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Microsoft Memo Bans April Fools' Day Pranks (theverge.com)
Everyone hates April Fools' Day, and Microsoft is taking a stand against its own corporate pranks. From a report: Microsoft's marketing chief Chris Capossela has warned all employees to not participate in the process of annoying hoaxes on Monday. In an internal memo, Capossela explains that "data tells us these stunts have limited positive impact and can actually result in unwanted news cycles." He encourages all teams inside Microsoft not to do any public-facing April Fools' Day stunts. "I appreciate that people may have devoted time and resources to these activities, but I believe we have more to lose than gain by attempting to be funny on this one day," says Capossela. That's probably a safe bet, as we've seen some April Fools' Day pranks backfire spectacularly in the past. Google was forced to apologize for adding Despicable Me minions into emails and muting threads a few years ago, causing email havoc for Gmail users. Microsoft has also participated in many April Fools' Day pranks over the years, including an MS-DOS mobile for Windows Phone and Google insults.
Almost forgot April 1st as a thing was coming up, nice to be mentally fortified.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"Everyone hates April Fools' Day"
Nice projection there. I'll make sure to align my thinking patterns with yours in the future.
This memo sounds like an elaborate April Fool's Day prank to me!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
April Fools Day has been cancelled this year and will instead be held on May 1st.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
yeah, microsoft is funny all year long, with jokes like telemetry, windows10 or various fucked up jokes...
A few years back Microsoft released Age of Empires II Low Definition Edition on April 1st. Probably made a couple people smile, but made the game basically unplayable for a day. At least it's a game, but these kinds of pranks are pretty ridiculous. Good move Microsoft!
https://steamcommunity.com/games/221380/announcements/detail/204126864927227731?l=romanian
Spot on. In today's victimhood culture any attempt at humor is extremely dangerous.
I recently went to a local stand up show and almost all performances were extremely bland (or about Trump), because joking about anything controversial is just too dangerous with SJW Stasi everywhere.
So, no pink-themed pages and unicorns over at microsoft.com ? No autocorrect jokes in their forum pages?
Then again, I recall back in the 70s or 80s, a Boston-area TV weatherman announced that Great Blue Hills (a local not-very-tall mountain) had erupted, along with stock footage of some volcano. People panicked and he got fired.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
I don't hate the pranks as much as I hate April 1 itself. The whole thing has gone too far, and you wind up questioning every new story the whole day. It's become a useless day for announcing anything slightly different. Nobody believed 1 gig Gmail boxes when they announced on April 1.
We can only hope /. doesn't fall in line with this anti-April 1 stance, because I usually spend that whole day reveling in hilarity at the high quality of posts.
Breakfast served all day!
I see you are trying to make an April Fools prank, would you like help with that ?
Probability of backfiring badly can't be lower than ... 0.99 ?
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
.... untl moral improves.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
You can thank LineageOS and their complete lack of brains for the canceling of April Fools this year.
Ba-dum TSSSS! ...I`ll get my coat.
The priates of silicon valley are dead.
Google Maps also gave us Mario Kart and Pokemon Go got April Fools in past years. When done RIGHT, it is a huge marketing boon!
Microsoft BOB was a great april fools day prank, I laughed.
The problem today, isn't that people don't have a sense of humor or that they are delicate snowflakes. But we are in an era of contradicting information, and where we have Flat Earthers, Anti-Vaxers, Anti-GMO, Climate Deniers, in general people who just don't want to accept well documented science, because it doesn't fit their world view, and they heard about these dangers from some random dude, who may or may not actually believe what they said, but was being sarcastic. I am sure if you dug in Slashdot History back in the 1990's there will be some comments from me, on topics about evolution, I had some sarcastic comments about the earth being flat and made some bizarre convoluted proof around it, as it is my natural sarcastic nature. However today, I am afraid to do this with the general public who doesn't know me. Because they will take my sarcasm out of context and use my "evidence" as proof in their head that it might be right.
A joke like changing Slashdot pink, with ponies will no longer pass today. Because...
1. It would be considered sexist: as implying that there are no women on Slashdot. Where before it was just considered a joke of making the site seem like it is for a different audience.
2. Someone who liked the idea, will be annoyed to see it go, or assumed the site was for kids, only to have them exposed to much of Slashdot coarse comments.
3. People new to the site, may assume it was a different site.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Just like this one...
Ms. April Wurst received a few envelopes. Thank BMW Car and Driver for this...
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
If the web team over there was contemplating an April 1st BSOD page for www.microsoft.com? That should happen.
Every other release is a prank and the other one is the serious release. They broke the cycle with Windows 10 though releasing two pranks in a row.
April Fool's Day pranks can be fine as long as they aren't in poor taste, too pervasive, or too insistent.
Fake press releases are kind of annoying, especially if they do not have an obvious disclaimer at the end to show that it is a joke. Simply turning your company's logo upside-down or having a one-time change of your site to look like something from 1993 should be fine.
Still, avoiding it entirely has never resulted in anyone getting fired as far as I am aware.
Lighten up, francis
Truthful, if you can't figure out what is real and what is not on April First. Don't worry about it, nobody knows what is real and what is not. On any other day, no matter what news web site you visit.
Or, just say fuck it. And read the Onion all day. At least you know you will get a laugh as you read what you know for sure is Bull Shit.
Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time
It seems every year we get to hear the same sorts of objections to April Fool's Day: "People will take these things seriously" "How can I trust anything?" "We don't need people adding more disinformation to the internet, it will spread all over" All of these lead me to believe that the purpose of April Fools is more important than ever, because whether through inattention or naivete it seems a lot of people are overly credulous.
I think maybe the issue is branding. I propose that we rename it "Critical Thinking Day", and celebrate it as a chance to practice awareness, skepticism, and critical thinking. We can make it a day when people try their hardest to lie to you, but aren't trying to gain anything out of it, and will tell you the truth the next day. In that way it will be different than the other 364 days when the people are lying for profit, and certainly aren't planning on coming clean tomorrow. I think it would be a great opportunity to teach everyone that the best defense against being sold a load of bullshit is to listen and think about what you are being told.
They are only banning *PUBLIC FACING* pranks.
People still seem entirely welcome to prank their coworkers as they might otherwise do... but honestly, I think that this idea is actually entirely fair.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Often a narcissist, especially with psychopathic tendencies.
Why else do you think Big Tech is filled with leftists?
spineless, does exactly what the executive team orders
If you want to see creimer make another Slashdot parody video for April 1st.
...the memo is a prank by Microsoft to employees!
Humor bad for morale :]
Are the ones being honored on said day. Ironic.
"Everyone hates April Fools' Day" HUH ? Who the fuck died and left you in charge asshole? Get the fuck outta here with your stupid fucking assumptions.
This is a meta april 1 email that got sent out three days too early.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Betcha Microsoft sends out another Memo on April 1st "recalling" this memo.
Sometimes wonder how many MS exchange/outlook users realize what really happens when they push the magic recall button.
I don't want to be anywhere around Boeing next Monday.
Have gnu, will travel.
Yeah, don't you know that's why all those wealthy socialists are running the show!
None.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Polite society makes efforts to blacklist venomous sacs like you.
Ok, lets NOT pull any pranks at Microsoft offices on Monday, April 1st. But there is nothing preventing us from pulling a pre-emptive strike by pulling pranks on Friday, March 29th as a pranking-the-prank sorta prank. Checkmate. Touche. Bon Voyage!
It makes sense to me. What percentage of people either have poor judgement or aren't nearly as funny as they think they are? How many employees does Microsoft have? Doing the math seems to give a pretty good chance of someone doing something stupid that makes Microsoft look bad if left free to perform publicly visible pranks.
When someone says, "Any fool can see
I hope to all postings on April 1st are attributed to guest editor "Chris Capossela".
In this age of fake news and easily offended idiots, I'm *totally* in favor of getting rid of this stupid waste of time that is April's Fools..."tradition".
The real memo was leaked just a few minutes ago. It read "All the best April Fool pranks were done at Sun Micro 30 years ago, so just forget about it. We are Microsoft. We never do anything original."
Too late Microsoft. I live with the Biggest April Fools Joke of all every day. Windows 10.
Another day another Slashdotter blaming all the world's problems on SJWs
Internet April Fool jokes just started to suck, and corporate work flows incorporate a whole bunch of tools that you can't risk by shoving unicorns on them.
Decades of crap software with critical security bugs being fixed every month, and no end in sight. Getting bigger, slower, and more intrusive all the time with no end in sight. Invading our privacy and losing track of personal data. Tens of thousands of known bugs at release time. Monopolistic practices, huge fines and no stopping and no end in sight.
They are laughing at us each and every day.
The tech industry is so lame now!
#OMGPONIES
...Microsoft is releasing a new Windows Mobile phone, more info at www.omfgyoumustberetardedtobelievethatshit.com
Sounds kinda boring...
April fools!