[theme-reviewers] Contribution days

[Tammie Lister]

I wanted to take a little moment to start up a discussion on whether there
is anything we can do to make contribution days run a little smoother for
theme reviews.

Currently, we have a request post that people post to in order to get a
review. Once assigned, they can do the review. This works well if time
isn’t poor, often at contribution days we just want to strike while the
iron is hot and get people contributing. Our current method also puts extra
weight on admins, who already are doing a great amount of work.

Having people post also poses issues when people may not have posted on the
blog. They then have to wait to be approved as flagged as potential spam
before they can even post. This is a double hurdle.

I absolutely understand why we need to have a process and why we can’t just
let anyone review anything without easing them in. However, I do wonder
what could be done to improve this process and encourage more people to
contribute. We need reviewers and contribution days are a great place to
recruit :)

If one of us that can assign our own reviews, is at a contribution day we
can assign to ourselves. But, that limits it again. Ideally nobody would
need to be there that has any level.

I don’t claim to have the answers, but I have a few possibilities:
1. Better documentation on how to do your first review. I think Chip, you
were going to refresh your great post about that - time willing of course.
2. A ‘how to run a theme review section at contribution day’ section.
3. Maybe a pool of past themes we can give new reviewers to ‘cut their
teeth’? This could also even be a test theme. Maybe to level the playing
field one that covers the basics you should know. Possibly a cool sub
project? A doing_it_wrong theme.

I’m sure I am missing some great ideas, hence interested what people think.
I’d love to find ways we can make this process better and get more
contributors as a result.

What do people think?

Tammie Lister
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