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Plugin authors using bad ethics and practices by bumping plugins

  • @bphelp

    Participant

    11 years, 7 months ago

    I don’t mean to raise a stink but something needs to be noted. The author of the plugin AtContent has been deliberately manipulating the “Top Spot” on the BP plugins page by manipulation of the readme.txt file included in the plugins file. This manipulation leads to higher rankings simply because some users misinterpret the “Top Spot” as a new or updated release to a plugin and they re-download it without checking the version number. I have informed politely for the author to only update when there is added changes to functionality and version number but they refuse to stop the bad ethics and practices by manipulation of a readme.txt file which adds no functionality what-so-ever to their plugin. I personally want to see plugins with “Real” updates near the top and from what I have see by other users, this should be the case. I respectfully ask that a key-master or moderators inform that plugins author to refrain from these practices, or that the plugin should be filtered from the list based on the principals stated. Thanks!

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

  • @johnjamesjacoby

    Keymaster

    11 years, 7 months ago

    Link to this plugin? I don’t see it in the list right now.

    @bphelp

    Participant

    11 years, 7 months ago

    @johnjamesjacoby
    Hi John!
    I just noticed the plugin author somehow manipulated the placement of the plugin obviously because I politely asked them to refrain from this. I hope I am not speaking out of place but this author has consistently updated their readme.txt in an effort to have the top spot on the plugins page. I had to request more than once for this to stop because I don’t believe it is supposed to be a ranking on how many downloads you have, but instead about new or updated legitimate plugin releases. If you look at the reviews I was not the only one that addressed this practice. If I am wrong on this, then I stand corrected. I just think that type of practice is unethical and makes users re-download a plugin that has no legitimate update because they may have seen it at the top, and failed to see the plugin versions and change-log hadn’t changed. Hence the author gets a lot of downloads without legitimate updates but the actual number of downloads does not accurately reflect how many users are actually using that plugin because of the readme.txt file manipulation. Thank you for looking over this John! Here is a link to where the plugin resides now:
    https://wordpress.org/plugins/atcontent/

    @bphelp

    Participant

    11 years, 7 months ago

    @johnjamesjacoby
    Matter of fact the change was made 7 to 8 minutes before my last post above. The link below will reflect that fact. Thanks again sir!
    https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/atcontent/#trunk/assets

    @hnla

    Participant

    11 years, 7 months ago

    What list? Where?

    I don’t see this plugin on any list?

    When you mention BP plugins page it sounds as though you mean this site here yet I see no mention of the plugin? Indeed this plugin isn’t even BP related is it?

    @bphelp

    Participant

    11 years, 7 months ago

    @hnla
    Hi Hugo! Yes the plugin was listed at the top of the plugins page here for many months. You are precise that the plugin was not BP related. The author had tagged it buddypress in the readme.txt and any time a BP relatated plugin author would release a legitimate new release plugin, then the author of AtContent would manipulate the plugins readme.txt in the SVN without any legitimate change to the plugin in an effort to stay at the top of the list on this site which was pushing down legitimate BP plugin releases and making it harder for users to find new legitimate BP plugin releases. I know the plugins are not hosted here but I found that practice to be a little unethical. I have had some correspondence with the author and apparently he has decided to do the right thing by removing the buddypress tag from the readme.txt, now the only way it shows up on here is if you do a search:
    https://buddypress.org/extend/plugins/?ps=AtContent
    I suppose this could be marked as resolved if you would like. Thanks! @hnla @johnjamesjacoby

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
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