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Support Site for User Friendly 52

Posted by blizzard from the down-with-the-man dept.
GroundBounce writes "If this is a joke it's a damn good one. There is now a support site for User Friendly. There isn't much info there; however, there is a string of emails from the last few days posted. There are also some support images for posting on web sites. "
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Support Site for User Friendly More

Support Site for User Friendly

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  • Ahem... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    There is "now" a support site? That site has been
    there, and mentioned in User Friendly's news, for
    several days now.

    I believe it popped-up not long after UF first
    received email notification of the Evil Empire's
    intent.

    I've had one of the banners displayed on my desk-
    top (via xv) for a couple of days, at least.

    (This is all assuming that the UF, segfault, and
    Be things are real, and not just a *way*
    over-done April Fools joke.)

  • Hmmm (Score:1)

    by drwiii ( 434 )
    An injunction? Against a comic strip? I don't think so. At most, they'd just ask you to pull existing offending material and don't make any new offending material.

    Lawsuit. Yeah, right. And M$ is selling Linux [microsoff.com].

  • Sure, it's April 1st. Sure, it could be a joke.

    However, those who frequent UF will remember that Illiad was saying that his lawyers would be meeting the enemy yesterday. In addition, unlike Segfault, this site is signed by UF's lawyer. I don't think lawyers do jokes, do they?

    ----

  • Earlier this week I was websurfing and ran across this same site. This site is not new as of today, but has been around for a while. Don't let the fact that there is a support site now up make you think it is real, even the support site says its just a joke.
  • If this turns out to be a hoax, I'll congratulate Illiad and company for getting my goat, but after this, I'm not going to be able to trust any news the week leading up to April Fool's day anymore.
    This joke is just too plausible, we live in a country and a time where litigation can happen for the stupidest of reasons.
    If any of you happen to be involved in the emulation scene, when IDSA started cracking down on sites like Dave's Classics, we had the same quick shutdowns with no explanation until days later.
  • Posted by Aelfgifu:

    Please--apparently you are all willing to suck down whatever "I am being oppressed" story that is put out there...Check this out, then:

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/990331-000002.html

    Does this propsed legal action make any sense? Think, already!

    Heather
  • Posted by Akira410:

    Yeah, As a joke a technican here had his lawyer work up legal papers saying Microsoft was offering to buy our ISP. Looks fully legal, etc. Then he drove to the nearest local microsoft chronie division and maile dit from there. Rather Cute. He's now jobless. =) (Ok, maybe not, but that would have been even funnier)
  • Posted by WildOne:

    Only cuz I just found out :\

    Argh .. he did get me good fer sure ... Where is my steel toed boot?
  • Ok, so if this evil empire thing is for real, why not temporarily hide the comics making fun of them and continue as normal. When everything blows over bring 'em back into the archive.

    Until things blow over, just don't make fun of said company.

    Since this wasnt' done by the author, I'll assume this is all bunk. The comic strip is much funnier than the April Fools.

    Misfit

  • Yawn (Score:1)

    by mholve ( 1101 )
    Okay, now it's getting a little silly...
  • - the litigation conspiracy was well done at first and believable
    - the 'injunction' shutdowns were plain silly.

    Conclusion:
    - this was about as funny as the jwz-is-dead piece. it wasn't.

    only bright thing is that the creators of this hoax got a laugh out of it... I guess it releases some of their stress before the flamethrowers are turned on again...
  • I'm removing the link to UserFriendly from my home page in protest of this badly done and overblown unfunny prank. Illiad, if you're listening, I think you've just blown any credibility you had with the geek community.
  • The most humourous thing in this whole ordeal has been the article in the Register.

    Frankly, I find the site owners of segfault.org and userfriendly.org to be completely humourless. This whole thing wasn't even vaguely entertaining to me. (even though i just heard about it today)

    Sorry, guys... try again next time. Frankly, if someone is going to go through the time and effort of making an April Fools Joke, _I want to be entertained_. This joke did nothing but entertain the creators of it. Big deal.

    The Jon Katz satire was quite awesome, however.

    -Dean
  • Linux Today [linuxtoday.com] at this point, they don't seem to be perpetuating any Hoaxes or Pranks at this point in time...
  • then all of us are in trouble. Life without parody would be hell. I mean, no more comic strips. No more Saturday Night Live. No more ZD articles.

    I can't wait to hear the results. If this is a joke, then he did a fine job of building up to it. If not, then some big bad company will feel the wrath. Either way, it is the most interesting story I have read about today.

    pete

  • i thought they only could sue when you lied about them or their product....
  • The UF support site just put up that it looks like it was a joke.


    We can all breath a little easier now. Wonder if Illiad had figured on so much of a fuss being raised over it.

  • Suit (Score:1)

    by Knara ( 9377 )
    From what my law friends tell me, it's even more unlikely that an injunction would be in place this quickly, as the "discovery" phase takes longer than 1 week which is how long this has been going.
  • ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
    ------------------------------

  • Suit (Score:1)

    by awrc ( 12953 )

    Better yet, three injunctions, each in a different legal system, all manage to come into place within hours of each other?

    If this does get confirmed as an April Fool, it'll be interesting to see if there's any sort of backlash against the sites concerned - a lot of people seem to have got quite worked up over this threat of legal action, and probably won't take it very well if it turns out to be a hoax.

  • Damn that would have sucker. I have several hundred real time newswires at my disposal and where do I come for news? Slashdot.org of course.

  • Not to mention the fact the the three sites are in three different countries. Does anyone really believe that some company managed to get injunctions in the US, Canada, and England at the same time? Even if some company was pursing litigation against all three, the timing would not be identical. Come on, they all got their regestered letters on the same day? On two continents? They were all served with injunctions from three different courts in three different countries on the same day? IANAL, but given that such court actions are a matter of public record, what would stop them from naming the comany involved? Nothing! Unless, it's a joke. In which case, since it's being presented as "true", they WOULD be in a heap of trouble if they named some specific company. They would get their pants sued off if they falsely claimed that MS or LA, or whoever was sueing them. It would clearly be slander

    Now, if we can just get ZDNet, or CNET to pick up the story, the joke will be complete!
  • It's either an elaborate April Fool's day joke, or MicroSh*t just became that much more the loser.
  • I even forgot it was April Fool's Day, thanks man. Anyway, the support pages have up a gray ribbon(?), so that would be the way to go i guess. Or like, a perf or something, that would be cool. Speaking of those support pages, they should have some way to for non-webmasters to express support.
  • Somebody should host the sites (userfriendly, segfault, and bedope) somewhere in europe. taking down a site would then be much harder & everybody would be happy (or least the most of us).
  • follow up... well, the archive is anyway.
  • ...about all this is how seriously some of you got your panties in a wad over a friggin' joke!

    PS If you still don't think it was a joke, UF is back online. Check for yourself.
  • Then move Segfault to Sweden.
  • Subject line says it all. This is like joking about the death of a loved one. Not very damn funny, if you ask me.
  • I take my freedom of speech very seriously. I find threats to them very worring. The "unnamed" company in question I dislike a lot, and for me, this was a final straw. I started writting letters and was getting ready to organize protest. Now I look like an idiot.

    I am not amused.
  • Now that is just to sweet. wow...
  • I am just wondering what color ribbon to wear for these guys? hrmm... Polkadot?
  • What do you think all these pranksters would
    have done if Rob had decided to shutdown
    /. as a prank. Hmmm.
  • True,

    But why is there absolutely no way whatsoever to contact ANYONE associated with the support site?


    "Responsibility for my career? I'm just a freakin' phone monkey!"
  • I agree that April Fools is a good day for jokes,
    and I admit I too was fooled about the UserFriendly thing until I took a hard look at the support site.

    But a primarily news site shouldn't do such a thing.

    One or two April Fools stories would have been funny, but I have one problem with this one...

    It started before April First.

    You see, if legal trouble is brewing, and over a few days more is piled on until it closes.. well, it looks sorta real. And as a Star Wars Fan, I saw the same thing happen to a favorite site of mine, www.toysrgus.com/ when Toys R Us took umbrage to his name. It happened about the same way.

    Blatant silliness such as the rioting Linuxers (which I loved, by the way) and our cookies (which is fabulous) are ggod April Fools Jokes. But to get hundreds of posters (and thousands of lurkers) upset over an overdrawn, overworked joke is frankly irresponsible.

    Or is this not the reason UserFriendly is already back up?

    Please Rob, we appreciate the humor, but not such alarming humor please.


    "Responsibility for my career? I'm just a freakin' phone monkey!"
  • Okay, I was fooled....

    I think Userfriendly is really down, but take a long look at this support site....

    There is no way to sign up for support, but a lot of supporters. No contact information... And in news, they all refer back to Userfriendly.

    Good Joke, Rob. You got me. But we still miss Userfriendly. Is there a real support site if this is real?


    "Responsibility for my career? I'm just a freakin' phone monkey!"
  • IT WAS INTEL..... I am Sure..... They did it because of the cartoon of the Pentium 3 production line. It had a stack of pention 2's on one side and Pentium 3's on the other. And a guy in the middle drawing an extra 'I' On the P2's..
  • Isn't the hard copy version a week behind?
    -

  • This is getting ridiculous (Score:3)

    by PhoneMonkey ( 32729 ) on Thursday April 01, 1999 @10:19AM (#1953505) Homepage
    Okay, this is just insane. Forget even an injunction.

    I'm going to spell it out.

    THIS IS A SATIRICAL COMIC STRIP.

    Now for the slower students... (Hi, Bill)

    Satire ia just that, satire. It's humor. And to have one of our beloved web strips pulled is just crazy.

    Look out Dilbert... a company might think your strip is too close to the truth and sue. Helen [peterzale.com] might be pulled because she's too neurotic, thus making Oracle or PeopleSoft feel she's a poor representative of their professionals. Puh-Leeze people, get a sense of humor already!

    We know Microsoft doesn't build Death Stars. Really we do.

    Give us back our strip.
    "Responsibility for my career? I'm just a freakin' phone monkey!"

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