[WikiEN-l] Re: Friday's featured article

Wed Mar 30 15:37:38 UTC 2005

On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 15:48:23 +0100 (BST), Tony Sidaway
<minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> 
> I've been watching this conversation with mounting disbelief.  Somebody
> please tell me that the seeming loss of sense of humor on the part of a
> number of Wikipedians is all part of a prolonged jape, to be brought to a
> hilarous conclusion this Friday.  No?
> April fools jokes are traditional.  People reading a joke article on April
> 1 will not feel unduly put out.  Most of them.  We can just laugh at those
> who are. That's the whole point of the exercise--to puncture pretensions,
> confound expectations and--dare I say it--have a laugh!
> 

Like many, I would not object to having an April fool's article on the
main page this Friday. I am against the idea of a contest that
involves inserting fake articles into the main article space. Even
with all good intentions, the potential for mistakes is just too
great.

However, I would also suggest some very obvious indicator of some
sort, such as a banner at the top of the article reading: "This is
Wikipedia's Featured Article for April 1, 2005" -- something that
inherently identifies the article as special for April Fool's day.
Remember that this may find its way into mirrors or onto printed page.

When I first saw the article, as a result of Viajero's original post,
I was not thinking about April Fool's. I *glanced* at the article, and
saw what appeared to be a very detailed, well-documented article about
a very obscure subject -- just the sort of thing we want Wikipedia to
have. Had I known someone with an interest in this arcane topic, I
might have pointed them to the page, or printed a copy and handed it
to them. Would they have immediately known this to be an April Fool's
joke? On reading it, they would conclude that it was not a serious
article, but would they know it was intentionally included in
Wikipedia as a joke for all to see? Or would they assume that some
knucklehead had added the article and no one had yet discovered it to
remove it?

Let's have some fun -- it helps to keep people motivated -- but let's
do it wisely.

-- Rich Holton

en.wikipedia:User:Rholton