WordPress Professional Standards & Competencies 4 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A client wants to store their customers' credit card numbers in a custom WordPress database table. What is the professional response?
- Build the feature as requested since the client knows their business
- Refuse unless they sign a waiver, then implement it
- Advise against it and recommend PCI-compliant payment processors like Stripe or PayPal (Correct answer)
- Encrypt the numbers using MD5 before storing them
Correct answer: Advise against it and recommend PCI-compliant payment processors like Stripe or PayPal
Storing raw card data violates PCI DSS; professionals must redirect clients to compliant payment processors instead.
Question 2: What is the professional rationale for using child themes instead of modifying a parent theme directly?
- Child themes load faster than parent themes
- Modifications to a parent theme are lost when the theme is updated (Correct answer)
- Child themes are required by the WordPress plugin directory
- Parent themes cannot be legally modified under GPL
Correct answer: Modifications to a parent theme are lost when the theme is updated
Parent theme updates overwrite customizations; child themes preserve modifications across updates.
Question 3: Which is the correct professional approach to handling a client's GDPR data deletion request on their WordPress site?
- Delete only their comment history
- Remove all personally identifiable data from WordPress core tables, plugins, and custom tables (Correct answer)
- Archive the data rather than deleting it
- Refer the client to WordPress.com support
Correct answer: Remove all personally identifiable data from WordPress core tables, plugins, and custom tables
GDPR requires complete erasure of all PII across every data store, not just partial deletion from one location.
Question 4: How should a professional WordPress developer handle a disagreement with a client about a technical approach?
- Implement the client's preferred approach without comment to avoid conflict
- Explain the technical pros and cons in clear non-jargon language, document the discussion, then follow the client's final decision (Correct answer)
- Insist on the technically correct approach regardless of client input
- Escalate immediately to a project manager
Correct answer: Explain the technical pros and cons in clear non-jargon language, document the discussion, then follow the client's final decision
Professionals inform clients clearly, document the discussion, and ultimately respect client decisions on their own projects.
Question 5: What is the professional purpose of a website maintenance retainer agreement with a WordPress client?
- To lock the client into ongoing payments with no defined scope
- To define ongoing services like updates, backups, and security monitoring with clear scope and pricing (Correct answer)
- To transfer all liability for site downtime to the developer
- To prevent clients from accessing the WordPress admin panel
Correct answer: To define ongoing services like updates, backups, and security monitoring with clear scope and pricing
A retainer agreement sets clear expectations for ongoing maintenance services, protecting both client and developer.
Question 6: A WordPress developer discovers a security vulnerability in a popular plugin during client work. What is the professional action?
- Keep it private to gain a competitive advantage
- Exploit it to demonstrate the severity to the client
- Responsibly disclose it to the plugin author and/or the WordPress security team (Correct answer)
- Immediately publish it on social media to warn users
Correct answer: Responsibly disclose it to the plugin author and/or the WordPress security team
Responsible disclosure to the vendor or security team is the ethical standard, giving developers time to patch before public exposure.
Question 7: Which standard practice demonstrates professional code quality in a custom WordPress plugin?
- Mixing PHP, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in a single file for simplicity
- Following WordPress Coding Standards and prefixing all functions, hooks, and classes (Correct answer)
- Using short variable names to reduce file size
- Removing all inline comments to keep code concise
Correct answer: Following WordPress Coding Standards and prefixing all functions, hooks, and classes
WordPress Coding Standards and unique prefixes prevent naming conflicts and make code maintainable for other developers.
WordPress Professional Standards & Competencies 4
A client wants to store their customers' credit card numbers in a custom WordPress database table.
What is the professional response?