[QGIS-Developer] Are there any real mandatory rules for publishing a plugin?

Wed Sep 30 09:25:57 PDT 2026

In case the ideas might be useful:

- is there a way to "age out" reviews / stars? in other words, plugins
that received a lot of stars when first published in 2003 but none
since lose that former approval?
- is there some way to "rate the raters"?  in other words, ratings
provided by persons without a registration on the mailing list or
other (semi-) official credentials don't count or appear separately
(community ratings?)
- is there some way to associate plugins with verifications of
functionality by QGIS version, to show the plugin is (or at least has
been) maintained in the past?
- is there some way to allow certain types of "negative ratings"? for
example, I tried this plugin with version 3.44.x and it did not work?

On Wed, Sep 30, 2026 at 9:13 AM Denis Rouzaud via QGIS-Developer
<qgis-developer at lists.osgeo.org> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> My 2 cents:
>
> - the ease of publishing plugins is one of QGIS strengths. Anyone can push a plugin for his colleagues/friends, no matter how bad it is, it's what they use to work. I would keep it that way.
> - We used to have starred plugins. We could bring back something similar: we give community voting members the possibility of flagging plugins as "worth it" (without any security warranty).
> - The rest is wild territory.
>
> Cheers,
> Denis
>
> Le mer. 30 sept. 2026 à 17:08, Raymond Nijssen via QGIS-Developer <qgis-developer at lists.osgeo.org> a écrit :
>>
>> Hi, I also agree the plugin policies need to be changed. Also check the
>> email from Stefano earlier today. I'm really feeling sorry for the ones
>> who are dealing with all the new plugins.
>>
>> Just some ideas from my side:
>>
>> More plugin metadata:
>> * description where to find the plugin in QGIS
>> * plugin language(s)
>> * code is generated by AI
>> * plugin needs a (paid) account to function
>> * plugin has software dependencies
>> * a category?
>>
>> Detect some IMHO real bad quality signs:
>> * Icon is still the default plugin builder icon (or even missing)
>> * Dialogs are not responsive
>>
>> Some quality constraints for uploading to the plugin repository could be:
>> * Plugin should use as much as possible the QGIS functionality. For
>> example, the plugin should not read or write a shapefile from disk, but
>> work on vector layers. QGIS can read and write the shapefile (an many more).
>> * Plugin must be in English, translations can be done by Qt tr() function.
>> * If possible, data manipulations must be through processing algorithms
>> * All web traffic must be using QgsNetworkAccessManager (to make
>> debugging possible)
>>
>> We could also consider having a paid repo, with paid staff keeping it
>> clean, high quality and safe. We could also make it easier to add/find
>> other, less strictly maintained, repos.
>>
>> Love to discuss this next week in Laax!
>>
>> Raymond
>>
>>
>>
>> On 9/30/26 13:59, Régis Haubourg via QGIS-Developer wrote:
>> > Hi, I agree that our community repository is really large now and the
>> > world has changed. What should be the direction we should take according
>> > to you? Something like an official repo, with a real security triage,
>> > and a filter of really up to date and active tools?
>> > And besides this, community repositories, not activated by default ?
>> > Thanks for your ideas, user conference and community meeting is next
>> > week and a dedicated session would be wonderful
>> > Cheers
>> > Régis
>> >
>> >
>> > On 30/09/2026 13:31, Nicolas Godet via QGIS-Developer <qgis-
>> > developer at lists.osgeo.org> wrote:
>> >> Dear all,
>> >>
>> >> I can’t agree more on the fact that the plugin repo has become a wild
>> >> jungle with less and less interest in digging into it to find an
>> >> innovative one.
>> >> A few years ago, I spent a few minutes each week looking at each new
>> >> plugin (because there were only ten or so). Now, I don’t look at new
>> >> plugins anymore because there are too many of them and most of them
>> >> are a duplicate of another plugin or, even worse, of a core feature.
>> >>
>> >> I think new rules should be put in place or at least a way to
>> >> distinguish good, community-approved plugins from the nonsense garbage
>> >> in the quest for likes for their LinkedIn post.
>> >>
>> >> Kind regards,
>> >> Nicolas
>> >>
>> >> > Le 29 sept. 2026 à 17:45, Stefano Campus via QGIS-Developer <qgis- >
>> >> developer at lists.osgeo.org> a écrit :
>> >> >
>> >> > 
>> >> > Good morning,
>> >> > a few days ago, a plugin [1] was released that is a fork of an >
>> >> existing plugin which had been updated (without the original plugin >
>> >> author being notified) to QGIS 4.
>> >> > The GitHub repository has issues disabled, so it is not possible to
>> >> > report bugs that are present.
>> >> >
>> >> > But shouldn’t it be mandatory to have issue reporting enabled?
>> >> >
>> >> > Furthermore, the proliferation of plugins makes it difficult to find
>> >> > the truly innovative ones.
>> >> > So we see plugins that replicate core functions, perhaps giving them
>> >> a > more appealing user interface
>> >> >
>> >> > Where can I report this to the team that coordinates the plugins?
>> >> > Do you think we should report these anomalies?
>> >> >
>> >> > Many thanks
>> >> >
>> >> > stefano
>> >> >
>> >> > [1] https://github.com/veogeo/go3streetview <https://github.com/ >
>> >> veogeo/go3streetview>
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-- 
Chris Hermansen · clhermansen "at" gmail "dot" com

C'est ma façon de parler.