When to announce

[Luke Schierer]

On Fri, Mar 30, 2007 at 01:37:16PM -0500, Mark Doliner wrote:
> On Thu, 29 Mar 2007 16:40:21 -0700, Sean Egan wrote
> > On 3/29/07, Sean Egan <seanegan at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Oh man, April 1st... good idea!
> > 
> > I just realized this reads like we shouldn't do the April Fool's
> > thing. We should do it, but hopefully in a way that nobody believes
> > it, and causes headaches ;)
> 
> I don't think I'm going to be able to talk you guys out of it, but I think
> this is a bad idea.  Doing something small, playful and harmless for April
> Fool's Day is cool, but I feel like announcing that there won't be any more
> Gaim releases is going to confuse more people than it amuses.  People expect
> April Fool's jokes to be silly and made up.
> 
> It's also strange to me to announce that we're changing our name on April 1st
> as a joke, but then make a second announcement that we're changing our name a
> few weeks later, but this time it's real.  People are going to be like, "what...?"
> 
> -Mark

I agree here.  My idea of the right way to approach this would be to
make our actual announcement on april 1st, and be amused as people
mistakenly take it for an april fools prank.  This approach would have
most of the pluses of using our situation for april fools, without the
additional confusion Mark is concerned about.  It would sort itself out
by our lack of retraction, perhaps accompanied by a confirmation a day
or so later.

It would also, because some people would take it for an april fools
prank, slow this release, and streatch it out, since some people who
would otherwise pound us will think its an april fools prank and ignore
us for a day or so.

luke