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Support Site for User Friendly
GroundBounce writes "If this is a joke it's a damn good one. There is now a support site for User Friendly. There isn't much info there; however, there is a string of emails from the last few days posted. There are also some support images for posting on web sites. "
Hmm. /serious/ over-reaction happening here. What it looks like is that a whole heap of people were caught out by an April Fools joke, and couldn't handle it..
/not/ in power at the time) even phoned up to give her support. /two/ days before hand. And wasn't resolved till lunchtime April 1.
;) Since when was there a need for that?. And it was April first...
All I have to say, is that there is some
As for the many-days-preperation thing, a similar thing was done to a local Radio station here in NZ... The boss was saying it was being shifted to country & western, half the dj's had 'quit' because of this, and the two breakfast show presenters were freaking out... The Leader of the Opposition (major political party
Oh, this all started
But come on. I realised that morning it was a joke. Country and Western? come on..
All I think is that people should stop getting all grumpy because they got caught out by a well-planned joke, and get over it. Yes, I would think the feigned death of a loved one was funny, if it was executed in the right manner (no pun intended). The UF gag fooled a lot of people, including myself, but I think it was done well. People are too cynical these days to just start saying that sort of stuff on the day, and expect people to get taken in. And lets see, the whole point of it all, is to tally up the gullible people out there?
I got taken in by a lot of the jokes i had read / seen, simply because i didn't give them enough thought. And if people had thought for a little bit longer, they would have realised straight away that it was a joke.. Simple.
So, quit it with the 'bad taste' thing. UF is still a damn funny cartoon, even if some people out there did happen to take things a bit too seriously.
Daniel
The essence of a good april fools joke is that it isn't flagrantly, violently, painfully obvious. The thing about user friendly was a good one, but that was before slashdot became flooded with all this brouhaha from every single april fools joke on the internet... as of now slashdot isn't fooling anyone and its becoming more and more unfunny by the minute. Heaven forbid we get any real news today.
...I'm afraid you're going to have to vist a "real
news" site. (I recommend news.com, infoworld.com,
and theregister.co.uk.)
For a humor fix, you might try Humorix, Dilbert,
and Dave Barry's stuff at Mercury Center: Dave Barry,
I suppose. Or look up & re-visit the BOFH
chronicles.
UserFriendly did indeed publish today in the National Post. I would assume that any injunction that would stop their website would also stop the newspaper publishing their comic strip. I am working on getting a scan of today's cartoon online, but esentially it shows one of the guys climbing up into the fram with the text "Sorry we're late folks, but a certain smartass cartoonist must've thought it'd be funny to raise the hight of the panels by about eight feet." Once I get a scan online I will let Taco know where to find it.
I'm of the opinion that ALL pending litigation should be shut down. Immediately.
this thing has been going on for awhile... If it
took them this long to lead up to an April fools
joke, it's just not funny.
The listed sites all seem to be real. They
could easily harvest them from the Referer:
lines being sent to their web server.
Interesting that the lawyers name was DeWitt.
Ie "the wit"...........
just a thought......
If the people running this nameless and apparently clueless company think they have a problem with User Friendly, just wait until their identity becomes publicly known. User Friendly will be the least of their troubles. I pity the fools!
I pity the fools! Ya mean, you pity the April fools who fell for it?
it's april fools day.
get a life, get a sense of humor. Jezus. find something real to get upset about.
> IT WAS INTEL..... I am Sure.....
Nope, but thanks for playing. The alleged litigation started before that cartoon came out.
There is "now" a support site? That site has been
there, and mentioned in User Friendly's news, for
several days now.
I believe it popped-up not long after UF first
received email notification of the Evil Empire's
intent.
I've had one of the banners displayed on my desk-
top (via xv) for a couple of days, at least.
(This is all assuming that the UF, segfault, and
Be things are real, and not just a *way*
over-done April Fools joke.)
Lawsuit. Yeah, right. And M$ is selling Linux.
However, those who frequent UF will remember that Illiad was saying that his lawyers would be meeting the enemy yesterday. In addition, unlike Segfault, this site is signed by UF's lawyer. I don't think lawyers do jokes, do they?
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Earlier this week I was websurfing and ran across this same site. This site is not new as of today, but has been around for a while. Don't let the fact that there is a support site now up make you think it is real, even the support site says its just a joke.
If this turns out to be a hoax, I'll congratulate Illiad and company for getting my goat, but after this, I'm not going to be able to trust any news the week leading up to April Fool's day anymore.
This joke is just too plausible, we live in a country and a time where litigation can happen for the stupidest of reasons.
If any of you happen to be involved in the emulation scene, when IDSA started cracking down on sites like Dave's Classics, we had the same quick shutdowns with no explanation until days later.
Posted by Aelfgifu:
Please--apparently you are all willing to suck down whatever "I am being oppressed" story that is put out there...Check this out, then:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/990331-000002.html
Does this propsed legal action make any sense? Think, already!
Heather
Posted by Akira410:
Yeah, As a joke a technican here had his lawyer work up legal papers saying Microsoft was offering to buy our ISP. Looks fully legal, etc. Then he drove to the nearest local microsoft chronie division and maile dit from there. Rather Cute. He's now jobless. =) (Ok, maybe not, but that would have been even funnier)
Posted by WildOne:
:\
.. he did get me good fer sure ... Where is my steel toed boot?
Only cuz I just found out
Argh
Ok, so if this evil empire thing is for real, why not temporarily hide the comics making fun of them and continue as normal. When everything blows over bring 'em back into the archive.
Until things blow over, just don't make fun of said company.
Since this wasnt' done by the author, I'll assume this is all bunk. The comic strip is much funnier than the April Fools.
Misfit
Okay, now it's getting a little silly...
- the litigation conspiracy was well done at first and believable
- the 'injunction' shutdowns were plain silly.
Conclusion:
- this was about as funny as the jwz-is-dead piece. it wasn't.
only bright thing is that the creators of this hoax got a laugh out of it... I guess it releases some of their stress before the flamethrowers are turned on again...
-Stu
I'm removing the link to UserFriendly from my home page in protest of this badly done and overblown unfunny prank. Illiad, if you're listening, I think you've just blown any credibility you had with the geek community.
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
The most humourous thing in this whole ordeal has been the article in the Register.
Frankly, I find the site owners of segfault.org and userfriendly.org to be completely humourless. This whole thing wasn't even vaguely entertaining to me. (even though i just heard about it today)
Sorry, guys... try again next time. Frankly, if someone is going to go through the time and effort of making an April Fools Joke, _I want to be entertained_. This joke did nothing but entertain the creators of it. Big deal.
The Jon Katz satire was quite awesome, however.
-Dean
Linux Today at this point, they don't seem to be perpetuating any Hoaxes or Pranks at this point in time...
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
then all of us are in trouble. Life without parody would be hell. I mean, no more comic strips. No more Saturday Night Live. No more ZD articles.
I can't wait to hear the results. If this is a joke, then he did a fine job of building up to it. If not, then some big bad company will feel the wrath. Either way, it is the most interesting story I have read about today.
pete
i thought they only could sue when you lied about them or their product....
Obviously not.
The UF support site just put up that it looks like it was a joke.
We can all breath a little easier now. Wonder if Illiad had figured on so much of a fuss being raised over it.
From what my law friends tell me, it's even more unlikely that an injunction would be in place this quickly, as the "discovery" phase takes longer than 1 week which is how long this has been going.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
------------------------------
Better yet, three injunctions, each in a different legal system, all manage to come into place within hours of each other?
If this does get confirmed as an April Fool, it'll be interesting to see if there's any sort of backlash against the sites concerned - a lot of people seem to have got quite worked up over this threat of legal action, and probably won't take it very well if it turns out to be a hoax.
Damn that would have sucker. I have several hundred real time newswires at my disposal and where do I come for news? Slashdot.org of course.
Not to mention the fact the the three sites are in three different countries. Does anyone really believe that some company managed to get injunctions in the US, Canada, and England at the same time? Even if some company was pursing litigation against all three, the timing would not be identical. Come on, they all got their regestered letters on the same day? On two continents? They were all served with injunctions from three different courts in three different countries on the same day? IANAL, but given that such court actions are a matter of public record, what would stop them from naming the comany involved? Nothing! Unless, it's a joke. In which case, since it's being presented as "true", they WOULD be in a heap of trouble if they named some specific company. They would get their pants sued off if they falsely claimed that MS or LA, or whoever was sueing them. It would clearly be slander
Now, if we can just get ZDNet, or CNET to pick up the story, the joke will be complete!
It's either an elaborate April Fool's day joke, or MicroSh*t just became that much more the loser.
If you think you know what the hell is going on you're probably full of shit. -- Robert Anton Wilson
jdube is who
I even forgot it was April Fool's Day, thanks man. Anyway, the support pages have up a gray ribbon(?), so that would be the way to go i guess. Or like, a perf or something, that would be cool. Speaking of those support pages, they should have some way to for non-webmasters to express support.
Somebody should host the sites (userfriendly, segfault, and bedope) somewhere in europe. taking down a site would then be much harder & everybody would be happy (or least the most of us).
follow up... well, the archive is anyway.
...about all this is how seriously some of you got your panties in a wad over a friggin' joke!
PS If you still don't think it was a joke, UF is back online. Check for yourself.
Then move Segfault to Sweden.
DES Khaddafi KGB genetic jihad Uzi Rule Psix Qaddafi cryptographic Peking Mossad Legion of Doom Albanian Serbian Saddam
Subject line says it all. This is like joking about the death of a loved one. Not very damn funny, if you ask me.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
I take my freedom of speech very seriously. I find threats to them very worring. The "unnamed" company in question I dislike a lot, and for me, this was a final straw. I started writting letters and was getting ready to organize protest. Now I look like an idiot.
I am not amused.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Now that is just to sweet. wow...
$sig=$1 if($brain =~
I am just wondering what color ribbon to wear for these guys? hrmm... Polkadot?
-----
"Be kind to your local milkman... you have his eyes." -Mother
What do you think all these pranksters would
have done if Rob had decided to shutdown
/. as a prank. Hmmm.
- Peace, Love and Clock Cycles
True,
But why is there absolutely no way whatsoever to contact ANYONE associated with the support site?
"Responsibility for my career? I'm just a freakin' phone monkey!"
It's a thankless job, but I've got a lot of Karma to burn off
I agree that April Fools is a good day for jokes,
and I admit I too was fooled about the UserFriendly thing until I took a hard look at the support site.
But a primarily news site shouldn't do such a thing.
One or two April Fools stories would have been funny, but I have one problem with this one...
It started before April First.
You see, if legal trouble is brewing, and over a few days more is piled on until it closes.. well, it looks sorta real. And as a Star Wars Fan, I saw the same thing happen to a favorite site of mine, www.toysrgus.com/ when Toys R Us took umbrage to his name. It happened about the same way.
Blatant silliness such as the rioting Linuxers (which I loved, by the way) and our cookies (which is fabulous) are ggod April Fools Jokes. But to get hundreds of posters (and thousands of lurkers) upset over an overdrawn, overworked joke is frankly irresponsible.
Or is this not the reason UserFriendly is already back up?
Please Rob, we appreciate the humor, but not such alarming humor please.
"Responsibility for my career? I'm just a freakin' phone monkey!"
It's a thankless job, but I've got a lot of Karma to burn off
Okay, I was fooled....
I think Userfriendly is really down, but take a long look at this support site....
There is no way to sign up for support, but a lot of supporters. No contact information... And in news, they all refer back to Userfriendly.
Good Joke, Rob. You got me. But we still miss Userfriendly. Is there a real support site if this is real?
"Responsibility for my career? I'm just a freakin' phone monkey!"
It's a thankless job, but I've got a lot of Karma to burn off
IT WAS INTEL..... I am Sure..... They did it because of the cartoon of the Pentium 3 production line. It had a stack of pention 2's on one side and Pentium 3's on the other. And a guy in the middle drawing an extra 'I' On the P2's..
Isn't the hard copy version a week behind?
-
BlackNova Traders
Okay, this is just insane. Forget even an injunction.
I'm going to spell it out.
THIS IS A SATIRICAL COMIC STRIP.
Now for the slower students... (Hi, Bill)
Satire ia just that, satire. It's humor. And to have one of our beloved web strips pulled is just crazy.
Look out Dilbert... a company might think your strip is too close to the truth and sue. Helen might be pulled because she's too neurotic, thus making Oracle or PeopleSoft feel she's a poor representative of their professionals. Puh-Leeze people, get a sense of humor already!
We know Microsoft doesn't build Death Stars. Really we do.
Give us back our strip.
"Responsibility for my career? I'm just a freakin' phone monkey!"
It's a thankless job, but I've got a lot of Karma to burn off