[theme-reviewers] Why the bias?

[Otto]

On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 1:08 PM, Satish Gandham <satish.iitg at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm asking for a solid guidelines, which are fair to everyone, which wont
> let some themes get away.
>
> --Having guidelines which should not be broken will reduce unfair reviews
> and help the community as a whole.


Well, then you won't like this.

The majority of people I've discussed the theme review system with
(notably not any of the existing theme reviewers) have criticized it
as being "not judgmental enough", actually. A large number of theme
authors have expressed to me that they'd prefer the theme review to
also include guidelines about the perceived quality of the theme, as
opposed to being a more or less technical review. The specific phrase
I hear most often from critics of the theme repository is that
approved themes are often "too bloggy".

I don't know whether I agree with them there or not, actually. I do
know that it would be impossible to come up with a good set of
guidelines for that sort of subjective assessment, which is why the
reviews are highly technical in nature at the moment. It seems to me
that the opinion of the review team is largely in favor of getting
things working technically first, before really getting down to any
sort of subjective assessments. I do agree that that should be
priority.

-Otto