explain xkcd talk:Community portal/Proposals

This page is an archive of discussions from explain xkcd:Community portal/Proposals. Note: This page is kept for historical purposes. Do not alter it except to archive new discussions.

XKCD Store link

I think there should be a link to the XKCD store on the left-hand navigation bar, just under "Main page". We don't want to inadvertently cost Mr Munroe money and force him back to his day job instead of drawing more XKCD :-) --SurturZ (talk) 20:23, 2 August 2012 (EDT)

I don't see a prominent store link on the blog, so I'll wait for Jeff's input before adding that one. If we do add it, should we phrase the link "XKCD store"? --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 20:27, 2 August 2012 (EDT)

[1] - I'm cool with it, but maybe we put links to both xkcd and the xkcd store on the left, would be weird just to have the store link right? --Jeff (talk) 20:01, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

Heh, yeah. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 20:12, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

Moved from Talk:Main Page. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 00:42, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

I added both. I'm not quite sure about their placement, though - having them beneath the "Community portal" makes logical sense but doesn't look that great. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 01:42, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

I don't think the store link should be that prominently displayed. The sidebar is important real estate, and we should put only the most essential links there. There's no reason we'd need have the XKCD store link readily available on every page. I suggest removing it from there and adding it somewhere on the wiki (we could have a page about it, for example, and place it in the meta category). --Waldir (talk) 12:36, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

Good call, Waldir - I agree. Seems a little ostentatious over there. --Jeff (talk) 12:13, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I'll remove it then. --Waldir (talk) 14:12, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Centralize discussion?

There seem to be three main places for discussion about the wiki, and we need to centralize these so people can all be in sync and prevent having a mess nobody can navigate. I suggesting redirecting this page (talk:Main Page) to the Community portal, and add a large notice to Jeff's talk page also suggesting using the Community portal instead. Current discussions can be moved there. What do you think? --Waldir (talk) 16:07, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

Seems a good idea to me. --SlashMe (talk) 17:00, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

There are some suggestions on how to organize the community portal here (basically using subpages for different purposes, similar to Wikipedia's various Village pumps). Please comment :) --Waldir (talk) 17:04, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

I agree - my talk page is probably not the best place for general wiki discussion, this is better, but best to keep everything together! --Jeff (talk) 20:10, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

I'm importing wikipedia:Template:Village pump to set something like that up. I'll put a working draft in place, feel free to modify as needed, ofc. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 21:24, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

Moved from Talk:Main Page. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 00:46, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

Site logo

Summary of current proposals:

---

The main image (top left of the wiki) is not the best image ever. You really need to update it.

Maybe:

Just an idea, because that text looks weird, or at least please add a transparent background instead of white for the logo (and center the text). --Grep (talk) 21:39, 1 August 2012 (EDT)

I like it. What does everyone else think? (PS - don't forget to sign your entries on this page!) --Jeff (talk) 21:18, 1 August 2012 (EDT)

I could go with that. Had been kicking around some ideas, and if I had any artistic aptitude, it might have looked very much like that: the black-hat retort; alternately: the lowercase blue xkcd that RM uses (sans comic figure watermark) with a "Explain" in a hand-written typeface in some other color splashed across the top left part of those letters. And yes, definitely with transparency. Just thoughts... ultimately, whatever the consensus is... IronyChef (talk) 01:51, 2 August 2012 (EDT)

Something like one of the following?

--Grep (talk) 12:40, 2 August 2012 (EDT)

I like that first one - File:wiki.png. And perhaps use that same text for the Tagline? --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 19:50, 2 August 2012 (EDT)

Yeah, the first one captures what I was thinking. I thought I'd download it to tweak it a bit, and quickly proved to myself how unartistic I am. I was thinking the xkcd pretty much overwhelming the bottom (touching all three sides) and the explain (first typeface) in tight, maybe at a 5 degree angle over the x and k. Of course envisioning it is one thing, realizing it another (it may be totally unrealistic...) but I toss that out for further consideration. -- IronyChef (talk) 00:25, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

Hmmm, rereading Philosopher's comment, I think he and I may have been talking about two different images. Ooops. Anyway, was just chatting with a buddy who is more artistic than I am, and he created this mashup. He suggested: "Establish some vocabulary. First, xkcd needs to be bigger; it defies describing, and refuses to be pidgeon-holed into a box, so the xkcd needs to be so big that it doesn't fit entirely in-frame ... the Explain part has got to be casual, to represent the wiki and informal nature of contributing to it, and you gotta have it in close, because the contributors are going to get as close as they can to the truth. And keep it simple." (I broke with that, and tried to add the black hat; in doing so, I think I trashed transparency, tough) Anybody think that's worth taking a run with it? -- IronyChef (talk) 01:04, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

   y
   o
   u
   '
 w r
ei e
xkcd
piau
l um
a sb
i e
n

Moved from User talk:Jeff. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 00:37, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

I prefer the first option (file:wiki.png). At the size the logo is meant to be, it's perfectly readable; furthermore, it's visually pleasant and it conveys the meaning well. We'll need it to be transparent, and editing the file at the current size produces sub-optimal results. Grep, could you please generate a transparent version of it and reupload it to overwrite the current image? --Waldir (talk) 05:14, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

Slight problem. I don't have the original "it's cause your dumb," I just copied it from explainxkcd.com header, and trying to remove the whitespace myself makes, well, suboptimal results. The font used was Heiti SC/TC, if you or anybody else wants to make it themselves. Also, maybe using #6e7b91 for the XKCD or something... it's the color RM uses on the home page.

I have uploaded a high res version of File:Wiki.png. Not exactly the same, but similar. I used FreeSans and a xkcd font I found at the xkcd forum. I still have the SVG version.--SlashMe (talk) 10:57, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

or

I suggest the two above this comment. Both of these are designs be me. The first one has a nice xkcd logo-text that features many of the main characters. I personally think that it looks better aesthetically. The second one is a globe that is kind of a nod to wikipedia. The ballon is there because that seems to be an often reappearing theme in xkcd. Now I really need to make a note of this, but xkcd should be in lower case letters unless it begins a sentence. This error exists almost everywhere on this wiki, but we should try to keep it out of the logo (http://xkcd.com/about/ for proof). Also I think that the logos that just say "explain xkcd" are too simple and kind of borring. The use of both black and blue additionally bothers me. Alek2407 (talk) 07:37, 5 August 2012 (EDT)

I agree. I like the first one best, but Megan's hair could be tweaked a little because it doesn't look a lot like her right now. Do you think you could do that? --Waldir (talk) 08:31, 5 August 2012 (EDT)

Alek2407 (talk) 06:56, 6 August 2012 (EDT)

That's perfect :D I vote for this one. --Waldir (talk) 07:12, 6 August 2012 (EDT)

By the way: could you make the background transparent instead of white? --Waldir (talk) 07:12, 6 August 2012 (EDT)

✓ Done We have a winner. Alek2407 - I'll leave a message on your contact page, but please email that logo to me with a transparent background. --Jeff (talk) 15:31, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Sent. 16:42, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

I've rescaled the image (poorly) and i have asked Alek for a smaller version. --Jeff (talk) 03:25, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Remember it needs to be transparent as well. Also, I point you again to the suggestions I made below regarding how to properly setup the site logo. Replacing the image server-side is actually recommended against by MediaWiki documentation. --Waldir (talk) 10:51, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Waldir, I'm going to have Alek keep it transparent (MS Paint is all I have and it kills transparency... ugh) and when he gets me the final one, I'll change the field and not just replace the wiki.png directly. --Jeff (talk) 12:25, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

+1 for MS Paint :) Brings me good memories... --Waldir (talk) 18:37, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I've always loved the "It's cause you're dumb" motto of the Explain xkcd blog, which furthermore is (to my knowledge) original to this website, so I strongly recommend a variant of file:wiki.png for the logo. "explain xkcd" (and probably "the wiki" as well) should, I believe, be written with the very same typeface and case (ie full lowercase) than in the header image displayed on top of http://explainxkcd.com. - Cos (talk) 12:31, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

I wasn't sure if Alek was going to do this or not, so I made a transparent copy of the logo and resized it to the optimal 135x135 pixels myself. Here it is (aaaand, another captcha!). Omega ^{Talk • Contribs} 09:50, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I uploaded the image as a new version of File:Logo.png, so when Jeff does the configuration changes, the site logo should be automatically updated. --Waldir (talk) 11:34, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Naming conventions

Wanted to start a discussion here on naming conventions, and two items come to mind:

1. The name of Randall's site: XKCD or xkcd or Xkcd? I noticed that there, it's always written lowercase, when shown in uppercase, it's because it's in a small-caps or all-caps typeface. Should we follow suit?
2. What is the name of this site? Explain XKCD, or ... ? Ultimately, I think this is Jeff's call, but I'm guessing the outcome may hinge on how we address the first question.

Should we normalize the references here to some convention, or leave the matter alone? I know that personally, I've always been writing lowercase xkcd, and usually using {{xkcd}} to link to the site (as in xkcd ) to maximize links back to the site. Thotz? == IronyChef (talk) 22:08, 5 August 2012 (EDT)

For 1, I think there is no discussion needed, Randall makes this clear here: How do I write "xkcd"?. I already started changing some of the instances of all caps XKCD into lowercase xkcd on the wiki, but there are some places (such as in the logo, in the Explain XKCD namespace name, etc) that will require server access to fix. --Waldir (talk) 05:16, 6 August 2012 (EDT)

Regarding 2, I was wondering the same when I started lowercasing xkcd. "Explain XKCD" makes more sense when xkcd is capitalized, but it looks a little weird IMO as "Explain xkcd". Maybe "explainxkcd"? "explain xkcd"? Or just ignore the initial strangeness and stay with "Explain xkcd"? --Waldir (talk) 05:16, 6 August 2012 (EDT)

I'm 100% with the lowercase conversion of XKCD everywhere, per Randall's explanation (indicated by Waldir). Places where something needs to be done:

• logo
• "Explain XKCD" namespace (this could be tricky)
• site name (the thing that {{SITENAME}} produces ; appears everywhere, see http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:$wgSitename )
• and of course, in the content text (see Special:WhatLinksHere/XKCD for instance)

Cos (talk) 12:19, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Just to give credit where it's due, it was Alek2407 who first raised this problem, above :)

That said, for the namespace change it would be trickier for any of the other default namespaces, but the project namespace can be easily configured by setting $wgMetaNamespace = "Explain xkcd"; in LocalSettings.php. The sitename can likewise be changed by changing, as you mentioned yourself, $wgSitename. It seems there is a consensus so I'll warn Jeff to take a look at that.

The logo definition should be changed from $wgLogo = "$wgStylePath/common/images/wiki.png"; to $wgLogo = "$wgUploadPath/c/c9/Logo.png". I've uploaded the current logo to File:Logo.png (note: even though it is saved with a png extension at http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/skins/common/images/wiki.png, it was actually a jpg file!), and protected the image, so afterwards when we decide on a logo (and should we ever need to make adjustments to it), we can simply upload a new version of that file without needing Jeff to change things server-side. I'll also ask Jeff to perform this change. --Waldir (talk) 15:15, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

This is all phenomenal. I'm down with "explain xkcd". I'll perform the server-side changes tonight. --Jeff (talk) 15:44, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Also, looks like you found out my leet jpg -> png converter aka renaming the file extension! --Jeff (talk) 15:48, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

--Waldir (talk) 16:57, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Spampage Rampage

Hail fellow admins, Jeff, distinguished editors all,

We've just been through a second spike of spam, (the first being around the 1110 Click and Drag comic) so as your friendly Angel of Death to such spammery, I'd like to open the floor to discussion on strategies to deal with the issue.

Personally, I don't mind the role of grim reaper for these miscreants, but I'd also prefer that it doesn't grow in magnitude; of late, I find myself almost exclusively dealing with the matter, leaving little enough time to enjoy the site, let alone contributing to it. Anything we can do to keep things under control would be appreciated.

So far, the spam comes in these flavors:

• One-timers. New users that create their own user page, oddly alike (couldn't be a spam-bot, eh?) always linking to "their" website. By far the biggest percentage of time the scythe falls, it falls on these.
  • Two-timers. A variant of above, except they create one or two additional pages, typically the user's talk page, or a page same as the username, but not in the user namespace. Here too, quickly dispatched across the Styx.
• IPersonators: IP users that create faux user (and other) pages. Second largest group, though this trend has been growing, especially during this recent onslaught.
  • A particularly insidious variant: IPersonators creating or modifying a real users' page. I've been pretty careful, so far, to track down the author, and block them (as opposed to assuming author = user) but I can see how this flavor of spam risks accidental blocking of legit contributors, which would be doubleplusungood.
• Jibberish vandal: Somebody creating content that isn't spam, but just repeated asdf or ghjkl content. Treated as above, though I don't call this spam in the logs. My guess is that this is a spam-bot under development. Fairly infrequent, and addressed using techniques as for above.

There are a few other one-off types, too, which I won't bother elaborating here.

So, the open-ended question stands: What do we do?

1. There has been a suggestion to block IP-only contributors (ie must log in) ... perhaps only on an as-needed basis.
2. Another thought would be to (by some as-yet unspecified means) prevent the creation, or cause the timely deletion, of user pages by other than said user.)
3. Restricting external links (by a similarly as-yet-unspecified means) either to a specified approved white-list, or by a specified set of contributors (must have made more than n edits, for example.)
4. Other thoughts? Let the discussion unfold...

No solution is likely to be perfect; this is a matter of raising the bar to where whatever processed meat can crest over it can be most easily managed... all without being so draconian that we compromise the appeal of the site.

All said, I have no problems with the grim reaper enterprise, but would like to spend more time in the kitchen, and less in the dumpster.

A little postscript to put the issue into perspective: the top four contributors, (as per Active Users as I write this) are as follows:

• Lcarsos [169 edits in the last 30 days]
• Davidy22 [282 edits in the last 30 days]
• Bpothier [298 edits in the last 30 days]
• IronyChef [433 edits in the last 30 days]

I can tell you that of my four-hundred plus edits, only about a dozen have not been spam related. Lcarsos and Davidy22 are two ace spam-seeking deputies, so a large part of their edits involve tagging pages with the spam template, not (as I'm sure they'd prefer) actually chiming in on matters xkcd. The rest of the field: not even close in terms of edit magnitude. -- IronyChef (talk) 15:30, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

I was going to suggest a range block, but the IP addresses com from everywhere. The only pattern I can see is in the 83.<25 range. We could also change the captcha to cut into the bots for a little while. Another suggestion would be to create every explanation page, then mark the unfinished ones with the {{stub}} template, if that exists in this wiki. Then we can block anonymous page creation without having to worry about stopping anonymous users from creating new explanations. We'll have to make a few modifications to the site, to instruct users on how to find pages in need of explanations, but it'll kill all the userpage and self-help spambots. We can figure out how to deal with vandalism later - I would recommend implementing wikipedia's cluebot to automagically roll back page clearing and the like. Davidy22 (talk) 23:16, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Also, we can semi-protect important pages like categories and templates. Chances are, anonymous users aren't familiar enough with wikis to be handling those anyways, and wiki veteran anonymous users will probably make an account. Davidy22 (talk) 09:30, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

... Madame la Guillotine has been busy, dealing with no less than four dozen spammified pages and their attendant contributors in the last hour, to address a third spike in spam. Our hyper-contributing editors have been helping identify these malefactors, so the process has been fairly straight-forward on my part, but it's awfully quiet here....

The top five contributors, as of this writing, are:

• Divad27182 [133 edits in the last 30 days]
• Davidy22 [202 edits in the last 30 days]
• Lcarsos [207 edits in the last 30 days]
• Bpothier [267 edits in the last 30 days]
• IronyChef [537 edits in the last 30 days]

Number six is comes in at less than half of Divad's, and the curve decays precipitiously from there... so this is becoming a call to arms for admins to convene and discuss, or Jeff to anoint other, more active contributors, admin status.

Thoughts?

-- IronyChef (talk) 06:02, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Would it be possible to volunteer to be another admin to move some of the load off of IronyChef? It feels slightly cruel and unusual for him to be the only active admin, and thus ad-hoc in charge of keeping the engines running. lcarsos (talk) 06:16, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Another admin is definitely needed, given the volume of spam. It'd be nice if we could clean out the attic too. Shall we hold a vote? Davidy²²(talk) 06:41, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I only have sporadic time to do edits, so I'd likely not be an ideal choice if there can be only 1 more... --B. P. (talk) 07:19, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

This is yet again great. I'm researching SPAM prevention tools in use on other wikis. Let me know if you have something you think will work. Also, Lcarsos, you are up. Best new admin I can think of. I'm not afraid to add other admins if some (including myself) are less active. Other candidates can be submitted here. --Jeff (talk) 17:53, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm immensely honored that you trust me that much. Thank you, I'll work hard to better the wiki. lcarsos (talk) 18:00, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Tagline

I haven't created MediaWiki:Tagline yet, but we need to think about what to put there. That's the familiar "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." over at Wikipedia - it appears right under the title of each page. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 10:39, 1 August 2012 (EDT)
Moved from Explain XKCD:Community portal --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 00:09, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

I think it's pretty obvious we should keep the "It's cause you're dumb." :) --Waldir (talk) 13:20, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, since there haven't been any objections, I went ahead and added it: Mediawiki:Tagline. --Waldir (talk) 18:46, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Separate discussion page(s)

I think we should create a separate Discuss the wiki page, so that each discussion can go under its own header. I'd suggest setting up a todo list where people can help out. I'd start with a suggestion:

We should be using cleaner urls. Maybe this tool can help setting that up. --Waldir (talk) 05:46, 2 August 2012 (EDT)

Whatever we do decide, I've created {{xkcd}} and {{explain}} templates to create links to the xkcd site and other explanations here on this site; that should factor at least those sites (nice central administration) as well as helping us categorize pages that use them. Was thinking of also {{wiki}} for the same benefit, even if there's already a prefix built into mediawiki... the only drawback is the bias toward the en side... IronyChef (talk) 10:31, 2 August 2012 (EDT)

I'm liking the idea of creating a Discuss the wiki page - I'll start one if someone doesn't/hasn't beat me to it and add it to the sidebar. I'd asked for better URLs at User talk:Jeff#Robots.txt, though I didn't know what they were called. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 17:17, 2 August 2012 (EDT)

I also like the idea of the {{xkcd}} tags. On a related note, I've imported {{tl}}.  :-) I also realize we don't have a secure server here, but I'd support the best practice of beginning URLs with protocol-relative links ( // instead of http:// or https:// ) anyway, especially since the xkcd website itself appears to be https-compatible.Nevermind, it doesn't seem to be. So I guess it doesn't matter. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 22:40, 2 August 2012 (EDT)

Maybe we can create a subpage of the community portal for the wiki discussion. What do you think? --Waldir (talk) 04:32, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

Also one for editing coordination (see User:SurturZ/sandbox for instance), another for mediawiki assistance (requests to admins perhaps on the same page, or on a separate one). Any other ideas? --Waldir (talk) 04:41, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

Moved from Explain XKCD:Community portal, may need to be broken out into new headers or sub-headers. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 00:12, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

Great job on creating the subpages! I think the subpages can be made more intuitive for newcomers, though. Here are my subbestions:

• merge "/Design" and "/Proposals" into "/Discuss the wiki" or "/Improve the wiki" or something to that effect.
• rename "/Technical" into "/Tecnical assistance" so it is clear that it should be used for one-off issues rather than coordination of wiki-wide changes (which should go in the section above)
• merge the "/Administrator's noticeboard" above? That would reinforce that adminship is nothing but a set of technical tools to assist the wiki
• New "/Editing coordination" subpage for organizing what to do, maintenance, keeping a TODO list for newcomers to tackle, etc -- essentially like WikiProjects work at Wikipedia.

--Waldir (talk) 04:35, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

As I see this, it would involve mostly just renaming pages. I don't particularly care what the names are, so I won't comment on that.

• I'd like to keep /Administrator's noticeboard for the time being. The primary advantage of this is that administrators can watchlist this and things which need the tools are less likely to get lost in discussion. It can always be deprecated afterwards if it isn't being used enough.
• I'd sort of seen /Design as doing what you're proposing for /Editing coordination, though I didn't explain it as well.

--Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 18:43, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

Ok, I get what you mean with the Admin page. I don't think this wiki is going to be that busy to warrant a separate page, though. But for now, let's at least simplify the name? "Admin requests", for instance :)

And yeah, Design isn't really a good name for content-related coordination. What I'm suggesting here is to have one page for meta (wiki-related) discussion, and another for content-related discussion. Does that make sense? And what name do you think would be good for the former rather than the current, too generic imo, "Proposals"? --Waldir (talk) 19:20, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

"Discuss the wiki" sounds good to me, as does "Admin requests." Or whatever, I guess.  ;-) I may not be online much for the next few days (or much this evening), so go ahead and change it how you think it should be, I guess. Having stable discussion pages sooner than later would be good. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 01:48, 6 August 2012 (EDT)

Ok I changed the admin page name, and merged "design" and "proposals", but for now I left it named "Proposals". I'm not quite confident about the clarity of "Discuss the wiki"... I'll wait until others comment here. --Waldir (talk) 14:06, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm not seeing any further discussion and it's been a few days since the move, so I'm clearing the sitenotice. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 02:38, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Automatic Import

Hi

I created a draft for the comic pages. It's still work in progress, but I'd like to retrieve feedback.

Also, maybe we could autmatically import comics using the JSON data Randall gives us ([2]). This way, we could also include transcripts. --SlashMe (talk) 15:23, 1 August 2012 (EDT)

Hm, I should add a link to my draft: User:SlashMe/Testpage ;-) --SlashMe (talk) 06:54, 2 August 2012 (EDT)

I updated the page, including links to the next/previous comic similar to Template:ComicHeader. I used comic 472, because it has a lot of metadata (link, news, HTML title, etc.). --SlashMe (talk) 07:32, 2 August 2012 (EDT)

Just to remind everyone, I'd be ready to import the comics, but I don't want to until I got more feedback. Please have a look at User:SlashMe/Testpage and tell me your opinion. --SlashMe (talk) 06:02, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

I think your test page looks great. I'm a big fan of it. Any way to fit the text in the text box rather than having it run all the way to the right? --Jeff (talk) 18:19, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

I just made a change concerning line breaks, at least it works in Firefox and Chrome. Could somebody please test it in different versions of Internet Explorer?

If you agree, I would start uploading tomorrow. I'll send you a mail. --SlashMe (talk) 18:31, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

Moved from User talk:Jeff. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 00:38, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

The discussion is now at Explain XKCD:Community_portal/Design#Header template. --SlashMe (talk) 04:20, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

Displaying Comics ✓ Closed

For the home page, I think the comic and explanation should be displayed instead of a link to the comic.

For reasons unknown to me, I decided to create Template:Comicbox and Template:Comicbox2. Looks nice, as long as you use the correct one for the comic.

Go to User:Grep/comicbox and User:Grep/comicbox2 for examples. --grep:talk:applaud:smite

Those're wonderful! And should probably be on the main page. If you wanted, we could probably incorporate them (and maybe a third?) into a single template with a "square/vertical or horizontal" switch. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 21:36, 2 August 2012 (EDT)

Also, you used "comicbox" for the class. Is that a class that's defined somewhere? (And if so, where?) --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 21:36, 2 August 2012 (EDT)

Good point. Removed. And merging them sounds wonderful. --grep:talk:applaud:smite

Maybe merging them into Template:comicbox? --grep:talk:applaud:smite

I think classes are defined at MediaWiki:Common.css, so if you really wanted to define the class.... And Template:Comicbox would probably be best. Did you want to merge them or should I take a look at it? --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 22:25, 2 August 2012 (EDT)

ParserFunctions and any sort of non-XMLish markup is weird. I would rather you look at it. --grep:talk:applaud:smite

Okay, I've moved your templates to {{Comicbox square or vertical}} and {{Comicbox horizontal}} so I can work on {{Comicbox}} as the main one. It may take a while - I like to think of myself as a "master of all known wikimarkup," but I don't actually use those skills that often. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 23:08, 2 August 2012 (EDT)

Thanks. --grep:talk:applaud:smite

I've made it at {{Comicbox}}. This actually leaves {{Comicbox square or vertical}} and {{Comicbox horizontal}} unused, though I credited you (and them) in a comment at the top of the template. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 00:21, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

I think that the explanation should be on the right because it just looks weird as is... --grep:talk:applaud:smite

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Sure. But right now they both look like they're on the bottom? --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 20:02, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

✓ Fixed --grep:talk:applaud:smite

Sans-serif typeface ✓ Closed

I like these, too, but the roman typeface... how do folks feel about sticking with a sans-serif typeface throughout the site? IronyChef (talk) 00:13, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

We should be able to change that wiki-wide through MediaWiki:Common.css, I think. Unfortunately, I don't know enough CSS to do it. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 00:23, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

I believe sans serif is already the default wiki-wide. Those specific instances were deliberately coded to use a serif font. It's just a matter of removing font-family: 'Times New Roman'; from the template. --Waldir (talk) 17:01, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

Oh, I'd missed that. I removed it. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 22:14, 3 August 2012 (EDT)

Moved from User talk:Jeff. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 00:37, 4 August 2012 (EDT)

'Explanation' rather than 'Description'

Can I suggest we use the heading "Explanation" rather than "Description" on the comic pages, since that fits with the name of the wiki? --SurturZ (talk) 09:20, 5 August 2012 (EDT)

Agreed. --Waldir (talk) 14:27, 5 August 2012 (EDT)

Seconded TheHYPO (talk) 14:04, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Randall in Comics

In comic 541 (TED Talk), Randall uses a Cueball character to refer to himself. How should this be included in the Wiki? Cited: http://xkcd.com/541/ AWiseGuy (talk) 21:50, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

I think, since he also seems to appear as himself in 1057: Klout it would be appropriate to create a Category:Comics featuring Randall Munroe and parent it to Category:Comics featuring real people. I'll let you do that. lcarsos (talk) 22:51, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Add explanations for what-if.xkcd.com

A new sub-site from Randall calls for new explanations. This might not need quite as much explaining, but it is worthy of reference anyway. --Divad27182 (talk) 16:01, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

I think Randall actually does quite a good job of explaining everything in what-if. If we had a go at it, it would pretty much just be a page with a link to general and special relativity pages of wikipedia. Other than that, he provides links for almost everything he discusses. lcarsos (talk) 18:21, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

But we may want to discuss his topics among ourselves. I am reading the lightning topic today, and wishing I could comment on it or add fragments of my own experience to it.Noni Mausa (talk) 11:32, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

...then you have http://forums.xkcd.com, made exactly for that purpose; in particular: xkcd • View topic - What-if 0016: Lightning.

Don't want to seem unfriendly here, I'm not trying to "get you out of here", it's just that if you want to discuss his topics, comment on it or add fragments of your own experience to it, then I believe that would be the best place for you to do so; and where you could find other people to share it, as well.

Cos (talk) 17:38, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I will go have a look. I'm somewhat of a newbie, quod erat demonstrandum.Noni Mausa (talk) 02:37, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Explain other webcomics too?

How about we explain other webcomics too, e.g. Penny Arcade? --SurturZ (talk) 02:36, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Good god, no. We've barely even finished xkcd. All these explanations pages still need a lick of polish, and there's still heaps of red links in the list of all comics page. Also, the wiki's called explainxkcd. Davidy²²[talk] 02:38, 3 December 2012 (UTC)