The third step for shared terms: elimination

You may even call it… termination. Okay, I’m sorry. This is from Boone Gorges:

Work on the taxonomy roadmap, started in earnest during the 4.1 dev cycle, continues to chug along for WordPress 4.3. We’ve been focusing on the elimination of shared terms: terms in different taxonomies that share the same term_id and thus the same row in the wp_terms database table. In 4.1, we stopped creating shared terms. In 4.2, we began splitting existing taxonomy terms when those terms were updated.

In 4.3, we’ll take the final step. When a WordPress site upgrades to 4.3, all existing shared terms will be split.

Toward that end, I’d like to make (a) a final warning to plugin authors, and (b) a plea for help from taxonomy mavens and those who maintain very large and complex WordPress installations.

Plugin developers and client services providers should take note that term splitting is entering its third stage in WordPress 4.3. Boone thinks there will be a lot more work dealing with the issue in 4.3 than there was in 4.2, and is asking for help from developers.

He’d really like developer feedback on Trac ticket #30261, especially from folks with lots of terms, big multisite installs, and custom database update routines. But any eyes are good eyes.

With the ultimate carrot on a stick for WordPress developers — term meta in core WordPress — Boone asks for help with the “hard stuff” in 4.3, “so that we can make all of your taxonomy dreams come true in the next couple releases.”