[wp-hackers] "The Matrix Has You" easter egg

[Eric Mann]

When I first learned of the post revision self-comparison "feature" I was
very entertained.  It was fun, relatively unintrusive, and I didn't think it
would ever be a problem.

Last night, though ... it did cause a problem.

I have a client who *thinks* they're tech-savvy.  Unfortunately, they're not
and concepts like easter eggs in software are completely lost on them.  Last
night, they were trying to edit a post that had an embedded video tag.  I'd
gotten the post working, and they broke something ... so they tried using
the post revision feature to figure out what they'd changed.  The first
thing they did was compare one revision against itself and, boom, they
thought their site had been hacked, deleted, and destroyed.

After several frantic emails and voicemails I got them to calm down and
explained that it was a hidden surprise and their site was perfectly safe.
 Then I fixed the embed tag, removed revisions for that post, and asked them
to just call me the next time a post broke.

As entertaining as the feature might be ... is there any way I can turn it
off on a client site?  I have a custom drop-in plug-in I use on all my
client sites that I can add some script to; I just think preemptively
removing a feature that could cause confusion among the non tech-savvy would
be easier than explaining why it's funny after a mild meltdown.  I doubt I'd
remove it for the vast majority of my clients (everyone else so far has
found it hilarious), but there will always be a few I'd like to "shelter"
just to be safe.

~Eric