Featured plugins Not Swap as like previous

[iqbal1hossain]

I have noticed that the featured plugins section is not rotating/swapping as it did previously.

Earlier, the featured plugins seemed to change dynamically — possibly based on downloads, trending activity, or another selection mechanism. However, recently I’ve observed that the same plugins remain displayed and are no longer rotating as before.

[ocean90]

Hello there, this has indeed changed. You can read more about this on Slack: ​https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C1LBM36LC/p1772211796347839

The Featured Plugin experiment is officially underway — and we've got a system for finding the hidden gems sitting quietly in the directory, waiting to be discovered.

Here's how it works: every two weeks, we feature 8 plugins that made the cut. Not the giants. > Not the household names. The newcomers — under 12 months old, fewer than 10,000 active installs — that are doing something genuinely cool.

To even get considered, a plugin has to:
Pass the boring-but-important stuff — security checks, no open vulnerabilities, works with current WordPress, actually been maintained in the last 6 months. You know, the table stakes.

Then it has to clear our quality floor:
Real, human-readable code (no funny business). Proper escaping, sanitization, nonces — the works. A readme that actually tells you what the plugin does. No bundling half of WordPress core just to run a contact form.

And finally, the human layer — where the real curation happens:
Does it solve an actual problem? Is it filling a gap in the ecosystem, or just the 47th social sharing plugin? Is the developer showing up in support forums? Does the UX feel like someone cared?

If the answer is yes across the board — it's in.

[dd32]

The featured plugins list is sorted by active installs.

the featured plugins seemed to change dynamically — possibly based on downloads, trending activity, or another selection mechanism

Previously it was effectively random, as most of the plugins had the same active installs count, and so it would regularly switch order of them when caches expired.

Now the order is fairly static, as the plugins range from 2k to 100 installs.

[dd32]

I think adding some randomisation here is warranted, to keep within the notion of the plugins being lesser known, and the active install count not being the sole driver here.

Based on ​https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C0AJB2960NS/p1772668449302569 I'm going to change the Featured from sorting by active installs, to sorting randomly, but such that the order changes daily rather than every cache eviction.

[dd32]

In 14734:

Plugin Directory: Featured Plugins: Sort them by rand(), with a daily seed.

This has the effect of making the featured plugins show in a randomised order every day.

Fixes #8190.