Meeting summary 2016-23-08

Welcome to the Themes team!

We are a group of volunteers who review and approve themes submitted to be included in the official WordPress Theme directory.

We do license, security, and code quality reviews.

We help build and maintain default themes.

The primary focus of the team is to help theme authors transition to blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience.-based themes.

If this sounds interesting, read more about the team here. Check out our guide for new reviewers and the frequently asked questions.

Handbooks and review requirements

The team maintains the official Theme Review Requirements, the Theme Unit Test Data, and helps the documentation team with the Theme Developer Handbook.

Coding standards and plugins

We maintain the WPThemeReview Standard for PHP_CodeSniffer, the Theme Sniffer plugin and Theme Check

Code Packages

We have code packages for themes available for use on GitHub and Packagist

Communication

Meet us in the #themes SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. channel.

Meetings:

Twice monthly at Tuesday @ 15:00 UTC.

#themereview

Items discussed

Allowing multiple screenshots – up to 4. ( 12 : 1 for ) ( Slack link)

Author uploading limit ( 21 : 3 for ) ( Slack link )

Closing tickets with 5 distinct issues ( 16 : 1 for )( Slack link )

Theme Developer Handbook

CodeSniffer issues

Closing tickets should be done for 5 or more distinct issues. Examples:

Theme has multiple places where text strings are not translatable – group these into 1 distinct issue

Using custom functions instead of coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. functions such as the_posts_pagination, the_archive_title, the_excerpt – group into 1 issue

When closing a ticket, please be sure to use something a long the lines of the following. We don’t want to close tickets, rather we want to encourage growth and knowledge for the author.

As part of the new theme directory guidelines, reviewers are now allowed to close tickets if a theme has 5 or more issues. You can read more about this change here: [https://make.wordpress.org/themes]. Don't get discouraged a closed ticket is not the end. We want you to resubmit your theme. We do ask that you spend a bit more time making sure that your theme meets all the requirements before we make it live. [https://make.wordpress.org/themes/handbook/review/required/] If you need help with anything or want me to explain further, don't hesitate to post here in this ticket. I'm happy to answer any questions you have. Or, feel free to post over on our [https://make.wordpress.org/chat/ Slack] [https://wordpress.slack.com/messages/themereview channel]."

Turker YILDIRIM 11:12 pm on August 23, 2016

May be it’d be better to send an email to all authors about this change before taking any action.
- Nilambar Sharma 12:58 am on August 24, 2016
  
  I agree 100%. If we dont this we will have lots of “I did not know this, please reopen” stuff.
- Jose Castaneda 11:56 pm on August 26, 2016
  
  Not sure about that. There are quite a few that are already subscribed to the make blog.
Jose Castaneda 11:53 pm on August 26, 2016
Something I’ve been thinking about is the predefined response we use. I do like it but it can be something we can iterate and make a little better:
I am sorry but because the following five errors are present I am closing this ticket.
- #issue1
- #issue2
- #issue3
- #issue4
- #issue5
Do not get discouraged a closed ticket is not the end. We want you to resubmit your theme. We do ask that you spend a bit more time making sure that your theme meets all [https://make.wordpress.org/themes/handbook/review/required/ the requirements] before we make it live.

If you need help with anything or want me to explain further, don’t hesitate to post here in this ticket. I’m happy to answer any questions you have. Or, feel free to post over on our [https://make.wordpress.org/chat/ Slack] [https://wordpress.slack.com/messages/themereview channel].
- Justin Tadlock 3:08 pm on August 28, 2016
  Small correction:
  I am sorry but because the following five errors are present I am closing this ticket.
  
  #issue1
  
  #issue2
  
  #issue3
  
  #issue4
  
  #issue5
  
  Do not get discouraged. A closed ticket is not the end. We want you to resubmit your theme. We do ask that you spend a bit more time making sure that your theme meets all [https://make.wordpress.org/themes/handbook/review/required/ the requirements] before we make it live.
  
  If you need help with anything or want me to explain further, don’t hesitate to post here in this ticket. I’m happy to answer any questions you have. Or, feel free to post over on our [https://make.wordpress.org/chat/ Slack] [https://wordpress.slack.com/messages/themereview channel].