WCEU Contributor Day

I want to thank everyone for coming to the first ever pluginPlugin A 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 contributor workshop!

We did not get half as much covered as I’d like to but I hope that we were able to enlighten some of you as to how the repository and review system works.

I’m looking forward to the near future when we’ll be able to start adding some of the wonderful people who came to contributor dayContributor Day Contributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/ https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/. to the review team! Since that’s still a bit in the future, what we can do right now is welcome everyone to #pluginreview !

SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/.

That’s right, we have #pluginreview as a channel now. This channel is for us (yes, you and us) to talk about plugins, finding issues like base64 and creative commons code. At this time, in order not to put users at risk, please continue to send security issues to plugins@wordpress.org only.

I plan on posting some plugins for you to download and look at and discuss, as well as possibly have open hours or a scheduled time every once in a while to talk about reviewing a plugin as a group.

Also if you have a question about the plugin repository in general, please feel free to ask there. Please remember to be reasonable, though, and try not to ask “When will my plugin be reviewed?” 😁

Getting Started

In the mean time, what can you do to get started?

First, read the guidelines. Read all the guidelines. Memorize them. Be familiar with things like phoning home, and the difference between a serviceware APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways. and a license check that cripples software needlessly. Don’t worry too much about that, but do get familiar with the guidelines.

Next! Grab the Mark Jaquith Plugin Directory Slurper. The repo is about 25 gigs, more or less, and will take you a few hours to download. By a few what I mean is set your laptop not to sleep, put it in a cool room with a fan, and go to bed. The Slurper doesn’t work well on Windows that I know of (sorry Windows people). Anyone who wants to improve that, pull requests and forks are welcome.

Now once you have the whole repo, start poking at things. Look for code you know is not allowed in the repository (non-GPLGPL GPL is an acronym for GNU Public License. It is the standard license WordPress uses for Open Source licensing https://wordpress.org/about/license/. The GPL is a ‘copyleft’ license https://www.gnu.org/licenses/copyleft.en.html. This means that derivative work can only be distributed under the same license terms. This is in distinction to permissive free software licenses, of which the BSD license and the MIT License are widely used examples. is a great start, pick a popular library you know isn’t GPL and grep or ack for it).

Talk about what you find in the Slack channel. Remember: Slack is public. Do not post anything rude, insulting, antagonistic, or mean there. Also don’t post security issues there. Please keep that to email.

Finally, if you’re really super into code ideas, download the (broken) Plugin Check plugin! Have a look at it. Try to figure out how you’d make it work, and maybe fork it onto GitHubGitHub GitHub 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/ and start tinkering. Start with the basics (check for non GPL, calling wp-load directly, including jquery etc) and see how far you can get. More hands make light work, after all.

When Will We Accept New Members?

Soon! I’m sorry, but I just don’t have an ETA.

We need the UXUX UX 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. for the repository revamp to be usable and acceptable first. Until then, we’re on that lousy, single-threaded, bbPressbbPress Free, open source software built on top of WordPress for easily creating forums on sites. https://bbpress.org. setup. Once that changes, the plan is to start letting people apply (and yes, we will post requirements for that) and adding them with access to review privately. Think of it as moderated reviews. But trust me here, we can see the end and we have a plan.

We’re like Cylons.

#repository