[theme-reviewers] Payment Option for Theme Reviews

[Otto]

We're getting into pay-to-play territory here, and we're not really cool
with that.

The review queue is long because there's a lot of themes and not enough
reviewers. Obviously. Reviewing is hard. Ideally, I would suggest that if
theme authors want to reduce the wait time, then volunteer to review themes
too. If there's more reviewing happening, then there's less of a wait. And,
as a side bonus, theme authors get exposed to more themes and more
practices and hopefully improve their own skills in the process.

If somebody wants to pay somebody like Justin to review their theme, then
that's fine, but that's between you two, and it has nothing to do with the
theme directory or our review queue. Justin is very good and so you might
learn some things certainly, but it won't get your theme through any
faster. There is no pay-to-play for anything whatsoever on WordPress.org.

If you want to find ways to improve the speed of reviews in the theme
review queue, great. Find more reviewers or find ways we can streamline the
process. But "payment" is not going to happen. This is open-source, you pay
with your time by helping others, not with financial instruments.

(Note: This is not a knock on Justin's response in any way, he is perfectly
free to offer his services and assistance.)

On a wider note, "people who are actually running a WordPress business the
possibility to get faster theme reviews" should consider maybe spending,
oh, an hour or two per week reviewing another theme in the queue. See what
the competition is up to. Find the best ideas, and steal them (in the
totally GPL sense). Help yourself by helping others. Now, many authors are
indeed doing that, but I suspect many are not. Worth considering.

-Otto




On Thu, Jul 31, 2014 at 1:19 PM, Srikanth Koneru <tskk79 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Awesome Justin, Themeshop's can pool in some cash and donate X hrs of
your time a month to push themes live?
> Assuming its affordable and Otto is okay with that?
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 31, 2014 at 11:44 PM, Justin Tadlock <justin at justintadlock.com>
wrote:
>>
>> I do paid theme reviews, mostly for commercial theme authors.  I'll be
more than happy to review themes for anyone in this manner and would knock
my price down for free themes.  It won't get your theme reviewed/live any
faster (you still have to go through the normal review process here), but
it'll certainly get your code to a point where it should pass the theme
review with flying colors.
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Jul 31, 2014 at 12:26 PM, Srikanth Koneru <tskk79 at gmail.com>
wrote:
>>>
>>> But all theme shops can pool some resources, hire a part time reviewer
for 2-4 hrs a day and donate him to review team just like bluehost donates
a full time employee to core team. (There maybe some conflict of interest
issues tough)
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, Jul 31, 2014 at 10:47 PM, Emil Uzelac <emil at uzelac.me> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Michael,
>>>>
>>>> No idea is stupid, however this specific one does not make much sense.
>>>>
>>>> We all have jobs, families and hobbies and still find time to
contribute.
>>>>
>>>> The idea is to give back when you can and how much you can and every
little counts.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Emil
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Jul 31, 2014 at 3:14 AM, Srikanth Koneru <tskk79 at gmail.com>
wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Seems it was already discussed and rejected.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Thu, Jul 31, 2014 at 1:40 PM, Michael Hebenstreit <
michael at mhthemes.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Howdy,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> maybe a stupid idea, but why not introducing a payment option for
theme reviews?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I wouldn’t have a problem with paying theme reviewers for their work
and time. Volunteer work is great and very honorable but at the moment we
also see the downsides. Most people also have to work for their living,
have families, hobbies, etc… and usually that doesn’t leave much time for
other stuff. It seems there are very less people who actually want to
invest time doing reviews without a benefit or a compensation.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> To be honest, as much as I love WordPress and would contribute doing
reviews, I simply can’t. Why? Because the time is just too valuable and
usually people don’t work for free. In that time I could do client work,
create new themes, spent time with my family or just relax a bit to recover
from daily business. And actually I think that’s the same for most of the
people out there. It’s something else when we are talking about
contributing by answering some questions in the support forum or other
things that are less time consuming, but theme reviews are a responsibility
and need time to complete properly, especially when we want to have high
quality themes in the directory.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> A payment option would give people who are actually running a
WordPress business the possibility to get faster theme reviews and also the
reviewers would benefit from a compensation for their work. I think this
could make this whole process a bit more desirable. The payment option
could be optional, for example you can select when uploading a theme if you
would like to pay or not and paid reviews would get a higher priority in
the review queue.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> What do you think?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>>> Michael
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