April Fools'
April Fools' pranks result in temporary blocks for six admins
Six administrators were briefly blocked on April Fools' Day, after various joke edits that were considered unconstructive or vandalous by some.
- AzaToth: Changed the "Go" and "Search" buttons on the search box to "I'm Feeling lucky" and "Wacky Search". MZMcBride blocked; Coren unblocked, with the caveat that AzaToth refrain from making further disruptive edits.
- Kwsn: Changed MediaWiki:Delete, the administrators' delete tab, to "nuke this page". Drini blocked Kwsn, but unblocked about an hour later.
- Omegatron: Was blocked for making changes to MediaWiki:Tagline (the text that says "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia"), calling Wikipedia "the free Pokémon encyclopedia" and "the free encyclopedia that triples in population every six months". David Levy blocked Omegatron; the block was undone by John Reaves, but he noted in the block log afterward that he "wasn't fully aware of the situation", and "would endorse a reblock were the behavior to continue".
- Random832: Made changes to MediaWiki:Ipboptions, a page that contains the standard block lengths available when blocking users. While this page is not visible to non-administrators, Random832 was blocked by Drini; AuburnPilot unblocked, calling the block "unwarranted" and punitive.
- Scientizzle: Changed MediaWiki:Edit, which controls the "edit this page" message, to say "edit this page, pretty please". Scientizzle was blocked by Drini, and AuburnPilot unblocked, calling the block "unwarranted and punitive".
- Viridae: Made three different edits to MediaWiki:Tagline; perhaps the most controversial change was "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia administer [sic] by people with a stick up their lavender passageway". Viridae was blocked by David Levy; Riana unblocked, saying that Viridae was not warned.
Eventually, cooler heads prevailed in the various issues. Discussion on what to do for April Fools' Day 2009 is underway at Wikipedia talk:Pranking, and while no clear policy has been worked out, Newyorkbrad found an interesting way to suggest a series of guidelines for next year at Wikipedia talk:Pranking#Some thoughts.