MaxBlogPress Plugins Removed From WP Repository

[pawan]

First of all, some good news for all of you guys:

Wordpress Plugin Repository's moderator has declined to accept my plugins in any form no matter what changes I make.

Well, that's their repo and they can decide whatever they like. I won't fight for it and I have lost the interest for getting into that repo.

I will host my plugins in my own website so there won't be any problem to others. If someone don't like my work, that's fine. No, need to visit my website and neither I force you to do so.

Second, I have dropped the "MaxBlogPress Revived" project. That was the project I had started to bring the dead plugins to life which were no longer supported by their developers. We had revived around 20 plugins since I started that project and was giving free support, free bug fixes and free updates whenever wordpress release its new version.

Well, there's no point in doing that much effort if those plugin don't get into the repo and don't get enough exposure for others to benefit.

[pawan]

Different crimes deserve different punishments.

The whole spamming peoples e-mails (which is the only reason you would ask for your e-mail, let's be real here) is in my eye murder, instead of stealing a candy from the store.

You spam me, I will black list you one strike and you are out.
You add me to your marketing/mailing list without me telling you that I want to with a trick which this guy did, I will black list you one strike and you are out.

Let's talk about the spam issue. First of all, the emails we send are the maxblogpress newsletter not the spam. Those newsletters contain good info for bloggers and recommendation for other blogging related softwares/courses. That's how we support free developments and free support for more than 30 plugins we manage.

There's thousands of users who love our maxblogrpess newsletter. If you don't like our newsletter then you should click the unsubscribe link for not getting the newsletter anymore. You can't call it spam just because you don't like it. We include unsubscribe link at the bottom of each and every email we send. You don't have to contact anyone or go through lots of hoops to unsubscribe. The unsubscribe process is instant and automatic.

As, I told above, we require the newsletter subscription for supporting the free development and support. When we show the registration box, we clearly state that the user will receive the newsletters. Also, even after registering we send a confirmation email telling the user again that they will receive the newsletter. We send the newsletter only after the user has confirmed that they want to receive the newsletter.

We use the email for sending the newsletters and if the user don't want that then they can easily unsubscribe and we will never send any email to them. We don't sell or reveal our subscribers' email to anyone.

Spammers hide behind somewhere unable to reach and there's no way to contact them. We put our valid mailing address and phone number in each email we send so that user can contact us if they have any problem.

[Otto]

There's thousands of users who love our maxblogrpess newsletter. If you don't like our newsletter then you should click the unsubscribe link for not getting the newsletter anymore. You can't call it spam just because you don't like it.

Pawan, I call it spam because it exhibits spammy behavior. That is from the viewpoint of a user of your plugins, you have made them "opt-out" of the newsletter.

The user didn't want to subscribe to your newsletter, they wanted to use the plugin. Making them subscribe to a newsletter to use the plugin is the offensive behavior here.

The content of the newsletter is irrelevant. How many people like it is irrelevant. If the mechanism by which you promote that newsletter is tied to something unrelated to it (like "turning on" a plugin), then your newsletter is instantly classified as "spam".

Also, if the content of the newsletter is so good, then why don't you let it stand on its own merits? Nobody would have any problems if you had a link in the plugins that said "hey, come subscribe to my newsletter". It's the act of making the plugin functionality artificially dependent upon that subscription that is the problem.

[chipbennett]

Pawan, I call it spam because it exhibits spammy behavior. That is from the viewpoint of a user of your plugins, you have made them "opt-out" of the newsletter.

The user didn't want to subscribe to your newsletter, they wanted to use the plugin. Making them subscribe to a newsletter to use the plugin is the offensive behavior here.

The content of the newsletter is irrelevant. How many people like it is irrelevant. If the mechanism by which you promote that newsletter is tied to something unrelated to it (like "turning on" a plugin), then your newsletter is instantly classified as "spam".

Also, if the content of the newsletter is so good, then why don't you let it stand on its own merits? Nobody would have any problems if you had a link in the plugins that said "hey, come subscribe to my newsletter". It's the act of making the plugin functionality artificially dependent upon that subscription that is the problem.

Ironically, that is exactly what Pawan had decided to do - make the email list completely optional.

But, because of the one-strike rule imposed against him, he was denied in his request to have the plugins added back into the repository.

[Otto]

I doubt it would have helped anyway. His brand is so tarnished by this point that cleaning up that mess is basically impossible.

This sort of compliant went unresolved for over 2 years before he got banned: http://wordpress.org/support/topic/151397

So characterizing it as "one strike" is a bit much, IMO.

[chipbennett]

I doubt it would have helped anyway. His brand is so tarnished by this point that cleaning up that mess is basically impossible.

This sort of compliant went unresolved for over 2 years before he got banned: http://wordpress.org/support/topic/151397

So characterizing it as "one strike" is a bit much, IMO.

What were the other "strikes", though? Complaints in the forum are not the same thing as being told by anyone even remotely "official" that what he was doing was wrong.

Pawan is well-aware of my staunch opposition to what he was doing - so you'll get no defense of his tactics from me.

But by the same token, as far as I could tell, the only action taken by the repository moderator was removal without warning.

I don't have any inherent problem with removal without warning - but you have to give the guy a chance, at some point, to be told what was wrong, and to rectify it.

Either warn him before removing his plugins, or else give him a chance to fix them and resubmit them after being removed.

Yes, the brand is tarnished - but now, there is no chance of rectifying that. Pawan basically wants nothing to do with the wordpress.org repository, and I can't say that I blame him.

The most disappointing thing here is the lost opportunity to bring someone into the WordPress community "fold", by showing him a better way to do things, and allowing him to rectify past perceived wrongs.

[Otto]

What were the other "strikes", though? Complaints in the forum are not the same thing as being told by anyone even remotely "official" that what he was doing was wrong.

True, but there were a fair number of threads saying so:
http://wordpress.org/tags/maxblogpress-ping-optimizer

The most disappointing thing here is the lost opportunity to bring someone into the WordPress community "fold", by showing him a better way to do things, and allowing him to rectify past perceived wrongs.

Meh. I can see your point, but honestly, I don't think we need those types of people. Anybody who can develop something like that and not know it's wrong instinctively is not somebody whom I think we need involved in any particular project.

I see a lot of this sort of behavior from marketing-types all the time. I know several people in that line of work. It is my considered opinion that some people just have no conscience, because telling them that they're spamming people over and over never seems to stick. They go back to doing it later.

Their view seems to be "well, how will people know about X if I don't tell them?", to which there's no simple answer. Spamming the world is easier than selective marketing, and so people tend to be lazy about it.

[brandingdavid]

Yes, the brand is tarnished - but now, there is no chance of rectifying that. Pawan basically wants nothing to do with the wordpress.org repository, and I can't say that I blame him.

The most disappointing thing here is the lost opportunity to bring someone into the WordPress community "fold", by showing him a better way to do things, and allowing him to rectify past perceived wrongs.

The parts I quoted are the most important parts of what Chip said in my mind... I remember when Matt would go out of his way to convert non-believers back in the GPL vs Not GPL premium theme days.

If MaxBlogPress' plugins provide value, shouldn't someone have helped him get straightened out, back in the repository, track his newfound success, and claim it as a community success? Use it as a test case on how changing plugins to fit the expectations of the users can increase community support or something...