[theme-reviewers] Requested exemption: Capsule/Capsule Server

[Otto]

On Tue, Jun 18, 2013 at 2:59 PM, Doug Stewart <zamoose at gmail.com> wrote:
> Currently, Alex King and the Crowd Favorite crew are hosting their AWESOME
> theme/app Capsule (and Capsule Server) on SourceForge, as Alex was under the
> impression that it would never clear the Reviewers' requirements. Can we
> navigate this functionality, or do we have to wait for /extend/apps? (Joke!)
>
> http://crowdfavorite.com/capsule/

Special cases for themes certainly exist and we have provisions for
handling them. Basically, email the list about it, get the general
opinion, and talk about what specific things exist in the theme that
wouldn't pass the guidelines.

What does "special case" mean? Basically, I put in an exemption to
allow the theme uploader to ignore Theme Check specifically for that
theme. It still goes through normal review, with reference to the fact
that it has exemptions for specific things.

For example, the Annotum Base theme is a special case. It was created
for the case of moving articles from the default Google Knol service
to WordPress (both .com and self-hosted). As such, it has some rather
specific things in it, like code to make PDFs and special XML handling
and all sorts of crazy. It doesn't pass theme check, but the stuff
that doesn't pass is exempted.

When we added it as a special case, I worked with the authors to
modify some pieces to be more in line with the guidelines, and we
examined the other pieces to determine what was reasonable and so
forth. Now, that was me doing it directly for various reasons (it was
the first special case theme), but ideally that sort of thing should
be handled by the reviewers, here, in public. Better all around.

And hey, some of the things you think might not pass could be examined
and commented upon by the reviewers, perhaps making them more useful
or generalized to the point that they would pass normally anyway.

-Otto