Your Thank Yous

I always stumbled upon great designers, plugin authors, script authors or tutorial authors that are really talented. So awfully talented to the point that they inspired me. I have to admit that without all these talented designers, programmers or artists, I wouldn’t be where I am now. When I look at some of the freelance designers who have a small website, I notice that people are just downloading their graphics without even saying ‘thank you’ in their comments or even a simple ‘hi, I love your work’. Instead, these down-loaders ended up eating the bandwidth shamelessly and never give proper credits to the designers. Worse, they ended up stealing the graphics and resources and claim it as their own. I know that the designers had put up those graphic resources in order for you to enjoy but popping up in their comment boxes and saying ‘thank you’ will not hurt.

I just recently used WordPress and I am a fan of their plugins system. There are lots of WordPress plugin developers out there and some of them are dedicated when it comes to improving their plugins so that it will make your life easier. What makes these developers more charming is that they are not doing it for the money. Even if they are searching for a profit, they will simply ask you to donate and it is up to you if you want to donate or not. It is annoying to see that some people are just so ungrateful and start bitching about a plugin feature that they do not like. Constructive criticism and bitching are two different things. Learn it and apply it properly. I guess you should stop bitching about a WordPress plugin and start saying thank you instead. If you really do not like the plugins, go and develop one your own.

Here is a few guideline on how you can actually thank the designers and programmers that had produced the designs, plugins, or scripts that you really like:

Thanking a designer
So you like one of the graphic resources that they had design for you to use for free. How to thank them? It is really simple. Believe it or not, commenting on one of their entries and saying thank you will actually make them happy. It makes them feel appreciated. I don’t know why is it so hard when it comes to commenting. Are you intimidated or just scared that the designers are going to eat you when you leave a comment on their site? Don’t want to comment? Leave an email. Take it as a ‘thank you’ note. Next, credits. Give the designers a proper credit if they demand for one. If they don’t, it is really up to you. You can either credit or not. If you chose not to credit, maybe saying thank you or dropping a thank you email will be the least thing that you can do. Believe me when I say that seeing a thank you comment will make a designer happy and also motivate them to do more quality designs and resources. Last but not least, respect their request. If they want their layouts, brushes, textures or other resources to stay on their website only, do not redistribute their stuff. The terms of use are there for you to read and understand and does not act as a pretty invisible ornament on their site.

Thanking a plugin, scripts or an application developer
You do not have to comment or credit when it comes to thanking a WordPress plugin developer since it is usually not necessary and they don’t even care since it is open source. The least you could do to thank them is to comment on their plugins by saying thank you. Refuse to comment? Then you can rate their plugins. If you feel that there could be some improvement that can be made for their plugins, you could give them constructive criticism on how to make their plugins better. Complaining is not a constructive criticism. You are not contributing to anything by complaining. You are just another ungrateful twit for that matter. Here is an example to illustrate a complain perfectly;

“I tried this plugin and it sucks and the author just don’t offer support for it anymore! There is not even a new update for such a long time! And the plugin features are not even that great! I think there are better plugins out there with better features!”

A constructive criticism does not sound like this by the way. Constructive criticisms are giving suggestions to the developers on how they can actually improve their plugins. Plugin Developers are not obliged to provide support for the plugins. They are not even paid.

What about a simple script or a php/mysql script developer? Comments are decent. But if you don’t want to, you can put their name somewhere on your credit page. If they allow you to remove the credits from the script, it is up to you. No credit at all if they don’t demand it is fine too. A thank you note or a simple comment would be awesome. Don’t like any of these thank you methods? The least you could do is not to steal and redistribute them if they don’t want you to. Stealing as in claiming that it is your script and that you had developed it.

Why am I suddenly writing an article about thank yous rather than writing an article about myself or jQuery? Because I just found out that somebody has been redistributing my brushes without my permission and I really really dislike redistribution. And the worse part is, they are redistributing it without even crediting. But don’t worry, I already did what is necessary.