Spamming admin

Hi @kaotik,

It’s not spam; it’s a legitimate notice, relevant to Stop Spammers, the plugin in which you have installed.

This is not against the www.ads-software.com guidelines, and is a very common method for plugin authors to communicate with their users. You need only to click “Dismiss” and you won’t see the message again.

Even so, I took special care to make this as minimalist and non-obtrusive as possible, especially compared to plugins that do a complete admin take-over and redirect you to an entire landing page.

A nag is a persistent message that hits you over and over; this is a one-time, very minor, and friendly notice that you can dismiss and never see again.

Thank you for using Stop Spammers.

Review guideline number 11…

https://developer.www.ads-software.com/plugins/wordpress-org/detailed-plugin-guidelines/

ie. “Upgrade prompts, notices, alerts, and the like must be limited in scope and used sparingly, be that contextually or only on the plugin’s setting page.”

ie. “Advertising within the WordPress dashboard should be avoided, as it is generally ineffective.”

I will start reporting plugins that continue to abuse the admin area.

Yes, exactly. Those are the guidelines I’ve adhered to. The notice I implemented doesn’t contradict any requirement in those guidelines in any way. In fact, I think the admins would appreciate the way I’ve added my notice in comparison to how a lot of plugin authors do this, which I would agree, is much too aggressive.

Personally, I use one plugin now that does a complete take-over and redirects the entire page every time I update it. It is a bit annoying. I also have another plugin that places a notice at the top, which doesn’t bother me at all (most plugins do this actually), except the dismissal doesn’t work, so it’s stuck there at the top.

This has been discussed a lot lately:

https://wptavern.com/black-friday-banner-gone-wrong-advertising-in-free-plugins

And based on your comments, it appears you have accumulated a lot of frustration over plugins that actually have abused this feature, which I get. I ask that you please don’t lump me in with those authors.

In the decade of this plugin’s existence, this is the only notice that has ever been given and I made sure that it was very modest and of course, dismissible. I don’t think it’s reasonable to call my very humble notice abuse.

If you can get an admin to review my implementation, I would actually really appreciate their thoughts on my execution and if I’m required to make any adjustments.

Thanks

Bryan, I understand partially, however it may not bother you personally but it does bother me as a user and my other site users. The admin interface should not be used for plugin promotions, period. There are many other ways to promote your premium plugins, just not within the common admin area all users access to the backend of WP. You can place your ads within the plugins area inline with your own plugin information (inline, not within the header area). You can promote your premium version on your own plugin website, use paid google adverts, etc. There’s many ways to get attention, just not slyly within the admin area. And yes, I’ve seen too many plugin authors abusing this and I have held a strong stance against it for many years.

In fact, I had recently switched over to your plugin to get away from another anti-spam plugin that was abusing this in the same way, only to find yours did this too after I made a recent update to your latest version. It does leave a bad taste and unfortunately, I’m going to once again have to search for an alternative to this problem.

I appreciate the work you do as a plugin author but this is getting ridiculous.

@kaotik

Sorry to hear that you’ll be using a different plugin over this admin notice. There are many great plugins, even some of the best and most popular ones that you’re depriving yourself and your users of (you can’t use either of the most popular SEO plugins for example) by holding this conviction, but I always respect people that stand by their convictions even if I don’t agree with them.

“The admin interface should not be used for plugin promotions, period.”

That’s your opinion, and I understand that you consider anything that goes beyond that line, no matter how considerately and carefully done (as I have) to be abuse. Unfortunately, it’s not that black and white in the guidelines, and is not strictly forbidden, meaning that it’s not abuse, by their standards.

I also create themes, and there are A LOT of guidelines to adhere to. It takes a lot work actually, and I do my very best. I make mistakes sometimes, but unless an admin or reviewer tells me I need to adjust something here, I’m playing by the rules and finding that balance.

“You can place your ads within the plugins area inline with your own plugin information (inline, not within the header area).”

I can also places messages in the main header area just as I’ve done, WordPress just doesn’t recommend it. I weighed the pros and cons, and I executed sharing a message in this manner, but made sure to do better than other fiasco implementations in the past.

Our disagreement lies strictly as a user to user difference of opinion on where the line is. I use a lot of free themes and plugins on many sites, and as both a user and an author, I have a unique position to see both sides of it.

Many authors spend countless hours coding and providing support for their users (as do I), all for free. Where I stand on it is, as long as they’re not going crazy, I absolutely respect their right to drop an admin notice here and there to let people know about new stuff.

As long as I can dismiss that notice and continue freely using the features of the plugin without having to upgrade or buy an add-on for what was once a free feature I’ve been using for years, good for them. I support their right to get that message to their users admin-wide, where users will actually see the message.

Suppressing their messages to just their admin pages (if they even have them — not all plugins do [one of my own plugins for example: https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/canonical-link/%5D) will go unseen for the vast majority of users, especially when there are little to no settings, or settings have already been adjusted and never need to be touched again.

I find it disheartening that you won’t allow any grace for authors to share admin notices, but at the same time, I knew this was coming. I knew that someone would inevitably be upset regardless of how modest the message was, on principle alone. But, that’s how it works for any change when it comes to software, and I accept that reality.

I understand that there will always be people upset by one thing or another, but there will also be the opposite, like the donation and thank you email I received from another user, who didn’t take issue with the admin notice.

With that, I think we’ve both stated our stance on this issue, and there’s not much more to be said. Thanks for being a user in the first place and discussing this matter with me and keeping it friendly. I hope you can forgive me this change, and remain a user, but I understand if you don’t.

Thank you.

Interesting conversation. Being a newbie, I’ve learned a lot. Kaotik seems to be a quite seasoned and experienced user, and actively managing numerous installations.

It would be frustrating to receive lots of these kinds of notices. I could see this being very easily abused by developers. I think that is the real issue. This of course ruins it for those like Mr. Hadaway. I found his reply reasonable and measured. If a notice is only done on occasion and important for sustainability, I have no problem.

I find it unusual that Kaotik would be so incensed that he or she would say that the plugin doesn’t work and list this as the 2nd issue. One would think that a plugin not working would be the first and overriding reason for uninstalling it.

It would be great if we lived in a perfect world, but we don’t. ??

Thanks for the replies Bryan. What you have written out makes sense and is understandable. Why folks want things for free w/o even being asked about an upgrade is unreasonable. The dismiss option works for me and while I only manage four sites, it is reasonable to think that you would have to manage it at the individual site level.