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Proposals Place for ideas and suggestions to improve the wiki's design and organization on general issues can be incubated for later submission for consensus discussion. Be sure to check whether your proposal has already been submitted. (+post)

ARCHIVED DISCUSSIONS

Most of the discussions on this page have been archived. The archive is available at explain xkcd talk:Community portal/Proposals.

Re-proposing merging Cueball and Rob

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

In short: Please don't bring nostalgia into this, it's really not relevant. Changing Cueball to Rob or Megan back to Cutie (or Cuegirl?) would have symmetry and make sense. Sensorfire (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

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. Davidy²²[talk] 01:03, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

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

Randall is currently on a booktour. So, how about, instead of us (without the ability to read minds) arguing about his intention or who is/isn't the same character, someone go see him and ask? Then we'll know with absolute 100% certainty. WaltG123 (talk) 04:49, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Randall never called either character Cueball and Cutie so of course this is not his names. Asking him would make no meaning at all. For any user of xkcd it will create lots of confusion to change the names of Megan and Cueball now. Regarding Rob he is already listed as Cueball in his category. And Cueballs have been called other names several times. Rob is just the only one that has been used a few times. I agree that it may have been wrong to call her Megan, (the name has been used like three times?) Similar it is just as wrong to call Black Hat's girlfriend Danish, a nick name used once. But it is actually very nice to have a real name or at least useful name when speaking of characters. And it has also been mentioned that Cutie could be perused as a sexist name, so we should not move back to that. Well recently even Hairbun has her name changed from Hairbun girl since a user thought that was a problem given it most often was a grown woman. So I think we should stick to the solution of the previous debate and leave Cueball, Rob and Megan alone as they are! --Kynde (talk) 08:56, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Adjective phrases

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

Please pretend that I have said something witty here, as I am too tired to think of anything funny. -- Gamewriter (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Is it actually grammatically wrong in it's current state? Huh. I guess I'll change it. Davidy²²[talk] 20:42, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

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

Update MediaWiki

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

Rename Hair Bun Girl

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

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

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

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

Jkshapiro (talk) 04:23, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

As the "guy" who created the Hair Bun Girl characther, I have no objection to changing the name. I did not think about the issue with girl/woman, probably because I'm not native English speaker. (And with the Beret Guy as an example). Jkshapiro was so kind as to 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! --Kynde (talk) 13:06, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

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

OK, I'm going ahead. Jkshapiro (talk) 02:47, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Well as I said I would not mind, but you cannot say you got any other to agree with you on this though. Mimek wished to keep girl... It will be a huge job to get all the instances correct, also be careful no to change those places where the talk is of a girl who has a hair bun. You cannot just change all placed with hair bun girl to Hairbun, in case is actually says the hair bun girl about a small girl who has a hair bun! --Kynde (talk) 09:59, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Seems no one cares, so I will remove the notes now. Great job Jkshapiro with changing the names. I like the new name now :-) --Kynde (talk) 22:35, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Mobile friendly website

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

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

Install the MobileFrontend-extension on the wiki. Or is it more complicated than that? Dgbrt mentions "working on a real mobile version" below, under Tables vs bold text Coverbe (talk) 15:56, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

New categories

I think there may be a need to propose a standard way to decide on categories: what new ones are needed, what are the prerequisites for creating a new category, how to maintain new categories and make sure they are actually used when they apply etc. For now I have gathered all previous discussions about new categories under this section. -- Malgond (talk) 13:39, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

I think that whenever there are more than 4-5 comics that you wish to refer to in a given explanation because they are of the same topic as the current comic, then having a category is much to prefer rather than listing 5, 6 or 7 comics. I have made several categories for these instances, for instance for sport including the most used sports. At the time being I keep them up to date. One of the things this site does so well is giving you an easy way to find a specific comic even though you cannot remember the title of any precise quotes etc. If you just have an idea of what the topic was you might find it based on the categories. In this way I do not think we can have too many categories. As long as they describe a recurring subject. Only fault is that there seems to be no way to search for a comic based on more than one category? That would be great. In some cases even only 3 comics in a category can make sense. For instance I would be sorry to see this one go Category:Puts on sunglasses (and I did not make it!) --Kynde (talk) 13:09, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

For instance I have long wished for categories that covered all the space probe related comics, particularly all those referencing the Mars rovers. So today I made them with 16 and 9 comics in them already. Category:Space probes Category:Mars rovers. I hope people will generally think this was a great idea! :-) --Kynde (talk) 20:42, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

And Category:The Lion King... --Kynde (talk) 21:47, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

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

Category: Protip

Anyone for adding Protip as a 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.) -- St.nerol (talk) 10:25, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

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

Seconded. Looks general and common enough to be a category. Davidy²²[talk] 14:57, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Okay, great! Do you think that the ones with a "protip:" title text should be included? Besides, I think I might be the one responsiple for moving My Hobby from 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". -- St.nerol (talk) 15:31, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Can you link to the protip-in-title-text comics?

As for My Hobby, note that categories aren't mutually exclusive. They can be in the "my hobby" topic, and each of them further categorized as appropriate: music, math, etc. Makes sense? --Waldir (talk) 03:45, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I just searched for protip in the xkcd search bar. Here: 1084, 427. And yes, makes sense. I've moved My Hobby back to "by topic". -- St.nerol (talk) 12:06, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Category: Sports

How about creating a new "Sports" category? Ekedolphin (talk) 15:31, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, maybe. Everyone aren't so keen on new categories here. Which comics are you thinking of, for a start? –St.nerol (talk) 20:32, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

We definitely need to reach an agreement as a community on when to create new categories. Something simple like a minimum of 3 (or, say, 5) existing comics. Since we're already at the proposals' portal... what do you guys think about that? --Waldir (talk) 21:44, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

My opinion: Five would be enough to qualify. Ekedolphin (talk) 09:31, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

I vote for four. But it should also be a reasonable thing to categorize, like sports, not like "sports with Cueball containing at least three anagram words". Wich sholdn't be a problem. :) But the best name choice could be tricky sometimes. e.g. "Film & television", Film & TV", "Film", "Films", or "Movies"? –St.nerol (talk) 12:59, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Agreed, five should be enough to create the category without having to discuss it. - Cos (talk) 00:50, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

OK, let's start with 588, 1092, 904 and 1107. Should be able to find a few more. Ekedolphin (talk) 05:00, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, it's a broad subject so there are probably several more. -St.nerol (talk) 12:59, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

I found another one, sort of, in 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.  ;) Ekedolphin (talk) 06:18, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

I think you should. On a wiki, getting stuck in discussions which die without a conclusion, to the point that motivated people give up without having done anything, is definitely counter-productive, and phrases like Wikipedia: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. - Cos (talk) 00:50, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

I did it without looking here first, because it was obvious there were many 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. --Kynde (talk) 07:33, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Category: Sex

I think we should also create a Sex category. There's no doubt we can find more than three examples. I'll start looking for them and post the ones I find in here; again, I don't wanna create a large category by myself without community consent. Ekedolphin (talk) 09:20, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

• OK, the ones for Category: Sex that I've found so far are 443, 219, 550, 1026, 575, 468, 592, 320, 1101, 417, 713, 672, 230, 436, 940, 532, 649, 176, 1006, 596 and 717, and I'm sure there are many more. Should we create this category? Ekedolphin (talk) 23:17, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Same as above, do it. Oh, already did; well, all the better. - Cos (talk) 00:53, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Category: Flowcharts

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

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

I don't agree with that, and I think we could profit from such a subcategory. I found those pages fitting it:

• 94: Profile Creation Flowchart
• 210: 90's Flowchart
• 488: Steal This Comic
• 627: Tech Support Cheat Sheet
• 844: Good Code
• 851: Na
• 854: Learning to Cook
• 1195: Flowchart

So? - Cos (talk) 10:59, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Weell if you're willing to take charge of the category and personally make sure it's added to all relevant comic explanations, go ahead. The usual objection to making new categories is that we admins can't remember all the categories when we're reviewing new explanations, but it's K if you're willing to take up that responsibility yourself. Davidy²²[talk] 11:17, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

OK. I did it without waiting for further replies, because I think it will be especially profitable today (to viewers).

It doesn't seem a big issue to me if the correct category is not added when a new explanation is made: a passing editor will do it later on... But hey, I'm OK with taking special care of adding pages to this category.

Cos (talk) 12:28, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

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

Isnt there a page which lists all the categories? If not, there should be one, and it should be accessible to all. Such a page could be useful when trying to quick-add categories to comics. 117.194.83.155 13:43, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, there is. Special:Categories. Davidy²²[talk] 14:07, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Of course, there's a gazillion of 'em, over several pages, so I understand any reluctance to add new categories (having just suggested a new one myself which I feel is justified, but knowing that the upkeep needed may be the key point of contention so remaining philosophical about it).

A solution perhaps to carry over from another locale that I frequent is to have a "Categories of Character" page, a "Categories of Object" one, perhaps "Categories of Event", and a "Categories of Publication". For each new comic someone can easily check the shorter Character categories list against those present, the Object list against itemsin use, Events, etc, and of course the Publication one has the "Tuesday Comic"/equivalent, and other date-based ones (although isn't that automatic from templated creation? ...never added a comic, but would imagine it is). After that it's a trawl through the miscelania categories (perhaps a meta-category just for them?). But, yeah, a lot of work to set up. Wouldn't wish it on anyone who wasn't already willing to do it, and I remain an anon-IP person right now so can hardly commit myself as volunteer maintainer of this. 178.98.31.27 17:20, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Category: (Barred/banned from?) Conferences

I come here after realising I erroneously posted (in reply) to the Main page Talk, being anonymous (or at least IP-only) and without a list of qualifying articles to support me, just yet, but still wish to put forward the above category before I forget. There's no apparent equivalent, that I found, but it's definitely a recurring meme. I should be back (named or otherwise) with my suggested list of members, if someone else doesn't get there first, but I thought I'd start with the placemarker. 178.98.31.27 16:41, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Ok, so I got the bee in my bonnet and spent a few minutes actually looking into this. Revising "Barred from Conferences" (actually more often "Banned" or even "Thrown out of"/equivalent) to just "Conferences", the subset of comics that I can easily find that are involved is *153, *177, *365, *410, *463, *541, 545, 685, 829 and 867, but I'm sure there are more recent ones that I didn't spot/recall. One alternative title to "Conferences" is "Presentations", and I'm sure if I'd searched for that I'd have found more potential candidates (less some that might exit the renamed category). The asterisked ones do deal with being barred/banned/thrown out/etc, making it still a suitable category in its own right, IMO, but I'll leave it up to your combined musings to decide. 178.98.31.27 17:07, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

I add 690 to the list. --Chtz (talk) 08:12, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

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

Category: Wishes

Several comics now exist that talk about wishes - probably more. Should there be a category for this? Z (talk) 23:22, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

Doesn't seem significant enough. If you promise to maintain the category you can make it yourself, although it will be cleared out if it gets neglected as new comics are released. Davidy²²[talk] 15:20, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Category: Artificial Intelligence

Hello world.

There are a handful of comics involving Ai - 1540, 1530, 1450 and 948 for instance - and maybe it's an idea to give them their own category -- Nk22 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

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. Davidy²²[talk] 21:01, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Category: Size Comparisons

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

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

From today's comic 1699: Local News I just got the idea that there may be needing a new category for either blonde woman and/or comics with news reports. I posted this post, in the talk page of that comic. Any comments, and if agreeing that there might be one or two different character categories needed then please suggest what they should be called. --Kynde (talk) 21:00, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Agree with Blondie as new character name and with adding a category for news reports. Jkshapiro (talk) 00:47, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Agree with new character category for Blondie --Lackadaisical (talk) 12:38, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies. Could be nice with a few more chipping in. One issue I just found is Miss Lenhart and ambiguous situations like in comic 59: Graduation, where I would remove the miss reference. But then miss would be a sub category of Blondie (or Blonde? which Randall cals the girl in 59) as Rob is for Cueball... --Kynde (talk) 21:07, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

I think blondie is fine for a name. Miss Lenhart is another character who uses a similar design so I think treating her like Rob is perfectly acceptable. The only thing more I think we should discuss is the role blondie plays in most of the comics (Like how cueball is an everyman, whitehat is often a strawman, Blackhat is blackhat etc.) Lackadaisical (talk) 12:04, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

There are also these two that looks like Blondie: Mrs. Roberts or her daughter Elaine Roberts. I think this is part of why no one has made the category, as there are already three named women with the same hair. But there are so many other comics with this kind of woman, that I think she should be created. I hope I will get the time, but if anyone has any other ideas than just calling them "Blondie" and letting the other three be an subcategory like Rob is of Cueball then say so now before anyone creates Blondie. --Kynde (talk) 11:19, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Agree with new character category and characters with the same appearance as sub-categories Lackadaisical (talk) 18:04, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

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

Business Plan category

I propose renaming Category:Beret Guy's Business into Business Plans, and adding it to 1721: Business Idea Mikemk (talk) 08:15, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

(Note I added a ":" to your category link to show the link instead of adding this page to the category. --Kynde (talk) 10:43, 10 September 2016 (UTC))

No of course not, that comic is about Cueball. This is Beret Guy's business we are talking about here. This category is not about business idea but about what Beret Guy does just like the page with Category:Strange powers of Beret Guy. Both are used in the explanation of who he is. --Kynde (talk) 10:43, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

Category for The Little Prince?

How many comics need to feature/mention a certain thing before we need a category? I think there are enough featuring the Little Prince to deserve a Category of its own. -- AmbroseChapel (talk) 06:57, 29 September 2017 (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Category: Katamari Damacy

There are quite a few comics about this game. DPS2004 (talk)

"Multiple Megan-like characters" category

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

Category: Mycology

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

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

2307 - fungi on the chart

2246 - fungi in the title text

1991 - mycology is a subject on the chart

1904 - see above

1749 - comic is about mushrooms

1664 - comic is about mycology Mushrooms (talk) 07:23, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

Eh sure if you're keen enough on it Davidy²²[talk] 08:30, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

Discord category

Do we need categories for comics that mention various popular social media clients, such as Google and Discord? 172.69.134.98 03:29, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

If there are a group of them, then list them, then they can be added. I can think of a couple of Google-related ones (well, Google search-page, not whatever Alphabet is currently doing insofar as social media), but don't have their names/numbers in my head right now. Do the search and list them here for someone to catalogue up?

I'm not sure there are specific Discord mentions. Noting that just because some unidentified headshot dialogue/notification looks Discordish, it doesn't make it a mention. Too much cross-pollination of appearance. 172.70.90.252 09:56, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Category: Versions

I've noticed that a recurring subject in xkcd is comics which list versions of a real thing, only some of which are real. Closer to the end of the list, the versions get more and more crazy.

Here are some examples I've found:

• 2719: Hydrogen Isotopes
• 2172: Lunar Cycles
• 2860: Decay Modes
• 2369: All-in-One
• 2924: Pendulum Types
• 2614: 2
• 2816: Types of Solar Eclipse

Let me know if you have any objections or suggestions for this category. Thanks! PDesbeginner (talk) 14:30, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Another example: 2848: Breaker Box

Category: Ghosts

I've also noticed several comics featuring ghosts, but not Ghostbusters. These could become a category, and maybe Ghostbusters could become a sub-category of it.

Here are some examples:

• 1108: Cautionary Ghost
• 2836: A Halloween Carol
• 1393: Timeghost

Let me know if you have any objections or suggestions for this category. Thanks! PDesbeginner (talk) 16:49, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Nice proposal. I'd proposed a category "infernal" for all things demonic and hell-related (some demon strips are not in hell; some hell strips do not have demons). There is already a "religion" category. Could we maybe shift them all to a "supernatural/mythological" category and then allow for subcategories? 172.71.90.85 (talk) 21:12, 5 November 2024 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Great suggestion! Perhaps "Infernal" could be a subcategory of both "Supernatural/Mythological" and "Religion"? PDesbeginner (talk) 19:26, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Hang on, it seems that someone else has already created Category:Ghosts. PDesbeginner (talk) 20:34, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Category: Comics with Hidden Images

There are a couple of comics I've read that have hidden images in them. They are 1000: 1000 Comics and 1213: Combination Vision Test. This might seem small, but I think it should be a category. PDesbeginner (talk) 20:20, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Category: Crystal spheres

Three comics that I have read (2121: Light Pollution, 2765: Escape Speed, and 1189: Voyager 1) mention or include crystal spheres. PDesbeginner (talk) 16:50, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

"I Got Fired From"-type category

I think that to improve this website, you should add a category that contains only the i got fired from the <x> because i did <y>.

does this exist already or did someone already propose this idea? Im pretty new to this website, so can someone pls tell me?

thank you -- I HAVE NO NAME2 (talk) 07:17, 21 August 2024 (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

It has been suggested, but doesn't hurt to propose it (properly!) somewhere like here. It helps if you state the candidate articles for which it would initially be used. (I'm aware of two, but having a third or more would be useful - very easily to draw an arbitrary line through any two points, without there being any actual real trend between those points or any other points to match that line.)

And welcome. You're new and have been adding minor comments to many article Talk pages, I notice (as well as other edits). Do note that it really doesn't need you to 'tag' every page you read, but it looks like your heart is in the right place and so if you perhaps ease yourself more into the wiki I'm sure you'll make further valuable contributions. 172.70.90.35 10:37, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

(Addendum - did not realise you were using User:I HAVE NO NAME2, not User:I HAVE NO NAME just now when I corrected your contribution. If you're the same person, then my comments stand but you are going to create confusion. But still all the best to you. If you're not the same person, the general sentiment still applies.) 172.70.91.62 10:55, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

News Category

I propose that we add a News category, as proposed by user Ok123. There’s a news anchor category, but we can put news anchor under this category and include comics about newspapers, such as 750: Book Burning and 1062: Budget News 42.book.addict (talk) 20:53, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Category: Thought Experiments

I'd like a category for CLASSICAL thought experiments, including Schrödinger's cat, Maxwell's Demon, and the Trolley Problem. A good list of examples is available halfway down the Wiki article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_experiment#Examples . I'm highlighting "classical" because enough of the XKCD strips could constitute original thought experiments in their own right. I'll start searching now and will post a list of a few qualifying comics shortly. Sorry about the IP address. 172.71.103.68 18:48, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

45, 1016, 857, 384, 1233, 1465. 1925, 1938, 3006... (Just based on a quick search. There are loads more. Bonus points for the term "Gedankedank"). 172.71.98.42 (talk) 18:57, 3 November 2024 (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Adding Ratings for Explanations

I found 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". Spongebog (talk) 17:57, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

We have a rather prominent discussion page for feedback, do we really need an additional add-on for this? I did a little research and found that other wikis use semantic rating and article ratings, which I can install if enough other users want it. Davidy²²[talk] 05:54, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

New Speculation Sections

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

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

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

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

As an example;

This part from comic 1642: Gravitational Waves

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

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

However, this part from comic 478: The Staple Madness

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

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

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

Lackadaisical (talk) 15:16, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

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

Many of the current explanations are conjecture, that's true but not every explanation. Providing information on the science or mathematics behind a particular comic is not conjecture. Stating whether the author intended to belittle the field or state that one field is superior over another (unless fairly explicitly stated) is. And there are many things which can be inferred without being simple speculation. Not every comic would need a section like this, and not every comic needs a trivia section, and I'm not ready to start adding this proposed section myself. But I think it should be considered. Lackadaisical (talk) 15:35, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

The intention of the discussion pages was to serve as a place for people to put their conjecture and reaching interpretations of the comics. They're presented alongside the explanation to make people's interpretations more readily visible. Some people may have trouble distinguishing an ungrounded interpretation of a comic from an explanation of it, and they will insert weak text into explanations. If you find something you disagree with, feel free to bring it up in the discussion section and edit it out of the explanation liberally Davidy²²[talk] 06:17, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Unixkcd

Hello everyone. I was just wondering: is there anything on http://uni.xkcd.com/. Because I was just looking and the only thing I found on Unixkcd is a mention of a bug in 1350. There is not even a mention on the April fools article.

There's nothing on this site, there's a couple of novel tidbits on the xkcd site that are at best tangentially related to the comic, as Randall originally intended to make xkcd.com his personal site for hosting his own projects. That particular one doesn't show up in any comics. Also, proposals might not be the best place to put this. Davidy²²[talk] 08:46, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

I added the unixckd information to 721: Flatland. According to Randalls Øredev 2013 talk unixkcd was the April Fools' prank for April 1st 2010. Condor70 (talk) 09:00, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

fix a page

The page Comics featuring Summer Glau is missing: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/526:_Converting_to_Metric 108.162.241.130 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Done. In the future, you can add categories yourself, just scroll to the bottom and follow the template the others go by. Davidy²²[talk] 03:56, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

New xkcd book out.

Any chance of posting a section of explanation pages for the cartoons in the new xkcd book, hopefully explaining some of the cryptic red notes? Thanks! 199.27.133.102 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Comics with header text

Several comic have some header text, such as 851 or 1052. Shouldn't there be a category for them or something? I think it is quite a notable feature. Jaalenja (talk) 15:23, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

I feel like it's not a particularly defining feature, it feels like making a category for comics that have frames with no borders or something, it's just a technique Randall uses. Davidy²²[talk] 07:35, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

To me it feels more like a second title text. It is not technically part of the comic itself, but is a separate piece of information included with it on the xkcd website. There is a category for comics without title text, this is the same, only reverse, in my humble opinion Jaalenja (talk) 07:13, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

purpose of detailed transcripts

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

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

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

Zetfr 14:10, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

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

Rename Science Girl "Jill"

Following the Precedent of "Megan" and "Danish" (but oddly enough not Rob), I propose that we rename Science Girl Jill, as per 1662. This could serve to give her an easier name and to use in cases where the character doesn't have a connection with science but seems to be the same girl. Sensorfire (talk) 18:19, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

The only time she's called Jill is in Jack and Jill comics (of course), and the only reason you'd want to do that is since Randall displays them similarly. In some cases Science Girl is even clearly older. We might do that if there was a Child-Blackhaired-Ponytail character, but these characters are always either Science Girl or Jill. Also, Jill has very, very few appearances anyway. Jacky720 (talk) 21:37, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Make an official transcript site

I've already taken the liberty of making {{transcript}}, and think we, together, can do better- which is why I'm implementing this site, in order to display the official transcript in its intended format. However, it is bugged, and could do better if moved to explain xkcd. Is anyone in on this? Jacky720 (talk) 21:36, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

The transcript site doesn't seem to be accessible. Is the project dead? If it's not I can try to help. Errpell (talk) 21:06, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

HTTPS Links Back to XKCD Interfere with Random Button

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

--9000 volts (talk) 21:15, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Rearrange for our visually impaired friends.

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

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

Thanks for your consideration.

Incomplete in spotlight

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

Duplicate Navigation tools at bottom of page (please!)

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

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

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

 ✓ Done!!!  It was defintely not simple, at least for me, but I managed to do it. Check 3088 for an example of how it looks and works. --FaviFake (talk) 16:02, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

JSON endpoint

There is a endpoint to retrieve information about the comics on the xkcd website. However the info there is not complete, specially when it comes to the transcripts. explainxkcd should provide a similar interface. It would be very useful specially for bots/scripts. The commmunity could help completing the information on the xkcd website and/or provide a new interface. The transcript are already retrieved from this website and a copy can be found here. If there isn't already a complete file or databse with all the information, this file could help building it. However, this document has been compiled by scraping the html of explainxkcd, so there's some errors in it. These errors can be avoid with a clear and easy to access interface like JSON, similar to what is available on the xkcd website. Errpell (talk) 20:43, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

Maybe there is a mediawiki addon to support a JSON file. Any ideas? --Dgbrt (talk) 19:08, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Suggestion for small improvement to interface

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

Hope you agree! Murray in NJ

PS: Aha! I see others have suggested the same thing :) 162.158.75.232 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

This was also mentioned before. I don't agree because the layout is based on the original xkcd site. Protip: Do not "scroll back", just use your keyboard. The magic key is called "Home". --Dgbrt (talk) 19:14, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

 ✓ Done!!!  It was defintely not simple, at least for me, but I managed to do it. Check 3088 for an example of how it looks and works. --FaviFake (talk) 16:02, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

mediawiki things

could admin please update to the latest version of mediawiki and add the timeless skin, thx. also would help if you added line-height: 1.5em to the edit box (#wpTextbox1) while making it taller to compensate, or added the 2010 code editor to aid readability. 162.158.92.4 11:50, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

The state of "incomplete" explanations and an unified policy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The main reason why I want there to be an official policy is so the process of marking explanations as complete can be more straightforward. There would be a community-approved list of things an explanation needs to contain, if an explanation has all that, it is complete. Of course there would still be lot of room for interpretation because every comic is different and coming up with rules that fit all is impossible, but I believe this could still be a massive improvement over the current state.

Also, please, when I say something is merely a sub-suggestion, I mean it. Your reply gives me the feeling you understood my proposal as something along the lines of "We should make it an official policy that explanations should look like this:", whereas it was more along the lines of "There should be an official policy about what explanations should contain. Here is an example of what such policy could maybe look like:" Jaalenja (talk) 06:49, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

In general I don't think this is a big issue. The vast majority (99%) of the comics is not marked as incomplete and those you are citing here should be discussed at the corresponding talk pages. Thus I don't see a massive improvement anyway.

However we can enhance the proper section at the Editor FAQ by one or two concise sentences. But when you say "There should be..." nothing would happen; that's why I say: "We should make it". --Dgbrt (talk) 09:36, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

Tables vs bold text

There are many, many, many comics with several things mentioned in the comic that need to be individually explained, and there are two ways we can do it, one being tables (for example: 1930: Calendar Facts), the other being using bold text to separate paragraphs into sections (for example: 1972: Autogyros). The thing is for the most cases, it seems like we should be using tables, but then using bold text to seperate paragraphs looks better, and is also easier... So when should we use tables, and when bold text? Herobrine (talk) 12:20, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

IMHO we have far too much tables - a structured floating text is much easier to read. Consider this:

• A List of all planets in our solar system with a few columns for distance (in km, mi, and AU), size, and temperature. That's a classical table.
• The table in 1930: Calendar Facts contains far too much text in many cells. Try to read this on a smartphone. And furthermore on my Google Chrome for Android all the tables from this comic are not shown at all when using the Simplified View.
• Or compare this: 1363: xkcd Phone and 1549: xkcd Phone 3. I prefer the floating text and even more when I'm using a mobile device.

But that's only my opinion.

Nevertheless I'm also working on a real mobile version of this Wiki (similar to Wikipedia) and that will require some restrictions to the layout to get it properly rendered. But this will not happen before the FIFA World Cup 2018 is over ;) --Dgbrt (talk) 13:17, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. Narrow columns with simple facts are ok, but longer text should not be put in a table. --SlashMe (talk) 10:15, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

I second this. Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 11:22, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Please check also this new Editor FAQ and the belonging talk page. --Dgbrt (talk) 13:04, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Any updates? (Why) is it not just a matter of installing the MobileFrontend-extension? :) (See also above: Mobile friendly website) Coverbe (talk) 16:01, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Add the comic to the edit page

While editing the explanation, it would be nice to be able to see the comic on that same page, especially for the transcript. (it's difficult for mobile editors to see two pages at once)

Please sign your comments, and that’s not possible from what I know, considering how this website is set up. (I can still edit fine on mobile) Netherin5 (talk) 13:49, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Dark theme/night mode

Should I explain this?

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

Firefox has a Dark Theme Extension, and it looks pretty good on the Wiki. Chrome does too, but I haven't tried it out.

Change dates to match ISO 8601.

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

Add bookmark

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

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

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

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

Regarding using facebook like and google captcha - Privacy concerns

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

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

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

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

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

Captcha is necessary for avoiding spam. There are alternatives. Anything but google one should suffice. Regarding the facebook like button, I think that should be replaced by a link to the facebook page. 172.68.38.88 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I think this can be done only by admins, who are currently absent from this wiki. However regarding the Captcha, there is an easy fix: Register here, and log into your account (an one-time e-mail address is sufficient, if you are worried about your privacy). Also please sign your comments to talk pages and other discussions (such as this) - It will not show the IP related to you/your VPN, but one from cloudfare, so it will also not hurt your privacy, but automatically put a timestamp, etc.

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

Removing unnecessary 3-comic categories?

I count eight categories on explainxkcd that satisfy the following properties: 1. They have only three comics in them. 2. They aren't really a comic series; they just feature or reference a comic theme. 3. They aren't Featuring some person or character. In short, they seem to have no real reason to exist. (They're thesones.) So my proposal: remove them. -Account (talk) 20:37, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

In addition, there are thirteen more four-comic categories that also seem rather in need of deletion.

Shouldn't the community at least have some time to expand on these categories, in case they're currently incomplete? For example, Category:The Matrix is on your list and now contains 7 strips, and Category:Tournament bracket got its 5th entry after your post. Even if they're not, a theme category can save some typing in the search box (and is probably also cheaper in terms of server resources than all the searches it'll eliminate). Promethean (talk) 22:43, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

So what do you think the limit should be for categories? Should we create a category when two comics mention the same topic? Three? --Account (talk) 16:28, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Three seems reasonable to me, and I could see a case being made for two. Categories aren't expensive. Promethean (talk) 00:17, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

New transcript

The transcripts in the comic pages are quite inconsistent, especially in the brackets where you have to describe what happens in the panels. If I understand correctly, the transcripts are for people to copy the text in the comic without having to type them out. If that's the case, then I think propose a new transcript. This transcript should have the comic with the words erased, and then the copy-pasteable words on top of that. Such a transcript would have no room for error, which would let anyone contribute to a seamless transcript.

The aim of the transcript is to provide a text-only version of the comic that would allow someone who is visually impaired to use a text-to-speech converter to understand the comic and also in a machine readable format for searching (see the Editor FAQ). Anything using mark-up, images or anything other than plain text will interfere with this and so should be avoided in the transcript. AlChemist (talk) 18:22, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Add title text and heading to transcript section

It has always bothered me that the transcript did not include the title text since it contributes so much to the humor of the comics. Also, it looks to me like the comic heading is sometimes included as part of the transcript and sometimes left out. I checked the previous proposals and did not see any discussion of these issues. Please consider having a policy going forward of including the heading and the title text within the transcript. Rtanenbaum (talk) 22:43, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

To my understanding (and also others, see discussion directly above) one of the main points of the transcript is to make the comics searchable, the other is, to make it readable when images are not an option. In both cases the comic's name and the title text mentioned above and below the image should be sufficient. I personally think this convention is fine. Lupo (talk) 08:28, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Pardon me -- (and, thanks for your patience) -- if this is too off-topic (/slash "boring") or TMI (see Information overload#Web accuracy e.g.), ...OR if this should have been posted elsewhere ...instead of here.

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

Hi Mike, I see your point, and yes, something like "bonus text" might be a bit more descriptive. But FWIW, I think the reason it's called "title text" is because that's the text that appears in the title attribute of the HTML <img> tag of the comic's image on the xkcd.com site. For example, at https://xkcd.com/2364/, the code for the comic image looks like this:

<img src="//imgs.xkcd.com/comics/parity_conservation.png"
     title="Bloody Mary is made of antimatter. It explains so much."
     alt="Parity Conservation"
     srcset="//imgs.xkcd.com/comics/parity_conservation_2x.png 2x">

In there, you can see the title text as title="Bloody Mary is made of antimatter. It explains so much." See here for more explanation about that, and some discussions about it here. – Yfmcpxpj (talk) 03:11, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia links.

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

It's time to remove the HTTPS lock icon

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

Here are appropriate replacement icons:

* https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Unlock_Icon_Red_(32_bit).png
* https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Unlock_Icon_Red_(4_bit).gif

- Frankie (talk) 12:49, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

New page for Randall's regular column in the New York Times

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

---

New York Times column: Good Question

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

The New York Times website ordinarily requires registration, and its content is always protected by copyright. Most particularly it is not under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License the way xkcd is. The good news: anyone can register for a free digital subscription to the New York Times, with access to 'recent' Science articles among some others, but outside of that only five articles per month. See Free Articles.

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

New York Times columns by Randall Munroe

Column	Headline	Byline	Date
SCIENCE	What Makes a Red Sky at Night (and at Morning)	Randall Munroe	Aug. 13, 2019
GOOD QUESTION	If I Touched the Moon, What Would It Feel Like?	Randall Munroe	Nov. 12, 2019
GOOD QUESTION	Is Earth Getting Bigger Over Time?	Randall Munroe	Dec. 10, 2019
GOOD QUESTION	How Fast Can a Human Run?	Randall Munroe	Jan. 21, 2020 / Feb. 7, 2020
GOOD QUESTION	What’s the World’s Worst Smell?	Randall Munroe	Feb. 17, 2020 / Feb. 26, 2020
GOOD QUESTION	What if Galileo Had Dropped Bobsleds From the Tower of Pisa?	Randall Munroe	March 10, 2020
GOOD QUESTION	How’s the View From a Spinning Star?	Randall Munroe	April 7, 2020
GOOD QUESTION	What’s the Sweetest, Crispiest Way to Stay Safe in a Car Crash?	Randall Munroe	May 11, 2020
GOOD QUESTION	Can You Boil an Egg Too Long?	Randall Munroe	June 9, 2020
GOOD QUESTION	Could You Make a Snowball of Neutrinos?	Randall Munroe	July 7, 2020

New York Times columns about Randall Munroe

Column	Headline	Byline	Date
LINK BY LINK	This Is Funny Only if You Know Unix	Noam Cohen	May 26, 2008
BITS	Tech’s Favorite Cartoonist Enters Mainstream Publishing	Noam Cohen	March 14, 2014
SCIENCE	He’s Glad You Asked	Kenneth Chang	Nov. 3, 2014
BOOKS	Randall Munroe Explains It All for Us	Alexandra Alter	Nov. 23, 2015
SCIENCE	Randall Munroe, XKCD Creator, Goes Back to High School	Kenneth Chang	March 21, 2016
SCIENCE	Randall Munroe of ‘XKCD’ Explains the Human Body, Elevators and the Saturn 5	(Actual pages from Thing Explainer)	March 21, 2016

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

I went and added the page, here: New York Times: Good Question --JohnB (talk) 02:42, 11 July 2020 (UTC)