Moderator
Jan Dembowski
(@jdembowski)
Forum Moderator and Brute Squad
I am not a developer here but when I look at their feedback they have received one and two stars from people who never purchased the product.
There’s nothing to purchase here and commercial products are not for these forums. (I know you didn’t mean that that way but I’m trying to be complete.)
*Drinks more coffee*
It’s not really something that needs fixing IMHO. Whatever anyone posts in a public forum really says more about them then what they say about a plugin or theme here.
The point of a review section is that well, people can leave reviews. Ideally those reviews will be productive even if they’re 1 star. A good 1 star review can be really helpful to the author as well as other potential plugin users.
These two links often get posted in response to “bad” reviews.
http://pippinsplugins.com/how-to-leave-a-good-bad-review/
http://chrislema.com/theres-wrong-way-give-plugin-feedback-wordpress-org/
When an author is faced with a bad review they can and should take it as an opportunity to reply well and “level up”. When that happens (and it does all the time) people like myself who moderate the forums jump for joy. I do anyway. 😉
These review sections really aren’t <INSERT-NAME-OF-ONLINE-BOOKSELLER-HERE> and it’s frowned upon when authors or reviewers attempt to game the system.
Having hundreds of 5 star reviews because the author repeatedly nags^H^H^H^H asks the users to do that makes their review section worthless (again IMHO).
Andrew Nevins
(@anevins)
WCLDN 2018 Contributor | Volunteer support
Reviews can also be edited at any time. As long as the reviewer knows this can be done, and the author has responded reasonably, and made them feel a bit better, there’s not much reason for the reviewer not to amend their review.
Andrew Nevins
(@anevins)
WCLDN 2018 Contributor | Volunteer support
For example, in this review, the plugin author could respond with a statement in their stance on accessibility that excuses their plugin,
“We know this plugin is not keyboard-accessible, and we unfortunately cannot make it so. The reason being this is a free plugin and we could not invest enough time and resources into developing it”
Then the author could use the heavy-weighting of the community to boost their feedback and turn some onus onto the reviewer. As it’s often the case when people are criticising free services that they should be willing to pick up a broom and help out. So, the author could say something additional like,
“As WordPress is a community-driven project, and we feel we have contributed by releasing this plugin, we ask that others help us out with developing it. As outlined, we do not have enough time to solely develop this plugin further in terms of accessibility. If you would like to contribute *** Links to appropriate resources ***
Good point Jan and Andrew. 🙂 Danke
