Theme reviewers needed – lots of them.

  • Now that we have the 1.5 themes list in place and it is continuing to grow, we would like to start making it more accessible and helpful to users.

    One plan is to have theme reviews listed. Obviously, with over 250 themes this could prove to be a huge task. So, if you want to get involved, feel like writing some reviews on themes you have tried, or simply do not have a life and need something more, let us know and come and give us a hand.

    Kafkaesqui has offered to have a look at making a theme browser for the themes, similar in design to Alex King’s, and we are also looking into adding screenshots of each them as well.

    The plan is to have a database that will provide as much information about all the themes available, in the easiest manner possible.

    250 themes
    – 25 people at 10 themes each?
    – 10 people at 25 themes each?
    or most likely 3 or 4 people at HEAPS of themes to review.
    And of course, even writing one or two reviews would be very helpful.

    This is a community project, so get over to the WRC, register, and as soon as you feel like it, start writing reviews. All contributors are given level 9 access and have their names highlighted in big flashing lights.

    If you think this can work, please get involved!

    Please note that my ‘offline’ life is taking a lot of my time and I may not be able to respond to questions, suggestions until the end of work each day.

    You can contact me at [shadow12 gmail]

Viewing 13 replies - 31 through 43 (of 43 total)

  • It’s shame there’s isn’t a modifiable review-type plugin, where you enter the fields like a post and then post it as a reivew about anything. Structured Blogging goes some way to fix this, but it’s media specific – but I guess it could be modified to work differently, and since it’s GPL not a big problem. Made some mods to it myself then buggered it all up.

    I think so far the reviewers that have managed to actually post their reviews have been really solid. The insight has been enjoyable and more importantly the reviews I feel have been mostly balanced. It’s difficult to make an objective view of something you are in awe of, but even enthusiastic reviews about a theme are a good thing.

    I take it users currently add things like:

    Author: blah
    Them: Blah

    etc manually? How structured you want the review will depend on the depth – you could have it as it is, which I think is pretty good and gives a summary-type reivew. Or you can break it down into criteria: layout, colours, ease of use, problems etc.

    I’d like to do some reviews myself, but I’m about 2 days behind on sleep, and several projects short of my head exploding

    Thread Starter shadow

    (@shadow)

    FYI

    The WRC now has a theme browser similar in design to Alex King’s with over 190 themes on show.

    Reviews are starting to come in from our contributors and we have quite a few new members.

    The WordPress Reference Centre

    Just a thought on the rating system:
    The first thing that comes to mind, to make it far more fair, is a system I’ve seen used to rate custom game levels. They are reviewed by more than one person (a down side for these themes, due to lack of people & free time) and given points based on a number of set criteria. This way, if one person gives a low rating and one a high, it evens out. Or, if one person dislikes the colors and one doesn’t it also evens out.
    You could use criteria like – overall look & feel, ease of use, coding practices, design etc…

    I’m *really* glad someone is reviewing them, though. Makes it easier for users to decide. ?? Thanks for pulling it all together, Shadow.

    andrea_r: (Just tried to use nick complete there for a second… Way too much time on IRC lately!) I think that’s pretty much the idea we had in mind; allowing users to come and register and then be allowed to comment and vote on themes. The reviewer(s) would also be able to give their honest critique about a theme, including most of the factors you mentioned: overall look & feel, ease of use, etc. The reviewer can give the theme a numerical rating if they choose, but it won’t count as a “vote”; that’s up to the users to decide. If they like it, they’ll vote high, if not, they’ll vote low. Either way, they’ll vote and comment to let future visitors know what they think. ?? (Yes, people can be fickle, but that’s kinda how the cookie crumbles… I’d rather see 20 comments and votes from people who aren’t familiar with the technical aspects of WordPress and/or a certain theme — the people who’re actually going to be USING the theme, and need it to just work — than 1 review from someone who is. And besides, it is an average; one low vote from someone isn’t going to bring down the rating too much…) We’re there to help make a decision easier, if possible, not to make the decision for them. ??

    This is a strange statement in the default style. css

    small, #sidebar ul ul li, #sidebar ul ol li, .nocomments, .postmetadata, strike {
    color: #777;
    }

    It used to include blockquote, and that is how I found it. I use blockquote a lot, and I didn’t like it in gray. I don’t know what the rest of this is, but I doubt if it needs it either. I removed the whole statement, without noticing any differences on my blog.

    I am mind boggeled from the last post, not sure if it was meant for this thread.

    Back to the voting process, I really would not put that much into it, really personally do no think it requires debate. It is just like a movie critique, if you like the theme, the critique will not stop anyone from using it. Many movies get bad reviews and people still go because of the Actors/whatever. I think it is too late to try to implement it differently, seems to be a 1-10 and it should stay IMO.

    I think that this is a good opportunity for theme exposure and thank Shadow for his idea.

    dawg – My sentiments exactly. ?? Now, why aren’t you over on the forum…? ??

    @pplproof

    I have just spent the last five minutes looking for the forum but navigation is not pointing me there, I believe I saw it yesterday???

    @dawg

    https://shadows.os42.com/forum/index.php — See ya soon. ??

    I don’t think I’ve seen a forum before where everyone must be a moderator to post. Or read. Or… :)

    @kafkaesqui

    Considering you’re the one who provided the theme switcher, how come you’re not on there. It might be helpful to have your opinion and assistance on some things. ??

    Pplproof: Having not known about it is definitely one reason. I just reg’d (as Kaf), but as I mentioned, gotta be a mod to do anything other than surf the member profiles. Pretty banner image, though…

    Kafkaesqui: Argh… I’ll drop Shadow an email and see if he can change access to public, since noone’s going to find it unless they’re actually looking for it or have been given a link. I don’t think there’s even a link from his main site to it. It’d be nice to be able to converse with of the programmers, theme developers, etc. in a more private setting. We’ll get it sorted out… ??

Viewing 13 replies - 31 through 43 (of 43 total)
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