As you are well aware, Wordpress is an open source content management system. And it has been the most influential of it’s kind. It is where it is because of the hard work and dedication of thousands across the world. Because of the contributions that have been made from developers, designers, and end users, Wordpress has become by far the most powerful blog cms in history.

But there is still work to be done. And you don’t have to be a developer or a designer to contribute. If you have a self-hosted Wordpress blog, you can contribute to the Wordpress community in a powerful way. Here’s how.

If you have visited the Wordpress Plugins directory recently, you would have noticed a new box on the right hand side of every plugin page that looks like this:

This new tool allows you to provide two types of feedback on the plugin for the community. These are:

1. A 1-5 Star Rating on how good you think the plugin is. How easy was it to configure? Did it work well? Was there anything about the plugin you liked? Anything that bothered you? These questions can all go into your rating process to help future downloaders see how good the plugin is before they download it.

2. The new Compability tool. This one is crucial. Previously, Wordpress would leave it up to the developer of the plugin to inform us whether or not the plugin worked with the newest version of Wordpress. Now we don’t have to take the developers word for it. We can now share with the community whether or not the plugin has worked for us and for what version of Wordpress it is compabible with.

The Wordpress Community Needs Your Help

I have been contributing feedback in these two areas on every plugin that I am currently using on my Wordpress blogs. I am noticing that most of the plugins don’t have any feedback. It appears that the top 5% or so of the most popular plugins have feedback, while the rest don’t.

Setup your free user account at Wordpress.org and whenever you go to update a plugin or download a new one, take just a second and provide some feedback to the community. You will help thousands of bloggers, and the good open source deed will find it’s way back to you someday!