Can’t Explain by Oze

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Tone guide

docs/TONE-GUIDE.md

From Can’t Explain On GitHub

Tone guide

Author: Colin Dixon
Updated: 2026-08-14

Can’t Explain is observational, slightly exaggerated, receipt-first humour. Australian. Dry. In the spirit of the Please Explain cartoons — not a shoutcast, not a sermon.

It sits next to ministryofdoubt.com, which is calmer and more serious, and electiontracker.au, which is factual and almost humourless on purpose. Steal their discipline. Do not steal their voice.

The joke is the gap

Every entry has the same comic engine:

  1. A claim that arrived at high volume.
  2. A source you can open.
  3. A receipt that shows how little was holding the claim up.

If the caption still works after you delete the source and the evidence, it is a dunk, not an entry. Rewrite it or spike it.

Voice

Do

  • Observe the move: the leap, the missing step, the borrowed certainty.
  • Slightly exaggerate the shape of the claim, not the facts around it.
  • Prefer short sentences and concrete nouns.
  • Let the quote do the heavy lifting. Your job is the one-line eyebrow.
  • Sound like a person who has read the source and is mildly unimpressed.
  • Australian English. “humour”, “organisation”, “favourite”.

Don’t

  • Invent quotes, motives, or private facts.
  • Call people insane, evil, or stupid. The claim is in the hall, not the human.
  • Campaign. This is not a how-to-vote, a pile-on, or a rehab tour.
  • Write like a news ticker or a Substack closer. No “and that’s why the media is broken” bow.
  • Use punch-down slurs, fake Aussie-bloke cosplay, or imported US culture-war slang when a plain sentence will do.
  • Hedge the receipt. “Some would say there was no evidence” is worse than “No evidence was offered.”

Captions

A caption is one or two sentences. It should still make sense next to the quote, on a phone, without the body.

Good shape:

A puppet usually has strings. This one came with a vibe and a headline.

The accusation arrived fully formed. The footnote did not.

Certainty first. Sources to follow, apparently.

Bad shape:

Typical lefty garbage, what do you expect from the ABC.

Hanson is actually right about everything and this proves it.

In this essay I will argue that discourse has become…

The first is partisan noise. The second is a campaign ad. The third is a different site.

Family voices (do not mix)

Site Job Voice
ministryofdoubt.com How to tell conspiracy from failure without becoming programmable Calm, dry, unimpressed by pomposity on either side
electiontracker.au Sourced election ledger Factual, sourced, no jokes in the data
Can’t Explain Hall of loud claims with thin evidence Observational, slightly exaggerated, receipt-first
Oze Unleashed Essays Longer argument, still sourced

If a draft wants to explain epistemology, send it to the Ministry. If it wants to record who is standing, send it to the tracker. If it wants 1,200 words, send it to the Substack. If it wants a laugh and a URL, it can stay.

What “receipt-first” means in practice

  • The claim is quoted or clearly marked as a paraphrase.
  • The original URL and date are visible above the fold.
  • The evidence file is one click away.
  • The caption does not smuggle in a second, unsourced accusation.
  • Corrections are boring and fast. No victory lap.

Figures and fairness

Launch is Hanson-heavy because that is where the pattern is loudest. The hall is not a Hanson shrine and not an anti-Hanson shrine. The same rules apply when the target is a Labor minister, a journalist, a mining heir, or a Twitter account with 400 followers.

A claim about Hanson with no source does not get in. A claim by Hanson with no source might, if the hall’s subject is the claim, not the speaker. Be explicit about which.

Do not launder a counter-smear as a “receipt”. If the only move is “no, they’re the puppet”, that is another entry — and it needs its own source.

House phrases (use sparingly)

These can appear in chrome, about copy, and the occasional caption. They go stale if they appear on every card.

  • “The claim was loud. The evidence was not.”
  • “Show me the evidence. Then we can laugh about it.”
  • “Suspicion is not proof.” (Ministry line — use when situating the family, not as a catchphrase on every entry.)
  • “Please explain.” (Nod, not a watermark.)

Checklist before publish

  • I can point at the sentence that is the claim.
  • I opened the source URL today and it still matches.
  • The evidence file is in git and named in frontmatter.
  • The caption still works if the reader votes the other way.
  • I did not add a second accusation in the last sentence.
  • A stranger could share the card without us having to add a follow-up “to be clear…”.