Happy April 1

[gstark]

It's been a busy, but fun morning.

Watching the F1 practice from Melbourne, for instance.

And deleting the odd message from the forum, for another. If you're one who posted a message that I needed to delete, my heartfelt apologies, but it was all in a good cause.

For the record, we've had quite a few different things happening this morning.

Most significantly was the banning of Thanh. Relax, he's not been banned. The full story of this one, cooked up by PhillipB and Stubbsy in order to try to catch out Leigh and Me, can be seen here.

Although it failed in terms of its original target, it was a gem, and we enjoyed it immensely, and we caught out quite a few people with it.

You know who you are ...

Then we had the new look for the forum. That was the obvious one, in your face to the point where you couldn't miss it. And hopefully enough to distract you from all of the other shit we had going on.

For the late risers and those in other parts of the world, this link will let you see what we did.

Including the giant dust bunny.


Like the firmware recall, and the D3H announcement.

The plan here was that we would post the firmware recall (say, what?) here with the reference on that site - which we own - to the D3H being obvious, but not mentioned in our initial post.

We figured that somebody would notice that link pretty bloody quickly, and post a reference to that back here. That's pretty much how it happenned, but Glen quickly realised he'd been had and sent me a PM, to which I responded prompting him to open a separate thread to help bring this some extra atrtention.

All of which helped to distract everyone from the other gags that were happenning.

And although I made a suggestion to Mark to post the D3H reference in DPR, somebody from there beat him to it; it turned up there within an hour of turning up here, and with no help (to my knowledge) from anyone here.

The D3H stuff has been pulled down for now so we don;t get too badly hit with bandwidth issues, but we'll put it back shortly.
And we should not forget our BGLOD website.

Nnnnsic's edit:
Alrighty then, I'm here to tell you who made these jokes...

Nikon X3 medical camera -- Concept by Nnnnsic & Potatis, Execution by Nnnnsic
There's a little bit more to the story. Check the 3rd page of the review to find out what you missed if you were caught out.

The forum performs a mutiny -- Concept by PhillipB & Stubbsy, Execution by a lot of people... oh fine... I'll name some... Geoff, MHD, Glen, Greg B, Leek, Birddog114, Cricketfan, PhillipB, Stubbsy, Matt K, Johndec, Sirhc55, Fozzie, etc... loads of people.
If I missed your name... deal with it. This was a logistical nightmare and it's why it didn't work on Dad or I.

The forum moves to DX format and gets a dust bunny! -- Concept by Nnnnsic, Execution by Nnnnsic
Who here remembers the Geocities hovering logo? Same concept except it works before an iframe. If you used Opera, you only saw the DX format, not the dust bunny.

The forum gets errors and finally a BGLOD -- Concept by Gstark, Execution by Nnnnsic & Gstark
Sorry for almost killing relationships and getting people worried about their jobs. Dad asked me to find a fairly soft but sexy image and the one I had did the job.

NikonAustralia.com announces a firmware recall -- Concept by Gstark, Execution by Nnnnsic & Gstark
For this to work, we had to build a NikonAustralia which looked a lot like Nikon UK. And, if we were going to do that, we had to do...

NikonAustralia has the D3H -- Concept by Nnnnsic, Execution by Nnnnsic
For those people who thought they'd seen these pics before, they were entirely new just like the specs were entirely made up. (So the people on DPReview who thinks these were re-used... stop moaning, groaning and crying... didn't you read my Terms & Conditions?! )

And in case you're wondering, I've already concocted a few ideas for next year.

Yes. I admit it. I have no life. Or not much of one anyway.
Who noticed that the D3H sported minor level adjustments?

[Glen]

Extremely well done Gary and Leigh, proud to say I was initially caught out for a couple of minutes by the D3H

[NikonUser]

Well done is all I can say.

I wasn't totally convinced... but I wasn't relaxed either I hate and love this day

I had a guy call me at work at 5am this morning saying he wasn't comming in to work... I didn't react too well.... he was stood at the window watching me and it took me a few minutes to cotton on. Grrrr

Paul

[Alex]

What a relief! I didn't care much for canon deal, but I did care about Thahn. I was cought out with this one, but I was certain the Canon deal was part of April 1. Well done!!

Alex

[Catcha]

See I knew it.............well planned..............

[sirhc55]

Excellent Gary and Leigh - the D3 and firmware upgrades were fun

[stubbsy]

ANd we all survived

[gstark]

But where's Thanh?

[radar]

ANd we all survived

Yes we did

You are one to blame on this

Well done Gary, Leigh, Stubbsy, Thanh, Phillipb, Glen Thaddeus and who ever else will own up to it, You all have too much spare time

Joyeux Poisson d'Avril

Andre

[thaddeus]

Oops, perhaps you forgot to unban him!

[MCWB]

Hehe excellent stuff guys! I was completely and totally had by the '5D switchers', at least until Matt.K's thread when the penny dropped! Looking forward to next year!

[nito]

yes all you guys should take a bow!

[radar]

But where's Thanh?

Surely having a Crowny in BH and having a good laugh

[gstark]

Joyeux Poisson d'Avril

A special mention too for Andre, who informed me of the Poisson d'Avril custom in France, and which became Stubbsy's new rank earlier in the week.

[stubbsy]

Joyeux Poisson d'Avril

A special mention too for Andre, who informed me of the Poisson d'Avril custom in France, and which became Stubbsy's new rank earlier in the week.

I thought something fishy was happening with that

[BBJ]

Now for those who was with us last year should have realised the antics of the stark family and i seen the some of it last nite or early hrs while i was still up and did make a post to the goings on. Must say that this latest effort was well planned and a good read mind you but well we all know how the minds of this forum works and of all days. Well i have enjoyed the read and a few chuckles along the way.

[phillipb]

Only one thing still to be resolved.
Trying to keep up with this got me to over the limit in the .net site and Gary banned my IP I hope he reverses it now.

[gstark]

Well i have enjoyed the read and a few chuckles along the way.

And that's what it's all about.

[BBJ]

Hi Gary, and others involved thanks for the the entertainment this morning like i said have enjoyed it and i know never to underestermate how some of you work and we all know how devious some minds work and well for some who was here last year should have realised it, but great job fellas.

[gstark]

A couple of observations on the DPR side of things.

It was interesting to observe how many of them saw fit to post not only the whois query results (which can also easily be faked, and yes, I did also think about putting in false details there for the duration of this effort) but how little humour there was in their posting efforts.

They clearly (my interpretation) wanted to each make sure that their post was better than somebody else's - a clear pissing contest in many instances.

Thank god that one person saw fit to post the two para disclaimer from our NA site that stated that the site was fake and set up purely as an AFD gag.

One person there also points out that he had seen our (fake) D3H images elsewhere. That would be rather an interesting accomplishment as Leigh crafted those himself, especially for this gag. As I said, these people delight in thinking everything's a pissing contest and that they have to be better than the rest. <yawn>

For the more astute amongst us (and that's most of you), there is another thread running on DPR that's discussing whether Nikon will bring out a FF camera. In the very first post in that thread there is actually a mention of a rumoured D3H!

And Thom Hogan is participating in that thread. Could you imagine the fun if our efforts in this arena became intertwined with those?

[Nnnnsic]

Alrighty, I've updated the thread with information as to who did each joke and will be setting up the April Fools Archive page which will even have last years joke in it later on in the week.

[gstark]

DPR Fallout.

Somebody on DPR has posted a message saying that I should send an apology to the 20 people he sent the link

Who told him to send the emails?

[Michael]

April one is the only decent day out of st patts day and those other stupid days. It makes everyone well nearly everyone smile. LOL gstark that guy sounds like a tosser!

[Nnnnsic]

Aww... I'm all proud and stuff...

[gstark]

LOL gstark that guy sounds like a tosser!

While there's a few there who appreciate what we've done, there's a couple there who seem to have the sense of humour of OBL.

[macka]

This list of shenanigans is quite incredible.

10 points for effort, guys.

Phew, glad it's over.

[gstark]

More fallout.

In the DPR thread, somebody made a comment along the lines of very good, but highlighted a small typo - "hig" instead of "high".

We found the error in our NA site, but then Leigh said we should check the Maxwell site.

The page in question is here, and what you will see there is this.



Can you say "Oops" ??

[Manta]

I was out on the water this morning and missed most of the carryings-on but I was conversing a bit with Gary yesterday regarding the Canon thing. We had a few laughs over the way it was panning out.

One thing I didn't mention was that BlacknStormy and Damian were in my office earlier yesterday morning, talking about this incredible Canon offer that some members had received. I played dumb (pretty easy for me) and said I hadn't had a chance to keep up with the posts this week so knew nothing about it. Rel said she'd think really seriously about it if she got the "Canon Email" and was eagerly awaiting same.

I rang her a little later on and told her that not only had I got an email, but that the offer had been improved. I said they offered me a better trade: my D70 + $1000 for a 1DS MkII, and that I was seriously considering it. SHe was gobsmacked. But not as gobsmacked as she was when old poker-face here couldn't stop myself from laughing over the phone and had to break the bad news to her that she'd been had. Sorry Rel... by the sounds of it, you weren't the only one caught and anyway, you take better photos than me!!

Congratulations to Gary, Leigh, Thanh, Stubbsy and all the others for the terrific effort you've put into AFD2006. You're worth every cent in your pay-packets! This is a reminder to those who sits on the edge and lurks that this is one forum where enjoying yourself is the name of the game and that, regardless of how apparently serious a prank may be, everyone sits back and smiles about it afterwards. Not sure other forums have the same sense of humour.

Enjoy the rest of the day folks.

[Nnnnsic]

We found the error in our NA site, but then Leigh said we should check the Maxwell site.

I may have forgotten to proof-read my site, but I copied it directly from theirs.

So, let's ask them when we're at the Expo in late April for information regarding their hig image quality in their D2hs.

[stubbsy]

And I see someone calling themselves Jumbuck on the dpreview site is even more incensed at this little joke.

this is totally irresponsible behaviour on your part Gary. Why don't you stick to misleading your own people on your own website dslrsusers (or whatever its called).

You know this will be taken up by other people perhaps of a different language and the end result will be a build up of consumer expectations that, possibly, will cause much harm to the Nikon brand in the long term should they fail to deliver.

And not only that, you are using the official Nikon logo to give your scam legitimacy. Did you get permission to use a registered trade mark on your scam site???? Hide behind the April Fools Day excuse all you want but in my book you are a true irresponsible idiot.

We have a user here called Jumbuck who isn't a big fan of Gary's. Wonder if that's a coincidence. Have a read here for some interesting byplay when Jumbuck proudly shared this observation with us:

I was the first to post and display official images of the D200 at dslrusers

Of course all THAT turned out to be faked details taken off a fake Nikon site just like the D3H. Spooky huh

[Matt. K]

And so it ends...for another year. Well done done to all concerned. Now...where's Than?

[johndec]

We have a user here called Jumbuck who isn't a big fan of Gary's. Wonder if that's a coincidence.

The Jumbuck on DPR and the Jumbuck here are both from Australia. Coincidence? I think not.. Of course this raises the question as to why he didn't air his grievances here???

[the foto fanatic]

What else can we say about the plagiarism of jumbuck?

He has ripped off the identity of one of the leading characters of Australia's iconic anthem, Waltzing Matilda.

Talk about sheep.

He's come to a gunfight armed with a water pistol.

[gstark]

Peter,

We have a user here called Jumbuck who isn't a big fan of Gary's. Wonder if that's a coincidence.

Well remembered, and no, I don't believe that it's a coincidence.

In looking at our Jumbuck's postings, there's a certain air of arrogance and negative I-know-it-all to them that to me is evident in DPR's Jumbuck as well.

Looking just a tad more deeply, in his short tenure here (he seems to have disappeared and sank without a trace) he upset not just me, but a number of other members due to his attitude and way with words. Looking at DPR's Jumbuck, the same sort of relationships with other members is also evident, and fritction, rather than cooperation and moderation, seems to be the order of the day with both Jumbucks.

I cannot say with absolute certainty that these are one and the same person, but were you to ask me to place a wager on this, I'd be there like a shot.

As a final observation, isn't it a fact that a jumbuck is a sheep, and that sheep aren't reknown for being too smart? As I said, just an obervation.

[shutterbug]

Hi Gary

I got a rude pm from Gary when i discovered the nikonaus site was his

He also deleted my post too

[TonyH]

Great Gag,

I do have to admit to trying to fuel it along a little. I couldn't believe that Thahn would ever be banned.

Looking forward to next year.


Tony

[wile_E]

 ROFLMAO

Well done guys! I thought the whole Stubbsy/Glen defection to Canon was strange, but I'd missed the whole "banning of Thanh" when it happened live (although I think I would have fallen for it).

Looking forward to next year, however I don't think I'm going to believe ANYTHING anybody says a fortnight before 1 April...

[wendellt]

All of this just goes to show how much people want to believe what they read on the internet!!

well done to everybody involved you sure have located the fool in in me, i have now killed that person.

[stubbsy]

well done to everybody involved you sure have located the fool in in me, i have now killed that person.

Here's hoping that's the part of you responsible for "field testing" your gear

[radar]

Hi Gary and Leigh,

your D3H and firmware upgrade also got some airtime on the d1scussion list, mainly pro photogs that use Nikon gear. A few got taken in, but it was quickly pointed out to look at the calendar

At least they seem to have a sense of humour,

Cheers,

André

[Steffen]

What I don't get is: how could Gary have registered the domain name nikonaustralia.com?? Have Melbourne IT gone completely mad? Or ICANN? Or the lot them?

Cheers
Steffen.

[gstark]

Steffan,

The name actually belonged to xerebus originally.

One reason I don't like .au domains is that the AUDA interferes unneccesarily with the domain name process. Using a .com domain avoids all of the Oz interference, and Nikon Oz (or Maxwells) have not, to this time, shown any interest in this domain, so when I spoke with Mark and found that he was nolonger using it, and that it was now available, I grabbed it.

[elffinarts]

LMFAO - I missed all the fun, the fallout is fun to read though I was shooting all weekend, Thurs through till the early hours of this morning. the closest I saw to any April fools fun was the Brisbane zombie walk yesteray