[wp-hackers] WordPress plugin list

[Scott Merrill]

I've been following this thread with some interest.  I think a centralized
listing of plugins is a great idea, but anything beyond that flat listing
creates too much of a barrier to entry for the occasional or first-time
plugin author.

Not all plugin authors want (or need) to support their plugins.
Some plugins are so trivial that they don't need extra resources or doco.

Maintaining a central repository of plugins is likely to produce as much
grief as it prevents.  Dedicated plugin authors will update their local
documentation AND the repository's version; but new WP users may become
confused (or frustrated) trying to figure out where to get the
authoritatively latest version when not all pluign authors are as
diligent.

A list of plugins with links to _permanent_ URIs at the plugin authors'
home pages is, I think, the best choice.  Verbage might be at the top of
this list that specifically states that these are _contributed_ plugins
not officially part of, or endorsed by, WordPress and that they live at
these specified locations.

There was some interesting discussion about end-user ease-of-use versus
developer ease-of-maintenance.  I think that same argument can be extended
to plugin _authors_ as well as plugin users.  We ought to make it as easy
as possible for the budding programmer to contribute plugins to the
project.  We're not yet so big that that we need to have a formal plugin
submission process (a la phpBB's mod system).