explain xkcd:Community portal/Miscellaneous - Revision history

Cream Starlight: /* Category:Artificial Intelligence */ opinion lol

2026-04-08T05:26:27Z

‎Category:Artificial Intelligence: opinion lol

FaviFake: /* Random Explanation Button bias towards newer articles */

2026-04-04T12:24:18Z

‎Random Explanation Button bias towards newer articles

Aprilfoolsupdate!: /* Confusing matrices transcript */ new section

2026-04-01T09:24:23Z

‎Confusing matrices transcript: new section

82.132.236.193: /* Random Explanation Button bias towards newer articles */ another... Typing while walking...

2026-03-20T16:42:03Z

‎Random Explanation Button bias towards newer articles: another... Typing while walking...

82.132.236.193: /* Random Explanation Button bias towards newer articles */ tyop/thinko

2026-03-20T16:40:45Z

‎Random Explanation Button bias towards newer articles: tyop/thinko

82.132.236.193: /* Random Explanation Button bias towards newer articles */

2026-03-20T16:38:49Z

‎Random Explanation Button bias towards newer articles

Willintendo: /* Random Explanation Button bias towards newer articles */

2026-03-20T14:20:46Z

‎Random Explanation Button bias towards newer articles

Willintendo: /* Random Explanation Button bias towards newer articles */

2026-03-20T14:20:01Z

‎Random Explanation Button bias towards newer articles

FaviFake: /* Suggestions for Randall */

2026-02-28T10:34:23Z

‎Suggestions for Randall

FaviFake: /* Suggestions for Randall */

2026-02-28T10:34:03Z

‎Suggestions for Randall

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 :For most purposes, I think, in the comics "AI" (the abbreviated title of the subject) is used/meant, so I suspect that it'd be the more titular umbrella of things (including, or at least aspiring to, AGI, etc) that applies.
 :I don't see any obvious wikipedia discussions about whether or not to (have) capitalise(d) the term. I suspect that it just was assumed as default and everyone understands that a discussion of "artificial intelligence" can be refered to as "AI", there, but wouldn't complain about any variation other than "ai". ;) Whether umbrella title or 'just words' is used here... I don't think it matters (i.e. no change needed, meaning least fuss in not 'correctiny' it in all the places it would need to be). But a question could still be asked, in case there's a different consensus from my own 'feeling' about this. [[Special:Contributions/92.23.2.228|92.23.2.228]] 10:14, 10 August 2025 (UTC)
 == What if pic explain ==

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 :The old random button on the sidebar used to take people to this link: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Special:Random  However, now the link takes people to https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Special:RandomInCatagory/All_pages  Interestingly, the old link still works great, and seems to take you to a completely unbiased random page. If we simply switched the link on the sidebar and even the random button, I think the issue would be totally resolved (I know the old link because I saved it as one of my bookmarks to pull up a random page at any time). [[User:Willintendo|Willintendo]] ([[User talk:Willintendo|talk]]) 14:20, 20 March 2026 (UTC)
 ::I think (I didn't take part in the decision, but I remember the switch), it was because [[Special:Random]] doesn't just take you to ''comic'' pages, but potentially anything in the main-space of articles (not Talk:, etc). Though there's an overwhelming number of them, and the few non-[4321: Comic Name] pages that aren't 'honourary' comics (thus got let back in to the Random Comic process via fiddling them into a suitable Category for [[Special:RandomInCategory]] to use) are also either interesting or a rare case of needing to ask for a new Random example that satisfies mofe. So perhaps if we revert to plain-old-Random, it would be acceptable. But "Random Page" would be a better description, lest we get complaints about an anomolous link to the record of all xkcd site headers, or somesuch... ;) Just a consideration, if anyone's seriously pondering that. [[Special:Contributions/82.132.236.193|82.132.236.193]] 16:38, 20 March 2026 (UTC)
 == I need to find this specific comic or I will explode ==

← Older revision		Revision as of 09:24, 1 April 2026
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	:#That was a 'special' comic thing... I'm half surprised he left it all working (without, as you suggest, adding a perpetual link to the "any old comic" page-surround) rather than prune it back once it wasn't the current easteregg that it originally was...		:#That was a 'special' comic thing... I'm half surprised he left it all working (without, as you suggest, adding a perpetual link to the "any old comic" page-surround) rather than prune it back once it wasn't the current easteregg that it originally was...
	:But, as basically already said, none of us here (that any of us admit to) are either collaborating directly with Randall or Randall himself. We're 'just' a hobbyist-community of (somewhat) like-minded fans of his work, and very little chance that any suggestions here will get implemented. (On how to change xkcd.com, at least. You ''might'' get lucky if you have an explainxkcd.com change that you want to suggest. Unless it's "upgrade it to the latest mediawiki version", or similar... ;) ) [[Special:Contributions/82.132.238.95\|82.132.238.95]] 03:26, 25 February 2026 (UTC)		:But, as basically already said, none of us here (that any of us admit to) are either collaborating directly with Randall or Randall himself. We're 'just' a hobbyist-community of (somewhat) like-minded fans of his work, and very little chance that any suggestions here will get implemented. (On how to change xkcd.com, at least. You ''might'' get lucky if you have an explainxkcd.com change that you want to suggest. Unless it's "upgrade it to the latest mediawiki version", or similar... ;) ) [[Special:Contributions/82.132.238.95\|82.132.238.95]] 03:26, 25 February 2026 (UTC)
		+
		+	== Confusing matrices transcript ==
		+
		+	some of the comics in category confusing matrcies have tables as the transcript, which is i think not good accoridng to faq, I am going to mark incomplete now [[User:Aprilfoolsupdate!\| <sup>April</sup><sub>fools</sub><sup><sub>update</sub></sup>!]]([[User talk:Aprilfoolsupdate!\|talk]]) 09:24, 1 April 2026 (UTC)

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 I'm pretty sure the "Random comic" button in the sidebar is also biased; even when it picks an older comic, it seems to pick the same one or two dozen older comics every time. Are we using RANDU, or some other PRNG that's only marginally better than the one in [[221]]? [[User:Promethean|Promethean]] ([[User talk:Promethean|talk]]) 02:08, 27 February 2026 (UTC)
 :The old random button on the sidebar used to take people to this link: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Special:Random  However, now the link takes people to https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Special:RandomInCatagory/All_pages  Interestingly, the old link still works great, and seems to take you to a completely unbiased random page. If we simply switched the link on the sidebar and even the random button, I think the issue would be totally resolved (I know the old link because I saved it as one of my bookmarks to pull up a random page at any time). [[User:Willintendo|Willintendo]] ([[User talk:Willintendo|talk]]) 14:20, 20 March 2026 (UTC)
-::I think (I didn't take part in the decision, but I remember the switch), it was because [[Special:Random]] doesn't just take you to ''comic'' pages, but potentially anything in the main-space lf articles (not Talk:, etc). Though there's an overwhelming number of them, and the few non-[4321: Comic Name] pages that aren't 'honourary' comics (thus got let back in to the Random Comic process via fiddling them into a suitable Category for [[Special:RandomInCategory]] to use) are also either interesting or a rare case of needing to ask for a new Random example that satisfies mofe. So perhaps if we revert to plain-old-Random, it would be acceptable. But "Random Page" would be a better description, lest we get complaints about an anomolous link to the record of all xkcd site headers, or somesuch... ;) Just a consideration, if anyone's seriously pondering that. [[Special:Contributions/82.132.236.193|82.132.236.193]] 16:38, 20 March 2026 (UTC)
+::I think (I didn't take part in the decision, but I remember the switch), it was because [[Special:Random]] doesn't just take you to ''comic'' pages, but potentially anything in the main-space of articles (not Talk:, etc). Though there's an overwhelming number of them, and the few non-[4321: Comic Name] pages that aren't 'honourary' comics (thus got let back in to the Random Comic process via fiddling them into a suitable Category for [[Special:RandomInCategory]] to use) are also either interesting or a rare case of needing to ask for a new Random example that satisfies mofe. So perhaps if we revert to plain-old-Random, it would be acceptable. But "Random Page" would be a better description, lest we get complaints about an anomolous link to the record of all xkcd site headers, or somesuch... ;) Just a consideration, if anyone's seriously pondering that. [[Special:Contributions/82.132.236.193|82.132.236.193]] 16:38, 20 March 2026 (UTC)
 == I need to find this specific comic or I will explode ==

@@ Line 1,464: / Line 1,464: @@
 I'm pretty sure the "Random comic" button in the sidebar is also biased; even when it picks an older comic, it seems to pick the same one or two dozen older comics every time. Are we using RANDU, or some other PRNG that's only marginally better than the one in [[221]]? [[User:Promethean|Promethean]] ([[User talk:Promethean|talk]]) 02:08, 27 February 2026 (UTC)
 :The old random button on the sidebar used to take people to this link: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Special:Random  However, now the link takes people to https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Special:RandomInCatagory/All_pages  Interestingly, the old link still works great, and seems to take you to a completely unbiased random page. If we simply switched the link on the sidebar and even the random button, I think the issue would be totally resolved (I know the old link because I saved it as one of my bookmarks to pull up a random page at any time). [[User:Willintendo|Willintendo]] ([[User talk:Willintendo|talk]]) 14:20, 20 March 2026 (UTC)
-::I think (I didn't take part in the decision, but I remember the switch), it was because [[Special:Random]] doesn't just take you to ''comic'' pages, but potentially anything in the main-space lf articles (not Talk:, etc). Though there's an overwhelming number of them, and the few non-[4321: Comic Name] pages that aren't 'honourary' comics (thus got let back in to the Random Comic process via fiddling them into a suitable Category for [[Special:RandomInCatagory]] to use) are also either interesting or a rare case of needing to ask for a new Random example that satisfies mofe. So perhaps if we revert to plain-old-Random, it would be acceptable. But "Random Page" would be a better description, lest we get complaints about an anomolous link to the record of all xkcd site headers, or somesuch... ;) Just a consideration, if anyone's seriously pondering that. [[Special:Contributions/82.132.236.193|82.132.236.193]] 16:38, 20 March 2026 (UTC)
+::I think (I didn't take part in the decision, but I remember the switch), it was because [[Special:Random]] doesn't just take you to ''comic'' pages, but potentially anything in the main-space lf articles (not Talk:, etc). Though there's an overwhelming number of them, and the few non-[4321: Comic Name] pages that aren't 'honourary' comics (thus got let back in to the Random Comic process via fiddling them into a suitable Category for [[Special:RandomInCategory]] to use) are also either interesting or a rare case of needing to ask for a new Random example that satisfies mofe. So perhaps if we revert to plain-old-Random, it would be acceptable. But "Random Page" would be a better description, lest we get complaints about an anomolous link to the record of all xkcd site headers, or somesuch... ;) Just a consideration, if anyone's seriously pondering that. [[Special:Contributions/82.132.236.193|82.132.236.193]] 16:38, 20 March 2026 (UTC)
 == I need to find this specific comic or I will explode ==

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 :::::::::The 'previous' button allows the user to view the previous comic. This, combined with the 'next', 'skip to first', and 'skip to end buttons', give the ability to browse sequentially - both to navigate back and forth among recent comics and to view the whole archive in chronological order. The 'random' button permits non-sequential navigation - to jump to fresh content (much like a shuffle feature on a playlist). While I agree that it serves a more novel purpose than the other navigation buttons, it is still used and found useful by many here on this wiki. Of course, I could manually do RNG (as I did in my testing) but it is a common enough thing to warrant a button - hence why the button exists. The issue is that the button is decidedly not random - enough for people to notice.
 :::::::::Also, please point out where in this reply and my above reply where I used "X implies X therefore X is true" as an argument. I believe I provided an explanation on why people want a 'random comic' per your question. Functional random button. Why? People want random comics. Why? Because other methods of browsing show repetitive and recently seen content. Why? Overly familiar content is less engaging and doesn't prompt any new lines of thought. Why? Because people want to continue engaging in Randall's content and how the community interacts and interprets his art. Why? (I'm sure you can figure this last one out) [[User:Sameldacamel34|Sameldacamel34]] ([[User talk:Sameldacamel34|talk]]) 16:04, 9 February 2026 (UTC)
 I'm pretty sure the "Random comic" button in the sidebar is also biased; even when it picks an older comic, it seems to pick the same one or two dozen older comics every time. Are we using RANDU, or some other PRNG that's only marginally better than the one in [[221]]? [[User:Promethean|Promethean]] ([[User talk:Promethean|talk]]) 02:08, 27 February 2026 (UTC)
 == I need to find this specific comic or I will explode ==

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 These are just suggestions, and I recognize that they would be hard to do. But it would be super cool if they were added. {{unsigned|Haddoniscool|23:49, 24 February 2026 (UTC)}}
 :Unfortunately, we cannot make Randall do anything. He might read this message, but there is no guarantee. You could reach out to him at contact@xkcd.com, email the website's sysop at davean@xkcd.com, or ask [[User:FaviFake]] to email him for you, as he got Randall's personal email address. Hope this helps! [[User:42.book.addict|<span style="font:11pt Cormorant Garamond"><span style="color:#5CA7CF">tor</span><span style="color:#F08DB0">i :3</span>]]<sup>[[User talk:42.book.addict|<span style="font:8pt Cormorant Garamond"><span style="color:#9E9E9E">talk </span><span style="color:#F08DB0">to </span><span style="color:#5CA7CF">me!</span>]]</span></sup> 00:29, 25 February 2026 (UTC)
-::To be clear, I got Randall's email address from an old wayback machine link; I didn't didn't want to post it so publicly because he likely removed it for a reason. You can also find it on reddit by searching it on google :) [[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 10:34, 28 February 2026 (UTC)
+::To be clear, I got Randall's email address from an old wayback machine link; I just didn't want to post it so publicly because he likely removed it for a reason. You can also find it on reddit by searching it on google :) [[User:FaviFake|FaviFake]] ([[User talk:FaviFake|talk]]) 10:34, 28 February 2026 (UTC)
 :My own replies to this:
 :#There have been links to the officially sanctioned fora/forums (until after they got broken), shop, etc, on xkcd.com, and currently the mass of links is the "Archive / What If? / About / Feed•Email / TW•FB•IG / -Books- / What If? 2 / WI?•TE•HT" text, which ''seems'' to already be what you're asking for,