As yet another editor that was in on the joke, I have my own thoughts
on this, but much of it has been said in one way or another by other
folks in April Trolls Day, so instead of debating whether people are
hurt or we've damaged E2 or what, I'll say this: I had imagined that
the prank would be a whole lot more subtle, low-intensity kind of thing.
In that light, what we probably should have done is had just a couple of us
each sign up for a 1- or 2-hour window of opportunity where our troll account would
make an appearance, submit a few dyed-in-the-wool dumb troll nodes, do a
little troll dance in the catbox and then get out. I had figured on playing
it so that my troll would be just convincing enough that nobody would question
that he was anything but a clueless, misguided newbie, and the comedy would
come in the dialogue with people not in on the joke trying to straighten him out.
Instead, by the time I logged on ready to do my part, about 10 of us were
out swinging hard. ENN was full of conjectures about the sexual exploits of
Sophanda Peters, that the database had been taken over by hackers, and Stile-related stuff was flowing through the catbox.
We had already peaked, it was only a few hours into April 1 server time, and
users were starting to get annoyed.
So I sat out, which was disappointing, but I didn't want to make an out-of-control
situation worse. Here's what you missed: A couple of days before I had
prepared Indecent Otto1, who was a typical dumbass male
noder. My strategy was this: Long ago I singlehandedly embarked on the E2 Editor Ass Project,
which involved finding & nuking the chaff mostly leftover from fled E1 users
on the operative principle that most of these folks, oddly enough, had at
least one writeup with the word "ass". So a simple "ass" search found hundreds
of node-auditable users that had some really bad ass (as opposed to badass) writeups.
Here's a couple of examples:
kicks ass by goldilox: "Kicking ass if fun if you are not having
your ass kicked. If you like the person who is kicking your ass, it's
okay. If you don't like the person, you should do some ass kicking of
your own. Donkeys are asses. Do not kick them. That's cruelty to
animals."
ass crack deodorant by codehead: "Ass crack deoderant is sprayed
on the sphincter area. It is specially formulated to withstand high
temperatures and can be used to counteract the olefactory effects of
gas as well as reduce the effects of smelly finger syndrome."
You just can't make stuff like that up, so since I'd nuked it long ago & it was all long gone
and hopefully forgotten, I figured I'd just start dropping it back in
as authentic, dumb noding, and wait for the flood of downvotes and
disapproving messages. Since Sophanda et al had gone way beyond that
before I even arrived, you were all spared the scatalogical drivel that Otto was going
to temporarily inflict on the database, and I just sat back and watched.
I must say that Poop et al deserve an Academy Award of
sorts for going at it that hard, if not in an over-the-top way. I think
it ultimately backfired when users realized that the lunatics had taken over
the asylum -- which in a way is a kind of odd complement for us, since it's our job
to make sure that kind of thing never happens.
It was, if nothing else, a nice cathartic experience for the Eds/Gods. We work
silently and hard to clean up a less caricatured, more pathetic version of this kind of stuff
every day so you don't have to wade through it or even see it. After seeing crap like
that over and over it gets to you after a while, and you need to blow off steam somehow.
I'm just sorry you had to see us all do it all at once.
1Of this at least I am proud: "Indecent Otto" is a pseudo-anagram of "Content Editor"
(less an 'r' that wouldn't fit anywhere). I tried anagramming my own username but couldn't come up
with anything that wouldn't look extremely odd as a newbie nic. (Three p's in sockpuppet -- even if you take one out you get "Pesto Puck" or "Stuck Pope", not very satisfying.) I spent most of the time
wishing I had The Custodian's nic, which anagrams to any number of wonderful things including:
Suction Death
Nude Shit Taco
Teutonic Dash
Haste Conduit
Any one of which would make a killer noder name, or (almost goes without saying)
an excellent name for a rock band.