Updated: 2/4/2010
Quick Disclaimer: I personally have never released a WordPress plugin.
One of the beautiful things about WordPress is the sheer magnitude of plugins that add some truly amazing capabilities to our websites and most of them are free. It’s easy to overlook how much time and energy go into developing those plug-ins, not to mention the support many of them provide. To show that we don’t take free for granted and appreciate what those developers have done for us I’m trying to start a movement that I hope will catch on with everyone that uses even a single WordPress plugin.
On March 1st, 2010 I’m suggesting that we all make a $5 donation to our favorite plug-in or plug-in developer.
//Update
UPDATE: I’ve been seeing good traction with this and alot of people in various forums, twitter, etc.. have said they want to participate so rather than leaving comments here (which you are still welcome to do) we’re encouraging people to tweet about it on March 1st after they make their donation. To make it easy to track here is some suggested language and a hash-tag (#wppdd : WordPress Plugin Donation Day)
“I just donated to insert plugin name” #wppdd
Alternate ($ amount optional of course):
“I just donated to Plugin Developer to say thanks for the PluginName [insert short URL to plugin page or author]” – #wppd
“I just donated $x to Plugin Developer to say thanks for the PluginName [insert short URL to plugin page or author]” – #wppd
Let’s spread the word as much as we can bewtween now and March 1 and see what it takes to get a topic to trend on that day.
//End Update
Right now I’m pledging $100 to 20 different plug-in developers ($5 each) just to say thanks.
I’ll throw out as much link love, twitter love and any other love as I can to the top donors and at least a link to everyone who comes back to leave a comment and tells us what they did.
It just feels like the right time to say thank you to those who have given us so much of their time. Help me spread the word but letting people know, point them here, tweet it, whatever you can do. And remember the date is March 1.
If you would like a reminder add your name and e-mail below. Note I will NOT be using this form to add you to my mailing list (you can do that in my sidebar separately if you wish). This will only be used to send you 2 reminders, one on Feb 28th and one on March 1st to make your donation and come back to let us know who you chose and why.
About Scott Ellis
What an awesome idea! I signed up for a reminder.
Awesome thanks Collin! I'm still working away trying to spread the word.
This is a great idea
will donate a few lattes too. Let us know when you have the twitter hash tag sorted so I share with the world.
Sarah, Will do. I'll have it all sorted out tomorrow and let everyone know! If you have any good ideas for what we might call it let me know!
Hi Scott.
I'm pretty new to site building and using wordpress having just started my first blog a little over a month ago and have just come across your site.
I only wish I'd found it a lot sooner. I would have started a lot sooner!
The donation idea is also highly commendable and as soon as I finish this comment I'll be signing up for the reminder as well as your mailing list.
Hello Scott,
It might be cool to put “(s)” at the end of “developer” in the following sentence stating your proposal to donate to plugin developers:
On March 1st, 2010 I’m suggesting that we all make a $5 donation to our favorite plug-in or plug-in developer.
Also, under “ADD A NEW COMMENT,” you have a sentence:
“You are commenting as a Guest. Optional: Login below”
There doesn't seem to be a place to logon. I don't understand why it doesn't list me as already being logged on.
Thanks, by the way, for all of your efforts. I have never designed a plugin either. I am actually just learning WordPress.
Good suggestion, thank you, updated the title! Not sure why it doesn't recognize the login… I'll keep my eyes on that.
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This is a great idea. You're absolutely right – It's very easy to overlook the time and effort put in by the developers of these plug-ins and take the free nature for granted. I plan on donating to All-In-One SEO Pack by Semper Fi Web Design which I have found to be of great value and have used extensively. I even signed up for your reminder so it doesn't slip though the cracks. Thanks for taking the initiative and organizing this!
Thanks for the great idea – I just gave a donation to the creator of WP-Print, one of my all time favorite plugins: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-print/
The print version of your post shows all links as footnotes – see an example here: http://www.spellboundblog.com/2010/01/26/levera…
I made my donation to the creator of All In One SEO Pack this morning:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-…
As a WordPress plugin author (specifically one that was donated to), I just wanted to say thanks for the appreciation. There are a lot of us that put a lot of time and effort into these plugins.
Considering how many hours I've spent on all my released plugins, if I had spent it doing billable work instead, I'd have made orders of magnitude more (all my plugin donations combined still don't add up to a single hour of billable work). And while money is important (let's not kid ourselves here), it isn't everything. A small gesture that lets the plugin author know you appreciate what they do will go a long way toward keeping that plugin alive.
There are a lot of great plugins that deserve donations, but my $5 went to WP-DB-Backup by Il Filosofo. Maybe if I donated $5 to a different developer on the first of each month, I'd get through all the plugins I use in…4 years?
First off thanks for making the donation! But I hear you, It would be almost impossible to donate to all of them but the point was really to say thanks! I'm still working my way through my list today.
Great idea, Scott. We get so busy with our work that it's easy to forget that we owe so much to WordPress, plugin developers in particular.
I just donated to 3 developers:
1. Michael Torbert http://semperfiwebdesign.com for his WP Security Admin Tools + All in One SEO Pack plugins
2. Arne Brachhold for Google XML Sitemaps plugin http://arnebrachhold.de
3. Donated to Jodi Diehl to say thanks for WP-Testimonials plugin http://sunfrogservices.com
Boris, That is awesome! Thanks for stepping up.. all good choices too!
Thanks
We should really thank the persons that develop the useful plugins we are using, by giving some donation to them.
It's definitely a good practice! I know the developers appreciate it.
I think it's realy good idea!
I use wordpress too, and many other plugins for it.
Thanks, the idea seemed to get good traction.
really good idea to help the developers.I think we all as a webmaster need to help so we all can benefit with them in future.
Yeah agreed, it's just to easy to over look the contribution of plugin developers
It just feels like the right time to say thank you to those who have given us so much of their time. Help me spread the word but letting people know, point them here, tweet it, whatever you can do.
Looks like I'm a little late, but I'll be promoting as much as possible.
Thanks! Yeah, we'll see if we can make a run at it again next year but no reason we can't donate as appropriate in the mean time.
the adsense plugin i like the best
What is the name of the plugin specifically?
Yeah really a smart idea
This is a great idea. You're absolutely right – It's very easy to overlook the time and effort put in by the developers of these plug-ins and take the free nature for granted. I plan on donating to All-In-One SEO Pack by Semper Fi Web Design which I have found to be of great value and have used extensively. I even signed up for your reminder so it doesn't slip though the cracks. Thanks for taking the initiative and organizing this!
Cargames – Thanks for stopping by! We're trying to keep it going every March 1st but there is never a bad time to donate to a plugin developer. All In One is very popular and I know those guys will appreciate it!
What a cool idea.. here is my site http://www.msktext.com
What an awesome idea! We get so busy with our work that it’s easy to forget that we owe so much to WordPress, plugin developers in particular.
Good point, we should really give back more to the developers of all these great WP plugins. Not only is it helping the developers make better plugins, but it;s just good Karma!
Agreed! I’ll start promoting this again after the first of the year.
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