Web hosting users may have heard the term “canonical plugins” if they have been paying attention to what the WordPress team has been up to over recent months. There have been numerous references to it, especially at WordCamps, but what does it mean

Well, essentially, they would be plugins which are developed by multiple people rather than just one and would deal with the “most popular functionality requests with superlative execution”, explained Jane Wells, writing on the WordPress blog.

“There would be a very strong relationship between core and these plugins,” she pointed out. This would guarantee “the plugin code would be secure and the best possible example of coding standards”. It would also ensure “new versions of WordPress would be tested against these plugins prior to release to ensure compatibility”, she commented.

A screen in the plugins section of the WordPress admin would be home to the canonical plugins “as a kind of Editor’s Choice or Verified guarantee”, Ms Wells said.

For a system like this to operate properly, every canonical plugin’s development community will most likely require similar infrastructure to WordPress with things such as Trac and mailing lists.

Ms Wells has now called on people to provide a new name for canonical plugins, as many have no idea what it means and having to spell it out takes away the focus from the core ideas behind the concept. So, will web hosting users get involved and suggest a new, catchy name

There are a number of options partaking web hosting users can choose, including Standard, Core, Premium, Validated, Official and, wait for it … Canonical. As for the latter, the WordPress team said perhaps once people are familiar with it, the term may not be so confusing.

The WordPress team recently announced that beta-2 of WordPress 2.9 is ready to be tested. Web hosting users can see what they make of it by downloading it at their own discretion.