[wp-forums] The subtle distinctions between self promotion and assistance

Wed Apr 13 14:05:33 UTC 2011

Ah, but that's the funny thing.  See, if it's a NEW plugin, sure.

Jon's post was 2 days ago.  His plugin's quite a bit older (been  
around since 3.0.5).  And it had quite a few downloads.  He'd promoted  
it before (but in sensible ways). So logic me why you would post,  
again.  Again?  Oh yeah.  Didn't you notice he's done this before?

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/a-revolution-in-widget-management?replies=25

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-total-widget-control-looking-for-people-to-break-my-plugin?replies=1

And I suspect there were a couple that were deleted.

Besides which, it's not each INDIVIDUAL peice of the puzzle that shows  
the elephant, it's the whole picture.

1) A commercial plugin (pay for licenses/API which may or may not be  
in GPL vio)

2) Promotion via his own topics AND rampant posting of 'Hey, my plugin  
may help you!' in other topics, without paying close attention to WHAT  
is being asked in the topic in the first place (basically, if you're  
skimming, it's related. If you bother to read, it's not)

3) Posting to old/out of date threads that ARE related (by itself? Not  
a problem, but when you add it to 1 and 2, starts to be itchy).

Basically I feel his PATTERN of behavior needs a clue-by-four to the  
head. He's not thinking about the COMMUNITY, he's thinking about his  
PRODUCT. And I really have no idea how to explain to him that there IS  
a difference between self-promotion and assistance.  I can point to  
Esmi, or Andrea_r and say 'This is how you help AND promote  
correctly.' but I think the distinction will be lost.

Quoting Mark Duncan <wp-t31os at ntlworld.com>:

> Sure it's self promotion[1], but i've seen numerous[2] "Annoucement  
> of new plugin that does X" threads on the forum, i always been under  
> the impression users can annouce(though not repeatedly) that they've  
> released a plugin on the repo via the forum...
>
> How else would users know about it?
> Other than browsing/searching the plugin repository?
>
> [1] -  
> http://wordpress.org/support/topic/best-new-tool-for-blog-developers?replies=1&view=all#post-2054183 [2] - Examples of plugin  
> annoucements
>  - http://wordpress.org/support/topic/new-plugin-1
>  - http://wordpress.org/support/topic/new-plugin-keywordluv
>  - http://wordpress.org/support/topic/new-plugin-quick-dashlinks
>
> NOTE: Just the first 3 threads i found with a quick forum search(i  
> realise they're old threads - digging through threads is no fun with  
> the volume of threads the .org forum has).
>
> Mark / t31os
>
> On 13/04/2011 14:18, ipstenu at ipstenu.org wrote:
>> Marking him as a bozo for now will make it easier to ... monitor? For
>> lack of a better term.
>>
>> My issue is that lately he's taken to just replying to people "My plugin
>> will fix it!" when that's actually not the case. He says he wants to
>> help, and his track record really does indicate that, yes, he's a good
>> guy at heart, but he's ... trying to hard? I'm not sure how else to say
>> 'Dude, your plugin isn't the solution for EVERYONE. Listen to what
>> they're saying, understand THEIR problem, and solve it for them. Not you.'
>>
>> And this post was 100% shameless self promotion:
>>
>> http://wordpress.org/support/topic/best-new-tool-for-blog-developers?replies=1&view=all#post-2054183
>>
>>
>> There were a couple others I've deleted that were just ... He was acting
>> like an annoying API bot on Twitter 'You said Communist! Red Scare Bot
>> will tweet at you, now!'
>>
>> That was why I pointed out that if you're on the forums to support your
>> plugin, fine. But if you're here to HELP, then you need to be altruistic
>> and provide help WITHOUT just pimping your stuff.
>>
>> Quoting Mark Duncan <wp-t31os at ntlworld.com>:
>>
>>> Been having a read through his site and support topics and i think he
>>> has well placed intentions for the most part, i'd love to see a
>>> positive solution in place of adding another user to the long list of
>>> spammers..
>>>
>>> Perhaps someone could outline the issues we have, and give him
>>> directions on what to do to correct those problems, this at least
>>> gives the user an opportunity to turn a negative reaction into a
>>> positive one..
>>>
>>> Just my .2 ..
>>>
>>> Mark / t31os
>>>
>>> On 13/04/2011 12:20, Jane Wells wrote:
>>>> On 4/13/11 7:19 AM, Mika A Epstein wrote:
>>>>> If no one has by the time I'm off the train and in the office, I'll
>>>>> strip his links.
>>>>>
>>>> On second thought, in light of the post esmi linked to, let's just mark
>>>> him as spam.
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>>
>>
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