Subscribe To Comments: Checked By Default Removed
May 10th, 2008 by Stephen Cronin (89 views)Lesson to be learned: When you are sitting on semi exclusive news, POST IT! I originally wrote this on 29th March, but ran out of time to post it because of our move from China. Since then, Mark Jaquith himself has written about this, and others such as the Weblog Tools Collection have picked the story up. I decided I’d go ahead and post this, because my point about it being removed without warning still stands.
One of the most popular WordPress plugins is Subscribe To Comments, but there have always been arguments about whether the Notify me option should be checked by default or left unchecked. The argument is over! The Checked By Default option no longer exists in the plugin.
This blog originally had the Notify Me option checked by default, but I recently decided to make it unchecked. When I went looking for the Checked By Default option, I couldn’t find it. It was missing!
A search didn’t return any information on the option being removed (although many sites refer to its existence). Puzzled, I went looking for more information on it’s disappearance. I found the answer in the SVN repository.
The readme.txt for version 2.1.1 says:
= I’d like the subscription checkbox to be checked by default. Can I do that? =
By default, the "subscribe" checkbox is unchecked, but you can change that in the options (i.e. so that it is checked by default).
while, the readme.txt for version 2.1.2 says (emphasis mine):
= I’d like the subscription checkbox to be checked by default. Can I do that? =
Not anymore. But the checkbox status will be remembered on a per-user basis.
So Mark Jaquith has effectively ended the argument - but as far as I can tell, no one has noticed yet!
Commentators now must opt-in, but once they do this on one post, it remembers this and defaults to being checked on other posts. This is a great solution, which suits me, and I have a lot of respect for Mark, but…
If the Checked By Default option was available in previous versions of Subscribe To Comments, it shouldn’t have been removed without warning. Personally, I would have preferred an option for checked, unchecked, or the new method. I would have chosen the new method, but others may not.
I don’t want people to think I’m having a go at Mark. I really appreciate the huge contribution that Mark has made to WordPress. I just disagree with this one decision.
Tags: wordpress plugins
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Choice choice choice! I too changed my manual hack from default check to default unchecked some time back but…I agree Stephen, unilateralism kinda stinks, especially when it was there previous.
Oh well!
Hi Rob,
Good to hear from you again. It’s been a while since I got over to YackYack - just been reading via the reader…
The removal of choice, without notification, is what got me. I’ve been involved in software design for 10 years, and you don’t just remove options without warning the users. No matter how good the change is, you’re going to upset your users.
I guess this is one of the few remaining things where open source falls down. Commercial software developers learn to respect their customers or they go out of business. As much as I love open source, this is one of the things that doesn’t translate so well.