When the wiki destroyed Tokyo

April 6, 2004 10:48 PM

mathowie : "... it was total unbridled chaos. I’ve never seen a wiki be so destructive." I blame John Bonham.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken to MetaFilter-Related at 10:48 PM (10 comments total)

I have to admit that when I opened up MetaFilter that morning, I thought it had been hacked. Took a screen shot and went on with my work for the day. Kind of missed the whole idea, I suppose. Anyway, I'm always pleasantly surprised at the the intelligence, curious mind, and good nature of our host Mr. Haughey.
posted by _sirmissalot_ at 11:02 PM on April 6, 2004

I stopped in just after he made the change over, and couldn't stop laughing when I hit the WiKi page. Everytime you refreshed there was a new crazed screed. To quote someone else, MeFi went "batshit insane".
posted by Salmonberry at 11:14 PM on April 6, 2004

Chelsea Clinton is unbelievably sexy and I want to marry her. I have found these pictures of her, OMG! She is SO hot!


wtf?
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 1:02 AM on April 7, 2004

I missed the point too, sirmissalot; I loaded the page once, read it in bafflement, and decided it was an obscure joke that had just gone over my head. I didn't notice any editing controls and it didn't occur to me to try loading it again later. Oh well.
posted by Mars Saxman at 1:29 AM on April 7, 2004

worst. mefi.joke.ever.
posted by clavdivs at 9:26 AM on April 7, 2004

The first thing that came to my mind was Metababy -- which I never once visited on April 1st, since I could go anywhere for random craziness that day.
posted by brownpau at 9:38 AM on April 7, 2004

I thought it was a great joke, and apropos considering the nature of Matt's interest in community networks. What sucked is that I couldn't actually participate due to the server being fucked.

But haven't we already discussed whether we liked the prank or not like, 3 or 4 times?
posted by Hildago at 10:10 AM on April 7, 2004

i thought it was a GREAT joke because it was instable and anyone could muck with it, and in a lot of ways one was able to see who's out there, ya know? Few jokes release control from the joke-maker, and since it got completely out of control and funny, I tip my hat to matt. Best joke he's ever done, I think. It had to be genuinely fun for people to post something on Mefi's front page, even if it was retarded.

It really bummed me out to be, i think, the last person to play with it on the FP. After an hour of just watching, I decided to play too - made my change, clicked edit and it disappeared back to ol' mefi. I BROKE IT.

April Fool's jokes are tricky. This year's gag was much funnier and more gotcha than last year's google joke. That was last year, right? I thought this wiki thing was a really great idea.
posted by Peter H at 11:59 AM on April 7, 2004

Are some folks missing the point...? It still works guys!!
posted by dash_slot- at 2:54 PM on April 7, 2004

I was most amused by the faux error messages. Also the refresh = total change was fascinating.
posted by mwhybark at 10:14 PM on April 7, 2004