A Joke Taken Too Far?

[stoneharry]

A Joke Taken Too Far?

April Fools is the day of the year in which everyone enjoys a laugh, we all get each other in various means, but when do you draw the line? How do you know when to stop, or what is to extreme? Well that’s what I have a problem with. With the 2010 April Fools at MMOwned I feel that it was taken too far, and that it had a negative impact upon the community rather than enjoying the day. Why do I feel this way?

I am going to pick on the negative aspects, and ignore the positive aspects that worked. One of my main concerns was the news post that was made regarding the changes to MMOwned, it was a laugh on the day and almost everybody knew that it was April Fool’s, and even if they didn’t they soon found out, but keeping this news post still open and bumped even after April Fool’s is where it went wrong. Some people who saw the news post after April fool’s due to time zones/simple not seeing it on the day, took it seriously. I had to tell a couple of people on MSN that it was for April Fool’s because they didn’t read all the replies and they took it seriously, they thought that the whole donation joke was serious and showed corruption within MMOwned. My suggestion to solve this is to simple close the thread, that way it will sink and people will no longer read it/realise why it is closed.

Moving on, I think there was simple ‘too much’ April fool’s around. Some of the community saw the staff having a laugh and decided that they would join in, and this resulted in masses of threads all over the place which were April fool’s. There were simple too many, “Lich King 10man – Solo’d as DK” is one example of a thread which consisted of 1 line saying “APRIL FOOLS!”, which is fine because it is obvious that something like this would not be true and it is April fool’s, but when most members are making threads like this, it stacks up. My suggestion would be to keep April fool’s threads a bit more controlled, have some of the staff do joint ones and then maybe allow a couple of the community ones, but start to close/delete them when they stack up.

Regarding specific section staff April fool’s; the emulation one I have particular concern with. For those who do not know, it was a repack that looked perfectly normal, but upon running would give you a message saying “April Fool’s!” and then crash your computer using the emergency shutdown protocol. This is taken too far. Using myself as a prime example, I was defragmenting and installing windows updates upon running the repack to see what was the joke in it, since I was included in the credits for it (when I didn’t even know about it?) and it appeared to be of correct size/folders/files. Anyway, it obviously did a emergency shutdown, and upon the computer starting back up I was told that “C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\SYSTEM is corrupt.” The only way to fix it was to insert the original windows xp installation disk and to repair it. I then did this over several hours and got my computer back up and running. Several hours gone and now needing to install all over my software/updates again just because of one repack? Can you see why I think this is taken too far? There’s not even a warning message within the thread/repack. This was also copied over to another forum, in which many of the users complained about losing essays and the likes. An emergency shutdown is called an emergency shutdown for a reason; you can lose valuable data, or worse in my case. I tried to consult Ground Zero about this, but apparently it was my fault so... Moving on; I noticed in the model editing section Xel made an April fool’s which tells you to change a game file to make you run faster. I don’t know if this had any serious side effects such as the emulation one did, but if it did affect your WoW client then there should have been a guide on how to reverse it in a latter post. My solution to these posts are simple; use your common sense to know when to draw the line, and actually read up and test what you have done to see if it can cause any harm.

Thank you for reading my suggestions, I do think that the day was a laugh and a good day, but MMOwned is a large forum and because of this, things can get out of hand.

[Trollblod]

I agree pretty much everywhere except on the point where people from different timezones took that "Changes to Mmowned" thread seriously. If they honestly took it serious they are just mindblown, look at the date created, first april, look at the replies.
Don't just take a jump to the conclusion before reading replies.
If they do that, they are stupid and their own fault.

Although I agree with all the masses threads created "Solo this! Solo that!" etc.
Also a thing which would help... close that "Changes to Mmowned" thread, simply to simplify that it's a joke and then people can't take it serious.

[Apoc]

Very well put.

However, the post made by Kur included extra instructions at the end stating to highlight the text (a bunch of lines with APRILFOOLS were 'hidden' in the post, which highlighting revealed). I closed the thread anyhow.

GZs emu prank was a bit overboard. Having the repack do nothing but display 'April Fools!' would have been fine, but the shutdown wasn't needed. (And as you found out, it's more malicious than anything)

Either way, I agree for the most part. (Although, Kurs post was hilarious, including his group color change prank. If they didn't bother to read the entire post, then there isn't much that can be done IMO)

[P1raten]

Well written stonharry.

I totally agree with you. Sorry bout your comp.

[Unholyshaman]

Interesting post to read. Here is my opinion:

I don't think that the official MMOwned joke was taken too far because even if you looked on the homepage you could see "aprilfoolsaprilfoolsaprilfools" every blank line. If someone did not actually read any of the comment then it just show that they are lazy and probably not the sort of people who would be contributing to MMOWned anyways. Just the kind of person who reads the thread then moves on not actually posting their own replies (there are many out there that do that).

It is very hard for MMOwned actually STOP people from creating April Fool's threads simply because if there was a big "NO APRIL FOOL THREADS ALLOWED WITHOUT PERMISSION" or something, then the main MMOwned joke would have been given away.

As for those that did take it a bit far in terms of forcing your computer etc to shut down should be held responsible directly, not MMOwned. It could be considered similar to posting malicious software such as keyloggers or viruses on MMOWned and should be dealt with likewise.

The staff did work hard to close or delete any other April Fools threads once the day was over, and many of us did reply to the threads on the 1st of april saying that we see its just a joke for other readers reassurance.
Personally I think you are over reacting because of the computer problems that Ground Zero's prank created for you, and are now taking it out on MMOwned directly. There April Fools jokes everywhere in real life, many taken to a MUCH further extent to where some people and companies loose quite a bit of money trying to react to it, but in the end everyone has a good laugh and stays in the good spirit of what April Fools is about.

[Demonshade]

Plus apocs was too funny . I deff agree about the whole one liner april fool threads aswell as the emu one, but since i dont emu i didnt run into it so i wasnt aware such a thing happened, very disappointed to hear that.

[2dgreengiant]

Interesting post to read. Here is my opinion:

I don't think that the official MMOwned joke was taken too far because even if you looked on the homepage you could see "aprilfoolsaprilfoolsaprilfools" every blank line. If someone did not actually read any of the comment then it just show that they are lazy and probably not the sort of people who would be contributing to MMOWned anyways. Just the kind of person who reads the thread then moves on not actually posting their own replies (there are many out there that do that).

It is very hard for MMOwned actually STOP people from creating April Fool's threads simply because if there was a big "NO APRIL FOOL THREADS ALLOWED WITHOUT PERMISSION" or something, then the main MMOwned joke would have been given away.

As for those that did take it a bit far in terms of forcing your computer etc to shut down should be held responsible directly, not MMOwned. It could be considered similar to posting malicious software such as keyloggers or viruses on MMOWned and should be dealt with likewise.

The staff did work hard to close or delete any other April Fools threads once the day was over, and many of us did reply to the threads on the 1st of april saying that we see its just a joke for other readers reassurance.
Personally I think you are over reacting because of the computer problems that Ground Zero's prank created for you, and are now taking it out on MMOwned directly. There April Fools jokes everywhere in real life, many taken to a MUCH further extent to where some people and companies loose quite a bit of money trying to react to it, but in the end everyone has a good laugh and stays in the good spirit of what April Fools is about.

Best post ive read all day. (i never read the front page btw )

[KuRIoS]

closed...
The emu prank was a bit outta hand, GZ didnt believe that it would hurt you in any way, unfortunately it did. WHICH WAS NOT INTENDED and he will create a post to apologize if it have hurt anyone like it did to you

The News post, LOL! if you can not take a post that is so ridiculous then you should go turn off ur computer and get a sense of reality. "We want you to donate so we can go to hawaii... come on.. IQ below 10 if u believe that.! "

The one liners is because of members, we did our best to prevent it.

If you belive that the newspost was bad then turn off ur computer the 30th of march and turn it on at the 3rd of April as i belive that you are getting too butthurt over nothing and should get a sense of reality. Sorry if i sound harsh, but really.