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Jeff Chandler

Rate and Review a WordPress Plugin Day Set For October 17th

Rate Review Plugin Day Featured Image

Mark your calendars and schedule some free time on Friday, October 17th for the first “Rate and Review a WordPress Plugin Day“. On October 17th, visit the page of your favorite plugin in the WordPress.org plugin directory, give it a star rating, and write a review.

Why The Special Day?

If you’re anything like me, you get caught up in the day-to-day activities without getting around to rating and reviewing the plugins you depend on. Some of the plugins I rely on have served me well for years, but I’ve yet to rate or review them. The only time I stop by a plugin’s page after installing it is to visit the support forum. Since disgruntled users are more vocal than those with positive experiences, this day is an excuse to share those positive experiences with the community and the plugin author.

Quick Tip

Since you can’t rate and review plugins from the backend of WordPress, here is a quick tip. Login to your WordPress.org account and navigate to the installed plugins page in the backend of WordPress. Each plugin should have a view details link that will load the plugin details modal. On the details screen, open the link to the WordPress.org Plugin Page in a new browser tab. These steps save you the trouble of manually browsing to each plugin’s page on WordPress.org.

Open The WordPress.org Plugin Page In A New Browser Tab
Open The WordPress.org Plugin Page In A New Browser Tab

An Easy Way to Contribute Back to WordPress

Start with your favorite plugin. Review it based on your experience and try to write more than one-five words. As an additional courtesy, browse to the bottom of the plugin’s description page and click on the broken or works box. This helps determine which versions of the plugin are compatible with WordPress. Your ratings, reviews, and compatibility checks are indirect contributions to WordPress. It’s actionable data that millions of people will use to determine whether or not to use a plugin.

One thing to keep in mind is that ratings and reviews are not set in stone. If you’d like to change the content or star ratings, find your review and scroll to the bottom of the page. From there, you’ll be able to change the text and rating.

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15 responses to “Rate and Review a WordPress Plugin Day Set For October 17th”

  1. I always intend to do this more often, but then I have to log into my WP.org site, find the password, chances are it’s wrong, change the password, find the plug in. Once I finally get there, I’ve forgotten what I was going to say. It’s a personal problem. Next time I’m in WordPress, I’ll change the workflow. Write the comments in a text app, then record my strong password to WP.org and not forget it again! Thanks for the reminder, I owe several reviews.

    • Your comment is a prime example as to why this day is occurring. Once you install a plugin, the next time you’re likely to browse that page again is when you need support and that’s not the time to be writing a review. This day forces you to allocate some time to go get those ratings and reviews done without interruption.

      • I completely agree and am forwarding out the link to your article several times in several places.

  2. I’m not very concerned by this special day: as I review plugins, I give ALWAYS a rating to the plugin I talk about on my blog. You know, I’m the guy who is the only one who gave a rating on some plugins :-)

  3. As a plugin developer myself, I truly appreciate any and all ratings I get on any of my plugins. Not only does it help to validate the time and energy put into a free plugin, but I get feedback to help make future iterations that much better.

    It’s a win-win for all.

    I just wish users saw it that way :)

  4. This is a great idea! I’ve lately been making a special effort to rate and review the plugins I use (even trying to make sure I click the Works button), and I keep wishing more people would do the same. It’s pretty frustrating when trying to choose between various plugins if there isn’t enough data to make that decision… I hope a lot of people participate!

    Here’s another tip for easily finding plugins… I generally add the plugins I use to my WP.org Favorites list, to make finding them easier even if I’m not on the backend of my site. Plus it gives me a complete list of all plugins I use on all my sites, not just for a particular site. And from there I can see what ratings I’ve already given and which plugins I haven’t rated yet, which makes the task even easier :)

  5. The keywords in your comment are “making the special effort”. That’s the thing, it shouldn’t be setup in such a way as to need to make a special effort. It would be nice if the ability to rate and review plugins was possible in the backend of WordPress but until then, this will have to do.

  8. Thanks for reminding us Jeff, reviewed 17 plugins with 5 Star ratings and one with 3, each with its own praiseworthy review and it wouldn’t have been had I not read your reminder :)

  9. Thank you for this reminder, Jeff. I always mean to rate and review plugins. I even include this when teaching students and clients how to use WP, but sometimes I get busy and forget one. When I first saw this post earlier in the week, I set an Evernote reminder and took time yesterday to rate plugins I use that I hadn’t previously rated.

  10. Being a Plugin developer myself, each and every review and rating I receive encourages me further to improve upon my plugins. Unfortunately very few happy people take the time to write a review.

    I recently had a guy who happens to be a user of my Wp-Insert plugin for the past 4 years or so on over 3 dozen sites who had given the plugin a 5 star rating and a good review. The plugin did not go well with one of his new installation and he rewrote the review and opened up a support comment thread saying “Comment Changed-Stars Reduced to One” and emailed me that he will revert the stars If I fix the issues for him! He kind of wanted to hold me hostage with that review.

    Some people do misuse the review and rating system and there is nothing we can do to fix it. Such mischiefs can be reduced if lots of people begins to leave review letting law of averages take over…

    Kudos to the initiative.

  11. This is a great reminder, and I’m glad to hear it was successful in garnering more reviews! Cheers to this, and thanks again for the reminder! :)

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