[theme-reviewers] Formal Request for Change of Methodology.
Philip M. Hofer (Frumph)
philip at frumph.net
Wed Jun 26 14:45:05 UTC 2013
Agreed. The premise to increase the productivity of the tools used vs. the amount of time a volunteer is available is a very merit able route to take; while also increasing the innovation and continuation of feature rich themes.
From: Edward Caissie
Sent: Wednesday, June 26, 2013 5:38 AM
To: WP Theme Reviewers Mailing List
Subject: Re: [theme-reviewers] Formal Request for Change of Methodology.
Although Frumph's suggestion might be considered extreme by some, I am having a tough time not agreeing with it as a whole (if it was to be implemented it would likely need a tweak or three, but the ideals are sound) ... but the greatest issue always seems to come back around to the core nature of the reviewers: we are all volunteers.
I know I have considered it, and suggested it in the past; I know it has been discussed from time to time within the community; and, I know there is interest from the theme authors in it coming to fruition ... the "it" in this case is a "paid" WordPress team of reviewers that are specifically tasked with maintaining the theme repository, guidelines, processes, etc. We, as volunteers, all have to pay the bills and as such our time is at a premium.
We may be gaining great insights and invaluable knowledge of WordPress as well as the satisfaction of being able to give back to the community in a meaningful manner but in the real world we still have to pay those bills ... and prioritize accordingly. The idea of adding additional "admins" to help with the workload is great *and* being seriously looked at *and* implemented but will it be enough? Time will tell, but we are falling victim to time as it is.
Edward Caissie
aka Cais.
On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 8:01 AM, devcorn <wp at devcorn.com> wrote:
I just want to add to Greg, I read there was some controversy that theme developer should not use Sponsored links on public page blah blah.. I believe then the community might have decided for strict human reviews.. but we already have theme check plugin and if we don't go in detail for plugin territory stuff then we can automate the whole theme review process.
why the discrimination with plugin and themes, a plugin developer can overwrite whole theme engine and can control the content ( Coming Soon, Launch pad, Mobile theme plugins are some to name)... and as Greg mentioned they don't need any human intervention to get it approved.. but If a new theme is submitted , it has to wait for close to a month and if it misses something then again the next review will need atleast 2 weeks or so and it goes on..
I am not sure what will be decided for plugin territory stuff but we should remove the human intervention and this time consuming review process.... Let's fully automate it.... or something that will show the theme as soon as it pass the automated tests.. it will be encouraging for developers and keep them interested.. I know how great it feels when the download stats increase and people ask question or request a feature.. that's the beauty of opensource.
WordPress theme directory is a starting place for a newbie and I have seen developers losing interest due to this long approval process.
Thanks
Ash
On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 2:44 PM, Greg Priday <greg at siteorigin.com> wrote:
Developing my WordPress plugin is an absolute dream. It was first approved within a few days. I can push updates via SVN in seconds, get feedback from users within minutes and have bug fixes done within hours. This keeps development flowing which is great for me and my users.
In contrast, a new theme can take months to get approved. This gap means there's always a code relearning overhead when I start fixing/enhancing my themes based on user feedback.
Even updates can take a week or more to go live. A lot of my support is telling users that they have to hang tight for the next update to go live.
I'm not sure why themes and plugins are treated so differently. Are plugin devs just more trustworthy ;)
That said. Some advice for all theme devs. Use _s.
On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 7:43 AM, Emil Uzelac <emil at uzelac.me> wrote:
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.
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I make free WordPress themes
http://siteorigin.com
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