Ameribricks: Shocking News Here

[horizon]

On april 1 it was clear to be a joke to me,

the fact that is was 3 days later still on made it kinda weird.

The joke had to be told by the staff on april 2 right away. :)

[Ecclesiastes]

I was just already getting used to ameribricks. Good thing ameribricks.us still gets you to eurobricks.com

[Pop Bumper Pete]

Eurobricks, a great place to chill

[Oky]

Well, I guess it was about time that the truth came out, seeing how some of the last comments were getting a bit ugly.

Anyway, may I just say that this was a wonderful prank! It was quite obvious from the start that this was a joke and I'm surprised that so many fell for it, even after some pointed out here why this can't be true, which made it the more hilarious! I had a blast following the discussions, although I was afraid to participate myself as I didn't want to ruin the joke somehow. It's indeed pretty sad how much people get worked up over the silliest things on the internet nowadays. I hope this will teach those (April) fools to lighten up and have a bit more faith in our admins' decision making.

It is this type of fun that makes Eurobricks such an awesome site! Now lets see you top this one next year!

[Scorpiox]

To be honest, this was brilliantly played on the part of the staff. The premise itself was hilarious, but the REAL joke was just how outraged and riled up some members got; it became more and more hilarious as time went on.

As for those who believed it be real, and were irritated by it; did you seriously think that Eurobricks who do such a thing? The server is even hosted by Bonaparte, a European member. Americans who found the banner 'too offensive' ought to learn to laugh at themselves a bit more, it was only light-hearted fun. As for the fellow non-Americans who grew mad, the joke was so overt that I'd think you could have got even a brief smile out of it; I'm English, and not afraid to say 'Yeeehawww' and make toaster jokes.

[Roger_Smith]

I never bought it, and stated so.

But by April 4th or so I thought 'Come one, get it over with already'. The banter in the topic became very repetitive by then, and I didn't see much point in keeping it going much longer. I missed the voting topic when it was open, but that seems like a nice closing joke. The options were hilarious.

[Phazon]

Well, I don't blame anyone it's just this topic is partly meant to harass some people even more, that's my point of view. Other than that, brilliant and nice joke!

[Hrw-Amen]

At first it did seem like a joke as it was 01/04 when it appeared. That was fine everyone can take joke. However then some-one pointed out that it was actually posted on 31/03 so a little doubt crept in. Not enough to derail it though as obviously we are not all in the same time zone.

Even as a joke though I found it distasteful as Eurobricks is a forum that is quite heavily modded and it seemed that the joke was going against the sensibilities of everything that the mods would have tolerated should a normal member have posted it. Nonetheless a joke is a joke and just because it was not funny was not something to get upset about.

After a few days though and nothing changing and we were starting to get all sorts of nasty posts both for and against the idea it did seem that it was getting out of hand and again I wondered why the thread had not been locked like it normally would have been? I am sure if I had posted it the mods would have been all over me. So then because of that a little doubt crept in and maybe it was not a joke?

At that point what I had been willing to accept as an attempt at a joke (Even if it was not my cup o tea.) did become a little worrying. Not worrying in the sense of it being the end of the world, but rather just a bit irksome that one of the good places to discuss ones hobby had been high-jacked by extremists and I think that was seen in the posts, some were very for the change and some very against it with little middle ground.

By the time the poll appeared the joke side had been lost altogether and people were considering whether to pull out of the forum. Now you may ask why over a name change? But you have to consider that it was not simply the name, the name is really not the point here but the way that the apparent shift in focus was going to concentrate on an American sensibility and stuff the rest of the world! I think what the mods and anyone else who was involved with this have to remember is that a lot of people come here to Eurobricks to post because it is a safe place to do so. Out of all the forums on the internet it is the one that is heavily modded (Sometimes too much.) and people know that they can post here and expect a sensible answer with constructive but polite feedback rather than (As in most forums.) getting their ideas shot down in flames. Even if you post a MOC that is really awful people will suggest ways you can improve it in a reasonably polite way rather than telling you it sucks or is rubbish. That is something good about this forum. So when people see the mods, the very people who promote this sort of behavior apparently going off on a tangent to extreme views that is worrying to many. It shows that what they thought of as a safe environment is, or may no longer be a place where they can feel safe to express themselves.

So i do feel that if it had started out as an April fools joke like so many thought it was, and it had stopped at that then that would have been it. Funny or not people would have just accepted it and moved on. However letting it run on for so long putting doubt in peoples mind about the direction the forum was going in, was only ever going to lead to bad feeling as an apparent safe place seemed as though it had been high-jacked by the same sort of mindless yobs that are so active on most internet forums, in effect removing the very reason why a lot of us posted here in the first place rather than on those other less well maintained and monitored sites.

I do therefore think that the mods should also reflect on what they have done and possibly have a little bit of humility and accept that on this occasion maybe they pushed the boat a little far and rather than starting a thread to poke fun (By the way it reads.) at those who became distressed by there actions (Or lack of them.) they should just state that it did start out as a joke but accept that it went on a bit long and say they are sorry and that next time it will be much better managed.

[Scubacarrot]

R.I.P Ameribricks Never forget, 2013.

[8BrickMario]

Yay, it's back! With a new banner to celebrate!

Oh my gosh. Just took a closer look at the banner What's the butcher trying to do to the Minotaur? I wouldn't eat that beef.....

[Cutcobra]

R.I.P Ameribricks Never forget, 2013.

Don't worry, it will always be in our hearts *cries*, oh no wait, I think it would actually always be in our stomachs.

[Leo604]

People sure do get worked up about things. What does it really matter what the site is called?

Judging by all the reactions we've had, I'd say that it matters a lot what the site is called.

[DOTM Shockwave]

I still can't believe people thought this joke was really happening, the date the topic was posted on should had been a clue (who in there right mind would reveal a serious major change on or around April 1st ).

I still found the rage from some funnier than the joke, then again rage has always humor me, especially rage from the TF fandom.

[Brickington]

I still can't believe people thought this joke was really happening, the date the topic was posted on should had been a clue (who in there right mind would reveal a serious major change on or around April 1st

Ahem, Mr. Shadowman has told us repeatly that he isn't in his right state of mind. So that wasn't what I thought.

[Vindicare]

I'm still not understanding why people are getting on the mods case about people reacting poorly to the joke... Hrw-Amen, you mentioned in so many words, how the moderating of the thread(s) was slacking or non-existent, that right there should've been a big clue to the fact that it was in fact a joke.

[Brickadeer]

Hrw-Amen, you mentioned in so many words, how the moderating of the thread(s) was slacking or non-existent, that right there should've been a big clue to the fact that it was in fact a joke.

I disagree. I'm not sure if the absence of moderation increased uncertainty, but it clearly didn't decrease uncertainty by serving as a cue to interprete the whole situation as a joke.

[Zarkan]

The people who took this joke seriously have no idea how good they have it here. Personally, I thought this prank was in perfectly good taste, and the satire was so gentle that it only confirmed to me that Eurobricks genuinely appreciates America and all that its citizens have contributed to this site. Compare that to the genuine hatred of America you can find in certain spots on the web, and its clear we American Eurobrickers have been treated pretty dang well.

[Capt. Redblade]

Whaaaa? You mean it was all a joke?! I'm shocked, absolutely and utterly shocked! I was all geared up to exchange my Canadian flag for an American one, start drinking weaker beer, buy a roomful of guns, and submit to our new Yankee overlords.

Nah, I'm kidding. As soon as I saw the Ameribricks announcement I started laughing my head off. Thank you Shadows and everyone else, that was the greatest joy this site has brought me in a while!

[Hrw-Amen]

The people who took this joke seriously have no idea how good they have it here. Personally, I thought this prank was in perfectly good taste, and the satire was so gentle that it only confirmed to me that Eurobricks genuinely appreciates America and all that its citizens have contributed to this site. Compare that to the genuine hatred of America you can find in certain spots on the web, and its clear we American Eurobrickers have been treated pretty dang well.

I actually think it is the complete opposite. People come here because of what you can find on some other parts of the net and how bad they truly are. Eurobricks has for the most part always been a safe place to post and a place where you stand a good chance of getting a sensible reply. That is why people come here rather than go to other parts of the internet where things are really bad, or even just mildly bad.

As I said on a personal note I did not like the joke, but that did not detract from it being a good joke to start with which I think everyone accepted when it came out as it was April Fools Day. It was only then when it went on and on without being shut down by the mods that people began to wonder what happened. I do think the lack of input by the mods made it worse as it seemed they where by not have an input agreeing with the change.

The name changed is not what mattered, I think it was more the tone of the change, the way the whole emphasis of the site was skewed towards that angle. Really the change of name was by the by.

Anyway, we have probably wasted enough time discussing it when we could now be reading about someones wonderful MOC in one of the other forums, so I am not planning on coming back to this thread again. (Hopefully!)

[Oky]

Even as a joke though I found it distasteful as Eurobricks is a forum that is quite heavily modded and it seemed that the joke was going against the sensibilities of everything that the mods would have tolerated should a normal member have posted it.

You obviously didn't get the joke. The fact that the admins seemed to have made such a ridiculous decision which they or anyone in their right mind would normally never do WAS the joke. It was a prank and anything that made it more believable is what made it funnier and even the more obvious that it was a joke, including the time span in which it ran and the fact the admins didn't give much input during that time. I mean, did you truly believe that the admins who did such a great job for such a long time would all suddenly decide to go against everything they believed in, on April 1st of all days? And it's not like the level of moderation got lowered during that time. Everything operated just like it always did, except in the topics related to the joke (which, again, was part of the joke).

I agree with Shadows that if you can't take a joke and think that the EB staff either does too little or too much moderating, then this site is probably not for you.

[Hinckley]

wait, it's a joke? sorry, i really don't get it. i tought it was serius. it didn't bother me tough.

Check out our guidelines...quick. Before you annoy someone.

[Lakop]

If people can't recognise a joke, they deserve to suffer from it. ~ Shadows

To those of you who understood what we were doing with the entire Ameribricks announcement, cheers, we hope you got a laugh out of it. It was only going to be a one day joke, a quick hit and run that we expected people to immediately see through. We were taking bets on how quickly every post would be "ahaha, you got us, April Fools", especially after a few of those were posted.

What we didn't expect was the amount of selfish whining we saw. Seriously. If LEGO renamed itself OGEL tomorrow, would you start an internet petition and stamp your feet and wail? Based on this experience, it seems likely. The amount of turmoil some of you were experiencing is laughably ridiculous. You were so blinded by outrage that you couldn't see the thoroughly obvious joke that was right in your faces. From the over-the-top slogan to the blinding graphics and absolutely stereotypical comments and finally the poll today, there is no excuse for anyone to think this was serious. I would strongly suggest you learn from this experience and maybe stop taking things quite so seriously. Nothing about the site changed during that time except the graphics and one topic. Nothing. Think about your response to that. Kind of sad, isn't it?

I must say, this almost turned out to be more of a psychological experiment than an April Fool's joke, but not because it wasn't a good joke, just because some of you took it so poorly. It literally ran a lot longer than expected because it was fascinating to watch just how distraught a few of you got over a name change.

Feel free to discuss this amongst yourselves and maybe, with a little introspection, you can grow a bit. The rest of you can laugh at the ones who didn't get it, but try to be nice anyway, ok? Keep it good natured, like this joke would have been, and the point might get through to them.

Whatever the case, we are and will always be Eurobricks, even though the name doesn't really fit what we do here. It's tradition, and some traditions should never be lost. At least not until the beginning of April next year, at which time we've decided to turn the site into a Portal fanfiction repository. With free cake. Would I lie to you?

The reactions show how much the members care and how much this site means to them. For me personally, I had totally forgotten about April Fools day and as I logged on early Tuesday morning I was not sure what was going on. Anyway, nice to know it's staying as it is. To the Eurobricks people behind the scenes, this shows your community cares. I think you should buy us all a Lego Technic Unimog for the emotional distress.

H

[greeny]

Phew! I was certain it was a prank on April 1st but I was getting a bit worried after it the banner wasn't changing a couple of days later

At least I'll be prepared for next year

Edited April 7, 2013 by greeny

[Capt.JohnPaul]

You obviously didn't get the joke. The fact that the admins seemed to have made such a ridiculous decision which they or anyone in their right mind would normally never do WAS the joke. It was a prank and anything that made it more believable is what made it funnier and even the more obvious that it was a joke, including the time span in which it ran and the fact the admins didn't give much input during that time. I mean, did you truly believe that the admins who did such a great job for such a long time would all suddenly decide to go against everything they believed in, on April 1st of all days? And it's not like the level of moderation got lowered during that time. Everything operated just like it always did, except in the topics related to the joke (which, again, was part of the joke).

I agree with Shadows that if you can't take a joke and think that the EB staff either does too little or too much moderating, then this site is probably not for you.

I think what he's trying to say is topics would normally be locked or something if people were yelling like that, and posting so many stereotypes.

[Bobskink]

Now I'm sorry I didn't follow the fuz, must have been fasinating to see it grow.

It's great that you mods gave it a chance to build up and not immediatly stopped it. To put this extra on topic, an American forum would have never alowed sush great nonsence, that's why I love Eurobricks !

Can't wait until next years april fools joke.