April Fool contest idea (was Re: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featured article)

Wed Mar 30 17:59:46 UTC 2005

Daniel Mayer wrote:

>--- Stan Shebs <shebs at apple.com> wrote:
>
>>In the interests of adding to instruction creep :-), we ought to have
>>some ground rules for April Fool's, maybe make a contest out of it,
>>for instance the winner is the hoax that goes the longest without
>>being detected. For instance:
>>
>
>This is the type of utter and complete nonsense that I'm talking about.  How
>does this help us create the encyclopedia? How can you justify *encouraging*
>people to create bogus entries? 
>
We're not a bunch of text-creating machines. It's "community
second", not "no community at all".

>
>Wikipedia is NOT A PLAYTHING! This project is not here for your enjoyment - we
>are here to create an encyclopedia. If you happen to have fun while helping us
>toward *that goal*, then great. If not, then let others work and be free of
>this type of distracting nonsense. 
>
Actually, I am here for my enjoyment - it just so happens that I
enjoy making little-known information more visible by adding it
to WP. If only unenjoyable stuff was left to do, or interactions
with other editors made the daily experience unpleasant, I'd be
gone in a second; I have plenty of other hobbies.

Now to be serious about April Fools. While it can't possibly be
a tradition for print encyclopedias, it is a natural for news
organizations and for companies, and is practised even when it
"hurts productivity". For example, a big-company CEO's time is
worth thousands of dollars per hour, so when the CEO's office
is filled to the top with styrofoam peanuts, you can bet that's
costing the company real money. However, the morale boost is worth
far more than the loss of the CEO's time; employees get to talk
about something fun instead of how their current tasks suck, etc.
Silicon Valley companies do this the most of anybody, and I hear
their success is the envy of the rest of the world.

WP desperately needs to be more of a fun place. We already know a
lot of longtime contributors have been worn down to the point
where a single run-in with a troll causes them to explode and quit;
very much like what happens with longtime company employees when
their jobs are no longer enjoyable. If WP were a company, HR
would be all over Jimbo to do something about morale.

On April 1, there are going to be lots of articles fiddled with,
whether we like it or not; I certainly wasn't looking forward to
that aspect of the day (although since my watchlist hasn't worked
all week, it looks it will be other people's problem this year).

So I suggested the contest as a way to make the day something for
editors to anticipate rather than dread, and to channel some of
the urge in a way that will be more fun for more of the community.
I don't think it can possibly harm WP's reputation; people who
have a low opinion won't change their minds because of what we
or don't do on April 1, and people who have a high opinion will
like that we're recognizing the potential problem and coming up
with alternate ways to channel it.

Stan