So here’s a funny thing. It looks like major Web 2.0 sites are quickly picking up copy cats in the fetish/BDSM communities. For kinksters, Facebook was quickly replaced by FetLife and now it appears that Digg has a pseudo-copy cat in the form of FetSpank. This is cool, and is proof-positive that the open nature of the Internet creates niche opportunities where content is king. I just wish we’d have picked a better prefix for our stuff than “fet,” cuz, well, ew.

That said, I figured I might as well help this sex-2.0-specific copy catting adoption rate by writing a little plugin for WordPress-powered blogs (like mine) so that publishers can easily add a “FetSpank This!” button on their WordPress-generated content and let their readers easily share and vote on said content on FetSpank.com.

So without further ado, I present to you the FetSpank This! WordPress Plugin. Enjoy!

System requirements

In order to use the FetSpank This! WordPress Plugin you need to administer a WordPress blog running version 2.0.x or newer.

Note, however, that this plugin has only been tested to work with WordPress blogs at versions:

  • 2.7
  • 2.6.2
  • 2.5.1

(If you install this and it works on your WordPress blog that’s running a different version, please let us all know that it works by adding a comment here.)

Download

Latest version: 0.1.

Download the latest version of the FetSpank This! WordPress Plugin.

Changelog

Version 0.1 Released — 2008-10-5

  • Initial release.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Why should I use this plugin instead of just copying the “FetSpank It!” button code from FetSpank.com into my WordPress template?
Because the plugin’s code makes it possible for more of your visitors to actually use the button with fewer technical issues. The explanation itself is a bit technical, and there are a few reasons for this.

  • The biggest reason is that the button code from FetSpank.com relies on the javascript peudo-protocol, which means it relies on JavaScript to parse the current page’s contents. The plugin code generates the appropriate code on your server instead of the visitor’s browser, so it outputs only valid HTML and doesn’t require client-side scripting.
  • Since the button code from FetSpank.com can’t know ahead of time what your page content will look like, it only works for single-post pages, however the plugin code dynamically creates the code for each post, so you can display it on pages that list multiple posts, such as archive and category pages.
Can I change the position or other styling of the plugin’s FetSpank This! button?
If you have access to your site’s template files and understand how to write Cascading Style Sheets code, then yes. All you need to do is define a new CSS rule in your theme’s style.css that looks something like this:

div.fetspank-this { /* CSS rules here */ }

That is, the code that the plugin outputs is wrapped inside of a <div> element with a class of fetspank-this. No inline styles are used so that you can define your own styling as you see fit. The default styling leaves the button on the lower left of each post, but, for instance, to place the button on the bottom right you could use something like this:

div.fetspank-this { text-align: right; }