bad Map Projection #358: Oops, all South Americas!

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Bad Map Projections]]

2588: Party Quadrants

2024-02-06T22:53:18Z

172.70.90.29: Overuse/misuse of CNs.

{{comic
| number = 2588
| date = March 2, 2022
| title = Party Quadrants
| image = party_quadrants.png
| titletext = Single-elimination might provide more drama, but I think we can all agree that a comprehensive numerical scoring system will let us better judge the party's winner.
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic there is a graph divided into quadrants to visualize the range of possibilities of fun for [[Randall]] and for guests at parties hosted by Randall. The top and bottom halves are labeled as "fun for guests" with "no" in the top quadrant and "yes" in the bottom quadrant. The left and right halves labeled as "fun for me", i.e. fun for the host Randall, with "no" in the left quadrant and "yes" in the right quadrant.

In the bottom right quadrant (which indicates fun for everyone), are two separately outlined but largely overlapping regions, like a [[:Category:Venn diagrams|Venn diagram]]. One is the appropriate zone for a party (in general) and the other other applies to Randall's own birthday party. They are both vaguely ellipsoid and both enclose a reasonable to nearly maximal amount of fun in both dimensions. The key difference is that the range of the birthday party is skewed towards being marginally more for Randall's enjoyment, but is still firmly in the bottom right quadrant. By contrast, the range for a party is weighted more towards "Fun for Guests" and less towards "Fun for Me", as befits an event hopefully hosted to entertain its guests and make ''them'' feel special.

Omitting the extreme edges may indicate that there are no points there because it's impossible to completely please everybody, or it may be a warning that a party should not be such extreme fun that it gets out of hand nor let the balance of fun stray too far from equal. There are no specific points labeled in this quadrant.

The joke is that the only data point, presumably Randall's latest idea for a party, is in the upper right quadrant, signifying that it is only fun for Randall. It is very far right and fairly close to the top, indicating extreme fun for Randall and not fun at all for anyone else. The point is labeled "Sporcle geography tournament with snacks! Live-updating scoreboard, no distracting music". The elements of Randall's "fun" party include:

{| class="wikitable"
|-
!Element
!Comment
|-
|Sporcle
|{{w|Sporcle}} is a trivia website. Trivia games are a lot of fun for some of people, while others get bored by their "trivial" nature and would rather spend time talking, dancing, etc.
|-
|Geography trivia
|Randall is a geography geek (as evidenced by his [[:Category:Bad_Map_Projections|fascination with map projections]]). Needless to say, many people are not, so a geography trivia quiz would be one of the worst types for many people.
|-
|Tournament
|Many people might prefer not to have competition at the party, especially considering the host might be a little too invested in the outcome. The title text further elaborates on this, debating possible scoring options.
|-
|No music
|Randall tries to bill this as a positive, that the music won't distract people trying to focus on Sporcle. Indeed, even a well-planned party that considers the interests of all guests would require appropriate music (some people prefer a quiet gathering over a loud party). That said, music on the whole is something people enjoy, so excluding it would make this party even less enjoyable for potential guests.
|-
|Snacks
|At least there would be snacks, which is another common element of parties. It's hard to imagine why people would object to snacks, so this is perhaps the only item that would be enjoyable both for Randall and his guests. But they only move the party down slightly in the graph, not enough to get this party into the "fun for guests" quadrant.
|-
|Live-updating scoreboard
|To a software geek, this would be something that would be fascinating, both to develop and watch in action. To most people, not so much - particularly if said scoreboard was developed while the party was taking place (In that case, the guests may not even get around to playing the trivia game).
|}

In the caption, it is mentioned that for some reason, Randall keeps "accidentally" planning parties in the top right quadrant (fun for him, not for guests). Presumably, he is so caught up in what he considers entertaining that he doesn't take into account the interest level of the guests. This is regardless of which party-context, and well outside either of the appropriate zones. This diagram though indicates that he know this is the case, but maybe he is first able to place the point on the diagram after the party, when he realizes that his guest leaves early (again) out of boredom.

The title text elaborates on the Sporcle trivia game night that Randall has planned in the upper right quadrant. It makes mention of a comprehensive, and perhaps overly complicated, scoring system to determine who is the party's winner. That he's talking about "winning the party" suggests he is fundamentally misunderstanding the point of parties -- they're supposed to be fun for everyone attending, not (exclusively) a competition.

See the previous comic [[2587: For the Sake of Simplicity]], which seems to be a bit related to what Randall thinks is fun, whereas other might not.

==Transcript==
:[A solid black lined square chart is divided into four quadrants with two light gray lines. Above the chart the left and right column are labeled, and above the labels there is a bracket with a label written on the bracket. Similarly there is labels to the left, of the top and bottom rows, with a bracket indicating those also with a label written on the bracket:]
:Top: Fun for me
:Top: No Yes
:Left: Fun for guests
:Left: No Yes

:[The top left quadrant is empty. The same goes for the bottom left quadrant, except labels for items in the bottom right quadrant is written in the bottom left quadrant. In the top right quadrant, there is a single black point which is almost touching the right edge of the chart, and lies about a quarter of the way down from the top towards the gray line. The point is labeled:]
:Label: Sporcle geography tournament
:Label: with snacks!
:Label: Live-updating scoreboard, no distracting music

:[In the bottom right quadrant there is a Venn diagram. It consist of two skewed ellipsoids, one with a solid line overlapping the other with a dotted line. The solid lined region goes further to the left, and the dotted line region goes further to the top, but both are mainly in the bottom right region, and the bottom right section is completely overlapping. Both regions are indicated with an arrow that goes to them from a label. The solid lined regions label is written to the left and it is entirely inside the bottom left quadrant. The dotted lined regions label is written in both of the lower quadrants, thoug mainly above the Venn diagram in the bottom right quadrant.]
:Solid lined label: Appropriate zone for a party
:Dotted lined label: Appropriate for my birthday party

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Venn diagrams]]
[[Category:Geography]]
[[Category:Social interactions]]

Talk:356: Nerd Sniping

2024-01-23T09:40:31Z

172.70.90.29:

Just because the problem contains an infinite series (or parallel) doesn't mean that it's unsolvable. It's tricky, certainly, and getting the "true" answer involves some rather heavy math, but it's not impossible. Indeed, Google shows that it's already been answered. [[Special:Contributions/76.122.5.96|76.122.5.96]] 20:42, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

I've always had an issue with this problem for one simple reason. In an infinite set of resistors, there is no space to apply a charge, thus there is no resistance. Ohm's law states Resistance = Voltage / I(current). So, in a system where there is no current (creating a divide by zero error), and there is no voltage (no change in electron work capacity, because we don't have a way to excite the electrons, because there is no power) Resistance is incalculable. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 22:22, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
:We live in 3 dimensions, just place a battery above the grid with wires going to the 2 points. --[[Special:Contributions/84.197.34.154|84.197.34.154]] 22:59, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
::Not everybody does... --[[Special:Contributions/85.159.196.14|FlatlandDweller]] 11:08, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
::: baDumpBump! [[Special:Contributions/172.68.142.89|172.68.142.89]] 16:22, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
::I believe the OP is referencing the issue that an infinite circuit could not hold a current. Connecting a battery would only work for a finite grid. In addition, the orientation of the battery in physical space has no relation to its behavior in a circuit, only the points of connection matter. Think about what the battery is doing to generate a current. How does electric potential apply over an infinite grid? Even moving it through a magnetic field won't work as the flux will be uniform across each cross section. You can't rotate an infinite grid either...{{unsigned|Flewk}}
: This is an idealized version of the general problem of determining the resistance between two points in a volume of some material. Like, say, two electrode tips in a liquid electrolyte? Getting a mathematically exact solution in this situation requires integrating over an infinity of paths, even when the liquid volume is finite. Add in the fact that there are no perfect insulators, and you'll have to consider arbitrarily long paths, too. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.203.15|162.158.203.15]] 03:46, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

:Just crocodidoodle the battery to the pencil lines as and where required for an infinity of varieteediddly.[[User:Weatherlawyer| I used Google News BEFORE it was clickbait]] ([[User talk:Weatherlawyer|talk]]) 18:51, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

This problem is "unsolvable" only if you try to just use the basic methods for finite networks.
There is a page on this at [http://mathpages.com/home/kmath668/kmath668.htm http://mathpages.com/home/kmath668/kmath668.htm] that reports that the cited points have a resistance of '''4/pi - 1/2''' ohms (.773234... ohms).
The 1/2 ohm resistance between adjacent nodes is actually well known.
[[User:Divad27182|Divad27182]] ([[User talk:Divad27182|talk]]) 05:05, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

:Solution here as well: http://mathworld.wolfram.com/news/2004-10-13/google/ [[User:Potie15|Potie15]] ([[User talk:Potie15|talk]]) 03:50, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Nowhere it is said that the problem is unsolvable, just that it is interesting. Of course, the sniping is more effective if the problem is also difficult to solve, because otherwise the victim would get over it quickly. [[User:Dargor17|Dargor17]] ([[User talk:Dargor17|talk]]) 17:47, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

That method for parallel resistors is wrong. You don't divide resistances by the number of paths, you sum the reciprocals and then take the reciprocal of that. The method described only works if every resistor has the same value. While that's true in this problem, it's misleading to pass that off as a method that works for all cases. --[[Special:Contributions/173.245.55.60|173.245.55.60]] 03:32, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
:Good point. I made some slight alterations to clarify that we are assuming the resistors are equal. It seems a better solution than getting into the more complex version of the problem. --[[User:BlueMoonlet|BlueMoonlet]] ([[User talk:BlueMoonlet|talk]]) 12:20, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

The real question is: why did the physicist cross the road? --[[User:Alcatraz ii|Alcatraz ii]] ([[User talk:Alcatraz ii|talk]]) 00:53, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

:to get to the other sine. Or if you want a punchline specific to physics (sine is a math concept technically)... Brownian motion--[[User:Twisted Code|Twisted Code]] ([[User talk:Twisted Code|talk]]) 20:25, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Amazing. From the first comment the discussion is diverted from discussing the comic, to discussing the problem presented in the comic. The commentators have been nerd sniped by a demonstration of nerd sniping. Randall is just that good. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.86|108.162.216.86]] 17:55, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

"Sniping" might also be a pun or have a deliberately dual meaning in this context, referring to both a sniper and a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snipe_hunt snipe hunt] (do kids still practice the latter?). The former makes sense if Black Hat's purpose is to actually rid the world of physics and math nerds (consistent with his characteristic misanthropy and cynicism), but the latter also fits the theme of merely distracting a nerd with an impossible task, which the title text suggests may have been Randall's motivation for the strip. (On a side note, the Wikipedia article reveals that the terms sniper and snipe hunt have a common origin, which makes twice in the last month it's resolved a long-standing etymological puzzle for me. The other case united the multiple, seemingly unrelated meanings of minute <nowiki>["tiny" vs. time]</nowiki> and second <nowiki>[ordinal vs. time]</nowiki>; see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexagesimal#Notation sexagesimal].) [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.182|173.245.54.182]] 01:40, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

:I've been led to believe that 'minute' means 'tiny amount of time', 'second' is 'secondary tiny amount of time', and , I quote "Real snipe (a family of shorebirds) are difficult to catch for experienced hunters, so much so that the word "sniper" is derived from it to refer to anyone skilled enough to shoot one." from the snipe hunt wiki page. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.4|141.101.104.4]] 23:45, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Why doesn't someone solder together a thousand one ohm resistors into a grid then use an ohmmeter to measure the resistance? Then repeat with smaller and smaller grids to see if there's any effect on the measurement. If the resistance does not change, or at least doesn't change until the grid size gets quite small, then the "infinite" term in the problem is a 'red herring' to mislead. Pointless, useless, irrelevant etc information in problems is a common tactic for gauging the ability to recognize and reject such data. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.133.122|199.27.133.122]] 00:35, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Incidentally, should this page mention that what if 113 (I don't know how to do links, sorry) contains a picture of this comic? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.65|108.162.216.65]] 23:36, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
:Yes I will do so. Have just referred to another what if where he is mentioning nerd sniping. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 11:40, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.34|141.101.98.34]] 12:17, 22 May 2015 (UTC) Am I the only one concerned with the fact that this poor guy was still on a crosswalk? The truck should have stopped. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.34|141.101.98.34]] 12:17, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
:No you are not, and good point --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 11:40, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

When the number of parallel resistors increase, the equivalent resistance decreases. So, in an infinite grid, wouldn't it approach zero? [[User:UrubuSelvagem|UrubuSelvagem]] ([[User talk:UrubuSelvagem|talk]]) 03:43, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
:They are also in series. For each parallel group, there is, in fact a corresponding group in series. {{unsigned|Flewk}}

It is not directly relevant to the discussion of the comic, but this needs to be posted here. Perhaps the best nerd snipe ever actually achieved and a nearly perfect match for the comic (my professor put it in the lecture notes for my group theory class):
"Coxeter came to Cambridge and he gave a lecture, then he had this problem ... I left the lecture room thinking. As I was walking through Cambridge, suddenly the idea hit me, but it hit me while I was in the middle of the road. When the idea hit me I stopped and a large truck ran into me ... So I pretended that Coxeter had calculated the difficulty of this problem so precisely that he knew that I would get the solution just in the middle of the road ... One consequence of it is that in a group if a^2=b^3=c^5= (abc)^-1, then c^610=1."
(J.H. Conway, Math. Intelligencer v. 23 no. 2 (2001))
I did a search, and the entire passage can be read [https://books.google.ca/books?id=aFHyUfFUVIwC&pg=PA22&lpg=PA22&dq=Coxeter+came+to+Cambridge+and+he+gave+a+lecture,+then+he+had+this+problem+...++Ileft+the+lecture+room+thinking.+As+I+was+walking+through+Cambridge,+suddenly+theidea+hit+me,++but+it+hit+me+while+I+was+in+the+middle+of+the+road.++When+the+ideahit+me+I+stopped+and+a+large+truck+ran+into+me+...++So+I+pretended+that+Coxeter+hadcalculated+the+difficulty+of+this+problem+so+precisely+that+he+knew+that+I+would+getthe+solution+just+in+the+middle+of+the+roa&source=bl&ots=CgmxTG2n0w&sig=ohqqBGtJrpuQFeiCPPusMVsQUV4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAGoVChMIy4KdnPakyAIV0ZeICh2OGghP#v=onepage&q=Coxeter%20came%20to%20Cambridge%20and%20he%20gave%20a%20lecture%2C%20then%20he%20had%20this%20problem%20...%20%20Ileft%20the%20lecture%20room%20thinking.%20As%20I%20was%20walking%20through%20Cambridge%2C%20suddenly%20theidea%20hit%20me%2C%20%20but%20it%20hit%20me%20while%20I%20was%20in%20the%20middle%20of%20the%20road.%20%20When%20the%20ideahit%20me%20I%20stopped%20and%20a%20large%20truck%20ran%20into%20me%20...%20%20So%20I%20pretended%20that%20Coxeter%20hadcalculated%20the%20difficulty%20of%20this%20problem%20so%20precisely%20that%20he%20knew%20that%20I%20would%20getthe%20solution%20just%20in%20the%20middle%20of%20the%20roa&f=false here] perhaps it is even possible that this event is the inspiration for this comic? The inclusion of the "large truck" is almost too perfect. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.240.217|108.162.240.217]] 23:45, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
:I have now added this story in a new trivia section. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 11:40, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

I know a solution that use random walks. :) {{unsigned ip|141.101.95.153}}

I really like this comic. It says a lot about Black Hat, but so much more about Randall :-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 11:40, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

So, *that's* how they did Gaudi in! I always suspected a plot; now I see the method. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.142.89|172.68.142.89]] 16:30, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Solution: ~0.7729906038309804 ohm. [[User:GcGYSF(asterisk)P(vertical line)e|GcGYSF(asterisk)P(vertical line)e]] ([[User talk:GcGYSF(asterisk)P(vertical line)e|talk]]) 20:36, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

Can't speak for Black Hat's (or Randall's) jurisdiction, but over here a vehicle not stopping for someone on a zebra crossing (especially, but also not taking some basic actions to avoid ''any'' unexpected hazard in ''any'' road, including not going too fast to do so) would be an actual driving offence. Obviously someone stepping out from behind parked vehicles, or wildlife randomly crossing busy roads without regard for 'human' common sense, would be mitigation and probably become a no-fault situation, but someone clearly stood in an empty road (let alone upon a marked crossing point) should not be a surprise to even a looming juggernaut being responsibly driven. The regressive anti-pedestrian laws in the US might somehow {{tvtropes|LookBothWays|excuse this hollywood trope}}, but it still always bothers me when a character (gloating antagonist/doomed love-interest/whoever) gets suddenly side-slammed by a vehicle that nobody (we, they, the 'safe on the sidewalk' observers) had seen/heard until the moment before the impact (if that), but whose driver ''also'' appears to have been oblivious. And where there's no obvious sign of brakes used, vehicle and victim usually dissapearing just as rapidly off the opposite side of the shot, possibly remains so. (Does not apply to malicious side-swipes, obviously, where vehicle-as-a-weapon is invoked by whoever has gained off-screen control of the 'weapon', either to {{tvtropes|SurpriseCarCrash|kick off a villainous attack}} or for a co-protagonist to interupt an {{tvtropes|EvilGloating|attempted pre-mortem evil gloat}}...) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.48|172.70.90.48]] 09:38, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

1986: River Border

2024-01-22T22:30:57Z

172.70.90.29:

{{comic
| number = 1986
| date = April 27, 2018
| title = River Border
| image = river_border.png
| titletext = I'm not a lawyer, but I believe zones like this are technically considered the high seas, so if you cut a pizza into a spiral there you could be charged with pieracy under marinaritime law.
}}

==Explanation==
This strip is about the complexities that arise when political boundaries are mapped to geographical features. [[Ponytail]] explains to [[Megan]] that many borders run along rivers, which can become tricky, since the courses of rivers can change over time. The specific example Ponytail uses is a segment of the Missouri-Nebraska state border which runs along the {{w|Missouri River}}. She explains that, when the course of rivers changes slowly, state boundaries generally move with them, but this section had changed abruptly, due to a {{w|meander cutoff}} and the border didn't move with it. That means that they are on a part of the Missouri side of the river that in fact belongs to Nebraska.

Rather than simply being interested in this geographical oddity, Megan mistakenly concludes that she could break the law in this area without consequences, which Ponytail immediately points out isn't true, but Megan seems to ignore her.

The notion of a "legal dead zone" in which laws either don't apply or can't be enforced intrigues many people, likely because people who've lived under a system of laws their whole lives often wonder what it would be like to be unrestricted by any legal code. While Megan's assertion is this case is wrong, there are a number of cases in history where areas, either in theory or in fact, fell beyond the reach of normal laws.

- In 2005, [https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=691642 An article in the Georgetown Law Review] noted that, due to a mismatch in state borders and federal districts in one region of Yellowstone National Park, it would theoretically be impossible to create a jury to convict someone for crimes committed in that region. This theory has never been tested, and it's not sure how the courts would respond, but that region has been referred to as a legal dead zone. (''What If? 2'' referenced this region.)

- {{w|Bir Tawil}}, a region along the border between Egypt and Sudan, is claimed by neither country as a result of the {{w|Halaib Triangle}} border dispute. This makes it unlikely that either country would try to enforce its laws in this region (though the region is uninhabited, making the potential for crimes limited).

- {{w|Kowloon Walled City}} was an enclave in British-controlled Hong Kong. The original treaty gave China the right to administer this enclave, but they were driven out by the British. Following World War 2, China announced its intention to reclaim the enclave, setting up a decades-long stand-off in which neither side administered the area, making it effectively lawless. Unlike the earlier examples, this loophole was quickly taken advantage of by war refugees who built a dense city there, out of reach of the authorities.

- Border disputes between countries often result in enclaves controlled by one country within the other. That means that neither country's authorities can travel to the enclave without crossing international borders. When that isn't allowed, the enclave is effectively beyond the reach of law enforcement. This is arguably the closest case to what's portrayed in this comic: if there are no bridges over that section of the river, then Nebraska police couldn't enter the area without either travelling through Missouri or taking a boat across the river. In reality, though, there is no restriction against local authorities from travelling through a different jurisdiction to get to their own. Not to mention that, if Megan committed a federal crime in that region, national authorities could arrest her anywhere in the country.

In the final panel, Megan reveals the "crime" she's excited to commit: cutting a pizza into a spiral. While unconventional, there's no law against doing so in any jurisdiction, making the entire point moot. Megan ignores this fact, simply shouting "crimes!", suggesting that her excitement about being free from the law is largely theoretical, rather than having specific crimes that she wants to commit.

In the title text, [[Randall]] claims/hypothesizes the disputed region is probably considered like the {{w|International waters|high seas}}, suggesting the pizza case would then fall under {{w|Admiralty law|maritime law}}. Historically, the "high seas" have been the primary region that stands outside the jurisdiction of any specific authority. As a result, other areas that are similarly outside national boundaries (such as outer space) are often considered to be governed by maritime law, as it's the most convenient legal framework to use. "Pieracy" is a portmanteau of ''pie'' (another term for a pizza) and "piracy"; and pizzas are often made with marinara sauce, so "Maritime" law is rendered "Marinaritime".

The region mentioned in the comic can be seen here at [https://www.google.com/maps/@40.5270132,-95.6954944,10627m/ Google maps] and is known as {{w|McKissick Island}}. In 1904, the U.S. Supreme Court confirmed in Missouri v. Nebraska that a sudden change of a river's course does not change any border. See: [https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/196/23/case.html Missouri v. Nebraska, 196 U.S. 23 (1904)].

===Riverine Boundaries in Common Law and Surveying===
This strip is alluding to the concepts of 'accretion' and 'avulsion' in boundary law.

Accretion is the gradual change of the location of a river or stream by erosion or addition of sediment through natural river processes. According to common law in the United States and elsewhere, if a river or stream location changes gradually, then the boundary line moves with the stream. In cases of pure accretion, it is possible for a parcel of land to be entirely eroded away on one side of a river, and have material be added to the opposite side of the river. In such cases, one property owner could lose all their land.

An avulsion is a sudden change in the location of a river or stream, often due to flooding. In times of flood, a river can cut a new channel through surrounding land, which can create islands and oxbow lakes. According to common law, an avulsive change will not change the boundary of the land, as it is likely that the property is unchanged except for the new channel.

In the real world, however, river systems undergo both accretion and avulsion multiple times over any given period. This makes the determination of property lines along riverine boundaries one of the most complicated aspects of boundary surveying. An examination of a river boundary will require in-depth research of the local history of the river, including reviewing deeds, government survey {{w|plat))s, private survey maps, aerial photos taken over time, local landowners recollections and local lore. In situations where there is disagreement over whether an avulsive or accretive change happened, landowners may have to go to court for a suit to quiet title.

Further in-depth reading may be found in the US Bureau of Land Management's 2009 Manual of Surveying Instructions, Chapter 8, specifically pages 197-205. (See: [https://www.blm.gov/sites/blm.gov/files/Manual_Of_Surveying_Instructions_2009.pdf PDF (37.7 MByte)].)

=== Real-world examples ===
Often, borders defined by a river actually change. There are three methods to define a border:
*The border follows one of the river banks, often in reference to a low-water mark. The exact location of the border is defined in a clear way - but one of the territories will lose terrain through {{w|erosion}}. When the river bends, erosion occurs at the outer bank and much less at the inner bank.
*The border follows the middle of the river.
*The most usual definition of a riverine border uses the {{w|talweg}}. The talweg (German for "valley path") always follows the line of the deepest points in the water body. Especially at river bends, the talweg is rarely in the middle of the river. Incidentally, the talweg also signifies the navigable zone of a river. In terms of {{w|natural border}}s, one counterpart of a talweg is the {{w|drainage divide}}, but these divides are hard to recognize on a map and rarely used to define a real border.

The Mexican-US-Border that follows the Rio Grande is one of the most prominent examples of an international border that needs meticulous regulation. Thus, the {{w|International Boundary and Water Commission}} was created. This commission was involved when the two nations rectified the course of the river, ceding equal amounts of land to each other. The Canada-US-Border is overseen by a similar commission. There is also a strange section on the border to Canada, which Randall mentions in the comic [[1902: State Borders]].

The border between Delaware and New Jersey veers from the median and talweg methods such that Delaware's border includes all the way to the New Jersey shore where the {{w|Delaware River}} is within what is known as the {{w|Twelve-Mile Circle}}.

One of the causes of the {{w|Iran-Iraq War}} was the dispute on shipping rights on the {{w|Shatt-el Arab river}}, and because the border was defined as the low water mark at the ''eastern'' side of that river, Iranian shipping was severely restricted. So the Shah of Persia announced intent to ignore the 1937 treaty on shipping rights, following the convention of most riverine borders all around the world being defined by the talweg.

Between Switzerland and Italy, the border is, at most locations, defined by the actual {{w|drainage divide}}. Because the {{w|Theodul Glacier}} between {{w|Zermatt}} (Switzerland) and {{w|Breuil-Cervinia}} (Italy) is slowly melting, the drainage divide moves southwards, thus slowly enlarging the Swiss territory.

Most other national borders in Europe are defined today as ''fiat borders'' instead of following natural landmarks like rivers. If a river changes course now, the depicted situation would occur; however, most larger rivers have been rectified more than a century ago and thus don't often significantly change course.

==Transcript==
:[Ponytail and Megan are standing on a grassy riverbank, with the nearby part of the river shown above their heads. They are looking towards the river and Ponytail is gesturing at the river with her hand.]
:Ponytail: This is a cool spot.
:Ponytail: The Missouri-Nebraska state line follows this river. If the river's path changes gradually, the border moves with it.

:[A map is shown beneath the text spoken by Ponytail (off-panel). The map includes a bendy river shown in gray which is snaking its way from the left part of the panel down to the bottom. A dotted line indicates the old path of the river. It follows the gray river most of the way, but towards the bottom, this line moves away from the current river extending to north-east, including a large chunk of land that the river used to encompass previously. Two arrows point to the gray section of the river with the dotted line, and another arrow points to the section of the dotted line not following the gray section. Both are labeled. On each side of the dotted arc, where it is farthest from the gray part of the river the state names are labeled, so the text follows the direction of the river (almost north to south here).]
:Ponytail (narrating): But when it '''''abruptly''''' changes course, the border stays behind.
:Ponytail (narrating): This is a spot where that happened. We're on the Missouri side, but we're in Nebraska.
:River
:Old riverbed
:Nebraska
:Missouri

:[In a frame-less panel (with no background) Ponytail has turned to look at Megan who is holding a hand to her chin.]
:Megan: Wow.
:Megan: So...
:Megan: We can commit all the crimes we want here and the cops can't do a thing!

:[Megan runs away from Ponytail while she is holding her arm up in the air with a finger extended up.]
:Ponytail: What? No. Why would you even think that?
:Megan: I'm going to cut a pizza into a '''''spiral!'''''
:Ponytail: That's not even illegal!
:Megan: '''''Crimes!'''''

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Maps]]
[[Category:Geography]]

Talk:2881: Bug Thread

2024-01-16T06:18:04Z

172.70.90.29:

No idea what to put in the explanation box, so I just did the incomplete tag.[[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.185|172.69.33.185]] 05:36, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
:I was writing an initial Explanation even as you did that. (I had an almost identical BOT-replacing idea. Which I continued to use as I hit the edit-conflict on yours.)
:Not entirely happy with my narrative structure. Tried (too hard?) to not re-use phrasing. Either in there or in the Transcript (tbough currently leaving for someone else), I thought I might remark that ''either'' the Cueball-like beach-booker ''or'' the WhiteHat-like years-noter ''could'' be the half-seen uppermost post's contributor, based upon the visible portrait. But it seemed a bit hard to nicely shoehorn in, especially as it could be neither. Though any of those seen could also easily be up above the scroll-windowing, anyway, nearer where the unstated (to us) issue is actually described. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.29|172.70.90.29]] 06:18, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

2880: Sheet Bend

2024-01-15T18:23:05Z

172.70.90.29:

{{comic
| number = 2880
| date = January 12, 2024
| title = Sheet Bend
| image = sheet_bend_2x.png
| imagesize = 317x244px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = A left-handed sheet bend creates a much weaker connection, especially under moderate loads.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a SHEET BOND - Seems like there are way too much about the security problems with this connector and less about explaining the comic. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This is the seventh installment in the series of [[:Category:Cursed Connectors|Cursed Connectors]] and presents Cursed Connectors #46: The Sheet Bend. At the time of release this was the lowest number used for a cursed connector, replacing [[2495: Universal Seat Belt|#65: Universal Seat Belt]] (with [[2507: USV-C|#286: USV-C]] being the one with the highest number).

This comic shows two double-core cables being joined in a knot to make an electrical connection. The knot used to tie the two halves of the cable is a {{w|sheet bend}}, which is often used to join two ropes of different thicknesses, and explains the name for this type of cursed connector.

Instead of the join being made a conventional way (either by plug/socket connection, both wires being joined in a junction block or even the matching core-wire ends being twisted or soldered together and the joins covered with insulating tape), the diagram shows that each core is arranged to be connected to a conductive outer sheath, then the wires themselves are tied together such that the just the respective outer sheaths touch and the connection is made between them. A wire with two sequential points of connectivity for different signals is vaguely similar to how a coaxial plug (e.g. a so-called {{w|Phone connector (audio)|'phono'}} plug) has two or more bands of connectivity which make contact with a compatible socket, although that plug-end is rigid, and certainly not flexible enough to be tied into a sheet bend. Nor could one plug end be easily placed up against another such plug end to extend the connection into another length of cable.

Although a fanciful extreme, the ad-hoc bonding of electrical wiring is a scenario commonly encountered by hobby engineers from the last millenium (the target demographic of the comic), who may have experience in electrical soldering and strong knowledge of how devices interconnect, but would be a red-flag in mainstream systems or professional repair. It is not even an easy solution for handling a broken wire, as extensive prior modification of the ends is necessary. That said, a hand-repaired wire can easily break again, and so hobby repairists can come up with solutions such as the tying the cables together to reduce the strain upon the reconnected elements. The proposed solution seems to suggest a ''planned'' connection method that is meant to satisfy both electrical and mechanical connectivity through knot-work, and can appear quite satisfying with regard to how the knot holds the tension of the cable in a way that actually would strengthen the electrical connection (presumably twisting the contact patches tighter) rather than breaking it.

Historically, tying wire together has been used to connect wires, with one example being the {{w|Western Union splice}}, used to connect telegraph lines. In contrast to the pictured image, this splice was used on a single-strand conductor. The return part of the circuit would consist of a parallel wire, probably with its own splice(s) in it as required.

People who use “repair” jobs like this usually retain awareness and experience to continue learning and repairing as further issues develop.

This is not the way electrical connections are usually made. As those familiar with larger currents are aware, you might get an electric shock or start a fire from touching the conducting surfaces of such wires, unless additional insulation is placed around the knot. If the cable does not carry dangerous currents, it may instead carry low voltage signals (e.g. network traffic), and be susceptible to interference by unwanted electrical currents leaking ''into'' the connection. At best, these can degrade the integrity of the information the cable carries; at worst, the equipment which uses the wire could be damaged by an out of range spike in current.

Most connectors, even those like the relatively exposed {{w|punch-down block}} or {{w|screw terminal block}} types, would use some structural housing (and even {{w|AC power plugs and sockets#Protection from accidental contact|other methods}}) to ensure that the 'live' ends of a socket/plug/hybrid terminator are not touched to other live wires, grounded casings or objects/people, generally according to the relative dangers from, or to, the equipment to which the cable is connected.

The knot is designed to ensure that the connectors that are intended to connect remain in contact, and prevent those from alternate strands from touching, but this guarantee is not that robust. If the knot is not constructed or handled correctly, it could lose connectivity or, worse, short out the circuit, but also the cable could slip loose (perhaps by insufficient tensioning of the knot, from the start) and the exposed conducting sheaths make other improper/dangerous connections across or beyond the knot itself. In both cases, the connection of the 'connector' would be at least become unreliable, even if it only disconnected the intended contact-points due to slippage – whether or not it became mechanically untied.

The title text says that a left handed sheet bend would provide a weaker connection. An actual left handed sheet bend provides less strength to the knot. This makes the title text a pun on the double meaning of "moderate load" (as in a moderate amount of physical tension applied through the cables ''or'' a moderate amount of electrical current passing through them). The difference between a left handed and right handed sheet knot is that the two free ends of the knotted 'cords' are in the same orientation for a right-handed sheet knot (here, both on the lower side of the image), but on opposite sides for a left-handed sheet knot. When there is more tension drawing two conductive surfaces together, there is less resistance between them, strengthening the electrical connection as well.

Knots was also the subject of the relative recent [[2738: Omniknot]].

==Transcript==
:[Above the drawing there is a header. Below the header there is a double-core wire going in from the left and stopping just past the middle of the picture. It shows how the inside of the wire looks and how the silver and golden wires inside are connected to two rectangular pieces of silver and golden material respectively. The golden piece is to the left and the silver piece to the right, closest to the end of the wire. Beneath this wire is shown two double-core wires forming a knot of the sheet bend type. Here it becomes clear that the silver and golden pieces are on the outside of the wires (but connected to the wires running inside the wires). In the knotted part of the wires gold touches gold and silver touches silver, without them touching the other color. Beneath this knot there is a label for the connector.]
:Cursed Connectors #46:
:The Sheet Bend

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Cursed Connectors]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]

2875: 2024

2024-01-02T18:25:47Z

172.70.90.29: revert my nuts nigger

<div style="top: 0px; left: 0px; position: fixed; float: left; z-index: 99999;">
<div style="position: absolute;>
[[File:Self Fisting.jpg|frameless|2500px|link=]]
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[[File:Self Fisting.jpg|frameless|2500px|link=]]
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[[File:Self Fisting.jpg|frameless|2500px|link=]]
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[[File:Self Fisting.jpg|frameless|2500px|link=]]
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<div style="font-size: 80px; font-weight: bold; position: absolute;">
[https://encyclopediadramatica.online encyclopediadramatica.online]
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</div>
</div>
== Headline text ==
<noinclude>:''This page refers to the comic named "2024". For comic #2024, see [[2024: Light Hacks]].''</noinclude>
{{comic
| number = 2875
| date = January 1, 2024
| title = 2024
| image = 2024_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x553px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = It wasn't originally constitutionally required, but presidents who served two terms have traditionally followed George Washington's example and gotten false teeth.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by OBAMA'S TEETH - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
In what starts off almost like a "[[:Category:Comics to make one feel old|doesn't time fly?]]" scene, the unstoppable progression of the calendar is observed, as [[Ponytail]] points out that it's now 2024. [[Cueball]], in response, notes that it is an election year, in this context a {{w|President of the United States#Election|US ''Presidential'' election}} year, which occurs every four years and has (in one form or other) since 1788. Ponytail then replies in some form of exasperated tone that they "keep on happening", which is true but (normally) unsurprising, even/especially with other major elections happening every two years, presumably not compared to how [https://www.bristol247.com/news-and-features/news/youre-joking-not-another-one/ some other democracies] might be less predictable/more frequent.

On top of this, Ponytail seems to have not been aware (or maybe has chosen to forget) the passing of two whole election cycles (and two newer incumbents) as the discussion focuses upon {{w|Barack Obama}}, the ''former'' US President. Ponytail seems to be quite behind the times as she asks if Obama is still president (he left office January 20th, 2017, which was 7 (!) years ago, a fact that Cueball cannot quite believe Ponytail is ignorant of). Ponytail states that she liked him, and wonders if he'll be up for taking on the position again. But Cueball states that he ''can't'' be made President again, having already served two terms, which Ponytail confirms by checking for herself the details of the {{w|Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution}}.

The humor in the comic comes in the second half; Cueball and Ponytail discuss whether Obama is the same person (like the mythical {{w|Ship of Theseus}}, most of his constituent cells are frequently replaced), with Ponytail looking into the possibility of Obama's re-election based upon philosophical/biological technicalities (as applied to the Constitution's words), rather than as legal/political convention might normally suggest. But when even that approach is seen to be wanting, requiring a wait significantly exceeding 30 years, Ponytail suggests negating that issue by having all of Obama's teeth removed and replaced with false teeth.

In order to facilitate the latter goal, Ponytail announces her intention to consult a dentist and (for exact reasons that can only be guessed at) a lawyer. Seeing where her current misplaced, and {{w|Dunning–Kruger effect|less than informed}}, zeal might be leading her, Cueball gives his prediction that the probable {{w|Supreme Court of the United States|ultimate legal arbiters}} of her plan might be unanimous in rejecting its validity (if not dissuading its attempt). SCOTUS being unanimous on an issue is now a [https://www.scotusblog.com/2022/07/as-unanimity-declines-conservative-majoritys-power-runs-deeper-than-the-blockbuster-cases/ comparatively rare event].

The title text references {{w|George Washington's teeth|George Washington's (in)famous 'false teeth'}}. Washington's dentures are often falsely claimed to be made of wood; in truth they were ''real'' teeth procured from other sources. Regardless, this would have likely resolved the rather specific problems established in the philosophical conundrum, and the title text claims that other presidents used this plan to get around the Constitutional limitations concerned in case they wanted to serve more than two terms.

However, no one has yet even ''needed'' to carry out this plan. Only one President has exceeded the limit; {{w|Franklin D. Roosevelt}} died in office during his ''fourth'' term, but he served prior to the 22nd Amendment and was thus unaffected by the rule, which was enacted six years after his death. (FDR did have a partial denture, but given that he retained some of his natural teeth, he did not engage in Ponytail's proposed scheme.) Presidents since then have definitely tried various schemes aimed at securing a second term, with both successes and failures, but nobody has yet planned ''this particular plan'' to achieve a third or beyond. Or at least one can assume that those that perhaps did (including, as noted, all those who were not yet 'required' to go to these lengths) failed to attain their goals for entirely different reasons.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

:[Ponytail and Cueball are walking.]
:Ponytail: So this is 2024.
:Cueball: Yup. Guess it's an election year now.
:Ponytail: Again? Man, those just keep happening, huh?

:[Ponytail and Cueball now standing.]
:Ponytail: Who's the president these days, anyway? Is it still Obama?
:Cueball: What? No? He hasn't been... How do you not...

:[Ponytail and Cueball still standing.]
:Ponytail: Darn, I liked him. Is he running this time?
:Cueball: No, he's not allowed to.
:Ponytail: He's not? Why?
:Cueball: Constitution.

:[Ponytail checks her smartphone.]
:Phone: ''Amendment 22''
:Phone: No person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice
:Ponytail: What?? C'mon...

:[Ponytail talking to Cueball.]
:Ponytail: Don't all your cells get replaced every seven years, Ship of Theseus-style? Is he even the same person?
:Ponytail: Maybe "no person shall be elected more than twice" isn't a prohibition, it's more of an observation, like "you can't step in the same river twice."

:[Zoom in on Cueball.]
:Cueball: Isn't the cell thing a myth?
:Cueball: I think tooth enamel has a turnover half-life of 30+ years. His teeth molecules are probably the same.

:[Ponytail heads off with a finger raised.]
:Ponytail: So if Obama just gets false teeth, he can run again! I need to talk to a dentist and a lawyer!
:Cueball: The Supreme Court is about to vote 9-0 to block your number.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Elections]]
[[Category:Politics]]
[[Category:Biology]]

1266: Halting Problem

2023-12-17T09:35:37Z

172.70.90.29: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 1266
| date = September 18, 2013
| title = Halting Problem
| image = halting_problem.png
| titletext = I found a counterexample to the claim that all things must someday die, but I don't know how to show it to anyone.
}}

==Explanation==
In 1936 {{w|Alan Turing}} proved that it's not possible for an algorithm to decide whether an arbitrary program will eventually halt, or run forever. This was later called the {{w|Halting problem}} by {{w|Martin Davis}}. The official definition of the problem is to write a program (actually, a {{w|Turing Machine}}) that accepts as parameters a program and its parameters. That program needs to decide, in finite time, whether that program will ever halt running these parameters.

The halting problem is a cornerstone problem in computer science. It is used mainly as a way to prove a given task is impossible, by showing that solving that task will allow one to solve the halting problem.

[[Randall]], however, is providing a simpler solution. He implements his own code for the question ''"Does it halt?"'' which always returns "true", and directs us to think about the bigger picture.

From a '''physical''' perspective, according to our current understanding of physics, this is right. Given enough time, any program will halt. This is due to factors external to the actual program. Sooner or later, electricity will give out, or the memory containing the program will get corrupted by cosmic rays, or corrosion will eat away the silicon in the CPU, or the {{w|second law of thermodynamics}} will lead to the {{w|Heat death of the universe}}. Nothing lasts forever, and this includes a running program.

From a '''mathematical''' point of view, this is not true: a Turing machine will never have a hardware failure because it's not a physical machine. It's a theoretical construct, and it's '''defined''' mathematically, independent of any physical hardware. Similarly, ⅓ + ⅓ + ⅓ = 1 no matter what any physical hardware you are computing it on claims.

Another interpretation of [[Randall]]'s code is that, assuming the language uses an eager evaluation strategy, the Program in the parentheses is actually being run whenever his function is called. In this case, the function would wait until the program finishes and exits before returning "True". Therefore, [[Randall]]'s function is mathematically accurate. It does not solve the problem though, as it simply shifts the question to whether the function itself will ever halt. If his language uses lazy evaluation, the input program is completely ignored, and it reduces to the incorrect mathematical interpretation.

From a '''practical''' point of view, there are of course times that a programmer would want to return "false", since some programs can be mathematically shown to run forever.

The title text further relates to this issue by claiming to have found a case where something need not die, but Randall does not know how to actually show it to anyone, because just the fact everyone will die sooner than it doesn't prove it will not die. The wording of the title text might also be a reference to {{w|Fermat's Last Theorem}}.

It should be noted that Randall's solution, barring its unsoundness, solves more than the halting problem in the form it is usually stated. The halting problem requires two parameters (a program and its parameters), while Randall's function only accepts one (the program). The question of whether a program halts for every input can be shown to be even harder to solve than the halting problem, meaning that even if a Turing machine had an additional instruction allowing it to check whether a program halts with given parameters, it still could not always confirm that a given program that halts for all parameters does so.

The code in this comic is written in {{w|pseudocode}}, to demonstrate the "algorithm" rather than an implementation in some existing programming language. The syntax resembles a mix of {{w|C (programming language)|C}} and {{w|Python (programming language)|Python}}.

The proof that the halting problem is unsolveable is to write a new function that uses Randall's program:

<pre>
DEFINE META_DOESITHALT():
IF ( DOESITHALT(META_DOESITHALT) )
WHILE ( TRUE ) DO_NOTHING;
ELSE
HALT;
</pre>

If Randall's function says that <code>META_DOESITHALT</code> halts by returning "TRUE" - then that makes <code>META_DOESITHALT</code> loop forever. But if it decides that it must not halt by returning "FALSE" - then <code>META_DOESITHALT</code> halts.

This proves that <code>DOESITHALT</code> can't possibly work - no matter what it actually does.

This is the software equivalent of "Everything I say is a lie".

==Transcript==
:[A short computer program.]
'''define''' DoesItHalt(program):
{
'''return''' true;
}
:[Caption below the panel]:
: The big-picture solution to the halting problem.

==Trivia==
*A similar useless computer program can be found here: [[221: Random Number]].

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Computers‏‎]]
[[Category:Programming]]

1476: Ceres

2023-12-09T09:14:58Z

172.70.90.29: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1476
| date = January 21, 2015
| title = Ceres
| image = ceres.png
| titletext = Earth clearly hasn't been inspected, since it's definitely contaminated with salmonella.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Ceres (dwarf planet)|Ceres}} is the largest known {{w|asteroid}} and the smallest known {{w|dwarf planet}}. [[Megan]] sits at her computer and tells [[Cueball]] how exciting it will be when Dawn discovers what the cause of the "stupid white dot" on Ceres is.

{{w|Dawn (spacecraft)|Dawn}} is a probe sent by {{w|NASA}} in 2007 to examine the {{w|asteroid belt}}. Having already visited the {{w|protoplanet}} {{w|4 Vesta|Vesta}} in 2012, Dawn is now scheduled to arrive at Ceres on March 6, 2015. Dawn's initial images of Ceres were released two days before this comic, quickly inspiring [http://www.universetoday.com/118358/first-hubble-and-now-dawn-have-seen-this-white-spot-on-ceres-what-is-it/ questions about the white spot]. The spot was first noticed in photographs taken by the {{w|Hubble Space Telescope}}.

"[http://www.cafepress.com/inspector6 Inspected By No. 6]" refers to a series of quality assurance stickers used by US clothing manufacturers. Individual inspectors, each assigned a number, randomly sample products for workmanship. Accepted items are marked with that inspector's sticker. The presumed joke is that the white spot is a large sticker indicating that Ceres has passed inspection. This might also reference The Rift's M6 being stationed at Ceres inspecting a crater.

However, this sticker could mean that there is life, probably a {{w|Type 3 civilisation|Type 3+ civilization.}} This would mean that there is life in this universe that has control over solar systems, potentially saying that there are Type 3, 4, and Type 5 civilizations out there since they can control solar systems.

The title text extends the joke to the planet Earth, where {{w|salmonella}} can be found. Salmonella are harmful microorganisms sometimes found in food products subject to improper handling or overlong storage. Mixing the realms of astronomical objects and food once more, the title text concludes that the planet Earth hasn't been tested by CERES since salmonella can be found on it.

The Dawn mission is mentioned in [[1532: New Horizons]].

==Transcript==
:[Megan sitting in front of her laptop talks to Cueball who stand behind her.]
:Megan: ''Dawn'' has almost reached Ceres.
:Megan: I'm excited that we'll finally learn what that stupid white dot is.

:[Current version of Dawn's best picture of Ceres and the white spot is shown.]

:[As Dawn get's closer the pictures improve and in the second version the white spot shows to have black markings.]

:[In the last zoom in on Ceres, the white dot resolves to a badge with clear black text:]
:Inspected by No. 6

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Space probes]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Food]]
[[Category:Puns]]

Talk:2722: Etymonline

2023-06-03T08:33:30Z

172.70.90.29:

Random fact: I recently finished reading etymonline.com from beginning to end. It taught me things about the English language that I didn't know that I didn't know. [[User:Darthpoppins|Darthpoppins]] ([[User talk:Darthpoppins|talk]]) 00:46, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
:Nice. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.167.235|172.71.167.235]] 04:16, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Dear whomever wrote the current explanation, please take an English composition course. It's clear you mean well, but it's really hard to read your work. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.158.216|172.71.158.216]] 04:44, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
:Fair enough; I'll try to clean it up [[User:Dextrous Fred|Dextrous Fred]] ([[User talk:Dextrous Fred|talk]]) 05:33, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
::Also the complainer could take use of this being a wiki and make the changes himself ;-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 09:56, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

In the comic, french word "étymologie" is incorrectly spelled "ethimologie" which is referred to as "Old French". I wonder whether that mistake was done on purpose ?
[[Special:Contributions/141.101.68.222|141.101.68.222]] 08:12, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
: "Old French etimologie, ethimologie (14c., Modern French étymologie), from Latin etymologia, from Greek etymologia" from the Etymonline entry for "etymology"[[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.223|172.70.162.223]] 10:25, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
: Given that it's over 350 years from now, it really ought to say 'from Old English etymology', with what we currently call Old English now being known as Really Old English.[[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.65|172.71.178.65]] 09:09, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
::Or Ancient English. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.51.160|172.68.51.160]] 14:47, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
:With the comic revelling in the degredation of contemporary knowledge as future history passes (perhaps like [https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/BabylonFiveS04E22TheDeconstructionOfFallingStars here, especially in 2762]), I don't think this relatively minor glitch is an error. Merely flavour. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.242.141|172.71.242.141]] 12:21, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

In what is almost certainly not a coincidence, "etymology" and "blimp" are currently trending at #2 and #5, respectively, on etymoline.com as of right now (15:14, 10 January 2023 (UTC)) [[Special:Contributions/172.70.110.236|172.70.110.236]] 15:14, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
:Agree. Now Blimp is #1 and Etymology #3 as of now. Have made a screen shot with the date and ponder to insert it in the explanation under a trivia. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 09:56, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
::I have added the image. If someone could knows hot change the size of the image shown I would be happy. Not sure how to do that. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 10:28, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
:::I was JUST coming here to complain about that, LOL! I can easily change the image (not sure about in wikicode, I mean an actual image), but on my computer, I'm out and only have my iPad right now. On iPad Safari, the entire page zooms out in order to show all of that picture, so all the explanation is tiny. Personally, I would crop the picture to the relevant area (why do people need to see the articles listed beneath? Just show the search bar with the top terms and enough of the page to show what site). [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:02, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Shouldn't it be "folk etymonline"? [[Special:Contributions/172.68.35.26|172.68.35.26]] 18:57, 10 January 2023 (UTC) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.35.26|172.68.35.26]] 18:57, 10 January 2023 (UTC) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.35.26|172.68.35.26]] 18:57, 10 January 2023 (UTC) [[Special:Contributions/172.68.35.26|172.68.35.26]] 18:57, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
:I believe it uses "etymology" since that comment is from the perspective of some "present day" scholar, or Randall himself [[User:Dextrous Fred|Dextrous Fred]] ([[User talk:Dextrous Fred|talk]]) 05:32, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

What? No mention of the irony that an organization whose purpose is to preserve the history of words has accidentally done the opposite--supplanting and obscuring the word for the very thing they are trying to do?
:(Documenting and) preserving the history of words is not the same as preserving words in their current usage. Hence providing a service that becomes so ubiquitous that its name supplants the previous word used to refer to the science on which that service is based is not in opposition to the service's aim of compiling a systematic collection of etymonlinear explanations. Indeed, it is an example of the changes in language absent which the science of etymonline would simply not exist. But I agree it's a bit ironic.

But was the Explanation Tag writer a ''cunning'' etymonlinguist? [[User:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For]] ([[User talk:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|talk]]) 04:56, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
:I see what you did there, though the "etym" ruins it. :) [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 06:02, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Regarding the "how did future people miss the 'online' in 'etymonline'?" paragraph: My thought (influenced by "etymonlinguist") was that the word had been reanalysed as being derived from ''[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/etymon etymon]'', perhaps ''etymon'' + ''line'' (as in a line of descent). But there's no direct evidence to support this in the comic itself. Does this seem plausible to anyone else? And would it be of use in the explanation, to temper the sense of "these future lexicographers are idiots" that it currently conveys? -- [[User:Peregrine|Peregrine]] ([[User talk:Peregrine|talk]]) 17:01, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Isn't the topic of this one how (the internet service) "google" has replaced the (plain english) word "search"?
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.94.100|162.158.94.100]] 07:04, 27 May 2023 (UTC)
:More like it has become the ''de facto'' term for to "look up on the internet". I'm not sure you would "google for my car keys" before leaving the house in the morning, any more than "to hoover" covers any and all acts of cleaning, well beyond "to use a vacuum cleaner" (or to emulate one, like someone "hoovering up his soup, he was so famished") even when it's a Dyson/whatever rather than a Hoover-branded one.
:Of course, neologisms and altered usages is the more general case, like there apparently is no sign or record of any ''original'' term for the toilet/WC/restroom/lavatory/bathroom/latrine of which these (and many, many more) are but adopted terms brought in (often) as euphemisms for the place-that-has-no-definite-name which we yet mostly understand from context. (Most are to do with "to wash", which is either a secondary function or even (bathroom) otherwise used in a different way. The "to rest" in "restroom" can be taken in many ways, but you'd strain to put it to the more functional use it gets put to. A watercloset is the small room with the water specifically laid on (piped or carried in by bucket/etc) for un-named purposes. Etc.) But that's more the case of something being given many names (in leiu of one) rather than being prior legitimate terminology being overriden by a single neologism with far less original precision. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.162.158|172.70.162.158]] 10:37, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

No Explanation of 'B-Limp'? {{w|172.70.111.154|21:56, 2 June 2023}}
:Yes, there's definitely an Explanation of B-Limp. See (current, and long-standing) final paragraph. Links and everything. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.90.29|172.70.90.29]] 08:33, 3 June 2023 (UTC)