[theme-reviewers] Lite Themes

Thu Oct 2 10:24:53 UTC 2014

I was actually not really concerned about theme brands and protecting them.
I'm perfectly fine with "Apple Sweet", "Apple Blue" etc.. I have also moved
away from naming my themes "zeeName" for my newer themes, because despite
the fact these were branded names it also were ugly names and I do not
longer think that names are so important. In case anyone wants to release a
(child) theme named "zeeDynamic Blue", feel free to go :)

However, I honestly do not fully understand the name policy anymore. There
were several changes and I am confused. So now everything is allowed except
theme related words in the name (e.g. Theme, Blog, etc) ?

I thought that releasing "Theme Name" is not allowed when "Theme Name Lite"
is already used, because of the simple reason that it would certainly cause
user confusion. And I would like to avoid getting a lot of emails from
confused users ;) The "Lite" in the name just implies that it is a
downgraded version, and not a entirely different theme.

But: If names are not policed anymore, than it's hard to prevent that,
isn't it?
Basically when I release a theme with "Theme Name", everyone can release
"Theme Name Lite" afterwards with the same result...

2014-10-02 11:24 GMT+02:00 Michael Hebenstreit <michael at mhthemes.com>:

> Or when the shop is called „GS Themes“, then a theme name „GS Fantastic“
> is prohibited?
>
>
> Am 02.10.2014 um 11:21 schrieb Michael Hebenstreit <michael at mhthemes.com>:
>
> Hi Ulrich,
>
> sorry - not sure if I fully understand what you mean. The guideline says:
>
> *"Themes are not to use related Theme names (e.g. WP Theme Name, Theme
> Name WP, The Theme Name, etc.) in their name.“*
>
> So when your theme shop is called „Great Shop“ and you release a theme
> „Fantastic“, then you may not name it „GS Fantastic“?
>
> The guideline also says:
>
> *Themes may use the WP acronym in the Theme name, such as WP AwesomeSauce.*
>
> So „WP Fantastic“ would be fine? But „GS Fantastic“ is not allowed?
>
> Thanks,
> Michael
>
>
>
> Am 02.10.2014 um 11:00 schrieb Ulrich Pogson <grapplerulrich at gmail.com>:
>
> @Emil - Your note is directed to theme authors and not theme reviewers. I
> don't think the mailing list is best place for this note. A better place
> would be the guidelines or a blog post.
>
> This note is not consistent with the theme review name guideline
> <https://make.wordpress.org/themes/handbook/guidelines/license-theme-name-credit-links-up-sell-themes/#theme-name>
> s.
> >"Themes are not to use related Theme names (e.g. WP Theme Name, Theme
> Name WP, The Theme Name, etc.) in their name."
>
>
>
> On 2 October 2014 10:39, Michael Hebenstreit <michael at mhthemes.com> wrote:
>
>> Emil, actually, when I first read your email this morning I really
>> couldn’t believe it. I thought I still am dreaming and it’s only a
>> nightmare. :-)
>>
>> But I thought let’s see what the reactions are on this because I thought
>> maybe I just don’t get it and it’s a misunderstanding. But now that I read
>> that Thomas has the same thoughts, I’ll also want to give my 2 cents.
>>
>> Are you sure that no longer police theme names at all is a good approach
>> for the theme directory? Because I’m not sure on this and there is a pretty
>> good change that this becomes quite a spammy battle. In the end a lot of us
>> are running a business and we all have to pay our bills. Developers on
>> WordPress.org <http://wordpress.org/> provide free themes for users,
>> many of those free themes have even premium character and did cost
>> countless hours of development time. But we’re still have to pay our bills
>> and it doesn’t mean that everything is for free. So there must be a fair
>> way to monetize our efforts.
>>
>> In the end there is also competition, but as on the free market, there
>> have to be some rules to keep it a fair game. I’m also not a fan of
>> policing everything and the rules and guidelines on .org are getting quite
>> heavy…sometimes it’s a bit too much in my opinion (no offense). But when it
>> comes to naming policy, there suddenly seem to be no rules at all, which I
>> actually don’t understand. Especially not because it’s a very important
>> thing to protect your brand and products. I’m fine with not policing names
>> at all, as long as there are no collisions that have the goal to harm
>> developers. We’ve seen a lot of rip offs recently from developers who are
>> just copying themes to have a few minutes of fame (until their themes get
>> removed…) and there is a pretty good chance that we are getting similar
>> issues with names, especially when successful themes are getting ripped by
>> those guys who have no creativity and honor at all.
>>
>> For example if a developer chooses a generic name, he must be aware that
>> also other people could us it. For example if he chooses „Apple“ then I
>> think it’s fine when someone else uses „Apple sweet“, „Apple blue“, Apple
>> green“, etc… That's the disadvantage of a generic name and you can’t really
>> protect it. Developers must be aware that choosing generic names might not
>> be a good idea, especially when it comes to issues regarding naming
>> policies. A generic word usually can’t be a brand. Ok, I see, my example
>> with Apple was a bit stupid! :-D But I think you get what I mean.
>>
>> But I think it’s something else when a brand is involved. For example
>> Thomas has a theme called „zeeDynamic“ as „ThemeZee“ is his brand. I don’t
>> think it should be allowed to upload a theme „zeeDynamic better“ for
>> example. This just would be ridiculous. It’s the same with other brands. If
>> your brand is „AB“, and you release a theme „AB Wonderful“, than it should
>> not be allowed to release „AB Wonderful with stars and strips“ or similar.
>> Just „Wonderful“ would be fine in my opinion (if „Wonderful“ itself isn’t
>> related to the developer / theme shop), but developers should not be
>> allowed to use the brand of other people to push their own stuff.
>>
>> Imagine you release a theme called „Emil News“ which is very successful
>> and then someone else releases a theme called „Emil News Theme“. Wouldn’t
>> you want to have a serious conversation with this guy? His name is probably
>> not „Emil“, but just „Idiot“. He uses your name to push his theme, this
>> shouldn’t be allowed, at least when it comes to names of theme shops or
>> brands.
>>
>> As you see, this is much more complicated than just saying „names are not
>> policed at all“ and we might want to discuss this further as this is
>> unacceptable from a business point of view.
>>
>> Kind regards,
>> Michael
>>
>> Am 02.10.2014 um 10:03 schrieb Thomas from ThemeZee <contact at themezee.com
>> >:
>>
>> Well, it was perfectly fine for theme developers to name their themes
>> with "Lite" or "Pro", because nobody could take the name with the old
>> guidelines.
>> Now names are no longer policed, but a lot of developers have named all
>> their free themes "Theme Name Lite" and it will be confusing to change that
>> for existing users.
>>
>> And what is about the other way around? Some developer releases "Theme
>> Name" and after that another developer comes up with "Theme Name Lite".
>> Allowed or not? It has basically the same result that there are two
>> different themes with nearly the same name. When names are no longer
>> policed in any way we will soon have a lot of different themes with
>> similiar names.
>>
>> And my final question: Can I release a dummy theme "Theme Name" in
>> addition to "Theme Name Lite", which I'll unapprove right away? Basically
>> can I block theme names? Since names are no longer policed it seems the
>> only way to prevent the case you have mentioned.
>>
>> 2014-10-02 3:56 GMT+02:00 Sakin Shrestha <info at sakinshrestha.com>:
>>
>>> Yes, really hard to understand it. This type of naming will simply
>>> undesirable. Especially lite, pro of already approved theme. Can we discuss
>>> about this in coming theme review meeting and have a fixed review rule for
>>> names.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, Oct 2, 2014 at 7:37 AM, Srikanth Koneru <tskk79 at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hard to keep up with TRT policies, so if someone submits destro
>>>> pro/lite/uno/prime/donkey, it will be allowed since names are not policed ?
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Oct 2, 2014 at 7:14 AM, Edward Caissie <
>>>> edward.caissie at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Wed, Oct 1, 2014 at 8:10 PM, Emil Uzelac <emil at uzelac.me> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> If you submit a theme called "Theme Name Lite" you are leaving the
>>>>>> door open for anyone else to submit a different theme under "Theme Name"
>>>>>> only.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> This is true of any theme name using more than one "word" ... see my
>>>>> example of "Opus Primus" and someone submitting "Opus" months later.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Edward Caissie
>>>>> aka Cais.
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>> http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
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