Should Priority #1 Queue be Reserved for Admin Review?

I’d like to throw out an idea for discussion/feedback. If we get a consensus, we’ll implement it; otherwise, we’ll maintain our current process.

Currently, there is a delay between tickets being closed as “Approved”, and Themes being made live in Extend (“Extend” is no more) the Theme directory. This delay exists for two reasons: one, because the synchronization between Theme-TracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/. and the Theme directory is manual, and two, because Admins do a final audit of “Approved” tickets before making the Themes live. (Because we have so many volunteer reviewers, and don’t have the time or resources to implement any kind of formal training process, we basically give anyone who wants to review Themes, and shows the initiative to get involved, the privileges necessary to assign/resolve/close Theme-Trac tickets. So, the compromise is that, for tickets resolved as “Approved”, the Admins add in an extra, quality-control step before making those Themes live in the Theme directory.)

Because of that delay, the Admins have asked for up to a week to complete the synchronization to make Themes approved in Theme-Trac live in the Theme directory. While this delay is (unfortunately) not a huge additional amount of time to wait for most Themes in the queue, for currently approved Themes, the delay prevents end users from getting bugfixes or security updates for Themes they currently use.

Because it is especially important for updates for currently approved (and currently in-use by end users) Themes to be made live in the Theme directory as quickly as possible, I would like to propose a change to the Review process: to reserve the Priority #1 Queue (i.e. currently approved Themes) for review by Admins, who can review, approve, and synchronize those Themes immediately, rather than sorting through the queue of approved Themes waiting to be synchronized.

I’ve added a poll. Please leave any additional comments or feedback in the post comments.