A while back I wrote an article for Weblog Tools Collection and placed it as a draft. The article had a strong tone and I asked for feedback from others. One of the responses was, “You’ll get a better response if you don’t sound so bitter.”

The advice I received was right: I will get a better response if I just make observations and ask nicely. A person is much more inclined to help someone who is polite rather than someone who rudely demands service.

When Your Car Breaks Down

Yesterday I arrived home from a grueling three week training class. After arriving from the airport (via Taxi), I unpacked some things and got in my vehicle to get something to eat. My car didn’t start. The battery had completely died.

I knocked on my neighbor’s door and asked if he could help jump-start my car. In that situation I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere if I had rudely demanded, “Hey man, come fix my vehicle with your battery cables.”

And When a WordPress Plugin Breaks

This morning I awoke to this comment here on RA Project from a plugin author about incompatibility:

Please CORRECT this plugin.

Your plugin subscribes to wp_admin_head() and adds a jQuery script statement to every back-end administration page - including the NAVT List page created for the NAVT plugin. Acting on the wp_admin_head() hook without first determining the page that is about to be displayed is, for lack of a better phrase, a ‘poor programming practice’.

Adding the jQuery script statement BEFORE the NAVT PLUGIN is able to add the prototype.js script renders the NAVT plugin unusable. I would go so far as to say that this practice of adding your header information to all administration pages would interfere with other plugins. I’ve had two complaints that your plugin and mine do not work together.

Please FIX it.
Thanks

Being the rather sensitive person that I am, the first things that stood out to me was “CORRECT”, “poor programming”, and “FIX”.

Plugin incompatibilities are a fact of life and my support of Ajax Edit Comments is not guaranteed. I guess even plugin authors forget we’re not being paid for our work. The demanding nature of the comment was an immediate turn-off and my desire to help the person was approaching negative infinity.

The person who originally brought the incompatibility (Mr. Papa) even stated that the author’s response was “a bit harsh”.

Conclusion

I eventually got my car fixed after taking it to a shop and receiving a new battery. And while I was at the shop waiting on my car, I was working on “correcting” my plugin to be less incompatible.

In hindsight, I didn’t correct the plugin for the plugin author. I corrected it for Mr. Papa, who was much more polite in asking for help.

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