Works nice, lightweight

Three stars for a free plugin that works well, and as intended? I have to say, it’s people like you that make developers not want to contribute to open source. Stay awesome!

I’m very sorry if you took this personal and did not want to criticize your efforts, but free is not the only aspect I was considering here. I just wanted it to be more smooth integrated into the whole site. The lack of customization, even basic things, can make the whole site make look like some kind of “unbalanced design”, which was the missing part here. Most of the plugins I’m using are easy to customize, at least have some basic options, to make the integration more user and end-user friendly.

Please do not attack people like this after getting such a rating (it is just a rating and no unfair allegations), I have to say, it’s discussions like this that stop people from contributing to open source projects and communities.

There are awesome parts in your plugin too like those nicely smooth jquery-stuff but if the rest of the page is more basic, this doesn’t look much “integrated”. That integrated look and feel may be important (at least for me it is very much) and led me to a 3 star rating.

I hope you accept the detailed explains and rating here, which is not meant to be personal or disrespectful in any way.

Your rating was not an open-source contribution. You stated that it worked well, but then proceed to submit a mediocre review without even getting in touch to ask about how you could customize things.

There are a lot of ways to contribute to an open source project: code a feature and submit a pull request, send a feature request, add translation files, contribute to documentation, write a blog post, etc. The project’s Github repository is open and public. Submitting a 3-star rating just because one is unhappy with the number of settings isn’t contributing, it just degrades the perceived reputation of the plugin for no significant reason.

I don’t take this as a personal attack. However, as a developer who contributes to open source so that people have access to free, useful tools (tools other people use to make money of their own), it is frustrating to receive a review like this. I suspect you’re not an open-source developer yourself, so I don’t expect you to fully appreciate this, but many such developers share this same sentiment, because reviews like this, that are based on a perceived lack of features, is like buying someone dinner, and then they complain that it didn’t include dessert.

I have users contact me quite regularly about customizing this plugin. I’m always happy to answer questions, or fix any issues that people discover. In this case, it would have been as simple as explaining that the shortcode includes a label parameter for customizing the message, and a button_text parameter for changing the button’s text. You can customize the look of the popup with CSS. I wholly disagree that a need to write some basic CSS warrants a 3-star rating. I don’t think the developers of WordPress itself would be too fond of a lame review from me because I was unhappy that I had to write code to customize it – that would indicate a lack of appreciation for all their hard work. No software can accommodate everyone’s designs, needs, wants, etc. Being able to read the source code, and extend the platform with your own code, is one of the beauties of open-source projects.

Since I noticed your profile is brand new (created on Feb. 12, 2019), and you’ve already left two very similar reviews (less than 5 stars because you didn’t have readily-available settings to customize things), I’ll leave you with my two cents on this issue. If you use a plugin that is available for free, know that the developer of that plugin has spent a considerable amount of time, for which they have not been paid anything, so that others can benefit. Should you find an issue with someone’s plugin, extend that person the basic courtesy of first helping you and resolving the problem before leaving a review. If you have a feature request, don’t leave the request in a review in which you’ve given the plugin a mediocre rating – you’re then much more likely to receive positive feedback, and the developer may even accommodate your request, or point you in the right direction. No software is perfect, nor is any developer. Leaving reviews like this without so much as submitting a support thread to ask questions rubs developers the wrong way, and they’ll have no motivation to help you.

I hope you accept this detailed explanation as constructive feedback for interacting with others on free, open-source projects. This is not an attack on you directly, but this kind of thing is so common in the WordPress community that it serves as demotivation to contribute as a developer. People often express more disappointment in the 5% of features a plugin doesn’t have than they do thanks for the 95% of things it accomplishes. In a sphere where so much is free, one might expect there to be more appreciation than ingratitude, but, sadly, that is not often the case. Take my feedback as nothing more than what it is: a perspective from an open-source WordPress developer. Hopefully it benefits you in your future interactions with others like myself.

Thank you for this constructive feedback. I’ve considered this and changed the words and rating of my review in a way which I hope satisfies both of us. I know that such comments and ratings can be frustrating and demotivating.

I now understand you as developer, but as end-user there is still a different view. If I need to modify every plugin with writing code, it is a huge effort and there are tons of free plugins which are easier to integrate as end-user. I’ll try to communicate this in a more respectful manner and less demotivating way next time.

My profile is brand new here, this is right. On the other hand, there are some towns mapped from scratch on OSM, lots of fixes and I’m also active in a regional organization for building free wifi in our city, writing funding applications, managing our wp-site there and doing end-user support. This is where all the efforts also get commented with “that sh** isnt working”. So please do not judge my contributions to open communities by one profile as this isn’t fair.