Meta Collecting
I'm trying to get the page locked because some jerk keeps adding "Yachts".
I'm trying to get the page locked because some jerk keeps adding "Yachts".
This is another comic in the "My Hobby" series.
Many people's hobbies involve collecting many items of the same category: Post stamps, collectible cards, painted dolls, wine, and so on. Just about anything can be collected, however, some things are collected much more often than others. Wikipedia has a page listing the most popular categories of such collectible items.
In Randall's usual style of going meta with everything, he decided to start a meta-collection—a collection of examples of different things that people can collect. He uses Wikipedia's list of collectibles for reference. In the comic, Cueball is showing to his friend his collection of various items that have nothing in common except that they're all popular collectibles. So while most people try to collect everything in one narrow category of collectibles, Cueball's collection will only be complete if he can get one item from each of the list of collectible items as cataloged by Wikipedia's list, so he has a collection of representative elements from all collections.
In the title text, Randall complains about a Wikipedia editor who keeps adding yachts to the list of collectibles, probably because it would force him to buy a yacht if he ever wanted to complete his collection of collectibles. Yachts are traditionally considered immensely expensive and the vast majority of people own zero yachts, let alone a collection of them.[citation needed] Note that Randall does not specify how he is trying to get the page locked, and the comic itself might be a rather meta way of doing so: xkcd fans have a history of making lots of edits to Wikipedia articles Randall mentions, resulting in them being protected or locked. The article has in fact been edited and reverted about 50 times by these fans over the course of a single day and was temporarily protected on March 14th, 2019, which expired three days later. The first addition of Yachts to this page was by a user named Xkcd2123, but it is unlikely that this user is Randall.
List of Items on the Shelf
Items are numbered on each shelf from left.
Item Location Description Top Shelf, First Item Possibly an urn or cookie jar. Top Shelf, Second Item Possibly a candle Top Shelf, Third Item Model boat Middle Shelf, First Item Possibly a book Middle Shelf, Second Item Unidentifiable small item, maybe a rock or tooth Middle Shelf, Third Item Compact disc in case Middle Shelf, Fourth Item A record, probably vinyl but could possibly be shellac as shellac "78s" are popular collectors items. Middle Shelf, Fifth Item Unidentifiable rectangular item, possibly a collectible card Middle Shelf, Sixth Item Unidentifiable small item Bottom Shelf, First Item Humanoid figurine or action figure Bottom Shelf, Second Item Martini glass Bottom Shelf, Third Item Teapot Bottom Shelf, Fourth Item Possibly a coin on a stand Bottom Shelf, Fifth Item Salt/pepper shaker, chess piece, or Pez dispenser Bottom Shelf, Sixth Item Unidentifiable small item