Now that it's over (mostly), a brief synopsis of what happened:
* A "joke" article was created in the User namespace * Article was nominated as a FAC for April 1st 2005 * Mailing list, IRC and Cabal members shouted at each other * Raul, Supreme Overlord of Features, grumpily declared "no" * More shouting results in Main Page becoming full of silliness * Many "joke" articles created * Much concern about cleaning up the aftermath
And now for something completley different:
April 1st, 2006. April Fools Day *next year* (assuming Wikipædia still exists).
Many people liked the idea of an April Fools Day Wikipedia. Many did not. Answer: Compromise!
Here is my plan for Supreme Domination and pwnership next year:
* The Main Page and Article namespace as a whole will remain "sensible". Links to April Fools version /might/ be possible. * The Help namespace (which AFAIK is protected anyway) will remain untouched. We need to keep the serious things serious. * The Wikipedia namespace (except for policy and information pages) is fair game. However, spurious VFDs (eg. Wikipedia:Votes for Deletion/Main Page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Main_Page) should *not* be tolerated. * Templates should be pranked with caution. Examples: VFD Template - Terminator Edition http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Vfd&oldid=11749823, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Vfd&oldid=11749823Wikistress http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/archive/1/19/20050401120959%21Wikistress3D_1_v3.jpg * Things in Mediawiki namespace should be pranked with /extreme caution/. Only those things visible to Sysops (or at the very worst, logged-in users) should be touchable. Example: Changing "block" to "crush by elephant" (but remember, the same joke is only funny once). * Various other suggestions welcome.
DISCLAIMER: I am a deletionist inclusionist sockpuppet troll. I founded the Cabal. Jimbo, /I/ am your Father!. Wikipedia is not sane. ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!