Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-04-07/April Fools'

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April Fools' pranks result in temporary blocks for six admins

By WBOSITG and Ral315, 7 April 2008

Six administrators were briefly blocked on April Fools' Day, after various joke edits that were considered unconstructive or vandalous by some.

• AzaToth: Changed the "Go" and "Search" buttons on the search box to "I'm Feeling lucky" and "Wacky Search". MZMcBride blocked; Coren unblocked, with the caveat that AzaToth refrain from making further disruptive edits.
• Kwsn: Changed MediaWiki:Delete, the administrators' delete tab, to "nuke this page". Drini blocked Kwsn, but unblocked about an hour later.
• Omegatron: Was blocked for making changes to MediaWiki:Tagline (the text that says "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia"), calling Wikipedia "the free Pokémon encyclopedia" and "the free encyclopedia that triples in population every six months". David Levy blocked Omegatron; the block was undone by John Reaves, but he noted in the block log afterward that he "wasn't fully aware of the situation", and "would endorse a reblock were the behavior to continue".
• Random832: Made changes to MediaWiki:Ipboptions, a page that contains the standard block lengths available when blocking users. While this page is not visible to non-administrators, Random832 was blocked by Drini; AuburnPilot unblocked, calling the block "unwarranted" and punitive.
• Scientizzle: Changed MediaWiki:Edit, which controls the "edit this page" message, to say "edit this page, pretty please". Scientizzle was blocked by Drini, and AuburnPilot unblocked, calling the block "unwarranted and punitive".
• Viridae: Made three different edits to MediaWiki:Tagline; perhaps the most controversial change was "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia administer^[sic] by people with a stick up their lavender passageway". Viridae was blocked by David Levy; Riana unblocked, saying that Viridae was not warned.

Eventually, cooler heads prevailed in the various issues. Discussion on what to do for April Fools' Day 2009 is underway at Wikipedia talk:Pranking, and while no clear policy has been worked out, Newyorkbrad found an interesting way to suggest a series of guidelines for next year at Wikipedia talk:Pranking#Some thoughts.

Main page jokes

Administrators' pranks were not the only April Fools' jokes last week; Wikipedia also continued its long-running tradition of factual jokes on the main page for that annual comedy festival, known colloquially as April Fools' Day. The featured article blurb was written in a way that looked like a hoax, but was entirely accurate factually, and the "Did You Know" snips were also written in this way. In fact, the only portions of the main page almost untouched were the Featured Picture and In the News—however, the image chosen was an interesting sight, and had no description.

Nevertheless, the page design and accuracy was still questioned by some—many merely victims of the practical joke, like user Jcmo:

Has anyone even noticed the text on the main page? It's protected now, so I can't revert it. Is there an administrator out there?

There were however some doubters of the whole joke, claiming it was damaging Wikipedia's reputation and simply heightening criticism of its accuracy which has been flying around the media in recent years. For instance, one anonymous IP said the following about the tongue-in-cheek rendition:

This is an encyclopedia, People come here for accurate information, not jokes. All this April Fools bullshit has no place on Wikipedia. It is not funny so the entire gag is a miserable failure. But more importantly, the goal of an encyclopedia does not include releasing information once each year. No real encyclopedia worth its salt would do such nonsense.

This slightly phallic skyscraper, featured on "In the news" was built by Jean Nouvel, who made ITN as the recipient of the Pritzker Prize.

This viewpoint was criticised by many users for ignoring the factual correctness of the information in question, but it still raised an interesting point about the whole idea.

Some users also pointed out the American bias of the page, claiming that the majority of the content was US-based rather than a world-wide view. A few users asked why Gmail was more important than the Royal Air Force—both of which had anniversaries on April 1. Also, the choice of Ima Hogg—a Texan, which was also condemned, was defended by SandyGeorgia:

For those worried about bias, none of the following (mentioned in the Signpost at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-03-03/Dispatches) are US-centric (but no one wrote them): Lick me in the ass, Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116 and Casu marzu. Now's the time to get on them.

However, the whole joke went down relatively well. More than you may think were fooled by the "mis"information, which is always a good thing on April Fools' Day. But perhaps the best comment and compliment to all involved came from Kevin Myers:

The April 1st main page was a thing of beauty. Congratulations to all who obviously did a lot of work on it. The criticism was per usual, from the confused to the wet blankets to the self-proclaimed comedic experts who could do better if they ever got around to being funny. I do agree with [Nil Einne], however: next year be sure to make more fun of foreigners. They talk funny.