[theme-reviewers] Submitting a One-Page Placeholder Theme

[Kirk Wight]

I guess my point is that by considering accepting "niche" themes, we are, in
effect, considering accepting themes that do not support the blog use-case
(Launch Effect doesn't even have a loop, let alone paginate_links). I don't
consider this a bad thing at all, it's awesome - they're all WordPress
themes. I'd love the theme repo to reflect that, with simple placeholder and
specialty themes right beside everything else; it just has to be evident
when browsing the repo (hence the Blog tag).

I think a lot of WordPress users and developers out there now just don't see
a blog as a requisite part of a WordPress site. I think it would be great if
a user could go to the repo, look at the tags and say, "hm, I don't need a
blog, I'll just go with this GenericSimpleBiz theme", and get a theme that
doesn't have unnecessary code.

Of course, I'm playing devil's advocate a bit here; I know it's not a tonne
more effort or a tonne more code to support blog functionality. I also
recognize that a pile more work would be required by Otto, theme reviewers
and lots of other busy people to accept and evaluate this much wider scope
of themes. I just really like what we're saying about WordPress: you can
have any sort of website you want with WordPress, and here are some themes
we stand behind that can help you do it.

And yes, I totally agree with your frustration in the use of the term "CMS";
whoever's responsible for spreading this "its-a-blog-or-a-CMS" mentality
should be sent to bed without dinner.

On 29 October 2011 11:19, Chip Bennett <chip at chipbennett.net> wrote:

> 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.
>
>  We don't need special handling for this use-case. Every Theme in the
> repository should handle it without problem. 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> Chip
>
> On Sat, Oct 29, 2011 at 9:42 AM, Kirk Wight <kwight at kwight.ca> wrote:
>
>> 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.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> 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.
>>
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>>
>>
>
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