[theme-reviewers] Theme Review Feedback at WPTavern Forum

[Otto]

I think that it's good to have a recommended set of development
practices, and that's it's very good to teach people how to debug
their code and how to avoid issues using tools and methods like these.

I'm not so sure that it's good to immediately reject an author because
he did not follow these practices, especially when there's a lack of
followup on most of the trac tickets I've looked at. What I'm seeing
is a lot of cases where the theme needed work, but which probably
never got any of that work nor was the author invited into a wider
discussion on the topic.

I think we all can agree that the review process needs some
improvement. Unlike many people, I don't think the major issue here is
the speed of the review, but the involvement between reviewer and
author, which seems somewhat overly difficult with the current system.

It really is all about education, and I think that could be done in a
much better way. Hopefully we can find ways to improve this process.
The job of the theme reviewer shouldn't just be to act as a
gatekeeper, but to act as a guide.

-Otto


On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 7:36 PM, Chris Olbekson <chris at c3mdigital.com> wrote:
>
> Otto,
> What is your take on the current no depreciated calls requirements and the WP_DEBUG warnings and errors issues?  I was much more active when this list first started and haven't had the time lately to do many reviews but of the reviews I did do, almost all the themes threw errors and warnings with debug set to true.  Some of the authors were able to correct the errors and the themes were approved on resubmission.
> Some theme authors including Ian Stewart appreciated the reviews because it helped them clean up their code or found some things that were over looked.
> The Codex documents and the Theme Checklist were actively discussed on this list and it would have been great to have more input from others like yourself whose opinions are highly respected in the WordPress community.  I welcome the additional support and hope we can work together to make this process better.
> Experienced authors should have access to the SVN as well as members of the review team who can help new authors update their themes through SVN.  Having some of the same features as the core trac with open discussion before tickets are closed would also be a great benefit.
> I agree with Matt's point that the WordPress theme repository should showcase great themes and the review process should be a learning experience for the reviewers and authors.  I have defiantly learned a great deal just from following this list.