I never had any ill-intentions. I do like and really appreciate link-backs, but based on past experiences, I saw a lot of people removing link-backs on my themes and whatnot. The reason I felt is that they didn’t want to advertise me since a lot of users are web developers themselves — competition et. al., and I understand that. Thus, when I created this form I decided I’d make easy for people to remove the visible link without wiping it out entirely. I did think the terms were clear but apparently not everyone did. Moreover, I never considered that it would put anyone at risk because lots of accessibility practices utilize that type technique, what I call “offset” positioning, to cater to the needs of screen reader users and the like.

Re-reading my comments, my apologies to you for my seeming belligerence during this process of your simply trying to affect a change, and apologies to anyone who felt I had acted in a deceitful or underhanded way by setting this up the way I did. I swear that was never my intention.

I did see that post, and form, at HTMLHelp (thanks, I like the fact you’re using it). I noted it when I got the trackback. I don’t publish comments on my “pages,” but I do see them when they come in.

No hard feelings.

Mike

I am extremely pleased (and actually surprised) by your decision.

I always assumed from day one that you must be a good guy given your attention to accessibility, standards compliance, and the free distribution of your work (not only this plugin). In fact, if I hadn’t assumed you were a nice guy this whole thing would have gone very, very differently. I regret that we both had to go through so much aggravation over this one issue. Clearly, the problem exists because of our different interpretations of it’s severity as well as differences in our perception of the language involved.

I appreciate the fact that you chose not only to remove the hidden links, but even to allow removal of the attribution altogether! I did not expect that, although I do honestly believe that in the end you will be benefited from this choice more than simply requiring the attribution.

As a peace offering, I have installed the plugin on the soon to launch HTMLHelp.blog. You will find the contact link at the very bottom of the page, and I also created an attribution page which you’ll find here. If this whole process has left you wishing I would not use the plugin I’ll understand and you can let me know publicly or privately and I’ll remove the form and we’ll go our separate ways.

Take care,

John

PS – In a few days I’ll close comments and trackbacks on this thread.

Please tell users to change line 1320 to this:
$forms.=(' <!--'.$build.'-->'."\n");

This helps with support. Since I get about three support emails per day it’s very helpful to know what build number the user has.

For the record, my intention was never to dupe, spam, or trick anyone and I don’t appreciate your accusation. The terms and documentation said that the link would be “hidden” not removed. I thought I was being up-front about it, despite what you may think. I’ve always had high moral standards despite what your opinion of me may be.

Regarding the form, it wasn’t even a WordPress plugin originally, it’s just build upon the original script that I’ve been working with for two years or so. The terms have always been the same.

Anyway, like I wrote, Mike and I have been discussing this and might change it with the next micro build, possibly move it to a small license-based program. I spend about 8-10 hours a week on form related stuff so I have to consider that. Donations are few and far between.

I already know you’re with HTMLhelp. It’s a good resource. I link to it from Accessites I think, and maybe my hosting site.

For the record, because you initially labeled the software as Open Source, every download up to the point that you changed your license was made in good faith under those terms. So I think the use of the word “illegal” is not appropriate.

With regards to ethics, neither you, nor I, nor anyone else gets to judge whether our own actions are ethical. All we can do is lay out the facts that helped us arrive at a given action. With regards to these hidden back-links I believe you chose your wording and designed your plugin purposely to maintain back-links under all conditions. While I believe you did this thinking it would cause no harm I find it hard to believe you sought certainty on this subject before making your decision. Without exception, every search engine has always maintained that hidden text and links are unacceptable. I’m guessing it has been this way since before you were authoring for the Web. Therefore at best you are ethically neutral, and only if ignorance of this fact is working in your favor.

Your continuous talk of all your hard work warranting payback really bothers me. The people that developed WordPress have donated so much more time and energy than you will ever spend in 100 lifetimes without the need to extract a cost from every single user. At HTMLHelp.com we have spent 10′s of thousands of man hours voluntarily helping people, without ever asking anything in return. So, please stop bringing that up. It is rapidly changing my opinion of your charity and skewing my responses.

Moving on to the issue regarding the hidden links. What I cannot understand is why you unflinchingly cling to your views, and tell people there is no problem, despite the council of someone who runs a Web authoring reference site which literally tens of millions of authors rely on annually.

I mean, you wrote a CSS tutorial and you don’t even realize that I was one of the people who helped define CSS with Hakon Lie and others? Look it up. The WC3 also lists my reference in their “Hall of Fame“. In addition to that, I wrote the Web Authoring FAQ and helped with input on web standards from HTML 1.0 on up to what we use today. Furthermore, the Web accessibility you like to preach is partially based on work I did as a member of the Web Accessibility Initiative.

I’m further amazed that, although even people at Google used HTMLHelp.com to help build their site, you are willing to assert the certainty of your opinion on this matter over my own. That is awesome confidence.

You keep saying that your hidden links are “not a big deal”, and I keep telling you that they are worse than you understand. I have been exceedingly polite and provided you with every opportunity to do the right thing hoping that peer pressure alone would help you make your decision. And up until this point I have never mentioned my qualifications to critique this matter, instead attempting to rely on pure logical argument. Obviously that is not going to work. Clearly you and your friends have rationalized the fact that you are personally to blame for God only knows how many hidden links floating around the net.

So let me be clear. I do not care if you risk your own domains, but I care very much about unsuspecting WordPress authors who don’t know enough to understand the risk. The hidden links should be removed because they pose an unnecessary risk. For example, I’ll be in San Francisco meeting with Google in 12 days. Are you confident enough of your opinion that you would have me run it by them? In other words, are you willing to bet your domains on it? I wouldn’t be.

My free and expert advice to you is now, and has been since my first communique, simply to allow users the opportunity to disable and delete the back-links. I advise this because:

• If you do a simple Google search you’ll find that the vast majority of your users leave the links in place anyway! That is what makes your stance so unbelievable. Your attitude appears to be “Not good enough, I want them ALL!”.
• If you allow users to remove it, it doesn’t cost you a thing, it builds good will, and you might retain users who otherwise will forgo your software but who might have given you donations or links back from their “Plugins I Use” page – which would convey more PR value anyway! The more exposure you have, the more likely you are to reap some benefit from it over time. TRUST ME ON THIS!
• For example, I was originally considering using your form on a soon to be launched HTMLHelp.com blog, not my personal blog. The PR benefit from our attribution would eventually likely have exceeded hundreds of other sites combined.

Finally, there is a huge movement right now in the WordPress community which you are probably not aware of regarding hidden and sponsored links in themes and plugins. It starts at the top. Matt M. wants to ban sponsored link themes from WordPress.org, and I and others are arguing merely for full disclosure. However, I am advocating an outright ban on all themes and plugins with hidden links – with a 0 tolerance policy.

John

PS- I will not dedicate another moment of my time to this issue. I do indeed have “bigger fish to fry.” It’s your software, it’s your decision, I believe I am absolved of my duty to provide any further guidance. Good luck.

Thanks to this post, Mike and I have been discussing this between us, and with other people (the general consensus is that this is sort of melodramatic). What we’re thinking of doing as a result of this whole mess is removing the link removal feature altogether, clamping down harder on our terms, and making users purchase a license to get an credit-free version. We worked, and still work, damn hard on this form and feel we’re providing a decent service to people. Moreover, we provide exemplary support for our free script (better support than some commercial script providers offer actually). Thus, for all this work we want to get something out of it.

Andrew, I appreciate the fact that you’ve provide links anyway. Thank you very much. That’s why we do this (it certainly isn’t the money). I would advise you not to remove the position-hidden input as that one in particular is a highly effective anti-spam tool.

However, it’s worth noting that one of the anti-spam features used by this form is a hidden text box, shunted off screen in a similar manner to the author link. If you believe there could be real problems with Google for “…writing text in such a way that it can be seen by search engines but not by users…” – and I’m no expert on this – then you should probably advise people to remove that too.

@Mike, the terms on your site were not and are not clear that clicking that option will not remove the link entirely. If you really wanted to be clear you would write exactly what it is that occurs when that option is used (e.g., not just that the “visible link” is removed, but EXPLICITLY state that a hidden link will remain), and honestly anything else is just trying to be sneaky but cover your ass at the same time.

Also the GPL does not allow you to require an attribution link remain in place for end users, only for redistributions, and adding any such requirement makes any license associated with it non-GPL compatible:

The GPL allows the end user to modify things any which way they want, so long as they are not repackaging and redistributing it. That’s kind of the whole point of the license.

You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients’ exercise of the rights granted herein.

The copyright’s terms of use restricts two activities by users: re-distribution without permission (for version control more than anything else) and link-back removal without a license. I reserve all other rights. Other than those two activities they are welcome to work with the script to improve it, modify it, change it, etc., and they can even submit it back for adoption and credit in some cases, but I do warn them they may be making it difficult to apply upgrades which I provide regularly. They can even use it on client sites they are getting paid for as long as they are charging for their time and not the script itself — I’ve been asked this several times.

I didn’t go for a strong copyleft GPL license since in my other business life, a mail order company founded in 1992, I’m used to applying for copyrights, but I am offering a GPL-compatible copyright very similar to some of the CC licences (the WordPress staff agrees with this since they have officially accepted it and they require GPL-compatible terms).

I ask two things. That’s it.

I’m glad you stopped by, and I welcome your comments and opinions. You may feel free to write anything you like here and I’ll approve it, unaltered.

I’m confused by your assertion that the form is not open source. The exact words I see on your page are “…no payment is required to use this open source script…” Open Source software as defined by OpenSource.org does not have restrictions against modification, re-distribution, or even resale.

Perhaps you meant something else? But I can’t come up with any other words that could be accidentally confused with “open source”. I can only take your words at face value, and I’m confident that any court would do the same. If, and only if, my argument is correct, users would indeed be allowed by law to modify the script.

I cannot in good conscience remove the fix I provided for the following reasons:

• I believe your license is unclear at best.
• Removal of the fix benefits you at the possible expense of thousands of other people.
• Even if I removed the text, previous versions of this page will still be archived somewhere forever.

What I will say however is that I strongly recommend removing the script per the author’s wishes as opposed to modifying the code. I would further assume that this applies to all of the code, so users cannot make any changes to it whatsoever.

With regard to your opinion about Google’s perception of the hidden link I’m afraid you are incorrect. You did not choose to believe my rational argument before you knew my identity and I’m actually surprised that now you know who I am you still fail to acknowledge my expertise in this matter. Nonetheless, Google’s language on this point is undeniable. They do not give exceptions such as “only if you use a ‘none’ display property”. On the reasons to ban a site page they simply state, “…writing text in such a way that it can be seen by search engines but not by users…”. Your hidden links do not in any way assist with usability issues, or have any positive benefit except to convey search benefits to your own site. If Larry or Sergey were here they would ask “what part of that did you not understand?”

The difference here is that you only “think Google wouldn’t persecute anyone”, whereas I know this is a real risk. And it only takes a single instance of a violation to cause this. I have seen it happen, more than once.

What bothers me so much about this particular issue:

• You have, UN-knowingly I’m certain, put the blogs of a lot of people at risk.
• You have no moral high ground since you are extracting something in return for every install. Your refusal to remove the hidden links demonstrates that you are unwilling to simply be charitable.
• At this point there is nothing you can personally do to “fix” that issue. You couldn’t possibly track down everyone and let them know of the potential risk.
• You fail to acknowledge the problem and have not yet volunteered to remove hidden linking from the plugin going forward.
• I have never seen this type of violation in any other plugin. For any platform. Ever.

All of this is very unfortunate. And I’m sad to have been the one to notice the problem. I don’t want to be in the middle of this. And what bothers me most is that you seem like a nice guy and I really appreciate the fact that you take pains to write accessible, valid code. I bet we have far more in common than either of us realize. But sadly Google doesn’t give credit for being a nice guy.

Finally, am I correct in assuming the reason you now care about my opinion is that Google lists this page immediately after yours in any search related to this form?

Sincerely,

John

PS – If you agree to permanently remove all hidden links from the plugin I’ll clearly edit the very top of this post to note that going forward from a certain date the issue has been resolved. I could also then advise people to update to the latest version rather than hacking the code.

If someone wants to, they can purchase a license to have those and all instances removed. This isn’t spamdexing and I think Google wouldn’t persecute anyone for using the form — they’re smart enough to know the difference. Moreover, the CSS display property “none” isn’t being used which is what a Googlebot would focus on.

We provide excellent support, the form is free, and it is a helluva lot of work keeping it up (we do lots of tweaks and improvements on a regular basis), and we’re really providing a secure and accessible (to the disabled) contact solution for a lot of people. I don’t why you’re busting my chops over this. There must be bigger fish to fry.

There is an article archived at the W3C from over a decade ago in which I pointed out that Web browsers should have warning systems in them to notify when there is hidden text on a page.
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/1997Jan/0077.html

Anyway, I’ve changed my personal contact form over from the WP-Contact to a modified version of it called WP Contact Form III.

You might also look at the Enhanced Contact Form, the Subrosa add on if you want encryption, and Intouch which offers the most customization.

If you find something else cool drop me a note and let me know!

Oh yeah, and if you needed two different forms to go to two different addresses keep in mind that you could just use a couple of these in combination. :-)

John