![](https://ethicsalarms.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/1950s-tv-test-pattern-walt-foegelle.jpg?w=676)
“We’re Number One! We’re Number One!”
Well, to be completely accurate, we’re all “[1]” right now for some reason. The whole blog, back to the beginning, now shows that as the screen name of every commenter, and my name is either missing entirely as author or, in some cases, “[1]” as well. I was first alerted around 5 am by Diego Garcia, and quickly contacted WordPress via an email to their “Happiness Engineers” (yes, they really call themselves that. I got a quick response from WP’s AI creature, who told me that I obviously had my settings wrong and gave me a dizzying sequence of things to click on buried several lawyers deep in the system.
“Oh no you don’t!” I replied. Okay, what I actually wrote back was “Bullshit. I haven’t changed any settings, and you’re not going to lay this off on me. You caused the problem, the problem is yours, and you need to fix it. I am not a software engineer, and I don’t work for WordPress or robots. This is WordPress’s responsibility, and I expect WordPress to do it.”
Then I went back to bed. I was welcomed, upon awakening, to this from the modestly named “Deity,” my Happiness Engineer, who swears he is a Real Boy:
“I appreciate your patience and apologize for the inconvenience you’ve been experiencing. Based on your description, it indeed seems like this issue is related to a known bug that’s currently affecting WordPress blogs.
I just wanted to reassure you that our top-notch technical team is actively working on resolving this issue as swiftly as possible. However, I can understand the importance of having this issue mitigated in the interim period.
In the meantime, as a workaround, you can use the following CSS code to overcome the problem: /* Make comment authors display properly*/.comment-meta .comment-author .fn { text-indent:0; }.comment-meta .comment-author .fn:after { display:none; }“
“Please be advised that this is a temporary solution until we implement a more permanent fix. Again, thank you very much for your understanding on the matter and I’m extremely grateful for your patience. We value your trust in WordPress and promise to keep you informed with updates as they happen.”
So the AI was spitting out bullshit, as usual, just as I surmised! Good to know.
Let’s not allow this to spoil the open forum. Please begin your entries today with your Ethics Alarms name.
But you’re all #[1] to me!