Add Wistia shortcodes to be able to add Wistia videos to plugin readme.txt files

[alekv]

Currently, the readme.txt only supports embedding of YouTube and Vimeo video files.

I want to request the addition of Wistia video embeds.

Why Wistia?

Wistia is a platform with business goals in mind. It allows for more control over the videos shown on plugin description pages.

The most interesting features to me are:

• Allows AB testing of videos, which helps find the video version with the most positive impact on the viewers.
• More stylistic control, like changing backgrounds or adding rounded corners.

Why is that interesting for the wordpress.org repository?

Suppose plugin developers have better tools to measure the impact of their videos on their audience and improve those videos based on that data. In that case, it will help them create better videos and a better plugin experience overall.

[dd32]

While I'm not against adding additional providers, I've never heard of Wistia and I'm not sure it's beneficial for WordPress users looking for plugins.

• Allows AB testing of videos, which helps find the video version with the most positive impact on the viewers.
• More stylistic control, like changing backgrounds or adding rounded corners.

These are probably two things that we don't actually want here, We don't want alterations of the UI selected by plugin developers, nor do we want the potential of different content shown to different users.
There's multiple reasons why, but in short:

• It's benefit is overwhelmingly for the plugin developer, rather than the end-user
• It's hard-to-impossible for a plugin reviewer to review the content used on the site. (I do acknowledge that you can change the youtube content; but at least everyone gets the same thing)

Additionally; any embed would have to be supported by the in-dash WordPress plugin installer.

[alekv]

I've never heard of Wistia

Looking at a market share report, depending on which metrics you look at, Wistia is around place 10: ​https://www.similartech.com/categories/audio-video-media with approx. 1% market share.

Some of those services are open-source technologies, not hosted video platforms. If you remove the technologies and only keep the hosted video platforms, Wistia is approximately number 5.

Is it large? No. But the more popular Vimeo has only a 3 to 4% market share. So relatively seen, Wistia is popular.

We don't want alterations of the UI selected by plugin developers,...

The alterations available are very limited. It is just the background color and the rounded corners. I don't see how that can be a big problem.

nor do we want the potential of different content shown to different users.

I do see how it could become more difficult to govern the content very closely. (But, do you really do this already??)

And, a plugin developer could change the YouTube video daily and alternate between two videos. This would come close to an AB test. Not that I would want to do it. That would be too tedious for me. But it is technically possible.

With Vimeo, you could do the same, but easier. Vimeo, which you already support, doesn't offer AB testing, but replacing the videos under the same URL is supported. So, reviewers don't have control over Vimeo embeds, either.

For YouTube videos, you've got at least the changelog. But for Vimeo, you don't. So, following your logic, now you must at least consider removing support for Vimeo embeds.

It's benefit is overwhelmingly for the plugin developer, rather than the end-user

This is a matter of opinion. And I don't see the logic behind your statement. You already allow plugin developers to embed videos and write the text.

Why would you not want the plugin developers to be able to understand if the content they provide is good or bad for their audience?

If the plugin developer gets a better understanding of what content is relevant for the audience of a plugin, then yes, that information benefits the developer. And when the developer makes changes based on that data, it benefits the audience because they get more relevant information from the developer.

Can this be abused? That may be the question that you're after. I'm not sure if it can. At least not for long. If a plugin developer overpromises or does something bad (I can't imagine what, though), then the plugin will get bad ratings, and people will point that out in the support forum. So, the reviewers will get pointed to that and can take action.

Additionally; any embed would have to be supported by the in-dash WordPress plugin installer.

As far as I can see, the in-dash WordPress plugin installer supports neither YouTube nor Vimeo embeds. So why should Wistia be supported?

[dd32]

At this point in time, I don't think there's a good enough use-case to add support for it.

We may need to reconsider the approach used for other embeds, based on your comments though.