WordPress Headquarters, in Redwood City, CA, was the site of an angry mob scene that escalated into violence on Friday, April 1, 2011. Over 400,000 people, some carrying clubs and knives, stormed the building en mass. The crowd surrounded the building, blocked the exits, then swarmed inside, easily overwhelming Chuck the security guard and his dog Buffy at the entrance. Before police could arrive, the crowd had smashed computers, spilled soy lattes out onto the floor, pulled smart phones from the fists of WordPress staffers, and carried off Matt Mullenweg, CEO of WordPress and Buffy, both of whom remain missing. By the time police had arrived, the crowd had dispersed, leaving behind WordPress “happiness engineers” cowering under their desks, whimpering and clutching their useless iPhones.
After questioning the surviving WordPress workers, police investigator Owen Hardiman briefed reporters on the situation. “It seems that an April Fool’s Day
CEO Matt Mullenweg
prank, perpetrated by WordPress staffers, enraged the users and caused the riot.” Tech savvy WP bloggers posted messages on their blogs on Friday to organize a flash mob, after discovering that WP had exaggerated their blog stats, in what was intended to be a humorous April Fool’s Day prank. WordPress statistics engineer Andy Skelton explained. “On Friday April 1, we changed our WP statistics software to display erroneous results. For instance, if a blogger had 40 views on his/her blog that day, the stats bar graph displayed 400 views. We meant it as harmless prank, but unfortunately we underestimated how much our bloggers love their stats. It seems that they don’t take kindly to anyone messing with their blog view numbers. Hindsight is 20/20 or course, and we wish we had realized this earlier.”
The crime remains under investigation, but police fear the perpetrators may never be found. “Unfortunately, most of these bloggers use code names like Huffygirl, AM333, Fantasyfic, and Coming east, so it’s difficult to discover their true identities,” reports Chief Hardiman.
Meanwhile, WordPress blogs remain operative, as the WP servers continue to operate at an undisclosed location. “We’re doing everything we can to keep our 400,000+ bloggers happy at this point.” reports Skelton. We wouldn’t want a repeat of the April Fool’s Day massacre.
(Touche’ WP. Happy April Fool’s Day)
© Huffygirl 2011
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