[theme-reviewers] Payment Option for Theme Reviews

Thu Jul 31 22:10:37 UTC 2014

I haven't been reviewing actively for some time now, so I haven't been
keeping an eye on the current state of things, but from what both
Justin and Chip have said about the reopen rate (and the most common
causes for it), we might benefit from an old-school practice --- back
when I was doing a lot of reviews, both Emil and I (and some others,
but we're the ones I remember making it a regular thing) used to go
through the newest submissions to the queue daily pre-checking things
like credit links and screenshots before the themes ever went out to a
reviewer.

If you don't have time to take on a full review, add some notes if you
see a problem anyway! I'm not saying it has to be anyone's assigned
role, but it's one more thing that can be caught before either a full
review or an admin check.

And yes, I can make time for some of those too ;)

On Thu, Jul 31, 2014 at 6:01 PM, Justin Tadlock
<justin at justintadlock.com> wrote:
> Ultimately, the big bottleneck with the admins is that we have to re-open
> nearly all of the tickets that were approved.  From my own experience, these
> are obvious things such as:
>
> License/copyright issues.
>
> Validating, escaping, and just ensuring that theme settings actually work.
> I re-opened a theme the other day where the theme options didn't even work
> on initial install of the theme.
>
> Most of the things I notice are not even after activating a theme.  In fact,
> I rarely activate a theme and run it through theme check prior to my review.
> That's one of the last things I do.  The reason we do human reviews is
> because we need eyeballs on the code.  Some of the tools we have are great,
> but they're no replacement for looking through the code.
>
> Not sure if it'll help, but here's my review process:
>
> 1) Check the theme itself and all resources for copyright and license
> declarations, credit links, etc.
> 2) Open `functions.php` (and any other non-template files).
> 3) Look through template files.
> 4) Activate theme.
> 5) Run theme check.
> 6) Look for issues with the theme active.
>
> I know everyone has their own process, but it might be helpful to reevaluate
> that process once in a while.
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 31, 2014 at 4:54 PM, Srikanth Koneru <tskk79 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Nothing in that self review will be for experienced developers only, It
>> would be simple things they would have to follow to get their theme approved
>> anyway.
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Aug 1, 2014 at 3:18 AM, John Wilson <mail at johnwilsononline.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> I was thinking something much the same. Why not put more of the onus on
>>> the Theme Developers before they can submit theme? Whether it's making them
>>> complete two or three reviews before they can submit themes themselves, thus
>>> learning the full extent of theme requirements. Or maybe, developing an exam
>>> style process where only qualified developers can submit themes.
>>>
>>> This will hopefully lead to better quality themes being developed; making
>>> themes quicker & easier to review and improving the quality available for
>>> the end user to choose from.
>>>
>>> I learnt a lot about developing themes from doing reviews first and am
>>> pleased to have got my first theme live just today. I learnt a lot what I
>>> thought I knew to be right was in fact wrong before I even got round to
>>> developing my theme.
>>>
>>> I know it'll upset some people and they may say that the submission
>>> process is just for experienced developers and we'd be alienating beginner
>>> developers, but at the end of the day, as a developer or reviewer we are all
>>> here with the common goal of making WordPress better.
>>>
>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>
>>> On 31 Jul 2014, at 22:34, Srikanth Koneru <tskk79 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Why not make the theme authors do a pre-review themself?
>>> Before uploading, they have to confirm for ex:
>>>
>>> License of all images/third party resources has be mentioned and
>>> source/license link provided (yes/no)
>>> No js/css other than style.css has been hardcoded in header.php (yes/no)
>>> wp_head() is placed right before </head> (yes/no)
>>> etc
>>>
>>> We can have a big list and make the theme authors check and upload?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Aug 1, 2014 at 2:52 AM, Emil Uzelac <emil at uzelac.me> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Just had a nice chat with Jen on Skype and here are some suggestions:
>>>>
>>>> With the help of few volunteers, we need to go back and look at reviews
>>>> from the past year to identify the errors that we catch most often.
>>>>
>>>> Once we got this information in we could then incorporate into Theme
>>>> Check (or similar) and automate.
>>>>
>>>> We will be looking into smaller and basic errors, nothing to complex, or
>>>> issues that require special handling.
>>>>
>>>> Second:
>>>>
>>>> #1 priority themes should be reviewed in right away, not tomorrow or day
>>>> after, how about if we do the same for #2?
>>>>
>>>> For #3 and #4 priorities to be reviewed within 48hrs?
>>>>
>>>> This will clear-out the backlog and the process will be much faster.
>>>>
>>>> Admins would still carry out their duties and reviewers as well.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Emil
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Jul 31, 2014 at 4:06 PM, Otto <otto at ottodestruct.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> On Thu, Jul 31, 2014 at 4:00 PM, Thomas from ThemeZee
>>>>> <contact at themezee.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Relating to the admin bottle-neck: What about appointing trusted /
>>>>>> experienced theme reviewers? They can perform second reviews of the
>>>>>> "approved themes but not marked live" list. Since they are experienced they
>>>>>> will find issues quickly. They should not be allowed to mark themes as live,
>>>>>> but are able to reopen tickets.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> For what it's worth, anybody can do that right now. You don't have to
>>>>> be "assigned" a ticket to leave comments on it. You don't need to reopen it
>>>>> to tell an author there are problems you've found.
>>>>>
>>>>> I honestly never liked the assigning of tickets in the first place.
>>>>> It's too rigid, IMO. I realize that we need order and fairness, but the
>>>>> assignment system seems to imply that there is only one reviewer per theme,
>>>>> and that's absolutely not the case. If you want to go pick a waiting theme
>>>>> at random, find problems in it, and post them in that ticket, then by all
>>>>> means, do so. A problem discovered but not posted helps nobody.
>>>>>
>>>>> There's nothing preventing anybody from reviewing any theme they want
>>>>> at any time, just by leaving comments on a ticket to tell a theme author
>>>>> about the issues. If a theme is fully good by the time admins get to it,
>>>>> then it's quicker all around, no? Okay, it's more disorderly. But we're all
>>>>> adults; we can deal with a little disorder.
>>>>>
>>>>> -Otto
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>> theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
>>>>> http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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