I get lots of e-mails regarding my WordPress plugins, running the entire spectrum from:
Thank you so much, this works perfectly and is exactly what I wanted.
to:
Your plugin sucks, it dosen’t work and it doesn’t do what I want.
Thankfully I get much more of the former than the latter. 
This is the nature of releasing free software, and almost all of the feedback is valuable.
I also get some interesting feature requests at times. There have been occasional but consistent requests (1-2/month) for two of my plugins: Popularity Contest and Articles.
For Popularity Contest, the question is generally:
I’ve got one post that gets much more traffic than all my others, how do I keep it from being #1 in my popularity list?
Or phrased differently:
This one post keeps coming to the top, even when I manually reset its number of views in the database. Is Popularity Contest broken?
Popularity Contest is just telling you what it sees. If you don’t like the results you’re seeing, don’t shoot the messenger. 
Note: It’s true that search engine indexing has a large influence on page views, so I’m considering adding an additional view score to allow you to set the values for search engine traffic separately from other views.
For Articles, the question is generally:
How do I keep Articles from displaying a post under more than one category?
<sarcasm>Hmm, tough one. Don’t put the post in two categories?</sarcasm>
Seriously, how should the Articles plugin decide which category to put the post under? I assume you put it in multiple categories for a reason… if that reason doesn’t hold up in your Articles list, perhaps you should remove the other categories from the post.
Enough bitching.
Regardless of how 
crazy 
these requests are, I do pay attention to them. And I try to find reasonable ways to satisfy the core request that the people are asking for if I can.
Popularity: 10% [?]
Greg adds this Comment:
“I’ve got one post that gets much more traffic than all my others, how do I keep it from being #1 in my popularity list?”
That’s awesome… where do these people come from?
May 2nd, 2007 at 10:24 am
ttancm adds this Comment:
Your post sucks, it dosen’t work and it doesn’t do what I want.
May 2nd, 2007 at 12:32 pm
Sean Kelly adds this Comment:
Your plugin “dosen’t” suck, it works and it does what I want. Actually I structured topnewfranchises.com solely to record “comments” as votes via Popularity Contest. Maybe there’s an easier way, but I couldn’t find it.
I did mark a few pre-voting posts “private” to get them out of the Top 10. Popularity’s judged 100% by comments.
Alex your plugins are great. Thanks.
May 2nd, 2007 at 12:54 pm
annie adds this Comment:
I’ve used quite a bit of your stuff over the years, no complaints from me! Thanks!
Really though I’m just here to say how awesome those “finger quotes” you used are :).
May 2nd, 2007 at 1:24 pm
technabob adds this Comment:
Finger quotes… now there’s an idea for a plug-in! Sign me up!
May 2nd, 2007 at 2:30 pm
(a different) Alex adds this Comment:
here’s a crazy one, i already use about 4 of your plugins, but there is one that i believe you used to have for download that you dont anymore, and thats your text resizer! ive tried with others and they suck and dont do what i want, ive tried css switchers with different text size but they suck and dont do what i want…
so give us a plugin that doesnt suck and does do what i want!!!
May 2nd, 2007 at 3:38 pm
Alex adds this Comment:
That’s never been available for download from my site, I think it’s next to impossible to package as a plugin. Read my About page for more info.
May 2nd, 2007 at 3:41 pm
Marc adds this Comment:
I’ll second the request for the finger quotes. Those are the coolest thing I’ve seen all week!
May 2nd, 2007 at 4:05 pm
Britgirl adds this Comment:
Thank you for pointing out the stupidity of my question. I believe I asked you about removing articles from more than one category via email.
Removing a post from more than one category had, in fact occurred to me. Going back through over one hundred plus posts to remove them from other categories wasn’t a particularly appealing thought apart from being time consuming.
So I wondered, just on the off-chance if there was something I had missed. Obviously, there wasn’t.
Sometimes what’s obvious to you may not be as obvious to others not as familiar with plugins. Many people post in more than one category. If you get the question frequently perhaps consider including it in the readme or FAQ.
May 2nd, 2007 at 6:34 pm
Bill adds this Comment:
Ooooh, Britgirl angry! Britgirl blames Alex for her own “stupidity”.
I’d love to see Alex try to code an AI algorithm to figure out which category to choose if only showing one and multiple are selected for a post. Let’s see, this post was on a Sunday, which is definitely more of a “Personal” day…
May 3rd, 2007 at 12:07 am
Vanessa adds this Comment:
I want finger quotes!
May 3rd, 2007 at 4:05 am
Britgirl adds this Comment:
Actually Bill I am not angry.
And you miss the point. I’m not saying that the plugin should do anything other than what it does. I had asked a question,. I didn’t expect to see it listed under a “crazy user request” when it had been private. But that’s fine. There won’t be any more questions.
May 3rd, 2007 at 4:17 am
David Bradley adds this Comment:
Pop Contest is a fantastic plugin! Thanks again Alex, I think I even made a nominal donation when I downloaded it
The point about excluding specific posts is interesting. I have one or two very popular posts that far outrank all others and so are always at the top of the list. I really would like to exclude them from the list and allow the lesser posts to seem through. Can posts be excluded from assessment in some way? I’m sure this is FAQ for this plugin, but it would be a neat feature to have. Perhaps a date range exclusion might be possible, so that posts older than a set period are not included in the list?
db
May 3rd, 2007 at 4:35 am
Greg adds this Comment:
Ahh the joys of customer service - it would be so much easier without customers.
I for one am appreciative of your work as when i have used your plugins on blogs they have worked straight out of the box the way they should. Thanks for that!
May 3rd, 2007 at 6:33 am
Alex adds this Comment:
Britgirl - I wasn’t singling out or using anyone’s specific requests or e-mail; I was speaking to them as a group and will probably include a link to this post in the FAQs for these plugins (which is one of the reasons for this post).
I’m sorry if you feel singled out here or that I betrayed a confidence, but I don’t think you should. Heck, there are comments asking this question in public right here.
May 3rd, 2007 at 6:50 am
Scott adds this Comment:
One thing that you could do about the articles plugin and multiple categories is to be able to specify which categories are for articles.
May 3rd, 2007 at 7:26 am
(a different) Alex adds this Comment:
Alex, thanks for the link to the tutorial, an hour later and ive got an ace text resizer installed, and it doesnt suck in the slightest!
May 3rd, 2007 at 9:28 am
eduo adds this Comment:
Oooh. Finger quotes are *nice*. I’ve just implemented them with some :before and :after css-fu. I likes’em.
Now I have to come up with a reason to use them. Hmpf.
May 3rd, 2007 at 4:10 pm
Alex adds this Comment:
Sorry guys, the finger quote icons are not licensed for your use.
May 3rd, 2007 at 4:12 pm
Grendel adds this Comment:
Love the finger quotes!
May 5th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
Jonathan adds this Comment:
That was worth a good laugh.. *grins*.. Thanks for sharing Alex.
May 15th, 2007 at 7:50 am
goblinbox adds this Comment:
I liked you before, but after seeing those finger quotes? omgwtfbbq! I’m in love.
*wanders off dreamily*
*comes back*
Oh, and PS, I hate your post and although it does exactly what it’s supposed to it doesn’t do what I want. Waah!
May 31st, 2007 at 12:10 pm