The worst Web threat yet

Instead of linking to some of the best of this year's April Fool's Day content (like the delicious Google Romance service), I thought I should be serious and instead alert you to the true cost we all pay for Web-disseminated "harmless" April Fool's Day pranks. Many thanks to Christopher "Infomancy" Harris (no relation) for lifting the wool from my eyes. What is this this terrible menace? It is nothing less formidable than the "Digitally Re-Shifted April Fool's Joke." Indulge me in a lengthy quote:

1. The Digitally Re-Shifted April Fool's Joke (DRSAFJ) as a Foundation: Too many people on Slashdot and BoingBoing and other blogs are using this as a platform to try and show people they are "hip" to internet humor. Look, if you want to be hip, make sure you don’t miss "Talk Like a Pirate Day" next year, okay?
2. Degrading Collective Intelligence: Friends don't let friends post bad information to Wikipedia - this is not just a PSA message, this also applies to the DRSAFJ!
3. The DRSAFJ is the Next Intel Inside: People post these horrible DRSAFJ, and then the next day they have to introduce further information clutter by going back and posting notes about how it was just a DRSAFJ and that it wasn't real and then you end up with these posts stuck all over blogs like the Intel Inside stickers that are stuck all over my laptop.
4. End of the DRASFJ Release Cycle: Look, how about we spread out the release of the bad information throughout the year? Then it is easier for us to do the research and discredit these false posts. I mean what is the allure of today anyway? Why not a July Fool's joke? This is Digitally Re-Shifted, after all. We can write them today but delay the posting until later! See how silly that sounds? Once the April Fool's joke was Digitally Re-Shifted, it lost the very essence of being an April Fool's Joke.
5. Lightweight DRASFJ Models: If we must involve ourselves, we need to think bigger! What’s one little blog post, after all… How about next year we break out of the lightweight DRASFJ model and we pull an April Fool's joke on the speed of light or the laws of thermodynamics? Hah, can't be done you say? Then how about we just stop this altogether?
6. DRASFJ Above the Level of a Single Blog: The other problem with the Digital Re-Shift of these jokes is that blogs link to each other. I have been speaking with ICANN about a possible solution to this menace. Next year, they are going to drop all of the primary router tables on this date so that nobody can get to any websites and thus cannot link to these pathetic DRASFJs.
7. Rich April Fool's Joke Experience: In the end, this is what it is about! We need to make sure that both the joker and the jokee have a rich experience. The shared moment of physical closeness during an analog April Fool's joke is lost with the DRSAFJ. How does the joker know the jokee is reading the joke? The jokee can just unplug his or her computer and go outside to walk aimlessly through the streets calling out "Fool me once, fool me twice, I am a fool looking to be fooled!"

Okay, now it's up to the rest of you to spread the word! Just think -- today's web-embedded April Fool's joke is November's War of the Worlds mass hysteria...

P.S. Disclaimer/spoiler that I fear is necessary: Christopher is no more serious about this than Jonathan Swift was about his solutions for overpopulation. But he (Christopher) is so clever about it, dontcha think?