[theme-reviewers] Webmaster Tools IDs - plugin territory?

[Fränk Klein]

On Mon, 15 Jul 2013 23:54:33 -0500, Emil Uzelac <emil at uzelac.me> wrote:

> Authors that offer this as an optional feature via Theme Options
> should not be allowed to include them with their Themes! Why?
> 
> I really don't see the reason to ban this from Themes. Recommend,
> sure, let's do that, but to say no, you cannot, is just wrong :)
> 
> Excluding this from Themes (*in case that author does not fork*
> *into a plugin*) will "break" the Theme and that user experience we
> talked about will be a terrible one. Not to mention the author.
> 
> So in this case it's fine to do that because that's the guideline
> but it is not if the same user decides to switch the Theme and
> loses their features. Sorry I don't buy that.
> 
> *Cease and desist :(*

Themes are not the place for such features. As Justin said this is clear-cut plugin territory and as such these features need to be removed.

I'm okay with "recommending" the removal of such features, but only for already accepted themes and for a limited amount of time. Having two different sets of standards for old and new themes is not only extremely confusing for reviewers, but also unfair to other theme developers so this needs to be a temporary measure. Let's give theme authors three months to adapt their themes and after that the rule will be enforced the same for new and old themes.

You are right that if an author decides to first implement such features and then simply removes them without extracting the code into a plugin, this will be a terrible user experience. There is little that we can do about that as every theme author needs to care about his own user base. The only thing that we can prevent is the bad user experience when switching themes, so we should focus on that.