https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=108.162.244.85&feedformat=atomexplain xkcd - User contributions [en]2024-03-28T19:05:22ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.30.0https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1717:_Pyramid_Honey&diff=124975Talk:1717: Pyramid Honey2016-08-09T02:16:22Z<p>108.162.244.85: </p>
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Seems like this could be the [http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-science-behind-honeys-eternal-shelf-life-1218690/ Smithsonian reference]! --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 13:53, 8 August 2016 (UTC)<br />
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Anyone know what the counter source or argument is?<br />
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This looks like it could be the source that inspired the strip:<br />
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http://irna.lautre.net/Honey-in-the-pyramids.html<br />
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Looks like a place to start digging for references: http://bumblehive.com/honey-was-not-found-in-pharaohs-tombs/ <!--JourneymanWizard ~~~~--><br />
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Did Randall draw the wrong colored hat?? [[User:Jameslucas|jameslucas]] <small>([[User talk:Jameslucas|" "]] / [[Special:Contributions/Jameslucas|+]])</small> 15:09, 8 August 2016 (UTC)<br />
: Nah, I think it's just IRL trolling. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.80|173.245.54.80]] 15:34, 8 August 2016 (UTC)<br />
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Could this be the ned of Black Hat? The end of ''xkcd?!'' [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.51|173.245.54.51]] 16:06, 8 August 2016 (UTC)<br />
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Correction: this doesn't put "Megan unwillingly into the same camp as conspiracy theorists" it puts Black Hat there.<br />
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[https://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/4wq6pf/xkcd_1717_pyramid_honey/d690yct This Reddit thread] cites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey#Preservation and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey#Ancient_times [[Special:Contributions/172.68.35.71|172.68.35.71]] 18:58, 8 August 2016 (UTC)<br />
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The phrase "a weird hill to die on" could probably use an explanation, too, as I'd never heard of that (or its apparent source phrase "Is this the hill you want to die on?", based on some quick googling) before. [[Special:Contributions/199.27.133.101|199.27.133.101]] 23:04, 8 August 2016 (UTC)<br />
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I have a possible source for the "weird hill to die on" reference, saw it on BBC a while back: Body on the Moor; http://www.bbc.com/news/resources/idt-e8c6cbab-da44-4a3c-8f9b-c4fccd53dd24. <br />
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Every particle physicist knows that the shelf life of honey is at most 10<sup>42</sup> years, just like everything else. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.129|108.162.215.129]] 00:51, 9 August 2016 (UTC)<br />
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re: tooltip - I thought it was a floating giant eye? --[[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.28|173.245.54.28]] 00:59, 9 August 2016 (UTC)</div>108.162.244.85https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=814:_Diode&diff=124850814: Diode2016-08-06T18:05:24Z<p>108.162.244.85: The real situation is more nuanced, this oversimplification is a bit misleading and not relevant to the comic - http://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/78366/why-cant-two-series-connected-diodes-act-as-a-bjt</p>
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<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 814<br />
| date = November 3, 2010<br />
| title = Diode<br />
| image = diode.png<br />
| titletext = And the worst part is you won't apologize.<br />
}}<br />
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==Explanation==<br />
A {{w|diode}} is an electronic component that, to put it simply, blocks current traveling in one direction, but allows current going the other way. Diodes are a common component of digital circuits, such as those found in a computer. The end that rejects incoming current is marked with a line or band of paint.<br />
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The comic is describing a common frustration in relationships. Sometimes one party in a relationship will feel that the other isn't listening to them, even though they themselves are being as open as possible. This is analogous to the function of a diode, which the comic indicates by literally introducing a diode into the dialogue. The diode introduced has the banded end being held by [[Cueball]]. This means his "negative energy" is blocked by the diode, while [[Megan]]'s flows through to him. This means she never receives his emotional pain, so does not feel she did anything wrong. The title text simply further illustrates the point: Megan didn't perceive Cueball's apology, due to it being blocked by the diode, so she berates Cueball for not apologizing.<br />
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==Transcript==<br />
:[Cueball is talking to Megan. Megan holds up a diode.]<br />
:Cueball: We need to talk.<br />
:Megan: Okay, but first hold the end of this diode.<br />
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:[They hold the diode.]<br />
:Cueball: You hurt my feelings yesterday.<br />
:Megan: You embarrassed me with my family last weekend.<br />
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:[They are still holding the diode between them.]<br />
:Cueball: I'm sorry.<br />
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{{comic discussion}}<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]<br />
[[Category:Romance]]</div>108.162.244.85https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1692:_Man_Page&diff=121810Talk:1692: Man Page2016-06-12T08:41:14Z<p>108.162.244.85: :)</p>
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I do not entirely understand how wikis work; however, I have attempted to add a transcript. I apologize if anything breaks. I also apologize if this is not how I should be apologizing.<br />
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[[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.135|108.162.241.135]] 04:27, 10 June 2016 (UTC)<br />
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The Pope flag is referencing the time of the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avignon_Papacy Avignon Papacy] --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.243|108.162.237.243]] 04:56, 10 June 2016 (UTC)<br />
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:Would have frickin' loved Randall if he inserted a reference to Pope of Dope here. :D [[User:Todor|Todor]] ([[User talk:Todor|talk]]) 08:17, 10 June 2016 (UTC)<br />
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OK, -e -h -v doesn't seem to work, it keeps halting at an input line!<br />
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Also, -p "AVIGNON" only works if I specify -D -I, -O, or -jk.<br />
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Why isn't -x documented on this man page? -x seems to do ''something'' but I'm not sure what the value of it is.<br />
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-y just returns "CHROMOSOME MISMATCH".<br />
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-a -e -f -n -o -r -S works if I specify -g, but -R starts to return CloudFlare errors after the first few million sites.<br />
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-v -d seems to make debug.exe speak out loud, but eventually it just starts spouting seemingly random numbers, unless I use -q. Is this desired behavior, or a bug?<br />
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{{unsigned ip|255.255.255.0}}<br />
(-jk | off) [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.8|108.162.221.8]] 20:19, 10 June 2016 (UTC)<br />
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The horrible thing about this comic is that somebody is sure to have implemented this program by the end of the day... {{unsigned ip|141.101.104.140}}<br />
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:Found one on Github: https://github.com/iKevinY/blerp . It has a man page file, but the program itself just outputs "bleep blerp" and doesn't implement any of the flags (yet?). [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.141|141.101.104.141]] 08:05, 10 June 2016 (UTC)<br />
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"Behavior Not Defined" might be a reference to undefined behavior, where a program is allowed to do anything including make demons fly out your nose: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undefined_behavior [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.12|108.162.219.12]] 06:48, 10 June 2016 (UTC)<br />
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[[Special:Contributions/162.158.135.36|162.158.135.36]] 06:58, 10 June 2016 (UTC) Søren Mors<br />
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I thought Ansel was a deliberate misspelling of ANSI, the most common 8 bit codepage. {{unsigned ip|162.158.135.36}}<br />
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The commit "Revision as of 07:08, 10 June 2016" reverted an IMO good explanation for the debug option with a bad one. Consider changing it back. [[User:Todor|Todor]] ([[User talk:Todor|talk]]) 07:20, 10 June 2016 (UTC)<br />
:I agree. The bad explanation also mixed up {{w|Pipeline (Unix)|piping}} with {{w|Redirection (computing)|redirection}} --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.76|141.101.104.76]] 07:41, 10 June 2016 (UTC)<br />
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I don't think `blerp -a -d -t -p "AVIGNON"` is a valid call to blerp, because the syntax line syntax is utterly off. For example, the first line has an unclosed open [, whereas the second line – in addition to having the corresponding unmatched ] – plays with the fact that even though {} is usually used to list a set of required items, {} is also how `find` (which might do something similar to blerp, and is in fact mentioned in -v) denotes its results when passed to an exec. {{unsigned ip|141.101.104.30}}<br />
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Command line options do not normally use n-dashes; they use hyphens. Another problem with this option is that n-dashes and m-dashes cannot usually be displayed properly in the fixed-width fonts commonly used for command line terminals. The usual custom is to use two hyphens to represent a dash (which for proportional font display will often be converted to either an n-dash or m-dash).<br />
: In groff (GNU troff, the language in which man pages are written) the code for an m-dash is '''\(em'''. It will display as either two hyphens "'''--'''" or as an actual m-dash "'''—'''" depending on the character set specified in the locale environment variables. [[User:Locoluis|Locoluis]] ([[User talk:Locoluis|talk]]) 17:17, 10 June 2016 (UTC)<br />
: Many commands use a double dash "--" to specify the end of the options. In "ls -a" the "-a" is an option. In "ls -- -a" the "-a" is the name of the file.--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.218.59|108.162.218.59]] 16:00, 11 June 2016 (UTC)<br />
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While "check whether input halts" clearly alludes to the halting problem, it may not actually be impossible, depending on what blerp actually does and what sort of input it accepts. (It says nothing about actually ''reporting'' the result, and it makes no guarantees that it will itself halt.)<br />
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—[[User:PhantomLimbic|PhantomLimbic]] ([[User talk:PhantomLimbic|talk]]) 07:30, 10 June 2016 (UTC)<br />
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:Indeed. Turing's proof for the halting theorem says that there is no algorithm that allows a Turing machine to determine whether any possible program/input combination will halt. However, this doesn't necessarily mean that it's impossible to develop an algorithm that determines whether a particular, fixed program will halt on an arbitrary input. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.141|141.101.104.141]] 08:14, 10 June 2016 (UTC)<br />
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Currently, there is no mention of the unmatched square brackets in the synopsis, or unmatched parenthesis in the title text. Presumably a reference to XKCD comic 859. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.77|141.101.98.77]] 07:51, 10 June 2016 (UTC)<br />
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Attack Mode might be a reference to the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yu-Gi-Oh!_Trading_Card_Game Yu-Gi-Oh Trading Card Game] [[Special:Contributions/162.158.85.117|162.158.85.117]] 08:23, 10 June 2016 (UTC)<br />
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In the description of -b the computer (Named "Hex") from discworld uses ants not bees.<br />
Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hex_(Discworld) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.125|141.101.98.125]] 09:13, 10 June 2016 (UTC)Bluewhelk<br />
:Hmm. Reading the wiki article further Hex uses a beehive for long term storage! My bad [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.125|141.101.98.125]] 09:20, 10 June 2016 (UTC)Bluewhelk<br />
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"Or best offer" doesn't need to reference a financial offer, it may also mean that anyone offering to reuse the article with an alternative license is allowed to do so. Attack Mode and Stealth Mode seem to me to be references to computer viruses. Stealth Mode is also an option in some applications that can hide their presence when run, often because of malicious behavior, such as remote access tools, keyloggers, etc. Piping is not only used in Unix, it is also common in MS-DOS. Opposite Day has a good explanation on Wikipedia. Literal quote from Wikipedia: "Once Opposite Day is declared, statements mean the opposite of what they usually mean.". --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.222.217|162.158.222.217]] 11:17, 10 June 2016 (UTC)<br />
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Is there any evidence that Opposite Day may refer to Cyanide & Happiness? Opposite Day is a fairly well-known concept (at least from what I know growing up in the U.S.), and I don't see any direct connections to the specific C&H video short. I think that speculation should be removed. [[User:Sayno2quat|Sayno2quat]] ([[User talk:Sayno2quat|talk]]) 14:33, 10 June 2016 (UTC)<br />
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I could be wrong, but I think the program is also "simulating" a man (a play with the words because it's a '''man''' page). If you think like that a lot more commands makes sense (especially, -D, -e, -f, -g, -jk, -R, -u). Just a penny for a thought. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.241.134|108.162.241.134]] 11:52, 10 June 2016 (UTC)<br />
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If someone wants a history of the useragent string (possibly a reference for that "citation needed"), then [http://webaim.org/blog/user-agent-string-history/|this might be of interest]. --[[User:Draco18s|Draco18s]] ([[User talk:Draco18s|talk]]) 16:12, 10 June 2016 (UTC)<br />
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The <code>-n</code> option might be a reference to <code>echo</code>, where it is an option often used but which does not work on all systems. <br><br />
Am I the only one to see the “k” capitalized in <code>-jK</code>? <br><br />
[[User:Ltrlg|Ltrlg]] ([[User talk:Ltrlg|talk]]) 18:55, 10 June 2016 (UTC)<br />
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I interpreted "CHECK WHETHER INPUT HALTS" as simply determining whether the input was a finite string. (while at the same time referencing the halting problem) --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.68.59|162.158.68.59]] 20:22, 10 June 2016 (UTC)<br />
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I think that "suppress bees" probably indicates a smoke situation, a situation where the magic smoke is let out of the computer, such as halt-catch-fire. Smoke is the way to suppress bees. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.158|108.162.249.158]] 20:24, 10 June 2016 (UTC)<br />
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What does "BSD 4(2)" mean? --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.255.65|162.158.255.65]] 20:54, 10 June 2016 (UTC)<br />
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blerp -v | blerp -ha [[User:Mikemk|Mikemk]] ([[User talk:Mikemk|talk]]) 21:28, 10 June 2016 (UTC)<br />
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The word "bug" doesn't actually come from an insect; see the Etymology section of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_bug [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.117|108.162.245.117]] 04:37, 11 June 2016 (UTC)<br />
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Some remarks to the current explanation:<br />
- I think the description is more specific than suggested. It is true that command-line programs regularly read stdin and output something to stdout, but I would categorize only some of them grep/sed/awk/sort/... as filter in the narrower sense. Also that it can access remote files (URL syntax) is a clue<br />
- In the syntax we have args, option, options, and flags<br />
- the environment variables are never described<br />
- attack mode could refer to a network attack, e.g. trying to break into protected servers, or not just filtering the information, but also using it in a damaging way<br />
- suppress bees hints that for normal operation bees are used, something you would not expect from a typical command line program<br />
- the em dashes are probably used from there on on the command line (right of this option)<br />
- piping output to the MS-DOS debug.exe can be used for entering small assembly programs (including saving them typically as .com command), changing memory contents or accessing I/O ports. Normally it is used interactively. In a pipe setup it enhances the abilities of a text processing filter to do some enhanced actions on the target computer<br />
- execute something, similar to the find program which can execute an external program per match; could also mean a specified algorithm and refer to halting check; in any case "something" is quite vague for a man page<br />
- use google: either for input (e.g. read URLs by searching for ARG and getting the first found webpage) or some special Google API; possibly Google is so powerful, it can replace some of the functionality of the program. Just use Google<br />
- Check whether input halts hints that the input processing including algorithm execution is so complex that it can run into an infinite loop, but easy enough to be not yet Turing complete or it is and -h is the joke; or some input never halts, e.g. /dev/random, or it refers to the robot theory, e.g. whether the attacked victim halts<br />
- ignore case probably refers to the actual input files instead of to the command line<br />
- overwrite would be funny with speech output<br />
- the true pope is seemingly important fir filtering. Could refer to important faith settings for other programs, e.g. which editor to use vim/emacs or it us important for knowledge processing<br />
- randomize arguments is good for some test procedures<br />
- as mentioned in the explanation the copyright refers to the man page, not the program, here the explanation is inconsistent in the current revision<br />
Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.83.168|162.158.83.168]] 08:55, 11 June 2016 (UTC)<br />
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With reference to the See Also, the multiple blerps are due to different sections, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_page#Manual_sections [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.34|173.245.54.34]] 13:08, 11 June 2016 (UTC)<br />
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Could "supress bees" reference to "[http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/797:_debian-main debian-main]"? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.86.131|162.158.86.131]] 19:20, 11 June 2016 (UTC)<br />
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Does the unclosed paren in the title text bother anyone else? [[Special:Contributions/173.245.50.25|173.245.50.25]] 06:02, 12 June 2016 (UTC)<br />
:Not me, but someone somewhere... - [[Special:Contributions/108.162.244.85|108.162.244.85]] 08:41, 12 June 2016 (UTC)<br />
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Is the newspaper on this What-If [http://what-if.xkcd.com/61/] relevant? - [[Special:Contributions/108.162.244.85|108.162.244.85]] 08:41, 12 June 2016 (UTC)</div>108.162.244.85https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1689:_My_Friend_Catherine&diff=1213451689: My Friend Catherine2016-06-03T15:39:23Z<p>108.162.244.85: /* Explanation */ Edited the carcat pointer.</p>
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<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1689<br />
| date = June 3, 2016<br />
| title = My Friend Catherine<br />
| image = my_friend_catherine.png<br />
| titletext = I can't get any work done because my friend Catherine is sitting on my keyboard.<br />
}}<br />
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==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Initial general explanation added, nothing about the individual jokes yet.}}<br />
<br />
This is another is a series of substitutions, where a word or phrase, in this case "my cat", is replaced with a different word or phrase, in this case "my friend Catherine". By doing so in a list of people discussing things their feline cat did, it makes it seem like they are discussing things their female human friend did. What is cute, impressive, or normal for a cat would often be weird or disturbing if an adult human were to do it, which is what makes the substitution humorous.<br />
<br />
Note that the substitution can be a simple mental substitution, or there are {{w|browser_extension|browser extensions}} that can be used to do the substitution for you.<br />
<br />
It should also be noted that this comic conflicts with one of the substitutions from 1288: Substitutions. Namely: its original car → cat replacement. Upon this comic's release,"car" and "cat" should be stll the same, except in the case "my car" and "my cat", which should both be replaced with "my friend Catherine."<br />
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==Transcript==<br />
New Favorite Substitution:<br />
My Cat → My Friend Catherine<br />
<br />
(A Facebook-like list of comments by different people)<br />
<br />
:My friend Catherine just did a backflip and then ate a bug!<br />
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:I wish my friend Catherine wouldn't wake me up by chewing on my hair.<br />
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:Oh no, my friend Catherine has learned to open the refrigerator.<br />
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:My friend Catherine just walked in, threw up on the rug, and walked out.<br />
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:My friend Catherine is looking out the window making weird noises at the birds.<br />
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:I wish my friend Catherine wouldn't make eye contact with me while pooping.<br />
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Title text: I can't get any work done because my friend Catherine is sitting on my keyboard.<br />
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{{comic discussion}}<br />
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[[Category:Substitutions]]<br />
[[Category:Animals]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]</div>108.162.244.85https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1689:_My_Friend_Catherine&diff=1213441689: My Friend Catherine2016-06-03T15:36:03Z<p>108.162.244.85: /* Explanation */ Reworded the carcat conflict. Feel free to revert if it is the consensus.</p>
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<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1689<br />
| date = June 3, 2016<br />
| title = My Friend Catherine<br />
| image = my_friend_catherine.png<br />
| titletext = I can't get any work done because my friend Catherine is sitting on my keyboard.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Initial general explanation added, nothing about the individual jokes yet.}}<br />
<br />
This is another is a series of substitutions, where a word or phrase, in this case "my cat", is replaced with a different word or phrase, in this case "my friend Catherine". By doing so in a list of people discussing things their feline cat did, it makes it seem like they are discussing things their female human friend did. What is cute, impressive, or normal for a cat would often be weird or disturbing if an adult human were to do it, which is what makes the substitution humorous.<br />
<br />
Note that the substitution can be a simple mental substitution, or there are {{w|browser_extension|browser extensions}} that can be used to do the substitution for you.<br />
<br />
It should also be noted that this comic conflicts with one of the substitutions from 1288: Substitutions. Namely: its original car>cat replacement. Upon this comic's release,"car" and "cat" should be stll the same, except in the case "my car" and "my cat", which should both be replaced with "my friend Catherine."<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
New Favorite Substitution:<br />
My Cat → My Friend Catherine<br />
<br />
(A Facebook-like list of comments by different people)<br />
<br />
:My friend Catherine just did a backflip and then ate a bug!<br />
<br />
:I wish my friend Catherine wouldn't wake me up by chewing on my hair.<br />
<br />
:Oh no, my friend Catherine has learned to open the refrigerator.<br />
<br />
:My friend Catherine just walked in, threw up on the rug, and walked out.<br />
<br />
:My friend Catherine is looking out the window making weird noises at the birds.<br />
<br />
:I wish my friend Catherine wouldn't make eye contact with me while pooping.<br />
<br />
Title text: I can't get any work done because my friend Catherine is sitting on my keyboard.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Substitutions]]<br />
[[Category:Animals]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]<br />
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]</div>108.162.244.85https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1689:_My_Friend_Catherine&diff=1213211689: My Friend Catherine2016-06-03T13:46:08Z<p>108.162.244.85: Added in the category substitutions.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1689<br />
| date = June 3, 2016<br />
| title = My Friend Catherine<br />
| image = my_friend_catherine.png<br />
| titletext = I can't get any work done because my friend Catherine is sitting on my keyboard.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Only added in the category subtitutions.}}<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
{{incomplete transcript}}<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Substitutions]]</div>108.162.244.85https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1688:_Map_Age_Guide&diff=1212601688: Map Age Guide2016-06-02T13:25:49Z<p>108.162.244.85: Spelling correction.</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1688<br />
| date = June 1, 2016<br />
| title = Map Age Guide<br />
| image = map_age_guide.png<br />
| titletext = Does the screeching chill your blood and herald death? If yes, banshee. If no, seagull.<br />
}}<br />
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*A [http://xkcd.com/1688/large/ larger version] of this image can be found by clicking the image at xkcd.com - the comic's page can also be accessed by clicking on the comic number above.<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
{{incomplete|Many is still missing.}}<br />
Flowchart depicting various ways to tell what era a map is from based on present country borders and land forms. (Except in the Not a Political Map Branch (from "Can you see the familiar continents?" downwards), the comic applies to a political map.) Most of the options are very serious, with a few bizarre options (mistaking a seagull and breadbox for a map) or references to things like the {{w|Discworld}} books and Middle-earth, the setting of the Lord Of the Rings series. He also mentions US President Jimmy Carter being attacked by a giant swimming rabbit, an event previously referenced by [[204]].<br />
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Additionally, (possible) future maps including a "Radioactive Exclusion Zone" in the place of Colorado are mentioned. It predicts that some kind of nuclear incident will occur in Colorado (possibly at Rulison or Rio Blanco nuclear testing sites) in 2022. It also predicts that the area will be infested by radioactive spiders one year later.<br />
<br />
The title text continues the path where the user has confused a seagull for a map by inquiring if the (presumed) seagull might be a banshee based on the effect of its screams.<br />
<br />
There is no recursive loop.<br />
<br />
(First Draft, please expand.)<br />
<br />
Going through the flowchart, taking the leftmost path first, recursively. See {{w|Depth-first search}}. "Prior Date Range" is the range determined immediately before the question, carried over from the previous question; "Question Date Range" is the range each answer choice implies; "New Date Range" is the intersection of the Prior Date Range and the Question Date Range for each choice, and is the range determined by all questions hiherto answered.<br />
<br />
{| border =1 width=100% cellpadding=5 class="wikitable"<br />
! # !! Question !! Explanation !! Prior Date Range !! Question Date Range !! New Date Range<br />
|-<br />
! 1<br />
| '''Istanbul or Constantinople'''<br />
| The largest city in Turkey is famous for having different names at different times or to different people. Variations on both names go back at least 1,000 years. Other names have also been used at various points. {{w|İstanbul}} has been the official name since the 1920's, although Western maps often referred to it as Constantinople as late as the 1960's; on the flowchart, the choice of name appears to go with the 1920's date. The name changes are the subject of a [http://mentalfloss.com/article/60314/original-istanbul-not-constantinople song], originally by the Four Lads, but now mainly known for the They Might Be Giants recording.<br />
| '''Start here'''<br />
|<br />
* Constantinople: -329 - 1928<br />
* Neither: inconclusive<br />
* Istanbul: 1928+<br />
|<br />
* Constantinople: -329 - 1928 (Go to 2)<br />
* Neither: inconclusive (Go to 19)<br />
* Istanbul: 1928+ (Go to ##)<br />
|-<br />
| colspan="6" | '''Note:''' the chart splits here into three divisions, each from a choice in question 1. The Neither Division will attempt to use other indicators to sort maps into one of the other two divisions or branches thereof, or, after 5 failures to find a country, conclude that the "map" in question is not a political map and proceed to find out what it is (the Not a Political Map Branch). The Constantinople and Istanbul Divisions are linear except where the Neither Division joins them as stated above.<br />
|-<br />
! colspan="6" | Constantinople Division<br />
|-<br />
! 2<br />
| '''Do any of these exist?'''<br />
* '''Independent Canada'''<br />
* '''US Territory of Alaska'''<br />
* '''Tokyo'''<br />
| All these seem to specify a date cut-off of 1867/8, but there are caveats attached to each:<br />
* Canada gained its independence gradually, but it would appear as its own country on maps some time between the {{w|Constitution Act, 1867}} (which created Canada as a British dominion) and the {{w|Statute of Westminster 1931}} (which made Canada largely self-governing).<br />
* The {{w|Territory of Alaska}} existed between 1912 (previously, it was a US district) and 1959 (when it became a state). The US has owned Alaska since the 1867 {{w|Alaska Purchase}}, but it was not a territory then.<br />
* {{w|Tokyo}} was once called Edo. It was renamed Tokyo (which means "Eastern Capital") when it became the capital in 1868. [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Tokyo%2CTokei&year_start=1870&year_end=1880&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CTokyo%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CTokei%3B%2Cc0 Most English books around then] would actually have called it "Tokei", the Chinese reading. The name Tokyo didn't take off until {{w|Hepburn romanization}} was popularized in the 1880s.<br />
| -329 - 1928 (from 1)<br />
1299 - 1922 (from 19 in the Neither Division)<br />
(from 24 in the Neither Division)<br />
|<br />
* No: 1867-<br />
* Yes: 1868+<br />
|<br />
* No: -329 - 1867 (Go to 3)<br />
* Yes: 1868 - 1928 (Go to 11)<br />
|-<br />
! colspan="6" | Holy Roman Empire Branch<br />
|-<br />
! 3<br />
| '''The Holy Roman Empire'''<br />
| The predecessor to modern Germany, the {{w|Holy Roman Empire}} was a union of hundreds of small states in Central Europe. Nationalism and the concept of the {{w|nation state}} hadn't taken off yet, so countries as we know them didn't really exist. There were just small lands, often with keenly contested borders, owned by minor aristocracy who pledged allegiance to one of the big powers. The HRE was dissolved in 1806 after it was invaded by Napoleon, arguably the first leader to realise the potential of making a nation salute a flag.<br />
| -329 - 1867<br />
|<br />
* Yes: 899 - 1806<br />
* No: 899- or 1806+<br />
|<br />
* Yes: 899 - 1806 (Stated in comic as 1805-, since modern map-making was fuzzy as a concept prior) ('''Stop''')<br />
* No: -329 - 899 or 1806-67 (Go to 4)<br />
|-<br />
! 4<br />
| '''The United States?'''<br />
| The original 13 colonies declared independence in 1776. A map that does not include ''either'' the HRE ''or'' the USA must be older than the HRE which would put the map some time prior to 1000 AD, when there really were no countries, and English wasn't used yet, hence Randall's comment.<br />
| -329 - 899 or 1806-67<br />
|<br />
* No: 1776-<br />
* Yes: 1776+<br />
|<br />
* No: -329 - 899 (Not stated in comic, since a map in this period is probably not in English, which violates a proviso of the comic) ('''Stop''')<br />
* Yes: 1806-67 (Go to 5)<br />
|-<br />
! 5<br />
| '''Texas is...<br/>Part of Mexico?<br/>Independent?<br/>Part of the US?'''<br />
| Mexico occupied the area modern day Texas from around 1718 ([[w:Spanish Texas|when the first permanent Spanish settlements were founded]]) to the {{w|Texas Declaration of Independence}} in 1836 (the comic appearantly cited 1834 as the date) - the land called "Texas" was only a small part of the modern day state. The {{w|Republic of Texas}} only lasted a decade, and joined the US in 1846.<br />
| 1806-67<br />
|<br />
* Part of Mexico: 1718 - 1836<br />
* Independent: 1836-46<br />
* Part of the US: 1846+<br />
|<br />
* Part of Mexico: 1806-36 (Go to 6)<br />
* Independent: 1836-46 (stated in comic as 1834-45 - a discrepancy) ('''Stop''')<br />
* Part of the US: 1846-67 (Go to 9)<br />
|-<br />
! 6<br />
| '''Florida is part of...<br/>Spain?<br/>The US?'''<br />
| Spain occupied {{w|Florida}} (as East Florida and West Florida) but frankly they didn't actually want it - it was expensive to send people to settle it, and there wasn't much economic value in it. So they gave it to the US for free in the 1819 {{w|Adams–Onís Treaty}} (which took effect in 1821) in exchange for the US giving up parts of Mexico and paying off angry Spanish settlers. (For some reason, the comic treats Florida as part of the US in 1818; see questions 7 and 8.)<br />
| 1806-36<br />
|<br />
* Spain: 1565 - 1763 or 1783 - 1821<br />
* The US: 1821+<br />
|<br />
* Spain: 1806-21 (Go to 7)<br />
* The US: 1821-36 (Go to 8)<br />
|-<br />
! 7<br />
| '''{{w|Paraguay}}?'''<br />
| Declared independence from Spain in 1811 (although it might appear on older maps as the Spanish Province of Paraguay).<br />
| 1806-21<br />
|<br />
* No: 1811-<br />
* Yes: 1811+<br />
|<br />
* No: 1806-11 (stated in comic as 1806-10) ('''Stop''')<br />
* Yes: 1811-21 (stated in comic as 1811-17 - a discrepancy (see question 6)) ('''Stop''')<br />
|-<br />
! 8<br />
| '''{{w|Venezuela}} and/or {{w|Ecuador?}}'''<br />
| Both declared independence from {{w|Gran Colombia}} (Greater Colombia) in 1830.<br />
| 1821-36<br />
|<br />
* No: 1830-<br />
* Yes: 1830+<br />
|<br />
* No: 1821-30 (stated in comic as 1818-29 - a discrepancy (see question 6)) ('''Stop''')<br />
* Yes: 1830-36 (stated in comic as 1830-33 - a discrepancy (see question 5)) ('''Stop''')<br />
|-<br />
! 9<br />
| '''Does Russia border the Sea of Japan?'''<br />
| The 1858 {{w|Treaty of Aigun}} brought the Russian border to the Sea of Japan.<br />
| 1846-67<br />
|<br />
* No: 1858-<br />
* Yes: 1858+<br />
|<br />
* No: 1846-58 (Go to 10)<br />
* Yes: 1858-67 ('''Stop''')<br />
|-<br />
! 10<br />
| '''The US's southern border looks... <br/> Weird <br/> Normal'''<br />
| The last southward expansion of the US is the 1854 {{w|Gadsden Purchase}}, where the US bought a chunk of what is now Arizona and New Mexico so they could build a railway that avoided unfavourable terrain. The southern border looks "weird" before that because we are accustomed to the current border shape.<br />
| 1846-58<br />
|<br />
* Weird: 1854-<br />
* Normal: 1854+<br />
|<br />
* Weird: 1846-54 (stated in comic as 1846-53) ('''Stop''')<br />
* Normal: 1854-58 (stated in comic as 1854-56 - a discrepancy (where is 1857?)) ('''Stop''')<br />
|-<br />
! colspan="6" | South Africa Branch<br />
|-<br />
! 11<br />
| '''{{w|South Africa}}?'''<br />
| The Union of South Africa was created in 1910, although South Africa was then not yet fully independent from the United Kingdom (which would not happen until 1931).<br />
| 1868 - 1928<br />
|<br />
* No: 1910-<br />
* Yes: 1910+<br />
|<br />
* No: 1868 - 1910 (Go to 12)<br />
* Yes: 1910-28 (Go to 16)<br />
|-<br />
! 12<br />
| '''Rhodesia?'''<br />
| The region was named {{w|Rhodesia_(region)|"Rhodesia"}} by the British South Africa Company in 1895. An {{w|Rhodesia|unrecognised state}} (1965-79) and a {{w|Southern_Rhodesia|colony}} (1923-80 on-and-off) also born this name, but they are both outside the Prior Date Range.<br />
| 1868 - 1910<br />
|<br />
* No: 1895-<br />
* Yes: 1895+<br />
|<br />
* No: 1868-95 (Go to 13)<br />
* Yes: 1895 - 1910 (Go to 15)<br />
|-<br />
! 13<br />
| '''Is Bolivia landlocked?'''<br />
| {{w|Bolivia}} lost its coastal territory to Chlie in the {{w|War of the Pacific}}, ceding Antofagasta in the {{w|Treaty of Valparaiso}} in 1884.<br />
| 1868-95<br />
|<br />
* No: 1825-84<br />
* Yes: 1884+<br />
|<br />
* No: 1868-84 (Go to 14)<br />
* Yes: 1884-95 ('''Stop''')<br />
|-<br />
! 14<br />
| '''"Buda" and "Pest" or "Budapest"?'''<br />
| In 1873, the cities of {{w|Buda}} and {{w|Pest,_Hungary|Pest}} joined together to form the city of {{w|Budapest}}.<br />
| 1868-84<br />
|<br />
* Buda and Pest: 1247 - 1873<br />
* Budapest: 1873+<br />
|<br />
* Buda and Pest: 1868-73 (stated in comic as 1868-72) ('''Stop''')<br />
* Budapest: 1873-84 (stated in comic as 1873-83) ('''Stop''')<br />
|-<br />
! 15<br />
| '''Is Norway part of Sweden?'''<br />
| {{w|Norway}} was ceded to Sweden in 1814, from which it separated in 1905.<br />
| 1895 - 1910<br />
|<br />
* Yes: 1814 - 1905<br />
* No: 1814- or 1905+<br />
|<br />
* Yes: 1895-1905 (Stated in comic as 1896-1905) ('''Stop''')<br />
* No: 1905-10 (Stated in comic as 1906-09) ('''Stop''')<br />
|-<br />
! 16<br />
| '''Austria-Hungary?'''<br />
| {{w|Austria-Hungary}} formed in 1867 and dissolved in 1918.<br />
| 1910-28<br />
|<br />
* Yes: 1867-1918<br />
* No: 1918+<br />
|<br />
* Yes: 1910-18 (Go to 17)<br />
* No: 1918-28 (Go to 18)<br />
|-<br />
! 17<br />
| '''Albania?'''<br />
| {{w|Albania}} declared independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1912.<br />
| 1910-18 <br />
|<br />
* No: 1912-<br />
* Yes: 1912+<br />
|<br />
* No: 1910-12 ('''Stop''')<br />
* Yes: 1912-18 (stated in comic as 1913-18) ('''Stop''')<br />
|-<br />
! 18<br />
| '''Leningrad?'''<br />
| {{w|Saint Petersburg}} was known as Leningrad between 1924 and 1991.<br />
| 1918-28<br />
|<br />
* No: 1924- or 1991+<br />
* Yes: 1924-91<br />
|<br />
* No: 1918-24 (stated in comic as 1919-23) ('''Stop''')<br />
* Yes: 1924-28 (stated in comic as 1924-29) ('''Stop''')<br />
|-<br />
! colspan="6" | Neither Division<br />
|-<br />
! 19<br />
| '''Does the Ottoman Empire exist?'''<br />
| The {{w|Ottoman Empire}} was founded in 1299, and defeated and dissolved on November 1, 1922 when the sultanate was abolished.<br />
| Inconclusive<br />
| <br />
* Yes: 1299-1922<br />
* No: 1299- or 1922+<br />
|<br />
* Yes: 1299-1922 (Go to 2 in the Constantinople Division)<br />
* No: 1299- or 1922+ (Go to 20)<br />
|-<br />
! 20<br />
| '''The Soviet Union?'''<br />
| The {{w|Soviet Union}} is one of the largest countries ever to exist consisting of Russia and large portions of eastern Europe and central Asia. It was a major political force from December 28, 1922, when several allied Soviet republics united, to 1991, when it broke up.<br />
''Note:'' This question is the same as question ## in the Istanbul Division, but because there a Prior Date Range of 1928+ has already been established by the presense of Istanbul, we need one more question to determine whether we are within the range of 1928+.<br />
| 1299- or 1922+<br />
|<br />
* Yes: 1922-91<br />
* No: 1922- or 1991+<br />
|<br />
* Yes: 1922-91 (Go to 21)<br />
* No: 1299- or 1922 (November 1 - December 28) or 1991+ (Go to 22)<br />
|-<br />
! 21<br />
| '''Saudi Arabia?'''<br />
| The kingdom of {{w|Saudi Arabia}} was founded in 1932.<br />
| 1922-91<br />
|<br />
* Yes: 1932+<br />
* No: 1932-<br />
|<br />
* Yes: 1932-91 (Go to ## in the Istanbul Division)<br />
* No: 1922-32 ('''Stop''')<br />
|-<br />
! 22<br />
| '''North Korea?'''<br />
| The Korean Peninsula was divided into two regions, the north of which would be known as {{w|North Korea}}, at the end of World War II in 1945.<br />
| 1299- or 1922 (November 1 - December 28) or 1991+<br />
|<br />
* Yes: 1945+<br />
* No: 1945-<br />
|<br />
* Yes: 1991+ (Go to ## in the Istanbul Division)<br />
* No: 1299- or 1922 (November 1 - December 28) (Go to 23)<br />
|-<br />
! 23<br />
| '''Saint Trimble's Island'''<br />
| Since [[Randall]] just made up this place, it is impossible that a map would include it.<br />
| 1299- or 1922 (November 1 - December 28)<br />
|<br />
* No: inconclusive<br />
* Yes: impossible<br />
|<br />
* No: 1299- or 1922 (November 1 - December 28) (Go to 24)<br />
* Yes: impossible ('''Stop''')<br />
|-<br />
! 24<br />
| '''Is Jan Mayen part of the kingdom of Norway?'''<br />
| Jurisdiction over the island of {{w|Jan Mayen}} was given to Norway around 1920, and it officially joined in 1930.<br/><br/>'''Note:''' Strictly speaking, it should be almost impossible to answer "Yes" to this question - the Ottoman Empire existed until 1922, the Soviet Union existed from 1922 to 1991, and North Korea from 1945 onwards, so by answering "No" to the previous three questions, the user has ruled out the entire period during which Norway has officially owned Jan Mayen, and almost the entire period it controlled it bar an extremely slim sliver of time between November 1, 1922 to December 28, 1922. The following questions ignore the previous ones (East Germany only existed at the same time as the USSR, and Pakistan was founded later than North Korea, so both should have already been excluded) - essentially, the Jan Mayen question reboots the test.<br />
| 1299- or 1922 (November 1 - December 28)<br />
|<br />
* Not yet: prior to 1930<br />
* What?: Not a political map<br />
* Yes: 1930+<br />
|<br />
* Not yet: (Go to 2 in the Constantinople Division)<br />
* What?: (Go to 25)<br />
* Yes: (Go to ## in the Istanbul Division)<br />
|-<br />
! colspan="6" | Not a Political Map Branch<br />
|-<br />
! 26<br />
| '''Can you see the familiar continents?'''<br />
| At this point it is clear that the map in question is not a political map from any time. Therefore the comic tries to determine whether it is a map of the Earth at all by asking if the continents are there.<br />
|<br />
|<br />
* Yes: map of the Earth<br />
* No: not a map of the Earth<br />
|<br />
* Yes: map of the Earth (Go to 27)<br />
* No: not a map of the Earth (Go to 33)<br />
|-<br />
! colspan="6" | Topograpical Map / Satellite Image Subbranch<br />
|-<br />
! 27<br />
| '''This sounds like a physical map or satellite photo.'''<br />
| A map of the Earth that does not label political regions must be a topological map; or, it can be a satellite image of the Earth.<br />
| Map of the Earth<br />
|<br />
* Yes, that's it: topograpical map or satellite image of the Earth<br />
|<br />
* Yes, that's it: topograpical map or satellite image of the Earth (Go to 28)<br />
|-<br />
! 28<br />
| '''Is Lake Chad missing?'''<br />
| {{w|Lake Chad}} lost 3/4 of its area in the 1970s, becoming too small to be included in a map or pitcure of the Earth.<br />
| Topograpical map or satellite image of the Earth<br />
|<br />
* No: 1970s-<br />
* Yes: 1970s+<br />
|<br />
* No: 1970s- (Go to 29)<br />
* Yes: 1970s+ (Go to 32)<br />
|-<br />
! 29<br />
| '''How far east do the American prairies reach?'''<br />
| As settlers made their way west, the prairie land in the {{w|Great Plains}} region was steadily replaced by farmland and ranches. By the 1920s, most of the land had been converted to agricultural use, and the last of the prairie was largely obliterated by the {{w|Dust Bowl}}s in the 1930s. The dividing lines correspond roughly to the three types of prairie: {{w|tallgrass prairie}} grew between the Mississippi and Indiana, {{w|mixed grass prairie}} covered Nebraska and other states on the {{w|100th meridian west}}, and {{w|shortgrass prairie}} covered the remaining area east of the Rocky Mountains. There's some overlap in the dates, since it's fairly arbitrary where you draw the line between prairies and plains.<br />
<br />
| 1970s-<br />
|<br />
* Indiana: Before 1830<br />
* The Mississippi: 1830 - 1880s<br />
* Nebraska: 1860s - 1910s<br />
* What prairies?: 1920s+<br />
|<br />
* Indiana: Before 1830 ('''Stop''')<br />
* The Mississippi: 1830 - 80s ('''Stop''')<br />
* Nebraska: 1860s - 1910s (Go to 30)<br />
* What prairies?: 1920s - 1970s (Go to 31)<br />
|-<br />
! 30<br />
| '''Is there a big lake in the middle of Southern California? (created by mistake)'''<br />
| This is {{w|Salton Sea}}, a previously dry lakebed accidentally flooded in 1905 while attempting to increase irrigation to the area from the Colorado River<br />
| 1860s - 1910s<br />
|<br />
* No: before 1905<br />
* Yes: 1905+<br />
|<br />
* No: 1860s - 1900s ('''Stop''')<br />
* Yes: 1910s ('''Stop''')<br />
|-<br />
! 31<br />
| '''Is there a big lake in the middle of Ghana? (created on purpose)'''<br />
| {{w|Lake Volta}}, formed by the {{w|Akosombo Dam}} which was built in the 1960s<br />
| 1920s - 1970s<br />
|<br />
* No: before 1960s<br />
* Yes: 1960s+<br />
|<br />
* No: 1920s - 50s ('''Stop''')<br />
* Yes: 1960s - 70s ('''Stop''')<br />
|-<br />
! 32<br />
| '''Is the Aral Sea missing?'''<br />
| Shrinking since the 1930s, the {{w|Aral Sea}} would be too small to be on maps or images of the Earth by the 2000s.<br />
| 1970s+<br />
|<br />
* No: 1990s-<br />
* Yes: 2000s+<br />
|<br />
* No: 1970s-90s ('''Stop''')<br />
* Yes: 2000s+ ('''Stop''')<br />
|-<br />
! colspan="6" | ''Topograpical Map / Satellite Image Subbranch ends''<br />
|-<br />
! colspan="6" | Fictional Map / Non-Map Subbranch<br />
|-<br />
! 33<br />
| '''Rivers "Sirion" or "Anduin"?'''<br />
| The rivers {{w|List_of_Middle-earth_rivers#Sirion|Sirion}} and {{w|Anduin}} are part of {{w|Middle-earth|Middle Earth}}, the fictional setting of J.R.R. Tolkien's ''Lord of the Rings'' books.<br />
| Not a map of the Earth<br />
|<br />
* Yes: map of Middle Earth<br />
* No: inconclusive<br />
|<br />
* Yes: map of Middle Earth (Go to 34)<br />
* No: not a map of the Earth (Go to 38)<br />
|-<br />
! colspan="6" | Middle Earth Subbranch<br />
|-<br />
! 34<br />
| '''Mordor?'''<br />
| {{w|Mordor}} is the base of operations of {{w|Sauron}}, who settled there c. 1000 in the {{w|Second Age}} (which lasted for 3,441 years).<br />
| Map of Middle Earth<br />
|<br />
* No: S.A. c. 1000-<br />
* Yes: S.A. c. 1000+<br />
|<br />
* No: S.A. c. 1000- (Go to 35)<br />
* Yes: S.A. c. 1000+ (Go to 36)<br />
|-<br />
! 35<br />
| '''Beleriand?'''<br />
| {{w|Beleriand}} was broken in the {{w|War of Wrath}} in the year 583 in the {{w|Years of the Sun}} in the {{w|First Age}} The First Age itself ran for 450 Valian Years and 590 Years of the Sun, adding up to between 5,023 and 65,390 Years of the Sun, depending on the conversion factor used ({{w|J. R. R. Tolkien}} has given several during the years). Note that Randall has appearantly ignored the time before the First Age (4,550 Valian Years).<br />
| S.A. c. 1000-<br />
|<br />
* Yes: Y.S. 583 First Age-<br />
* No: Y.S. 583 First Age+<br />
|<br />
* Yes: Y.S. 583 First Age- (stated in comic as First Age) ('''Stop''')<br />
* No: Y.S. 583 First Age - S.A. c. 1000 (stated in comic as early Second Age) ('''Stop''')<br />
|-<br />
! 36<br />
| '''Númenor?'''<br />
| The island of {{w|Númenor}} was raised from the sea at the start of the Second Age. It sank back into the sea in 3319 in the Second Age, as the formerly flat Earth was made into a globe.<br />
| S.A. c. 1000+<br />
|<br />
* Yes: S.A. 1 - 3319<br />
* No: First Age- or S.A. 3319+<br />
|<br />
* Yes: S.A. c. 1000 - 3319 (stated in comic as late Second Age) ('''Stop''')<br />
* No: S.A. 3319+ (Go to 37)<br />
|-<br />
! 37<br />
| '''The forest east of the Misty Mountains is...'''<br />
| The forest {{w|Mirkwood}} was called Greenwood the Great from its discovery by the Elves c. V.Y. 4620 in the First Age to 1050 in the {{w|Third Age}} when the shadow of Sauron fell upon it and it was renamed. It was cleansed on 'March' 28, 3019 in the Third Age (which ran for 3,021 years), after which it is called the Wood of Greenleaves. Note that Randall ignores the Fifth Age and onwards; although Tolkien said that the present day is about the end of the Sixth Age or the beginning of the Seventh, nothing is written about these later Ages.<br />
| S.A. 3319+<br />
|<br />
* Greenwood the Great: c. V.Y. 4620 - T.A. 1050<br />
* Mirkwood: T.A. 1050 - 3019-03-28<br />
* The Wood of Greenleaves: T.A. 3019-03-28+<br />
|<br />
* Greenwood the Great: S.A. 3319 - T.A. 1050 (stated in comic as early Third Age) ('''Stop''')<br />
* Mirkwood: T.A. 1050 - 3019-03-28 (stated in comic as Late Third Age) ('''Stop''')<br />
* The Wood of Greenleaves: T.A. 3019-03-28+ (stated in comic as Fourth Age) ('''Stop''')<br />
|-<br />
! colspan="6" | ''Middle Earth Subbranch ends''<br />
|-<br />
! 38<br />
| '''Cair Paravel?'''<br />
| {{w|Cair Paravel}} is the fictional castle where the Kings and Queens of Narnia rule in ''{{w|The Chronicles of Narnia}}''.<br />
| Not a map of the Earth<br />
|<br />
* Yes: map of Narnia<br />
* No: inconclusive<br />
|<br />
* Yes: map of Narnia (Go to 39)<br />
* No: not a map of the Earth (Go to 43)<br />
|-<br />
! colspan="6" | Narnia Subbranch<br />
|-<br />
| colspan="6" | '''Note:''' This series contains seven books, whose original publication order does not match their chronological order. Specifically, ''The Magician's Nephew'' is eariler than ''The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'', and ''The Horse and His Boy'' is between ''The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'' and ''Prince Caspian''. Questions in this subbranch concern whether the place referenced can be found in the map contained in each book, not in which books' time the place exists. Therefore, places that exist in a book published later but is chronologically earlier than another book will not appear in the latter book, even if canonally they still exist in its time. Here are the seven books in their original publication order, which they will be referred to as.<br />
<br />
# ''{{w|The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe}}''<br />
# ''{{w|Prince Caspian}}''<br />
# ''{{w|The Voyage of the Dawn Treader}}''<br />
# ''{{w|The Silver Chair}}''<br />
# ''{{w|The Horse and His Boy}}''<br />
# ''{{w|The Magician's Nephew}}''<br />
# ''{{w|The Last Battle}}''<br />
|-<br />
! 39<br />
| '''Calormen?'''<br />
| {{w|Calormen}} is a foreign empire in ''The Chronicles of Narnia''. While it was indirectly referenced in the first three books, it was not included in maps until the later books in the series.<br />
| Map of Narnia<br />
|<br />
* No: 3-<br />
* Yes: 4+<br />
|<br />
* No: 3- (Go to 40)<br />
* Yes: 4+ (Go to 42)<br />
|-<br />
! 40<br />
| '''Lotta islands?'''<br />
| Refers to [http://www.charliewstarr.com/_Media/mapdawntreader.gif this map] from ''The Voyage of the Dawn Treader'', which focused on a ship voyage from Cair Paravel to the eastern edge of the world and back.<br />
| 3-<br />
|<br />
* No: not 3<br />
* Yes: 3<br />
|<br />
* No: 2- (Go to 41)<br />
* Yes: 3 ('''Stop''')<br />
|-<br />
! 41<br />
| '''Beruna'''<br />
| Refers to [http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-54_2TDRUbHY/TpJHzFBzmiI/AAAAAAAALOA/q3RnPSvfdJ0/s1600/IMG.jpg the map] of Narnia originally published in Prince Caspian. During the time of ''The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe'', the people of Beruna crossed the Great River via a ford, but it had been replaced by a bridge at the beginning of ''Prince Caspian''.<br />
| 2-<br />
|<br />
* Ford: 1<br />
* Bridge: 2<br />
|<br />
* Ford: 1 ('''Stop''')<br />
* Bridge: 2 ('''Stop''')<br />
|-<br />
! 42<br />
| '''Weird recursive heaven?'''<br />
| Refers to ''The Last Battle'', where the protagonists find themselves in {{w|Aslan's Country}}, a glorious afterlife of which Narnia (along with Earth and presumably every other world) is only a shadowy reflection.<br />
| 4+<br />
|<br />
* No: 6-<br />
* Yes: 7<br />
|<br />
* No: 4 - 6 (stated in comic as one of the random later books) ('''Stop''')<br />
* Yes: 7 ('''Stop''')<br />
|-<br />
! colspan="6" | ''Narnia Subbranch ends''<br />
|-<br />
! 43<br />
| '''Mossflower?'''<br />
| A forest from the ''{{w|Redwall}}'' book series.<br />
| Not a map of the Earth<br />
|<br />
* Yes: ''Redwall''<br />
* No: inconclusive<br />
|<br />
* Yes: ''Redwall'' ('''Stop''')<br />
* No: not a map of the Earth (Go to 44)<br />
|-<br />
! 44<br />
| '''Is the world on the back of a turtle?'''<br />
| The comic fantasy book series ''{{w|Discworld}}'' is set on the fictional Discworld, a flat disc balanced on the backs of four elephants which in turn stand on the back of a giant turtle.<br />
| Not a map of the Earth<br />
|<br />
* Yes: ''Discworld''<br />
* No: inconclusive<br />
|<br />
* Yes: ''Discworld'' ('''Stop''')<br />
* No: not a map of the Earth (Go to 45)<br />
|-<br />
! 45<br />
| '''Are you ''sure'' this is a map?'''<br />
| After incorrectly guessing several popular fictional world, it is fair to doubt whether the subject being identified here is a map at all.<br />
| Not a map of the Earth<br />
|<br />
* Yes: a map ''for sure'', just not of the Earth<br />
* No: not a map<br />
|<br />
* Yes: a map ''for sure'', just not of the Earth (Go to 46)<br />
* No: not a map (Go to 48)<br />
|-<br />
! 46<br />
| '''Did you make it yourself?'''<br />
| At this point, the map can only be a homemade map of some other fictional world.<br />
| A map ''for sure'', just not of the Earth<br />
|<br />
* Yes: a homemade map<br />
|<br />
* Yes: a homemade map (Go to 47)<br />
|-<br />
! 47<br />
| '''It's very nice.'''<br />
| A stock response to "[It's] Very nice" is "Thanks, I made it myself". Since we have already done the "made it myself" part, we need to do the other parts too, albert out of sequence.<br />
| A homemade map<br />
|<br />
* Thank you!: something "very nice"<br />
|<br />
* Thank you!: a "very nice" homemade map ('''Stop''')<br />
|-<br />
! colspan="6" | Not a Map Subbranch<br />
|-<br />
! 48<br />
| '''Is it trying to bite you?'''<br />
| Now we arr trying to guess something that is not a map. Makes sense to ask if it's something that bites, right? Right?<br />
| Not a map<br />
|<br />
* No: doesn't bite<br />
* Yes: bites<br />
|<br />
* No: doesn't bite and not a map (Go to 49)<br />
* Yes: bites (Go to 50)<br />
|-<br />
! 49<br />
| '''Is it larger than a breadbox?'''<br />
| The most common reference to breadboxes is the phrase "Is it bigger than a breadbox?" when trying to guess what some surprise object may be. However, instead of asking further questions to narrow down the choices, the comic just gives a guess for each response. It is worth noticing that the comic guesses a breadbox itself as something about the same size as a breadbox. Also, since the question is a common ''first'' question in order to narrow down the possibilities, it is unclear why it is asked after question 48.<br />
| Doesn't bite and not a map<br />
|<br />
* Yes: larger than a breadbox<br />
* No: smaller than a breadbox<br />
* About the same: about the same size as a breadbox<br />
|<br />
* Yes: larger than a breadbox, doesn't bite, and not a map (comic guesses a tuba) ('''Stop''')<br />
* No: smaller than a breadbox, doesn't bite, and not a map (comic guesses a stapler) ('''Stop''')<br />
* About the same: about the same size as a breadbox, doesn't bite, and not a map (comic guesses a breadbox) ('''Stop''')<br />
|-<br />
! 50<br />
| '''If you let it go, what does it do?'''<br />
|<br />
| Bites<br />
|<br />
* Hisses and go away: hisses and go away if let go<br />
* Screeches and flaps around the room breaking things: screeches and flaps around the room breaking things if let go<br />
|<br />
* Hisses and go away: bites, and hisses and go away if let go (comic guesses a cat) ('''Stop''')<br />
* Screeches and flaps around the room breaking things: bites, and screeches and flaps around the room breaking things if let go (comic guesses a seagull) ('''Stop''' (however, see 51))<br />
|-<br />
! 51<br />
| '''Does the screeching chill your blood and herald death?'''<br />
| ''Note: Title text question.''<br />
| Bites, and screeches and flaps around the room breaking things if let go<br />
|<br />
* Yes: Screeching chills your blood and heralds death<br />
* No: Screeching does not chill your blood and herald death; or does not screech<br />
|<br />
* Yes: bites; screeches and flaps around the room breaking things if let go; screeching chills your blood and heralds death (title text guesses a banshee) ('''Stop''')<br />
* No: bites; screeches and flaps around the room breaking things if let go; screeching does not chill your blood and herald death (title text guesses a seagull) ('''Stop''')<br />
|}<br />
<br />
=== West Africa branch (1930-1991) ===<br />
<br />
'''Is most of West Africa a giant French blob?'''<br />
Before 1960, most of West Africa consisted of a number of French colonies united under [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_West_Africa French West Africa].<br />
<br />
'''Pakistan?'''<br />
Pakistan was officially recognized as its own country separate from India in 1947.<br />
<br />
'''How many Germanys are there?'''<br />
During WWII, the Nazi Party invaded a large swath of Europe, which would make Nazi Germany huge on the map during that period. After the war, it split up into two countries — West Germany which was part of NATO, and East Germany which was part of the Warsaw Pact. Note that by modern standards, pre-WWII Germany was also quite huge, since at that point Germany included {{w|Prussia}} which contained much of modern Poland as well as Russian {{w|Kaliningrad}}, and in 1938 Germany took control of Austria in the {{w|Anschluss}} and the {{w|Sudetenland}} in {{w|Czechoslovakia}} following the {{w|Munich Agreement}}. Not all maps produced during WWII used the Nazi borders, since the Allies refused to recognize German occupation and supported the {{w|government-in-exile|governments-in-exile}}.<br />
<br />
'''Persia or Iran?'''<br />
Persia was renamed Iran in 1935.<br />
<br />
'''Cambodia?'''<br />
Cambodia (or Kampuchea) declared independence from France in 1953.<br />
<br />
'''Eritrea is a part of...'''<br />
Eritrea declared independence from Italy in 1952, joining Ethiopia to create the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federation_of_Ethiopia_and_Eritrea Federation of Ethiopia and Eritrea].<br />
<br />
'''Canada is...'''<br />
In 1949, the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_of_Newfoundland Dominion of Newfoundland] became a part of Canada. Before that, it was marked as its own region on the map, so maps from 1948 and before would have Canada "missing a piece" on its east coast as compared to how it looks today.<br />
<br />
'''How many Vietnams are there?'''<br />
On April 30, 1975, forces from North Vietnam captured Saigon, and reunified the country, in an event known as [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reunification_Day Reunification Day], which marked the end of the Vietnam War. Maps before this date would have "North Vietnam" and "South Vietnam" on them rather than a single "Vietnam".<br />
<br />
'''Bangladesh?'''<br />
Bangladesh declared independence from Pakistan in 1972.<br />
<br />
'''Is the area south of Lake Victoria...'''<br />
The area called Tanganyika declared independence from Britain to form its own country in 1961, and unified with Zanzibar to create Tanzania in 1964.<br />
<br />
'''The town on I-25 between Albuquerque and El Paso is [Hot Springs 1948-49] or [Truth or Consequences 1950-52]'''<br />
I-25 didn't exist for any of the years listed for this item, since the Interstate Highway System wasn't launched until 1956. The highway designation on maps printed during the years listed was U.S. 85. The town continues to be called "Truth or Consequences", although locals say that it provides more of the latter than of the former.<br />
<br />
This question is also for the wrong time period, as the search tree leading to a British Tanganyika is only the period from 1960-1961.<br />
<br />
'''Jimmy Carter is...'''<br />
On April 20, 1979, Jimmy Carter was attacked by a giant swimming rabbit, a fact referenced in [[204|204: America]]. This fact would not normally be referenced on a map, however, and is simply a joke entry that leads to the next question.<br />
<br />
'''The Sinai is part of what country?'''<br />
In 1979, Israel signed a piece Treaty in which it would gradually retreat from the entire Sinai Peninsula, handing that area to Egypt. This happened over a period of three years, completing in 1982.<br />
<br />
'''What's the capital of Micronesia?'''<br />
The [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federated_States_of_Micronesia Federated States of Micronesia] are a group of small islands in the Pacific Ocean. Their capital was Kolonia until 1989, when it changed to Palikir, on the same island.<br />
<br />
'''Republic of the Upper Volta or Burkina Faso?'''<br />
Burkina Faso was named the Republic of the Upper Volta until 1984, when the president Thomas Sankara decided to rename it.<br />
<br />
'''(Number of Yemens) + (Number of Germanys) = ?'''<br />
In 1990, two unification events took place: the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yemeni_unification Yemeni unification] on May 22, and the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_reunification German reunification] on October 3. Before these events, in early 1990, there would have been four Yemens and Germanys total. In mid-1990, when only the Yemeni unification had taken place, there would be one Yemen and two Germanys, for a total of three. and in late 1990, after both events took place, there would be one of each for a total of two.<br />
<br />
=== Post-Soviet branch (1991-) ===<br />
<br />
'''Zaire?''' <br />
Zaire was one of a series of names for what is today called the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In 1996 a (successful) revolt began to oust the reigning government from power. As part of this revolution, the country was renamed. The original name change away from 'Congo' was part of an 'Africanisation' naming campaign, although 'Congo' is in origin an authentic African name for the river that set the boundaries of the nation. <br />
<br />
'''Serbia and Montenegro are...'''<br />
Serbia and Montenegro were a remnant of Yugoslavia. Montenegro voted to become its own country in 2006.<br />
<br />
'''East Timor?'''<br />
East Timor is a nation north of Australia and south east of Indonesia. During the dutch colonization of Indonesia east Timor remained in Portuguese hands. While occupied and annexed by Indonesia since 1976, east Timor retained its own culture and voted for independence, then had a nasty militia action that required UN peacekeeping action, and finally become independent in 2002.<br />
<br />
'''How many Sudans are there?'''<br />
In 2011, after a long history of violence between the two portions of the country (which can be characterized as Islamic vs. Christian and Traditional Religions), South Sudan became independent from its northern neighbor.<br />
<br />
'''Is Crimea disputed?'''<br />
In 2014, a revolution ousted the current Ukrainian president. Crimea had its own civil unrest, and Russian troops exploited the unrest to launch an invasion. A referendum, where many nations, including all member states of the EU, the USA, and Canada, disputed the democratic legitimacy of the referendum, was held during this and ostensibly decided in favor of russian annexation.<br />
<br />
====Radioactive Colorado Subbranch====<br />
<br />
'''"Colorado" or "Danger—Radioactive Exclusion Zone—Avoid"?'''<br />
This entry and the one below it are now referring to hypothetical future events: specifically, a huge radioactivity event in Colorado that takes place some time in 2022.<br />
<br />
'''Does the warning mention the spiders?'''<br />
Presumably some time in 2023, the radioactive exclusion zone also becomes infested with mutant spiders.<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
<br />
Guide to figuring out the age of an undated world map<br />
<br />
(Assuming it's complete, labeled in english, and detailed enough)<br />
<br />
Start:<br />
* Istanbul or Constantinople?<br />
** Constantinople:<br />
*** <span id="canada-alaska-tokyo">Do any of these exist? Independent Canada; US Territory of Alaska; Tokyo.</span><br />
**** No:<br />
***** The Holy Roman Empire?<br />
****** Yes:<br />
******* 1805 or earlier (before this point, the modern idea of a complete political map of the world gets hard to apply.)<br />
****** No:<br />
******* The United States?<br />
******** No:<br />
********* How sure are you that this map is in english?<br />
******** Yes:<br />
********* Texas is...<br />
********** Part of Mexico:<br />
*********** Florida is part of...<br />
************ Spain:<br />
************* Paraguay?<br />
************** No: '''1806-10'''<br />
************** Yes: '''1811-17'''<br />
************ The US:<br />
************* Venezuela and/or ecuador?<br />
************** No: '''1818-29'''<br />
************** Yes: '''1830-33'''<br />
********** Independent: '''1834-45'''<br />
********** Part of the US:<br />
*********** Does Russia border the Sea of Japan?<br />
************ No:<br />
************* The US's southern border looks...<br />
************** Weird: '''1846-53'''<br />
************** Normal: '''1854-56'''<br />
************ Yes: '''1858-67'''<br />
**** Yes:<br />
***** South Africa?<br />
****** No:<br />
******* Rhodesia?<br />
******** No:<br />
********* Is Bolivia landlocked?<br />
********** No:<br />
*********** "Buda" and "Pest" or "Budapest"?<br />
************ Buda and Pest: '''1868-72'''<br />
************ Budapest: '''1873-83'''<br />
********** Yes: '''1884-95'''<br />
******** Yes:<br />
********* Is Norway part of Sweden?<br />
********** Yes: '''1896-1905'''<br />
********** No: '''1906-09'''<br />
****** Yes:<br />
******* Austria-Hungary?<br />
******** Yes:<br />
********* Albania?<br />
********** No: '''1910-12'''<br />
********** Yes: '''1913-18'''<br />
******** No:<br />
********* Leningrad?<br />
********** No: '''1919-23'''<br />
********** Yes: '''1924-29'''<br />
** Neither:<br />
*** Does the Ottoman Empire exist?<br />
**** Yes: '''[[#canada-alaska-tokyo]]'''<br />
**** No:<br />
***** The Soviet Union?<br />
****** Yes:<br />
******* Saudi Arabia?<br />
******** Yes:<br />
********* <span id="west-africa-french-blob">Is most of West Africa a giant french blob?</span><br />
********** Yes:<br />
*********** <span id="bangladesh">Bangladesh?</span><br />
************ No:<br />
************* Is the area south of Lake Victoria...<br />
************** British:<br />
*************** The town on I-25 between Albuquerque and El Paso is...<br />
**************** Hot Springs: '''1948-49'''<br />
**************** Truth or Consequences: '''1950-52'''<br />
************** Tanganyika: '''1961-64'''<br />
************** Tanzania: '''1965-71'''<br />
************ Yes: '''1972-75'''<br />
********** No:<br />
*********** How many Vietnams are there?<br />
************ Two:<br />
************* [[#bangladesh]]<br />
************ One:<br />
************* Jimmy Carter is...<br />
************** Being attacked by a giant swimming rabbit: '''April 20, 1979'''<br />
************** Fine:<br />
*************** The Sinai is part of what country?<br />
**************** Israel: '''1976-79'''<br />
**************** Mostly Israel: '''1980'''<br />
**************** Mostly Egypt: '''1981'''<br />
**************** Egypt:<br />
***************** What's the capital of Micronesia?<br />
****************** Kolonia:<br />
******************* Republic of the Upper Volta or Burkina Faso?<br />
******************** Upper Volta: '''1982-84'''<br />
******************** 1985-88<br />
****************** Palikir:<br />
******************* (number of Yemens) + (number of Germanys) = ?<br />
******************** Four: '''1989-early 1990'''<br />
******************** Three: '''mid-1990'''<br />
******************** Two: '''late 1990-1991'''<br />
******** No: '''1922-1932'''<br />
****** No:<br />
******* North Korea?<br />
******** Yes:<br />
********* <span id="zaire">Zaire? or: '''"Hong Kong (UK)"</span>'''<br />
********** Yes: '''1992-96'''<br />
********** No:<br />
*********** Serbia/Montenegro are...<br />
************ One country:<br />
************* East Timor?<br />
************** No: '''1997-2001'''<br />
************** Yes: '''2002-06'''<br />
************ Two countries:<br />
************* How many Sudans are there?<br />
************** One: '''2007-11'''<br />
************** Two:<br />
************** Is Crimea disputed?<br />
*************** Yes:<br />
**************** "Colorado" or "Danger—Radioactive Exclusion Zone—Avoid"?<br />
***************** Colorado: '''2014-21'''<br />
***************** Danger:<br />
****************** Does the warning mention the spiders?<br />
******************* No: '''2022'''<br />
******************* Yes: '''2023 or later'''<br />
*************** No: '''2012-13'''<br />
******** No:<br />
********* Saint Trimble's Island<br />
********** No:<br />
*********** Is Jan Mayen part of the Kingdom of Norway?<br />
************ Not yet:<br />
************* [[#canada-alaska-tokyo]]<br />
************ What?<br />
************* Can you see the familiar continents?<br />
************** Yes:<br />
*************** This sounds like a physical map or satellite photo.<br />
**************** Yes, that's it<br />
***************** Is Lake Chad missing?<br />
****************** No:<br />
******************* How far east do the American Prairies reach?<br />
******************** Indiana: '''before 1830'''<br />
******************** The Mississippi: '''1830s-80s'''<br />
******************** Nebraska:<br />
********************* Is there a big lake in the middle of Southern California? (created by mistake)<br />
********************** No: '''1860s-1900s'''<br />
********************** Yes: '''1910s'''<br />
******************** What prairies?<br />
********************* Is there a big lake in the middle of Ghana? (created on purpose)<br />
********************** No: '''1920s-50s'''<br />
********************** Yes: '''1960s-70s'''<br />
****************** Yes:<br />
******************* Is the Aral Sea missing?<br />
******************** No: '''1970s-90s'''<br />
******************** Yes: '''2000s+'''<br />
************** No:<br />
*************** Rivers "Sirion" or "Anduin"?<br />
**************** Yes:<br />
***************** Mordor?<br />
****************** No:<br />
******************* Beleriand?<br />
******************** Yes: '''First Age'''<br />
******************** No: '''Early Second Age'''<br />
****************** Yes:<br />
******************* Númenor?<br />
******************** Yes: '''Late Second Age'''<br />
******************** No:<br />
********************* The forest east of the Misty Mountains is...<br />
********************** Greenwood: '''Early Third Age'''<br />
********************** Mirkwood: '''Late Third Age'''<br />
********************** The Wood of Greenleaves: '''Fourth Age'''<br />
**************** No:<br />
***************** Cair Paravel?<br />
****************** Yes:<br />
******************* Calormen?<br />
******************** No:<br />
********************* Lotta Islands?<br />
********************** No:<br />
*********************** Beruna<br />
************************ Ford: '''The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'''<br />
************************ Bridge:<br />
********************** Yes: '''Prince Caspian'''<br />
******************** Yes:<br />
********************* Weird recursive heaven?<br />
********************** No: '''one of the random later books'''<br />
********************** Yes: '''The Last Battle'''<br />
****************** No:<br />
******************* Mossflower?<br />
******************** Yes:<br />
********************* Redwall<br />
******************** No:<br />
********************* Is the world on the back of a turtle?<br />
********************** Yes: '''Discworld'''<br />
********************** No:<br />
*********************** Are you ''sure'' this is a map?<br />
************************ Yes:<br />
************************* Did you make it yourself?<br />
************************** Yes:<br />
*************************** It's very nice.<br />
**************************** Thank you!<br />
************************ No:<br />
************************* Is it trying to bite you?<br />
************************** No:<br />
*************************** Is it larger than a breadbox?<br />
**************************** Yes: '''tuba'''<br />
**************************** No: '''stapler'''<br />
**************************** About the same: '''breadbox'''<br />
************************** Yes:<br />
*************************** If you let it go, what does it do?<br />
**************************** Hisses and runs away: '''cat'''<br />
**************************** Screeches and flaps around the room breaking things: '''seagull'''<br />
************ Yes:<br />
************* Pakistan?<br />
************** No:<br />
*************** How many Germanys are there?<br />
**************** One:<br />
***************** Persia or Iran?<br />
****************** Persia: '''1930-34'''<br />
****************** Iran: '''1935-40'''<br />
**************** One, but it's ''huge'': '''1941-45'''<br />
**************** Two: '''1946-47'''<br />
************** Yes:<br />
*************** Cambodia?<br />
**************** No:<br />
***************** Eritrea is part of...<br />
****************** Italy:<br />
******************* Canada is...<br />
******************** Missing a piece: '''1948'''<br />
******************** Fine: '''1949-52'''<br />
****************** Ethiopia: '''1952-53'''<br />
**************** Yes:<br />
***************** The United Arab Republic?<br />
****************** No: '''1954-57'''<br />
****************** Yes: '''1958-60'''<br />
********** Yes: '''No, I made that one up.'''<br />
** Istanbul:<br />
*** Does the Soviet Union exist?<br />
**** Yes:<br />
***** [[#west-africa-french-blob]]<br />
**** No:<br />
***** [[#zaire]]<br />
<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Large drawings]]<br />
[[Category:Flowcharts]]<br />
[[Category:Maps]]<br />
[[Category:Time]]<br />
[[Category:Geography]]<br />
[[Category:Animals]]<br />
[[Category:Fiction]]<br />
<!-- Cat and seagull --></div>108.162.244.85https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1685:_Patch&diff=1208081685: Patch2016-05-25T13:50:01Z<p>108.162.244.85: Correct replacing -> replace</p>
<hr />
<div>{{comic<br />
| number = 1685<br />
| date = May 25, 2016<br />
| title = Patch<br />
| image = patch.png<br />
| titletext = My optimizer uses content-aware inpainting to fill in all the wasted whitespace in the code, repeating the process until it compiles.<br />
}}<br />
<br />
==Explanation==<br />
<br />
<br />
{{w|Adobe Photoshop}} is a commonly used software for image manipulation. One of its features is "content-aware inpainting", which allows the user to delete parts of the image and seamlessly replace the deleted sections with "patches" of texture from other parts of the image. <br />
<br />
The {{w|GNU}} {{w|Patch (Unix)|patch}} is a software program that replaces only parts of the code with an updated version, without requiring the user to download the entire source code. Here, it appears the author was told to "patch" the code, but used Photoshop to do this instead of GNU patch, with devastating results. Although the title text suggest that if you did this enough times the code would eventually compile, this would never happen. In fact, Photoshop could only edit an image of the text and not the text itself.<br />
<br />
The code appears to be written in {{w|Python_(programming_language)|Python}}, a programming language often referred to in xkcd. A few of the function names that can be recognized are "isPrime" and "quicksort", both elementary programming algorithms.<br />
<br />
The title text also explains that patch used the content-aware inpainting to fill in all the wasted whitespace in the code. In Python, whitespaces are used as a part of programming syntax (for example, new line of code are used instead of semicolon (;), and indents are used instead of curly brackets.<br />
<br />
The original code was likely as follows:<br />
<br />
:<font color="red">import</font> re<br />
:<font color="red">def<font color="purple"> isPrime</font></font>(n):<br />
:::<font color="red">if </font>n<font color="red"><</font><font color="light blue">1</font>:<br />
:::::<font color="red">return</font> <font color="light blue">False</font><br />
:::<font color="red">for</font> i <font color="red">in <font color="light blue">range</font></font>(<font color="light blue">2</font>, <font color="light blue">int</font>(n<font color="red">**</font><font color="light blue">0.5</font>)<font color="red">+</font><font color="light blue">1</font>):<br />
:::::<font color="red">if</font> n<font color="red">%</font>i<font color="red">==<font color="light blue">0</font></font>:<br />
:::::::<font color="red">return<font color="light blue"> False</font></font><br />
:::<font color="red">return <font color="light blue">True</font></font><br />
:<font color="red">def <font color="purple">isPrimeRegex</font></font>(n):<br />
:::<font color="red">if</font> re.match(<font color="red">r</font><font color="blue">'</font><font color="light blue">^</font><font color="blue">1</font><font color="red">?<font color="light blue">$</font>|<font color="light blue">^</font><font color="blue">(.1</font>+?<font color="blue">)</font><font color="green">\1+</font><font color="light blue">$</font></font><font color="blue">'</font>, <font color="blue">'1'</font><font color="red">*</font>n): <br />
:::::<font color="red">return <font color="light blue">False</font><br />
:::<font color="red">return<font color="light blue"> True</font></font></font><br />
:<font color="red">def<font color="purple"> quicksort</font></font>(a):<br />
:::<font color="red">if <font color="light blue">len</font></font>(a) <font color="red">< <font color="light blue">2</font></font>:<br />
:::::<font color="red">return </font>a<br />
:::pivot<font color="red">=</font>a[<font color="light blue">0</font>]<br />
:::l<font color="red">=</font>[i<font color="red"> for</font> i <font color="red">ln</font> a <font color="red">if</font> i<font color="red"><</font>pivot]<br />
:::r<font color="red">=</font>[i<font color="red"> for</font> i <font color="red">ln</font> a <font color="red">if</font> i<font color="red">></font>pivot]<br />
:::mid<font color="red">=</font>[pivot]<font color="red">*</font>(<font color="light blue">len</font>(a)<font color="red">-</font>(<font color="light blue">len</font>(l)<font color="red">+</font><font color="light blue">len</font>(r)))<br />
:::<font color="red">return </font>quicksort(l)<font color="red">+</font>mid<font color="red">+</font>quicksort(r)<br />
<br />
==Transcript==<br />
:[The panel displays part of a code, in four different colors (red, light blue, green and purple) as well as normal black text, which due to image editing is difficult to read. The first and last line are partly obscured by the frame of the panel. Here below is an attempt to transcribe the code, using the sign "¤" for anything not easily transcribed. Feel free to add other signs instead of these that looks more like the one in the image (and also improve the attempted transcription if possible).]<br />
:<font color="red">impo¤l <font color="purple">me<br />
:<font color="red">doo<font color="purple">PisPS¤me</font></font></font></font>(n):<br />
:::<font color="red">r</font>(<font color="purple">¤</font>n<font color="red"><</font>n,<font color="light blue">1</font>:<br />
:::::<font color="red">retern</font> <font color="light blue">F</font>(<font color="light blue">ise</font><br />
:::<font color="red">for</font> i <font color="red">ir<font color="light blue">ararre</font></font>(<font color="light blue">2</font>, <font color="light blue">nint</font> <font color="red">*</font>n<font color="red">**</font>n<font color="red">+</font><font color="light blue">5</font>)<font color="red">+</font><font color="light blue">5</font>):<br />
:::::<font color="red">if</font> n i<font color="red">==<font color="light blue">0</font></font><br />
:::::::<font color="red">ret¤¤nrs<font color="light blue">elsel</font></font>:<br />
:::<font color="red">re¤ irn <font color="light blue">True</font></font><br />
:<font color="red">defe<font color="purple">sisPrimcieg ¤x</font></font>(c<font color="purple">x</font><br />
:::<font color="red">if</font> <font color="purple">g</font>e<font color="purple">¤i</font>natc<font color="purple">x</font>(<font color="red">r</font>'<font color="light blue">^<font color="blue">(1<font color="red">?| ?.<font color="blue">1<font color="red">+?<font color="blue">)<font color="gree">\+<font color="blue">)<font color="light blue">$</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font>'<font color="red">*</font>n <font color="blue">)1'<font color="red">*</font></font>n):<br />
:::::<font color="red">rerjrn <font color="light blue">Fa<font color="blue">(</font> e</font></font><br />
:::<font color="red">Letyl<font color="purple">nr<font color="light blue">Trl</font></font></font><br />
:<font color="red">dq<font color="purple">l qlsorsor<font color="light blue">n</font></font></font>(a :<br />
:::<font color="red">if <font color="light blue">¤n</font></font>(a <font color="red">< <font color="light blue">2</font></font>:<br />
:::::<font color="red">eteturn </font>a<br />
:::pi<font color="red">= =r f</font>a[<font color="light blue">0</font>]<br />
:::l<font color="red">=</font>pi<font color="red">=for</font> j <font color="red">ln</font> a i<font color="red"><</font> i<font color="red"><</font>pi<font color="red"><</font>(t]<small>(</small>)<br />
:::r<font color="red">=</font>[l<font color="red">=for f in</font> a) <font color="red">r</font> i<font color="red">></font>viviv]<small>(</small>vo)<br />
:::mid<font color="red">=</font>[pi[<font color="red">*</font>t]<font color="red">*</font>(<font color="light blue">l</font><font color="red">*</font>t<font color="light blue">,</font>(a)<font color="red">-</font>(<font color="light blue">len</font>pi<font color="light blue">enlen</font>(c)))<br />
:::<font color="red">r¤lrurrr</font>iklcksckt(l) <font color="red">+</font> r ¤ ¤quickrort(r)<br />
<br />
:[Caption below the panel:]<br />
:Protip: If you don't have access to the GNU ''patch'' tool, you can use the Photoshop one.<br />
<br />
{{comic discussion}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:Comics with color]]<br />
[[Category:Protip]]<br />
[[Category:Programming]]</div>108.162.244.85https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Proposals&diff=120744explain xkcd:Community portal/Proposals2016-05-25T04:34:02Z<p>108.162.244.85: /* Not insulting new users */</p>
<hr />
<div><noinclude>{{Community portal}}</noinclude><br />
<br />
== Add unexplained strips ==<br />
<br />
At the moment, browsing through the explanations using the previous and next buttons is interrupted whenever there's an explanation missing.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
: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.<br />
<br />
: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.<br />
<br />
:'''TL;DR:''' No more red links, no more work gets done on the back catalog.<br />
<br />
:--[[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]<span title="I'm an admin. I can help.">_a</span> ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 14:28, 21 December 2012 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== xplainkcd.com ==<br />
<br />
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)}}<br />
<br />
: I like that idea! --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 13:28, 3 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
: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)<br />
<br />
:Not technically the same thing, but I just took [http://expxkcd.com http://expxkcd.com]. More explanation is given on the website itself. {{User:Grep/signature|05:10, 29 March 2014}}<br />
::We do that with explainxkcd.com as well, but yay shorter URLs! Mind if I use that for our social media links? '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 06:45, 29 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
:::I had no idea that you did that, but sure, go ahead! If you want, I can change any DNS records if you wish to have it go directly to you guys. {{User:Grep/signature|07:16, 29 March 2014}}<br />
:::In case you were wondering, I just did the following: <code>^/([0-9]+)(/large)?/?$</code> {{User:Grep/signature|07:25, 29 March 2014}}<br />
::::Hrm. We're just matching with <code>^(\d+)/?$</code>. You can keep ownership of the URL if you want, unless you have traffic concerns or whatever and you want us to handle it, which we're very capable of doing. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 08:47, 29 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I have made http://www.xkcd.ga and http://www.xkcd.tk both forward to http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page. Is this ok? [[User:17jiangz1|17jiangz1]] ([[User talk:17jiangz1|talk]]) 08:49, 26 December 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Section style and usage ==<br />
<br />
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. <br />
<br />
# '''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.<br />
# '''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. <br />
# '''Links''' I do not have a reference for this but it seems to me putting links in section code (== [[<span style="color:blue"><nowiki>this</nowiki></span>]] == ) is bad form. <br />
<br />
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.<br />
--[[User:Smartin|Smartin]] ([[User talk:Smartin|talk]]) 04:15, 4 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
: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|<span title="I want you."><u><font color="purple" size="2px">David</font><font color="green" size="3px">y</font></u><sup><font color="indigo" size="1px">22</font></sup></span>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 05:08, 4 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
: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.<br />
<br />
:Personally, I think that links in section titles looks wrong, but I choose not to be the dictator of style in this matter. :p<br />
<br />
: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.<br />
<br />
:--[[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]<span title="I'm an admin. I can help.">_a</span> ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 07:00, 4 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
::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]]<span title="I'm an admin. I can help.">_a</span> ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 07:18, 4 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
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)<br />
===Title case doesn't make any sense===<br />
At first sight title case in titles just makes sense. However title case '''never''' makes sense. It's worse than all caps. Besides, only Americans and children like title case. [[Special:Contributions/190.96.48.48|190.96.48.48]] 20:04, 10 August 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
<br />
==New character==<br />
As per [[Talk:1178: Pickup Artists]], the character with hair has appeared in quite a few comics now, and he's starting to become a recurring character. Shall we go ahead with inaugurating him into our list of regular characters, and what name shall we assign him? Current candidate names include Hairy and Harry. Anyone? '''[[User:Davidy22|<u><font color="purple" title="I want you">David</font><font color="green" size="3px">y</font></u><font color="indigo" size="4px">²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 00:07, 26 February 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
: I like Harry :) --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 01:04, 26 February 2013 (UTC)<br />
::Cos made a point in the discussion on [[Talk:1178: Pickup Artists]] that Hairy is directly descriptive, whereas Harry is not obvious to visitors. On the other hand, not all names are descriptive ([[Danish]]) and I think this wiki is entitled to create some xkcd-in-culture, and not just describe. And Harry is quite funny.<br />
::I wonder: has [[Randall]] ever called him anything at all in the transcript? –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 21:52, 26 February 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::Well, he's not named in a any official transcripts, but he's already called Harry in quite a few comic explanations. Then again, I do like having a more descriptive name for him. Shall we hold this up to a vote? '''[[User:Davidy22|<u><font color="purple" title="I want you">David</font><font color="green" size="3px">y</font></u><font color="indigo" size="4px">²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 23:29, 26 February 2013 (UTC)<br />
::::I think we should wait a little for a few more viewpoints to crop up. Also, can someone link to some more comics he's been featured in? I've got [[1028: Communication]], [[1027: Pickup Artist]] and [[1178: Pickup Artists]]. –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 23:41, 27 February 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::::I actually like what that anon said: ''Curly''. Second choice: Hairy (being descriptive, a la Black Hat, Beret, Cueball, etc.) While there's talk about in-culture, we've done that with the names Cueball, Beret, etc. It's my opinion that the only names that should be "real" proper names are those that are named in the comic. Megan, Miss Lenhart, etc. Danish (as is discussed below) isn't truly a proper name, but you could argue it's a meta-description (one attributed by Black hat.) So that's my vote: yes for '''Curly''' or '''Hairy''', no for Harry. [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 05:21, 2 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::That's right, [[Danish]] is not descriptive, but 1/ that name was suggested because the character [[515: No One Must Know|was called that way in the comic]], which is a tiny bit like a name given by the author (at least more than Harry which we have completely made up), and 2/ in that case it's hard to find a descriptive term: use something that revolves around her black hair (her only descriptive feature), and you easily mix up with [[Megan]]; the only graphical difference is that her hair is ''long'', but what kind of name can you make out of that?<br />
:::For this new character, I suggest Hairy because it comes as the easy solution with every advantage: descriptive, easy to understand, and it's not ugly... I actually see no reason to resort to a made-up name like Harry.<br />
:::[[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 22:29, 27 February 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
: '''Alright. So the discussion's been had, and the most oft recommended name appears to be Hairy. All in favor, say aye. If more than 1/3 of editors agree and we have more than 6 votes, Hairy it is.''' '''[[User:Davidy22|<u><font color="purple" title="I want you">David</font><font color="green" size="3px">y</font></u><font color="indigo" size="4px">²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 05:58, 2 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
:# '''Aye''' '''[[User:Davidy22|<u><font color="purple" title="I want you">David</font><font color="green" size="3px">y</font></u><font color="indigo" size="4px">²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 05:58, 2 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
:# '''Aye''' [[User:Guru-45|Guru-45]] ([[User talk:Guru-45|talk]]) 06:14, 2 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
:# '''Aye''' to Hairy. [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 15:43, 2 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
:# '''Aye'''. Harry would be a nice nod to the fact that he's actually hairy, but indeed it's better to avoid inside jokes. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 17:05, 2 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
:# '''Aye'''. I'm convinced! –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 17:52, 3 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
:# '''Aye'''. Hairy. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]<span title="I'm an admin. I can help.">_a</span> ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 20:52, 3 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
::Hooray! We now have a [[:Category:Comics featuring Hairy]], with four pages already! Does anyone feel compelled to create "[[Hairy]]", with a brief description and a nice profile pic like the other characters? –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 22:58, 3 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Ambiguous characters ==<br />
<br />
I've been thinking about the problem of the ambiguity of characters. "Is this really Cueball even though he has an eye and half a nose?", "This is very likely ''not'' x." "Darnit, these arn't Cueballs, these are Randall and his friends!", and so on. The character ambiguity is standard for xkcd (not less so in the early ones), and comes from the very loose or "free" way Randall uses his characters to be whatever he needs at the moment. It's simply often impossible for us to know whether he had e.g. "Cueball" or himself in mind, when drawing a particular comic (and I'd say: probably often both).<br />
<br />
I want to suggest that we in general have a likewise rather loose policy towards including characters in the categories for the comics. So that reasonably ambiguous cases should be included in e.g. (does she have a ponytail?) This is not because I believe this or that to really be this or that; I just don't believe in objective truth (here!). I feel that when doing research :) on a character, the borderline cases are often the most interesting ones, and you want to be able to find them through the "Comics featuring miss x"!<br />
<br />
I came to think this through now, when I wanted to (and did) list two comics with [[Miss Lenhart]] (?) where she was drawn but not named. Any thoughts on this in general? Other case studies? –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 21:17, 5 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
:My take has always been that [[Cueball]], for example, has not been a specific character. There is not ''a'' cueball, per se, distinct from any other cueball... indeed, there are several comics with several cueballs in-frame, and that is the point. I see the cueball character as a wildcard character (pun intended) ready to stand in for anybody (and ''not'' necessarily just Randall; I think those readers who suggest "this ''is'' Randall" are missing the point; he's way more META than that...) [[Megan]], while slightly less generic, still remains the female wild-card significant-other, while Curls seems to be a not-significant-other female used to illustrate a relationship that is transient. Other characters come and go, and when it's important to visually distinguish them from others in the frame, they're given additional characteristics, to wit [[Hairy]], [[Ponytail]], etc.<br />
:Unfortunately, that viewpoint is not commonly held, so I daresay I'm in the minority here.<br />
:-- [[User:IronyChef|IronyChef]] ([[User talk:IronyChef|talk]]) 14:18, 6 March 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Note at the top, about the server error ==<br />
<br />
:''This thread was moved to [[MediaWiki talk:Sitenotice]]''<br />
<br />
<br />
== I've removed "add a comment!" from Discussion heading ==<br />
<br />
This does move it to above the line, and the rule stops early. Undo my change if that's more bothering than when the TOC is displayed as "add a comment!Discussion"... <br />
<br />
I don't know how to automatically treat level 2 headers as level 3. That may be why Discussion was a level 1 heading earlier.<br />
[[User:Markhurd|Mark Hurd]] ([[User talk:Markhurd|talk]]) 11:16, 14 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Actually I now noticed there was a short edit war at {{tl|comic discussion}} over whether it should be a level 1 heading, just for this reason. [[User:Waldir]] seems to have conceeded... [[User:Markhurd|Mark Hurd]] ([[User talk:Markhurd|talk]]) 11:25, 14 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:: No edit war, hence no (intentional) concession. I reverted a change once, and didn't notice the change being re-implemented by another user. In any case, it is irrelevant now since we actively discourage using headers in talk pages precisely so that they don't display in the TOC for the main comic page, where the discussion page is transcluded to (see the discussion [[#Section style and usage|above]]). This might not scale well for comics that generate lots of discussion. It might be worth discussing our customs (and perhaps write them down somewhere) before performing such changes. What do others think? --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 11:49, 14 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Time: The Table ==<br />
<br />
Right now on the page [[1190: Time]], we have a whole bunch of tables in the form image-time-hash. The tables take up heaps of vertical space and all have to be collapsed to even be remotely traversible. I propose that we aggregate all the images into one table after Time ends, like so:<br />
<br />
{| class="wikitable plainlinks table-padding"<br />
|-<br />
!Image<br />
!Time<br />
!Image<br />
!Time<br />
!Image<br />
!Time<br />
!Image<br />
!Time<br />
|-<br />
|[[Media:time.png|00:00]]||01/00:00||[[Media:time.png|10:00]]||01/10:00||[[Media:time.png|20:00]]||01/20:00||[[Media:time.png|30:00]]||AND MOAR SAMPLE DATAS<br />
|-<br />
|[[Media:time.png|00:30]]||01/00:30||[[Media:time.png|10:30]]||01/10:30||[[Media:time.png|20:30]]||01/20:30||[[Media:time.png|30:30]]||AND MOAR SAMPLE DATAS<br />
|}<br />
<br />
The hash values aren't really a part of the comic, they're gibberish for the most part and they take up space that could be used to compact the table, as shown above. Even if we are conservative and make the table only five columns wide to account for smaller screens, we've divided scrolling time by five and eliminated much of the need for annoying collapsed tables and section headers for each day. Constructing the table shouldn't be particularly hard either, as all our current data is in nice regular tables with clear patterns that are easy enough to parse through. <br />
<br />
I'm putting this here because the organization of the frame entries would be unintuitive and difficult to change from the edit window, which would make it a poor choice when we're still expanding it and don't even know how long the comic will continue for. It's merely a space-saving trick for after we're sure that the comic is over. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 09:26, 16 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:Oh and it'd be really nice if other people could also upload images if you're awake and a new one rolls by. There's gaps in the image record every time I wake up, and I dun likey. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 11:34, 20 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Good work so far; go ahead make it better! :) –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 08:34, 24 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
==Featured Explanation, and Archival?==<br />
<br />
* Wikipedia has featured content. Now that we are close to reaching the goal of all comics explained, I think it makes more sense to have a "featured explanation" which would serve as a sort of a marker for a complete and good explanation. Many comics, and almost all charts are not fully explained/not a good quality explanation.<br />
<br />
* We should set up archival of discussion of the most discussed pages, like this one. Its not very pleasing to see comments from July 2012 still lying around here. It becomes hectic at some point.<br />
<br />
Just my 2 cents, feel free to discuss. Cheers,<br />
[[Special:Contributions/117.194.88.180|117.194.88.180]] 13:36, 24 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:We dedicate this wiki to explaining xkcd, and we do actually have a featured comic feature; it changes every week on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and we usually manage to fill out the explanation for it within an hour or so of it going up. The most recent comic tends to be the one that most people visiting the wiki care about, so we give it prime space on the front page so they can find it easily. xkcd updates frequently enough that there isn't really that big of a time window for us to feature an article on our front page. Also, we're a volunteer project with quite a bit less manpower than Wikipedia.<br />
:We do need to archive talk pages though. Some of these are getting ridiculously long. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 14:04, 24 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
::I agree with Davidy22. Archiving topics can be done by anyone, by moving resolved threads to the portal section's corresponding [[explain xkcd talk:Community portal/Proposals|talk page]]. We could start with the threads marked "✓ Closed". [[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 17:42, 1 May 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:: The reason I asked for a "featured explanation" was because many of the comic explanations we currently have are sub-par, and we're almost at our initial goal of explaining all comics. A "featured explanation" would drive our editors towards the goal of having complete and good explanation towards all comics, and would allow us to know which explanations need elaboration.<br />
:: P.S. My definition of complete explanation would be - To have a good explanation, To have all categories relevant, To link to any comics related and To explain any technical portions of the comic.<br />
:: [[Special:Contributions/117.194.82.49|117.194.82.49]] 07:45, 8 May 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::That message on the front page is going to link to all the pages marked by the incomplete template. If you find an unsatisfactory explanation, please mark it with <nowiki>{{incomplete}}</nowiki> '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 07:54, 8 May 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::: By my definition, I think all comics will be incomplete. An incomplete template will be focused more towards improving the worst explanations, while a featured one will be to improve the best ones. Since we already have the former, we should focus on the latter. Just my 2 cents. [[Special:Contributions/117.194.85.82|117.194.85.82]] 06:55, 9 May 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Split the list of all comics ==<br />
<br />
[[List of all comics]] is getting larger and larger, which makes it hard to read and hard to edit. How about splitting into parts, say [[List of all comics/1-1000]], [[List of all comics/1001-2000]], etc., or something to that effect? --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 17:39, 1 May 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
: Done. [[Special:Contributions/117.194.88.176|117.194.88.176]] 10:03, 9 May 2013 (UTC)<br />
::Great job, thanks! [[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 11:09, 9 May 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::And I've added back [[List of all comics (full)]], which allows, for example, listing all comics by alphabetical order.[[User:Markhurd|Mark Hurd]] ([[User talk:Markhurd|talk]]) 17:29, 10 May 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Sidebar ads ==<br />
<br />
''Moved from [[Talk:Main Page]] –– [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 08:06, 4 May 2013 (UTC)''<br />
<br />
Are they generating significant money? The ones I see are pretty sleazy looking and/or scammy - "Power Companies Hate this Device! - click here to break the laws of thermodynamics!" and "Debt relief program click here to lose more money". How much money are they generating? Can you set any selections to remove the sleazy ads? [[User:J-beda|J-beda]] ([[User talk:J-beda|talk]]) 18:30, 3 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Do we have sleazy sidebar ads? Since when? Thanks Google Chrome and AdBlock, I had no idea! –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 07:47, 14 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
::People give 20$ a pop to get a bunch of clicks on explainxkcd, and Jeff uses that money to buy a faster server with a hard drive that doesn't have less space than a public toilet with an elephant in it. It'd be really nice if you didn't turn on adblock, the money is appreciated. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 08:47, 14 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::It's a question of me not turning it off specifically every time I visit this site. More importantly, I do think people would be more likely to click the "donate" if it weren't irrelevant ads around it. –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 19:29, 14 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::Generating money is a great thing. Getting "20$ a pop to get a bunch of clicks" is a bit unclear. Do the ads only generate revenue when clicked on? So EXKCD only gets money when someone actually falls for the sleazy ads? I know lots of people do not like Google - but at least their adsense stuff is relevant to the content of the website, which might generate some legitimate traffic for a legitimate advertiser.... [[User:J-beda|J-beda]] ([[User talk:J-beda|talk]]) 11:48, 19 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
::::Welllll, I didn't pick the ad supplier. You could bring it up with [[User talk:Jeff|Jeff]] if you want, I think he picked the ad provider on basis of which one had a mediawiki plugin or something. If you can link Jeff to a quick and easy way to put adsense on mediawiki, he should change it quickly enough. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 14:21, 19 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::::And I also gather then that they are only a temporary thing? -- [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 08:27, 24 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
::::::Until we can buy a server that doesn't poop itself every time a new comic is released, the ads are staying. If you want them to go away sooner, throw more money at Jeff. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 09:25, 24 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
::::::: The ads are crap. For sure. Wish I didn't have to run them, but I don't trust donations alone to hold up continually some better hosting. The ads really don't bring in that much $$$. I had google adsense before, but Google shutdown my adsense account for unnamed reason after 1 week. This new ad service is way sketchier. If you all think they don't have a place here, I'll ax 'em. --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 16:02, 24 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
::::::: Thanks for the info Jeff. How much ad money are we talking about? Is it calculated on how many ads are displayed or how many are clicked-through? How close to the goal is the server fund? How about a Kickstarter campaign for the server? $10 gets your name on a thankyou webpage or something like that. [[User:J-beda|J-beda]] ([[User talk:J-beda|talk]]) 17:32, 24 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::::::: It ain't much, last I looked it was $2 or $3 in 2 weeks. I believe it is based on clicks, it is not nearly as clear as Google adsense. I'm not really interested in doing a Kickstarter. I think the donations will cover the initial start up, I just want to be able to cover the monthly costs as well. A few things are still up in the air. --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 16:24, 25 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::::::::Can you find a way to show the donations and ad income on the site, to make it transparent? ––[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 15:30, 30 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
::::::::: How about a donation amount that you'll take to turn it (the annoying unethical scummy ads) off for a year? Give me a dollar value and I might step up for the good of us all! [[User:J-beda|J-beda]] ([[User talk:J-beda|talk]]) 16:28, 3 May 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Economic transparency ==<br />
<br />
I think this is very important: How can we make the donations and ad-income transparent, so that we all can see when and how much money is coming in, and how far we are from reaching our goal? – [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 00:35, 24 May 2013 (UTC)<br />
: Sounds fine to me, I think I can put something together. --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 15:52, 28 May 2013 (UTC)<br />
::Hi, may I bump this issue? Or maybe you have done something, and I missed it? Anyway, I would still appreciate it! –[[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 17:43, 22 February 2014 (UTC)<br />
:::Numberssss. I'll get on with it, just need less homework and a few more numbers. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 07:54, 23 February 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I would like to respectfully file a complain. I find the banner advertisement of background checks distasteful. [[User:Benjaminikuta|Benjaminikuta]] ([[User talk:Benjaminikuta|talk]]) 05:10, 15 July 2014 (UTC)<br />
: Hey [[User:Benjaminikuta|Benjaminikuta]] - I am the one who approved those ads. But, since you have filed a complaint about them, I have gone ahead and removed them. Thanks. --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 12:52, 15 July 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I thank you. [[User:Benjaminikuta|Benjaminikuta]] ([[User talk:Benjaminikuta|talk]]) 03:36, 17 July 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Using <nowiki><nowiki></nowiki></nowiki> in transcripts to improve accuracy ==<br />
<br />
In the transcripts, <nowiki>[[lines]]</nowiki> are being changed to [lines] in order to avoid auto-linking. Why not just surround these with <nowiki><nowiki></nowiki></nowiki> tags and avoid the problem entirely? --[[User:Epauley|Epauley]] ([[User talk:Epauley|talk]]) 04:18, 16 June 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Because it takes less time to type and single brackets are just as readable as double brackets to visitors. It's also a bit more readable in the editor. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 09:55, 16 June 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Strip Title ==<br />
<br />
For someone who commonly browses explainxkcd in place of xkcd, and hence often see the strips for the first time here rather than the parent site, I find it somewhat odd that the 'Title Text' is so poorly displayed given how critical it can be to the strip.<br />
<br />
I propose that, while retaining the given name (perhaps moving it top left), the title text be enlarged and relocated to being over the strip as originally intended. {{unsigned ip|175.41.133.18}}<br />
:The title text is placed very well at bottom of the image.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 07:20, 6 September 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:I would have to agree with Dgbrt, it's placed nicely at the bottom, and there is no need for it to be moved. My reasoning is that you never actually read the title text first, you read it last. Making it <code>text-align: left;</code> does not make sense, because the image is centered (just like on xkcd.com). I also believe that there is no need for it to be re-sized, mainly due to the fact that it is slightly larger than the title text (for me, at least). {{User:Grep/signature|05:18, 08 September 2013}}<br />
<br />
:Plus, if you hover over the image, it's the same as on xkcd.com {{User:Grep/signature|06:13, 08 September 2013}}<br />
<br />
:I also agree with Dgbrt and Grep. The title text is kind of a bonus and should not be emphasized more than on the original page. On the original site you only see it before the image, if you have very slow internet access (or very fast eyes) --[[User:Chtz|Chtz]] ([[User talk:Chtz|talk]]) 08:06, 2 October 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Sections in talk pages ==<br />
<br />
Is there a reason why there are no sections in talk pages? It is not a very big deal, but especially for longer talk pages it would make editing be much handier, especially when using the preview function (not having to find the section every time). Also it automatically adds a description to the history (thus makes it more easy to look for certain edits, or decide by just looking at the [[Special:RecentChanges]], if a comment should concern you. --[[User:Chtz|Chtz]] ([[User talk:Chtz|talk]]) 08:01, 2 October 2013 (UTC)<br />
:When discussion pages are transcluded by the comic discussion template, section headers carry over from talk pages and bad things happen. Using ; to denote headers instead of equals signs works well, and doesn't share transclusion pain. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 08:04, 2 October 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== references ==<br />
<br />
Any chance we can add [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Cite/Cite.php cite.php] to this wiki? Most pages don't need it, but some comics take on a life of their own and being able to add reference tags would be really helpful for those. [[User:LadyMondegreen|LadyMondegreen]] ([[User talk:LadyMondegreen|talk]]) 01:33, 9 October 2013 (UTC)<br />
: Cite has been added to the wiki. Thanks for the suggestion! --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 01:35, 17 October 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Stylized writing ==<br />
<br />
I understand that this wiki isn't as formal as wikipedia or sites like that but it seems that there are a few questionable practices:<br />
<br />
1. The use of questions - when a non-rhetorical or unnecessary question is entered into the explanation.<br />
<br />
2. Extremely painted/biased view points - when there is obvious bias in the tone of the explanation of the contributor, in other <br />
words; a lack of neutrality.<br />
<br />
3. Extreme repetition/rehashing - the explanation restates things and makes for a long and tedious read when a more straight-forward explanation is possible and clearer.<br />
<br />
4. The general informality - "This one's an easy one" "This is simple" "this one's straightforward" "You're an idiot for not understanding this one" etc.<br />
<br />
5. Many other practices that make the explanation hard to read, difficult to understand, or plain ugly.<br />
<br />
I know that there are disparaging view points on how a comic should be explained, but please let's clean up the site a bit, acknowledge each view point and report on all of them and then tighten up the sloppy writing. Carry out arguments in the talk section, not the explanation. Perhaps we could first try to say the majority view point on the interpretation and then write the alternate explanations, of course this would bring up the debate on which is the majority explanation. Either way, more complete, logical explanations should be given more credence. --[[User:Lackadaisical|Lackadaisical]] ([[User talk:Lackadaisical|talk]]) 00:25, 23 October 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:I agree with 2-5. 1, on the other hand, is sometimes useful and can contribute the to explanation, although 1 is still a very good point. I would say that you should edit it to have "arguments in the talk" be a 6th point as well. Unfortunately, though, we are not all logical, comic-understanding machines here, so minor deviations of these rules are still to be expected. But I think that overall, these are good rules, even if 2/3 are sort of part of 5.<br />
:[[User:Lackadaisical|Lackadaisical]], please sign your post with <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki><span style="float: right;">{{User:Grep/signature|23:55, 22 October 2013}}</span><br />
<br />
:I understand the use of questions in certain parts. And it was probably better to put the others as sub-categories to five but I wanted to show some common things that can be easily fixed. I know that some explanations require a lot of text and extensive research because of the abstract subjects Randall deals with and that it's difficult to be completely standardized but I think it would be good for us to try to come up with some general things to try to avoid to help the explanations "flow" --[[User:Lackadaisical|Lackadaisical]] ([[User talk:Lackadaisical|talk]]) 00:25, 23 October 2013 (UTC)<br />
::Most of that isn't intentional, it's just an awful lot of labor to copy check all the explanations. I've been going through all the current articles and fixing consistency issues, the worst being wrong transcript/title text/dates and the most benign being wikilinks, spelling and trailing spaces. I'm at 682 so far, but my next pass will be on actual language and content, and it'll probably take longer. It takes a while though, and you can totally work on improving language in articles if you want to. Some explanations were pulled from the old blog, some were written and just got lost in the changelog. Copy editing everything we have so far is a very labor-intensive job, and the only way to really deal with it is to knuckle down and do it, or form a wikiproject and hope to heaven that visitors feel charitable enough to join in on it. I'd *probably* push to finish up all our incomplete articles first though, just because that's more directly related to the purpose of the site; tone and style probably comes second to having correct explanations. That doesn't mean you can't do it yourself, it's just that I'll probably only dedicate the subheader on the main page to one project at a time and our current biggest bugbear hasn't been solved yet. I could put up a sitenotice to see if that speeds the process up any. I'll do that when I get back home. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 03:31, 23 October 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Easy redirect to comic? ==<br />
<br />
I've been thinking, and there is one thing that would make navigating to the explained comics easier. My method of browsing is I'll see the comic on xkcd.com first, and if there is something curious about it that I don't quite understand, I'll come here. Sometimes it can be a bit troublesome, going to the homepage and then navigatiing to the right comic. Not too bad, but I'd like an easy way to go direct. So I was thinking, what if you had a redirect such that if you typed in, for example, www.explainxkcd.com/505, you would get redirected to http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=505:_A_Bunch_of_Rocks. That would mean that you could get to the comic just from adding an "explain" to the start of the xkcd.com URL. I don't know if that is at all possible, but it would be pretty handy if it happened. Thoughts?<br />
[[User:Alcatraz ii|Alcatraz ii]] ([[User talk:Alcatraz ii|talk]]) 03:01, 25 October 2013 (UTC)<br />
:[http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Technical#Redirect_from_explainxkcd.com.2F1234 That's actually already on the to-do list.] I'm testing it right now and we should have it up soon. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 04:02, 25 October 2013 (UTC)<br />
:: Awesome :) [[User:Alcatraz ii|Alcatraz ii]] ([[User talk:Alcatraz ii|talk]]) 03:26, 1 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::Whoop, forgot to mark this as complete. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 04:37, 1 November 2013 (UTC) <br />
:::: Done! Copy this and drag it to your bookmarks bar: |javascript: var url = document.URL; document.location = url.replace('xkcd.com','explainxkcd.com');| {{unsigned ip|173.245.52.29}}<br />
:::::The feature requested here has also long since been implemented. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 22:20, 4 April 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Increase support via prominent display of copyright and license for text submitted to explainxkcd ==<br />
<br />
XKCD itself is rather liberally licensed, and gets lots of good will from that. As it says on the bottom of every page "This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License." For details see [http://xkcd.com/license.html xkcd - A Webcomic - License].<br />
<br />
But I found nothing on most pages of explainxkcd about copyright or licensing, and it discouraged me from contributing or donating. Finally, as I was writing this proposal up, I found a link on the editing page here: [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=explain_xkcd:Copyrights explain xkcd:Copyrights - explain xkcd] saying that "''The Explain XKCD wiki is generally licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license (CC-BY-SA-3.0)''". That notice should be more prominent on the site, with at least a link on each page. [[User:Nealmcb|Nealmcb]] ([[User talk:Nealmcb|talk]]) 15:27, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:This should be mentioned at the main page, including a reference to the xkcd origin.<br />
:BTW: NO DOUBLE SPACES after a sentence. Are you US guys still using a typewriter? It's not rendered at a web page and stupid like Gallons, Miles, Foots, and much more unique US behaviours. But that's just a joke beside.<br />
:The licence hint is much more important, you are just correct.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:12, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::Added a creative commons icon to the footer of the page, next to the powered by mediawiki button. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 22:16, 5 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== New Comics Bot ==<br />
<br />
Would there be need for such a thing?<br />
[[Special:Contributions/108.162.231.52|108.162.231.52]] Synthetica<br />
:Nice idea, I never thought about that before. I will do some tests on existing comics to check if this could reduce the current number of error posts for a new article. When that is ready and working I will talk to some admins. My bot account [[User:DgbrtBOT|DgbrtBOT]] was originally intended for [[1190: Time]] picture uploads, but I never have used it because Time was over. Creating the new pages should be easy in general, avoiding errors will cost some more work. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:31, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::If you can get dgbrtBOT to do that, that'd help us an awful lot. It'd allow us to get rid of the ifexist cases in template:LATESTCOMIC as well, since the bot could change automatically that whenever a new comic goes up. It'll also help us get new comics down almost the moment they pop up, since the bot could sample several times a minute until a comic is posted. So long as it gets the general pattern right so that we have a correct page set up, we're good. An admin can come in sometime later to clean up categories and image urls and other piddly easy-to-fix details. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 20:54, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::I will work on this next weekend, just local scripts and no updates here. I also will talk about my results before any automatic updates will be activated. My first focus is on creating the new pages in the general pattern, LATESTCOMIC and also the page "All comics" are maybe a bonus later. And of course all my scripts will be open source.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:44, 6 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::::The first version is ready and I will test it at my local wiki. If everything goes well I could activate it for Wednesday (2013-11-13). LATESTCOMIC and "All comics" are on my roadmap, but first I want produce correct new pages here. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:00, 10 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::::Righty ho. Here goes. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 20:36, 10 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
Even when my automatic local wiki test did fail today, just a damn wrong password, I will activate the bot here for Wednesday. It will only run from 4:00 PM until 8:00 PM UTC. You will not see my possible updates at [[Special:RecentChanges]] unless you click ''Show bots'' at the top of that page. LATESTCOMIC and "All comics" are not covered, but this is at my TODO list until this test will be successful. Give me a '''GO''' or '''NO-GO''' for this test.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:49, 11 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Easily a GO, I'll be ready to clean up if anything goes wrong. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 22:08, 11 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::So be ready on Wednesday for the clean up. My worst case is ''it simply does not work'', second worse scenario is still that I could delete some contend already posted here, but I'm trying to avoid this. ''Huston'', the countdown clock is counting. I'm joking about this because I really want to be confident about this ''BOT'' or ROBOT or uncontrolled action here.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 00:28, 12 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::The bot can't do anything that I can't reverse. I can even restore a backup from an hour before the bot's edits if it manages to break the database. How quickly does it poll xkcd, by the way? '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 07:53, 12 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
First live test here (comic 1289). Please delete this page: [[Simple_Answers:_1289]]. Since my local wiki did not provide this templates I could not see this error before. In general the bot will update pages differ to any existing pages, but when it is not changed no update will happen. I'm fixing this errors at my script and do a second test here soon. I want to see it's producing correct pages until the bot will do it's work when I'm sleeping.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:31, 12 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Ok, test are done here, BOT is scheduled for the next update. Polling is every five minutes on Mon, Wed, and Fri from 04:00 until 08:00 UTC. Let's see how it will work.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 23:08, 12 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::Couldja ramp that up to once/twice a minute, push the start time back by an hour, and the end time by a few hours? Also, is it possible to terminate it once it finds a comic for a certain day? '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 01:45, 13 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::It worked! Though it posted the comic 5 minutes past post time. We has technology now, we can afford to poll faster and closer, yeah? '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 05:32, 13 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
Uhh, it worked... I will increase the polls when I'm more confident about the release times. Today it was approx. 05:00 UTC (GMT) or 01:00 EST (Randall's time zone). Looks like he is still at daylight saving time, would have been 00:00 EDT. The polls will be increased to one minute when I'm sure about the Standard Release Time (SRT). Next steps for the next update on Friday are:<br />
:The "All comics" page.<br />
:The LATESTCOMIC template.<br />
--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 19:54, 13 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:The LATESTCOMIC template is included for the next run, it just simply has to return a number. But it's still the most critical part because if it does not work the Main Page is broken. I will change this to a better solution using that IFEXIST syntax soon. The list of all comics is still at my ToDo list. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:06, 14 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::The desired content of the LATESTCOMIC template should be just the comic number. If we can get out of having to poll multiple IFEXIST statements to find the latest comic, that would be a fantastic boon to our server performance. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 04:43, 15 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::OK, it did work today so I will not change this. Next step is the list for all comics.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 11:10, 15 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
Next run will include an update on the "All comics" page. I'm crossing my fingers. When this update is also successful I will document my Bot at the Bot user page [[User:DgbrtBOT]]. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:15, 17 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Oh, I forgot this detail: The bot is starting at 00:00 EST (RLT - Randall local time), which is 04:00 UTC and 05:00 MET for me. It polls every 5 minutes until 23:55 MET (22:55 UTC, 18:55 RLT) the main page until a new comic is found. I do not poll the comic number because I want to avoid 404 message logs at the servers.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:30, 17 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Something went wrong there. That's gonna need fixing. I am enjoying the looks of the apparently faster polling though. Maybe you could also set the start time to 00:00:05 EST to catch the on-time xkcd releases within ten seconds? '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 05:33, 18 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::Uh, what a mess. I will do some more tests at my local wiki. At the next time I will do a check against the number from the LATESTCOMIC template, only the next number will be processed. The test against my local history did fail because of some cleanups after testings.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 08:18, 18 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:::I don't like mess. So the BOT got many more checks before posting here but the bot was starting at 05:00 local time for me. I'm really asleep at that time. The mess here was covered, but I do need another GO for the next attempt. Otherwise I will just do a test to my local wiki.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:35, 18 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
No GO so far, my next test will run only at my local wiki.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:16, 19 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:My script is here: [https://github.com/dgbrt/explainXKCD_update explainXKCD_update]. At my current test "explainxkcd.com" is commented out and "localhost" is active. Since I don't like mess and the bot does act while I am sleeping the next update must be done manually here. I'm hoping the bot will be ready for the next update on Friday.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:15, 19 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::Bot is ready for Friday, everything went smooth at my last local test today. The bot did find the latest comic at 04:05 UTC and all essential pages were properly created. So I will activate it for this site again. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:57, 20 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
Bot did work as expected. So I name it release 1.1337, the next planed release will be 2.1337 (beta) because of this two issues:<br />
*"Include any categories below this line." will be removed because it doesn't make any sense any more.<br />
*BETA: I want to use the full template features at [[List of all comics]], just ensuring that the pictures are working properly. No need for this at the most comics, but the BOT doesn't cover all possibilities on corrupt file names like we have had in "Pi vs. Tau". The picture was without that dot. My bot just shows the real link it did upload here.<br />
I'm pretty sure we will have some issues on this bot, but for general pages it should work. So the bot will be active on Mon,Wed,Fri from 0:00 EST (or EDT) every five minutes until it did found a new comic, on success the bot does not poll any more.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:51, 22 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Aww, it's a bot. It doesn't need to rest or take time off to do other stuff. It can totally poll once or more times per minute. Also, if you set the start time to a few seconds after midnight, Randall time, when he uploads a comic on-time, you'll get it within a few seconds as opposed to having to wait for the next polling. As for the image names, maybe you could convert spaces in the comic name to underscores, compare the two comic names you have and use that to decide which version of the template to use? '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 23:08, 22 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
::I have to avoid that the bot is running twice, Internet Timeouts and more. And the comics are also published later sometimes. Look at my release [https://github.com/dgbrt/explainXKCD_update 1.1337], release 2.1337 will be later, Maybe I should start at 2 minutes after 0:00, but let's see right now how the bot does work. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 00:38, 23 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
Uhh, what a huge discussion here. The bot will get a major update soon: Scheduler does start it once and until a comic is found and uploaded it here or an other limit is reached (maybe the end of the day) the bot will poll by a small delay. But every poll is still an entire download from the main page, When a new comic is found bot stops.<br />
:Why, you could use http://xkcd.com/info.0.json, right?[[Special:Contributions/108.162.231.52|108.162.231.52]] 07:38, 2 December 2013 (UTC)Synthetica<br />
::The BOT performs perfect and I prefer to analyze the original page. A title text like the one from today (a text showing a link) will be covered in the future.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 10:35, 2 December 2013 (UTC)<br />
A great enhancement would be also covering a new comic like 1190 Time was. I'm looking forward on this, some ideas, it does require a complete analyse of the page and then finding some strange content. <br />
--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 23:05, 27 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Require description for 'incomplete' tags ==<br />
I've been trying to fix some of the incompletes, but several explanation pages I've come across are tagged incomplete without any reason given. The reason should be a required part of the tag. --[[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.223|173.245.52.223]] 03:35, 7 December 2013 (UTC)<br />
:This incomplete tags are just older than the recent change of that template. Current adds require a description, but it's not easy to figure out all that old reasons. If someone does find a reason, please just add it. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:22, 7 December 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Should there be a subwiki to cover the shop links that appear above the comic? ==<br />
<br />
The current one (as of writing) is [http://imgs.xkcd.com/store_news/store_gd_b11_1ze4.png] but this is a different than the usual, and there was also a third in between these.<br />
[[User:Rsranger65|Rsranger65]] ([[User talk:Rsranger65|talk]]) 06:00, 8 December 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Those are very ephemeral. They aren't going to exist for very long, I don't know how valuable it would be to archive that stuff. We could probably do it, but having to figure out another naming convention and all for advertisements doesn't appeal to me at the current moment. If you can flesh it out, I'd love to see how you think we should do it. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 07:24, 8 December 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== New Character ==<br />
<br />
OK, I think we need a name for the character with a goatee and glasses in comics [[435: Purity]], [[796: Bad Ex]] and [[964: Dorm Poster]] as well as possibly others. Edit: oh and I suggest Goatee and Glasses Guy, but I'm open for suggestions Edit 2: also in [[826: Guest Week: Zach Weiner (SMBC)]] Halfhat {{unsigned|Halfhat}}<br />
edit 3: Another sighting [[954: Chin-Up Bar]] [[User:Halfhat|Halfhat]] ([[User talk:Halfhat|talk]]) 16:57, 13 January 2014 (UTC)<br />
: In the transcript, he is called "Person with Glasses and a Goatee" --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 15:39, 21 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
:: "Glasses Guy", "Goatee Guy" are both probably descriptive enough! --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 15:41, 21 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== What If Comics ==<br />
<br />
Hi, I was thinking, maybe at some point we should do the comics in the ''What If?'' section, like [http://what-if.xkcd.com/imgs/a/36/cornstarch_bitcoins.png this one.] [[User:Halfhat|Halfhat]] ([[User talk:Halfhat|talk]]) 20:01, 13 January 2014 (UTC)<br />
: Start creating the pages for them! --[[User:Jeff|<b><font color="orange">Jeff</font></b>]] ([[User talk:Jeff|talk]]) 15:36, 21 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
: I think I can start creating one or two pages for What If, if that helps... [[User:Daniel Carrero|Daniel Carrero]] ([[User talk:Daniel Carrero|talk]]) 16:14, 5 April 2014 (UTC)<br />
:: If nobody has any problem with it, I'm gonna give it a try later. :) [[User:Daniel Carrero|Daniel Carrero]] ([[User talk:Daniel Carrero|talk]]) 13:14, 8 April 2014 (UTC)<br />
:::I thought they were already pretty self-explanatory though. Also, how are we gonna organize and present them? '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 16:31, 8 April 2014 (UTC)<br />
::::I totally agree with David: Read the entire What-If page and follow the links provided by Randall. No one of us can do that better in depth. But an overview page for this site is maybe not a bad idea, we just need a proper link here — a link at the main menu on the left. Translations to other languages are just another issue. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 22:37, 8 April 2014 (UTC)<br />
:::::Yes, I was thinking of an overview, summarizing the contents and discoveries of each what if page. Not to mention, we could also organize what if pages by categories, such as physics/love.<br />
:::::Would you like me to post here an example of what I would write? That way we can decide if it's worthy of creating an actual page. [[User:Daniel Carrero|Daniel Carrero]] ([[User talk:Daniel Carrero|talk]]) 12:53, 9 April 2014 (UTC)<br />
:Adding pages for What If? posts would be very helpful. Although the articles themselves are obviously self-explanatory, there are almost as many subtle references, running gags, and in-jokes in What If? posts these days as in the comics themselves.<br />
I often visit explain xkcd when I feel like I'm missing an inside joke or a pop culture reference in a comic, and it would be very helpful to many people (especially those from other cultures/subcultures) to have the same service.<br />
For example, today's What If? contains multiple allusions to the Superman Movie, a running Citation Needed joke, and a whole comic that is a not-so-subtle dig at Elon Musk and the Hyperloop. It would be awesome if the community here at explainxkcd could tackle stuff like that.<br />
Anonymous 20:05, 31 July 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
I agree. I don't understand the mouseover text on the first image in "Snow Removal", for example. [[User:Benjaminikuta|Benjaminikuta]] ([[User talk:Benjaminikuta|talk]]) 22:57, 23 February 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Transcripts ==<br />
<br />
The whole point of the transcripts is to have those who are unable to view images to still be able to read the comic, right?<br />
<br />
Then why is it required to stick to strictly official transcripts, where sometimes rewriting them slightly would make them flow better or otherwise get the ideas across better? I've tried rewriting a few, but they get reverted. I think that having easier-to-understand transcripts would be more important than strictly following official transcripts; what do you think? (For a few examples, see [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=207:_What_xkcd_Means&diff=60061&oldid=57400 this edit] and [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=995%3A_Coinstar&diff=59862&oldid=57316 this edit]. [[User:Zowayix|Zowayix]] ([[User talk:Zowayix|talk]]) 17:38, 19 February 2014 (UTC)<br />
:We use the original transcript to try and deduce original author intent if it's unclear from the image. I remember one comic where Beret Guy was off in the distance and it was difficult to distinguish him from the image, but the official transcript said it was him. We don't stick to the original transcript if it's obviously wrong, or it has typographical errors: see [[Laser Scope]]. Those edits seem to be mainly targeted at language and clarity, and should be fine. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 23:06, 19 February 2014 (UTC)<br />
::Would it be helpful to have another (optional) section for expanding on the official transcripts? I too think it could be helpful, especially for complex images (such as 1079/United Shapes [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1079]). Or does supplemental description belong in the Explanation sections? Cheers. [[User:Karenb|Karenb]] ([[User talk:Karenb|talk]]) 23:00, 20 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
:::Naaah, how many people even know there's an original transcript? If the original is wrong, change it. If your additions begin to verge on explanatory, move eet to the trivia/explanation sections. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 00:52, 21 March 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== "Characters in this Comic" section ==<br />
<br />
Should there be a "Characters in this Comic" section in each comic explanation? (I feel like this should be longer but don't have anything else to say.) [[User:Z|Z]] ([[User talk:Z|talk]]) 23:33, 11 May 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:There is a Category section at the bottom of each comic. Just scroll down and you will see any character belonging to a specific comic. --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 21:50, 12 May 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Adding the Radiation chart from XKCD ==<br />
<br />
Hi <br />
As there are already other comics with explanations even though they are not part of the number system.<br />
This one does not seem to have any yet:<br />
http://xkcd.com/radiation/<br />
And as it is very alike the Money strip (the unexplained of the week) so I think it should be explained as well.<br />
If you agree please add it as I'm not sure how to do that.<br />
<br />
Best regards<br />
:[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 18:47, 7 June 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Reddit comments? ==<br />
<br />
There should be a link in each comics explanation page somewhere linking to the comment section for the relevant comic on /r/xkcdcomic or reddit.<br />
:The reddit comments page isn't ''that'' close to what we do though. If this is more popular, we'll do it, though there'll need to be a fair bit of post-hoc editing since I don't think there's a standard URL scheme for all the past comics. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 03:15, 23 June 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Not insulting new users ==<br />
<br />
I am writing a response to a vulnerability assessment. I have included a link to http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/936 noting that it contains a good explanation of the relative security of passwords vs passphrases. I just noticed that the top of that page contains "Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb." Looks like I'll have to find a different site to link to. --[[User:Pascal|Pascal]] ([[User talk:Pascal|talk]]) 17:33, 28 June 2014 (UTC)<br />
:I agree. While I'm sure it can seem cute or funny in various circles, that text has always seemed immature and inappropriate to me, and I'm sure to many folks we'd like to invite to the site. I suggest that it be changed. [[User:Nealmcb|Nealmcb]] ([[User talk:Nealmcb|talk]]) 19:52, 23 March 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:The XKCD http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/936 suggestion for password is actually not that good. [http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/62832/is-the-oft-cited-xkcd-scheme-no-longer-good-advice read here] for some more discussion. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.253.6|162.158.253.6]] 23:49, 10 March 2016 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:I also agree. I'm not here because I'm stupid, I'm here because I don't know something and I'm hoping this site can help. It's off putting to have that text there, and there's no benefit to it. What about just repeating the thing at the top of XKCD.com: "Romance, Sarcasm, Math, and Language: Explained"?<br />
<br />
== RSS feed ==<br />
<br />
Is there an RSS feed (or some equivalent) of Explain XKCD available? It's helpful for those using feed readers, and superior to the primary XKCD RSS since there are explanations and the mouse over text is transcribed for the lazy. Thanks [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.154|108.162.219.154]] 08:24, 28 August 2014 (UTC)<br />
:[http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Special:NewPages&feed=atom&hideredirs=1&limit=90&offset=&namespace=0&username=&feed=&tagfilter= Why yes, we do!] It's the regular new pages log that all wikis have. It's a little ugly at the moment, and sometimes junk gets in there when a bot chucks spam at us, so a nicer feed is in the works, but the linked one should do you excellently for now. When the nice one is done, you'll see it in the sidebar below the "Help" button. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 11:31, 28 August 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Navigation Pane Link - Categories ==<br />
<br />
How about having a link to the "Special:Categories" page in the navigation pane?<br />
<br />
A fair amount of effort has gone into categorising the comics, and at the moment it isn't particularly obvious how to browse by category. Is this worth doing?{{unsigned|Pudder}}<br />
:Space on the sidebar is on a premium. I dunno, I'd probably be against it, but I want to hear what other admins say as well. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 16:45, 29 September 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Alternate realities what if would benefit from a wiki entry ==<br />
<br />
The what if entry from the end of November 2014 providing excerpts from alternate reality what ifs would benefit from an explain page. <br />
I suspect these may have been typos that have been made into jokes, but some of the humor might not be apparent to all. <br />
I doubt I have access (or maybe know how) to set it up myself. <br />
<br />
Cheers {{unsigned ip|199.27.133.42}}<br />
<br />
: Made it. Check out [[What If: 120: Alternate Universe What Ifs]]. [[User:17jiangz1|17jiangz1]] ([[User talk:17jiangz1|talk]]) 09:10, 26 December 2014 (UTC)<br />
::We don't actually have a structure for what if pages in general, so I'll have to take that down, but when we do we can make pages for every what if. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 09:57, 26 December 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Secondary URLs? ==<br />
<br />
I have made http://www.xkcd.ga and http://www.xkcd.tk both forward to http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page. Is this ok? [[User:17jiangz1|17jiangz1]] ([[User talk:17jiangz1|talk]]) 08:50, 26 December 2014 (UTC)<br />
:While we probably won't advertise them because we can't guarantee the uptime of third-party URLs, and they add an additional redirect layer and lack our shortened URL features, you're free to purchase and link URLs to us independently. We are not owned by Randall and as such cannot claim to actually be xkcd, so I'm not hugely comfortable with you using the plain name "xkcd" to link to us; a url in the format http://www.xkcd.[TLD] should by rights link to the main xkcd site, but no trademark claim has been made or likely will be made, so you should be fine with doing whatever you want to do with URL redirects '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 09:57, 26 December 2014 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== LaTeX (Or MathML, TeX) support? ==<br />
<br />
[[1489:_Fundamental_Forces|In the most recent comic at the time of posting]], there was use of formulae, being:<br/>F<sub>gravity</sub> = G m<sub>1</sub>m<sub>2</sub>/d<sup>2</sup><br/>F<sub>static</sub> = K<sub>e</sub> q<sub>1</sub>q<sub>2</sub>/d<sup>2</sup><br/><br />
There are probably many more comics using formulae that cannot be rendered properly without the use of LaTeX or something. The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Displaying_a_formula help page on Wikipedia] says that the following should work:<br/><math>F_{gravity}=G\frac{m_1m_2}{d^2}</math><br/><math>F_{static}=K_e\frac{q_1q_2}{d^2}</math><br />
Provided that one has to set <source lang="php" enclose="none">$wgUseTeX = true;</source> in [[mw:Manual:LocalSettings.php|LocalSettings.php]]. Is there any reason for this to be disabled? If there is, is there any alternative? —[[Special:Contributions/141.101.106.95|141.101.106.95]] 21:18, 20 February 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:The wgUseTeX flag was deprecated in mediawiki 1.18 in a move to simplify base mediawiki and move niche features into seperate plugins. I vaguely remember this being requested in the past, can't find any evidence of me implementing it. I'll try it now, see what stopped me last time. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 01:12, 21 February 2015 (UTC)<br />
:Ah, there's a bit of configuration work to it and I was busy at the time probably. I'll put it on the growing to do list on my userpage. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 01:20, 21 February 2015 (UTC)<br />
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== Merge Cueball & Rob ==<br />
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At the risk of posting this idea too many places and annoying everyone, I would like to propose that we consider merging [[Cueball]] and [[Rob]] and redirecting Cueball to Rob, much as [[Cutie]] now redirects to [[Megan]]. The most common name given for a Cueball-like character in the strip is "Rob". Like Megan, he is not always named. Also, like Megan, Rob tends to have distinct characteristics such as being a nerdy alter-ego to Randall (e.g. [[1168: tar]]) just as Megan often is the appearance given to comic representations of Randall's wife (see [[1141: Two Years]], before hair loss). Megan and Cueball appear to have a relationship (e.g. [[159: Boombox]]) and Megan clearly hangs out with Rob in ways not inconsistent with adventurous couples (e.g. [[782: Desecration]]). Finally, comics that feature both [[Black Hat]] and "Cueball" seem to depict them as friends and possibly roommates. However, we learn in [[1102: Fastest-Growing]] that Black Hat's roommate is named "Rob".<br />
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In short, I believe if [[159: Boombox]] had called "Cueball" "Rob" we would've rewritten both Cutie and Cueball to redirect there. Because we learned that "Cueball's" name is actually Rob much later (I think the earliest occurrences are [[647: Scary]], and [[716: Time Machine]]; the first time he is seen with Megan in a capacity that might indicate a relationship is [[782: Desecration]]). [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 19:05, 11 March 2015 (UTC)<br />
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:As I answered your comment on [[1496: Art Project]] Rob is [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Category:Comics_featuring_Rob already listed] as part of the category for Comics featuring Cueball: and this is listed as the first entry when going to the page for [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Category:Comics_featuring_Cueball Category:Comics featuring Cueball]. Cueball is such an integral part of explain xkcd that I do not think any other users wish to change. Also the 9 incidences with Rob is maybe a specific person and at the time Randall did not think to give him any features. Also Cueballs have no specific behavior as you allude to. Neither has Megan. You can always find several Cueballs and Megans that behave a certain way. But then you can find many other comics where they behave the opposite way. Thus Rob and Cueball should not be merged. Also there are several comics with more than one Cueball. And here we have this problem: It is typically the first who writes the transcript who decides who of the Cueballs (or Megans) he feels represents the "real" Cueball. However, there is no real behavior of Cueball. So who should decide. I could change all these transcripts so it becomes the other character who becomes Cueball, because I think that the first transcriber did it wrong. And this is why in a comic with more than one Cueball (where neither is called Rob or the like) neither of the two should be called Cueball. It would still be in the category with Cueball, because that is just comics with a Cueball like character no matter how many. But they cannot be named Cueball and friend or Rob and friend (unless Rob's name is mentioned!) They could be called Cueball 1 and Cueball 2, but then guy or man would be better. I know several places have comics with two Cueballs where someone has designated one of them Cueball and the other friend of foe etc. But this should be corrected so none of these are called Cueball. Same should go for more than one Megan. But this is very rare, and I have only found one other than ''Art project'' and here only one Megan had any lines. The problem with different opinions on which Cueball is which came for the first time up with Megan in ''Art project'': The two Megan-like characters was first named (left to right) Megan and Danish. Then unidentified girl and Megan. Then Megan and unidentified girl, then two Megan like girls with short and long hair and finally you reverted it to my first change away from Danish to unidentified girl and Megan. (I can live with that as there is difference in hair length and behavior). But as far as I see it Cueball is not Rob as well as Megan should have continued to be called Cutie (but I would not like to change that now, as I have grown fond of Megan). But at the time the change was done I believe it was wrong. The same fondness for the name Cueball also makes me sure that no one else would wish to call him Rob, even if that is as much his name as Megan is Cuties... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:57, 11 March 2015 (UTC)<br />
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::My argument is that it is inertia and sentiment ("fond of Megan") that prevents an objective, equal treatment here. [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 22:47, 11 March 2015 (UTC)<br />
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::Also, regarding the analogy made above to Danish. I am fine with a nickname when Randall hasn't named a character. So she was "unidentified girl" and then became "Danish". But, when we named her "Danish", we went back to "Journal 1" and other places and renamed her. My proposal is that we should go back through and rename "Cueball" as "Rob". Alternatively, we should reinstate "Cutie" for cases in which it is not clear that a character is "Megan" per se, but just Megan in her "everywoman" capacity. [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 00:00, 12 March 2015 (UTC)<br />
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I'm not sure how to post a poll, but I see the following options:<br />
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1) Status quo: Cueball for all unidentified males without distinct characteristics (e.g. hats), Megan for all shoulder-length brunettes. Rob only for named Cueballs. Multiple Cueballs in a comic mean one is named Cueball and others get named "Friend", etc.<br />
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2) Symmetry 1: Cueball/Rob stays as is. Unnamed brunettes get named "Cutie". "Megan" like "Rob" is reserved for comics in which a name is used.<br />
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3) Symmetry 2: Megan stays as is. Rob is the default for indistinct males. "Cueball" page redirects to "Rob" (as "Cutie" now redirect to "Megan").<br />
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4) Expunge all Cueballs from multi-Cueball comics: Basically the status quo, except that in comics with multiple Cueballs none are named "Cueball" and are just all given names "Man 1", "Man 2", etc.<br />
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I am ambivalent regarding options 2 or 3. I could live with 1 if there is consensus for it, but I don't like it. 4 is a disaster in my mind and gains nothing. [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 22:47, 11 March 2015 (UTC)<br />
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:We are probably the only one who reads these post...? But anyway as is clear I'm for 4. Which has been used several places already.´I can live with 1. I think 2 and 3 are disasters. Also it would be completely confusing for those who have used this page for many years. Why do you bring this up now? Is it because of the multiple Megan comics, or have you just signed up here, and dislike that it doesn't follow the rules you would have expected?--[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:19, 12 March 2015 (UTC) <br />
::I suggest instead that we create a category for multiple Cueballs, so it is easy to explain why the Cueball is not a specific character, and thus can never be Rob (except when it is clear from the text), or be expected to behave a certain way. And in reverse we make a Named Megan category so it is easy to find the few (three?) where she has been named. This by the way has nothing to do with the other suggestions, so I might just do that to get an overview. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:19, 12 March 2015 (UTC)<br />
::: It seems more consistent to me to use [[Cutie]] for all unnamed "Megans" and reserve "Megan" for named comics. Thus, Rob is '''a''' Cueball and Megan is '''a''' Cutie. [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 13:30, 13 March 2015 (UTC)<br />
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::::I've read through some of your discussions (Here, Kynde's talk page, Art Project discussion), and thought I might put my thoughts forwards. Essentially we have three questions here:<br />
::::1) Should we merge Cueball and Rob, and rename all Cueballs as Rob?<br />
::::2) Should we rename all Megans as Cutie, except where she is explicitly named?<br />
::::3) Once questions 1 & 2 are answered, what do we do where the 'same' character appears multiple times in one comic?<br />
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::::*I understand the objective argument for renaming Cueball to Rob, however I'm unconvinced of the importance of being entirely objective, and I can't imagine Cueball being renamed to anything other than Cueball. <br />
::::*I think its fairly clear where the Cueball label has come from, even if it might not be immediately obvious to some. Even if readers don't make the link between Cueball's head and a cue-ball, it is quite a generic label, which I think fits well with the transient every-man nature of Cueball's usage.<br />
::::*There is something far more specific about the name Rob, which suggests that he is the same character every time. The origin of the name isn't obvious, which I think would be likely to cause confusion. <br />
::::This brings me to conclude that for me, the answer to Q1 has to be that Cueball should stay as Cueball, unless explicitly named something else. <br />
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::::The question of changing Megan to Cutie is one where I am less confident. Following the arguments I've made above, the outcome has to be that we rename to Cutie unless specifically named Megan, however I am not entirely convinced. The name Megan has a history, there are surely lots of people who now know her as Megan, what do we really stand to gain from all the work of changing to Cutie? I would also suggest that the name Cutie may not be accepted well by those with strong feminist views.<br />
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::::As far as multi-character comics, I don't have time right now, but I will come back later and add my thoughts. Now that we've only got a few incomplete comics, we've had to resort to discussing renaming characters!--[[User:Pudder|Pudder]] ([[User talk:Pudder|talk]]) 15:07, 13 March 2015 (UTC)<br />
:::::I agree with the reasons for keeping Cueball and Megan. And also that Cutie is such a loaded word, that it should never have been used anyway. This I did not immediately think about, but Cutie sounds like something from either a porn movie, or else a Bond Babe... Like the phrase from one of those movies: "Hello, I'm Plenty..." Then we should have to find a third name. And everyone here knows her as Megan. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 13:24, 15 March 2015 (UTC)<br />
::::::I have created the [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Category:Multiple_Cueballs Category:Multiple Cueballs] to locate them and to show how often there are more than one. Feel free to add any I haven't found yet. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 09:45, 16 March 2015 (UTC)<br />
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I think Rob is Black Hat's roommate and Megan's boyfriend/partner/husband (see above). The "Cueball" in comics such as [[159: Boombox]] and [[542: Cover-Up]] should, in my view, be renamed "Rob", even though he is not explicitly called that in those comics. Most other "Cueball" comics can stay unchanged. [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 00:43, 14 March 2015 (UTC)<br />
:I have left my reason to disagree also with this on the two comics talk page. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 13:24, 15 March 2015 (UTC)<br />
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In my opinion, it is quite clear that [[Randall]] has chosen to name the main male protagonist [[Rob]], for the few occasions where he needs characters to call upon each other, in the same way as he has chosen [[Megan]] for the main female protagonist. We should therefore try to overcome our nostalgia, follow Randall, and call the common male protagonist Rob. The problem with multiple cueballs can most often be resolved by identifying the protagonist, from the first-person narration or the general perspective. Thus, in [[525: I Know You're Listening]] Rob is the comic's "I", to the left. In [[1110: Click and Drag]], Rob is obviously flying with a balloon. In [[610: Sheeple]] Rob is arguably the guy in the foreground facing us. Non-Rob "cueballs" we could refer to as "friend" "man", etc. In this way roughly half of the "multiple cueballs" would be resolved. I think I can live with a few unclear cases, like [[220: Philosophy]]. [[User:St.nerol|St.nerol]] ([[User talk:St.nerol|talk]]) 12:22, 19 March 2015 (UTC)<br />
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:A featureless character has been ''specifically'' named Rob in 9 comics, compared with 968 'Comics featuring Cueball'. I believe it is fundamentally flawed to assert that because a featureless character is named Rob in less than 1% of appearances, that all featureless characters should therefore be assumed to be Rob. As I've discussed above, I think that Rob strongly implies a specific person, whereas Cueball is a vague 'everyman' character. I feel it would be a huge error to change all Cueballs to Robs.--[[User:Pudder|Pudder]] ([[User talk:Pudder|talk]]) 17:37, 19 March 2015 (UTC)<br />
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::The problem with that logic is that "Megan" is only named in a small number of comics (fewer that "Rob"). So we should have a different name for an unnamed generic female. [[Cutie]] is fine, but if people perceive that as sexist, then another name, maybe "Cuegirl" or "Brunette" would work. (Side note: I doubt "Cutie" would be perceived as sexist and there's history there.) What I '''do''' find sexist is the fact that there is asymmetry between male and female "everyperson"s. In sum, I would say there is at less evidence to support naming Megan-everywoman "Megan" in all cases as there is to name Rob-everyman (here called "Cueball") "Rob" in all cases. Asymmetry here ignores the fact that Randall clearly intends his name to be "Rob" and also that we are using a proper name for everywoman but a contrived name for everyman, while creating an artificial distinction between Rob and Cueball and smearing out any possible distinction between Megan-everywoman and Megan-properName. [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 13:18, 27 March 2015 (UTC)<br />
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:::As I put in my earlier comment (see above), I do agree that the logical conclusion is that Megan should no longer be named Megan, and should have an equivalent generic name. As an aside, I'm quite partial to your suggestion of Cuegirl. I disagree with your assertion that "Randall clearly intends his name to be Rob", and I think that is the central point of this discussion. I don't believe that there is anywhere near enough evidence to assign a specific name to what I believe is a generic character. If we want to go for formal logic, consider the syllogism "Some non descipt characters are called Rob, there are many non-descript characters, therfore all non-descript characters are called Rob". The conclusion simply does not follow. --[[User:Pudder|Pudder]] ([[User talk:Pudder|talk]]) 14:22, 27 March 2015 (UTC)<br />
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::::Great, I vote for Cuegirl & Cueball :: Megan & Rob! [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 01:31, 31 March 2015 (UTC)<br />
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I agree with Djbrasier's and St.nerol's arguments, and I too feel that the arguments against dealing with this in an objective, symmetrical and logical way seem mostly based on nostalgia. Either we agree that a few named instances of the everywoman are sufficient to generalize to the (vastly more numerous) unnamed instances, and apply the same standard to the everyman, which is only consistent (and even more justified in the case of Rob since he is named in more comics than Megan), or we decide that the extrapolation is unjustified and we revert the Cutie-->Megan merge. The alternative --having double standards and deciding things based on historical baggage and emotional attachment rather than rationality-- makes no sense for followers of the comic that ''literally invented'' nerd-sniping!<br />
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I'd also add that, as a non-native speaker, "cueball" doesn't ring any immediate bells unless the connection to cue balls is pointed out explicitly -- so actually Rob works even better as a generic name than Cueball. We have already [[#New character|agreed previously]] that clarity is better than cleverness when we named [[Hairy]], forgoing the less obvious alliteration "Harry", so I vote we use the name Randall ''actually'' gave us, let go of our attachments to a creation he never endorsed, and honor our collective nerdiness by doing the logical thing: apply our standards uniformly and adopt Rob the same way we adopted Megan. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 06:09, 10 April 2015 (UTC)<br />
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:I've already put my thoughts forward above, so I won't repeat the same ground I've covered, other than to say I believe it would be a mistake to turn all Cueballs into Robs. While I will admit to having some nostalgia for the name Cueball, that isn't a major facet of my argument. I believe that any generic name is better than a specific name. Call them Stickboy & Stickgirl if you want! I know there are a fairly significant number of contributors and visitors who do not have English as their first language, but I don't believe that is a reason to choose a specific name, rather than a generic name, even if the origin of the latter isn't immediately obvious to all. It would be interesting to know whether each of us sees Cueball as always being the same person, or Cueball *is* Randall, or Cueball is just a changeable everyman.<br />
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:To me, he is a changeable everyman, who I guess may represent or be based on: Randall, his friends, family or acquaintances, famous people, someone he saw in the street, or a completely made up character used to fill a specific role in the comic. The reason I argue againt merging Rob & Cueball is that the Cueball I see is this morphing and fluid character, and to use a specific name to tie him down to being the same character all the time runs completely counter to that. --[[User:Pudder|Pudder]] ([[User talk:Pudder|talk]]) 08:31, 10 April 2015 (UTC)<br />
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:: Understood, and sorry for mischaracterizing your argument (the nostalgia part does butt the discussion though). I suppose I would be somewhat ambivalent to either have Rob+Megan, or Cueball+Cutie -- Cuegirl doesn't work because she has hair :) --, in the interests of reason and symmetry. But I lean slightly towards Rob+Megan because those are names Randall actually gave us, while anything else is our own invention and thus has no claim to legitimacy other than popular support.<br />
:: Particularly, while I understand your concern about shoehorning the various personality traits the Cueballs show in different comics into a single persona, that doesn't seem to have been a problem for Megan -- not to mention real people ''are'' indeed complex and multi-faceted beings (or "morphing and fluid", to use your terms) rather than one-dimensional caricatures. Heck, even Black Hat has his romantic side! :) So in light of that, I don't think we have to worry about ruining Cueball by naming him Rob -- if anything, that'd add more depth to him as a character! --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 16:35, 10 April 2015 (UTC)<br />
:::I'm still very much against changing things here. Call it nostalgia, but there are many users who will never read these arguments, who one day comes back and cannot find Megan or Cueball, and will ask who the heck are Cuegirl/Cutie. I'm completely with Pudder on the problem with giving Cueball the name Rob. It just doesn't make sense. I agree that we have a inconsistency with Megan. But then everyone who uses this page a few times, becomes familiar with that name. However the main problem with all your great ideas is this. Who should correct the either 984 pages where Cueball is mentioned because he is a part of it (and all the other pages relevant to him or where he is exactly mentioned because he isn't part of the comic) and/or who should do the same for 487 comics (plus loose pages) for Megan. Unless those in favor for changing the names will do this, then the discussion is moot. It is already clearly stated in the relevant pages that these two characters are generic and that they have been named but a few times. So what more can we do unless someone is willing to use several days to change this back. I sincerely doubt you can keep the correct syntax if you just try a brute force replacement? There are so many interconnecting links etc. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 13:21, 25 April 2015 (UTC)<br />
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I completely disagree with merging Cueball and Rob. Rob has [[276|Emily]] and [[632|Lisa]] as girlfriends, and Cueball has Megan. Rob also lives a more action-filled and stereotypical life compared to Cueball. --[[User:Youforgotthisthing|Youforgotthisthing]] ([[User talk:Youforgotthisthing|talk]]) 13:14, 15 April 2015 (UTC)<br />
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I think the main stances here are clear:<br />
* Keep as is<br />
* Rename Cuball to Rob<br />
* Change Megan back to Cutie/Cuegirl<br />
Since keeping it status quo wouldn't change anything and is asymmetrical, I'll go over the others:<br />
* Rename Cueball to Rob - Arguments:<br />
** Randall gave him this name;<br />
** It would offer symmetry to Megan;<br />
** If the Cutie -> Megan logic is to be followed (as she was changed once named in the comics) then Cueball should be Rob;<br />
** Even though cueball is a generic everyman name, Rob seems more like a name you could give anyone and would be more recognizable to non-native English speakers.<br />
* Change Megan back to Cutie/Cuegirl - Arguments:<br />
** It would cause symmetry again, letting her have an everywoman name;<br />
** Nostalgia for Cueball;<br />
** Megan is not always the same character, so she should not always have the name Megan<br />
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I happen to agree with the idea of merging Cueball and Rob, but I'm not closed to the idea of Cutie/Cuegirl. The main problem is that these characters are typically interchangeable everymen/everywomen and there can be more than one in a comic. So another question is what we should do for multiple Cueballs/Robs. In my opinion, we should have all the comics with more than one depict them as Man 1, Man 2, etc. --[[User:Sensorfire|Sensorfire]] ([[User talk:Sensorfire|talk]]) 17:04, 20 May 2015 (UTC)<br />
:Well I disagree. The users are used to refeer to these characters now by these names. It is also impractical to try to change them all. Megan is rarely twice in a comic. Maybe she is more the same like Black Hat is. But it is made clear that they are not the same in every comic in their pages. If there are muliple Cueballs but one is the main protagonist then he us cueball. If none can be singled out then Cueball like guy to the left/right can be used. I have done that for tbose cases I have found so far ([[:Category:Multiple_Cueballs|49 today]]).--[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:58, 7 June 2015 (UTC)<br />
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== How to fit explanations of new classes of xkcd-related mysteries into the site: what-if, t-shirts, posters, special comics etc. ==<br />
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I suggest that the [http://explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/explain_xkcd:About explain xkcd] page should explain how this site is laid out, and what sorts of things are explained here besides the online numbered xkcd comics that come out three times a week.<br />
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For example, there is the [[A Smarter Planet]] series, and there are ideas for explaining some of the [http://what-if.xkcd.com/ What-If] series. I'd like to add my explanation of the [https://gist.github.com/nealmcb/398af29a72f7b3efc202 XKCD Greek t-shirt, with mathematical, scientific and engineering uses for greek letters] and perhaps some other t-shirts, posters and the like.<br />
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But I can't even figure out how to find non-numbered-comic-explanations, without going thru the entire [[Special:AllPages]] listing, which includes a huge set of unnumbered aliases as well as the numbered ones. <br />
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I've taken a stab towards that by editing the About page to point to some categories (and to start with a little overview), but since I'm just poking around, I might have missed some things. [[User:Nealmcb|Nealmcb]] ([[User talk:Nealmcb|talk]]) 19:40, 23 March 2015 (UTC)<br />
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== Link to "Special pages" on main page ==<br />
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I think there should be a link to [[Special:SpecialPages]] on the main-page--[[User:17jiangz1|17jiangz1]] ([[User talk:17jiangz1|talk]]) 11:55, 29 March 2015 (UTC)<br />
:Special pages is a default feature in every mediawiki installation. It's also in the sidebar of every page, and it's not relevant to xkcd. Why does it merit space on the main page? '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 18:56, 29 March 2015 (UTC)<br />
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== Science comic ==<br />
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Should the Science Magazine comic be added? http://m.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/58.full [[User:Mikemk|Mikemk]] ([[User talk:Mikemk|talk]]) 03:14, 4 April 2015 (UTC)<br />
:I think that would be a great idea. Could there be other copyright rules when the comic has been published on Science? It there anyway to find out if Randall also has a link to it from (or has it on) xkcd? As he has done with the other [[:Category:Extra_Comics|Extra_Comics]]. And how do we create such a page, if there can be no link directly to xkcd (at the top of the comic)? --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 13:24, 30 April 2015 (UTC)<br />
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== "what if?" section? ==<br />
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I would like to start a new "what if?" section explaining and discussing what if pages.--[[User:17jiangz1|17jiangz1]] ([[User talk:17jiangz1|talk]]) 06:08, 8 April 2015 (UTC)<br />
:Why does it need to exist? The main xkcd comic needs it, because Randall tends to be obtuse at times, but the what if articles are sourced and written out already. Supposedly, they're already explanations to questions sent in to Randall. Why do we need to explain explanations? '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 06:29, 8 April 2015 (UTC)<br />
::Explaining them indeed seems unnecessary, but we could certainly catalog and summarize them. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 16:38, 10 April 2015 (UTC)<br />
::The images on what if? also have title texts that could further be explained, and we could organize what if pages by categories, as well as provide summaries. There are also subtle references, running gags, and in-jokes in What If? that should be explained.--[[User:17jiangz1|17jiangz1]] ([[User talk:17jiangz1|talk]]) 08:44, 11 April 2015 (UTC)<br />
::This https://what-if.xkcd.com/120/ is a example of a what if that could do with some explanations.--[[User:17jiangz1|17jiangz1]] ([[User talk:17jiangz1|talk]]) 08:47, 11 April 2015 (UTC)<br />
:::That's one of 135 what-ifs, and it's entirely self referential and can be figured out by reading the rest of the archive. The substance of the majority of pages is going to be incredibly thin, Randall doesn't tend to leave much for explanation. Comics that are simple one-shot images are our least used pages for good reason, and the what-if images pretty much all fall into that category, or are used to illustrate Randall's point that he makes in the immediately preceding paragraph. We could archive/catalog all the what-if pages and be a second archive button for the series, though there's a little less value to that than the archiving we did for [[Time]] and [[Externalities]] because there's already an archive along the same lines on the main site. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 19:14, 11 April 2015 (UTC)<br />
::::I think the main value we could add is a summary (TL;DR style) of each entry, in a short Q&A format. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 12:13, 13 April 2015 (UTC)<br />
If we are going forward with this, is there anyway to find the date in which the what if was first published?--[[User:17jiangz1|17jiangz1]] ([[User talk:17jiangz1|talk]]) 09:01, 11 April 2015 (UTC)<br />
:At the bottom of the page, there's an archive button. Click that. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 19:14, 11 April 2015 (UTC)<br />
Well, fact is, the [[what if?]] page is much, '''much''' larger now. [[User:Nk22|Nk22]] ([[User talk:Nk22|talk]]) 11:52, 20 April 2015 (UTC)<br />
:Thank you, Nk22! I've added a link from the [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/explain_xkcd About explain xkcd] page. {{unsigned|Nealmcb}}<br />
<br />
== Userscript ==<br />
<br />
Hello there, just wrote a simple userscript that adds an 'Explain' button to the original xkcd.com<br />
<br />
https://gist.github.com/magazov/934de662d60c9fb5fea9<br />
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You can run it via Greasemonkey, Tampermonkey and other similar plugins :)<br />
<br />
[[Image:Screen_Shot_xkcd_button.png]]<br />
{{unsigned|Magazovski}}<br />
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:Yeah, there's a few of these floating around. In the future, could you use an imgur link instead of uploading stuff like that to the wiki? Thanks. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 18:02, 21 April 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
::So maybe explainxkcd should host & maintain one of them? --[[User:Magazovski|Magazovski]] ([[User talk:Magazovski|talk]]) 09:30, 22 April 2015 (UTC)<br />
:::Why would we host an image hosting site? '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 23:17, 23 April 2015 (UTC)<br />
::::He means we could host and maintain a userscript to help our fans get here from xkcd.... [[User:Nealmcb|Nealmcb]] ([[User talk:Nealmcb|talk]]) 14:36, 9 May 2015 (UTC)<br />
:::::Hum, that's not a bad idea. I'll put it on the list of things to do. Although, if they're already here, why do they need a userscript to help them get here? '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 00:34, 11 May 2015 (UTC)<br />
::::::For people who mainly view the comics through the official site, but sometimes need an explanation of the comic. --[[User:Pudder|Pudder]] ([[User talk:Pudder|talk]]) 09:23, 11 May 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Updating the incomplete comic of the day ==<br />
<br />
Currently, I think the incomplete comic of the day should be changed more often (i.e. daily), since the incomplete comics are piling up, and most users aren't seeing the notice, as it is dismissible.--[[User:17jiangz1|17jiangz1]] ([[User talk:17jiangz1|talk]]) 11:40, 22 April 2015 (UTC)<br />
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:While I agree that the comic of the day could be changed more often, I wouldn't say that the incomplete comics are ''piling up''. Over the months I've been active here, the number of incomplete comics had fallen considerably. In fact if you check the comics which are still marked as incomplete, most of them are one where a significant effort would be required to complete them. For example the large comics (Money, Time, Congress) or dynamic comics (Externalities, Click & Drag, Pixels). --[[User:Pudder|Pudder]] ([[User talk:Pudder|talk]]) 15:32, 23 April 2015 (UTC)<br />
::Yeah. Of the 15 incomplete "pages," only 10 of them are actual comics that need the attention, and the full count is still dropping. I've been keeping it on single comics as of late because the remaining actual incomplete comics have been cycled through ~3 times already, with no significant effort made on them, because they're such monumental pieces of work. Making the message dismissable is by design, we are a service first and foremost, we're not trying that hard to make visitors do our work for us. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 23:17, 23 April 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Infrequently recurring minor charachters ==<br />
<br />
Should we just group all of the characters that are not of enough significance to warrant their own character page into a single page (i.e. [[Other Minor Characters]])? --{{User:17jiangz1/signature|02:58, 09 May 2015}}<br />
:See comic [[1000]] for a sample of what this entails. Also, what value to we stand to provide by cataloging every unique character that has appeared in xkcd? Does it help us explain the comics any better? '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 11:32, 9 May 2015 (UTC)<br />
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== Comic page creation ==<br />
<br />
Is comic page creation not automated? If it isn't, then [[Help talk:How to add a new comic explanation]] should be created.--{{User:17jiangz1/signature|14:19, 26 May 2015}} 14:19, 26 May 2015 (UTC)<br />
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:Comic explanation was, at one point, automated. However, the bot ran on a schedule, and so sometimes there would be a few hours between a new comic being posted and the page getting created. Some editors just can't wait that long, so they do the bot's work before the bot even gets going. I agree that this page should be created and be kept up to date. Historically no one has read any of the help pages I've written. ;p [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]<span title="I'm an admin. I can help.">_a</span> ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 17:42, 26 May 2015 (UTC)<br />
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:However, I think that the page should be [[Help:Comic Explanation Page Creation]]. [[User:Lcarsos|lcarsos]]<span title="I'm an admin. I can help.">_a</span> ([[User talk:Lcarsos|talk]]) 17:43, 26 May 2015 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Re-proposing merging Cueball and Rob ==<br />
<br />
Okay, so this was previously [[http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Proposals#Merge_Cueball_.26_Rob discussed] but I felt that it was worth bringing up again. Really, at this point, there's no logical reason why the two should not be merged, or Megan and Cutie should be un-merged. Rob and Cueball clearly seem to be the same person, at least when cueball appears as a specific character. In the instances where there are multiple Cueballs, we should just refer to them as Man 1, Man 2, and so on. Can we get a vote or something this time? Yes, I understand that Cueball isn't always the same character. But neither is [[Megan]], and yet we always refer to the short black haired girl (formerly [[Cutie]]) as Megan. If that logic applies to her, it applies to Rob. It's pretty clear that Randall intended to name the character Rob, as most named Cueballs are named Rob and not Fred or something.<br />
<br />
In short: Please don't bring nostalgia into this, it's really not relevant. Changing Cueball to Rob or Megan back to Cutie (or Cuegirl?) would have symmetry and make sense. {{unsigned ip|Sensorfire}}<br />
:I'm ok with dumping a marginal character page that only served to add confusion to character identification in new comics, but this was a subject of contention before so we probably need to see more of people's thoughts first. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 01:03, 5 September 2015 (UTC)<br />
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:I agree: let's list the arguments for both sides, ensure that everyone agrees with the objectiveness of that listing, and then vote. If there's support for this plan, and nobody does it first, I'll take a stab at producing a first draft of the summary. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 23:57, 14 September 2015 (UTC)<br />
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:Randall is currently on a booktour. So, how about, instead of us (without the ability to read minds) arguing about his intention or who is/isn't the same character, someone go see him and ask? Then we'll know with absolute 100% certainty. [[User:WaltG123|WaltG123]] ([[User talk:WaltG123|talk]]) 04:49, 25 November 2015 (UTC)<br />
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== Adjective phrases ==<br />
<br />
Overwhelmed with the need to be picayune, I am compelled to point out that on the homepage there is the sentence that begins "There are a lot of comics that don't have set in stone explanations..." This sentence contains a adjective phrase which should be hyphenated thus: "set-in-stone"<br />
<br />
Please pretend that I have said something witty here, as I am too tired to think of anything funny. {{unsigned|Gamewriter}}<br />
:Is it actually grammatically wrong in it's current state? Huh. I guess I'll change it. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 20:42, 1 November 2015 (UTC)<br />
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::This is long after the fact, but I'll throw my two cents in on Davidy22's question. Yes, it is wrong. If the 'set in stone' phrase were after the word explanations ("explanations set in stone") it would not require hyphens, but used as an adjective before the noun ("set-in-stone explanations") it requires them. D Miller [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.41|108.162.221.41]] 18:26, 21 March 2016 (UTC)<br />
<br />
== Update MediaWiki ==<br />
<br />
You are currently using MediaWiki 1.19.17. It's ''really'' outdated. Maybe update to 1.26.2, the current recommended stable version? There is an [[mw:Manual:Upgrading|official guide]] for that. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.80.77|141.101.80.77]] 12:03, 24 January 2016 (UTC) (PS my IP address is wrong it's not what you think it is)<br />
<br />
== Rename Hair Bun Girl ==<br />
<br />
The character [[Hair Bun Girl]] was named in April 2015. There wasn't any discussion of the name at the time, so I'd like to open that discussion now please.<br />
<br />
At present we have several other characters named after distinctive visual features: [[Ponytail]], [[Black Hat]], [[White Hat]], [[Beret Guy]], and arguably [[Hairy]] and [[Cueball]]. In all but one of those cases, the name matches the distinctive feature itself, without the addition of "guy", "girl", etc. Given the number of comics that Beret Guy is in it's probably too late to modify his name, but it's not too late for Hair Bun Girl.<br />
<br />
Besides the consistency issue, there's also the inaccuracy of referring to a grown woman with the term "girl", particularly when the character has been presented as older than [[Megan]]. I'd really like to fix this while her number of appearances is still manageable.<br />
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The name "Hairbun" has been proposed and I think that matches really nicely with Ponytail in particular.<br />
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[[User:Jkshapiro|Jkshapiro]] ([[User talk:Jkshapiro|talk]]) 04:23, 9 February 2016 (UTC)<br />
:As the "guy" who created the Hair Bun Girl characther, I have no objection to changing the name. I did not think about the issue with girl/woman, probably because I'm not native English speaker. (And with the Beret Guy as an example). Jkshapiro was so kind as to [[User_talk:Kynde#Hair_Bun_.22Girl.22|ask my opinion]] before starting this discussion. At first I thought that ''Hairbun'' was a little weird, but then again so is Ponytail in this context. So I '''support''' the change to '''Hairbun'''! --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 13:06, 9 February 2016 (UTC)<br />
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I vote '''change''' Hair Bun to Hairbun and '''keep''' girl. [[User:Mikemk|Mikemk]] ([[User talk:Mikemk|talk]]) 21:02, 10 February 2016 (UTC)<br />
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OK, I'm going ahead. [[User:Jkshapiro|Jkshapiro]] ([[User talk:Jkshapiro|talk]]) 02:47, 25 March 2016 (UTC)<br />
:Well as I said I would not mind, but you cannot say you got any other to agree with you on this though. Mimek wished to keep girl... It will be a huge job to get all the instances correct, also be careful no to change those places where the talk is of a girl who has a hair bun. You cannot just change all placed with hair bun girl to Hairbun, in case is actually says the hair bun girl about a small girl who has a hair bun! --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 09:59, 25 March 2016 (UTC)<br />
::Seems no one cares, so I will remove the notes now. Great job Jkshapiro with changing the names. I like the new name now :-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 22:35, 2 April 2016 (UTC)<br />
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== Mobile friendly website ==<br />
<br />
Can we get a mobile friendly version of the wiki? If we already have one, what about forwarding the main site to it when viewed on a phone? [[User:Mikemk|Mikemk]] ([[User talk:Mikemk|talk]]) 20:59, 10 February 2016 (UTC)<br />
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== New categories ==<br />
<br />
I think there may be a need to propose a standard way to decide on categories: what new ones are needed, what are the prerequisites for creating a new category, how to maintain new categories and make sure they are actually used when they apply etc. For now I have gathered all previous discussions about new categories under this section. -- [[User:Malgond|Malgond]] ([[User talk:Malgond|talk]]) 13:39, 17 February 2016 (UTC)<br />
:I think that whenever there are more than 4-5 comics that you wish to refer to in a given explanation because they are of the same topic as the current comic, then having a category is much to prefer rather than listing 5, 6 or 7 comics. I have made several categories for these instances, for instance for sport including the most used sports. At the time being I keep them up to date. One of the things this site does so well is giving you an easy way to find a specific comic even though you cannot remember the title of any precise quotes etc. If you just have an idea of what the topic was you might find it based on the categories. In this way I do not think we can have too many categories. As long as they describe a recurring subject. Only fault is that there seems to be no way to search for a comic based on more than one category? That would be great. In some cases even only 3 comics in a category can make sense. For instance I would be sorry to see this one go [[:Category:Puts on sunglasses]] (and I did not make it!) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 13:09, 19 February 2016 (UTC)<br />
::For instance I have long wished for categories that covered all the space probe related comics, particularly all those referencing the Mars rovers. So today I made them with 16 and 9 comics in them already. [[:Category:Space probes]] [[:Category:Mars rovers]]. I hope people will generally think this was a great idea! :-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:42, 20 February 2016 (UTC)<br />
:::And [[:Category:The Lion King]]... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 21:47, 1 March 2016 (UTC)<br />
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=== Category: Protip ===<br />
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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)<br />
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: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)<br />
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::Seconded. Looks general and common enough to be a category. '''[[User:Davidy22|<span title="I want you."><u><font color="purple" size="2px">David</font><font color="green" size="3px">y</font></u><sup><font color="indigo" size="1px">22</font></sup></span>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 14:57, 4 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
:::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)<br />
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:::: Can you link to the protip-in-title-text comics?<br />
:::: 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)<br />
:::: 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)<br />
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=== Category: Sports ===<br />
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How about creating a new "Sports" category? [[User:Ekedolphin|Ekedolphin]] ([[User talk:Ekedolphin|talk]]) 15:31, 28 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
: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)<br />
::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)<br />
:::My opinion: Five would be enough to qualify. [[User:Ekedolphin|Ekedolphin]] ([[User talk:Ekedolphin|talk]]) 09:31, 29 January 2013 (UTC)<br />
::::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)<br />
:::<br />
::::Agreed, five should be enough to create the category without having to discuss it. - [[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 00:50, 26 February 2013 (UTC)<br />
: 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)<br />
::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)<br />
:::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)<br />
::::I think you should. On a wiki, getting stuck in discussions which die without a conclusion, to the point that motivated people give up without having done anything, is definitely counter-productive, and phrases like [[wikipedia:Wikipedia:Be bold|Wikipedia:Be bold]] are here to remind us of that. Seems like people agreed that you ''could'', and after a while nobody said that you ''shouldn't'', so I'd say do it. - [[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 00:50, 26 February 2013 (UTC)<br />
:I did it without looking here first, because it was obvious there were many [[:Category:Sport|sport comics]]. I have even created four under categories (only one was there before, Chess). There are 10 comics at present that are related to other sports than the five under categories. And given the way Randall thinks about sport (not very much) he still has plenty of comics about the subject. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 07:33, 14 February 2016 (UTC)<br />
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=== Category: Sex ===<br />
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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)<br />
*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)<br />
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:Same as [[#Category: Sports|above]], do it. Oh, already did; well, all the better. - [[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 00:53, 26 February 2013 (UTC)<br />
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=== Category: Flowcharts ===<br />
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Hello, the line "Randall has made use of flowcharts before." in today's comic explanation made me want a [[:Category:Flowcharts|flowcharts category]] to navigate into...<br />
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As it didn't exist, I proceeded to create it, but as the log says, [[User:lcarsos|lcarsos]] deleted such a category in November, saying ''"Insufficient differentiation from Category:Comics with charts, diluting the depth of comics tagged charts"''.<br />
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I don't agree with that, and I think we could profit from such a subcategory. I found those pages fitting it:<br />
* [[94: Profile Creation Flowchart]]<br />
* [[210: 90's Flowchart]]<br />
* [[488: Steal This Comic]]<br />
* [[627: Tech Support Cheat Sheet]]<br />
* [[844: Good Code]]<br />
* [[851: Na]]<br />
* [[854: Learning to Cook]]<br />
* [[1195: Flowchart]]<br />
<br />
So? - [[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 10:59, 5 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Weell if you're willing to take charge of the category and personally make sure it's added to all relevant comic explanations, go ahead. The usual objection to making new categories is that we admins can't remember all the categories when we're reviewing new explanations, but it's K if you're willing to take up that responsibility yourself. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 11:17, 5 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
:<br />
:: OK. I did it without waiting for further replies, because I think it will be especially profitable today (to viewers).<br />
:: It doesn't seem a big issue to me if the correct category is not added when a new explanation is made: a passing editor will do it later on... But hey, I'm OK with taking special care of adding pages to this category.<br />
:: [[User:Cos|Cos]] ([[User talk:Cos|talk]]) 12:28, 5 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
<br />
::: I just want to add that Cos' view is indeed the appropriate way to work in wikis: there is no concept of a single author for a page, category, or piece of text, and the workload is meant to be distributed among several editors: it is not necessary that any single editor remembers all existing categories, or knows the wiki markup by heart, or knows how to work with all the features of mediawiki, etc. The reason why wikis can be edited by anyone is precisely a recognition that there *will* be errors and any page can be improved somehow. That reasoning against categories should, IMO, be abandoned, or at most only kept as the opinion of some editors. --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 22:00, 6 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
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Isnt there a page which lists all the categories? If not, there should be one, and it should be accessible to all. Such a page could be useful when trying to quick-add categories to comics. [[Special:Contributions/117.194.83.155|117.194.83.155]] 13:43, 24 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Yes, there is. [[Special:Categories]]. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 14:07, 24 April 2013 (UTC)<br />
::Of course, there's a gazillion of 'em, over several pages, so I understand any reluctance to add new categories (having just suggested a new one myself which I feel is justified, but knowing that the upkeep needed may be the key point of contention so remaining philosophical about it).<br />
::A solution perhaps to carry over from another locale that I frequent is to have a "Categories of Character" page, a "Categories of Object" one, perhaps "Categories of Event", and a "Categories of Publication". For each new comic someone can easily check the shorter Character categories list against those present, the Object list against itemsin use, Events, etc, and of course the Publication one has the "Tuesday Comic"/equivalent, and other date-based ones (although isn't that automatic from templated creation? ...never added a comic, but would imagine it is). After that it's a trawl through the miscelania categories (perhaps a meta-category just for them?). But, yeah, a lot of work to set up. Wouldn't wish it on anyone who wasn't already willing to do it, and I remain an anon-IP person right now so can hardly commit ''myself'' as volunteer maintainer of this. [[Special:Contributions/178.98.31.27|178.98.31.27]] 17:20, 22 June 2013 (UTC)<br />
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=== Category: (Barred/banned from?) Conferences ===<br />
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I come here after realising I erroneously posted (in reply) to the Main page Talk, being anonymous (or at least IP-only) and without a list of qualifying articles to support me, just yet, but still wish to put forward the above category before I forget. There's no apparent equivalent, that I found, but it's definitely a recurring meme. I should be back (named or otherwise) with my suggested list of members, if someone else doesn't get there first, but I thought I'd start with the placemarker. [[Special:Contributions/178.98.31.27|178.98.31.27]] 16:41, 22 June 2013 (UTC)<br />
:Ok, so I got the bee in my bonnet and spent a few minutes actually looking into this. Revising "Barred from Conferences" (actually more often "Banned" or even "Thrown out of"/equivalent) to just "Conferences", the subset of comics that I can easily find that are involved is *[[153]], *[[177]], *[[365]], *[[410]], *[[463]], *[[541]], [[545]], [[685]], [[829]] and [[867]], but I'm sure there are more recent ones that I didn't spot/recall. One alternative title to "Conferences" is "Presentations", and I'm sure if I'd searched for that I'd have found more potential candidates (less some that might ''exit'' the renamed category). The asterisked ones ''do'' deal with being barred/banned/thrown out/etc, making it still a suitable category in its own right, IMO, but I'll leave it up to your combined musings to decide. [[Special:Contributions/178.98.31.27|178.98.31.27]] 17:07, 22 June 2013 (UTC)<br />
::I add [[690]] to the list. --[[User:Chtz|Chtz]] ([[User talk:Chtz|talk]]) 08:12, 13 September 2013 (UTC)<br />
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::: Great suggestions! I created [[:Category:Public speaking]] and [[:Category:Banned from conferences]]. I also added [[Wikipedian Protester]] to the mix, of course :) --[[User:Waldir|Waldir]] ([[User talk:Waldir|talk]]) 21:59, 13 November 2013 (UTC)<br />
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=== Category: Wishes ===<br />
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[http://explainxkcd.com/1391/ Several] [http://explainxkcd.com/1086/ comics] [http://explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/152:_Hamster_Ball now] [http://xkcd.com/879/ exist] that talk about wishes - probably more. Should there be a category for this? [[User:Z|Z]] ([[User talk:Z|talk]]) 23:22, 7 July 2014 (UTC)<br />
:Doesn't seem significant enough. If you promise to maintain the category you can make it yourself, although it will be cleared out if it gets neglected as new comics are released. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 15:20, 8 July 2014 (UTC)<br />
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=== Category: Artificial Intelligence ===<br />
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Hello world.<br />
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There are a handful of comics involving Ai - [[1540]], [[1530]], [[1450]] and [[948]] for instance - and maybe it's an idea to give them their own category {{unsigned|Nk22}}<br />
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:The usual objection to new categories is that they get abandoned and are too narrow for other people to think of picking them up. If you're going to own it and update it with new comics, you can make it. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 21:01, 23 June 2015 (UTC)<br />
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=== Category: Size Comparisons ===<br />
There are numerous comics comparing sizes of things. I can't get a list right now, but off the top of my head, radiation dosages, money, today's comic, and space shuttles in horses. [[User:Mikemk|Mikemk]] ([[User talk:Mikemk|talk]]) 19:23, 29 February 2016 (UTC)<br />
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== Adding Ratings for Explanations ==<br />
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I found [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1652 today's explanation] excellently written however that is not always the case. Frequently explanations are walk through of the conversation that are too wordy without any succinct explanation of why or how a strip is funny -- while many of those low quality explanations are not strictly "incomplete" they could benefit from a careful rewrite. I was wondering if we should add a rating tool such as " ''Was this explanation helpful? yes/no'' " so as to identify explanation that could benefit from improvement without having to be tagged as "incomplete". [[User:Spongebog|Spongebog]] ([[User talk:Spongebog|talk]]) 17:57, 8 March 2016 (UTC)<br />
:We have a rather prominent discussion page for feedback, do we really need an additional add-on for this? I did a little research and found that other wikis use [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Semantic_Rating semantic rating] and [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ArticleRatings article ratings], which I can install if enough other users want it. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 05:54, 26 March 2016 (UTC)<br />
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== New Speculation Sections ==<br />
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I often see a lot of speculation and conjecture within the explanation of the comic itself. I don't think it has any place in the explanation but I know many editors enjoy speculating and interpreting the comic and the meaning behind it so I've decided to start this discussion on whether we should provide a section where we can provide different speculations.<br />
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What I am thinking would not be like the discussion page, where comments are made and discussed, but an edited and reviewed section which outlines different speculations and interpretations of the comics themselves and perhaps even the author's intent.<br />
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Of course tone and presentation should be held to the same standards of the comic explanation but I think this would be a good way to better organize a review of the comic.<br />
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I have been away too long to remember if there are any comic explanations with something like this so I have no idea how well it would work.<br />
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As an example;<br />
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This part from comic 1642: [[Gravitational Waves]]<br />
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" It seems that Randall knew in advance about this announcement because this comic was published on a Thursday, not following the normal publish schedule, to coincide with the announcement "<br />
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Is well supported, and rather likely correct, conjecture which belongs in the body of the explanation because not only is it backed by strong evidence but it provides background on the comic and the time in which the comic was released and aids in understanding the comic itself.<br />
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However, this part from comic 478: [[The Staple Madness]]<br />
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"From just reading the comic by itself, one may presume that in the last panel, Cueball has been stapled to the ceiling (as obvious evidence to Megan that Beret Guy has indeed been abusing her staple gun). According to the comic's official transcript, however, it is in fact God who is speaking."<br />
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Is almost as equally well supported and certainly a valid interpretation of simply the comic. It is only refuted by the official transcript. I believe it is important to acknowledge and may even be a more humorous interpretation than the one which is provided by the official transcript.<br />
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If we added a speculation section (or something of the sort) then we would have a place to talk about this interpretation more freely and expound upon it more.<br />
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[[User:Lackadaisical|Lackadaisical]] ([[User talk:Lackadaisical|talk]]) 15:16, 13 May 2016 (UTC)<br />
: Problem is the whole "explanation" is actually conjecture. None of us the author, we're all just guessing. [[User:Jkshapiro|Jkshapiro]] ([[User talk:Jkshapiro|talk]]) 15:23, 13 May 2016 (UTC)<br />
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: Many of the current explanations are conjecture, that's true but not every explanation. Providing information on the science or mathematics behind a particular comic is not conjecture. Stating whether the author intended to belittle the field or state that one field is superior over another (unless fairly explicitly stated) is. And there are many things which can be inferred without being simple speculation. Not every comic would need a section like this, and not every comic needs a trivia section, and I'm not ready to start adding this proposed section myself. But I think it should be considered. [[User:Lackadaisical|Lackadaisical]] ([[User talk:Lackadaisical|talk]]) 15:35, 13 May 2016 (UTC)<br />
::The intention of the discussion pages was to serve as a place for people to put their conjecture and reaching interpretations of the comics. They're presented alongside the explanation to make people's interpretations more readily visible. Some people may have trouble distinguishing an ungrounded interpretation of a comic from an explanation of it, and they will insert weak text into explanations. If you find something you disagree with, feel free to bring it up in the discussion section and edit it out of the explanation liberally '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 06:17, 17 May 2016 (UTC)<br />
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== Unixkcd ==<br />
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Hello everyone. I was just wondering: is there anything on http://uni.xkcd.com/. Because I was just looking and the only thing I found on Unixkcd is a mention of a bug in [[1350]]. There is not even a mention on the April fools article.<br />
:There's nothing on this site, there's a couple of novel tidbits on the xkcd site that are at best tangentially related to the comic, as Randall originally intended to make xkcd.com his personal site for hosting his own projects. That particular one doesn't show up in any comics. Also, proposals might not be the best place to put this. '''[[User:Davidy22|<u>{{Color|#707|David}}<font color=#070 size=3>y</font></u><font color=#508 size=4>²²</font>]]'''[[User talk:Davidy22|<tt>[talk]</tt>]] 08:46, 21 May 2016 (UTC)</div>108.162.244.85https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:1667:_Algorithms&diff=117659Talk:1667: Algorithms2016-04-13T04:52:46Z<p>108.162.244.85: </p>
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How can an excel spreadsheet be complicated? [[Special:Contributions/108.162.244.85|108.162.244.85]] 04:52, 13 April 2016 (UTC)</div>108.162.244.85