Talk:Strong Bad Email

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Current revision as of 14:04, 6 June 2025

Strong Bad Email Talk: Current | Messages 1-20 | Messages 21-33 | Messages 34-50 | Messages 51-75 | Messages 76-100 | Messages 101-120 | Messages 121-140

Strong Bad Email is a featured article, which means it showcases an important part of the Homestar Runner body of work and/or highlights the fine work of this wiki. We also might just think it's cool. If you see a way this page can be updated or improved without compromising previous work, feel free to contribute.

[edit] Lappier Era

How are we going to handle categorizing the new sbemails? We still have sbemail206 and too cool under the "Compé Era" section, even though the latter is unquestionably a Lappier Era email. The problem, of course, is that the sbemail menu is still Compé-themed. But we shouldn't keep sticking sbemails in a misleadingly-named section until The Brothers Chaps decide to update their menu. Is there a temporary solution we could use until then? Lira (talk) 17:54, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

I think there should be a "Lappier Era" section, and maybe a note pointing out that it still uses the Compé menu. It makes more sense than including Lappier emails in the Compé section. Gfdgsgxgzgdrc 18:54, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

[edit] Not Quite Strong Bad Email List

A little while ago, I changed the list to use — em dashes instead of (tiny text in parentheses). Not only does it look much better (in my opinion), but it's also more consistent with other lists on the wiki. However, it was reverted because it didn't have as much of a "feel" to it. But I don't think that's necessarily a good thing. How should this list be formatted? Gfdgsgxgzgdrc 19:59, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Anyone else have an opinion? The em dashes look clean and consistent, and the tiny text looks aesthetically displeasing. Gfdgsgxgzgdrc 23:36, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

i dunno, the tiny text looks nice to me, with text being the same size it looks a bit cluttered — timmodonuts (^T/C) 15:37, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm for the em dash list. The current style doesn't match any other list on the wiki that I'm aware of, and I think changing text size in-line decreases readability. (What does "has a feel to it" mean anyway?) Lira (talk) 19:39, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree that the full size text seems very cluttered and hard to read. Perhaps there’s a different way to present the information? -166.170.0.121 22:43, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

That's weird. For me it's the opposite; the full size text is pleasant and readable, while the small text looks cluttered and arbitrary. Maybe we could make it a table, with one column for the email number, one for the title, and one for the description. That way, we can keep the full size text, with borders between each item so it isn't as cluttered. Gfdgsgxgzgdrc 23:21, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

I am down for tables, I love tables, they make it much easier to digest the information! — timmodonuts (^T/C) 16:08, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Not so into the table idea. That just sounds unnecessarily bulky and a weird format for the information. Maybe I just need to see a preview, but I still like the standard list with plain text. Lira (talk) 20:58, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't understand the desire to table everything. I think a table is best applied in situations when paired with an image or other critical data, such as dates. If it's just an example with an explanation, an ordinary list should suffice. -- 68.37.43.131 03:10, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I mostly agree. I only suggested it because it seemed like a good way to include full size text without some people finding it cluttered. Gfdgsgxgzgdrc 05:40, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

The thing is it's no more cluttered than any other list of information on the wiki. If the style is cramping people's style, that should be a larger question for another talk page. Myself, I have no trouble reading it. Lira (talk) 16:13, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Most other places in the wiki don’t have long sentence descriptions within this kind of list. -166.137.90.18 18:29, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

No? What about character relationships? What about running gags and item pages? How is this different? Lira (talk) 19:08, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

So far, it seems there are 3 votes for em dashes, 1 votes for parentheses, 1 vote for tables, and 1 vote for an alternative solution. That's probably the closest we'll get to a consensus, so I've made the changes. I'm putting my reasoning here in place of an edit summary:
The wiki's font size is intended to be read comfortably, so this list should stick to that. Like Lira said, if the text looks cluttered, that's a problem with the wiki rather than this list, so the discussion should be moved elsewhere. Every list on the wiki is formatted the same way, and no one has ever complained of their clutteredness before, to my knowledge. This list is no different in content, and that should be reflected in its appearance. Additionally, I think the consistent size looks cleaner and less arbitrary, and the em dash creates a neat separation between title and description. Gfdgsgxgzgdrc 21:26, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

[edit] {reading}

Some emails have {reading} (or some variant) before the email, and some don't. Should we remove them from those emails, or add them to the rest? Or even leave them as is? Gfdgsgxgzgdrc 02:33, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

For the discussion purposes, when present it looks like this.

Honestly, I'd be in favour of removing such instances. This mostly seems to be present in some older transcripts. I think just the presence of the email template is shorthand for him reading it out loud. --DorianGray 05:31, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

I am on the fence whether or not we should remove such instances. Although 99% of email entries are read, sometimes they just show up on the screen. Also, "training" the new reader into expecting "hey this block will be read out loud" the first few emails (assuming they somehow went through each email sequentially) wouldn't be a bad thing. And, in a detailed wiki like this, it might not hurt to have the "reading" portion in every email (although it should look sleeker). Now, my own comment ago kind of thwarted an idea I had, and that was: add the "Reading" portion to the email templates or block quotes. However, since this isn't going to be used 100% of the time, it's probably counter productive (instead a template that adds the notice would probably be better -- that is if we keep the notices at all.) --Stux 12:37, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Since I haven't given my opinion yet, I don't think the notices are necessary. The email box is kind of a continuation of Strong Bad's dialogue, and in cases where it isn't read aloud, the transcript usually states {The following email can be seen:} or something similar. Going straight from the email song to the email makes for a smoother transition.

We don't necessarily have to edit every email page right away, since that would be a huge undertaking. But it would be nice to reach a consensus, just so the notices can be added or removed during unrelated edits, if that makes sense. Gfdgsgxgzgdrc 23:36, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

[edit] Strong Bad Email Menu

Two points to make 1. Why did we never have an article for the Strong Bad Email menus in general when the Toon Time and the speciality sbemail ones have a page? 2. The new menu works completely differently and will probably need it's won page or subsection. Still trying figurue out if there's a pattern to Strong Bad's comments on the emails. Guybrush20X6 02:02, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, I was just wondering that myself. We need to create Strong Bad Email Menu, stat! (Also, I notice you've been adding descriptions to each email's page. I'd suggest holding off on that for now. It's a big project that needs consensus for how it's going to be implemented.) Gfdgsgxgzgdrc 02:43, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Discussion about descriptions continues at HRWiki:Projects → Toon Descriptions

[edit] anyone like tge sbemaiil homsar?

anyone? no? ok...

[edit] Sbemail209 release date

March 25th, 2022 --J∃ffJMan 17:13, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

I wouldn’t get my hopes up. I don’t think we’re gonna see it for quite a while. And is there any source for that date or are you just making it up? TheOneAndOnlyDanky 18:27, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

Mostly making it up, but hey, it might be out on either then OR april fools day, since they've been doing it every 4 years now. --J∃ffJMan 11:18, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

[edit] sbemail templates

I had an idea a while ago. What if instead of putting a whole blockquote thingy for an email, say strong badathlon, instead we made a template for the email. I tried it out and it works.

The template could be: {{sbemail165}} and it would look like:

subject: the cheat

Strong bad,
For a long time i've been wondering.... How far can you
throw the cheat? If you don't want to do that, could you
beat the crud out of homestar for no reason?

Lewis Rudkin
Essex, England.

What do you guys think? Cool idea? Stupid idea? I have made more templates over on my sandbox. - HoveringSombrero (talk)

In theory, the idea isn't bad: I've thought of making a template with all the block quotes. But making 200 different templates is too tedious and problematic to maintain. Better to have a single template that has all the quotes in one place, selectable by a switch statement. That way you can just programmatically pass the email number as a variable (for example {{sbemailTemplate|165}}; name pending) and maintain the code in a single location. The downside would be that of performance as template limits might be reached if all 200 emails are included in a single page. Either way, most likely the already-created templates will be deleted. --Stux 20:23, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Dear Homestar Runner Wiki,

I was wondering why someone was creating hundreds of templates for individual emails that in practice, would only be used once. It seems more logical to have a single template with spaces that can be customized so it can be used many times in many different ways, when the needs arise.

Also, a customizable template would also provide the opportunity for me to play around with it and write my own hilarious Strong Bad Emails whenever the mood strikes me.
With excrement,
-- 68.37.43.131 23:19, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

I would only approve of this if they were combined into one template as Stux suggested, and even then I don't think it's necessary. Either way, I think the created templates should be deleted. Gfdgsgxgzgdrc 05:22, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

These templates don't do anything except move one instance of code off the page where it appears. I don't see any benefit to this. Templates are useful for formatting, which these don't help with, or repetition, which I'd do a different way if we really thought we needed. (Given that sbemails aren't updating, I also don't think we currently need any formatting templates.) — It's dot com 01:31, 9 January 2023 (UTC)