New Support Guidelines  ## Metadata - Author: [[Make WordPress Support]] - Full Title: New Support Guidelines - Category: #articles - Document Note: --- tags: - #WordPress - #SupportGuidelines - #CommunityManagement Author: Make WordPress Support (post by Courtney Robertson) Source: WordPress.org — Make Support Reference: https://make.wordpress.org/support/2023/10/new-support-guidelines/ date created: 2025-08-23 00:00 --- # Title: New Support Guidelines (WordPress.org) — What Changed and Why ## Table of Contents: - [📝 Summary](#-summary) - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) - [🗒️ Notes](#-notes) - [📖 References](#-references) - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#-paraphrase) - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) - [✅ Action Items](#-action-items) - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) - [❓ Questions](#-questions) - [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research) - [💡 Implications](#-implications) - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) - [🌍 DEIB Assessment](#-deib-assessment) - [✅ Logical Validity](#-logical-validity) - [🔍 DARVO Analysis](#-darvo-analysis) - [🔍 SEO Evaluation](#-seo-evaluation) - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) ### References: - Make WordPress Support. “New support guidelines.” Published 2023-10-16. https://make.wordpress.org/support/2023/10/new-support-guidelines/ ## 📝 Summary: WordPress.org’s Support Team announced revamped, simplified support guidelines to reduce cognitive load, remove outdated sections, and improve transparency about changes going forward. Two notable policy clarifications: how reviews of commercial/upsold plugins/themes are handled—now limited to what’s on WordPress.org and the immediate purchasing experience (with a SaaS exception)—and guidance on account usage, permitting one personal account per individual and an optional verifiable brand account per company. Changes apply prospectively to new reviews after October 16, 2023, acknowledging practical limits on retroactive moderation. ## 📖 Main Content: The Support Team completed a collaborative refresh of the support guidelines to make them shorter, clearer, and more current. They commit to communicating future updates more openly, addressing past “behind the scenes” edits. Major changes: - Reviews of commercial/upsold products: - Reviews must focus on the code distributed on WordPress.org and the immediate purchasing flow (buying/downloading/refunding). - Marketplace or large plugins that surface third-party offers shouldn’t be judged by third-party behavior beyond their control. - SaaS plugins/themes are treated holistically because user experience and functionality live off-site and are inseparable from the plugin interface. - Policy is prospective only for reviews created after 2023-10-16 due to scale and fairness constraints. - Account policy: - Individuals may only operate one personal account. - Companies may maintain a separate brand account with a verifiable company email. - Preference remains for personal accounts to foster human connection, but safety and anonymity tools justify brand accounts for support contexts. These adjustments balance fairness to developers, clarity for users, and operational feasibility for moderators. ### 🗒️ Notes - Guideline revamp goals: - Reduce length and mental load. - Remove outdated material. - Increase transparency of changes going forward. - “Guideline statute of limitations”: - Recognizes limits to retroactively re-moderate legacy content at scale. - Applies new standards only from a clear cutover date (2023-10-16). - Review scope for commercial/upsold items: - Focus: WordPress.org-hosted code + immediate purchase/refund experience. - Exclusion: Third-party services marketed via a plugin that are outside developer control. - Exception: SaaS plugins/themes considered as a whole due to coupled service+plugin UX. - Moderation practicality: - Avoids re-litigating hundreds of thousands of older reviews. - Aligns expectations between users, developers, and moderators. - Account usage: - One personal account per individual. - Optional brand account per company with verifiable email. - Acknowledges user preference for human interaction and need for moderator/agent safety through anonymity tools. ## 📖 References: - Make WordPress Support. “New support guidelines.” https://make.wordpress.org/support/2023/10/new-support-guidelines/ ## 🗣️ Paraphrase: 1) Original: “The new guidelines have been simplified, reducing the size and mental load of reading them for end users substantially, while also removing any outdated sections that are no longer relevant.” - Paraphrase: The team trimmed and clarified the guidelines to make them easier to read and stripped out obsolete parts to reduce cognitive overhead for readers. 2) Original: “Please note that this is a substantial change in procedure for the moderators as well, and only applies to new reviews created after October 16th 2023. The reason for this being that it is unreasonable to moderate hundreds of thousands of existing reviews, which were at the time in alignment with the guidelines.” - Paraphrase: This represents a major procedural shift for moderators and will only affect reviews posted from October 16, 2023 onward, since reprocessing the vast archive of past, compliant reviews isn’t feasible. ## 📰 Newsletter: WordPress Community Update: New Support Guidelines Go Live The Support Team just rolled out a streamlined set of support guidelines to cut confusion and keep things current. Highlights: reviews for “upsold” plugins/themes should now focus on what’s actually shipped on WordPress.org and the immediate buy/download/refund experience—fairer for devs, clearer for users. SaaS solutions are the exception: because the code and user experience are intertwined with a hosted service, they’re reviewed holistically. Also, while individuals are still limited to a single personal account, companies can use a verified brand account—great for safety, continuity, and team workflows. Moderation changes apply to new reviews after Oct 16, 2023 to keep things manageable at scale. Full post: New Support Guidelines on Make WordPress Support (https://make.wordpress.org/support/2023/10/new-support-guidelines/). ## ✅ Action Items: A prompt tailored for your role and goals (Developer Advocate, open source/WordPress educator, future OSPO director): “Analyze how this article advances open-source advocacy, contributor engagement, and education within the WordPress ecosystem. Identify: - Advocacy: How do the clarified review rules (focus on WP.org code; SaaS treated holistically) strengthen fairness, trust, and sustainable funding models for plugin authors and marketplaces? - Contributor Experience: What impact will transparency commitments and practical moderation boundaries (prospective enforcement) have on moderators, support reps, and community health? - Education: What training or documentation could help users write better reviews and help support teams interpret the new rules? Propose workshop outlines or micro-courses. - OSPO Alignment: Map the policy changes to OSPO pillars—governance, risk/compliance, developer relations, and community metrics. Recommend KPIs to track fairness (e.g., proportion of reviews removed for out-of-scope complaints) and safety (brand account adoption). - DEIB & Safety: How do brand accounts and anonymity tools support psychological safety and inclusivity? Suggest safeguards to prevent misuse while protecting moderators. - Transparency: Draft a versioned change-log and communication cadence to keep policy updates visible to all stakeholders. - Outcomes: Define measurable community outcomes (e.g., reduced dispute escalations, improved NPS from plugin authors, higher review helpfulness) and a plan to iterate.” Deliverables: 1-page brief aligning the guideline changes with advocacy, engagement, and education; training plan; OSPO metrics dashboard mock; risk assessment for SaaS exception handling. ## 🧪 Hypotheses: - H1: Constraining reviews to WP.org-hosted code and immediate purchase flow will decrease dispute rates between devs and users. - H2: A SaaS exception improves review usefulness for service-based products without unfairly penalizing non-SaaS plugins. - H3: Allo - Summary: The support team has published revamped support guidelines that have been simplified and updated to remove outdated sections. One notable change is that reviews for plugins or themes on WordPress.org will no longer be impacted by marketing or third-party solutions. Reviews will focus on the code published on WordPress.org and the immediate purchasing experience. Another change is that individuals are not allowed to create multiple accounts, but companies can register a brand account with a verifiable company email address. Users are encouraged to familiarize themselves with these changes by reading the guidelines. - URL: https://make.wordpress.org/support/2023/10/new-support-guidelines/ After an amazing period of collaborative thinking, writing, and iterating, the support team is happy to announce the publication of the revamped support guidelines! The new guidelines have been simplified, reducing the size and mental load of reading them for end users substantially, while also removing any outdated sections that are no longer relevant. Most of these changes do not require much explanation, but there are some where some caveats apply, due to what I shall call the “guideline statute of limitations”. In addition, the guidelines have previously been changed as needed, often more “behind the scenes” than what we would like, and the team will strive to do better, and ensure that any changes are communicated clearly moving forward. #### Do not post about commercial products The review process is here receiving a notable change, where previously any plugin or theme that is “upsold” (marketing is added in any way to sell products or services) on WordPress.org could have reviews for what they feature also impact their reviews, this is no longer the case. As the ecosystem has evolved, this guidelines has had to evolve with it, and where large plugins, or in some cases marketplace plugins, exist and promote both their own, but also third party solutions that solve user problems, it is not fair to judge them on a third party they do not control. This means that any review needs to be about the code that is published on WordPress.org, the immediate *purchasing experience* (this means buying it, downloading it, refunding it) is what may be reviewed. The notable exception is Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions, or equivalent. Given the nature of these, where the code and experience lies within an external provider, it is natural for these to be symbiotic with their plugin or theme counterpart, and as such are seen as a whole. Please note that this is a substantial change in procedure for the moderators as well, and **only applies to new reviews created after October 16th 2023**. The reason for this being that it is unreasonable to moderate hundreds of thousands of existing reviews, which were at the time in alignment with the guidelines. #### Do not create multiple accounts Although the support team does not allow individuals to create multiple accounts, this is not new, we do allow companies to register a brand account, so long as it comes with a verifiable company email address. Although it is preferred that everyone use their personal account when and if possible, as users generally respond better to what isn’t considered a “faceless corporation”, the team also acknowledges that there is safety in anonymity when supporting users; as made obvious by the amount of tools recently introduced to ensure moderators on WordPress.org can interact and carry out tasks with anonymity in mind as well. This means that as an individual, you may only have a single account that is yours, but you *may also* have a branded account with your employer for these use cases. #### Get familiar with the changes That’s the two main notable points, what’s next? Getting familiar with the changes of course, which you can do by [reading the guidelines](https://wordpress.org/support/guidelines/)., New Support Guidelines, Make WordPress Support, 01hcwxzscd15sv0qexg0s6rwhm.