This question already has an answer here:

Is time-travel a bug or does it want us back in the 1990's? Is this how Stack Exchange sites looked like in the 90's?

marked as duplicate by Sonic the Bracketed Hedgehog, gnat, Shadow The Curly Braced Wizard, Rob, Nathan Tuggy Mar 31 at 13:35


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    It's not a bug, it's a feature. Stack Exchange wasn't actually around in the '90s. – Cody Gray Mar 31 at 11:22
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    @Cody what day is it? – Robert Columbia Mar 31 at 11:29
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    @RobertColumbia 31 march – topo morto Mar 31 at 11:29
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    @topomorto not everywhere it's not. – Robert Longson Mar 31 at 11:29
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    @RobertLongson sure, but I'm not everywhere :) – topo morto Mar 31 at 11:30
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    @topomorto No you're somewhere. Given all the world's timezones the site can't be accurate for everyone when something happens on one particular day. – Robert Longson Mar 31 at 11:31
  • @CodyGray if it is not 90's, why it need to start with "Just like 90s..." and Back to the future ? Sorry, I a little bit confuse with this – John Joe Mar 31 at 11:31
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    @John the blinking text and awful colors were in use back in the 90s. Stack Overflow didn't exist back then. Some of them can be found here: envato.com/blog/13-terrible-web-trends-90s-recreate. – Shadow The Curly Braced Wizard Mar 31 at 11:32
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  • @JohnJoe you think everything on this date makes sense? – Robert Longson Mar 31 at 11:33
  • @RobertLongson the served site can't be, but time-critical features could take account of the system clock. – topo morto Mar 31 at 11:33
  • @topomorto that's never been the case with anything done here. – Robert Longson Mar 31 at 11:34
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    @RobertLongson this time is probably a bit more vexing given the issues encountered: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/326014/… – topo morto Mar 31 at 11:34
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    @John the answer is "No, it's not a bug". And you can't delete your question now anyway. But first comment also said it's not a bug, so now I assume you're just trolling. Will close the question. – Shadow The Curly Braced Wizard Mar 31 at 11:36
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    @JohnJoe It's an April Fool's joke. April Fool's jokes on SE always come with a button to turn the joke off. This button was broken, so a lot of people are now talking about turning the time-travel feature off. If you don't like the feature, people will suggest you turn it off too. If you do find it funny, feel free to keep it turned on! It will disappear on its own after April Fool's is done. – Tinkeringbell Mar 31 at 11:45

Think of the date today.

April fools

Like all Stack Exchange things its timing will be as long as someone somewhere in the world is experiencing this date.


It isn't in itself a bug, but a manifestation of date-specific humour as per Robert Longson's answer. However, there were initially bugs present with respect to the ability to disable it:

How to disable "time travel" entirely?

And there have also been questions asked about its impact on site usability:

What testing is done on 'April Fool' pranks?

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