Wikipedia:Requests for comment/April Fools'

For the 2016 RfC about April Fools', see Wikipedia:Requests for comment/April Fools' 2. For the 2020 RfC, see Wikipedia:Requests for comment/April Fools' 3.

This Request for Comment has been opened in an attempt to clear up the confusion regarding how April Fools Day should and/or should not be celebrated here on Wikipedia. Anyone with an idea is welcome to make a suggestion. Anyone is welcome to comment on the existing suggestions.

(signing so this lists properly on WP:RFC.) Steel1943 (talk) 23:48, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Note: I have taken the initiative to start rewriting Wikipedia:Rules for Fools based on this RFC. Feel free to add any additional content from this RFC to the proposed guideline. —DragonLord^{(talk/contribs)} 21:17, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Suggestions

An independent XfD log specifically for joke XfDs

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

There is no consensus for an independent XfD log. While comments about how such a thing "misses the point of the jokes" hold no weight, the concerns that it would be large and complicated undertaking for a single say's events is a valid argument. While there is a numerically higher number of oppose votes, neither section has particularly strong arguments in any real numbers, which is why I am judging this as no consensus rather than consensus against. Sven Manguard Wha? 18:18, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

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The heading is fairly self-explanatory. Rather than worry about joke AfDs or MfDs getting in the way of serious ones by being in the same location, we should simply put these XfDs in their own log where those who are interested can participate. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C • AAPT) 03:45, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Support for independent XfD log

1. As proposer. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C • AAPT) 03:45, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
2. Support, but there may need to be further discussion about other forms of humor on April Fools' Day. TBrandley 03:46, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

   Certainly. This is merely one of many possible things to discuss. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C • AAPT) 03:52, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

3. Maybe also lump in other fake nominations like RfX. The log should be linked to in a way which is unlikely to confuse users, but still amusing for those who wish to participate. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 06:11, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
4. Support, if these XfD nominations are going to continue to happen, and it seems likely they are. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:36, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
5. support it would prevent much of the chaos, and clarify the purpose of said XfD's -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 18:05, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
6. Support As a reasonable compromise. AIRcorn (talk) 22:53, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Oppose independent XfD log

1. Oppose. The whole point of these jokes is that they are presented in situ. Without making a statement as to whether or not they should be here at all, creating an independent log is missing the point entirely. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 07:15, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
2. Oppose Daft idea. Go play in a sandbox, preferably a real one, if you want to play kiddie pranks. Leaky Caldron 09:31, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

   Do you have any better ideas or just more stupid insults? AutomaticStrikeout (T • C • AAPT) 17:13, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

   Nothing that springs immediately to mind, no but probably best not to tempt me. Leaky Caldron 18:08, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

3. Oppose Per Orange Suede Sofa, and how complicated this would get just for one holiday. Vacation9 11:41, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
4. Oppose per Orange Suede Sofa. XfD pages are sufficiently obscure that ordinary readers are unlikely to notice them. Hut 8.5 16:51, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
5. Oppose per Orange Suede Sofa. Completely misses the point of the jokes. -DJSasso (talk) 17:18, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
6. Silly. — This, that and the other (talk) 01:21, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
7. Oppose creating a place for it gives the impression that it's condoned. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 03:45, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
8. Oppose. Agree with Orange Suede Sofa (talk · contribs), above. Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 04:48, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
9. Oppose per Starblind. Sjakkalle (Check!) 16:51, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
10. Oppose per Orange Suede Sofa. Sorry, but that would be extraordinarily complicated and take away the meaning anyway. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 01:58, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
11. Oppose It's not worth it, and really isn't necessary for a holiday. April Fools' XFD proposals are pretty obvious when the date and page to be deleted are noted. —DragonLord^{(talk/contribs)} 03:08, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
12. Very weak oppose simply because I can't see how the log could realistically distinguish between the two and the point of the jokes is to fool people into thinking it is something real. Technical 13 (talk) 13:11, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Comments on independent XfD log

• How about we just ban the use of Twinkle to start the AfDs? That way being added to the log altogether is avoided. All of the AfD pages could just be added to a category. Zach 04:06, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

There might be something with templates that could serve a similar purpose - perhaps something that flags Snotbot to remove joke AFDs from the log and make sure the articles themselves do not have a tag. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 14:05, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I've incorporated this and other suggestions into a counter proposal, below. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 14:40, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Just to clarify something: are you proposing to stop the use of Twinkle to nominate only joke AfDs or any AfD? Because Twinkle saves a LOT of time and trouble when nominating AfDs. Michaelzeng7 (talk) 21:08, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

• We could make a transclude on XfD logs, as such it would prevent the real XfD from mixing with real nominees. Eduemoni^↑talk↓ 15:47, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Ban all April Fools jokes

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Consensus is against banning all April Fools jokes. While most of the arguments in this section were either versions of ILIKEIT or IDONTLIKEIT, there were valid comments in the support section about the time that it takes to clean up after the pranks and valid comments in the oppose section about the impracticability of such a ban, and several people in opposition seeing no practical purpose for the ban. Sven Manguard Wha? 18:19, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

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This would harm nobody. Any other level of permission creates controversy, and helps nobody. HiLo48 (talk) 03:55, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Support Ban all April Fools jokes

1. Until there's something actually clever or funny, stop it. It's been years since this made any sense. Same Jimbo blocks, goofy RFA's etc. Stale. RxS (talk) 04:48, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
2. Support. It's a pretty stupid holiday in real life, and even dumber here. Celebrating it is of no benefit to Wikipedia.—Kww(talk) 06:48, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
3. People's sense of humor differs greatly and i have seen multiple occsasions where April 1 jokes have gotten out of hand or turned ugly. I have also seen recent charges of userpage vandalism. Pass a Method talk 08:27, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
4. Puerile behaviour creates its own response. Mine is simply to oppose any candidate at RfA/RfB/Arbcom who supports or has recently participated in such behaviour on the premise that they think it is funny. It shows crass bad judgement (it isn't funny), a lack of maturity (it's disruptive) and they should act out their silly social networking japes in a more suitable venue. 2013 has provided a massive list - bring on their RfAs! Leaky Caldron 09:28, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

   Yeah, it is really mature to vindictively oppose people who try to have fun. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C • AAPT) 17:28, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

   Maybe I just don't get childish, immature, unsubtle, unfunny, unsophisticated, blatantly disruptive, vandalism tomfoolery as being fun? Should I split my sides laughing when I see a false WP:ORANGE or foreign language RFA? Can I not contain my mirth when a FA is nominated for deletion or a user is given a false block warning?! Yeh, hilarious. If these abject attempts to be "fun" is the best on offer here's a tip, don't give up the day job. Am I allowed to express such a view in your world, ASO? Is this another case of someone who disagrees with you being thoughtless and clueless? Leaky Caldron 18:36, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

5. I hate being a killjoy, but the idea of the Wikipedia April Fool's joke has expired. The problem is that now, April Fools day around here has simply turned into "let's be silly day". Back when we were a small family here, it was funny to have a couple of unique jokes pop up that were truly off the wall and caught you off guard, but it has already been done, to death. Instead of a few funny and novel ideas, what we have is a wall of "already been done, except it was funny the first time" gags. I love a good joke, but I just haven't seen one on April Fools day here in a few years. Each year, at least one or two people are now getting blocked for taking it too far, so someone's feelings are getting hurt. At some point, you just move on to other things and quit trying to relive (or surpass) former glory and move on. If you can fence off an area for the kiddies, that would be fine, but all the spillage into RfA, AfD, ANI, mainspace, etc. really is more damaging than beneficial to morale at this point. It is like trying to go Trick or Treating when you are 40: it is just sad. I'm sorry for those of you that missed when it was new and funny, but it is no longer new, nor funny. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 10:26, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
6. Of course April Fool jokes can be fun. The difficulty is that what may be a genuine news item or somebody's entirely serious AfD may look to others like a joke - ambiguity is the point. If they are too obvious, they are not funny. Given the time zone problem, varied cultural traditions and differences in sense of humour the problems they cause outweigh the fun for the small minority who indulge. --AJHingston (talk) 11:47, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

   I would suggest that news items will always be taken with a grain of salt on April 1st, whether or not we have joke items in the mix as well. But it is a fair point. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 12:43, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

   It is about whether we are entitled to assume good faith, especially on the part of experienced editors, because such things will appear in article space or anywhere else. We might have doubts about the source, but friction arises if we doubt the motives of other editors. --AJHingston (talk) 13:09, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

7. Unless I feel compelled to use the terribly overused "lol", which is not often, jokes of this nature do not belong here. Lol as in I laughed out loud. Which I didn't. Rcsprinter (converse) @ 15:01, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
8. This probably won't pass anyway, but honestly, we and Wikipedia would survive just fine without a day of utter crazypants chaos every year that leaves behind only ill will and too much cleanup to be done. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 15:15, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
9. Sure, why not. ‑Scottywong| soliloquize _ 16:50, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
10. This nonsense was funny when it started many years ago, but it has gone on far too long. April Fool Jokes are not, as far as I know, a world-wide phenomena. Their intensity certainly varies from very big to almost vanishingly small. I have not come across them outside wikipedia for years. What kind of image of us do they present in countries that do not celebrate April 1st in this way? Get rid of them from Wikipedia and block anyone for 48 hours who starts one next year.--Bduke (Discussion) 16:56, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
11. I doubt this will be passed, but the April fools jokes tend to be disruptive, or encourage others to do something disruptive. IRWolfie- (talk) 17:31, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
12. Difficult to enforce even if it passes, but for what it's worth, I support this. I would imagine that a large number of our readers, even on the English Wikipedia, come from countries where there is no tradition of April Fool's Day. Allowing this annual farce harms those readers, and to an extent damages the credibility of Wikipedia as a whole, for little obvious benefit. Robofish (talk) 18:08, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
13. This is getting out of hand[1][2][3] and very unoriginal[4], plus its practitioners are leaving a mess for others to clean up[5][6][7][8][9]. AIRcorn (talk) 23:01, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
14. Support: There's no need for them, most of them aren't funny, and many of them are more disruptive than anticipated. We should be responding to such edits just the same as we would on any other day — revert, warn, block, etc. For the avoidance of doubt, my support here does not preclude the practice of selecting main page content that is true but sounds implausible. Bovlb (talk) 23:51, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

    To expand on my point, we would need a strong consensus in order to decide that certain rules (that themselves arise from consensus) are suspended for a specific day on the calendar. We don't have that consensus, so the baseline is that the rules are not suspended, and we respond to vandalism, misleading contributions, and bad faith actions as we normally would. We have enough trouble with these things all year round without seeking to add to it. Themed scheduling of DYK and FA is a different matter, and within the discretion of the relevant projects. We would come down hard on those teams if they started posting fake entries instead. Bovlb (talk) 06:21, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

15. Not funny, waste of time for those who have to clean up.  Sandstein  07:01, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
16. In practice it's impossible to prevent vandalism, and determined pranksters can still slip stuff in any day of the year with no real punishment. But if people want to prank, they should (a) have to work hard at it and (b) risk consequences, same as any other day of the year. I appreciate a good April Fool's joke, but a good joke involves careful planning and cunning to avoid being caught. Allowing jokes simply means a ton of incredible lameness and unfunnyness. --Colapeninsula (talk) 09:47, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
17. Great idea, will totally work! —rybec 03:03, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
18. They're just not appropriate here. Miniapolis 21:24, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
19. Support as they have no encyclopedic value. Technical 13 (talk) 13:21, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Oppose Ban all April Fools jokes

1. Very one-sided suggestion. No, this is not a cure-all. If we can find a way to make April Fools Day harmless, great! Banning it altogether is ridiculous. Some people don't mind having fun once in a while. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C • AAPT) 03:59, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

   Why is it ridiculous? You saying so doesn't make it so. HiLo48 (talk) 04:00, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

   Why is this ban necessary? I don't agree with your assertion about it harming nobody, especially since saying something doesn't make it so. Wikipedia can be a very unpleasant place. Making it enjoyable one day out of the year is not a bad thing. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C • AAPT) 04:02, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

   If you don't enjoy Wikipedia, go away. My statement about a total ban harming nobody is a common sense one. You will need to provide evidence that somebody will be harmed by it. HiLo48 (talk) 04:09, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

   Oh, and why is a ban necessary? I explained that right at the start. Any level of permission beyond a total ban creates controversy, confuses peoples, tricks gullible people (that's a form of bullying), and encourages vandalism. HiLo48 (talk) 04:14, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

   Badgering is also a form of bullying. Besides, nobody said anything about a level of permission. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C • AAPT) 17:09, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

   All I meant by "level of permission" was the amount of April Fools jokes currently allowed. I hope you realise that if it wasn't April Fools Day a lot of what is done in the name of "fun" would be seen simply as vandalism. HiLo48 (talk) 00:12, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

   Yes, but if it wasn't April Fools Day, the stuff wouldn't be happening. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C • Sign AAPT) 22:16, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

2. Strong oppose. April Fools' Day, although not a national holiday, is widely recognized and celebrated as a day when people play practical jokes and hoaxes on each other! Why should Wikipedia be treated any different? Zach 04:05, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

   Because Wikipedia is GLOBAL encyclopaedia, available to people in many cultures where April Fools' Day doesn't exist. Next tunnel-visioned question? HiLo48 (talk) 04:07, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

   NOTE: My above post made even more sense before Zach decided to change his post AFTER I had replied to it. And he accuses ME of being rude! HiLo48 (talk) 04:21, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

   1) Stop being rude and 2) Please feel the need to not reply to every single person who doesn't agree with you. Yeah? Zach 04:09, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

   "National" vs "Global" was not a matter of opinion. It's fact. Your point was based on a wrong premise. HiLo48 (talk) 04:11, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

   Oh dear... now I'm a pest apparently. You're getting nowhere fast. Good luck to you! Zach 04:23, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

   An apology for stuffing up the flow of conversation may have helped, but it wasn't forthcoming, so yes, pest. HiLo48 (talk) 06:27, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

3. Strong oppose. Yes, much of it is old stuff, but at least one joke makes me chuckle every year. Besides, a bit of light humor is good for the community. Not to mention that this proposal would also ban the mostly uncontroversial "wacky but true" features on the Main Page. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 06:09, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

   Being old stuff isn't the problem. Convince me that the "light humor is good for the community" outweighs all of what is really no more than vandalism because someone thinks it's funny. HiLo48 (talk) 06:27, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

   HiLo48, you don't need to pop up to contradict everybody. We know what you think, but we aren't here to convince you. --Stfg (talk) 09:06, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

   But I am here to convince those who will make the decision, so I have every right, in fact a duty, to point out the poor logic in others' comments. This isn't a vote. It's a discussion where quality of argument should be all that counts. If I see poor quality, I'll highlight it! HiLo48 (talk) 00:08, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

   But the quality of the comments of others is your opinion, which you've already stated multiple times. We aren't going to change ours. TCN7JM 00:10, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

   Ah, so you admit that your stubbornness will prevent you from rationally discussing this. Thank you for making that clear. (And do you really have the right to use the word "We" there?) HiLo48 (talk) 00:16, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

   Your rudeness is the thing keeping this from being a rational discussion. And yes, I do have the right to use "we", because I'm not the first person to tell you this. TCN7JM 00:19, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

   Pointing out poor thinking is a valid way to discuss things. And you're wrong anyway. Nobody else has been stupid enough to say they won't change their mind. HiLo48 (talk) 00:24, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

   Well we sure aren't going to change our minds just because you're badgering us to. Most people only change their opinion because of well thought out replies that rebut the argument instead of just saying "you're wrong". TCN7JM 00:35, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

   Pretty sure I haven't just said "you're wrong". If you're going to condemn what I say, it will be more effective if you get it right. HiLo48 (talk) 05:29, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

   I'm paraphrasing and you know it. Quit using the fact that I use quotes to deviate from the discussion at hand. TCN7JM 05:33, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

   Then stop paraphrasing, and discuss exactly what I've said. I've put some thought into this. I might be wrong, but I haven't seen a convincing argument to that effect yet. Condemning me for saying a lot certainly won't do it. HiLo48 (talk) 05:37, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

   But that's exactly what we're trying to get you to stop doing. If you had many different arguments, it'd be fine, but you keep popping up with the same argument everywhere in an attempt to get every single one of us to change our minds. TCN7JM 05:39, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

   Given the non-specific nature of your opposition to what I'm saying, I'm convinced that my argument is strong, and you would simply rather not have me present it. HiLo48 (talk) 05:44, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

   I've just run out of ways to say this.... You have already said it...many...many times. You don't need to say it to every single person who comments in the oppose section. TCN7JM 05:47, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

4. Oppose - it wouldn't work and isn't necessary. --Stfg (talk) 09:06, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

   Why wouldn't it work? Just treat it as vandalism, which is what it actually is. HiLo48 (talk) 00:18, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

   1. The effort people are willing to put into an AFD gag goes up with the square of the effort spent to prevent it. That's kind of part of the spirit of the day. APL (talk) 03:26, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
5. Oppose I never understood the argument that joke XFDS and other pranking "harm" the wiki. Every single one I've ever seen has been obviously in humor. And if I can recognize their jokey nature, then I'm sure anyone will realize that it's just in fun. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 09:57, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

   What sort of arrogance leads anyone to think that everyone else thinks the same way they do? HiLo48 (talk) 00:21, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

   Hilo48, that question needs to be directed right back at you. What sort of arrogance leads you to think that everyone else should think the same way you do? That's exactly the attitude you're displaying with your overly aggressive badgering comments to the opposers of your proposal. Chamal ^T•C 01:42, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

   Stupid comment. Point out the flaw in my logic. Don't just say that you don't like seeing it. HiLo48 (talk) 03:27, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

   Very good advice. It would be even better if you applied the same advice to yourself. Or do you not see the same flaws you criticize in your own comments? You're supposed to convince us of your viewpoint with evidence and sound logic, not by badgering the opposers. The way you're acting now is quite frankly sillier and more annoying than any of the stupid April 1 jokes. Chamal ^T•C 04:34, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

   These badgering allegations are a sideshow, and could be seen as an attempt to silence someone whose thoughts you don't like seeing. I've thought about this a lot. I have a lot of points in my head that I would like to put forward. I know from sad experience that if I put more than two in any single post, many here will miss or ignore most of them. S I wait until someone posts an argument for which I've already thought of a response, and post it then. That's not badgering. That's presenting my case in a way it will be noticed. That my arguments annoy you doesn't bother me at all. If you can refute them logically we'll be getting somewhere. Telling me to not present them will get you nowhere. HiLo48 (talk) 05:22, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

   You don't seem to have a lot of points to put forward. The only one you've put forward so far is "you guys are being illogical and I'm right". You are the reason this conversation is getting nowhere. TCN7JM 05:28, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

   OK, I'll clarify. Ten Pound Hammer claimed "Every single one I've ever seen has been obviously in humor." I made the point that not everyone sees it the same way as him. That somewhat negates his point. We don't all think the same way, and as long as some people here don't appreciate or enjoy the humour, it's disrupting their use of Wikipedia. OK? HiLo48 (talk) 05:34, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

   Yes, and we understand that you feel that way. You don't need to use that argument to rebut every single one of your opposers. That you disagree with us as opposers of your proposal is given. TCN7JM 05:36, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

6. Oppose There's not a chance of any consensus being reached, and if there were, it should be done a lot closer to next April 1. The community does shift personal over time, and it would be a bad idea for consensus to be a year old.--Wehwalt (talk) 10:39, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
7. Strong Oppose Definitely not. This wouldn't work and a bit of humor isn't bad. Vacation9 11:36, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

   We would make it work by calling ALL jokes vandalism. And yes, a bit of humour is OK, but disruption isn't. HiLo48 (talk) 03:27, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

   I have to say I'm not impressed by your badgering of opposers. I'm not going to change my mind, I stated my opinion and others can have theirs. Most April Fools jokes here are not disruptive. No need for this. Vacation9 11:43, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

8. Oppose - Mainly per King of Hearts. I don't take part in this kind of humor, to be honest, but it makes me laugh. There's nothing wrong with just a little humor for one day out of 365. TCN7JM 12:21, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

   It might be OK if it was obvious humour, but a lot of it isn't. HiLo48 (talk) 03:27, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

9. Oppose as per my comments below. I would also suggest that the proposer cool it with the personal attacks - he/she is doing nothing but prove the point that editors who don't have fun with the project once in a while are not enjoyable to interact with. Calm down. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 12:42, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

   I have made no personal attacks. I have criticised arguments. Deal with it. HiLo48 (talk) 03:27, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

10. Oppose per my comment below. TBrandley 14:00, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
11. Oppose - Puh-lease. As Wehwalt says above, there is no way such a proposal will reach consensus. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:36, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
12. Oppose These pranks are just a bit of fun. Not necessarily the most intelligent or witty fun ever created, but... who cares? —Tom Morris (talk) 14:58, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

    I do. HiLo48 (talk) 03:27, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

    You care that the jokes are not the most intelligent or witty? APL (talk) 04:11, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

13. Oppose: So we're going to block/ban people even for making a joke in their own userpage on April 1st? If you get irritated when you see jokes on your "serious" encyclopedia, the solution is simple – ignore them and stay away as long as it's not hurting anybody or affecting the reader experience. Please excuse the rest of us if we don't take Wikipedia so seriously; different people have different reasons and motivations for editing here. Chamal ^T•C 15:07, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

    Wikipedia belongs to the world, not just those who want to impose April Fools jokes on it. It's stupid to ask all those who don't want to be part of that game to ignore Wikipedia on that day. HiLo48 (talk) 03:27, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

    Did you miss the part where I said jokes can be ignored as long as they are not hurting anybody or affecting the reader experience? I didn't ask anybody to ignore Wikipedia. Chamal ^T•C 04:38, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

14. Oppose I say let people have their fun as long as they do no harm. If Google can play April fools pranks, why can't Wikipedia? ~Adjwilley (talk) 15:12, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

    As soon as anyone is fooled, harm is done. HiLo48 (talk) 03:27, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

15. Oppose As long as articles suffer no depredation, pranks must remain out of article space. Serious business, academic institutions incorporate April's First in their calendar, why can't we do the same? Eduemoni^↑talk↓ 15:47, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
16. Oppose - This ban would never work. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 16:00, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
17. Oppose Won't work, such a ban is going to discourage new editors and cause long-term contributors to retire - Wikipedia will not benefit from this. If you don't like these jokes, leave them alone, as long as it stays away from the article mainspace. hmssolent\^{Let's convene} _{My patrols} 16:33, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
18. Oppose most of the jokes do no harm. On the other hand, Wikipedia is a community, jokes do have a positive effect on some editors, and banning them would certainly have a negative effect. Hut 8.5 16:54, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

    It should be obvious to you by now that jokes have a negative effect on some editors. How do we strike a balance? Let me judge which ones are OK? (That's a joke, but a serious question.) HiLo48 (talk) 05:41, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

    Aside from jokes spilling over into article space (which is a different issue altogether), the issues presented in the support section consist of general complaints such as "it's not funny" or "it encourages disruptive behaviour". Actual examples of harm caused seem to be limited to a single serious AfD which was assumed to be a joke, but a ban on April Fools' jokes wouldn't help there, because it would be likely to result in the AfD being speedily closed or deleted because of the ban. Hut 8.5 11:25, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

19. Oppose Hut 8.5 just about sums my opinions up right above. -DJSasso (talk) 17:19, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
20. Oppose - Sometimes we may overdo it, but everyone deserves at least some fun to enjoy themselves. NFLisAwesome ^{(ZappaOMati's alternate account)} 17:23, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
21. Oppose - A terribly silly notion that would never work. Are you going to sanction people for making April Fool's jokes on their user talk pages?--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 17:37, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
22. Oppose' - Plenty of things on Wikipedia may have passed their useful life, but continue on here just the same. Keep 'em out of mainspace and just let people unwind of a day. Somehow I don't think the world will end if that happens... Intothatdarkness 17:40, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
23. Strongest Possible Oppose just because some people can't take a joke, doesn't mean we should nix the one fun day on the wiki... why can't there be a little non-destructive disruption ONE DAY OUT OF THE 365 OTHERS? seriously, people need to learn to relax, have a sense of humor, and not bee a stick in the mud all the time. -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 18:02, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
24. Oppose I agree we need some standards and there are far too many people who think they are way funnier than they really are, but banning fun is just not something I can get behind. The option is opent to just work on content or whatever and not pay any attention to the siliness. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:27, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

    Please explain how one can tell the difference between a joke and vandalism? HiLo48 (talk) 03:59, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

25. Oppose - Unworkable and its technically censorship; as long as it stays out of article space, it shouldn't be a major issue. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 19:20, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

    Censorship? LOL. Is THAT meant to be a joke? HiLo48 (talk) 03:59, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

26. Oppose - I will stipulate that this year got out of hand as far as what was allowed to slide. I will further stipulate that firm and enforceable guidelines need to be set in order to avoid this in the future. But I will absolutely not stipulate to the fact that the whole practice should be banned. This reminds me a bit of gun control; there are those who think any gun should be allowed, there are those who think no guns should be allowed, but most reasonable people will agree that the solution lies somewhere in the middle. I think that this community is intelligent enough that we can work out a sensible solution that strikes a balance between having fun (for those who think that starting an SPI of Jimbo is fun) and not disrupting the encyclopedia and causing more work for others to clean up. Go Phightins! 19:28, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
27. Oppose. For goodness' sake, lighten up everybody. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:46, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

    Useless post. HiLo48 (talk) 03:59, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

28. Oppose - being a global project doesn't mean we only do things that everyone in the world understand, agree, accept or practise. It means we accept there are differences between different people and cater to everyone. That includes those thare are for April Fools as well as those that are against. Don't get in the way of those who are not interested, i.e. stay out of articles, don't cause unreasonable over the top disruption to other pages, what the heck is the problem? If someone don't wish to partake in the fun/idiocy, do what the rest of us do, ignore it. KTC (talk) 21:23, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

    How does one ignore it when one can't tell if something is meant to be a joke, or might be just plain vandalism? HiLo48 (talk) 05:28, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

29. Oppose I like the silliness on the Main Page and the occasional joke in the project space. I think it's a good team-building exercise for the community. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:47, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

    All posts that really say nothing more that "I like it" should be struck out. We all know that whether we like or dislike something counts for nothing here. Damaging the project matters though. HiLo48 (talk) 03:59, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

    How about those who don't feel part of that team? This includes those who simply don't like the jokes, and those who don't commemorate April Fools Day the same way as your team does. HiLo48 (talk) 05:27, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

    After Wikipedia:Requests for comment/HiLo48 and related problems, I can see why you would not feel like you were a valued part of the community. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:19, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

30. Oppose - "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven" - Ecclesiastes 3:1 --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 23:16, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
31. Oppose We mustn't let the po-faced brigade take over any further than they already have... — This, that and the other (talk) 01:22, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
32. I would Oppose any new rule that ends the traditional main-page double-bluff. (And HiLo's traditional talk:main_page post complaining about it!) However, I think it's amusing that HiLo is so eager to ban AFD that he seems to honestly believe that banning a much-beloved and long-standing tradition would somehow prevent controversy! APL (talk) 03:21, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

    Why did you have to so appallingly and stupidly misrepresent my position? Does it make you feel better? Another form of bullying? Or just a personal attack? Grow up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HiLo48 (talk) 05:25, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

33. Oppose. Per Status (talk · contribs), above. Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 04:48, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

    Nothing to add? just a vote? Pointless post. HiLo48 (talk) 03:59, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

    Do you realize that by answering each post you are being far more disruptive than the jokes you pretend to ban? — ΛΧΣ²¹ 01:04, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

    No. I have already responded to such a comment, but will do so again. This is not a trivial issue. My arguments are not shallow. However, I know from experience here that if I presented them all at once many readers wouldn't get past the second point. Much of my argument can be presented as responses to others' points. That is what I am doing. HiLo48 (talk) 05:11, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

    If the majority of the community thinks you're being disruptive, you're probably being disruptive. TCN7JM 05:19, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

    That's not a response to what I just posted. One of Wikipedia's problems is the inevitable shallowness of single point discussions. (Such as the seeming mess created by the multiple discussions on this topic on this very page since April Fools Day. Few editors will read them all, but many will comment without having done so.) How would you suggest I present my somewhat more complex argument? HiLo48 (talk) 05:28, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

34. Oppose. Not everyone has been around here for eight years. Many of the people wanting to ban jokes are saying things like "it was funny when I started, but now it's getting old" as if people who are new just don't matter to them. You admit it was funny once for you, now think about how others might see it when you try to take away something simply because you don't enjoy it anymore. —Soap— 11:27, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

    I've been around a fair while, and I've never found April Fools jokes funny. HiLo48 (talk) 11:29, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

    well, most English speaking people come from the US or the british isles, where april fool's is widespread. also, you can always take the day off if you don't like it. -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 14:46, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

    Two points. 1. A lot of our readers won't even realise that a bunch of self-appointed clowns are going to mess with Wikipedia on that day. How will they know to take the day off? Wikipedia is a service to the world, not to your ego. 2. Have you counted the English speakers in India and China lately? HiLo48 (talk) 21:42, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

    how many of those are going to go to the engish wiki... not many. I do realize that many people speak English in other countries, but not many of those speak it as their native language. sorry that you have a personal vendetta against april fools, but I like having a little sillyness once in a while,. also, google is worldwide, and they make jokes too. for the vast majority, mainspace is supposed to be left alone, and readers rarely look at wikipedia and user namespace.... -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 21:57, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

    What has speaking it in their native tongue got to do with anything. If you speak two languages fluently then you speak two languages, it doesn't matter which one you learnt first. There are 100 000 pages in the Hindi Wikipedia whereas there are 120 000 articles here just on Indian topics, so I find the claim that not many English speakers in non-English countries use Wikipedia unlikely. AIRcorn (talk) 23:20, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

35. Oppose. Obviously, foolery with the articles damages the product that Wikipedia is providing, and the consensus is strong that jokes there are to be avoided. But joke RFAs, joke postings on the Bureaucrat's noticeboard, and jocular messages on user talkpages don't inherently do harm and can lighten the mood. Much of it is silly, but I don't agree that we should implement an absolute ban on it. Sjakkalle (Check!) 16:45, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
36. Kilopi (talk) 00:30, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
37. Strong Oppose There's no reason to prohibit April Fools' activity in userspace or project space, as long as it can't reasonably be taken as personal attacks or libel and doesn't affect critical project pages such as WP:AN/I. —DragonLord^{(talk/contribs)} 03:17, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
38. Oppose As above. In addition, this project needs a little humor once in a while. April Fools Day is only once a year, so I'd be inclined to let it go. However, joke AfDs should go in userspace. Thegreatgrabber (talk)^contribs 05:12, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
39. Oppose Editors who don't like April Fools' Day jokes can simply take the day off. Editing Wikipedia is voluntary, not compulsary. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 12:13, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

    So we just ignore vandalism for a day? HiLo48 (talk) 05:05, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

40. Oppose - The idea of an online virtual community requires some level of humor. If Wikipedia were a solemn and boring place, we would have no editors. April Fools Day jokes are supposed to be funny and (to an extent) against some policies and guidelines. Google, Microsoft, and many other websites have all had their share of funny pranks on their users. Wikipedia should be no exception. Michaelzeng7 (talk) 20:43, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

    Your first two sentences are pure opinion, with no justification at all. The rest of your post wants us to be just like other sites. I want us to be better. HiLo48 (talk) 05:05, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

41. Oppose If the BBC can air the Spaghetti tree hoax, Wikipedia can stand some jokey DYK headlines. -- Khazar2 (talk) 07:20, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
42. Strong Oppose - April Fools can be a fun time for a lot of people and banning it outright can make a lot of people disappointed. Also I'd like to add that I don't like HiLo48 calling other editor's posts useless. If he wants to be disrespectful, save it for IRL. GamerPro64 13:58, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

    In every case where I have condemned a post I have given reasons. It's in response to posts where there are no reasons, or which contain stupid reasons, where my responses have been firmer than you seem to like. I make no apology for that at all. Discuss my reasons if you're game. HiLo48 (talk) 05:05, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

    "Condemned" you say? So you choose to insult these commenters who give no reasons. Not at all be a parody of yourself as you are trying your best to be, and pardon the profanity as it is the only word I can describe your actions, a jerk on a discussion about something as trivial as an event that happens 1/365 or 1/366 of a year. GamerPro64 15:00, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

    Weird post. "Jerk" isn't a profanity. And vandalism is vandalism, whatever day of the year it's done. HiLo48 (talk) 17:35, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

    true. however, jokes are not vandalism, as long as they stay out of the articles. you are quite obviously on a crusade here, one which few editors support. -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 17:49, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

    I suppose jokes on User pages could be OK, but nowhere else. Yes, I am on a bit of a crusade. And it doesn't worry me how many people agree with me. That's never a good measure for much at all. Many times in my life I have been in a minority, and right. HiLo48 (talk) 18:05, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

    And you're modest too. But the reason why I called jerk profanity is because since you, who gets offended when someone tells you to "lighten up", may have been offended by it. Definitions. GamerPro64 22:27, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

    Oh, there's no doubt that calling me a jerk is a personal attack, but it seems that being irrationally abused is par for the course for people here who challenge the status quo, and there seem to be no consequences. Don't worry. I won't report you for it. I don't do that because Wikipedia's justice processes are appalling. They allow as much abuse to be thrown around as the accusers like. As for modesty, that point wasn't really about me. I was highlighting the fact that anybody with a new and different idea starts off by being in a minority. And it's worth remembering that we don't vote here. HiLo48 (talk) 22:51, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

    What are you stating here? That your proposal is the majority and thus correct just because it was the first thing to be proposed? TCN7JM 23:01, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

    I really don't think that is what he is trying to say. I think he's trying to say that we should ignore the votes that lack explanation. I personally fell that better supported !votes should be given more weight, however, you shouldn't wholly ignore !votes unless they are total nonsense or off topic. -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 23:32, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

    Okay, your explanation makes sense. Thanks. TCN7JM 23:36, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

    Yes, that was my point. Sorry I wasn't clearer. Though I possibly feel more strongly that posts that are really only votes, without reason(s), should count for very little at all. As well as being nothing more than votes, which we don't do here, they are also just expressions of WP:ILIKEIT, which also count for very little here. HiLo48 (talk) 00:49, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

43. Oppose- it would seem this was proposed a day late. Reyk _YO! 01:02, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

    What a waste of a post. HiLo48 (talk) 02:52, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

    Just popping in to tell somebody their post is a "waste" is worse than the original opposer's post. Now kindly stop confronting every single person that opposes your proposal. TCN7JM 02:57, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

    There's a discussion elsewhere on this page, chronologically from before Reyk's post, of the importance of the quality of posts in discussions such as this. It needs to be pointed out that Reyk's post, like many others here from those who like annoying people on April Fools Day, added nothing to the discussion, and he should have realised it and not wasted that post. HiLo48 (talk) 05:05, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

    doesn't mean you have to be uncivil about it. in fact, you have been quite rude and belittling towards those who disagree with you. -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 05:43, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

    I disagree. I have been strongly critical of poor argument, and of posts that contain no argument, just opinion, or even less. I won't apologise for that. HiLo48 (talk) 05:49, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

    so you claim that calling editors incompetent, saying that their posts are wastes of space, calling editors "self appointed clowns", etc. isn't uncivil? perhaps you should actually read WP:CIVIL. -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 06:01, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

    Yep. No apology from me for highlighting incompetence for what it is when it appears. Are you aware of WP:COMPETENCEISREQUIRED? "Self appointed clowns" was simply my attempt to describe those creating alleged "jokes", primarily for their own amusement, so no, not uncivil. HiLo48 (talk) 08:07, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

    You want a better explanation. Very well. I oppose this proposal for several reasons. Firstly, it is unclear how far you want your ban to go. Does it include DYKs where the subject is genuine but the hook is worded humorously? Stuff you say on peoples' talk pages or your own? If so, that's automatically off the table for me; I oppose most policing of user space. And if you say "Ban X" without being clear about what exactly constitutes X and where it applies, then people agreeing to it expecting one thing might be annoyed to find it expanded to cover all sorts of other things. Secondly, I believe Wikipedia takes itself way too seriously as a rule and periodic bouts of humour do no harm, so long as they do not introduce falsehoods into article space- that's where I draw the line. And yes, that's "just my personal opinion"- just like this proposal is just your personal opinion. And mine is worth as much as yours. You can frequently tell who's in the wrong in some argument because they're shouting louder than anyone else and won't shut up saying the same thing over and over. Given that I read your badgering of every single oppose of your proposal, and it did not convince me to support instead, why would you think badgering me would help? In fact it's had the opposite effect; I don't agree with your proposal but I wasn't going to bother voting on it until I saw how obnoxious your badgering was. That's right, your utterly, utterly inane badgering only made things worse for yourself. Now do yourself and everyone else a favour by just corking it and letting people have their say unmolested. People can legitimately have opinions that differ from yours, and you're just going to have to accept that. Reyk _YO! 06:47, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

    Thanks for that somewhat longer than average response Reyk. It allows some more "meat" in the discussion, and there's some fair questions in there. No, I'm not happy with the "humourously worded" DYKs. They are deliberately misleading, in a public area of the encyclopaedia. Not acceptable to me. A look at the reference desks shows that we have a lot of questions from people whose first language isn't English. Many of our readers are obviously in that category. Word plays and the like don't help such readers. But I'm with you on User pages. Put the jokes there. Won't worry me so long as the jokes remain in (reasonably) good taste. I need to say that I spend a lot of my time on Wikipedia looking for and removing vandalism. On 1st April (actually spread over almost two days because of time zone differences) I had considerable difficulty telling the difference between vandalism and attempts at jokes. Why should anybody have to make that judgement? Why should someone from a country where April Fools Day is almost a non-event have to even try to make such a distinction? As for the "badgering", obviously I don't see it that way. And I've explained my multiple responses. It's disappointing that you didn't even comment on my explanation. In making your own in depth post you've shown how poor most other posts are. Thank you for heading down that path. HiLo48 (talk) 08:07, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

    you can always take the day off. if you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen. also, you have been quite uncivil here, very similar to what led to the Rfc/U four months ago. it appear you haven't learned from it. -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 14:52, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

    I learnt a lot from the that RfC/U, primarily that there are people here who would like to silence me, but the processes of Wikipedia were better than that. They didn't allow it. As for taking the day off, why should I? I watch for and remove vandalism, whenever it occurs. HiLo48 (talk) 17:40, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

44. Oppose: The one day a year when Wikipedia can be humourous and people want to remove it? I think it is good to have jokes as it's a way of showing people that it's not always serious. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 09:27, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Comments on Ban all April Fools jokes

• There needs to be some fun on Wikipedia for at least one day and not just seriousness all the time. TBrandley 03:57, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

No, there doesn't NEED to be that kind of fun on Wikipedia. Next? HiLo48 (talk) 03:59, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

of course it needs. The lack of fun is causing all the drama that we are living on this website. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 04:26, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

But look at all the conflicts caused by the April fool jokes. Not everybody has the same sense of humor. Pass a Method talk 09:34, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

• "there doesn't NEED to be that kind of fun on Wikipedia." - Indeed, diz iz zeerius bisnis... — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:44, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

• Agreed. People edit here because they want to. Some for the community in general, some for other editors they met along the way, and some for the subject matter itself. April Fools' shenanigans are an easy way to lighten the mood a bit and let editors have a laugh together. If we cut the humor, all we're left with is the drama, and editing becomes a task rather than a hobby. That's when we lose editors. For better or worse, we have a community, and we need to tend to it occasionally. This is one of the ways we do that. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 12:38, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

If you think the proposer made personal attacks but you're okay with the non-funny April fools jokes than i'd say you have a twisted sense of humor. Pass a Method talk 17:09, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't really care whether the jokes are funny or unfunny - but I know that some editors do find them funny. As long as they stay out of the mainspace, who the hell am I to tell the entire project to cancel some long-held tradition simply because I find it unfunny? Who are you to do so? Who is HiLo48 to do so? If the consensus is for April Fool's jokes, then that is that - we limit their scope, keep them right the hell out of the mainspace, and go on with our lives. I'll be first in line to block someone who goes too far. But we cannot judge this on whether you think it is funny or unfunny - we must judge it on impact to the project, and I believe that impact is minimal. And who the hell are you to question my sense of humor, simply because I told the proposer to calm down? UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 18:28, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

• I am not convinced that a day of fun stops the drama. In fact it clearly does not. It also causes it. If we do have to have a day of fun, could we have one that everyone across the world recognises. April Fool Jokes are not internationally widespread. They are even less common in Australia and NZ than England, for example. --Bduke (Discussion) 17:08, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

• That's because the British prisoners who were exiled to Australia had lost all their humor. Count Iblis (talk) 17:13, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

• In my eyes, the problem isn't having a few, funny April Fools jokes, it is that everyone is trying to outdo each other and we get a wave of bad April Fools jokes, to the point that it can be disruptive. You can't find the good ones through the junk anyway, and again, most of this has already been done. I'm not against having fun on April Fools, but on the other side, if we make a bunch of strict rules, well, that isn't fun either and then we have to deal with enforcing the rules of April Fools, and well, that isn't fun either. The problem is that there are so many of us here now, it becomes a flood of mainly noise. Once I saw it at ANI, I lost my sense of humor. Things are bad enough there on a good day and we don't need the extra drama. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 00:37, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

• There is some good old stuff (e.g. involving Ottava) that can be recycled on AN/I. Count Iblis (talk) 12:34, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

• It's worth noting that this is actually the status quo: on no other day would we permit unfunny idiots to deface our articles based on some meme. While I personally try simply to avoid the Internet entirely on that day, I wouldn't think twice about summarily blocking in this case and it's vanishingly unlikely that this RfC will alter that. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 12:00, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Sorry but RFCs are binding, and if you go against the wishes of the community... well, you know what happens then. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 16:45, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
    • My meaning was that it is vanishingly unlikely that this RfC will result in a consensus for a formal amnesty, not that I would ignore one should it emerge. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 23:16, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
      • I very much doubt blocking an established user for an otherwise harmless April Fools' joke would go over well with the community, especially considering the !votes on this proposal. But it's your mop, I suppose. --NYKevin 05:49, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Ban all AfD April Fools jokes

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

There is not a consensus for banning all AfD April Fools jokes, however there is a consensus for not tagging the articles as being up for deletion (i.e. no indication in the mainspace that a joke is being played). This is a difficult close, and may come across some as a supervote, but whatever. After discounting the comments that were just variations of ILIKEIT and IDONTLIKEIT, it came down to a group of supporters that had concerns about how these AfDs mess with the AfD logs and a group of opposers saying that harm isn't casued by the AfDs themselves, but only by the mainspace tagging. There appears to be a solution to the AfD log problem in the comments section below, as well. In light of the consensus to keep pranks out of the mainspace (thread below this one), and balancing the supports and opposes in this thread, it appears that allowing AfDs but not allowing article taggings is as close to consensus as we're going to get. Sven Manguard Wha? 18:54, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

---

Not saying I agree with it, just making a suggestion, as the above "ban all April Fools jokes" would include the Main Page jokes. Zach 07:07, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Support for AfD ban

1. AfD on April fools can be disruptive and there are issues with logs. Vacation9 11:38, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
2. Strongest possible support - Jokes at AfD cause problems and disruption. Period. Here's a partial list of potential problems associated with AfD jokes:

   1. The article being nominated might get a spurious deletion notice put on it. Since this "joke" is often played on articles that obviously would never be deleted (like Earth), it is very confusing readers and editors. Also, these pages tend to have a huge number of daily pageviews, so even if the deletion notice is only there for a few minutes, hundreds or thousands of people might see it.
   2. Even if you remove the deletion notice on the page, a bot will come around and replace it (since all articles at AfD must have a deletion notice).
   3. The original author of the article might get a spurious notification that their article has been nominated for deletion.
   4. When the AfD gets closed, the article talk page might have a spurious notification that the article had been nominated for deletion in the past.
   5. The AfD log page gets clogged up with dozens of fake AfD's, making it harder to navigate for editors that are actually trying to vote on real AfD's (i.e. editors who are actually trying to get work done).

   I personally spent hours on April 1st cleaning up these types of messes created by people trying to play jokes at AfD (as well as responding to their complaints on my talk page, and the ANI threads they started on me). These are hours that I could have spent doing something much more productive. The amount of time wasted and disruption caused by these jokes is simply not worth it, especially when you consider that exactly zero of the jokes were even remotely funny. ‑Scottywong| gab _ 14:19, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

   If there were a template added to the joke AFDs that flagged Snotbot to ignore them - or perhaps to actively remove them from logs and whatnot - would that help mitigate the damage somewhat? If there is consensus that April Fools Day AFDs are acceptable, we could (and should) require them to be manually input - that would dodge the issue with Twinkle completing all of the steps. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 14:53, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

   You can make all the requirements you want, but that doesn't mean everyone is going to follow them. And the moment that one person doesn't follow them, we're all back in the same boat with the above problems. Personally, I don't think it's worth it just to preserve the ability to make jokes that aren't funny. ‑Scottywong| babble _ 16:36, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

   Well, let me throw this out there - would snotbot pick up a joke AFD that had a {{nobots}} tag? If not, and if there's consensus to permit joke AFDs (or at least not to ban them), then it would seem that a {{nobots}} tag would be a prerequisite. Perhaps a {{jokexfd}} tag that incorporates nobots? If they post a joke AFD that does not include the required tags, they get blocked for bad faith noms or disruption. It seems to me that this can be done without disrupting the encyclopedia - the clear consensus below for leaving the articlespace untouched demonstrates that. I know we're getting into thinly sliced cabbage at this point, but would nobots be a workable solution in this instance? To do it from the xfd end as opposed to the bot end? UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 20:17, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

3. I would be ok with this, though I think the AfD stuff is just a symptom of the larger problem, which will continue to leak out elsewhere. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 15:22, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
4. Support - fake AfDs are going to be too difficult to keep from spilling into mainspace, and can waste too much time of editors who don't instantly realise they are fake. --Stfg (talk) 15:25, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
5. Support They stopped being funny or original a long time ago. Now they are only disruptive. First Light (talk) 16:53, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
6. Strong Support. They really mess up the XfD discussions. So all XfD, not just AfD.--Bduke (Discussion) 17:10, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
7. Support They mess up the deletion logs, IRWolfie- (talk) 17:29, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
8. Support Per my comments above.—Kww(talk) 18:07, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
9. Support as a second preference to the above. Robofish (talk) 18:10, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
10. Support per my links in [10]. AIRcorn (talk) 23:04, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
11. Support - It should at least be discouraged. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 05:44, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
12. They are vandalism, which should be banned already.  Sandstein  07:02, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
13. These are generally a bad idea --Guerillero | My Talk 01:37, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
14. The first few times when you nominate Earth for deletion, it's funny. Then, it's meh. By the time you get to the eighth time, it's tiresome and boring. T. Canens (talk) 09:23, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
15. Now, maybe, proposing that Earth be moved to Mostly harmless or Vogon#List of Vogon activities might be seen by some of us oldsters as funny, but nominating it for deletion, no. I do see some possible leeway in the sanctions for such a ban, in some cases, but in general we are probably better off without them. Unfortunately. John Carter (talk) 16:38, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
16. Support. These do mess with articles which damages the encyclopedia directly, thus damaging Wikipedia's reputation. The joke AFDs are also mainly put on high-profile and widely read articles, meaning the damage becomes highly visible to the public. Even if the article is not tagged initially, they may easily wind up tagged, if not by a bot, then maybe by a well-meaning human who thinks that the presence of an AFD mandates a tag on the article, no matter how silly the original idea is. Sjakkalle (Check!) 16:54, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
17. Support. If we're going to keep jokes out of the article space, deletion nominations should be included. They aren't funny, just disruptive. Ducknish (talk) 20:57, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
18. Support subject to IAR if someone comes up with something both funny to editors and harmless to readers. I can't remember the last time that happened. Kilopi (talk) 00:33, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
19. Support If you want to participate in this kind of thing, come up with a silly DYK hook or something. This kind of joke has gotten old and as Scottywong has pointed out, it causes a significant amount of disruption. ⇌ Jake Wartenberg 20:19, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
20. Strong Support I don't think that nominating articles for deletion (prods or AfDs, for the matter) is beneficial to Wikipedia. As we've seen this year and in the past, it causes more work for others who would rather be writing articles, helping out with the various backlogs, etc. My major concern is that there have been instances where users are beginning to toe the line with "jokes" that appear spiteful or are BLP concerns waiting to happen. Some of the instances that I can recall include: [11][12][13] April Fools should never be used as an excuse to disregard our editorial policies. Mike V • Talk 02:56, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
21. I have nothing against April Fool's Day jokes elsewhere on WP, but jocular deletion nominations really aren't that humorous (really, how does a tagged article elicit a giggling fit?) and can be rather disruptive. dci | TALK 02:13, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
22. Support This was only funny the very first time; now instead of being funny and disruptive (already not a good combo), it's old and disruptive. -- Khazar2 (talk) 07:22, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
23. Support - said plenty elsewhere, forgot to vote! Boring, tedious & repetitive as are the arguments in their support. Leaky Caldron 10:34, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
24. Support - The nature of the process mean there is a too larger scope for disruption. Yes, it may be possible to avoid some of the pitfalls but one mistake and then disruption may occur anyway. CT Cooper · talk 13:09, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

    That's as may be, but the same holds true all year round. One of Snotbot's tasks is even to cleanup (or log) bad AFDs. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 13:28, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

25. I have been editing since 2006 and the quality of humour has definately deteriorated to the point where we need to stop. If the best we can do is AFD something like Earth or put Jimbo up for MFD then I'm afraid its time to hang up our plastic flowers and give our red noses one last honk and then stop. Spartaz ^Humbug! 14:39, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
26. Support here too in case my support of the above ban all on W doesn't implicitly carry through. Again, no encyclopedic value to them. Technical 13 (talk) 13:23, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Oppose for AfD ban

1. Oppose as moot, given the proposal below. If a joke AFD gets a proper AFD tag on a mainspace article, then it just hopped over into the mainspace and needs to be stopped/reverted. Joke AFDs that don't get tags of that sort also wouldn't be in the logs, and thus shouldn't matter. Even then, honestly, we futz with the logs all the time - listing old debates that were not previously listed, relisting stale debates, etc etc etc. Snotbot does this all day. I think we can have joke AFDs that don't destroy the AFD system. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 12:54, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
2. Joke AfDs are fine as look as they don't get in the way. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C • AAPT) 17:17, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
3. There is a very simple way to prevent it from getting into articlespace and only us folk care enough about AfD to notice it anywhere else. Not sure how they "mess up" XfD discussions and no one has given anything substantive other than the issue of notices getting put on articles, which is easily resolved. Additionally, I am curious if anyone has ever actually been confused by an April Fool's AfD. It certainly doesn't appear to happen enough to be an issue as I have never seen such a thing occur.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 17:43, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
4. Oppose first off, why are people suddenly objecting, I mean, seriously, earth had 7 prior noms, so it's been going on for quite a while. secondly, if there is a way that it can be done w/o marking the article, by all means, if I had known, I would have used that instead. thirdly, what does a silly AfD harm anyways? who really goes and looks through the AfD page for serious discussions on april fools anyways? -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 17:58, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
5. Oppose Joke AfDs are not an issue. -DJSasso (talk) 18:29, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
6. Oppose provided they don't spill over to article space the harm caused is minimal. A requirement that jokes don't spill over into articles is sufficient. Hut 8.5 19:10, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
7. A small number of AFDs is okay. They should be clearly labeled and probably kept out of the public view. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:09, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
8. Oppose, the reason for this is already explained, if serious business can do pranks, why can't we? Internet is not serious business. Eduemoni^↑talk↓ 00:57, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
9. Oppose - the problem isn't the AfDs themselves, it's the tagging the articles. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 06:50, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
10. Oppose. The AfD's are harmless on their own, and if they're causing bots to tag articles, that's the responsibility of the bot operator, like any other bot edit. Besides, turning off SnotBot for 24 hours once a year isn't that big a deal, in the grand scheme of things. --NYKevin 04:24, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

    "The fault of the bot operator?" That's absolute nonsense. Bots perform approved functions, and people aren't supposed to vandalize Wikipedia on April Fools Day and then blame it on others. If the bot follows the instructions of a vandal, it's the vandal's fault, not the bots.—Kww(talk) 05:34, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

    I didn't say fault, I said responsibility. And yes, it is the responsibility of the bot operator to deal with special cases and clean up any messes their bot may have made, not to assign blame to others. This is well-established policy: "The contributions of a bot account remain the responsibility of its operator, who must be prominently identifiable on its user page. In particular, the bot operator is responsible for the repair of any damage caused by a bot which operates incorrectly. All policies apply to a bot account in the same way as to any other user account." --NYKevin 05:49, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

    People that open AFDs as "jokes" are responsible for the effects, including standard robotic results from approved bots. The bot did not make the mess, and the bot operator is not responsible for the activities of people that think nominating articles for deletion is amusing. April Fool's jokes aren't a special case, they are just a form of vandalism.—Kww(talk) 15:23, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

    "Vandalism" has a very specific meaning. It is only vandalism if done in bad faith; I've seen that word thrown around a lot here, but scant evidence that the people making these jokes actually intend to harm the encyclopedia. Regardless, since no human would have done what the bot did, the bot acted erroneously, so the operator is responsible. --NYKevin 16:50, 4 April 2013 (UTC) April 2013 (UTC)

    People who unwittingly lead to the encyclopaedia being stuffed up when they're not acting in bad faith are breaching WP:COMPETENCEISREQUIRED. The result is still destructive. The editors involved need reigning in. The encyclopaedia is more important than the egos of some self appointed clowns. HiLo48 (talk) 21:49, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

    The person making out-fof-process AFD nominations is responsible for all the consequences. If the prankster doesn't think the tag is a hilarious gut-busting portion of his joke, he can place {{nobots}} on the article. Trying to shift the responsibility for the effects of this kind of behaviour from the person misbehaving to the author of a bot is morally repugnant. I don't think I throw the word "vandal" around lightly, for what it's worth. The people that do this do it with the intent of making jokes at the expense of the encyclopedia, and that's bad faith in my book.—Kww(talk) 17:01, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

    Wait, "making jokes at the expense of the encyclopedia" is now vandalism? OK, when does the two minutes' hate start? --NYKevin 17:42, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

    (edit conflict)There is no doubt in my mind that nominating a high traffic article is an act of bad faith. Typically these editors behave in this way purely for the purpose of achieving One-upmanship, to demonstrate to their friends that their prank is more daring and thereby gaining greater recognition amongst their peers. Revert, warn and block if necessary. Leaky Caldron 17:09, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

    • We are here to build an encyclopedia not be be a forum for bad jokes or for acting like Jr High students. If you truly think that the encyclopedia should be second place to April Fools, you should find a new hobby. --Guerillero | My Talk 19:32, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

11. Oppose. Per NYKevin (talk · contribs), above. Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 04:50, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
12. Weak Oppose. Joke AfD discussions are fun, but there must be measures to prevent the AfD from ending up in mainspace. —DragonLord^{(talk/contribs)} 03:22, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
13. Oppose Get a sense of humor, people. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 12:14, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
14. Oppose - I laughed at a few of the joke AfDs. As long as they are properly tagged, it should not be a huge problem. Michaelzeng7 (talk) 20:52, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
15. Joke AFD notices shouldn't appear on articles, but that's no reason to ban entirely. Notices such as Template:Editnotices/Group/Wikipedia:Articles for deletion could be modified temporarily to explain how to prevent bots tagging the articles. Peter James (talk) 19:00, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Comments on AfD ban

I don't know if this should be a counter proposal or not, but I'll post something here based on the above. Would joke AFDs be acceptable if they met the following requirements?

1. No AFD tags were actually placed on articles.
2. No AFD entries were inserted into the AFD logs for April 1 (or any other date, for that matter).
3. No {{REMOVE THIS TEMPLATE WHEN CLOSING THIS AfD}}, which prevents the joke AFD from being added to CAT:AFD.
4. Each such AFD included a template that incorporates {{nobots}} (preventing bots from automatically adding it to the log and tags to the article), a time-switched copy of {{humor}} that shows up after April 1, and a category either for April Fool's day bullshit or specifically for joke AFDs.
5. AFDs posted that do not comply with the above (obvious joke AFDs tagged in the article, for example) treated as bad-faith AFDs and the editors suitably warned (or Blocked if its an editor who should know better).

Looking at the AFD process and the comments above, I believe these requirements would drastically limit the workload and damage-to-the-project concerns about joke AFDs. Joke AFDs that don't follow these rules would be treated as any other bad-faith AFD - warnings, blocks, housekeeping deletions, etc. And we get those year round, so the workload is potentially there anyway. But I think this can be done in such a way as to let the editors who want to participate do so without shoving it onto logs and in the face of editors who do not. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 14:21, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

April Fools jokes should stay out of article space

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Consensus is for keeping April Fools pranks out of the article space. The main page is excluded from this per the modified proposal and the comments in the support section below. Sven Manguard Wha? 18:33, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

---

I tend to avoid the encyclopedia on April Fools day, I find the level of wit drops into the toilet. However, the one thing that does get me is the people who play with the articles on April Fools day. Remember, we're an encyclopedia for readers (I believe we have about 5000 readers for every active editor) and they're not in on the joke. It's one thing changing our main page to be misleading, it's quite another to edit the articles - including adding an XfD tag.

So, I suggest a simple rule. Any April Fools day pranks should not be included in article space unless proposed and agreed prior to April 1st except on the Main Page. This allows DYKs and FAs, but stops stupidity like this this or this. Worm^TT(talk) 09:39, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Support keeping clear of article space

1. Support - for editors to have fun is one thing, but we should not disrupt the reader's experience. Actually, I would propose chopping out the "unless proposed and agreed prior to April 1st", to make this absolute. --Stfg (talk) 10:12, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
2. Strong support. Need I say more? —Theopolisme (talk) 11:10, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
3. Strong Support I thought about this, and I agree. No matter what day it is, readers should be able to access the encyclopedia. I'm fine with out-of-article namespace jokes, but I'm against mainspace. Vacation9 11:39, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
4. Support with the <edited>chopping out of the</edited> caveat provided by Stfg. TCN7JM 12:23, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
5. Support Ealdgyth - Talk 12:24, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
6. Support as per Stfg. Note also that this would prohibit AFD tags on articles under fake April-Fools-Day AFD discussions. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 12:44, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
7. Support, emphasizing the "agreed prior" exception. — PinkAmpers&^{(Je vous invite à me parler)} 13:29, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
8. Support First rule of April foolery: Do no harm. Pranks interfering with readers ability to use this site as an encyclopedia aren't funny. Kilopi (talk) 13:40, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
9. Support Contributors of the community may have some enjoyment, while not disrupting the reader's experience this way. TBrandley 14:03, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
10. Support Any joke that even has the possibility of affecting article space should be disallowed. Going further, any person that makes a joke that does affect article space (intentionally or otherwise) should be blocked for the rest of the day. ‑Scottywong| chatter _ 14:21, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

    Does that include the person who runs the bots that should know it's a good idea to shut the bot down on April 1? Worm^TT(talk) 14:24, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

    I'm not sure I could mentally handle being blocked on April 1st. Perhaps I should just program Snotbot to go on a wild, high-speed vandalism rampage next April 1st. You know, as a joke for all the vandal fighters out there. Now that would be funny. ‑Scottywong| communicate _ 14:32, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

11. Support - This goes without saying. Exclude the main page, though, as it's technically in article space. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:38, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

    I believe that would fall under the "prior agreement" exception. (Also, if the main page is in mainspace, why doesn't it have any hatnotes? Of course, on many projects it's in projectspace regardless.) — PinkAmpers&^{(Je vous invite à me parler)} 14:46, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

    Perhaps, but making it completely explicit should be our goal. If the main page were included in "article space", you'd'll find me one section down. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:48, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

    The idea of the "prior agreement" was to allow the main page. However, there's a number of supports here who would remove the prior agreement clause. I hope that they would be happy with "except the main page". I don't mind which. Worm^TT(talk) 14:51, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

    I'm certainly happy with "except the main page". --Stfg (talk) 15:07, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

12. Support per Stfg and UltraExactZZ. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:41, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
13. Support as a bare minimum, but I don't think this goes far enough in restricting the chaos. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 15:04, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
14. Support: I agree with this, with the exception of the main page and the projects on it (TFA, DYK etc). This is supposed to be an encyclopedia after all, and we shouldn't allow deliberate misiniformation or anything else that prevents or obstructs the reader from getting the information they want from an article. Chamal ^T•C 15:13, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
15. Support. Besides, we'll have more than enough new/IP editors who will take care of the article space jokes for us. ~Adjwilley (talk) 15:15, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

    By the way, I support the exception for the main page, but I liked the prior wording better about prior consensus. There may be other places besides the main page that are appropriate for April Fools jokes as well. ~Adjwilley (talk) 15:25, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

16. Support Mainspace requires caution and if we allow things to go insane on it, next thing to happen is a witch hunt on mainspance to distinguish pranks from vandalism. Eduemoni^↑talk↓ 15:50, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
17. Support, obviously. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 15:59, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
18. Support if we make sure to sufficiently emphasise the main page exception. Andrew Gray (talk) 16:48, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
19. Support This much should be obvious. First Light (talk) 16:52, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
20. SupportIf editors want a little fun in their userspace fine, but readers shouldn't be affected and they shouldn't be given false information. nerdfighter 17:06, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
21. Support Perfectly sensible. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C • AAPT) 17:19, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
22. Support April fools jokes inside articlespace disrupt the usage of the encyclopedia. IRWolfie- (talk) 17:28, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
23. Support Intothatdarkness 17:37, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
24. NE Ent 17:43, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
25. This is a perfectly reasonable limitation.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 17:44, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
26. support isn't this already layed out in the rules? I think the only thing anyone did in mainspace was the standard joke Afd's. -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 17:52, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
27. Obvious support. Preferably extending to the Main Page as well. Robofish (talk) 18:12, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
28. Support Very few are funny. North8000 (talk) 18:32, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
29. Support I can't think of any types of article-space jokes that would be acceptable, apart from the items added to the main page (which are technically true, and ought to stay that way). Hut 8.5 19:12, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
30. Support WP:SNOW here, there's no reason why article space should be affected. Any infringements on this should lead to a 24 hour block (which may be removable from the logs on request, potentially). Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 19:18, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
31. Support - Our encyclopedia should be understandable even to readers who don't understand April Fools' Day. Create joke AfDs if you want, but don't tag the articles. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 19:26, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
32. Support emphasising the main page exception allowing what currently happens with TFA, DYK etc. that is potentially misleading out of context, but completely true. KTC (talk) 21:31, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
33. Support I though this was already defacto agreed upon. AIRcorn (talk) 23:05, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
34. Support. This has been the standard for many years; why change it? --Carnildo (talk) 00:05, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Oppose keeping clear of article space

1. Oppose, there are plenty of harmless jokes possible in article space. Just because you can do something that is not acceptable in article space doesn't mean that every possible joke should be banned. Count Iblis (talk) 15:51, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Comments on keeping clear of article space

Comment, An example of an acceptable joke in article space. Even a reference to a reliable source was given. Count Iblis (talk) 16:08, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

No, it is not acceptable. It could still confuse a reader who comes from a culture that knows nothing of April Fool's Day and perhaps has a poor grasp of English. Article space really does have to be totally free of this nonsense. --Bduke (Discussion) 07:51, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Ban interference with non-harmful jokes

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Consensus is against creating a ban on interference with non-harmful jokes, with concerns about interpreting intent and the meaning of non-harmful being raised in both the oppose and comments sections. Sven Manguard Wha? 19:02, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

---

Essentially: Any April Fools' joke that is not in mainspace, an AFD, an AN/ANI report, or seriously disrupting a functional page (e.g. the 6-way MFD that I played a role on... though I wish that'd just been collapsed instead of deleted) should not be reverted, deleted, or otherwise interfered with. The most notable example from yesterday would be Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Example, Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/GA bot, and Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Requests for foundership/FrigidNinja... which served no point other than to disrupt a bit of humor that multiple sitting Arbs and bureaucrats and even the <whatever Philippe's title is> saw harmless enough to engage in. Same goes with editors voting to oppose said requests as part of general opposition to April Fools (LOL!).

In short: If you like April Fools' Day, then you can have your fun, provided that you do it within the constraints that this RFC sets up. (This proposal would, of course, not override any other constraints imposed as part of this RFC... I just listed the four that strike me as common-sense.) But if you don't like it, then go do something else, but let the rest of us have our fun. — PinkAmpers&^{(Je vous invite à me parler)} 13:29, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Support Ban on interference with non-harmful jokes

1. Support Obviously. TBrandley 14:32, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
2. Support - Although half the time the outrage is more fun than the joke. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:39, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
3. Support and block violators. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C • AAPT) 17:19, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
4. Strong Support, although perhaps blocking is not appropriate. I wish party poopers like scotty who don't have a sense of humor would just take the day off if they can't relax and let jokes play out, as long as they don't harm the funtion of the wiki... i mean seriously, do joke deletion noms harm anything? -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 17:44, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
5. Weak Support Interference causes more outcry than anything else, mods should resume and focus their force-tasks where actually needed, otherwise a war for jokes takes place, the real concern for admins and editors alike should be the same as other days, house keeping, contributions, anti-vandalism and sanctions or bans. Eduemoni^↑talk↓ 00:55, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Oppose Ban on interference with non-harmful jokes

1. Oppose - The observance of April Fools' Day is not important. We shouldn't be restricting anyone's ability to fix problems with the encyclopedia so that jokes can be pristinely preserved for posterity. Remember, that's what Wikipedia is. An encyclopedia. Not an unfunny joke forum. ‑Scottywong| confer _ 14:25, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
2. Oppose so called "fun" should be confined to User Talk pages, apart from any "formal" stunts such as those placed on the Main page. Interfering with operational pages in any form at any time should be reverted, users warned and, if necessary, blocked for 24 hours. Leaky Caldron 14:40, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
3. Oppose as written, as the definition of "non-harmful" is always going to be subjective. Is it harmful to take a functional example page and turn it into a mock RFA by overwriting it (separated now, obviously)? I'm inclined to think it is, although clearly not everybody will agree. Pages like Wikipedia:April Fools/April Fools' Day 2013/Requests for foundership/FrigidNinja don't seem to hurt anything, as long as they don't get in the way of actual business. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:46, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

   You make a valid point that I concede I didn't think about when I created that RFA. However, if someone had actually been bothered, they could have always added a hatnote linking to the oldid of the real sample RFA... probably a long with a caveat discouraging anyone from starting a serious RFA on April Fools'! — PinkAmpers&^{(Je vous invite à me parler)} 14:57, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

   Eh, someone passed after starting on 1 April last year. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:00, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

4. No one pulls a joke on April 1 thinking it will be disruptive or harmful. Similarly, no one closes down someone else's prank going "Mwahaha I will spoil this perfectly fine joke that is not at all disruptive!". The difference is that closing down a prank doesn't have the potential to harm the encyclopedia or its functioning, while pulling an iffy prank does. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 15:12, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
5. Oppose as way too subjective, per Moonriddengirl. First Light (talk) 16:55, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
6. Hypocritical: the person 'interfering' with another person's April Fool's joke is often trying to make some sort of joke themselves. How can you mess up a page for the sake of a joke and then object when someone else messes up yours? Better to just ban all such jokes in the first place. Robofish (talk) 18:16, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

   Oh, no objection to jokes in response to jokes. But unless Scotty or Rcsprinter wants to confess to being one of the most straight-faced pranksters of all time, I don't think that's what happened here. — PinkAmpers&^{(Je vous invite à me parler)} 22:02, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

7. If we can't force a ban on people making jokes how can we have a ban on editors cleaning up said jokes. AIRcorn (talk) 23:23, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
8. Disruptive and out-of-project-scope content needs cleaning up.  Sandstein  07:03, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
9. If such a ban were inforced, we would have wars about what's interfering. For example, is changing the appearence of the block durations interfering? I think it is, as it makes it difficult for users to know the actual duration of the page protection; aparently some other user didn't. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 07:06, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
10. Oppose per Scottywong. First and foremost, we have a (free) labor of love that is the encyclopedia. No special privileges can be granted that interfere with this primary goal. Per Leaky, I don't really care what happens on a users talk page as long as it doesn't interfere with the greater goal of the encyclopedia, but that would be true for me on any given day, not just April Fools day. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 13:56, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
11. There are exactly two types of April Fools Day hoaxes: those that are effective, and those that aren't. The former are by definition disruptive, although they may well be effective; they are also the only ones that are remotely funny or in the spirit of the day. The latter serve only as encouragement for the stupid and the terminally unfunny. These people should be forced to spend the whole of April 1st doing nothing but moderating incoming Slashdot submissions. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:57, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

    A video game podcast I subscribe to had a special archive rerun of an episode of the podcast from 1995. The number of listeners who thought that this episode actually came from 1995 is probably close to, if not exactly, zero. That doesn't prevent it from being funny. Ken Arromdee (talk) 20:58, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

    Whimsy which would be funny without the context of April 1st is a special case. Fortunately it is rare, as can be logically induced from the strong correlation between unconvincing April Fools Day hoaxes and a complete lack of humour or intelligence on the part of the perpetrators. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 23:23, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

12. Harm is too low a bar. I applaud interfering with any attempted joke that the interferer deems insufficiently funny or original. Kilopi (talk) 00:37, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
13. Weak Oppose While there should be guidelines to people maintaining the encyclopedia that April Fools' jokes are acceptable outside of mainspace and outside of project-critical pages, we should not stop maintainers from removing them altogether. —DragonLord^{(talk/contribs)} 03:27, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
14. Opppose Do you propose to block people who "interfere" with the jokes? Such a policy would only serve to increase incidents, particularly around the border of what counts as "non-harmful" and "interference". IRWolfie- (talk) 18:25, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Comments on Ban on interference with non-harmful jokes

• What this will require is a consensus on what sorts of pranks are presumed to be non-harmful. If someone sets up a dummy AfD, and unintentionally breaks something or nominates something for deletion for reals, a good faith editor should be able to point that harm out (or fix it!) without causing drama. As with any joke, the funny goes away if we're stupid about it. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 13:44, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Well, I included AfDs as an exception in my proposal. As for the more general case, that's why I included "serious disruption". As for consensus... it's my understanding that this RfC aims to find just such a consensus. As I noted, anything else that is found to be harmful here would be added to the list of jokes it's acceptable to "interfere" with. — PinkAmpers&^{(Je vous invite à me parler)} 14:29, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Oh, absolutely. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 14:39, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

• How can a bogus AN/ANI report be "harmful"? NE Ent 17:42, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

• OMG NE Ent's account is compromised BLOCK IT BLOCK IT BLOCK IT and then link to a section of my user talk page where it says Hey, Pink, fuck you! LOLOLOL look I hacked this account! followed by your signature. — PinkAmpers&^{(Je vous invite à me parler)} 22:57, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

• any decent admin would look at the edit history. also, there is such a thing as good taste when it comes to jokes, and I think everyone knows which side of the fuzzy boundary that is on. -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 00:34, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

• As a community, we can't even agree on what civil is and isn't. Imagine the drama at ANI while we debate if a fart joke on the front page is "harmful" or not. And no, not everyone knows where that fuzzy boundary is. See WP:BIAS. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 02:12, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
• Seriously, if we can even come to an agreement about what is a "non-harmful joke", what isn't, and when would a user be interfering, I might be slightly inclined to consider this proposal. Michaelzeng7 (talk) 20:56, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Pre-approve a smaller set of April Fool's jokes

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

I think there is decidedly no consensus to require pre-approval of April Fool's jokes; as many have pointed, such discussions are likely to also result in lack of consensus. I don't think anyone is opposing the potential organization of future April Fool's jokes, though. :) ·Salvidrim!· ✉ 02:23, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

---

Most other large websites seem to use a system wherein one or a handful of jokes are agreed upon prior to April 1, and then deployed that day, rather than the free-for-all we have where everyone does anything they want, whether it be funny, annoying, or blindingly repetitive. I suggest we move to a system where an RfC is held in March with proposals for what Wikipedia's "official" April Fools prank(s) should be. The community can reach consensus on which pranks it wants to see happen, and those - and only those - will be used on April 1.

Support Pre-approve a smaller set of April Fool's jokes

1. As proposer. There is nothing wrong with pulling a prank, or even a couple of pranks, but the current system of 24 hours of utter chaos is just untenable. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 14:53, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
2. As a much weaker alternative to the 'ban all April Fool's' proposal above (though it has the same difficulties with enforcement). If we must put up with this stuff, let's at least limit it to a small number of designated pages, and reduce the chaos that happens every year. Robofish (talk) 18:18, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
3. There have been a few comments above that other websites pull jokes so why shouldn't we. One of the big differences is that they are oraganised and usually have a theme or group of themes ready to go for April. At the end of the day we are supposed to be for the readers so what does it matter if we have organised something before hand. The main page does and it at least is under control. AIRcorn (talk) 23:38, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
4. This would help with the issue of willy nilly editors doing whatever they want on the 1st. Vacation9 11:45, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
5. Support in theory, although I have no clue how this would be implemented since we don't have top down management here to make the decision. Maybe Jimmy can appoint a humor committee or something else just as controversial. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 02:08, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
6. I've thought about this myself. This idea doesn't limit creativity at all. But I feel uncertain about how this would work out in the end. Still, imagine having a community-built April Fools' Day joke like at Google, only on Wikipedia. It would be more funny to readers, in addition to removing the chaos and confusion of editors who despise the current system. Michaelzeng7 (talk) 21:10, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
7. While it would be a bit difficult to set up, I agree entirely with what Michaelzeng has said above. A well-crafted joke in good taste can be quite funny; pell-mell deletion tagging is not. dci | TALK 02:17, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Oppose Pre-approve a smaller set of April Fool's jokes

1. Keep some place for originality - not to mention the fact that it's less funny if known in advance. What we need is a clear set of ground rules, not a pre-approved list. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 19:28, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
2. Boring. Zach 00:40, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
3. We need a simple rule, and the only simple rule that worked was keep it out of mainspace. Pre approval is a bureaucratic solution and humour doesn't lend itself to bureaucracy. ϢereSpielChequers 23:25, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
4. Erm, no. Half the fun in comedy is unexpectedness. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:59, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
5. Oppose. Not to put too fine a point on it, but isn't that what this RFC is doing? We're sectioning off different sorts of jokes and arguing about them - and have already removed the articlespace from the list of targets. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 12:29, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
6. Oppose We are an encyclopedia anyone can edit. Anyone should be able to contribute an April fool's website. Wikipedia is very unlike most other websites. MaskedHero (talk) 07:18, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Comments on Pre-approve a smaller set of April Fool's jokes

• I dunno. I don't think there needs to be a big official RfC every year. Local consensus is fine by me. If the people who take care of the Main Page can decide on something to do, that's fine by me, and they don't need my approval to go for it. ~Adjwilley (talk) 15:20, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

• Yeah, a number of local consensuses (consensii?) would also be fine with me - areas like TFA and DYK, I think, already handle their Fools' jokes by local consensus, and as a result almost completely avoid the dramatic chaos the rest of the encyclopedia gets to, uh, enjoy from "pranking." A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 15:26, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

• I am unclear as to what this means. A grand RFC in February/March to decide what The Specific Joke will be this year? (Terrible idea). A general approval for the ongoing main-page TFA/DYK not-really-a-joke system & requiring anything else to be discussed first? (I could live with that). Andrew Gray (talk) 16:45, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

• I was suggesting something like your first, but could live with something like your second. I don't think The Specific Joke would be a bad thing (cf places like google and thinkgeek, which have A Joke or small Set Of Jokes that are deployed to last throughout April 1, and manage to otherwise carry on business as usual), but my main point is that it can't be a free-for-all - there has to be some agreement on what jokes are "good to go" when the clock ticks over to April 1, or we're just going to keep getting every bored editor doing whatever s/he thinks is funny, as often and wherever they want. It might be funny for one set of "A joke RFA/AfD -> A joke MfD of the joke RFA/AfD -> A joke MfD of the MfD of the RFA/AfD -> A joke MfD of the MfD of the MfD of the RFA/AfD" (all of these with associated tags, categories, and talk page notices, as well - and yes, this happened multiple times yesterday) to happen, but not for five of them to be done by five different people who are copying each other, for example. Jokes cease to be funny if they're belaboured or scattershot, and by contrast work best when they're focused. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 17:16, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

• Take away the surprise element and you no longer have a joke. Count Iblis (talk) 16:51, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
  • I think the point of this proposal isn't to surprise fellow editors, but the readers of Wikipedia. It's like Google's jokes: they aren't made to impress Google's own employees, but the users of their services. And I highly doubt any reader who is not a Wikipedian would look around at an RFC unless this has media coverage. Michaelzeng7 (talk) 21:15, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
• I find it hard to believe we are capable of reaching consensus on pre-approved jokes. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C • AAPT) 17:26, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
  • That's the one hole that might kill this idea. Michaelzeng7 (talk) 21:16, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

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Ban future RfCs about April Fools' Day

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

I think it's reasonable to understand that the community is generally opposed to making "final decisions" and banning the future possibility of rediscussing issues, on anything. Consensus can change, and the potential of a future RfC is a safeguard the community endorses rather strongly. :) ·Salvidrim!· ✉ 00:18, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

---

There are far more important things we could be arguing about than a few silly AfDs/MfDs/RfAs on April Fools' Day.

Support Ban future RfCs about April Fools' Day

1. As proposer. —Tom Morris (talk) 15:01, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
2. Yes, please. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:03, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
3. Yes, under penalty of death. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:43, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
4. I dig it. — foxj 17:28, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Oppose Ban future RfCs about April Fools' Day

1. Annoying, yes, but I'd feel weird voting for a ban on possible future discussion. ~Adjwilley (talk) 15:23, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
2. Really? Every year, we have to deal with this controversy. This RfC was created to try and solve that problem. You're suggesting that we solve the problem by banning ourselves from taking steps to solve the problem? If you think it is a waste of time, no one is forcing you to participate. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C • AAPT) 17:24, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
3. Oppose Banning future discussion about something? North8000 (talk) 18:33, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
4. Oppose Banning discussions about something like this is technically censorship, is it not? Another silly proposal. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 19:16, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
5. Oppose unless in case it gets out of hand sometime in the near or distant future. No reason to be unable to discuss April Fools' Day. TCN7JM 21:17, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
6. Oppose Banning a discussion on anything. AIRcorn (talk) 23:14, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
7. Oppose Banning discussion on anything is a bad idea. Vacation9 11:46, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
8. Oppose The problem is better solved by eliminating the vandalism that occurs on the day than by preventing people from attempting to stop it.—Kww(talk) 17:30, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
9. Oppose Yes, they're repetitive, but I don't like the precedent that this would set. Sven Manguard Wha? 13:26, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
10. Oppose Oh, please. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 16:50, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
11. Oppose Such RFCs seem like harmless silliness, ironically similar to April Fool jokes, as long as they do not disrupt the encyclopedia. Edison (talk) 00:16, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
12. Strong Oppose Things can change, and blocking all future RFCs involving April Fools' is harmful to the project should unforeseen problems arise. —DragonLord^{(talk/contribs)} 03:30, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
13. Oppose Banning RfCs which mention a particular day of the year seems like a decidedly bad idea. IRWolfie- (talk) 18:18, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
14. Oppose - "Banning" is a very strong word. Discussions on Wikipedia are what make the project move forward and adapt. Sure, we have persistent proposals, but who knows? Maybe one day, the project has adapted enough to support some of them. Michaelzeng7 (talk) 21:03, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
15. Oppose. However silly the topic, banning discussion about something kinda defeats the purpose of a free encyclopedia. dci | TALK 02:18, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
16. Oppose - Not realistic and unhelpful. CT Cooper · talk 13:12, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Comments on Ban future RfCs about April Fools' Day

• The reason we keep having RfCs like this is that we keep having April Fools' Days like yesterday: chaotic, often disruptive, and generally lacking in a sense of where the line should be drawn between "this is funny" and "this is just trolling". If we can draw a line - somewhere, somehow - then the need for RfCs should disappear naturally. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 15:07, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
• We can't ban future RfCs so voting is meaningless. I don't want to explain all the details, but it involves recursive loops and a flux capacitor, so suffice it to say, we can't limit the ability of our future selves to discuss policy. Not even Jimbo can do that. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 02:03, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
• Comment: I don't agree in banning all future RfC's for April Fools' Day, but maybe we put a cap on it? Maybe, no RfC can be started about it until 2015, or something like that. Just so we don't go through this every year. Zach 01:04, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

  It sometimes helps to create a list of archived discussions. It won't stop people who talk first and think second, but it does stop the people who look for information first. A smart person, upon seeing a list of discussions spanning nearly every year since Wikipedia's creation, is going to ask himself whether starting Fruitless Discussion #124 About April Fool's is how he wants to use his time. After all, it might be more productive if he took those hours and used them to bang his head against a brick wall. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:31, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

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On April 2, the entire Wikipedia will be reset to the March 31st version

I think you can guess the general reception to this idea just by reading the header. — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 22:00, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
This will allow everyone to make whatever jokes they want to make on April 1. A committee will award prizes to the editors who made the best jokes. Count Iblis (talk) 15:41, 2 April 2013 (UTC) Support on April 2, the entire Wikipedia will be reset to the March 31st version Stfg is correct about April 1 not being a day when editors would go about their normal business. But then that's exactly what we should aim for; the more jokes the more fun and the resetting guarantees that it won't harm the encyclopedia. Count Iblis (talk) 16:54, 2 April 2013 (UTC) Yeah... it would only harm the reputations of the countless people who would be libelled by incoming trolls who think that the date gives them a green-light to say whatever they want. — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 17:23, 2 April 2013 (UTC) Oppose on April 2, the entire Wikipedia will be reset to the March 31st version I was toying with the idea of hatting this before anyone even voted, but... HELL NO. I made a significant number of good edits yesterday, as I'm sure almost everyone did as well. I could go on to list all the other problems it would create, but I hardly feel this should be dignified with a response. — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 15:59, 2 April 2013 (UTC) Worst idea ever - it effectively says that April 1st is a non-day for encyclopedia improvement. --Stfg (talk) 16:10, 2 April 2013 (UTC) Oh, goodness, no. Andrew Gray (talk) Rolling back thousands or millions of productive edits all at once? (I hope this proposal is just another bad April Fools' joke, but it's hard to tell any more). First Light (talk) 16:58, 2 April 2013 (UTC) Is this a joke? nerdfighter 17:08, 2 April 2013 (UTC) Strong Oppose. There are readers who have never heard of April Fool's Day who want to use wikipedia for what it is, an encyclopedia. Anything that increases the chaos on April 1, should be opposed. We have a much larger responability to our readers now that we did years ago. --Bduke (Discussion) 17:14, 2 April 2013 (UTC) It is a nice concept, until we consider that going a full day without encyclopedic improvement is not a nice concept. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C • AAPT) 17:32, 2 April 2013 (UTC) Oppose I actually made some constructive edits on April fools, and i'm sure others do too. -- Aunva6talk - contribs 17:49, 2 April 2013 (UTC) A staggeringly short-sighted idea that would coddle those who wish to pull pranks while penalizing those who are actually trying to get something done. I am all for levity and light hearted jokes, but this idea is not the way to handle this sitauation, not even close, as in not even in the same solar system as the planet a good idea might be found on.Beeblebrox (talk) 18:17, 2 April 2013 (UTC) I agree wholeheartedly with your statement here. I'm not sure if it was meant to be serious or not, but this would literally be the worst conclusion that an RfC of this sort could come to. Ryan Vesey 18:19, 2 April 2013 (UTC) Oppose Time for wp:snow on this one. North8000 (talk) 18:34, 2 April 2013 (UTC) Oppose Just to add weight to the SNOW suggestion... this is one of the worst suggestions I've heard on my entire time here. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 19:15, 2 April 2013 (UTC) I'm sure that Wikipedia, on a whole, is improved on April 1st. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 19:30, 2 April 2013 (UTC) Oppose - What if something happens like a big trade (like Matt Flynn to Oakland yesterday) happens and it gets rollbacked? It could be unproductive to those not interested in fooling around. ZappaOMati 19:37, 2 April 2013 (UTC) Pile-on oppose - This is a terrible idea. TCN7JM 21:20, 2 April 2013 (UTC) Comments on April 2, the entire Wikipedia will be reset to the March 31st version The most difficult issue in this would be the massive overhead the servers would suffer in such a rollback, but if there is any way we could perform this (without overhead), I'm the strongest supporter. Eduemoni↑talk↓ 15:56, 2 April 2013 (UTC) The fact that people are treating this as a serious proposal is... mind-blowing. ‑Scottywong| confabulate _ 16:44, 2 April 2013 (UTC) First Light, this has to become official policy first. If it does, there won't be any productive edits on April 1, just like people who have the weekend off don't turn up for work on Sunday morning only to find the office closed. Count Iblis (talk) 17:06, 2 April 2013 (UTC) Yea, that's not going to happen so I wouldn't bother discussing it. This would force users not to do anything productive even if they don't happen to care about April Fool's Day. Where does it end? shall we close on Christmas and only allow users to spread wikilove instead of contributing to content as well? Shall we make all pages green on St Patrick's day and only allow drunk people to edit? Get a grip, this idea is so bad, so ridiculous, and so technically unfeasible that if it was coming from anyone else I would assume it was just a loate April Foooll's joke. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:23, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

More creative DYK hooks

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The consensus overwhelmingly dictates that poop jokes aren't funny. Aren't we mature! :) ·Salvidrim!· ✉ 00:15, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Seriously, I think everyone agrees that April Fools DYK hooks need some refinement and that we should always strive to produce more sophisticated humor. :) ·Salvidrim!· ✉ 00:15, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

---

When I saw the DYK hooks on April 1st, I just couldn't help but roll my eyes at all the poop jokes. One might be kind of amusing, if you're so inclined, but half of the DYK's were childish scatological humor and nothing else. Remember when we had George Washington (the inventor!) as a featured article on April 1st? We need to do more amusingly misleading hooks like that again. We're doing a good job when we trick people into believing something that is not true. We do an even better job if we manage to trick people into believing something that is not true, and then manage to educate them on something else. We're not even trying when we're making nothing but poop jokes. --Conti|✉ 20:03, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Support More creative DYK hooks

1. --Conti|✉ 20:03, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
2. I wholly agree, we can do better, although there were three sets of dyk... -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 20:11, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
3. Support - Nix the poop jokes. TCN7JM 21:21, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
4. Support The humour presented there is far too low brow. If we must have joke DYK's we should at least try to make them clever puns, not just a list of various sexual innuendos. We are supposed to be presenting an encyclopaedia not a collection of primary school jokes. AIRcorn (talk) 23:10, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
5. DYK hooks are generally supposed to be interesting anyway. I agree that this year's were not very well done. Where did the discussion for that even take place? Or did someone take it upon themselves to do it? Zach 00:42, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

   same place as always WP:April_Fool's_Main_Page -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 01:27, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

6. Support We can do better. Much better. Vacation9 11:47, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
7. Support even though this RfC is probably the wrong forum. ~Adjwilley (talk) 16:11, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
8. The one to do with Siemens and Püssi was a step over an already pretty thin line. — foxj 17:34, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

   Aww... that one was mine. Sven Manguard Wha? 13:33, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

9. Support since all the other parts of the main page were actually funny, at least to me, but the DYK were just... cringeworthy. --NYKevin 05:04, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
10. Support Last year was better. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 08:16, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
11. Support - The only April Fools jokes I really approve of are the main page ones, like the featured article (? literally made me laugh out loud), so I expect higher humor for the DYK. öBrambleberry of RiverClan 17:10, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
12. Support Hooks that are not limited to juvenile male humor would be a first step. First Light (talk) 17:58, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
13. Support. People still expect to use Wikipedia as an encyclopedia on April 1st, and junk like this makes the wiki look bad. Ducknish (talk) 21:07, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
14. Support. While funny DYKs are OK, the innuendo can be a tad tiresome. dci | TALK 02:20, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
15. Support - If I'm not mistaken, DYK stopped being funny right around the time new DYK rules hit. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 00:07, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
16. Support - Yes, they were better in the past. CT Cooper · talk 13:11, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Oppose More creative DYK hooks

1. Oppose - Fine as is, and the "poop jokes" are a hit with the audience. 23993 views for Elvis' Greatest Shit. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 22:41, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
2. Oppose. And the example given by Crisco 1492 (talk · contribs) is hilarious, above. Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 04:52, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Comments More creative DYK hooks

• While this proposal sounds good, it does fail to address the question of "Who will bell the cat?" Developing good quality humorous material takes time and effort. Demanding that some unnamed other person perform this work, while requiring little to no effort, does nothing to help with creation of the material. Unless some of the people calling for change are willing to apply the principle of WP:SOFIXIT then everything will be the same in a year as it is today. --Allen3 ^talk 17:44, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
  • The first step is finding out whether this is a universally desired change. I didn't follow the April fools' process this year, so I honestly had no idea whether DYK was full of poop jokes because people preferred them over other kinds of jokes, or whether there simply wasn't anything else to put on the main page. Since the latter seems to be the case, I'm all for working towards having more clever DYK articles next year, instead of just crude ones. --Conti|✉ 18:19, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
    • Why not have a system where editors can vote for there favourite ones. AIRcorn (talk) 04:43, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Require all jokes other than the main page to be tagged

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Consensus is that jokes that are otherwise allowed (out of mainspace, not disruptive to banal readers, etc.) should be tagged with {{humor}} or an equivalent template, perhaps a specialized April Fools one; especially so if there is any likelihood that the joke could be perceived as anything but a blatant joke. :) ·Salvidrim!· ✉ 00:09, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

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All jokes, including XfD's, silly ANI threads, etc., would be permitted, but only with a {{humor}} or equivalent tag. Others could be removed on sight (optionally, we could add a WP:CSD for this, but I feel I'm getting ahead of myself here). Technically, things tagged with {{humor}} belong to WP:FUN, which arguably means they're already allowed, and from one of the above proposals, it's obvious there's no consensus to ban jokes anyway.

Added 00:12, 5 April 2013 (UTC): I forgot to mention that jokes in mainspace, extremely disruptive jokes (e.g. causing the server to fall over for a few minutes by abusing bigdelete), and anything else blatantly against policy would continue to be prohibited. I think most of the !votes up to this point have tacitly or explicitly assumed some variation on this.

Support mandatory joke-tagging

1. Support as proposer. --NYKevin 04:14, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
2. support if there is any possibilyity of said edits being taken as serious, including all ANI and XfD. user talk probably doesn't need it, unless there is possible confusion. -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 04:16, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
3. support You know, while I would rather see the whole stupid, destructive exercise disappear forever, this approach could work. (And can we give the jokes scores once they've been tagged?) HiLo48 (talk) 04:29, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

   scores? I like the idea. bring it up at wikipedia talk:april fools. -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 04:33, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

4. Support Hmmm, why not. Unless it becomes abvious that it's a joke. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 16:52, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
5. Support This would help to differentiate them from vandalism. First Light (talk) 18:00, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
6. Support for anything which isn't a completely blatant joke - that is, a viewer may consider to be vandalism or serious. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 19:58, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
7. Support Yes, but still keep it out of mainspace. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C • Sign AAPT) 22:09, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
8. Support TBrandley 22:25, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
9. Support. Can't hurt. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 00:09, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
10. Support, of course. TCN7JM 01:02, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
11. Support Obviously. Zach 03:03, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
12. Support - This would clear up any confusion the readers or fellow editors may have. Michaelzeng7 (talk) 20:49, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
13. Support except for changes one makes to their own User: and User_talk: pages and sub-pages and pages that are already clearly indicated as not meant to be taken seriously. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 21:28, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
14. Support. Seems like a decent idea. dci | TALK 02:23, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
15. Support - I think this would help things run smoother and won't be a major inconvenience. CT Cooper · talk 13:14, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Oppose mandatory joke-tagging

1. Weak Oppose AfDs (included under XfD) have an effect on mainspace. If the Tag is the only thing that acts to "differentiate them from vandalism", then it is vandalism, IRWolfie- (talk) 18:29, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

   Jokes are not allowed to enter mainspace. At all. I thought I made this clear, but apparently not. XfD's would be allowed, but only if they stayed in project space (the article must not be tagged with {{afd}}; some bots would have to be modified not to "fix" this on tagged AfD's). --NYKevin 20:34, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

2. Oppose Sorry, I missed the Wikipedia is not FUN policy. Tagging could be done discretionally (e.g. in the case of an exceptionally ambiguous and/or poor joke) but should not be required. Maybe they could be tagged post–April Fools. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 00:59, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Comments on mandatory joke-tagging

1. Anything that helps to identify the banal drivel so that it can be quickly removed is a good idea, I suppose. Thing is, those who think this garbage is actually fun and not disruptive will claim WP:IAR and not apply the "joke" tag. LOL, you cannot make this stuff up. Leaky Caldron 22:37, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

   You are making it up. It hasn't happened yet. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C • Sign AAPT) 22:44, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

   To clarify, "quickly removed" is a non-starter. The proposal explicitly permits properly tagged jokes, so you won't be able to just mass-remove them. Granted, it would make the April 2 cleanup considerably easier, and now I'm starting to think that's actually what you were referring to, but we don't "remove" joke XfD's and ANI's on April 2, we speedy-close and eventually archive them. I just want to make it very clear that this proposal would explicitly sanction tagged jokes as "OK." It already says that, but I want to avoid confusion later. --NYKevin 05:01, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

   Vandalism and disruptive editing should be dealt with as soon as it is identified. April Fool pranks are vandalism & disruptive, with the exception of agreed main page and stuff in user space. There should be no such thing as an "OK" tagged, sanctioned vandalism. Leaky Caldron 09:15, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

   I would suggest that consensus in this RFC might end up stating otherwise - then what? If it's in the article space, kill it with fire and block the poor bastard who went too far - and I'll be first in line with the block button. But as for the rest of it, it should be done in such a way that editors who wish to participate can do so while minimizing the impact on editors who do not. Tagging/templating seems to be a good approach that could accomplish just that. It's not disruptive editing if the community has sanctioned it and the editor takes obvious and deliberate steps to mitigate that disruption. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 14:29, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

   This proposal is a compromise position. Above, you can see a proposal to ban all April Fools' jokes, which would seem to align with your views. Currently, it's running at 2:1 opposed and will probably fail. You're not going to get a blanket ban out of this discussion. OTOH, the "ban interference" position is also not going to pass. So we give and take. Those who want to ban jokes entirely give up that position, and get a promise that jokes will be tagged. Those who want a free-for-all give up the spontaneity and initial "is this a joke?" factor, and get a promise that their jokes won't be summarily deleted in return. It's not anyone's idea of "perfect," but hopefully it's good enough for everyone. --NYKevin 20:53, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

   Why will the "ban all jokes" proposal fail? We don't vote here. We base decisions on quality of argument. Most of the oppose "votes" say "But I like the jokes", which counts for nothing and should simply be struck out. HiLo48 (talk) 04:04, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

   no. stop being anti-humor all the ime. many of us opposing have good arguments. and the sheer numbers of editors against it mean if it does pass, people will just ignore it and do it anyways. I'm gonna close it on WP:SNOW. -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 04:48, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

   Another stupid, and derogatory post. I am NOT "anti-humor all the ime"(sic). (Does it make you feel good when you so badly misrepresent those who disagree with you?) Any chance somebody could summarise those "good arguments"? Now, good arguments would obviously exclude "It's fun", "We need the light relief", "They do no harm", "I like it", "You have no sense of humour", and "You're just a killjoy". HiLo48 (talk) 05:35, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

   maybe you should stop being so uncivil, and actually look with neutral eyes. those arguments are as effective as "the jokes are stale, so we shouldn't have any more". while we don't really vote, you cannot ignore the fact that twice as many editor oppose as support, whatever the reasoning. -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 05:43, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

   I don't believe I have been uncivil. Pointing out sloppy argument is not being uncivil. And yes, I, and Wikipedia, can (and must in the latter case) ignore any "vote" that's not supported by reasonable argument. So I don't give a rats that twice as many editors oppose as support. It's a completely meaningless statistic. Any administrator claiming it mattered in the slightest would be failing in their duty. Also, at no point have I commented on the quality of the jokes. To imply that I have is yet another appalling and stupid misrepresentation. HiLo48 (talk) 06:00, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

   no, you are wrong. unless it is a case of sock puppetry, this IS about CONSENSUS, not 'arguments'. arguments have absolutely no bearing on consensus, other than them being reasoning for their POV on the topic. it is IMPOSSIBLE for consensus to be the opposite of what the majority of legitimate (not socks or blocked/banned, as well as germane) statements support. otherwise, the consensus would be a farce. so, the fact that twice as many oppose IS RELEVANT. we are not writing persuasive essays, but discussing policy, where an argument or opinion is just that, regardless of the quality of the argument. -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 07:09, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

   You really need to read WP:CONSENSUS. It's all about strength of argument, and has little to do with vote counting.—Kww(talk) 07:13, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

   (edit conflict) Actually, Hilo48 is correct about consensus. It's not determined by a majority vote. Each !vote is considered on it's own reasoning and merit, and not strictly by the number of opposes/supports. A discussion may be closed as "no consensus" if no clear outcome is apparent regardless of whether one side outnumbers the other. Your closure of the "ban all jokes" discussion was inappropriate as a WP:SNOW close, as there were some well reasoned arguments in both the supports and opposes and there was no clear consensus. I was going to revert it, before another editor got there before me. Chamal ^T•C 07:23, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

   (edit conflict) you cannot honestly tell me that that arguments are that bad that they are irrelevant as he is suggesting, or that consensus does not mean getting a reasonable majority of editors in agreement. to say that the consensus is to ban april fools is just plain lies. rough consensus does say that 51% does not a consensus make, however, this is 66%, and really appear to be a rough sense of oppose. I do concede that my closurewas premature, and not correctly reasoned. -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 07:30, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

   OK, as I asked for earlier, summarise the "good arguments". Now, good arguments would obviously exclude "It's fun", "We need the light relief", "They do no harm", "I like it", "You have no sense of humour", and "You're just a killjoy". Good arguments also need to negate the obvious killer argument from those wanting the jokes banned - they damage the encyclopaedia. So, sound arguments for keeping April Fools Day jokes going are...? HiLo48 (talk) 07:59, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

   how do they damage the encyclopedia? consensus has already established that article-space jokes are vandalism (and always have been), so how do wikipedia- and user-space jokes harm the encyclopedia? additionally, the first three arguments you listed there are perfectly reasonable, and not all of them are that simple, provided that they can be backed up if questioned. -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 17:01, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

   If you cannot see how jokes damage the encyclopaedia, I'm sorry, you're out of touch with reality, or have chosen to ignore much of what has been written above by many editors. And, the first three arguments, "It's fun", "We need the light relief", and "They do no harm", are NOT perfectly reasonable. They are selfish, nonsensical rubbish. Next? HiLo48 (talk) 17:44, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

   so all the humor pages in wikipedia and user namespaces are harming the wiki... how? and how is it selfish to have the opinion that something is fun, or that it's nice to have a break from the norm? they make perfect sense to me. -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 17:52, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

   I didn't say "all the humor pages in wikipedia...are harming the wiki". Misrepresentation should be a capital offence here. Nor did I say that it's "selfish to have the opinion that something is fun, or that it's nice to have a break from the norm". You can have whatever opinion you like about them. Doesn't make them good arguments for stuffing up Wikipedia. HiLo48 (talk) 18:15, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

   you said that jokes harm the wiki. jokes include the humorous pages. therefore, you implied that the humorous pages are harmful to the wiki. if you were talking about article jokes, that is just beating a dead horse, as jokes in articles are already considered vandalism. -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 18:32, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Can you explain how tagging an article for deletion and further tagging it as a joke is fun, funny or humorous? Leaky Caldron 17:58, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

1. the AfD has its ownd discussion. tagging an article as a joke would be vandalism. article space jokes are vandalism, and it is looking like AfD jokes are likely to be restricted to userspace. so, answer the question: how are wikipedia namespace and userspace jokes harmful? -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 18:16, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

'::But YOU supported allowing "joke" AfDs, so answer my question; explain the humour / joke? Leaky Caldron 18:24, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

well, there is the initial irony, however, it does wear off quickly, although the rationales in the discussions can be pretty funny. -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 18:32, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm still waiting for an answer to the question. What damage to the project occurs from a page in the wikipedia space (or the userspace) that purports to be an AFD, for an article that is NOT tagged as an article up for deletion, and for which no entry is made in the deletion log, and for which a tag exists that says "This is a joke, not a real AFD"? What damage happens there? I asked above and got no response, so I ask again - what damage? UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 14:34, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Automatic sanction for article-space vandalism

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Consensus is clearly against an automatic sanction, with several people saying that it should be treated like vandalism that occours on any other date. Sven Manguard Wha? 18:42, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

---

As you can probably tell, I am a firm supporter of the celebration of April Fools Day on Wikipedia, as long as it is done without causing any harm. To that end, I am proposing an automatic block for any regular editor (as in, someone who has clearly been around long enough to understand what constitutes clear vandalism) that vandalizes any article on April 1, even if it is a "joke". AutomaticStrikeout (T • C • Sign AAPT) 22:32, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Support automatic vandalism sanction

1. As proposer. AutomaticStrikeout (T • C • Sign AAPT) 22:32, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
2. SupportBarely support, but be a little more lenient, leave it to admins discretion to determine "oh, they were joking and reverted it 5 seconds later", etc. gwickwire^talk_editing 22:45, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

   Per comments below, shouldn't treat it too much differently than other vandalism, except potentially a higher escalation. But something should be done for April Fools' vandalism. gwickwire^talk_editing 00:07, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Oppose automatic vandalism sanction

1. oppose why treat it differently than any other vandalism? start off with a warning, and go through lvl 4, AN/I after 4th warning. no different than vandalism any other day of the year. -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 23:05, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
2. Oppose I myself prefer the typical way to handle regular vandalism at this time as well, with four warnings and a report if necessary after. TBrandley 23:09, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
3. Oppose We don't usually template the regulars, but we do have a system for this (seriously, though: don't give people a level-1 vandalism warning if they're not new; it starts with "Welcome to Wikipedia" and will come off as condescending). --NYKevin 00:04, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
4. Oppose: Hey now... we seem to be forgetting the blocks should be preventive, not punitive part a lot these days. If the problem persists, warn and block as per the usual practice. Otherwise, don't block somebody just to prove a point to the rest of the community, if they have already stopped. Chamal ^T•C 00:46, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
5. Oppose It seems silly to block people with no warnings just because of the date. TCN7JM 01:03, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
6. Oppose As others have said, why is it any different than other date? Vacation9 01:11, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
7. Oppose - I see no reason to treat April 1st more strictly than any other day; except the worst vandalism, we never block users for a single vandalising edit. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 04:37, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
8. Oppose - blocking for 1 vandalism edit is a very bad idea. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 09:07, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
9. Oppose Too harsh for vandalism. IRWolfie- (talk) 18:31, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
10. Oppose per Chamal N - Blocks are preventive, not punitive. A warning or two might stop the disruption right there. There isn't a need for any block until the joke becomes a true attempt to disrupt Wikipedia. Most jokers and pranksters just want to have fun, not harm Wikipedia. Michaelzeng7 (talk) 20:54, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
11. Oppose. Violating policies to stop others from violating policies? dci | TALK 02:24, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
12. Oppose It's not really necessary. Users who decide to vandalize on April Fools' Day should not be handled differently than those who vandalize on other days. The current process of four warning levels and blocks for continuing vandalism works just as well for April Fools'. A special block procedure is not needed. —DragonLord^{(talk/contribs)} 02:31, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
13. Oppose Violation of WP:VANDAL, this is way too POINTy. hmssolent\^{Let's convene} _{My patrols} 05:48, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
14. Oppose - Wouldn't archive very much and every case has to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. CT Cooper · talk 13:15, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Comments on automatic vandalism sanction

Tricky. If I post a bad-faith AFD, what happens to me? Should that penalty be different just because I had the misfortune to climb onto my soapbox on April 1st? But, on the other hand, if an editor should be expected to know better - possibly because they were warned about April fools shenanigans in the past - then yeah, they should know better and would likely merit a block. The other caveat is that we're talking about setting rules and procedures here for April Fools. If someone is aware of these rules and breaks them anyway? Block'em. Willful disruption is different from carrying a joke too far. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 14:33, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

blocks are supposed to be used to prevent further disruption, not as a punishment. -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 18:54, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

True. But if I see an editor who has been explicitly warned not to do something, and who then does it anyway and disrupts the encyclopedia, I think it's reasonable to assume he will do so again - and that a block in such a case would indeed prevent further harm. The criteria shouldn't really be different from that of April 2, or any other day - which was my point. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 12:25, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Display an editnotice on the mainspace

Since the consensus seems to be to avoid jokes on articles judging from the responses to above proposals, we could display an editnotice on the mainspace (i.e all articles) only on 1 April, discouraging joke edits to articles and perhaps with a warning that such edits may prompt a block. Such a notice could serve as the first warning if necessary. This is technically possible, since editnotices can easily be displayed namespace-wide and also for a specific time period. Obviously this won't solve the problem 100%, but it will at least give the potential pranksters some advance warning, and might save us some time spent on cleaning up. Chamal ^T•C 02:34, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Support for editnotice

1. support good idea -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 03:04, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
2. Support Editors should be notified about the rules. Of course, ignorance is not an excuse, but incidents can be reduced if we made sure that users are properly notified. —DragonLord^{(talk/contribs)} 03:56, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
3. Support - I understand that some people have been introducing jokes in the mainspace, and such warnings can keep it down. In general, with such actions, we must consider the other side - BEANS and BITE - but in this case, I don't think that either one is a big issue here. And we may want to cover more than the UTC April 1st - go as early as 11:00 the previous day (start of April 1st in New Zealand) and as late as 10:00 the next day (the end of April 1st in Hawaii). עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 04:34, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
4. Suppport - Very sensible idea. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 09:07, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
5. This makes plenty of sense, and is a pretty clever idea. dci | TALK 02:26, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Oppose for editnotice

1. Oppose unless it can be shown that this is actually a problem, per NYKevin below. — This, that and the other (talk) 10:28, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
2. Oppose as below and as per WP:BEANS. I'm not convinced this is a problem that cannot be addressed without putting the idea in some idiot's head that this is a thing. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 14:35, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
3. Oppose, essentially per UltraExactZZ (talk · contribs), above. Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 20:04, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
4. Oppose, it would also mean that any real world jokes would have to be censored out of Wikipedia articles. Count Iblis (talk) 23:05, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
5. Regrettable Oppose, per BEANS. An editnotice saying 'please don't vandalise Wikipedia!' is likely to encourage people to do exactly that. Robofish (talk) 21:44, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
6. Oppose - Is vandalism even that much more of a problem on April Fools? I haven't noticed. WP:BEANS. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 01:04, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
7. Oppose, I think everyone above has got it covered. WP:BEANS Zach 01:07, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
8. Oppose per WP:BEANS. Most of our users wouldn't dream of doing this, so we shouldn't be suggesting to them that it's even possible. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:52, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Comments on editnotice

• Question Have we positively identified any mainspace edits by humans as definitely jokes (i.e. neither ordinary vandalism nor seriously intended but poorly executed)? In other words, would this proposal have helped? --NYKevin 02:52, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

• Based on the discussion here it seems the Wikipedia community has the assumption that the amount of unproductive edits are at a higher level than on other days, and that's what I based this proposal on. I doubt there is any way to give a definite answer to your question without running some complex database analysis on the edits and reverts carried out on 1 April. However, I did take a look at the edit count of our anti-vandal bot ClueBot NG (see wikichecker) – surprisingly enough, it has made a much lower number of edits on that day than average. Chamal ^T•C 12:56, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

RFC to approve main page blurbs

A week before next april fools day, start an rfc and list each joke item for an up or down vote. Those items with more opposition than support will not run on April fools day, even if we have to include serious content instead. this includes all proposed joke DYK hooks, all proposed joke TFA's, and any other mainpage joke. This should reduce the poop jokes while letting truly humorous ones (e.g. this years James Bond (american football)) through.

Support RFC to approve main page blurbs

1. As proposer. Tazerdadog (talk) 20:46, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
2. Support though maybe not in precisely this form. We clearly need some sort of mechanism to evaluate and review the main page silliness before it goes live. --NYKevin 20:58, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
3. Somewhat. I think it's nice to get a community discussion about what they should be. However, I'm not sure if RfC is the right forum, but definitely something. Zach 01:08, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
4. Support - unlike the other jokes, which are for the Wikipedians, the front page is for the readers. This means 2 things about them:
   1. The users who vote about them aren't the intended target, so it's not spoiling it for them.
   2. The reputation of Wikipedia is at stake here, since the people who will be seing them aren't Wikipedians.
   עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 06:31, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
5. Support Maybe not an RFC, but a post somewhere (to the major noticeboards at least) public pointing interested editors to the various April fools days discussions would be beneficial. At the least it would allow people to look at the jokes before they go on the main page and make their opinions noted before they appear. It is better to get the ones that are deemed bad before they go public and if one does get through that you don't like you don't really have an excuse (if you didn't comment beforehand). AIRcorn (talk) 08:41, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Oppose RFC to approve main page blurbs

1. People are free to check the blurbs at any time of the year on the designated pages. Some articles are shot down like that (Frank's Cock, for instance) — Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:01, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
2. Per Crisco 1492. There's no need to hold a separate RFC; anybody interested can simply go to Wikipedia:April Fool's Main Page at anytime and check all the items that will appear on the main page. Chamal ^T•C 03:36, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

   The idea is that these blurbs are sometimes controversial and therefore almost require comment from outside editors. This is meant as a filter to prevent some of the truly tasteless stuff from running. Obviously, there is a problem here. Tazerdadog (talk) 05:11, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

3. Oppose, as we already have a process in place to approve mainpage content. That said, the concerns of Jimbo (above on this page) and others should be addressed - but that can happen in the usual manner. An alternative might be to suggest that we take more time with the April 1 content and do it properly, rather than set off another discussion elsewhere that muddies the waters. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 14:37, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Discussion about RFC to approve main page blurbs

• I'm surprised that people don't know where to look for discussions about 1st April main page plans. As a TFA delegate, let me set out what happened this year in the run-up to the final selection. The 2013 1st April TFA was scheduled after extensive discussion at WT:Today's featured article/requests that started in January (yes, January) that was then continued at Wikipedia:April Fool's Main Page/Featured Article and a consensus reached. The discussions were also advertised at this Talk:Main Page thread and WT:FAC, and highlighted in a thread at Jimbo's user talk page (e.g. by me) so there was plenty of opportunity for people to get involved. I don't see that an RFC is needed to help improve the TFA choice or process, frankly. Bencherlite^Talk 09:11, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

The WMF should collaborate with the international media to pull off great April 1 pranks

A lot of the concerns about the (perceived) disruption on April 1 has to about the low quality of the jokes; so you have to put off with disruption and in many cases the jokes that are behind this are not funny, even the jokes that are not disruptive aren't all that good. Joke edits to articles are controversial even if they are funny, because that undermines the integrity of our articles.

These concerns can be addressed by putting the jokes in the international media. Then Wikipedia can simply include what reliable sources say per its usual policies and you would still have good jokes here. The role of the WMF can be to make funds available to news organizations, to mobilize editors to create facts on the ground that the news organizations can then report on etc. etc.

If the people who would like to see good jokes here on April 1 know that there will be some good ones without they themselves having to do anything, they will desist from making their own jokes. Also they are more likely to support proposed policies restricting such activities. Count Iblis (talk) 16:34, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Support

1. Support as long as the jokes are in decent taste (probably not "The North Koreans detonate nuclear weapons over Seoul and Tokyo"). But this does seem a tad unfeasible, as Michaelzeng points out in the discussion section. dci | TALK 02:31, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
2. Support. It's pretty apparent while a wiki is a great way to make an encyclopaedia, it's a pretty crappy way of doing humour (for much of the same reasons really!). The WMF would be able to plan in secret, and would have the authority (both in terms of WP's guidelines and the necessary technical access) to make a good April fool's joke of the sort seen of the other world top 10 websites. Of course, it would be the WMF's prerogative to do pretty much whatever they like regardless of what we say here. --LukeSurl ^{t c} 18:41, 11 April 2013 (UTC) (not sure about "collaborate with the international media" though)

Oppose

1. Strong Oppose - this is a completely unworkable idea, and not a sensible one either. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 10:43, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
2. Moral Support - subtle pranks, properly done, could be an absolute delight. But I doubt very much that the WMF would have any interest whatsoever in such an endeavor. And the instant you direct funds from the project to this sort of thing... well, it's a problem. There isn't a sufficient outreach upside here to justify it - people won't see some joke Press Release and say "Holy shit, they have a sense of humor - I'm gonna go edit there." UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 14:40, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
3. Oppose - We as the community don't have the power to direct the WMF to the restroom much less direct them to orchestrate pranks with international media, nor should we. That's not their role. Go Phightins! 10:29, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Discussion

• This proposal seems more like a straw poll over an opinion matter, rather than an actual remedy to the problems at hand. Even if this does gain support, there is no telling of how the Wikimedia Foundation will respond. The Foundation and the Community are two completely different entities; the Community can't tell the WMF what to do. Michaelzeng7 (talk) 20:58, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

  Correct. But well-reasoned proposals with broad community support can easily get a serious look from WMF staffers. And then, who knows? But I'm not sure that this is such a proposal. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 14:41, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Ban April Fools DYKs

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Consensus is against banning April Fools DYKs. See above related discussion about using better DYK hooks. :) ·Salvidrim!· ✉ 00:05, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

---

Bit late here, but I expect some people are still reading. Much of the concern with April Fools on Wikipedia at the moment seems to be with the DYKs, which frankly don't give a good impression of Wikipedia, being largely made up of crude sexual puns. This year, for example, we tried to attract readers' clicks with a hook about 'Polish girls getting wet and spanked' - actually an accurate description of the article, but arguably a bit beneath us. There's a proposal above that April Fools DYKs should be better. This one's simpler: don't do them. By all means, have a silly FA and FP, and mess around in Wikipedia-space if you must. But the April Fools DYKs, year after year, do us more discredit than good. Robofish (talk) 20:37, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Support

Oppose

1. Oppose - The Wikipedia community can easily come up with good, funny DYKs on April 1st. I just get the feeling the people who wrote them weren't trying this year. TCN7JM 22:20, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

   Dead singers performing new songs and a dig at the Gibraltarpedia critics? Shame everyone picks on the "shit" and "fucks" — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:19, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

2. Strong oppose. We just need better DYKs. Zach 01:09, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
3. Oppose - there are better ones (such as Wikipedia); we just need more of these. I think we should also have some completely normal ones, but not only those. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 06:21, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
4. Oppose I liked the James Bond one. We should try and raise the bar before getting rid of it completely. AIRcorn (talk) 08:43, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
5. Oppose in concurrence with the opinions above. Michaelzeng7 (talk) 01:58, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Discussion

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

General Commentary

There doesn't seem to be a place for non-suggestion specific discussions, so...now there is. I think the underlying problem with the April 1st tomfoolery is not with the pranks themselves, it's really that the pranks are so goddamn lame that it makes people frustrated. As I've said before when this topic arises, being offensive is a lesser crime than being ordinary, or worse, boring. Word play with the likes of Fucking, Austria isn't clever. Nominating Wikipedia:Oversight for deletion isn't clever. Google Nose is clever. Netflix's new categorizations like "Movies With an Epic Nicholas Cage meltdown is clever. Be that, and not this "Siemens is in Püssi" eye-rolling junk. Tarc (talk) 17:25, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Outside of keeping stuff out of mainspace, it's not worth the effort to fret about April 1. Editors who feel humor lightens spirits and improves morale can celebrate the day; editors who find the activity lame and disruptive go just real life April and resume Wikpedaing on April 2. We can't achieve consensus on important things that exist all year long (civility, inclusion/deletion, something to do with MOS, etc.) NE Ent 17:46, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Every year we have this discussion on April 2nd, and every year nothing comes of it. It seems like a better course of action to discuss this around September, when it is a distant problem and not a current, hot-button issue. I suspect a consensus mught be easiert to find if this were put on hold for several months and discussed when tempers are not so hot. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:12, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Beeblebrox, I wasn't going to wait as long, but I think this is a little too soon and the consensus is going to be skewed as a result. Perhaps it would be best to have a full fledged RfC where we have different parts determining how the RfC will be created, this will a) create the most workable RfC possible and b) make sure the final, policy-setting RfC is sufficiently far away from April 1 that it isn't swayed as a result. I'm thinking something along the lines of Talk:Jerusalem/2013 RfC discussion. Ryan Vesey 18:15, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure that creating yet another level of policy for someone to OWN is the right way to go here. There are already enough shadow bureaucracies in place that we really don't need another one. Intothatdarkness 19:41, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

The most important thing is that we should be more intellectual. On April Fool's day I was with friends with children. I wanted to share with them the home page of Wikipedia, but the truth is - it wasn't that funny. Why? Because it contained very unclever sexual humor of no real intellectual value.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:33, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Given the number of articles here dealing with sports players, video game characters, and assorted trivia, I find the call to be more intellectual quite amusing. Maybe that would be good fodder for next April 1, with a link to an extensive article about someone who was eliminated in the first round of American Idol... Intothatdarkness 13:40, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I know that sh*t is a hit, but I wholeheartedly agree that we can do better. What's next, yo mama jokes? Go Phightins! 00:09, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

See that's what I was getting at above, it's just embarrassing to see this un-funny stuff year after year. Have the WMF announce the hiring of a professional anti-vandalism task force, funded by charging editors 25 cents per edit, complete with a Paypal popup when you click submit. Reveal that Daniel Brandt was in reality an early project co-founder and will now be granted honorary admin status. Anything is better than Shitterton riffs. Tarc (talk) 00:12, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

The "jokes" are bad enough that they are absolutely no different from vandalism. Vandals also think that they are making jokes and having fun, haha. Something planned and well thought out, like Google's smell search, would be funny and interesting. There is no comparison between the fake AfDs and infantile DYKs to what other websites do. First Light (talk) 00:24, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

The real drama about jokes on wikipedia meets censorship, censoring jokes of no real intellectual value (because humor is relative, a unscrupulous or idiotic joke may be funny to some, while may not be funny to others) may cause severe outcry (as per WP:NOT, wikipedia is not censored), but if I contributed with a joke and find it deleted, while I find a intellectual and curated joke alive, but the joke is somehow unappreciated, I'd be well damn disappointed, thus I must disagree with Jimbo, Wikipedia is not a place for intellect, but for content, content of good quality may not reflect into intellectuality, good jokes and humor may be intellectual, cynical or subjective and yet they are relative, if you showed the main page in April's 2nd there would be no difference to April's first, because in the DYK there was a reference to sexual practices⁽¹⁾ or a comment regarding Rihanna's song which states "see sex wriggling everywhere". Eduemoni^↑talk↓ 01:17, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Mr Wales that in past years the main page perhaps had more wit to it.

I remember that last year there was a DYK hook that simply said that T. Rex populations had been discovered underground in Africa. Of course, the gag was that more than one species can be abbreviated that way. That's a clever AFD prank condensed into a single sentence, and it stuck with me all year. I'm not sure that any of this year's hooks were as good.

(However, not having participated in creating the afd page, I do feel bad criticizing the quality.) APL (talk) 04:05, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

A general comment on the discussion... We have editors who like April Fools jokes, and we have editors who don't, but we all know that liking or not liking something is not how we decide things at Wikipedia. Very few of the "like" crowd seem able to say much more than "It's fun". That's a really crappy argument. They also say it's harmless. Well.... Those who don't like it point to the disruption (stupidly denied by many of the likers). Some of the jokes are nothing more than crudities, or vandalism, using the date as an excuse. I come from a culture where the day is a very minor event. I read some crap here on Monday and it took me some time to realise that it was someone's idea of a joke. That wasted my time. That's disruptive. Many of our readers come from places where the day isn't commemorated at all. "Jokes" will obviously fool such readers. That's disruption. As soon as any reader is deceived, it's disruption. In fact, tricking gullible people is actually a form of bullying. That's definitely against our rules. So, it's definitely not harmless. Now, can any of the likers come up with anything more than "It's fun", AND balance those negatives? HiLo48 (talk) 03:19, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm not against you here. Really, I'm not, but could you please tone it down a bit and not treat the people who oppose your arguments like they're idiots? It's condescending, and that's against our rules. Also, saying that the jokers were intentionally bullying you is a stretch. I can see, however, how this is disruptive. TCN7JM 03:24, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Treating people like idiots? I certainly didn't use the word. And I really do think the argument "It's fun" is a pretty pathetic one, and I've pointed out how it counts for nothing here because it really says nothing more than "I like it". I've said it firmly because a lot of people think it does count for something. And I didn't accuse anyone of intentional bullying. I simply pointed out a reality. Deliberately deceiving a gullible person IS bullying, intentional or not. And it's not just about me (I wasn't actually thinking of myself), but anyone who is fooled. Now that's been made clear, doing it again would be intentional. HiLo48 (talk) 03:44, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I am totally with my Aussie mate, Hilo, on this one. Also his use of blunt language in a typically Australian way is justified. Could those who like April Fool Jokes address the point of their impact on readers who have no idea what April Fool's Day is all about? These people could have been completely put off wikipedia on April 1st. They would not have been amused. They would not have been having fun. They would have been confused and, yes, bullied. It is time we took an international perspective on this. April Fool's Day is, I think, only big in the US and parts of Europe. I do not think it is a feature of life in Latin America or most of Asia. On other issues we are good at taking a neutral international perspective on matters. It is time we did so on April Fool jokes and got rid of them. --Bduke (Discussion) 09:43, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I still don't see how it hurts the encyclopedia and turn off editors, and how it outweighs the psychological strain editors feel when they are shunned from all the fun. April Fools aside, do you feel that ALL forms of humour on Wikipedia should go, including the joke essays and guidelines that users should not follow, and the offending comments within each question at WP:WPTEST? hmssolent\^{Let's convene} _{My patrols} 11:19, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

An interesting response. I did not say it turned off editors. I said it turned off readers. Wikipedia is about our mission to readers, not about us editors. You are not the first to divert an argument about readers back to one about editors. The April Fool nonsense does spin over into the reader space. In the early days, it was OK for editors to have fun, but wikipedia has grown up. People rely on it. It should not be compromised even for a day. We as editors now have a great responsibility. I am not opposed to all forms of humour, provided they are strictly in wikipedia space and are not specific to specific cultures. I am opposed to April Fool "humour" (not the quotes - most if it not) because it is specific to specific cultures. Since leaving England in 1976, working in three countries, I do not think I came across a single April Fool's joke other than recently on wikipedia. On a different tack, do any of the other language wikipedias or other wikimedia projects suffer from this April Fool nonsense? --Bduke (Discussion) 11:44, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

• Someone hacked the Indonesian Wikipedia's main page using a transcluded template (here). — Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:24, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

To make sure this RFC actually produces a meaningful impact on future April Fools' Days, we need to have an guideline (possibly even a conduct policy), not merely an essay, based on this discussion. I want to make sure this discussion is actually useful. Any ideas? —DragonLord^{(talk/contribs)} 03:38, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

The mainspace editnotice is a technical change, and IMHO does not necessarily need a guideline; editnotices are added and removed all the time under admin discretion. My proposal (require use of {{humor}} on jokes) seems likely to succeed, though it is too soon to tell. If it does, I'd say the next step would be to create a project page with {{proposed}} and begin further discussion on its talk page (I'm pretty sure a simple straw-poll isn't good enough to make a new guideline). Maybe a second RfC or something? --NYKevin 05:11, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

there is was also a template for section. made it myself... {{humor section}}, but someone deleted it, and I didn't notice. damn deletionists...-- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 05:21, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

{{Humor Section}} exists and lacks a deletion log. --NYKevin 05:25, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I just saw that... my stupid capitalization threw me off... -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 05:28, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

I've moved the template to {{Humor section}}. —DragonLord^{(talk/contribs)} 17:47, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

• One point that ought to be clarified, if there is to be a code of practice for April Fools Day, is when the jokes are permitted. Being an international encyclopedia, 1 April occurs at different times for users. WP uses UTC, but that makes a big difference in New Zealand or Hawaii. Secondly, being British, I regard the joking period as ending at midday (1100 UTC because of British Summer Time), after which the joker is expected to reveal the joke (and implicitly put things right). The April Fools Day article says that this rule has lapsed in recent times but it is uncited. I and many others would still expect that rule to be observed. WP can make any rule it likes, but victims and jokers need to know whether they are within the joking period. Reference back to an old archived discussion if the matter is raised is not enough. --AJHingston (talk) 10:43, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

I am fully with the 2 Australian colleagues above, so much so that I'm almost tempted to emigrate. The thing about stopping at midday in the UK is something I had forgotten about. My take on this whole saga is very much along the lines that the stuff people perpetrate in the name of humour simply is not funny. Back in the day, the BBC used to do excellent April Fools Day pieces on the main news such a spaghetti being harvested in Switzerland and a few years ago an article about flying penguins. These were clever, ingenious and so well put together you could not tell fact from fiction. I would really like to hear from the advocates of false AFD, obviously fake RfAs and the like - where is the guile and skill in your puerile and obvious pranks? These seem more like the equivalent of covertly sticking a label on someone's back saying "kick me". It's just not funny and looks more like kids in the playground trying to be the most annoying without realising it. Anyway, actions have consequences. In 2012 an RfA candidate was sailing through until they joined in the foolery and their candidacy bombed - the community doesn't care for immaturity. Leaky Caldron 11:44, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

WP:rules for fools. the guideline lays out much of what has been discussed. -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 13:53, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Which makes my point above about archived discussions. There is some consensus emerging that this approach should be revived, if April Fools are to be permitted at all. But it is then necessary to ensure that everyone (including the victims) know the rules. That is an essential aspect of the tradition - everyone is expected to be on guard for a trick and the prankster has to catch them out. It is no good for the prankster to say 'Oh well, I knew you would be on guard tomorrow, so I decided to play the trick today', or 'April Fools Day ends at midnight for me, even if it ends at noon for you'. It may or not be an acceptable joke depending on the group norms, but it will not count as an April Fool to the victim. In the same way, if everyone knows that joke AFDs are allowed, then everyone could wait until 2 April to view them, when the false ones should have been taken down; if not editors and viewers are entitled to be cross if they have wasted time commenting on someone's bizarre but possibly serious proposal. That sort of thing is easy amongst schoolboys, not so easy here. --AJHingston (talk) 14:27, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

If they're properly tagged (per my proposal), I'd lean towards a laissez-faire approach, maybe not even limiting them to April 1. Of course, there would probably need to be some limits, such as "If literally no one but the nominator finds it funny, speedy close it," or "Don't leave it open for longer than 12 or 24 hours." OTOH, the community may not agree with me here. But to me, specifying exactly when and where jokes may take place feels creepy. --NYKevin 20:44, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Please tell me I'm wrong; you are not advocating jokes at any time provided that they are tagged "joke"? Please tell me I'm wrong. Leaky Caldron 21:00, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm saying we don't need to legislate it at all. People generally don't make jokes on days other than April 1, so I see no reason to expressly prohibit what isn't a problem anyway. We should strive for simple guidelines and policies. --NYKevin 21:03, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

We already have them; WP:VAND and WP:DISRUPT. Just needs a few willing Admins to do the right thing. Leaky Caldron 21:08, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

As far as WP:VAND is concerned, it's not at all clear to me that the pranksters are actively trying to harm the encyclopedia, and we must assume good faith. If they are acting in good faith, it is not vandalism, by definition. And it's also unclear to me how a properly tagged and corralled joke is "disruptive" in any way, even if it's not April 1. --NYKevin 21:44, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Maybe you're missing the point I have been trying to make. I thought WP was aimed at readers, to provide high quality, accurate and informative articles. You make it sound like a self-serving social network where juveniles corrupt material in the name of humour but that's ok, provided it is tagged "joke". Not my world I'm afraid. Nothing in WP:5P that supports your approach. Leaky Caldron 21:51, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

I fail to see the relevance of such high-level, general material. What specific policy is violated? --NYKevin 22:30, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

• Speaking only for myself as an admin, I do not feel comfortable blocking someone for an April Fools joke because there isn't a clear consensus against it, even when it goes too far. As admin, we aren't here to be police, we are here to clean up the place under the authority of the greater community. The admin bit itself just gives us the tools, not the authority. As long as there isn't a consensus against even bad jokes, it puts us in a very difficult position, as something that I would clearly block for on June 1 can cause a firestorm of protests if I block on April 1. This is why I stayed away the entire day, as best I could. So did other admin. I guess that makes it a good day to be a sockpuppet or vandal, as other problems likely get less attention from the mop as well. April 1 is one of the worst day of the year to be an admin here. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 21:56, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

• well, at least now there is definite consensus that article jokes should be treated as vandalism. -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 16:45, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

• A part of me is thinking that the best joke of all would be to make the entire English Wikipedia "read only" on April 1, for 24 hours. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 19:46, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

  That could work. Maybe also have a fake announcement that we're moving to a Britannica-style system, or that we're "finished," like YouTube's purported closure. --NYKevin 17:01, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

  Yeah, I think the general think is, while an encyclopaedia can be crowd-sourced, humour has never really lent itself to such a method of generation (c.f. the rather unfunny Uncyclopedia). I'd be in favour of dropping all the rather tiresome main-page gags etc. and allowing the WMF staff to surprise us all with something... --LukeSurl ^{t c} 17:33, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

  Perhaps an banner announcement that Microsoft has bought us out (MicroPedia), complete with interviews and quotes from Bill Gates and Jimmy? And the new "Are you sure you want to make this edit?" preview feature, or the new "Clippy" style WP:AFC. I means seriously, if you're going to do a gag, go big or go home. The petty things have already all been done 100 times and are more disruptive than humorous. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 01:11, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

  I agree Vacation9 11:33, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

  Same here, although one could expect the drama outside of WP as much as how both YT and Google would have done the same. I would still appreciate the DYKs anway. hmssolent\^{Let's convene} _{My patrols}

  That is the goal, an April Fools on everyone. You could probably get several of the tech sites to go in with their own articles to support it: slashdot, cnet, etc. plus others that could be fooled into running the story. THAT is what makes an April Fools joke, a great gag. Not AFDs to delete Earth (Even if you are a Vogon). Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 16:30, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

  I could actually support a community April Fool's joke on the readers, the same as many organizations do. What I vehemently oppose is individual editors playing tricks and using Wikipedia as the method.—Kww(talk) 18:19, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

• Making the entire English Wikipedia read-only for 24 hours as a trial next year works for me.  Keep in mind that April 1 lasts for 49 hours (I think not 50) from Eastern Kiribati to the nautical time for Baker island.  Unscintillating (talk) 23:07, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

I really don't think a database lock is a good idea. It's just too disruptive. For one thing, it prevents legitimate activity from occurring on the English Wikipedia. —DragonLord^{(talk/contribs)} 03:34, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

This sounds a lot like the earlier proposal to roll the entire wiki back on April 2. We all saw the response to that. --NYKevin 03:39, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

So what do we do from here?

Given that consensus has been reached on most of the topics in this RFC, what do we do to implement these suggestions? I suggest rewriting Wikipedia:Rules for Fools and upgrading it to guideline status once rewritten. What do you think? —DragonLord^{(talk/contribs)} 02:32, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

make this a proposal. it's probably waht should be done. -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 03:00, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

I've started to rewrite Wikipedia:Rules for Fools based on this RFC, and I have created a new shortcut WP:FOOLS to the page. Feel free to contribute. —DragonLord^{(talk/contribs)} 21:02, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

See the RFC at Wikipedia talk:Rules for Fools. —DragonLord^{(talk/contribs)} 03:15, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Ban April Fools DYKs

Extended discussion

Support until there is a policy and a cultural expectation that hateful, exclusionary 'jokes' will not be made under the cover of the holiday.—chbarts (talk) 09:58, 2 April 2015 (UTC) Oppose Hard cases make bad law. That one (admittedly bad) mistake was made doesn't mean that any systematic changes need to be made. No action is necessary because there is not a systematic problem. One mistake is not a pattern that needs addressing. --Jayron32 11:45, 2 April 2015 (UTC) Oppose Except there were no "hateful exclusionary jokes". The joke was poor. So what? The solution is for more editors to look at the proposed content before the day. Paul B (talk) 13:09, 2 April 2015 (UTC) Oppose. That was a badly construed joke, not discrimination. Maybe next time a better article could be used, but still.... (Also, I have made this into a subheader.) Epic Genius (talk) 21:09, 2 April 2015 (UTC) Oppose bad jokes do not by virtue mean that there is a culture of discrimination. there is nothing wrong with previous DYK's on april fools, so one incident does not a pattern create. -- Aunva6talk - contribs 05:36, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Guys, if you want to have this discussion I suggest starting a new RfC, with proper advertising and everything. A two-year-old closed RfC is not the best venue for a new discussion otherwise. Nikkimaria (talk) 05:48, 3 April 2015 (UTC)