Since I stepped up as Kingdom Webwright, I have planned to address the use of plugins on our WordPress multisite (hosted by sca.org.au so this doesn’t have anything to do with sites hosted by sca.org.nz). Many plugins were ‘network’ activated in a fit of enthusiasm, when the multisite installation was first set up. Subsequently we’ve realised that doing so stops us (super-admins) from knowing who is using what plugin if it needs replacing. This is the situation we’re in now – there are plugins that are so old or (now) dodgy due to security vulnerabilities that they have been removed from the wordpress.org repository. Unless one of us wrote it, we don’t use plugins that aren’t on the official wordpress.org repository for security reasons.
I have asked, on and off, for some time for people to tell me if they are using specific plugins … with dismal results. So, I’ve made an executive decision to go from ‘ask for permission’ to ‘need a veto’. Already I have removed several abandoned plugins that were purely back-end related (admin menu customising, and that sort of thing), and I’ve un-network activated some that I don’t think will impact the visible parts of the websites. However, there’s a limit to my braveness. So at this point, I need to let you all know what I’ve done, and what I plan to do.
Please read below, and contact me at webwright@lochac.sca.org (before the end of October) if you use a plugin that I want to remove or change the status of.
In service,
Sorle, Lochac Webwright
Here’s where we stand
When I started this morning, there were around 90 plugins.
- 8 current, up-to-date, network activated plugins that will stay that way
- 40 current, up-to-date, site-activatable plugins
- 21 plugins already removed
- 7 network activated plugins that are abandoned and need to be removed
- 5 site-activatable plugins that are abandoned and need to be removed
- 1 plugin that was network activated but is no longer
- 8 network activated plugins that I would like to make site-activatable
I hope to get the number of plugins to less than 70, at the end (it’s not simple subtracting because some of the plugins are getting replaced with an alternative). if the following can be managed, most of which will be site-by-site activated. This is a big improvement even if it doesn’t seem like it.
1. PLUGINS ALREADY REMOVED
- Admin Menu Editor (switched to: Admin Menu Search)
- Admin Menu Tree Page View (switched to: Admin Menu Search)
- Admin Menus Fixed (switched to: Admin Menu Search)
- Connections Business Directory
- Exclude Pages from Navigation
- Force Regenerate Thumbnails
- Media File Manager (switched to: Media Library Folders for WordPress)
- Media Tags
- More Privacy Options
- Multi Media Tags
- Network Username Restrictions Override
- Ninja Pages
- Plugins List
- PTA Member Directory
- Simple Facebook Connect
- Simple Flickr Photostream
- Social Warfare
- Unattach and Re-attach Media Attachments
- Weaver File Access Plugin
- WP Lynx
- WP Minor Edit
The reason I have removed these already is that they were all either not used, or back-end functions.
2. PLUGINS THAT NEED TO BE REMOVED BUT ARE NETWORK ACTIVATED
- Network Plugin Auditor (this is something that only I use)
- Officers Directory (not sure if anyone is actually using this?)
- Recently Updated Pages
- Recently updated pages and posts
- WordPress MU Domain Mapping (this is masonry use only, and we’re working on it)
- WP Publication Archive (was network activated, now isn’t … is anyone using it?)
- WP-PageNavi (was network activated, now isn’t … is anyone using it?)
3. OTHER PLUGINS THAT NEED TO BE REMOVED
- Custom CSS Manager
(9 sites have this activated, please switch to: Simple Custom CSS and JS) - Table of Contents Plus
(3 sites have this activated, please switch to: LuckyWP Table of Contents) - Vanilla PDF Embed
(2 sites have this activated, please switch to: Embed PDF Viewer) - Weaver II Theme Extras
(18 sites have this activated, if you’re not using Weaver II Theme you don’t need it, if you are then please change your theme) - Weaver II to Weaver Xtreme
(4 sites have this activated, it should only be needed WHILE moving from Weaver II to Weaver Xtreme, then deactivated again)
4. PLUGIN THAT IS FINE TO USE, BUT IS NO LONGER NETWORK ACTIVATED AND NEEDS SITE ACTIVATION IF YOU WERE USING IT
- StripTease
5. PLUGINS THAT ARE FINE TO USE, BUT SHOULD NOT BE NETWORK ACTIVATED*
- Contact Form 7
- Formidable Forms
- Page Restrict
- Roll of Arms
- WordPress Database Backup
- WordPress Importer
- WordPress Page Widgets
- WP Render Blogroll Links
* I need to know if anyone is using the features they offer, because then – when I deactivate from the network, I can activate at the site level.