Fooled! Hoodwinked!

I was trying to think of a witty Harry Potter themed pun for the title , but evidently I didn't come up with one. Maybe if I'd read more of the books...
In any case, there was much hoopla over at http://www.harrypotterfanfiction.com/ for April Fool's day this year. My group-mate and I were both very confused when we visited the site the night before the first only to find the regular web-site replaced by something new. The homepage had been replaced with "HP Shippers Unite," bearing an image of a cork board and a notice that the site would only be accepting stories which featured a relationship between either Sirius and Lily or Harry Potter and Cho. Many, or most, of the stories previously hosted on the site were inaccessible. There was outrage, as you can imagine. The forums were on fire. Everyone had something to say about the drastic changes being made. There was a podcast from the angry staffers that were striking over the change. Apparently some people were so upset that their volatile reactions (e-mails and the like sent to the website's admins) caused them to be banned from the site. Temper temper! Much to everyone's relief, I'm sure, the site has been restored to it's usual self. Those that sent angry e-mails are doubtlessly lolling about in front of their computers, ruing their calendar ineptitude...
This whole episode shows what a cool medium the internet is. Look at all of this interaction! People interacting with the internet, the website, each-other... it's a big party...of interaction. In this sense, books are a much hotter medium than the internet. There just doesn't seem to be the potential for anything close to this sort of interaction with books as there is with the internet.

Other April-foolery, non fanfic related, going on this year included Questionable Content, xkcd and Qwantz all switching websites with each-other. Fun link chasing ensued to find my favourite comics. There were some upset, confused and worried people all over that one too. In Jeph, QC's creator's, words, " Jeez people come on it was APRIL FIRST." [via Twitter. I am getting too entwined on the net.]