[wp-meta] [Making WordPress.org] #6511: Bring back the active install growth chart

[Making WordPress.org]

#6511: Bring back the active install growth chart
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 Reporter:  markzahra         |       Owner:  (none)
     Type:  enhancement       |      Status:  new
 Priority:  high              |   Milestone:
Component:  Plugin Directory  |  Resolution:
 Keywords:                    |
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Comment (by codeamp):

 I'm probably not adding much original information to this ticket but I do
 think its important for plugin owners to chime in, to show that we care
 about this and that it affects us.

 First, re usefulness of the chart:

 1. It is literally the only way to know how your plugin is doing - which
 in itself, is pretty bad - the removal of it just put blindfolds on
 everyone - so we have to wait until the next tick of install growth (up or
 down) to get any idea - it's not reasonable - this can take 6 months or
 more in some cases, and literally forever if your plugin is neither going
 up or down in active installs.

 2. It provides motivation - especially for plugins without commercial
 setup (ie free plugins) and new devs.


 Thoughts:

 1. If there was a security issue, now that it no longer exists, we can
 publish the information surrounding it.

 2. If there was a security issue, enabling this for repo owners only (for
 now) would surely mitigate such a security issue - that would have been a
 much better short sighted response to this.

 3. If scraping is a problem (2) would solve it in the interim - but I
 don't think this is a good way forward - we should be embracing openness,
 nonetheless its much better than complete removal.

 4. We keep seeing responses to cherry picked questions, but no real
 answers to the main questions - please lets just be clear and address the
 most important concerns first - it seems everyone is asking pretty much
 the same things.

 5. My knee jerk reaction was, ok, lets start a new repo, but we can't,
 because we can't hook into the plugin/themes/block directory without
 installing a plugin to begin with.

 6. So considering we are locked in to the repo (if we want our users to
 have a first class experience) why are we not looking to improve the
 repo/metrics for devs - it hasn't been updated for years, and now it feels
 like we're going backwards.  If its a (human) resources thing, I'll throw
 my hat into the ring and set some time aside to work on this kind of
 thing.

 The way that this has been dealt with has made me seriously question if
 WordPress is the right platform for me, for the first time in years - it's
 made me and my business feel vulnerable.

 Anyway that's my 2 cents, ''this is an important issue''.

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Ticket URL: <https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/6511#comment:41>
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