Make beta testing an opt-in feature in core

[mor10]

Currently beta testing of WordPress core (and feature plugins) is something you have to be aware of to take part in. This limits the reach of beta testing feedback to those who are intimately engaged in the day-to-day development of WordPress core and results in feedback that skews heavily in the direction of those who build WordPress as opposed to those who use WordPress.

To increase participation in end-user testing of WordPress core and feature plugins, active participation in such programs should be surfaced more visibly, either through settings during install, a modal pop-up, or an alert.

To be clear, I'm not talking about testing of bleeding edge nightlies here, but specific features and feature plugins in Beta or RC state.

A simple admin alert saying "WordPress 4.7 beta is available. Would you like to test it?" would be a huge improvement. Similar can be done with select feature plugins, especially if the alert is tied to the feature they change/improve (so for a new media feature, the alert would appear when the media functionality is engaged: "We are working on a new and improved media panel. Would you like to test it?").

This would of course have to be done sparingly to avoid alert overload.

Simplified feedback procedure

Along with the surfacing of beta testing, there should be a way to provide feedback on features directly from within WordPress admin. Asking for feedback to be posted in a Trac ticket or even a Make blog post limits the number of possible responses significantly. An in-app feedback feature activated only for testers would greatly simplify the process and most likely increase the volume of feedback data significantly. Whether this data is mapped to Trac tickets or something else needs to be addressed.

[mor10]

Related: #38418

[celloexpressions]

Even making the Beta Tester plugin one of the featured plugins on add-new would be an improvement here. I like the idea of making the existence of beta versions more prominent.

[rmccue]

Huge +1 on the feedback procedure; we have no integrated feedback process at all right now.

[karmatosed]

Good idea. A few thoughts come to me:

• Settings come to mind as a good place over a modal or pop-up which aren't great experiences.
• I think a MVP is an information block somewhere saying beta available. From there we can build.
• We should show the information we get back if we do have feedback, make it available but anonymous to all.

[celloexpressions]

What about a new metabox on the dashboard? We could include a button to install the beta tester plugin from there, and possibly update that plugin to default to nightly builds (or a way to only do betas, instead of trunk).

[swissspidy]

What about a new metabox on the dashboard? We could include a button to install the beta tester plugin from there, and possibly update that plugin to default to nightly builds (or a way to only do betas, instead of trunk).

Related: #23348, #33007.

[karmatosed]

There is now a precedence for this after #41316, it's a good idea and something we should work on as a MVP having what we do for Gutenberg.

[SergeyBiryukov]

Related: #54218