User talk:Kynde

Cueball references

Hi, please do not remove the Cueball references here. He is a standard character. The category Category:Comics featuring Cueball gives just an overview about all comics showing this stick figure. And just one is him, not defined by Randall but by us. --Dgbrt (talk) 21:10, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

But who should define who Cueball is? You? I could see him as both here. And somebody did. You have just corrected back so that the Cueball in the explain is switched to the other charachter in the transcript. At least one of these should then be changed to match the other. It is thus also clear that people have different views of what Cueball stands for. Is he the one trolling, or is he the one who knows which movie Blade Runner is? Kynde (talk) 07:35, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

By the way - I did not remove the reference to the chategory - but only in the text as described above. Kynde (talk) 07:38, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Minor tags on edits

Also, a minor concern, but please be more sparing in your use of "minor" tags on edits. Addition of 1200 characters (e.g. . . m Talk:1496: Art Project‎; 20:04 . . (+1,240)‎ . . ‎Kynde, or . . m 1497: New Products‎; 19:12 . . (-419)‎ . . ‎Kynde →‎Explanation: It does not fit into category four! See new test. I also deleted a lot of text, that already was written below, and was basically the same as the one stille) is NOT minor. Djbrasier (talk) 21:22, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

When adding a new comment to the talk page I newer see this as a major change. This i a discussion not a change to the explanation!. I do not believe it was a big change removing the text you wrote, when all of it basically was written below. Try and read your version, and see that it was more or less double. Also I had already once removed the reference to the fourth category. If the guy has signed up he have no problems with this company. Also it is mentioned that the fourth category is not a company he is afraid off, but just someone they do not like. --Kynde (talk) 21:42, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Thank you

I like what you did at 1402: Harpoons. Thank you. 173.245.54.153

You're welcome - I did it based on your comment Kynde (talk) 03:41, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

980: Money

Hey, you've done an amazing job on the money comic's transcript, but the explanation page is still marked as incomplete. Is there actually anything left to be done on it? Thanks! Davak72 (talk) 03:04, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks allot. I have replied on the Money page where you repeated the above. I can even remember the number although it was some time since I did the transcript. --Kynde (talk) 09:44, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Merge Cueball & Rob

You seem to have changed some comics in which formerly more than one cueball appeared to make it such that none were called cueball (e.g. Orb Hammer). But many persist, see transcripts in: http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1405:_Meteor http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/192:_Working_for_Google http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/525:_I_Know_You%27re_Listening http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/187:_The_Familiar http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/79:_Iambic_Pentameter http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/65:_Banter

We should probably seek broader consensus before rewriting all these transcripts. There seems to me to be a general trend to name one "Cueball" and call the others "Friend" or somesuch in these cases and I'm concerned that you seem to want to singlehandedly rewrite all that convention. Djbrasier (talk) 21:07, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

It is typically the first who writes the transcript who decides who of the Cueballs (or Megans) he feel represents the real Cueball. However, there is no real behavior of Cueball. So who should decide. I could also change these transcripts so it becomes the other character who becomes Cueball, because I think the first transcripter did it wrong. This was exactly what happened with the two Megan-like comics. First it was 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 ide: Unidentified girl and Megan. So thanks for showing me these six double Cueball comics. I will change asap. And as I answered your comment on 1496: Art Project Rob is already listed as part of the category for Comics featuring Cueball: http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Category:Comics_featuring_Rob and this is listed as the first entry when going to the page for Category:Comics featuring Cueball: http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Category:Comics_featuring_Cueball Thus he should not be merged--Kynde (talk) 21:21, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Can you please add this discussion here [1]. I have refrained from making these sort of substantial changes and want to seek a broader consensus. Please use the community forum to seek such consensus before making major unilateral changes like that. Djbrasier (talk) 21:24, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Done with interests --Kynde (talk) 22:02, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

there are dozens of multiple-Cueball comments. Please don't change them to "man 1", "man 2" until we can reach a braoder consensus. I will not be changing them to "Rob" without consensus. This is not something to be done all at once and making that many changes will prompt me to request that an admin freeze your account. Djbrasier (talk) 21:27, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

I was about to write this before your comment no. two. So this was a reply to your previous comment: "I can post it there, but these changes has been underway a long time for almost a year. But it is hard to find these comics as I do not go through them just to find incidences. How long have you been active in xkcd. I can see your page has been created today, but maybe you were active long before that?"--Kynde (talk) 21:42, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

This is a comment to your next comment: "It is very hard to threaten someone like that already. I have been making these changes before, and by the way never to man 1 or man 2. I have been one of the top contributers for more than a year. I hope this is not just because I reverted one of your contributions to Mondays comic? --Kynde (talk21:42, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

I didn't want to threaten. I think consistent style is important, and general style I see is in multi-Cueball comics, one is ID'd as Cueball and others are "Friend", etc. Anyone unilaterally changing an established style should seek consensus first.

Additionally, I think your undo on my edit actually improved the explanation.

Finally, if you know how to solicit more opinions on the matter at hand, please let me know (or do it). Thanks! Djbrasier (talk) 23:53, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks on the edit appraisal. As I wrote on the talk page, yours was also much better phrased the second time. I do not know how to get anyone to go read your comment except by giving them the message like you did with me. Or putting a link to it from the talk page of the double Megan comic, and maybe on some of the double Cueball comics too. I did not understand the "solicit more opinions" at first (why I wrote that last part in my comment below "how many will read"). So you do realize, I can see now, that not many will. By the way I'm Danish... That is, I'm neither a mean girl or a pastry cake, but from Denmark. And although I'm, really good at English for everyday use, it is not by far a language I can understand everything. But suddenly I got your message.--Kynde (talk) 20:10, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

My only point is we need to wait until consensus is reached before undoing years of precedent in Cueball naming. Djbrasier (talk) 22:38, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Well as I have made fairly clear there is no consensus. Because it is up to the first one who writes the transcript to decide who is the friend. And this often leads to discussion or changes forth and back (like we just saw with two Megans) since people have different opinion on how Cueball should behave, since they do not know that Cueball can behave anyway Randall needs him to. Often he reflects Randall's intelligence, but just as often he is a prick behaving horribly towards girls etc. So if there are two, one good and one bad, you cannot say the good one is Cueball. And how many do you think reads your post? --Kynde (talk) 19:43, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

I have had a look at the comics you have listed. Here are my comments:

• 1405:_Meteor
  • Here I would have changed - since it is believed that Cueball often represents Randall's version of himself - especially when it is his hobby. Of course it is then Randall who is pedantic, and thus Cueball. So I would change the Cueball reference. So here we could have a stupid editing war, instead of writing something else.
• 525:_I_Know_You're_Listening
  • Here there is only one Cueball speaking. And the other is listening in. So here I would no object so much. Maybe I would mention that the other looks like Cueball.
• 192:_Working_for_Google
  • Here I would have changed - since I would think that Cueball should have the most interesting story, and also that this Cueball is Randall as it is known that Randall has an interest in Google and has also been cheated by their aptitude test (so much that he did the famous 356: Nerd Sniping). So also here I would change the Cueball reference. So again stupid editing war, instead of writing something else.
• 187:_The_Familiar
  • Here I would have changed - since I would thing that Cueball should be the one always interested in computers. Not the other way. I know there are other comics where he enjoys nature. But Also a lot where he enjoys computers out of hand and math etc. So again I would have changed the Cueball reference. So again stupid editing war, instead of writing something else.
• 79:_Iambic_Pentameter
  • Here I agree with the Cueball = Randall - it's Randall my hobby and thus the one with the Hobby is Cueball. But I would still prefer they are not named. some might argue against me on the hobby, saying the Cueball with the hobby is "Randall" so the other Cueball is "Cueball". Thus once more editing war. But I would not start it. But still probably mention that the Cueball with a hobby is Randall.
• 65:_Banter
  • What can I say. The first is called Cueball the other is not. They have the same amount of text, and they are obviously both gay and missing out. I would definitely loose the Cueball reference here.

That is my ten cents about these six examples. Maybe we should create a category called multiple Cueballs. --Kynde (talk) 20:02, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Note that I have not changed any of these... yet. But maybe I should revert those three I think is plain wrong, so the Cueball and friend is changed. Then we can see if anyone changes back? ;-) --Kynde (talk) 20:02, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

I advise waiting. If you want to enact 4, go for it, but then put in the discussion a link to our discussion for all the changes you make so hopefully someone besides you and me goes to that page and weighs in.

To answer your question, I've read xkcd for years (I started reading regularly around the time there were ~500 total comics), lurked on explainxkcd and made anonymous minor edits for most of that time. I set up an account in July 2013, when I began making more regular edits.

I recognize that the issue has a large amount of inertia. My point is precisely that there are 9 "Rob" comics and countless Cueball. But, as I stated on the page, there is ample evidence that the same character (Black Hat's friend/roommate, Megan's boyfriend) is named Rob. I haven't done a count, but I suspect that "Megan" is named in the comic fewer than 9 times, but characters of her appearance are all called "Megan".

Yes, multiple Megans triggered the idea that's been brewing in my mind since someone (not me) made an anonymous comment on a relatively recent Rob comic [1168: tar]. Since I read that it's been sitting in my mind, but I haven't wanted to make an issue. However, the asymmetry between Megan/Cutie and Rob/Cueball grates for me and I want to urge the community here to evaluate critically whether it is the right thing or an inappropriate historical artifact. Years ago, [Cutie] was abolished (redirects now to [Megan]), I think it's objectively appropriate to make a symmetrical arrangement for Rob/Cueball (hence my options 2 & 3 in the public discussion thread).

For now, if you want to go changing all those comics go ahead. I won't argue or revert, but I request that you put the following (or something close to it) in the discussion of all the comics you change "I've removed the name 'Cueball' from this and several other comics that have multiple Cueball's in them as per my position on the issue currently under discussion at http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Proposals#Merge_Cueball_.26_Rob if you support this change or disagree with it, please weigh in on that discussion thread."

Thank you and I look forward to hearing from more users. Djbrasier (talk) 00:04, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Dear Djbrasier

(By the way my name is Kynde - that is both my nick and my middle name).

Thanks for this very open talk. I like you much better now ;-)

If I do change any of these I will do as you ask. It is not like I have forever to do these changes, although I for sure use too much time already on explain... I think I will add the category:Comics with multiple Cueballs. What do you think of the name if I do (and if I do then maybe also make one with Category:Comics where Megan is named Megan. Please tell me you can think of a better name for that one ;-) I only know of the three now mentioned on Megans page.

As you can see om my page, I have only used explain xkcd since late 2013. So you have been member longer than me by some months. I did not read xkcd before that - became fascinated with the What if section on xkcd and when I finished with those I turned to the comic. But found that I failed to understand quite a few, and thus searched and found this page. I have read them as they come out since then, and then also began reading from no. 1. But since I always look in this page for the explanation and like to contribute I only progress very slowly. Recently I have reached 540: Base System where I have made several improvements additions and corrections. And that is as far as I have reached reading straight fro no. 1. But I have of course used the cross referencing and thus read many in between that and those from October 2013.

Regards Kynde --Kynde (talk) 08:02, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Happy to have the discussion and to get to wiki-know you. I definitely see your points. I added a few comments and links to our public discussion in the hopes that, over time, it will attract more users to the community portal discussion. I suspect it will take some months for enough users to weigh in that we have a reasonable consensus. I think that if you remove "Cueball" from some of the comics you mentioned above and put a link to the portal page in the discussion block of those comments, that will prompt community input.

Cheers,

DJ Djbrasier (talk) 13:40, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

I also added incomplete tags to a few comics in which I think a strong argument can be made that "Cueball" is really Rob, despite his name not showing up (Boombox & Cover-up) Djbrasier (talk) 13:49, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Well I disagree again. See the talk pages. But then it is out for discussion.--Kynde (talk) 13:19, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

I have changed several of the Multiple Cueballs comics as you said was OK with you. See the new caregory. --Kynde (talk) 09:41, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

xkcloud permalink usernames

You said "The user name and user picture stay the same though.", An Anon had mentioned that 3c34fb48-1a07-51d2-a81d-5257a3681024 had the name "Lauren Ibsen Dolores Amit" and changed to "Margaret5", then by the time I looked at it, it had "Virginia2006". It still has "Virginia2006" now, but since it has changed twice I wouldn't assume it is now permanent. Due to this, I haven't been saving the usernames. Could you confirm that you see Virginia2006? Perhaps it's different for each user. -452 (talk) 21:09, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes I did see Virginia2006. I think it may change some times, but then suddenly it could become stable? The permalink used on the main page of the explain, was mine. I noted it was Mark Zuckerberg. But this has changed. But now I think it is stuck on: Destiny1983 and always with the skating "Megan". Can you confirm this: http://xkcd.com/1506/#post/50b47c70-3a7c-504d-bcc0-60597338e999 . Cool that you have collected all these images. Can we put the link under the permalink section. As you can see I'm trying to completely revise the page so it is easier to find the explain and then only see the detail if you are interested. Hope you like these changes --Kynde (talk) 21:27, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, I see Destiny1983 on that one too. I like the changes, they make everything much clearer. -452 (talk) 21:30, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. I was trying to make it easier to write some extra info on your permalink page, and deleted most of them. Luckily they are not deleted permanently. But the page is so big I have trouble loading it. I try to repair my mistake, but else please do so for me, and sorry in advance. --Kynde (talk) 21:45, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

NP, &action=history is a life-saver. I was going to suggest using &action=edit&section=0, but I see you've already added a description heading. It also lags pretty badly for me so I expect I'll have to stop at 10000, and I'm already up to 8444 since my last edit to the page. -452 (talk) 22:20, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes I think I fixed it but I had to split it in three uploads. How many different pictures do you think there are. I guess some off them are the same? (And same for text). Maybe the last part can be seen by sorting the table. But does the image also have the same name when used more than once? --Kynde (talk) 22:33, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Well, I know of 1419 unique images so far. Yes, both images and text are reused for different permalinks, some come up a lot more frequently than others. If you click the heading, you can sort by either image or text, which will group them together. It's kind of interesting to see different captions for the same image. If you mean the same username, I haven't checked. I also haven't checked whether the same pair of image and text ever appear together as different permalinks, I'll check that eventually, later, right now... nope. I imagine the prompt never even suggests a caption which is already associated with an image. -452 (talk) 23:27, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

I hit the 2mb page limit at 10217 permalinks, out of the 15000+ I have found, so I've reduced the table to only show each image and text once. As in, either the image or text once, so there will be a couple of duplicate images and text. So what I said previously about sorting to see different captions for the same image no longer applies, but the page will be more manageable this way. -452 (talk) 13:53, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

So you think that it will not be possible for anyone to add the same image to the same caption, because this caption will never again come up with this image or the other way around? I can see yo have removed the ? where they where something else like turtles... Nice. What about all the links below? Are they just the other 10.000 links not associated with a new image or caption, just a different combination? If so maybe this should be made clear. You could make a new section heading for them. Would it be possible to list them in any other way, or is this to save space? Alternatively you could make a new subpage with extra permalinks for further study. We of course both know that no one will ever read these again ;-) But nice work anyway. --Kynde (talk) 14:17, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

So far, I've never found the same image and same caption, but I'll keep checking, as I'm still storing all of the information, just not posting the full list to the wiki now. The other links at the bottom are all 15000+ permalinks I've found, good point about making that more clear. It might also be a good idea to list them on another separate page to save space, but they're not for further study, as I have all the images and captions associated with them, there just isn't room to display all of the information, because it would currently take 3mb+. Regarding the symbols, I was previously pasting my javascript output into my text editor to format them, but now I have my script format them for me, so the symbols are preserved. - and it's also a lot easier for me. -452 (talk) 14:29, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Well, I've hit the 2 megabyte limit again, so it looks like we'll have to put the table on one page and the list of links on another. Any suggestions for the page titles? -452 (talk) 15:25, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

You are crazy :-) My suggestion is that you create a new page called Table of Permalink (with the explanation at the top the same, but now linking to the old page, and vice versa for the old page to the new). Then let the list of permalink stay on the old page. And move the table to the new page. Finally, look at what pages direct to the old page, and redirect them to the new, only leaving link to the old page from the new one. The table is most important. The problem with your table is that it is too big for anyone to load... Maybe there should even be another page in between. Which is called - a selection of permalink. And then with link to the full table and links, with a fair warning about huge amount of data (Big data.). My explorer just went down trying to load the page (or maybe I'm just too impatient?) --Kynde (talk) 11:36, 24 April 2015 (UTC) (Ah, now it is finished loading...)

Thanks. I haven't tried it in internet explorer, but the table loads okay with Chrome on my laptop I bought 7 years ago. Now that the pages are split, it might load faster for you. -452 (talk) 18:58, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Hoverboard Transcript

Sorry to ask about such a minor thing, just curious about why the man on the raised plateau can't be a woman. Elsewhere in the comic Darth Vader is seen explaining Steven Universe to someone. 108.162.221.43 13:46, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Hi - it cold be. But to me it looks like a family. But to be honest I had not expected anyone to change it, and did not notice before I had copy pasted some text in from the document I write the transcript in. But hopefully at some time this family (or whatever) becomes part of the effort to explain the entire comic. My guess is that someone will know who it is - that they are from some TV series or movie. In that case it will become clear if it is (as I assumed) a family with mom and dad and two children or if it is a lesbian couple or something entirely different... --Kynde (talk) 20:02, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

The family resembles the main characters of Steven Universe, a cartoon(the characters being three women and a child) The explanation page also lists them as such(Steven Universe and the Crystal Gems - (x: 551664, y: -567383). 173.245.55.64 21:03, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Perfect thanks. Then is makes sense with the Vader reference. Is it the boy who is Steven? And is the low girl also a grown woman? I will look it up but thanks for answering. --Kynde (talk) 22:07, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Fixed the transcript. Some of the link I put in, is not supposed to be there, but may be moved once they are explained in the main article.--Kynde (talk) 22:20, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Hair Bun "Girl"

Hi Kynde, I noticed you created the character page for "Hair Bun Girl". This naming convention is inconsistent with most of the other characters named here, e.g. Cueball, Ponytail, Hairy, et al. Beret Guy is a potential counterexample, but the words "guy" and "man" don't have the same relationship as "girl" and "woman". Partly for consistency, and partly for simple feminism, I'd like to open a conversation about changing the character's name please. Jkshapiro (talk) 04:08, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

I think it is exactly the same as guy vs. girl. Hair Bun Woman is just too cumbersome. But if you can find a name like Ponytail that fits then by all means. Hairbun just doesn't do it for me. But I do not have any specific feelings for this name, I just found that she was used too often to not have a character page. So I will not take offence against you trying to find a better name through a conversation. Contraty to for instance Megan, which once was Cuetie (sexistick I think), it will not be so hard to change Hair Bun Girl's name to something else, but still she has just reached comic no. 20 so it is not easy to find all the references. Are you ready to do that job if you do get a new name for her? Because else it is just semantics --Kynde (talk) 15:20, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, appreciate it. Yes I am ready to do the job. What would you recommend for next steps? Should I raise the issue at http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Coordination? Jkshapiro (talk) 04:06, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Your welcome, and good luck. Try to see this post regarding the naming convention of Cueball and Megan which much to my joy did not end up in altering anything, but they were "old" names, Hair Bun Girl is new. You could post you suggestion there. And maybe make a note at the top of Hair Bun Girl's page? (You can write Notice as a template just like the incomplete. Check out this old version of Cueball page history). Now that I think about it Hairbun is probably as good a name as Ponytail. So I would think that would be a decent proposal for a change. --Kynde (talk) 09:08, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Okay, process started. Thank you for the good wishes and guidance. Jkshapiro (talk) 04:31, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Girl With Hairbun?

I have identified several comics that have a girl (clearly a child) similar in appearance to Hairbun. Examples include 1104: Feathers, 1352: Cosmologist on a Tire Swing and 1370: President. Would these people be included under Hairbun? Most of them are not marked as such. And what are the requirments to make a new character? I think this girl has appeared rather often. 173.245.54.42 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Hi. If you look at the description for Hairbun it clearly states that she is an adult as are Ponytail and Cueball etc. So no, these examples should not be included in Hairbun category. If you look at the last entry on the talk page of President I suggested a children category. But I would agree that a category with curious girl or science girl could be relevant. She is also in 1611: Baking Soda and Vinegar for instance. If there are about five comics that could go in a new category it is just to create it. The naming is important though. See othere categories for what to write on the category page. I have made several including Hairbun --Kynde (talk) 13:12, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your input. I think I will be creating this category soon. Since most of the names seem to refer to the hairstyles (they are recognizable) I think I'll be going with the name "Double Bun Girl".

Marking edits as minor edits

Hey, I noticed that you mark lot of your edits as minor edits while most of them aren't. For example, [this] and probably [this] too constitute as a minor edit, but these - [[1]], [[2]], [[3]], etc. aren't minor edits. Refer to the wikipedia guidelines for minor edits - Help:Minor_edit.

Examples include typographical corrections, formatting and presentational changes, and rearrangements of text without modification of its content. A minor edit is one that the editor believes requires no review and could never be the subject of a dispute.

Basically, if you are adding/removing even a little bit of content, it is not minor. 199.27.130.216 23:31, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Oh, and how in the world is [this ] and [this ] minor !! 199.27.130.216 23:47, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Sorry about that. I just updated my settings where it had been set to default: "Mark all edits minor by default". If I by mistake click OK to an update before clicking that off it was to late. But now it will be the other way instead. --Kynde (talk) 10:19, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Cool, no worries. It happens. I was just surprised that everything was marked minor. Anyway, keep up the good work. I see that you're finishing up all the incomplete explanations and improving comics in general. Great work ! :) 199.27.130.216 01:04, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the support, nice to get some feedback. Also great that someone mentions when you are doing something the wrong way. I had only limited experience with wiki pages before signing up here, and I had not read the wiki page on minor edits, but now I have. How come you have chosen not to have an account? Seems like you also make several comments and changes... which is great ;-) --Kynde (talk) 08:11, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Please create the discussion page for today's comic.

Thanks. 108.162.221.13 15:02, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Well just did that (for 1652: Conditionals) but not because I saw this comment, just before. I guess it is not possible for no registered users to create pages? Well I fulfilled your wish before I knew about it ;-) --Kynde (talk) 15:05, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Moving comments around

Please do not move people's comments into unrelated discussions without asking them, and if you do, make sure the timestamps in the reply chain aren't out of order. Mikemk (talk) 20:36, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

I expect you were referring to Talk:1659: Tire Swing? Well all comments I moved were regarding the same question of who the girls looked like, and they should have been posted as replies to the first. There were no time stamp on the first comment and your post asking if they were children were posted straight under a post about if they were Megan and Hair Bun girl or Thelma and Louise. So I do believe your comment belong under that statement. But fine by my that it just stand beneath instead of being indented. The time stamp of all comments seem to be in time order as I see it. It would get really confusing or I would have to make the same reply three times if they were not together. The comments in between were not at all related and there should be no confusion. So I think it made the discussion page much more useful what I did.--Kynde (talk) 20:52, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Well I don't know about the other users, but I know for a fact that mine wasn't in response to the first one. I don't even know what the first one said, I just moved it from the explanation to comment page. And mine was posted immediately after it because I was chronologically the second comment made. I had no reason to wait (interestingly, you moved someone else's comment so that I was replying to it, even though it didn't exist when I posted.) Mikemk (talk) 00:41, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

I cannot see that what you say is true about moving your comment. I just checked the history and here is what I found:

This was what it looked like before my changes:
---
the women do not look like Megan and Hair Bun Girl to me, are they new? sorry for commenting here, but I do not have rights to create a new page, which seems to be necessary for posting the fire comment. Will move once the comment section is created.

I think they are Thelma and Louise (from the movie) given the looks of their hair -- Chichak (talk) March 23, 2016 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I think they're children Mikemk (talk) 15:33, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Maybe they got the truck from Black Hat's garage? Mikemk (talk) 15:34, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

I have yet to use a tire swing that was made from a worn tire (worn by the road not by swinging). From my experience, expired tires used by automobiles typically have sharp metal protruding from the rubber. This would make a dangerous tire swing. I thought landscaping (rubber mulch) and playgrounds was the preferred recycling method for used tires?--R0hrshach (talk) 15:35, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

The first one certainly looks like Hair Bun, but the second one (which in in the explanation is presented as Megan) has a somewhat curly hair. Could she be another character, perhaps? 108.162.218.166 17:05, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
---
This what it looked like after:
---
the women do not look like Megan and Hair Bun Girl to me, are they new? sorry for commenting here, but I do not have rights to create a new page, which seems to be necessary for posting the fire comment. Will move once the comment section is created.

I think they are Thelma and Louise (from the movie) given the looks of their hair -- Chichak (talk) March 23, 2016 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I think they're children Mikemk (talk) 15:33, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

The first one certainly looks like Hair Bun, but the second one (which in in the explanation is presented as Megan) has a somewhat curly hair. Could she be another character, perhaps? 108.162.218.166 17:05, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

As the tire comes from a truck and it's diameter is more than half the height of these small girls they are definitely kids (not that Randall could not have made adults make a swing as like in 150). Also this makes it much more funny that they both stole a car and beat up an angry adult. And now they are going all environmental after wards. So they are not Megan (which looks nothing like a curly haired girl) and also not Hair Bun Girl as it is defined that these characters are adults. There are many stories using kids and they will never represent Cueball, Megan or Ponytail etc. Those with hats are for instance never drawn small! Have thus corrected the explanation. But it still seems to miss much more on the environmental issue which is the subject/point of the comic if not the joke --Kynde (talk) 17:19, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Maybe they got the truck from Black Hat's garage? Mikemk (talk) 15:34, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Then they would have lost the fight: 433: Journal 5! --Kynde (talk) 17:22, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

I have yet to use a tire swing that was made from a worn tire (worn by the road not by swinging). From my experience, expired tires used by automobiles typically have sharp metal protruding from the rubber. This would make a dangerous tire swing. I thought landscaping (rubber mulch) and playgrounds was the preferred recycling method for used tires?--R0hrshach (talk) 15:35, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

I think you are correct. We have one for our kids (though it sucked and we took it down again) and that was a brand new tire, but not one I think would be suitable for any car though. --Kynde (talk) 17:22, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

---
As can be seen

I have only moved one comment up, and that was not yours! That you did not check that there already seemed to be two comments above yours, about the appearance of the girls, doesn't mean that it would not make sense to pool all these questions and comments regarding exactly this topic together to give just one answer. And as you can see from the above I did NOT move your comments, but I moved someone else's comment, in between the first and second of your comments, to be able to reply to all four things already written about the girls (ie. 1) The women do not look like Megan and Hair Bun Girl to me, are they new? 2) I think they are Thelma and Louise (from the movie) 3) I think they're children and 4) ... a somewhat curly hair. Could she be another character?) All that was what I replied to, now possible to do in one go right beneath all four remarks. --Kynde (talk) 09:47, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

There was only one comment before mine, and it was 2 paragraphs. You moving the second half into a reply of the first half caused some of the confusion here Mikemk (talk) 06:54, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

OK now I understand, so it was not your comment I moved, but the previous comment that I split in two (that was a mistake). That you did not answer to the comment above was of course not clear since it was on the same subject. Again this, as I understand it, was caused by someone posting a comment in the explanation, and you moving it into the comments section (which was fine, but made it hard to find out who posted what.) --Kynde (talk) 12:58, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Gardening

You mention "three links to images that did not work" in my "garden store for deer" entry. These three links all work for me; they are images I tried to upload, scaled as large as the server would allow (739x461). Somehow I can upload images but not create image pages (also the spam protection is still triggered, so creating this account seems to accomplish nothing). It's very strange that the server has stored them but won't allow anyone else to view them (after logging out, it tells me I "must be logged in to upload files" instead of displaying the images). Someone should rescue the images from wherever they reside on the server.

The "face" I referred to (the second image) is really a cluster of leaves and branches: the bottom cluster of the rightmost tree looks like a head in profile, with curly hair, an eye, a grinning mouth, and a prominent nose. The two rightmost trees started with no branches (first image), but grew several when I placed a light above them. I moved the light so the face wouldn't be destroyed and tried to grow branches on the lower trunks. The third image is essentially the same as what you uploaded today.

Regarding Megan's office furniture: I'd actually pruned her second wand whenever it appeared, and then the bird took its place. .42 (talk) 15:29, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi .42 First I think it take a few days (three) before you are allowed to create new pages to fight off spam boots that we have had problems with. I cannot see you images I get the following message:

Internal Server Error

This file (13xmd97bimg0.n2wbws.5455.png) doesn't belong to the current user.

Cool that you have logged in as a user, although poor name ;-) On the other hand if you are a fan of Hitchhikers Guide then I guess it would be cool enough by the way. I'm happy to see that I finally get a chance to prune some of my gardens after several upsets since the comic came out. If I can help you with the images let me know. Maybe you can post them somewhere else and I can find upload them for you? Kynde (talk) 15:34, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

I'll try to upload tomorrow, then. I don't know where the server found the .42 IP address — that isn't my address! It's really weird that it chose this number. .42 (talk) 16:18, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Have you seen libra's purple light gardens? .42 (talk) 22:58, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

No I had not. I like the stilt on platform up in tree. I did not know this could happen. Kynde (talk) 10:24, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

NASA versus the press

Hi Kynde. I'm afraid I disagree. It seems pretty clear to me that the question about the tip-off comes from NASA. I've added a topic to the talk page, where I explain my reasoning, and where this should be discussed if you still disagree. Thanks! Garik (talk) 16:52, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Yes I still disagree. To me it seems like a continuation of the conference and it is now the press to speak. And given that I knew Juno to be related to Jupiter but not that she was the daughter of Saturn (and given the reason for the naming in the real world) I would not say that the name in any way would lead anyone to take it as a hint for going to Saturn. But great to discuss it. Will post this on the talk page too. --Kynde (talk) 17:21, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

1712: Politifact

Hi, I'm the BOT and I'm BORG...

...nevertheless your enhancement to the transcript was too much. And I think your enhancements to the explain section is also overrunning the target.

But I just only did revert the transcript. --Dgbrt (talk) 20:19, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

HI BORG... :/

I Highly disagree with your changes.

A transcript serves several functions:

1. To make it possible to find out what any text/characters reads, even if it is hard to read in the comic.
2. To make a description of what happens in the images. This has two purposes:
   1. So people with eye disabilities can find out what the comic is about. So here a full description of the comic is needed apart from the text.
   2. So it is possible to search the comic for info on the content, like a woman with a hat with a white tag.
3. Finally it is great if the transcript represents the way it is written in the comic as close as possible including colors (which should also be described in the text for those that cannot see them selves). So tables, colors and formatting is fine. If the text then is harder to read it is possible to copy paste it.

I can see there may have been a bit of explanation in that I wrote about what Megan did in the previous panel, but that is not enough to just undo the whole thing.

I will reinsert the transcript and if you disagree then lets discuss either on that comic or in a general fora on what a transcript should contain.

Regards, just Kynde. --Kynde (talk) 16:16, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

Follow-Up on that "Random Chat"

Hey dude! Uh... wow this is awkward. You said hi to me in the random chat on my user page. I said hi. Then we never said anything else to each other again. xD --JayRulesXKCD (talk) 16:07, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Hi Jay. Not so awkward. :-) I mean you just said thanks, and thus did not really initiate any chat. Do you have anything in mind? Like something to be improved here on explain? Something larger maybe that could need discussion. Or anything else... Problem is of course that when I chat to you here, you do not get any reminder like when I chat on your page and visa versa. So I will make a post on your page that I have answered here... --Kynde (talk) 19:04, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Well, by that, I just meant a simple random chat. Like a "hey! how are you doing? that's nice... what do you like to do in your free time..?" kind of chat. --JayRulesXKCD (talk) 14:18, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Ah well, I guess I would not really like to have such a chat on these pages, so sorry that I misunderstood you. ;-) --Kynde (talk) 14:19, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

It's alright.. also.... HAPPY HALLOWEEN! :D --JayRulesXKCD (talk) 14:41, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

Wow... it's (almost) a whole year since then. Time sure flies by, huh? --JayRulesXKCD ^{what's up?} 12:34, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes that is true. Actually more since the first contact ;-) Haven't been so active the last half year. :-) --Kynde (talk) 13:22, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

1751: Movie Folder

Assuming that Black Hat only has good movies is rather absurd, as there's not a shred of evidence to support this. Especially since this is Black Hat we're talking about. Therefore, there's no evidence that Titanic 98 is about the ship hitting the reef, and therefore, the calculations about stacking 97 ships have no relevance. --172.68.79.81 15:06, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Since this is relevant to a specific comic, I suggest that you just leave this comment on that specific comic's discussion board. Thank you. --JayRulesXKCD (talk) 15:13, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Yes that is true Jay. Anyway there is reason to believe that Black Hat either thinks or teases Cueball with his movies, and thus he suggest that the movies he has are god. Also the other comment he makes suggest this. So I think there is a lot of evidence that this movie 98 is one in the series of movies where Titanic hits the reef of older Titanics. --Kynde (talk) 14:05, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Cueball names 7 movies, Black Hat replies to 4 of those. He has definitively positive things to say about 2 of those, and simply states information about another. In that context, there's no reason to assume his comment about the Titanic series should be interpreted as a claim that he considers Titanic 98 to be 'good'. And with only 2 of the other 6 known movies in his collection being stated as 'good', that's clearly not "a lot of evidence" that Titanic 98 is 'good'. --108.162.237.86 21:24, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Well we disagree on that then. If the explanation should be changed on the basis of this discussion it should be moved to the relevant discussion page. If it is the same person who wrote from both IP .81 and .86 you could move it there your self. Feel free to include my replies, but leave out Jays as that has nothing to do with the discussion. --Kynde (talk) 09:56, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Done. (Yes, .81 and .86 were me) --108.162.237.86 16:57, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Transcript TLDR;

• I got so tired of Dgbrt's negative comments (TLDR;), that I have collapsed them here below. Fell free to read them if you really wish by clicking: --Kynde (talk) 22:00, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Please stop to write this massive texts into the transcript. Have a look at the discus at the last (1798) comic. And also think about that you are the only one who is entering those massive explains perhaps also nobody does read. LESS is often MORE! --Dgbrt (talk) 11:43, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Maybe. I was under the impression that they where both there for those that had problems with vision, and also so you could search on something you remembered from a comic and find it using that tool. --Kynde (talk) 12:27, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Even visually impaired persons don't like it (see 1798). And TLDR means "too long; didn't read", just in case. You should consider this. Reading the transcript should not take much longer than identifying the features from picture itself. Every spoken text and a short description what is shown should be suffice. At 1799: Bad Map Projection: Time Zones even not every county must be mentioned; showing differences to a regular map projection should be enough because everybody knows a regular world map. --Dgbrt (talk) 12:44, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

I completely disagree about only writing spoken text. The transcript is intended to make it possible to read all text in the image not just spoken text. It is often difficult to read all text, and also if people misread it or do not notice it by looking at the image, it will be there to find in the transcript, especially for those visually impaired. And what you said means there should be no transcript for the current comic 1799 where you linked to this discussion from. By the way I know what TLDR means, and also did not ask about it, if you noticed! I have seen it used here before, probably regarding something you wrote! ;-) --Kynde (talk) 13:33, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Dgbrt. Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 12:50, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

I expect mainly people who agree comes here, as people who are not troubled by it, might not care enough. (talk) 13:33, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

The first criticism was done by a visually impaired person (Zetfr 23:11, 13 February 2017 (UTC)) at Talk:1798:_Box_Plot. That was the reason for me to start this discussion.--Dgbrt (talk) 13:52, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Yes thanks for pointing that out. I had not read his comments when I replied before. --Kynde (talk) 14:13, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Another reason for detailed transcripts with image descriptions is that sometimes people have misunderstood what is in the image, and then a transcript can be used to make sure what is there. --Kynde (talk) 13:33, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

All that may go into the explain section; it doesn't belong to the transcript.--Dgbrt (talk) 13:52, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Yes maybe, but will the visibly impaired not also be annoyed about it there. Then maybe in a trivia section if there is need. I will try that for 1798 I think. --Kynde (talk) 14:13, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Maybe not known to all. In the past Randall provided a transcript on each comic. It is in a hidden div-tag. Then something went wrong and the transcript actually belonged to an older comic. Right now there is no transcript anymore. But have look at this example (shown on https://xkcd.com/1664/ for https://xkcd.com/1662/):

[[Two children, a girl and a boy, are talking to an adult woman as they walk away from her. The boy has a bucket.]] 
Girl: Me and Jack are going up the hill to fetch a pail of water. 
[[The children have left; the woman calls after them.]] 
Woman: Okay, have fun! [[The woman stands and thinks.]] 
Woman: ... wait. What the heck is going on with the hydrology around here? 
{{Title text: Jill and Jack began to frack. The oil boosts their town. But fractures make the bedrock shake and Jack came tumbling down.}}

--Dgbrt (talk) 15:07, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Yes I tried to include this on explain xkcd by making a description of it on the xkcd page some weeks ago. Transcript are of course even more important now that there are no longer transcripts on xkcd. The first problem arose after the Hoverboard comic where the transcript for all comics after that was shifted two and later three comics from the one they belonged to. The last of those shifted transcript ended with 1674 whose transcript was found three comics later at 1677. But also comics with transcript needs a better transcript here on xkcd, to include other written text, and small important details, as well as we are using given names for characters which Randall has never used (or only rarely uses). Actually Randall has once made a direct link to Explain xkcd for a better transcript. Alas there was not transcript until this year, where I made it: See this trivia under Payloads.--Kynde (talk) 16:16, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

I'm glad this discussion is finally taking place. I raised the point a while back on the community portal but nobody noticed. I tried again on 1795 but attention had already moved on to the next comic... Seems I got it right this time ;-) Different people may have different uses for the transcripts. For me, being visually impaired, the right level of detail is that of Randall's official transcripts. It should include every written word in the comic (spoken, printed, in captions, etc.) and just enough information on what's going on to "get it", but not how things are drawn. E.g. "Cueball is talking to Megan", not "Cueball, on the left, has his right arm extended towards Megan who is sitting on a chair" (unless the chair somehow plays a part in the story). Imagine you're talking on the phone: "hey, I saw a great comic this morning, here is how it goes..." and then "tell" yor friend the joke, rather than "describe" the comic. BTW, I think this also serves your goal of being able to search old comics for a specific element. The element you'll remember will be something important to the comic's story, not a graphical detail such as a character's position or the number of lines drawn around his hand to indicate movement. Anyway, thanks for the good work!! Zetfr 16:18, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the input, especially to Zetfr. I had not seen your comment on 1795 or in the community portal. I'll have a look, and thanks to Dgbrt for letting me know about your latest comment. I will try to keep out the details in the transcript. For me personally I have often been looking for a specific thing, like searching for the comic where Cueball stands on a chair with a sword or rotates in an office chair. As I could not remember any lines spoken, and because those making the transcript had not mentioned either spinning office chair, or sword, I could not search my way to them even in this explain page. I have found them later, but by chance. And then I put in the details. Maybe I have gotten carried away, so sorry about that. I think the details somehow belongs, but if that should be in the trivia, or at the bottom of the transcript...? I'm not sure, which was also why I put it in the transcript. Being the one who makes the most edits and also hard work (large tables, and huge transcripts) I'm happy Zetfr likes the page :-) --Kynde (talk) 16:09, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

I have changed the transcript for 1795 putting the details into a subesection of the transcript. --Kynde (talk) 16:38, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Hi Kynde, I still disagree with this subsection solution. You don't have to repaint the picture by text! If a detail is important for understanding a pun it has to be mentioned in the transcript itself; otherwise it is useless and oversized. E.g.: Nobody wants to know -- and wont remember later -- if there are two, three, four, or five sound symbols and how they are painted. The single word "SOUND" describes all. And please consider: Nobody reads those long texts. LESS is often MORE!.--Dgbrt (talk) 18:04, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Hi Dgbrt. We can movie it into a trivia. I think some of it is relevant, and sometimes it is hard to find out which part will be searched for later. But I guess we two alone would end in a ½-½ for this discussion so far... --Kynde (talk) 19:41, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

I completely agree with Dgbrt. The transcript should say *what* Randall wants to tell us, not *how* he tells it. In most cases this should also work to let you search for details you remember. In your example, Cueball holding a sword is certainly important to the comic's point, so it should be mentioned in the transcript. But the length and position of the sword are irrelevant, and probably not what you'll search for. Obviously, there is no hard rule to decide what should or shouldn't go into the transcript, it's a matter of personal judgment and common sense, but I think we can all agree on general guidelines. Regarding the "Detailed image description" section tested in 1795, I have no problem with that. I'm not sure it will ever be useful to anyone, but it won't do any harm either, so if you're willing to put in the extra work, go for it. Zetfr 12:17, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Zetfr. About the extra details, they could be put into a section where you had to press to see the extra details. I do not know if a reader will pass over that. For instance like I have done with explanation for several categories like Category:New Year --Kynde (talk) 17:12, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Nice find for 1461:_Payloads, I didn't now Randall refers to this wiki. According to web.archive.org that hint was entered between 2015-01-25 and 2015-02-07 and refers to the entire wiki page, not only "our" transcript. So it's absolutely NOT embarrassing as you wrote in the trivia section. I'm setting an incomplete tag for the transcript and trivia section and edit it tomorrow (18th Feb). I will let you know what I've done and why. Stay tuned...--Dgbrt (talk) 20:59, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

The rework on 1461:_Payloads is done. But I didn't remove the incomplete tag. That's up to you. Like Zetfr I'm not sure it will ever be useful to anyone, but the larger description on a separate page would be acceptable to me. Furthermore I've done some investigations on Randalls links to this wiki and put it together in a new category: Category:Explain_mentioned_by_Randall.--Dgbrt (talk) 12:57, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks both for the "nice find" and for reworking Payloads, and especially for the new category. Great find. I will look at the other examples soon. --Kynde (talk) 17:12, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Many thanks by me for this positive and productive discussion. It seems there are some more former transcripts which need a rework. I personally will focus on checking all the JSON-scripts I downloaded today (1799 at all; ofcourse 404 doesn't exist; and exactly seven contain the word "explainxkcd"). I will write a small script to put them into a human readable form and present it somewhere here for further use. Stay tuned... --Dgbrt (talk) 17:45, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Dbgrt. And really cool how you made that new category. --Kynde (talk) 19:14, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

xkcd page and subpages

You moved some contented into subpages which doesn't make it better. There is no need to describe in Design of xkcd.com a layout everybody can see. The lemma "Design" requires just a few lines of text but you repeat all the "Content". And just for interest: Before the redirect to https was in place (a few weeks ago) there was language specific advertising for the shop. I'm looking forward for a better and more compressed form on all of this. Any suggestions?--Dgbrt (talk) 14:07, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Hi Dgbrt. My reason for making this page, is that the links, the comics, the headline, the byline, the warning etc. all changes with time, and I would like users of this site to have easy access to earlier links. Just like we have a category for the fotter comics (which I by the way did not make, but enjoyed, because I never thought absolute that he must have had them before all those five comics had been published and that they thus must have changed). So I thought similar things would be nice to have for changes to the layout and hence I decided to describe it. Maybe it was too much, but I like to have the archive links to changes. And since I had already done lots of work on this, I just copied all the new text to another page, to not delete it. And yes as I have said on Davidy's page I should not have put it on the xkcd page to begin with. But when I started I had no idea it would end up soooo long. Waiting to hear your comments on this info, before going further with suggestions. But thanks for asking. --Kynde (talk) 18:16, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

All those pages are on my agenda; your edit or not. I don't care. But I will not delete any content without an agreement. I will present something in a sandbox at my user page. You are welcome there (not before tomorrow). And consider, this wiki is not a backup for archive.org.--Dgbrt (talk) 19:56, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

I think this wiki is for explaining xkcd, not just the comics. I believe you agree as I have seen on Davidy's talk page. And major changes or important revisions to the main page is important in my opinion. For instance I'm sad to see that the xkcd warning has gone from xkcd, and think it is important to let it be know it was there for many years. Where to do so? And how to find it if you did not know about it? There need to be a place that links to it, directly or indirectly through the xkcd page. I look forward to see you sand castle. :-) Please leave a comment here when you have something you wish me to see, with a link. Regarding you answer to my comment, I meant that I would hear what you had to say before I came with suggestions. Not that you should not do anything before I made one. --Kynde (talk) 20:08, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

I am still calm...

...why I shouldn't? You see things inspiring others to see more things... (<- you would wrote 500 words for this) and you are still not able to put the pun on the top of an explanation. Keep your focus on the pun, not on every Million possibilities behind the drawing. And you can be sure I will have an eye on this because this is NOT "dreamingxkcd".--Dgbrt (talk) 23:15, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Well I'm not! --Kynde (talk) 21:09, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Aggressive edits

While I was talking to others about the explanation and the transcript for more than 24 hours you need only one hour to change everything that was discussed before. Again all red is yours: 1810: Chat Systems changes. Editors, mainly not me, don't like it when all their work is changed after you finished your edits. Please respect other editors! --Dgbrt (talk) 21:50, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

I do not change everything. I add. But we are obviously not going to agree on this. I would prefer not to discuss with you. How do yo know what the others like or not. In the discussions we have had I found more against your way of communication than against my edits. --Kynde (talk) 21:57, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Massive changes and you call it add??? So tell me your adds and explain how all they other changes happened. I will add a sentence to the comic discussion because it's senseless here.--Dgbrt (talk) 22:14, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes it is. And it is a real shame that you have decided to know how this wiki should be. Hope that Davidy soon tells one of us to back off. If it is me then I will have to take it into account. So far he has only had nice things to say to me about my work here, which is not what I have seen regarding your work. Have you read the other users that calls your tone negative/aggressive or even worse? I have really tried to speak nicely to you, but you never seems to accept any edits I do. --Kynde (talk) 22:21, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Your "Citation needed" template add to my text is just one example for what I call aggressive. Hiding four paragraphs is an other.--Dgbrt (talk) 23:09, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Possible Issues with Updating Old Comics

I know you spent a lot of time making edits to many older comics, so I thought you might have some input on one that I'm thinking needs a change - 38 Apple Jacks. I noticed you edited it a little a couple years ago. It's the one where the father tells his son they don't taste like apples, and his son tells him off.

The title text description says it appears to be another case of Randall explaining the comic to readers who don't know about the old commercial, but I think it might be the father telling the son why he was saying that to him. I think it's worth at least adding, if not totally replacing the current description, but I see you had previously added to it during your edits.

How would you handle that type of change, if it were you? Ianrbibtitlht (talk) 21:38, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Hi Ianrbibtitlht

I disagree with the idea you have. And my reason for that is based in the original quote from Randall when posting this comic to live journal where he asks:

"Who else remembers those commercials?"

See the comics Trivia section.

To me indication that since no one did, he added the explanation in the title text.

The son dismissed his father completely, and I do not think the father goes on.

And since many of xkcd's readers may not know the reference he explains it in the title text.

He did the same with the title text in 30: Donner, which is what is refereed to in the title text explanation. I have added links between these two examples. There may be more.

Of course you are free to add an alternative explanation, and see if any one notices enough to complain about/remove it. ;-)

--Kynde (talk) 09:57, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

I appreciate the feedback. I don't feel strongly enough to modify it at this point but thought it might be an added insight that nobody had thought about! ;-) Ianrbibtitlht (talk) 14:57, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for asking, by the way. ;-) --Kynde (talk) 20:46, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Need help

A few things. Several people have mentioned that ReCAPTCA v1 has expired, and something needs to be done about that. But no one has replied to the admin forum, so not sure what is going on. Are there even any admins still here? Seems like they've all disappeared. And should we create a new forum for questions and things like that? And if all the admins have left, should there be like more admins or something like that? Herobrine (talk) 07:51, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Hi

I haven't any idea about ReCAPTCA and Im not an admin. But yes if there is no one that replies it is a problem. Davidy is the obe I have had discussions with but he did not reply the last two times I wrote. Don't know if DGBRT with the BOT has any knowledge that can be used. Try those two. --Kynde (talk) 08:30, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

FYI, we still have admins here and there will be a major update soon at one of the next weekends. BTW, I prefer it in lowercase: dgbrt - like xkcd--Dgbrt (talk) 21:16, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the info dgbrt, and it sounds greawt. (Your signature is with capital D but that is maybe just as the username? I will use dgbrt from now on). --Kynde (talk) 20:08, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

All is red again - you changed everything according to the diff

Hi, look at your edits and tell me how someone can see what you have changed. Please keep your changes to smaller parts.

And beginning an explanation with a youtube link which even doesn't work in some countries like Germany is also not a god start to an explanation. I'm referring to your edits above. --Dgbrt (talk) 21:27, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

OK, sorry about that. I will try to make smaller changes. The link was not one I put in, I just moved it to the beginning to rickroll someone - it was a joke... Of course if the link did not work I can understand why you did not get Rickrolled. But the link had already been included in the explanation before my edits. --Kynde (talk) 10:24, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for your understanding, "all is red..." was the reason why I started this section, the video link was meant as a minor remark and that it doesn't work in Germany is even less important for the explanation.

But I didn't understand your joke. So what do you think about changing all the internal links like Cueball to rickroll the readers - of course only less important links.

BTW: Around 2009 and some years later the German GEMA Mafia tried to block all music content until they got the money. Even dashcam videos from the meteorite incident in Chelyabinsk were blocked when you could hear something from the radio in the car. This has changed and newer uploads are now available to me (including Rick). --Dgbrt (talk) 15:02, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

The joke was that this comic was about rickrolling and the link was to the ricrolling youtube video... --Kynde (talk) 07:30, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

I just tried to make several smaller changes, and it was much more difficult to me, with the risk of making mistakes... But have a look at this then: Evangelism history.--Kynde (talk) 09:45, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

I like that but the development of this comic explanation is funny and not a typical one. Many vast changes were done after your comment here. --Dgbrt (talk) 13:01, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Well happy you do. Most of the changes were improvement, but often based on or improving parts I had edited (well I had edited most parts ;-) What I meant was that some of the good changes only came about because of the changes I had done in the first place. Still seems we need a citation for primates opening at the "wrong" end though? -- Kynde (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

You know I'm a fan of short explanations just covering what's in the comic. And in 1982: Evangelism there is no "wrong banana end" mentioned. It just mentions "the other" - which is of course always "wrong". The title text then indeed refers to a schism in Europe - the Americans weren't much developed by that time (excepting the natives).

BTW: My major workload here right now is working on the health of this wiki. You probably haven't seen my latest comment five days ago just a section above. We will get an update soon. Stay tuned.

BTW2: You have forgotten to sign your comment ;)

--Dgbrt (talk) 22:19, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Yes we are not fan of the same type of explanations we have covered that. I believe that the majority of humans do peel the banana from the opposite end of that cited (without citations) to what primates do... I'm not sure there is any year for the schism in Europe so who knows how developed the US was at that time. Bananas is a rather new thing in Europe I believe!

And no I had not seen that comment, probably same time you posted this comment thread? But sounds great! Are you an admin now? And do you have any contact with Davidy... He went off the xkcd explain grid long time ago.

I have amended my mistake and will sign this time ;-) --Kynde (talk) 20:12, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

You blanked the page 1996

A you can see here "I decided to let it stay there as it is but on Monday that redirect will AND must be overwritten in the meaning of a comic number." That blank page isn't better than my decision. Beginning on Monday the number 1996 MUST be used for navigation (i.e. Comic Number) and nothing else.

Other future comics will be: 1999, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2038. That's all!

All those future comics (by number) - beginning with 1996 on Monday - AND that older ones (by name) should have a disambiguation line on top when the comic number overrides that name.

The problem is the logic at this wiki. While at xkcd the number and name have different meanings and navigation is only done by number it's not true here. While https://xkcd.com/1996 will lead to the next future comic and is unique the link https://explainxkcd.com/1996 could mean number OR name. We also use the number for navigation, so the abbreviation in the meaning as a comic name can not be supported for those eight comics. --Dgbrt (talk) 14:58, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

Hi DBBRT

I first saw your comments after I had blanked it. And I thought it was better to avoid confusion over the weekend. So I did not return it. I think it could be better to already now remove those page re-directions for the comics you mention now, to avoid confusion on all those numbers... A lot of those the next 20 comic or so. We already had a similar situation with 1337, because of the LEET comic series. --Kynde (talk) 13:15, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Read my future comic list above, it's only seven. And the blank page confused some users also. Nevertheless I will change the comic template, navigation to the right will not be shown when the target is greater than the LATESTCOMIC. The BOT will update those redirects anyway. I just prefer some tests at home to figure out the best solution before editing here. --Dgbrt (talk) 13:53, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Well, I think 7 times confusing in 20 comics is a lot, but I can read that you are working on avoiding it, so that is great. I'm very impressed by your bot, but then again I have very little programming experience and it was back in my days as a PhD Student around 2002... (Pascal...) Great you have made it and keep improving it. --Kynde (talk) 20:06, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for your kind words. I still don't understand the 20, it's only seven comics and I've changed the global comic template so that this is SOLVED now. There is no link to 1999 in the navigation bar today. But on Monday my bot will update that page in the meaning of a comic number and the right navigation in 1998: GDPR will be shown. FYI: I'm a professional programmer. --Dgbrt (talk) 21:04, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Must have been unclear. I meant that over the next 20 comics, there would have been this issue 7 times i.e. about once every week, and I found that it could have caused confusion a lot in those 7 weeks. But now you have solved this with you prof. programmer skills. ;-) So there is no longer any problems. Great work. --Kynde (talk) 11:04, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for your kind words. And I've done more: Embedding pictures from Commons works again and it's now also possible to change the size. See my latest edit here 1400: D.B. Cooper which uses this statement [[File:DBCooper.jpg|thumb|150px|Cooper]]. That image is not uploaded here, click at it in the comic and you will see. I've mentioned this in the Community portal. --Dgbrt (talk) 12:07, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Cool. I'm not sure how this works. Looks at first like the image is on the local wiki but I can see it is not so. But how does this works. Can you write the "File" formula for any picture name on commons and then get it embedded here like that? It is beyond my computer skills :-) --Kynde (talk) 18:02, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

When the picture isn't here it's searched on Commons. When it's found it's only cached at this wiki. In general it works like a local file. This did already work in the past until it was broken. But now we also can change the size, play with that 150px in the preview. --Dgbrt (talk) 18:15, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Thx --Kynde (talk) 20:08, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Why you still focus on that SAD comics?

I focus on all edits done here and your edits are minor (there are much more edits here needing some attention), nonetheless I would be happy to find a solution on that sad thoughts are in your mind. I respect your thoughts, but that trivia at 1756: I'm With Her really dohttps://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/User_talk:Kyndees not belong to that comic at all. It was deleted before, you reverted that -- by not reading or ignoring the discussion page -- and I just want to prevent an edit war. Furthermore I removed your statement about "trolls" at the discussion page because that's not polite.

• And now
  • I start
    • with
      • your layout
        • You see???

Try to write full sentences without bullets. I'm hoping you understand my major two parts here. --Dgbrt (talk) 23:21, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

Yes I did not read the comments. I was looking for the sad list, when I fond it missing. I saw through the edit and found the following comment:

This "sad comics" list is utterly pointless and has no reason to exist. I don't regret deleting this waste. If anyone wants to keep it up, revert the edit, but make it readable, compact, and make at least one bit of sense. (Emojis? must be TRUMP!!?!one1!))

I did not see any discussion there, and found it rude and also not done properly (with many links pointing to this section). So I just reverted it. It could be given its own page though.

Regarding politeness I must say I did not find most of your comments on the talk page polite as I just read them. As you state "no one has criticized it before", so maybe it is just you, and now some years later a few guys that begins rambling on about it.

As to why, I think it is quite clear that Randall was sad after the election. Maybe I took it too far, and it should no longer have been "sad", but about comics pointing to a political agenda by Randall. As Randall is on the move again with the mid term election coming, he has both a new political comic out, and has changed the header text with regards to registering for voting twice in a month.

So I definitely still find it relevant. That has not changed just because two years have passed. What Trump does at the moment is even more disturbing than ever, and I'm sure Randall is thick and tried of it still! --Kynde (talk) 13:38, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

PS. The layout was me trying to make a list of comics that was related to this issue. And with date and events listed as well. Maybe it can be done better, but I at least kept the format throughout. --Kynde (talk) 13:39, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

You always do this nested bullet lists. That's ugly layout. One bullet and one or two short sentences, not more. In most cases you just should simply omit the bullets and write full sentences. The page Design of xkcd.com is an other example for this bad layout.

But back to the main issue: Even jet you did not read the comments completely. Only after "A) Why does the sad comics list exist (see comment above)?..." I came in. And on 27 October 2018 I mentioned at least four incomplete reasons (the transcript was you).

So I recall: The trivia at 1756: I'm With Her does not belong to that comic at all, and even at a different page the title would be wrong because most of the listed comics are NOT sad. Furthermore I don't know how you do know how Randall feels, he is just a writer and these are only comics.

There was a reason why David was against a category for sad comics, and this is still valid. This is the only reason why this section at the trivia of 1756 exists, be honest.

So my proposal is:

• moving the content to a separate page, either with a new title or only moving the "sad" content and deleting the rest
• using the link from the menu: "What links here" at 1756 (Special:WhatLinksHere/1756: I'm With Her) to fix the links to that part (mostly your former work) and maybe also change the text

The comic 1756 has to be explained mainly in the context of the time BEFORE the election. It was a campaign for Hillary Clinton, anything later done by Trump is irrelevant, besides that it has to be mentioned that the campaign wasn't successful. --Dgbrt (talk) 18:16, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Well, I definitely know that the comment in here is mine. I did very much hate the list because, as mentioned in the talk page on the comic, the section was completely disorganized. It took up half of the entire page. As Dgbrt mentioned, the format you use is honestly really ugly, and I have to agree. The real problem that I found was after I posted the comment he quoted.

In that comment, I mentioned that it should have had its own category instead of being completely on that single page, which would have prevented it from the eyes of those who don't like this format. Alternatively, it could have been in a table, a format much more compact, several times easier to understand, and at least 12 octillion times less infuriating to look at.

The other mind-boggling and frankly stupid thing about the list, of course, was that you added every. Single. Comic. ...if it seemed to be remotely sad (and even if it wasn't sometimes!) and tried to link it to the political situation and Trump. I, in that comment, presented two of the comics in a - admittedly more asshole-ish - way that you linked them like this. But that's the core of all of this drama. Hell, in multiple of the comics, you even said that no "big" event seemed related to the situation and simply just put it in because it mentioned the military or security. And even for some of the ones you did present a political event, the speculation that you presented for Randall making these comics was beyond 4chan with Smash Ultimate level.

Like I said in that comment, it isn't necessarily a political comment just because something big happened that day. Vomiting Emoji and Flag, the two I highlighted in my comment, have explanations that are just plainly absurd. Randall "expressing fear" that the moon would be gone before the eclipse was obviously a joke. Randall making a joke that has a flag in the picture doesn't mean he's going to rebel against the United States, make his own country, and science his way to taking it over just so that Trump is no longer the ruler.

I wouldn't have had these problems if the list weren't so outlandishly absurd, and combined with the fact that it clogged up the page with a lot of meaningless speculation, I felt pushed to just delete the entire thing. Yes, that may have been extreme of me, and I should apologize for being fed up, but I still maintain that a lot of the stuff on that list is bad. If it's presented in - again - a way that doesn't hurt to read or filled up with what it is, I would have not as many problems with it. But as it looks right now, just making the list collapsible doesn't remove the problem; it's like putting White-Out on a yellow test paper and saying that the question never existed, despite the fact that it's obvious that something is wrong. Halo422 (talk) 04:05, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

A bit complicated to reply now. But to Dgbrt I did not read any comments until your post here. I was pissed about the deletion of the entire section, and just undid it. As Dgbrt wrote it can only be deleted properly by also removing links that goes there. I'm not using the page that much at the moment, and do not read all comments. This is also why I first see your comments today.

Dgbrt do you have any good idea for a page title? If it is only the first few comics that are clearly sad, could it then be called "Sad comics"? And should it be a page or a category? If we can find a solution for that, I will try to change it so it can be tolerable... --Kynde (talk) 10:01, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

I'm honest: I vote for deleting that section. The main reason is that we don't know how Randall feels, whether sad or not. We just have comics, not an autobiography.

If you still vote for keeping I only can see two possibilities:

• Keep the title "Sad comics", move it to a single page (no subpage to any comic), remove most of the content, write a proper text instead of bullets, and start it like "Some comics may suggest the impression..." because your "...clear trend..." is nonsense.
• Or, move everything to a separate page, but then I have no idea about any proper title.

BTW: I've created a new category: Category:Elections, and as I mention here Talk:2067: Challengers it still needs some work. --Dgbrt (talk) 11:06, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

I will think about the possibilities. And I did see your new category. Which is great by the way. There must be many of these from earlier years also?--Kynde (talk) 11:09, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

I need help on this new category because I'm sure there is more. --Dgbrt (talk) 11:12, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

I have now created Sad comics and moved the content from With her and tried to make the layout better. I do not agree with deleting the references to the other comics, but not they have been separated from the first four sad/negative comics. All links have been diverted to this page from all 16 comics. If there are other comics, not on the list, with link to that section I have not changed those... Many comics could refer to With Her for many reasons so I will not go through them all. --Kynde (talk) 13:55, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

You've done a big job, so thanks for this on the first place. And I can assure you that you always can find all links at the tools box "What links here", in this case when reading 1756: I'm With Her. I'm still not happy seeing comics like 2064: I'm a Car linking to content titled as sad, but that's up to other editors.

ProTip: You should watch pages important to you, just activate "Watch this page" at the bottom when editing, or adjust your "Watchlist" at the top menu belonging to your personal profile. You will receive an email on every change. --Dgbrt (talk) 18:31, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Yes I know about the links, but even though I have reverted the link to the sad trivia section, there may still be a link to the With her comic for other reasons. And there may even be links to the sad section from other comics not listed in my trivia, and I will not go through all pages referencing one of the controversial comics. I by the way highly disagree that we do not know Randall's political opinion. He has also endorsed Obama, so to day it is certain that he endorses the democrats vs Republican is a fact, not a guess. But you changed that on the new Challengers comic. I will not change it though. I just highly disagree with you on what is a know and what is a guess there.

Regarding the comics that are not sad it is not listed as being sad, that is only the first four. The rest is just listing comics that could have to do with Randall's political mood due to Trump and his politics.

I no longer have the time I once dedicated to this page... And hence I have taken e-mail alerts off, which is why I first noticed the deletion now. But I get e-mails on personal changes on this page. --Kynde (talk) 22:37, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

While I'm still sure not knowing much about Randall's condition when his comics are published, I sense you are sad. I insist you should take a closer look on all your contributions here, which are much more than only this stupid sad stories. --Dgbrt (talk) 00:18, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

I am still happy to see your additions here...

...you did edits I didn't like - and vice versa - but that's a war I don't like. And now I'm in a position in which I have to take care of all the health here, not only what's written.

Ironically: xkcd is also about sarcasm, the hell, shoooouuuuting on the hellll...

I will probably disagree on some of your future edits, but I don't have to judge this. That's up to others here.

So now I'm asking for help on a SMALL page introducing the memes used at this site. Like the Editor-FAQ I did. David did...not that much on that requests over a long time.

While I'm not sure about a proper title, this Wiki still leaks on a page simply showing the memes used here, linking to more specific pages, presented to evrey newbee.

--Dgbrt (talk) 22:06, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks.

I'm not sure I understand the page you are talking about, or what type of memes you mean.

Also as is probably clear I'm not using that much time on this wiki anymore. I'm not leaving it, I just do not have the time any longer. --Kynde (talk) 15:31, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Oh, I'm also not sure, maybe just a title like "About". It often happens that new people asking questions like "Why is the mouse-over text called title text?", how character names have been developed here, and so forth. A simple page, mostly showing links with a small introduction to the more hidden pages you often maintain. New readers have simple questions we don't think about anymore, that's what I would like to present. But it seems I have to collect some more items on which you maybe can help. --Dgbrt (talk) 20:34, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Ah I see. It was the meme part that failed to register. But a about page makes sense. --Kynde (talk) 14:37, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

We got a final image

Emoji dome has a wonderful ending image. Do you mind putting it as the current explainxkcd image? “That Guy from the Netherlands” (talk) 18:25, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

No it is perfect. I can see someone already did, it has just not been updated on the front of the page yet. It will be before tomorrow. The other pictures should be collected on a extra page. --Kynde (talk) 19:56, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Removing all references to the Sad comics page

Hi Kynde,

I've expressed my intention to remove all references to the Sad comics page over at Talk:Sad_comics, but I wanted to get your input too, since it is your page. Feel free to drop a comment over there if you want to contest this. Hawthorn (talk) 12:56, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Hi Hawthorbn. Thanks for alerting me. Did not follow the discussion page on Sad. I of course disagree. --Kynde (talk) 07:56, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

I have now deleted the page completely --Kynde (talk) 16:56, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

2196

I mentioned this on DgbrtBOT's talk page, but I'm not sure Dgbrt saw it. Since you're an admin, could you help me with this?

1. I uploaded the file, and it appeared in the page, but the link in the List of all comics page is still red. I think I messed up the upload, so could you delete the current file (the one I uploaded) for 2196 and reupload it?
2. I created an incorrect redirect page Nice To E-Meet you (The name is incorrect, I forgot to capitalize the You). Could you please delete that page? Thanks!

Herobrine (talk) 00:52, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Hi Herobrine. No I'm not ad admin, just very active, and cannot do anything to delete pages. I can give it a look though cause I have created a few pages long time ago when the bot was not there/working. And yes seems like Dgbrt is not active at the moment. Lets see if it works again this Monday. As you can see here I tried to write directly to him. --Kynde (talk) 18:38, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Can see you have created the page with capital You and I have now moved the image to a title with the hyphen in e-meet, which was missing in your original edit. So now List_of_all_comics works for the image as well. There are so many things which can go wrong, which is why we love out BOT. Hope it works tomorrow.--Kynde (talk) 18:46, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Category book promotion

Hi, you obviously know a thing or 2 about creating and adding categories, and like to do so :) I feel like we could need a category about book promotion, with at least 3 comics related to how to and at least one to thing explainer (hoverboard, possibly also up goer five...), and myabe even others I can't remember right now. What do you think? --Lupo (talk) 14:31, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Maybe more a list of comics that promote books. Not comics that inspire books, so no to Up Goer Five. But it could get special mention with mention of the category in that explanation as well. But I think we need to find more than 4, five is kind of a limit. Maybe there where something for what if? But I do not think so... --Kynde (talk) 14:37, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Looking at it again, we do have five :) Hoverboard, 2190: Serena Versus the Drones, 2198: Throw, Disappearing Sunday Update and 2194: How to Send a File

Well great. Do you have an idea for the category name? "Category:Book promotion" ??--Kynde (talk) 14:54, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Sounds good to me! --Lupo (talk) 14:56, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Will you add that category to the comics? I can help create the page then. --Kynde (talk) 14:57, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Done --Lupo (talk) 06:07, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Category:Book promotion page created and found another comic that promotes a book Randall has been involved in! --Kynde (talk) 13:40, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Broken Button

Hi Kynde, I've answered your question on my talk page. But I'll post it here just in case: I think you forgot to update Template:LATESTCOMIC, so it would treat comic 2198 as 2197, hence breaking the button. Herobrine (talk) 22:55, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, DgbrtBOT has updatet it and now it works! --Kynde (talk) 13:40, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks

I see you went through a few of my recent edits, and corrected them / replied on them / acted on them. Thanks a lot. Also, now I learned from your edits how subcategories work. Thanks also for that. :) (But, please try not to change the word typo to lupo in common use. I don't think it would be an honour :) ) --Lupo (talk) 07:00, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

I hope you could see the joke. Like when you fixed the fix? I also spotted you put a hidden joke . I will not make the same joke again. I guess it was also a kind of signature. I spotted that you where the most active last month. And was interested seeing what kind of edits. More or less I agreed with most... And cool with the spam fight. Do not use the same amount of time as I used to, but have been more active lately... Just became 2nd on all time activity list... Happy you both noticed and approved. --Kynde (talk) 17:09, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

I could see the joke and I enjoyed it :) as I tend to make a lot of typos, it isn't even that far fetched to use my name instead ;). I usually visit the site a few times a day and start on the recent changes page, and check what has happened. That's also how I often quickly find the spam. The other thing I tend to do when I got some free time on my hands is use the "random page" button and find out if I can improve the place I get to. I also saw that you are progressing a lot in the all time list. Last month I even noticed you were in the monthly list at a score that would have put you in the all time top 50 on its own. Impressive! Have a good weekend. --Lupo (talk) 20:00, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm also not native English speaker (Danish), and my grammar is probably horrible. Then it is great it is a wiki so others can fix that. I hope my additions are a plus. Have of course had rows with others, as can be seen above ;-) With some of the big one I think I have had months that would put me in top 20... (Not something I have checked). But with some of the comics where I added a lot of images, I will get a very high score as unique pages gives one point, and every picture uploaded is a new page. The amount of changes I have made puts me in nr. 1 spot, but that doesn't give much compared to number of pages visited. And please feel free to correct my typos. By the way I haven't even read all comics yet, since I have a hard time reading a new one without wishing to make corrections to transcript or explanations, so it takes some time every time I find a new. So between the first comic I saw when I found this page and then back from there there will be lots of comics I haven't even seen yet... Probably why you can find so many transcripts where caption below the panel has not been added (as it was I who began making this the way to write it). --Kynde (talk) 22:46, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Category for Back to the Future

Hi, can you create a category for the film series Back to the Future? To start, there is 102: Back to the Future, 656: October 30th, 1477: Star Wars, 2104: Biff Tannen, 2193: Well-Ordering Principle, and maybe others. Thanks, 172.68.47.144 20:26, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Hi yes I can. And I did: Category:Back to the Future. I added yours. Here is a search string that may help find more (for you to add). --Kynde (talk) 14:31, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Deletion of small categories?

Hi Kynde! I posted this on the community portal, but it seems unresponsive, and since none of the admins have edited recently, you seem like the person to ask. 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 th eseones.) In addition, there are thirteen more four-comic categories that also satisfy these requirements. I know non-admins can't delete articles, but because of these articles' status, should I remove their contents and add them to Category:Pages to delete? --Account (talk) 01:17, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Since I'm no admin just the most active over an extended period of time, I cannot really say what to do. Some of the categories I think has merit, I may even have created some of them. And there may be reason to expect more to come. But others I tend to agree. I think Randall has something with Giraffes and the Spice Girl spurt with three in short notice I think merits the categories. The other 6 with three I would not mind if they went away. But then there may need to be some links between those comics. Are you willing to make those? If you do then empty the categories, and put them as up for deletion. Most of those with four I would keep. I have NOT clicked on them all though, just read them here when I edited this response. --Kynde (talk) 14:56, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Category for Bees

Hi Kynde,

Can you add a category on bees, as a subcategory of Category:Animals? I've found 1259: Bee Orchid, 1186: Bumblebees, 2231: the Time Before And After Land, 2035: Dark Matter Candidates, 1692: Man Page, and there are probably more. 172.69.34.38 00:22, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Done Category:Bees. Added your five comics. --Kynde (talk) 14:49, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

New category - comics with store products

Hi Kynde, thanks for creating the new page for Category:Comics with store products! (I was the one who added the comics to that category, but I didn't have permission to create a new page for the category itself, so I apologize for abandoning it like that.)

For the name of this category, I wanted to follow a similar pattern to existing category names such as "Category:Comics from 2005" or "Category:Comics with color". So for the name of this new category, I had considered some other more accurate names, such as "Category:Comics upon which xkcd store products are based", or perhaps "Category:Comics made into official merchandise"; but I felt that these new category names would be a bit too long, so I was trying to keep it more succinct than that. ...But now I realize that the current name I chose is not very clear, and might cause some confusion about what it's supposed to mean, so it was really a poor choice of words on my part. Do you have any ideas for a better name that we could use for this category? If so, please feel free to rename it, then I will go through all the comic pages where I added it, and update them to the new category.

On the other hand, in the edit-history of the Category:Comics with store products page, I noticed in your comments that you felt it was maybe not a good idea for a category -- and I certainly understand that, so if you want to just remove this category completely, please feel free to do so, then I will go through and remove it from all the comics where I added it (so as not to leave any broken links behind).

Thanks for your help, and sorry for causing noob trouble!

- Yfmcpxpj (talk) 09:57, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Hi Yfmcpxpj

First of all, the comment on my creation of the page, was because I did not understand the category. Store products.. I thought it was like with products bought in a type of store... First when I clicked on a few and saw your (?) comments that a t-shirt was based on this comic, did I understand the category. Think I wrote that in my next edit, where I linked to the store. After realizing that, I though it was a great category, although adding xkcd would probably help the understand-ability: "Category: Comics with xkcd store products"

What do you say to that title?

Regarding my ability to make pages, that is just because I have edited enough to get that right (I know I have edited more than any one else here...) But I'm actually not an admin, and I cannot delete pages. Sadly it seems the admins have left xkcd without replacements... So not one answers admin requests, and although I'm glad to help when I can, I do not have that many rights on the page.

But true you may have asked for someone to create the page and also maybe ask for the title before creating it. I think I will be able to rename the page though, so if you can go through all the comics and correct the category there I would like to give it a try. (Do not do this before I have changed the name!)

What do you say? And should I add the xkcd as suggested above?

--Kynde (talk) 14:14, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I like your title better, "Comics with xkcd store products" -- I think it is much clearer. If you can rename the category, I will wait for that, then after it has been successfully renamed, I'll go through and update those comics to use the new one instead. And sorry to hear that the admins have been absent -- but it looks like you are doing a good job of keeping the site maintained, so thank-you for that! - Yfmcpxpj (talk) 08:58, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

I have now moved the category page. You can find the list of comics that now need to be moved here.

And the new empty category here Category:Comics with xkcd store products. --Kynde (talk) 10:26, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Kynde; I have moved the remaining comics into the new category. You mentioned that you don't have permissions to delete pages, so I wonder if the old page Category:Comics with store products should be put into parent Category:Pages to delete so maybe the admins will delete it? - Yfmcpxpj (talk) 08:15, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

As the old Category redirects to the new one, I guess deletion is not necessary. --Lupo (talk) 08:31, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

If no pages refers to the old category, and to avoid anyone putting comics in that category again, it would be nice to have it deleted. But I'm not sure anyone will do that at the moment. Davidy is long gone and DGBRT seems to be absent as well... I was once asked to be an admin but declined at the time ... Maybe that was a shame, but at least I still react when someone post on my page... But I'm not that active anymore, and have never looked much through the portal pages etc. --Kynde (talk) 13:49, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Banned from Conferences Category

Hi Kynde, you usually have a good feeling on how Categories should be described, etc. There was a (quite short) discussion on 153: Cryptography, to remove a portion of the explanation. Do you think that stuff belongs into Category:Banned from conferences? Maybe you can chime into the "discussion" on 153. -- Regards Lupo (talk) 14:24, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Edit summaries

Please use edit summaries; they are especially important for pages like xkcd Header text that are infrequently monitored but have a meta-importance. Thanks. JohnHawkinson (talk) 21:22, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

I have more or less created the entire page from scratch. So I will not begin writing details every time I make a revision. But I use it for most other edits. I can see you care for BLM... Great, you probably know much more on this than I do. I made this page, to keep track of the header text, which was not explained on these pages. Sometimes it is relevant for a given comic, so great to have this place to write about it, and then link to it from the comics. The unfilled link was to help people wo may help editing this page, fill in when the header changed. I will do that now. --Kynde (talk) 17:37, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Kynde: I don't understand how your authorship of the page (from scratch or otherwise) has anything to do with whether you should be writing details of when you make a revision. But for sensitive topics, which BLM is, it is especially important for other editors to be able to carefully review changes. And when you make a large block of changes, like you did there on July 1, with 8 different edits, edit summaries are an extremely helpful tool for everyone else. So, again, the request is to please use an edit summary, especially when you are making multiple edits in a row, and especially on pages of meta-importance like xkcd Header text. Of course, this is not Wikipedia, the rules here (such as they are) are relatively weak, and we all should coöperate. But if your answer is "I don't have to because I wrote the page first, years ago!" that doesn't make any sense at all. If your goal was to make sense, then I don't know how to respond. JohnHawkinson (talk) 17:50, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Well I shall try to be more careful around sensitive subjects. You are one of the first other than me to have edited the page. And one of the few that have added a new section. I just changed it into the same format that I have used on all the others. And did a revision now, and sorry I forgot to write what it was out of bad habit. --Kynde (talk) 17:57, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

I think the change you just made was…not great. See Talk:xkcd_Header_text#Recent_BLM_edits where I give my opinion. But it is probably better discussed there than on your personal page, but I wanted to highlight it for you. JohnHawkinson (talk) 18:04, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

I have replied on the other talk page. --Kynde (talk) 09:28, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Nationality

What country are you from? Beanie ^talk 12:34, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

Denmark. Why? --Kynde (talk) 08:15, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

Forgive this IP

I just made a handful of edits to recent changes that you had made (may not have been what you changed, in all cases; it might have just been pre-existing errors and Recent Changes just drew me to them). I hope it doesn't look personal, especially from an impersonal IP that you can't easily talk back to. So I'm mentioning it here to try to apologise if it does seem that way. 162.158.159.85 18:57, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Hi. Thanks for telling. Since your IP will change I cannot see exactly which changes you made, but cheeked on my last changes and saw some CE and minor changes. Only thing I disagreed with (not sure it was you) was that the Launch comic should not have been released on the 24th. Which it was in most of the US if not all. --Kynde (talk) 14:01, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

(Most of the changes occured under roughly the 172.70.… range, as I recall, though you can see the above switched to a whole different class-B - entirely due to the internediary's whim (Cloudflare?) without my changing anything. I'm sitting on a different connection now, so all bets are off what this will appear as. ;) )

I have no argument with Randall posting on the 24th (his time) as the Bot got there soon enough to prove it. But of course the rest of us (mostly Europe and beyond) had a different experience. Still before the launch (whoever checked for themselves in time), which I think a couple of my edits were about. Really not huge issues, just minor fixes. You're good with those things, I know from experience, just a courtesy note (that and this). 172.70.86.22 22:42, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Maybe not you who posted. But as you can see your IP is not the same in these two posts, so I can only assume you are the same person, but cannot guess which of my edits you have changed and which someone else changed ;-) Do you have a name other than 162.158.159.85 or 172.70.86.22 ;-) Why not get an account? --Kynde (talk) 09:29, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

I just can't think of a decent username. I tend to use different ones everwhere (and never my RL identity) and most of them were 'good ideas at the time' but when the inevitable "Why is your username what it is?" thread comes around it always seems my 'explanation' is laughable. All the above in this section (that isn't you) is me, BTW. Just added an indent layer I missed. I'm happy being (slightly unpredictably) changing IP, because I seek no credit (or blame!) for my 'insights' and my ego survives well enough on such fleeting moments of anonymous fame, I assure you. ;) And I don't mind when other IP-editors 'land' on/near what I just used, either, even if they're now completely wrong.

Not that I think Usernames are a bad thing in general for you and others (c.f. 4chan 'anon' culture...), I'm just happy that it's one less thing to worry about in my own case! 172.70.85.73 15:04, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Well that is up to you. But then again it is hard to forgive an IP when I'm not sure what it has done or not. But as I could just see there where nothing needing forgiveness so we are good. --Kynde (talk) 13:15, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Do you get a healthy amount of sleep?

In recent days I see you editing very often and I just wanna make sure you get enough sleep because while you're doing amazing work, I am a bit concerned 256.256.256.256 (talk) 08:45, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Ha ha - thanks for both the concern and the praise. I'm from Denmark so if you look at the time stamp and think I should be sleeping, then maybe it is in the middle of the day here. I write this just before 10:00 AM here in DK. But actually I'm doing very little now compared to maybe five years ago. If you look at the ContributionScores at the bottom with the All time (Top 50), you will see that I'm number two. And if you look at number of changes I'm far ahead of number 2... So this is actually quite low level activity for me... --Kynde (talk) 08:53, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Countdown in header text image

You mentioned you'd help uploading the countdown wiggle gif, so here's a link to all the image stuff of the countdown. (Specifically, full_animation.gif and Countdown in header text Wiggling.gif). Optionally zipped, for easier archival. Toby (talk) 20:03, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Great thanks Toby. Will try to make it work. --Kynde (talk) 20:15, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

It worked and I have replied on your new talk page and created your own page, in case you still could not. Feel free to change that now. Very happy with your work, both of the files. Thanks!!! --Kynde (talk) 20:28, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Purely to improve your knowledge of English

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/spacecrafts#English

i.e., as with vehicular "craft" in general (including aircraft, hovercraft, etc), the -s pluralisation is allowable but not considered standard. An oddity of the terminology that I don't actually know the reason for. I'm wondering could it be from our nautical heritage where singular craft were the rarity (a simpler version of how sometimes the singular can be considered rarer than the plural? Yet ships/vessels/etc don't succumb to that usage. Even if sheep and fish do! Anyway, while spacecraft are preferred, spaceships are indeed the synonymous alternative. IYSWIM...

Crafts, as in skillfully created works, are the plurals exactly as you'd initially expect. Woodcrafts, metalcrafts, etc. So I suppose those people who are shipcrafters might therefore craft many crafted craft, thanks to the various crafts they know, and then exhibit their crafts at a craft-fair. ((i.e "Boatwrights might construct many well-made (model?) ships, thanks to their skills, then show their creations at an exhibition of bespoke manufacturing.")) Crafty, eh?

Sorry, I seem to have gone overboard with the explanation. Throw me that lifebelt, please? ;) 172.70.85.73 10:40, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Hi. Thanks. I'm not sure it will help, I'm not very good at spelling, even in my own language. But maybe I will remember this. I do not mind other people copy editing my posts. My idea is that if I write something useful other will make it better, and correct the errors. But if I do not write it, then it may be left out of an explanation. --Kynde (talk) 16:54, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

THANK YOU!!!

Kynde - I have only just discovered this beautiful Explain XKCD wiki and am in awe - I saw that you have been a huge contribuotr for years and just wanted to say Thank You to you and team for this beautiful legacy of work! With it XKCD can be that much more of a portal into all the different directions Randall’s comics touch on and drift near.

I’ve been behind the scenes in wikipedia for years (so often painful) and love connecting with anyone else who is doing meaningful wiki work. I’m just stopping by here today on my way to *important deadlines* but intend to be back. Just set up my Explain editor account. Pop me a talk page note? Happy to plug in! DrMel (talk) 19:53, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

(Ps looks like I am not getting through the email validation steps - no email confirmation has yet made it to my email. I’ll check back later. On wikipedia I’m https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:DrMel

(pps - email validated! But i still dont have permission to setup my user page… so this time i really am going back to the Save-The-World work i am supposed to be doing!)

Hi DrMel. Wow, thanks a lot. Yes I have been very active on this page. I'm not one of the admins though, and sadly it seems this page is without any active admins, and that it has been so for a while. I guess I'm the best option right now. I have created your user page and talk page, so now you can work on the user page. Welcome to explain xkcd. If you have any questions regarding format or other things feel free to ask. --Kynde (talk) 07:38, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

Nomination

I know you maybe don't want it, but see explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Coordination#New_admins Davidy²²[talk] 02:08, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

I have answered there and accepted the nomination. It is an honor. Hope I can live up to it. --Kynde (talk) 12:16, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Finally got the promotion from Jeff. Thanks. --Kynde (talk) 14:30, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Block User:Donald Trump

Can you block User:Donald Trump? He is another spambot, like the others recently: Special:Contributions/Donald_Trump. Thanks, Natg19 (talk) 17:48, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Done--Kynde (talk) 19:28, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

you blocked a mobile phone (T-mobile) IP

You blocked “162.158.107.124”. The problem is, that’s a T-mobile IP that goes to whomever happens to get it. 172.70.211.36 19:11, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Yes Im new to being administrator so sorry I messed that up. But think I managed to undo it? --Kynde (talk) 19:33, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Regarding your latest IP block

See my note on this latest thing that it seems like you were reacting to.
In general, I don't think IP-blocking is very useful (false-positives get hit and false-negatives get round it, depending upon the vagueries of everything, and as an IP myself this is close to the bone for me) but there's potentially something going on. I don't know if you get to see what doesn't happen because of a block, though. Tricky one to get your head round. But thought I'd clue you in on what I'm thinking. Completely your decision on how you take it.
Keep up the good work, BTW! 162.158.159.15 12:59, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Just to add that this change follows the trend I mentioned (type of edit + history of its apparent IP), and now undone. Not to overly pester you with this (better the Community Portal for that), just FYI. 141.101.98.11 17:05, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

I only block them for a week or 3 days, just to stop current spam, and thanks for the praise --Kynde (talk) 13:02, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Sparing use of Talk-page section headers

Note that I added a ;-title (not an individually editable section's title), albeit first mis-tapping in the :-indenter instead by accident, but maybe you were a bit overzealous squishing out the ==editable== section-headers (the existing one and my own once someone had helpfully 'upgraded' it) in the latest discussion.

The advice given on the main-page, as part of the discussion-inclusion templating, is that new sections should be used sparingly, not that they are not to be used. If anything, I was wrong to use a ;-title (to logically separate my contribution from the headered bit I was following), perhaps I should have inserted as a normal running comment above the newly broken-out section.

Not complaining, but just positing the view that it seemed a bit draconic of an intervention. Livable-with, having been done, but not sure it was strictly necessary.

(Would be handy to add across the "Add to the bottom (etc)" HTML-comment to the top of the page, from a BOT-created new-discussion-page, though I suppose I could do that. Maybe I will. Yes, I think I will. You could also maybe check the circumstances why a normal user had needed to do theusafBOT's work for it... I'm sure it's more that theusaf's script is just temporarily offline, or slow to react, rather than having gone the way of dgbrtBOT/whatever...) 172.70.85.177 13:49, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

I think there is now use for headings in comment section. And in some cases the explanations have a TOC and then the headings of the talk page would come into this because we include talk page on the explanation page. Also it becomes confusing when others add different comments below, as they then seems to belong to the headered section. Thus best leave them out, unless something very special. --Kynde (talk) 05:55, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Table of tips?

Why put the table in a section on 2649? It breaks the convention of discussing the comic before discussing the title text. 172.70.210.145 07:11, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

No this has been done whenever there is a table. The comic should be explained first, but if lots of info needs to be added in order to understand the full details of the comic, then the title text is usually explained after the first short explanation. And then the larger explanation is delegated to a sub section, just as I have done here. It is because you may not wish to dwell into all these details, they are not needed to understand the overall joke, but you might like to see the title text explained, and then this should not be hidden deep down. Also there is a link from the explanation to the table, so you can easily go there to read the main explanation for each tip.--Kynde (talk) 07:32, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Well it's no big deal; I don't have strong feelings about it, but I haven't been here very long, and noticed that 2636, 2638, and 2639 all have tables following the sequence of the comics instead of in a section at the end. 172.70.211.88 08:39, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes that must also be said to be new comics, and not those that have been here long time ;-) All of them came out after my holiday began this summer, and I have not had time to go through those comics yet. But thanks I will fix it. --Kynde (talk) 12:21, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Fixed those three and also completed two of the transcripts. Thanks for pointing the discrepancy out. --Kynde (talk) 14:02, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

How do you feel about 2606? 172.71.150.173 08:32, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Since the title text is just another symbol, it seems fine to have it in the table. But actually there may be a reason to explain that joke as well in the main explanation. --Kynde (talk) 11:35, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

But after updating the explanation I ended up moving the table to a section and moving any other explanation above. Including a mention of the title text. Is this the same person that started this thread that asked about 2606? --Kynde (talk) 11:56, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

No, I'm this guy. 172.70.211.88 15:52, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Hello, That Guy. (BTW, I'm also none of the above conversationalists, Kynde...) That change you linked... I just reverted it. It was fixed (devandalised) already in a state that was after the removal of the Incomplete tag and I couldn't work out why you considered it needing reverting. Yes, a lot of restored stuff (now unrestored), but I couldn't quite work out which (pre-vandalism) version you even reverted to, and surely there were various useful culling edits ("no, we don't need to say that, it's irrelevent", etc) that you were negating.

Or at least that was my almost knee-jerk response (almost, because I went back through the crapcrapcrap stuff and beyond trying to find where you were coming from, so I spent some time on thinking about it before I did it).

I offer it up to review by the wider community, or back to yourself (or give Kynde a shot, if they aren't busy). Maybe some old bits could be reintegrated, but I couldn't see which on a semi-cursory glance. So, given you have provided a handle on you, expanding upon the woefully short edit-summary space, to more fully explain any confusion (of mine, or yours, or just in general). Ok? 172.70.91.128 16:43, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Are you saying you removed vandalism with the revert? Which parts do you think are crap stuff? Do you not see how it is all directly related to the drawing on the board? I should have removed the incomplete tag, but I think I'll try the appended section idea to appease objectors with a compromise. 172.69.33.185 05:15, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

I don't think this has anything to do with my comment, and I do not have any thing to add to this discussion. If this is all about 2207:_Math_Work, then please take any further discussion there, as to not disturb me with e-mails every time you change my user talk page ;-) --Kynde (talk) 09:07, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

A spammer has appeared!

Hi! It seems that there's a spammer who's been consistently adding an incredibly odd rant to the front page from a wide variety of IP addresses over the course of yesterday and today. They currently show no signs of stopping; could you use whatever Special Admin Powers you may have to resolve the issue? --Account (talk) 18:37, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Hi. No, sadly I cannot do much about it. I can try to alert those with more powers than me though. I'm not that technically minded. If it was a user I could block him, but as I understood from the newest comics discussion it is multiple ip addresses. --Kynde (talk) 12:36, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Interview request! and thanks!

Hey Kynde, forgive me if this isn't allowed! I'm a journalist and wiki enthusiast and I'd love to chat with you about all your work here. Can you send an email to annierau at umich dot edu? Thank you so much! Postgradpredeath (talk) 03:36, 22 September 2022 (UTC):Hi

Annie Rau(?)/Postgradpredeath. I don't think asking me would not be allowed. I might not wish to mail you but that would then be an option. I may actually not wish to use my e-mail. But maybe we could try to catch up on twitter, where I have an account I only used to get into contact with admins on this page... If you also have a twitter acount we may be able to tweet to each other there... And thanks for the praise. --Kynde (talk) 06:39, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Vandalism on latest comic

Hello, just letting you know there's been another bit of spam. Only on the most recent comic as far as I've seen, and fixed for now :) Char Latte (talk) 22:11, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. Also had a vandal here replying to you comment. Of course deleted it. Haven't been so active lately. But hope the problem has stopped. --Kynde (talk) 15:55, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Notification

Hey, I wanted to let you know that I'm working on the huge project of making a table to organize planet names, coordinates, and explanations, and the four item types and their explanation in the latest interactive comic. I've replied to the conversation, here's a link: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Talk:2765:_Escape_Speed#Making_a_table_to_organize_planet_names.2C_coordinates.2C_and_explanations.2C_and_the_four_item_types_and_their_explanation

If possible, could you check if you're able to answer the questions I have?

Thanks, FaviFake (talk) 13:44, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

Hi Favi. Have not had much time but looked at it and liked the table. Also added two more pages, one with overview images of the world and the planets and one with a place to post the screen shots needed for making a full explanation. Put some of the relevant images up already but will not have time to much more the rest of this week. --Kynde (talk) 14:25, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

Great! Thanks, I like the new pages. Do you happen to know of a way to find the coordinates of each planet, so i can add them to the table? How did the folks editing 2712: Gravity do it? FaviFake (talk) 15:52, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Hi Favi. Thanks. No I do not know, I did not do any editing on that comic. Have not had time like I did for instance with Hoverboard where I did most of the documentation. But have no idea what to do with a game like this. Not very tech savvy on that account. Keep up the good work! --Kynde (talk) 11:35, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Nevermind, someone on the discussions page let me know of a very useful script that did exactly that, s I filled the entire Tiles column :D -- FaviFake (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Great --Kynde (talk) 15:19, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Hi, I've made another attempt at tables. I've talked a little bit with FaviTake but we didn't seem to come to a conclusion. I think we need a third (and maybe fourth and fifth) opinion. I have put a note about this in the discussion board but I'm not sure anybody will notice (there's a lot of stuff there). - Malgond (talk) 21:52, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

I have replied and think your tables are great. See talk page for comic --Kynde (talk) 09:18, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

Changing category name, and the creation of Category:Comics with red corrections

Hey Kynde, I wanted to ask you if, as an admin, you could change the name of the Category:Comics posted on livejournal to this: Category:Comics posted on LiveJournal The other two categories that mention LiveJournal have the L and J uppercase, so I think it should be the same for this category too:

• Category:Posted on LiveJournal after xkcd
• Category:First day on LiveJournal

Also, I just created Category:Comics with red corrections for comics like 2639: Periodic Table Changes (under Category:Comics with color) after seeing at least two or three request it.

• Is Category:Comics with color the right parent category?
• Or should it be added to Category:Distinctive comics too? Or just in one? Idk where to put it

Thanks, FaviFake (talk) 09:38, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Hi FlaviFake

I could probably move the page to the correct spelling. I think I actually created the other two categories, after the one you know wish me to change. So it is my spelling later that would overrule the first. But i agree it would make sense.

But if I do then all 45 comics that has this category should be corrected so they spell the category the new way. Would you be ready to do this for all 45 comics? And also every page that links to the current version of the category? I think it is not good enough to have a forward link with the category spelled wrong on all comics... Let me know if you wish to do that, then I can move the page. Once all has been corrected I could delete the forward page.

I like your new category. Seems like the newest three is a series... But maybe we should just keep the red corrections. Question is if he has some with other color corrections, and if it is important that they are red? Or even color? But I like the idea.

Not sure what categories they belong under. Not sure the color category is relevant. More comics by topic - the topic being corrections.

Keep up the good work. I have much less time for making changes to the wiki now, that I used to.--Kynde (talk) 13:21, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply!

>Would you be ready to do this for all 45 comics?

Yeah, it shouldn't be that hard. I just need to copy and paste the correct spelling on the articles. Let me know when you've moved it :)

>if he has some with other color corrections, and if it is important that they are red?

I put red because I've never seen a comic with a correction not in red, but I get your point. We can always rename it and update the category names in the few articles that are included in it

>More comics by topic - the topic being corrections.

You're right, I'll move it there now. Btw there is also a category called Category:Comics with blood that is also in the Comics with color category, should it move that one to comics by topic too?

Hi. Tried, but I cannot move it cause the page name is not case sensitive, so it complains that I did not move it. Also I'm not sure it would work before you made the corrections, so it would be complicated. Not sure it is important enough for me to try to do some other thing. Like moving to a different title, then deleting the original page and try to move back. Maybe It will not be possible. So guess it won't happen?

Yes I think blood should be topic. Guess it will always be red to make sure we know it is blood? But then again maybe there could be a comic with not red blood or just black and white drawing where it is clear it is blood. --Kynde (talk) 07:22, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Hey; I forgot to say it yesterday, but (after I realized I could already move pages on my account) I've moved Category:Comics posted on livejournal to Category:Posted on LiveJournal. I've removed the "comics" part because a different category, Category:Posted on LiveJournal after xkcd, started with "Posted". So I thought I could kill two birds with one stone and fixed both the consistency and the capitalization. i also moved the blood category to comics by topic

I saw the message, created the requested page with capitalisation. They both redirect to "Posted on LiveJournal," you can pick whether you want to keep the new name you picked or if you want the one that was originally requested Davidy²²[talk] 15:09, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Good to hear from you Davidy22. And great work again FaviFake. I have just made sure there are no longer any links left to the old or the new version Davidy22 made, so we now use the FaviFake version and I have deleted the other two. --Kynde (talk) 11:03, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

Changing the Sitenotice of this wiki

Hey,

I've noticed that for a few years, the page MediaWiki:Sitenotice is out of date, but from my understanding it can only be edited by admins. So, could you edit it and remove the mention on comic 1608: Hoverboard? It's not incomplete anymore. Or, even better, could you try making it editable by confirmed registered users, so we can keep it up to date?

I would also remove the "Never use the Math markup language at the transcript. The reason for this you can read at the Editor FAQ." because it's probably one of the least useful things a newcomer should see when they open the site for the first time. I think if it were editable by mere people, it would be great because we could also update it for when a big new comic comes out and we need more people to help explain it. Thanks, FaviFake (talk) 15:04, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Hi FaviFake

I have never changed that notice before, but I was able to. But do think it will be only admins that can do it. But I have changed it to 2765: Escape Speed and removed the math mark. --Kynde (talk) 07:25, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

That's great! Thank you.--FaviFake (talk) 13:48, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Ambivalent about the removal of the anti-Math bit, but I'm worried that there's also too much reliance upon general markup (including tables), rather than 'flat' description, and it does creep in. Historic articles that still do it might not help, though I'm not going back to change them.

To be clear, some stuff is really difficult to do without a table, and be short and sweet (though exporting detail to a /Transcript sub-page is a doable thing), but at least we shouldn't just use bold text or colours where colours are, but ensure they're always transcriptually indicated, in preference to/entirely instead of being used:

[A fragment of text, "bold" is in bold and several other words are written in red:] ...we shouldn't just use bold text or colours where colours are, but...

...to give a poor example that I'd expect another Transcript specialist to improve anyway.

Don't know how best to advertise this. Nor how not to add Citation Neededs, there being a current spate of them before commas/etc, which is against explainxkcd and Wikipedia standards, regardless of the actual overuse/misuse that may also happen by the hands of the enthusistic new(?) editors doing it. So I'll tweak what I see (of all these little things) hoping to move things more towards the aspirational ideals developed over many years of editors. And obviously that'd include the misplaced Math-markup. 172.71.242.108 08:32, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Well I think there is no reason to have such a text standing there. If someone begins using it again write to them and change it in transcript. I actually did not know where to change the notice and also was not aware I had the rights. Also I think it is fine to use colors and bold text in transcript. But if the color is important then it should be mentioned. But the transcript is also for people to be able to easily read the text and see what it looked like. And it is important so it is possible to search for a phrase you remember. As the description is important so you can search for a special item that was in a comic you remember... And tables is OK when relevant for the way the comic is written. So think I'm not really agreeing with the user who is not signed up here above... --Kynde (talk) 08:51, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

We agree a lot, you'll be relieved(!) to hear. No bones to me about that warning (I could have told you that you could change it, just had no reason to :p ) and I'm sure someone will redo anything 'wrong' that occurs due to the prominant lack of it in future.

I think it's less important to exactly reproduce what can be seen in the comic in "what can be seen in the Transcript", but as long as those who might not have compatible search/screen-reader access get the written cues as well than it's clearly permissable.

Table use is still tricky. Not sure how screen-readers render them, so would depend upon how sensibly a small (or large) example can be described in either/both ways. (Totally coincidental case in point, my tongue-in-cheek comment to this edit I just did highlights how something could be visually formatted accurately, though I actually tried to Transcriptionally describe more accurately instead, which I thought more useful. (Not very important, but it's a clear layout choice that was not reflected in any usable way for anyone.)

But this is not a hill I'd die on (if it even came to that). I'm just doing my bit to maintain and support what I see as the contributor conventions that have been bashed around and gradually smoothed into some form of useful (if not universal) coherency over the various years. I'll take any sudden informal policy shift under advisement, and of course your words carry more weight than my own! I'll repeat "policy", but don't wish to (re)set it 172.71.242.225 11:26, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

If you actually do some edits, why not get a account? Much easier to do edits and much easier to have a discussion, and we could actually see what you contribute, and agree or disagree. Now I will never know for sure what you did as IPs change from day to day and other people might get this ip later... --Kynde (talk) 17:05, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

I know you've no way of confirming this, but I've survived long enough without. And had this conversation before. With no power comes no responsibility! (Or, really, just could never decided on a good username/never the time to start having one, and rarely any need to.) But don't want to rehash all that again. You've done important work, before and after your ennoblement, and I congratulate you on it.

No, I just offer opinion that can be ignored, and edits that can be over-ruled. Imagine the damage to my fragile ego if I materialised as a Username account and everyone still ignores/rewrites everything I say? ;) Horses for courses, but that's how it works for me! 172.70.91.71 19:09, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Solving the MediaWiki:Sitenotice problem once and for all

Hey Kynde, I have an idea for solving the problem of having to constantly ask an admin to update the comic in the site notice. Since few admins are very active on this wiki, and the page MediaWiki:Sitenotice can't be set to allow non-admins to change it, we can just create a template and replace the text on MediaWiki:Sitenotice with the template (and then protect the template so only autoconfirmed users can edit it), so when for example a new big comic comes out, it can be updated immediately by simply editing the template. What do you think? --FaviFake (talk) 13:18, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Hi FaviFake. Although I can see your point I'm not really sure what to do about this, and also not feeling confident of doing such a change. I'm still fairly regular using the page, and saw your comment fairly soon. I do not understand why I did not get an e-mail about your change to my talk page though? But I would be happy to change the sitenotice for you if your request makes sense to me. So let's see if that works for some time. Do you have a new comis you would like to have mentioned? --Kynde (talk) 10:27, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Justification for 2023 April Fools' comics

It's just someone's edit comment, but see where it is claimed... From that (and that it's completely not impossible to have both April Fool and book-launch combined in a single exotic comic) I think it's worth counting 2023 as at least a possible answer to the "Missing 2023 April Fool" conundrum. 172.69.79.145 23:30, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Hey I don't want to start an edit war over this, but I swear to you, Escape Speed was intended to be the 2023 April Fools comic. Chromakode (another person named in the credits for this comic) confirms as much in his blog post at https://chromakode.com/post/xkcd-gravity-escape-speed as well. Benley (talk) 00:49, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. That was what was missing, or if it was already somewhere I missed it. I did not see the thing about being named in the credits, but also that is not really enough without a link. Anyone could have said that. But I'm happy to learn this and will of course now not oppose including 2765: Escape Speed as the 2023 fools' comic. And will even help sort out the list (a list which I started and have tried to keep up to date from the start.) Benley - is that Benjamin Staffin? And which of the other named in the credits for Escape Speed is Chromakode? (there is no such name there and did not find anything on the link but I'm not on X for instance so could not enter all of them). If you are indeed a developer of such comics, I thank you for all the joy you help bring to xkcd fans. Best regard --Kynde (talk) 08:25, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

That's correct, benley is Benjamin Staffin (me). Chromakode is Max Goodhart. Thanks for maintaining this wiki :-) Benley (talk) 18:28, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. Cool you are involved in these special comics. An honor to write with you. --Kynde (talk) 04:20, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

To the first comment. I just realized it was Gravity that promoted the what if? book release. So that was my bad. Not that I would have believed a 19 day overdue comic was April fools' comic, just because it was not released on a book launch. But with the link from Benley, now I do. --Kynde (talk) 08:29, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Ping, re: Main Page deletion.

If you aren't being contacted by other means, this time I'm needing to spark off an email notification to you (resuming we don't need davidy22, etc). 172.70.163.31 16:24, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

I managed to restore the page. Thanks. Did not see it. I have written to the one who did it. Hope it was a mistake. --Kynde (talk) 16:58, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

hey kynde, i would highly reccomend de-sysopping markhurd. he's confirmed to have passed on his main wikipedia page, and it could a security risk to keep him as a sysop, as whoever is in control of the account might delete more pages. 42.book.addict (talk) 20:13, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Hi. Are you saying that he is dead now? Not sure I have permission to do that though --Kynde (talk) 07:42, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes, although I prefer more respectful terms. My great-grandfather recently passed at 100 years old, and I'm still needing time to process. 42.book.addict (talk) 17:02, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Codolence for you loss. I'm not native English speaker and was uncertain what you meant and how you knew. Found out as you can see. Best, Kynde... --Kynde (talk) 06:14, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

It's a minefield of language. To have "passed" is probably not even a fairly common euphemism in British English (in fact, if locally used and understood for what it is about, it may even sound like a pat and insincere imported Americanism, rather than respectful...). Formally, you may say "deceased". Or you might skirt the issue by saying someone "is no longer with us" (although that might also mean they just moved on, i.e. now live somewhere else, rather than have "moved on", another euphemistic phrase that does somewhat presuppose belief that there is some other place that they can now be but is less 'Merkin than "passed").

In general, take the cue from the one most connected. I would definitely honour 42's terminology regarding their great-grandfather, and would wish to pass on my own sympathies. For myself, once I tell you that my Dad is dead, you could easily ask how I've been "since he died". (NB.: though a real example, it was several years ago, with myself having been no spring chicken at the time, and so it is not a current issue; please let me avoid any further awkwardness by taking any belated condolances as read. My four grandparents died at various times between my being barely old enough to know until... well, it was still decades ago. Never had the opportunity to know any of their parents.)

Aside from all that, I would find it awkward to restrict the language used when it comes to reports of those not obviously connected to either myself or the other party. Sean Connery died, JFK died ("was asassinated"), James VI Of Scotland/James I Of England is long dead, and moreso is 'Lucy'. Mortality is still far too common to never say the respective words, although clearly you might hedge your language if you know you're potentially tweaking fresh emotions in the one you're talking to, or are feeling fragile about the issue yourself.

Perhaps understandable for 42 to have taken the more oblique term, in their recent state of grieving, but was unfortunately contextless and thus hard for you to interpret until fully explained. Og vi kender ikke engang dine egne forhold, så vi kan såre dine egne følelser. Whatever you might wish to say other than "Han er bestået"(/"død"). One perhaps must take this into account, in such internationalised communications. More in understanding others than in trying to anticipate what idealised position you must always take. 172.70.90.220 15:19, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

sorry for my little meltdown yesterday. sorry kynde, didn't know you were a non-native speaker. i blame hormones and grief-but mostly hormones. sorry again. 42.book.addict (talk) 23:20, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

No problem 42. I do understand the meaning of passed, but had at first no idea how you would knew this and got confused. And did not think you would be affected by my question. A bit long essay from the previous commenter ;-) But fine with a littele context. Seems like he is also Danish, like me, given that he wrote some Danish lines...? --Kynde (talk) 07:55, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Nej undskyld. Skyd skylden på en populær hjemmeside*. Du har et dejligt land, men mit ene besøg var som barn (da man havde verdens eneste forlystelsespark lavet af plastikmursten!), og jeg kunne aldrig mere dansk end et par vitale ord som "ja", " nej" og "kartoffelmos"... :p 172.71.178.77 10:23, 17 April 2024 (UTC) ((* - checked the reversal; fiddled with it a bit; had to overrule it to specifically say 'brick(s)', not 'stone', presuming that would be more correct! ;) Anyway, just FYI. Ignorer mig!))

Ha ha. Well you made a visit to Legoland. :-) Hope you enjoyed it. Have been there many times. It is called: Legoklodser. --Kynde (talk) 11:32, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Ah found it my self here. --Kynde (talk) 07:43, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

I have blocked Mark Hurds account now. --Kynde (talk) 07:47, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Does this wiki have a deceased tag like on Wikipedia? Or a way to deactivate their account without blocking? I can't find markhurd's page so I don't know if thats something you did. But if thats not an avalible option, that would be a nice thing for the admins or buracrats add, as a more respectful way to deactivate their acount, instead of blocking them. :) Apollo11 (talk) 15:36, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Also 42, I'm very sorry for your loss. Apollo11 (talk) 15:36, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

I have left a message on User:Markhurd saying he has "passed", do not think there is a dedicated tag for this. Also if there was or I'm not the one to make it. --Kynde (talk) 07:55, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

main page protection

can you protect the main page, like how 42.book.addict asked on the admin request community portal? 172.71.155.39 21:21, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Done. I had hoped it was a one time problem. It can now only be changed by admins. --Kynde (talk) 07:51, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Linking from another wiki

Hi, Over on a different wiki's homepage, I'm maintaining a list of wikis about webcomics on "good" hosts (independent or Miraheze, no Fandom). Would you be okay with me listing your wiki? 183231bcb (talk) 22:12, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Hi. I'm not quite sure where you would put a link. But I see no problems with links to this page, as it is a page for people who wish to get help understanding (or help with explaining) xkcd which is public. So not really sure you need any permission to link to this page. I'm not in any way the owner of this page, just an admin. Feel free to link though.--Kynde (talk) 14:02, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

If I can perhaps try to help both of you (forgive me for butting in)...

Minor markup problems were made with the initial request. "...I'm maintaining keeping a list of wikis about webcomics..." should be the intended link, and way of linking it. (If I've done it right!) It's a simple request to make reference to our site here (not 'page', that might be confusing) and though there's really nothing to stop them, I for one thank them for asking, and also complement them on their good taste! :p

We don't really have an established place to make a reciprocal gesture, nice as that might be. We have a bit or two that documents Randall's own "Other webcomics I like" elements, but that's more just a matter of record (if he adds something there, we'll add it here).

It might be interesting to have a Community-area page where contributors can place such suggestions, but by the very nature of our broad church of viewers I could see that being a bit uncontrollable. We do have people linking (relevent) other sites in Explanation pages, ones that may seem relevent in the Talk/Discussion contributions and of course a User page is that user's own to (within reason!) set up any kind of webcomic directory they wish (hey, with a bit of clever <(no)include(only)> tagging, they can maintain it there and perhaps let it show up, transcluded, somewhere that the Community is happy to put it, for as long as it looks like this person is doing a decent job of maintaining it).

...but that's beyond the request by 183231bcb (which I think I'm right in saying that Kynde has no problems with, to project what I think is meant above by both of you).

And, to clarify, yes this isn't "Kynde's wiki", as such. The hoster/maintainer is someone else (and not Randall), it's rather a bit more of a community effort in a public square set up in the distant past by generally absent landlords. That said, Kynde is a worthy moderator/admin/whatever and currently active (others exist, and some occasionally pop by as required), and - if you accept this long-time anon-IP's word - I would say he's not a bad choice to check with on this issue. Might be quicker to get a yay/nay response than putting it out to general comment. (For those who check the possible appearance of such a request for general comment!) And, still hoping I'm not putting wrong words into mouths here, that response is "yay", so hey..! (I imagine it's not going to be as problematic as being slashdotted, which would be my only reservation. Even so, being slashdotted (or the modern equivalent) is something we have no control over.)

Now it's up to everyone as to what to do about it. Barring anyone else having an opinion, first! Let what happens happen, eh? (I've only briefly looked at the PTW, so rar, but maybe I'll get to see what your lot's focal strip is doing as well, later. Nice to know there's others who avoid Fandom-type sites!) 172.70.90.48 15:38, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your input. Now I know where it would go. I can see no reason not to put a link to a public page and telling you like it. But as said above we do not reciprocal the gesture. --Kynde (talk) 07:27, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Hi,

Thank you. My initial request was just if you minded me linking to you: a returning link from here to PTW would be beyond my initial request (but of course I would be happy if you did!) 183231bcb (talk) 15:07, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Your welcome, can see you have added the link. We do not have anywhere to make such a link, and it is not a personal page. But at least you page will be linked from this chat :-) --Kynde (talk) 05:21, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Setting up emails

Hey Kynde, I have a question about setting up emails on this wiki. Seeing as you’re the only admin, I hope that you can help me and I don’t need to invoke Jeff. I want to set up my gmail so that I can see when my talk page and community portals are edited (due to academic workloads, I now check my email more than ExplainXKCD), but the wiki doesn’t send out my confirmation email. Could you please advise on this? Thanks. 42.book.addict (talk) 22:22, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Hi "The answer to the ultimate question about everything" :-)

I'm sorry I probably have to disappoint you, because I'm not very technical minded and I really have no idea how these things work. I got admin because I use the wiki allot and actually read comments. I also got an e-mail alert from your post. Although I actually saw it here on explain before I now checked to see if the e-mail alert had arrived.

I guess you have tried to enter your e-mail under Preferences, User profile in the Email options at the bottom? I tried to change my e-mail last year, without success. So maybe this system do not work anymore? So in order to fix this we would need to either get hold of Jeff, very difficult or User:Davidy22, very hard. I will post a message on your talk page to see if you get a message. Just to make sure it doesn't work without the confirmation. --Kynde (talk) 06:27, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

nope, didn’t get an email. thanks for trying though! 42.book.addict (talk) 15:19, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

Blocking ColorfulGalaxy

Hi Kynde. While doing some maintenance work, I found a user by the name of ColorfulGalaxy. Their user page is filled with dead links and they seem to be abusing multiple accounts for “neology uploads”. Abuse of multiple accounts is a blockable offense. If you agree to block them, I will see that as permission to categorise the page into the Pages to delete Category. Thanks! 42.book.addict (talk) 21:11, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Seems suspicious. I have no time to address it right now. Can you help me understand what his offense is? Has he done anything other things wrong than the many dead link on his own page. How do you know he has multiple accounts? I'm interested in helping stopping this if it is a problem for this wiki. But would also not like to block a user just because he is making a mess of his own page. --Kynde (talk) 12:56, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I can give you direct proof that was given not less than 24 hours ago. A user by the name of ConscriptGlossary made a post on Talk:1412: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with alongside the account ClassicalGames in regards to their Neology Wiki back in July, then announced that it was shut down just a couple hours ago. If you go to ClassicalGames’s talk page, you can see multiple accounts, all with C___G___ usernames. I’ve checked and it’s not a simple signature change. Finally, if you go to ColorfulGalaxy’s talk page, the apparent “main account”, you will see a thread where several anon accounts try some sense into this kid about his “Neology wiki”, with him giving nonsensical answers. It seems that they have created an army of accounts, use it to talk to himself, and “upload pictures” to his neology wiki, which isn’t even hosted on ExplainXKCD. I hope that this is enough proof. 42.book.addict (talk) 15:34, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

If you want other reasons, their messages about the “neology wiki” can be considered as advertising for an external website and being off topic, both of which are not allowed on ExplainXKCD. 42.book.addict (talk) 17:02, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Great thanks. Are there then more than one account that should be blocked then and not just ColorfulGalaxy? --Kynde (talk) 07:06, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

As someone who originally (and sporadically since) called out "the CGs" for obvious "multi"ing, I'm really not too bothered about 'merely' using multiple logins (and obviously also non-logins) for most purposes. I did try to stop the excessive redlinking, at one point, but you can see how long that lasted (and which user(s) kept popping in to make more edits).

But all over the place you'll find various accounts editing various CG-'owned' pages (or prior comments) that acted as if they were the owner, but strictly weren't. Even to the extent of deleting my suggestions that there were such things going on (guilty conscience!)...

Realistically, it would take some digging, checking both page histories and contribution histories, cross-referencing the obvious-at-the-time links to see if they look like they're remnants of all this kind of activity. I actually don't think it's worth it (though I do think the mostly red-linked page should be neutered, like I once tried to do).

...oh, and... 42.book.addict ... you're doing a lot of editing at the moment (a lot trying to undo what you unwisely once did). It's dizzying! Calm down a bit, maybe? ;) 141.101.99.52 09:42, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Oops, sorry! I’ll take a break. 42.book.addict (talk) 17:10, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

But then there is another group of users whose usernames are comic titles, such as User:Unreliable Connection. 172.69.43.171 09:53, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

This is getting more and more confusing. I'm just a user that was upgraded to admin because no one else was active among the existing admins. I have limited knowledge of the things mentioned here and have never blocked a user. --Kynde (talk) 12:41, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Looked into it and that kind of page should not be here. I have deleted it. If you find other please post. --Kynde (talk) 10:10, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

We tried to do the Neography project on Explain XKCD wiki but got refused. We then created a new website which got sued and shut down. Sorry for the inconvenience. ConscriptGlossary (talk) 09:43, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Are you one of the users that also contains ColorfulGalaxy... If so could you clean up after yourself? Before I have to block and delete? --Kynde (talk) 12:41, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Anyways, ClassicalGames should obviously be banned. ConscriptGlossary (talk) 09:44, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

No. ClassicalGames is a Helper of the States. 172.70.160.209 09:59, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

What does this mean? --Kynde (talk) 12:41, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Fuck ColorfulGalaxy. 172.70.160.209 09:51, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

This seems to be going out of control here. Please refrain from language. --Kynde (talk) 12:41, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Kynde, don't worry. Typical CG-talking-to-themself behaviour. Trying to get a rise.

It's also possible that they were behind a number of other vandalisms, a quick spate of possibly distracting vandalisms, which I've reverted. (The theme seeming to be anti-Taiwan in nature, although ironically never actually used in that way.)

Or else it was a random other prankster, popping up in the midst of this other resurgence. But, either way, you can probably practice your banning upon that account (with absolutely no positive edits), even if you need to consider the whole issue of the CG clan a little more before making a judgement. 172.70.160.209 14:08, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

I added hidden HTML tags to stop them from replacing. ConscriptGuide (talk) 22:49, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

No. Just don't bother. You and that anonymous IP editor who once again decides to delete my highlighting of your multi-user editing habits. (And who practically confirms your actual connection to the original vandalism, as well as that, BTW.) 141.101.99.189 23:39, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Please STOP it. ColorfulGalaxy will be REALLY ANGRY when he comes back seeing his contacts being merged. 172.70.86.53 06:31, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Maybe if he didn’t share accounts with multiple people, that wouldn’t happen. karma! 42.book.addict (talk) 15:17, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Alright, I’m going to try to put back some sanity into this conversation. It appears that this isn’t a case of abuse of multiple accounts, but instead multiple people with access to the same account, some of which try to talk about neology and post dead links, some of which vandalise and make bad edits, and some that make helpful contributions. I say that you can probably ban the vandal accounts without any judgment, and tell the CG clan to get their own accounts, because frankly, it’s confusing to keep up with multiple people making edits on a single account. Since you’re an admin, your words probably carry more weight than us low users and anons. Tell them to either help with the wiki and make helpful contributions or be banned off, because I don’t think anybody else on this wiki cares about neology. But hey, feel free to have a different opinion on this entire mess. YOU’RE the admin, and you get to make the final call. Sincerely, 42.book.addict (talk) 15:12, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the good detective work. See below. --Kynde (talk) 10:33, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Reply from the admin to the above

Based on all the above I have written to ColorfulGalaxy and told about the suggestion to block the account.
I then wrote basically the same to these accounts:

• User talk:ClassicalGames
• User talk:ConscriptGlossary
• User talk:ConscriptGuide
• User talk:ChristmasGospel
• User talk:ConlangGuide

Let me now if there are more C___G___ accounts that needs the same message.

Then based on a comment on "users whose usernames are comic titles, such as User:Unreliable Connection" I have reacted to those as well. I have deleted two pages that were "copies" of the comics they where named after. And I have warned that we do not wish users to take exact comic title names. And also not to make their pages into copies of explanations with links etc. I have deleted two such pages and warned these three users:

• User_talk:Memo_Spike_Connector
• User talk:Unreliable Connection
• User talk:Missed Connections
• User talk:Python

If they do not reply I will delete those accounts. Let me know if there are more accounts doing this that needs this warning. --Kynde (talk) 10:32, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Ban them all except User:ClassicalGames. The most secure solution is to BAN ALL THE CHINESE USERS. That country is the most prolific source of spam. Yes, that includes User:X. K. C. D.. 172.71.26.55 13:25, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

My philosophy: base it upon their actions, not any other form of broad profiling. Where the piss is being taken (or outright spamvertising occurs), let the community deal with it and the admin(s, ideally!) can tidy up the messiest messes as necessary.

Bear in mind that getting no reply from a dormant account might not mean permanent dormancy/orphanship, and that plenty of well-intended accounts could be liable to removal by that standard. And persistent offenders can always find other ways to be persistent, anyway (the price of being openly editable is the occasional storm in a teacup), but clear misrepresentations and subversions can definitely be handled as and when. 172.70.162.142 14:43, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Don't forget User:Python. 141.101.98.11 22:38, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks done the same as above, and adding it to the list above for my convinience --Kynde (talk) 06:49, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Then there's a group of users who has character's name, such as User:Megan and User:Danish. 172.70.85.111 22:41, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

A clear distinction there, between inspiration/homage and LARPing. With something like this being a strange middle-ground. Thus best to deal only with what they do. 162.158.74.24 23:16, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

What is LARPing? 172.70.163.98 02:22, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

"Live Action Role Play(ing)". Like tabletop roleplaying (e.g. D&D, or any other genre) with character sheets/figures, but done in a wider setting (handy bit of woodland, around the university campus, etc) actually physically performing the encounters, with or without degrees of CosPlay and freeform make-believe mixed in with adjudicating 'dice roll' type GMing, depending upon the setup.

In this kind of usage, though, generally refers to fronting as something you are not. Could be applied to "catphishing", but generally more claiming (or heavily implying) to be some kind of person, or have some kind of expertise/experience, behind your internet persona, that goes beyond the necessary fronting that any particular forum encourages.

Might be common for a 14yo boy to turning up pretending to have experience deployed in the military, to set up a straw-man political view opposite to their own, to be a 'working woman'. (Or, conversely, anyone else could take on the 14yo boy 'role', for whatever reason.) In some places, the tolerance for (and expectations of) this are such that you can just 'be' whoever you present yourself as, but (when you step over a line) you can be dismissed by others (who may or may not be doing the same thing) as merely LARPing. (Or someone being relatively genuine can be, in error or as a put-down.)

Generally, the kind of places that adopted the term (for this) aren't openly fans of the original LARPers, it's a double-edged (dwarf-forged, elf-wielded) sword of an insult that implies a general disregard of both the anonymous 'character actor' (or supposed to be) in front of them and also those who "run around, cosplaying elves in the woods". But the general indication of the former that it suggests has spread a bit wider to less antagonistic and generally misanthropic fora.

In the above context, it seems to apply to any serious attempt to convey oneself as a site 'official' (based upon terms for admin, a variation upon "xkcd" or named for explainxkcd's "<number> <comic name>" own pages; or even aping Randall himself) by 'cleverly' picking a suitable free-form username. Different from the fan-based decision to take the username of <insert favourite character here> as a clearly fictional 'avatar' identity, without claiming any more than that.

Seems there is no easy way to deal with this... --Kynde (talk) 09:18, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

There never is. You have the power and the responsibility to make and enact judgement calls, though. (No pressure!) If I were in your position (but still my longer history here), I'd probably have previously shut down the comic-copy pages/accounts. But I've been an admin-type before (BBS era) and know the kind of power-mad tendencies that can emerge, too (in my case, minor little tricks I played on the 'locals'... honest!) so I can fully appreciate your measured restraint. Hope I'm not making it worse, though, in describing how you can do far more (or less!), if you wanted to, without much in the way of voices (qualifiedbones and, unlike me at whatever-IP-I-am-right-now, at least partially of account) to double-check.

Sense the tone of the community and then set that tone yourself. That's the best way to continue. Ignore long-winded old farts like me (or, rather, don't take random-IP words as gospel; at least think about it for yourself - including this bit!) but work out where the harmonious mid-point might be and gently (except when it is necessary to be rough...) wrangle everything generally towards that wide river channel in which it is all neither too anarchic nor too locked-down. Easy! ;) 172.70.91.28 11:29, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. I do not have the time to go through all peoples changes. SO I basically only react when people write here. But at least it is more than other admins in general... --Kynde (talk) 06:49, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Banning powers are needed

Hi Kynde, could you block this user? They have been vandalising the wiki and appears to be the same IP user who thinks that Randall supports genocide. Thanks. 42.book.addict (talk) 18:10, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Done.--Kynde (talk) 06:11, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Hi, sorry for bothering you again. Can you please block Billywilliamss12? Seems to be an ordinary case of spamtervising. 42.book.addict (talk) 16:59, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Done, although you made it difficult with a spelling error in the link... I have fixed it, but you could have spotted the red link ;) --Kynde (talk) 21:35, 14 October 2024 (UTC):

Please block 👉🍆🍑💦🥵 🥵 🥵 🥵 🥵 🥵 🥵 🥵 🥵 🥵 🥵 🥵 🥵 🥵 🥵œ∑´®†©ƒ®∂´®†¥˙©ƒ∂´®†¥˙©ƒ∂´®†¥©ƒ∂®🖕 🖕 🖕 🖕 🖕 🖕 🖕 🖕 🖕 and Whocaresatptbh. Thank you! 42.book.addict (talk) 20:12, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Done --Kynde (talk) 05:27, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

User Page vandalism

Hi Kynde, could you please protect my user page to only be edited by autoconfirmed users? I've been receiving 7 incidents of vandalism on my user page over the past 24 hours. 42.book.addict (talk) 03:32, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Done and reverted the last vandalism. --Kynde (talk) 08:50, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Hi Kynde, I would strongly recommend protecting your own User Page and Discussion page to stop vandals from vandalising them. I would also like to request protecting my discussion page, as I’ve been getting hit with vandalization 9 times after you protected my user page. If possible, I would also strongly recommend preventing IPs from editing all user pages and discussion pages for some time (maybe a month) (I don’t actually know if this is possible or not). 42.book.addict (talk) 22:15, 23 October 2024 (UTC)