[wp-meta] [Making WordPress.org] #7741: Provide a tool to know if a theme name or slug is available and can be used in the theme directory

[Making WordPress.org]

#7741: Provide a tool to know if a theme name or slug is available and can be used
in the theme directory
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 Reporter:  mmaattiiaass     |       Owner:  (none)
     Type:  feature request  |      Status:  new
 Priority:  normal           |   Milestone:
Component:  Theme Directory  |  Resolution:
 Keywords:                   |
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Comment (by dd32):

 > I think that's easy to implement and can't produce any harm.

 On the other hand, I think it's potentially harmful as it provides some
 form of acknowledgement of "you may use that name" which while true, isn't
 accurate.

 It's only accurate as to whether it would be blocked on submission to the
 Theme Directory ''at the time of checking'', it provides no confirmation
 that the theme name isn't already in use or available on a 3rd-party site,
 or that it'll be available in a months time still. The theme author is
 still expected to check that ''before'' they develop and/or submit a
 theme, a tool on WordPress.org ''cannot'' do that more accurately than a
 human.

 For example, if you were to look at any marketplace that sells WordPress
 Themes, and take any of the recent submissions, you'll find names that are
 totally submittable but should not be submitted.

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 That all being said; there is an option we could do if this is something
 that is absolutely needed (And I'm not convinced it is).

 We could adjust the data collection for the statistics to a number lower
 than 50 (say 20?) which would mean there's a higher chance that those 3rd-
 party themes would be picked up as being unavailable. But we'd have to
 keep the block-submission number at something higher like 50 to account
 for theme authors who are submitting their own theme after having set it
 up on their demo sites & potentially distributed it first.

 That's not foolproof though; as I just checked a handful of new themes
 from some marketplaces and I'm not seeing enough data that convinces me
 that it would even have 20 active sites. Infact I see the opposite, I'm
 seeing ''new'' themes submitted on those sites that appears like it's
 likely that there either exist other themes by those names in the past (or
 they just started working on it literally years ago, and only just
 published now).


 ----

 As an alternative though; Perhaps the actual underlying request here is
 something more like the following:
 > We should find a way to have multiple themes with the same name, with
 different slugs, to avoid issues with updates. Theme Names should still be
 unique ''on WordPress.org''.

 It would be completely possible for a theme to have the name `My Theme`
 but the slug for it be `dd32-my-theme` which would avoid the potential
 update issues, and avoid issues where a submitted theme conflicts with an
 existing theme that exists somewhere. ''This would not however resolve the
 trademark issues with having a theme name that matches another companies
 product, which makes me even less confident that this is an actual
 solution.''

 That's similar to what is possible for Plugins (the slug is based on the
 initial submission and can be modified by reviewers; the plugin name can
 be completely different).

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Ticket URL: <https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/7741#comment:4>
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