Welcome to the official blog for the PluginPluginA plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party Review Team.
The review team acts as gate-keepers and fresh eyes on newly submitted plugins, as well as reviewing any reported security or guideline violations.
We can be reached by email at plugins＠wordpress.orgWordPress.orgThe community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/, or via the #pluginreview channel on Slack.
On September 17th, David Perez wrote a post on Make Plugins introducing Plugin Check (PCP), which also detailed how pluginPluginA plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party authors could get started using Plugin Check within their development process. The article also explained our new 1-Click GitHubGitHubGitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/ Action, hosted in the GitHub Marketplace. If you have not already read his post, I would recommend reading it first.
Over the last year, the Plugins Team, in concert with other teams (MetaMetaMeta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress., Performance, and Systems among others), have been working on promoting best practices plugins hosted within the Plugin Directory, and improving its security of the Plugins Directory, while reducing the review queue for new plugins. Today, we’re excited to announce some changes to the process for submitting a new plugin into the WordPress.orgWordPress.orgThe community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ Plugin Directory which furthers these goals.
Firstly, as we announced on September 3, 2024, Two Factor Authentication (2FA) is now required on all plugin owner and committer accounts, as of today, October 1, 2024. This means that it must be enabled on a WordPress.org account that would like to submit a new plugin into the Plugin Directory. Instructions for enabling 2FA on your WordPress.org account can be found on that announcement post. We encourage all plugin owners and committers to turn on 2FA for their WordPress.org accounts if you have not already, as well as using the new SVN password feature. Please also audit your plugins for committers who may not need commit access anymore, and familiarize yourself with the Release Confirmation feature. You can learn about performing the last two steps in the post, Keeping Your Plugin Committer Accounts Secure.
Secondly, as of today, when you submit a new plugin to the Plugins Directory, it will first be run through Plugin Check’s Plugin Repo categoryCategoryThe 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging.. If the new plugin has an error level item in this category, the submission will be blocked from being submitted for review, until it is fixed. The Plugin Team’s goal over the last year has been working on reducing the review queue length for new plugins. Alongside onboarding new team members and improving processes, adding Plugin Check to pre-check all new submissions now allows the team to reduce the initial queue by making it easy for plugin authors to identify and fix those issues most commonly seen in new plugins issues. The Plugin Repo category in Plugin Check catches recurring issues like mismatched versions between the plugin headerHeaderThe header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes. and the readme.txt file, plugins using the wrong text domain, and using the wrong ‘Tested To’ values in the readme file. To be clear, the addition of Plugin Check as a pre-check will not replace manual review of all plugins, or change any of those processes, but instead it allows us to save time. By increasing the percentage of plugins submitted for review that require no changes, this reduces the number of changes needed overall.
An example of what this pre-check looks like is found below:
We’ve run Plugin Check behind-the-scenes on lots of plugins to refine it’s detection, but as with any new process, there may be some false positives. These will be fixed in the first few days, and we thank everyone in advance for their patience.
Over time, we will incorporate more checks into the plugin, for the pre-submission process, by adding additional checks for common Guideline Violations into the Plugin Repo category currently being used, and enabling the Security category as an additional requirement as well.
While this pre-submission check applies only to new plugins being submitted into the WordPress.org Directory, our goal is to continue to expand our use of Plugin Check on existing plugins as well. In the last several months, we have already required all plugins that were pulled from the Plugin Directory for a security vulnerability, to pass the Security category before it can be re-listed. This is, regardless of the connection of items it flags to the originally reported vulnerability. We have seen extremely positive results from doing this.
Lastly, we will be publishing a roadmap for the Plugin Check plugin, on how it will be run more broadly on existing plugins, in a future dedicated post. In the meantime, we recommend that developers integrate the use of Plugin Check into their active development workflows. You can also help us make Plugin Check even better by contributing to it on it’s GitHub Repo.
After the original proposal for a WordPress plugin check a little over two years ago, the Plugin Check plugin (or PCP for short) has become a reality. It saw its first stable release earlier this year and has since been used by hundreds of developers. This post provides more context about PluginPluginA plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party Check and why you should start using it.
Plugin Check is a tool for testing whether your plugin meets the required standards for the WordPress.orgWordPress.orgThe community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ plugin directory. With this plugin you will be able to run most of the checks used for new submissions, and check if your plugin meets the requirements. The plugins team is currently working on making it an integral part of the review process. If you are considering submitting a new plugin to the plugin directory, run these checks yourself beforehand to save time later on.
But there is more! In addition to things relevant for the review process, the tool flags violations or concerns around plugin development best practices, from basic requirements like correct usage of internationalization functions to accessibilityAccessibilityAccessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility), performance, and security best practices. It does so using both static checks using PHP_CodeSniffer and dynamic checks, where it actually activates your plugin to test it “live”.
Because of this, PCP is useful even beyond the initial plugin submission, which is why it’s recommended to make it a part of your development workflow. This shortens your feedback loopLoopThe Loop is PHP code used by WordPress to display posts. Using The Loop, WordPress processes each post to be displayed on the current page, and formats it according to how it matches specified criteria within The Loop tags. Any HTML or PHP code in the Loop will be processed on each post. https://codex.wordpress.org/The_Loop. as you can immediately address potential bugs as they come up, before they affect your users. To achieve this, simply install the plugin on a local environment and regularly run it against your plugin. The checks can be run either via WordPress admin or WP-CLIWP-CLIWP-CLI is the Command Line Interface for WordPress, used to do administrative and development tasks in a programmatic way. The project page is http://wp-cli.org/https://make.wordpress.org/cli/.
For even more peace of mind you can continuously monitor your plugin using a dedicated GitHub action. It automatically runs Plugin Check against your plugin for every commit or PR, and posts all results as annotations on your source files so you know exactly where to look for resolving any errors or warnings.
Plugin Check is not a replacement for the manual review process, but it will help you speed up the process of getting your plugin approved for the WordPress.org plugin repository, and it will also help you avoid some common mistakes. Even if you do not intend to host your plugin in the WordPress.org directory, you are encouraged to use it so that your plugin follows the base requirements and best practices for WordPress plugins. Keep in mind that automated tools like this aren’t perfect, so there may occasionally be false positives.
All development for this plugin is handled via GitHub, and any bug reports or feature requests should be reported there. The GitHubGitHubGitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/ Action is maintained in its own repository.
TL;DR: Clarification on installing another pluginPluginA plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party from within a plugin, and community consultation on how to better inform and consent users in this regard.
There are plugins in the directory that ask to install other plugins. This can happen for various reasons, and there are different contexts and cases.
We would like to explore this with the community, analyze the cases where this happens, get feedback from different perspectives, and hopefully make an informed decision about what should and should not be allowed in certain cases. Please share your feedback before September 23rd 30rd. After this process, this post will be updated with specific details in those cases.
There are two specific cases we want to mention because they will be useful in analyzing the different casuistries:
Inform users and ask for permission: Users must be adequately informed of the actions they are taking and be able to decide whether they want to perform that action or not, otherwise that would be considered dishonest towards the users.
The guideline regarding executable code via third-party systems, mentions this specific case which won’t be allowed: “Serving updates or otherwise installing plugins, themes, or add-ons from servers other than WordPress.orgWordPress.orgThe community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/’s”. This simply means that a plugin will not be able to perform the installation of another plugin that is not in the directory. The way to install plugins that are not part of the directory will be a manual installation by the user.
Why install other plugins?
We have narrowed it down to two main reasons: Extended plugins and Recommendations.
Extended plugins
There are plugins that extend other plugins. Technically, they need the extended plugin to work.
A common example of this is a payment gateway integration for WooCommerce, which of course requires the WooCommerce plugin as it’s extending it.
In this case, the installation of that other plugin is a requirement, since the plugin won’t be able to work without it.
There are many different cases within this classification, here are some:
Cooperating plugins: There are plugins that can do more when used with other plugins; they are designed to integrate and work well together. They do not need the other plugin to work, but if they have it, they can integrate its functionality. An example of this is Contact Form 7, which integrates with Akismet to detect spam when available.
Plugin ecosystems: There are plugins that, even if they are not integrated and they do different things, they may be from the same author, same set of plugins, they offer the same experience to the user, and they just recommend the user to try these other plugins that are in this so-called ecosystem.
Other recommendations: Just nice and friendly recommendations of other plugins, in some cases also paid recommendations.
Pro / Premium versions of the plugin: Another version of the plugin or an add-on for the plugin that provides additional functionality.
In any case, after reading this list, you can probably forget about it completely, because while there are different reasons behind it, they all fall into the same categoryCategoryThe 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging.: a plugin recommendation and their installation should be optional.
How are other plugins installed?
We have narrowed this down to the following 4 cases in essence.
Manually
The plugin informs the user that another plugin is recommended or required. Then the plugin must be manually installed by the user, either using the search plugins feature (if the plugin is in the directory), uploading a zip file, or uploading it to the /plugins/ directory.
Using the CoreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.UXUXUX is an acronym for User Experience - the way the user uses the UI. Think ‘what they are doing’ and less about how they do it.
This also informs the user that another plugin is recommended or required, but instead of asking the user to manually install it, it uses the interface that the WordPress core already provides to install it.
In this case, the user seems to be well informed right out of the box. They can see the plugin’s name, description, version, etc. and the call to action is a clear button with the text “Install Now”.
Using a Custom UX
In this case, the install functionality is built into a custom interface that takes care of displaying information about the plugin being installed and asking the user for permission to install it. This is often embedded in an options page and in setup wizards or onboarding processes.
In this interface it’s important to get the user’s consent after providing them with sufficient information about what’s being installed.
No-asking
Automatically install plugins without informing the user and/or asking for their permission. This is expressly not allowed.
Let’s summarize
Ok, too much information: typologies, interfaces, guidelines. Let’s narrow this down.
Why install other plugins?
Extended plugins
Recommended plugins
As a requirement
✅
❌
Optionally
N/A
✅
How are other plugins installed?
Manually
Core UX
Custom UX
No-asking
Plugins in the directory
✅
✅
✅
❌
External plugins
✅
❌
❌
❌
What do we need your help for?
Now that we’ve clarified what is and isn’t allowed in terms of installing other plugins under the current guidelines, let’s take a closer look at a common case that we know is causing confusion for both plugin authors and users: information and consent regarding plugins that are installed using a Custom UX.
This is because while the general rule is “get the user’s consent after providing them with sufficient information about what’s being installed”, we recognize that this is on a case-by-case basis, and is somewhat subjective.
This team does not have specific details about what these interfaces should contain or how they should work, which leads to different criteria. We also realize that interfaces are complicated to regulate; it’s challenging to define specific details for them that are applicable in all cases, sufficiently clear, easily understandable and applicable and durable over time.
The number one goal we want to achieve with your help is to improve user information and consent, so that users have all the information they need to make a decision about installing a plugin, and a clear and easy way to give their consent. The lack of information or processes where the user was not aware of the action they were taking is an issue that users have reported to us and, after investigation, we believe needs to be addressed.
We have some suggestions on what plugin authors can do to achieve this goal (if applicable to their case). Please feel free to mix and match these suggestions and make your own, any feedback towards this goal is welcome. Note that there are suggestions that can be combined with each other.
Suggestion 1: Make clearer that it’s going to install a plugin
We have found cases where it is mentioned that a plugin will be installed, but it is done in a way that is not clear to the user, as it is mentioned in a smaller font, separated from the option, and/or using other techniques that in practice do not make it clear what the main action will be.
One suggestion would be to make the information about installing a plugin the most prominent information in the area where the user chooses to install it.
Before
After
Suggestion 2: Avoid pre-selected options
We have found cases where the option to install a plugin is pre-selected and the user has to explicitly uncheck it to avoid installation.
A suggestion would be to make that option not selected by default, so that the user has to take explicit action regarding that particular plugin in order to install it.
Before
After
Suggestion 3: Avoid multi-install, install one at a time instead
There are cases where several different plugins are installed at the same time during the process.
One suggestion would be to require plugins to be installed one at a time in a process that requires explicit user action to install them, by clicking a button that clearly states what it does.
Before
After
Suggestion 4: Provide additional information about the plugin
We see cases where the information about the plugin is pretty much limited to the name, there is other information that could be really useful for the user to make an informed decision about the plugin they are about to install.
One suggestion is to provide access to all information about the plugin, and perhaps the easiest way to do that would be to clearly link to the WordPress.org plugin page for that plugin.
Before
After
Suggestion 5: Use the Core UX to install the plugin.
The WordPress core includes an interface that can be used to install a plugin, and it meets most of the suggestions already mentioned: It’s clear, it’s not pre-selected, install them one by one and it gives all the information. Also, it would be a really clear definition of what’s allowed (the definition: only this).
The downside is that users lose the integrated interface and experience that a plugin could provide to perform those operations. There are some plugins that create really great onboarding forms, and users can lose a bit of that experience by having a modal window with a different aspect when asked to install another plugin.
The suggestion in this case would be to route any plugin installation process through this interface.
Before
After
Next steps
This post will be updated after getting your feedback and the team makes a decision.
After that, there will be a 3-month period during which plugin authors will be able to make the necessary changes to meet this common goal of improving user information and consent.
Please share your feedback in the comments. Thanks!
WordPress.orgWordPress.orgThe community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ is committed to protecting accounts that play a crucial role in the WordPress ecosystem. Accounts with commit access can push updates and changes to plugins and themes used by millions of WordPress sites worldwide. Securing these accounts is essential to preventing unauthorized access and maintaining the security and trust of the WordPress.org community.
As part of this ongoing effort, we are introducing a new security requirement: mandatory two-factor authentication (2FA) for pluginPluginA plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party and theme authors, starting on October 1st, 2024.
In addition to mandatory 2FA, we’re introducing SVNSVNShort for "SubVersioN", it's the code management system used to maintain the plugins hosted on WordPress.org. It's similar to git. passwords, replacing your user account password with an SVN-specific password for committing changes.
Please ensure you store your backup codes securely, if you lose access to your two-factor authentication method and your backup codes, the process to regain access to your account may not be easy.
Separating SVN Password from Your WordPress.org Account
We’ve introduced an SVN password feature to separate your commit access from your main WordPress.org account credentials. This password functions like an application or additional user account password. It protects your main password from exposure and allows you to easily revoke SVN access without having to change your WordPress.org credentials. Generate your SVN password in your WordPress.org profile.
If you’re using a deployment script, such as a GitHubGitHubGitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/ Action, you’ll need to update your stored password with this SVN password as well.
Why not use 2FA with SVN?
Due to technical limitations, 2FA cannot be applied to our existing code repositories, that’s why we’ve chosen to secure WordPress.org code through a combination of account-level two-factor authentication, high-entropy SVN passwords, and other deployDeployLaunching code from a local development environment to the production web server, so that it's available to visitors.-time security features (such as Release Confirmations).
If you find any bugs, have feedback or need more support, please reach out in the #meta slack channel or follow up here (don’t share any private information though).
As a follow-up on the Andrew Wilder (NerdPress) and Chloe Chamberland (WordFence) reports that uncovered a limited number of compromised plugins, the PluginPluginA plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party Review team would like to provide more details about the case.
We identified that some plugin authors were reusing passwords exposed in data breaches elsewhere. The compromised accounts were not the result of an exploit on WordPress.orgWordPress.orgThe community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/. Instead, the attackers used recycled passwords to add malicious code to a few plugins on the WordPress.org Plugin Directory.
First, out of an abundance of caution, additional plugin releases have been paused, and all new plugin commits temporarily need approval by the team. This way, we have the opportunity to confirm that the attackers cannot add malicious code to more plugins.
Update: Plugin releases are no longer paused. The SVNSVNShort for "SubVersioN", it's the code management system used to maintain the plugins hosted on WordPress.org. It's similar to git. repository works as usual.
We have begun to force reset passwords for all plugin authors, as well as other users whose information was found by security researchers in data breaches. This will affect some users’ ability to interact with WordPress.org or perform commits until their password is reset.
Information about password deactivations
You will receive an email from the Plugin Directory when it is time for you to reset your password. There is no need to take action before you’re notified.
Your password was deactivated if you are a plugin author or committer. If you have an existing open session on WordPress.org, you will be logged out and need to reset your password.
To reset your password and regain access to your account, follow these steps:
On June 23 and 24, 2024, five WordPress.orgWordPress.orgThe community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ user accounts were compromised by an attacker trying username and password combinations that had been previously compromised in data breaches on other websites. The attacker used access to these 5 accounts to issue malicious updates to 5 plugins those users had committer access to.
The affected plugins have had security updates issued by the Plugins Team to protect user security.
The Plugins Team would like to use this opportunity to spread awareness around best practices for WordPress.org accounts, particularly those with pluginPluginA plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party committer and owner level access.
As a reminder, Plugin Owners can set a WordPress.org user to have a special permission role for their plugin which include: – Owner: a plugin has one Owner which grants that user the ability to perform destructive actions such as to permanently close or transfer the plugin, as well as the ability to issue plugin updates and manage support for that plugin on WordPress.org. For company owned plugins, this should be a company branded WordPress.org account that only the company’s owner, CEO or CTO (or a single person in a similar role) has access to, which uses an email address only that individual has access to (ie not support@{companyname}.com) – Committer: this role grants the user the ability to manage support for that plugin on WordPress.org as well as the ability to issue new plugin versions by updating the plugin’s code in SVNSVNShort for "SubVersioN", it's the code management system used to maintain the plugins hosted on WordPress.org. It's similar to git.. – Support Rep: this role grants the user the ability to manage support for that plugin on WordPress.org only.
Limit the Number of and Audit Your Plugin’s Committers Regularly
As we’ve mentioned in the past, plugin commit access, which is the ability to issue updates on behalf of your plugin should only be given to developers, and more specifically, only the developers who are actively responsible for issuing plugin updates for your plugins.
Committer accounts should not be shared by more than one user, and should not use an email address that more than one person has access to. We’ve seen developers in the past use emails such as a support@ for their wp.org account with Committer or Owner access, which would mean anyone with access to your support tool can click on reset password, get the password, change it, and blow up your plugin (or permanently close it). Obviously that’s a major security issue (and could also be a Guidelines violation that gets your plugin pulled from the repository if it sends back an auto-responder email).
Additionally, the Plugins Team sends emails to all committers for a plugin if we ever need clarification on Guideline issues with your plugin or have a reported security vulnerability for your plugin. So the best practice is to limit the number of committer users you have on a plugin to the minimum number of developers possible, and have those developers ensure that emails from plugins@wordpress.org do not go to spam in their email client.
Users who do not need commit level access should instead be given Support Rep access, which allows them to respond to and manage support topics for your plugins on WordPress.org. This account level does not allow those users to issue plugin updates.
We recommend routinely auditing the committers for each of your WordPress plugins on a regular basis, removing commit access (or downgrading them to Support Rep access) when they don’t need active commit access. The owner of the plugin can manage the committers for the plugin on the Advanced tab of the plugin’s WordPress.org page.
Enable Release Confirmation For Your Plugins
In April, 2021, the Plugins Directory introduced opt-in support for Release Confirmations.
Release Confirmations, when opted-in for a WordPress.org plugin, allows for a second factor of security against the ability for an unauthorized user to issue plugin updates.
After opting in, a plugin committer wishing to issue a new version of the plugin would commit and tag the plugin update in SVN as normal. Once the tag has been pushed to the WordPress Plugins Directory, the Directory then emails a unique tokenized link to all plugin committers for that plugin which brings the committers to a special dashboard that allows them to confirm the new release. Only once the version is confirmed will the update then be issued.
You can see which that you have Committer (or Owner) access to have Release Confirmations enabled on the Release Confirmations dashboard.
Use Secure Passwords and 2FA
If you are the owner or a committer of a WordPress plugin, it is imperative you use a unique password that is complex and not re-used on any other website.
As mentioned in WordPress’s Password Best Practices guide, we recommend using a password that is: – is at least 20 characters (preferably substantially more) – uses lowercase and uppercase letters as well as numbers – contains special characters such as `!”#$%&'()*+,-./:;?@[]^_{}|~ – does not contain names, words or years that are easily linked to you
This password should not be used on any other site.
To make it easy to use secure, complex passwords, we recommend using a password manager to generate and store this password in. This helps avoid the temptation of password re-use and makes it easy to generate unique, complex passwords for each website that you use.
We also strongly recommend all accounts on WordPress.org setup and use two-factor authentication (2FA) which has been supported since May, 2023. This helps keep your WordPress.org account secure by requiring a second piece of evidence to login to your account such as a rotating 6 digit TOTP code using an authenticator app or a hardware key. To setup 2FA for your WordPress.org account, follow this step-by-step-guide.
The deadline has been extended from June 17 to July 2 due to several contributors being occupied with WordCampWordCampWordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. Europe and unable to provide feedback on this post within the initial deadline.
Since we began restructuring the PluginPluginA plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party Review team with our advisors and new team members, we’ve had to make some tough collective decisions. These decisions, while based on strong intuition from our contributions, could have more alignment with the whole community.
This post aims to discuss and explore some important goals to improve our effectiveness and efficiency. This is a proposal, not a final set of goals.
We hope to receive community feedback, which will help us reach a general understanding. If possible, when commenting and adding suggestions around specific goals, please also provide the reasons behind your suggestions.
Comments will be open for feedback until July 2, 2024. Thank you for your contribution to the Plugin Review team!
1. Review timeframes
The plugin review process consists of two main queues (not including the security queues). First, we have an initial review queue, during which we check the issues and assign a specific reviewer to the plugin review. Then, if everything is good, we will approve the plugin, or it will go to a subsequent review queue assigned to the initial reviewer to continue the conversation until it reaches a satisfactory level.
We need to have different timeline goals for each of these steps.
For the initial reply to plugin submissions, it would likely make sense to happen within seven days. This timeframe can be considered at three levels: the regular level would be up to 7 days, the warning level would be between 7 and 14 days, and the critical level for more than 14 days. The idea behind the regular level being up to one week is that some team members contribute more during weekends, and we need to allow enough time for this to compensate for the increase in submissions during the week.
If the plugin is not initially approved, we propose that the assigned team member have a follow-up reply within 10 days as a goal on the subsequent review queue. We need to consider that some team members are distributing their pledged time over one day per week, so it might not be viable to lower this number as we try to keep the same reviewer handling the entire review process for a specific plugin.
If we can’t meet the expected timeframes, we must implement contingency plans. When we reach the warning level, we will ask team members who are involved in other team projects to reprioritize and focus on reviews as much as possible. If the situation worsens and we reach a critical level, we propose to create urgent calls to add new team members and explore even deeper actions to reverse this as soon as possible. We would love suggestions on other contingency plans.
Suggested monthly goal: 95% of initial reviews completed within 7 days and 90% of subsequent reviews completed within 10 days.
2. Improving initial submission quality
The team’s work is primarily focused on providing a safe and reliable experience while following some basic standards and guidelines.
One of the team goals is to make Plugin Check (also known as PCP) a big part of the submission process, and we expect this to improve the quality (and speed) of the whole process. Having more AI-based tools also has some potential, even if we don’t yet know exactly how, but we’re open to suggestions.
Apart from that, we would like to improve our interactions with plugin authors by consolidating information and providing practical tips through small videos (like Instagram/TikTok) on common issues such as sanitizing and escaping.
This means that part of our goal is to invest in this direction and ask some of our contributors to dedicate time to it.
Right now, it takes an average of about three interactions per review when looking at the last six months, so it would be ideal to change that closer to two interactions per review.
Suggested monthly goal: Improve the quality of applications so that there are only two interactions (one initial review and one subsequent follow-up review) as average per application.
3. Keeping track of popular plugins
The team has historically only reviewed the initial version of plugins by default, then only checked based on specific reports or specific cases.
This means some plugins with many active installations haven’t had a full review from our team in a really long time.
The team would like to start dedicating resources to scheduled reviews whenever a plugin achieves 20k active installations. Of course, this is more challenging while there is still a backlog, but it is one of the plans we consider throughout a plugin’s journey on the WP.org directory.
Suggested monthly goal: Complete scheduled additional reviews for all of the plugins with over 20k active installations at least once every two years.
4. Distribution of contribution
Ideally, no single person should be responsible for the majority of active reviews. We need to avoid overloading a few individuals and relying on only a few people to keep the work going.
A health number might be not more than 25% of reviews, as this distribution ensures consistency and protects us if someone steps out temporarily or permanently.
This means we will explore internally (and even add new team members if needed) until we accomplish this goal.
Suggested monthly goal: Ensure no team member handles more than 25% of active reviews at any time.
