Monday, September 28, 2009

Wikipedia on xkcd

It figures that the launch of this blog coincides with a slow week for wiki vandalism.

Let's take a look at xkcd's own entry for a bit. Ten bucks if you can tell me why the section on the xkcd book is titled "Derivatives." (No, not really.)

The section was originally given the appropriate title "Upcoming Book." Later, someone thought that "Derivatives" was a better title. It stuck, somehow.

I also find it oddly interesting that "Men's romance" is listed as one of xkcd's two genres, the other being "Geek humor." Being that xkcd deals primarily with heterosexual relationships, how is it more of a "Men's romance" comic than a general romance comic?

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Wiki creep, part 1

List of references to the xkcd article

It's a slow week for wiki-referencing xkcds (or maybe I'm just not astute enough to track them all down), so let's take a look at a few instances of xkcd references that have found a home on Wikipedia's many articles.

Wikipedia. Really? Apparently the "Wikipedia Protester" comic (285) is a sufficiently notable parody of Wikipedia's policies to make it onto Wikipedia's self-documenting article. Never mind that xkcd already has the largest section on Wikipedia in culture's "Wikipedia in web comics" section and the highest representation on Wikipedia:Wikipedia in webcomics. xkcd has a love affair with Wikipedia, and Wikipedia loves it right back.

You know what I'd love to see? I'd love to see a meta-xkcd where one character decides to edit an xkcd reference into an article and another character shows up to tell the first what a jerk he is. The strip practically writes itself, Munroe-style.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

639: Lincoln-Douglas

Stephen A. Douglas

The interesting thing about this particular piece of vandalism is that it's patently false. Randall makes no claims to historical accuracy (see the original comic's alt text), so it's puzzling that anyone would bother writing this. Probably the vandal thought it would be funny. It wasn't, because there is no context for the joke outside of the comic.

Older stuff

Vandalism of Wikipedia in the name of xkcd probably hearkens back to xkcd's earliest comics. This is a non-comprehensive list of edits that predate the blog. Feel free to point out any others in the comments.

637: Scribblenauts
636: Apatosaurus
632: Oregon Trail
633: Harriet the Spy
613: Three-Body Problem
609: TV Tropes
607: Year 2038 problem
603: Idiocracy
593: Voynich manuscript
590: Papyrus



Unrelated to any particular comic:
Pleiades (star cluster), referenced here