Standardize plugin changelog entries

[galbaras]

Currently, plugins display a wide variety of changelog styles. Some include dates and some don't. Some list changes chronologically and some list newest first. Some only include a link to an off-site changelog.

Requiring the inclusion of a release date and version for each entry, a brief list of changes and a "newest first" listing order would go a long way towards helping site owners make informed decisions about installing and updating plugins.

[Otto42]

We do have a standard, it is the form used in the sample readme.txt file:

​https://wordpress.org/plugins/about/readme.txt

If a plugin fails to follow that standard, then the plugin author should be notified and the readme.txt file should be corrected.

[dd32]

Correct, we have a "standard format file", but we don't require Plugins to follow any of it (other than headers and section titles). The file is mostly treated as an example, rather than a "follow the style used here".

Even the content of the Changelog tab can be whatever a plugin wants, it doesn't have to use = 1.0 =, it doesn't have to include dates, it doesn't have to be in order, etc.

[Ipstenu]

I think it's safe to say we're not going to be changing this any time soon.

While enforcing readme behavior is a nice goal, this is wontfix for now. Maybe after the plugin repo is revamped, we can revisit.

[SergeyBiryukov]

Follow-up: #3069