Forum:2024 April Fools brainstorming

This forum post acts as a space to brainstorm ideas for what we, the wiki, could do for April Fools this year. New ideas can be added as new sections, put the section between the latest's ideas section and the "General discussion" section. I'm creating this over a month before April Fools because I anticipate agreeing on an idea will take some time. - Harristic / Talk 👁 Image
18:32, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

I'll give a simple idea to get people's brain's going. We could brainstorm some sort of fake feature for Minecraft and create an extensive article for it, we'd likely need to somehow create the feature in-game whether that's through a resource pack or something. While we're working on the page it could be located at Minecraft Wiki:Page Name, and then moved to the mainspace for the duration of April Fools, during which we'd "promote" the page on social medias and the Discord, after April Fools we'd move it back to its original project namespace location for preservation. If I remember correctly the German wiki does something like this every year. - Harristic / Talk 👁 Image
18:32, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

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 Support - It's simple from a technical perspective (don't have to make a new gadget or theme or anything) and I think it could be a lot of fun to create :) 👁 Image
plighting_engineerd (talk) 18:51, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

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 Support - This sounds very fun - CrowdingFaun624 (talk) 19:28, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

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 Weak oppose - I don't think it's very fun to just create a fake feature page. It's already been done, predictable, and unless the feature itself is hilarious it won't make people laugh nor make them really perplexed. –MetalManeMc, 👁 Image
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Wiki admin (Talk to me!👁 Image
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 Strong support - I think this would be a lot of fun. Lately, fake content in the Minecraft community has gotten quite popular, so I think doing our own with our resources could prove to be pretty funny. Maybe it could be a fake feature, or it could be a whole group of them, like some sort of fake biome.

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 Oppose per MetalManeMc -BrianGLHF (talk) 15:46, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

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 Oppose per MetalManeMc - Delvin4519 (talk) 17:13, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

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 Oppose First of all, I have an experience from other wiki, where we created a fake feature page and... it didn't end up well. Additionally, I want to avoid spreading misinformation in wiki content. Users, who don't care about April Fools, to be able to get accurate info about the game. Even the Minecraft's latest AF stuff don't make the game unplayable. --TreeIsLife (talk) 21:18, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

The idea keeps all the April Fools stuff to one page that you wouldn't be able to find unless you found an external link to it, in which case you'd likely be aware it's for April Fools. So the idea entirely avoids spreading misinformation, and does not hinder or confuse any reader. - Harristic / Talk 👁 Image
22:20, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Good point. We would have to disambiguate a fake MCW April Fools page from the in-game April Fools stuff forever. -BrianGLHF (talk) 00:54, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

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 Weak oppose only because it may be confused with in-game April Fools feature pages, unless there is a clear way to distinguish it. –Sonicwave ^talk 22:57, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Idea: Make an upside down version of the wiki, or maybe replace some text with lorem ipsum, confusing readers.– Unsigned comment added by Wafity (talk • contribs) at 18:34, 19 February 2024 (UTC). Sign comments with ~~~~

I think the upside down thing could be cool but would it be on by default? What would be made upside down? How would the wiki still be usable? Also I oppose the lorem ipsum idea as I don't think confusing readers is the way to go, I think a smaller funny thing would be better. – Unsigned comment added by Plighting Engineerd (talk • contribs) at 18:51, 19 February 2024 (UTC). Sign comments with ~~~~

Well it would be a gadget, you could turn the upside down mode at will, it wouldn't be on by default. Wafity (talk) 19:48, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

I feel like that would be too much work for a gadget that probably less than 100 people would then find and use on the day 👁 Image
plighting_engineerd (talk) 18:09, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

100 people is such a generous estimation. Probably less than 5. GIM Dianliang233 T C 16:05, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

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 Oppose intentionally confusing readers or making MCW harder to read. -BrianGLHF (talk) 15:31, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

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 Oppose for the same reason--Olivia (talk) 15:35, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

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 Oppose per BrianGLHF - Delvin4519 (talk) 17:14, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

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 Oppose.--👁 Image
Wilf233_zhMCW（论·功） 15:55, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

I think it could be very fun to switch skins with that of another franchise. My immediate suggestion would be Terraria. We could become the Terraria wiki for one day, and vice-versa (but keeping our content). I believe there is a language wiki that already did that. I also think it would generate some media coverage, although it would obviously be quite limited. In any case I think it's likely to make people laugh for April Fools more than if we just tricked them. –MetalManeMc, 👁 Image
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Wiki admin (Talk to me!👁 Image
) 19:05, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

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 Support I like this idea. 👁 Image
plighting_engineerd (talk) 19:20, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

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 Support the concept, though while it's a basic idea it could be complicated the pull off. How much of the skin would we change? Maybe we could get away with not changing the sidebar. But yeah I do like the idea, maybe we could collaborate with Terraria Wiki even, they could change their skin to be Minecraft themed. - Harristic / Talk 👁 Image
19:21, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

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 Support - 👁 Image
Delycache ^{(Talk | Contributions)} 16:08, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

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 Support I like this idea, especially possibly collaborating with the Terraria Wiki. -- Gryffyn (talk) 04:57, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

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 Support - This would be funny. I wonder if it could even be combined with the fake feature idea, as if there was a proper Terraria collaboration with Minecraft and they actually added Terraria monsters and whatnot. - BD (talk) 12:32, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

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 Support--Olivia (talk) 12:36, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

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 Oppose dramatically altering the branding/image of MCW at this time -BrianGLHF (talk) 17:10, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Swapping skin with Terraria for a day is not "altering the branding". --GIM Dianliang233 T C 01:19, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

I appreciate your unique perspective -BrianGLHF (talk) 02:28, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

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 Oppose - per BrianGLHF - Delvin4519 (talk) 17:15, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

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 Strong support as this seems like the (relatively) easy to do and will not cause as much confusion or disrupt the content as some of the other proposals. I'm not sure if we can implement this without a FOUC, although I think it's not that important. GIM Dianliang233 T C 01:22, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

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 Support: This is the best option IMO. – ZacNVR (talk) 07:51, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

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 Support.--👁 Image
Wilf233_zhMCW（论·功） 15:55, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Basically, we will make a fake announcement that our wiki plans to merge with Fandom. In this post, we'll forgive Fandom community for "leaving them so quickly" and it'll talk about "new awesome features Fandom has to offer"

We may either use the word "merge", or we can opt to use words like "crossover" (as a reference to Project Crossover) --TreeIsLife (talk) 19:11, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Love the idea of April Fools joke, but I feel like anything to do with Fandom might be too much. I'd rather not risk someone taking this seriously, nor giving search engines any wrong ideas (somehow). Frisk (talk) 19:13, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

I second this point. - Harristic / Talk 👁 Image
19:21, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

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 Weak support That's actually a hilarious idea, though I think it would be better if we waited a little longer. I think it's too recent to be funny. Users will just read the header, know it's a joke than move on. There won't be that precious moment hesitation or loss. That being said I do think it is a pretty good idea. –MetalManeMc, 👁 Image
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Wiki admin (Talk to me!👁 Image
) 19:16, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

I think this could be funny, but we don't want to confuse anyone into actually thinking we're still on Fandom... it could get complicated 👁 Image
plighting_engineerd (talk) 19:20, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

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 Oppose - As others said, I think it's a little too soon, and could just end up being confusing. I also don't think it's that funny; Fandom is just ugly. - BD (talk) 12:29, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

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 Oppose - Too soon. Dutch, Polish, and Italian wikis have not forked yet. In addition, Dutch and Polish wikis are literally unable to leave Fandom without outside technical help with forking, even when those wikis wanted to fork. Pretending to merge with fandom when the forking process of MCW language wikis is still ongoing and incomplete, is just inappropiate. Delvin4519 (talk) 14:21, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

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 Oppose absolutely not. this idea is too egregious IMO and goes against the things MCW has been working towards. -BrianGLHF (talk) 15:37, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

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 Oppose. For anyone who's only partially in the loop, it's probably already a little confusing that there are two Minecraft Wikis in the first place, or what it means for the wiki to have forked. I worry that this would only add to the confusion and that it may not be clear that this is an April Fool's joke. This will be especially true if it spreads to other sources like content creators and/or if people stumble upon this 'announcement' well after April 1st without the appropriate context. To be clear, I'm sure we would clearly label such a thing as an April Fool's joke after the fact, but other sources may not make it so clear... – ZacNVR (talk) 08:02, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

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 Oppose. What a big joke!--👁 Image
Wilf233_zhMCW（论·功） 15:55, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

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 Oppose – I personally think the Fandom wiki and Fandom in general has been talked about for long enough and it's time to move on, not draw attention back to it again. –Sonicwave ^talk 22:57, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Inspired by what AttemptToCallNil did for the Russian wiki in 2018, with most if not all namespaces existing at the time getting silly names. Would require a JS gadget. Also what we did back then was renaming “Editing <page>” to “Vandalizing <page>”, as well as making the wiki logo rotate, but I’m not proposing those two in this section.

• “Page” (in the tab) — “Doge”. Based on a misread I’ve had a long time ago. The original Russian was “Not a page” or rather “Not an article” (Не статья) because we use “Article” (Статья) for main namespace pages.
• “Talk” — “Wow”, to fit with the “Doge”, or “Wowee”, another dog meme. The original Russian version was “Condemnation” (Осуждение), derived from “Talk” (Обсуждение) by removing a letter. The same change should apply to all talk namespaces, e. g. “User talk” would be “Abuser wow(ee)”.
• “User” — “Abuser”. Derived similarly to the Russian version, which was “Accomplice” (Соучастник or Соучастница; with “User” being “Участник” or, for female users, “Участница”), though I fear “abuser” is more negative than “accomplice”.
• “Minecraft Wiki” — “Not a wiki”. Inspired by “Not an article” mentioned above. The original version was “Some wiki” (Какая-то вики). Could otherwise be “That wiki” or even “Fandom”.
• “File” — “Daub”. Like the Russian “Мазня”, meaning a bad, low effort painting.
• “Template” — “Kludge”. Like the Russian version (Шаблон → Костыль).
• “Help” — “Abracadabra”. Like the Russian version (Справка → Абракадабра). Or really anything that conveys the meaning of help pages being confusing.
• “Module” — “Superkludge”. Like the Russian version (Модуль → Суперкостыль).
• “Category” — “Backlog”. The Russian version used “Execution list” (Расстрельный список, more literally “list for execution by firing squad”) — not a very good option here I think.

For the spin-off wikis, which didn’t exist back then, I’m not having many creative ideas:

• “Minecraft Dungeons” — “Minecraft Dragons”. A reference to the tabletop RPG and the current year being Year of the Dragon.
• “Minecraft Legends” — “Minecraft Armstarts”. Interprets “Legends” as “leg ends” and replaces both parts with opposite words.
• “Minecraft Story Mode” — “Minecraft Plot Twist”.

Feel free to propose your ideas here. — BabylonAS 06:47, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

And this would just use a JavaScript gadget? Sounds weird. I am usually a fan of arbitrarily renaming things, but I don't think it applies to our wiki. --Simanelix ^(T|C) 13:03, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

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 Oppose most of these phrases make no sense in English and at least one of them is completley inappropriate. Renaming Minecraft Wiki to Fandom? No thanks. -BrianGLHF (talk) 17:18, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

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 Neutral. Most people stay in main namespace and won't notice the difference.--👁 Image
Wilf233_zhMCW（论·功） 15:55, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

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 Oppose remaning namespaces – most of them aren't exposed to readers and changing the content namespaces would be confusing. –Sonicwave ^talk 22:57, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

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 Oppose - Most of these don't make any sense, plus it would be confusing for some editors who edit less commonly. Delvin4519 (talk) 23:02, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Honestly a rickroll with one or two of the links would do

By inverted, I mean inverting the grass top and stone background. This would be noticeable for all users and hurt no one. The main idea is:

• Change background from stone to either dirt, grass, or moss.
  • Maybe sprinkle in some flowers or flowering azaleas.
• Change top background to be stone, or some kind of cave.
• Change top blocks to be ores or minerals, or stone or cobblestone.

This would also be non-offsensive, and could be used as a theme option for users going forward. --Simanelix ^(T|C) 07:05, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

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 Neutral. Not so necessary but acceptable.--👁 Image
Wilf233_zhMCW（论·功） 15:55, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

The suggestion here is to turn the wiki into Comic Sans for a day. This would be pretty harmless but fun imo. 👁 Image
plighting_engineerd (talk) 03:22, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

This is brilliant!!!!! GIM Dianliang233 T C 04:00, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

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 Weak Oppose – The font is too pixelated on my display, so I think this would actually hurt some users (like me). --Simanelix ^(T|C) 04:30, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

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 Neutal Comic Sans doesn't work on mobile by default, so we would have to make few more changes but nothing dramatic. I just think slapping Comic Sans has become too repetitive April Fools practice. --TreeIsLife (talk) 13:52, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

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 Support this is fun IMO, seemingly easy to apply(is it?) to the site and truly harmless. -BrianGLHF (talk) 15:42, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

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 Neutal It's an interesting idea, but I think the Lobster font would be funnier. SymORmaK (talk) 15:48, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

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 Oppose per Simanelix, may cause potential accessibility problems that can drive away readers and editors. Delvin4519 (talk) 17:16, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

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 Comment FWIW, Comic Sans MS is notable for being preferred in accessibility settings (pun not intended) as well as information retention in general.^[1]. -BrianGLHF (talk) 17:28, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

I think whoever made the ttf files for Comic Sans assumed the font would be used mostly in large font size and on screens with high resolutions. Or maybe my eyes just aren't good at parsing the anti-aliasing for Comic Sans specifically. I checked the pixels, and it looks like they should be quite legible, so maybe it's just my eyes aren't use to pixels being all janky like that. --Simanelix ^(T|C) 22:33, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

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 Oppose changing the font in this manner per Delvin, unless it's under a toggle that's disabled by default. –Sonicwave ^talk 22:57, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

My idea would be to have the wiki logo slide off the screen or change to a different logo when hovered over. I thought we did something like this in the past, though I'm not sure if there's still enough time and available effort to implement this. –Sonicwave ^talk 22:57, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

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 Support - This wouldn't drastically change the website, which I see many others are against. However, as you said, there isn't very much time to implement this. - Apophius001 (talk) 03:02, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Counter-proposal: Do nothing special for April 1. The suggestions above risk confusing readers, compromising usability and/or accessibility, and I don't think there's anything gained out of this effort. --AttemptToCallNil (talk) 12:18, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

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 Strong oppose - Boring. - BD (talk) 12:27, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

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 Weak Oppose – How about something simple? Like changing the ore in the background image to be gold and diamond ore instead of iron and coal? We could change the small flowers at the top of the page too. Making the changes really small would avoid potentially compromising anything for all users. --Simanelix ^(T|C) 14:11, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

That wouldn't look like an April 1 joke, it would look like a redesign that just happened to be released on the same day. And it would be barely noticeable, which beats the point of April 1 jokes. Such jokes are by nature disruptive, which is exactly what I propose to avoid. Do you have another example? Also, I find it strange that your comment is marked as oppose, given how you're presenting alternatives. --AttemptToCallNil (talk) 16:37, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Well, I oppose your specific proposal of doing nothing since I think we should at least do something small. --Simanelix ^(T|C) 22:15, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

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 Comment – Another idea is rotating the hue of the background by a random -20 to 20 degrees every time the user loads a page. --Simanelix ^(T|C) 22:15, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

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 Comment. As per Minecraft Wiki:Forum/Last minute default winter mode, changing the theme requires a minimum duration of 1 week, due to caching issues for anonymous users. As such, it is not possible to enable a fancy gadget for 24 hours on April 1 only, meaning it's not possible to do April 1st theme changes. Plus I'm also wary of confusing readers, or distractions getting in the way of normal editing that could be a turn-off for less experieneced/the occasional editor. At best, maybe a redesign of the main page for April Fools may be possible, but otherwise, that's about it. Delvin4519 (talk) 14:19, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

This is just another reason to keep any April Fools changes limited to either gadgets (which can employ drastic changes), or small changes that would be acceptable to many users as long term changes. --Simanelix ^(T|C) 22:17, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Limiting a joke to a gadget pretty much defeat the purpose of an April Fools joke as no one will notice it. GIM Dianliang233 T C 01:30, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

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 Good point – Ah, right. In that case, there is not much of a limit to what we can do. --Simanelix ^(T|C) 20:06, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

> As such, it is not possible to enable a fancy gadget for 24 hours on April 1 only
No, what we can still do is deploy a piece of JavaScript that enable something on April 1 only. GIM Dianliang233 T C 01:29, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

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 Support great points on considering wider aspects of the MCW reader base. Important stuff to consider and glad to see it raised in discussions. -BrianGLHF (talk) 15:45, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

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 Oppose not doing anything. Making the wiki alive is great in every way, and as Dianliang said we can still use a JavaScript system that does not interfere with caching. –MetalManeMc, 👁 Image
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Wiki admin (Talk to me!👁 Image
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 Oppose. We should do something.--👁 Image
Wilf233_zhMCW（论·功） 17:49, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

I do think small, non-intrusive changes can be a good way to increase community rapport, especially with our overall efforts in increasing publicity after the fork. However, none of the ideas proposed so far really stuck with me. –Sonicwave ^talk 22:57, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

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