APRIL FOOLS 2003
by John-Paul, ATF Staff Writer

A few days ago, a friend of mine (who runs the Disneyland Refurb Schedule website), gave me a sneak peek at something he was going to be putting up for an April Fools day prank.

April Fools day? Could it already be that time of the year again?

Yes, indeed, April Fools was just days away. Last year it caught me by surprise so I hastily threw up a repeat of the same gag we originally made in 2001. Now that I had a few days notice, perhaps I could come up with something better...

(Note: Mistress Willa had nothing to do with this gag, so do not hold her responsible for any of it...)

WHAT TO DO

In 2001, we created a fake website called "AT THE FAIR" which supposedly existed to document state fairs and the like. You can read all about that gag in this article from 2001. (Feel free to read it first before continuing. I'll wait.)

Done?

Good.

For 2003, rather than just rehash the same gag which, surprisingly, played well two years in a row, I thought I'd come up with something a bit more interesting. The original idea was to have the site purchased by Microsoft (which seems to own every site I used to like these days). MS-AtTheFaire? MS-Renaissance? Perhaps, but it didn't really fit. Yahoo! seemed to be a much better entity with a track record for buying information sites such as Hot Jobs.

I took a quick look at the Yahoo! home page and didn't see an easy way to blend in with their style. I briefly toyed with the idea of turning their "Yahoo!" logo font into one that said "Huzzah!" but that would have required work so out the window went that idea.

About this time, Mike (the webmaster of Disney Refurbs), suggested something about selling the site on e-Bay. Hrm. That just might work. I did a quick search and found that e-Bay even had a whole category for folks selling .com domains! Brilliant.

HOW TO DO IT

My first effort was to save out an e-Bay auction page (of one of my real auctions) and all the graphics that went with it. Using my HTML editor I began the process of altering the text for the fake domain name auction. I was going to replace all the links to go back to the front of AtTheFaire but ... that would have required work. (And besides, it would have clearly shown atthefaire.com as the URL, and would be blatantly fake fooling only a handful of people...)

What if I just made a real auction?

I created a new listing. The submission fee was going to be $3.30, so that sounded like a reasonable amount to spend on this gag. (And, what the heck, with a "Buy It Now" price of $10,000 if someone did want to buy it for that much, I'd be more than able to afford the $163 final auction closing cost... and pay off some of my debt!)

It was a done deal. I created the auction and now had to get the gag out to the masses. (You may view the auction page here, for up to 90 days after it was created.)

HOW TO SHOW IT

I realized if I just put up a fake home page that said something lame like "This site is for sale" and linked to the e-Bay page, many people wouldn't see it. Most folks, it seems, jump directly to the section of ATF that they are interested in, such as the photos of the message board. In order to "force" people to see the gag, I made every page of the website redirect to the e-Bay page after 5 seconds. All day long no one would be able to stay at any page on the site longer than five seconds without being sent to e-Bay... a gag within a gag!

I also turned off the message board and placed the following notice there:

Sorry, the boards are offline at the moment
Ikonboard is currently offline.

STATUS:

All Pocesses Released; Input Limited.
Forum Offline; Optional Logs Stopped.

MESSAGE:

Please check the main page for more information.

(Kudos to foolscap for noticing my typos...) We'll examine this message closer in a few moments.

As a final touch, I made the opening splash screen for ATF (the one that lists all the sites we host) link to the old April Fools 2001 gag page. Depending on how people entered the site, they would see different things!

• If they entered by typing "www.atthefaire.com", they would see the splash screen and if they clicked the "Click Here" link they would be sent to the AT THE FAIR 2001 gag.
• If they entered by typing "www.atthefaire.com" and then waited 60 seconds for the splash screen to redirect, it would send them to... AT THE FAIRE as well. (Earlier in the morning, though, each one had a different destination so you may have seen something else happen...)
• If they entered any other site page directly, such as "atthefaire.com/fairephotos", they would see the desired page then be immediately redirected to the e-Bay page offering the domain for sale.
• If they had the message board script directly bookmarked (missing important announcements we place on the front page from time to time), they would see the "board closed" message with a notice that they should check the front page for more details.

Shortly after midnight when the calendar rolled around to April 1st, 2003 (central time), the new changes were uploaded and the trap had been set. Now to wait...

SNAP!

• 6:41am - A message is received with the subject "ATF down" and a short question of "Did you know?".
  (Yep... I knew. But I am glad you took the time to let me know.)
• 6:43am - Gizmoe the Clown sent a note with his concerns which read: "I hope you are about to shout APRIL FOOL.  otherwise this whole Ebay thing could be pretty grim for some of us. - Either way, thanks for keeping ATF open for us as long as you have.  keeping in touch with my rennie friends makes the mundane days go a little better."
  (Very touching, and leave it to a clown to get the joke... or at least suspect it!)
• 6:54am - (Alot of folks seem to check this board WAY TOO EARLY!) A royal member writes in: "No more atthefaire message board? Wow, cold turkey is going to be hard! - Things must indeed be bad for this to happen. ..."
  (I'm almost starting to feel bad now.)
• 9:08am - Still too early, but another lovely visitor writes: "ATF's April Fools joke is pretty funny. (Unless it wasn't a joke and some hacker has sabotaged your site?) - Well, if it was a joke, it was really funny. If someone's hacking your site, it wasn't funny at all."
  (Mwahaha. I mean LOL... As you can see, she wasn't buying it as real. But hackers? This gives me an idea for next year... I'm glad to know someone doesn't think I'd really sell the site with no advanced warning... Or at least someone looked at the calendar...)
• 10:14am - A "Question for seller" e-mail arrives sent via e-Bay: "So, how many withdrawal complaints have you gotten so far this fine April First?"
  (Another person finds my gag rather transparent...! But what's a withdrawal complaint?)
• 10:44am - A long distance friend of ATF stumbles on to the other gag: "Very Funny.... At the Faire (part of the tractor webring) *Snork*"
  (Hey, that's At the Fair, thank you very much! We had to search to find a picture of a tractor so I'm glad you appreciate it..)
• 11:30am - A fast reader asks: "What does thanks for all the fish mean?"
  (If you ever get to watch/play/hear/read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy you will understand...)
• 11:18am - The lovely Mary from the Upper Greater Lakes Renaissance Faire in Ironwood, Michigan alerts me to a serious problem: "You need to know (if you haven't discovered already) that your 'click here' button redirects to this site..I really don't want to know about butter sculptures, etc...hope it can be fixed quickly!"
  (She attached the altered page for me to see. Thanks, Mary!)
• 12:03pm - Molly the Beer Wench asks: "Please tell me this is an April Fools Joke....ebay?"
  (This is an April Fools joke. Happy now?)
• 12:04pm - Another renaissance festival coordinator writes, this time from the Siouxland Renaissance Festival: "Allen - why when i clicked to go to ATF did it redirects me to a page covered in chickens and talking about butter sculptures??? - why did someone email me today that atf is up for sale on ebay?? - are you serious????? - what are your operating costs per mo? Put it out to the users, let us help pay for it! I have $10 in my pay pal account you can have right now!"
  (Aww, thanks, Melissa! It looks like you saw half of the gag... Can we still have the $10 if I show you the other half?)
• 1:45pm - The lovely (and sexy) (and tough) Jessica of Renaissance Sword Theatre drops me a note: "Are you really quitting?   And just what is quitting?  And do we have to start looking for other hosting?  Is it just the domain name?  How does that affect those that are 'shattock.atthefaire.com' etc? - What's up?"
  (Jess, Jess, Jess... RST was the first site to host with us. Surely you have figured me out by now? But to answer your question, the subdomains would have indeed been in trouble! Let's just say I had a change of heart after you offered to send me a picture of you in a bikini next to your sword.)
• 1:47pm-ish - Mistress Willa discovers the gags (which she knew nothing about other than to expect something to happen): "Ahh they just never get used to your sense of humour do they?  *laugh*  Twas nice to see the 'At The Fair' site up there today.  Wouldn't it be a riot if someone actually did buy ATF for $10k? - Just wanted to say hello on one of our favourite holidays."
  (You'd get half! Miss ya, babe!)
• 5:44pm - Our world wandering wench gets the gag. I think. She writes: "heh. hate to say it, but if I had an extra $10K, I don't think I'd spend it on atthefaire. - have you gotten any offers?"
  (What would you spend it on? Check the e-Bay page..! Someone did...)
• 6:09pm - Molly writes in again: "dropped you a line from work... April Fool's joke or what???? - Anyway.... the pub's down... and supposedly your site has been purchased.... now they can't wish me a happy birthday in the pub...selfish, aren't I?"
  (Yes. You are. Happy birthday, Molly! Need a spanking?)
• 10:25pm - Instant message arrives: "dammit, I'm just trying to navigate around and it keeps taking me to that damn ebay page"
  (Poor thing. But a smart poor thing, if you ignore the comments right before: "What's with the So Long and Thanks for all the Fish post in the news? ...the hell?" and "wraaa, you're leaving atthefaire?" Sucker.)
• 10:30pm-ish - And this one: "Did you really sell ATF? or are you just really into the April Fools thing?"
  (Uh ... yes. See below...)

THE LAST LAUGH?

Remember that when I did this, I understood I would be charged $163 by e-Bay if someone actually DID buy this domain. But what if someone just put a gag bid in? e-Bay considers bids "legally binding" and I would still be billed unless I could get the bid retracted. It was a risk I was willing to take.

The e-mail alert I received on my cell phone at 4:36pm kinda bothered me. It seems someone actually did bid! Ack. It was a "Buy it Now" auction (since listing with a reserve and letting "real" bidding happen would have cost me over one hundred dollars just to list) which meant now the world would think someone DID buy the domain! This could be fun... But would I get the $10,000? Or would I get a retraction? Or would I be stuck with $163 owed to e-Bay?

Payment Status: Not paid. Buyer plans to pay via Personal Check

Buyer Shipping Address:

Eddie Munster
1313 Mockingbird Ln
Temple City, CA 91780

Somehow I think a retraction can be arranged ;-) Oh, and he included a note:

The buyer included the following message: And if you believe THIS... then I'll give you your check at the Norman Faire (hint hint). Oh, I added an additional 5k to pay for a pub club pin.

That's a heck of a tip! I didn't have the heart to tell him I don't have any Pub Pins in stock yet. Think he'll take an I.O.U.? (The hint let me know who it was and, believe it or not, our very own "Average Rob" got one on me, possibly without realizing it. You see, as I write this, I owe e-Bay $197.21! Thanks alot, Rob...)

Let's hope this has a happy ending ;-) else I really will need to start selling things to raise money...

SUMMARY

• The e-Bay page was visited 515 times during the day.
• AtTheFaire's "real" main page was loaded 351 times.
• The fake AT THE FAIR page has now been viewed 943 times (tho this number includes visits from last year, I think).
• Some people still haven't heard of Hitchhiker's Guide.

ONE MORE THING

Remember this message?

All Pocesses Released; Input Limited.
Forum Offline; Optional Logs Stopped.

Maybe it's obvious now, but no one commented on it. Look at it again:

All
Pocesses
Released;
Input
Limited.

Forum
Offline;
Optional
Logs
Stopped.

See ya next year ;-)

-- John-Paul (Allen)