Planning for April Fools (2023)

This has sort of flown under the radar with all the NaPo planning, bird controversy, and Bob damage-control going on - but April 1st is April Fools! We should probably do at least something small to prank the users.

In past years -> we've done colourful usernames, username changes, prank accounts, leaked mod forums (that was a fan favourite!), horrifically unreadable font colours, etc. We could reuse a prank from previous years or blaze some trails and do something totally new this year!

Some folks were mentioning changing the site colour from blue to cyan over in Suggestions for Site Improvements to Boost Membership. I don't know that it would be wise to do this permanently - at least not until we've gotten the go ahead from Nate - but it could be fun to change the site to some wacky bright colours just for April Fools. Thoughts on that? Other ideas? Nothing's off limits! (Although, I do believe we're allowed a max of 5 username changes at once, just to keep the site from blowing up. So, addendum - nothing other than 6 username changes is off limits.)

Thanks for the reminder, Seirre! ^^ Just throwing some more ideas out there ->

- mailing a neon-colored YWS sweatshirt to every ywser (could be something fun to commemorate April Fool’s! I personally wouldn’t mind a bright green YWS sweatshirt :])
- adding sound effects to the site. Perhaps some birds squawking, or a pleasant chime whenever you submit a review? Or a snippet of music every time you post a work
- changing our avvies to gifs to hypnotize members into squawking like birds
- poking the #classified nest and having a bunch of mysterious happenings on the site
- changing everyone’s username to “bob” + their current username. I know you said we have a limit, but if it breaks the site… well, then it’s an even bigger April Fool’s! And besides, we’ve gotta appease Bob somehow. >.>

WOW this really did fly under the radar (not unlike a bird >.> ) goodness it's getting close to the 1st.

I really like the idea of adding a bit more sensory depth to YWS. Right now it's a lot of visual stuff, which can wear on the eyes. I like the idea of adding sound effects to the site! To add onto that, how about we add a stock number of onomatopoeias for writers to add to their writing? Imagine -- reading a story and you come to an action scene and you hear BOOM

I'll come by with some more ideas, we gotta brainstorm and get things rolling soon.

Ah geesh we're only a few jam jars away from April Fools day it looks like - um what about keeping it simple and just changing everyone's username and all YWS text to dark cyan? Both hilarious and beautiful!

Maybe we could also eliminate all penguins from the site too just to keep things clean and tidy - and change them to like chickens or something.

Both these ideas would be low-effort, but high-impact, and I am certain would make the majority of the site smile. :3

Maybe we could also eliminate all penguins from the site too just to keep things clean and tidy - and change them to like chickens or something.

Or, to add extra fun, let's eliminate all the chickens instead. I think it would result in a lot of laughs if everything in the chicken category of lit works was suddenly about penguins instead.

Maybe we could ban everyone for a day??? That way we don't have to think of anything special.

@Snoink now that's an idea!

I'm loving all of these ideas!! @Spearmint I adore your suggestion of adding some sound effects. Honestly, I think that could be a fabulous addition to the site all year round. I always say in my poetry reviews that you want to include imagery for each sense (sound, taste, touch, hearing, and whatever the other one is) and I think the same principle can be applied to web design! One possibility that's stuck in my brain is every time you click to another tab on the site, or reload a page, there's the ominous screechy sound of a gate creaking open. Ahhhh talk about vibey.

I definitely think turning the site cyan for a day is a very low effort, high outcome prank!

I hesitate to eliminate all penguins or all chickens from the site as I think that does come a bit close to censorship. I mean, are we really going to delete every lit work that mentions penguins??

Banning -> absolutely has potential, but I fear it defeats the purpose of the a site prank since no one will actually be able to access the site.

Yes, @Seirre gets it!! Loving that five senses imagery too… What if we added smells? =O Think Nate can work some wizardry to get us the scent of fresh lemons, or perhaps overpowering mint? Or would combinations like sour cream and rotting orange be a better option for April Fool’s? >.>

But if all else fails, @Snoink’s solution seems perfectly valid to me. We’ll just have to come up with an entertaining image for YWSers to look at while they’re banned. Any suggestions?

Maybe if we do the banning thing, we can make it seem like an inspirational poster so no one is offended? Like this...



At least, I'm inspired...

Cute graphic @Snoink do you mind if I use that as my YWS Avatar sometime?

But... @lliyah... it has no chickens!! *gasp*

Here's a better graphic for the chicken queen of YWS...

Considering using that graphic above for my non-existent napo thread? more likely than you think...


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Okay so April Fools in just a couple days, my brain has been trying to think of something funny and here's my newest idea!

Make everyone's username color slightly different.

ie. instead of junior moderator slime green -> lime green

instead of gm goblin green -> dark evergreen

and then maybe we could change all the Poetry Crew Leaders usernames to dark cyan!

instead of regular user blue -> just plain old blue.

What does everyone think? Subtle. But Powerful. Right?

It's like when you move all the furniture in your home just 2 inches to the left and then people keep running into end-tables and chairs. Everyone will feel that something is just a bit off, and yet they probably won't be able to figure out exactly what it is.

What about DMs???

I think DMs would look lovely in yellow :)

Anyway I think that's an ingenuous idea, alliyah! Subtle yet pervasive. Would anyone like to take care of setting that up tonight? I would offer to, but, well, yknow what happened last time I tried to fiddle with site colours and everything went all rainbow.