Scioly.org:April Fools' Day
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 | This article is just for fun. It is not official and is not related to the National Science Olympiad, any official tournaments or events, or teams that compete at those tournaments. Instead, this page is satirical or details an event on Scioly.org. |
April Fools' Day on Scioly.org is an annual tradition where Scioly.org staff update the site to include pranks, usually involving the Forums and Wiki but sometimes extending across the site. Occasionally these pranks reflect the current state of Science Olympiad or Scioly.org, and other times they are just simple tricks intended to surprise users who visit the site on April 1.
This page documents some of the past April Fools' Day pranks by Scioly.org.
2012: Division D
Scioly.org announced a new Science Olympiad collegiate competition, called Division D with division-specific events such as Astrophysics, Combustible Rocket, and Say It Do It.
2013: Astro Theme?
2014: Test Exchange Paywall
Scioly.org set up a paywall on the Test Exchange as a reminder that as a community-sourced resource, the available content on the site would continue to be dependent on user contributions. The following day, robotman shared an argument for resource sharing.
A Simple Announcement
April 1, 2014
Hello All.Yesterday, April 1st we continued our tradition of letting the staff have some fun and generally do whatever devious ideas that we could think of to the board. However We as a whole decided to do one other prank, and that was to create the idea that some of scioly.org was not free anymore, and thus we setup the Paywall for the Test Exchange. This Prank served two major purposes, the first was to get you guys to react to our “change in policy”, and the second was to serve as a reminder. Scioly.org is a community resource, it is (and always will be) totally free to access all the materials on the site. However this total freedom does come at a price. The price is that you as users must contribute to the site in order for everyone to benefit. If you benefit from the test exchange, you should upload tests to help others. If you find the images helpful on the image gallery, please please upload images in order to help others. If you want to continue to benefit from the wiki pages, you yourself should take some time and put information onto the wiki. The information does not have to be formatted, that is something the staff can do, but the information should be added so that those who need information can benefit. Submit information so that everyone can benefit as a whole.
This “prank” was a reminder of how much you guys value the resources that Scioly.org, has to offer, and how many of you take advantage of these resources, so please think about how you felt when the test exchange disappeared, and take the time to give back to our community.
2015: SmartWatch Support and Mobile Improvements
Scioly.org announced smartwatch compatibility for the website.
SmartWatch Support and Mobile Improvements!
March 31, 2015
Scioly.org is always doing it everything it can to keep up with the times, and today we’re proud to announce a major step forward for the website.Recently, Apple unveiled its new line of smartwatches, expected to kick off a massive wearables craze. Just as we made every effort to make scioly.org a mobile-friendly site, we’re making every effort to make sure scioly.org is also a wearable-friendly site.
That’s why, starting today, our website will be smartwatch-compatible. Smartwatch users will be able to view the site comfortably on their device, without having to deal with enormous, hard-to-read text from the previous, desktop-oriented version.
We’re always looking to improve, so if you have any suggestions, be sure to let us know!
2016: Greyscale
Scioly.org announced that due to limited remaining server space, the site would transition to a greyscale appearance. The site index and Forums displayed without color, and while on these pages, users' cursors were stuck on loading.
Many censors were added to the Forums for the following humorous text replacements: the to tHe, a to A, your to you're, their to there, they're to there, than to then, it's to its, affect to effect, unofficial to official, Physical Sciences to Black Magic, physics to black magic, chemistry to explosions, chem to explosions, biology to mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell, space to spaaaaace, force to horse, medal to fifa coin, insect to bug, team to herd of pink sparkly unicorns, bridge to footbridge, > portal gun
yea* to yessssssss, and too to to. The Main Page of the Wiki was also jumbled.
Site Over Server Capacity
March 31, 2016
As some of you may know, we had a couple days recently where the site was down temporarily. This was due to the fact that the data placed on the site exceeded the amount of server space available to robotman. While we deeply appreciate all users' enthusiasm in supplying their knowledge to the site, we will have to work on contracting some of that data in order to avoid future downtimes, especially with nationals coming soon.As a part of this, we are working on grayscaling the site. We have found that storing data for all of the colors uses a surprising amount of space, so to give us some extra breathing room, we have removed them. As this is a rather widespread change, there may be some glitching that occurs throughout the site as we test it. This is completely normal, and hopefully in time it will not affect your studies too much.
If you do experience difficulties, please enter the chat, where a member of our administrative team will (hopefully) be online to assist you.
Thank you for your consideration!
2017: Switcheroo
Several parts of the site were flipped. On the Forums, user ranks and username colors were flipped so that regular users were labeled as administrators, administrators were labeled as regular users, and so on. Also on the Forums, the last two lines ("Jeff Anderson" and "Livonia, MI") of jander14indoor's well-recognized signature were flipped. The Main Page of the Wiki was replaced with Lolmain. On Chat, all users were assigned "OP," which on IRC grants moderator permissions.
The start of a new Test Exchange was also announced in the following post.
Site Transition: March Update
April 1, 2017
Scioly.org is continually improving to better support Science Olympiad competitors. With feedback from users, we have made the following changes.Instant clarifications. We've turned on mobile text notifications for chalker's phone for the chalker, can I... thread so he'll get a text every time you post a question there, ensuring faster responses.
Reversal of roles. Scioly.org is built by and for you, the competitors. Your posts in the forums, wiki edits, and test uploads make the site what is today. In acknowledgement of this, we've increased privileges of all users on this site. [size=2]DOWN WITH THE MODS[/size]
An improved test exchange. More functionality coming later. The old test exchange is accessible through the wiki main page.
We appreciate your patience as remaining issues from the site transition earlier this year continue to be resolved. As always, please post any issues you encounter in our designated thread.
2018: Site Watermark
A watermark was added to the site index, Forums, Wiki, and Test Exchange, indicating that the site was specifically prepared for the user accessing the site to "discourage redistribution." This was done to draw attention to some tournaments watermarking their tests, a practice that many viewed as excessively protective. In the following seasons, following example of tournaments such as the Princeton Invitational, many tournaments (including those who were previously watermarking) began publicly releasing their tests.
To the Forums, censors were also added to replace nats and nationals with regionals and April Fool* with Easter. The Main Page of the Wiki was replaced with Lolmain.
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2019: uwu
Across the site, the logo for the site was replaced with an "uwu" version. View a web archive of the site index here. The Main Page of the Wiki was replaced with Lolmain.
2020: Cancelled
In light of tournament cancellations across the nation and the progressing COVID-19 pandemic, Scioly.org did not run its usual April Fools' Day festivities and instead issued a statement of encouragement to the Science Olympiad community.
To Our Scioly.org Community
April 1, 2020
Dear Scioly.org Community,If you've been on Scioly.org around this time in previous seasons, you may remember a watermarked site, the site in grayscale, announcements of "smartwatch" support, and a Test Exchange paywall.
Undoubtedly, this season has been unusual, and this year Scioly.org is opting out of our traditional April Fools' Day events. We're doing so out of respect for everyone in our community and beyond affected by COVID-19, and in this moment of uncertainty and stress, it is important more than ever to stay true and factual. Your discussions show your passion for Science Olympiad, and together you helped crowdsource a resource with the latest, accurate updates on tournaments nationwide. We're proud of you and how you're handling these changes.
As you follow the events around us, we hope you're also giving attention to your own health, both mentally and physically. Find time for mindfuless, self care, exercise, or whatever helps you feel more like yourself. Remember, it's okay not to be at your most productive during a pandemic.
As always, in the Scioly.org community we're here for one another, and we'll get through this together to see brighter times. Take care, and stay safe.
Your Scioly.org Staff
2021: Throwback Thursday
Scioly.org revisited styles from previous generations of the site in the theme of "Throwback Thursday," as April Fools' Day was on a Thursday.
The site index was replaced with a page mimicking the style of site in its fourth generation. This page contained humorous Science Olympiad-related headlines, a "Team of the Week" section linking to a random Wiki page, a "User of the Week" naming the user accessing the page, an Image Gallery link linking to Google Images, a link to a Rickroll, links that would move right when hovered, randomly selected Your Daily Random Comment posts, and Forums statistics. The bottom of the page included a "hit" counter with randomly generated numbers which when clicked would rotate or reflect the page. View a web archive of the site index here.
The Forums were restyled to mimic the style of the site in its fifth generation with blue backgrounds, rounded corners, and gradient-filled buttons. The site navigation bar on the Forums displayed the logo from the fifth generation, designed by zyzzyva980. View a web archive of the Forums here.
The Main Page of the Wiki was replaced with an "uwu" version, prepared by HugoTroop, and the site navigation bar for the Wiki was replaced with an "uwu" version containing the logo designed for April Fools' Day of 2019. View a web archive of the Wiki here.
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2022: Flying With a Bit of Turbulence
Sections across Scioly.org were jumbled. Letters in the site logo swapped places (from "Scioly.org" to "Scoily.org") and the top navigation bar of Scioly.org had links rearranged. On the site index, words of the about paragraph and tile/icon links were rearranged. On the Forums, forums and subforums sections were reordered, and the nationals subforum was renamed from "Nationals" to "California" with its location set to "CalTech University."
Scioly.org Chat also experienced a bit of turbulence, with the Discord server renamed and its server icon replaced to match the jumbled letters of the website ("Scoily.org"). Channels and roles were renamed to fit the flight theme, and the order of channels within each category was rearranged periodically throughout the day.
| Category | Original Value | Replacement |
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| Server | #welcome | No change |
| #rules | No change | |
| #join-log | #new-passengers | |
| #bot-spam | #ticket-kiosk | |
| #tournaments | #airports | |
| #site-support | #call-attendant | |
| Announcements | #announcements | #from-the-captain |
| #changelog | No change | |
| #scioly-news | #wright-stuff-news | |
| General | #lounge | #waiting-area |
| #academics | #pilot-school | |
| #non-scioly-advice | #non-wright-stuff-advice | |
| #interests | #planespotting | |
| #memes | #plane-jokes | |
| #venting | No change | |
| #games | #in-flight-entertainment | |
| Science Olympiad | #scioly | #wright-stuff |
| #events | #flight-events | |
| #competitions | #air-shows | |
| #nationals | #federal-aviation-administration | |
| #alumni | #licensed-pilots | |
| #wiki | #air-wiki | |
| #gallery | #window-seat | |
| #ssss-smec | No change | |
| #scilympiad | #flight-simulator | |
| Roles | Staff | Flight Crew |
| VIP | Platinum Rewards Flyer | |
| Exalted Member | Frequent Flyer | |
| Member | Main Cabin | |
| Pi-Bot | Biscoff-Bot |
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