Please refrain form name calling.
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Please PM me a screenshot where I called name called someone?
The message I deleted that it looks like you replied to, I berated my own self, feeling a little bad for the scorn in another message.
However, I deleted it when it appeared responsibility was apparently shunned.
Everything sounds like a good idea at the time, but when one screws up, and unintended consequences arise, Just person up, take the lumps, and move on. Don’t add insult to injury . . .
Done.
Also that is now a general reminder to keep it civil. By all means complain about this if you need to, no one is stopping you. Just be civil.
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I think it’s brilliant, please don’t apologise!
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Well, what I have learned today is not to trust anything non-official anymore. All HACS integrations and front-end additions (except for the Husqvarna integration, but maybe that will go as well - nice but not necessary) are now removed.
Lesson learned - thank you all!
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Screenshot for those who didn’t read it via the posted link.
The code responsible for the gag was in card-mod for months and activated on schedule. The purported object lesson was to demonstrate that most people don’t examine the source code of the open-source software they use.
I believe that’s a foregone conclusion and didn’t really need a demonstration to prove it. There’s an unspoken trust, between the developer of open-source software and its consumer, that the product will do what is documented and nothing else (notwithstanding bugs). In this case, the gag also served to demonstrate how that trust can be undermined.
It’s not the gag itself, which was mildly humorous and mostly harmless, but the fact it was part of a long-planned lesson to show that users are vulnerable to the whims of custom card and component developers. I hope this doesn’t serve as a springboard for other developers to use their products as a means of delivering other lessons.
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100% agree. My $$$$ license of Sencha Ext JS has over 600 npm dependencies just to get installed. Do I know and trust all these 390 authors and their packages? How do I know the 83 authors looking for funding isn’t up to some mischief? Complete madness!
Also - how do I know the licenses of all these packages are OK with my close-source work.
Sigh!
Our glorious leader has now said "April fool jokes should never be enabled inside an app. "
Pretty sure the sentiment means that this is well out of bounds too:
I love it, Thomas. My first thought was, wait WTF, then about 20 seconds I realized.
Rest assured I have been firmly told off and received a most gruesome punishment.
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You were sentenced to moderating the Discord Off-Topic channel for 10 years?
That’s enough to break anyone.
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Seems to be a couple life lessons hidden in this gem. And maybe one that quite a few of us could benefit from. Will Smith comes to mind.
I thought the card that did cryptomining was funnier. I assume everyone got rid of that one promptly.
/s
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To all who are praising the “joke” as just a bit of simple fun and completely excusing the author…
How many total man-hours of work do you think was put into this on a global scale to try to figure out why this happened and then, even if it was found at all, trying to fix it? Hours and hours (and hours etc) that could have been put to more productive use on things that really mattered.
The author has fixed the mistake and apologized (while also somehow blaming his victims for not reviewing every piece of software that they have ever installed in their entire lives forever… 
) but the others who are circling the wagons in their thoughtless support I just don’t understand.
People rely on this stuff to run their houses (maybe they shouldn’t…? That might be the other lesson here too for many. Someone above said “trust the core”. Why? The “lesson” could have been planted there just as easily.)
But for those that are trying to deride the victims and accuse them of overreacting likely didn’t waste possibly hours of their own time trying to fix it. Or maybe they did and just don’t value their time as much as others.
But they also blamed the victims.
So not only were they victimized by the original author (and blamed by him) they are now victimized again (and blamed by others) for daring to complain about it.
I get that some people might feel the word “victim” might be overstating things so if it eases your conscience then just substitute whatever word makes you feel better. The concept and end result won’t change for those who wasted so much time on it.
Again I thought the “joke” was cute in the beginning but after the responses to the people who complained about how much wasted time went into this (which looking back was foolishly unexpected by me - I should have known better) I’ve changed my mind.
All I know is that it was a good thing that the author is a moderator and a “great contributor”. I’d hate to think what would happen to a normal person who intentionally sabotaged thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of users systems just to teach us all a lesson. A lesson that I’m certain he doesn’t follow himself in his own life either.
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I tried to stay out of the fray, but…
This was well within bounds of an acceptable April Fools joke. Wasting a little time, messing with people’s reality and keeping them guessing is the whole point of April Fools Day. Part of the tradition is that we light-heatedly mock those who “fell for it.” The more obvious the joke, the easier to dispel (like, just by signing on here) and the longer it takes to figure it out, the better the prank and the more the “victim” is mocked.
No data was lost. It wasn’t even displayed incorrectly, just crooked. Nobody got hurt, except maybe their ego. All well within the time-honored tradition of April Fools Day.
I’ve been on both sides of this; perpetrator and victim. I’d hate to live in a world where these pranks are not acceptable. If anything, this gives me more faith in the developers’ humanity. I’ll take that over malicious intent any day.
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Leaving the prank version installed today because I can take a joke and I don’t take myself too seriously.
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All in all, not a good idea I think. Undermines the trust in the Community Store and is thus to the disadvantage of sincere developers who do the work to provide us with their valuable extensions and addons there.
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