Comments on: When April Fool’s Jokes Infiltrate Wikipedia

By: Guest Blogging Posts | Guest Blogging, Guest And Ghostwriter Services - PiggyBankPie

Sat, 31 May 2008 17:48:38 +0000

[...] Title: When April Fool’s Jokes Infiltrate Wikipedia Blog: Geeks Are Sexy Darren Rowse’s page in Wikipedia gets poluted by an April Fool’s [...]

By: Malte Landwehr

Malte Landwehr — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 06:58:20 +0000

April Fools jokes taken serious by some people are normally the most funny ones. Maybe not funny for Darren (in this case) but definitely for the rest of us (or at least for me).

By: Patrick Biz

Patrick Biz — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 14:11:13 +0000

You see David, life’s a link in the Blogosphere. So I decided to kill three birds with one stone. Since I knew this would be a very popular post, I proceeded as follow:

1- Write a post about it
2- Darren gets notified and changes the entry
3- Darren talks about it and links back

That’s called a win-win
Patrick

By: Kiltak

Kiltak — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 14:10:32 +0000

We informed Darren right away David… Often, when a change is made by a random person, a moderator quickly rejects it.

By: David Scrimshaw

David Scrimshaw — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 14:03:38 +0000

” it is still there as I am typing this post ”

You couldn’t take the time to revert the Wiki page before blogging it?

By: art

art — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 13:29:43 +0000

“Guys, it should be illegal to post April Fool’s jokes on March 31st.”

3/31, according to what? The server of the host? The local time where the writer posted it? What your machine tracks where you are?

Time is a sort of relative thing. What I post in Germany early on morning of the 1st here likely shows up at late on the 31st there.

It’s a side, minor point, I know….

By: April Fools Day Jokes that Go Too Far

April Fools Day Jokes that Go Too Far — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 13:15:14 +0000

[...] I got an email telling me that a page on Wikipedia about me now had the information that I was bankrupt and had never earned more than $1000 a month. Firstly I was surprised anyone [...]

By: Simone

Simone — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 07:02:57 +0000

I think the problem with the time is that in NZ or AU it’s April 1st almost 20 hours before than in California, so I guess that one should be aware of this when reading things.
The original joke was posted on April 1st in AU, but read by people in USA when it was still March 31st.
Maybe blog engines should start taking into account the timezone of the reader when showing up posts

By: Theres a Blog in my Soup » When an April Fool’s Joke Backfires…

Theres a Blog in my Soup » When an April Fool’s Joke Backfires… — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 06:17:55 +0000

[...] I first found out about this via twitter - you can read another blog post on the subject here. [...]

By: Patrick Curl (There's a Blog In My Soup)

Patrick Curl (There's a Blog In My Soup) — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 05:59:54 +0000

Let me set the record straight on this, for my part - as part of my link-bait experiment I was set to target John Chow, Shoemoney, Darren Rowse, and Microsoft, however I did actually forget to post the John Chow post.

I did not however post anything on Wikipedia,I kept the posts to my self, other than the few diggs /sphinns and stumbles they received.

Further, I checked universal timezones and when I posted the blog post it was indeed April 1st, I believe in Australia or China, just not here in the USA.

My thoughts on this is, if you’re going to do April Fool’s jokes - then you best do it - when the whole world will be fooled (i.e. be the early worm, if you wait till April 2nd for half the world, you lose out on a lot of eyes).

I do apologize if this joke was taken out of stride, but I’ve seen a lot worse jokes, the ‘fun’ part of it was, that if Darren really were bankrupt - then my bet is that nobody on the internet is making any money.

In other words the following applies: “If Darren Can’t Do It, Nobody Can.”

Part of being in the public eye is being ‘punked’, or criticized, even more so on April 1st, for somebody as popular as Darren is an April fool’s prank should be nothing to get in a muss over.

If bloggers get so stiff and boring, and take offense at every little word spoken - people will stop following and reading the blog to begin with…. (IMHO)

By: Mark Blair

Mark Blair — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 04:35:17 +0000

In the Google powered world we live in, snippets of text have a lifespan far greater than that of their original context. This is the kind of April Fools Joke that might work well between a few friends at a party — and although the blogsphere can feel like a big party at times by those that are active within it, the conversations remain glued to search result pages long after the party’s over.

There is probably a fine line there somewhere between being funny and being libelous, but who wants to get near the edge of the line anyway in the name of good fun?

The Golden Rule of public April Fool’s Jokes should be to get prior consent from anybody that plays a role in it — regardless of what that role is.

By: fsulawyer

fsulawyer — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 03:12:38 +0000

When I read this April Fool’s jokes, I was appalled. As a lawyer, I believe it was slanderous. Once I realized what day it was and googled to see whether this “news” appeared anywhere else, I realized it was a “joke.” I didn’t find it amusing at all. The worst part is that it succeded in doing exactly what the jokester wanted. That is, it got everyone talking about and writing about him. But it did so at the expense of Darren Rowse’s reputation. Not funny.