Hard Light Productions Forums

Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Mr. Vega on April 01, 2013, 01:12:27 pm

Title: Lame
Post by: Mr. Vega on April 01, 2013, 01:12:27 pm
Really, that's your April Fool's joke? A disappearing mouse?
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: haloboy100 on April 01, 2013, 01:29:13 pm
Eh? My mouse hasn't disappeared.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: NGTM-1R on April 01, 2013, 01:34:27 pm
Yeah, that's not the April Fools joke that I can see...
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Shivan Hunter on April 01, 2013, 01:36:13 pm
Happens when you mouseover a link. Also, the reply etc. buttons are blurry.

Looks like someone's really reaching for ideas huh guys
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Flipside on April 01, 2013, 01:38:24 pm
None of those issues here. Everything seems to be fine. To be honest, I don't know what was planned for today, if anything, but as far as mouse behaviour is concerned, I've got business as normal.

Edit: Actually, it's started to do it for me now as, so I'm guessing that's what it is.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: StarSlayer on April 01, 2013, 01:40:01 pm
I have all the issues reported plus the page stutters and the HLP logo is listing like a tired ass tramp steamer with a leaky bilge.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Shivan Hunter on April 01, 2013, 01:42:49 pm
Backstory: booger scripted the forums to mix up words in posts (this like), and it messed up some people's attempts at useful communication, so he removed it. It seems he's hellbent on impeding forum use in some way, though
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Goober5000 on April 01, 2013, 01:52:20 pm
There's nothing to see here.  People complained about the April Fools sentence shuffler so I removed it.  All is well.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: perihelion on April 01, 2013, 01:55:08 pm
The font size is growing and all images are tilting.
GOOBER!!!!!
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Oddgrim on April 01, 2013, 01:57:33 pm
Goober I understand the intent behind it ( and to some extent appreciate it ), just with all the trouble the site has had of late, even when it's aprils fools day, not a good moment do it. :1
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Hades on April 01, 2013, 02:09:04 pm
This sort of idiotic **** is the reason why I tend to stay away from HLP on April Fool's because one fool tends to make it impossible to actually browse the forums.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Mr. Vega on April 01, 2013, 02:32:20 pm
I tend to stay away from the forum in general because of the idiots who treat the forum as their own personal lawn to yell at kids for stepping on and vehemently resist any attempt at fun.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: General Battuta on April 01, 2013, 02:35:49 pm
I tend to stay away from the forum in general because of the idiots who treat the forum as their own personal lawn to yell at kids for stepping on and vehemently resist any attempt at fun.

Fun is fun, but it was bad enough that we couldn't provide tech support to people asking for it. I don't think it's idiotic to want to help people play the campaigns we've poured years into.

I recall you asking for help getting some campaigns running recently. I really value your opinion and was hoping you'd play them, and I would've been really frustrated if I couldn't answer your questions because someone decided to turn everything into word salad for a day. If you think that makes me an idiot, I admit I'm a little stung.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Mr. Vega on April 01, 2013, 02:37:30 pm
It's one goddamn day, you giant mountain of boring.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: General Battuta on April 01, 2013, 02:46:46 pm
Christ, dude. Forgive me for caring. :rolleyes:

I'm all for funny April Fool's jokes but it was nothing funny and did not qualify as a joke. You couldn't even parse a debug log.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: yuezhi on April 01, 2013, 02:47:08 pm
It'll be the year of Spoon at this rate.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Hades on April 01, 2013, 02:47:23 pm
It's one goddamn day, you giant mountain of boring.
And for those of us who actually want to do something constructive, it disrupts work flow. It's also annoying in principle, as you can have pranks that don't cross the line of "making the forums unreadable annoying to read", which has happened once.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Fury on April 01, 2013, 02:47:30 pm
There's nothing to see here.  People complained about the April Fools sentence shuffler so I removed it.  All is well.
I can understand making an attempt at april fools. But year after year your pranks have proven to be more disruptive than funny. One would think you'd have taken a hint and figured out something else, but no. Would it really be so impossible for you to come up with something that doesn't disrupt use of HLP in any way? If the answer to that is yes, perhaps you should consider not doing anything at all.

It is on days of gooberism when for a moment, I seriously think of launching an alternative site to HLP. Free of gooberism. Fortunately I have a wakeup call and realize that the site would just meet similar fate to GW, SG and many others.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Sandwich on April 01, 2013, 02:55:06 pm
...plus the page stutters

Just noticed that, sorry. Didn't mean to take up 100% CPU, but looks like it is. I've removed that. Force-refresh.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Yarn on April 01, 2013, 03:40:03 pm
I'm using Firefox 19 and HLP looks completely normal; I'm seeing none of the effects that others have described.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Aardwolf on April 01, 2013, 03:57:58 pm
The sparkly unicorns thing wasn't that bad last year :(
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Mr. Vega on April 01, 2013, 04:01:09 pm
Ditto, and my mouse pointer disappears when it's on a link.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: BrotherBryon on April 01, 2013, 04:27:25 pm
Ditto, and my mouse pointer disappears when it's on a link.
Same here, using firefox.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: haloboy100 on April 01, 2013, 04:44:31 pm
Yeah I'm seeing no difference at all.

 :(
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Yarn on April 01, 2013, 04:46:56 pm
Ditto, and my mouse pointer disappears when it's on a link.
Same here, using firefox.
It's not happening to me in Firefox for some reason, but it is happening in IE 10. What version of Firefox are you using, and in what operating system?
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: deathfun on April 01, 2013, 04:49:29 pm
 :) ;) :p :D :cool: :nod: ;7 :drevil: :lol: :v: :yes: :P :v-old: :banghead: :nono: :no: :hopping: :mad: :mad2: :ick: :rolleyes: :doubt: :o :sigh: :blah: :( :eek: :nervous: :shaking: :confused: :jaw: :snipe: :wakka: :bump: :hammer: :headz: :ha: :arrr: :beamz: :warp: :turrent:

My apologies for this, but I noticed they were appearing upside down so I decided to give it a go

Confirmed, they're all upside down for me
I'm also getting disappearing cursors
Thought it was just something wrong with me, but guess not!

Shame I missed that other fun stuff though. I'd of liked to have seen that
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: jg18 on April 01, 2013, 04:52:48 pm
Looks normal here in IE 10 in Windows 7. Maybe try clearing the browser cache and force-reloading the page?
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Mobius on April 01, 2013, 04:53:44 pm
:) ;) :p :D :cool: :nod: ;7 :drevil: :lol: :v: :yes: :P :v-old: :banghead: :nono: :no: :hopping: :mad: :mad2: :ick: :rolleyes: :doubt: :o :sigh: :blah: :( :eek: :nervous: :shaking: :confused: :jaw: :snipe: :wakka: :bump: :hammer: :headz: :ha: :arrr: :beamz: :warp: :turrent:

They're not upside down here. I'm using Google Chrome.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Yarn on April 01, 2013, 04:57:51 pm
Yeah I'm seeing no difference at all.

 :(

Looks normal here in IE 10 in Windows 7. Maybe try clearing the browser cache and force-reloading the page?

So, to clarify, you two are or are not seeing the April Fools effects?
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: jg18 on April 01, 2013, 05:10:07 pm
Am not.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: NGTM-1R on April 01, 2013, 05:19:35 pm
Same here, using firefox.

Can't duplicate. Or Deathfun's.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: deathfun on April 01, 2013, 05:20:45 pm
Opened up IE (most recent update) in Windows 7. I've got the same as I have in Firefox, upside down emoticons and disappearing cursors

I think it's rather neat though. Everyone having a different experience


http://www.twitch.tv/deathfun/b/385386900
Proof! I ain't crazy!
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Aardwolf on April 01, 2013, 05:24:17 pm
So uh... I notice that I still have the "Kick Ass" button from last year as well. Wait, does that mean the sparkly unicorns thing was actually two years ago?
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Mongoose on April 01, 2013, 05:28:49 pm
Well that's bizarre...I wasn't getting any of the upside-down or disappearing cursor stuff an hour or so ago, but now I am.  Maybe I was working off the cache until now.

And the Kick Ass button has been here continuously since last year, because most people thought it was cool, and it didn't get in the way of anything. :p
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Apollo on April 01, 2013, 05:49:35 pm
I'm getting the upside down smileys and the disappearing cursors (the buttons are also slightly blurry).

GOOBER
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Klaustrophobia on April 01, 2013, 06:39:56 pm
i get the upside down smileys (frownies?) and disappearing cursor, but no blurry buttons.  had the growing fonts but that seems to have been turned off.  that one became a bit annoying when reading posts longer than a couple of sentences. 

do the images still list?

(http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b345/Klaustrophobia/expression/indeed.png)
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Sandwich on April 01, 2013, 06:46:09 pm
Ok, just to set the record straight:

Goober did the word mix-up thing.

I did everything else (listing images, upside-down smileys, blurred buttons, and the growing text which I disabled after a while due to the CPU usage), via CSS. Different browsers support have varying CSS support (not to mention CSS file caching), so that accounts for some of the discrepancy in what everyone experienced. The rest is accounted for by a media query I wrapped everything in, which basically says only to cause the CSS mischief if the browser window height is > 800px.

:D
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: General Battuta on April 01, 2013, 06:51:14 pm
Why don't YOU be in charge of April Fool's in the future.
Title: Lame Re:
Post by: deathfun on April 01, 2013, 06:52:38 pm
Nice toggling feature! Awesome
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Sandwich on April 01, 2013, 06:54:30 pm
Why don't YOU be in charge of April Fool's in the future.

I was planning to this year, but the forums went down when I was going to inform the admins of my plans and ask their opinions, so things got delayed until the night before, when I was finally able to post. Then when Goober saw the thread and saw that I hadn't implemented anything yet, he applied his word-scrambler.

What can I say? We, the admins of HLP, definitely need to plan these things out better. :-/
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: SpardaSon21 on April 01, 2013, 07:08:41 pm
Goober needs to be completely uninvolved in the planning process for forum pranks.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Yarn on April 01, 2013, 07:13:32 pm
The rest is accounted for by a media query I wrapped everything in, which basically says only to cause the CSS mischief if the browser window height is > 800px.
So that's why that stuff wasn't working for me in Firefox! My screen resolution is 1440x900, and I have to go full screen or disable some built-in toolbars for the browser height to reach 800 pixels. Thanks for clarifying!
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Goober5000 on April 01, 2013, 07:17:11 pm
Well, I'm hopeful that my new forum profile feature will put to rest any disputes about this in the future.  I still maintain that the complainers need to get a sense of humor and/or not take things so seriously, but on the other hand the libertarian in me is very sympathetic to the argument that people don't like changes forced on them.  So April Fools Day is now opt-in.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Axem on April 01, 2013, 07:39:05 pm
If only there were April Fools pranks that could be made without messing up the forum. But that's just crazy talk!
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: General Battuta on April 01, 2013, 07:40:23 pm
"Complainers need to get a sense of humor" - Goober5000, author of Deus Ex Machina

"If only there were April Fools pranks that could be made without messing up the forum. But that's just crazy talk!" - Axem, author of Just Another Day

Well folks, you decide
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Goober5000 on April 01, 2013, 07:44:09 pm
I like how you only quoted half of what I said, and left out the detail that I made the scrambler opt-in.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: General Battuta on April 01, 2013, 07:45:05 pm
I trust you'll see the point, dear.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: deathfun on April 01, 2013, 08:01:14 pm
Oh my god this is just too hilarious
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: An4ximandros on April 01, 2013, 08:24:47 pm
This whole scrambler thing reminded me of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuQYCfe_q4Q
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Klaustrophobia on April 01, 2013, 09:01:22 pm
i do feel that the level of rage being thrown at goober is unwarranted.  i smiled when i noticed.  i was JUST about to call someone a blabbering idiot for posting that badly.   and then it was at most a minor annoyance to just not try to communicate on the forums for a while.  granted, i don't work on anything here.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: NGTM-1R on April 01, 2013, 09:13:19 pm
We, the admins of HLP, definitely need to plan these things out better. :-/

The fact you people still don't after some of the disasters that have attended the event scares the hell out of me.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: BloodEagle on April 01, 2013, 09:48:02 pm
We, the admins of HLP, definitely need to plan these things out better. :-/
you people

 :wtf:  :p
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Whitelight on April 01, 2013, 10:24:24 pm
Dang, people.. Its only happens once a year. ease up.  :P

(edit) And, for those of us not upset, carry on.  :D
 
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: watsisname on April 01, 2013, 10:38:54 pm
I liked the word scrambler and upside-down smilies, but the auto-scroll and changing font size is ****ing annoying.

I can appreciate the complaints from those for which this affected workflow and Q&A, and I agree we should have April Fools jokes that aren't so disruptive to actual forum use, or just do nothing.  Maybe do what most websites do and make up a story, like a new feature or campaign release or something that is almost believable.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: karajorma on April 01, 2013, 10:51:56 pm
i do feel that the level of rage being thrown at goober is unwarranted.  i smiled when i noticed.  i was JUST about to call someone a blabbering idiot for posting that badly.   and then it was at most a minor annoyance to just not try to communicate on the forums for a while.  granted, i don't work on anything here.

Well in that case I made sure you don't miss the joke next year by altering your profile settings so that you get the joke next year too. Wouldn't want you to miss out. :p
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: MP-Ryan on April 01, 2013, 11:04:19 pm
I can see how the folks working actively on their project boards would be perturbed, but I actually liked Goober's prank - mostly because I knew it would only last a few hours.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Fury on April 01, 2013, 11:15:39 pm
So April Fools Day is now opt-in.
It's not working even after force-refresh.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: CommanderDJ on April 01, 2013, 11:22:58 pm
Opt-out is working fine here.

The post scrambling was perplexing (and a little annoying), but I genuinely laughed at the emoticons, images and rapidly growing text. I think HLP admins should continue to do pranks, but perhaps collaborate on them beforehand next time. It's all in good fun, and I feel it really fosters a sense of community (even if we're all united in outrage for a few moments). :P
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Rodo on April 01, 2013, 11:50:17 pm
I don't understand the resentment against Goober, this is one of the few sites I frequent and that still retains some of the most clever and unexpected displays of fun for a day such as this. Some others just settle with an image or logo change and that's it, do you want that to happen on HLP as well?
Maybe he went a little too far, but you can think about it as collateral damage :P
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Klaustrophobia on April 02, 2013, 12:02:26 am
i do feel that the level of rage being thrown at goober is unwarranted.  i smiled when i noticed.  i was JUST about to call someone a blabbering idiot for posting that badly.   and then it was at most a minor annoyance to just not try to communicate on the forums for a while.  granted, i don't work on anything here.

Well in that case I made sure you don't miss the joke next year by altering your profile settings so that you get the joke next year too. Wouldn't want you to miss out. :p

gee thanks.  what would i EVER do without your admin powers to fix such things for me? 
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: karajorma on April 02, 2013, 01:11:40 am
Well I did notice you hadn't activated it yourself. And since you're complaining that it's not a big deal, I'd have imagined you'd definitely want to partake. Of course the fact you've gone and turned it back off again pretty much shows how interested you are in putting up with the very thing you're saying that everyone else should put up with.

I don't understand the resentment against Goober

The problem is that this happens every year. And it also used to happen more than once a year too. Some of us have seen variations of this joke more than 20 times. Even a funny joke ceases to be amusing after too many repetitions. And this wasn't a particularly funny joke to start with.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: deathfun on April 02, 2013, 03:54:27 am
I liked the word scrambler and upside-down smilies, but the auto-scroll and changing font size is ****ing annoying.

I can appreciate the complaints from those for which this affected workflow and Q&A, and I agree we should have April Fools jokes that aren't so disruptive to actual forum use, or just do nothing.  Maybe do what most websites do and make up a story, like a new feature or campaign release or something that is almost believable.

Bah
That's too generic
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Terminator on April 02, 2013, 03:58:57 am
I seem to recall a couple years in which forum modifications for April fools day were unable to be easily reverted, resulting in massive nerd rage and conditioned responses that happen every year.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Sandwich on April 02, 2013, 04:25:54 am
Public Service Announcement: The profile option did not affect the CSS pranks I implemented, which is why it, err... didn't affect the CSS pran- bah. Anyway, I've removed those pranks, so force-refresh should get rid of them if you're still seeing them.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Fury on April 03, 2013, 04:36:48 am
Goober, for future reference this is how you do april fools joke: http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=84210.0
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Goober5000 on April 03, 2013, 09:57:09 am
That is indeed a pretty good joke.  I was momentarily taken in myself.

Incidentally, I discovered that XKCD did its own forum manipulation (http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=101106) for April Fools Day, though I didn't actually see it as it happened.  Apparently not only admins but also board moderators could set the board to replace certain words and phrases with others -- the phrases being anything that happened to suit their fancy.  And they did it for five days (3/28-4/1), not a mere 24 hours like we have done.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Fury on April 03, 2013, 11:31:02 am
XKCD doing it doesn't mean it was good.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Lorric on April 03, 2013, 01:48:32 pm
Me, this is my first April Fools here. I've been registered for over a year but simply missed the last one, so I've no idea what if anything occured.

I thought it was another attack on HLP, so I left a warning in the possible virus thread, logged out, and stayed away, and now I've returned.

However, if I understand this correctly, if April Fools admin adjustments are now optional to experience, this should solve any problem now and forever. I personally don't like April Fools, although I do like the news story hoaxes that get cooked up. But others obviously do like April Fools, or it wouldn't exist, so they can opt in and see what wackiness the admins have in store for them, and then everyone can get what they want. The admins get to have their fun without being hassled about it, people who like this kind of joke get to experience it, and people who don't can carry on as normal. So if I have understood right, I think this is a great thing for everyone. I've only just got back, so I'll go and check my profile for this April Fools thing now.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: karajorma on April 03, 2013, 07:49:42 pm
I wish people would stop saying "The Admins" when talking about this issue. Goober and Sandwich like to do it, none of the other admins do and some like me are vehemently opposed to doing it.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Lorric on April 03, 2013, 08:13:25 pm
I wish people would stop saying "The Admins" when talking about this issue. Goober and Sandwich like to do it, none of the other admins do and some like me are vehemently opposed to doing it.

Forgive me. I did not know.

Which reminds me of something. Why do some admins/mods have red/blue names at the bottom of the page which shows who is online, and some just have normal coloured names?

You know, I have noticed we actually agree on many things, Karajorma. I don't think I've ever opposed you on anything. More than once I've seen a topic and been just happy to let you argue your point rather than joining in because it's the same as mine, but you just do it better than I can.

EDIT: I've also been happy to let you "take over for me" before.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Goober5000 on April 03, 2013, 08:31:11 pm
A lot of the "old guard" of admins were on board with April Fools shenanigans.  I mentioned Styxx, but Setekh, Thunder, and Windrunner were also eager to act silly from time to time.  Sandwich is also one of the old guard, by the way.

Regarding colored names, red is for admins, while blue is for global moderators.
Title: Re: Re: Lame
Post by: karajorma on April 03, 2013, 09:55:16 pm
A lot of the "old guard" of admins were on board with April Fools shenanigans.  I mentioned Styxx, but Setekh, Thunder, and Windrunner were also eager to act silly from time to time.  Sandwich is also one of the old guard, by the way.

Things change. The old guard don't come here much. Even Sandwich barely posts on this site any more.

Furthermore the old guard don't even exist any more. Even if they did came back they'd all be fundamentally different people because more than 10 years have passed since those sort of shenanigans. There are several things we stopped doing because they became disruptive, unfriendly or just plain annoying after 10-12 years of constantly doing them. We are not the same people we were 10 years ago. We can't judge what HLP should be like based on what it was like 10 years ago. We can't say that just because we did something 10 years ago we should still be doing it.

The issue isn't whether April Fools was a good idea back then, it's whether the way it's being executed now is something worthwhile. And the attitude of the board seems to be that even the people who say they don't mind it simply don't visit the board on April Fools. We've not seen many people say they like it AND continue to stay on the board. So if the goal is to drive people away, why not simply replace the entire forum with a big sign saying "Come back tomorrow" and call that a humorous joke?

If on the other hand the idea is to entertain and amuse people, why not do something that actually make people want to come to the site? A successful April Fools joke is one that you want to share with other people. Do you think anyone has ever said "You should register on HLP today! they've ****ed up the CSS, it's so funny!"
Title: Re: Re: Lame
Post by: Goober5000 on April 03, 2013, 10:55:49 pm
Furthermore the old guard don't even exist any more. Even if they did came back they'd all be fundamentally different people because more than 10 years have passed since those sort of shenanigans. There are several things we stopped doing because they became disruptive, unfriendly or just plain annoying after 10-12 years of constantly doing them. We are not the same people we were 10 years ago. We can't judge what HLP should be like based on what it was like 10 years ago. We can't say that just because we did something 10 years ago we should still be doing it.
I think you read a little too much into my comment.  Naturally there are a lot of things different between now and then, some for the better, some for the worse.  Change happens.  But through that change, there's something to be said for keeping traditions.  Just because the people mature, or Real Life intervenes, or new members arrive and old ones leave, doesn't preclude that.


I wish you could understand that the issue is not the presence or absence of April Fool's shenanigans. The issue is that you executed them badly and without particular wit.
I already agreed with you here (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=84214.msg1682213#msg1682213).  My point was that the moderatorship and populace of the XKCD forums were willing to tolerate a disruption in the forum discussions, whereas HLP's membership and some of the admins reacted strongly against it.  (To play my own devil's advocate, rearranging the sentences in a post, which in some cases also affected the bbcode, is a lot more disruptive than just replacing phrases.)

As far as the execution goes, what often happens is that either April Fools isn't discussed, or it's discussed but nobody can think of a good idea, or someone thinks of a good idea but can't implement it in time.  Then April Fools rolls around and I think that at least something should be done, so I whip up some sort of forum manipulation in the PHP code.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: jg18 on April 03, 2013, 11:34:03 pm
I think the option to opt out of April Fool's Day modifications should be removed. If the modifications are sufficiently annoying/disruptive to enough people that there needs to be an opt-out option, something is seriously wrong with the modifications and they should not be used at all. April Fool's Day pranks shouldn't make a significant number of forum members (let alone guests) wish the pranks weren't there.


Furthermore the old guard don't even exist any more. Even if they did came back they'd all be fundamentally different people because more than 10 years have passed since those sort of shenanigans. There are several things we stopped doing because they became disruptive, unfriendly or just plain annoying after 10-12 years of constantly doing them. We are not the same people we were 10 years ago. We can't judge what HLP should be like based on what it was like 10 years ago. We can't say that just because we did something 10 years ago we should still be doing it.
I think you read a little too much into my comment.  Naturally there are a lot of things different between now and then, some for the better, some for the worse.  Change happens.  But through that change, there's something to be said for keeping traditions.  Just because the people mature, or Real Life intervenes, or new members arrive and old ones leave, doesn't preclude that.

Depends on whether the traditions in question are worth keeping, or worth keeping in their original form.


I wish you could understand that the issue is not the presence or absence of April Fool's shenanigans. The issue is that you executed them badly and without particular wit.
I already agreed with you here (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=84214.msg1682213#msg1682213).  My point was that the moderatorship and populace of the XKCD forums were willing to tolerate a disruption in the forum discussions, whereas HLP's membership and some of the admins reacted strongly against it.  (To play my own devil's advocate, rearranging the sentences in a post, which in some cases also affected the bbcode, is a lot more disruptive than just replacing phrases.)

As far as the execution goes, what often happens is that either April Fools isn't discussed, or it's discussed but nobody can think of a good idea, or someone thinks of a good idea but can't implement it in time.  Then April Fools rolls around and I think that at least something should be done, so I whip up some sort of forum manipulation in the PHP code.

I'm not too familiar with the xkcd forums, but do they include something analogous to community projects and tech support for said projects? My impression from the OP in that xkcd forums thread is that the discussions there aren't especially pressing:
Quote
If you can't possibly tolerate your VERY IMPORTANT DISCUSSIONS on a webcomic forum being momentarily disrupted, I suggest taking this opportunity to go outside, take a walk, knit a sweater, [...] Shoo.

As for planning, well, umm... start earlier? And maybe no prank is better than a problematic one?

The sentence shuffling was amusing for about two minutes, until I realized it was impossible to get anything done while it was active.

I mentioned to Iss Mneur a few months ago that the wxL Team should do something for April Fool's. I came up with a few ideas before settling on the one we used.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Klaustrophobia on April 04, 2013, 12:10:04 am
I think the option to opt out of April Fool's Day modifications should be removed. If the modifications are sufficiently annoying/disruptive to enough people that there needs to be an opt-out option, something is seriously wrong with the modifications and they should not be used at all. April Fool's Day pranks shouldn't make a significant number of forum members (let alone guests) wish the pranks weren't there.


seriously?  the old "I don't like it so no one should get it" reasoning?  the entire purpose of the opt out button is to make it so that the pranks no longer affect you.  and you propose removing this feature, and then further removing the pranks because now they affect you? 

 :banghead:
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: jg18 on April 04, 2013, 12:15:14 am
I think the option to opt out of April Fool's Day modifications should be removed. If the modifications are sufficiently annoying/disruptive to enough people that there needs to be an opt-out option, something is seriously wrong with the modifications and they should not be used at all. April Fool's Day pranks shouldn't make a significant number of forum members (let alone guests) wish the pranks weren't there.

seriously?  the old "I don't like it so no one should get it" reasoning?  the entire purpose of the opt out button is to make it so that the pranks no longer affect you.  and you propose removing this feature, and then further removing the pranks because now they affect you? 

 :banghead:

No, it's the "a lot of people don't like it so it's probably a bad idea and shouldn't be done at all" reasoning. Maybe some of the modifications pass this test and thus should be forced on everyone, even if they aren't exceptionally funny.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Klaustrophobia on April 04, 2013, 12:33:22 am
the point here is that the opt-out option now makes it such that people that don't like it can choose not to be affected by it AT ALL.  thus, there is no reason for a blanket ban on shenanigans, and anyone still yelling about it is frankly just looking for something to argue about.  hell, make it opt-in instead of out and now you have to actively choose to participate.  absolutely no one will be taken by surprise next year.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: NGTM-1R on April 04, 2013, 12:35:19 am
the point here is that the opt-out option now makes it such that people that don't like it can choose not to be affected by it AT ALL.

If you require an opt-out option to keep the forum civil for this sort of thing, you've already lost.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: General Battuta on April 04, 2013, 12:37:49 am
I think it's actively opt-in right now, inn't
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: jg18 on April 04, 2013, 12:45:00 am
The box is currently unchecked in my profile, so it's opt-in.

And I don't have a problem with shenanigans, as long as they're funny or at the very least as long as they don't make using the forums highly unpleasant (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=84222.msg1682083#msg1682083) or impossible (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=84222.msg1681967#msg1681967).
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Scourge of Ages on April 04, 2013, 12:47:22 am
And I don't have a problem with shenanigans, as long as they're funny or at the very least as long as they don't make using the forums highly unpleasant or impossible.

This! (fwiw).
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Qent on April 04, 2013, 01:46:49 am
Opted in. I'm kind of sad that I missed this year's; does anyone have screenshots of the muddling?
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: deathfun on April 04, 2013, 03:24:17 am
Opted in. I'm kind of sad that I missed this year's; does anyone have screenshots of the muddling?

I had a twitch video (few pages back) of the upside down smileys, but not the word jumble
Which I found hilarious just fyi
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: FreeSpaceFreak on April 04, 2013, 04:08:05 am
And I don't have a problem with shenanigans, as long as they're funny or at the very least as long as they don't make using the forums highly unpleasant (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=84222.msg1682083#msg1682083) or impossible (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=84222.msg1681967#msg1681967).
This. The sentence shuffler put me off, as it made posts completely unreadable. So I decided to skip HLP for the day... and apparently missed out on some lovely CSS silliness, which I would've liked to witness :(

Last years' (?) ponies were a good example of how (IMHO) an April Fools' joke should be: didn't make the forums unusable, yet gave me a good laugh.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: karajorma on April 04, 2013, 04:48:01 am
My point was that the moderatorship and populace of the XKCD forums were willing to tolerate a disruption in the forum discussions, whereas HLP's membership and some of the admins reacted strongly against it.  (To play my own devil's advocate, rearranging the sentences in a post, which in some cases also affected the bbcode, is a lot more disruptive than just replacing phrases.)

I'm sure the 12th time that happened they would appreciate it less though. What you simply don't seem to get is that the joke is OLD. It's no longer funny. You'll notice that very few people who have actually been on HLP for long are the ones who like the joke. Those of us who have been here a while have seen it past the point it was funny.

And unlike XKCD this is not a matter of not being able to talk about Freespace. People sick of the forum modifications don't visit HLP and don't work on their projects as a result. The motto of HLP is supposed to be Bringing Modders Together, not Driving Modders Away Cause of Stupid Bull****.

Quote
As far as the execution goes, what often happens is that either April Fools isn't discussed, or it's discussed but nobody can think of a good idea, or someone thinks of a good idea but can't implement it in time.  Then April Fools rolls around and I think that at least something should be done, so I whip up some sort of forum manipulation in the PHP code.

So if that happens then we don't do anything that year. Cause if April Fools is of so little importance that it can't be discussed a week ahead of time, it's not important at all. There's always someone who plans something. Quite often the stupid forum hacks only have the effect of ruining a much funnier joke. The whole wxLauncher gag for instance would have been completely ruined by the hack you added.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: redsniper on April 04, 2013, 10:37:37 am
For next year's April Fool's we should go back to the original HLP board style...

And then leave it that way because red on black was awesome.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Sandwich on April 04, 2013, 02:36:27 pm
I think this thread has run its course. We will avoid any April Fool's pranks that adversely affect the functional operation of the forum from now on, and for those of you who are true party poopers, we have the forum profile thing (which you're lucky Goober initiated, because I would have made it opt-out instead of opt-in).

That is all.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: karajorma on April 04, 2013, 07:52:22 pm
Sorry, but you can't decide that everyone who doesn't agree with you is a party pooper. It was exactly this attitude from Goober's comments that initiated a lot of the ire expressed towards him on this thread.

Now you're going to come along and do the exact same thing?
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: Sandwich on April 05, 2013, 07:10:04 pm
Sorry, but you can't decide that everyone who doesn't agree with you is a party pooper. It was exactly this attitude from Goober's comments that initiated a lot of the ire expressed towards him on this thread.

Now you're going to come along and do the exact same thing?

Erm, no. As I said, we'll avoid April Fools pranks that adversely affect the functionality of the forum. Beyond that, if someone doesn't want to see harmless upside-down smileys or the like, they don't have to opt-in. It's those people, who don't even want to see upside-down smileys, that I was referring to as "party poopers", not everyone who doesn't agree with me.
Title: Re: Lame
Post by: karajorma on April 05, 2013, 08:47:35 pm
Fair enough then.