[theme-reviewers] Are the rules same for everyone?

[Chip Bennett]

The reason that names like "Twenty Eleven" are protected are because they
are the project core team's chosen nomenclature for the annual core Theme
distributed with WordPress, and there is an obvious need to ensure that the
core-distributed Themes remain identifiable as part of core.

The not-especially-eloquent guideline about "generic" terms was intended to
avoid just this sort of scenario. By allowing a very generic term like
"Responsive" to be used by itself as a Theme name, we have a situation
where either one Theme's identity risks getting diluted/confused with other
Themes, or other developers get prevented from using a valid term in their
Theme names.

"Responsive" is a valid adjective, that describes a useful design feature
of a Theme. To prevent its use in any other Theme, simply because a Theme
named "Responsive" exists would be equivalent to preventing the use of the
word "Black" in any other Theme Name, just because a Theme named "Black"
has been approved, e.g. (may or may not be real Theme names):

* Black
* Piano Black
* Black Widow
* Midnight Black
* Black Tie Affair
* (etc.)

To me, that doesn't make sense, and would overly restrict developers in
name choices.

Regarding common sense: I see differences among these:

* Responsive
* WP Responsive
* Max Responsive Magazine

The second one is in no way distinct from the first, and should not be
accepted. Consider

* Foobar
* WP Foobar

There is no meaningful difference between these names.

But that's not the case with the first and third:

* Responsive
* Max Responsive Magazine

And, as analogous to the above example:

* Black
* Black Tie Affair

So, I think we need to let Theme names that use "responsive" stand,
provided that they are not overtly confusing with "Responsive" (such as "WP
Responsive" would be).

Regards,

Chip


On Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 7:42 AM, Gazpo Themes <themes at gazpo.com> wrote:

> Hello,
> I'm very interested to know about the rules for naming the theme.
>
> A few months ago I submitted my theme with name 'Max Responsive Magazine'.
> It was rejected right away by emiluzelac with following message:
>
> ----
> Themes are not to use related Theme names (e.g. WP Twenty Eleven, Twenty
> Eleven WP, The Twenty Eleven, etc.) in their name.
> ----
>
> This was very surprising to me because 'Responsive' is a very generic
> term, but anyway, I had to remove the word 'Responsive' from it. Here's
> ticket: http://themes.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/8663
>
> I already have a theme called 'Silver Orchid', (both are very general
> words), does it mean you guys should not allow any theme using any of these
> words? I see a recently approved theme with name 'Silver Blue'?
> Not only the above mentioned theme, but there are some other examples
> where theme names have common words in theme.
>
> Therefore I'm very interested to know if no one can ever use the term
> 'Responsive' in the theme name?
>
> Regards,
> Sami.
>
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> theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
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>
>
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