[WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day proposal

[Jimmy Wales]

Steve Bennett wrote:
>>Not any slur against you, but I consider this basically lame. Being
>>willing to post News of the Weird is not the same thing as Not Taking
>>Ourselves Too Seriously.
>>
>>Being willing to act like Uncyclopedia for 24 out of 8765 hours of the year is.
> 
> 
> Kind of have to agree there. If major newspapers allow themselves to
> print non-factual stories on that day, I think we can forgive
> ourselves as well. Can we fudge up a hoax, new information on the flat
> earth theory, etc etc?

Well, I've been proposing this idea since last year, and I have to say
that I think both of you will come around to my perspective on this once
you reflect on it a bit.

There is *nothing* clever about having fake articles on the homepage for
the day.  This isn't about "Not Taking Ourselves Too Seriously" it's
about being deliciously clever.  Fake stories on April Fool's day?  *yawn*

But *real* stories, carefully sourced, which people *think* are fake...
now *that's* clever.  It's a second-order trick, a meta-trick.  Surely
I'm not the only one around here geeky enough to consider that kind of
hack to be infinitely more amusing than doing what everyone else does.

--Jimbo





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