Careers 2.0 Featured Listing: Web company needs successor for retiring unicorns

Question

You know what day is coming up, right? Just to get you up to speed:

• Stack Overflow's first April Fool's day came with glitter, cornify buttons, lots of pink, and Comic Sans.

• Last year, all user avatars turned into unicorn images, provided by a web service created by some weirdo with too much free time.

So, what about 2011? Well, while we do have some ideas, we'd be stupid not to ask the probably largest accumulation of… special… creativity on the Internet – and that's obviously Meta*!

So, offer your ideas! Of course you won't know until April 1st what actually happens (and we don't promise anything), but be sure that we plan to reward great ideas with a little more than just a Meta rep bounty!

Except that your suggestions should be a) funny (at least in the eyes of most people), b) doable, and c) awesome, there are no restrictions. C'mon get crazy!

_{*cue obligatory "the sites are run by you" :)}

Answer 1

I think we could all use a little help with a variety of functions when we are composing questions and answers.

We'd need to generate several static images, and display them:

• randomly when a user is editing a post
• based on either keywords they enter
• based on buttons they press in the markdown editor
• ???

Nice thing is that it could apply to all sites across the board, rather than being programmer/geek specific.

Answer 2

EBay-style premium listings!

Answer 3

Change all SO rep scores and counts to their binary or hex representations (depending on funny bone inclination).

Tell people it's a permanent change for programmers. Say something like "you spoke and we listened". Write a creative blog post to support it. Make it witty and amusing. I'm sure many people here can contribute awesome ideas to such a blog post.

If you have to keep the kids happy then at least keep any tooltip/alt tags as their actual base 10 number values.

Example of the binary version, mocked with Firebug:

Answer 4

I'm not sure how difficult it would be... but how about switching themes between sites? For example, give Stack Overflow the Programmers theme for a day, and vice versa. Or perchance do a three-direction with Stack Overflow getting Programmers, Programmers getting Meta Stack Overflow, and Meta getting normal Stack Overflow. You can then mix and match the sites for different interesting combos. Gaming ↔ Game Development, AskUbuntu ↔ Unix & Linux...

Not all of them have good matches (Seasoned Advice and Photography stand out, although I suppose using Photo's theme with a picture of a delicious meal wouldn't be entirely bad...), and there's nothing to swap between the Beta sites. But I figure, the idea was a mite humorous enough to toss out.

EDIT:
Five-minute mockup for Shog:

Answer 5

Maybe some client-side generated blood-red @-notifications too while we're at it:

Answer 6

Stack Exchange, Inc is going public!

As our show of thanks to you providing all the great content for Stack Overflow, we're allowing you the one time opportunity to convert your reputation points into actual company stock.

This is a one-way transaction and any points converted will be deducted from your reputation and show on your user history and graph as "SOIS buy-in"

And create a page that shows how much stock they would get for whatever amount they want to pony up.

Answer 7

Hide the accepted answer behind an "INSTANT ACCESS TO THIS SOLUTION" banner... which vanishes as soon as you mouse anywhere near it.

Or announce a merger with Experts Exchange.

EDIT: Okay, so it looks like I wasn't the only one with ideas around EE. Oh well.

Answer 8

I've seen a number of people talking about rep, requiring rep for asking, changing downvotes to cost different amounts of rep, etc...

What about if we just decide reputation points were a bad idea and drop them altogether?

No more rep shows up. Anywhere. Could be done pretty easily using CSS. Combined witha blog post about how wrong we all were this whole time, and our new grand vision for an "everyone is equal, every question and answer equally good!" StackExchange.

To clarify, that's the joke. Rep doesn't actually go away, it's still here and works exactly the same as always. So I'm not proposing to change how Rep works, just pretend it's gone.

Answer 9

How about adding the moderator diamond ♦ next to the logged in user's name all over the site (only visible to the user himself)?

Answer 10

Answer 11

Cover the sites in advertisements for the upcoming movie.

Answer 12

Facebook integration.

Answer 13

Accidentally leak your server setup?

There's plenty of room for tweaking the exact links, of course. Entries like adminPanel.htm could link to all sorts of, uh, non-standard mod abilities; for example, a form that lets you punch in a user ID and see who has submitted flags against that user.

Answer 14

Take the "Stack Overflow Is You" motto to the extreme and instead of a Stack Overflow logo at the top, have a logo that is "n overflow" where n is the user's name. Adding the User's Gravatar (as recommended by Pekka) seems like a cool idea too (though not if it screws up loading time).

Or, replace all accepted answers' user name and links with Jon Skeet's name and profile link.

Answer 15

People joke that Jon Skeet can answer questions before they are asked.

How about you generate some fake content using Flack Overstow and auto post an answer by Jon (or someone else?, maybe the leader in the tag) and date the post a few minutes before the question was asked.

Answer 16

Quora was right all along:

• Unlock favourite/ignored tag editing for all users.
  • +2 rep per suggested interesting topic.
  • All suggested interesting topics are automatically accepted. No exceptions.
• Followers!
  • You can follow people by starring them.
  • +10 per follow.
  • −2 per unfollow.
  • To kickstart things generate many followings at random.
  • Follow at 10 reputation
  • Unfollow at 125 reputation
• Formatting!
  • Markdown is too hard. Get rid of it.
  • Replace it with an intuitive WYSIWYG editor. You cannot see or edit source, because HTML is so web 1.0.
  • Ban evil outbound links outside the site; URL copy and paste ought to be enough for everybody.
• Janitors!
  • Moderators are so web 2.0; get rid of them.
  • Closing sucks; retag instead.
  • Janitors can super downvote: +2 reputation for the voter, −10 for the votee.
  • Become a janitor at 1000 reputation.
• Notifications! Drop down a message every time:
  1. A post of yours was upvoted.
  2. A post of a follower's was upvoted.
  3. A follower upvoted a post.
  4. A post of yours was downvoted.
  5. A post of a follower's was downvoted.
  6. A follower downvoted a post.
  7. A post of yours was accepted.
  8. A post of a follower's was accepted.
  9. A follower accepted a post.
  10. A post of yours was commented.
  11. A post of a follower's was commented.
  12. A follower commented a post.
  13. A new question has been posted since you have loaded the page.
  14. A follower posts.
  15. A post of yours is answered by a follower's follower.
  16. A follower's question was answered.
  17. A follower was followed.
  18. A follower was unfollowed.
  19. A follower unlocks a privilege.
  20. You are followed.
  21. You are unfollowed.
  22. You gain reputation.
  23. You lose reputation.
  24. You would gain reputation, but a cap prevents that.
  25. A follower gains reputation.
  26. A follower loses reputation.
  27. A follower gains reputation, but a cap prevents that.
  28. A follower visits chat.
  29. A follower enters a chatroom.
  30. A follower posts a chat message.
  31. A follower stars a chat message.
  32. A follower flags a chat message.
  33. A follower is followed.
  34. A follower is unfollowed.
  35. A follower adds an interesting tag.
  36. A follower removes an interesting tag.
  37. A follower adds an ignored tag.
  38. A follower removes an ignored tag.
  39. Jon Somebody has started typing an answer for the question you are viewing.
  40. Jon Somebody has viewed a question of yours.
  41. Jon Somebody has started typing a question of yours.
  42. Oh, nevermind, Jon Somebody has stopped writing.

Answer 17

Instill paranoia into the answerers for the day. Make them quiver in fear for the whole day.

When just blindly viewing an unanswered question, have the avatar of the top user for one of its tags (or just the top user for the site, to make it computationally cheaper by bounds) show up in the corner, only to go away quickly or when the mouse approaches.

If the user still has the courage to work on an answer, pop down one of those banner notifications from the top to say the following, substituting a proper username.

Be advised: Nick Craver has just answered this question while you were typing. It is probably hopeless for you to continue. Click here to refresh

Naturally, the refresh will not show anything. It may even show a "Haha!" or alternative point to show off what's going on, if you want to be generous.

---

For those who already are at the top, pester them with their rivals. Have Marc Gravell hot on the heels of Jon Skeet for every question he looks at. No peace of mind for the day!

Answer 18

I think this year you should customize the April Fool's jokes for each community. Here are a few ideas:

• Stack Overflow - re-skin the site to match the style and layout of that hyphen site.
• English Language & Usage - Run the entire site through Google Translate to convert each question and answer to a random language.
• Unix & Linux - Make people enter answers at a command prompt.
• Seasoned Advice - Add a random spam haiku answer to every new question.
• Gaming - You must beat 10 levels of Angry Birds to post a new question.

Answer 19

This question was answered long before it was asked.

Please Add Means of Converting Reputation to Actual Beer

Answer 20

Hot. Dog. Stand.

Answer 21

/**
 * @author Jon Skeet
 * @author Adam Davis
 */

Display mockeries of infamous ads.

"Punch the unicorn to see if you win 500 reputation!"

"Lose that Google 15 with this one weird dieting tip."

Answer 22

I'll borrow an idea from another question:

Toolbar additions!

Answer 23

I've had an idea brewing for months and it kind of continues the idea from last year.

Last year we changed everyone's Gravatar, this year, let's change their display name!!!

The idea is that a bunch of first names, last names, and suffixes are collected and then randomly combined to form the user's new name...

Examples:

• William van Smithstern the III
• Dr. Joseph Samuels Jr.
• etc.

Answer 24

A paywall for all users with 500+ rep for both asking and answering.

Complete with a credit card form (29.98/month) and a link to a blog post outlining why this is totally not a sellout.

Of course, you just have to scroll down to continue!

Answer 25

How about some fake tag and badge sponsorships? "debugging" could be sponsored by Roach Motel. "Famous Question" could become "XHTML Regex parser". Etc.

Answer 26

Redirect randomly between all Stack Exchange sites.

Stack Overflow might wind up on Meta.SciFi, or AskDifferent could be on Unix & Linux.

Or integrate it with a Wheel of Redirects, like the Wheel of Migration that we mods use to decide where to send questions. ^{_{(oops, was that out loud?)}}

Answer 27

A notification bar pointing to a breaking story in the blog, written by Jeff or Joel, to this effect:

The Stack Overflow team and the Venture Capitalists funding Stack Exchange have decided to provide additional funds in an unprecedented move to increase awareness of StackOverflow, and encourage participation.

Reputation points can be exchanged to money at a rate of $0.10 per point!

We plan to launch this some time this summer; however we will be beta testing this today until midnight GMT, or a maximum budget of up to $20,000, depending on what is reached first. If you earn 100 rep points or more today, a "claim my funds" button will appear in your user profile. Click it and follow instructions.

All you need is a major credit card, or a PayPal account.

This would be the most hilarious variation of a general "Money for rep points today only!!!!1" idea, because it would keep people on their toes for a while.... If it's not too blatantly obvious.

Answer 28

Announce that you're closing the sites down because you were bought out by Experts Exchange.

Answer 29

To each question that already has at least one answer, automatically add an answer from Jeff Atwood, Joel Spolsky, Marc Gravell, Jon Skeet, or whoever else is in on the joke. Most of these answers should be terrible, yet appropriate to the question's tags.

• All JavaScript-tagged questions are answered with jQuery-worship.
• All HTML-related questions are answered by bobince asking if the user has tried using regex.
• All .NET questions get an answer from Jon Skeet suggesting that managed code isn't nearly fast enough for the task, and the user should try writing it in heavily-optimized FORTRAN. Marc Gravell responds with a comment about Duff's Device.
• Jeff Atwood occasionally pops up to say that he once saw an answer on the hyphenated site, and the user should check over there. He doesn't explain what "the hyphenated site" is.
• Joel Spolsky says something wise and insightful about the software business which has absolutely nothing to do with the question.
• Someone claiming to be Eric Lippert promises to bring the user's C# issue up at the next design meeting and create a special language feature to handle it.
• Larry Wall doesn't know the answer to your Perl question, but here's some poetry you might enjoy.
• Alan Turing, Donald Knuth, and Charles Babbage answer one question each. Turing suggests "some form of tape-fed computation device". Knuth's answer provokes a flamewar in the comments with Edsger Dijkstra about the merits of goto.

Only questions that already have an answer are affected, so it doesn't interfere with the question/answer process too much. Also, you could restrict it to questions that already have an accepted answer or an answer with a certain amount of upvotes. Obviously, protect the "answerers" from rep loss when "their" answers are downvoted to smithereens.

Answer 30

Make balpha's Commander Keen Downvote Script native.