The WordPress Plugin Review Team achieved a significant milestone last week, bringing the queue for initial plugin reviews down to zero.
A year ago, the review team faced a massive backlog of 1,260 plugins awaiting review following the departure of long-time rep Mika Epstein in July 2023. Developers were told to wait at least 91 days for an initial review. Today, just two plugins are awaiting review, with a current wait time of seven days.
On X, SiteGround-sponsored reviewer Francisco Torres acknowledged the milestone but downplayed it, posting, “Finally. It’s a milestone, but it’s not over yet. It needs to be maintained, and based on recent reviews, we expect to receive around 373 responses in the next 10 days.”
Since Epstein’s departure, the volunteer team responsible for reviewing plugins has undergone significant restructuring, adding several new sponsored volunteers, including Torres. The team has also collaborated with the WordPress Performance Team to develop Plugin Check, a tool designed to automate the initial review process. The plugin checks for compliance with the WordPress.org repository’s rules and best practices and has significantly sped up the initial review process.
Plugin Check was recently released in the WordPress.org plugin repository, enabling developers to conduct an initial review of their plugins before submitting them. It became officially integrated into the review team’s process on October 1, requiring all new submissions to pass Plugin Check’s checks before proceeding to a full review.
“Although I don’t think this is directly related to the recent PCP requirement, given that it has only been active for a few days so far, but the expectation is that it will help even more, already looks like the new reviews come without basic issues that make the review longer,” Torres posted on X.
In a September 2023 post on the Make WordPress Plugins blog, Automattic-sponsored contributor Alvaro Gómez said that reviewers were “correcting the same three or four errors on over 95% of plugins, which is not an efficient use of our time.”
Torres noted that alongside improvements in the tools used to assess new plugin submissions, some team contributors had dedicated “many hours” over recent days to reduce the initial review backlog.
On X, Chris Christoff, a plugin reviewer sponsored by Awesome Motive, celebrated the achievement and said the team planned to expand Plugin Check to existing plugins in the repository.