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This year's April's fool joke was fun. My first chat was like, "oh, cool, how can I get it to contradict itself?" After that, I clicked the "never" link and it was gone. Good opt-out option. I thought.

But it wasn't gone! Meta was spammed with a lot questions on the expert. Including this one, indeed. Here's all the spam I could find for now:

And I'm not even talking about similar questions on per-site Metas, the questions that were directly removed because of immediate downvotes or duplicate marks, etc.

Let's get this straight. I do like an April's fool joke, I did like this one, and yes, it's fun to play with it. However, I don't like seeing Meta spammed on it.

Also, a lot people have wasted their time on making screenshots for and writing explanation about questions about the joke.

So, I think we should've a discussion on this. Do we want an April's fool joke next year?

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  • 17
    Since when has MSO not been filled with useless spammy seen-it-all-before posts? At least it's a slight break from the norm of "Why i am banned from questions" / "Fix my code for me" stuff that usually floods the place.
    – JonW
    Apr 1 '13 at 19:38
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    At least it's not weeks of hat questions
    – LittleBobbyTables - Au Revoir
    Apr 1 '13 at 19:39
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    I know voting on meta is different to the other sites, but this question doesn't even express a definitive opinion. It's a vehicle for a discussion!
    – David Heffernan
    Apr 1 '13 at 19:42
  • @DavidHeffernan well, I do express an opinion. But thanks :)
    – Keelan
    Apr 1 '13 at 19:43
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    My opinion: "Let's get this straight. I do like an April's fool joke, I did like this one, and yes, it's fun to play with it. However, I don't like seeing Meta spammed on it."
    – Keelan
    Apr 1 '13 at 19:44
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    Go home, April Fool's, you're drunk!
    – balpha
    Apr 1 '13 at 19:45
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    As I said in an answer here, all you really need is one good community-wiki post explaining the joke and technical details about how it works. Nobody bothered to do that, so of course MSO will get flooded with separate questions for every little thing people wonder about it. That's what MSO's for isn't it? :)
    – Rachel
    Apr 1 '13 at 19:51
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    Oh thank you for conveniently listing them all in a nice box. That will make deleting them all much easier...
    – animuson StaffMod
    Apr 2 '13 at 0:00
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Yes, we do want April fools' jokes.

Every new feature, every change, every two-minute outage is bound to trigger a dozen Meta posts. That's just the way it is; deal with it. Statistically, off-topic questions mistakenly posted on Meta are a much worse problem. I bet there's at least 5 a day. Yet Meta still hasn't become unnavigable even because of those.

These posts are temporary mild annoyances, and the system is well equipped to deal with them.

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    By the way, I voted for your suggestion for this year :)
    – balpha
    Apr 1 '13 at 19:49
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    Honestly, this is the worst April fools joke to date. Remember those lovely aniunicorns behind the vote buttons? That was a good joke.
    – user138231
    Apr 1 '13 at 19:52
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    @Chichiray A good joke would be if the "expert" you are talking to is just another random anonymous user. So you start talking to it, and then you notice it's a bot, and in the middle of the conversation, you continue talking to someone else, thinking it's just a bot.
    – jadkik94
    Apr 1 '13 at 20:30
  • @jadkik94 that's exactly what I first thought was happening! :)
    – Keelan
    Apr 2 '13 at 16:39
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I do like an April's fool joke, I did like this one, and yes, it's fun to play with it. However, I don't like seeing Meta spammed on it.

Also, a lot people have wasted their time...

Yet you continue to keep the ball rolling by posting even more about this soon-to-be-extinct topic.

Everyone is just enjoying the gag and wants to talk about it.

Fun stuff like this only happens once in a while, just enjoy it or ride it out. Most of the posts will be deleted soon as well anyways.

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  • I do keep the ball rolling about april fool's in the future. That's something different, in my opinion. But it's good to hear some are going to be gone.
    – Keelan
    Apr 1 '13 at 19:50
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    Yeah it's totally not the problem you're making it out to be. SE's April Fool's jokes are fun. Why are you spending time on meta in the first place I wonder, if you are so disturbed by trite discussions?
    – user159834
    Apr 1 '13 at 19:54
  • It improves my English skills. Or some other nonsense answer.
    – Keelan
    Apr 1 '13 at 19:56
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    I once tried to get the improves my English skills, it worked remarkably well.
    – user159834
    Apr 1 '13 at 19:59
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I think it makes a mess of the site(s), especially meta. Every website on the planet is doing April Fool. Do we need to do it to? I personally would vote not to bother.

If there has to be an April Fool, make it really hard to find. That will keep the meta spamming to a minimum. And if it's hard to find, it will be someone with enough nous to write a clean meta post.

Or perhaps I'm just the April Fool grinch.

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    And just now I'm hit again with chat with an expert. Ironic huh?
    – David Heffernan
    Apr 1 '13 at 19:47

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