[theme-reviewers] Grandfather Themes?

[Bruce Wampler]

Breaking 10s of thousands of sites is exactly my point.

What kind of message is WordPress delivering to all these end users (and
they are the ultimate customer - please remember that) if theme is updated,
and all of a sudden, the site is broken? Seriously, is that the experience
you want to promote? Really? Who is willing to volunteer to explain to my
thousands of users that their site no longer works because of a WordPress
requirement?

"Even if a site will only be broken until a user installs a plugin" does
not even begin to cover the real world usage environment. How many sites
use automatic updating (e.g. InfiniteWP)? A LOT. How many sites were
developed by a professional, and then turned over to the end user with
instructions to always update your WordPress, themes, and plugins? Again, A
LOT. It is not as simple as installing a plugin for many many users.

Either that, or you leave them with a theme that is not getting any updates.

If blocking the ability to update a theme until it fully meets current
standards is now the new official policy (and it seems pretty clear to me
from Chip's comments that this is true), then requiring this on such sort
notice also seems a bit abrupt. And this policy should now be applied to
every theme submitted for updates - they should all be re-reviewed that
they meet current guidelines.

Or let us do it right - I know in the case of my theme that updating
properly to remove "plugin territory" features will take several months to
do correctly. Interviewing current users to find out the least painful
update path. Implementing the plugin so that it is 100% compatible. Beta
testing. Limited release. I would find it clearly immoral to release such a
drastically changed version of my theme without doing it right. In the mean
time, I need to release occasional bug updates.





> On Tue, Jun 25, 2013 at 3:32 PM, Greg Priday <greg at siteorigin.com> wrote:
>
>> From a user's perspective, what do you all feel would be the best way to
>> update a theme that has "plugin domain" functionality?
>>
>> The best strategy I've thought of is to just include a nag to install the
>> "advanced features" plugin. It just feels risky pushing an update that you
>> know will break 10s of thousands of sites - even if a site will only be
>> broken until a user installs the plugin.
>>
>> Has anyone thought of a better strategy?
>>
>>
>>
>
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