When it comes to the time-honored tradition of April Fool's Day pranks, I'm a bit of a fuddy-duddy. I don't mind the really good, really funny, and really obvious pranks. I don't mind having a fast-one pulled on me as long as it's clever, and funny, and not simply a dumb lie passed off as a joke with "April Fool's!" ("I'm really sorry, but I ran over your dog. He's dead.")

Every year I get suggestions from our site's staffers about what would make a funny April 1 prank. They'll tell you that I'm a very hard sell on them -- in fact, we've never done one to date. We've had some good and harmless ideas, like messing with people's post counts or user titles in the forum.

But among online news sites like GateWorld, prank news stories have become something of a tradition for April Fool's Day. Whether it's William Shatner starring in a new Star Trek spin-off or George W. Bush doing a guest spot as a file clerk on The West Wing, each year sites march out their most outlandish fake news and try to pass it off on their readers as a real scoop -- just for a day. Sometimes they make it clear at the end that it's a prank; sometimes they just don't.

But you'll never see prank news at GateWorld, as long as I'm alive. I consider your readership to be a trust, one that we've worked hard to build over the last six and a half years. It may be a victory to the writer to pull one over on his readership, but what does it do for the readers but embarrass and potentially anger them? Or, even worse, have them pass on the lies as real news for weeks to come, referencing the site as the dubious source?

I remember a genre magazine that posted a now infamous April Fool's joke a few years ago, after Michael Shanks ("Daniel Jackson") had left Stargate SG-1. They reported a "news" piece that Shanks was returning to guest star as Daniel's long-lost twin brother Michael (yes, put that together with the character's last name). It was just clever enough to be funny, but a bit too subtle for many fans of the show who didn't notice as the joke sailed high over their heads.

Fans who frequented message boards four years ago remember how many times they had to fight the rumor, so many months after the issue was published.

It's funny not only to write and run a joke piece, but the real kicker is when you can get people to actually believe it. And the more crazy a notion you can convince them of, the greater the April Fool's victory. It's a shame when it's done by serious news outlets, whose editors spend the other 364 days out of the year trying to build credibility and convince people to turn to them for reliable news.

"Fool me once, shame on you." And then I'll go elsewhere to find news I know isn't a big fat lie.

Maybe I'm just a fuddy-duddy. But I hate what disinformation does to people, and the mess it makes that I have to clean up later when I get e-mail questions and news tips for the next six months about some bald-faced lie that another site posted. I'd rather keep GateWorld's reputation -- a place where Stargate fans can find reliable news 365 days a year, not one where you have to be on your toes to figure out if we're trying to pull a fast one on you.

What do you think? Am I making too much of this? Do you like being fooled by sci-fi news sites on April 1? Are certain kinds of jokes more appropriate than others?

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