
Microsoft bans April's fools pranks - herodotus
https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/27/18283674/microsoft-april-fools-day-ban-pranks-internal-memo
======
hoorayimhelping
Aprils fools day was really fun and cute for a little while there, maybe
around 2006-2008 when it was unexpected and delightful. I don't know why or
when it happened, but it's incredibly cringey now. Like watching your parents
trying to dab, and instead of laughing at themselves, your parents actually
think they're cool and getting respect from kids.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
I want to say for me, it's about how I feel about these companies now,
compared to how I felt about them then. Elaborate April Fool's jokes struck me
as cute and human and uncorporate, and a lot of the companies who do them no
longer feel human and uncorporate to me anymore. So now it just feels
disingenuous.

I would also say the quality of the jokes has declined over time.

~~~
TravHatesMe
I agree with this sentiment.

Worthy of mention: Diablo II's Secret Cow Level. Initially a rumour among
fans, Blizzard teased players and posted a screenshot of cow monsters on April
1st 1999 [1]. This joke soon became reality in the sequel, Diablo II.

IMO they used an April fool's joke as an excellent device to entice players. I
find it to be genuinely humourous (killing herds of cows brandishing weapons),
and best of all -- the joke was on us, it turned out to be a real thing in the
following game. It is a classic level in Diablo II and one of the best areas
to farm.

To this day it is a memorable joke, often recalled by gamers. It had even made
its way into Starcraft (cheat code: "there is no cow level") for additional
effect.

[1]
[https://diablo2.diablowiki.net/Secret_Cow_Level](https://diablo2.diablowiki.net/Secret_Cow_Level)

~~~
ocdtrekkie
World of Warcraft added a secret cow level a couple years ago for Diablo's
20th anniversary: [https://kotaku.com/world-of-warcraft-now-has-a-secret-cow-
le...](https://kotaku.com/world-of-warcraft-now-has-a-secret-cow-
level-1790774238)

I still feel like Blizzard maybe does the best April Fool's gags, because
they're willing to make fun of their own failings in a way Google or Microsoft
brand people would never allow (see the Clippy thing on Teams). Blizzard's
April Fool's patch notes often includes commentary about their own company's
broken promises or mistakes.

That being said, after this past year, I'm not sure how funny I'll find
Blizzard's mistakes.

------
jakejarvis
> I believe we have more to lose than gain by attempting to be funny

Ouch... Seems like he’s just bitter about his engineers’ senses of humor?

I can name numerous Google pranks that were _obviously stupid_ and
legitimately made me chuckle and then move on with my day — their toilet-
powered ISP, Rick Rolling YouTube viewers, Google Maps PacMan, even Contoso
switching from O365 to Google Apps (there’s a list of dozens more of them on
Wikipedia [0]).

Sure, some of them were a bust, like adding a mic drop GIF to outgoing Gmail
messages without clear consent. Large corporations shouldn’t be _literally_
pranking their users. But can anyone name a Microsoft joke off the top of your
head?

Maybe I’m in the minority on HN, but I say if you’re confident that you employ
some funny engineers who can limit themselves to _obvious humor_ , especially
if you’re a small company, why not keep this silly 500+ year tradition alive
and well? :)

[0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Google_April_Fools%2...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Google_April_Fools%27_Day_jokes)

~~~
chrisseaton
> can limit themselves to obvious humor

I don't want April fools pranks, but if you do insist on it, then an _obvious
fooling_ is somewhat oxymoronic and misunderstanding the point of it. If it's
obvious then nobody will be fooled.

~~~
jakejarvis
I actually agree. I don’t want to be pranked/fooled by companies I rely on —
in my opinion, companies who don’t understand that are the only ones who fall
flat on their faces on April 1st and need to apologize for a PR disaster on
April 2nd [0][1][2][3][4][5][and on and on...].

Big brands who want to participate should really think of it as April Dumb
Tangential Jokes Day, perhaps!

[0] [https://blog.google/products/gmail/introducing-gmail-mic-
dro...](https://blog.google/products/gmail/introducing-gmail-mic-drop/)

[1] [https://lineageos.org/An-April-Apology/](https://lineageos.org/An-April-
Apology/)

[2] [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-04-02-ea-
apologises-f...](http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-04-02-ea-apologises-
for-frostbites-stupid-anti-nintendo-april-fool)

[3] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-01/elon-
musk...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-01/elon-musk-sends-
april-fools-tweets-joking-of-tesla-bankruptcy)

[4]
[http://hoaxes.org/archive/permalink/taco_liberty_bell](http://hoaxes.org/archive/permalink/taco_liberty_bell)

[5] [http://www.buzzfeed.com/jarettwieselman/happy-endings-
reboot...](http://www.buzzfeed.com/jarettwieselman/happy-endings-reboot-
rumors-were-an-elaborate-april-fo#.jgQpKP23Q)

~~~
chrisseaton
Right, and then continuing the thought who wants a 'dumb' joke? That's no fun
is it. So let's forget the whole thing.

~~~
jakejarvis
I think we’re on the same page. Maybe it boils down to the need for jokes that
can be easily ignored by people who want April 1st of next week to be an
ordinary Monday. In that sense, I’m all for banishing corporate pranks that
aren’t 100% non-obtrusive.

------
kwhitefoot
> Everyone hates April Fools’ Day

No they don't, they just hate harmful pranks.

There have been some splendid April Fools. How about the BBC Spaghetti harvest
from 1957,
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVo_wkxH9dU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVo_wkxH9dU)

~~~
lacey
> No they don't, they just hate harmful pranks.

If that were the case, why don’t we have several of these prank days per year?
Maybe monthly?

It’s because on a scale of 0-10 these pranks usually rate somewhere between 0
to 2 in terms of humor and > 2 in terms of annoyance.

“Your mailbox is empty!”

What?!

“Haha, no, April Fools!”

I’m rolling on the floor now. Oh. So. Funny.

~~~
rebane2001
> If that were the case, why don’t we have several of these prank days per
> year? Maybe monthly?

If New Year's is so great, why don't we celebrate it twice a year? If
Christmas is so good, why doesn't Santa bring gifts every month?

> It’s because on a scale of 0-10 these pranks usually rate somewhere between
> 0 to 2 in terms of humor and > 2 in terms of annoyance.

For your example, yes But a lot of the "pranks" aren't really pranks per se
but more of just having fun and expressing creativity If you look at what
Google does each year, they've always had fun and creative ideas, that don't
fool or annoy anyone and are enjoyable (with a few exceptions)

------
jgrahamc
Good. I loathe April Fools jokes online and whenever somewhere suggests them
at Cloudflare they get shot down quickly. They are the awful, sophomoric, in
jokes that make some small in crowd laugh and just make companies look like
idiots.

~~~
noir_lord
Agreed.

I hate the web on April 1st.

------
TheJazi13
This thread has really brought some sticks in the mud. Why are you all against
others having fun even if you personally don’t get it?

~~~
derekp7
Two things stick out in my mind. The first one is when my Aunt's Android
tablet got all of its photos infected with David Hasselhoff. She didn't
realize that the pictures were duplicated (so the originals were still there),
so she was extremely upset that all the pictures of her late husband were
photobombed with "The Hoff" (she's in her 80's, and doesn't even know what a
photobomb is).

The second incident is the Google "Drop Mic" email reply button, that got
accidently clicked on and caused some number of people to lose prospective
business opportunities.

Now, the april fools jokes that aren't harmful are things like google maps
having a pacman mode available, or when Slashdot did their "OMG Ponies" theme.

~~~
technofiend
Thank you for mentioning David Hasselhoff. Until you did I didn't realize it
was an April fools prank but instead thought it was a clever Google Easter
Egg. My only photo with The Hoff is also one with the Queen Helen Mint Julep
Mask which became a reddit mini-meme on its own. I figured some Google
programmer was actually looking for people in green faces and didn't make the
connection to 4/1\. Thanks for clearing it up.

------
jacknews

      Everyone hates April Fools’ Day
    

Err, no?

What kind of corporate HR propaganda speak is this?

Do they mean some/many people hate the pranks, but especially the bean-
counters?

------
ocdtrekkie
Honest question: In trying to avoid unwanted news cycles by banning April
Fool's jokes, did they just create an unwanted news cycle?

------
yingw787
We did April Fool's jokes at my previous company, and we had to implement
code/data changes in order to do so. We never got the time to implement the
jokes correctly so it introduced technical debt. Then we never got the time to
remove said jokes, so they just remained in the system. Repeat for a few
years. The jokes stopped being funny after a few debug cycles and just
reminded us of our work situation (which wasn't great).

At least two things sadder than not celebrating April Fool's day are having a
sad April Fool's day and having every day be April Fool's day.

Maybe silly hats in the office would be better. Don't tamper with prod.

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
If you couldn't back out a feature change at will, and never fix technical
debt, then you have far bigger problems.

~~~
yingw787
We did have far bigger problems :-)

The April Fool's joke just added a cherry on top of a shit sundae. I could
have lived without it. I haven't worked at a company yet that implements April
Fool's jokes correctly (defined as noticeable improvement to sales/marketing
KPIs, which I think is what they would be going for), so YMMV.

------
flipgimble
Agreed, this tradition needs to die a quick and quiet death. I actively avoid
the internet on April 1st because of it.

The problem is that the April Fools "sense of humor" is mostly of the "amateur
thinks they are funny" quality. The pranks are mostly tech geek inside jokes
that look embarrassing to anyone outside that social bubble. I admit I'm
inside the same geek bubble but at least notice the outside reactions. Ask
yourself who cares about the clippy resurrection referenced in the article?

How does one day of willful misinformation work in a medium used as
indefinitely persistent storage of human knowledge?

------
jillesvangurp
It seems lots of companies feel compelled to make a very lousy effort around
this time to be funny in a way that just isn't. Basically the marketing people
seem to panic around the end of March to desperately try to come up with
something and then mess up by being completely obvious in a desperate attempt
to go 'viral' when world + dog is doing the same.

IMHO there's some great potential for the UK to do some brexit related jokes
though ;-). Would be awesome if they announced the whole thing was just an
elaborate April first joke.

------
Arcantium
The greatest April fool prank of all time was the release of GMail. I remember
seeing it and being blown away by how much was on offer, then I saw the date,
had a slight chuckle, and carried on with my day. I was incredibly shook when
it still existed the next day, and the day after that. It wasn't long until I
was scouring forums trying to get an invite code.

------
palisade
Before, during and the week after April fools I do not read the news at all
because I just assume it is all garbage. Just my two cents.

------
modzu
NO FUN

"data tells us that trying to be funny on this day can have limited positive
impact and can even cause unwanted news cycles"

¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

edit:

no, but seriously, humor has significant psychological effects. it's
overlooked because of the "business first" attitude (tradition) but actually
being able to have fun is highly motivating; i'm alone here, at the bottom of
this thread, for wanting to live in a full color world, instead of a film
noir.

[https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/humr.2009.22.issue-4/humr.2...](https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/humr.2009.22.issue-4/humr.2009.023/humr.2009.023.xml)

~~~
kaolti
Was gonna post this as well, it's by no means an exaggeration.

------
isoskeles
I would rather that every single year, Google did the same prank: I open my
email and it says, "Oops, we lost _all_ of your emails. Sorry!" And three
seconds later it says, " _SIIIIKE!!!_ " (And then my emails show up.) And this
only happens once, the first time I open a web inbox on April 1st.

As immature of a prank that is, I would rather that happen year after year on
every gmail account than see another stupid fake product idea. And I'm sure it
would still make other people angry.

Hell, they probably had this idea over at Google and even formed a few
meetings about it.

------
pwinnski
If they fool people, it has a negative impact on the business. If they don't
fool people, it was a waste of time and resources... which has a negative
impact on the business.

We live in a world with timezones, so that people end up hitting the pranks
early or late.

If you want to boost morale, engineer pranks for employees. You get 100% of
the "benefits," and 0% of the customer being either fooled or not.

------
echelon
Sounds like a real joy to work at Microsoft. Just when my opinions of the
company were starting to change, too.

> “data tells us these stunts have limited positive impact and can actually
> result in unwanted news cycles.”

The jokes are fun for employees and can be enjoyable to outsiders as well. By
banning them outright you've sent a message to prospective engineers about
your corporate culture.

Too corporate.

~~~
chrisseaton
> The jokes are fun for employees and can be enjoyable to outsiders as well.

99% are just weak, lame and embarrassing. I don’t find them fun on either
side.

~~~
derekp7
Kind of like how one of the coworker groups I used to work with had a standing
"no limericks" rule, as 90% of the time the limerick would potentially be an
HR violation.

------
benmarks
Couldn't help but think that this news was/is part of some April Fools' Day
setup.

~~~
guilhas
If I was a another big company my 1 April would now be "Following Microsoft we
are also banning..."

------
59nadir
If companies could keep their bullshit pranks in-house on April Fools that'd
be great, yeah. Have fun with your coworkers and friends but don't infect
everyone else with your unfunny crap.

------
ordu
I'm falling in love with MS. I hated them from the moment I know them, because
of windoze, and IE, and monopoly and all the other things. But now it doesn't
matter.

------
ape4
Now, they need to actually do a an April fools joke! We have replaced bing.com
with clippy.com, its more handy

------
darkwinx
Is there any possibilities that this is their attempt to make early April's
fools pranks?

------
js8
I agree, being funny on Monday usually has a limited positive impact.

