[theme-reviewers] Theme requirements for adaptive vs. responsive themes

[Bruce Wampler]

In the recent theme tag discussion, there was clearly recognition of a
technical difference between mobile-adaptive and mobile-responsive themes.
This note is about that technical difference, and not about tag names.

I agree that there is indeed a fundamental difference between adaptive and
responsive presentation of content. In adaptive themes there is often a
need to selectively change the content depending on the device - and if one
is very picky in reading the rules, this violates the general guideline
that themes can't change content.

As a specific example, adaptive layout really needs to includes user
content control, say  shortcodes --  [show_if_mobile] and [hide_if_mobile]
-- to allow the user to select which content should be displayed in which
mode. This is especially important if the content is high-bandwidth, and
the site creator would like to minimize mobile device content download. I
would contend this is an integral part of the theme design, and not plugin
territory. Purely responsive layout cannot do that very easily in many
cases, so the feature is important.

I would like to propose that mobile-adaptive themes be allowed to include
specific adaptive-related shortcodes and other critical design features.
Perhaps require the theme author to document the need for such features at
theme submission time.

Bruce Wampler
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