In October 2022, after a very questionable action taken by the team running the WordPress’ Plugin Directory that was alleged by some to have been done to the benefit of the for-profit company from head of WordPress, we noted that WordPress was obfuscating the connection between that team and the company, Automattic. Specifically, the second question in the FAQ for the WordPress Plugin Directory claimed to address a possible connection this way:

Does the review team work for Automattic?

No. The review team is made up of 100% volunteers. Some are compensated by their full-time employers, but no one is hired by WordPress.org, Automattic, or WordPress.com

We explained the problem with that, this way:

If team members are being paid by their employers, then they are not really volunteers. More problematic is that the answer seems intentionally misleading. One person is the head of all three entities, WordPress.org, Automattic, and WordPress.com, that are mentioned. That person is Matt Mullenweg. Matt Mullenweg also has an entity named Audrey Capital. Two of the four members of the team, Sam “Otto” Wood, and Scott “coffee2code” Reilly, are employees of Audrey Capital.

So it is technically true that no members of the team work for Automattic (or WordPress.org or WordPress.com), but that seems to be a distinction without a difference. Their boss is not only the person in charge of all three, but they seem to be closer connected to the head of Automattic than many employees of the company would be.

On December 21, that question was removed from the FAQ. No other changes were made to the FAQ. (Compare an archived copy from December 20 and December 21.) That question had been added in April 2022. (Compare an archived copy from April 21 and April 23.) The only other changed made at that time was said you couldn’t even apply to join the team.

Looking at the currently listed team, there are no listed members that are Automattic employees. But there are at least two unlisted members, who have not otherwise been announced as members of the team that are.

A post written on the team’s blog on September 19 starts as if it was written by a member of the team:

Currently there are 1,241 plugins awaiting review.

We are painstakingly aware of this.

The author of the post is not a listed member of the team and wasn’t announced as a member of the team before that, despite other new members being announced in June.

A July post written by one of the new members announced in June listed a group of people who had been helping them:

We are very grateful we got all the support we needed from Mika, @otto42, @dd32, @zoonini, @mrfoxtalbot, and other contributors during this period.

Two of those were existing members of the team (one of which works directly for the head of Automattic and is still on the team). The three others are Automattic employees, one of which is the author of the September post.

On December 2, a post was written as if done by a member of the team:

We’re happy to announce the reopening of applications for the Plugin Review team!

The author of the post is also not a listed member of the team and wasn’t announced as a member of the team before that, despite more new members being announced in the September post.

That post thanks a group of people:

Special thanks to @annezazu, @coachbirgit, @chanthaboune, @properlypurple, @jordesign, the DEIB working group, and all the members of our team — we appreciate the great feedback on restructuring our hiring and onboarding.

Four out of five are Automattic employees.

The link to “all the members of our team” doesn’t actually mention either of the Automattic employees on the team.

What is Going On?

If this were just an issue of not a having an updated listing of the team members, it wouldn’t be a big deal. But to twice have employees of this company added to the team without it being announced, while other members have been announced, is more problematic. Especially when you considering that the team had been limiting others from even applying to join the team, as was noted in the quoted text from the December post from an Automattic employee.

Removing the FAQ question about Automattic employees being on the team, as they have secretly joined the team, obviously raises more serious questions. This comes at the same time as there is a major issue with a sponsor of one of the team’s team reps.

Obvious Apparent Conflict of Interest

We are not sure why the team running the Plugin Directory felt the need to add a misleading claim of a lack of a connection with Automattic in April 2022. But there is a rather obvious area where people would raise questions. When you go to the page in the admin area of WordPress to add a new plugin, 12 “featured” plugins are shown. Of those 12, only 2 are commercial plugins and they both come from Automattic:

If you visit the related page on the website for the Plugin Directory, the only information given about those featured plugins is “Plugins contained within this category get displayed on the Featured tab.” No explanation is given how these plugins are chosen or how ended that those two plugins from Automattic are included, but other commercial plugins are not.

While looking for some explanation on how plugins are chosen for that, we found one of the other Automattic employees thanked in July, apparently had the ability to add plugins to that as of December 2021, which raises further questions.