I’ve been puzzled for a little while about why the functionality to schedule blogs via wordpress wasn’t working for me. Then I wrote a guest post for another blog and saw that the schedule functionality worked just fine and I realized the problem: One of my plugins was coded to stop that functionality. I quickly figured out what the plugin was, deactivated it and I was able to schedule blog posts again, as well as do a few other things I’d been missing. Needless to say I decided that the plugin, while useful, wasn’t worth not being able to schedule and thus automate my blog.
There are a lot of plugins available for wordpress, but not all plugins are equal, nor are all of them as good as advertised. In my opinion, if a plugin interferes with some useful functionality such as scheduling your blog, then the plugin isn’t worth using, because it will significantly decrease your ability to automate your blog.
It’s important to evaluate plugins you install. Once you’ve installed the plugin, check and see what isn’t working as a result. It may be that everything is working, but if not, then you will want to make sure that you are happy with the tradeoff. What does the functionality of the plug-in provide and is it worth the compromise to the functionality of you blog?
In many cases it may not be worth the compromise, and so you might need to look for plugins that offer similar services, but don’t compromise your functionality on the blog. I think any plugin should be one that helps you further automate you blog’s technology, so that you can optimize it for yourself and you readers.
What do you think?
