SmashWiki:April Fools'
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This page documents an unofficial SmashWiki policy, a widely accepted standard that people should expect (like the Spanish Inquisition). Slightly more importantly: This page contains material that is kept because it is considered humorous. Please do not take it seriously. |
SmashWiki enjoys April Fools' Day. To us, it is a day of shenanigans where most rules are optional and the only goal is to have fun.
Guidelines
Any established user is free to participate in the festivities. Note however that while the rules are much more lax, they do still exist. When making an April Fools' edit, apply common sense, and think about whether the page still presents information that it is supposed to, despite the changed wording of the paragraphs you are going to edit. Failure to adhere to these guidelines may result in a block (depending on severity, a warning may be issued first) for the rest of the April Fools' festivities. Attempts to circumvent this block will result in a permanent one.
What makes a good April Fools' joke
- A piece of readable satire, preferably built off what is already in the page, that would be considered funny by users with a half-decent sense of humor.
- Jokes that connect with the theme of the main joke. NIWA-wide jokes are also great where possible.
What makes a bad April Fools' joke
- Violent, sexual, or otherwise inappropriate content, especially pertaining to real people (including SmashWiki contributors and professional smashers).
- Blatant removal of relevant information or replacing large amounts of text with one-line jokes.
- Short, nonsensical trivia points or sentences which are notoriously difficult to find and remove without scrutiny of the Recent Changes.
- Replacing one word with another, or replacing all instances of a word or phrase with another.
- Ruining the format or readability of the page. This includes:
- Writing illegible "engrish" or using unreadable fonts such as Wingdings.
- Using color in a way that makes text hard or impossible to read.
- Using obnoxiously large or small font sizes.
- Breaking included templates, images, categories, and so on.
- Overly complex or inside jokes.
Other considerations
- Everyone is expected to clean up their own mess. Concurrently:
- You may not create pages or upload images unless you have the ability to delete them afterwards.
- You may not move pages unless you can move them back and delete the resulting redirect.
- If you wish to do something contrary to the above, you may ask an admin for permission. You will be asked to show proof of effort; for example, an indication that the page you wish to create is more than a few hasty sentences.
- Do not be a spoilsport. Don't interrupt or overwrite others' jokes; synergize them instead if possible.
- Do not do anything that would take significant effort to clean up afterwards. Anything more than a few undos is probably too much.
- Do not start anything new once most of the day is over. The average April Fools' joke is most visible in the morning.
- Do not prank this page in any way.
- Do not make prank reports on the Administrators' noticeboard.
Specific prank targets
Main page
Traditionally, the main page is where the main joke of the wiki is done by the administrators. While the main page itself cannot be edited by other users, some of its constituent templates can be.
News
Adding fake news items is a simple joke, such as fake Smash Bros. characters being revealed, or fake games being listed in the "upcoming games" section. However, note that simplicity leads to over-saturation, and these sections can end up quite inflated after a time. If the list is already rather large, consider not adding to it any more.
"Did you know" section
Chances are, this section will be converted to match the main page's theme, but others may add to it as appropriate. As above, it is easy for this to become too large, and discretion is advised.
Mainspace
It is acceptable to make joke edits in the mainspace. However, there are some restrictions on doing so.
- Joke edits should be major and obvious. Re-writing a paragraph to turn it from "serious" to "parody" is okay. Changing a single word from "Mario" to "Wario" is not.
- Joke edits should fit a theme, preferably the theme of the wiki's main joke, though it can also be a theme that the user spreads across several similar pages. Remember, you are expected to clean up your own mess afterward.
Userspace
Users are free to do almost whatever to their userpages.
Other namespaces
Generally, the functionality of the wiki should remain mostly intact. Therefore, no jokes are allowed in templates or categories, and admins may not alter the MediaWiki namespace in ways that disrupt the wiki's functionality.
Timing
Generally, the main wiki joke as done by staff is launched between European midnight and American midnight, and can be considered a "go!" signal for other users to begin. In the same way, once the main page is back to normal (probably about 24 hours later), everything else should be put back in order.
Past April Fools' jokes
Note that users making fools of their own userpages are in general not important enough to be listed here. This is more meant for wiki-wide pranks.
2013
In 2013, it was announced that the wiki would be turning into a French-language wiki. The main page and all its constituent templates were translated to suit. In addition, several of the links were replaced with links to either the Wombo Combo page or the related video.
2014
In 2014, several pranks were pulled by various users:
- The wiki's main skin was modified to resemble the Hot Dog Stand skin of Windows 3.1, with garish red and yellow backgrounds with red, yellow, white, and black text. Earlier iterations surrounded links in a black background, but this was removed after usability complaints.
- The main page's featured article focused on one of the least useful stickers in Brawl (the Panel sticker, Food Effect +2), focusing on useless technical information.
- The Smash Bros. News section claimed that Wreck-It Ralph would be playable in the upcoming SSB4 with Vanellope Von Schweetz as an Assist Trophy; the news item claimed this was from a Nintendo Direct and linked to a Rickroll.
- Another news item linked to another site's April Fools' joke: a SSB4 website spoof that claimed to reveal Nester as playable.
- The NIWA News' "upcoming games" section was expanded to include several (in some cases, at the time) nonexistent games, mostly of reputable fan demand: Majora's Mask 3D, Pokémon Generation III remakes, Mother 4, Super Mario Sunshine 2, Star Fox and F-Zero games for Wii U, Elite Beat Agents 2, and Banjo-Threeie. "Pokémon Rose and Lily Versions" was later added to match with Bulbapedia's joke about the next Pokémon games occurring in a Canadian-styled region. Later in the day several other users added increasingly more ludicrous titles.
2015
In 2015, the wiki became SmashRiki in honor of Riki, a character from Xenoblade Chronicles who appears as an Assist Trophy in SSB4. The main page was changed to match Riki's speaking style, and the color scheme changed to Riki's colors.
- Like the year before, the NIWA News' "upcoming games" included several nonexistent games.
- "Did you know" was replaced with some made-up facts from Riki.
Due to a Nintendo Direct set to air later in the day, the wiki was put back to normal ahead of schedule, and the news template remained untouched throughout the day.
2016
In 2016, SmashWiki joined the Super Mario Wiki and Pikipedia in announcing a fake Nintendo Cinematic Universe, with "The Smashers" being one of its films. Aside from these pages and typical unusual things being added to the main page and articles, no major stunts were pulled.
2017
PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale is the main featured article. No other aesthetics were shown.
2018
The main page is rewritten to be in Toomarian, a reference to a Star Trek episode involving a language (Tamarian) completely composed of memes and references.
Separate from the main joke, several other large-scale jokes were put up on the wiki; most notably, users Aidanzapunk and BaconMastre collaborated to create content for Super Smash Bros. 4 from the Dragon Ball universe, including main protagonist Son Goku as a playable character, and Planet Namek as a stage. Additionally, user Awesomelink234 created a fake playable character page for Shadow the Hedgehog in the then-unnamed Super Smash Bros. for the Nintendo Switch. These pages were uploaded to the mainspace of the wiki, and replicated how other real content pages would look.
2019
The main page is themed after Randall the Cloud, the cloud featured on the Yoshi's Story stage in Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. The maintenance icons were replaced with a fanmade Pokémon named "Trollbat" (a mashup of the Pokémon Golbat and the Trollface), created in tandem with the SmashWiki's Discord server being themed entirely around an emoji under the same name (and other troll-face emojis based on Kirby and Sonic being added). As with the previous year, several fake fighter pages were made separate from the main joke, including Jiashen C. making a fake fighter page for Waluigi, and Awesomelink234 making another fake fighter page, this time for Jotaro Kujo from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.
2020
The wiki was themed after Captain Falcon (formatted as CAPTAIN DOUGLAS JAY FALCON), with Captain Falcon being the featured article and all of the text on his page and on the main page capitalized. Several other widespread jokes were made:
- Like April Fools' jokes from previous years, several users have created fake fighter pages:
- OmegaToad64 brought Frisk into Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as the second DLC fighter for the Fighter Pass Vol. 2, and upgraded the minor Undertale universe into a major universe.
- Cookies and Creme created a fake fighter page for SpongeBob SquarePants, who would be replacing the unnamed ARMS character in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
- DracoRexKing created a fake fighter page for the Angry Video Game Nerd as a free DLC character after Spring Man.
- Thegameandwatch made a fake smash game called Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo Switch, a port of Smash 4.
- The NIWA News' "upcoming games" section had the titles changed for the current upcoming games listed, such as Persona 5 Royal becoming "Edgy Dagger Schoolboy Remake", and Final Fantasy VII Remake becoming "Cloud Strife Does Yet Another Cashgrab". Later "EarthBound: Down Under" was added to match with WikiBound's joke that the next installment in the EarthBound series would be a crossover between EarthBound and Undertale.
- Many other pages were pranked in various ways. For example, Sans and Knuckles the Echidna were pranked by many users, Pokémon Trainer was pranked by Darthrai, the protagonist from Persona 3 was pranked by Aidanzapunk (in collaboration with Hinata) to be centered around the famous "Door-kun" meme, Joker and Byleth were pranked by Thegameandwatch, TotallyNotAutomated turned Terry's page into one for Terry Hintz complete with changing the special moves, and Cloud's page was pranked by OldLink5 to have references to actual clouds. Other pages were left unchanged aside from image changes.
