Talk:Xkcd/Archive 5

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Notability

Why does this comic deserve an article? It seems at least one other webcomic lost its article due to being disliked (but disguised as a lack of notability). Therefore, for the sake of uniformity, I would like to ask how this webcomic is notable, and why should this article be allowed to exist? I will likely be going through a few webcomic pages and asking the same question. Alchemistmerlin (talk) 05:35, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Try substantial coverage in reliable sources [1][2][3][4]. If you are upset about some article you like getting deleted or some such, I suggest you try WP:Deletion review rather than looking for revenge elsewhere. rʨanaɢ (talk) 05:54, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm not "looking for revenge", seeing as I distinctly dislike the comic in question and enjoy XKCD quite a lot. I'm simply trying to see some consistency here. Alchemistmerlin (talk) 06:17, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

The "consistency" you're talking about is referred to around here as the "what about X?" argument. We do not typically define notability by subject matter, such as "all webcomics are notable" or "all companies with over a hundred employees are notable". We treat them on a case-by-case basis as verified by the presence of reliable secondary sources (the general notability guideline) or by applying some common heuristics which are likely to mean that such coverage exists somewhere (specific sub-guidelines such as WP:ATHLETE). In this case, xkcd has indisputably seen significant coverage from multiple reliable independent sources and has had an established real-world impact which has been noted in such. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:31, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

The xkcd article meets WP:V, the criteria for inclusion in Wikipedia is Verifiability. The article cites over 10 reliable sources that mention XKCD. Notability is easy to establish. In addition, the article is fairly well written and well-sourced; It would not be a legitimate candidate for deletion by any measure. --Mysidia (talk) 02:39, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Nonsense. Utter nonsense. Despite all our high-faluting talk about "policy" and "principle", the truth is that articles get deleted all the danged time for no better reason that "I don't like the subject of that article, and I have the authority to get rid of it, so I am doing so" and you very well know it.JackFloridian (talk) 03:31, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Guess you just showed him. rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:48, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Hat Guy?

Well, I found a transcript looking at the page source of "Actuarial" (#493) and it mentions "Hat Guy" in there too. Just a heads-up.

Newwikiprofile001 (talk) 02:15, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Capitalization scheme of "Xkcd"

I've noticed that in the url of the xkcd page and the url and title of the related talk page, xkcd apprears as "Xkcd". At http://xkcd.com/about/ , Randall answers the following faq,

"How do I write "xkcd"? There's nothing in Strunk and White about this.

"For those of us pedantic enough to want a rule, here it is: The preferred form is "xkcd", all lower-case. In formal contexts where a lowercase word shouldn't start a sentence, "XKCD" is an okay alternative. "Xkcd" is frowned upon."

Is there a reason the form "Xkcd" appears on wikipedia? As Randall says, he prefers first "xkcd" or second "XKCD".

Justin Hammar 174.20.76.63 (talk) 03:37, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

MediaWiki automatically capitalises the first letter of a page's name. Marnanel (talk) 03:39, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions)#Lowercase first letter. Anyway, the page title itself shows up in all lowercase, even if the URL doesn't. rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:41, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Criticism Section?

Could a criticism section be added? This article comes across as a bit fanboyish. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.151.34.110 (talk) 17:03, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Do you have a news article or magazine article that criticizes XKCD? If your intention is to add general unreferenced criticism, the section will quickly be deleted. If you have referenced criticism, that would be something to consider. -- kainaw™ 17:06, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

A section devoted to it? Doubtful. Criticism sections are, by their very name, inherent failures of WP:NPOV, as are sections devoted to praise. Rather, any criticism should be worked into any existing section that is most relevant to it. Melicans (talk, contributions) 17:27, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

And yet fanwankery abounds across Wikipedia. If you want referenced criticism, try the xkcdsucks blog and reference the post about the frequent lack of originality and outright plagiarism.

If there are any parts of this article that are biased in favor of the webcomic, you are welcome to try to make it more neutral. Also, blogs, unfortunately, don't count as reliable sources. TheStickMan^[✆Talk] 17:34, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

If they do not, then is it acceptable to reference the Xkcd comic in question and then follow it up with the plagiarized comic in question? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.245.212.18 (talk) 17:48, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

No, because then that would be original research. TheStickMan^[✆Talk] 17:50, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

xkcd, the book (volume 0), page numbering.

I once found the book in a store, but had, unfortunately, not cash anough to buy it. I did however noted that the page numbering where quite odd, I only saw 0, 1 and 2. Can anyone confirm that the page numbers are trinary coded, or is it some other weighted system? -- Petter, 46.59.8.40 (talk) 21:08, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

It's skew base 2, I think. Have fun figuring it out! Mario777Zelda (talk) 00:00, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

References

The references on this page a a mess. In particular are the references that reference several xkcd comics in one. WHat should be done about them? I'm for splitting them up. Thoughts?--Lord Aro (talk) 12:16, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Just delete them. A "reference" which says "look at these strips for examples" is nothing but original research. We need secondary sources to highlight notable themes. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 06:41, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

XKCD effect

Well, the effect is probably only here, but the article on the null hypothesis went from a steady 1 to 3k traffic, to 143k today, thanks to this XKCD cartoon. Similar to the slashdot effect. I dont know if its been commented on anywhere, though. It is evidence of a large readership.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 17:23, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

The slashdot effect is an effective but unintended DDOS attack on the website mentioned in the slashdot article. The traffic from XKCD doesn't get anywhere close to causing DOS as far as I can tell. I'm not even sure slashdot causes the slashdot effect anymore. -- kainaw™ 20:17, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

I think the xkcd effect should rather be specified as the huge degree to which comics influence themselves. Most common example is probably http://xkcd.com/369/ but http://xkcd.com/903/ also seams to have changed the leads of hundreds of Wikipedia articles, in order to break or improve the philosophy conjecture. --Thomasda (talk) 20:19, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

What Mercurywoodrose is saying is that xkcd cartoon 892 influenced Wikipedia in this way: [5]. Another example: xkcd cartoon 1012 influenced Wikipedia in this way: [6]. Letuño (talk) 16:18, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Philosophy

Someone added a link in the first sentence describing XKCD as a philosophical webcomic and I couldn't figure out why...until I remembered the hover message from the May 25th comic said that if you started at any article and clicked the first link that wasn't parenthesized or italicized and repeated you'd eventually reach the article philosophy. RJFJR (talk) 13:30, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Albert Einstein --> Theoretical physics --> Mathematical model --> System --> Element (mathematics) --> Mathematics --> Quantity --> Property --> Modern philosophy --> Philosophy

Britney_Spears --> McComb,_Mississippi --> Pike_County,_Mississippi --> County_(United_States) --> U.S._state --> Federated_state --> [Constitution]] --> State_(polity) --> Government --> Legislators --> Legislature --> Deliberative_assembly --> Organization --> Social_group --> Social_sciences --> Field_of_study --> Knowledge --> Fact --> Proof_(truth) --> Argument --> Philosophy

Atlas_Rocket --> Intercontinental_ballistic_missile --> Ballistic_missile --> Missile --> Military --> Use_of_force --> Conflict_resolution --> Social_conflict --> Agency_(sociology) --> Social_sciences --> Field_of_study --> Knowledge --> Fact --> Proof_(truth) --> Argument --> Philosophy

Illia Connell (talk) 05:55, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

This talk page is not the appropriate place to present this kind of original research (and frankly, many, many, many people have investigated this before, see Wikipedia:Get to Philosophy). Regards, HaeB (talk) 11:29, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I probably don't have much say on this, but since that is in no way non-factual, (and I'm certain a source can be found with Munroe using that percise term in description of his comic) shouldn't it be left in, if only to humor the fans? 67.167.194.192 (talk) 15:16, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

No. Wikipedia's purpose isn't to humor fans. Mark Shaw (talk) 15:53, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Besides, a source with Munroe's statement would prove nothing at all. He has no credibility in regards to how Wikipedia works, no matter how many jokes he makes about it. And the philosophy thing got old fast (At least, it got old if you were watching this page and stopping people from adding it). TheStickMan^[✆Talk] 16:55, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

It is certainly factual, have you tried clicking on the first link? It has to do with how life and the knowledge of the world is all directly linked to philosophy, more than how Wikipedia works, its a philosophical thing all in itself. We must leave it. 5:23 25 Jan 2012 (UTC)

Comic

Can we replace the comic at the top with this image instead?

http://xkcd.com/978/

seems more appropriate? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.82.169.122 (talk) 18:04, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

A one-panel comic is preferred because a four-panel comic would squeeze out the article if it was large enough to read. If it was shrunk down, nobody would be able to read it. -- kainaw™ 19:06, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

group="‡" to dispute {{primary sources}}

Currently we can see at the top of the article {{primary sources}}. To be able to see if that is true, I added group="‡" to most <ref> tags associated with xkcd or Randall Munroe.

For example: <ref name="xkcd240" group="‡">.

In this way it will be easy to separate actual references. Initially there were 118 references; now there are 74 references and 44 affiliated references. Several comics remain in the "References" part, and therefore I expect the numbers to balance even more. When the work is finished a simple inspection of the "References" section will say if {{primary sources}} is deserved or not. Letuño (talk) 14:34, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

This scheme has the advantage of directing the readers exactly to the reference they need, as in the following example

Running the following code is an easter egg in Python 3.0: import antigravity, inspired by the strip "Python".^{[‡ 48][38]}

Reference ‡48 is the comic and reference 38 is the easter egg in Python 3.0. Letuño (talk) 15:27, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

April Fools Pranks

Could we create a section of XKCD April Fools pranks? For example:

• In 2010, XKCD was replaced with a unix terminal styled webpage called uniXKCD.
• In 2011, XKCD became 3D, and was called XK3D.

Sadly, that's all I've seen. I'd like to find more, but I can't find the right keywords to search for them. A new one should be available Sunday, though. At least in theory, since comics don't update on Sunday.

--NickNackGus (talk) 20:38, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Despite the fact that several tags were recently removed from this article, it is still based too much on primary sources (i.e., the comics themselves.) Please find reliable, secondary sources which report on these "April Fools pranks" in order to establish their notability and due weight in the article. Elizium23 (talk) 22:59, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

• The strip of April 2, 2012 would display differently depending on the viewer's location, web browser, browser window size, and referring site. Here's what it looks like linked from Wikipedia in the browser you're using right now: http://xkcd.com/1037/ Ventifax (talk) 06:43, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Here are some secondary sources for you encyclopedists: forum discussion quickmeme — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ventifax (talk • contribs) 06:48, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Malamanteau

Should Malamanteau, which is a redirect to this page, go directly to the section 'Themes'? Personally, I'm of two minds. I think users looking for "malamanteau" might be confused since the lead section of this article does not mention the neologism. On the other hand, though, a certain amount of background information provided in the lead is perhaps necessary.

See also old discussion at /Archive_4#Malamanteau. Cnilep (talk) 04:12, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

xkcd = 42

Surely we can come up with a better source for that than a webcomic or some class's homework problem sheet? It's possible that it's just coincidental (despite their penchant for easter eggs). I would prefer an interview question asked about it to (or statement from) one of the authors. DP76764 (Talk) 20:06, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Characters

The Characters section Xkcd#Characters seems incomplete. E.g. there is no mention of the most common character, sans hat or hair. ★NealMcB★ (talk) 17:14, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

That most common character is also known informally as "Cueball": [7] ★NealMcB★ (talk) 17:21, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Sources are not optional

Please include reliable secondary sources when adding comics to this article. Just because a comic was released does not inherently make it notable or worth mentioning here. Substantial coverage in reliable secondary sources establishes both the notability of a comic and the kinds of things we can say about it. For example, just because we witnessed widespread vandalism on Wikipedia, does not mean we can write it in the article until we can find an independent source writing about it and its impact. Elizium23 (talk) 00:30, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Lojban link is dead

Redirects to some advertising page. 176.253.193.141 (talk) 02:32, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Protection policy link

I recall that the link to WP:Protection policy#Semi-protection in an image caption formerly used {{srlink}}. Is there a discussion explaining why this isn't done anymore? I couldn't find any such discussion on a quick look through the talk archives. --SoledadKabocha (talk) 22:09, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Resolved: I didn't see that it already uses {{srlink}}, because {{srlink}} now styles the link no differently from an ordinary wikilink. --SoledadKabocha (talk) 23:15, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Time is "over"

Why are we declaring Time is over when there are already more frames? It "ended" on 3094 but there are currently 3102... Some guy (talk) 05:29, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps because the author wrote "THE END" and the rest of the frames are evidently going to be a raft bobbing in the water. But both conclusions are WP:OR, we need a reliable secondary source to tell us it's over for sure. Elizium23 (talk) 05:31, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Incorrect Dropbox password easter egg

The Dropbox/correcthorsebatterystaple field under "Inspired Activities" is wrong. I just tried it, and it worked fine. 144.96.89.93 (talk) 07:00, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

You were probably using spaces between the words, then. If you use no spaces, it does give the easter egg that this article describes. I tried it again myself just now to verify. 66.55.135.219 (talk) 12:54, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Missing the Main Character?

I was wondering if there was any particular reason why Cueball is not mentioned? BlueworldSpeccie (talk) 19:49, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

As far as I understand it, Cueball is a fan invention. He might be a defined character but I don't think Munroe ever describes him as such; he has described the other characters that are sourced in the Characters section. I don't believe Munroe has ever referred to that character as "Cueball" himself. Deadbeef 03:19, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Umm... After some short searching I have discovered that you are right. Thanks for answering my question so quickly. BlueworldSpeccie (talk) 18:44, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

You're welcome! Deadbeef 22:21, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

A better image for XKCD

Wouldn't the 1000th comic be a better opening image for XKCD rather then a random comic? Just a suggestion Discmon (talk) 07:45, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

It all depends on the license. Most xkcd's are CC-BY-NC (attribution, non-commercial), which aren't Fair Use compatible. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 13:13, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

While on the subject, what about "What xkcd Means" comic No. 207 ?Iamahashtag (talk) 22:47, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

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External links modified

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• Added archive https://web.archive.org/20080421184953/http://comixtalk.com:80/talking_xkcd_with_randall_munroe to http://comixtalk.com/talking_xkcd_with_randall_munroe

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Kripmo (talk) 02:21, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Addition of Cueball to Characters

Cueball is a recurring and recognized character, right?

Bsumantb (talk) 17:51, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

I'd like to suggest the opposite: removal of characters section. Black Hat is the only one with some coverage, but that's so minimal that I can't say it's worth mentioning. xkcd-characters are not discussed by reliable sources at all, so why do we list them. That's pretty straight-forward original research, after all. ~Mable (chat) 18:00, 28 February 2016 (UTC)