rajasekharan

This is a known issue. This will be fixed in the next version.

The last in a series of inflamatory emails that “Raja” sent me is this one:

Hey Raj,

Even though it is everything I need and hoped for, it looks like I am going to have to abandon your auto responder newsletter plugin. I wrote you an email asking how to remove the link from the widget and you didn’t even auto respond to question. I’d be even down to make a financial contribution, but if you can’t even respond to an email from one of your users then it is likely that you wouldn’t respond to support requests either. Good luck then.

– Raja

Not how he starts the email by saying, “It is everything I hoped for..”. Please note the entitlement in the email? I get atleast 2 emails like this EVERY SINGLE DAY. EVERY SINGLE DAY. Here’s my reply:

Raja, you see.. if I put away one rupee of MY money for every time someone promised me a donation for helping them, I would be buying Calvin Klein briefs every month. I hear they are very comfortable to wear.

You make “making a financial contribution” sound like a concession that you are making for me. I’ve created and made available to you for free a very valuable piece of software that you would otherwise have to pay $600+ per year for. All this entitlement for a software you downloaded for free. Perfect.

You see, I have to make a living off a job. We have to make money, we have to keep a roof over our heads and put food on our tables. Have I, by releasing free software, given everyone around the world free claim over my time and effort? Have I promised to make myself available to everyone and anyone around the world? Have I promised to ignore my family and their needs for random strangers who BADLY want my work?

And no. I am not going to tell you how to remove the link. I couldn’t care less if you don’t use the plugin.

You see, I don’t suffer idiots gladly. I get 40-50 emails a day every single day requesting/demanding support for the plugin. I can’t afford to quit my job, sit at my house, eat cardboard, and answer every single email AND develop AND test AND document AND provide support.

I do my best to support as many people as I can. I try to spend time to help as many people as I can provided I am able to spare time. I’ve never helped anyone hoping they would make a donation.

I’ve found that people who promise a donation provided I help them predictably absolutely NEVER make donations after I help them. I know this but help them anyway.

People who have made donations to me on the otherhand do it without me asking for it or anything. Just like that.

Immense amount of effort goes into making a every single release. Every single release is a HUGE investment of time and energy. So much testing has to be done just to be sure that nothing goes wrong when someone upgrades the plugin when the update becomes available.

Nonsense like this erodes my motivation to continue work on the plugin.

Please note: The plugin is licensed under GPL. Read it here: https://is.gd/VkEw8h

Read the section on warranty.

About that rule:

It applies to plugins which force a link on your website immediately on activation without an option to remove. With WP Autorespodner, you are NOT forced to use the subscription form widget. You have the option of not using it. There are other ways to do it too.

WP Autoresponder doesn’t force a link on your website. You have the option of not using the widget. WP Autoresponder is not the only plugin to do this. WPR is not the only plugin that does this. Many top plugins do this too.

If you still find it unacceptable. You have the option of not using the plugin too.

Forget the repository rules and legalities. It is ALWAYS a good idea not to trample on the toes and piss off the platform owner whose work you are using and whose cooperation you are trying to get.

I for one wouldn’t want to tick off the WordPress core developers by suddenly encrypting the source code and charging per-server license for the plugin or something.

Should I continue support? Do you want to help continue work on the plugin? Do you want me to remove bugs? Do you want me to implement new features? Do you want me to create translation support? Do you want to support creating more documentation and the developer’s API?

Use the Subscription form Widget. Don’t remove the link. It isn’t much to ask for compared to what you are getting from the plugin.

Hi,

Thanks for pointing this out. This will be fixed in the next version.

Best Regards,
Raj

Not at this time.

Do you mean just the name or all the settings?

I understand the seriousness of the problem.

I have implemented a fix for this very issue. A new version will be made available sometime in April, 2011. Please be sure to upgrade when it becomes available.

The manner in which excerpts are created in WordPress is arbitrary – often excerpt ends in mid sentence trailing with a ….

I felt this is unsuitable for outgoing e-mail messages so, it is not generated by WP Autoresponder. You have to manually insert the exceprt yourself in the E-mail Newsletter Settings section below the Add New post editor.

Ths is a unusual problem I have not seen before. Please contact me at https://www.wpresponder.com so we can fix this.

Raj

If you are using wordpress multisite, this may be because the plugin has been placed in the mu-plugins directory.

Hi Kyle,

Good idea.

Non-admin access to features based on privileges are some ideas that I have considered and will definitely implement in a future version. But a lot of basic functionality needs work at the moment so it may be a while before this plugin gets there.

Raj

Do you know if the newsletter to which the subscription form is subscribing visitors to exist?

Are you able to send any kind of e-mails at all? Compose a new broadcast, type in some content, then send a preview e-mail. Does it work?

No. Deactivating and reactivating the plugin will create these tables automatically.

Re upload the plugin files. I think all the files of the plugin may not have been uploaded to the wp-responder plugin directory.

Forgot to mention, please be sure to remove it after checking.

Can you access your database using phpMyAdmin and check if the following database tables exist:

wp_wpr_newsletters
wp_wpr_newsletter_mailouts
and so on…

Replace wp_ with the database table prefix that you used when installing WordPress.

You can find the name of your database in wp-config.php. You can find phpMyAdmin in your web host’s control panel under MySQL databases section. Alternatively, download it from this site, then upload it to your wordpress directory in a directory. Name the directory to which you extract it something complex like “myad–htf33j4”. To log in use the database credentials defined in the wp-config.php file.