[theme-reviewers] So many themes are still not live

Tammie Lister karmatosed at gmail.com
Sun Oct 12 22:18:31 UTC 2014


*hat tip to Emil.

Andre, the theme review world needs all types so you'd fit in well. A
little known fact but do you know what goes reeealllly well with a Mocha?
Your first theme review ;)

Thanks
Tammie

I will read over the handbook link that Tammie gave me….however, before I
do that,  I really need to go for a Starbucks mocha!  Grande with hazelnut,
low fat, no whip, extra hot.







*From:* theme-reviewers [mailto:theme-reviewers-bounces at lists.wordpress.org]
*On Behalf Of *Jose Castaneda
*Sent:* October-12-14 3:09 PM
*To:* Discussion list for WordPress theme reviewers.
*Subject:* Re: [theme-reviewers] So many themes are still not live



There is always room! Think of it as another art form. ;)



On Sun, Oct 12, 2014 at 3:04 PM, Styled Themes <social at styledthemes.com>
wrote:

Thanks Tammie…as I mentioned, I’ve considered it a few times.  I’ve been
working on another project for the bulk of this year, but I will give the
reviewer idea some more thought. I consider myself more of a designer than
a developer, but I’m sure there’s room for designers too. I’ve been
creating WP themes for about 5 years now, before it was Joomla for 6
years…although I only do WordPress now, so not to worry J



- Andre



*From:* theme-reviewers [mailto:theme-reviewers-bounces at lists.wordpress.org]
*On Behalf Of *Tammie Lister
*Sent:* October-12-14 2:53 PM


*To:* Discussion list for WordPress theme reviewers.
*Subject:* Re: [theme-reviewers] So many themes are still not live



Hi Andre



:)



Time wise it's hard to be exact, the more you do the quicker you get. Also
just doing one a week makes an impact. Every single review matters. I'd
love you to do more than one, but every little bit helps.



You can find out more here's:

https://make.wordpress.org/themes/handbook/about/join-the-team/



I look forward to you starting to review. Feel free to contact me if you
need any help while you are starting. Each new reviewer also has a mentor,
so you will be in good hands.



Thanks

Tammie


On Sunday, October 12, 2014, Styled Themes <social at styledthemes.com> wrote:

Hi Tammie,



It sounds like you want me to join the team and become a theme reviewer…I’m
guessing it’s the 3 times you asked, haha J



Anyway, I’ve thought about being a reviewer a few times before. If I did
jump in, I would want to make sure I have the available time to do it. Just
how long does it take on average to do a review anyway?



Andre







*From:* theme-reviewers [mailto:theme-reviewers-bounces at lists.wordpress.org
<theme-reviewers-bounces at lists.wordpress.org>] *On Behalf Of *Tammie Lister
*Sent:* October-12-14 2:31 PM
*To:* Discussion list for WordPress theme reviewers.
*Subject:* Re: [theme-reviewers] So many themes are still not live



So styled themes, your comment brings up one point right off. You say:



"I’m not a reviewer, so it’s hard for me to say anything about the theme
reviewing process and what  gets missed..."



My one question to you is, why are you not a reviewer? Solving things
starts with people who submit themes also being reviewers. From there we
can start building things. Why aren't you a reviewer? What can we do to get
you to be a reviewer?



Time to do one review can be found by anyone, so let's get you reviewing.
Let's start seeing how you can be at the heart of making the review process
better for everyone.



Thanks

Tammie

On Sunday, October 12, 2014, Styled Themes <social at styledthemes.com> wrote:

I agree Justin, a little more consistency and fairness is part of the
experience. I also agree that in a perfect world, theme developers should
have the mindset that we’re here to “give back” to the community by
providing and improving on FREE themes and SUPPORT for the community.



I know that my own goal is to simply provide quality free themes to the
community. For such a long time I’ve seen too many plain and boring themes
listed (sorry, but it’s true), and I wanted to see more themes that have
more visual impact that competes with premium theme sites. So I decided to
submit themes. Of course, there’s always room for improvement, even with my
themes, but I’m starting to see other theme developers submit themes that
are much better than before (which I am glad to see). The end-user doesn’t
care that code is aligned perfectly, or that functions are prefixed with
the theme’s name; they download and use themes based on how the theme looks
and what features it offers so that it’s going to benefit their website.
Yes, code quality is critical, but it should not be the only factor.



I’m not a reviewer, so it’s hard for me to say anything about the theme
reviewing process and what  gets missed, or what needs improving on.
Perhaps a few things I could say and/or agree on:



1.       Guidelines seem to be spread out across the universe and sometimes
contradict each other

2.       Guidelines should be written in a way that “new” inexperienced
reviewers/developers can understand terminology and what something means.

3.       Review checklist…make sure there is just “one” list in one
location. Again, it’s like guidelines, everything is spread out and hard to
find or to confirm that something stated is up to date and accurate

4.       In the past, I’ve found that a reviewer says one thing while
another will say something otherwise different, or not even part of the
review guidelines. An official review checklist is needed and needs to be
followed without straying off. Most times, it’s because the reviewer
honestly did not know or was a aware of any changes to the review checklist
or guidelines.



What I would like to see is the possibility of a three tier review process:



(1)    Visual review of the overall theme

(2)    Code review of the theme, if it passes the first tier

(3)    Lead (admin) final approval for inclusion



The review process is strictly code based, and it really should be based on
both visual and code. People who come to the repository don’t care that
code is aligned, or that functions are prefixed with the theme’s slug, they
choose themes strictly on how a theme looks and what features it has. They
also want to know that they will get support when needed without waiting
too long.



There’s so much potential for the repository, but there is definitely room
for improvement everywhere. I’d like to see the repository grow into a
source of providing free high quality themes that can compete with
commercial sites. I’d even like to see the same kind of page structure for
themes as plugins have. I’d like to see the Preview button load an actual
demo of the theme…which brings me to the idea that any theme that gets
submitted, needs to have an actual demo website to showcase that theme; the
current preview is well….pathetic.

































*From:* theme-reviewers [mailto:theme-reviewers-bounces at lists.wordpress.org
<theme-reviewers-bounces at lists.wordpress.org>] *On Behalf Of *Justin Tadlock
*Sent:* October-12-14 12:52 PM
*To:* Discussion list for WordPress theme reviewers.
*Subject:* Re: [theme-reviewers] So many themes are still not live



Personally, I'd love to make things a little more consistent and fair.
But, I want to make something clear to everyone.  We're not here to promote
your theme or to make sure your theme gets its time in the spotlight.  What
we do here is for the benefit of WordPress users.  Your reasons for
submitting a theme don't necessarily need to be altruistic, but we have to
treat it as such.



With that said, there are ways of making things more consistent.  This all
starts with reviews.  The reason we (the admins) get backed up is because
we're still having to perform full reviews on themes that are already
approved.  In a more ideal scenario, we'd do a check to make sure things
look pretty good and mark the theme live.



But, we don't have an ideal scenario at the moment.  I can't remember the
last time I didn't reopen an approved ticket.  Our initial reviews are
overlooking major things, even just outright broken code.  I rarely have to
activate a theme to see these problems.  I just open up the theme files,
and they're right there in my face.



If we want to talk about "fairness" and so on, let's talk about the real
problems first.  What can we do to improve our review process?  Any
improvements here will trickle down and improve the entire system.



A few of the areas I see that both theme authors and our reviewers could
improve in are:



1) Security.  This is particularly relevant with theme options and custom
widgets.  Is there something we can be doing to improve this area?  It's a
major blocker for themes.  If it were up to me, we'd ban anything that
didn't use the theme customizer (except in special cases).  I believe that
would cut back on so many problems because it'd limit a lot of custom code
used to build settings pages.



2) Understanding the difference between "content generation" (plugin
territory) and "content presentation" (theme territory).  Basically, don't
use custom post types, taxonomies, or metadata to allow the theme's users
to create content.



3) License/copyright.  We've improved leaps and bounds in this area, but
there shouldn't be any reason one of the admins should be reopening a
ticket for a license/copyright issue.  This is probably the first thing
reviewers need to look at.



And, these are just some of the major things.  I'd love for us to be at a
point where we're pushing for better things like proper translation
support, accessibility, and so on.



Let's focus on continuing to improve the overall process.  Are there
tutorials that y'all would like to see to help improve things?  I'd be more
than happy to write those or dig an existing one up.  Can we make things
clearer in the guidelines?



Maybe our focus should be on building tools for theme authors to submit
better themes.  Any plugin ideas to help with this?  Or, are we simply not
putting the existing tools into theme authors' hands?



Other things I think we need to improve is the theme guidelines
themselves.  The content of the guidelines are fine, but finding a specific
guideline kind of sucks.  I don't even know what page each guideline is
on.  I just happen to know most of them by memory and rarely need to look
them up.


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