• UPDATED FEB 4, 2012

    I was very unhappy to discover that the developer had updated his plugin and in doing so removed several features. I could have lived with that, but one feature he removed was the ability to turn off a “credit” that had now appeared in my sidebar without my consent.

    I came to the forms/review page and noticed many very unahppy people and I jumped right on the bandwagon. I gave the plugin a one star review and had some very harsh words for the plugin author.

    While I fully support a plugin author’s right and need to make money from his contributions, I think he made a major mistake in removing already established features and making them “pro” only. It’s just the wrong way to go about driving people towards your premium product.

    That all being said, I think the author genuinely mae a mistake, and my earlier accusations of deceit, bait and switch, and underhandedness were without merrit. The author has gone out of his way to make things right for me, beyond the call in fact, and I am suitably impressed.

    I regret my earlier review, and my overly hasty judgement. I extend my apologies to the author, and absolutely take back all negative sentiment, as expressed above/below (which regretebly, I cannot delete.) I hope a lessons can be learned from this, both for he and plugin authors in the future.

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)
  • Plugin Author Arnan de Gans

    (@adegans)

    none of this is without warning if only you had informed yourself.

    Thread Starter jonathantimar

    (@jonathantimar)

    Look buddy,

    You can defend your actions all you want. After all, it’s your plugin, and you are under no obligation to provide it to anyone.

    But it doesn’t matter what you say, you have shown nothing but contempt for the people who use your plugin. Your actions violate the spirit of WordPress, and aside from that it’s just plain bad business.

    Had you acted honourably, I would have purchased your plugin. Unfortunately you did not. Therefore I will not only not purchase your plugin, but I wil actively advise against anyone purchasing your plugin. You have shown yourself to be dishonest and sneaky and pruchasing any mission critical software from you would be ill-advised indeed.

    Plugin Author Arnan de Gans

    (@adegans)

    How should I respond to your insultimg tone and contempt towards me? Clearly I’m missing something here. Since I have shown no contempt. Not intentionally anyway.

    I get that you’re pissed off, no doubt you’ve seen that some others are too. But you blame me for you not reading the announcements, version comparison and available stuff that’s been on the site, and pushed out to the plugin feed in your dashboard, for weeks in advance? That seems a bit off.

    Thread Starter jonathantimar

    (@jonathantimar)

    I read the changelog each time before updating. That’s all I have time for. As it is you made it inconvenient by not posting it on the repository. Anyway, never saw any warnings in the changelog, never had any reason to suspect I needed to look elsewhere for them.

    All irrelevant though. You may not like my tone, but believe it or not I am trying to help you. Can you imagine if WordPress itself suddenly released an update with a bunch of important features missing, pasted links to itself all over peoples websites, and then told them to pay up if they wanted those important features back?

    Like I said, it’s your plugin, and your business, so you can do what you want. And I understand your need and desire to make money off your hard work. I support that. I am only saying you have gone about it completely the wrong way.

    What you should have done is left the free plugin as it was, and found a way to add value to your paid version. Retroactively removing features is, as I said, showing contempt for your users.

    Plugin Author Arnan de Gans

    (@adegans)

    I see, well good luck to you and the new plugin you choose. I hope it works well for you.

    I have nothing to add here but my email address if you want to continue to use AdRotate with the features you so desire – info@ajdg.net.
    You see, I’m not the contempting (is that a word?) sleezebag you seem to think I am. If my actions upset you, that upsets me. Even though you call me names or whatever. You are still a user of my product.

    If I have hurt your trust and you want another plugin. Fine. But otherwise, get in touch. Your choice.

    Thread Starter jonathantimar

    (@jonathantimar)

    Hi again,

    Obviously I was a bit harsh, and I am sorry for the name calling. It was obviously premature.

    I imagine you didn’t consider the possible fallout from your decision. In reality, I didn’t even mind losing some of the advanced functionality, as luckily I had not yet had need for it. The only thing that truly urked me is the fact that displaying the “credit” suddenly became non optional, and broke my site’s layout. That really bothered me. If you’re plugin is good, people will promote it without being forced.

    I’ll CC this to your email. Thanks.

    Moderator Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)

    (@ipstenu)

    🏳️‍🌈 Advisor and Activist

    Jonathan, I’m glad you apologized. While it’s totally okay to have a bad experience and base a review on it, we really don’t want to see folks going postal on each other, speaking of community guidelines. Angry and upset, fine. Attacking not so much 🙂

    Arnan, please check your email for a message from plugins AT wordpress.org about your plugin.

    Plugin Author Arnan de Gans

    (@adegans)

    Thanks for your kind words 🙂

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)
  • The topic ‘I must apologize’ is closed to new replies.