[Foundation-l] Semi-protection on April Fools

[Jtkiefer]

Erik Moeller wrote:
> I'd like to put in the open the notion of semi-protecting all
> Wikimedia projects [*] during April Fool's Day, that is, making them
> editable only to registered users with accounts more than a few days
> old. I have little hope that such an option will be seriously
> considered for this year (at least not without an emergency decree
> from above right about, well, now), but I think in a few days, after
> you will all see the damage we'll have to deal with again this year,
> you might be more inclined to agree with me. We could phrase it
> positively by declaring April 1 "Wikimedia Spring Cleaning Day" (and
> it would not preclude us from having a few jokes on each project). The
> site notice could be used to highlight maintenance pages like Cleanup
> or the Wikiwork Brigade (sorry for being en.wp-centric).
>
> I'd also like to highlight a policy draft I worked on last year:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Rules_for_Fools&oldid=11835505
>
> Yes, I know, it's all awfully unfunny, but when everyone tries to be
> funny, it starts becoming a problem. Wikis are built on the model of
> assuming good faith; the wiki model breaks down when everyone starts
> acting like a jerk. April 1 is really unique in this way. The problem
> is mostly with users who will insert nonsense into articles as a joke,
> but have no idea (and will not care enough) to remove it later. I'm
> also quite sure that many people will find things funny which we would
> normally consider to be cases of aggressive vandalism. People have
> very different senses of humor. For some, April 1 is the one day of
> the year where they feel they have an obligation to do something
> funny, while they really aren't. Funny. At all.
>
> I think not descending into complete anarchy once a year is a
> desirable outcome. A yearly 24 hour timeout might also be a good idea
> for entirely different reasons.
>
> And no, this is not a joke. :)
>
> Erik
>
> [*] At least in those languages which are predominantly accessed from
> countries where April Fool's Day is a recognized cultural concept.
>   
Good idea, you never know what the dumbasses will do to mess us up on 
April fool's day.

-Jtkiefer