Dispatches: April Fools 2009 mainpage
Once again, it's time to begin preparing for Wikipedia's tradition of celebrating April Fools' Day on April 1. Some media outlets follow an April Fools tradition that dates back to medieval times by printing hoax articles—probably the best known of which was the BBC's spaghetti tree hoax.
Raul654 first proposed an April Fools' Day featured article (FA) in March 2005, stipulating that the article must first pass FAC like any other daily featured article; because a featured article must be factually accurate, this means no made up articles. A lengthy debate ensued about how to handle April Fools. No article was written and featured in time for April Fools' Day 2005; instead, the main page was filled with hoaxes: Bishonen's sublime European toilet paper holder article as the FA, and Britannica was taking over Wikimedia in the news.
On April Fools 2006 we featured Spoo as an unusual article, and in 2007 we featured George Washington (inventor), written primarily by Pharos. The latter appeared on the main page written as if it were a hoax; everything in the description, however, was entirely true. A similar approach was taken in 2008; Karanacs led a collaboration that involved more than a dozen editors to bring Ima Hogg to featured status in time for April Fools. The blurb that appeared on the Main Page was written mostly by The Fat Man Who Never Came Back, again as a hoax in which everything was entirely true. CNET News reviewed Wikipedia's April Fools' coverage favorably, saying:
Whoever wrote the fake Ima Hogg bio might want to think about pursuing a career in screenwriting. It sounds more amusing than any of the movies I've seen recently... [1]
And the Houstonist reported:
Eat your heart out, History Channel. You may have fancy production values and three-dimensional graphics of Roman aqueducts and WWII bombers, but you'll never have the sort of ethical objectivity and factual foundation that Wikipedia does. [2]
Because of the success, and the fact that we really did have many people confused, this is the path we are going to follow this year, if we have an article that allows it. Candidates meeting the Featured article criteria should be submitted to FAC in time to be reviewed and promoted before April 1—by late February or early March at the latest. Once Raul654 promotes and chooses an article to be featured as the April 1 Today's featured article, a mainpage blurb is submitted that may be "totally different from the lead in [of the article], and ... as outlandish or misleading as possible, provided it's all true".[3] The mainpage blurb should be a maximum of 1,400 characters including spaces.
Ideas for an article that could be brought to featured status in time for April 1, 2009 can be culled from unusual articles, which offers a potential list including Mozart's Leck mich im Arsch (translated as "Kiss my ass"; literally: "Lick me in the ass"), Casu marzu and Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116. Other ideas, and general discussion of the April Fools' featured article, are at the April Fool's Main Page discussion page.