Plugin developers’ banners asking for upsells, ratings and reviews

  • As someone who builds and maintains WordPress-based Websites, It’s an understatement to say it’s annoying when back-end admin UI page-top banners appear from plugin developers that constantly try to “upsell” you to pro plugin versions, and ask for ratings and reviews. Even after you close those, they reappear after a Web hosting-provider cache is cleared. It’s like a game of whack-a-mole. In my book, this is nothing less than harassment.

    My suggestion is this: all plugin developers should be required to use a call (API?) built into WordPress through which all banners and notices appear atop pages in the back-end admin UI.

    Furthermore to put control back in the the WordPress admin’s hands, there should be a “Notices” page under the WordPress Settings which allows an admin to selectively choose what plugin notices to show (or not) like this:

    Display Notices:
    (checkbox) Show plugin functionality notices
    (checkbox) Show notices for upsells, ratings and reviews

    There should also be a mechanism to report plugins which sneak in notices for upsells, and ratings & reviews into the functionality notices. Violators should first be warned, then this plugins delisted from the plugins directory if they continue this behavior.

    Please do this WordPress team! It’s high time to put control of plugin developers’ notices back into the hands of the WordPress Website admins!

    Thank you!

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
  • Moderator jordesign

    (@jordesign)

    Hey @michaelb428ping – I hear you. It’s definitely something that can at times get out of hand.

    The good news is the handling of admin notices like that is something that is being considered/planned as part of the work on a new admin interface that has recently kicked off.

    Admin Design

    Moderator Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)

    (@ipstenu)

    ?????? Advisor and Activist

    Even after you close those, they reappear after a Web hosting-provider cache is cleared.

    That’s not permitted. Either they messed up their own code, or they did it on purpose.

    I recommend leaving them a message in their support forums here, telling them that the plugin guidelines state that “Site wide notices or embedded dashboard widgets must be dismissible or self-dismiss when resolved.”

    https://developer.www.ads-software.com/plugins/wordpress-org/detailed-plugin-guidelines/#11-plugins-should-not-hijack-the-admin-dashboard

    If they blow you off or just don’t fix it, email [email protected]?with the following:

    • a clear and concise description of the issue
    • a link to the specific plugin

    They’ve got the hammer power. I just always urge people to communicate first ?? Most of the time it’s really just human error or not understanding what something means, and a kind reminder from a user helps.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
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