Who are these people? And where are they from?

Reading Irregular Webcomic! today I find this annotation:

I've also just discovered that, at least acording to Wikipedia, a hot dog is, in the US, apparently, just the sausage. The article says that:

A hot dog (frankfurter, wiener) is a moist sausage of soft, even texture and flavor [...]. Hot dogs are most often served hot in hot dog buns.

Well, you learn something every day! The usage I'm familiar with is that "hot dog" refers to the combination of the sausage in the bun - the sausage by itself is not a "hot dog", but rather a frankfurt. I believe that's the common usage here in Australia.

In fact, I'm genuinely surprised that anyone refers to the sausage alone as a "hot dog", and that a hot dog is served in a bun. To my mind that's analagous to saying that a slice of cheese is a "sandwich", and that a "sandwich" is generally served between two slices of bread.

(Amusingly, the Wikipedia entry is locked.)

I, though not Australian, share his amazement. I don't know anyone for whom the 'hot dog' and the 'wiener' are synonymous. To be a 'hot dog' it must be in the bun. I have, it's true, encountered the usage in the blogosphere before, but where I grew up it was "wiener" (not sausage) though it's true that around here we get ads for 'franks' all the time - and 'franks and beans', or the variant 'beans and wiener pennies', are yummy quick lunches - but I don't know anyone for whom 'hot dog' doesn't have to be in the bun.

But there it is in Wikipedia, making innocent Australians think that "hot dog" is standard American for cold wieners right out of the package...

So now I'm wondering what the regional variation actually is?

And I also wonder how much the slang use of "wiener" for "penis" has caused people to stop saying it when they mean the frankfurter?