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Nominations Call for the themes team representatives: 2025 Edition

The Themes team is seeking representatives for the year 2025. It’s time to submit your nominations! Please leave a comment in the section below to nominate a team member. Based on the nominations, two or three representatives will be selected for the Themes team.

Currently, @acosmin@shivashankerbhatta, and me (@kafleg) are the team representatives

What are Team Reps?

Team representatives are responsible for acting as the primary communicators on behalf of their team.

In the WordPress open-source project, each team typically has one or two representatives (reps).

Read here to learn more about team reps.

Responsibilities:

  • They represent the team
  • Communication with other teams
  • Post weekly updates
  • Mentor theme reviewers 
  • Transfer themes, suspend or delist themes (if necessary)
  • Conduct team meetings, write meeting agendas and meeting notes 
  • Guide theme authors and reply to their questions 
  • Regularly check themes team email and follow-up etc. 
  • Maintain Theme Check pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party
  • Review Patterns and set live or delist them, etc.

What are the qualifications?

A representative should be an active member of the WordPress Community. Someone reliable and trusted, familiar with WordPress theme development.

How to nominate someone? 

The deadline for nominations is Sunday, December 15, 2024.

Nomination text sample: “I would like to nominate @nominee_wp_username”. Or you can also nominate yourself. You can write “I would like to nominate myself”. 

If you get nominated but if you are not ready for the reps, you can decline it as well.

How Will the Election Work?

If we receive more nominations and are unable to reach a consensus on the representatives, we will hold a vote, similar to an election. If necessary, we will publish a separate post with detailed information about the voting process.

Once the results are in, the new team representative(s) will be announced in a follow-up blog post.

If you have any questions, feel free to comment below. Happy Nominating!

#themes-team

Celebrating 1,000 Block Themes in the themes repository!

I’m happy to share news about a major milestone in the WordPress community: the addition of 1,000 block themes in the themes repository. This showcases the growing popularity of 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 design and empowering theme authors.

The Rise of Block Themes

The first block theme to go live was Armando, crafted by Carolina Nymark (@poena).

As of October 22, 2023, there are 536 block themes live, and since January 1, 2024, that number has risen by an impressive 457. This rapid growth reflects the community’s enthusiasm for block-based design, making it easier than ever to create unique, tailored experiences online.

Celebrating Top Theme Authors

The achievement of 1,000 block themes would not be possible without the dedicated efforts of talented theme authors. Here are the top 10 contributors to the WordPress theme ecosystem:

  1. Automattic – 116 themes
  2. Creta Themes – 41 themes
  3. VW Themes – 39 themes
  4. WPRadiant – 35 themes
  5. pewilliams – 34 themes
  6. CozyThemes – 32 themes
  7. CodeYatri – 30 themes
  8. Catch Themes – 29 themes
  9. Superb Addons – 28 themes
  10. themegrovewp – 27 themes

These authors have played a crucial role in expanding the block theme landscape, offering users a diverse array of styles and functionalities to choose from.

What’s Next for Block Themes?

The themes team would like to see more block themes. We expect an influx of innovative designs and functionalities. Whether you’re a developer, designer, or site owner, the potential of block themes offers exciting opportunities for creativity and customization.

We encourage everyone to dive into the themes repository and explore the vast selection of block themes available. Whether you’re starting a new project or looking to refresh an existing site, there’s a block theme waiting for you.

Join the Celebration!

If you have your favourite block theme, comment below. Or if you’re building any block theme and planning to submit in the WordPress themes repository, we also love to listen to that. Comment down below.

Happy WordPressing!

Thank you @acosmin for collecting the data and reviewing the post.

#block-themes, #block-based-themes, #full-site-editing, #themes-team

Themes team meeting notes for October 22, 2024

The meeting notes are from the themes team discussion.

  • Date: October 22, 2024
  • Time: 15:00 UTC
  • Location: #themes channel
  • Agenda: Themes team meeting agenda
  • Agenda Prepared by: @kafleg
  • Meeting facilitator – @kafleg
  • Notes taker – @bijayyadav
  • Full transcript –  #themes channel

Attendees:

Thank you everyone who attended the meeting.

1. Weekly Updates

In the past 7 days,

  • 751 tickets were opened
  • 755 tickets were closed
    • 741 tickets were made live.
      • 20 new Themes were made live.
      • 721 Theme updates were made live.
      • 0 more were approved but are waiting to be made live.
    • 14 tickets were not approved.
    • 0 tickets were closed-newer-version-uploaded.

Note: These stats include both the new theme tickets and updated theme tickets as well.

Number of reviewers: 5 (@acosmin@kafleg@fahimmurshed@vowelweb,@bijayyadav)

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. themes status:

  • 22 Block themes are currently being reviewed
  • 5 The Block theme has been live for the last 7 days

Currently, we have 86 themes under review. More information on weekly updates is here.

2. SEO Keyword stuffing in the theme name

While reviewing themes or checking the themes repo, we found some themes’ names is not like a name but more SEO keyword stuffing.

Theme name like `SEO Specialist Agency` is more like keywords, not name. During the meeting, @williampatton said, “That does seem kinda keyword loaded to me but I don’t know if it violates any rules”. @heatheracton added, “Given these themes are meant for wide use, it could be suggested they change to “Specialist Agency”. “SEO Specialist Agency” seems pretty niche? Maybe could add something to the theme developer handbook, recommending generic names?”

Aslam Naik said, “If an author persistently submits themes which are obvious keyword stuffing, we can suggest them. If they are using long-tail keywords we can suggest or request changes, I think once they know reviewers are aware of this issue, they will automatically deter”.

@kafleg summarized that to reduce such name by,

  • Check the name of the theme and if the name seems Keyword stuffing, inform the theme author to change it.
  • Suggest some good name ideas.
  • If they repeatedly do, again ask them to change.

During the meeting, we agreed to follow this and then see how it will work in coming days.

3. Twenty Twenty-Five theme testing

Testing the TT5(Twenty Twenty-Five) theme is also a good way to contribute to the WordPress project. You can test PRs or the entire theme with current and previous versions of WordPress, as well as in different PHPPHP PHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. https://www.php.net/manual/en/preface.php. versions.

During the meeting, @heatheracton shared, “Just wanted to share that I’m submitting my first ever Issue after testing the TT5 theme.”  

We love to see your active contribution to testing the TT5 theme. Also, the RC1 of 6.7 is released.

4. Open Floor

During the open floor, @kafleg shared that, KafleG, @shivashankerbhatta and @ohia talked with the Contributor Mentorship Program themes team mentee and it was a nice talk.

Matias is looking for reviewers who can review PRs for the theme check pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party.

See you everyone at the next meeting! Mark your calendar for second Tuesday of November.


#meeting-notes, #themes-team

Themes team meeting agenda for October 22, 2024

The Themes Team holds meetings on the second and fourth Tuesdays every month. For this month, the second meeting is set to take place on October 22.

Meeting Details:

(You need WordPress 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/. and you need an account to participate. View here how to make a WordPress Slack account.)

Alongside the scheduled agendas, we dedicate time at the end of each meeting for an open floor session, where you are invited to ask questions or share any themes-related updates.

We strongly encourage all members and anyone interested in the themes to join in. If there are specific topics you’d like to see included in the agenda, please don’t hesitate to add them in the comment section below.

Meeting Agendas

  1. Weekly updates
  2. SEO Keyword stuffing in theme name
  3. Twenty Twenty-Five theme testing
  4. Open Floor

I am looking forward to seeing you at the meeting!

#agenda, #themes-team