Wikipedia:April Fools/April Fools' Day 2019/The Great April Fools' Day Edit War of 2019

Edit warring is prohibited even on April Fool's Day; editors who edit war will be blocked. The two Great Edit Wars occurred before there was consensus to apply this rule to April Fools Day pages. This page is preserved solely as an archive of past conduct necessitating this rule; nothing on this page is meant to promote or encourage future edit wars.

This page contains material that is considered humorous. Such material is not meant to be taken seriously.

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Since 2004, it has been a Wikipedia tradition to play a few pranks every April 1st and then record them in a centralized location for future editors to enjoy. These jokes were first gathered together in BJAODN and then Wikipedia:April Fools, but were eventually given their own stand-alone page. The jokes on these pages tend to fall into three core categories: joke deletions, joke nominations, and miscellaneous. Over the years, the miscellaneous category has been given several names. However, in 2014 the miscellaneous section was labeled “General Tomfoolery”; this section title has been in use ever since.

In 2015, an editor changed the name of the section to “General Jerryfoolery” (in reference to Tom and Jerry, a popular cartoon series). The change was repeated in 2016, and resulted in a minor (but friendly) edit war that was repeated in 2017 and 2018.

The 2019 page was created in the late evening of March 31; a section for miscellaneous pranks was quickly created with the title “General Jerryfoolery”. Another editor tried changing it to the standard “General Tomfoolery” but was soon reverted. The ensuing struggle to control the section name resulted in the creation of over one-hundred different titles by the first hour of April 2nd. This article contains a chronology of the changes made to the section title and attempts to document a truly hilarious moment in our community’s history.

In 2020, it was repeated, but on a far larger scale and without the hilarity, affecting the entire page. Additional edit wars included copy pasting whole pages, increasing text sizes to massive proportions, altering width, skew, and rotation of the page, hosting a nature reserve, and much, much more, however, with the exception of the Foolery headline, the edit wars mostly stopped because the page was protected and certain guidelines were made for those that could still edit, resulting in the 2020 edit war ending in a more friendly edit war than its first 3 hours.

Evening of March 31

• Before "General Tomfoolery" was even on the April Fools page, it was changed to "General Jerryfoolery".
• The edit summary also stated that "General Tomfoolery" was "no longer invisible”.
• Then it got secretly changed back.

April Fools Day

• And then it was changed back to "General Jerryfoolery". Edit summary: "Tom will never catch Jerry. Accept it."
• Jerry was flipped upside-down for a bit before being reverted.
• Then it was changed to "General Seinfeldfoolery" under the rationale "Festivus is now officially celebrated on May 22".
• Then it was reverted.
• And then it was changed to general relativity.
• Then it was reverted.
• A request was made for permanent WP:BLACKLOCK on this page due to an obvious edit war.
  • Result was Fully Protected for a period of 9 billion years.
• In response to the above request, the title of the section was changed to "General TomAndJerryPlusSomeSeinfeldAndABitOfGeneralRelativityfoolery" as a compromise.
• This was reverted. Edit summary: Jerry will win the edit war.
  • This is recognized as the official declaration of the Great April Fools' Day Edit War.
• The title was changed to "General Kenobi." The Jedi shall prevail!
• The title was then changed to "General CrabRave-ery" (possibly in reference to the 2018 song of the same name).
• The title was changed back to “General Jerryfoolery”.
• The title was changed back to General Kenobi, but he was unfortunately demoted to Colonel.
• The title was changed back to "General Tomfoolery/Jerryfoolery/[BLANK]foolery (please stop disputing over this!!)"
• The title was changed to “No.”
• The No was then boldened and enlarged.
• And then it flipped everyone off by flipping.
• And then it became Yes and was colored #666, only to be reverted back to "No". (This is getting intense!)
• And then Smash Mouth - All Star was annihilated. Seriously?
• And then the title became not a title anymore.
• And then it was changed back to "General Jerryfoolery" but "with a hint of Crab Rave" was added.
• Which was demoted to "Private First Class Jerryfoolery with a hint of Crab Rave" for dereliction of duty.
• A No. was added. It's still flipping everyone off by flipping.
• The "No." was converted to a "Yes!" on the grounds that Wikipedia should be a positive place.
• It was then classified.
• It was then expunged by the SCP Foundation.
• It was then edited to "public static final first class Jerryfoolery extends Tomfoolery implements Expunged, SectionHeader, FlippedYesExclamation", likely in an attempt to appease all the edit warring parties.
• The upside down text was then deleted. ;-(
• It was then edited to "public static final first class Jerryfoolery extends Tomfoolery implements Expunged 3 & Knuckles with a side of macaroni and General Kenobi to the power of Graham's number plus one".
• It was then put between "Super" and "director's cut limited edition".
• It was then replaced with "Maybe so".
• It was then replaced with "GNU General Public Tomfoolery".
• Which was promptly replaced with "GNU General Public Jerryfoolery".
• All the previous text was crossed out per WP:MADCUZBAD, WP:IDONTLIKEIT, and meta:meta:meta.
• This was reverted.
• The title became "GNU General Public TomandBen Jerryfoolery (Now with more egg!)".
• The title then vanished, leaving only a dot.
• The title became "Tom and Ben and Jerry's foolery," but the "foolery" was expunged by the SCP Foundation.
• This section was then declared SCP-846566657465717565836589657865678270 by the SCP Foundation, named after the HTML character codes corresponding to the string "TABAJAGKASAYANACRF", an acronym for Tom and Ben and Jerry and General Kenobi and Seinfeld and Yes and No and Crab Rave's foolery.
• And it ended being changed to "BenandTom Jerryfoolery."
• Then it became its own country.
• The title got changed to General Motors.
• And then it became "All of the Trickery of Oganesson Sobble".
• And then the Oganesson Sobble became SCP-846566657465717565836589657865678270 again.
• The section title was made pink for no particular reason, then it was made unpinked for no particular reason.
• Then it became "The Gen 8 Female Trainer angrily yelling at the Oganesson Sobble".
• Then it got changed to... Ahem, lets see here... "Jerryfoolery extends Tomfoolery implements Expunged, SectionHeader, FlippedYesExclamation, SCP846566657465717565836589657865678270, Acronyms, Seinfeld, 🅱enandTom, IDONTLIKEIT, EditWar, Madness, The Purge, WingDingsText, StuffEditorsForgotToPutHere (now including egg) WAH WAH WAH WAH Aka: How I learned to kill Wikipedia, Cyberspace, and all other foolery of the Oganesson Sobble on a stick".

• That's a mouthful.

• It's now... *inhales deeply* "Jerryfoolery extends Tomfoolery implements Expunged, SectionHeader, FlippedYesExclamation, SCP846566657465717565836589657865678270, Acronyms, Seinfeld, 🅱enandTom, IDONTLIKEIT, EditWar, Madness, The Purge, WingDingsText, StuffEditorsForgotToPutHere (now including egg, (part of a complete breakfast)) WAH WAH WAH WAH Aka: How I learned to kill Wikipedia, Cyberspace, and all other foolery of the Nobelium Scorbunny. Cyberspace is Most important, don’t kill it!  On a Stick!!!!!! NO!!! HOW DARE YOU DENY THE STICK?!?! Corporate Sign is supposed to be on the stick!!!!! With ice cream? With the Nobelium Scorbunny and Farancium Grookey."

• An editor plays the greatest prank yet in the ongoing edit war by changing the title to "Other pranks."
• Then it was just "Hell".
• It got blanked.
• Then it was “Qeej Hlub Koj”. (What does that even mean?)
  • This list was split off from the April Fool’s 2019 page at 10:22 PM. All changes after this were recorded right here on this very page!
• Then it was Spikefoolery.
• Then it was
  Skewed beyond recognition
• Then it was YouTube downloader.
• Then it was Copyright Strike downloader.
• Then it was the Bee Movie Script.
• Then it was blanked. Again. Not literally.
• Then it was "Jerryfoolery extends Tomfoolery implements Expunged, SectionHeader, FlippedYesExclamation, SCP846566657465717565836589657865678270, Acronyms, Seinfeld, 🅱enandTom, IDONTLIKEIT, EditWar, Madness, The Purge, WingDingsText, StuffEditorsForgotToPutHere (now including egg) WAH WAH WAH WAH Aka: How I learned to kill Wikipedia, Cyberspace, and all other foolery of the Oganesson Sobble on a stick". That's a mouthful. It's now... *inhales deeply* "Jerryfoolery extends Tomfoolery implements Expunged, SectionHeader, FlippedYesExclamation, SCP846566657465717565836589657865678270, Acronyms, Seinfeld, 🅱enandTom, IDONTLIKEIT, EditWar, Madness, The Purge, WingDingsText, StuffEditorsForgotToPutHere (now including egg, (part of a complete breakfast)) WAH WAH WAH WAH Aka: How I learned to kill Wikipedia, Cyberspace, and all other foolery of the Nobelium Scorbunny. Cyberspace is Most important, don’t kill it! On a Stick!!!!!! NO!!! HOW DARE YOU DENY THE STICK?!?! Corporate Sign is supposed to be on the stick!!!!! With ice cream? With the Nobelium Scorbunny and Farancium Grookey Youtube Downloader Bee aCopyright strike article 13 general kenobi AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA ejiwopijpo trji-osgiopjer trewh-ohnio pdpoih siohpgreiophwiuh5h98wtnifwij or- ej0whu t8549whoi jfds0j9-t0 j-3429h yeuwi-trnj eiwj-t 5iuhy5-9j 98-u 98u t589uyhrenjidfs9 80" Jesus Christ, and it wasn't even put in correctly.
• NOT THE BEES!
• Then it was reverted to the previous monstrosity and made worse.
• And then it was made even WORSE. I tried linking it, but it's not worth it.
• It was then "Jerryfoolery extends Tomfoolery implements Expunged, SectionHeader, FlippedYesExclamation, SCP846566657465717565836589657865678270, Acronyms, Seinfeld, 🅱enandTom, IDONTLIKEIT, EditWar, Madness, The Purge, WingDingsText, StuffEditorsForgotToPutHere (now including egg) WAH WAH WAH WAH Aka: How I learned to kill Wikipedia, Cyberspace, and all other foolery of the Oganesson Sobble on a stick". That's a mouthful." Well at least it's not as bad as before.
• Then it was the Gettysburg address.
• Then it was Dr. Strangelove.
• Then the whole page was deleted so I guess it's over.
• The deletion was undone, and the section title was replaced by the Gettysburg Address again.
• Then it was a plea for Jimbo to save us all.
• Then it was a small m.
• Then it was referring to a head of a guy that will randomly pop up from the left side of the screen.
  • Someone commented using a third level title that it was Jimbo.
    • Doesn't look like him but ok.
      • Yeah, it was Jimbo. I can't remember where I got the template from though. A Dolphin (squeek?) 14:46, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
• Then it was the part of Shrek when Donkey flies with pixie dust.
• "SUPER SMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASH BURRRRROOTHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!"

• Then it was about the fate of poor Waluigi in Super Smash Brothers.

• Ya like Jazz?
• Then it was "Yeet".

• which was then linked to the "Duck Song" on YouTube.

• Then it was "No. The sun is a deadly lazer".

• Not any more there's a blanket!

• Then it went full circle back to General Tomfoolery.

• General Tomfoolery Blankets.

• General Jerryfoolery Blankets.

• General Spikefoolery Blankets.

• General Snoopyfoolery Blankets.

• General Woodstockfoolery Blankets.

• Oh, Good Grief!

• AAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!

• Then it was Thomasfoolery.
• "Thanks to everyone who helped make this the most cancerous April Fool’s Day yet; it was an honor edit warring with you all" -No problem Eagle!
• Then it was Percyfoolery.

• With more egg!

• Then it was a Star Wars joke.
• Then the Oganesson Sobble returned and took over Mars, dethroning the King of Mars.
• Then it became "Gonna go biking for a bit, do your worst while I'm gone".
• Then it was changed to "General Jar Jar Binksfoolery".
  • Then it was edited to read "General Jar Jar Binksfoolery & Knuckles with a hint of egg + the Oganesson Sobble".
    • And then Cyberspace took over.
• That was changed to "Happy April Fools Day Everyone!".
• Then it was reverted to "General Jar Jar Binksfoolery & Knuckles with a hint of egg + the Oganesson Sobble, both of which have been taken over by Cyberspace (but then cyberspace was destroyed by the Nobelium Scorbunny)".
• And then it became "General Tomfoolery".
• At 11:58 PM, it was changed to "Happy April Fools Day!".
• At 11:59 PM, 7_qz changed it to "General Tom/Jerry/Oganesson Sobble foolery + egg" and it stayed that way for the final minute of April Fools Day. This was the final result: .

First hour of April 2

• At 12:00 AM, It became an awful joke that in no way could be considered funny.
  • That wasn't a joke, it was a failed attempt to reclaim the title line in the final seconds of April Fools Day.
• Later, it became a watermelon.
• ITS STILL APRIL FIRST HERE IN THE STATES!
• And then it became "General Kakyoinfoolery".
• And back to "General Tom/Jerry/Oganesson Sobble foolery + egg".
• Then "General Uncle Samfoolery".
• Then back to "General Kakyoinfoolery".
• Then to General Kaijufoolery.
• And finally as suggested, it will permanently be named ""The section title of the article that people kept edit warring over" foolery".

The rest of April Fools'

See here.

References