Reviewing the Revamped Guidelines

Thank you everyone for being patient about this.

This summer was spent re-writing and editing and tweaking the guidelines. I ripped them down, sat and spelled out what they meant, then I rewrote them to be more clear. Then I got the 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 team to review the changes. Then I had a group of people at WCNYC 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/. review them.

Finally, I moved it all to a 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/ repo and started to ask smaller groups to review it. Then we had a quick rebranding and that all brings us here.

I would like everyone in the community to read these proposed updates to the Plugin Directory Guidelines.

WordPress.org Plugin Guidelines

At the risk of sounding trite, pull requests and issues are welcome.

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. 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. Using words like ‘obsequious’ should be avoided (nb: That’s mostly to me who uses those words regularly).

All feedback should be opened as issues in the tracker.

Let the games begin!

#directory, #guidelines

justingreerbbi 4:04 pm on August 31, 2016

🙂
Reedyseth 4:22 pm on August 31, 2016

Awesome work Mika, it is always good to have the documentation up to date !
Robin W 4:30 pm on August 31, 2016

Just read my way through them – love them, very clear, easy to understand – great work !
Luke Cavanagh 7:08 pm on August 31, 2016

Looks very complete.
Andrey "Rarst" Savchenko 7:42 pm on August 31, 2016

I have opened issue about “considered 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.” clause, see https://github.com/Ipstenu/wporg-plugin-guidelines/issues/10
Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 8:13 pm on August 31, 2016

FYI, you guys don’t have to tell me when you add issues 🙂 I get emails for it 😉 All good.
Ahmad Awais 12:18 am on September 1, 2016

Good stuff, Mika, wouldn’t maintain a single markdown file had been easy to browse and better approach?
- Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 1:40 am on September 1, 2016
  
  I thought about that for a long time, and realized by making each it’s own file, we would have less chance of a merge conflict when people are working on multiple guidelines at once. It would have been easier reading I agree, but it’s easier to edit this way 🙂
- James Huff 1:40 am on September 1, 2016
  
  One markdown file for everything would be easier to read in general yes, but harder to collaborate on.
  
  With one markdown file for each guideline, you can propose changes or share concerns for one particular guideline by filing a pull request or issue against that specific guideline. Similarly, it’s easier to see what’s already being considered for Guideline #12 (for example) by simply viewing the pull requests and issues for Guideline #12 before proposing your changes, rather than having to review the all of the proposals against everything.
  
  Of course, once the collaboration is done, this will all be one single easy-to-read page. 🙂
  - Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 1:42 am on September 1, 2016
    
    That! ☝🏾
jeffmcneill 2:28 am on September 1, 2016

Highly readable and understandable, looks like y’all have produced something worthy of all the effort involved. Thank you.
Mike Schinkel 2:29 am on September 1, 2016

Ipstenu: Have you seen GitBook? It might be a good tool for this since its designed to make a bunch of .md files readable and collaborate on. They even offer free for open sourceOpen Source Open Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL.. They even generate PDFs for those times when reading offline is a good thing.
- Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 3:32 am on September 1, 2016
  
  I had. Since the end goal will be to put this into WordPress, though, a temporary hassle of this is okay 🙂 If it lasts through October, I’ll be sad 🙂 I’m hoping enough of folks manage to bang it into better shape by end of September.
  - jeffmcneill 6:10 am on September 1, 2016
    
    GitBook is not bug-free, and sometimes* simpler is better (e.g., a set of .md files in 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/).
    
    *usually
Maeve Lander 4:29 am on September 1, 2016

Nice job Mika, all looks clear and easy to understand.
CodeBard 2:45 pm on September 1, 2016

Clean, neat, understandable and simple. Also satisfactory is the tags conclusion – 12 tags are sufficient to categorize a 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. And it wont create any additional development burden on behalf of repository development on your side. On our side we can use that sufficient number to properly classify our plugins into all relevant categories.
- Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 8:52 pm on September 1, 2016
  
  It’s ALWAYS been 12. If we change the method of tag management in the new directory, then perhaps we’ll change the number. Personally I’d be happy if we just only showed 12 random tags of the ones in a readme.
yeremyah 10:45 pm on September 1, 2016

Hi Ipstenu, how can I message you to ask an important private question please?
- Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 11:07 pm on September 1, 2016
  
  If you have a 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 question, you email plugins@wordpress.org
caramiame 7:14 pm on September 4, 2016

great!

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