But to everyone who felt this went a little too far... you're probably right.

When we decided to pull an April Fool's prank, we knew it had to be something bigger and deeper than ever before, otherwise everyone would know it was fake immediately. "Kishi posts porn and gets banned" is just too obvious. But when we added our carefully orchestrated arguments, grudges and public rages, it all seemed much more plausible.

If anything, the event and the reactions to it have been very useful as a learning tool. We've heard people's ideas on what makes a good forum and a good staff, on how the rules should be adminstered and enforced, and how 'open' staff decisions should be.

As for all this talk of "it looked like EoFF was falling apart!", I think that's a slight exaggeration. A few staff members disagreed on a few issues, and our disagreements went public. It just got inflated into a colossal drama, but at no point did it even appear to threaten EoFF's future. This was still the same old place, just with a few less people in charge.

I'm kind of entertained about how it all went:

*I 'speak out' and become a hero/martyr for standing up against injustice

*Shlup is the evil biatch for being so mean

*I get labelled cowardly and irresponsible for speaking out because it caused so much drama

*Shlup is still called an evil biatch even though it's all my fault

It was interesting to watch how members' attitudes toward different staffers changed over time.