Protest: no updates for this plugin the next 30 days

If what GregMulhauser said is true:

As far as I am aware, we maintain a vastly higher standard of privacy protection and full disclosure than the example set by Automattic and www.ads-software.com itself — with the automatic plugin update mechanism responsible for the transmission and collection of vast amounts of information about individual WordPress installations without any disclosure about what information is being transmitted

I wonder why your plugin got singled out and Automattic is allowed to continue to do what they are doing?

Something stinks here, everyone needs to be treated equal, and I believe no plugin should be allowed to collect any information without full disclosure.

Developers, why is Automattic allowed to continue what they are doing?

Because a bug had to be fixed, I just released a new version of the plugin, which also enables the SPSN again, this time with a more accessible opt-out option.

Hey, on the page where you have “more accessible opt-out option” have a link to your paypal donation button.
Or even, when someone clicks on “opt-out” than open up another window with a massage: “While participation in SPSN is not required, I would greatly appreciate any amount donation since it takes time to write the plugin and takes time to provide updates to it. If you find this plugin useful please consider a donation” and give them option “Donate” or “not now”

I want to keep it as simple as possible and I don’t want to annoy users with popup windows. There is a donate button on the same page, which should be visible before and after opting-out. I am sure the few people who want to donate will find it.

Thanks for your suggestions anyway.

Thanks for the bugfix update, Marcel. Looks like the info from Greg Mulhauser should help clear things up.

Looks like the info from Greg Mulhauser should help clear things up.

Lets hope so, but the few e-mail responses from Mark were not so hopeful, unfortunately.

Hi,

I understand your frustration and the fact that this affair seems to be run very poorly on the part of WP. However, may I suggest that your protest is maybe not the best way to get your voice heard? In effect, you want to hurt back the people making offense to you, that’s the goal of a protest. It seems to me that, by going on strike as to the plugin updates, you are not really hurting WP, but your userbase and most of all (and most unfortunate of all) your donators who are looking forward to your excellent work and have no relationship whatsoever to how WP deals with issues like that. May I suggest that a more efficient way of protesting would be to pull the plugin from your website and host it yourself elsewhere, providing the same level of excellent service we have been accustomed to, while being very vocal about this host change, for instance? As a donator, I keep looking forward to new updates (thinking about donating some more by the way, thanks to your outstanding follow-up on the plugin), and I have nothing to see with the WP repository.

In effect, you want to hurt back the people making offense to you, that’s the goal of a protest.

That is not my intention.

You use WordPress because there are a lot of nice themes and plugins to make your website look and do what you want. You would most probably not use WordPress if there were no themes and plugins. Just a few themes and plugins are developed by WordPress, so you depend on people like me that often spent countless hours developing a theme or plugin, most often unpaid. Developing a theme or plugin and not hosting it on www.ads-software.com is not an option, because almost nobody will use it. The WordPress community does advise against using themes and plugins hosted elsewhere for security reasons too.

You need support for the themes and plugins you are using, but a theme or plugin developer does need support sometimes too. I am unhappy because this support fails. I don’t get answers to the questions I ask and issues like this are not being solved. Despite several e-mails I didn’t hear anything since last Thursday. How would you feel if you had a problem with the plugin and you don’t get any response for a week? As I have said before, I feel quite abandoned by the WordPress people. The fun of developing the plugin has partly gone.

In this way my problem is also your problem. It is not me that may hurt you.

If the plugin is pulled from www.ads-software.com, I will look for a way to support at least the few people that donated something.

I hope I didn’t offend you, that was really not my intention. I agree with all that you are saying. All I am saying is: you are unhappy with the WP and that’s fine with me, I feel the cause if perfectly justified. I am just concerned that, however just, the way the protest is made may not yield results with the people that need to be acting. That’s all I’m sayin’. ??

I hope I didn’t offend you

Don’t worry ??

… the way the protest is made may not yield results with the people that need to be acting.

Unfortunately I cannot predict the future.

Nevertheless, the just released version 1.91 of the plugin, necessary because of a critical bug, also introduces an alternate update server (other than www.ads-software.com) in preparation of things that might, but hopefully will not, happen.

also introduces an alternate update server (other than www.ads-software.com) in preparation of things that might, but hopefully will not, happen.

I’m aware of this. I hope it won’t happen. ??

We love your plugin. We love to support it too, as well as your development..

Thanks a lot and Keep up the good work mate ??

Thanks!

Nothing happened yet and I didn’t hear anything from Mark.

Hold on, the whole issue is about displaying ads in the admin panel?
As long as this is not doing anything else besides showing ads in the admin panel (like showing ads or links on my site to the public) I don’t mind that.
As a matter of fact, I have clicked on the ad inside High Performance SEO to help you out.

Good Luck

Hold on, the whole issue is about displaying ads in the admin panel?

Yes, that’s the issue.

Yes, that’s the issue.

Seems strange to me. Especially since the ads are only shown while editing that plugin settings only, not in the entire admin panel.

Since the plugin:
-Only shows ads while editing that plugin settings, not in the entire admin panel.

-Does not show any ads or links on my public site.

-Does not collect any personal information (As the privacy statement states)

Than I really don’t see what is the big problem here. And to tell you the truth, I don’t see a reason for people to opt-out.

I would suggest to have a clearer explanation about it while installing and maybe a statement in the plugin description page so people will know about it before downloading. And make sure to list things that SPSN does and does not do.

So on plugin description page have:
Since this plugin is free of charge, the developer is participating in SPSN network (Include link to SPSN) in order to help him offset costs of developing and updating the plugin.
*The SPSN network does:
-Only shows ads while editing that plugin settings, not in the entire admin panel.
*The SPSN network does NOT:
-Does not show any ads or links on public site.
-Does not collect any personal information

Good luck and thank you for providing great plugins.