[theme-reviewers] Question: Someone Want to Take Benefit From a'Top Reviewer of the Month'.

Trent Lapinski trent at cyberchimps.com
Wed Jan 29 20:24:48 UTC 2014 

As the owner of a theme shop (CyberChimps) being forced by the .org admins to now pay employees to do theme reviews I inherently hate that we are being forced win the contest to keep our themes featured. 

We use to do theme reviews to contribute to the community but now that we're being forced to do them to be able to afford to support our themes it feels more like extortion then a community contribution.

Responsive has had over a million downloads, and is the most people theme on .org that isn't a default theme. We were featured for some time, but were unfeatured without explanation and saw a dramatic decline in downloads, and revenue. Now we're stuck maintaining a massive theme that is no longer supporting itself, providing support and maintaining a popular theme like Responsive isn't cheap. You'd think .org would want to reward their most popular theme, instead we're having to delay the release of 2.0, and are being forced to rededicate our resources to win the review contest so we can get downloads and revenue back up so we can even continue development.

We point blank have asked .org admins what we can do to be considered for being featured again and there answer was to pay people to win the contest every month. A contest that isn't even being maintained monthly, that is being gamed by other theme shops.

What was once a community contribution has been turned into a confusing nightmare. We can't even get themes to review because other theme shops are assigning themselves everything ticket immediately. The system is absolutely being gamed, and soon the cost of entry won't even be feasible for CyberChimps, so I have no idea how anyone else is going to even have a chance.

We should be rewarding the best and most popular themes, not extorting theme shops and preventing everyone else from being featured. Theme reviews should be a community contribution and have nothing to do with featured themes.  

-Trent
CEO CyberChimps Inc. 
Sent from my iPad

> On Jan 29, 2014, at 11:49 AM, Srikanth Koneru <tskk79 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Not possible for an individual to compete against the might of theme shops. They can have 4 guys reviewing 4 themes simultaneously.
> Was this vote admin only vote? don't recall it on the list.
> 
> 
>> On Thu, Jan 30, 2014 at 1:14 AM, Edward Caissie <edward.caissie at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I was originally out-voted on not allowing "theme shops" have one account for all of their employees to use as I was concerned it would create an "unfair advantage" for them to choose a Featured Theme (and why wouldn't they choose their own?) so there is not much more I can add to this conversation except to say I agree for the most part with Otto's responses.
>> 
>> Edward Caissie
>> aka Cais.
>> 
>> 
>>> On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 2:21 PM, Philip M. Hofer (Frumph) <philip at frumph.net> wrote:
>>> Could always have the random themes that display be pulled by date as well, max 1 year since last update sort of thing.
>>>  
>>>  
>>>  
>>> From: Jose Castaneda
>>> Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2014 11:14 AM
>>> To: Discussion list for WordPress theme reviewers.
>>> Subject: Re: [theme-reviewers] Question: Someone Want to Take Benefit From a'Top Reviewer of the Month'.
>>>  
>>> I think the issue that arose was exploiting the system by reviewing that persons theme regardless of position in the queue of tickets.
>>>  
>>> At least that is my take. I received a similar email about two months back. I never responded, just deleted it. 
>>> 
>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>> 
>>>> On Jan 29, 2014, at 11:01 AM, Rohit Tripathi <rohitink at live.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> A Very Good Point raised by Emil.
>>>> 
>>>> Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2014 12:52:26 -0600
>>>> From: emil at uzelac.me
>>>> To: theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
>>>> Subject: Re: [theme-reviewers] Question: Someone Want to Take Benefit From a 'Top Reviewer of the Month'.
>>>> 
>>>> I am with Chip here, paying your employee or employ someone
>>>> is 100% the same, no difference whatsoever.
>>>>  
>>>> The moment we said yes to commercial Theme shops to have their
>>>> people review tickets under a single username, is the moment we allowed
>>>> this very thing as well. Not sure what is the problem?
>>>>  
>>>> Every time one of us mentions Featured Themes, entire* community jumps
>>>> on. When we need help, only few of us replies. How come?
>>>>  
>>>> http://make.wordpress.org/themes/2014/01/28/time-for-a-new-team-rep/ 
>>>>  
>>>>  
>>>>  
>>>>  
>>>>  
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 11:51 AM, Srikanth Koneru <tskk79 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> all 3 options can be manipulated unfortunately, admin choice is fine but a bit more frequently would be nice.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 11:19 PM, Konrad Sroka <konrads at themekraft.com> wrote:
>>>> Otto +10000 
>>>>  
>>>> Why not get rid of the featured themes sections like it is now and have a filter for 
>>>>  
>>>> "most downloaded" and "best rated"
>>>>  
>>>>  
>>>> Maybe add a filter or tag for commercially supported themes, so you know you can get professional support and stuff like that..
>>>>  
>>>> Or make a poll on wordpress.org twice a year and the results are the "featured" themes
>>>>  
>>>> Cheers, Konrad
>>>>  
>>>>  
>>>>  
>>>>  
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On 29 January 2014 18:25, Rohit Tripathi <rohitink at live.com> wrote:
>>>> I am not in favour of switching Featured themes to a Random Themes Section. Because Many themes in the repository are outdated or not fully compatible with recent versions of WP.
>>>>  
>>>> +1 for the Redesign of landing Page.
>>>>  
>>>> :)
>>>> 
>>>> From: zulfikarnore at live.com
>>>> To: theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
>>>> Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2014 17:11:33 +0000
>>>> 
>>>> Subject: Re: [theme-reviewers] Question: Someone Want to Take Benefit From a 'Top Reviewer of the Month'.
>>>> 
>>>> Part of the original question asked "has this happened to anyone" (not the exact words) - the answer is yes, not once not twice but a good few times. Initial response? I responded with not part of my business plan/working model! Then followed by "mark as junk" and now that is where (if any) those emails land and deleted without a first look never mind a second.
>>>> 
>>>> For me the incentive scheme and having a theme featured for my hard work is only a bonus - true benefit is derived from learning code as Otto said. The real reward out of it all will be when one day I create a theme from scratch, submit, have it reviewed, approved and made live without a single issue being raised - now that is (will be) the achievement :)
>>>> 
>>>> So,
>>>> 
>>>> 1) Should we be paid to review themes in order to win and get the payer's theme featured? Certainly Not!
>>>> 
>>>> 2) Should commercial theme shops pay their employees to review for the same end in mind? Weather they get a theme featured or not they are going to pay their employee regardless. So that is their prerogative - but should they hire for the sole purpose of reviewing and getting featured? To me that is no any difference to 1 above and is a No!, but who is going to police it?
>>>> 
>>>> Solution? Switch the "Featured themes" section to a "Random themes" section and let the system cycle though all and any theme on a given time period and everyone is a winner. Easier said than done with over 2000 themes I know :)
>>>> 
>>>> I second and +1 the call for a redesign of the landing page. 
>>>> 
>>>> From: christine at bluelimemedia.com
>>>> Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2014 08:02:39 -0800
>>>> To: theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
>>>> Subject: Re: [theme-reviewers] Question: Someone Want to Take Benefit From a 'Top Reviewer of the Month'.
>>>> 
>>>> Awesome, I'll see what I can do.
>>>>  
>>>> Christine Rondeau
>>>> Bluelime Media
>>>> www.bluelimemedia.com
>>>> twitter: @bluelimemedia
>>>> skype: bluelimemedia
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 7:58 AM, Otto <otto at ottodestruct.com> wrote:
>>>> On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 9:56 AM, Christine Rondeau
>>>> <christine at bluelimemedia.com> wrote:
>>>> > I still think that
>>>> > rethinking the theme landing page with a better more visual design would be
>>>> > nice.
>>>> 
>>>> I wholeheartedly agree. Poke your designer friends. We need a better design. :)
>>>> 
>>>> -Otto
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>>>>  
>>>> -- 
>>>>  
>>>> i.A. Konrad Sroka
>>>> Themekraft  UG haftungsbeschränkt 
>>>> Beautiful Themes and Plugins for WordPress and BuddyPress 
>>>> web - http://themekraft.com 
>>>> mail - konrads at themekraft.com 
>>>> 
>>>> Höhenstrasse 55 
>>>> D-40227 Düsseldorf 
>>>> Germany  
>>>> HRB 66772, Gerichtsstand Düsseldorf, deutsches Recht  
>>>> Geschäftsführung / Managing Director: Sven Lehnert 
>>>> USt-ID: DE282376267
>>>>  
>>>>  
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