Title: Trusted Authors Changes Author: acosmin Published: May 7, 2019 --- [ ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/acosmin/) [acosmin](https://profiles.wordpress.org/acosmin/) 5:26 am _on_ May 7, 2019   # Trusted Authors Changes As we can’t figure out a way to bring in new reviewers and maybe keep them on-board after the initial reviews, we decided to make a few changes to the Trusted Authors program: 1. Trusted Authors will need to review 1 ticket a month to be able to have their themes set live. 2. Not doing a review doesn’t mean that you’ll lose your privileges or that you’ll have to re-apply. You’ll just not be able to have your themes set live until you finish a review. 3. When you upload a new theme, please also add a comment (in the ticket) with a link to your latest review. Something like “This month’s review: [link goes here]” 4. Not-approved tickets don’t count, they can be closed for 3 distinct issues. You’ll need to do a full review, set the ticket live if you have access or approve it. 5. Only parent themes are considered, no child themes. Considering that you just need to review one ticket a month, please take it serious. It’s 30 minutes of your time at the most. #### Some resources to get you started: > [Become a Reviewer](https://make.wordpress.org/themes/handbook/get-involved/become-a-reviewer/) > [How to do a review (Draft)](https://make.wordpress.org/themes/handbook/review/how-to-do-a-review-draft/) > [Required](https://make.wordpress.org/themes/handbook/review/required/) --- **Notice:** running only the Theme SnifferTheme Sniffer Theme Sniffer is a plugin utilizing custom sniffs for [PHP_CodeSniffer](https://github.com/squizlabs/PHP_CodeSniffer) that statically analyzes your theme and ensures that it adheres to WordPress coding conventions, as well as checking your code against PHP version compatibility. The plugin is available from [GitHub.](https://github.com/WPTRT/theme-sniffer) Themes are not required to pass the Theme Sniffer scan without warnings or errors to be included in the theme directory. doesn’t constitute as an actual review. Please check the links mentioned above. > [Theme Sniffer](https://wordpress.org/plugins/theme-sniffer/) ### Share this: * [ Threads ](https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2019/05/07/trusted-authors-changes/?share=threads) * [ Mastodon ](https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2019/05/07/trusted-authors-changes/?share=mastodon) * [ Bluesky ](https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2019/05/07/trusted-authors-changes/?share=bluesky) * [ Facebook ](https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2019/05/07/trusted-authors-changes/?share=facebook) * [ X ](https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2019/05/07/trusted-authors-changes/?share=x) * [ LinkedIn ](https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2019/05/07/trusted-authors-changes/?share=linkedin) * [Login to Reply](https://login.wordpress.org/?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Fmake.wordpress.org%2Fthemes%2F2019%2F05%2F07%2Ftrusted-authors-changes%2F%23respond&locale=en_US) 1. ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/3826ded5819b033327f151a118e2ca61bb56edaec4d7d7b7ac857d918e359384? s=32&d=mm&r=g) 2. [aThemeArt](https://profiles.wordpress.org/athemeart/) 5:46 am _on_ May 7, 2019 3. Great:) . 4. ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/4ed3f58698361e6948ef11e738c0d5a44e2253c289ac076eceddc1d416a6f4de? s=32&d=mm&r=g) 5. [kafleg](https://profiles.wordpress.org/kafleg/) 6:47 am _on_ May 7, 2019 6. We love to see you all the trusted author in this program. From our common effort, we can reduce the queue and provide a better quality theme for the users. If you are unable to assign the theme yourself, you can comment over the ticket and start reviewing it, we will assign it later. Or you can request in [#themereview](https://make.wordpress.org/themes/tags/themereview/) channel as well. 7. ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/7aff680df181b469a8748568f285dac44f2a91e24913c6793b4a556193fe451c? s=32&d=mm&r=g) 8. [themebeez](https://profiles.wordpress.org/themebeez/) 6:59 am _on_ May 7, 2019 9. Great 🙂 Love it! 10. ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/66cabd79431b374d479f45aa7d2a02353bd6941a344148ad9cb28ef9f002cb73? s=32&d=mm&r=g) 11. [tskk](https://profiles.wordpress.org/tskk/) 7:00 am _on_ May 7, 2019 12. Sounds good, but does if I start a review now, It will take a couple of weeks to finish depending on the author response, so no themes will be set live during that time? maybe start this from June 1 so we can do our reviews? 13. * ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/eb5d081232974bf03b5342543996762577822cf6c5f5e61d0200ed7a413a145a? s=32&d=mm&r=g) * [acosmin](https://profiles.wordpress.org/acosmin/) 7:04 am _on_ May 7, 2019 * Just start reviewing a ticket (post your initial findings) and commit to finishing it. It will count as a review. - ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/66cabd79431b374d479f45aa7d2a02353bd6941a344148ad9cb28ef9f002cb73? s=32&d=mm&r=g) - [tskk](https://profiles.wordpress.org/tskk/) 7:04 am _on_ May 7, 2019 - okies 🙂 14. ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/ad54fee87b0057de02d3b3f5af8638dd50aece094c8c5b3da65415df11c092df? s=32&d=mm&r=g) 15. [ilovewpcom](https://profiles.wordpress.org/ilovewpcom/) 7:12 am _on_ May 7, 2019 16. Very weird decision. 17. I understand the reason behind it, but **I cannot agree with it**. Reviews should be done out of professional desire and curiosity, not to buy a credit for setting a theme live quicker. 18. This might reduce the quality of reviews, because trusted authors are now directly interested in setting more themes live. This means that someone will have to monitor more closely the reviews done by trusted authors. 19. This just feels unnatural somehow. :\ 20. * ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/2bbf5d68008a40dd09df7de61b7f06de29163885ca93e8b9706574aadc07ff12? s=32&d=mm&r=g) * [dingo-d](https://profiles.wordpress.org/dingo_d/) 7:15 am _on_ May 7, 2019 * I doubt that the quality of the review will decline. They will still need to pass the admin checks, so if they did their job poorly, they will loose the privilege 😉 * Until we have a solid way to automatically check the themes we need to reduce the queue somehow ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ * ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/eb5d081232974bf03b5342543996762577822cf6c5f5e61d0200ed7a413a145a? s=32&d=mm&r=g) * [acosmin](https://profiles.wordpress.org/acosmin/) 7:28 am _on_ May 7, 2019 * It’s not an actual competition, you do your review (the date from which you post your findings) and 30 days from that point you can upload themes (4). * This is a wip 🙂 we might need to adjust it, let’s see how it goes… - ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/e663f1292eaf5dc857c8ec6f0de8080191ac243e5101b8874b2fb89692976ca8? s=32&d=mm&r=g) - [CryoutCreations](https://profiles.wordpress.org/cryout-creations/) 4: 05 pm _on_ May 20, 2019 - I see a contradiction in your declarations. You say that 30 days from when you post your findings on a ticket you can upload your own themes but one of the rules in your post says - > Not-approved tickets don’t count - How do you know from the date in which you post your findings if the theme will be approved or not. What if the theme author never replies? What if he continuously fails to fix required items? 21. ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/21b59213db15e407893dd9ecbd6fc389b7886133e886fdddeec48deaafc4ebc0? s=32&d=mm&r=g) 22. [andreiglingeanu](https://profiles.wordpress.org/andreiglingeanu/) 7:40 am _on_ May 7, 2019 23. Great! 24. ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/18976976723d48b71e04b7e6d11d65ef2e4b065cd410b27b803e0d2b823c88e3? s=32&d=mm&r=g) 25. [Nilambar Sharma](https://profiles.wordpress.org/rabmalin/) 8:35 am _on_ May 7, 2019 26. I agree with this. May be this will help speed up the review process as we will have more number of reviewers. 27. ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d6378f4a0058f1232ded8bcde851bd3ac8a42f78a3f09fedfaf32556d2d83236? s=32&d=mm&r=g) 28. [uxl](https://profiles.wordpress.org/uxl/) 1:11 pm _on_ May 7, 2019 29. Would it be possible to bring back the button that assigned reviewer to the next ticket in the queue? The current way of asking in themereview channel does not work so well. For instance if I have some time one afternoon to do a couple of reviews, I ask to in themereview channel to be assigned a ticket, this can take up to a week to be assigned by which time my free afternoon has been and gone. Apologies if this is off-topic and if there is a better place to ask this question. 30. * ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/ee688e454076072936e2f07ceea1727351cda523c1c8925b90e5040a858463e1? s=32&d=mm&r=g) * [poena](https://profiles.wordpress.org/poena/) 10:33 pm _on_ May 7, 2019 * You need to be assigned to change the ticket status, but not to add your review content. When the author replies you will still recieve their email, if you have that set up. 31. ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/8013a62d7397c006bae48b96d6832a573ea71a7d5d3597fe584210567b508c05? s=32&d=mm&r=g) 32. [Justin Tadlock](https://profiles.wordpress.org/greenshady/) 1:28 pm _on_ May 7, 2019 33. I assume the team got permission from higher up the chain to run a pay-for-play system. We’ve already [established they are not allowed](https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2014/04/18/theme-review-incentive-program/). 34. What such systems do is provide an unfair advantage to larger theme businesses with multiple employees. They assign one of their employees to handle a review and keep pumping out themes without missing a beat. All the while, solo developers are forced into “volunteering” with time they may not even have. Not that it’s fair to businesses either; it’s just worse on solo devs. 35. Making people contribute to the review system should absolutely never happen in any shape or form. It should never be the means in which the team shows favoritism to one author/team over another. 36. And, when you tie incentive programs to the review system, you tend to get s*** reviews. We’ve already seen this happen. 37. After others and I shot this idea down multiple times when we were team leads, I’m highly disappointed in seeing it now resurfaced. 38. * ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/0eff1a02b114621a84d70475314dd69b6bfc43994c699bf1c652082a015e06eb? s=32&d=mm&r=g) * [Rinku Y](https://profiles.wordpress.org/rinkuyadav999/) 3:31 pm _on_ May 7, 2019 * +1 * ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/eb5d081232974bf03b5342543996762577822cf6c5f5e61d0200ed7a413a145a? s=32&d=mm&r=g) * [acosmin](https://profiles.wordpress.org/acosmin/) 3:50 pm _on_ May 7, 2019 * The last time we did this it was a competition for the Featured page (which in my opinion is of higher value than having a theme on Latest). Back then you also had to do a lot of reviews just to get the chance of selecting a featured theme. * With TAs you don’t lose anything, you either do or not the review, you keep your TA status. One review a month is just 15-30 minutes of reviewing. Either way they are still ‘pumping out themes without missing a beat’. Any TA author that has time to pump 3-4 themes a month also has time to do a freaking review. * The part with `s*** reviews` isn’t really right, it’s expected that TAs are experienced authors that know the requirements. We’ll monitor this and if it’s the other way around, we’ll decide then. We get s*** reviews right now without having any incentives. * ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/27c0751de5ed93222d17118b8e8b3ea1f97be0c79dafaa270e454df903f1afd1? s=32&d=mm&r=g) * [kevinhaig](https://profiles.wordpress.org/kevinhaig/) 12:36 am _on_ May 8, 2019 * I agree with you Justin. This decision is going to cause crappy reviews. And any comments that suggest we have crappy reviews already, so that this is OK are just absurd. * Yet TA authors are the best equipped to do reviews. One big problem is that once most (not all but most) experienced authors get TA status, they stop being active on TRT. After all they have what they want, essentially rubber stamped reviews. * It is also going to be a lot of fun to manage. * I had suggested earlier that the TA queue be postponed if the queue got higher then 150 outstanding tickets, just stop the auto approve and let them follow the normal queue. There would then be a general motivation for TA’s to review in that instance and not a “pay for play”. This method is easy to manage. * But perhaps most concerning of all is the lack of community involvement in the decision. This has happened before with the current crop of Admins. This kind of activity absolutely does not promote community. You combine this kind of approach with the reduction in TRT activity by many TA’s and you have a wasteland at TRT. * Why have a meeting at all anymore (there have been very few lately), when you can get together in a private chat, then do what I suspect one person wants? * ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/66cabd79431b374d479f45aa7d2a02353bd6941a344148ad9cb28ef9f002cb73? s=32&d=mm&r=g) * [tskk](https://profiles.wordpress.org/tskk/) 6:36 am _on_ May 8, 2019 * Reviewing a theme will keep TA in the loopLoop The Loop is PHP code used by WordPress to display posts. Using The Loop, WordPress processes each post to be displayed on the current page, and formats it according to how it matches specified criteria within The Loop tags. Any HTML or PHP code in the Loop will be processed on each post. [https://codex.wordpress.org/The_Loop](https://codex.wordpress.org/The_Loop) with requirements. so reviewing one theme a month and having two already live themes can be the qualification for the trusted status. 39. ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/acdecddd34500ea3902e530d670395a027d4173672fc246a82c4f5b421c10a7f? s=32&d=mm&r=g) 40. [Frumph](https://profiles.wordpress.org/frumph/) 1:54 pm _on_ May 7, 2019 41. I don’t have time for this with a real work week so I guess it’s back to the queue for me. 42. * ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/acdecddd34500ea3902e530d670395a027d4173672fc246a82c4f5b421c10a7f? s=32&d=mm&r=g) * [Frumph](https://profiles.wordpress.org/frumph/) 1:55 pm _on_ May 7, 2019 * which if you think about it, for all the other people it will actually generate more themes ‘in the queue’ giving more of a work load to theme reviewers … but I guess you guys thought that through so it’s all good. 43. ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/596055b5269c8db9777d9d0f0300430138a08b31f456e7920673e23e073d735c? s=32&d=mm&r=g) 44. [Andre Jutras](https://profiles.wordpress.org/andre-jutras/) 8:43 pm _on_ May 7, 2019 45. As Justin stated, this is a form of pay-for-play. This is definitely a controversial decision that apparently was decided on by a “**private**” meeting and not open with “everyone” who is involved. 46. Changes and decisions like this should be done by “all” admins and reviewers–basically, everyone that works the review team needs to vote before a decision of this magnitude is initiated. 47. What comes to mind is that there is a penalty if a TA is not able to perform a review, even though it’s currently set to 1 review per month. However, in addition to this requirement: 48. > “Not-approved tickets don’t count, they can be closed for 3 distinct issues. > You’ll need to do a full review, set the ticket live if you have access or approve > it.” 49. …means that even if you take up a review, it sounds as though if it’s not approved and does not go live, you, the TA, cannot have any of your themes go live either. That to me is very troubling. 50. What also comes to mind is individual TA’s that don’t have the luxury of having a theme site with multiple devs, who otherwise have the ability to dedicate time to reviews. Many individuals simply don’t have the time to perform at least 1 review–I say at least because if the theme being reviewed doesn’t pass and go live, you have to do more reviews until one does. 51. I know for myself, I work almost 16 hours a day, 7-days a week, so where am I going to squeeze in a review? The claim that a review takes only 15-30 minutes is a best-case scenario. To perform a proper and quality review, a quick scan is not enough; you need to open every file and review it visually once your initial auto-scanning is finished. Some themes are also loaded with files and even crazy coding methods, that even 30 minutes simply won’t cut it. If anything, I would put it at 2-3 hours for a “complete and quality” review. This also includes making notes, references, and even recommendations to the theme author. Let’s not forget the time to wait on the author should you have issues and questions for them and have to wait for their reply and even fixes so that you can re-review. 52. In my opinion, I think this new requirement is going to backfire and could cause some TA’s walk away. If that happens, how does that solve the queue problem? 53. I can appreciate trying to find ways to make the queue work smoothly and go fast, but this is not one of them. Also, to reiterate, big decisions like this should be a majority vote by “all” who are involved in the theme review process. Yes, the admins can come up with ideas, but to move ahead with just a few out of the group deciding is not the right way. 54. Perhaps hold off on this new ruling and re-examine it further and get a full team vote before implementing it. 55. ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/4ed3f58698361e6948ef11e738c0d5a44e2253c289ac076eceddc1d416a6f4de? s=32&d=mm&r=g) 56. [kafleg](https://profiles.wordpress.org/kafleg/) 4:36 am _on_ May 8, 2019 57. I am also not in favor of Incentives from reviews. The main purpose of this is to motivate trusted authors because they are well known familiar with the guidelines. 58. They can submit 4 themes per month and we expect at least 1 theme review per month as a part of the contribution(not for incentives). We have very less number of reviewers after the TA introduced. And lots of themes are in the admin queue, new queue and child themeChild theme A Child Theme is a customized theme based upon a Parent Theme. It’s considered best practice to create a child theme if you want to modify the CSS of your theme. [https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/advanced-topics/child-themes/](https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/advanced-topics/child-themes/) queue because of lack of reviewers. 59. > Nowadays we only see the theme from TA on the list. I think the repo is only > for the TA because new authors are not motivated and they need to wait for a > long time to get reviewed. 60. Why did this happen? In the previous time, TA was active in reviewing the theme because they want their theme on the top. But now, they don’t need to wait for the queue. 61. Changing rules frequently is not good and I am not happy with it. But how to overcome this problem? We can’t set theme live without review and sometimes of TA users too. 62. All the authors already contributed themes for free and we are happy with it as well. However, delivering quality themes matters. So, we would like to join the TA authors on the part of the reviews. In addition to the theme contribution, we love to see the review contribution as well. 63. In the channel, I did request TA to contribute for the review, but only a few( 1or20) interested to contribute. So, this announcement is for all the TA authors to request to review. 64. We tried to make a group in the slackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform [https://slack.com/](https://slack.com/). The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at [https://make.wordpress.org/chat/](https://make.wordpress.org/chat/) of TA authors but it allows only 8 members in a group and i talked with leads to make a separate channel for it, but it was hard to manage again. Besides that, we did discuss making another group educate new authors about the requirements but we didn’t have an interested person to handle it. 65. So, we tried various ideas before implementing it. And ultimately we are here with this decision. We are happy to discuss to make TRT more effective. 66. We need inclusive repo for both new and TA. So, I don’t think it is pay to play, because TA are already with high benefits. 67. ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/714586f2faa156dc2e9023acd68bb1be0950cd495f6de69683e9157670a375a4? s=32&d=mm&r=g) 68. [ThemeEverest](https://profiles.wordpress.org/themeeverest/) 2:49 pm _on_ May 8, 2019 69. I don’t mind the change, I think it’s fine and this part makes less stressful: 70. > Just start reviewing a ticket (post your initial findings) and commit to finishing > it. It will count as a review. 71. I’m pretty sure this change won’t make people do bad reviews, we all care about our reputation in the community. 🙂 72. It would be awesome if we could make it so 1 review counts for 4 theme releases. That way me and others can do multiple reviews in the weeks where we have lots of sparetime, so we don’t have to worry about it in the start of each month. 🙂 73. Last but not least it would be great if we could assign themes to ourself and perhaps set them live. Kafleg said that you might do it in the future on SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform [https://slack.com/](https://slack.com/). The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at [https://make.wordpress.org/chat/](https://make.wordpress.org/chat/), but I just wanted to note it down here anyways. 74. Anyways, time to go buy groceries, it’s almost dinner time! Thumbs up for the idea, it’s totally worth giving a shot! ### Leave a Reply 󠀁[Cancel reply](https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2019/05/07/trusted-authors-changes/?output_format=md#respond)󠁿 You must be [logged in](https://login.wordpress.org/?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Fmake.wordpress.org%2Fthemes%2F2019%2F05%2F07%2Ftrusted-authors-changes%2F&locale=en_US) to post a comment. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. [Learn how your comment data is processed.](https://akismet.com/privacy/) # Post navigation [← Multiple Accounts Requirement](https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2019/04/05/multiple-accounts-requirement/) [Meeting notes from the 28th of May 2019 →](https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2019/05/29/meeting-notes-from-the-28th-of-may-2019/)