Hoax articles on April Fool's rub some the wrong way
Planning for April Fool's Day turned out to be a touchy subject on Wikipedia, dividing the community over the issue of whether to feature a hoax article. Hoaxes did make an appearance on the Main Page in the end, but dissatisfaction over this turn of events prompted preparations for a better-organized approach next year.
Back on 12 March, Featured Articles Director Raul654 announced that he would open up the selection of the featured article on the Main Page for April 1 for suggestions. He suggested combing through the list of unusual articles for possibilities.
Unfortunately, some of the best options had already appeared on the Main Page as featured articles, like exploding whale. An attempt was made to get Boston molasses disaster promoted to featured article, but this proved unsuccessful.
However, a fake article on European toilet paper holders had already been put in place on the featured article template for April 1 by Jguk. This collaborative joke had already been put through featured article candidates (facetiously) and suggested as ideal for the Main Page on April Fool's Day, but Raul rejected this idea back in February (see archived story). When its presence on the template was pointed out, he reset the April 1 template to its original empty state.