Unethical Plugin Developers / Black Hat Marketers

  • marcusjwilson

    (@marcusjwilson)


    5 years ago

    if you’re reading this, you probably already know that the developers of ProfilePress acquired the WP User Avatar plugin and then this month stuffed the plugin with their own unrelated “Freemium” WordPress Membership system, and then proceeded to push the premium version of their plugin to the 400,000 former users of WP User Avatar, who never wanted a membership plugin in the first place.

    What next? Akismet bundles a premium page builder? Yoast SEO repurposes to become an eCommerce plugin? This is plainly indefensible, and the radio silence on these reviews from the developers confirms this. And as for that interview with thewpminute.com – “Maintaining free plugins is evidently unpaid labour but surprisingly, very demanding” – don’t do it then!

    I have been an active contributor with the WordPress community for a decade and, I have to say, this is completely at odds with what the WordPress community stands for.

    I am also massively put out that my previous review here was taken down because I asked if anyone knew of a fork of the original WP User Avatar plugin. I am totally aware that the Review section is not for promoting competing plugins. But, when the plugin developers totally changes to primary purpose of an existing plugin, it is TOTALLY LEGITIMATE to ask where I can get a version of the plugin that I signed up for and am reviewing, which the developers have removed.

    Come on WordPress Community – DO BETTER THAN THIS!

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
  • Moderator Jan Dembowski

    (@jdembowski)

    Forum Moderator and Brute Squad

    5 years ago

    I am also massively put out that my previous review here was taken down because I asked if anyone knew of a fork of the original WP User Avatar plugin.

    I’m sorry but what I replied to your first review still holds. It was this.

    Could you please not post in the “User Registration, User Profiles, Login & Membership – ProfilePress (Formerly WP User Avatar)” review section recommendations for another plugin?

    That’s not what the forums is for. If you want support for this plugin or leave a review, again, for this plugin then do so.

    If anyone tries to use the forum for this plugin to recommend or ask for a recommendation of a replacement plugin then that will get removed when found.

    The forum here is for supporting this plugin. It is not a blog, it is not for anything else but this plugin.

    I am archiving this review and replies for the reasons I stated above. You will both get an email from the forums about this.

    This time I left out the user names as there is no reason for that in this reply. Also in this review there is no reason to archive your review.

    The reviews here are not anyone’s blog. If people want to leave unhappy but civil feedback that is fine.

    If someone wants to use a plugin’s reviews or support topics for personal attacks or use the reviews here to find another plugin then your in the wrong place. Personal attacks are removed when found. You can ask for advice about an alternative plugin in the Everything else WordPress sub-forum.

    https://ww.wp.xz.cn/support/forum/miscellaneous/

    Moderator Jan Dembowski

    (@jdembowski)

    Forum Moderator and Brute Squad

    5 years ago

    BTW, you can get the old version here via the Advanced view.

    https://ww.wp.xz.cn/plugins/wp-user-avatar/advanced/

    Thread Starter marcusjwilson

    (@marcusjwilson)

    5 years ago

    Many thanks for your response, Jan

    leichim

    (@leichim)

    5 years ago

    Well, I can totally feel you, Marcus. While ProfilePress may be a nice package, this is one of the worst takeovers I have seen. The plugin updating system should be reliable, updating should not completely makeover a plugin.

    Noteworthy to mention is that the updated plugin even breaks the proper functioning of a lot of other plugins, such as Events Calendar. Someone should continue developing the original, real user avatar plugin (aka ‘real wp user avatar’).

    Thread Starter marcusjwilson

    (@marcusjwilson)

    5 years ago

    Yeah absolutely @leichim

    I was just starting to trust plugin updates to the auto-update process. This sort of behaviour from plugin developers means I’ll be cautioning against auto updates in future.

    Plugins should be removed from the wp.org ecosystem for offering updates in bad faith.

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

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