The WordPress Plugin Review Team has a new name to match its evolving remit.

Over the weekend, team co-rep David Perez announced the team will now be known as the “Plugins Team,” reflecting its growing responsibilities beyond reviewing new plugin submissions to the WordPress.org directory.

“We’ve come to feel that the name ‘Plugin Review Team’ no longer reflects everything we do,” wrote Perez, a Hostinger-sponsored contributor. “That’s why we’re proposing a simplified name: ‘Plugins Team.’”

The change mirrors the renaming of the Themes Team in May 2024 and will roll out across WordPress.org and community channels in the coming weeks.

While plugin review remains the team’s core focus, the group is now playing a larger role in tooling, developer support, and directory improvements. Perez said the team has introduced automated AI checks for plugin names, expanded its Scanner tool to over 220 automated tests, and ramped up development of the Plugin Check Plugin, which is now required for new submissions and may soon be used for updates and commits.

The name change follows a two-year journey for the team. In 2023, it faced a massive backlog, with 1,260 plugins awaiting review following the departure of long-time rep Mika Epstein. At the time, plugin authors had to wait at last 90 days for an initial review. 

By October 2024, the team had cleared the queue entirely, reducing the wait time to just seven days thanks to a new team of sponsored contributors, process changes, and the rollout of automated tools.

More recently, plugin submissions have surged 87%, driven by a wave of plugins developer with the help of AI tools. Despite the growth, the team has worked to keep review times low and quality high while also grappling with the complexities of reviewing AI-authored code.

The Plugins Team is also collaborating more closely with the WordPress Meta Team to improve the Plugin Directory itself, reviewing open tickets and proposing new features to support plugin security and reliability.

Perez said the rebrand is a small but meaningful recognition of the team’s broader contributions: “We believe this small change is well deserved, given all the efforts the team has made to improve the WordPress plugin ecosystem.”

Image credit: Roan de Vries.

The post WordPress Plugin Review Team Renames Itself the “Plugins Team” appeared first on The Repository.