2764: Cosmological Nostalgia Content

	Welcome, Beanie, to explain xkcd!
	Be sure to give our FAQ a read so that you can learn to participate as effectively as possible. If you are interested in editing the wiki, you can help reduce the number of incomplete explanations and transcripts. See the Wikipedia pages on editing if you are new to editing wikis in general. Browse all the xkcd comics by navigating the category tree at Category:Comics. Check out our community portal for general chit-chat about the site and xkcd. Remember to sign with --~~~~ when leaving a comment.

— The 𝗦𝗾𝗿𝘁-𝟭 ^{talk stalk} 16:38, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Adding the title text to the transcript

Hi, I am curious. What is your motivation for this monster project to add the title text to more than 2400 comics? It is always already found in the page. --Lupo (talk) 13:40, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

The transcript includes the whole comic, so I believe it should include the title text. Beanie (talk) 14:08, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Also, I don't have a whole lot else to do. Beanie (talk) 14:30, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Hi there Beanie, thanks for all your contributions to explain xkcd! Just wanted to mention a couple things before you continue your ambitious project of adding the title text to all the transcripts, in case this saves you a bit of effort.

• Currently, I believe the site policy is to not include the title text in the transcript, as mentioned in the Editor FAQ.
• There was recently a brief discussion about it in the community portal. As I understand it, the rationale for the transcript is to include a textual representation of the graphical text in the comic (so that it can be searched, for example); but the title text is already represented textually (below the comic image), so for this purpose it would be redundant in the transcript, and I believe that's the reasoning behind the current policy.

I, for one, certainly appreciate the title text that Randall adds to the comics; but FWIW, even according to Randall himself in his talk at Dartmouth College, the joke in the title text should never be critical to the main joke in the comic – i.e. the comic should work on its own, even if the title text didn't exist. I'm not saying you can't add the title text to the transcript, nor that you shouldn't – for instance, as you mentioned, maybe the title text ought to be considered as part of the comic, and so maybe it should be included in the transcript. But just letting you know that the current policy is to omit it, so you might want to discuss it in the community portal and make sure everyone's on-board before putting in a bunch of effort on it, only to have someone else come along and undo all your hard work. Cheers, and thanks again for all your contributions to the site! – Yfmcpxpj (talk) 03:36, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Well, thanks for clearing it up :) Beanie (talk) 09:25, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Knit Cap

Hi Beanie

Nice with the Knit Cap page, however, during the time of the Lorenz comic it was agreed upon in this community that Knit Cap was a woman in that comic! So I disagree with the page you made calling her a he... --Kynde (talk) 13:17, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

But the official transcripts said 'a guy in a knit cap' D: Beanie ^talk 13:21, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Well, in the other comics where Knit Cap has long hair, the transcripts always refer to them as 'A guy in a knit cap'. Lorenz's transcript is more about the structure. Beanie ^talk 13:26, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

It is actually a perfectly cromulent word...

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/glintingly ...just sayin'. 172.70.90.173 23:26, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Fine then :p Beanie ^talk 23:27, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Mdashes

Keep going, if you want. I find it awkward on this device to put in mdashes (except by using "—", which is inefficient), so I'll hyphen it and accept someone converting it later. Not that you've changed any that I recognise as being mine, originally, yet. And you're preserving the spaces... as long as you don't convert legitimate "…this - and that…" to "…this—and that…", I'm happy. ;) 172.70.162.5 01:20, 25 February 2022 (UTC) (PS., I'm also the guy who wrote the above section. :-p I'd forgotten I'd told you that, but I see you continue to be of good humour!)

"That sentence was redundant, as that's the entire reason why categories exist. I'll be doing this for the other comics now too."

Technically correct, and I have no intention of reversing this/others, but it's really more a "this is a further example of (category)" style comment which is exceedingly common and relevent in narrative explanations. Some things (being one of the Wednesday Comics) need have no mention, except when it's one of the unusual ones. That it features a given character is probably not special (save for in-text link to their character page).

At some point you get to "This is a further example of a Cursed Connector" usefulness in the Explanation, in addition to the respective category being found buried in the extensive footer list. And I (not that my opinion is authoritative!) thought the gist of the Interviews comment headed in that direction.

Having seen all the recent edits done (linknit to Category rather than the list of direct cross-article references), I wonder if the editor(s) who did that might feel a bit miffed at the excision of their own work. (From here on the sidines, I can sympathise with both your and their POVs, though obviously I tend to theirs a bit more.) 172.71.242.190 13:50, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

You are correct about comments denoting a comic's inclusion in a category being common, but there are a lot of categories. It's not possible nor necessary to mention which categories each comic are in, so where is the line drawn?

Your point about editors' work being removed is a little odd though. Isn't that the entire point of wikis? Beanie ^talk 11:30, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

YOU. SIGNIFICANT USER OF THIS WIKI.

DO YOU FW PALESTINE?

172.70.90.207 13:21, 5 September 2024 (UTC)