[theme-reviewers] Formal Request for Change of Methodology.

Wed Jun 26 09:31:11 UTC 2013

Speaking as a developer, I wholeheartedly agree with Philip. Developers should be given as much leeway as feasible.

Having said that, there are some points I would like to point out as an administrator of websites.
I expect themes to have one major functionality; to display the content in a pleasing and correct way. Most certainly I do not expect themes to incorporate functionality that will break the displaying of content, when switching to another theme. Case in point, I do not expect a theme to use its own shortcodes, switching themes then becomes a nightmare, instead of a breeze.
Even when it is opt-in, for the owner (not necessarily the administrator) of a site it should be easy to change themes, without having to worry about extra things. Themes that allow inserting of scripts, have built-in widgets, just fall short of that standard. Remember, users will use functionalitiy if it is there.

Just to be clear, by breaking I mean that the main content, that what is returned by the_content, is not shown as intended, hence the no no on my administrator side, of shortcodes.

Furthermore, I expect a certain level of quality of the theme code. Developers are human, and they do make mistakes. The main engine, PHP, changes, removes, adds, changes the way functions work. Etcetera. All these things require that troubleshooting should be as easy as possible. This is not only in the interest of the user, but also of the theme developer. I remove themes themes which I can't easily troubleshoot. Another missed opportunity for the developer. 
The lack of requirements on theme documentation is disturbing in my view.

I do not think the current methodology is wrong, actually it is quite good, and in ways better than the methodology used for plugin reviewing, and in ways better than most QA processes I encounter in my job. I regularly encounter problems with plugins, but seldom with themes, that should actually say something about the quality of themes in the WordPress repository.

The problem lies in the implementation. Reviewers are human, and have their own ideas by certain standards. Following the discussion, I bet there are themes that reviewed by reviewer A, and pass, while if they would have been reviewed by reviewer B they would fail. This is no problem in itself, but it reveals some underlying problems in the implementation of the guidelines.  And, more acute, the way the guidelines are explained. To say something in a theme is plugin territory, and thereby rejecting the theme, is plain stupid. One should, at the very least, explain WHY it is plugin territory. And why, given that the guidelines put emphasis on the display functionality, but don't exclude other functionalities, it is a good reason not use theme specific functionality that is considered plugin territory.

There is a great risk that the guidelines will be seen in a legalistic way. This is, in my opinion, somewhat overshooting the idea of the guidelines. Note that the reviewers, and most of the theme developers, are volunteers, doing it besides their regular job. They should be encouraged, not decouraged, by the review process, the guidelines and the way their theme, or review, is appreciated. 

So, long story short, Philip has a good point, but I feel the process should be looked at, not the methodology.
Just my penny.
Sincerely,

Jasper Kips

Op 26 jun. 2013, om 07:43 heeft Emil Uzelac <emil at uzelac.me> het volgende geschreven:

> here* is the thing, not hear, sorry my phone is acting weird! 
> 
> 
> On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 12:41 AM, Emil Uzelac <emil at uzelac.me> wrote:
> So hear is the thing. With the blessings of others, I am thinking that
> Themes should not be "crucified" the way we're doing this now. As
> I was previously expressing, not all things are the "plugin territory".
> 
> My personal methodology is, if nothing breaks, or interferes with the
> core and it's useful to users, let it be, as simple as that.
> 
> Restricting and eliminating rather harmful stuff, will project very
> negatively to Theme authors.
> 
> I don't want to step on anyone's toe here and this is what I believe
> is right, or at least it should be :)
> 
> Emil  
> 
> 
> On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 12:35 AM, Philip M. Hofer (Frumph) <philip at frumph.net> wrote:
> i.e. don't even give it a second glance, that's a feature of the theme
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message----- From: Philip M. Hofer (Frumph)
> Sent: Tuesday, June 25, 2013 10:35 PM
> 
> To: theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
> Subject: Re: [theme-reviewers] Formal Request for Change of Methodology.
> 
> There's no question about it, as long as it passes the theme unit test with
> default settings it would pass right?
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message----- From: Daniel
> Sent: Tuesday, June 25, 2013 10:31 PM
> To: theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
> Subject: Re: [theme-reviewers] Formal Request for Change of Methodology.
> 
> What about themes like my one where you can remove the header and
> footer because your using a bridge like wp-united? Where do those sort
> of things come into play?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 3:29 PM, Philip M. Hofer (Frumph)
> <philip at frumph.net> wrote:
> These are features of a theme, the shortcodes and more are 'features' of the
> theme.
> 
> If they use the theme and use those shortcodes, then that is the theme that
> is using it, to require shortcodes to be cross compatible and in a plugin is
> simply ridiculous.
> 
> The end user, while picking a theme will choose a theme that has features
> that they want.   When they choose another theme that doesn't have those
> previous themes features they miss out, it's not a question of requiring a
> compatibility.
> 
> This also goes with themes that have specialty programming in the way of
> custom post types and the like. - again the data is not lost, it's still
> there, just switching to a different theme will not grant access to it.
> 
> The age of feature rich themes and innovation should be promoted not
> stifled.
> 
> 
> -----Original Message----- From: Harish
> Sent: Tuesday, June 25, 2013 10:24 PM
> To: theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
> Subject: Re: [theme-reviewers] Formal Request for Change of Methodology.
> 
> 
> Good suggestions by Philip (Frumph) however I have to disagree with:
> 
> " the idea that a theme must adhere and be cross compatible with other
> themes in features is a nuance that is unnecessary to worry about."
> 
> Themes do not have to be cross compatible with other themes, but they should
> not be the cause of the end user losing data when changing their themes.
> 
> 2 of the most common issues are shortcodes and custom meta boxes where the
> key  has "_" in front to hide it from the custom meta fields section.
> 
> If theme developers are worried of making things easier for the end user,
> most of these things should not have been in the theme in the first place.
> 
> 
> 
> Regards,
> Harish
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: theme-reviewers [mailto:theme-reviewers-bounces at lists.wordpress.org]
> On Behalf Of Philip M. Hofer (Frumph)
> Sent: Wed 26 June 13 10:41 AM
> To: theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
> Subject: [theme-reviewers] Formal Request for Change of Methodology.
> 
> 1) Remove all requirements and recommendations, change it all to 'best
> practices', do not remove anything in the codex just yet.
> 
> 2) Theme review process.
> * Theme reviewers tag a theme for review. / It already passed the upload
> checker
> * Check theme with the other plugin(s)[1] available for development, check
> it for notices, warnings, fatals and deprecation messages, Pass/Fail
> * Check theme with theme unit test.  Pass/Fail
> * Review the tags, website links, theme name.  Pass/Fail
> 
> It's done, it's reviewed, it's over, if it passed all of those, flag it as
> passing review and live.
> 
> 3) Anything else missing on the above list that is a MUST should be added to
> the list but only if it's a MUST, and can't go live no exception.
> 
> [1] Make the plugins work for the theme review team; add common security
> problems, etc.
> 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 
> This is it, this is all that is needed.     Everything else is icing on the
> cake for best practices.
> 
> 
> Themes are the 'meat and potatoes' of WordPress, the idea that a theme must
> adhere and be cross compatible with other themes in features is a nuance
> that is unnecessary to worry about.   Plugins are made to enhance themes;
> if a plugin doesn't work with a theme the community WILL contact the author;
> 
> they always do.   As long as the theme is up to date with core coding which
> all of the tools at our disposal make you aware of - of which even the
> messages from core will also state things it is unnecessary to do anything
> otherwise.
> 
> // not sure about
> Not sure what Nacin wrote in entirety on the Make site, but having the
> themes that are live and pass the upload process and immediately go live
> again would be a boon; that basically makes it like the theme developer has
> svn access, without having svn access.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> theme-reviewers mailing list
> theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
> http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers
> 
> _______________________________________________
> theme-reviewers mailing list
> theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
> http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers
> _______________________________________________
> theme-reviewers mailing list
> theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
> http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers
> _______________________________________________
> theme-reviewers mailing list
> theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
> http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers
> 
> _______________________________________________
> theme-reviewers mailing list
> theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
> http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers 
> _______________________________________________
> theme-reviewers mailing list
> theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
> http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> theme-reviewers mailing list
> theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
> http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.wordpress.org/pipermail/theme-reviewers/attachments/20130626/7fc8bbc1/attachment.html>