Change “Plugin Author” label to “Plugin Manager”

[pewgeuges]

The support forum misleads WordPress users by labeling plugin committers as plugin authors despite not all committers are enumerated in the plugin’s main php authors field. They are enumerated in the plugin’s readme contributors field, so the plugin contributor label would be fine too. The plugin manager label is suggested only to account for the fact that WordPress wants to disclose indirectly whether a respondent on the forum has commit access.

WordPress’ position considering committers as authors is biased through the WordPress blog engine’s role scheme, where post authors are enabled to write and publish, while contributors are enabled to write but only to save drafts. That of course is also a wrong scheme, but it is not the subject of this request.

Even when it is legally assigned, i.e. to people mentioned in the author field, the author status is inherently problematic because developers like writers highly depend on inspiration. Experience confirms the widespread phenomenon of authors drowning after not acknowdedging inspiration. Typically the authorship claim kills inspiration.

Our civilisation makes assumptions and uses vocabulary, but it has also a legal framework. Labeling as an author someone who is nowhere declared as such and who does not make authorship claims, is in breach of the law. WordPress are not above the law. The claim I’m making is legal, although I’d never intend to file a lawsuit, and WordPress’ position is illegal.

[Otto42]

There is nothing "illegal" about it, and Committers are the ones who can make changes to the plugin, therefore they are the "Authors" as far as users and the plugins team is concerned. The "Contributor" role is an informal one, used for profile displays only.