I love a good prank, but I hate long-distance April Fool's jokes. They
often have far-reaching consequences. A friend of mine is a curator at a
public aquarium and a well-known author of books about fish-keeping. One
of the aquarium hobby magazines had the stupid tradition of publishing
an April Fool's article each year, and he took the assignment to write
the one for that year. His article stated ridiculous things as fact, as
expected.
My friend came to regret writing the article because he later found the
various pieces of baloney he wrote being quoted in scientific articles,
listing him as the source! This was even though he stated at the end of
the article that it was all an April Fool's joke. Many of April Fool's
articles in that magazine didn't even state that, and left the reader to
figure it out. Many did not. People aren't always smart enough and they
don't always read every word in an article.
In another incident, someone I know is a well-known collector of
aquarium literature. He has a huge collection of books, magazines,
manuscripts, including lots of rare and antique items. When there was a
large flood in his region, someone posted an April Fool's joke that the
guy's basement had flooded and destroyed nearly his entire collection.
(He had no flood and was unaware of the post.) People from all over the
world began sending condolences, offers of money, and offers to send
extra copies of books they had to rebuild his collection. The poor guy
got swamped with these offers and had no idea why. A lot of people
wasted time and energy on the matter.
Just yesterday, I know of someone who was scheduled to travel to speak
in front of a group next week. He posted a public note in their forum
saying that something happened and he would not be able to speak after
all. The group was in a panic and had already started scrambling to find
a replacement speaker before the realization came that it was an April
Fool's prank.
My advice is to never publish something in public print or online as an
April Fool's joke. April Fool's jokes should be reserved for in-person
situations, where you can let the victim know face-to-face that they've
been fooled, and all have a good laugh about it. When you post it out
to the world, you have no idea who will see it, who will believe it, nor
whether they will ever see the impending retraction.
Mike Wickham
On 4/1/2013 12:26 PM, John Garison wrote:
http://bit.ly/10rnwnO
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