[theme-reviewers] A RE-EXAMINATION OF THEME REQUIREMENTS - AN ESSAY

Tue Jun 28 03:10:53 UTC 2011

Hey Tyler,

While I don't do any theme reviews, I agree with you on what you said. I
have also been watching this and I feel that most of it could have been
sorted out in private.

I don't know if anyone agree with me, but I'm sick of this debating and it
would be nice if everyone can put it to rest.

I would like to say the the theme review have saved me several times, mainly
because of the fact that I have written a theme option page that got no
error checking and could have hacked by using xss and so on.

If there one thing that I would like to change, I would love to be able to
say that the footer credit can't be removed otherwise support would be
affected, but I can't since it take away freedom.

Other than that, got no real issue with the theme review checklist.

Regards,
Daniel Fenn

On Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 12:58 PM, Tyler Cunningham <
seizedpropaganda at gmail.com> wrote:

>  Hey everyone, I've been following this ongoing exchange for a few days
> and although I may be flamed by some of you for this response, I also think
> that a lot of you will agree with me on these points:
>
> Everyone has the right to his or her opinion. Bruce, Chip, Otto, and
> everyone else is entitled to voice their thoughts and feelings and I respect
> everyone for doing so. However, at this point I think we can all agree that
> this is probably not the best forum for this anymore and that it should
> really be dealt with privately between the parties involved.
>
> While this has been going on, the Trac Ticket Request Queue<http://make.wordpress.org/themes/about/trac-ticket-request-queue/>has gone completely unmanaged with at least four individuals (myself
> included) waiting to be assigned a new theme and waiting for their existing
> reviews to be moderated by a full-fledged member. There is a serious
> back-log of themes right now, and while I understand everyone is
> volunteering their time, the fact that there are those of us waiting for the
> chance to be able to volunteer our time and help out is a bit frustrating.
>
> I simply feel that a lot of the time that has been spent debating issues
> that are quite frankly pretty clear cut to begin with has not been the best
> use of everyone's time, and I sincerely hope that we can get back to the
> business at hand which is reviewing themes.
>
> Regards,
>
> Tyler Cunningham
>
> On Monday, June 27, 2011 at 7:48 PM, Chip Bennett wrote:
>
> Replies inline.
>
> On Mon, Jun 27, 2011 at 9:29 PM, Bruce Wampler <brucewampler at gmail.com>wrote:
>
> GRANDFATHERING EXISTING THEMES - NEW POINT
>
> One more important argument for grandfathering themes, pointed out to me by
> one of
> my thousands of users:
>
> For the many many thousands of users of existing themes, it is critical to
> allow them to
> be updated. One of the most important things for users is the theme they
> use. Being
> forced to change themes because it is not being updated is one of the most
> traumatic experiences a typical WordPress user can face.
>
>
> Agreed here. The user experience degrades significantly the longer a Theme
> goes without being updated, while WordPress continues to evolve.
>
>
> It is beyond doubt that the new, very restrictive submission rules
>
>
> There is nothing new. There is nothing particularly restrictive. Can you
> provide counter-examples?
>
>
> will prevent a large
> number of existing theme authors from updating their themes.
>
>
> There is nothing *preventing* the developers of current Themes from
> submitting updates. Can you provide counter-examples?
>
>
> Thus, strictly from
> the end user's stand point, it is unfair, even devastating to prevent
>
>
> There is nothing *preventing* the developers of current Themes from
> submitting updates. Can you provide counter-examples?
>
>
> long existing themes
> from submitting updates or to be forced into extensive re-writes to meet
> the newest
> requirements.
>
>
> Quite frankly, some Themes *need* extensive re-writes - that is, unless you
> think that end users remain best-served by using one of the myriad
> Kubrick-based Themes extant in the Repository - Themes that don't support
> custom Menus, threaded/paged comments, Widgets, etc.?
>
>
> And unless I totally misunderstand the point of WordPress coders,
> plugin authors, and theme authors, the reason we are all here is to provide
> a great
> free web building tool for people all over the world.
>
> So, I repeat my suggestion that there be a fairly liberal update policy for
> previously
> approved themes - perhaps requiring only support for the most important new
> features
> of new versions of WP (such as the 3.0 custom menus), or provably severe
> security
> issues (such as nonce).
>
>
> What requirements, specifically, would you *exclude* from such
> "grandfathered" Themes?
>
>
> Otherwise, thousands upon thousands of WP users are likely
> to be negatively affected as more and more theme authors are unable to
> modify
> their themes to meet the latest requirements of the month.
>
>
> Let's be honest: thousands upon thousands of WP users are *already*
> negatively impacted, because they are using Themes that have been in the
> Repository for 2 or 3 years without a single update. The primary problem
> isn't Themes submitted by developers who attempt to keep their Themes
> updated, but rather the Themes submitted once and then abandoned.
>
> And can you please stop with the "latest requirements of the month"
> assertions? They are utterly specious, and unproductive. Again, here is
> the revision history of the Theme Review Guidelines<http://codex.wordpress.org/index.php?title=Theme_Review&action=history> -
> editorial changes, and all. Does it really look like it's being changed as
> frequently as you keep asserting?
>
>
> The fact that many of
> the newest requirements have only been enforced since March
>
>
> NO. FULLSTOP.
>
> Those requirements were enforced BEFORE March, just as they were enforced
> AFTER March. The only change was that the uploader script started rejecting
> Themes on ALREADY EXISTING, required issues.
>
> Here is the full list of actual changes in March<http://make.wordpress.org/themes/guidelines/changes-wp-3-1/>(one month after release of WordPress 3.1). We established some guidelines
> for handling of Post Formats (new in WP 3.1), and finalized some other
> guidelines that had been under "draft" consideration for months. We started
> requiring the License header tags, required Themes not to use TimThumb (with
> an allowance for case-by-case consideration), explicitly called out that
> "Upsell" Themes may be subject to additional scrutiny, and established some
> guidelines for handling of favicons.
>
> Now, as far as I can tell, not a bit of that impacted your Theme.
>
>
> likely indicates the
> fact that I'm having such difficulties updating my previously approved
> theme is only
> the leading edge of a big issue.
>
> Again: your experience is atypical. There are not that many Themes doing
> anything extensive enough to necessitate using file operations such as
> fopen().
>
> To be sure: we've had our fair share of issues, and caused frustration for
> developers. But, to my knowledge, *most* of those issues have been addressed
> and resolved.
>
> Chip
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