[theme-reviewers] Prioritizing The Review Queue by Developer

Wed Apr 10 11:50:46 UTC 2013

In all fairness, the system isn't going to sustain itself forever relying
on a volunteer-basis anyways, period.

Let's not forget that WordPress is a business, the success of its
monetization relies on a lot of things including everything we all do,
whether reviewing, contributing themes and plugins or both.

Recently, Responsive, a theme that needs no introduction was taken from the
free .org repo and made available on .com. While they don't sell Responsive
directly this is a huge deal that leads to more .com signups that without a
doubt leads to more upsells to premium .com features. While the explanation
of the move is a littler more superficial, it's still an undeniable perk.

I'm not complaining or pointing fingers or anything of the sort mind you,
this is great for everyone, we all benefit. These are all good things.

I don't think all volunteers should be paid by any means, but there's no
doubt in my mind that all the admins should be hired and paid to dedicate
time to the project like a full time job.

I can't speak for all the admins, especially what work goes on behind the
scenes, but I can without a doubt say Chip should be hired on. I'm not
speaking for Chip, I'm sure he'll graciously continue to volunteer purely
out of his interest in the project, but he's not expendable.

You can't argue, well it's his choice to volunteer, because that was all
transcended a long time ago. Admins like Chip are a backbone to the
day-to-day operational of this beast and if the admins dropped out it would
crumble. They aren't just helpful, they are necessary.

To keep up with the demand, WordPress needs to step up and hire the admins
and get them to dedicate to the project full time. That is a realistic
solution of substance that is a no-brainer. Any other ideas of trying to
"make this work better" are all half-measures.

Bryan Phillip Hadaway

Web & Graphic Designer
calmestghost.com
bhadaway at gmail.com

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On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 5:29 AM, Greg Priday <greg at siteorigin.com> wrote:

> I'm not sure that this would promote favoritism, especially if the
> ordering is completely automated. It also wouldn't change anything
> about the review process, only the order in which the themes are
> reviewed. If I found an issue in one of @automattic's themes, I'd
> gladly let them know ;)
>
> I agree that first come, first serve is ideal. The problem is that we
> can't view our pool of reviewers as a black box that gobbles up
> tickets and spits out feedback. There are very few active reviewers
> working against a constantly growing queue. My solutions might not be
> the best ones, but we do need to come up with a solution to the
> problem.
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 1:12 PM, Bryan Hadaway <bhadaway at gmail.com> wrote:
> > This would promote favoritism, whether intended or not.
> >
> > Review order and queue should remain relevant to the theme itself on a
> > "first come, first serve" basis.
> >
> > And the review of a theme should only be based on the merit of that
> specific
> > theme and have nothing to do with the developer, whether they're new,
> > seasoned, have zero themes in the repo or a hundred.
> >
> >
> >
> > Bryan Phillip Hadaway
> >
> >
> > Web & Graphic Designer
> > calmestghost.com
> > bhadaway at gmail.com
> >
> >
> > Socialize: Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn | Google+
> >
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 5:04 AM, Greg Priday <greg at siteorigin.com>
> wrote:
> >>
> >> If you look at the new themes (#4) queue, Around 75% of the tickets
> >> (at the time of my research) are from new theme developers, without
> >> any approved themes on .org. These themes are waiting in the same
> >> queue as established developers with lots of approved themes like
> >> @automattic (23 themes), @d5creation (9 themes), etc.
> >>
> >> In my experience, established developers have a much higher chance of
> >> having a high quality issue-free theme. I'm sure someone could analyze
> >> all the tickets on track find the exact relationship of number of
> >> themes to approval rate.
> >>
> >> I'm not hating on new developers. We all had to start somewhere, and
> >> there definitely are diamonds in the rough.
> >>
> >> I burned out a little on reviewing themes because searching through
> >> poorly written code for the same handful of issues is mind numbing.
> >> The highlight of my day was finding someone who actually checked the
> >> theme review guidelines instead of just tweaking their theme until
> >> they made it past the theme check. I'm sure that's the case for a lot
> >> of us.
> >>
> >> We simply don't have the reviewer resources to make this a priority.
> >>
> >> Solutions:
> >>
> >> * Order the theme review queues first by number of approved themes
> >> from a given developer, then date. This will allow us to focus on
> >> established developers first, then get around to finding the
> >> diamond-in-the-rough new developers (I'm not sure this is possible in
> >> trac though).
> >>
> >> * Screen new developers with a quiz that ensures they understand the
> >> guidelines. Even 20 multiple choice questions covering the most common
> >> issues would go a long way.
> >>
> >> Side Notes:
> >>
> >> Interestingly, if you look at the #3 queue (previously reviewed), only
> >> 50% of the tickets are from new developers. Much less than the 75% in
> >> #4. This is some indication of the drop out rate of new devs vs
> >> established devs.
> >>
> >> --
> >> I make free WordPress themes
> >> http://siteorigin.com
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> theme-reviewers mailing list
> >> theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
> >> http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers
> >
>
>
>
> --
> I make free WordPress themes
> http://siteorigin.com
> _______________________________________________
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