[wp-meta] [Making WordPress.org] #7035: Plugin Directory: Add filters for community & commercial plugins

[Making WordPress.org]

#7035: Plugin Directory: Add filters for community & commercial plugins
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 Reporter:  ryelle            |       Owner:  ryelle
     Type:  enhancement       |      Status:  closed
 Priority:  normal            |   Milestone:
Component:  Plugin Directory  |  Resolution:  fixed
 Keywords:  has-patch         |
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Comment (by justlevine):

 (was directed here by the Make post to provide feedback).

 I think the use of `Community` and `Commercial` as taxonomy terms is a bad
 approach and potentially harmful:

 1. **They're broad and provide no semantic value to the directory.** What
 is the difference between the two? Which is WooCommerce (lots of community
 contributions, but lead by a8c, not freemium but has paid extensions)?
 Which is WPGraphQL (sponsored by WPEngine, WPEngine users get premium
 support, all dev is on GitHub, and no feature upsells)? Which would
 hypothetically be WPGraphQL for FacetWP( a repo of community contributions
 that I voluntarily maintain, and in exchange I'm the recommended developer
 if someone needs some enterprise troubleshooting)? Etc etc.
 2. **They are ripe for misinterperative 'virtue signaling'.** Should
 enterprise users only install Commercial plugins (as a sign of quality),
 or should ecosystem advocates gravitate to Community plugins (as a sign of
 open source ethos)? Wherever your subconscious bias leads you, it's still
 wrong, because of point 1.

 Instead, I strongly suggest the directory takes a semantic, user-centric
 approach, where the term names offer unambiguous information for a user to
 filter by.

 For example:
 - `has paid features`. Unlike "Commercial", there's no bias about whether
 the plugin is scalable or conversly just freemium bait.
 - `has paid support`. Same as above. It let's the user filter by something
 they actually want to know, without being prejudicial.
 - `accepts community contributions`. E.g. does development happen in a
 public GitHub repo, and not just created by a single person/sponsored
 dev/company. This is the only concrete test of "Community" that I could
 come up with. (Note: I opted _against_ `has public repository` since
 that's less user-centric)

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Ticket URL: <https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/7035#comment:8>
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