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Require 100 active installs before new plugins can receive reviews #773
Description
Context
Newly approved plugins are sometimes given artificial five-star reviews shortly after publication, often before the plugin has any meaningful adoption. Closing or banning the plugin is not an effective deterrent because the author can create a new account and submit the plugin again.
This proposal was discussed during the Plugins Team meeting.
Proposal
Prevent new plugins from receiving reviews until they reach 100 active installs.
This restriction applies only to reviews. Plugin support forums should remain available from publication so users can ask questions and provide early feedback.
Rationale
The first installs of a new plugin commonly come from the author, friends, family, testing, and other non-user activity. Reviews at that stage do not reliably represent feedback from real users and can be used to manipulate a plugin’s perceived quality and search visibility.
Requiring 100 active installs creates a meaningful cost for abusive authors. It will not prevent every fake review—an author may still attempt to game the system after reaching the threshold—but it should eliminate a large share of these cases and make abuse take more effort than the review team spends addressing it.
The team considered a higher threshold, such as 500 installs, but agreed that 100 is a reasonable starting point: it is sufficiently difficult to reach through trivial abuse without excluding too many legitimate plugins for too long.
Acceptance criteria
- New plugins cannot submit or receive reviews before reaching 100 active installs.
- Review eligibility becomes available automatically once the threshold is met.
- Support forum access remains available regardless of the active-install count.
- The review UI explains that reviews become available after the plugin reaches 100 active installs.
- The implementation uses the existing active-install counting mechanism, including its protections against repeatedly counting installs from the same source.
Disclaimer
This issue was drafted with assistance from Codex (OpenAI). The proposal, rationale, and final decision reflect the Plugins Team discussion.
Activity
mathetos commentedon Aug 12, 2026
@davidperezgar I'm curious the core motivation of this move. It's already extremely difficult for new plugins to get traction on the Plugin Directory. And reviews are a very significant signal in search results. Why would we want to make it harder for new plugins to get found well?
Abuse of the review system is not unique to new plugins, it can and does get gamified by all plugin authors. Why artificially put additional downward pressure on new plugins?
Another way to ask this is, what harm to reviews do to new plugins?
p.s. The link you provided is also behind a private login area, so additional context isn't public.
davidperezgar commentedon Aug 12, 2026
However, we see the same pattern emerge every time. We publish a new plugin and, within days, it is subject to sock puppeting.
We raise this issue in Plugins Team meetings, and we think it's reasonable to question how the plugin could get reviews when it hasn't been installed.
mathetos commentedon Aug 12, 2026
I'm reading between the lines a bit, but I hear you saying: The core motivation is to reduce the number of fake reviews the team has to moderate. Is that right?
obenland commentedon Aug 12, 2026
I share the concern about making it even harder for new plugins to get traction. Not sure what a good solution would be, but punishing plugin authors who abide by the rules, for things nefarious actors do, doesn't feel right.
davidperezgar commentedon Aug 13, 2026
It's not just about moderation; it's also about the consequences, which have already been explained. They will receive a closed plugin and a banned account. That's all we would like to see less of.