[theme-reviewers] So many themes are still not live

Sun Oct 12 21:31:26 UTC 2014

So styled themes, your comment brings up one point right off. You say:

"I’m not a reviewer, so it’s hard for me to say anything about the theme
reviewing process and what  gets missed..."

My one question to you is, why are you not a reviewer? Solving things
starts with people who submit themes also being reviewers. From there we
can start building things. Why aren't you a reviewer? What can we do to get
you to be a reviewer?

Time to do one review can be found by anyone, so let's get you reviewing.
Let's start seeing how you can be at the heart of making the review process
better for everyone.

Thanks
Tammie

On Sunday, October 12, 2014, Styled Themes <social at styledthemes.com> wrote:

> I agree Justin, a little more consistency and fairness is part of the
> experience. I also agree that in a perfect world, theme developers should
> have the mindset that we’re here to “give back” to the community by
> providing and improving on FREE themes and SUPPORT for the community.
>
>
>
> I know that my own goal is to simply provide quality free themes to the
> community. For such a long time I’ve seen too many plain and boring themes
> listed (sorry, but it’s true), and I wanted to see more themes that have
> more visual impact that competes with premium theme sites. So I decided to
> submit themes. Of course, there’s always room for improvement, even with my
> themes, but I’m starting to see other theme developers submit themes that
> are much better than before (which I am glad to see). The end-user doesn’t
> care that code is aligned perfectly, or that functions are prefixed with
> the theme’s name; they download and use themes based on how the theme looks
> and what features it offers so that it’s going to benefit their website.
> Yes, code quality is critical, but it should not be the only factor.
>
>
>
> I’m not a reviewer, so it’s hard for me to say anything about the theme
> reviewing process and what  gets missed, or what needs improving on.
> Perhaps a few things I could say and/or agree on:
>
>
>
> 1.       Guidelines seem to be spread out across the universe and
> sometimes contradict each other
>
> 2.       Guidelines should be written in a way that “new” inexperienced
> reviewers/developers can understand terminology and what something means.
>
> 3.       Review checklist…make sure there is just “one” list in one
> location. Again, it’s like guidelines, everything is spread out and hard to
> find or to confirm that something stated is up to date and accurate
>
> 4.       In the past, I’ve found that a reviewer says one thing while
> another will say something otherwise different, or not even part of the
> review guidelines. An official review checklist is needed and needs to be
> followed without straying off. Most times, it’s because the reviewer
> honestly did not know or was a aware of any changes to the review checklist
> or guidelines.
>
>
>
> What I would like to see is the possibility of a three tier review process:
>
>
>
> (1)    Visual review of the overall theme
>
> (2)    Code review of the theme, if it passes the first tier
>
> (3)    Lead (admin) final approval for inclusion
>
>
>
> The review process is strictly code based, and it really should be based
> on both visual and code. People who come to the repository don’t care that
> code is aligned, or that functions are prefixed with the theme’s slug, they
> choose themes strictly on how a theme looks and what features it has. They
> also want to know that they will get support when needed without waiting
> too long.
>
>
>
> There’s so much potential for the repository, but there is definitely room
> for improvement everywhere. I’d like to see the repository grow into a
> source of providing free high quality themes that can compete with
> commercial sites. I’d even like to see the same kind of page structure for
> themes as plugins have. I’d like to see the Preview button load an actual
> demo of the theme…which brings me to the idea that any theme that gets
> submitted, needs to have an actual demo website to showcase that theme; the
> current preview is well….pathetic.
>
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> *From:* theme-reviewers [mailto:
> theme-reviewers-bounces at lists.wordpress.org
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','theme-reviewers-bounces at lists.wordpress.org');>]
> *On Behalf Of *Justin Tadlock
> *Sent:* October-12-14 12:52 PM
> *To:* Discussion list for WordPress theme reviewers.
> *Subject:* Re: [theme-reviewers] So many themes are still not live
>
>
>
> Personally, I'd love to make things a little more consistent and fair.
> But, I want to make something clear to everyone.  We're not here to promote
> your theme or to make sure your theme gets its time in the spotlight.  What
> we do here is for the benefit of WordPress users.  Your reasons for
> submitting a theme don't necessarily need to be altruistic, but we have to
> treat it as such.
>
>
>
> With that said, there are ways of making things more consistent.  This all
> starts with reviews.  The reason we (the admins) get backed up is because
> we're still having to perform full reviews on themes that are already
> approved.  In a more ideal scenario, we'd do a check to make sure things
> look pretty good and mark the theme live.
>
>
>
> But, we don't have an ideal scenario at the moment.  I can't remember the
> last time I didn't reopen an approved ticket.  Our initial reviews are
> overlooking major things, even just outright broken code.  I rarely have to
> activate a theme to see these problems.  I just open up the theme files,
> and they're right there in my face.
>
>
>
> If we want to talk about "fairness" and so on, let's talk about the real
> problems first.  What can we do to improve our review process?  Any
> improvements here will trickle down and improve the entire system.
>
>
>
> A few of the areas I see that both theme authors and our reviewers could
> improve in are:
>
>
>
> 1) Security.  This is particularly relevant with theme options and custom
> widgets.  Is there something we can be doing to improve this area?  It's a
> major blocker for themes.  If it were up to me, we'd ban anything that
> didn't use the theme customizer (except in special cases).  I believe that
> would cut back on so many problems because it'd limit a lot of custom code
> used to build settings pages.
>
>
>
> 2) Understanding the difference between "content generation" (plugin
> territory) and "content presentation" (theme territory).  Basically, don't
> use custom post types, taxonomies, or metadata to allow the theme's users
> to create content.
>
>
>
> 3) License/copyright.  We've improved leaps and bounds in this area, but
> there shouldn't be any reason one of the admins should be reopening a
> ticket for a license/copyright issue.  This is probably the first thing
> reviewers need to look at.
>
>
>
> And, these are just some of the major things.  I'd love for us to be at a
> point where we're pushing for better things like proper translation
> support, accessibility, and so on.
>
>
>
> Let's focus on continuing to improve the overall process.  Are there
> tutorials that y'all would like to see to help improve things?  I'd be more
> than happy to write those or dig an existing one up.  Can we make things
> clearer in the guidelines?
>
>
>
> Maybe our focus should be on building tools for theme authors to submit
> better themes.  Any plugin ideas to help with this?  Or, are we simply not
> putting the existing tools into theme authors' hands?
>
>
>
> Other things I think we need to improve is the theme guidelines
> themselves.  The content of the guidelines are fine, but finding a specific
> guideline kind of sucks.  I don't even know what page each guideline is
> on.  I just happen to know most of them by memory and rarely need to look
> them up.
>
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