I'm seeing this as an opportunity to put into the process something along the lines of:<br><br>"All Guidelines are subject to exception, at the discretion of the Theme Review team, for compelling reasons presented by the author such as special purpose themes and will be considered on a case-by-case scenario."<br>
<br>Perhaps not the best wording, yet, but starting with your idea, Chip, and expanding upon it to take into consideration the unknown potential of a creative theme author's ideas.<br><br>The idea is to give theme authors the idea to open a dialogue regarding what the theme is designed to do and have it reviewed with that in mind.<br>
<br><br>Cais.<br>
<div></div><br><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 5:26 PM, Chip Bennett <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:chip@chipbennett.net">chip@chipbennett.net</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<div class="gmail_quote"><div><div></div><div class="h5">On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 4:07 PM, Otto <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:otto@ottodestruct.com" target="_blank">otto@ottodestruct.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<div>On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 3:53 PM, Chip Bennett <<a href="mailto:chip@chipbennett.net" target="_blank">chip@chipbennett.net</a>> wrote:<br>
> Likewise with Widgets, we should have a wider discussion regarding whether<br>
> or not it should be removed. My initial take is that it is all manageable by<br>
> the end user, and additional feed types can be added via plugin (or the<br>
> Theme), and implementing the default feed support doesn't detract.<br>
</div>> ...<br>
<div>> It might be instructive to get some examples of some of these<br>
> special-purpose Themes. The only one I've seen so far - a "Coming Soon"<br>
> Theme, is (as Frumph pointed out) something that can be managed via Plugin,<br>
> using any Theme.<br>
<br>
</div>I think this is rather beside the point. I use a "coming soon" theme<br>
on a few sites. It's handy.<br>
<br>
The fact of the matter is that themes and plugins are not that<br>
different. I can make a plugin which redirects a couple of hooks and<br>
completely bypasses the theme system to replace it with a theme in the<br>
plugin directory. Big deal. It doesn't make any different whether it's<br>
a theme or a plugin, except that themes tend to be about looks and<br>
plugins tend to be about function.<br>
<br>
"Tend" being the operative word there. If I am looking to put a comic<br>
strip system on my blog, I'm going to look for a theme that makes it<br>
easy for me to do that, because comic strips are very visual.<br>
<br>
Whether something should be a theme or a plugin is really a judgement<br>
call, and not everybody has the same judgement. If somebody makes a<br>
special purpose theme, then the purpose of the theme should be taken<br>
into account. A coming soon theme, for example, needs no feeds, no<br>
comments, no post loop. But it's still perfectly valid to do it as a<br>
theme and not as a plugin.<div><div><a href="http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers" target="_blank"></a></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div></div></div><div>Without getting into the specific merits and arguments... just a general question: what if we added a blanket statement that certain review Guidelines could be subject to exception, at the discretion of the Theme Review team, for "special purpose" Themes?</div>
<div><br></div><div>Chip? </div></div><br>
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<br></blockquote></div><br>