Wikipedia talk:April Fools' Main Page/Archive 2007

message: :I think we should find the most esoteric Non-mainstream thing in the archives and frontpage it, assuming it is of good quality. I can help, being an obsessive hoarder of random and useless knowledge as well as smidgens of everything else :-) Maybe also switch the "on this day" thing to March 32nd instead of April 1st. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Avatar of Nothing (talk • contribs) 21:43, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ooh OOH! We could unvandalize an article on uncyclopedia! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Avatar of Nothing (talk • contribs) 21:19, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No one likes my ideas appaerently, oh well... Avatar of Nothing 12:24, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Avatar's Idea

message: I think there should be a whoopie cushion with the words in Wikipedia we trust as a temporary logo. General Eisenhower • (at war or at peace)  23:29, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, the page has to be up to the standards of other days. Would we use a whoopie cushion on July 18? (random date) | AndonicO Talk · Sign Here 23:35, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Fake Logo

message: How about redirecting the donation section to a chosen charity independant of the wikipedia foundation? RyanPostlethwaiteSee the mess I've created or let's have banter 01:15, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: An interesting ideea, as long as it doesn't inhibit donations to Wikipedia, and that chosen charity doesn't mind.Chamberlian 03:39, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Donation section

message: I've copied the 2006 version to its archive page at Wikipedia:April Fool's Main Page/2006, i'll now update this project page to use the current wikicode. —Quiddity 07:14, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: 2006 archived

message: === Fake press release? ===
A couple years we did a press release saying we were being bought out by Britannica -- how about Google? Heck, if we tried, we could try convincing them to play along... :-) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by TheProject (talk • contribs) 02:54, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's rather unfortunate and embarrassing that some of the most trusted members of the community have vandalized our main page.  Thankfully, any such behavior will now be met with prompt reversion and a stern warning.  —David Levy 03:07, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Much better to present unusual events (that are true) rather than making something up. It would be easiest to do this for "Did you know?" and "On this day", much harder to do for current news and events. --Deathphoenix ʕ 16:16, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I assume that you're kidding.  In any event, I'll note that Uncyclopedia's content is not licensed under the GFDL.  —David Levy 03:21, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Untruthful or non-whimsical modifications

message: A couple years we did a press release saying we were being bought out by Britannica -- how about Google? Heck, if we tried, we could try convincing them to play along... :-) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by TheProject (talk • contribs) 02:54, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's rather unfortunate and embarrassing that some of the most trusted members of the community have vandalized our main page.  Thankfully, any such behavior will now be met with prompt reversion and a stern warning.  —David Levy 03:07, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Much better to present unusual events (that are true) rather than making something up. It would be easiest to do this for "Did you know?" and "On this day", much harder to do for current news and events. --Deathphoenix ʕ 16:16, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fake press release? 

message: We could borrow some uncyclopedia material for the FA of the day. Personally, I was always fond of Pong! the Movie... JoeSmack Talk 03:11, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I assume that you're kidding.  In any event, I'll note that Uncyclopedia's content is not licensed under the GFDL.  —David Levy 03:21, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Uncyclopedia 

message: Not sure where to put this on this messy page, but content from Evil reptilian kitten-eater from another planet, would, if it hasn't been used before, work well for this. \sim Lenoxus " * " 06:10, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Another humorous article (more ideas on this list, perhaps?)

message: :Consensus - Text external to the mainpage boarder cannot be modified as part of the AFMP project, even if that modification would be a truthful, whimsical modification. -- Jreferee 19:58, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Modifying text external to the mainpage boarder

message: :Consensus - Fixed mainpage text cannot be modified as part of the AFMP project, even if that modification would be a truthful, whimsical modification. -- Jreferee 19:58, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Modifying fixed mainpage text

message: :Consensus - For the AFMP project to work, there is a need to have the mainpage rules bent. -- Jreferee 17:19, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You are slightly mis-characterising these objections. The reasoning is that as far as readers are concerned the April Fools' Main Page is no different. The process of making it is different (as this page proves) but that doesn't affect readers so there is no need to offer them an alternative based upon something they are not aware of. --Cherry blossom tree 14:04, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Bending the mainpage rules

message: In cold reality, there are strict limits beyond which we cannot stray before the more boring members of our community will get very, very upset indeed.  I think we should stop thinking in terms of anything that changes how Wikipedia works - or how it looks - or anything that changes the structure of the front page.
We have to live 100% within the bounds of what a normal Wikipedia front page is.
Hence we need to find things that are funny - or very hard to believe (but still true) - and get them through the standard review processes so that they all come together on April 1st.
So, let's please stop wasting time trying to think of ways of subverting the thing - it's not going to happen.
:Last year, we relaxed DYK's rules to permit the inclusion of articles that weren't new or newly expanded from stubs.  This was acceptable because it deviated only from the letter of the law (not the spirit of the project).
:Regarding ITN, it will be quite difficult to come up with strange news that's of enough international importance/interest to include (even if a decent article update/creation has occurred).  —David Levy 19:55, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. I'll help wherever I can. | AndonicO Talk · Sign Here 21:03, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I suggest we should have something simple, witty, and funny. I like all the ideas on this talk page. I suggest we should add a bunch of "fantasy" entries, something like with pictures but is totally fake. Like, taking the Exploding Toad picture and saying prehaps, "On This Day...A riot of stuffed animals flung by fifty third graders at the Bobito School hit a toad so hard it combusted, becoming the first ever exploding toad in history." Okay. It was weird. And maybe not simple, witty, and funny, but it was the best thing I came up with...D-Caf 23:08, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Nope - that's not going to work.  The ground rules are that we can only tell the truth.  No fake stuff is going to be allowed onto the front page. SteveBaker 23:41, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: To be honest, I don't know why you guys are bothering. So little can be changed, it's pointless. If every suggestion is going to be shot down, and the April Fools component going to be limited to funny DYK entries, where's the fun? Still, my respect for you guys who are trying to have some fun. Iorek85 23:35, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Iorek85 is right. Is there any point in doing this? April Fools Day is a day of playing practical jokes, not bending the line of truth. Please count the number of suggestions that have been shot down will you? Perhaps the ones that haven't may be easier to count... Jaser 12345 14:28, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

text:  I respect your position - and I agree that changing the Wikipedia logo into a whoopie cushion or something would be rather neat.  But as I said in the title of this section - we need a dose of reality here.  If you believe it will be possible to pursade those who maintain the front page to do this then I strongly recommend you head over to wherever they discuss front page design changes and present your case.   Personally, I think you don't stand a snowball's chance in hell of succeeding - but if you're so sure you can - then please try!  I'm not against doing this (in principle) - it's just that I've dealt with these folks and I'm a realist and I don't want to get into protracted arguments with those folks.  Perhaps your stamina and pursuasive powers are greater than  mine.  But for sure I don't want to waste everyone's time with something that I strongly believe won't come to fruition...but feel free to try.  I would ask though that you obtain agreement in principle to change the front page design in some way before we fill up this list with suggestions that are really unlikely to come to fruition. SteveBaker 18:17, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I can confirm this. You can discuss it at Talk:Main page or wherever if you like, but you'd be wasting your time. There are enough people who would oppose such a move in principle that it has no chance of succeeding. --Cherry blossom tree 23:45, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A dose of reality 

message: I've split out five sub-pages corresponding to the five areas of work we need to address.
There is a little menu at the top of each page to help navigation.
Please continue to use this page for general discussions - but take suggestions for each section into the appropriate sub-article. SteveBaker 00:45, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks Steve.  This will help the AFMP 2007 project move forward. -- Jreferee 00:59, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Split into SubPages 

message: Not sure if these have already been suggested, or where to leave the suggestions (could someone move them to the right place, please?), but I found these recently, and thought of this project:
*Toilet-related injury - possibly humorous article
*1946 Aleutian Islands earthquake - also called the April Fools Day Tsunami - tsunami produced by an earthquake on 1 April 1946
*April 1 - general listing - could also use "what links here" for that page to find more stuff
*Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/April 1 (use the page history to see what has appeared on the Main Page on 1 April before)
*List of pages beginning April Fool
*April Fools' Day RFC - humorous internet engineering RFCs published on 1 April
*April Fool  - disambiguation page
*April Fool's Day (film) - a strange, but relevant film
*April Fools' Day - well, duh!
*April Fool's Day (novel) - a serious book, and still a stub, probably not suitable
*April 1, 2002 - list of hoaxes for 2002
*April 1, 2004 - rambling hodge-podge of material for April Fools' Day 2004
*April 1, 2005 - like the one for 2004, but longer - the one for 2006 seems to be missing... no, actually, they exist from 1999-2006, see the category linked below
*April Fool (double agent) - um, a real honest-to-goodness secret agent - I think
*April Fool Crisis - redirect to an anime internal-history page
*April Fools (He Had the Change Done at the Shop) - redirect for a song on a 1996 album by The Frogs (band)
*Comic strip switcheroo - also known as the April Fools Switcheroo - switching round of comic strips on 1 April
*:Category:April Fool's Day
Not all of the above are in the category (and some shouldn't be anyway), or in the main article, so hopefully there is some material for new ideas there. Carcharoth 18:17, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What about just the main page saying Wikipedia has been closed due to whatever. I'm mean it would be great to see how many ppl believe it, if that was possible. I mean something like that would make news if enought ppl thought it was closed down. You could say that the FBI or MI5 closed it due to leaking of information. :p Hpbenton 08:48, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Due to the lack of will to change anything huge, I guess most would say a no to that. Jaser 12345 12:08, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  More suggestions 

message: This is just a idea, but would it be too severe to pick the featured article from those at Wikipedia:Unusual articles? If there is a featured article there that hasn't been on the mainpage before, that would of course be gravy, but if not, pick the one closest to attaining that status, and optionally launching a drive to get it as close to it as possible, or maybe even over the threshold? And of course changing the heading to "Featured Unusual Article of the Day". Like I say, this is just an idea. What do you think? -- Cimon Avaro; on a pogostick. 17:11, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: May I suggest you look at Wikipedia:April Fool's Main Page/Featured Article - we've been gradually looking at the Wikipedia:Unusual articless and picking suitable ones.  Feel free to add more good ones to the list. SteveBaker 18:09, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Could I suggest either Toilet-related injury or 0.9999999999999...., which always bewilders me- it also kind of funny. sorry that i've just dropped in here, b ut i thought i could help...
"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." [Einstein] 21:21, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, I can better that: Tarquin_Fin-tim-lin-bin-whin-bim-lim-bus-stop-F%27tang-F%27tang-Ol%C3%A9-Biscuitbarrel :-)"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." [Einstein] 21:33, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: To reiterate: Discussions about the featured article for April 1st are going on at: Wikipedia:April Fool's Main Page/Featured Article...not here.  We already have Toilet-related injury - but 0.99999999999... isn't an option because it's already been on the front page just a few months ago. The monster raving looney party candidate is a good suggestion.  I think a lot of American Monty Python enthusiasts would be really surprised to find that there really is a Monster Raving Loony party in England and that they actually put up candidates for elections and actually come close to winning some of them!  The only downside is that British people are very aware of this - so it wouldn't be anywhere near so surprising to them.  But this is definitely the kind of thing we need. SteveBaker 20:13, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Featured Unusual Article 

message: International users will be confused and Wikipedia is not the place for disinformation; it already has enough of it.-BiancaOfHell 15:53, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Why not? It's an ordinary main page we're creating, just slightly funnier. We aren't misinforming anyone; everything will be true. | AndonicO Talk · Sign Here 18:51, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Yeah - that is the ENTIRE point of what we are talking about.  We plan to put up articles that are 100% true, correct, properly researched, well written, etc.  The only thing that is in any way abnormal is that we'll try to pick things that seem incredibly hard to believe.  If you are someone who understands what April Fools day is all about then the hope is that you will naturally assume that this is a hoax page and that all the stories are fictional - but when you read them, it will slowly dawn on you that, no, this is all true.  In a sense, they prank themselves.  For these hypothetical "international readers" who don't understand April Fools day, they may never know that anything unusual was done - they'll just see some hard-to-believe things - but why would they assume they weren't true?   I don't see any problem with what we are planning to do. SteveBaker 19:29, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is far worse than the proliferation of fan articles that pop up on the main page occasionally.  People are going to go out of their minds when they read these unusual but true stories.-BiancaOfHell 15:06, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Eh? OTRS?  Opensource Ticket Request System??  I don't see a connection.  Anyway - we've been doing this for several years...I think it's likely to happen again. SteveBaker 21:56, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Do not do this!

message: (Can you believe it?  Lirpa Loof is actually a valid redirect!)
Over on the five sub-pages (see top of this page for links), we've been suggesting topic and debating their merits.  We are now down to less than two months to do the work - so we have to start voting and making firm decisions.
So far:
* On This Day - has a reasonable number of good candidates that need some clever rewording to make them sound less credible - but we're in good shape.  We'll definitely have six surprising things that happened on April 1st that can be on the front page.
* Did You Know - No shortage of great suggestions.  I think its harder to choose between them - and we have to actually push some of them up from stubs into real articles - but this seems do-able so long as we don't leave it to the last minute.
* In The News - Basically, there isn't much we can do about this until the last couple of days of March when we have to look really hard for bizarre news items.
* Todays Featured Picture - Here we are in huge trouble.  I don't see a single useable picture in the list of suggestions and nobody is talking about it on that page.  We need help here folks!  This is by far the most worrying thing.
* Todays Featured Article - I think we have three strong candidates for which we can reach consensus.  We need to pick one and start work on getting it up through peer review, WP:GAC and then WP:FAC in plenty of time so that if we fail to get it through FAC, we have time to make a second attempt - or go with a different choice.  This is where the most work remains to be done - but I'm quietly confident that we can do it if we try.
* Other things - I see lots of people making all sorts of suggestions to change the masthead, logo, to put navigation tricks into the interface and other wild stuff.  I don't personally believe that any of these things are possible - but I don't see anyone even trying to get it through the various committees that decide these things.  Well, it's "put up or shut up time".  If you guys really think this can be done - you'd better get off your butts and start pushing the right buttons in these committees.
SteveBaker 14:49, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Alright, we got around 2 weeks left before April Fool's Day - Where are we at now, about the same? Cause we need to get serious and get this thing finito! JoeSmack Talk 15:51, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Lirpa Loof]] - Status report. 

message: The situation to be avoided is the above (references to left handed mugs (the hand which you have to hold it in to see the picture) pounds of feathers and pounds of gold (the former is heavier than the latter) and other things suitable for quizzes). 
Possibility - change the date to the Julian Calendar equivalent.
Jackiespeel 16:53, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: "Not quite useless information"

message: We could go into articles and changed section of them into Pig Latin. This is like the "eelven-yaer-odl-sepehc" (eleven year old speech), only a little more readable and constant, and since some people don't know it, it's a joke to everyone else.  —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Groch (talk • contribs).
:No, please don't vandalise the encyclopedia.  —David Levy 22:37, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pig Latin 

message: What about the Vicky Pollard article on the front page?--I'll bring the food (Talk - Contribs - My Watchlist) 18:06, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Vicky Pollard

message: I am not sure if it would work, but report that the President Bush resigned. lol  Tony16 07:38, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No it wouldn't.  We post only true things which happen to be funny or unbelievable. —Dgiest c 07:41, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  President Resigned 

message: As you know, non-admins cannot edit the mainpage, they see "View Source" instead of "Edit" at the top of the screen - it would be good, if for April Fools Day, the mainpage appeared to be editable - his would work like:
*Anyone showing up to add jokes/vandalism would see "Edit" at the top of the screen
*Any edits they made would be saved, but not to the real mainpage
*The servers would use login info (or IPs for users who hadn't logged in) to serve the edited mainpage to the user who'd made that edit
*Any users who hadn't edited it would see the real mainpage
*30 minutes after a user had made an edit, it would cease to show - this would reduce the chances of a shared-IP user seeing a vandalised mainpage
I like ths idea as it would play a joke on those who would play a joke on Wikipedia - also if vandals think they can vandalise the main page, they may not vandalise othr articles.    Cheers, Davidprior 14:03, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I like this idea. Violask81976 23:55, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Don't think this is technically possible but...  a joke on the jokers 

message: Without having any jokes/whimsy on the mainpage, rewrite it without the use of the letter e , as per A Void (novel).    Of course the work Wikipedia contains an e, but perhaps for this day, it could be replaced by Wikipædia (cheating, I know...).  Tis use of Constrained writing would even translate to the other languages' wikipedias (although in some cases, e is not the most common letter, so the eswiki mainpage could be written without the letter a for example).   Anyway, just an idea...Davidprior 14:10, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd want to work on this. Is an FA around that I could try writing a summary for? ("A Bulbasaur is a fictional animal in a popular bunch of trading cards...", or "Pokémon" if é was okay.) I don't want to brag, but I think this paragraph shows that I could do this sort of lipogram.--Lkjhgfdsa 19:46, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not really a joke, but quite creative nonetheless 

message: All the links would still be working, but a calendar other than the Gregorian could be used AxiomShell 10:47, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Oooooh... I like! Is there time? \sim Lenoxus " * " 06:15, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Change "On this Day..." calendar 

message: Please could everyone note that a straight vote is taking place for which article is chosen for the featured article as consensus in discussion couldn't be reached. Everyones vote is welcome, and it takes place here RyanPostlethwaiteSee the mess I've created or let's have banter 00:50, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vote for featured article 

message: Fark.com usually has strange news stories that could be used for the In the news section. --PiMaster3 talk 21:58, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  In the news 

message: It seems to me that the AFMP 2007 period should probably be rather longer than 24 hours, so that any reader logging in at any April 1 local time could be let in on the joke.--Pharos 20:45, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: While having appropriately themed material available for everyone during their local April 1 is an admirable goal, from a logistical standpoint this would create too large a work load to realistically accomplish.  Due to the technical implementation, most of the Main page automatically changes over at 24:00 each day.  To make this suggestion work would then require two to three times the material be available to meet the needs of the increased time frame (three appropriate Featured articles and sets of On this day material while Did you know would require 48 hours worth of themed material).  Given the difficulty in accumulating 24 hours of material for the Main page, it seems unlikely that a multi-day April fools is realistic at this time. --Allen3 talk 21:38, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  24 hours, or longer? 

message: Anyone opposed to me changing the 'Mathematics' wording on the mainpage header to 'Maths'. Even though the word 'maths' has its technical grammatical place, I hear maths thrown around a lot jokingly as it sounds incorrect. JoeSmack Talk 15:54, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  'Mathematics' ---> 'Maths' 

message: Can we run all the Main Page content through Babelfish or manually edit it to produce Engrish? Everything would be just as factual but would suffer from horrible grammar. Noclip 01:38, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm have fears that would not well go over, especially as some some many would might say that bad grammars are facto ipso "false". \sim Lenoxus " * " 06:17, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Engrish 

message: Well, we have a featured article, a featured picture, and the 'On this day' feature all updated with April Fools content. Don't think the 'In the News' or 'Did you know?' bits have been updated yet. Carcharoth 00:04, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: User:Pharos, I believe. Carcharoth 13:54, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Seems to be OK so far... 

message: So when's AFMP 2008 going to get off the blocks? Jaser 12345 21:48, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, it might be best spending the next 10 months writing the encyclopedia, instead of planning the next April Fools Day page... Carcharoth 22:16, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ditto. · AO Talk 12:35, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: April Fools! Though I don't quite know how... Jaser 12345 17:40, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've just split my sides laughing. Carcharoth 22:01, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  What about Next Year?