I think we could start with having developers ping this list for requests for niche Themes, so long as the signal-to-noise doesn't increase too much. (I wouldn't expect it to; we don't have that much traffic regarding such Themes. But, of course, this move could prompt more such traffic.)<div>
<br></div><div>The idea for the *Trac keyword* is so that the Reviewers know that the Theme review needs to be handled differently. I think that's fairly critical.</div><div><br></div><div>The idea for the *Tag Filter Tag* was for the benefit of *users* - so that they would have a way to search for a given special-use case (such as landing page Themes, which seems to be the most common example). But also, so that users would have a way to know that a "special use" Theme may not have all expected functionality, and may work differently from what is normally expected. I think this would be a good idea, but certainly not a show-stopper.</div>
<div><br></div><div>If there were a way for REQUIRED notices to print to the generated Trac ticket, that would be a boon - but since the Theme will be new, one of the first things a Reviewer will do will be to run Theme Check, so again: nice to have, but not critical.</div>
<div><br></div><div>As for the Theme documentation requirement: current guidelines require that any extraordinary setup or functionality is required to be documented; I think that requirement would be more, rather than less, important for "niche" Themes.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Aside from that, adherence to remaining Guidelines will largely be on a case-by-case basis, depending on the nature of the special use for which the Theme is designed. So, we'll have to maintain some flexibility, and of course, document all exceptions to the Guidelines in the in-ticket review comments.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Would love to hear some input from some of the other developers on this one...</div><div><br></div><div>Chip<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 6:21 PM, Andrew Nacin <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:wp@andrewnacin.com">wp@andrewnacin.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><div class="im">On Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 3:49 PM, Edward Caissie <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:edward.caissie@gmail.com" target="_blank">edward.caissie@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
</div><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="im"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
I agree the next step should be to get buy-in from WordPress.org et al.; the question is now: whom do we take this to directly?<br>
<br>... or, Otto? Do we just flesh out the idea and have you put it into code/action?<br></blockquote><div><br></div></div><div>Go for it. No one will have an issue with the ability to white-list themes to bypass the automated check. Just make sure there are basic standards in place. To me, that sounds like the ability to appeal to the head theme reviewers to be whitelisted. As an example, I let the initial Quality Control bug tracker theme into the directory after the developer appealed to me, and I agreed it was a good thing to showcase in the directory.</div>
<div><br></div><div>By basic standards, I'm referring to some sort of statement (from the reviewers) that outlines what kind of discretion is used when deciding whether a special-case/niche theme has enough mass appeal and/or ingenius-ness to be included. I don't think the user needs a special tag, or a special readme anything. There's no need to complicate this beyond some super-basic contact/appeal procedure. I would think they should email this mailing list.</div>
<div><br></div><div>I would suggest that the check still occurs and the results end up on Trac, that way a the reviewer can get a good idea about what the theme *does* implement. But that just depends on how Otto goes about it.</div>
<div><br></div><div>I don't think any new tags are necessary, for the upload system or for users. The name and description of the theme is going to be enough of an indication that it's a special-case theme.</div>
</div>
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