Oldak Quill wrote:
On 03/01/07, Nicholas Moreau nicholasmoreau@gmail.com wrote:
I think there should be a policy immediately adopted for all language Wikipedias, against non-legitimate articles on any day of the year, including so called "April Fools Days". While I'm not against humour, they stand to serve no purpose to the project.
April Fools Jokes do serve a purpose: they make Wikipedia seem like a more friendly environment to work in. It demonstrates that users can have fun while working on Wikipedia and develops a sense of community.
What I always propose for Wikipedia, but we have never actually done it, is this:
Let's have an absolutely 100% true front page, but filled for the day with things that SEEM impossible or outrageous. We get extra points if we manage to fool any journalists into thinking that we were running an April Fool's day joke front page.
What I love about this: 1. It stays true to our commitment to sharing knowledge and being NPOV and truthful with the world 2. It can be really interesting and quirky 3. It is a meta-joke of far more intelligence than what most outlets would do... I mean, any moronic publication can make up fake stories for a day to try to fool people... only the absurdly clever wikimedians could add a new twist on top of it.
Perhaps something like this could be planned for wikinews? Or perhaps, given that wikinews is NEWS, it would be inappropriate as compared to Wikipedia. What I mean is: at Wikipedia, the front page is mostly varied each day anyway... the featured article *could be* just about anything.
--Jimbo