What do you think of April fool on WP? Is it a load of saddos thinking they're hilarious? Cringe-making?

What do you think?

Fake Aspie teenage geeks rarely make decent stand-up comics.

So I tend to agree with your observations made on ANI.

I believe they tried to put too many jokes on one page. It's too obvious.

This thread would be more compelling if you actually posited a viewpoint.

(Disclaimer: I was not involved with the main page this year, despite aggressive recruitment from the usual suspects)

It's all bollocks, though.

The idea of April Fool's Day is to make people believe something is true when it isn't. The front page is just full of double meanings and reads as though it has been written by a 13-year-old English student with a faulty thesaurus.

I think it was implicit in the question; anyway the whole point of the thread is to discuss/share opinions.

I think a lot of the little things are funny, like a large number of people copying Pedro's sig. Obviously that's not fooling anyone into believing anything, but I found that talk page thread particularly funny. Of course, it might also help that Pedro and I have a sort of precarious friendship.

The main page article this year isn't funny, but last year was great. SandyGeorgia wrote last year's, which was Ima Hogg. It was brilliant.

Changing the images on the sockpuppet templates to lolcats is unfunny and ruined my joke, which had seriously gotten a few people in a short time, and now it's much less believable. So, I guess I'm going to have to reluctantly agree on the overall. The few people attempting to create some serious April Fools' jokes are seeing them killed by people that don't understand the concept of duping people, rather think it's a day for obvious sillies.

[correcting my post] It looks like Karanacs and Sandy co-wrote it. Sandy coordinated the whole thing; that was one of the rewarding collaborations I've participated in. Nice people.

The quibble seems to be that it is too obvious of a fake, which just seems like silly nitpicking, honestly.

This is the sort of poor POV that perpetuates the unfunny!! >_>

Gee, what awesome and witty people.

Words fail me. I don't know if this is supreme humorlessness or a piece of bizarre performance art – unless M.B. is even more cunning than we thought.

Just to keep things in perspective, the feature article, Museum of Bad Art (T-H-L-K-D), was originally written by Sdedeo (T-C-L-K-R-D) - who left WP just over a year ago, in a rather disillusioned state I'd have to say:

He's shown up a few times since then, and it was actually Od Mishehu (T-C-L-K-R-D) who protected the page, since Sdedeo wasn't an admin. (Apparently the last straw was the "admin/developer consensus fraud" over implementation of the rollback feature.)

Related to this but also not.

Is this a suggestion that MB is up to his old tricks?

No. Hence "presumably not really apropos here." Just a general reminder.

That shit is not for real, is it? It'd be hilarious if LaraLove/Jennavecia was not a real person and was yet another Poetlister sock.

Nah, it is a joke.



That would have been lulzy.

Although Tiptoety and MBisanz may get a load of shit for this joke from the WP community as a whole, which will also be lulz. Presumably.

...

Also, ED is getting its fair share of drama today as well:

http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/index...&year=&month=-1

A bit confusing

I believe in the spirit of gentle fun, the Hotel toilet-paper folding article should be in today's Did You Know?

THE FOUR ARCHETYPES OF APRIL FOOL'S CRITICISM

1. The Purist Approach
April Fool's is traditionally about practical joking. If there isn't a practical joke involved, the humor is bad form.

2. The Humor-oriented Approach
Whatever happens, it had better be funny.

3. The "Seriously, Now" Approach
Pranks can be cruel, or they can cause significant disruption or other harm, which we should guard against.

4. The Let-Them-Blow-Off-Steam Approach (very compatible with #3)
All that matters is that people have some innocent fun. Silliness is fine and if the people having fun aren't amusing anyone else, so what?

All four archetypes are valid in their own way but, individually, don't cover all the potential defects. Taken as a group, I think these four describe just about all criticism of stuff done on April Fool's Day on Wikipedia or anywhere else.

My own [[Hotel toilet-paper folding]] article isn't really an April Fool's Day piece. I decided to finally do it on April Fool's Day (I've had the idea for a while) because I wanted it to get a lot of readers who like the idea of having it. I once saved [[List of bow tie wearers]] from deletion by expanding it, and the result has been that it gets assaulted by deletionists on a regular basis. I'm so sick of the assaults that I don't even look at the article any more (I'm grateful Orlady has adopted it). I like having some quirky article topics and it looks like most people do, so one way of protecting them from future AfDs is to make sure plenty of people know about them. That's why I put up a notice on Jimbo's talk page on April 1 (Greenwich Mean Time, or whatever time WP uses). There's a certain strain of Wikipedians who take the encyclopedia-building way too seriously. On April 1 that attitude is least welcome and more people are open to something fun. I saw my chance and I took it. I think the AfD is inevitable. But now, anyone who contributed to the article or has commented on it can be WP:CANVASSed, and no one can stop me. And my evil scheme of tamping down pompous, over-serious, humorless schoolmarmery on WP advances apace.

The Pedro sig thing is funny because a lot of people were doing it. Meets the #3,#4 standards and #2, although humor is always in the eye of the beholder.

It's interesting that few women seem to be involved in April Fool's business. I think it's mostly a guy thing and mostly a young-guy thing.

There's something about April Fool's Day on Wikipedia that has the "Authorized Day of Ruckus" about it. That's a very old human tradition. That tradition used to be associated with Christmas, which was a big day of clownish revelry with the people at the bottom of the social ladder doing a little lording over of people on the upper rungs for one day. By limiting it to one day of the year and allowing it, the Medieval lords let the peasants blow off steam, and that strengthened the social order. (Wasailing was all about demanding tribute from the lord of the manor, for instance.) The puritans stamped out Christmas celebrating because they didn't like the revelry, but it popped up again with Halloween celebrating (at least in the U.S.), which looks a lot like the old Christmas activity. (It even popped up again in Christmas revelry in the early 19th century, but the holiday was transformed again -- notice the gift giving to children and people like doormen and others lower down on the social ladder.)

And now on Wikipedia, we have a way for editors, often young men and boys without power in their real lives, and very often without it in their online lives, to stick it to those in authority, in a generally controlled way. The mock attacks on Jimbo are a huge part of that, I think.

Notice that all four potential criticisms above are tempered by the others and tempered by the idea that a tradition is being followed. Not the purist tradition, but a specific Wikipedia tradition that, maybe, has transformed it to fit what Wikipedians want, or maybe need.

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAW. This is the reaction I get from my foolery, which actually fooled a bunch of people. I think Raul's response was the best. What an unfunny hypocrite. I give it 2 hours before he imposes a COI indef block upon my account. It's what he does.

This is classic in its tone-deafness. We need a record of this right here:

And once Raul pitched a slow one right over the plate ("causing drama"???? It's like April Fool's Day doesn't exist, or only exists on the territory Raul controls on WP), Jenna knocks it out of the ballpark with the classic response:

Note that my four archetypal criticisms are all touched on in the response, and they can also amount to defenses of some April Fool's action. NYBrad also commented in that thread, opposed to the joke block, but he did it much, much more deftly.

Jehochman's joke about adding Adsense ads was funnier.

And what's on Tiptoety's talk page?


Bloody twits.

And the whole thing lurches over the line into crazy.

Just a little while longer till the Greenwiching Hour, and it'll all be hystery …

Ja Ja

I'm not sure that an accusation of drama aimed at me could have come from anyone better than Raul. I mean, let's keep in mind the players in this game. He's the abusive admin that blocked the_undertow (my best friend) per ArbCom, despite not being an Arb, after he filed a premature RFAR against him. Raul's also the one that pointlessly protected the_undertow's talk page, giving no reason, and directing all requests for details to ArbCom or his email. Despite being an admin, none of the admins I asked to inquire about the reasoning would relay to me what Raul told them in email. After three failed attempts to get the info via proxy, I asked him my damn self. And you know what his reasoning was? I have no idea, and neither did he. He didn't recall!! So then he unprotected.

Raul has no business calling anyone out for causing drama. Particularly in a case like this, where the drama is coming from him and the others who patrol the project for things to cry about. There was no drama in my block. He even knew I requested it. How is there drama when I request it? People were freaking out a little? Questioning whether or not it was real? THAT'S THE POINT! These stupid MFDs and over-the-top main pages aren't funny. It's clear, for anyone that pays attention, that I'm not PoetMister. What made this prank great was the shock value. The plausibility. A perfect example is Jayron32. As Proab likes to point out, Jay is a friend of mine. We live near each other, and he knows without a shadow of a doubt that I am who I claim to be. He saw this and flipped out. Why? Because, while not possible that I am a poet sock, it's completely possible that some moron in a position of power would get it wrong and block me, or anyone. Not just completely possible, but probable, as it happens every day.

This prank was good because it could get both those who know me and those who don't. People that don't really know me were shocked that I may be another sock of the prolific master, while those that do know me were shocked that I'd been wrongly blocked by the powers that be. Jay was fired up and ready to present evidence. The fact that an ANI was started showed that it was believable enough. It's people like those that responded to the ANI and Acalamari who did the stupid unblock (which for the purposes of my frustration, I'll label as wheel-warring) that needlessly ruin the day for everyone else.

These people really need to pull the sticks out of their asses. And it should also be noted that while people like George the Dragon weep over M.B. being a real person who's lost his job and I'm using his self-inflicted drama as a means to prank people... holy shit. Get over it. There are bigger BLP problems on this project than me claiming to be a psuedonym on April Fools' Day.

Ah, hell no.

In my defence, I made that post before I was aware she had asked for the block and conditions.

Still, April Fools' Day does highlight the level of cuntery available in modern Wikipedia.

If the combined effort that went into today's shit-fest actually went into, say, the BLP issue...

I don't mind it so much in wiki space, when it's in-jokes etc. Jennv/PL, that's ok. Kurt Weber did it well though, wonder how he's doing.

It isn't as wild as last year, when I think a fair few people were genuinely blocked.

I, for one, prefer the "funny but true" approach to the Main Page. I would not want to see any bona fide hoaxes on the Main Page. Wikipedia should present a face of truthfulness; the rest of the world doesn't really need to know that it's not up to speed on the lower-profile articles.

My favorite April Fools joke was the George Washington (inventor) Featured Article two years ago. Similar impostors who share the same name as a famous individual appeared in this year's Did You Know. For example: "...that Peter Jackson medaled in table tennis for New Zealand?" I wondered "Why is that funny?" so I looked up Peter Jackson and learned that the most famous indvidual bearing that name is a film director.

I like watching the dramaz surrounding April Fools jokes. I could easily disprove, using my stored data, the proposition that Poetguy is virtually anybody who was substantially active between February 2006 and May 2007. If it were necessary, I could probably find multiple incidents where LaraLove edited at the same minute as a Poetlister sock on a completely different topic. I can't be certain, but the chance of this not being so, given the extensive editing pattern of Poetguy who hardly took a rest for a whole year straight, leaves little doubt. Of course, my word would count for very little given my past track record on this issue. Heck, if I were active, in addition to joining the Pedro signature cabal, I might list myself as a PoetSock too. I just wouldn't bother to get someone to block me. (I never used ZOMG IRC.)

Raul654 is a fat fuck. Not just a little bit fat. You can tell that he's seriously fucking obese.

Excuse me?

The April Fool's shit should be done away with like BJAODN was. Seriously. If Wikipedia wants to be taken seriously (fat chance).

I mean there was that G20 shit and that helicopter crash and all kinds of shit in the news today and these unfunny Wikipedo cunts think that this crap can pass on the main page? Not in 2009... Wikipedia needs to grow up. No April Fool crap next year... it's just so unfunny.

Ain't got no sense'a Yuma?


----------------
Now playing: "Weird Al" Yankovic - Albuquerque
via FoxyTunes

I'll drink to that. (hic)

He's the Sweet Ass Boy of Wiki-Hell.
Arrogant, insecure, dishonest, and fat.
Just what they need.

I think it should avoid the article space completely, unless it's to take a legit, accurate article and play with the wording, as Sandy and others did with last year's TFA. Nothing false, just played with the words.

User space stuff should be fair game completely. Including self-requested blocks. Project space should be limited. Cliche' unfunny crap like nomming Jimmy Wales for deletion and tagging CSD for speedy deletion should be prohibited, if for no other reason than it's lame.

What BLP issue?

Heh......and getting yourself mock-banned as a sock of Poetlister isn't lame?.......

That was big of him. Good move.

Don't make me go over this again, son. It was a good one!

Not really. It's lame. Damage is done. I hadn't actually read the whole comment until about an hour ago. I was getting ready for a dinner party when I found out about the comment. I scanned it, saw the only sentence I really needed to see and wrote my reply. In looking at it closer, I see his shameful synthesis. He links to an article talk page, claiming I "defended white pride". What I did was argue that the lead had an error in wording which incorrectly labeled people as "white power activists". I changed power to pride, and that edit stuck, by the way. The he links to where I "picked a fight" over it. That fight had nothing to do with the white pride article and everything with SWATjester's libel. A BLP violation against an editor that was never addressed. Just as this bullshit from Raul will never be addressed.

This is how Wikipedia works, and it's not shocking. It's different when it happens to you or someone you care about, but we've all seen it happen countless times to editors, banned users and BLP victims alike. We speak daily on the power-tripping, abusive admins, like Raul, and this is not shocking to any of us. Raul said we agreed to bury the hatchet. Too bad he failed to realize that I meant I wanted to bury it in his skull.

In an pm in IRC, he said to me that he didn't mind the prank. That he had previously stated that April Fools' actions that avoided the article space were fine. His comment, he said, was to defend Tiptoety. However, there was nothing to defend against. There wasn't really drama about it. Had he or anyone just noted I requested it, it probably would have been over. Instead, despite how he describes it, he condemned both me and Ty. I've shared a great many laughs today over this prank. It was good times, despite being rained on by some douches, but Raul was out of line to the max, and his weak retraction did nothing to repair the damage he intentionally inflicted. Luckily for me, I stopped caring several months ago about the dipshits that think I'm a racist. Still, it's painful to watch these powerful editors get away with such blatantly offensive comments and abuses of power (none of the latter in this case), with not so much as a real warning issued.

SWATjester and Raul got away with almost identical offenses. That's what I picked a fight with SWAT over. And it's what I would pick a fight with Raul over if I wasn't so painfully aware of what pussies and pushovers run the project. It's a corrupt bunch of people, and a further example of why Wikipedia needs to be shutdown if it wont' change.

Okay, okay. ROFL.
Going to get unbanned anytime soon? Mebbe you should leave your userpage
like that. Confuse the hell out of people.


Yep.

I was unblocked several hours ago by Acalamari. That was not per my request, but I can't really bitch about what is really a legitimate admin action. Still cut my prank short. Bad times. But whatever. I was going to let the block stand for a while if no one messed with it. I'm sure some stiff will alter my userpages pretty soon.

I've just caught-up with all this April-fool stuff. I quite enjoyed the shit that occurred round your block, and how that Raul guy made a (fat) arse of himself. I also like the "hatchet in the head" remark. Be careful, though - watch your aim. An accidental hit below the head area could result in him bursting and you being showered in an explosive spray of half-digested pies. Just so you know.

Like Left 4 Dead's Boomer? Noted.

He's baaaawing on his talk page about that particular comment. Yes, I'm so harsh. He falsely calls me a racist, synthesizing and blatantly fabricating, but I'm the bitch. Hm. Well, whatever. The logs of the IRC conversation are good. Wonder if he cares if they're published.