WordPress Plugin Team Revamps Guidelines, Invites Feedback on GitHub

photo credit: pollas – cc

Two months ago the WordPress Plugin Directory guidelines became a heated topic of debate after the plugin team began cracking down on incentivized reviews. The most recent publicized incident involved the Sprout Invoices plugin, which was temporarily removed from the directory and all of its 5-star reviews erased after it was discovered that the author was offering a discount on the commercial version in exchange for a review. The policy forbidding incentivized reviews was enforced despite not being explicitly documented among the official guidelines.

After spending a few months re-writing the guidelines to be more clear, Mika Epstein asked the plugin team and contributors at WordCamp NYC to review the changes. She published the proposed guidelines to a repository on GitHub and is now requesting feedback from the greater community.

“If you feel a guideline’s explanation is unclear, please create an issue or a pull request with what you feel should be changed and why,” Epstein said. “All grammar/spelling corrections are greatly welcome. We’re trying to write these for all levels of developers, as well as people who may not speak English proficiently.”

The original guidelines were written by Samuel “Otto” Wood roughly five years ago and were in need of an update. Several items, which previously contained vague language and indecipherable expectations, have been rewritten to be more clear. Once the revised guidelines have had enough time to receive community feedback, they will replace the existing guidelines on WordPress.org.