I've been thinking about the way, every year, a flurry of joke/gag/silly submissions comes in on April 1st, only to languish and be largely rejected days or weeks later. A few might get published, but long after the brief thrill of the day is over. Wouldn't it make far more sense to get those in a few weeks early, possibly with a tag or at least textual annotation to identify them as AFD-themed, and then publish a few *on* the 1st? Far more people would see the published Movies on the site, and even more yet on the YouTube channel, and be able to appreciate the foolish intent, and those who watched the submissions and forums would get the idea despite seeing them early.
I recall the original(?) AFD submission, 314M/612S, for the SMB walkathon, which was submitted and published all within one day, 4/1/05. A great gag, but it wouldn't be long before judging and processing delays would make that hard to duplicate. Indeed, the improvement to that walkathon, 1088M/1899S, was submitted on 4/1/08 but not published until 4/4. Another years after that (I closed it by accident and can't re-find now) took 8.
https://tasvideos.org/HomePages/Noxxa/AprilFoolsHistory is really helpful, showing not only that a manageable number of AFD submissions were published each year (through about 2017, anyway), but also (with some clicking around) how the delays have stacked up. It doesn't include a few I spotted that were actually published on 4/1 but submitted well in advance, for which the timing might be purposeful or entirely coincidental. For example, is 3358M/5384S, a Pokemon ACE improvement submitted 2/5/17 but published 4/1, meant to be one? (Its predecessor, 2341M/3894S, was actually tied to Pi Day and submitted then, but only published a week later, highlighting a similar problem.) 5202M/8134S, a silly homebrew game, is even more recent: submitted 3/22/23, published 4/1. By design? Or lucky chance that it fits?
They don't need to have flashing lights saying APRIL FOOL, but careful publication timing and pretty good hints in the text would be a real help, as would consistent dedication to publishing the best (and nothing but) gag runs on 4/1; edge cases of weirdness might actually catch a few people off guard ("Why did they publish THIS ru--oh..."). And if over a dozen each year are good enough to be accepted these days, maybe the best could be scheduled for the 1st, and the runners-up to trickle in later like any normal submission.
Is this possible? Can people be persuaded to coordinate and turn in their work early? Apologies if I missed an obvious earlier discussion. I just want to see more good times like 2005!
