explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2383: Electoral Precedent 2020

2023-10-04T22:50:14Z

Ekedolphin: /* Explanation */ updated with Trump now considered GOP front-runner as of October '23

{{comic
| number = 2383
| date = November 9, 2020
| title = Electoral Precedent 2020
| image = electoral_precedent_2020-new.png
| titletext = He also broke the streak that incumbents with websites are unbeatable and Delawareans can't win, creating a new precedent: Only someone from Delaware can defeat an incumbent with a website.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is an update to [[1122: Electoral Precedent]], adding "broken precedents" for the US presidential elections in 2016 and 2020. It was published six days after the 2020 election took place, and two days after {{w|Four Seasons Total Landscaping press conference|most news networks "called" the election}}, projecting Biden as the winner. The majority of the comic's panels are duplicates from 1122, with the exception of the 2012 panel (modified to show that Obama did in fact break the streak), the 2016 panel (added to reflect the election of Donald Trump), and the two 2020 panels. It continues the theme of pointing out that an arbitrary 'precedent' can always be invoked to predict the outcome of an election. Presidential elections happen rarely enough that each is a unique event, and ''something'' is always happening for the first time. Like with the other examples, the precedents mentioned here mix factors that could plausibly impact the election (such as one candidate having been impeached), with precedents that are just a product of time and chance (like a successful challenger having a website).

The final two panels again show how, no matter which candidate won in 2020, it would be a 'first' in some way.
* No sitting president who was impeached was even nominated for the office again until Donald Trump. (Only two other US presidents have been impeached. Bill Clinton couldn't run again afterward due to term limits, Andrew Johnson failed to be nominated at the 1868 Democratic Convention.) After the election, it remains true that no impeached president has ever been re-elected. (As of October 2023, Trump is considered the Republican front-runner for the 2024 election; should he be nominated and win that election, this statement could become false, depending on how exactly one interprets it.)
* Prior to the 2020 election, no challenger with a website ever won. This, however, is easily explained by the fact that incumbent presidents usually win, and websites are a fairly new technology. The last time a challenger beat an incumbent was in 1992 before Internet use was widespread. By 1996 that had changed and both the incumbent [http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/websites/cg96/ Bill Clinton campaign] and the challenger [http://www.dolekemp96.org/main.htm Bob Dole campaign] had websites that look very simple by today's standards. The title text points out that one could just as easily say that incumbents with websites are unbeatable, until that precedent was broken in 2020.

The 2020 election was also precedent breaking in a few ways that Randall didn't mention:
* At 78, [[Joe Biden]] was the oldest president ever on the day of his inauguration.
* Biden's running mate Kamala Harris is the first-ever female vice president, first Black vice president, and the first Asian vice president (her parents are from Jamaica and India). She's also the first Democratic vice president from the West.
* Biden received over 80 million votes, the highest ever, beating Obama 2008's previous record of just under 69.5 million votes. The second-highest raw vote total was for Trump, with approximately 74.2 million votes, ''also'' beating Obama 2008. Turnout as a percentage of the eligible population was the highest in over a century. Unlike the other precedents, however, this one was not an inevitable outcome of a Biden-Harris victory.

Also, Biden is the first president from the state of Delaware, thus he broke the "precedent" that Delawareans can't win. Randall then proceeds to combine these 2 facts to create a new precedent: Only Delawareans can defeat incumbents with a website.

==Table of New Broken Precedents==

All original options can be found at [[1122: Electoral Precedent]].

{| border =1 width=100% cellpadding=5 class="wikitable"
|-
! Year !! Broken Precedent !! Explanation !! Validity

|-
|2012
|Democratic incumbents never beat taller challengers. ... Until Obama did.
|Mitt Romney stood 6' 2", an inch taller than President Obama. Nonetheless, Obama was re-elected for a second term.
|True
|-
|2016
|No one has become president without government or military experience. ... Until Trump did.
|Every president prior to Trump had either been a general in the US Army, a congressman, a state governor, or a cabinet member.
|True
|-
|2020?
|No one has won after being impeached. ✓
|None of the two prior presidents who were impeached even ran for re-election. This is the first time this specific condition has even been tested.
|Trump was impeached, ran, and lost, so this test remains true at this point in history.
|-
|2020?
|No challenger with a website has won. X
|The ''possibility'' of having a website only arose in the 1990s and Bill Clinton seems to not have had one when he succeeded Bush Sr. Although websites became increasingly ubiquitous, no president since had ever been defeated by their respective challengers.
|"...until Biden did."
|}

==Transcript==
:The problem with statements like
:"No <party> candidate has won the election without <state>"
:Or
:"No president has been reelected under <circumstances>"

:<nowiki>★</nowiki> Updated for 2020 ★

:[Each statement below has its own panel. The year is in a caption, the precedent is stated by a standing Cueball in the main panel, and the president who broke it is below the panel.]
:1788... No one has been elected president before. ...But Washington was.
:1792... No incumbent has ever been reelected. ...Until Washington.
:1796... No one without false teeth has become president. ...But Adams did.
:1800... No challenger has beaten an incumbent. ...But Jefferson did.
:1804... No incumbent has beaten a challenger. ...Until Jefferson.
:1808... No congressman has ever become president. ...Until Madison.
:1812... No one can win without New York. ...But Madison did.
:1816... No candidate who doesn't wear a wig can get elected. ...Until Monroe was.
:1820... No one who wears pants instead of breeches can be reelected. ...But Monroe was.
:1824... No one has ever won without a popular majority. ...J.Q. Adams did.
:1828... Only people from Massachusetts and Virginia can win. ...Until Jackson did.
:1832... The only presidents who get reelected are Virginians. ...Until Jackson.
:1836... New Yorkers always lose. ...Until Van Buren.
:1840... No one over 65 has won the presidency. ...Until Harrison did.
:1844... No one who's lost his home state has won. ...But Polk did.
:1848... As goes Mississippi, so goes the nation. ...Until 1848.
:1852... New England Democrats can't win. ...Until Pierce did.
:1856... No one can become president without getting married. ...Until Buchanan did.
:1860... No one over 6'3" can get elected. ...Until Lincoln.
:1864... No one with a beard has been reelected. ...But Lincoln was.
:1868... No one can be president if their parents are alive. ...Until Grant.
:1872... No one with a beard has been reelected in peacetime. ...Until Grant was.
:1876... No one can win a majority of the popular vote and still lose. ...Tilden did.
:1880... As goes California, so goes the nation. ...Until it went Hancock.
:1884... Candidates named "James" can't lose. ...Until James Blaine.
:1888... No sitting president has been beaten since the Civil War. ...Cleveland was.
:1892... No former president has been elected. ...Until Cleveland.
:1896... Tall Midwesterners are unbeatable. ...Bryan wasn't.
:1900... No Republican shorter than 5'8" has been reelected. ...Until McKinley was.
:1904... No one under 45 has been elected. ...Roosevelt did.
:1908... No Republican who hasn't served in the military has won. ...Until Taft.
:[The precedent takes up the entire panel this year. Consequently, there is no Cueball.] 1912... After Lincoln beat the Democrats while sporting a beard with no mustache, the only Democrats who can win have a mustache with no beard. ...Wilson had neither.
:1916... No Democrat has won while losing West Virginia. ...Wilson did.
:1920... No incumbent senator has won. ...Until Harding.
:1924... No one with two Cs in their name has become president. ...Until Calvin Coolidge.
:1928... No one who got ten million votes has lost. ...Until Al Smith.
:1932... No Democrat has won since women secured the right to vote. ...Until FDR did.
:1936... No president's been reelected with double-digit unemployment. ...Until FDR was.
:1940... No one has won a third term. ...Until FDR did.
:1944... No Democrat has won during wartime. ...Until FDR did.
:1948... Democrats can't win without Alabama. ...Truman did.
:1952... No Republican has won without winning the House or Senate. ...Eisenhower did.
:1956... No one can beat the same nominee a second time in a leap year rematch. ...Until Eisenhower.
:1960... Catholics can't win. ...Until Kennedy.
:1964... Every Republican who's taken Louisiana has won. ...Until Goldwater.
:[The panel is zoomed in on Cueball's head in this frame.] 1968... No Republican vice president has risen to the Presidency through an election. ...Until Nixon.
:[The panel is zoomed in on Cueball's head in this frame.] 1972... Quakers can't win twice. ...Until Nixon did.
:1976... No one who lost New Mexico has won. ...But Carter did.
:1980... No one has been elected president after a divorce. ...Until Reagan was.
:1984... No left-handed president has been reelected. ...Until Reagan was.
:[The panel is zoomed in on Cueball's head in this frame.] 1988... No one with two middle names has become president. ...Until "Herbert Walker".
:[The panel is zoomed in on Cueball's head in this frame.] 1992... No Democrat has won without a majority of the Catholic vote. ...Until Clinton did.
:[The precedent takes up the entire panel this year. Consequently, there is no Cueball.] 1996... No Dem. incumbent without combat experience has beaten someone whose first name is worth more in Scrabble. ...Until Bill beat Bob.
:2000... No Republican has won without Vermont. ...Until Bush did.
:[The panel is zoomed in on Cueball's head in this frame.] 2004... No Republican without combat experience has beaten someone two inches taller ...Until Bush did.
:2008... No Democrat can win without Missouri. ...Until Obama did.
:2012... Democratic incumbents never beat taller challengers. ... Until Obama did.
:[The panel is zoomed in on Cueball's head in this frame.] 2016... No one has become president without government or military experience. ... Until Trump did.
:2020? No one has won after being impeached. <big>✓</big>
:2020? No challenger with a website has won. <big>X</big>

:[Caption below the comic]
:Congratulations to President-Elect Joe Biden for breaking the website curse!

==Trivia==
* This comic seems to have used the same image as [[1122: Electoral Precedent]], and so the original version of this comic had a ghost image of the original 2012 2nd "streak": "No nominee whose first name contains a "K" has lost."
* Also, the panels for past elections that were wrong before continue to be wrong, including 1812, 1816, 1820, 1904, and 1952. See [[1122: Electoral Precedent]], Table of Broken Precedents for details.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Statistics]]
[[Category:Politics]]
[[Category:Elections]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ronald Reagan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring John F. Kennedy]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Donald Trump]]
[[Category:Comics featuring politicians]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Joe Biden]]

Talk:2419: Hug Count

2021-02-02T00:18:48Z

Ekedolphin:

I don't know how this makes me feel. I just don't hug. Maybe a couple of female relatives as I leave the traditional Christmas gathering (that didn't happen in 2020) because ''they'' expect it of me. But some societies (I'll namecheck the Italians, but there are many others) would possibly break those totals in a day (pre-Covid) just by going to the market-place and sealing deals with the local tradespeople. So my chart dipped drastically ast year, but not so much by absolute count. (No, not looking for sympathy, or virtual hugs, just saying...) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.77.126|141.101.77.126]] 23:33, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

What happened in 2007? Seems like a sizeable spike. Being in a reception line at a wedding, for instance? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.211|173.245.54.211]] 23:43, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

No citation. Is this Randall's personal chart, do you figure? [[User:Ekedolphin|Ekedolphin]] ([[User talk:Ekedolphin|talk]]) 00:18, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

explain xkcd:Community portal/Miscellaneous

2016-02-09T20:13:21Z

Ekedolphin: voted to change tagline

<noinclude>{{Community portal}}</noinclude>

== The Community Portal's design ==

{{tl|Community portal}} looks too Wikipedia-ish (because that's where I got it). Someone who can design things should probably fix that. It isn't protected for the time being, though it probably will be in the future (high-visibility template). --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 00:54, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

== Common mistake ==

This affects all pages that ever say "alt text" in reference to the TITLE text on xkcd images. "Alt text" is incorrect; Alt text refers to the text that is shown as an alternative when images are not displayed. Title text is what xkcd uses and is shown as a tool tip-like bubble when images are hovered over.

I would correct this myself but I saw no way to edit the main page. --[[User:Jillysky|Jillysky]] ([[User talk:Jillysky|talk]]) 14:21, 6 August 2012‎ (UTC)

:You actually don't need to edit the main page to fix it, as what's there is just a mirror (transclusion) of the actual content from the comic page, at [[Curiosity]], which is open for editing by anyone. Then again, the "alt-text" in that case is generated by a template, {{tl|comic}}, so that's where we should fix this. The template's code, however, is currently a terrible mess (sorry!), so I went ahead and took care of it. Thanks for catching that! --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 16:24, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

:Ah? So it's wrong, for instance, on http://m.xkcd.com? because of that I took it for granted that we could call it the alt-text... - [[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 17:38, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

:: Yes. If you look at the page's html source, you'll see:
<nowiki><img
id="comic"
src="http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/curiosity.png"
title="As of this writing the NASA/JPL websites are still overloaded. Trying CURIOSITY-REAR-CAM_[256px_x_256px].torrent.SwEsUb.DVDRip.XviD-aXXo.jpg instead."
alt="Curiosity"></nowiki>
::(line breaks added for clarity) --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 23:54, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

:::That was my error in the template. I knew "image text" that has been commonly used by Jeff was not techically correct, but I didn't actually go back and confirm it was alt text before I included that tag in the template. That's to Waldir (I believe?) for correcting the template. [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 14:14, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

== When the "official" transcript is wrong? ==
I did [[903: Extended Mind]]. Interestingly, the transcript on xkcd.com is missing the bottom line "When Wikipedia has a server outage, my apparent IQ drops by 30 points." I assume we want a complete transcript, rather than whatever xkcd.com says it is...? [[User:Stevage|Stevage]] ([[User talk:Stevage|talk]]) 04:10, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

:We're focusing on the actual transcript of the comic, not the xkcd.com transcript. The official transcript is usually right, but even Randall makes mistakes sometimes. [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]][[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>(talk)</tt>]] 04:24, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

== Milestone: half the comics explained!! ==

Hi all! I'm pleased to announce that we have just broke the 50% mark for xkcd explanations! The page that balanced the count (568 explained, 568 to go, at the time) was [[877: Beauty]], created 01:31 UTC, 21 November 2012 by [[User:Davidy22]]. Congratulations!! :D --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 03:10, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

:The caterer's been called! The punch will be arriving soon! Go [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]]! [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 06:53, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

::[[File:freedom.png]] Punch is served! [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]][[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>(talk)</tt>]] 07:11, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

But the Main page says 407 explanations, 731 to go! What's up with that? --[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 21:00, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

== Reverse? ==

Why in the Archive why are all the thing up until "Heatmap" in Reverse? Can someone please answer? [[User:Tmack3|Tmack3]] ([[User talk:Tmack3|talk]]) 08:28, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
:Archive? Can you provide a link or screenshot? '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 04:43, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

http://xkcd.com/archive/ [[User:Tmack3|Tmack3]] ([[User talk:Tmack3|talk]]) 08:28, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

::Ah, that's because the comic right after that, rtl, has a right-to-left character in it that flips all the proceeding text. '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 00:13, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Ah, ok, i see that now. When I 1st saw that RTL I just thought that it was random letters, thankyou for explaining it for me. [[User:Tmack3|Tmack3]] ([[User talk:Tmack3|talk]]) 08:28, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

It also depends on what browser you are on because on Google Chrome it was normal. [[User:Tmack3|Tmack3]] ([[User talk:Tmack3|talk]]) 09:08, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

== Do you think this question was asked by one of the xkcd people? ==

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090301060752AAtYugc [[User:Tmack3|Tmack3]] ([[User talk:Tmack3|talk]]) 08:38, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

== Matthew Reilly ==

I would just like to tell everyone that I asked Matthew Reilly (the author) if he is ever scared that a velociraptor is going to attack him, and he said NO! He clearly needs to start worrying about them! [[User:Tmack3|Tmack3]] ([[User talk:Tmack3|talk]]) 10:45, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

== What can we learn section ==
First of all I love your work. I believe deeper understanding of each XKCD can make a world a better place and I thank you sincerely for starting this webpage. I wanted to ask what you think about "What can we learn?" section I've been adding to some of the pages. Thank you - [[User:E-inspired|E-inspired]] ([[User talk:E-inspired|talk]]) 13:27, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

:This site is actually the work of multiple editors working slowly and steadily to fill in explanations for all the old comics. Some of the xkcd comics are incredibly deep - comic [[956]] is such a poignant comic that digs into the DRM issue on so many levels. Your reflections on many of the comics are very much warranted and you're helping us create talk pages with high-quality opening posts, which is great for future discussion on this wiki. It'd be nice if you could refrain from putting headers in talk pages, technical limitations of the wiki make long explanation pages choke when headings are in the discussion page. Other than that, keep up the good work! '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 13:42, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

::I've put in my 2 cents to comic [[956]], and thank you for teaching me how to comment and link to other comics - [[User:E-inspired|E-inspired]] ([[User talk:E-inspired|talk]]) 13:58, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

::: FYI, you can always make pseudo-headings using a horizontal rule and a bold "header", but honestly I think a simple standard opening sentence would suffice. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 12:14, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

:Oh, and the guy who draws xkcd is called {{w|Randall Munroe}}. So many glowing things to be said about him. '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 13:44, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

::Yes, I can't thank him enough for simplifying complex issues to funny stories, I think it's exactly what our generation needs - [[User:E-inspired|E-inspired]] ([[User talk:E-inspired|talk]]) 13:58, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

:I'm in favor of a Mr. Rogers style of 'what lesson can be learned' on the talk page, but make sure your comments don't come across as sanctimonious and holier-than-thou as that can be really off-putting. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 19:06, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

:: You are absolutely correct, I have not thought of that, please trust me I did not do it on purpose. Thank you Mr. Lcarsos - [[User:E-inspired|E-inspired]] ([[User talk:E-inspired|talk]]) 19:55, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you David, and I apologize that I've not made it clear that by your work, I do mean your collective work (the wiki is only as good as all the people behind it). I was trying to put the headers to allow others to find the section easier in case they start looking for it, perhaps I could make a suggestion to make it a standalone section so that others would be encouraged to contribute their own understanding of lessons they have noticed from each comic. I know the lessons I've seen, but I would love to learn from others as much as I hope they can learn from me and Mr. XKCD, thank you. - [[User:E-inspired|E-inspired]] ([[User talk:E-inspired|talk]]) 13:48, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

== DING DONG THE WITCH IS DEAD ==

Hello fellow editors. Do you remember the last time we were hit by a surge of automated spam? Neither do I. ConfirmEdit has really done a number on the volume of spam that we're eating - one spam account has been created since we finished configuring confirmEdit, and zero anon edits have been spam. Zero. Can you say happiness? Can you say party? '''[[User:Davidy22|Davidy²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 14:41, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

:Hehe, I'm glad! Thanks for being so relentless on the spam-fighting all this time! Maybe we should make up a new reason to make Jeff remove the /wiki/ in the URL? ;) –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 18:11, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

:: Awesome news! Finally the patrolling feature will be usable: [{{fullurl:Special:RecentChanges|hideanons=1&hidepatrolled=1&from=20121204025000&days=365&limit=1000}} Unpatrolled changes by registered users] / [{{fullurl:Special:RecentChanges|hideliu=1&hidepatrolled=1&from=20121204025000&days=365&limit=1000}} Unpatrolled changes by anonymous users] :) --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 12:27, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

== 1000th comic explanation!! ==

Hi all! It apparently went unnoticed that '''we have recently surpassed the mark of 1000 comic explanations!''' Some calculations based on [[:Category:Comics]] and [[Special:NewPages]] led me to the conclusion that the 1000th explanation was [[681: Gravity Wells]], created by [[User:AlexRNL]] just yesterday! Yay! This calls for a celebration, no? Congrats to [[Special:ContributionScores|everyone]] who made this happen! I'll edit [[Mediawiki:Sitenotice]] with a congratulatory message. Way to go, guys! --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 16:04, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
:ps - I also took the opportunity to flesh out our [[explain xkcd|about/history page]]. Please take a look and fix/add any details I might have missed. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 16:06, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

== Style guide ==
Is there a style guide for this wiki? --[[User:PeterMortensen|PeterMortensen]] ([[User talk:PeterMortensen|talk]]) 20:14, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
:Oh, sorry, I did forget to answer here. A guide on this is not easy, many individual comics do need special layouts because they have content never can match to a style guide. But I will give a try [[Help:Style Guide]].--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:18, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

== Adblock ==

I've whitelisted the site in adblock, but the ads are still blocked.
Anyone know what' going on here and how I can fix it?--[[User:ParadoX|ParadoX]] ([[User talk:ParadoX|talk]]) 04:34, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
:Huh. I was wondering why our impression counts weren't rising. I thought it was just because this site had high turnover. I've changed the webpage that the word whitelisting links to, try the instructions there instead. Project wonderful is our ad provider, and they've been pretty good to us so far. Also, thanks for helping to support the site! '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 04:40, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
::Great! I don't really mid ads as long as they aren't intrusive. Works now, Hope everyone else does it as well.--[[User:ParadoX|ParadoX]] ([[User talk:ParadoX|talk]]) 05:16, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
::I saw you wrote "the webpage that the word whitelisting links to" so I went to the search box and typed whitelisting. My search didn't yield anything useful: [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?search=whitelisting&go=Go&title=Special%3ASearch]. I don't know how to create the missing page but there oughta be a link for someone like me who searches for whitelist or whitelisting, to take them to the instructions you refer to. [[User:SaxTeacher|SaxTeacher]] ([[User talk:SaxTeacher|talk]]) 10:59, 17 May 2014 (UTC)
:::We already have this linked somewhere, but [https://www.projectwonderful.com/adblock.php this] is the link you want. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 13:41, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

I normally access this site through the android app "xkcd browser". That app only links to the content part of the site and doesn't show the side bar, so the adds aren't shown either. Might be worth discussing it with the author. [[Special:Contributions/109.158.126.139|109.158.126.139]] 08:06, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

:We support those avenues completely, you don't need to feel bad if you use an app to browse this site. We're only really concerned when we put up ads and our impressions are less than half our page hits, because that essentially means more than half our readers aren't contributing to server costs. That's really hard to deal with. We have enough daily page hits to qualify as web publishers at very big ad agencies, but we've had to settle for relatively low rates at the smaller Project Wonderful because 60% of our users were using adblock, so the agencies rejected us because our valuable "paying" audience was too low for them to consider us. That's been the difference between us using dedicated servers to host the site and hiring a contractor to set it up, and the (admittedly somewhat decent) shared hosting plan that we have to settle for now. We can only afford the shared hosting, because the small-scale advertisers at Project Wonderful don't even pay for full days of advertising; most of the time, we make less per day than the posted $3.90 price. That said, we're grateful that Project Wonderful would take us as a publisher when no one else would, but it really feels like the difference between being accepted to community college and being accepted to an ivy league school. For a similar reason, the Google ads route was not sufficient to satisfy our needs; not a large enough proportion of our users were looking at ads, so we either needed to spam them and degrade the site, or we needed to make them refresh, which makes pages slow and causes needlessly high traffic for a lot of users. We didn't want our ads to make the site worse, because that would drive away users and defeat the purpose of us being a public resource for xkcd readers. We actually decided to go the agency route pretty early, because adsense takes a massive cut of revenues and gives us little control over what ads or advertisers actually showed, which was not okay with us. Whoah, I wrote a lot. I hope it was coherent. Maybe someday I'll collect my thoughts and write a proper summary on how and why we advertise. Also, if you have any questions about anything ad-related, you can always ask us at [[explain xkcd talk:Advertise Here]]. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 11:15, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

== Feynman? ==

Feynman (both in [[182: Nash|living]] and [[397: Unscientific|zombie]] form) probably deserves an entry in the [[Template:Navbox characters|character navbox]] template doesn't he? [[Special:Contributions/128.250.152.198|128.250.152.198]] 02:21, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
:That's two comics out of 1200+. Three if you count the song. Not quite enough yet. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 02:27, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
:: If that's the criterion, then we need to get rid of [[Brown Hat]]. [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 19:30, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

== Job Interview (Electric Soup) ==

The soup is clearly being poured out of an electric socket. This "electric soup" is probably not a reference to the alcoholic brew favoured by Scottish tramps, but more likely to the virtual nature of the company. {{unsigned|Sulis}}
:Hey, go here [[Talk:1293: Job Interview‎]] for discussions. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:58, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

== Is there a similar, transcripted service for The Oatmeal? ==

Hi everyone - this site is a real gem, I've sent it to a friend of mine who can't read XKCD because she's blind. The transcripts on this site are a real boon!

Does anyone know if there is a similar service for The Oatmeal? I've searched and searched, but found nothing so far.

Thanks :)

Jeff

:As far as I know we are kind of unique in the web comics world. I think we get away with it because Randall publishes all his comics as Creative Commons Attribution, Non-Commercial. We liberally link back to xkcd, and we don't make a penny (The ads are just to cover server expenses, because wikis and the databases that support them get big when you're covering a body of work like xkcd). I haven't looked into the copyright Matt uses for the Oatmeal, but he seems like a cool enough guy to not kill a community transcripting effort of his comics. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 20:32, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

== what if 103: Vanishing Water - comics ==

Please explain the 2nd and the 4th comics from http://what-if.xkcd.com/103/

"Just tried to sail my boat over land, because I didn't learn from that kid in the Zephyr." (who's the kid from Zephyr?)

"A third time?" (maybe whales were dropped twice before in other what-ifs?) [[User:Daniel Carrero|Daniel Carrero]] ([[User talk:Daniel Carrero|talk]]) 21:57, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

:"A third time?" is a reference to a whale falling twice in "Hitchiker's guide to the Galaxy". Been a while, so I don't remember the details of how this fit in, but the second time it happened to the whale, he thought "Not again" or something along those lines. [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 18:49, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Raises the question of if we should explain jokes imbedded in What If comics. [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 18:49, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

== Discussion usage ==

Am I being a killjoy in feeling that the discussion section should be mainly limited to discussion on improving the explanation, gathering consensus and that type of thing.
Specifically, the discussion for [[1418: Horse]] is quickly turning into every man and his dog posting a sentence in the style of the comic, which doesn't really add anything to the page other than clutter.

Personally, I'd just delete most of them, but I think I might be turning into a grumpy old bugger... --[[User:Pudder|Pudder]] ([[User talk:Pudder|talk]]) 20:32, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
:The discussion is also there for just talking about the comic. Those guys aren't wildly off-topic, there's no need to clamp down on what they get to talk about. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 17:44, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

::Yep, I must just be grumpy and draconian! Lesson learned --[[User:Pudder|Pudder]] ([[User talk:Pudder|talk]]) 20:32, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

== 2014 Christmas header ==

Since the header for the site current contains a [http://imgs.xkcd.com/store/store_default.png graphic link to the store] that promises that Randall probably won't ship you a [[:Category:Bobcats|bobcat]], it seems to me that probably ought to be preserved and explained somewhere. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.189|173.245.56.189]] 17:45, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

== XKCD at LanguageLog ==

Arnold Zwicky (of the well-known linguistics blog Language Log) has put together a list of linguistics-related XKCD strips, here: http://arnoldzwicky.org/the-language-of-comics/comics-lists/xkcd-cartoons/ I thought it might be appropriate for a copy of the list (maybe a category) to be created from it. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.133.79|199.27.133.79]] 03:48, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
:[[:Category:Language]] '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 04:39, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

== Bookmarklet ==

Hello there, I've created a little bookmarklet (https://ginkobox.fr/shaarli/?a77vQw) and I thought it might be useful for someone out there.

When launched, it adds the 'explain' before xkcd.com and the browser loads the explainxkcd page. I've tested it only on Firefox.

(Contact @ https://ginkobox.fr/wiki/doku.php?id=about) {{unsigned ip|‎108.162.229.100}}

== Is there a RSS feed for What If? ==

Is there a RSS feed for What If?--[[User:17jiangz1|17jiangz1]] ([[User talk:17jiangz1|talk]]) 11:59, 29 March 2015 (UTC)
:No, because we cover the comics. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 18:57, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

== My User Page ==

Can someone help me with [[user:17jiangz1|my user page]]? I can't seem to remove the large space on top.--[[User:17jiangz1|17jiangz1]] ([[User talk:17jiangz1|talk]]) 07:43, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
: The only solution I've found is to remove the contribution scores (data6=...). Not sure what exactly is triggering this bug. --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 21:02, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
I am receiving "Expression error: Unrecognised punctuation character ""." for <code><pre>{{#expr: {{formatnum:{{#cscore:17jiangz1|pages}}|R}}/{{formatnum:{{NUMBEROFARTICLES}}|R}}*100 round 5 }}</pre></code>--[[User:17jiangz1|17jiangz1]] ([[User talk:17jiangz1|talk]]) 05:46, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
:Bump?--[[User:17jiangz1|17jiangz1]] ([[User talk:17jiangz1|talk]]) 06:48, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

== What-If ==

It hasn't updated for 2 weeks. why?--[[User:17jiangz1|17jiangz1]] ([[User talk:17jiangz1|talk]]) 06:50, 25 April 2015 (UTC)
:Looks like they're on hold for a few months (Until July 14th). Too bad, I enjoyed them. ([http://what-if.xkcd.com/ Look at the top of the What-If page]) --[[User:Zman9600|Zman9600]] ([[User talk:Zman9600|talk]]) 20:24, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
:What is so special about the date and time? Seems very specific: ''July 14th, 2015 at 7:49:59 AM EDT.'' --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.99|141.101.98.99]] 12:48, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
Looks like it's set for the 40th anniversary of the Apollo-Soyuz mission launch. {{unsigned ip|108.162.237.158}}

What If updates will resume on July 14th, 2015 at 7:49:59 AM EDT. By that time {{w|New Horizons}} will have it's closest approach to {{w|Pluto}}. See here: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/ --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:34, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

== thanks for having a working website ==

the search function on xkcd.com was taken off, and now the random function seems to be having issues, but it's nice that here both work [[Special:Contributions/188.114.97.114|188.114.97.114]] 19:09, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
:We do our best. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 22:27, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

== Ada Munroe ==

The latest [[what if?]] number 139 has a question by "Ada Munroe". Is she related to [[Randall]] in any way? --{{User:17jiangz1/signature|06:57, 09 August 2015}}

== Out of curiosity ==

I notice that whenever someone links to tvtropes.org in an explanation, someone changes the link to the matching page on allthetropes.org. I'm curious as to why that is. Is there some kind of terms of use conflict at play here that an editor should be keeping in mind? [[Special:Contributions/199.27.128.156|199.27.128.156]] 06:33, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
:TVtropes does not restrict links to their site, and if this has been happening there are some time-outs that I need to be handing out. Can you point me to some of the edits where this is happening? '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 08:24, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
::The specific example I had was, um, [[1468: Worrying]]. On Jan 3rd the links went to tvtropes.org, and on March 18th they were all changed over to allthetropes.orain.org. I just found it curious, I wasn't sure what the reason for it was [[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.47|162.158.255.47]] 10:32, 29 October 2015 (UTC)
:::Reverted. Typically, the reason people change perfectly good links to specific, obscure links in wikis is usually self-advertising. I'll be watching that guy's edits in the future. Thanks for the heads up. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 18:00, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

== Sightless readers offended by the "It's 'cause you're dumb" tagline. ==

I'll admit, every now and again the comic is over my head. ...because I'm dumb in that particular field. However, blind users who enjoy xkcd must do so through explainxkcd. They are NOT dumb. They are *blind*. Without explainxkcd, they would have no idea what is in the comics panels.

Explainxkcd is a great site. There is no question it provides a service to the internet community.

Please see this thread (last paragraph) on Userfriendly.org. Keep in mind, the end user is sightless and explainxkcd is "viewed" through a screen reader. http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/read.cgi?id=20160207&tid=3930989 (Anonymous)

: The guy on that other site is complaining about that XKCD does not work well in a screen reader -- that is not our problem, but a problem for Randall to solve on his own site. We cannot be the catch all for everything on the internet that Randall broke [[User:Spongebog|Spongebog]] ([[User talk:Spongebog|talk]]) 15:37, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
:: Agreed --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 19:28, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Honestly, I never even noticed the tagline in question. Humorous to sighted folks, sure. ...but obviously offensive to those who have no choice but to access xkcd through explainxkcd.

I'll leave it to the administrators or the community to figure something out, if anything at all. Maybe no one cares? I didn't come here to make any suggestions, only to point out how offensive those 4 words are to some users of the website. {{unsigned ip|108.162.238.88}}

:Alright, put a link here in the site notice. What does everyone else think? I'm open to changing it, it's something people complain about fairly periodically and our identity isn't completely tied to the tagline, I feel. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 09:16, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

::Well, we definitely shouldn't change anything because that particular guy is upset. It's one thing to be offended, but he's also attacking both this site and Randal Monroe. I don't think that sort of behavior should be rewarded. I actually have a rule online where, if someone acts like a jerk to me, I will be kind, but I won't give them what they want. I think a lot of the problems with people being jerks to others is that they still get what they want, so what reason do they have to stop? If he wants us to change it, he should address us like an adult and ask us himself.

::But you claim this is a common complaint. Then I would say we need more info. My instinct would be that people don't understand that it's a joke. But then my solution would be to do what the site is designed to do and explain the joke, rather than take it down. If there's actually something about it that's offensive to an entire class of people, that's different. I am unaware of a stereotype that blind people are stupid, but I'm open to the idea that I don't know.

::I'm not particularly married to the tag line. I actually didn't even notice it was there. But I'm loathe to take it down over a misunderstanding. I can't think of a similarly humorous replacement that would not be offensive, but I can at least suggest "Because nobody knows everything." --[[User:Trlkly|Trlkly]] ([[User talk:Trlkly|talk]]) 09:42, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
:::I've gotten these before. There's a [[Talk:Main_Page#Header_message|slowly growing]] section in the main page discussion page and a complaint buried somewhere in my talk page and they're usually quite unhappy. I pegged it up this time round because there's special needs involved, and a good part of our intended appeal is the transcripts for the blind. '''[[User:Davidy22|{{Color|#707|David}}y²²]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 10:45, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

::Is he one of those people who are so self-centered and 'entitled' that just because they have a disability they assume that everyone is constantly trying to offend them, even in the most unlikeliest of cases? Does he actually believe that the tag line was written with the intention of offending blind people? This is ridiculous. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.106.71|141.101.106.71]] 11:04, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

"Just in case you feel dumb"? "Some comics may be funnier than they appear"?[[Special:Contributions/199.27.130.198|199.27.130.198]] 09:55, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

How about simply removing it? At least until we find something that isn't offensive to anyone - which might be very hard to obtain. [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 10:34, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Because you're crippled... That's worse I guess. 
But before considering the "you're dumb" tagline, one must think about the name of this wiki. It is called '''Explain''' xkcd, not read xkcd, and explaining is for dumb people, not blind people. 
Maybe one thing we can do is add a "(unless you are just here for the transcript)" subtext, with a link to the transcript section, which has the advantage of both taming offended blind readers (maybe) and provide a direct, "spoilerless" link. --[[User:GuB|GuB]] ([[User talk:GuB|talk]]) 10:40, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

I need explainxkcd for two reasons: being visually impaired, although I can see most of the comics I often miss crucial details that I find only in the transcript; and as a non-American, I lack many cultural references (books, movies, songs, sayings...) that are given in the explanations.
I don't think either of these reasons makes me "dumb". However, I never found the tagline offensive. It was immediately obvious to me that it was meant as humor. Who could seriously think that someone is dumb just because they haven't read the specific book that Randall is parodying in a given comic? Or because they're not familiar with a specific programming language or Unix command? IMHO the tagline *is* funny precisely because very few people can actually "get" all the comics without an explanation. Suggesting that anyone who isn't part of the 0.1% of the population who share all of Randall's abilities and references, is dumb, can't be anything but a joke. Adding to the lot those who can't get the comics because they're blind doesn't make the joke more offensive. It's a sad world where political correctness kills all forms of humor.

On the other hand, the tagline is not an essential part of the site and if a significant number want it removed, so be it.
Zetfr 10:46, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

:Well not everybody's mind works the same way, and some people legitimately cannot grasp humor very easily. They may come to read the explanations precisely because they can't recognize what about a given comic is supposed to be humorous, and they likewise may not be able to tell that the tagline is just a joke. Besides, the tagline is equating a lack of knowledge with a lack of intelligence, which also makes it inaccurate and kind of kills the humor for those who stop and think about it.

:I personally agree with the above "Because nobody knows everything." approach. I would suggest something along the lines of "Because you won't always get the joke." --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.242.134|108.162.242.134]] 11:06, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

:: This sounds like a bunch of dumb people coming together and suggesting that the rest of people should be more like them (joke intended) [[User:Spongebog|Spongebog]] ([[User talk:Spongebog|talk]]) 15:33, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

: +1 on this. '''Keep'''. --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 20:15, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

I vote removal [[User:Mikemk|Mikemk]] ([[User talk:Mikemk|talk]]) 11:01, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Mostly agree with Zetfr, it is a rather obvious joke, and this is a website about a webcomic which is mostly about fun, it would be different if this was some serious news portal, but it isn't, and in my humble opinion people who can't take a joke shouldn't even be here. There will always be ranters and people who get offended, we should not let them make decisions for us. I sincerely believe vast majority of people, blind or otherwise, understand it. [[User:Jaalenja|Jaalenja]] ([[User talk:Jaalenja|talk]])

:I agree with Zetfr. If a user doesn't understand that it is a joke, then he won't understand XKCD's jokes, either, no matter how much explaination he can get.
:--[[User:Lou Crazy|Lou Crazy]] ([[User talk:Lou Crazy|talk]]) 12:12, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
::I also agree with the above, and like the part of Zetfr about because you need a reader to use the page you do not need to be offended by an obvious joke --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 19:28, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

if i had a vote i'd say change the "because you're dumb" from text to a picture with alt text of something slightly less rude. "because you're using a screenreader," perhaps. although that would show up on mouseover. meh. whatever. --13:01, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
:and someone isn't "entitled" because they get annoyed about something that doesn't annoy you. as a sighted person i don't even look at the headers on the page. i would imagine that since the text in question is at the top of the page he has to listen to it every single time the page is refreshed. which is annoying enough if it's not insulting. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.106.161|141.101.106.161]] 13:06, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
:It is bad to have the alt-text saying something differently, but since the current tagline is not offensive to non-blind people then why would it be offensive to a blind person. [[User:Spongebog|Spongebog]] ([[User talk:Spongebog|talk]]) 15:24, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

I vote '''keep''' -- Blind people do not have to come to this site, they can just use xkcd.com directly and if that is not working for blind people then that is Randall's problem not ours. The tag line has been there for years while I have noticed it before and used the site and I have never been offended, if a blind person is offended maybe they should stop using the internet. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.109|162.158.255.109]] 15:18, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
: I second that -- the tag line does not appear to offend non-blind people, it should not offend blind people either [[User:Spongebog|Spongebog]] ([[User talk:Spongebog|talk]]) 15:24, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Voting '''KEEP''' -- the tag line is a joke, and who is to say that blind people cannot be dumb [[User:Spongebog|Spongebog]] ([[User talk:Spongebog|talk]]) 15:24, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

I vote '''keep''' as well. I don't see any reason to change it; it's not a jab at disabled people, blind or otherwise. The site is called '''explain'''xkcd, and everything here centers around explaining the comic, not being a transcription service. (If that's not the case, then maybe other things need changing too.) I always thought the tagline fit nicely with the "sarcasm" part of xkcd's own tagline. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.26|108.162.216.26]] 15:26, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

I vote '''KEEP and satisfy both sides'''. If you examine the HTML, or use [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/fangs-screen-reader-emulator/ Fangs] (free screen reader), you may notice there is a jump-to-nav div element that lets people with screen readers jump to various parts of the page. The jump-to-nav div is only a few HTML lines below the tagline. I'd recommend:
# Moving the jump-to-nav div to '''before''' the tagline
# Adding a "Jump to Transcript" link in the jump-to-nav div.
# Test it with [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/fangs-screen-reader-emulator/ Fangs] in Firefox to simulate a screen reader.
This way, screen-reader users can jump to the transcript and don't have to hear the tagline every time they visit an explainxkcd.com page.
-- [[User:Hat|Hat]] ([[User talk:Hat|talk]]) 15:44, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Consider "Do you get it now?" [[Special:Contributions/198.41.235.11|198.41.235.11]] 16:09, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

I vote '''keep''': it's reasonable and no change is warranted

I like the suggestion of '''keeping''' the current tagline, but changing it to an '''image with alttext''' saying something like "because you're using a screenreader". I also vote to move the link to the transcript to above the tagline. [[User:Rileysci|Rileysci]] ([[User talk:Rileysci|talk]]) 17:32, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

I get the joke and I'm not offended by it, but it seems to me that it really sticks out on this site and it doesn't seem consistent with Randall's sense of humor. Everyone on this site is very inclusive and eager to share all perspectives and points of view. I come here both to see the humor that I have the knowledge to understand and to learn more about the world the way Randall sees it. In short, I come here to be one of the lucky 10,000. In fact, I would suggest that as the tag line, "Congratulations! You're one of today's lucky 10,000!". Inside joke that can link to the comic (http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1053:_Ten_Thousand) and it is welcoming. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.170|108.162.245.170]] 18:44, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
: +1 on this. '''Change''' [[User:Jkshapiro|Jkshapiro]] ([[User talk:Jkshapiro|talk]]) 03:45, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

I vote '''keep'''. In case it is not kept then it should be changed to something completely different. Te idea of making a title text to an image I really dislike, although I even more dislike adding anything to the existing one to either refer to people coming for the transcript or making excuses for the obvious joke. This has been a part of the page forever, I have seen it almost every time I come here. To begin with I did feel dumb sometimes, but I was never offended by it, just amused. But of course an explain page is for those who did not get the joke. And there are other pages that explains the comic. I do not know if they have a transcript? But I'm happy to know that some people must really enjoy the detailed transcripts that I usually try to provide. I had just not though about the blind perspective. I more use the transcript to make sure every one agrees on what is seen in the images of the comic. Having said all this, I must admit that the best suggestion for a change so far is the one posted above my post (about the lucky 10,000). :-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 19:28, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

I vote keep, for exactly the reasons explained by Zeftr above. Changing it to an image with alt text would be OK also. [[User:Miamiclay|Miamiclay]] ([[User talk:Miamiclay|talk]]) 20:45, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

:I vote '''Change''' it because it is too easily mistaken as an insult instead of a joke. At least change it to ''Because you are stupid''.... Ah, maybe instead ''Because xkcd is far beyond common knowledge'' or ''Because hardly anyone gets everything'' or ''Because it is usually nerdly esoteric even for geeks''. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.46|108.162.221.46]] 21:39, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

:I vote '''Change'''. I have never been a big fan of the tagline. I don't know everything, but I am certainly not dumb. Also, I echo the reference to (http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1053:_Ten_Thousand). This comic has always been about expanding knowledge, not making you feel guilty for not knowing something.

:'''Change''': I realize the "It's because you're dumb" tagline follows the sarcastic nature of Randall's humor, but there are enough people who don't get or appreciate that sort of humor and are likely to be more offended by it, special needs or no. Here's my suggestion: "For those of us who don't get it." [[User:KieferSkunk|KieferSkunk]] ([[User talk:KieferSkunk|talk]]) 21:59, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

At what point is "enough" people offended? I've only seen evidence of several (https://xkcd.com/1070/) visually impaired users actually offended by the site, along with a couple people who didn't specify their visual ability. I don't know the traffic on this site, but I would expect it to be on the order of 10^4 or higher. So is this discussion about changing something that a handful of people find offensive? Or is there an actual problem of something inappropriate on the site. If this is all about a couple people finding something offensive, I imagine a few christians might take issue with (https://xkcd.com/709/). Should we start another discussion about accommodating them? Or add a disclaimer that the views expressed by Randall Munroe are his own and do not reflect those of this site? [[User:Beardmcbeardson|Beardmcbeardson]] ([[User talk:Beardmcbeardson|talk]]) 01:25, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
: So you vote to '''keep''' -- right? [[User:Spongebog|Spongebog]] ([[User talk:Spongebog|talk]]) 04:30, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

'''Slightly Change'''-- make it more obviously tongue in cheek. "It's cause we're dumb" or "For those of us who need it" I agree with the point about not complying with people on the internet who can't behave like adults, however I've never found the line particularly funny. Also change the jump-to-nav, as that would just get annoying to hear it every time you open up the site. I am not recommending changing it based on the imagined offenses of others. I just think it could be funnier.[[User:NotLock|NotLock]] ([[User talk:NotLock|talk]]) 06:29, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

'''Keep''' Trying to satisfy everyone is like trying to understand every comic. It probably won't happen. As an example, using the 'one of 10 000' example provided above can insult a bunch of people that are not from the States simply because the comic (and the reference to the comic for that matter) will make them feel left out. My other reasons for voting keep have all been mentioned already. People get insulted so easily, let's try not to encourage this behavior by rewarding it. [[User:Bon|Bon]] ([[User talk:Bon|talk]]) 07:16, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

I vote '''Change''' because I find it slightly offensive myself. If we change it, we should replace it with something that everybody would interpret as humorous, e.g. "Because we can't all be rocket scientists". [[User:Condor70|Condor70]] ([[User talk:Condor70|talk]]) 08:25, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

'''Keep'''. Next thing we know, liberal arts majors will complain about xkcd science being offensive. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.91.229|141.101.91.229]] 10:12, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

I vote for '''change''' or '''remove'''. Regarding the former, while I know it's supposed to be a joke, I never found it humorous myself and, unlike others that wrote before me, I don't think it relates to the humor or sarcasm used by Randall. It being offensive is not part of my motivation for my vote. I agree with some of the suggestions written up to now. Regarding the latter, I don't really think it's existence is necessary. Regardless, changing the div things is a must. [[User:GuiRitter|GuiRitter]] ([[User talk:GuiRitter|talk]]) 16:25, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

I vote for '''change'''. You could keep much of the humour by changing it to something like "because ignorance '''can''' be cured". [[User:Farnz|Farnz]] ([[User talk:Farnz|talk]])

If I may vote (as a happy international user of this site, but not yet a contributor), one more vote for '''Keep''' - at least as "don't change now, because of this specific request, because of perceived offensiveness". For several reasons, which have been mentioned already:

a) I think it's funny. It also fits perfectly with the overall XKCD humor. And the same line of thinking as the book "You are now less dumb" from "YouAreNotSoSmart.com".

b) It's so obviously generic (directed at everyone reading it) I fail to understand how it can be interpreted as insult instead of irony. Even worse: I fail to understand why it should be _especially_ insulting to blind people. Having a transcript for them to use is nice, but it's merely one of the aspects this site provides (and it's not even at the top nor are there pages "transcript only", so blind are no primary audience)

c) If this site decides to actually help blind people more, how about: putting the tagline in the image (so it's not "read every time"), put the transcript at the top / provide pages with only transcripts, so that the original XKCD can be consumed prior to the explanations here (just as non-blind users would see it)

d) this request follows the current Outragism trend, so I do suspect that it's not actually blind people feeling offended, but privileged SJWs thinking about who might possibly feel offended, bringing change to the world where it's not beneficial even for those they claim to support. Comparable to PETA.

While I'm at it - THANK YOU for this site. Most XKCD I mostly understand. But due to being an international reader, some aspects of American Culture I need explainXKCD to grasp, and other aspects it's just nice to see more details, cross-references with other comics, and hidden gems.
[[User:Zefiro|Zefiro]] ([[User talk:Zefiro|talk]]) 18:46, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

I vote for '''change.''' I know it's a joke, but it's not particularly funny, and can easily be mistaken for an insult. [[User:Ekedolphin|Ekedolphin]] ([[User talk:Ekedolphin|talk]]) 20:13, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

511: Sleet

2015-09-23T03:30:14Z

Ekedolphin: added "Let It Snow" reference

{{comic
| number = 511
| date = December 1, 2008
| title = Sleet
| image = sleet.png
| titletext = I mean, I can barely hear myself complaining about Battlestar Galactica.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Megan]] is seen leaving an apartment, trudging through freezing temperatures and {{w|Sleet|foul weather}}, when she could be in a warm, cozy bed. The dialog is likely her thoughts, rather than speech. She is fed up with the second person's endless discussion of {{w|Digital rights management}} (DRM). She probably agrees with his position, but would rather face the weather than his endless rehashing of the issue.

The words in the first panel are the opening lyrics of the Christmas standard, {{w|Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!}}.

In the last panel, {{w|Free Culture (book)|Free Culture}} refers to a book by {{w|Lawrence Lessig}}, who advocates for fewer restrictions in many areas.

In the title text, it is revealed that Megan herself is also guilty of droning on about 'boring' subjects, likely to the annoyance of those around her. In this case complaining about science-fiction TV series {{w|Battlestar Galactica}} which tends to produces strong reactions among {{w|Geek|geeks}}. She has gone outside to avoid the boring rant, however given the opportunity, it is her that would be doing the ranting.

==Transcript==
:[Rainy, cold, windy street; Megan is walking along street; narration is from Megan's point-of-view.]
:The weather outside is frightful.
:I hate trudging through the icy slush and biting sleet.
:But it beats lying in our warm, cozy bed
:Listening to you talk about DRM for hours on end.
:Offscreen: Come back! Just listen to this one quote from ''Free Culture!''

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]

469: Improvised

2015-09-08T00:12:52Z

Ekedolphin: added original response to "I'd just as soon kiss a Wookiee"

{{comic
| number = 469
| date = August 29, 2008
| title = Improvised
| image = improvised.png
| titletext = Oh, your brother is Luke. Sorry, should've mentioned that first.
}}

==Explanation==
In the second of the original {{w|Star Wars}} film {{w|The Empire Strikes Back|Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back}}", just before {{w|Han Solo}}, portrayed by {{w|Harrison Ford}}, is frozen in carbonite, the following conversation occurs:
:Leia: I love you.
:Han: I know.

The original script had Han Solo respond with "I love you, too", but Harrison Ford felt that the character would not give such a cliched response, even in the face of likely death and ad-libbed the "I know" line that was actually used in the finished film. The ad-libbed line is generally thought to be better than the original would have been.

The comic presents several alternative ad-libs that Ford could have made in that conversation as well as at various points throughout the trilogy. So in this situation it is the actor Ford and not Han Solo that speaks, since these lines were not accepted as Han Solo's in the film. Likewise it is the other actors and not their part in the movie...

{| class="wikitable"
! Row
! Col
! Ad-Lib
! Further Detail
|-
| 1
| 1
| '''Well, duh.'''
| Here, Han ruins the mood [a dramatic confession] with a flippant statement.
|-
| 1
| 2
| '''Seriously? ...Christ.'''
| Another example of an out-of-tone ad-lib. The original line is "never tell me the odds", a nod to Solo's daredevil persona. In this ad-lib, however, he is hesitant to try anything dangerous.
|-
| 1
| 3
| '''Oh! Hey, that explains the kissing earlier.'''
| Another absurd, out-of-character answer to a serious remark, this time with Solo acting romantically oblivious [rather than forward, as he is usually].
|-
| 2
| 1
| '''I'm nailing your brother.'''
| So far Leia doesn't know she has a brother. Also, since ''to nail'' means to penetrate, it should be a shock for her to know that Han is either gay or bisexual. This panel is referenced in the title text.
|-
| 2
| 2
| '''Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for scissors, though they do beat paper and rock.'''
| The original line is "Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid", a reference to Luke's force training and lightsaber use. In this ad-lib, Han turns a discussion about weapons into a [unusually formal] discussion about the game {{w|Rock-paper-scissors}}.
|-
| 2
| 3
| '''Cool. Listen, this thing is really, REALLY cold.'''
| Han is in a freezing chamber in this scene. This remark is typically made by males to explain shrinkage of their, um, package in cold water.
|-
| 3
| 1
| '''Wowzers'''
| ''Wowzers'' is an expression used by {{w|Inspector Gadget}}; another amusingly out-of-character ad-lib.
|-
| 3
| 2
| '''Barely. They're pretty drunk.'''
| The original response here is "Uh, my team's ready. I don't have a command crew for the shuttle." In this ad-lib, Han responds to a serious situation [preparations for an important mission to bring down the Galactic Empire] with an unserious response.
|-
| 3
| 3
| '''Man, me too but Chewie never seems interested. Maybe I should grow my hair out.'''
| The original response was "I can arrange that! You could ''use'' a good kiss!" In the original film, Leia's remark "I'd just as soon kiss a wookiee" is meant as an insult to Han, implying that he's no more attractive than a great hairy monster. In this ad-lib, though, Han takes her statement literally, and suggests that he is also interested in kissing a wookiee. Chewbacca is Han's wookiee copilot and fellow smuggler. Han's suggestion that he's interested in kissing Chewbacca is unexpected on many levels: firstly, Han's shown interest in Leia, secondly, Chewbacca is an entirely different species, and thirdly, Chewbacca is also male, and Han Solo is presumed by Leia to be straight.
|}

Note: although it's spelled "wookie" in the comic, the canonical spelling of Chewbacca's species is "{{w|Wookiee}}".

The title text continues the ad lib in panel four. It refers to the plot twist that {{w|Luke Skywalker}} is princess {{w|Princess Leia|Leia's}} brother, which would not be revealed until the next film in the series. How Harrison Ford knows this twist at this point in the story is unknown.

==Transcript==
:[Caption above the panels:]
:Harrison Ford famously improvised his "I know" line in E.S.B. Here are a few of his less-successful ad-libs:

:[Harrison Ford as Han Solo (in all the panels) stands in front of Princess Leia on the Cloud City Carbon Freezing Chamber.]
:Leia: I love you.
:Han: Well, duh.

:[Han Solo in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon.]
:C-3P0: Sir, the possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately 3720 to 1!
:Han: Seriously? ...Christ.

:[Han Solo stands in front of Princess Leia on the Cloud City Carbon Freezing Chamber.]
:Leia: I love you.
:Han: Oh! Hey, that explains the kissing earlier.

:[Han Solo stands in front of Princess Leia on the Cloud City Carbon Freezing Chamber.]
:Leia: I love you.
:Han: I'm nailing your brother.

:[Han Solo standing in front of Luke Skywalker, who is holding a blast shield helmet and a lightsaber. The training droid hovers between them.]

:Han: Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for scissors, though they do beat paper and rock.

:[Han Solo stands in front of Princess Leia on the Cloud City Carbon Freezing Chamber.]
:Leia: I love you.
:Han: Cool. Listen, this thing is really, really cold.

:[Han Solo stands in front of Princess Leia on the Cloud City Carbon Freezing Chamber.]
:Leia: I love you.
:Han: Wowzers.

:[Han Solo sits with two others. General Madine approaches.]
:Madine: General Solo, is your strike team assembled?
:Han: Barely. They're pretty drunk.

:[Han Solo and Princess Leia stand in an Ice Tunnel of Hoth.]
:Leia: I'd just as soon kiss a wookie.
:Han: Man, me too but Chewie never seems interested. Maybe I should grow my hair out.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Star Wars]]
[[Category:Sex]]
[[Category:Romance]]

864: Flying Cars

2015-07-21T02:56:47Z

Ekedolphin: minor spelling correction

{{comic
| number = 864
| date = February 23, 2011
| title = Flying Cars
| image = flying_cars.png
| titletext = It's hard to fit in the backseat of my flying car with my android Realdoll when we're both wearing jetpacks.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] is complaining to [[Megan]] over the phone about the lack of flying cars even though it is the year 2011. Megan counters that phone technology has taken off. For example, in the past it was predicted that we would have flying cars and two-way wrist radios by today.{{Citation needed}} The flying car is still not perfected (although there are some awesome prototypes flying today) but the two way wrist radio pales in comparison to the current state of smart phones.

He chooses to be resentful about the lack of flying cars rather than be amazed at the current state of computers and communication technology. Like many people, he is missing the forest while looking for a particular tree.

The title text references Realdoll, known as "the world's finest lovedoll", and jetpacks, another invention that many people were expecting to have by this point in time.

This strip is quoted at the top of the TV Tropes article [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IWantMyJetpack I Want My Jetpack], having a similar theme to the strip.

==Transcript==
:Cueball (on telephone): It's 2011. I want my flying car.
:Answer from telephone: Dude.
:Megan (on telephone): You're complaining to me using a phone on which you buy and read books, and which you were using to play a 3D shooter until I interrupted you with what would be a video call if I were wearing a shirt.
:Cueball: Can't I have flying cars, too?
:Answer from telephone: You'd crash it while texting and playing angry birds.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]

470: The End is Not for a While

2015-06-24T17:45:20Z

Ekedolphin: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number =470
| date =September 1, 2008
| title =The End is Not for a While
| image =the_end_is_not_for_a_while.png
| titletext =I THINK EVERYONE INVOLVED HERE IS CUTE.
}}

==Explanation==
People show up at protests because they're angry about something and want to use peaceful means or otherwise to effect political change. It's very much a groupthink, "mob" mentality, bringing to mind the credo, "If you're not with us, you're against us."

Hardly anyone goes to a protest because they're happy about the way things are, and thus, someone holding up signs saying how happy he is would, to say the least, be very out of place at a protest.

The title text shows another sign [[Cueball]] is carrying (although since it compliments the protesters, he may not get in as much trouble for it).

The title of the comic refers to the oft-seen protest placard "The end is nigh", signifying that person's belief that we live in the end times and it's time to start getting right with (insert religious figure of your choice here).

==Transcript==
:[Cueball with two picket signs. Ponytail with a picket sign stands partially out of the frame, staring at Cueball.]
:I get in trouble for showing up contented at protests.
:Sign 1: Things are pretty okay!
:Sign 2: Anyone for Scrabble later?

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]

470: The End is Not for a While

2015-06-24T17:43:42Z

Ekedolphin: /* Explanation */ minor spelling fix

{{comic
| number =470
| date =September 1, 2008
| title =The End is Not for a While
| image =the_end_is_not_for_a_while.png
| titletext =I THINK EVERYONE INVOLVED HERE IS CUTE.
}}

==Explanation==
People show up at protests because they're angry about something and want to use peaceful means or otherwise to effect political change. It's very much a groupthink, "mob" mentality, bringing to mind the credo, "If you're not with us, you're against us."

Hardly anyone goes to a protest because they're happy about the way things are, and thus, someone holding up signs saying how happy he is would, to say the least, be very out of place at a protest.

The title text shows another sign [[Cueball]] is carrying (although since it compliments the protesters, he may not get in as much trouble for it).

The title of the comic refers to the oft-seen protest placard "The end is nigh", signifying that person's belief that we live in the end times and it's time to start getting right with (insert religious figure of your choice here).

==Transcript==
:[Cueball with two picket signs. Ponytail with a picket sign stands partially out of the frame, staring at Cueball.]
:I get in trouble for showing up contented at protests.
:Sign 1: Things are pretty okay!
:Sign 2: Anyone up for scrabble later?

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]

1231: Habitable Zone

2013-06-28T07:08:40Z

Ekedolphin:

{{comic
| number = 1231
| date = June 28, 2013
| title = Habitable Zone
| image = habitable zone.png
| titletext = They have a telescope pointed RIGHT AT US!
}}

==Explanation==
This (incredibly gullible) astronomer is, of course, looking at the reflection of Earth itself. He's very excited because a planet in a star's habitable zone, with visible oceans and weather, is presumably quite likely to have life on it, which is something humanity has yet to discover outside Earth. (The title text goes on to say they have a telescope pointed right at us, which would verify it to a certainty).

==Transcript==
:

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

950: Mystery Solved

2013-03-12T04:07:51Z

Ekedolphin: /* Explanation */ spelling correction

{{comic
| number = 950
| date = September 12, 2011
| title = Mystery Solved
| image = mystery_solved.png
| imagesize =
| titletext = The Roanoke Lost Colonists founded Roanoke, the Franklin Expedition reached the Pacific in 2009 when the Northwest Passage opened, and Jimmy Hoffa currently heads the Teamsters Union--he just started going by 'James'.
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic, Amelia Earhart's plane comes back to land after it went missing in 1937. Earhart was presumed dead and that her plane went down sometime during her journey. But, this comic supposes that it just took her from 1937-2011 to fly around the Earth without really aging a day.

The image text proposed a few more solutions to mysteries including the lost colonists of Roanoke, who were one of the first groups to come to America, but suddenly disappeared, leaving their colony untouched. The Franklin Expedition was a British voyage in 1845 to study the Northwest passage that also disappeared somewhere in northern Canada. Jimmy Hoffa was the famous Teamsters Union leader who went missing in 1975 and is presumed dead (and possibly murdered).

==Transcript==
:[A twin prop airplane flies high overhead.]
:Off-screen person: What's that airplane?

:[The plane lands, a pilot steps out and waves to the crowd.]
:Off-screen person: Holy crap - Is that Amelia Earhart?

:[The frame shows a close up of Amelia Earhart.]
:Amelia: Hey everyone! My flight was a success!
:Off-screen person: But... Where were you?

:[The frame shows a wide view of Amelia again, she stops waving.]
:Amelia: I flew around the world!
:Off-screen person: But you disappeared in 1937!

:Amelia: Right, to fly around the world.
:Off-screen person: It's 2011!
:Amelia: The world is big. It's a long flight.

:Off-Screen person: But you...
:Off-Screen person: It's not...
:Off-Screen person: I-
:Amelia: Can I talk to someone smarter?

{{comic discussion}}

Talk:348: Close to You

2013-03-12T04:05:00Z

Ekedolphin:

Don't think that's Danish - limbs are all squiggly, hair is different... Perhaps just unnamed zombie girl? [[User:MR|MR]] ([[User talk:MR|talk]]) 22:58, 1 March 2013 (UTC)MR
* You're probably right. It was my best guess. (Of course, the squiggly lines could be explained as being par for zombies). [[User:Ekedolphin|Ekedolphin]] ([[User talk:Ekedolphin|talk]]) 04:05, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

418: Stove Ownership

2013-03-07T05:28:43Z

Ekedolphin: /* Transcript */ missed a bracket; dang it, I will get this right

{{comic
| number =418
| date =May 2, 2008
| title =Stove Ownership
| image =stove_ownership.png
| titletext =Although maybe it's just a phase, like freshman year of college when I realized I could just buy frosting in a can.}}

==Explanation==
Bacon is generally considered one of the most delicious foods on earth, particularly in pulp culture, where it's praised by such characters as Homer Simpson from ''The Simpsons'' and Vincent Vega from ''Pulp Fiction.'' It's also ''very'' bad for you.

Hence, the moment Randall realized he could cook bacon whenever he wanted, his overall health took a dramatic turn for the worse.

==Transcript==
[Hand-drawn Graph is shown, on the Y axis, My Overall Health, on the X axis, Time. Graph is generally steady through 3/4 of the X axis, where it begins a steady decline, with a label 'The Day I Realized I Could Cook Bacon Whenever I Wanted.']

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]

418: Stove Ownership

2013-03-07T05:27:57Z

Ekedolphin: added category

{{comic
| number =418
| date =May 2, 2008
| title =Stove Ownership
| image =stove_ownership.png
| titletext =Although maybe it's just a phase, like freshman year of college when I realized I could just buy frosting in a can.}}

==Explanation==
Bacon is generally considered one of the most delicious foods on earth, particularly in pulp culture, where it's praised by such characters as Homer Simpson from ''The Simpsons'' and Vincent Vega from ''Pulp Fiction.'' It's also ''very'' bad for you.

Hence, the moment Randall realized he could cook bacon whenever he wanted, his overall health took a dramatic turn for the worse.

==Transcript==
[Hand-drawn Graph is shown, on the Y axis, My Overall Health, on the X axis, Time. Graph is generally steady through 3/4 of the X axis, where it begins a steady decline, with a label 'The Day I Realized I Could Cook Bacon Whenever I Wanted.'

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]

418: Stove Ownership

2013-03-07T05:26:25Z

Ekedolphin:

{{comic
| number =418
| date =May 2, 2008
| title =Stove Ownership
| image =stove_ownership.png
| titletext =Although maybe it's just a phase, like freshman year of college when I realized I could just buy frosting in a can.}}

==Explanation==
Bacon is generally considered one of the most delicious foods on earth, particularly in pulp culture, where it's praised by such characters as Homer Simpson from ''The Simpsons'' and Vincent Vega from ''Pulp Fiction.'' It's also ''very'' bad for you.

Hence, the moment Randall realized he could cook bacon whenever he wanted, his overall health took a dramatic turn for the worse.

==Transcript==
[Hand-drawn Graph is shown, on the Y axis, My Overall Health, on the X axis, Time. Graph is generally steady through 3/4 of the X axis, where it begins a steady decline, with a label 'The Day I Realized I Could Cook Bacon Whenever I Wanted.'

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]

418: Stove Ownership

2013-03-07T05:25:58Z

Ekedolphin: created

{{comic
| number =418
| date =May 2, 2008
| title =Stove Ownership
| image =stove_ownership.png
| titletext =Although maybe it's just a phase, like freshman year of college when I realized I could just buy frosting in a can.}}
}}

==Explanation==
Bacon is generally considered one of the most delicious foods on earth, particularly in pulp culture, where it's praised by such characters as Homer Simpson from ''The Simpsons'' and Vincent Vega from ''Pulp Fiction.'' It's also ''very'' bad for you.

Hence, the moment Randall realized he could cook bacon whenever he wanted, his overall health took a dramatic turn for the worse.

==Transcript==
[Hand-drawn Graph is shown, on the Y axis, My Overall Health, on the X axis, Time. Graph is generally steady through 3/4 of the X axis, where it begins a steady decline, with a label 'The Day I Realized I Could Cook Bacon Whenever I Wanted.'

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]

1177: Time Robot

2013-02-23T08:04:14Z

Ekedolphin: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1177
| date = February 22, 2013
| title = Time Robot
| image = time robot.png
| titletext = NO FATE BUT THE NARRATIVES WE IMPOSE ON LIFE'S RANDOM CHAOS TO DISTRACT OURSELVES FROM OUR EXISTENTIAL PLIGHT
}}

==Explanation==
The comic starts with a scene similar to one in the 1984 science fiction action film ''{{w|The Terminator}}''. In the movie a killing robot (played by {{w|Arnold Schwarzenneger}}) is sent back in time to kill Sarah Connor, the main female protagonist of the movie. A human, Kyle Reese, also travels back in time to protect her (and he acquires a {{w|sawed-off shotgun}} which Cueball holds in the strip).

However, in the following panels, Cueball explains that, even if he succeeds protecting Megan from the killing robot, we all are hunted by an unstoppable enemy trying to kill us – time. He goes on to point to the similarities between the time and a Terminator. The clock visible in the third panel features a red light in the place of a 3-hour marker, which is a reference to {{w|Terminator (character concept)#Physical characteristics|glowing red eyes}} of a Terminator.

In the final panel, “come with me if you want to live” is a [http://terminator.wikia.com/wiki/Come_with_me_if_you_want_to_live. famous phrase from the movie], but in this case, amended with the facts about the inevitability of eventual death.

Also, the title text is a play on a quote from ''The Terminator'', where Sarah Connor starts to believe that “[http://terminator.wikia.com/wiki/There%27s_no_fate_but_what_we_make_for_ourselves. There's no fate but what we make for ourselves.]”. It is also a reference to the character “{{w|Death (Discworld)|Death}}” in {{w|Terry Pratchett}}’s ''{{w|Discworld}}'' novels. In the Discworld novels, Death’s voice is always depicted in small caps and he is often caught making sometimes bizarre philosophical statements about life and death.

Randall ran a similar comic in [[652: More Accurate]], also riffing on Kyle Reese's introductory "Come with me if you want to live" line to Sarah Connor, but in that particular one, SkyNet simply sent an unmanned aerial vehicle to destroy Connor and Reese from high above the air.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball runs towards Megan with shotgun in hand.]
:Cueball: I'm from the future!
:Cueball: You're being stalked by an unstoppable robotic assassin!

:[Close up of Cueball's head.]
:Cueball: Of course, in a sense, we're ''all'' being stalked by an unstoppable robot.
:Cueball: A robot called ''time''.

:[Cueball looking at a clock.]
:Cueball: I see it in the mirror. I see wrinkles, grey hairs.
:Cueball: I hear its metallic footsteps in the relentless rhythm of the ticking clock.

:[Cueball reaches out to Megan.]
:Cueball: Anyway, uhh - come with me if you want to live for a while.
:Cueball: You'll still die eventually.
:Cueball: We all will.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]

1159: Countdown

2013-02-14T01:55:12Z

Ekedolphin:

{{comic
| number = 1159
| date = January 11, 2013
| title = Countdown
| image = countdown.png
| titletext = For all we know, the odds are in our favor.
}}

==Explanation==
The comic shows a {{w|seven segment display}} (aka [http://www.ece.mtu.edu/labs/EElabs/EE2304/pages/bcd_to_seven_segment_TAversion.html calculator-style numbers]) with a countdown. [[Black Hat]] explains that it is a countdown to a {{w|supervolcano}} eruption. However, an unfortunately placed picture blocks view of the full display. Due to the form of a seven-segment display, the first digit could be 0, 6, or 8, and five digits are completely blocked by the picture, which Black Hat lazily refuses to move. (But based on what we know of Black Hat, it's reasonable to assume he's doing it just to screw with Cueball.)

The fully visible part starts at 2409, and based on the pace of the scene, it seems to be in seconds. Thus, it is unclear when the eruption might occur. If the obscured digits are all 0s, it could be as soon as 40 minutes. On the other hand, if the obscured digits are '899 999', there's another 2.85 million years to go; if they are '000 001', we have a little more than 3 years.

The title text: "For all we know, the odds are in our favor" could imply the assumption that since we can't see the digits behind the picture, we can treat them as random. If so, chances are only 1 in 300 000 they are all zeroes. However, because of statistical principles such as {{w|Benford's law}}, the digits are not entirely random, and the {{w|odds}} are higer than 1/299 999 for all the digits to be zero, since the middle 4 digits are zero.

In an alternative view, the strip is not about pondering at distributions of digits on an oracle countdown. It's more of a grim view of our natural disasters prediction capabilities. As they say – the question is not if it will happen but when it will happen. "Move the picture" would mean investing into research and warning systems - that would correspond to shifting the picture to the left. Disregard the 40 minutes - think of it as arbitrary interval of interests, minuscule as we folks have them, say - one's lifetime; or grimmer yet - some {{w|term of office}}. Because, hey, year after year passes and no apocalypse has been observed - the empirical odds are low indeed.

Using a countdown theme for comic #1159 could be a subtle joke, as 11:59/23:59 is one minute to midnight.

==Transcript==
:[Counter: ____00002409]
:Cueball: What is that?
:Black Hat: Countdown.

:[Counter: ____00002400]
:Cueball: To what?
:Black Hat: Supervolcano, I think. I forget which one.

:[Counter: ____00002396]

:[Counter: ____00002382]
:Cueball: Maybe we should move that picture?
:Black Hat: Too hard to reach. It's probably fine.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Math]]
[[Category:Statistics]]

615: Avoidance

2013-02-06T14:42:36Z

Ekedolphin: created page

{{comic
| number =615
| date =July 27, 2009
| title =Avoidance
| image =avoidance.png
| titletext =Hobby: seeing how many menu selections you can get someone to go through before they realize you're not an automated system and/or hang up.
}}

==Explanation==
Megan gave her number to Cueball #2 at a party, but now doesn't want to talk to him. Because Megan's voice is the same as the voice people hear when calls can't be completed, she answers the phone with the "call cannot be completed as dialed" message.

One can only surmise that she does this, instead of simply not answering the phone, just to screw with Cueball #2.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball #1 is standing talking to Cueball #2 in a chair, who is holding a phone.]
:Cueball #1: Did you call that hot girl from the party yet?
:Cueball #2: I've been trying.

:Cueball #2: It's weird. I swear I got her the first time. But now it says the number's wrong.

:Cueball #1: What did you say she did, again?
:Cueball #2: Voice work. At Verizon, I think.
:Cueball #2: Why?
:Cueball #1: No reason.

:[Megan is talking into a phone, in an italic voice.]
:Megan: We're sorry, your call could not be completed as dialed.
:Cueball #2: Damn.
:<<Click>>
:Megan: Please check the number and try again.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]

617: Understocked

2013-02-06T14:24:55Z

Ekedolphin: /* Transcript */ oops, colons, not asterisks. Added categories too.

{{comic
| number =617
| date =July 31, 2009
| title =Understocked
| image =understocked.png
| titletext = My biology grad student friends tell me that different types of alcohol don't actually have different effects. I trust their expertise, not because of the 'biology'; part, but because of the 'grad student'.
}}

==Explanation==
On July 16, 2009, Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates {{w|Henry Louis Gates arrest controversy|was arrested}} at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts by police officer Sgt. James Crowley, after the police department received a call that Gates and another man were breaking and entering into the residence. Returning home from a visit to China, Gates had found his front door jammed, and tried to force it open with the help of his driver.

Arriving at the scene, Crowley (a Caucasian) arrested the African-American Gates after a confrontation, charging him with disorderly conduct. The charges were dropped on July 21, but the incident sparked a national debate about racial profiling.

On July 22, U.S. President Barack Obama criticized the arrest, saying that the Cambridge police "acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof he was in his own home." He also commented on the racial undertones of the incident, saying that "there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That's just a fact."

The president's remarks were furiously criticized by the law-enforcement community, and President Obama apologized two days later, saying that he could have chosen his words better, and it wasn't his intention to malign the Cambridge Police Department or Sgt. Crowley. He also invited Gates and Crowley to discuss the situation over beers to air out their differences and come to an understanding about the situation.

This comic explores a hypothetical situation in which President Obama found he was all out of beer, and chooses to share tequila with Gates and Crowley instead. In pop culture, tequila is frequently represented as the "let's-get-trashed" alcohol of choice, and so in the comic, President Obama, Professor Gates and Sgt. Crowley all get trashed on tequila, take a White House limo on a joyride, and end up behind bars.

==Transcript==
:[A bearded man with glasses and a police man are swearing at each other on a stoop.]

:[The bearded man is sitting behind bars.]

:[The President is standing at a podium with a fancy logo on the front.]
:President: To defuse this misunderstanding, I've invited both men to have a beer with me at the White House.

:[The policeman, the bearded man, and the president are in a room with a couch and an oval carpet.]

:[The president is looking in a cabinet.]
:President: Actually, it seems we're out of beer.
:Voice: Is there anything else?

:[The president sees a bottle of Tequila.]

:[The Presidential Limo is being driven at high speed. The bearded man and the policeman are standing out of the sunroof. The policeman is waving his hat and holding the bottle of tequila.]
:All: WOOOOOOOOOOOO

:[The policeman, the bearded man, and the president are sitting behind bars.]

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Politics]]

617: Understocked

2013-02-06T14:23:44Z

Ekedolphin: created page

{{comic
| number =617
| date =July 31, 2009
| title =Understocked
| image =understocked.png
| titletext = My biology grad student friends tell me that different types of alcohol don't actually have different effects. I trust their expertise, not because of the 'biology'; part, but because of the 'grad student'.
}}

==Explanation==
On July 16, 2009, Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates {{w|Henry Louis Gates arrest controversy|was arrested}} at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts by police officer Sgt. James Crowley, after the police department received a call that Gates and another man were breaking and entering into the residence. Returning home from a visit to China, Gates had found his front door jammed, and tried to force it open with the help of his driver.

Arriving at the scene, Crowley (a Caucasian) arrested the African-American Gates after a confrontation, charging him with disorderly conduct. The charges were dropped on July 21, but the incident sparked a national debate about racial profiling.

On July 22, U.S. President Barack Obama criticized the arrest, saying that the Cambridge police "acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof he was in his own home." He also commented on the racial undertones of the incident, saying that "there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That's just a fact."

The president's remarks were furiously criticized by the law-enforcement community, and President Obama apologized two days later, saying that he could have chosen his words better, and it wasn't his intention to malign the Cambridge Police Department or Sgt. Crowley. He also invited Gates and Crowley to discuss the situation over beers to air out their differences and come to an understanding about the situation.

This comic explores a hypothetical situation in which President Obama found he was all out of beer, and chooses to share tequila with Gates and Crowley instead. In pop culture, tequila is frequently represented as the "let's-get-trashed" alcohol of choice, and so in the comic, President Obama, Professor Gates and Sgt. Crowley all get trashed on tequila, take a White House limo on a joyride, and end up behind bars.

==Transcript==
*[A bearded man with glasses and a police man are swearing at each other on a stoop.]

*[The bearded man is sitting behind bars.]

*[The President is standing at a podium with a fancy logo on the front.]
*President: To defuse this misunderstanding, I've invited both men to have a beer with me at the White House.

*[The policeman, the bearded man, and the president are in a room with a couch and an oval carpet.]

*[The president is looking in a cabinet.]
*President: Actually, it seems we're out of beer.
*Voice: Is there anything else?

*[The president sees a bottle of Tequila.]

*[The Presidential Limo is being driven at high speed. The bearded man and the policeman are standing out of the sunroof. The policeman is waving his hat and holding the bottle of tequila.]
*All: WOOOOOOOOOOOO

*[The policeman, the bearded man, and the president are sitting behind bars.]

{{comic discussion}}

717: Furtive

2013-02-06T13:55:44Z

Ekedolphin:

{{comic
| number =717
| date =March 22, 2010
| title =Furtive
| image =furtive.png
| titletext =... go go gadget video camera. Go go gadget cup.
}}

==Explanation==
The person in the comic is Inspector Gadget from the {{w|Inspector Gadget|animated series of the same name}}. Gadget was a cyborg detective that had access to a wide variety of gadgets which he would activate with the words "Go go gadget [insert item here]." The gadgets would usually spawn from his hat, such as his trademark personal helicopter ("go go gadget copter!"). One of the running gags of the series was that Gadget was completely clueless during his missions, and unbeknownst to him, relied heavily on the assistance of his niece Penny, her computer book, and her dog, Brain.

In this strip, Inspector Gadget (wearing his trademark hat and trench coat) looks around furtively before saying the words "Go go gadget two lesbians doing it." The fantasy of lesbians having sex is a common turn-on for straight men. The command, given in the last panel of the comic, also serves to identify the person speaking. Identification along with the punchline is a common comedy trope.

In the title text, Gadget requests further gadgets: A video camera, to record the action, and a cup. The cup is either a reference to the well-known, allegedly scatological pornographic video {{w|2 Girls, 1 Cup}}, or else something to ejaculate into.

==Transcript==
:[A man in a trench coat and hat stands mid-frame.]

:[The man turns his head, looking to his right.]

:[The man stands alone in a wide expanse.]

:[The man finally speaks.]
:Man: Go go gadget two lesbians doing it.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Sex]]

1006: Sloppier Than Fiction

2013-02-06T13:55:08Z

Ekedolphin: added category

{{comic
| number = 1006
| date = January 20, 2012
| title = Sloppier Than Fiction
| image = sloppier_than_fiction.png
| imagesize =
| titletext = Roger Ebert once called you directionless and unwatchable.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is basically about a terrible person that [[Cueball]] is somehow talking to, possibly at a bar or party as Goatee Guy is carrying a drink.

The title of this comic is a play on the phrase "Stranger than Fiction", which means that sometimes real life can lead to some unexpected ups and downs that would not even make sense in a fictional representation in a book or a movie. Goatee Guy unfortunately for him, is "Sloppier than Fiction".

In the title text, {{w|Roger Ebert}} is a well-known US-based {{w|movie critic}}.

Oh and FYI, if anyone ever says "It wasn't technically cheating"... it was cheating.

==Transcript==
Douchebag with a goatee and a bad haircut: Even though it technically *wasn't* cheating, she dumped me anyway! So I tell Bret, and he's like "She sounds just like my crazy ex." And I was like, "dude, what was her name?" and it was the *same girl*. I swear, if they made my life into a movie, no one would believe it.

Cueball: Yeah, though mostly because of the poorly-written dialogue and unlikeable main character.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Sex]]

532: Piano

2013-02-06T13:54:41Z

Ekedolphin: added category

{{comic
| number = 532
| date = January 19, 2009
| title = Piano
| image = piano.png
| titletext = Good thing he didn't make it smaller, or it'd need someone three inches tall to play it.
}}

==Explanation==
The joke here is the reverse of an old joke that appeared in [http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/old90/304.html rec.humor.funny]. In the original, the story-teller reports that he made a wish with a hard-of-hearing genie for a twelve inch penis and instead got a twelve inch pianist. In this version, [[Cueball]] wished for the twelve inch pianist to hard-of-hearing genie, and instead received a twelve-inch penis, to [[Megan]]'s interest.

The title text is saying that if Cueball had made a smaller miniature piano, he might have wished for a smaller "pianist" to play it and received an unfortunate size reduction.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball is holding a box with an open lid. A miniature piano is inside. Megan is looking at it]
:Cueball: My hobby is making miniatures. Check this out — it's a fully-functional grand piano.
:Megan: Woah — beautiful.

:[Cueball looks at the miniature piano]
:Cueball: Sadly, I've never heard what proper music sounds like on it—the keys are too small to play.

:[Cueball closes lid to the piano.]
:Cueball: I once asked a genie for someone who could play it for me, but I think he misheard.
:Megan: ... are you doing anything later?

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Sex]]

940: Oversight

2013-02-06T13:54:19Z

Ekedolphin: added categories

{{comic
| number = 940
| date = August 19, 2011
| title = Oversight
| image = oversight.png
| titletext = I felt so clever when I found a way to game the Fitocracy system by incorporating a set of easy but high-scoring activities into my regular schedule. Took me a bit to realize I'd been tricked into setting up a daily exercise routine.
}}

==Explanation==
Stick figures having sex! Against a wall! Over a couch! In some sort of high flying sex swing! {{w|Fitocracy}} is a web site that turns workouts into a social game by awarding points, badges, levels and all sorts of other {{w|Gamification}}. However, according to this cartoon, Fitocracy does not consider sex to be an activity acceptable for its site, despite the high flying nature of Cueball and Megan's sexual workout.

==Transcript==
:[A couple has sex up against a wall.]

:[A couple has sex standing in an armchair.]

:[A couple has sex in a swing, swaying above a table with a flower vase on it.]

:[Screenshot of Fitocracy. In the text field marked "log your workout for today," the user has filled in "sex," and the site has returned the message "activity not found."]

:[The couple is standing in front of the computer; one person is at the keyboard, the other standing back wearing a towel.]
:Megan: Come on! That was like two hours of cardio!
:Cueball: Hmm, let's see ... the part on the dresser was KIND of like skiiing ...

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Sex]]
[[Category:Internet]]

672: Suggestions

2013-02-06T13:53:42Z

Ekedolphin:

{{comic
| number =672
| date =December 7, 2009
| title =Suggestions
| image =suggestions.png
| titletext =An hour later: SUGGESTION: LICK HER NIPPLE MORE.
}}

==Explanation==
Social networking site [http://www.facebook.com Facebook] routinely suggests reconnecting with Facebook friends whom you haven't interacted with on the website for awhile. This is taken to its logical extreme in this comic when that Facebook feature repeatedly, in an increasingly voyeuristic fashion, tries to get Cueball to hook up with his occasional friend-with-benefits Susie, despite the fact that Cueball knows she's falling for him and doesn't want to lead her on.

According to the title text, [[Cueball]] and Susie ''do'' end up hooking up, even against Cueball's better judgement, as so often happens between people who're physically attracted to one another. And he apparently left the webcam on as well, because the Facebook feature is now giving suggestions on what Cueball should do to her, mid-coitus.

==Transcript==
:[A man is sitting at his computer. Facebook sidebar messages appear on the top of each panel, with a user photo and a few lines of text.]
:Facebook: Susie
:Reconnect with her
:(phone icon) Send her a text
:Cueball: Come on, Facebook. I know I shouldn't.

:Facebook: Susie
:She'd come over
:(bed icon) You don't have to fall asleep alone.
:Cueball: It's been so hard to stop. But she's falling for me, and I can't keep getting her hopes up like this.

:Facebook: Susie
:Life is complicated
:(icon of stick figures embracing) She's so warm against you. You both want it.
:Cueball: (pulling out phone) Maybe if I just make it clear it's not going to be a thing ...
:Cueball: Yeah, we'll just have a talk.

:Facebook: Susie
:Oh yeah. Mmm ...
:(webcam icon) Leave your webcam on so I can watch.
:Cueball: Okay, this feature is getting creepier and creepier.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Sex]]
[[Category:Social networking]]
[[Category:Internet]]
[[Category:Computers]]

672: Suggestions

2013-02-06T13:53:22Z

Ekedolphin: added categories

713: GeoIP

2013-02-06T13:52:26Z

Ekedolphin: added category

{{comic
| number = 713
| date = March 12, 2010
| title = GeoIP
| image = geoip.png
| titletext = 'Meet hot young singles in your mom's basement today'? Man, screw you, GeoIP.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Geolocation|GeoIP}} is a service that converts IP addresses to their respective location on the earth. This is done by looking up the IP address in a database maintained by various Internet Service providers. Advertisers often take advantage of the {{w|Keeping up with the Joneses|Joneses effect}} by creating localized ads based on your location. These ads are often highly misleading since the images are often stock photographs with the nearest town superimposed on it.

This is the case with the comic. The {{w|International Space Station}} presumably has a public-facing IP address, which is geolocated to "Low Earth Orbit". [[Cueball]] trolls the advertisers by inserting his actual location into the IP registry, thus getting the advertisement to claim that there are "local girls" in the ISS. Since all members of the ISS know each other, Cueball underlines the obvious lie in GeoIP-based advertising.

The title text refers to how specific GeoIP can get. However, knowing that someone is in their mom's basement is hyperbole.

==Transcript==
:[External view of a satellite orbiting Earth. Dialog comes from within.]
:Cueball: Yes!
:Ponytail: What?
:Cueball: I got our downlink into a GeoIP database.

:[Internal view of the satellite, Cueball and Ponytail are floating about, Cueball is at a computer mounted to the wall.]
:Ponytail: Why?
:Cueball: To mess with our advertisers. Check it out.

:[An ad reads "Meet local girls in Low Earth Orbit tonight!" and has two photos of girls in sexy poses, one captioned "Tanya, 18" and the other "Amber, 19". Below them is a button that reads "CHAT LIVE".]

{{Comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Sex]]

1101: Sketchiness

2013-02-06T13:52:04Z

Ekedolphin: added category

{{comic
| number = 1101
| date = August 29, 2012
| title = Sketchiness
| image = sketchiness.png
| imagesize =
| titletext = factory --- spire --- onslaught --- extractor --- judge
}}

==Explanation==
Sketchy is an adjective meaning not thorough or detailed, but which in modern slang is often used to connote creepiness, or a general feeling that something is not quite right. Urban Dictionary provides a good definition of "someone or something that gives off a bad feeling".

In this comic, [[Randall Munroe|Randall]] rates words by how sketchy they make the sentence "Hey baby, wanna come back to my sex ____?" when inserted into the blank. As noted from the scale (which already starts at "sketchy" and goes up to "very sketchy"), the sentence itself is already inherently sketchy, in that it sounds like it would be a pickup line delivered by a person attempting to solicit sex from a stranger.

The sketchiness is increased by the various words which run from the ''relatively'' common or understood to the obscure and unusual.

The first few are actual terminology: A sex party or sex orgy are basically group sex parties at which multiple parties engage in sexual activity. A sex dungeon is a location where BDSM (bondage/submission - think leather and handcuffs) activity is engaged in. "Sex House" is the name of an {{w|Onion_News_Network|Onion News Network}} parody of reality shows like Big Brother.

As the scale increases, the words become simply locations where sex might take place, which increase from comfortable to unusual and creepy (i.e. sex crate, sex ravine, sex tarp). It is particularly sketchy because of the phrasing of the sentence which implies the speaker has a specific [insert word] used for sex. It might be sketchy enough to walk up to someone and suggest "let's go down in the ravine and have sex", but it is made sketchier when the phrasing suggests going to "my sex ravine".

The title text continues the thought process with further possible sketchy words, beginning with more odd locations and moving on to "onslaught", an abundant wave of attack or overwhelming amount of something - in this case sex; "extractor" suggests some sort of device that might force someone to have sex; and finally "judge", suggesting the speaker has someone in mind to judge sex. Very sketchy indeed.

==Trivia==
* Three of the words in the title text (factory, spire, extractor) are buildings from the real-time strategy game StarCraft.


{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Sex]]

1026: Compare and Contrast

2013-02-06T13:51:42Z

Ekedolphin: added category

{{comic
| number = 1026
| date = March 7, 2012
| title = Compare and Contrast
| image = compare_and_contrast.png
| imagesize =
| titletext = Frankly, I see no difference between thee and a summer's day. Only Ron Paul offers a TRUE alternative!
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is a reference to the {{w|sonnet}} by {{w|William Shakespeare}}, which is called "{{w|Sonnet 18}}" in which the first line is: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?". And that is what [[Randall]] is attempting to do here in his own way, comparing who I assume is his special lady friend to a "Summer's Day". The first line is a reference to the sonnet itself, which reads: "Thou art more lovely and more temperate". Shakespeare woos women with sonnets and Randall with charts. This certainly seems to be a love letter (love comic? love chart?) to one specific person (Megan?) because not too many people have been arrested for releasing snakes in the library.

The last line in a sexual reference, on the "thee" side, not on the "summer's day" side.

In Shakespeare's day, English had informal pronouns and formal pronouns, thee and thou (informal), and you (formal). This is similar to what is still used today in Spanish (and other languages) with usted being formal, and tú being informal. {{w|English personal pronouns#Full list of personal pronouns|Wikipedia}} has a nice chart for all of English's personal pronouns, current and archaic.

From a literary standpoint, Sonnet 18 is not about a woman but rather addressed to a young man (sonnets 1-126 are), the rest of them is addressed to a ‘dark lady’. But, through time this has been almost forgotten, certainly it has been in most circles.

And of course, the title text is a reference to {{w|Ron Paul}}, {{w|Republican Party (United States)|Republican}} candidate for {{w|President of the United States|President}} who is currently in the {{w|Republican Party presidential primaries, 2012|Republican Primary}} against a few other challengers for the nomination. Ron Paul is frequently represented on the internet using similar language to the image text. Paul is seen as an alternative because he is a strict {{w|Libertarian Party (United States)|Libertarian}} and believes the government should be as small as possible and stay out of people's lives. People who support Ron Paul believe him to be the only true alternative to the other Republican candidates currently in the race.

==Transcript==
:[A checklist comparing thee to a summer's day:
:Fair, Temperate:Thee & A Summer's Day
:Hot, Sticky: Thee & A Summer's Day
:Short: Thee
:Harbinger of Hurricane Season: A Summer's Day
:Required for a Good Beach Party; Thee & A Summer's Day
:Major Cause of Heat Stroke in the Elderly: A Summer's Day
:Linked to Higher Rates of Juvenile Delinquency: Thee & A Summer's Day
:Sometimes Too Stifling: Thee & A Summer's Day
:Arrested for Releasing Snakes in Library: Thee
:Difficult to Focus on Work While I'm In: Thee & A Summer's Day]

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Sex]]

219: Blanket Fort

2013-02-06T13:51:01Z

Ekedolphin: added category

{{comic
| number = 219
| date = February 5, 2007
| title = Blanket Fort
| image = blanket_fort.png
| titletext = Also, we have a fort out in the woods where we stashed that hooker's body.
}}

==Explanation==
Apparently a continuation of comic [[150: Grownups]], [[Megan]] is showing off a blanket fort (which is actually a combination blanket-and-pillow fort, a very child-like activity) to her friend [[Ponytail]], who implies that her childishness (as also evidenced by her creation of a ball pit in the previous comic) stems from a fear of growing up. Megan responds that she's fine with growing up, and that her behavior is actually mature realization that some things we enjoyed as children are still enjoyable. When pressed for evidence that she has in any way become an "adult," it is revealed that her boyfriend (most likely the guy from [[Grownups]]) is inside the blanket fort but has not spoken until now because he's "not exactly dressed," implying "adult" activities have been going on in it (though probably not in the sense that light-hair meant).

The title text again plays with the meaning. They've built a tree fort in the woods, which is another type of forts that a kid would love to have, but then they've used it to hide a body, implied to be someone they've killed, something that it is assumed no kid would do.

==Transcript==
:[Two girls are talking with each other. There is a fort made of cushions and blankets on the left]
:Megan: Like my fort? It uses every blanket and cushion in the apartment.
:Ponytail: Okay, no offense, but this is like that ball pit you made -- Cute, but don't you worry you're clinging to childhood games because you're afraid of change?
:Megan: No. I'm happy to grow up. But I won't pretend fun things aren't still fun out of fear of looking silly.
:Ponytail: But you're 24 and building blanket forts. How have you changed? What's adult about that?
:Megan: Well, there's my boyfriend curled up in the back.
:Ponytail: ...Ah.
:Boyfriend [from inside the fort]: Excuse my shyness. I'm not exactly dressed.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Sex]]

Category:Sex

2013-02-06T13:50:25Z

Ekedolphin: created category

Comics pertaining to sex.

443: Know Your Vines

2013-02-06T13:50:04Z

Ekedolphin: added category

{{comic
| number = 443
| date = June 30, 2008
| title = Know Your Vines
| image = know_your_vines.png
| imagesize =
| titletext = Friggin' modern tents don't have a single piece of rope.
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic, [[Randall]] points out the {{w|Virginia creeper}} is a plant with 5 green leaves that can be used as a rope. He then points out that {{w|Toxicodendron radicans|Poison ivy}} is another vine like plant with 3 green leaves that also grows near camping areas - but causes skin rashes. His girlfriend is into {{w|Bondage (BDSM)|Light bondage}}(being tied up for erotic purposes) and implying that the area around their tent was too dark to differentiate between the two vines when he went looking for some impromptu rope. This resulted in him getting the wrong "vine" and afterwards their relationship status is "strained". The title text refers to the fact that many modern tents are self-supporting and no longer require rope to put up, which would have avoided the need to look for vines.
==Transcript==
:Virginia Creeper: Vines useful as impromptu rope

:Poison Ivy: Grows in same habitat as Virginia Creeper

:Girlfriend: Into light bondage

:Area around campsite: Too dark to see

:Relationship after camping trip: Strained

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Biology]]
[[Category:Sex]]

784: Falling Asleep

2013-02-05T11:04:04Z

Ekedolphin: created page

{{comic
| number =784
| date =August 25, 2010
| title =Falling Asleep
| image =falling_asleep.png
| titletext =Sweet unintersecting dreams!
}}

==Explanation==
Cueball and Megan are obviously going through some relationship trouble, because Cueball looks forward to using dreams as an escape away from her.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball gets into bed.]
:It's so much easier
:falling asleep

:[Megan is lying in bed, gripping her pillow.]
:With you beside me--

:[Cueball is lying on his back in bed.]
:All the incentive I need

:[Full shot of the bed, the woman is on the left, gripping the pillow, the man is as far to the right as possible, nearly falling off, facing away from her.]
:To leave the world behind.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics with color]]

719: Brain Worms

2013-02-04T13:20:07Z

Ekedolphin: created page

{{comic
| number =719
| date =March 26, 2010
| title =Brain Worms
| image =brain_worms.png
| titletext =Hey, it says here that if you dream about your teeth falling out, it means they're spreading.
}}

==Explanation==
Cueball is screwing with Megan by pretending to read from a book about a brain worm whose symptoms include oddly specific dreams. Not realizing that those dreams are relatively common, Megan naturally freaks out.

==Transcript==
:[Megan sits at a computer desk, and Cueball stands near her holding a book.]
:Cueball: Weird--this parasitic worm infects the brain, damaging the areas responsible for spatial reasoning in dreams. Signs of infection include dreams about not fitting in your car comfortably, driving from the backseat, or veering all over the road.
:Megan: (thinking) Oh God.

:My Hobby: Taking advantage of the fact that some specific dreams are weirdly common, but not everyone who has them realizes this.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:My Hobby]]
[[Category:Biology]]

User talk:Ekedolphin

2013-02-03T23:19:54Z

Ekedolphin: /* Keeping track of comics for proposed Category: Sports */

== Keeping track of comics for proposed Category: Sports ==

[[588]], [[1092]], [[904]], [[1107]], [[115]], [[284]], [[1100]], [[544]], [[User:Ekedolphin|Ekedolphin]] ([[User talk:Ekedolphin|talk]]) 23:19, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

== Keeping track of comics for proposed Category: Sex ==
[[443]], [[219]], [[550]], [[1026]], [[575]], [[468]], [[592]], [[320]], [[1101]], [[417]], [[713]], [[672]], [[230]], [[436]], [[940]], [[532]], [[649]], [[176]], [[1006]], [[596]], [[717]]... [[User:Ekedolphin|Ekedolphin]] ([[User talk:Ekedolphin|talk]]) 10:51, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

User talk:Ekedolphin

2013-02-03T23:19:36Z

Ekedolphin: /* Keeping track of comics for proposed Category: Sports */

== Keeping track of comics for proposed Category: Sports ==

[[588]], [[1092]], [[904]], [[1107]], [[115]], [[284]], [[1100]], [[544]], ([[User talk:Ekedolphin|talk]]) 23:19, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

== Keeping track of comics for proposed Category: Sex ==
[[443]], [[219]], [[550]], [[1026]], [[575]], [[468]], [[592]], [[320]], [[1101]], [[417]], [[713]], [[672]], [[230]], [[436]], [[940]], [[532]], [[649]], [[176]], [[1006]], [[596]], [[717]]... [[User:Ekedolphin|Ekedolphin]] ([[User talk:Ekedolphin|talk]]) 10:51, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

User talk:Ekedolphin

2013-02-03T23:19:15Z

Ekedolphin: /* Keeping track of comics for proposed Category: Sports */

== Keeping track of comics for proposed Category: Sports ==

[[588]], [[1092]], [[904]], [[1107]], [[115]], [[284]], [[1100]], [[544]], [[User:Ekedolphin|Ekedolphin]] [[User:Ekedolphin|Ekedolphin]] ([[User talk:Ekedolphin|talk]]) 23:19, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

== Keeping track of comics for proposed Category: Sex ==
[[443]], [[219]], [[550]], [[1026]], [[575]], [[468]], [[592]], [[320]], [[1101]], [[417]], [[713]], [[672]], [[230]], [[436]], [[940]], [[532]], [[649]], [[176]], [[1006]], [[596]], [[717]]... [[User:Ekedolphin|Ekedolphin]] ([[User talk:Ekedolphin|talk]]) 10:51, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

explain xkcd:Community portal/Proposals

2013-02-03T23:17:07Z

Ekedolphin: /* Category: Sex */

<noinclude>{{Community portal}}</noinclude>

== Spampage Rampage ==
Hail fellow admins, Jeff, distinguished editors all,

We've just been through a second spike of spam, (the first being around the 1110 Click and Drag comic) so as your friendly Angel of Death to such spammery, I'd like to open the floor to discussion on strategies to deal with the issue.

Personally, I don't mind the role of grim reaper for these miscreants, but I'd also prefer that it doesn't grow in magnitude; of late, I find myself almost exclusively dealing with the matter, leaving little enough time to enjoy the site, let alone contributing to it. Anything we can do to keep things under control would be appreciated.

So far, the spam comes in these flavors:
* One-timers. New users that create their own user page, oddly alike (couldn't be a spam-bot, eh?) always linking to "their" website. By far the biggest percentage of time the scythe falls, it falls on these.
** Two-timers. A variant of above, except they create one or two additional pages, typically the user's talk page, or a page same as the username, but not in the user namespace. Here too, quickly dispatched across the Styx.
* IPersonators: IP users that create faux user (and other) pages. Second largest group, though this trend has been growing, especially during this recent onslaught.
** A particularly insidious variant: IPersonators creating or modifying a real users' page. I've been pretty careful, so far, to track down the author, and block ''them'' (as opposed to assuming author = user) but I can see how this flavor of spam risks accidental blocking of legit contributors, which would be doubleplusungood.
* Jibberish vandal: Somebody creating content that isn't spam, but just repeated ''asdf'' or ''ghjkl'' content. Treated as above, though I don't call this spam in the logs. My guess is that this is a spam-bot under development. Fairly infrequent, and addressed using techniques as for above.

There are a few other one-off types, too, which I won't bother elaborating here.

So, the open-ended question stands: What do we do?

# There has been a suggestion to block IP-only contributors (ie must log in) ... perhaps only on an as-needed basis.
# Another thought would be to (by some as-yet unspecified means) prevent the creation, or cause the timely deletion, of user pages by other than said user.)
# Restricting external links (by a similarly as-yet-unspecified means) either to a specified approved white-list, or by a specified set of contributors (must have made more than n edits, for example.)
# Other thoughts? Let the discussion unfold...

No solution is likely to be perfect; this is a matter of raising the bar to where whatever processed meat can crest over it can be most easily managed... all without being so draconian that we compromise the appeal of the site.

All said, I have no problems with the grim reaper enterprise, but would like to spend more time in the [[User:IronyChef/TestKitchen|kitchen]], and less in the [[Special:Log/block|dumpster]].

A little postscript to put the issue into perspective: the ''top four contributors'', (as per Active Users as I write this) are as follows:
* Lcarsos [169 edits in the last 30 days]
* Davidy22 [282 edits in the last 30 days]
* Bpothier [298 edits in the last 30 days]
* IronyChef [433 edits in the last 30 days]
I can tell you that of my four-hundred plus edits, only about a dozen have not been spam related. Lcarsos and Davidy22 are two ace spam-seeking deputies, so a large part of their edits involve tagging pages with the spam template, not (as I'm sure they'd prefer) actually chiming in on matters xkcd. The rest of the field: not even close in terms of edit magnitude. -- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 15:30, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

:I was going to suggest a range block, but the IP addresses com from everywhere. The only pattern I can see is in the 83.<25 range. We could also change the captcha to cut into the bots for a little while. Another suggestion would be to create every explanation page, then mark the unfinished ones with the <nowiki>{{stub}}</nowiki> template, if that exists in this wiki. Then we can block anonymous page creation without having to worry about stopping anonymous users from creating new explanations. We'll have to make a few modifications to the site, to instruct users on how to find pages in need of explanations, but it'll kill all the userpage and self-help spambots. We can figure out how to deal with vandalism later - I would recommend implementing wikipedia's cluebot to automagically roll back page clearing and the like. [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]] ([[User talk:Davidy22|talk]]) 23:16, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

:Also, we can semi-protect important pages like categories and templates. Chances are, anonymous users aren't familiar enough with wikis to be handling those anyways, and wiki veteran anonymous users will probably make an account. [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]] ([[User talk:Davidy22|talk]]) 09:30, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

... ''Madame la Guillotine'' has been busy, dealing with no less than four dozen spammified pages and their attendant contributors in the last hour, to address a third spike in spam. Our hyper-contributing editors have been helping identify these malefactors, so the process has been fairly straight-forward on my part, but it's awfully quiet here....

The top five contributors, as of this writing, are:
* Divad27182 [133 edits in the last 30 days]
* Davidy22 [202 edits in the last 30 days]
* Lcarsos [207 edits in the last 30 days]
* Bpothier [267 edits in the last 30 days]
* IronyChef [537 edits in the last 30 days]

Number six is comes in at less than half of Divad's, and the curve decays precipitiously from there... so this is becoming a call to arms for admins to convene and discuss, ''or'' Jeff to anoint other, more active contributors, admin status.

Thoughts?

-- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 06:02, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

:Would it be possible to volunteer to be another admin to move some of the load off of IronyChef? It feels slightly cruel and unusual for him to be the only active admin, and thus ad-hoc in charge of keeping the engines running. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 06:16, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

::Another admin is definitely needed, given the volume of spam. It'd be nice if we could [[Special:UnusedTemplates|clean]] [[Special:UnusedFiles|out]] the attic too. Shall we hold a vote? [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]][[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>(talk)</tt>]] 06:41, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

::I only have sporadic time to do edits, so I'd likely not be an ideal choice if there can be only 1 more... --[[User:Bpothier|B. P.]] ([[User talk:Bpothier|talk]]) 07:19, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

::: This is yet again great. I'm researching SPAM prevention tools in use on other wikis. Let me know if you have something you think will work. Also, Lcarsos, you are up. Best new admin I can think of. I'm not afraid to add other admins if some (including myself) are less active. Other candidates can be submitted here. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 17:53, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

::::I'm immensely honored that you trust me that much. Thank you, I'll work hard to better the wiki. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 18:00, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

== Redirect main-page of explainxkcd.com ==

I mentioned this on the old site, but I guess this is a better place. The first page most people will get to is still the main explainxkcd.com page. With no more updates there it looks at first glance like a dead place, and when I out of habit go there, I still get an instinctive feeling that the site is dead because the first place I am send is a dead place. PLEASE redirect the main-page to this wiki, since this is the place that is still alive. [[User:Carewolf|Carewolf]] ([[User talk:Carewolf|talk]]) 14:40, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
: Good idea. Will work on that soon. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 17:49, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

== Tagline ==

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

:I think it's pretty obvious we should keep the "It's cause you're dumb." :) --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 13:20, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

:: Well, since there haven't been any objections, I went ahead and added it: [[Mediawiki:Tagline]]. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 18:46, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

== Separate discussion page(s) ==

I think we should create a separate Discuss the wiki page, so that each discussion can go under its own header. I'd suggest setting up a todo list where people can help out. I'd start with a suggestion:
: We should be using [[mw:Manual:Short URL|cleaner urls]]. Maybe [http://shorturls.redwerks.org/ this tool] can help setting that up. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 05:46, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
:: Whatever we do decide, I've created <nowiki>{{xkcd}}</nowiki> and <nowiki>{{explain}}</nowiki> templates to create links to the xkcd site and other explanations here on this site; that should factor at least those sites (nice central administration) as well as helping us categorize pages that use them. Was thinking of also <nowiki>{{wiki}}</nowiki> for the same benefit, even if there's already a prefix built into mediawiki... the only drawback is the bias toward the en side... [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 10:31, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
:::I'm liking the idea of creating a Discuss the wiki page - I'll start one if someone doesn't/hasn't beat me to it and add it to the sidebar. I'd asked for better URLs at [[User talk:Jeff#Robots.txt]], though I didn't know what they were called. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 17:17, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
::::I also like the idea of the {{tl|xkcd}} tags. On a related note, I've [[Special:Import|imported]] {{tl|tl}}. :-) <s> I also realize we don't have a secure server here, but I'd support the best practice of beginning URLs with protocol-relative links ( // instead of http:// or https:// ) anyway, especially since the xkcd website ''itself'' appears to be https-compatible.</s>Nevermind, it doesn't seem to be. So I guess it doesn't matter. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 22:40, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
::: Maybe we can create a subpage of the community portal for the wiki discussion. What do you think? --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 04:32, 3 August 2012 (EDT)
:::: Also one for editing coordination (see [[User:SurturZ/sandbox]] for instance), another for mediawiki assistance (requests to admins perhaps on the same page, or on a separate one). Any other ideas? --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 04:41, 3 August 2012 (EDT)
Moved from [[Explain XKCD:Community portal]], may need to be broken out into new headers or sub-headers. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 00:12, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

Great job on creating the subpages! I think the subpages can be made more intuitive for newcomers, though. Here are my subbestions:
* merge "/Design" and "/Proposals" into '''"/Discuss the wiki"''' or "/Improve the wiki" or something to that effect.
* rename "/Technical" into '''"/Tecnical assistance"''' so it is clear that it should be used for one-off issues rather than coordination of wiki-wide changes (which should go in the section above)
* merge the "/Administrator's noticeboard" above? That would reinforce that adminship is nothing but a set of technical tools to assist the wiki
* New '''"/Editing coordination"''' subpage for organizing what to do, maintenance, keeping a TODO list for newcomers to tackle, etc -- essentially like WikiProjects work at Wikipedia.
--[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 04:35, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

:As I see this, it would involve mostly just renaming pages. I don't particularly care what the names are, so I won't comment on that.
:*I'd like to keep /Administrator's noticeboard for the time being. The primary advantage of this is that administrators can watchlist this and things which need the tools are less likely to get lost in discussion. It can always be deprecated afterwards if it isn't being used enough.
:*I'd sort of seen /Design as doing what you're proposing for /Editing coordination, though I didn't explain it as well.
:--''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 18:43, 4 August 2012 (EDT)
:: Ok, I get what you mean with the Admin page. I don't think this wiki is going to be that busy to warrant a separate page, though. But for now, let's at least simplify the name? "Admin requests", for instance :)
:: And yeah, Design isn't really a good name for content-related coordination. What I'm suggesting here is to have one page for meta (wiki-related) discussion, and another for content-related discussion. Does that make sense? And what name do you think would be good for the former rather than the current, too generic imo, "Proposals"? --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 19:20, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

:::"Discuss the wiki" sounds good to me, as does "Admin requests." Or whatever, I guess. ;-) I may not be online much for the next few days (or much this evening), so go ahead and change it how you think it should be, I guess. Having stable discussion pages sooner than later would be good. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 01:48, 6 August 2012 (EDT)

:::: Ok I changed the admin page name, and merged "design" and "proposals", but for now I left it named "Proposals". I'm not quite confident about the clarity of "Discuss the wiki"... I'll wait until others comment here. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 14:06, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

::::: I'm not seeing any further discussion and it's been a few days since the move, so I'm clearing the sitenotice. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 02:38, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

== Automatic Import ==

Hi

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

Also, maybe we could autmatically import comics using the JSON data Randall gives us ([http://xkcd.com/614/info.0.json]). This way, we could also include transcripts. --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 15:23, 1 August 2012 (EDT)
: Hm, I should add a link to my draft: [[User:SlashMe/Testpage]] ;-) --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 06:54, 2 August 2012 (EDT)

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

Just to remind everyone, I'd be ready to import the comics, but I don't want to until I got more feedback. Please have a look at [[User:SlashMe/Testpage]] and tell me your opinion. --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 06:02, 3 August 2012 (EDT)
: I think your test page looks great. I'm a big fan of it. Any way to fit the text in the text box rather than having it run all the way to the right? --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 18:19, 3 August 2012 (EDT)
:: I just made a change concerning line breaks, at least it works in Firefox and Chrome. Could somebody please test it in different versions of Internet Explorer?
:: If you agree, I would start uploading tomorrow. I'll send you a mail. --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 18:31, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

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

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

== "Random comic?" ==

Not to clutter the sidebar, but what would you say to adding a "Random comic" right under "Random page", linking to [//dynamic.xkcd.com/random/comic/ //dynamic.xkcd.com/random/comic/] ? --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 01:46, 4 August 2012 (EDT)
:Naw, xkcd already has a random comic. I think we should have a ''random explanation''. ;-) All kidding aside, I was wondering: generating a random member of a category...? Has that improved since the early days when I tried to do something like that. -- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 03:19, 4 August 2012 (EDT)
::Hi. For how to do this, we could install the [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Random_In_Category Random In Category] Mediawiki extension, which would allow us to use <nowiki>[[Special:RandomInCategory/Comics]]</nowiki> to point to any random explanation. {{User:Omega/sig}} 22:42, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
::: Or we could move the comics into a Comic namespace, and use Special:Random/comic (See for instance [[Special:Random/template]]). This doesn't require any server-side changes. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 23:58, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

== Header template ==

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

You just need to add:
<pre>{{ComicHeader|1089|August 1, 2012}}</pre>
…to the start of the page (replacing the comic number and date).

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

:By the way, I'm thinking of maybe programming something that would allow you to easily import the comic image and alt text from xkcd without having to upload the images manually and the like. You'd just have to host a single PHP file on your server and make a few changes to the MediaWiki configuration. Of course, you'd be able to see source code and everything to make sure I'm not trying to do something fishy. :-P Let me know what you think. :-) --[[User:Yirba|Yirba]] ([[User talk:Yirba|talk]]) 18:54, 1 August 2012 (EDT)
::Yirba - I like the idea. My email is explain@explainxkcd.com - send me what you put together and we can sort it out. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 19:37, 1 August 2012 (EDT)
::Ditto on the Template. Up-vote. Any thought on harvesting the pre-wiki content from ExplainXKCD with some sort of a Python, Perl, or PHP script? (That sounds more like a 'bot than something that would have to be hosted, though.) [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 01:52, 2 August 2012 (EDT)

::: I was thinking of putting it into a infobox, please [[#Idea|see above]]. I also intended to automatically extract data from xkcd, which would lack descriptions, but at least we would have data like title, image and transcripts. Also, there are some other data like links (e.g. 832), news (which are displayed in xkcd's header, e.g. 739) and titles which contain HTML (259 and 472). I also extracted all those data. When we agree on a page layout, I could begin programming a bot. --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 06:54, 2 August 2012 (EDT)

::::Hmmm… an infobox may be a good idea. And a bot that imports data from xkcd might be handy. Anyway, here's something I programmed that would allow for access to the xkcd API from the wiki itself. Essentially, you'd put this xkcdinfo.php ([http://gist.github.com/3239432 source], [http://github.com/downloads/Yirba/yirba.github.com/xkcdinfo.php download]) file somewhere on the server (e.g. at http://www.explainxkcd.com/xkcdinfo.php) and [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Interwiki#Adding_a_new_website_for_interwiki_linking include it in MediaWiki's interwiki table] (ensuring iw_trans == 1):
<pre>INSERT INTO interwiki (iw_prefix, iw_url, iw_local, iw_trans) VALUES ('xkcdinfo', 'http://www.explainxkcd.com/xkcdinfo.php?input=$1', 0, 1);</pre>
::::After [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:$wgEnableScaryTranscluding enabling scary transclusion] in LocalSettings.php, you'd then be able to send queries to the xkcd JSON API via this file. In other words, <code><nowiki>{{xkcdinfo:32-title}}</nowiki></code> would make comic 32's title appear. <code><nowiki>{{xkcdinfo:55-alt}}</nowiki></code> would make comic 55's image text appear. I've also set it so you could enter <code><nowiki>{{xkcdinfo:100-embed}}</nowiki></code>, and it would make the comic 100 image appear on the wiki page. Feel free to use it however you want (if at all), and modify the code should you wish. (Hint: Using the number 0 for the comic number will query the most recent comic, so <code><nowiki>{{xkcdinfo:0-num}}</nowiki></code> will return the current comic number. Also, adding "raw:" before "xkcdinfo:" might be more useful in some instances. E.g.: <code><nowiki>{{raw:xkcdinfo:555-title}}</nowiki></code>)--[[User:Yirba|Yirba]] ([[User talk:Yirba|talk]]) 14:50, 2 August 2012 (EDT)

::::: Nice idea, altough this would mean to load all data from xkcd whenever a page is <del>viewed</del><ins>edited</ins> (I think this is the way MediaWiki caches the data). This is a lot of traffic for little data. I'd say to include the metadata statically, but linking the external image seems a good thing to me. Again, it'd be great if you gave me feedback for [[User:SlashMe/Testpage|my idea]]. --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 15:54, 2 August 2012 (EDT)

::::::Yes, the data would be loaded from xkcd for each edit. You can, however, substitute (subst) the template for data that is unlikely to change. And therefore the data would indeed be stored statically. I like the layout you've come up with. It could perhaps do with a bit of tweaking here and there, but the general idea is good. --[[User:Yirba|Yirba]] ([[User talk:Yirba|talk]]) 17:16, 2 August 2012 (EDT)

::::::: What kind of tweaking do you mean? I know the code is a bit messy, if you have a better idea, please tell me (or do it yourself - hey, it's a wiki!). The CSS should be placed in an external file, but for now, it's ok. --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 17:51, 2 August 2012 (EDT)

Looks like there is another/newer template called [[Template:Comic]] that includes prev/next buttons as well.
You add it with:
<pre>{{comic
| number = 1
| date = September 30, 2005
| title = {{PAGENAME}}
| image = barrel_cropped_(1).jpg
| imagesize =
| alttext = Don't we all.
}}

Moved from [[User talk:Jeff]]. --~~~~
==Description==
xxxxxxxxxxx
</pre>
No need to include the alt text separately, as the template does it for you. It also includes the comic category, but only if the first 4 fields are filled out.
--[[User:Bpothier|B. P.]] ([[User talk:Bpothier|talk]]) 18:47, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

: Yes, but that is not necessarily an advantage. My template only creates the infobox, so you are still able to create an introductory text or other sections, for special comics that need a more detailed description. I can also add categories if needed. --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 19:02, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

::I think it is a major advantage to make the thing easier to use and more consistant site-wide.

::As the creator of the new one, I'm obviously biased, but I created it because I think it's better. Not putting your work down, it was a great piece of code that I put to work in my template. But I think if there's need for pre-text of any kind (not sure there is, as the articles probably should all open with the comic itself as presented on XKCD), a pre-comment can be added into the template, but I'm not sure what that would be. Perhaps there would be a requirement for special circumstances like the comic a few weeks ago where there were a million iterations depending on locality, browser, etc. But that's the rarity. I think the new one simplifies it for users. They need only one template to post the comic, alt text title and nav buttons. What could be easier? [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 19:08, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

::: As the creator of the other one, I'm equally biased. What about a "main template", which then calls one or two other templates (e.g. one for the infobox, another for image and alt text? For most comics, this main template could be used, but if absolutely needed, it would still be possible to use the underlying templates with custom sections/text. --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 19:15, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

::::I just now saw your request for feedback on your new comic page with the sidebar. I honestly am not sure which format is better. I kind of like my format for the fact that it basically presents the comic as it was originally posted, but your infobox does provide some additional stuff like 3D link (not sure what "news" is, of where the "link" comes from but...) Perhaps we could integrate the two. I like that the comic is visble right away on my template, but on your page it's down below the first header. I don't think the comic itself needs an "image" heading. No disrespect, but I think your sidebar, esp. because of the "news" field is a bit chunky - too wide for most of its content.

::::I think we could easily add things like a "3d" link into {{tl|comic}} as part of the next/prev bar where a "3D" field in the template is non-blank. Similarly, original title could read something like (Originally titled: xxxxx) below the primary title in a smaller font. Other than the "link" and "news" fields (which again, I'm not sure what they are), I think that would inclde all the same info as your infobox into my template. Thoughts?

::::As to your other comment about compartmentalizing the template, I have nothing against that, but which parts of the template would you want to be able to use separately (and can you suggest an example where that might be necessary?) Subdividing the template can always be done later if it becomes needed; just trying to get an idea of what you have in mind by compartmentalizing it. Cheers [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 19:43, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

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

{{outdent|::::}}

''Suggestion:''

* I will start by uploading all images. This will take some time and has no points to discuss. (If it has, tell me.) At a later point, maybe we could link them directly from xkcd.com.
* For the comic pages: Let's say we'll use {{tl|Comic}}. I'll change the arguments of the template to be more like my {{tl|Infobox comic}}, see [[Template:Infobox comic#Arguments|documentation]]. I'll keep the ''alttext'' argument, but make ''image'' optional (file name should be guessed from the title). Do we really need ''imagesize''?
* {{tl|Comic}} would then call some further templates, passing the appropriate arguments. This way, we are able to use custom sections/text if needed for special comics (like [http://xkcd.com/1037/ Umwelt]) by using these templates instead of the all-in-one {{tl|Comic}}.
* Since we have one template doing all the work, we can easily change the page layout even after the import. (We should only keep track of the pages that don't use {{tl|Comic}}, using a hidden category)
* For consistency, I would move all existing pages out of the way and re-create them. The moved pages could be collected by adding them to a category like [[:Category:legacy pages]], so they should easily be found. Descriptions should be moved to the new pages, afterwards the legacy pages can be deleted.

This way, I can import all comics, but we would still be able to change the layout afterwards. My 2ct concerning page layout:
* <del>'''Use comic titles as page names.'''</del><ins>(See below)</ins> The title should be prominent, the number will be in the infobox.
* I'll remove ''Original title'', ''news'' and ''link'' from the infobox and move them to a section after the description. (For details, see [[Template:Infobox_comic#Documentation|here]])
* suggested layout:
<pre>
=====page title=====
+--------------------+ +---------+
| | | infobox |
| image | | text |
|(no section heading)| | |
| | | |
| | +---------+
+--------------------+
==alt==
text
==description==
text
==transcript==
text
==original title, news and link== (if available)
text
</pre>

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

:It might make more sense to use the comic number as the page title, and then use [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:$wgAllowDisplayTitle DISPLAYTITLE] to make the comic title appear in place of the number. Just putting that out as another possibility. --[[User:Yirba|Yirba]] ([[User talk:Yirba|talk]]) 09:49, 4 August 2012 (EDT)
::Good point, I agree. --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 09:54, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

If anyone wants to use it, I've written a bot [http://pastebin.com/5F877BHE] that can upload images, create redirect pages, and create comic pages. You can change the format it uses for the comic page if you have some knowledge of python. To use it, look at [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Pywikipediabot/Quick_Start_Guide]. --[[User:Cyanfish|Cyanfish]] ([[User talk:Cyanfish|talk]]) 10:56, 4 August 2012 (EDT)
:Sorry, I was faster. I'm using [http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/mwclient/ mwclient], and I already uploaded all images. I could also create pages and redirects, but I'm waiting until we have a consent. --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 11:02, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

::A few thoughts: if you start uploading images, but don't create the comic pages with them, a user going to create a new comic page isn't going to know whether or not the comic image has already been uploaded. This could be confusing. Hopefully the uploads are going to be named the same as the original images? (when I do upload, I actually just paste the URL in my "browse" box and upload directly from my browsers cache that way so it works out), but I just want to avoid duplicating images on the server as well as wasting time by trying to upload something that's already there.

::As to the page layout, I'm still of the view that the transcript should be in a collapsed frame so that it doesn't take up half the article. I don't honestly think that most people are coming to read the transcript. I could be wrong tho. Open to opinions on that. Otherwise, I do like transcript AFTER The explanation (also, the heading "explanation" vs. "description" as mentioned in another discussion in the portal. [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 14:09, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

:::PS: We definately need imagesize. It defaults to full size, but I think we definately need the optional argument for large comics. Remembering that this is a wiki to explain the comics, there are many large comics that ought to be restricted to a smaller size for the page (they can be clicked to enlarge - the template automatically creates a "click to enlarge" link if imagesize is used). I have generally been using a 375 or 400px size for keeping larger comics managable, but sometimes it's a comic-dependant decision. Also, notwithstanding my comment on another thread, even though I agree that the xkcd commentary is actually "title text", just as a side note, I've just noticed that the transcripts for older comics actually do call it "alt text") [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 15:40, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
:::: As long as no one has any objections, this header looks awesome (with ImageSize as TheHYPO suggested), so feel free to work on the importation functionality. Let me know if you need anything from me in order to import from the Wordpress side of things. If we start talking importation, lets move that conversation under a different header. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 15:56, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

=== Date format ===

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

== Displaying Comics {{done|Closed}}==

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

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

Go to [[User:Grep/comicbox]] and [[User:Grep/comicbox2]] for examples. --[[User:Grep|grep]]:[[User_talk:Grep|talk]]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=p&f=ex_grep applaud]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=c&f=ex_grep smite]
:Those're wonderful! And should probably be on the main page. If you wanted, we could probably incorporate them (and maybe a third?) into a single template with a "square/vertical or horizontal" switch. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 21:36, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
::Also, you used "comicbox" for the class. Is that a class that's defined somewhere? (And if so, where?) --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 21:36, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
:::Good point. Removed. And merging them sounds wonderful. --[[User:Grep|grep]]:[[User_talk:Grep|talk]]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=p&f=ex_grep applaud]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=c&f=ex_grep smite]
::::Maybe merging them into [[Template:comicbox]]? --[[User:Grep|grep]]:[[User_talk:Grep|talk]]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=p&f=ex_grep applaud]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=c&f=ex_grep smite]
:::::I think classes are defined at [[MediaWiki:Common.css]], so if you really wanted to define the class.... And [[Template:Comicbox]] would probably be best. Did you want to merge them or should I take a look at it? --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 22:25, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
::::::ParserFunctions and any sort of non-XMLish markup is weird. I would rather you look at it. --[[User:Grep|grep]]:[[User_talk:Grep|talk]]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=p&f=ex_grep applaud]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=c&f=ex_grep smite]
:::::::Okay, I've moved your templates to {{tl|Comicbox square or vertical}} and {{tl|Comicbox horizontal}} so I can work on {{tl|Comicbox}} as the main one. It may take a while - I like to think of myself as a "[[wikipedia:Category:User template coder|master of all known wikimarkup]]," but I don't actually use those skills that often. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 23:08, 2 August 2012 (EDT)
::::::::Thanks. --[[User:Grep|grep]]:[[User_talk:Grep|talk]]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=p&f=ex_grep applaud]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=c&f=ex_grep smite]
:::::::::I've made it at {{tl|Comicbox}}. This actually leaves {{tl|Comicbox square or vertical}} and {{tl|Comicbox horizontal}} unused, though I credited you (and them) in a comment at the top of the template. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 00:21, 3 August 2012 (EDT)
::::::::::I think that the explanation should be on the right because it just looks weird as is... --[[User:Grep|grep]]:[[User_talk:Grep|talk]]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=p&f=ex_grep applaud]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=c&f=ex_grep smite]
{{outdent}} Sure. But right now they both look like they're on the bottom? --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 20:02, 3 August 2012 (EDT)
:{{done|Fixed}} --[[User:Grep|grep]]:[[User_talk:Grep|talk]]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=p&f=ex_grep applaud]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=c&f=ex_grep smite]

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

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

== comic header ==

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

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

:Again, may I link to <del>[[User talk:Jeff#Automatic Import|my request for feedback]]</del>? --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 15:52, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

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

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

== Bylines ==
In the migration from blog to wiki, I noticed a few things:
# Visitors still seem to assume there's a single, ''invisible other'' that provides the explanations; this might be a carryover from the blog days when Jeff was the author of that content, or it may be newcomers not familiar with the license-to-create a wiki offers. You see it in comments that call out corrections, without the corrections actually being made to the explanations. Usually a more savvy editor swings in, makes the fix, and chimes in on the comments.
# There's no visual cue on the page itself to disabuse a novice of that fact. Sure, wikiphiles will check the history; but aside from that the novice has is left in the dark, and certainly isn't led to the conclusion that they, too, can contribute to the explanation.
To that end, I was wondering: why not put a {{tl|byline}} on each explanation, and give credit where credit is due? I know Waldir wanted to "gamify" the wiki a bit. I don't know that I'd go ''that'' far, but putting bylines does kill a few birds by raising awareness of the democratic approach to explanations, and giving kudos to the contributor(s). I've prototyped it (and of course, it's subject to revision) but here's how it would work:
* '''<nowiki>{{byline|you}}</nowiki>''' produces {{byline|you}}
* '''<nowiki>{{byline|you|me}}</nowiki>''' produces {{byline|you|me}}
* '''<nowiki>{{byline|you|me|someone else}}</nowiki>''' produces {{byline|you|me|someone else}}
* More concretely, '''<nowiki>{{byline|Jeff|Waldir|IronyChef|Blaisepascal}}</nowiki>''' produces {{byline|Jeff|Waldir|IronyChef|Blaisepascal}}
(in general, the parameters are the usernames, up to about 5 or six contributors, for now.) Was thinking about having the content be automatically turned into wiki-links, but left that out while we think it over. Thotz? -- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 04:22, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
:: How would we indicate who is in the byline? The person who created the page? The person who edited the most characters? Would it be a combination of all the names? --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 14:32, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
:::I have to say, it sounds contrary to the whole wiki premise. I agree with you that there does seem to be a bit of a learning curve here, but I don't know if "crediting" the explanations is the right solution. How much editing does one have to do to get credit on an article? You might get people who want to edit just to get credits, and credits over time could get relatively lengthy. [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 14:41, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

== Template improvement suggestion ==

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

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

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

:What does everyone thing of this as a better layout? [[Blown Apart]] [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 13:09, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

::May I link to <del>[[User talk:Jeff#Automatic Import|my request for feedback]]</del>? --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 15:52, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

Moved from [[Talk:Main Page]]. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 00:44, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

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

== Transcripts ==

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

: What about putting the transcripts at the bottom of the page?
: BTW: If you agree, this discussion should be moved to [[Explain XKCD:Community portal]], as [[User:Waldir|Waldir]] suggested. At least for new discussions. --[[User:SlashMe|SlashMe]] ([[User talk:SlashMe|talk]]) 19:19, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

::No problem there. Feel free to move it. [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 19:29, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

:::How about having it be collapsed, with the option to expand it (TOC-like)? -- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 04:25, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Moved from [[Talk:Main Page]]. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 00:47, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

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

== Adding a new comic ==

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

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

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

I (currently) insert using the "Comic" template:
<pre>
{{comic
| number = 1
| date = September 30, 2005
| title = {{PAGENAME}}
| image = barrel_cropped_(1).jpg
| imagesize =
| alttext = Don't we all.
}}
==Transcript==
This is the transcript from xkcd
==Description==
Wow what a cool comic!
</pre>

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

I "Save page".

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

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

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

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

Moved from [[Talk:Main Page]]. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 00:47, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

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

== styling of xkcd links ==

I added code to the end of [[MediaWiki:Common.css]] to style links to the xkcd website as http://xkcd.com rather than the regular external link format, http://example.com. What do you guys think? --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 05:06, 4 August 2012 (EDT)
:I like it generally. Is there a way to force it to not display on individual pages, though? I don't think we should have it at [[Explain XKCD:Copyrights]], {{tl|XKCD file}}, or {{tl|XKCD file derived}}, as they are more serious. --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 16:27, 4 August 2012 (EDT)
::Sure. I've disabled it on those pages, feel free to add more as you see fit. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 17:22, 4 August 2012 (EDT)
:::Thanks! --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 18:34, 4 August 2012 (EDT)
:I like the idea of the graphic, too, but wonder if it could be muted a bit (medium gray vs black) so it recedes a bit into the background; the classic graphic is a very light blue for that reason, too. (Oh, and a minor quibble... overheard: "who is that short, bearded dude?" "Oh! That's megan?") ... I don't know how we could update it, and maybe it'll be less of an issue when muted... Thotz? -- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 14:16, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
::The image can be updated by uploading new versions of [[File:xkcd favicon.png]]. It doesn't need to be the xkcd.com favicon; in fact, it would be good if we could make it even smaller (e.g. just cueball's head, or simply "xkcd" in the typical handwritten font, etc). Making it dimmer also seems like a good idea, btw. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 19:38, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

== 'Explanation' rather than 'Description' ==

Can I suggest we use the heading "Explanation" rather than "Description" on the comic pages, since that fits with the name of the wiki? --[[User:SurturZ|SurturZ]] ([[User talk:SurturZ|talk]]) 09:20, 5 August 2012 (EDT)
:Agreed. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 14:27, 5 August 2012 (EDT)
::Seconded [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 14:04, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

== Allow external inline images ==

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

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

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

== Latest comic handling ==

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

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

But we cannot have, with that system, an automatic "Edit" link (to edit the latest comic) on the main page, nor can we have automatically the comments associated with that latest comic. The former was {{diff|5587|changed to a "Go to this comic" link}}, and the latter was {{diff|4940|removed}}. I think both of them are really useful things to have on the main page.

I've been thinking a little bit about this, and in the end I suggest that we handle manually the latest comic :
* There would be a single {{tl|latest comic}} template, which would have to be updated manually to return the full title of the latest comic's page (such as "1092: Michael Phelps").
* Next to the "Latest comic" header, on the front page, would be appended a "[update]" link, to a page explaining that to insert the new latest comic in the wiki: one needs to 1/ create a page titled "<number>: <title>" and 2/ update the {{tl|latest comic}} template with the new title.
* The "Edit this explanation" link could be put back on the main page, using something like <code><nowiki>[{{fullurl:{{latest comic}}|action=edit}} '''Edit this explanation''']</nowiki></code>. And I firmly believe that link is important. ({{diff|5598|*this*}} for instance is exactly what I'm talking about)
* The comments to the latest comic could be appended under the latest comic's transclusion, with something like <code><nowiki>{{ {{TALKPAGENAME: {{latest comic}} }} }}</nowiki></code>. They could be in a collapsible area if they take too much space. Same here than about the edit link, I believe that's really important to impel/motivate readers to leave their comments as well.
* Finally, when only the number is needed (such as in the computation of the number of missing explanations), this could be done via another template (for instance {{tl|latest comic number}}), automatic this time, which would replace the current {{tl|LATESTCOMIC}} by extracting the value out of {{tl|latest comic}} (with something like <code><nowiki>{{#explode:{{latest comic}}|:}}</nowiki></code>).

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

What do you think?

[[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 16:53, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
:Quick interjection in the middle of this larger posting, but I've been playing around with a template that should radically simplify the exhaustive and expensive logic used by {{tl|LATESTCOMIC}} by using date math. It's been simmering in my test kitchen, and I'm fairly sure it's robust enough to roll out... just one thing: it would be much more efficient if we had the Variables extension (ie, ADMIN REQUEST) else there would be a lot of duplicate recalculation of the date. Not terrible, but not as good as it could be. See {{tl|LatestComicOnDate}} and the associated talk page for the guts of it. -- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 04:14, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

:A few considerations:
:* We can instead add the edit link directly to the comic page. It could be generated by the {{tl|comic}} template, which already has to be provided with both the number and the title of the comic (in fact those could even be automatically extracted from the page title with some [[mw:Extension:StringFunctions|string parsing functions]] or {{w|Template:Str number/trim|clever}} {{w|Template:Remove first word|templates}}). This should solve the "edit this comic" link issue.
:* Actually, the discussion part was hidden from the main page on purpose (although for a different reason: it was transcluding the main page's own talk page instead). I am not sure it's a good idea to include it in the main page as it could clutter it, but I can understand the point of putting it there. I would suggest perhaps including it directly rather than inside the {{tl|comic discussion}} box, as that would create a box on a box layout that I don't think would look too good. Note that there is no problem with needing the pagename here, since we can transclude a redirect (the same way the actual comic page is transcluded using only the number, which is a redirect).
:* I did see that edit and was thinking that we could probably display a custom info message whenever someone attempts to edit main page, so they'll know they ''can'' edit the actual comic page. I'll add that to my todo list.
:* Mediawiki itself will tell us when a potentially expensive parser function is being used too much, by placing the corresponding page in [[:Category:Pages with too many expensive parser function calls]]. So we don't need to be concerned with {{w|premature optimization}} :)
:--[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 19:16, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

::The edit link can be displayed, specifically on the main page, by the {{tl|comic}} template, that is true; it just seems wrong to me however, it's not his job to do so...
::As for the comments, they cannot be displayed by the template (unless we put them before the explanation), so we still don't have a solution for them; and I still believe they would be very useful on the main page, very appealing for readers to come and comment as well.
::So, problem still not solved I would say... - [[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 16:27, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

::: I don't see the problem with {{tl|comic}} displaying the edit link on the main page, especially since you consider using it to display the discussion as well (which, I agree, unfortunately isn't possible)
::: I added the discussion to the main page. It will depend on a redirect being created for the talk page as well every time a new comic is released, but it doesn't make it any harder. Compare:
:::# Create comic page at <nowiki>[[123: title]]</nowiki>
:::# Update <nowiki>{{latest comic}}</nowiki>
:::# Redirect <nowiki>[[123]] to [[123: title]]</nowiki> (it's necessary to allow people to get to the comic with only the number)
:::with:
:::# Create comic page at <nowiki>[[123: title]]</nowiki>
:::# Redirect <nowiki>[[123]] to [[123: title]]</nowiki>
:::# Redirect <nowiki>[[Talk:123]] to [[Talk:123: title]]</nowiki>
:::Therefore, I don't see a strong case for creating the <nowiki>{{latest comic}}</nowiki> template. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 20:31, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
:::
::::You're right, the two systems are equivalent in use; but then is there a strong case to keep the current one against using the one I suggested?
::::Currently we cannot get an "add a comment" link on the main page, and to put the "edit this explanation" banner below the explanation one has to put it on the comic page (and manually remove it once the comic is not the latest any more). And when there is no comments yet, the main page displays a weird red link (transclusion of the redirect page to a non-existant page) instead of displaying (for instance) a nice "''No comments yet''".
::::True, the {{tl|comic}} template could be used to, specifically on the main page, display something like "view page - edit - add a comment" on top-right, but that doesn't solve all these issues, and then the links wouldn't be at their ideal place. And one could argue that all the features I'm speaking about are not absolutely necessary, but I still think it would be better at least.
::::All in all, I can live with the current system, but I still believe a manually updated <nowiki>{{latest comic}}</nowiki> would allow, without cost, to set a better layout of content, navigation links and edit/comment links.
::::[[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 16:46, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
::::
:::*I am in agreement that the goal should be to have the ability to comment directly onto the main page for the current comic.
::::Can all pages be formatted to look like the main page (ie header with number of comics explained/remaining and the 3 paragraphs at the end describing the site).
::::If this could be done (I don't think it would clutter the site as these take up very little space even on the main page), then could we just redirect the main page to the comic with the highest number? The function of the main page would not change as a new user would still see all information currently available on the main page, but it would have the added benefit of sending visitors to the desired location (the fully functional current comic page).
::::[[User:Shine|Shine]] ([[User talk:Shine|talk]]) 17:23, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

== How to reference strips? ==

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

# "[[29: Hitler|Hitler]]" [quotes not linked]
# [[29: Hitler|"Hitler"]] [quotes linked]
# [[29: Hitler|Comic #29]]
# [[29: Hitler|#29]]
# [[29: Hitler]]
# "[[29: Hitler|Hitler]]" (29)
# "[[29: Hitler|Hitler]]" (#29)

etc.

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

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

== Sidebar icons ==

Hi all. I hope you'll forgive my enthusiasm but I went ahead and implemented an icon theme for the sidebar (as well as more spacing between the links, for extra breathing room). What do you guys think of it? --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 21:45, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
:I like it, but I'm not sure where you added them. Was that on a MediaWiki: page or one of the .css pages? --''[[User:Philosopher|Philosopher]]'' [[User talk:Philosopher|Let us reason together.]] 01:39, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
::Both :) [[Mediawiki:Common.css]] --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 09:07, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

== Cueball/Rob ==

I noticed someone edited the character template to add an article for "[[Rob]]". I thought this might have just been a vandal edit, but I googled 'xkcd Rob' and discovered that indeed, a Cueball chracter has been referenced as Rob in several strips. Is there a reason Cueball hasn't been designated officially "Rob" just as [[Megan]] has been designated Megan by being named in a few strips? Do we have reason to believe that other Cueballs are non-Rob characters? PS: this might not be the right place for this discussion, but I'm not sure if anyone is reading article discussion pages at this point yet, and I thought that the name of the primary character might be a notable issue of discussion [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 14:07, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
:: I'm unclear on this as well. Cueball was just a name made up (I think here on this site) for the main character of the comic. Are there separate characters for Cueball and Rob? I'm not sure. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 15:52, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
:::I know that "Cueball" has now been severely grandfathered in, but I think we have to consider moving [[Cueball]] over to [[Rob]] and basically considering the Cueball character to be "Rob", in the same way as Megan, unless it's clear that the character isn't Rob, since Cueball, as noted, is not an official title. I'm somewhat leaning in this direction.

:::I do see some leakage of the term "Cueball" into other sites via a google search including xkcd forums. In the alternatively, I would suggest mentioning in the Cueball article that he has been referred to as "Rod" in some comics, but due to his lack of distinguishing physical traits, it is not always clear if a comic is depicting Rod, or a different character. [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]])
::::I have to agree with this. When I first heard about the page on "Rob", I was a bit skeptical, as I couldn't recall hearing the name before and the page was ridiculous at the time. However, after looking him up to try and verify the page, I found a number of "Cueball" characters that were referred to as "Rob", officially (and even an instance where the transcript referred to the character as "Rob" when the comic didn't mention a name). TL; DR: The character we've all called "Cueball" seems to be more properly known as "Rob". {{User:Omega/sig}} 22:46, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
:::::{{explain|285|Citation needed...}} I, for one, would oppose the migration away from Cueball.
:::::# {{w|xkcd|Wikipedia}} has been silent on the matter, giving no more credibility to the apellation than Cueball.
:::::# Transcripts in xkcd typically (granted, with a few exceptions) refer to the various stick figures as Person 1, etc. Frequently, there are several stick figures, all essentially the same generic stick-figure shape. Rob is a specific proper noun, and it would be silly to suggest that each stick figure is named Rob. Cueball, on the other hand, while filling the role of a proper noun, is still generic enough to suggest the any-man nature of the figures. It is descriptive more than nominative.
:::::# Local color. That's part of what distinguishes this site from others, and part of why I've been coming back. I for one would be sad to see that replaced with MacDonalds-like sameness. I ''might'' reconsider if RM's About page definitively said "his name is Rob"... but only reluctantly.
:::::So -1 on the proposition to migrate away from Cueball. -- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 04:55, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

::::::To respond to your points, #1, Wikipedia is not official or a primary source; it's a community edit encyclopedia like this one. If you'd like me to go over there and reference "Rob", then all of a sudden Wikipedia will say Rob. Wikipedia isn't the source of credibility for xkcd imo. #2 is interesting, and I take it as a fair point (I'm not suggesting that in every case we see a Cueball it is the same character) but my interest here is consistency. Megan appears in many comic strips where she is listed as "person 2" in the transcript, such as [[1084]]. Should she be given a generic name other than where she is named (Cuebelle?) Similarly for #3, Megan is not refernced on the xkcd About page; it's about consistency. I understand color and such, but to an extent, when you take something that's a blog and turn it into a wiki style pseudo-encyclopedia, one of the casualties sometimes is color. It became inappropriate to use phrases like "I think" in explanations just because of the way the articles are perceived. In the same way, consistency is something that I think is important when going to this style format. [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 14:26, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
::::::::::Just want to insert here that I laughed at "Cubelle" above, but though I enjoyed it, I'd have to say the visual similarity to Cueball would likely cause confusion. Props for the suggestion, though.--[[User:DanB|DanB]] ([[User talk:DanB|talk]]) 18:51, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
:::::::* Agreed that Wikipedia is not official or primary, but it is ''de-facto'' (it's likely more linked-to than even xkcd.com is on this site, for some reason.) That standing gives it a level of authority no other site has except the source itself. And agreed, one could very easily go and add Rob, or Cueball, or some other designation to the character(s). But nobody to date has (or, if they have, it may very likely have been reverted, being subject to that evolutionary force Wikipedia in aggregate exerts on subjects there, on needing to be noteworthy.) So while not an absolute authority, it caries a gravitas that other than xkcd itself, no other site really posesses on the matter, and so far, it (the collective body of contributors) has not deemed it important to settle the matter.
:::::::* I'm also not altogether convinced that, in transmogrification from blog to wiki, it necessarily follows that we must become more Wiki''pedia''-like. The medium has afforded a democratization of information here, but not a requirement that information lose its local flavor to become some dessicated academic dissertation. "I think" is, in my opinion, as valid here as it always was, and mediawiki doesn't necessarily impose otherwise.
:::::::* As for consistency, it serves its purpose, but generally I'm not one to be ruled by hobgoblins.
:::::::Anyway, the foregoing being only my opinion, and having express it, I leave it at that. Other minds may differ. -- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 02:30, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
::::::::It seems to me that this discussion has moved away from Cueball/Rob, and perhaps is deserving of it's own section now. When this site was a blog, and not a wiki, there was a clear separation between Jeff's explanations in the main body of the post, and the comments below. For the most part, Jeff wrote in an "editorial voice", and I don't recall a lot of "I think", "In my opinion", etc in the main posting (there was an occasional "I don't get this, can anyone explain it?", but that's clearly different). I know, at least, I've tried to maintain that color here: in the main page, editorial voice; in the discussion section (included at the bottom of every page, usually), personal voice. I think that works well. In my opinion, I think that "I think" and "In my opinion" have no place where it's not clear who the speaker is. The main pages are group edited, and have no identified speaker, so I wouldn't put it there. [[User:Blaisepascal|Blaisepascal]] ([[User talk:Blaisepascal|talk]]) 02:53, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
:::::::::I concur that Wikipedia has ''some'' gravitas over any other site, and there is a reason it has links here (it is easier to link to an existing encyclopedia article on {{w|quantum physics}} than to start from scratch explaining it here. But in the same way that this may soon be a "wikipedia" for all things xkcd, that still doesn't make explainxkcd official. It may be considered a more reliable source of information than some random blogger, but that doesn't make it an official source. Wikipedia, notably, doesn't call Cueball anything. If it called him Cueball, that would be one thing - the name would have pervaded culture outside this website; but Wikipedia takes no position; I don't see how we can take Wikipedia's failure to reference the character at all and use this as a rationale to make any decision on this site one way or another.
:::::::::I will respond to BlaisePascal's editorial voice comment in a new section [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 15:40, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

== Default color? ==

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

: As a color blind user of explainxkcd, I'd like to put in a vote to up the contrast between visited and not links on the wiki. It doesn't need to be much, but more than it is now would be infinitely helpful. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 21:21, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

::Has this gone anywhere? I still find it hard to see the visited links (they now simply look like the rest of the text). And the unvisited links are hard to focus on. I'm not sure I can explain it any better. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 20:25, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

== Comments ==

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

== Editorial Voice ==

:''This section is split off in response to a comment by [[user:Blaisepascal]] in the Cueball/Rob discussion above.
I concur with Blaisepascal on the editorial voice issue. "first person" has no place in a wiki, as there is no single editor to be "I". I have a recollection that when the wiki started, Jeff said something about how in moving to a wiki, he had attempted to edit most of the explanations that has been moved over to remove most of the first-person references, but he invited others to continue this where he missed them. I can't, however, find this reference anywhere anymore. Assuming I am not making this up in my own mind, it's Jeff's site, so I think his style wishes are paramount.

I agree that most of the personal references on explainxkcd are things like "let's see if I get this right" or "Did I miss something?" or general bloggish comments like sorry I'm late to post; but there are other posts such as [http://www.explainxkcd.com/2010/10/18/connected/ this one] in which part of Jeff's post was: "''This is another one of those xkcd's that I classify as "emo". [...] Since there is nothing to explain here, [...] I'll wait for the next comic that makes a joke about Lord of the Rings and wormholes or something''" when moved over here.

The wiki format changes the nature of the explanations. It makes them no longer one person's opinion on the meaning of a comic. It is now a wiki where members of the public will aim to have a complete and accurate explanation built from many editors' thoughts and corrections. I don't think the articles need have encyclopedic definity. I have no issue with phrases like "it appears" or "it may be" where something is ambiguous, but "I think" or "I did a Google search" are not wikipropriate. [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 15:44, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

:For the most part I completely agree. But I think that the explanations should not be boring. Even without personal pronouns, many of them have a congenial tone, not an overbearing one.

:For example, when I brought over [[1030: Keyed]], I took out the personal pronouns, but I left in the comment "Oh Beret Guy, never change." I started coming to the site, in part, because of the tone. I think that that should be preserved despite the inherent non-oneness of the wiki. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 22:08, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

:: But the tone should not reflect individuals' tastes. Let the reader decide. --[[User:Smartin|Smartin]] ([[User talk:Smartin|talk]]) 04:47, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

== Discussion comments link? ==

*Does anyone else think that the {{tl|comic discussion}} template should have an argument added for some way to display a link to the comments section of the original blog posts for older comics? [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 15:48, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
**I'm not sure that it would always be clear what the comments are referring to since the explanation may differ from the original.-[[User:Shine|Shine]] ([[User talk:Shine|talk]]) 21:21, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
***I hear you, and that's a valid point; but it seems a shame to just discard the upwards of a hundred comments that sometimes took place on the old blog. I guess it also matters whether [[User:Jeff]] intends to delete the blog version at some point given the wiki. If it is going to stay up, why not link to the archived comments? The original blog post would be viewable there as well, if there were any differences relevant to those comments. [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 14:03, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
*I would, however, like something to be done about the issue of new users finding the discussion section from the explain wiki main page. A suggestion I saw recently on the old site by rewq^ suggesting changing 'go to this comic' to 'comments' would solve the problem. I think it could also be changed to 'go to comments' - [[User:Shine|Shine]] ([[User talk:Shine|talk]]) 21:21, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

That's an inventive answer to an intesreting question

== LiveJournal content ==

I've noticed that people are putting content from Randall's LiveJournal account into comic articles here, which I think is good. But I'd like to make some style suggestions around that.

Let's look at {{explain|42}}. Now, until someone explicitly pointed it out, I had no idea xkcd started on a LiveJournal account, so comments like "Original quote" or "Original comment" or "Original title" were confusing to me. I had no idea the source of this information. Now that I know better, my suggestions are as follows:

# These shouldn't be listed as "trivia". This is official content. I would suggest perhaps this be included in a "Background" section with any other background info on the comic (e.g. for some recent comics, it might reference Randall's fiancée's health issues for relevant comics).
# This "Background" section contains official content and more official than the "Explanation". The Background section should therefore go first.
# The section should be written in prose, not point form. My sample replacement for the above article would be "this comic was originally posted on Randall's LiveJournal account with the comment "''No laughing, 'less you want some of this too! *hefts golf club menacingly*''". Randall listed his mood at the time as "sick". The comic was actually the Xth comic posted on the LiveJournal account, and was included out-of-order when it was numbered as part of ''xkcd''.
# I think [[LiveJournal]] should have a brief article about the original LJ account.
# I note that on other wiki's including, for example [http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Family_(episode) Memory alpha (example)] and on Wikipedia, they often have boxes showing the 'previous'/'next' things on a list (prev/next songs to hit #1 on different music charts, or prev/next tv episodes produced vs. aired). Should we give thought to creating a short sub-list of the Order comics were actually posted on the Livejournal so you can prev/next through that list?

Thoughts? [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 22:17, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

:I added most of the LJ related "Trivia" just to get it into the wiki. I think expanding it would be nice, but I'm a bit lazy :) I did add a new category for the LJ posts, so they should be easier to find. There are still a few that do not (that I can find) appear in LJ, so I left as "undated" - but added the undated category that someone else had created. I was also considering creating a list ordered by LJ posting order on the LJ category page (to be created) to at least preserve some of the nostalgia. Is there another pre-xkcd site besides LJ that posts might have appeared in? Or are these "undated" posts possibly others that were just lumped into the "early posts" on xkcd? --[[User:Bpothier|B. P.]] ([[User talk:Bpothier|talk]]) 21:05, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

::There are three undated comics that I found (and I noted them on the "big board" of all comics at [[list of all comics]]. If no one disagrees, I will start moving sections when I have time and creating any new sections as "Background" rather than "Trivia" where the sections relate to the history or backstory of the comic itself. [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 16:04, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
:::The three undated comics do not appear on LiveJournal, just on the xkcd.com site. Given that (a) all of the comics on LJ from before 2006-1-1 are dated 2006-1-1 on xkcd, (b) all the ones after are dated with the same dates as on LJ, and (c) the three undated comics appear in the middle of the pre-2006 comics on LJ, I suspect that [[Randall]] posted them to the xkcd site first, and as part of a batch of comics he posted to bootstrap the site. So it's entirely likely that the 2006-1-1 date is accurate. [[User:Blaisepascal|Blaisepascal]] ([[User talk:Blaisepascal|talk]]) 16:18, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

I added, in the "Trivia" section, a "thread" tying all the LJ comics together, in order. In doing so, I also added the half-dozen or so LJ comics not yet added. [[User:Blaisepascal|Blaisepascal]] ([[User talk:Blaisepascal|talk]]) 16:18, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

== Programmatically Accessing Comics ==

I think there should be a way for other websites to view* explanations, (discussions?), etc programmatically.

This could be used for the [http://explainxkcd.com front page], or a website wanting to show an explanation of a comic that is always up-to-date and correct, etc.

<nowiki>*</nowiki> I wrote view, but it could also be edit.

--[[User:Grep|grep]]:[[User_talk:Grep|talk]]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=p&f=ex_grep applaud]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=c&f=ex_grep smite]

:This could be done with json responses to individual pages including the current explanation for that comic. Similar to how the xkcd json api works now. I don't know if that is feasible in php though. I'm currently on a RoR craze though, so maybe there's an easier and less over-engineered solution I don't know about. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 17:18, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
::A cheap way out would be to have PHP page access the SQL DB and yank the necessary text from there. This could be useful for a naitive mobile app. Also, this site needs a mobile version. --[[User:Grep|grep]]:[[User_talk:Grep|talk]]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=p&f=ex_grep applaud]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=c&f=ex_grep smite]

== New Edit Explanation Image/Link (Introduced 9/22/12) ==

Some initial thoughts.
*Will this be a permanent part of each comic? I would not be in favor of each comic in the archives having this disclaimer/large repetitive image as part of the explanation. Instead, can this just be part of the most recent comic?
*The other issue I have is that main page now has one direct link to editing the explanation (the thing least done by users) and none to editing discussion/adding comments (the thing most done by users). I see that the talk page is now displayed on the main page, which I think is a good thing, but I hope that someone can also get the 'add a comment' link on the main page as well.
*In the end I feel there should be links for editing the explanation and adding comments/discussion on the main page and that these links should be proportional in size to their traffic by users (re the link for adding to the discussion should be equal to or larger than the link for the explanation).
--[[User:Shine|Shine]] ([[User talk:Shine|talk]]) 14:26, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

:A few pointers about that:
:* I introduced the "edit explanation" image/link below the explanation I gave for today's comic, mainly because I felt what I had written ''was'' indeed incomplete (I was lacking an explanation for the "[has only one review]" part and for the title text). So in a way that was some sort of calling for help with the explanation. And once done I thought it was a good idea to have a highly visible "edit" link for the latest comic explanation on the main page (''"so that people seeing something they could add would feel invited to do so (wiki style). In my opinion this would be a good way to improve the quality of the user-generated explanations"'', as I said [[Talk:Main Page#Direct link to latest comic|here]]).
:* Later on, I added the "may be incorrect" notion in the banner, because I saw that people having different explanations only mentioned them in the comments, instead of editing my explanation (which after all could be wrong). So I fear there's some sort of "we don't touch what has been done" effect, where the first explanation given will be more likely to stick and not be corrected by readers who are not used to the idea that they can edit it (actually, if someone has a better explanation than the one I put, I'd be happy to see it corrected!).
:* That edit banner should not be a permanent part of each comic. My opinion is that it should stay on the latest comic's page (even when the explanation could be considered complete) until there is a new comic, in order to invite as much people as possible to share their explanation; and it should also, of course, be on the comic pages for which the explanation is considered incomplete, for instance [[51: Malaria|this]] (empty) or [[46: Secrets|that]] (partial only).
:* It would be nice indeed to have also, on the main page, a direct link to add a comment (exactly like the one on [[1098: Star Ratings|the comic page]]), but that is currently not feasible automatically. This is one of the reasons why I suggested an other way to handle the latest comic (see [[#Latest comic handling]] above), which I actually still think would be better, and in particular which would allow to do all that (including the edit banner) nicely automatically from the main page.
:[[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 15:20, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

==Notice templates==
I would like to suggest a template for a notice saying "this page requires copy editing," and one saying "this page may be unclear in its meaning," or something of the sort for each. the comic posted on 8/22/12 could use both of these. (unsigned comment by [[User:Dave|Dave]] 19:11, 23 August 2012‎ )

:I agree. I discussed this matter with [[User:Blaisepascal]] in respect of his template {{tl|Incomplete}} on its talk page. I have updated that template to {{tl|Incomplete/beta1}} and created {{tl|ambox}} as a generic message box ''xkcd''-style where other message templates can be created and color coded like on wikipedia, such as the ones you suggest.

:Unfortunately, because of the image scaling issues, the ambox template displays two broken images at the moment which we agreed shouldn't replace the existing template until the images are unbroken. I'm not sure anyone is working on the image scaling problem, is one of the issues. In any event, I also don't see the point in creating other notice templates until the issue is fixed and we can use the standardized template. I'm really hoping someone is working on the image scaling problem... [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 16:36, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

:: I changed the template to use the {{tl|notice}} template that is already being used in several places. I'll delete {{tl|ambox}} as it's redundant, but the styling of {{tl|notice}} can be changed if such is desired. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 02:40, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

== Denoting comic "series" ==

There are several "series" of comics. Is there a better/prefered way of notating these? Currently I have been creating a "Category:Series Name", e.g. (not all of these exist yet)
* [Category:Comics featuring Barrel Boy](1-5) (Should this be just "Barrel Boy"?)
* [Category:Journal](1-5)
* [Category:The Race](1-5)
* [Category:My Hobby](random)
* [Category:1337](1-5)
* [Category:Choices](1-5)
* [Category:Parody Week](5 in this "series", but others fit the genre)
* [Category:Red Spiders](4 in this "genre", 2 explicitly numbered)
* [Category:Secretary](1-5)
* [Category:Five-Minute Comics](1-3)
* [Category: Guest Week](5 comics, but not exactly a "series").

I usually also create a REDIRECT of "Series Name" to "Category: Series Name"(breaks for "Journal", as it is also a comic title.
Should we have another meta-category for series comics? What about a [Series:Series Name] "category"? or does that break wiki? --[[User:Bpothier|B. P.]] ([[User talk:Bpothier|talk]]) 23:33, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

== Categories for Proposals Page ==

Maybe just simply two categories, resolved and unresolved? --[[User:Grep|grep]]:[[User_talk:Grep|talk]]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=p&f=ex_grep applaud]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=c&f=ex_grep smite]

Or stickers that say Open/Closed. --[[User:Grep|grep]]:[[User_talk:Grep|talk]]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=p&f=ex_grep applaud]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=c&f=ex_grep smite]

== Moving the Wiki {{done|Closed}}==

What if explainxkcd.com/wiki was move to explainxkcd.com and explainxkcd.com would be moved to explainxkcd.com/blog? --[[User:Grep|grep]]:[[User_talk:Grep|talk]]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=p&f=ex_grep applaud]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=c&f=ex_grep smite]

+1 (44)

-1 (0)

: That's my plan long term. That might make a lot of things like shortURL possible. Just have to get some time to get it sorted out. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 19:58, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
<hr />
Sorry if your votes don't appear immediately. I will have them update automatically soon. Hopefully. And if you clicked my signature wanting to +1 this page, sorry for the confusion. DanB and Lcarsos, your +1's have been added to the count. --[[User:Grep|grep]]:[[User_talk:Grep|talk]]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=p&f=ex_grep applaud]:[http://arthurmigdal.com/vote/vote.php?a=c&f=ex_grep smite]
:+1 from me. --[[User:DanB|DanB]] ([[User talk:DanB|talk]]) 14:36, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
:+1 as well. I keep hitting the blog when I mean to go to the wiki. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 15:00, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

== Chart type comics ==

Some comics (circuit diagram, US states,eyes sights, among others) are in a characteristic chart format- where it is all based around a chart of some kind or the other. Should we have a separate template for them, for the type of comics?

And somebody should actually create all the pages in the required format without explanations, so that other users can fill on the explanation. I can give explanations, but need somebody to make the pages first

[[User:TheOriginalSoni|TheOriginalSoni]] ([[User talk:TheOriginalSoni|talk]]) 17:05, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

:All the images have been uploaded, and a template exists at [[User:Blaisepascal/newcomictemplate]] that can be copied/pasted into a new comic page that just needs to be filled in. [[User:Lcarsos]] has written a [[User:Lcarsos#Ruby_importer_script|Ruby importer script]] that will create an almost-ready-to-upload page for you. All you need to do is fill in the explanation, proof-read, and add useful Wiki links. You don't need special privileges to create new pages.
:Personally, I find comic pages devoid of explanation counter to the intent of this site, and I try not to create them. If I put up a page, I try to make sure it has an explanation. [[User:Blaisepascal|Blaisepascal]] ([[User talk:Blaisepascal|talk]]) 18:22, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

:I agree with Blaisepascal. If a comic does not have an explanation its page should not exist so that it is easy to tell how much work there is left to be done. If suddenly all the pages are created, but none of them have explanations, a passing user won't know that there is still work to be done, and potentially won't pitch in to help complete the site.
:As far as charts go, be sure to tag them with [[:Category:Charts]] and I like to change the transcript into a wiki table format. Of course, if the page doesn't have a transcript section then be sure you get the transcript from xkcd's json api (There is information about how to work it in [[explain xkcd:Community portal/Coordination#Issue dates]], as well as my [[User:Lcarsos#Ruby Importer scipt|Ruby script]] pulls in the transcript if it exists. You're still on your own to get the explanation from the blog (I'm working on that)).
:[[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 18:57, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

== New Categories ==
(cut from Chart Type Comics section above, as seems new topic) [[User:Blaisepascal|Blaisepascal]] ([[User talk:Blaisepascal|talk]]) 00:14, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Ok. Also, add a new section for proposing templates. We can have a very varied range of templates, like 'Comics with Black Hat', 'Comics with Raptor reference' etc... That will provide a useful ground for comparision of the most common themes [[User:TheOriginalSoni|TheOriginalSoni]] ([[User talk:TheOriginalSoni|talk]]) 16:44, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
:From context, I assume that by "templates", you mean "categories"? [[User:Blaisepascal|Blaisepascal]] ([[User talk:Blaisepascal|talk]]) 18:00, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

:I think you'd benefit from taking a gander at [[:Category:Comics by featured characters]] and [[:Category:Comics by topic]]. I think we're still debating what to do about comics with actual people in them. But that will get you a good start. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 21:55, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

:: I'd be okay with creating a [[:Category:Comics featuring real people]] and including sub-categories for Cory Doctorow, the Firefly cast, RMS, Ron Paul, and other recurring real-life people.
:: But then, my general philosophy is more links, more pages, more explanation the better. One-shot fictional characters (like ponytail-Sarah in [[84: National Language]]) probably don't need their own category/page, though.[[User:Blaisepascal|Blaisepascal]] ([[User talk:Blaisepascal|talk]]) 02:06, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

:::I really like that idea. I too am of the more categories tribe, but I prefer them to be properly nested. I want to try my hand at creating categories let me see if I can do this. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 00:54, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

::::Okay, the beginnings are in place. Though I used [[:Category:Comics featuring real people]] as most comics that reference these people, in fact, feature them. I've also created a [[Playpen balls]] category under [[:Category:Comics by topic]] as it seems to me that it's referenced enough that it's necessary.

::::Question: Should we mirror Featured Characters by also having a page for each character and a Category:Real people, or will the Category pages be good enough?

::::The categories are going to get/are getting crowded with all the categories, is there a better way to represent them rather than a list? I'm thinking something that looks like [[:Template:navbox-characters]] except it needs to maintain the link on highlighted items, and it needs to be capable of multiple highlights. I think it would need sections for Featured Characters, Real people, Series (Barrel boy, Secretary, The Race), and Recurring Topics. What I mean by multiple highlights is, if they exist in that comic, i.e. if a comic features Black Hat, Cueball, Cory Doctorow, and Playpen balls, all of those should be highlighted.

::::[[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 02:37, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

It looks like a good time to resurrect this topic. So, If you are going to categorize pages into a category that doesn't exist yet. MAKE SURE that you create the category page, don't just let it be a red link. That looks so sloppy. While on the subject of sloppy, Alphabetize by type the categories on the comic page. I go: Main characters, minor characters, real people, topics, series.

My personal requirements for making a category:
*For new topics
**For new topics, must be the central topic of ''at least'' two comics, with a few more tangentially related.
**It should be something that someone reads and goes "I wonder if there are more comics about this?" It is not simply creating a tag cloud for a post on a blog. That metaphor is gone. These are categories, like sections in an index to a book, or rather an ''encyclopedia''.
**A perfect example of this is [[User:Bpothier|Bpothier]]'s introduction of [[:Category:Comics with color]]. I've often wanted a list of all xkcds to date that have color on them. You'll know you've hit on something when another editor starts going through the pages and adding them to the new category.
*For new recurring characters
**They must recur. This seems obvious, but Adrian Lamo (for example, {{Wiktionary|AFAIK}}), only appears in [[1337: Part 3]]. This is a useless category if there are no other comics he appears in. It only goes to clutter up other, well populated categories.
*For other new categories
**You better have a damn solid case for why you have added a category that wasn't a sub-category of [[:Category:Comics by topic]] or [[:Category:Comic series]]. ''And if you do'', '''be polite''' and present it on the community portal so that the circling editors don't come in like brain-dead vultures to tear apart and re-parent your new category.

It is brain dead easy to create a page (spam bots do it all the time). It is much more complicated to get a page deleted by an admin once it has been created. You can tag it [[:Category:Pages to delete]], but non-spam pages marked this aren't often cleaned out. What I'm trying to say here is, be judicious in picking the names of pages you want to create. It's a pain to have to move Comics featuring Barrel Boy into a [[Barrel]] category.

Also, categorizing a page as something because of the explanation is not ok. These categories are here to group comics together, not as a general tag cloud for the wiki.

'''TL;DR:''' When creating a new category, create the goddamn category page (red links icky) and have ''at least'' 2 pages in the category. For big changes come here and ask first. [http://dontbeadickday.com/ Wil Wheaton says: "Don't be a dick!"]

Questions, comments, improvements, pies to the face accepted. Being-non-useful/criticism-with-intent-to-destroy is rude.

[[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 21:28, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

:No, Lcarsos, don't hold back; please tell us what you really think! ;-) All kidding aside, these suggestions seem really pretty good. There may be some subjectivity in terms of what constitutes contributing to a tag cloud vs the categorization you mention here. But as you point out, that understanding is likely to evolve: if one creates a category that somebody else runs with it, that's a pretty good indicator. I'm glad this categorization has been going on as it has; were it not for my ''de facto'' role as ''Grim Spammer-Reaper'' I'd be in there helping sort and categorize 'em all, too. So huge thanks! -- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 05:45, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

::Just to clarify, I assume what you mean by "''Alphabetize by type the categories on the comic page. I go: Main characters, minor characters, real people, topics, series.''" is that one should ''group'' categories by type, and then alphabetize within them? If that's the case, I don't see any major issue with that; that said, I tend to add categories by deemed 'importance', i.e. I would add comics featuring Cueball before comics featuring Black Hat or Beret Guy just because Cueball is the central character in the series. Similarly, I would also reorder so that "series" comes before topic, if not before characters as well. The first category a "My Hobby" comic comes into, in my mind, is the "My Hobby" category. Only then is it a comic that happens to feature Cueball, or happens to be on the topic of computers. That's my personal view of it. The only reason I would keep characters first is because it's the most common category type a comic will fall into. [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 14:26, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

== Randall in Comics ==

In comic 541 (TED Talk), Randall uses a Cueball character to refer to himself. How should this be included in the Wiki? Cited: http://xkcd.com/541/ AWiseGuy (talk) 21:50, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

:I think, since he also seems to appear as himself in [[1057: Klout]] it would be appropriate to create a [[:Category:Comics featuring Randall Munroe]] and parent it to [[:Category:Comics featuring real people]]. I'll let you do that. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 22:51, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

== Characters appearing only by name. ==

I've noticed that in several comics, known and named characters appear by name only without any physical appearance. Off the top of my head, I can think of Miss Lenhart (who actually appears twice by name before making her first real appearance: http://xkcd.com/135/ and in http://xkcd.com/416/) and Rob in comic 1102. I think these should be included as appearances, or under some other related but separate category, because they do provide character development. Thoughts on this? [[User:AWiseGuy|AWiseGuy]] ([[User talk:AWiseGuy|talk]]) 19:51, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

:I consider references to be apperances. Anyone interested in reading all comics relating to that character or looking for a specific comic featuring that character might be remmebering one where it was a mention by name, not by apperance, and they should be included in the categories for ease of reference, IMO. [[User:TheHYPO|TheHYPO]] ([[User talk:TheHYPO|talk]]) 20:13, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

== Also explain cartoons from the XKCD book? ==

Hi!
As many of you surely know, many comics from the main site were featured in the book xkcd: volume 0. Some of them where altered or had extra explanations. Moreover, there where quite a few riddles and new comics in the book, which should be explained here, too. The forums did a great job on solving the great big riddles which lead to the legendary "official" XKCD-meetup with Randall. --[[Special:Contributions/137.193.213.160|137.193.213.160]] 09:37, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
:Oops, for got to log in, this suggestion came from me: [[User:Gefrierbrand|Gefrierbrand]] ([[User talk:Gefrierbrand|talk]]) 09:48, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

== Just add 'explain' before the 'xkcd.com' ==

You know how you there are services like [http://www.youtuberepeat.com YouTube Repeat] which let you go to the corresponding part of their site by just adding `repeat` before the `.com` of the YouTube video URL?

Likewise, let us just add `explain` before the `xkcd.com` part in any comic URL and let it redirect us to the appropriate wiki post. For example: `explainxkcd.com/1000` would redirect to `http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1000`. I think since the site is based on PHP, it'd be very easy to just send a 301 Redirect header along.

This will be of immense comfort and will probably see me and others using ExplainXKCD.com a lot mre ! Happy reading :)

{{unsigned|YatharthROCK|15:17, 16 September 2012}}

:In a way, that's the plan... per [[#Moving the Wiki ✓ Closed|#Moving the Wiki]] above, the `/wiki` part would disappear, and with shortURL at the same time (mentioned there and at other places as well), the `index.php?title=` would disappear as well. Therefore, explainxkcd.com/1000 would get you the [[1000]] page, which itself redirects to the explanation of the comic ([[1000: 1000 Comics]]). So I guess the only issue is: when will this be done?... - [[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 10:38, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
:: I'd LOVE this working. I've worked on this a bunch and only succeeded in bricking the site. If anyone has any advice, I'd love the help. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 18:04, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

:::I don't think that there is a wiki way to do this, as I've never set up mediawiki before (I should get around to it though). But from 10,000 feet it appears to me that all of the wiki software lives inside a /wiki/ directory on the server, and the blog lives in the root directory. Currently, all of mediawiki's pages are being generated by being passed GET variables, and all of WordPress' pages are being generated by its use of mod_rewrite (why the difference, I don't know. I've never set up mediawiki, and thus never had to try to get mod_rewrite working for it). This is a problem, because any url sent to the server such as explainxkcd.com/1000 is causing the server to look for a directory named 1000, and when it doesn't find it, it invokes mod_rewrite and passes 1000 to the index.php of the root directory as a search term, which activates WordPress which searches for any entries dated in the year 1000 (Wordpress treats the first "directory" as the year), naturally none exist so WordPress generates a 404 error.

:::While the blog exists, I think the only way to do this would be to write a .htaccess that conditionally reroutes directory misses to /wiki/ so something like explainxkcd.com/1000 would be sent to explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1000 but explainxkcd.com/2012/04 would still be sent to WordPress to find entries posted in April 2012.

:::As soon as we can get rid of the blog (which is not yet, because there are a lot of explanations still there that haven't been migrated over) the logic that has to be in the .htaccess becomes much simpler. Anything gets redirected to explainxkcd.com/wiki/. I say anything, and I mean anything because URI requests for anything under explainxkcd.com/wiki/ apache will find the /wiki/ directory and pass everything into there (mod_rewrite or as it currently is) and anything not matchin the /wiki/ directory can be 302'd into /wiki/ for the wiki to find it.

:::I hope that makes sense. If that's too long, let me sum up. '''TL;DR:''' Not very feasible until all explanations in the blog are in the wiki and we can get rid of WordPress.

:::--[[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 18:52, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
::: Yup - I certainly would be using htaccess file and that's the approach that has NOT worked in the past. It is possible it needs some tweaking so that it works for the wiki. I'm not sure. --[[User:Jeff|Jeff]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 19:09, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Hi, joining the conversation: Could we perhaps also ask the original administrator of explainxkcd to redirect the address of his site here? It'll be easier to get here and it might generate more traffic as well. --[[User:Castriff|Jimmy C]] ([[User talk:Castriff|talk]]) 01:48, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

:The person you would want to talk about that is Jeff. The very same Jeff that started, and is bureaucrat of this wiki. So, read the conversation that happened above, and you'll see some of the technical reasons why this hasn't happened yet. And again, I ask that you please comment in chronological order, and that you don't add your comment in a place that it disrupts all of the nested conversation that's already happened. There was an entire comment thread that you put your new comment in the middle of. It was hard to tell if you wanted to reply to this section's OP or anyone else in that thread. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 08:22, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

== Add explanations for what-if.xkcd.com ==
A new [http://what-if.xkcd.com sub-site] from Randall calls for new explanations.
This might not need quite as much explaining, but it is worthy of reference anyway.
--[[User:Divad27182|Divad27182]] ([[User talk:Divad27182|talk]]) 16:01, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

:I think Randall actually does quite a good job of explaining everything in what-if. If we had a go at it, it would pretty much just be a page with a link to general and special relativity pages of wikipedia. Other than that, he provides links for almost everything he discusses. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 18:21, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

:But we may want to discuss his topics among ourselves. I am reading the lightning topic today, and wishing I could comment on it or add fragments of my own experience to it.[[User:Noni Mausa|Noni Mausa]] ([[User talk:Noni Mausa|talk]]) 11:32, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
:
::...then you have http://forums.xkcd.com, made exactly for that purpose; in particular: [http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=94449 xkcd • View topic - What-if 0016: Lightning].
::Don't want to seem unfriendly here, I'm not trying to "get you out of here", it's just that if you want to ''discuss his topics'', ''comment on it or add fragments of your own experience to it'', then I believe that would be the best place for you to do so; and where you could find other people to share it, as well.
::[[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 17:38, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
:: Thanks, I will go have a look. I'm somewhat of a newbie, quod erat demonstrandum.[[User:Noni Mausa|Noni Mausa]] ([[User talk:Noni Mausa|talk]]) 02:37, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

== News Links ==
Certain pages have custom news links.
Many use the generic news link, which these days refers to what-if.xkcd.com.
Template "comic" should probably explcitly support and display custom news.
(An effort should be made at times to scan for updated news.)
--[[User:Divad27182|Divad27182]] ([[User talk:Divad27182|talk]]) 16:01, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
: And, of course, there should be a category for anything with custom news. --[[User:Divad27182|Divad27182]] ([[User talk:Divad27182|talk]]) 16:05, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

== New List requests ==

List of comics related to cancer -
(Umwelt, 818,828,836,925,931,933)

[Keep on adding new requests below this]
[[User:TheOriginalSoni|TheOriginalSoni]] ([[User talk:TheOriginalSoni|talk]]) 18:24, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
: Good suggestion. One observation... this is essentially a democratic institution, so feel free to put the catagory tags on each of these pages and get those editorial props due to you for recommending the category. I'm guessing <nowiki>[[Category:Cancer]]</nowiki> should be a good start. -- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 23:06, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

== Disambiguation ==

Ok, I think we need to start considering disambiguation pages.

Off the top of my head there's
*[[17: What If]] and [[what if?]]
*[[786: Exoplanets]] and [[1071: Exoplanets]]

If you search "what if" the redirect takes you to the [[17: What If]]. I've added a note to that page that links to [[what if?]].

[[Exoplanets]] (the title redirect) is an informal disambiguation page. But, neither comic links to the other one in case someone clicks links and gets to the wrong page.

In terms of notes on pages that there is a disambiguation page that they might be looking for, I think that the note should be made under the comic template so that people clicking the next/previous links don't have to move their cursor (I find nothing more infuriating than having a next/previous link move around as I'm browsing a website).

Anyone else? Thoughts? [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 15:42, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

== RSS Feed ==

We need a new RSS feed so people using news readers can easily be notified of new comics. {{unsigned|67.186.234.12}}

:First and foremost, a disambiguation: '''We are not xkcd'''. We are a group of people who love xkcd and sometimes a joke goes over our head, and we'd go into fits of OCD rage if we don't understand every joke in xkcd.

:If you want to read xkcd, subscribe to the RSS feed that [[Randall]] provides. [http://xkcd.com/rss.xml here's a link] A new xkcd is posted at midnight eastern (US East coast) of every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

:We are just here for the explanation, which is community based. It takes quite a few edits from many people before an explanation is really explained-to-death and every joke found and beaten with a club to extract maximum joke-explanation value. But there's usually a fairly substantial effort at an explanation by noon eastern. That's about the best we can offer you.

:--[[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]] ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 06:19, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

== Comic Difficulty score ==

We should add a difficulty score to each page. Each XKCD comic could be awarded a score based on the number of people that have to visit explainxkcd.com on the day a comic is posted and a couple days after. Inspired by comic: http://www.xkcd.com/1137/

Jim

Hehe, that is a cool idea! --[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 22:06, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

== Contributions and revert buttons ==

The main vandalism comes from IP adresses, and one IP may attack more than one page when it logs on. So its best to have a contributions link show up beside user page and talk page for every page history and signature; and wherever else it is used that way.

Also a quick way to deal with vandalism is to have two buttons on the show history page-
1. Revert this edit [undo] (for all, including IP users, not just normal users)
2. Revert to this edit (Just beside every edit on the edit history)

These two buttons (links, whatever u call them) will make it much more efficient for vandal-reverters to tackle them down.

[[User:TheOriginalSoni|TheOriginalSoni]] ([[User talk:TheOriginalSoni|talk]]) 20:08, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Oh and an easy template to keep tagging vandals, and vandalism affected articles, as well as a quick way to say that whatever we are doing is editing vandalism. I truly would not want to press any more than 4 buttons/clicks ideally on one page when I am trying to revert edits.

The tagging vandals and vandalism affected pages will help admins keep fast track of whos the worst vandal and block that range of IPs from editing (except to submit edit request to admins) and which are worst affected pages (to protect them) [[User:TheOriginalSoni|TheOriginalSoni]] ([[User talk:TheOriginalSoni|talk]]) 20:15, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

== Subsection for title text explanation ==

Hey! On trial I created subsections for some longer explanations of the title text on some pages, like this: [[804: Pumpkin Carving#Explanation]]. Do you think that is helpful? – [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 22:22, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
:Good idea. In some cases it might be the best choice. I just did that on [[1074: Moon Landing]] too :) --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 19:01, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

:Making a special sub-section for the title text only makes sense for large explanations. Explanations that are maybe only 2-3 scrappy paragraphs, and then an explanation of the title text, is not so dense that it is hard to find it. I like this as an idea, but I think that only the really large explanations should have the subsection. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]_a ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 16:34, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

== Explain other webcomics too? ==

How about we explain other webcomics too, e.g. Penny Arcade? --[[User:SurturZ|SurturZ]] ([[User talk:SurturZ|talk]]) 02:36, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
:Good god, no. We've barely even finished xkcd. All these explanations pages still need a lick of polish, and there's still heaps of red links in the list of all comics page. Also, the wiki's called explainxkcd. [[User:Davidy22|Davidy22]][[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 02:38, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

== Whatever Happened to the Template? & Transcript Redirect ==

I've been using the template whenever I make a new page for an explanation, but I think it's been gone for a couple of weeks now. Does anyone think they could possibly resurrect it? I'm just here to explain, I'm really not a pro with the technical details, so please bear with me.

Also, I got to thinking: In the List of All Comics, there are redirects for the Number, the Title, and the Talk pages, but has anyone thought about making a redirect for the transcript? I'm pushing for transcript help in a bunch of different areas mostly because I think people have been filling it in themselves without going to the site.
--[[User:Castriff|Jimmy C]] ([[User talk:Castriff|talk]]) 02:07, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

== 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)

== 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)

== 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)
: 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)

== 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)

695: Spirit

2013-02-03T14:05:09Z

Ekedolphin: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number =695
| date =January 29, 2010
| title =Spirit
| image =spirit.png
| titletext =On January 26th, 2274 Mars days into the mission, NASA declared Spirit a 'stationary research station' expected to stay operational for several more months until the dust buildup on its solar panels forces a final shutdown.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Anthropomorphism}} is attribution of distinctly human characteristics to animals or non-living things. We make parallels between ourselves and objects, to the point where some people even jocularly worry about hurting the feelings of, say, an automobile. We call ships "she". We see human faces in objects like the arrangement of lights on the front of a car.

The {{w|Spirit rover|Mars Spirit Rover}}, like many high-functioning robots in real-life and fiction, shares many physical similarities with a human being or animal. It has a head, eyes, neck, body, legs, feet, arms and a hand. And it strikingly resembles sentient robots from fiction, such as Johnny 5 from ''{{w|Short Circuit (film)|Short Circuit}}'', or {{w|WALL-E}} from the film with the same name.

Thus, this comic explores what the Spirit rover's life would be like if it were sentient like those robots. The rover was never intended to return to Earth, and lasted 5 1/4 active years on the Martian surface, far exceeding its mission duration of 90 Earth days. A sentient robot might assume that after his 90-day mission was over, he'd get to return home. So, heartbreakingly, Spirit keep his hopes alive as he continues analyzing rock after rock for ''years,'' hoping, much like Sam from the television series ''{{w|Quantum Leap}},'' that the ''next'' one will be the one that sends him home.

It would be cruelty of the absolute worst kind to create an intelligence with such feelings, and then abandon it on an uninhabited planet with no intention of ''ever'' bringing it home. So one is rather heartened that the Spirit rover ''is,'' in fact, just a programmed machine.

==Transcript==
:[The Spirit rover is on the surface of Mars.]
:Spirit (thinking): 89 days to go!

:Day 88 of 90
:Spirit (thinking): Two days until I go home!

:Day 91 of 90
:Spirit (thinking): ?

:Day 103 of 90
:Spirit (thinking): Maybe I didn't do a good enough job.

:Day 127 of 90
:Spirit (thinking): Maybe if I do a good enough job, they'll let me come home.

:Day 857 of 90
:Spirit (thinking): I thought I analyzed that rock really well.
:Spirit (thinking): It's okay, I'll do the next one better.

:Day 1293 of 90
:Spirit (thinking): Sandstorm. Power dying.
:Spirit (thinking): But a good rover would keep going. A good rover like they wanted.

:Day 1944 of 90
:Spirit (thinking): Oh no.
:''whirrrr''
:Spirit (thinking): I'm stuck.
:''whirrrr''

:Spirit (thinking): Did I do a good job?
:Spirit (thinking): Do I get to come home?
:Spirit (thinking): Guys?

:[Spirit rests in the middle of a vast Martian landscape.]

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics with color]]

Playing Devil's Advocate to Win

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Ekedolphin: Redirected page to 164: Playing Devil's Advocate to Win

#redirect [[164: Playing Devil's Advocate to Win]]

164

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Ekedolphin: Redirected page to 164: Playing Devil's Advocate to Win

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164

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Ekedolphin: Redirected page to 164 Playing Devil's Advocate to Win

#redirect [[164 Playing Devil's Advocate to Win]]

America

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Ekedolphin: Redirected page to 204: America

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204

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Cat Proximity

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231

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Ekedolphin: Redirected page to 231: Cat Proximity

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Excessive Quotation

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307

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Ekedolphin: Redirected page to 307: Excessive Quotation

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That Loving Feeling

2013-02-03T13:59:09Z

Ekedolphin: Redirected page to 317: That Lovin' Feelin'

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That Lovin' Feelin'

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Ekedolphin: Redirected page to 317: That Lovin' Feelin'

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