I recently read a very interesting article on the WeblogToolsCollection.com titled Is WordPress A Thankless Community? This article is particularly focused on the efforts of plugin developers. For the most part, I agree with what was said. As a plugin developer, I can attest to the fact that this issue is most definitely on a plugin developers mind as well as someone who may have a plugin but does not release it to the community.

I will admit, there have been several frustrating moments both myself and Ron have gone through while providing support for our plugins. Podcasting for instance is a plugin neither of us use, yet has double the support requests compared to Google Analyticator on our support forum. At the time of writing this post, Google Analyticator has 373,074 life time downloads while Podcasting only has 48,024 life time downloads. Some may argue that Podcasting must be extremely more buggy than, but in fact it is simply that Podcasting users seem to not read any of our documentation. This is one of the most annoying parts of support. We have a very in depth F.A.Q. for each of our plugins and a large database of questions that other users have asked, yet we keep getting the same questions. Neither Ron nor I even use Podcasting, yet we support it for the community.

We recently added advertisements to our plugin site and the ability to donate to our plugins. We have been very much appreciative by the fact that we have gotten a decent amount from both methods. Now, this money most certainly does not cover the cost of even a few hours of charged work Ron and I would do for a client, but it does cover some of the monthly expenses that come with running a business. We love giving back to the WordPress community that provides us with so much work already.

So, what can you do to show support for your plugin developers? Well, the first thing is to make sure you do as much research as possible before you come to them with a bug or a problem you are experiencing. No open source developer will have a problem if you have a legitimate bug, but saying something is broken because you refused to look up that you forgot an important WordPress tag in your theme is ignorant. In your support request, be as detailed as possible and provide as much information as you possibly can. Try to listen to the plugin developer when they respond. The fact is, most people automatically assume it is a plugin, and if a plugin developer tells you it isn’t, then it is your job to get reliable proof that it is so they can fix it.

Give back to the plugin developer in any way you can. If this means you want to donate, then donate. If you can’t afford to donate a few bucks, then simply say thank you and provide feedback on the plugin. I can’t explain how frustrating it can be to release a new version of your plugin, and no one even responds if they like it or hate it. It feels like a complete waste at times. You can also simply help support the plugin by visiting their support page and answering some of the simpler questions. If you find a bug, try fixing it yourself. If you can work it out, give the code to the developer so they can use it. Everyone appreciates a solid starting point. Finally, give the plugin user a shout out or a link back. Get some conversation of the plugin going on your blog, Facebook, or any other social site. Make sure to use WordPress’ plugin rating system to give the plugin a good rating as well.

My Opinion

I would definitely have to say that WordPress’ plugin developers are appreciated. The community as a whole supports the open source spirit. The amount of plugin users I encounter who are appreciative of the efforts of the plugin developers far outnumber the users who think they are entitled to the plugin developers time and effort. Unfortunately, the latter really do have a negative effect on plugin developers. They are the reason why Spiral Web Consulting has this message displayed on our forum:

We want you to understand a few things right up front:

• We do this in our free time to give back to the community.
• You are in no way “entitled” to immediate support.
• We will help as best we can, but we are not obligated to fix anything on your time frame.
• We may not respond as quickly as you would like us to, and we apologize, but we do this as a hobby and we give a significant amount of free time towards these plugins already so please bear with us.
• Please do not demand something from us. We respond much better to a polite request rather than obnoxious demands and a blatant lack of respect.
• If we do not respond to your thread right away, do not email us through our business contact form. Any support requests sent through that form will be instantly deleted.

Don’t be an abusive user. Appreciate the work the developer does for you, and you will get better results as time goes by.