Today, I received a 1 star review from a user on one of my plugins hosted on wordpress.org repository. Which is surely a fake review or the user was having some issue with his connection. The issue could be submitted as a Support thread if he really needed the plugin to work. But no, he came in and left a 1 star review!

This Review made my plugins overall rating to 3.0 where it was 5.0 just before the rating. Point to be noted that the plugin is already active on 800+ Websites (in just about 2 months). There was no such issues with any other users and not even any support thread opened in this preiod.

Here’s the review:

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As you can see from the screenshot, Its really not a matter for leaving 1 star review.

Plugin Link: http://l.themencode.com/ffpwdl

Rating/Review Link: http://l.themencode.com/2

There might be a reason for why the user left this review (I guess):

He might have a similar plugin on wp.org . So, to increase download of that plugin, he left this review from another user account.

Result of this kind of issues ?

I heard about the same issue from many other Developers  who have Theme/Plugin on WordPress.org . This kind of issue disappoints Developers , for why they do not get energy to Develop more and put on wordpress.org.

How can it be prevented ?

There’s a very easy way to prevent this kind of fraud reviews. Here’s my opinion about how it can be prevented:

There can be a Report Review Button beside each of the ratings (For Authors only) , If an author think the rating is not realistic, he’ll submit a report and it will be reviewed by a moderator. Moderator will take step by analyzing the rating and authors comment.

I hope appropriate authority will take this issue seriously and introduce an way to prevent fraud/fake reviews.