Plugins should *never* add linking content to the front facing part of the site without asking. And IMO, good plugins won’t even have the option to do so.

A plugin is not a vehicle for advertising your site.

By the way, I agree with Justin Tadlock in most respects, but would argue that it’s still my right to add the link if I allow it to be turned off.

I know WordPress itself used to have blurb saying please link to them in the footer because it was their only form of promotion. I don’t know if they still say that anywhere, but they used to. They’re big enough they don’t need it now, but my little plugins might benefit from the exposure (not from SEO, there’s very little SEO benefits left for such links these days.

As a end user, I appreciate seeing the links when I go to someone’s site, so I can find that plugin and use it myself.

Additionally, it’s just occurred to me that one of my plugins (not yet in the repository but hopefully one day when I clean it up), requires an external link to Yahoo! because it uses their currency rates api.
The plugin is free, it’s GPL, but it makes a call to a Yahoo! api and they require the link. Are you saying that plugin can’t be added to official repository?

Anyway, I still think I’m entitled to add a link if I want to. In over 10,000 downloads, I’ve only ever recieved one $15 donation. I’m not paid for my efforts, but I’m not allowed to ask for a link in return for providing free software? Man, that’s harsh…

Note, I always provide a way to turn the link off (except in the Yahoo! case as it’s required) and I don’t add a link if it doesn’t make sense.

The credit thing has been in place for both guidelines for a long time. The system seems to have worked. Only now am I really seeing a shift to have the same guideline for plugins applied to themes. What is truly broken because of the guideline mis-match

The requirement that the plugin provide a user-configurable option to enable/disable the credit link, and that such option default to “disabled” is actually quite new (basically, since Mark’s recent blog post). So, it is only natural that the issue would arise now.

What if I create a poll and I ask the question, should the credit link guideline for plugins also be applied to themes? Have Yes or No as the answer and then wait for the results. If the majority of people were to vote No because they are quite happy with the link showing up by default for their theme? Do you think make the change for the sake of consistency between the guidelines for each repository or do you leave things alone because the votes have shown they are ok with the way things are.

Internet polls are notoriously unscientific. Results must be evaluated accordingly.

More importantly, I would hope that decisions would be made based on what is obviously right and wrong moreso than an unscientific internet poll.

Ok, but in the same vein, I don’t think it’s good to spend all your time and energy on something that is not detrimental to the WordPress project in it’s entirety. This guideline will not bring the project to its knees.

I’m not expending much time or energy on this matter. I’m just commenting on your post (which, coincidently, happened to be about the differences between allowable links in plugins and themes). I’m not particularly upset about it; I’m just speaking up about something I see to be wrong.

Just seems like on an issue such as this one, you and Andreas are going to have to muster up a pretty strong group of vocal people who feel the same way regarding the guidelines and hope that change happens because of it. Let me email Matt and point him to this post and a few comments and let’s see if he chimes in.

I’m also not really interested in recruiting the torch and pitchfork brigade. I just get tired of hearing poor arguments for decisions such as these.

I don’t think we should ever give up arguing against an obviously discriminatory practice, just because it’s “the way they are” or because it’s “the way Mark and Matt both feel”.

Ok, but in the same vein, I don’t think it’s good to spend all your time and energy on something that is not detrimental to the WordPress project in it’s entirety. This guideline will not bring the project to its knees. All I’m saying is that Andreas has an argument that’s been heard by both Mark and Matt and nothing has changed. Personally, in the extreme measure of this entire post, the theme repository and the back-end of WordPress provides the same opportunities as plugin authors to give credit where credit is due without a link on the front-end of the site.

Just seems like on an issue such as this one, you and Andreas are going to have to muster up a pretty strong group of vocal people who feel the same way regarding the guidelines and hope that change happens because of it. Let me email Matt and point him to this post and a few comments and let’s see if he chimes in.

What if I create a poll and I ask the question, should the credit link guideline for plugins also be applied to themes? Have Yes or No as the answer and then wait for the results. If the majority of people were to vote No because they are quite happy with the link showing up by default for their theme? Do you think make the change for the sake of consistency between the guidelines for each repository or do you leave things alone because the votes have shown they are ok with the way things are.

I think Marks answer is generally the way he and Matt both feel about the guideline with themes and plugins. In this matter, I think you’ll have to realize that this is the way it’s going to be, despite your best arguments against it. While I still don’t like the fact that I can’t control the behaviour of revisions from the back-end of WordPress, I’ve given up my argument for it. Somethings in the world of WordPress are just going to be the way they are. This is one of those issues.

I don’t think we should ever give up arguing against an obviously discriminatory practice, just because it’s “the way they are” or because it’s “the way Mark and Matt both feel”.

The argument that plugins are required to make credit links optional and default to “disabled” because a site may display several such plugin credit links, but a theme is allowed to provide such a link with no user option to disable it is acceptable because a site would display only one such link is asinine.

The principle is user choice – not SEO (theme credit links can be SEO-spam, too, after all), not number of links displayed (if all credit links are required to default to disabled, and must be enabled by the user, then all such credit links would have been explicitly enabled by the user).

The guideline for plugins enforces user choice, by requiring plugins to provide a configuration option for the credit link, and requiring that option to default to disabling the credit link. The guideline for themes utterly ignores user choice, by allowing themes not to provide a configuration option for the credit link – much less requiring that the (non-existent) option to default to disabling the credit link.

There is no reason whatsoever to accept this discrimination just because it’s “the way it is”.

If Mark and Matt believe any of the above arguments for this practice, then, plain and simply, they are wrong.

There are already numerous plugins available that give end users the chance to create a dedicated page or post which lists all plugins in use. In fact, the one I linked to by Lester Chan is my favorite because it pretty much takes the same information from my plugin management page and puts it into a post via shortcode. Therefor, this is not something that should be addressed in core since standard credits are already handled by the core.

I’ve seen similar responses in the ticket itself. IMHO, such responses totally miss the point of the suggestion, which is standardization. Plugins are inherently counter-productive to the goal of standardization (regardless of whatever it is that one desires to standardize).

Saying that one can write a plugin for a colophon page is true, but irrelevant. The point of the suggestion is to provide standard hooks for plugin and theme developers to use to provide credit/link options to their admin pages, so that if a user opts to provide the colophon page, he can optionally allow his plugins/themes to hook into that page.

No plugin can provide a reasonable or meaningful alternative.

Further, wordpress.org could then develop consistent guidelines regarding plugin/theme credits/links, because the asinine argument about theme = one link and plugins = several links becomes moot. (For the record, the argument is not that plugins should be allowed to force a credit link, but rather that themes should be required to make their link optional and default to off.)

And finally, the PluginsUsed page isn’t sufficient, either, because it doesn’t give the user the ability to choose which plugins he credits – only all active and/or all inactive plugins.

Why is it so hard to go with all credit links must be optional standpoint?

I think Marks answer is generally the way he and Matt both feel about the guideline with themes and plugins. In this matter, I think you’ll have to realize that this is the way it’s going to be, despite your best arguments against it. While I still don’t like the fact that I can’t control the behaviour of revisions from the back-end of WordPress, I’ve given up my argument for it. Somethings in the world of WordPress are just going to be the way they are. This is one of those issues.

Tell you what though, I am going to ping Matt Mullenweg and point him to your comment and we’ll see if he gives his thoughts on why their is a difference between the two.

@RJ – I like your line of thought. You raise a point that I thought about after I published the post and that was the model of paying to remove the credits. I think this is one of the dumbest things worth paying for. It’s not like I want to remove the credits, I just want credits to be where they ought to be and only on the front-end of my website when I specify them to be.

@Justin Tadlock – Justin, you’re a shining example of someone who ‘Gets It‘. Theme Hybrid is such a nice piece of work that I’ve opted to keep the link in the footer. What good is thousands of links with no substance? I think it would be much better if I took a plugin and wrote a review or found a plugin that solved a problem I had and then tell the world through a blog post. Choice is good.

@Miroslav Glavic – I like you’re linking policy. As I mentioned to Justin. There is a big difference between just a link and a link with substance. I don’t like the idea of a plugin created credits page either unless it’s created by me. A good plugin for this roll is called WP-PluginsUsed by Lester Chan. Let’s not forget that their is an annual tradition now of giving thanks to plugin authors started by Matt last year. I totally forgot this year though.

@Latz – Is your plugin in the repository? If so, wouldn’t it be better to provide support for it on it’s own section of the WP.org forum? Usually, the WordPress version and plugin version info is provided up front in a support post.

@Ryan – Why is the extra credit needed? The way I see it, the plugin repository and the plugin management pages provide plenty of opportunity to credit the plugin author. Any credit delivered to that plugin or author beyond those standard means I consider to be extra credit. That extra credit should be given by me, not by the plugin or theme author.

@Chip Bennett – There are already numerous plugins available that give end users the chance to create a dedicated page or post which lists all plugins in use. In fact, the one I linked to by Lester Chan is my favorite because it pretty much takes the same information from my plugin management page and puts it into a post via shortcode. Therefor, this is not something that should be addressed in core since standard credits are already handled by the core.