I don't agree. A site that doesn't have a blog doesn't constitute a "niche"; rather, it is a use-case that is built-in to core. Using WordPress "as a CMS" (nb: I detest this phrase; WordPress IS a CMS, no matter *how* it is used - and it is almost always intended to mean "without a blog") requires nothing more than creating a static Page to serve as the Front Page, changing the "Front Page Displays" setting to "static page", assigning the appropriate static page, and then NOT assigning a posts page. Easy peasy.<div>
<br></div><div><div><span style="background-color: transparent; "> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; ">We don't need special handling for this use-case. Every Theme in the repository should handle it without problem. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; ">By default, repository-hosted Themes are expected to handle this use case; that's why we have Guidelines related to display of post metadata and "no comments" type text on static pages.</span></div>
<div><br></div><div>I see no practical reason for a publicly distributed Theme NOT to account for the blog use-case. If we've not adequately covered the non-blog use case in the Guidelines, we can always revisit them.</div>
<div><br></div><div>As for the definition of "niche" Themes: they really do need to be an extraordinary use. At this point, it's probably a "know it when we see it" kind of thing. I think the "landing page" use case and the "ticket system" use case are good, instructive examples.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Chip<br><div><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Oct 29, 2011 at 9:42 AM, Kirk Wight <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:kwight@kwight.ca">kwight@kwight.ca</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div>What distinguishes "niche" themes from "regular" themes is often one thing: only partial or no implementation of blog functionality. As far as I can tell, most of the checks from Theme Check and the uploader rely on the theme being usable as a blog.</div>
<div><br></div><div>This summer, we found out from the user survey that a lot of developers use WordPress for sites that don't even have a blog component (just a "CMS", for lack of a better term) . To me, niche themes are simply themes that, for whatever reason, choose not to implement full blog functionality.</div>
<div><br></div><div>We could add a tag filter under Features that is just "blog". If this tag exists, the uploader and Theme Check plugins check according to the current criteria. If not, a simpler context can be used (presence of readme.txt, etc). Obviously this would require rewriting the uploader and theme eval plugins to react conditionally, but it would seem simpler and more elegant to me than getting in to theme slugs, white-listing specific users, and trying to create specific tag filters for each non-standard use-case.</div>
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