tomdkat

Looks like we disagree on more than just what constitutes a “feature”. 🙂

I’m also a fan of open source software but I don’t think being “open source” gives the users the “freedom”. I think it’s the fact the software is free (as in no monetary cost) that partially gives people the “freedom” to find the best solutions for their requirements. For example, on Windows I have a choice of various free anti-virus applications yet none of them are open source.

What I like about WordPress is its architecture and popularity which attract developers to enhance it. Actually, I’m finding this is both good and bad but it is what it is. 🙂

Take care!

Peace…

As I described above, my other blog hasn’t received any spam either because they haven’t been posting any. I haven’t received any spam on the blog in which I installed anti-spam. Is it because the plugin’s working? Probably. How do I know that? I really don’t. For all I know, after installing the plugin they might have suspended their spamming efforts. So, I can *think* it’s working but I really have no way of confirming it, other than deactivating the plugin and see if the spam comes back. Lack of feedback isn’t always a good thing.

I’m not saying you need to add many options and I’m not saying the plugin “needs” to be configurable in every way imaginable. I’m saying not providing _any_ feedback and not providing _any_ way of getting feedback to even confirm the plugin is working isn’t necessarily a “good” thing. That might be “by design”, as it is in this case, but that’s a different argument than it being a “feature” or not. 🙂

I mean how does anyone really know any piece of software is actually working? They get feedback from it. 🙂 How do you know a web page is loading? You see the feedback reported in the browser, and so on.

Here’s the thing: even if I was “lobbying” for the addition of basic reporting capability, that wouldn’t be heading toward an “options monster”. I mean the plugin is simple enough in function and intention, there’s not really much to control in terms of its _current_ functionality. Take the “simple login log” plugin as an example. It’s goal in life is to log login attempts. It’s got 2 options and that’s all it really needs. These options appear at the very bottom of the general settings deashboard page so they will be effectively ignored unless the user explicity needs access to the settings.

If users would rarely need to make any changes to the plugin, a single option to control whatever feedback is provided about the behavior of the plugin would be totally inocuous. It wouldn’t “clutter” anything and would be well worth avoiding the risks introduced by requiring editing a PHP file, possibly by someone who knows nothing about PHP. I mean, considering the point of this plugin, I can see those using it being those who don’t “have” to worry about configuring anything and possibly by those not comfortable editing PHP files.

In any event, once again, I’m not asking you to change anything. I stand by my review as I wrote it above. Having an optional basic reporting function would be nice and having a simple option to enable or disable this function would be even better. At the time I wrote the review above, I wasn’t aware of the setting in the PHP file you mentioned above.

Peace…