WordPress Plugin Credits

The issue of how to credit plugin developers can often be an emotionally charged topic, with strong opinions on both sides. Everybody agrees that plugin developers are awesome for the WordPress community, but many disagreements arise as to what are the proper methods for getting credit for their hard work.

On the one hand, many plugin developers feel they should at least get a back-link for all of their time and effort, but many blog users do not want to clutter up their blog with multiple plugin links, on every blog page.

This plugin allows you to say a simple Thank You to your friendly WordPress plugin developers by including a single link back to their site on a Plugin Credits page.

[Most recent WordPress Plugin Credits updates]

December, 2015
Tested on WordPress 4.4. No changes needed.
August, 2015
Tested on WordPress 4.3. No changes needed.
Aug 3rd, 2012 – Release 1.2

Updated plugin paths to use the plugins_url() and plugin_dir_path() WordPress functions.

Encapsulated the credits menu page within an object class for a cleaner and more structured plugin.

Tested on WordPress 3.9.

How to Get Shiba Plugin Credits.

Generate a Plugin Credits Page

After installing the plugin, go to Pages >> Shiba Credits.
Click on the Generate Plugin Credits button, and a new plugin credits page will be created.
The page will be set to draft mode, so that you may alter it however you like using the Standard WordPress page interface before publication.

Generate a Plugin Credits Page.

There is a checkbox that allows you include plugin descriptions into your credits page. Here is an example Plugin Credits page that includes the plugin descriptions. Note – all links are stripped from the plugin descriptions so no blog administration links will be posted as part of the page.

If a Plugin Credits page already exists (i.e. slug = plugin-credits), the plugin will just update the existing page. In particular, the contents between <!– Plugin Credits –> and <!– End Plugin Credits –> will be replaced with the newly generated list of plugins.

Text and other modifications that live outside this area will be left untouched. In this way, you may style your Plugin Credits page and keep those styles intact even when you regenerate your plugin list.

Style Your Plugin Credits Page

The plugin uses three style classes in the Plugin Credits page.

plugin-credit-name – controls the style of the plugin title.
plugin-credit-author – controls the style of the plugin author.
plugin-credit-description – controls the style of the plugin description.

For example, here is a plugin entry –

Akismet 2.2.7 by Matt Mullenweg

Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. You need a WordPress.com API key to use it. You can review the spam it catches under “Comments.” To show off your Akismet stats just put <?php akismet_counter(); ?> in your template. See also: WP Stats plugin.

We use the following style to make the description text smaller and leave a space after every entry –

<style>
.plugin-credit-description { 
   font-size:90%; 
   line-height:normal; 
   margin-bottom:20px;}
</style>

Why Credit Plugin Developers

Encourage more people to share their plugins.
Increases the likelihood that plugins will be updated and supported.
Ultimately will result in better quality plugins.

Common Ways for Crediting Plugin Developers

A PayPal Donate Button – This allows users to voluntarily donate some money for the continued development and support of the plugin. Not surprisingly, few click on this button.
Automatic Back-links – Some plugins may insert a back-link or multiple back-links from your blog back to their site. Different plugins differ in their back-linking policy –
1. Include a back-link by default.
2. Only include a back-link when the user explicitly gives permission.
3. Include back-links without providing a way to turn them off.
4. Don’t include a back-link.

According to the article How to get your plugin removed from the directory, doing (1) or (3) will get your plugin kicked from the wordpress.org directory. Therefore, if you want your plugin to live on wordpress.org, go through the article and make sure you are not accidentally breaking any of the rules.

A Single Plugin Credits Page which links to the plugin site and the plugin author site.

Why Be a Plugin Developer

In my opinion, there are very few perks to being a plugin developer. If you are looking to make money or otherwise profit from the enterprise, then you are probably better off doing something else.

I generally write plugins for two reasons –

To learn about a particular aspect of WordPress that I find interesting.
To perform useful or cool tasks on my own blogs.

Since I already have the code written, it is a small step to make the code plugin-ready.

Personally, I think that WordPress should put some of their resources into this area and work together with their community to provide better incentives for developing useful applications/plugins on their platform.

While blocking spam is important and good, having policies that make it difficult for all plugin developers to promote and share their work is perhaps even more detrimental than the spam.

How to Get Shiba Plugin Credits.