Poor form! Advertising in WP Admin area

  • Resolved meta4

    (@meta4)


    4 years ago

    “Advertising within the WordPress dashboard should be avoided, as it is generally ineffective.”

    https://developer.wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-org/detailed-plugin-guidelines/#11-plugins-should-not-hijack-the-admin-dashboard

    I’ve seen your response to Simon (harpo1984), and its not really good enough. The admin area is for users (regardless of their level of access), not for you.

    This is an advertisement, not a notification.

    The fact that others are doing something similar is never a valid justification.

    Surely you can see where this ends up, can’t you? Every time a user logs in, their screen will be filled up with plugin developers cross promoting their new release.

    Disappointing stuff.

    Lorne

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • Plugin Author Josh Kohlbach

    (@jkohlbach)

    4 years ago

    Hey Lorne,

    Thanks for the concern and for reaching out. I do take these messages quite seriously.

    We’re within the developer guidelines with our notice. The notice you’re referring to is a recommendation, not really an advertisement, as such as we’re not selling anything per say. This type of recommendation is frequently done by plugins (and even themes) that have sibling plugins.

    The team was also very careful in the implementation to make sure we’re within those guidelines… the admin notice is very easily dismissed (either click dismiss or click the X), only shows once 30 days after install, and is only visible to administrator users with the correct privileges. It is also contextual in that it’s only shown on WooCommerce-related pages where it would make sense to the user what it’s about.

    That all said, I don’t like blatant advertising as much as the next guy, so since this is the second time someone has raised it to me, I’m happy to re-examine the placement and make it even more tightly contextual.

    Leave it with us and we’ll make some adjustments in a future release.

    In the meantime, however, I encourage you and anyone else that isn’t interested in what the notice has to offer to dismiss it. It won’t show again for the user once it is dismissed.

    Cheers,
    Josh

    Thread Starter meta4

    (@meta4)

    4 years ago

    Thanks for the reply, Josh.

    Your semantic distinctions between “notice”, “recommendation” and “advertisment” are meaningless. I refer you to the oxford dictionary definition of an advertisment:

    “A notice or announcement in a public medium promoting a product, service, or event or publicizing a job vacancy.”
    https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/advertisement

    Seeing an advertisement for a plugin that we had not installed (and have no use for) on an admin page that had nothing to do with your plugin was jarring enough for me to worry that the site’s security had been compromised.

    You said that “this type of recommendation is frequently done by plugins (and even themes) that have sibling plugins”. I’ve been a WordPress developer for a decade, and have trialled, installed, and purchased hundreds of plugins and none has prompted me to react in this way.

    I would suggest that’s because such “recommendations” are confined to the settings pages for those particular plugins/themes. Perhaps you could limit any future “notices” to your own pages?

    Cheers,
    Lorne

    Plugin Author Josh Kohlbach

    (@jkohlbach)

    4 years ago

    Hey Lorne,

    Thanks for the follow up. I don’t agree or understand all your points, but I do appreciate the feedback and I am taking it seriously.

    As I said previously, we’ll be making some adjustments in a future release (which is still under development at the moment).

    Cheers,
    Josh

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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