Support » Plugin: Classic Widgets » This opt-out should be an opt-in

  • This change dropped on me two days before I’m going on vacation. I mean, that’s good, because now I can take action. But it’S concerning. This plugin is a god-send. Looking at its code just raises one question: Why the heck would that not be an opt-in functionality in core. This plugin has two lines that do the trick and it’s mere existence shows that at least parts of the WordPress team are aware that dropping such a change without opt-in is a bad idea. Those people need to be listened to!

    • This topic was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by motivmedia.
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  • I was in a lot of the conversations about this change, and the Core development team from Automattic was aware there were backwards compatibility bugs with this screen, and pushed it as an opt-out anyway. I pushed hard for them to make it opt-in, but didn’t have any success.

    It’d probably be good for them to hear from real users who were impacted negatively by this. There’s a dedicated slack channel for this feature here:
    https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C01D71823PB

    I definitely understand your concern about core updates, since breaking backwards compatibility is now a precedent. Moves like this fracture community trust in WordPress, and I hate to see it happen.

    I’m glad to hear this plugin worked for you, and so sorry you had to install it at all.

    Hi @motivmedia

    Sorry to hear about the last minute action that you were forced into because of the update, that is unfortunate.

    As @johnstonphilip mentions, deciding between opt-in and opt-out of features is very hard. This is so mostly because the notion of “perfect backwards compatibility”, in an ecosystem as large as WordPress, is an immense undertaking. So, many a time “backwards compatibility bugs” will appear even without new features being introduced, but even moreso when there are new features introduced.

    Nevertheless, your post made me want to ask you: how would you prefer to hear about incoming major updates in WordPress so that you know about them ahead of time? This plugin for instance existed way before WordPress 5.8!

    – An admin notice?
    – An admin notice, but only in the affected area?
    – A dashboard widget to check?
    – Other ideas?

    Thank you!

    Thread Starter motivmedia

    (@motivmedia)

    Hi @andraganescu
    Thanks for asking! To be honest, it just wasn’t a feature I expected, wanted or even saw the need for. Usually you can accommodate for changes in how things are don, but this one was very drastic in regards to the changes it introduced. Breaking changes.

    I’m aware of the choices vs options discussion and how WordPress tends to go for choices. Not that I’m a huge fan of that, but it makes sense and I understand it.

    It really isn’t a thing about how I would have wanted to know about that change in advance. But the plugin we’re commenting on here *clearly* shows that this could have been an option to phase ot in. When updated to this version site owners should be asked if they want to try it out now or later (again, it’s a filter… that could and should have been very feasible), with the possibility to switch back.

    WordPress was pushing for more automatic updates. This is great and in my experience nothing major ever broke in years – I’m talking core and almost all plugins and themes that come from the repo. Now that we have auto updates almost globally, an update that changes integral parts of WordPress needs to be more carefully rolled out. It can be rolled out whenever but it should be switched on manually. Even if it will be the default at some point in the future (which it should clearly state, of course) and the option will be gone, then. It just can’t be dropped on people at potentially very inconvenient times. Especially, again, if it could very well be just an option.

    What I don’t understand is that you seemingly refer to the existence of this plugin. Which would be something you only search for if you already have the problem and scramble how to solve it.

    And again, not opposed to changes, not opposed to automatic updates – but I’d appreciate the WordPress team being more considerate of the user base and phase in drastic changes instead of just dropping them.

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