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> WP Engine removed the news widget from its users’ dashboards on September 24, reportedly breaking thousands of sites in the process Is the "breaking thousand

> WP Engine removed the news widget from its users’ dashboards on September 24, reportedly breaking thousands of sites in the process Is the "breaking thousands of sites" claim supported by any actual evidence, or is this just something Matt said?

unsnap_biceps 2y ago
There's been no dispute around if WP Engine removed the news widget or not from their managed installs. Matt claims that removing that widget fundamentally breaks Wordpress and thus broke all of WP Engine's sites.
- yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
  Wait, wait - you mean when he wrote > the story of how WP Engine broke thousands of customer sites yesterday in their haphazard attempt to block our attempts to inform the wider WordPress community regarding their disabling and locking down a WordPress core feature in order to extract profit. ( https://web.archive.org/web/20241001091653/https://wordpress.org/news/2024/09/wp-engine-banned/ https://web.archive.org/web/20241001091653/https://wordpress... ) he just meant that they disabled the news widget? I assumed that tweet I couldn't see replies to was a thread about them accidentally breaking customer's external-facing sites by mistake when they took out the news widget, not that he's defining "removed this widget" as "breaking customer sites".
  - duskwuff 2y ago
    I suppose that, if you define "any feature that ships with WordPress" (as opposed to a plugin) as a "WordPress core feature", then yes, disabling the WordPress news feed in wp-admin is technically "disabling a WordPress core feature". On the other hand, oh, come on!
  - unsnap_biceps 2y ago
    Yes, that's exactly it. They only removed the widget. Nothing broke other than people wouldn't see Matt's posts forced into their dashboard.
kmeisthax 2y ago
I can say that zero sites were broken by the disabling of a news widget. On the other hand, disabling updates sure was a breaking change I had to respond to immediately!
knowitnone 2y ago
If they broke thousands of sites, customer would be pretty pissed and moved to another host. Why does Matt care when these are not his customers and he only gains from WP Engine's loss.
- infamouscow 2y ago
  If they broke thousands of sites, Mullenweg should be more concerned about going to prison for computer crimes than anything WP Engine has done.
  - e-clinton 2y ago
    WP “broke” the sites, not Mullenweg. Besides, nothing broke, just lips service.

unsnap_biceps 2y ago

There's been no dispute around if WP Engine removed the news widget or not from their managed installs. Matt claims that removing that widget fundamentally breaks Wordpress and thus broke all of WP Engine's sites.

yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
Wait, wait - you mean when he wrote > the story of how WP Engine broke thousands of customer sites yesterday in their haphazard attempt to block our attempts to inform the wider WordPress community regarding their disabling and locking down a WordPress core feature in order to extract profit. ( https://web.archive.org/web/20241001091653/https://wordpress.org/news/2024/09/wp-engine-banned/ https://web.archive.org/web/20241001091653/https://wordpress... ) he just meant that they disabled the news widget? I assumed that tweet I couldn't see replies to was a thread about them accidentally breaking customer's external-facing sites by mistake when they took out the news widget, not that he's defining "removed this widget" as "breaking customer sites".
- duskwuff 2y ago
  I suppose that, if you define "any feature that ships with WordPress" (as opposed to a plugin) as a "WordPress core feature", then yes, disabling the WordPress news feed in wp-admin is technically "disabling a WordPress core feature". On the other hand, oh, come on!
- unsnap_biceps 2y ago
  Yes, that's exactly it. They only removed the widget. Nothing broke other than people wouldn't see Matt's posts forced into their dashboard.

kmeisthax 2y ago

I can say that zero sites were broken by the disabling of a news widget. On the other hand, disabling updates sure was a breaking change I had to respond to immediately!

knowitnone 2y ago

If they broke thousands of sites, customer would be pretty pissed and moved to another host. Why does Matt care when these are not his customers and he only gains from WP Engine's loss.

infamouscow 2y ago
If they broke thousands of sites, Mullenweg should be more concerned about going to prison for computer crimes than anything WP Engine has done.
- e-clinton 2y ago
  WP “broke” the sites, not Mullenweg. Besides, nothing broke, just lips service.