Believe it or not, not everyone reads the forums daily. I play wvw for a few hours every week, never any mention of it. Besides, is it really the responsibility of the players to make sure Anet's news gets spread around in map chat? Something this big, Anet could have sent an email, it doesn't only affect the hard-core dorks like yourself who read mmorpg blogs or whatever. You say it's only for a week, but clearly the intent of any beta is to go permanent.