[theme-reviewers] Theme names and updates

[Morgan Kay]

This might be slightly off-topic for this list.... but I just ran into a 
problem on a client's site that I have seen happen more than once.  The 
client has a custom theme, and the theme's name is "Polaris."  The 
client was being diligent about doing updates on their site, and 
WordPress told them that they needed to update the Polaris theme, so 
they did.  Unfortunately, "Polaris" is also the name of a theme in the 
WordPress theme repository, which has a later version number than the 
custom theme named "Polaris" on the client's website.  So they thought 
they were updating their current theme, when actually they were 
installing a whole new theme which completely broke their site.

This isn't the first time I have seen this happen.  Apparently WordPress 
only compares the theme name and the version number, and then prompts 
for an update.

So I have two questions here:
1) Is there anything that theme authors who write bespoke themes can do 
to prevent this from happening?  Other than only using really obscure 
names, or giving our themes artificially high version numbers?
2) Can we change how WordPress looks for theme updates so that it checks 
Author name or some other required parameters to make sure that it is 
actually the same theme?  (I know - you're going to tell me to fix it 
myself.  I would actually be happy to do that, but there seem to be some 
policy questions involved here, such as whether authors are likely to 
change their author name or URI, and whether these changes would prevent 
themes from being updated when they should.)

Thanks!
Morgan.

-- 
Morgan Kay
WordPress Alchemists
http://wpalchemists.com

Alchemy Computer Solutions
http://alchemycs.com

Skype: wp-alchemist
206-321-1742