Matt Mullenweg’s war with WP Engine took a turn for the ridiculous this week, with WordPress.org’s login page now asking users to confirm that pineapple is delicious on pizza.

Last week, as part of the ongoing legal battle between WP Engine and Mullenweg’s company Automattic, a judge granted a preliminary injunction, ordering the removal of a controversial login checkbox from WordPress.org that required users to confirm that they were not affiliated with WP Engine before logging in.

Automattic complied with the order, removing the checkbox ahead of the 72-hour deadline and also removing the domains.csv file from the WP Engine Tracker website. However, on Sunday, the new pineapple on pizza checkbox was added to the WordPress.org login page instead, according to Trac.

Mullenweg shared his opposition to the preliminary injunction on X, posting: “I’m disgusted and sickened by being legally forced to provide free labor and services to @wpengine, a dangerous precedent that should chill every open source maintainer. While I disagree with the court’s decision, I’ve fully complied with its order. You can see most changes on the site. They have access to ACF slug but haven’t changed it… must not have been the emergency they claimed.”

Many in the WordPress community have condemned the checkbox, labeling it childish and unprofessional. Speaking to 404 Media, Francesca Marano, Patchstack’s new Head of Partnerships, said WordPress was the most used CMS on the web, now powering 43.6% of the web, and the people creating the software should act like professionals.

“It’s disheartening to see an OSS project that thousands of people have contributed to over 21 years reduced to behaviours more suited to a kindergarten,” Marano said.

“Over the years, plugin and theme authors, contributors, and users have requested a myriad of features. However, those ideas often went nowhere because there were not enough resources or there was no consensus. But it’s ok to put a checkbox up just for fun in a matter of hours.”

In Making WordPress Slack, Themeisle-sponsored contributor Patricia Brun Torre asked if the checkbox could be changed to something more serious, such as asking users to agree to adhere to WordPress’s community code of conduct. However, Mullenweg quickly shut down any further discussion, replying, “We’re done being serious here.”

The checkbox may have its origins in an exchange between Nicholas Garofalo, Automattic’s Head of Marketing, and WordPress VIP’s James Giroux. Garofalo and Giroux jokingly disagreed about whether pineapple belonged on pizza in September. This week, Garofalo asked Girouz if he was involved in the pineapple on pizza checkbox, and Giroux replied, “I mean, it’s not NOT my doing. 😂😂😂 I like a playful WordPress and pineapple on pizza too.”

In Post Status Slack, members have questioned the potential impact of the checkbox on WordPress’s brand and reputation, particularly since prominent tech media outlets, like TechCrunch, The Verge, Mashable, and Gizmodo, in addition to Fast Company, have reported on the drama this week. Houston-based news organization Chron even reported Houston CEO is a weirdo who likes pineapple on pizza, referring to Mullenweg, who is from Houston.

X7 Media owner Ryan Bilesky jokingly posted on X, “Conspiracy theory: Matt knows some people at WPE don’t like pineapple on pizza and is therefore blocking them with ‘targeting’ them specifically as a work around to the injunction.”

Checkbox now optional

The mandatory checkbox requirement is now optional after a request by long-time support contributor Mika Epstein was followed through yesterday.

In a ticket on Trac, Epstein said support contributors had been getting “badgered” with questions since the new checkbox had been added to WordPress.org and asked that it be made optional.

“The support team has been getting badgered by people who don’t understand why the option there is required,” Mika said on the ticket.

“While it is highly amusing, having it be required is causing unnecessary work for the support team. If we make it optional (and perhaps have a hover tooltip that explains the joke for ESL folks) would lower this. Support has better things to do than tell people ‘Yeah we have no idea why this was added either’ and deal with the angry folks over the holidays. It makes it harder to help folks with real issues!”

Mullenweg posted that he was supportive of the change shortly after, and the checkbox was updated late on Thursday, allowing users to log in with the checkbox unchecked.