SmashWiki talk:April Fools'

Joke Warnings?

Is it allowed or not? (Smashworker101 (talk) 10:57, 8 January 2015 (EST))

The awesome power of April 1st

Fools day does the impossible. It brings the most fun-loving, nicest people together with even the most degenerate trolls to have a hilarious ol' time. Those who would never think of taking in part of a community decide to join in on the shenanigans, or perhaps people not aware of the date are perplexed and give it more attention then they ever would. The incredibly painful and excruciatingly difficult users of the Internet decide to play along with other more... "tolerable" users.

The reason I bring this up is simple: The user creation log visually proves the point I am trying to make here. How many new users do you think joined this wiki today just because they laughed at something like Sakurai being assassinated by Melee elitists according to the news section? This holiday actually benefits this and many websites greatly more than other methods ever could in terms of users joining + getting along. Seriously, even if it is such an oxymoron, AFD is beautiful for bringing us together. We should keep doing bigger and better each year, we can't stop now! RobSir zx 21:23, 1 April 2016 (EDT) EDIT: I have come to the conclusion that April Fools Day isn't what I envision it to be. Integrity and the feeling of others are completely disregarded and it always taken too far for it to do something constructive and meaningful. Having a good time and forgetting about my personal problems is my personal outlook on it, but it has unfortunately evolved way past practical joking. While that core idea still exists, it is also used as a way for jerks to piss on others. Please ignore everything that is striked. RobSir zx 01:57, 2 April 2016 (EDT)

No.

April Fools' day is a great day for us to all have some fun, but these festivities have just gone way too overboard. Sure, from your perspective, you can see it as "people coming here together to have fun joking around." But what if you actually look at what some people were doing? They were putting in one-liners in Trivia sections that were not immediately noticeable as April Fools' jokes, clogging up the RC and requiring extreme scrutiny of edit histories to find during the current cleanup. Some people were blatantly removing huge chunks of important information from pages rather than making the existing paragraphs more satirical or abridging them, and replacing them with stupid, one-lined, unfunny memes. Others were actually editing certain pages (like the Smasher pages) with malicious intent, claiming that certain players sexually assault others, and whatnot, rather than simply making jokes about the memes that surround them in the community.

The user creation was a problem (same with all the IPs who edited during this time). People who have no dedication to the wiki whatsoever should not be able to come here just to mess around in April Fools' day and take off after it finishes. I guarantee that 99% of the users who registered yesterday night or today will never come back to this wiki. Being able to relax and kick back during April Fools' day and make pages funnier is a privilege, not a right. It is the privilege of Smash Wiki users who worked hard to contribute to the content already here, not the privilege of some random person who is simply riding in to screw things up once a year without actually caring about the wiki itself.

I'm sorry, but when I'm on IRC and admins are suffering trying to go through the recent changes to find inappropriate content and wishing out loud that someone else would come in and take over for them, I can't help but feel that this April Fools' was particularly obnoxious and horrible for many users. The reason why we began cleanup early this year is not because of a Nintendo Direct, but because the admins were sick of all the shitposting going on and called it off before things got too out of control. Last year, April Fools' was generally not as bad because people stayed on the character pages and actually wrote satire instead of sneaking in memes or removing content. But this year, almost every SW:FOOLS policy was violated, and that's unreasonable. Festivities like this stop being fun when you have people who fail to take responsibility for their own actions. --Timson622222 (talk) 22:16, 1 April 2016 (EDT)

I think it's clear that certain restrictions need to be put into place. I'll prepare something for next year at some point. I totally agree that certain "jokes" went way overboard, and the point of AF is to cut loose and have some fun, not make the wiki a somewhat uncomfortable and hostile environment. Serpent King 22:20, 1 April 2016 (EDT)

To what examples is considered overboard that is? Dots (talk) The SNES 22:46, 1 April 2016 (EDT)

Pretty much anything that called out personal attacks on real users, threats, sexual content, etc, etc. Serpent King 22:48, 1 April 2016 (EDT)

Personal attacks and threats are already given as unacceptable but would putting down waifu be an inappropriate example as sexual content because a lot of users today were writing about how hot their "waifus" are. Dots (talk) The Jiggly 22:52, 1 April 2016 (EDT)

You're talking about the tier list thing? I saw that, and no that was definitely not acceptable (but for other reasons). Waifu should be fine. Serpent King 22:54, 1 April 2016 (EDT)

I made this to show all of the possible pros of AFD, hence why I said oxymoron. If people are being malicious or a straight up jackass then they can make it seem like it's all cons. It's supposed to be practical and witty, not completely nonsensical and rude. There was some valiant effort put into many articles. I agree that more regulation and restriction is necessary. But let me ask you this: Do you think if we stop celebrating AF next year that will stop the vandals? Since when did anything truly stop them on open-ended wikis in the first place? Things can be done and rules can be made to make it so that we encourage those guys less but do more of what the OP stated. More elaborate planning and extravagant rewrites in advance instead of stupid one-liners would mean less stress on mods in terms of inappropriate content. Yeah, I myself wrote only a few sentences. I feel pretty bad about already. AFD can and should be positive, in all honesty abandoning it will only give leeway to perform purely malicious edits. Bottom line is that no matter what you think, days like today bring attention. Whether it is good or bad (or even ugly) is up to how we handle and prepare for it. It's a shame so much shit went down. :/ RobSir zx 23:41, 1 April 2016 (EDT)

Um...we don't intend to abandon April Fools Day jokes... Serpent King 23:43, 1 April 2016 (EDT)

I know. If people had such a bad experience with vandalism they might think it's a good idea to toss doing AF in the future. Was simply explaining why we shouldn't. Gotta be smarter about this, really. After deeper analysis, I mostly agree with Timson. But the OP still holds true if next year things are done to improve its overall outcome. RobSir zx 23:51, 1 April 2016 (EDT)

22 user accounts were created on April Fools'. 11 of these accounts made edits that day. Out of these 11 accounts, 2 were pure sockpuppets/vandals, 3 were good faith editors, and 6 were participants in April Fools'; only one participant cleaned up his or her joke(s). In contrast, 11 accounts were made between March 20th and March 21st, with 6 of those users making good faith edits. We didn't get a whole lot of contributing users (serious or not) on April Fools' relative to the average two day span while most of the jokes and pranks made were done by the users with accounts made prior to that day (the sole exception to this is the participant that cleaned up his/her jokes). Shoutout to Adamf30 for being that exception. I'll do a check on the 6 April Fools Participants later to see if they actually stay. MegaTron1 00:40, 2 April 2016 (EDT)

I am just going to throw this out here: It has been suggested that we raise the editing privileged to "Autoconfirmed user" for April Fools day. Is this something that we as a whole can agree is a reasonable action in an attempt to reduce the number of people who come to our wiki only for April Fools (and also to prevent some of the...muck (bad jokes) I guess?). I don't want to poll on this unless I get a feel on where we actually stand. Serpent King 00:48, 2 April 2016 (EDT)

After the hell I went through today, I'm all for it. Disaster Flare (talk) 00:52, 2 April 2016 (EDT)

That, or mark specific pages (Main Page, related templates, and a handful of others) as "silly" and editable for shenanigans while leaving most of the site clean. Miles (talk) 00:55, 2 April 2016 (EDT)

I would be willing to go out on a limb and say that most of the jokes were done by pre-established users, as opposed to fresh accounts and IPs. I didn't do the math yet (and probably won't), but that's just how I feel. If the rollbackers are unable to immediately deal with the blatantly bad jokes, it's because of judgement calls and thinking that we can deal with it easily later. That said, I'd have to say that stopping autoconfirmed users from making April Fools' edits wouldn't be a bad thing, so long as we point people to the talk page if they want to make a legit edit. MegaTron1 00:57, 2 April 2016 (EDT)

I also want to point out that most of the AF cleanup was done by Dots, Megatron1, Disaster Flare, and myself, despite the fact that most of us made very few joke edits to begin with (shoutouts to everyone who did help with the cleanup, sorry if I missed someone). This tells me that there is definitely an issue with users taking responsibility for their jokes. Restricting who exactly can edit on April Fools would help balance that as well. Serpent King 01:08, 2 April 2016 (EDT)

I agree with the autoconfirmed user part, too many pre-established users today. As for the clean up, I did a couple, but not a lot due to me not having any luck on finding more to clean up. Smash Master 01:23, 2 April 2016 (EDT)

Most of the jokes? Yes. Most of the irresponsible jokes? Aside from one or two incidents, not really. Nyargleblargle (Contribs) 17:15, 2 April 2016 (EDT)

Well this new rule sounds fine with me. How should the rule be implemented? Dots (talk) The Oreo 01:52, 2 April 2016 (EDT)

It's something Porple would have to do. Serpent King 02:00, 2 April 2016 (EDT)

In terms of people not being responsible for cleaning up, all of the places I changed except my own userpage had been reverted back to normal before I fully realized that it was all over. With several people undoing edits at once I can't blame everyone who didn't undo what they did. If they showed up or were online when cleanup was happening then that means something. I really don't have much input as to what restrictions should be put on pages or users, but I'm all for it. Now, it's not good that so many randoms just used today as an excuse to vandalize. Hardly anyone good faith really appears from AFD as Mega pointed out, so my opinion on the matter has officially changed as shown above.RobSir zx 01:57, 2 April 2016 (EDT)

I had a great time yesterday fooling around with this new rule and I did good with the announcer page because there will be a fifth announcer for the upcoming game! Dragonfirebreath25 (talk) 10:04, 2 April 2016 (EDT)

If we can't prank this page, why isn't it protected?

Why isn't this page protected if we're not allowed to prank it? Just out of curiosity. Unowninator (talk) 02:29, 1 April 2017 (EDT)

Because it's a policy of how you should take April Fools'. A policy. Are policies prone to editing on April Fools'? No. Neither this one. -- BeepYou (talk) 02:48, 1 April 2017 (EDT)

April Fools isn't until tomorrow.

Why am I allowed to joke edit a day early? ¿¡Unowninator?! (talk) 20:09, March 31, 2019 (EDT)

"Generally, the main wiki joke as done by staff is launched between European midnight and American midnight" Toomai Glittershine The Pan-Galactic 20:10, March 31, 2019 (EDT)

Policy alteration

This year was a poor year for AFD fun. Specifically, a lot of new pages were created (most of very bad quality, may I add) that took significant effort from staff to clean up. This has prompted the discussion of a new rule:

Users may not create pages unless they first show proof of effort to a staff member.

The idea is that if you want to create a new page, it has to be substantial enough (and funny enough) to warrant breaking the rule of "Everyone is expected to clean up their own mess.". Not sure yet how we'll fit it into the policy page but it'll happen.

Any major disagreements should go here now. Toomai Glittershine The Emissary 18:28, April 1, 2019 (EDT)

Well nobody's commented so this is going in. Will also make a few minor edits to curb some of the unfunny stuff that happened this year. Toomai Glittershine Da Bess 09:50, April 14, 2019 (EDT)

I may be too late, but what do you mean by proof? Like how much work is needed to show proof? SugarCookie 420 09:57, April 14, 2019 (EDT)

The problem was people making new pages that were just a few hasty sentences strung together, the rule is aimed to throw those out. If you want to make a new page, it should be substantial. Toomai Glittershine The Quintonic 10:01, April 14, 2019 (EDT)

Then yeah, I don't see why not. SugarCookie 420 10:05, April 14, 2019 (EDT)

New joke fighters for April Fool's 2021

I would like users to do joke fighter articles of SuperMarioLogan's Jeffy and a character from SuperMarioGlitchy4 for April Fool's 2021.--24.188.22.145 19:30, April 16, 2020 (EDT)

Hah! Sounds hilarious! I was thinking of fighter articles of a Sword Art Online character next year! SonDaniel (talk page) 19:34, April 16, 2020 (EDT)

All I gotta say here is good luck with whatever you do. Take it from someone's who's made two different fake fighter pages for AFD. Awesomelink234, the Super Cool Gamer (talk) 19:58, April 16, 2020 (EDT)

For the SMG4 fighter: I have two nominations (Tari and Meggy), and I would like you to pick which one gets the joke article.--24.188.22.145 19:52, April 23, 2020 (EDT)

We already have an Inkling.S3AHAWK (Talk) 20:12, April 28, 2020 (EDT)

I know, but Meggy will be in her human form for the article. Plus, her attacks will be much different than the Inkling's.--24.188.22.145 18:08, April 29, 2020 (EDT)

She could be a semi-clone? S3AHAWK (Talk) 18:29, April 29, 2020 (EDT)

Maybe, maybe not. By the way, I added another SMG4 character nomination for the joke article, Saiko.--24.44.76.88 18:47, May 1, 2020 (EDT)

Update on April Fool's 2021 fighters

I am doing an update on the fighters for April Fool's Day 2021. Jeffy will not be part of the prank since he will instead be part of the Super Mario Wiki's joke. Instead, the two fighters will be Glitch Productions fighters, being Tari and Belle (Tari's echo fighter), both taking their appearance from Meta Runner. There will be a Meta Runner stage and Meta Runner spirits that will also be part of the joke.--24.44.76.88 20:23, October 14, 2020 (EDT)

Joke idea

For the 2022 joke idea, we should do a crossover between Super Smash Bros. and Cuphead using the art from Daniel Cortes. I have a link to his Twitter account. https://twitter.com/DannyCortoons

BTW, anything SMG4 related will be part of the Super Mario Wiki's 2022 joke instead.--24.44.76.88 12:52, October 25, 2021 (EDT)

2023 joke idea

I have an idea for the 2023 April Fools joke. The joke will be called "Super Toon Bros.: The Ultimate Parody", and the game is depicts is a parody of Smash Ultimate with the characters in a classic rubber hose style. Basically, Smash meets Parodius.

Commission Daniel Cortes (the link to his Twitter account is in the above section) to do some drawings for the fake game.--24.44.76.188 20:43, July 27, 2022 (EDT)

Do you really think the Wiki has a budget for its April Fool's jokes? And the way you keep mentioning this guy, I get the impression that either you are him, or a friend of his. Regardless, there's no way this is going to happen.

That being said, perhaps the Wiki could become open to suggestions for the big April Fool's jokes in the future. It would be nice if the community had a say in what the joke was, and this year's one was kind of lame. Alex the Weeb 08:02, July 28, 2022 (EDT)

I agree with this to be honest. Feels like it would be fun if all the users collaborated around a theme, if any it could also encourage more people to join, especially those that don't have any plans for a joke.

To the IP, unless you have the established user role, you cannot do April Fool's jokes on the wiki. I'm saying this since you keep suggesting what AFD joke you want to do every year since 2020. CookiesCreme 09:58, July 28, 2022 (EDT)