[wp-hackers] WordPress.Org plugins directory search suggestion

[Otto]

Firstly, searching for single words is not the best way to search the
plugin directory. Single word searches are largely useless. We're searching
the readme.txt files. What did you expect to find with simplistic searching?

However, "backup" was modified 7 hours ago, "contact" in the last year, and
"pinterest" I've closed because you brought it up and it is indeed 4 years
old.

Bringing these up to the plugins email address is indeed the correct
approach. We weed too.

-Otto




On Sat, Nov 21, 2015 at 5:10 AM, David Anderson <david at wordshell.net> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I didn't want to post this to the wordpress.org plugins email address, as
> I realise that's busy enough for the team there and didn't want to force
> them to read it. But, if anyone has time to here (and a public answer
> that's Googleable might not hurt)...
>
> The wordpress.org plugins directory always returns any plugin whose slug
> you enter exactly as the #1 result. That's hard-wired. That seems
> reasonable - if someone searches directly for something, then that should
> come first.
>
> However, that breaks down badly when slugs are very generic terms -
> especially single words.
>
> e.g.:
>
> * "Backup". The result is unmaintained for 3 years, tested up to WP 3.4,
> and is only for Google Drive, using a Google API that doesn't exist any
> more - so, useless.
>
> * "Contact" - brings up a plugin last modified > a year ago, tested up to
> WP 4.0.
>
> * "Pinterest" - brings up a plugin last updated  4 years ago, tested up to
> WP 3.3. (I realise that a new submission of this sort would fail the new
> trademark policy).
>
> It seems to me that at a minimum, the "always return a plugin whose slug
> exactly matches" should not apply on single-word searches. Otherwise, even
> with the new trademark policy preventing some abuses, users are stuck with
> rubbish/obsolete search results on some common terms for all eternity.
>
> David
>
> --
> UpdraftPlus - best WordPress backups - http://updraftplus.com
> WordShell - WordPress fast from the CLI - http://wordshell.net
>
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