This really shouldn’t need to be said however, based on three recent incidents, it is clear we need a reminder.
You are responsible for your own actions and choices. If you decide to do a thing, you are assuming responsibility for the outcome and, like it or not, the repercussions fall on you and you alone.
When you work with a team of people to support and maintain your plugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party, everyone is required to follow the plugin and forum guidelines. Choices made by the team will impact the group as a whole, for good or ill.
Recently a company was banned due to having never briefed their employees on the plugin guidelines. This led to a new, un-monitored employee, egregiously violating the guidelines, harassing and abusing the volunteers of the forums as well as the end-users, who were just trying to get help with the plugin.
The company had been warned about this kind of behaviour before. In fact, they had been issued a final warning. As this was a repeat of the exact behaviour they’d been warned on, their plugin was closed and the company prohibited from hosting anymore.
Sadly this isn’t the only time that’s happened in the last 4 months.
If you work with a team of people, the company/group is responsible for each other. If one person in your group/company violates the guidelines, it’s the whole group who will suffer as you’ve demonstrated an inability to manage your team. The same is true if a rogue intern or SEO marketer spams the forums. They’re doing those actions in the name of the company, which makes the company accountable for their actions.
Don’t hire random people from companies like Fourer to do your marketing. Don’t let people loose in the forums without making sure they understand the guidelines and our expectations.
Abuse, name calling, harassment, stalking, and spamming the forum moderators is not permitted behaviour by anyone. Users are banned for this, and developers will find their companies and all plugins similarly removed. We feel it’s unfair of people to put the burden of monitoring and managing their team on the volunteers of the forums and the plugin team. This is especially true of companies.
Please make sure the people who work with you understand not just the guidelines, but the stakes. Quite often we find an enthusiastic intern is the cause of sockpuppeting, or a well-meaning SEO consultant who took the wrong lessons to heart and made a readme filled with spam.
If we have to contact you multiple times about your behaviour, or that of the people you’re working with, we’re simply not going to permit you to use our services any longer.
#guidelines, #policy, #reminder
