A foolish request
- Sven Manguard has been editing Wikipedia since 2010 and is an administrator on Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata. He had a "Did you know?" on the April Fools' Day main page in 2013 and put forth a candidate for the April Fools' Day Featured Picture this year, but is opposed to joke edits outside of the Main Page and user pages. The author would like to thank Go Phightins! for copyediting this piece.
- The views expressed are those of the author only. Responses and critical commentary are invited in the comments section. The Signpost welcomes proposals for op-eds. If you have one in mind, please leave a message at the opinion desk.
April Fools' Day is rapidly approaching. Every year, members of the community pull pranks and make (or attempt to make) humorous edits to pages across the project. Every year, the community follows April Fools' Day with a contentious debate about what whether or not it is necessary to impose limits on April Fools' Day jokes for future years. It is a polarizing issue. On one side, people view the levity that April Fools' Day edits bring as a key component to community building and editor retention. Others view April Fools' Day edits as an embarrassment that undermines Wikipedia's professionalism and thus its credibility. While most people fall somewhere between those two extremes, April Fools-related discussions have a propensity to become heated.
Last year a request for comment was held on the issue, which Salvidrim and I closed. The result was a fair compromise; those that wish to partake in April Fools' Day festivities are free to do so, however restrictions are in place that address most of the concerns of those opposed to April Fools' Day edits. In the interest of making April Fools' Day as fun as possible for participants, while also preserving community sanity, I would ask that those interested in pulling pranks on April 1 follow the consensus of that RfC. I have summarized the key points of the RfC below, and also provided some guidance of my own. Being a responsible fool is the best way to ensure that the tradition is allowed to continue in future years.