Wikipedia talk:April Fools' Main Page/Archive 2008



Use this page for general discussions about April Fool's day 2008 - but please use the sub-pages (below) for discussions and suggestions relating to the specific parts of the page.

Areas of work needed to complete the front page are:


 * April Fool's Main Page/Featured Article
 * April Fool's Main Page/Today's Featured Picture
 * April Fool's Main Page/On This Day
 * April Fool's Main Page/In The News
 * April Fool's Main Page/Did You Know

Ground rules for this activity along with a list or participants may be found on this talk page. -

The Ground Rules
April Fool's Main Page 2008 (which may be referred to as AFMP 2008) provides idea development space for the proposed presentation of the Main Page on April Fool's Day 2008. The proposed components of the Main Page may be presented on 1 April, 2008, and if deemed a success, may be a guideline for presenting the Main Page on future April Fool's Days. See 2007 archive for last year's discussion and result, which now may be considered a guideline for presenting the Main Page on April Fool's Days 2008. Although less important to the direction of AFMP 2008 than AFMP 2007's results, April Fools' Day may help provide some direction as well.

Changes limited to truthful changes : The Main Page should be kept to the same high standard as for other days, but with a special caveat: that the Main Page be composed of facts and articles that are true, but either unusual or manipulated in a way as to sound unbelievable. While readers may sometimes come to Wikipedia expecting some joke article for April Fool's, the proposal is to make the Main Page so unusual or unbelievable that the reader will conclude that the Main Page is presenting jokes as fact, but the joke is actually on the reader: everything on the Main Page is as close to 100% factual as we may make it.

Truthful whimsy is OK : Traditionally, April Fool's Day (1 April) is a day of fun and practical jokes in some cultures. While it is fine to follow in the spirit of good fun when editing Wikipedia, we must not forget that Wikipedia is above all an encyclopedia that people will read for information. At the same time, Wikipedia should not be so formal and humorless that it cannot show some whimsy in how it presents itself to its readers.

Scope of project: Wikipedia is divided into hundreds of departments, six of which are classified as Main Page departments. The Main Page departments include (i) Did you know (dept.), (ii) In the news (dept.), (iii) Picture of the day (dept.), (iv) Selected anniversaries (dept.), (v) Today's featured article (dept.), and (vi) Main Page design discussions/Main Page Redesign Project (closed). The first five departments control the changeable sections on the main page (e.g., "content") and the sixth department controls the fixed design surrounding the changeable sections (e.g., "design"). April Fool's Main Page 2008 is limited to working with the first five departments to coordinate the content appearing on the main page from 00:00 to 23:59 on 1 April 2008 (UTC).

Coordinators and Members
Main page administrator coordinators: April Fool's Main Page 2008 project affects all five changeable sections on the main page. To have an April Fool's content appear on the main page on April 1st, some of the department rules for these changeable main page sections may need to be bent. Thus, the project may need the approval and agreed upon cooperation from the appropriate main page department. Mostly, this may involve deciding which main page rules could be bent in their respective section and in fact bending those rules, reviewing proposed main page content to ensure it meets that sections main page requirements, and ensuring that this content made its way to the main page on April 1st. The following is a list of administrators who have agreed to serve as AFMP 2008 main page department coordinators:

"We" is us : In this proposal "we" may refer to any group of Wikipedians interested in editing articles for April Fool's Day. If you have more than a passing interest in this effort, please post your user id below (and if you participated in AFMP 2006 or AFMP 2007, please note that as well):
 * Did you know (dept.) -
 * In the news (dept.)/In the news -
 * Selected anniversaries (dept.)/On this day... -
 * Today's featured article (dept.) -
 * Picture of the day (dept.)/Today's featured picture -


 * The Placebo Effect AFMP 2007
 * Royal broil AFMP 2007 (recently became an admin and a frequent updater of DYK)
 * Laleena  —Preceding signed but undated comment was added at 00:57, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Mathboy965 17:40, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Escape Artist Swyer Talk to me Articles touched by my noodly appendage 12:11, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
 *  Marlith  T / C  04:02, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Featured Article
Probably the most important feature of April Fool's day is the Featured article, so lets get some suggestion going so we will have ample time to prepare the article this year. The Placebo Effect 15:52, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
 * How about contacting WikiProject WikiWorld? They are working on weird things similar to what we are interested in accomplishing in this FA. Their comic on Hodag immediately came to my mind. Royal broil  18:13, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Featured Articles at Unusual articles include: 0.999..., Voynich manuscript, Infinite monkey theorem, S. A. Andrée's Arctic balloon expedition of 1897, Toilets in Japan, The Bus Uncle , Spoo (previously used), Exploding whale, Joshua A. Norton, Stephen Colbert at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner , Omnipotence paradox , Space opera in Scientology scripture, Xenu, Toledo War, U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program, and Crushing by elephant.


 * Many of these articles are not close to what we are looking for, but this is a start. I do think that we might be able to make the exploding whale and 0.999... articles work.


 * I was helping with the next update last June, and I saved one from the DYK page that day because I thought it was worthy of the April Fool's page. It is listed on the top of the page at April Fool's Main Page/Did You Know. Royal broil  18:57, 3 October 2007 (UTC)


 * .999, The Bus uncle, Ominipatence Paradox and Stephen Colbert ... Dinner have all been used. The Placebo Effect 19:06, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I have struck out the articles that have already been used. I do like that exploding whale article! Royal broil  21:04, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, Toledo War is the only article on that list which has not yet appeared on the Main page. --Allen3 talk 21:22, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I would love it if Toledo War became the FA for next April Fool's day, I'll talk to Raul. The Placebo Effect 22:10, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Royal broil  23:11, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I suggest that, for the featured article, we put up the exploding whale one. I can do some fiddling and make it look completely foolish. I'll do a bit of research for the picture and etc. Laleena  01:00, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Current practice is that TFAs are not reused once they have appeared on the Main page. As a result Exploding whale, which appeared on November 7, 2004, is no longer available for use on April 1. --Allen3 talk 01:54, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Great. Back to square 1. Royal broil  04:46, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
 * What about Truthiness? Medvedenko 17:41, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I know that there might be other articles that are suitable for the frount page, but I really really feel that Truthiness should be the FA. Escape Artist Swyer Talk to me Articles touched by my noodly appendage 12:17, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I have left a message on Raul654's talk page requesting that the article not run as scheduled on October 17, 2007. It is an interesting article! Royal broil  13:00, 10 October 2007 (UTC)


 * ding* Honestly, I don't see truthiness as being "april foolsy" enough. You can read that article and belive it. Not read Toledo War. It has that "Huh... What?" reaction that truthiness doesn't have. The Placebo Effect 13:16, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
 * We should keep our options open until consensus has determined which article to use for the April Fools. Royal broil  13:28, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
 * The fact is, we will not got a clear enough concensus by October 17th to use it on April 1, and their was clear consensus to put it on the main page that day, being the two year anniversary of the show with the word. The Placebo Effect 13:35, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I left a message on Raul's talk page retracting the request to cancel. The anniversary of its first usage is more important IMHO. I do enjoy the Toledo War article, and I was aware of the Toledo Strip dispute before reading the article. I didn't know that it became a war, though. When I read the article, I did not get a "Huh...What?" reaction though. Let's get some more thoughts from others before we do anything. Royal broil  14:58, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Here  Marlith  T / C  04:03, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Dihydrogen monoxide hoax  Marlith  T / C  04:35, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I can see the text for the H2O1 already. I love that article! Royal broil  12:40, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Bushism Marlith  T / C  04:24, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm for the Exploding Whale.. Its so long back in time that not so many can know about it, and its damn unbelievable.  Y zm o  talk  20:56, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
 * We can't use that. It was already the FAOTD. The Placebo Effect 21:04, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Yah, but that was in 2004... Loooong time ago, so we cound use it again... Since it's so cool!  Y zm o  talk  16:48, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't think Raul would allow an exception when their are so many articles that haven't been TFA. The Placebo Effect 17:42, 24 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I think there was some discussion last year about the article K Foundation Burn a Million Quid (which had a different name at the time, I think). It's not reached FA status, which is a negative, but it's rather unbelievable. (The wording could be tweaked a bit for the occasion; for example, removing "The duo have never fully explained their motivations for the burning." from the first paragraph, which is borderline original research anyway. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 00:01, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

The Indiana Pi Bill. 'Nuf said. =)&mdash;RJH (talk) 20:31, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

They're not FA status (and I'm not qualified to improve them) but how about something topical like Assyrian new year or Užupis? My other favourites include Invisible Pink Unicorn and International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Certes (talk) 14:05, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Invisible Pink Unicorn would be a good one to have - • The Giant Puffin •  12:50, 13 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm for Toilets in Japan, c'mon, it's a classic! ;) —T-borg (T | C) 23:20, 13 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Would it be possible to bring Never Gonna Give You Up up to FA status in time? —Random832 18:13, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Why that song? Royal broil  18:52, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

First I've come across this discusion, adding Dispatch, and work has been underway at Ima Hogg for weeks. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 21:12, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

For fake-out potential, check out the way the Invisible Pink Unicorn image is used in User:-Midorihana-/Image template as transcluded in User:-Midorihana-/Header template. — Athaenara ✉  15:46, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Today's Featured Picture
I want to point out that this image of a ridiculously complex coat-of-arms (which had been designed for the equally ridiculously-named Richard Plantagenet Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, a 19th century British aristocrat and politician), is already a featured picture, as of this past week. Spikebrennan 05:08, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
 * That would be an awesome picture, maybe the article can be expanded a little bit before April 1st so it can be on the Main Page TWICE in one day. The Placebo Effect 05:11, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
 * An insane coat of arms-- it's perfect! Royal broil  05:29, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Perfect! Y zm o  talk  21:06, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
 * How do we reserve the FP for that day? Royal broil  21:42, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I've already left a notice at User talk:Howcheng (Howcheng generally runs Today's Featured Picture).--Pharos 22:03, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
 * How about this? It's still a FPC nom but it looks like it's very likely to pass. --antilivedT 07:13, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I prefer this new second image. It's perfect for April Fool's Day, and it could be considered poor taste for other days. Royal broil  11:57, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Discussion moved to main article. Royal broil  12:04, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

You've missed the point of Aprils fools day completely. Instead of trying to warp truth make something up. I saw a nice featured picture and it gave me an idea. Head Juice. Basically orange juice made from the head. You know an article about how the extract the fruity juicy flavor out of the brain. Or something.Rem Nightfall (talk) 01:56, 11 February 2008 (UTC)Rem Nightfall Its suppose to be fun and people will forgive you. Though the head squeezer might not work, but still make up something its much more fun that way. --Rem Nightfall (talk) 01:56, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia's point is to tell the truth, not "make something up". Everything on the Main Page on April 1 will be truthful, just like any other day. --Jedravent (talk) 20:12, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
 * To put it another way, this is a double bluff. People expect to be lied to on 1 April, so we will tell them unlikely truths in the hope that they will be too clever for their own good and disbelieve us. Certes (talk) 21:42, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

English to English?!
What about tagging this as a page needing translation from English to English? We can edit Template:Notenglish for that. Alexius08 is welcome to talk about his contributions. 12:04, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Tagline change
I'd like to see the Mediawiki:Tagline changed every year. Some attempts were made in 2005, but were reverted on sight. (Come to your own conclusions about the senses of humor of those involved.)

Anyway, my idea would be something along the lines of:

"From Wikipedia, that unreliable Internet "encyclopedia""

or something similar. Any support/ideas? — Omegatron 14:04, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Well done.
Excellent, best April Fool's Main Page I've seen (well, last year was good too...). Very good job to all. :) · AndonicO  Hail!  08:30, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Well first, I would also like to congratulate everyone. But after that, I hope you don't mind reading my constructive criticism: Talk:Main Page Nil Einne (talk) 10:35, 1 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Good stuff, all. Ima Hogg (and the blurb in the box) is particularly impressive! Well done. I sort of wish we had wacky portal choices like last year, though. Of course this was my blog topic for today. :) ++Lar: t/c 11:33, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Great job everyone. Thanks for the infotainment. Remember (talk) 13:59, 1 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Agreed. It must be hard to find these stories, but you keep coming up with them.  Good job. — Omegatron 16:05, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Very well done, people. I thought you'd just leave it up to the vandals, but you've clearly put a lot of effort into it. Good Work. - TheMightyQuill (talk) 17:53, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Archiving 2008
Can someone do this? I would but I'm not totally sure how it was done last year (what to subst, etc)... Thanks. (if could be done in a way that you could walk through the DYK entry changes, even better...) ++Lar: t/c 15:10, 2 April 2008 (UTC)