[WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day next year

Mon Apr 4 13:37:19 UTC 2005

Ok, I think next year we should not tolerate what went on this year.
But we should try to do something fun.

Of all the ideas that I saw proposed, I think that the absolute best
compromise between those who love the holiday and those who are not
great fans of it would be to have the main page be 100% real and
accurate in every last respect, but *also* to have it be filled with
stories that people would naturally suspect to be hoaxes.

[[Exploding whale]] is a nice example, as is [[Holy prepuce]] (which
was a real featured article already).

Here's what I like about this compromise: first, it satisfies those of
us who understand that Wikipedia is first and foremost a serious
encyclopedia.  Second, it satisfies those who want to have fun
tricking people on April 1st.

And finally, and most important, it appeals to all of us on both sides
of the debate who are intellectual snobs. :-) Any lame website can
come up with fake stories *yawn* to trick people *yawn*.  Only we
ubergeeks of Wikipedia can come up with *real* stories to trick
people.

--Jimbo

-- 
"Pianosa is een Italie" - first words of 50,000th article on nl.wikipedia.org