A Higher Standard?
I know a lot of us use WordPress for blogging and it’s a great solution for that. It’s what WordPress was originally built for. If you’re just using WordPress for a blog, you probably have used tons of different plug-ins created by developers from all over the world. In that case, you probably don’t care too much about how your code looks or how it’s affected. If it works, it works and to some that’s all that really matters.
WordPress is being used as a content management solution by more and more web designers and developers everyday. I’ve been using it for quite sometime and I am always very happy with the standard installation and upgrades that the WordPress team continues to work hard on.
Over the years of using WordPress for a CMS and developing custom themes w/cms for clients, I’ve started to notice that there are a lot of plug-ins out there that are not really up to a high standard. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of GREAT plug-ins out there, but I feel like the number of bad or sloppy plug-ins are growing at an alarming rate. As well as plug-ins that get created with no support what-so-ever from the developer.
WordPress does have standards and a spec in place for their plug-in (read more here). They even have a great tool on their plug-in pages that will show you compatibility within different versions of WordPress.
The reason for this post is obviously that I personally feel that the WordPress development team needs to put a higher standard into place for plug-ins. Example? Apple has a very demanding criteria for their iPhone applications. Apple does this because it affects their brand and the iPhone name to the public. The higher criteria to get your app approved, the better results for everyone across the board.
I think that WordPress really needs to do the same. I have run into some horrible coding, bad compatibility, plug-ins that damage the basic installation of WordPress, all sorts of conflicting javascript, the list goes on.
As WordPress continues to be the leader in blogging software it will soon do the same with a content management system. I think that it’s crucial to their success that the start to consider a much stronger standard and criteria to the plug-ins that get submitted.
What are your thoughts? Are these the issues of Open Source Software and will never go away?
Author Info: Atom Groom
I founded NWICreative.org to spark interest in the hearts of artists, creatives and the like in our region online. I want nothing more than to see our creative community grow and flourish.
Agree. I cannot attest to the good and bad plugins too much since I am relatively new to WP. The unfortunate thing is most people are good with “well it works” and “just get it done, and get paid”. Personally, I try and hold myself and my clients to a higher standard. Problem is that more times than not people are not interested in quality, they are interested results. It’s a catch 22. My answer to this is to try and recycle as much code as I can. If I am creating something that I know I can use in the future, I will try and make it as universal as possible so the next time I need it, it’s just plug and chug. The stuff I will probably not use again, you have to take on the get it done attitude. We have to make a profit right?
As far as WP standards go. I agree. I think they should scrutinize plugins a little more. They have a lot of plugins that do virtually the same thing and now way for people to know which is better. Your reference to Apple’s app store is quite comical though since I recently heard of someone having trouble getting their app accepted, but Apple let 3 or 4 different fart apps through.
Great points Ryan, thanks for commenting.
I get what you’re saying about Apple standards, they can be conflicted. However, they do make a very good stance on what they accept and not accept – all in the name of protecting their brand. In that sense, I still believe WP should do the same. Fart Plugin or not! LOL
Okay, a lot to say on this. I’m a bit of a WordPress Zealot.
First, this is an open source issue as well as the fact WordPress doesn’t really have a company behind it. Yes, there is Automattic but they are not the same relationship as what Apple is to the iPhone. While people can charge for plugins, there is no company making money on the sale of these plugins that would then be able to take a piece to pay for someone to test these plugins. As well, even if you want to give an app away for free you have to pay Apple $100 for the privledge. You have to pay this just to be able to put a test app on your device, not even when you are ready to submit it for approval.
Who’s going to pay to have these apps tested? Because it’s then not just testing a plugin when it comes in, it’s also testing it with new versions to see if they break. As well, unlike mobile apps (though this may change now with Multitasking being more common) plugins have to interact together well and while 2 plugins might both pass on their own and follow the approved procedures, we still might run into conflicts. How are those handled because they could be an issue with both?
So why have a central location if they aren’t verified? While not being verified by 1 party, the community is still able to submit their experiences with the different versions of WP with that plugin. If something has no votes it’s probalby not used by many and can be a sign to avoid. The community is responsible for letting people know what’s up.
By having this in one place, you then also know where is the best place to get information about plugins. You aren’t having to go to a million different sites not knowing what you can and can’t trust. I hate having to jump around to a million different sites I found through google just to find some of mentioned plugin that someone said they were using in a comment to a blog post about something else. If it’s not on the plugin site, it’s probably not worth looking for.
Also, if you are complaining about a plugin, did you share that it wasn’t working on the site for others to see? Open source is a two way street, you can’t just leech like a lot do and expect everyone else to do it all for you. I know many IT shops love to do just that but that’s really a poor biz model and it shows in their garbage products they put out (web and hardware) that are based on open source software. This gives the Open Source product a bad name when it’s really the piss poor IT consulting shop who doesn’t know how properly use it that is really where the problem lies. But in the end the IT shop would rather not set it up properly cause then they can bill clients for each time they have to make to fix the problem.
Similar to what Ryan said, the application process can get in the way just as easily as help. What if whomever was in charge decided that they wanted to make a competing plugin and stopped allowing yours? Or even worse, what if they disabled it after the fact? While atleast you could still distribute it unlike on an iPhone, you would lose the exposure given from being in the main directory. If Automattic was running this, they have a stats plugin for their WP-stats. Would you want their to be no Google Analytics plugins in there because of this similar to how Apple has kept others off their phones?
I much prefer the system in place right now and for me it’s quite easy to look at a plugin and tell if it is good or bad. Looking at the date it was last updated and community submitted feedback on the working status of the plugin has really worked well for me. I would definitely never want this to be changed to any system that is similar to what Apple has you go through.
Thanks for commenting Richard. You bring up some really good points, as I knew you would from a developer stand point.
I agree with many of the points that you’re trying to make. It seems like sort of a “rock and a hard place” situation though.
With many of the plug-ins I have experienced issues with, I simply communicate over email with the developer and he/she can log with new updates, the fixes, etc.
I agree that the system WP has in place on their website now seems to be the best thing out there. I do the same as you, review update dates, user comments, etc. That seems to be the best approach. Alternatively, I hire developers to create a plug-in for me as well.
I think my biggest problem is compatibility and quality of the plug-in. For instance, you can have a plug-in that works perfectly fine. However, the mark-up, scripting and it’s alterations to the wp_head can all be pretty ugly. I’ve seen all sorts of “crap” injected into my custom themes. All the way to the point to where I’ll find something else, or use other techniques to clean it all up (which then messes up friendly updates of plug-ins).
In that respect and some others, I wish there was a higher standard for what is allowed to be listed on the WP plug-in directory.
I am a big user of plugins for WordPress and I do agree with Richard that it’s a larger issue with open source technology.
Here’s how I deal with the issue: when researching plugins, I always rely on two things: # of downloads and the ratings. If the ratings are questionable, then I’ll delve further into the comments about the plugin and read what the common issue are to see if it’s a code problem or a server problem.
And sometimes I do take the risk of using a questionable plugin and there have only been 2 times that I have uninstalled a questionable plugin because it was total crap.
The other thing I do is I keep my ear to the ground for those WordPress developers (ones I have come to rely on for quality info) to say “Hey, this one is a plugin to stay away from or it’s a solid plugin.”