It even had a club
By November 2023, a familiar coding mistake had acquired a welcome message: “welcome to Club ‘wholeUsers Problem’”. The following June, someone answered another warning with: “But we want to use wholeUsers” — and two laughing emoji.
The ambition was understandable: keep every user in one handy place, then work through the whole list. The list grew. The handy place did not become infinitely roomy.
The warning kept coming back
The original author of the circulating snippet is still unknown. It was already appearing in the chat in January 2022. That December, the BB channel warned against it. March 2023 brought another warning, this time with #WholeUsers. July brought another.
Then came a proposed shortcut: block the word itself. A July 2024 reply pointed out that people could simply rename it. New label, same overstuffed drawer.
A podium nobody was aiming for
In a two-hour error report on 2 September 2024, wholeUsers appeared 168 times, third on the list. The chat noticed its podium finish. By April 2025, even a contest-report announcement called the issue “infamous”.
Other builders were looking for a way around it. Teleservice’s creators presented their June 2024 broadcast API as an answer to the timeouts. The recurring problem had become part of another community project’s pitch.
Still one more user
By February 2026, a chat reply could point people to the hashtag to read the full bug story. On 3 September 2026, the advice was still turning up: don’t save the entire user list in one property. Almost four years after that December warning, the club was still finding new members.
The property had limits. The conversation, apparently, still had room for one more.
From the archive
Community chat · 7 November 2023 and 8 June 2024
Community chat · January 2022 and July 2024
Community chat · 30 June and 2 September 2024
Community chat · 8 February and 3 September 2026
