Heard about this today. Did you know that Darren Rowse is bankrupt since the most he ever earned on ProBlogger was $1,000/month?
It’s not true, of course. It’s a pretty tacky April Fools gag, clumsily made since the post date isn’t even April 1st. Darren wasn’t happy, and I can imagine he got even more pissed when his Wikipedia entry got updated accordingly. That shows how unreliable Wikipedia can be, if anything. Come on, is There’s a Blog in my Soup reliable enough for such an edit? And who does that kind of edit to a person’s entry without looking up on facts?
Patrick Curl, author of the post, have updated with an apology. The post is still up.
April Fools is a silly thing. Tacky jokes are part of it, so I don’t blame Patrick. The fact that the post date is wrong is the worst part if you ask me, because you won’t automatically take it as an April Fools gag since it says March 31st. I’m no fan of going after people either, better to joke about more abstract things. That way you won’t risk hurting people’s reputation or brand, since not all people will understand that it is a joke, nor will they check back to read about how they’re the laughing stock of April Fools Day.
I’d say this joke backfired. I’d also say that people should cut Patrick some slack. April Fools is a silly thing, that’s all that there’s to it. I bet Patrick learned his lesson, and I bet a lot of people who perhaps would’ve done the same thing under different circumstances did too.
I also learned something, or rather, was reminded of something. That Wikipedia is edited by people, and some of them don’t check the source.
