Oops (delayed post)

Posted byRandall 229 Comments on Oops (delayed post)

In today’s comic, I have the rain-stick thing happening in Jaynestown, when it actually happens in Our Mrs. Reynolds.  I lose three nerd points.

When writing the comic, I actually compiled a list of references to wood in Firefly by searching the scripts. They included Badger serving Jayne wood alcohol and Inara likening Mal’s sword technique to ‘chopping wood’ (both in Shindig). I should put it on Wikipedia so nobody has to duplicate my efforts.

Note: I actually wrote this post from the road early this morning to try to stave off the subsequent flood of email, but in my sleepiness I accidentally published it as a “page” instead of a “post” (a WordPress distinction that’s confused me before). So, all told, this was not a good day for my internet skills.  I think I’ve dropped from 1337 to 1334, maybe 1335 tops.

229 replies on “Oops (delayed post)”

  3. Why should the fictional XKCD version of Wikipedia be more accurate than the real one?

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  5. I like how they had to lock the wood article because so many xkcd fans were trying to add In Popular Culture sections. Excellent work.

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  7. I thought the Firefly thing was a meta-joke referencing the inaccuracy of Wikipedia.

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  8. Indeed. How impossibly win is it that you got wikipedia to lock an article? The world shall grow to fear the power of your internet army. We live to serve my liege.

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  10. @Shadow: it’s extremely easy for someone with an audience to get an article locked. It’s not something you should be all that proud of, it’s really no big deal, we handle far worse every day. In a few days all you lemmings will have moved on, and then it’ll be unlocked again and no one will remember a thing. Wikipedia’s getting pretty good at dealing with this stuff by now

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  12. Heh, the continued overuse of “Trivia” and “Popular Culture” sections is fairly controversial among many Wikipedians.

    Oh, and not only does http://xkcd.com/445/ work reading the rightmost panels straight down, but each row of four also works backwards. It also works going diagonally (left to right/top to bottom).

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  13. now that its fixed, take out the reference to it being wrong, and somehow it will have never happened…

    well, probably not. depending on how much stress you apply to this timeline. but then the blogoshpere never implodes, and i never came back to tell you, so you made the mistake

    oh wait. i got lost in that temporal paradoc. carry on.

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  14. Oskar said:
    > Blah blah blah, Mr. Blog Reader.

    Hmph!

    Of course all these problems were solved with the awesome http://citizendium.org and its real names policy.
    No need WASTING TIME with wikicopping or however you Poopoopedians call it.

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  16. Andrew Hsieh:
    Uppermost square is 1, leftmost square is a.
    Read this one: 4a 4b 4c 3d. Or… 4a 4b 4c 4d 3d. Or maybe even 4a 4b 4c 4d 3d 2d 1d.

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  17. Firstly: Love xkcd (my first comment so I thought I’d mention it)

    I also thought you were being ironic… Wikipedia is good but not infallible! I should have known that xkcd was also not infallible!

    @Oskar See, calling xkcd readers lemmings (even if only the ones who tried to add a Popular Culture section to the “Wood” Article) is one way to alienate and distance people! See here for a clue: http://www.xkcd.com/438/

    Love to all!

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  18. I would’ve just assumed it was a subtle comment on wikipedia inaccuracy, if I’d noticed. Which I didn’t.

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  21. Those rabid wikipedians or whatever crack me the fuck up. Somehow it’s like watching retarded children play in a band. You congratulate them on their efforts, but deep inside, you know how sad it is. And the problem is, they can never grasp it by themselves.

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  22. “arkleseizure Says:
    July 8th, 2008 at 6:38 am
    Having my gf catch this was the hottest thing ever.”

    you mean:

    Catching my gf reading xkcd.com was the hottest thing ever… especially when its about wood.

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  23. I was pretty sure it was a joke on Wikipedia… but, after a second tough, fictional facts are never wrong there.

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  25. Have you noticed any of the yahoo commercials on TV that tell you to search for a particular thing or name for more information?

    I remember why you did that with the algorithm. Ahhh, good times.

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  26. All I really want, is to be able to scroll the strip down and find out where wood was referenced in Battlestar Galactica…

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  28. A while back, Neil Gaiman wrote a book called The Dream Hunters, set in the world of the Sandman series. The afterword claimed that it was an adaptation of a Japanese folk tale discovered in a dusty book Gaiman uncovered while researching to prepare for translating Princess Mononoke. Later, he admitted that it was an ancient Japanese folk tale that he himself had invented. Then, last December, he found the Wikipedia article on The Dream Hunters and said on his blag, “I learned from Wikipedia that Sandman: The Dream Hunters was actually based on Pu Songling’s Strange Stories From A Chinese Studio, which I thought I ought to read.”

    I inserted that into the Wikipedia article, but the world hasn’t imploded yet.

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  30. you didn’t mention your girlfriend in this blog post? I’m guessing you just forgot

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  33. I did, cj. =)

    Great strip. Two Wikipedia protections in such a short span!
    I’m still reeling over the many interpretations of #445.

    4a 4b 3b 2b 1b 3c 2c 1c 1d

    If the paths get any more confusing, I’m going to have to consider #445 a game comparable to Boggle.

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  36. It’s not the average xkcd reader who’s a lemming, it’s the people who see their favourite webcomic, comedian, television show, or whatever, make a joke about Wikipedia (particularly about vandalising Wikipedia), and immediately go there to try and incorporate that joke into an article. If I were the sort of person who actually wanted to vandalise Wikipedia I’d make sure I was a hell of a lot more original than that.

    And all it does is provide more ammo for the people who want to expunge all pop culture references from Wikipedia anyway, since their argument is exactly that – it’s far too easy to take pop culture references to ridiculous extremes.

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  41. ouch… I eventually found something in the blag that I didn’t understand, and wasn’t able to find in wikipedia…

    could anyone explain me the meaning of:

    “think I’ve dropped from 1337 to 1334, maybe 1335 tops.” ?? What are tops? anything to do with leet?

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  42. @Oskar

    You, and other admins like you, are the reason I no longer edit wikipedia articles. All you need is a thin layer of beaucracy and you will get people who appoint themselves G_d of the world. What gives you any right to dictate what goes on wikipedia other than that moderators tag? Admins and mods on wikipedia are usually the worst form of trolls whose policical bias and means allow them to close off articles of value (I’m look at you locked down aXXo article).

    Just know this, next time I find a PHP vulnerability your power will disappear with your account.

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  43. Gavrilo: Yes, it’s a leet joke – essentially subtracted a couple of points from your ‘1337ness’ would leave you with only 1334 or 1335 (1334 = 1337 – 3)

    Nekemancer: made me chuckle 🙂

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  44. Gavrilo:

    It’s just a humerous implementation of fictitious ‘geek points’. The idea is he started with 1337 (which, as you noticed, is leet for ‘leet) but due to his mistake in the comic he’s lost a few, bringing him down to 1334, or perhaps 1335 at the most. ‘Tops’ is just a colloquial way of saying ‘at the most’.

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  45. i have to say the talk page on the wikipedia wood article is a brilliant read, wikipedia cant seem to take a joke

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  46. Gavrilo, it means “1335 at most”, not “1335 unidentified ‘tops’ objects”.

    Cheers,

    Barts

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  47. Oh thank goodness you saw the error of your ways, Mr. Munroe. I caught it immediately and was about to email you, but I couldn’t find the email address 😦

    Anyway, good job with the comic, I look forward to it every other day 🙂

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  49. Well, I’m glad you found and fixed the firefly mistake, but I’ve still got issues with the BSG reference… I can’t think the year is anything but “2004” but there was no BSG in 2004. The miniseries was in ’03, and the first season of the true series was in ’05.

    Also, other then the forests of caprica, what wood is there in BSG??

    But regardless, well done on yet more good humor.

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  50. It’s listed as a 2004 series on – guess where – wikipedia.

    I agonised over the BSG thing, caught in constant internal debate with myself over whether a) there is no wood used in BSG, Randall knows this and intentionally left it off the bottom of the page so we’d all doubt ourselves or b) there is a usage of wood which he remembers because he’s cleverer than me and I am right to be doubting myself.

    Then I remembered a certain log cabin that was never built. So now I’m happy because that had a potential existence but not a real one and therefore satisfies either of the above scenarios…

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