14.Jul.2007 at 12:59 pm | Sunny
Matt takes over http://themes.wordpress.net
So we are not trying to wait it out or anything like that, we are just as sick of it as y’all are so let’s get this thing done and over with. Today will not go down in history as the day WordPress died; in fact it’s the opposite. In my opinion, WordPress is the best open source CMS out there, and can remain that way if we all took the chill pill and got our acts together.
Talking about acts, here’s a confession to add for your weekend gossip, Mark and I have lived a dual life for the past 4 months on WordPress both as designers and as the moderator of themes.wordpress.net, yes we were cleaning out the mess and doing the dirty job while Matt and Mark (Gosh) were busy smearing us with the tar of being the bad guys. But as Matt would thanklessly say, “no one asked us to do it”, we volunteered!
So why are we only coming out now? We do not seek attention, but this might be the best opportunity to bring to the attention of the WP communities some of the challenges we are facing today that must be addressed and could very well be prevented when Matt takes over the themes repository completely (as widely speculated) for whatever the reason. Think of this as the “Moderators” public service announcement. But before we go, I would like to clear the air and talk a little about why and how we got here in the first place.
How this rolling stone indeed gathered moss (a prelude)
It always appears to start with Mark (Gosh) getting pissed with sponsored themes, then Matt gets pissed, then the wannabes usually get cheap thrills out of kicking the themers when they are down. So Matt is planning on removing all the sponsored themes out of the official repository.
“Sponsored themes” are bad right?
At least that is what half the active WP community thinks. The other half think it’s a joke, or that they (Matt, Mark) are taking a hypocritical stance, and some even believe it’s a conspiracy brewed by Automattic to make a good faith jester to please Google. I personally made my stand a while ago, but it was widely misconstrued as a rebut by the sponsored theme designers (as a collective) against the rest, so before we get the same notion again, as I wrote in my earlier post, it is my opinion and I do not speak for anyone else.
Do I think sponsored themes are unethical?
Not all themes are created equal, so some themes are genuinely good, some are just rip-offs with new colors or imagery created just to make a quick buck. But since it’s hard to selectively discriminate, the whole theming community that have sponsors are considered unethical. Some designers stretched it a little too much, so it has come back to bite.
So what’s next?
If Matt wants to remove them (sponsored themes) from his site (yeah he owns wordpress.net), he is well within his rights, so stop whining, he is not telling you what you should write or have on your site, so why should you tell him how to run his.
So what happens to the designers?
It’s not the making of the sponsored themes, it’s having them on Matt’s site that bothers him. So if Theme Viewer will not host a sponsored theme, just take it elsewhere. If your themes are good, the users will find you irrespective of where you are hosted and get to it. You are still free to participate on Theme Viewer (or whatever the official site would be called) with non-sponsored themes. The real issues that are not talked about (in my opinion) are that of licensing (forcing GPL on designers), copyrights and ethics (or the lack of it). These issues are largely ignored and have plagued the WP community for a while now.
Just a brief history of our past on Theme Viewer (to benefit those that are new)
It started off with its (Theme Viewers) infamous rating system, this was pre-sponsors, and copyright violations were unheard off and there were only a handful of designers. Fame was the only prize at stake, and anytime there is anything at stake, there are loopholes that facilitate the flourishing of those who in Darwin’s world should rightfully be extinct. Some designers started down-rating others’ work, irresponsible comments were plastered all over the theme page, fake downloads were rampant and of course all of it happened with fake username and IP manipulation. How do we know? We were the ones on the receiving end most of the time so we vested our time and efforts to catch the culprits. Sadish Bala (now judging the Sandbox competition), Lisa-Sabin Wilson (writing the WordPress for Dummies book and sponsoring the same Sandbox competition), Jez (Julian Klewes- the guys with 30+ links in his themes), Everton Blair, are all classic examples of screw-ups dressed as designers, this list is almost endless so I wont bother. All of these individuals managed to benefit by exploiting the system to the fullest, and I mean it in a way that left most of us hurting! They are still out there and many revered for their efforts, their dark past is now overshadowed by the sponsored theme ruckus. And if you are wondering who fueled the sponsored theme issue? Yep, it’s the very loser bunch with a few exceptions like Sadish who himself provides sponsored themes.
After much persistence and persuasion, the rating system was shutdown.
Then the game changed
On opening the floodgates of registration in March this year, new designers quickly filled every crevice of the Theme Viewer making it, well… crowded. How crowded? Close to 5000 registrants in 4 months (more than doubling its size), of which less than 650 of those have contributed at least 1 theme (even I wonder what the other 4500 are up to). This new blood brought in new challenges. Words like spam, theme rip-off, copyright violation, sponsored theme, and even “bitching” made it to the main page of the most visited WordPress theme repository in the world. We all know what happened (or will happen) to sponsored themes, but it’s time we addressed the rest too.
So the “Real” issue is?
Close to 100 themes were removed in the past 3 months for copyright violations alone, a handful of users were down-graded to subscribers (as opposed to contributors) for repeat offense. One funny incident comes to my mind, allow me to indulge. A designer copied one of my themes and made numerous themes out of it and sold footer links to sponsors on DP, all she did was change the header images, rename the theme and call it a new theme. When Mark confronted her, she promised to add attribution credits (for the original template designer and us). She promptly ignored her promise and wrote to me (i.e. to the WP Moderator) saying that she has sorted it out with the designers and it’s OK for me to allow her to add her themes to the theme viewer. Of course, that never happened, so she posted an angry rant calling me unjust (and while you are there check the page source and view the CSS, it’s our Eathling theme without any attributes). That is the sorry state of our theming community today, and it’s people like her that hastened the sponsored theme debacle and rightfully so. Add to that the issues people like Jez, who in the name of non-sponsored themes included 30+ links to his site from each of his newer themes. So as a friend often pointed out, there is “greed”, but I want to add that it’s just not limited to sponsored theme designers. Copyright violations by and far remains the single largest unresolved issue.
What about licensing, should there be a rule?
No. The designer reserves the rights to decide how she/he releases their work. Automattic cannot enforce any restrictions on theme and plugin designers, they can reject the designer licensing and work, but they nonetheless have no say on how you decide to license it. Think about it, a change in licensing could very well determine the fate of all future work on WP. Say for example that all themes were released under GPL, can you prevent theme rip-offs and duplicates? Without protecting the attributions (of the designers) there is no motivation to create free products. If you don’t believe me, ask themers to remove all attribution links from their work and see how many non-sponsored designers will add their themes to Theme Viewer.
Analysis
All of the aforementioned makes me want to believe that terms like ethics are loosely used in the WP community. When the sponsored theme issue was raised earlier this year, we requested moderators/admins from other popular WP sites to also address the issue of duplicates and rip-offs, and to our surprise, we got answers like “it’s a lot of work to sort them out”. So my question is, what happened to your fucking ethics? You are fine with removing sponsored themes (as it is voluntarily disclosed) but you will let knock-offs and copyright-violated theme have a free reign on your sites? Today, both wordpress.org and WLTC have listed and continue to list such themes. Not on theme viewer, at least not under our watch. And just so you know, both Mark and I have real careers and we take the fucking time out to address issues on Theme Viewer, upload permissions, removing duplicates, rip-offs, and stay late and answering support questions and creating new designs! So if you cannot do it because it’s a lot of work, hire someone to do it. Your incompetence is no excuse, and for shits sake stop playing the moral police. For once, put your money where you mouth is and do the right thing by cleaning up your own sites first.
My sincere advice (and no you don’t have to listen to me)
- Let’s put our differences aside. Go ahead and remove sponsored themes, while you are at it remove rip-offs, duplicates, themes with shitzillion links, themes by those who traditionally “played” the system, and those who do not bother leaving attribution links.
- Let’s start fresh. This time set rules, disclaimers and FAQs to help users as to what is OK and what is not, it’ll help both users and admins save time and effort.
- Hire moderators. If you can afford one, find free, fair and reliable moderators who will manage the site.
- This one is for the designers, don’t stop making themes, the success of WordPress is no doubt related to it’s ease of skinning, your creation is a contribution back to the community. If you benefit from making themes, so will the community as a whole.
In conclusion
Real changes require real planning and real commitment, we will have to wait and see if the recent changes will address any of it. Remember, WordPress is community built, so no need to make it personal or get upset, just put on your warring boots and brace the challenge.
For more on this, read Marks post.
1. If I could walk on water, you’d complain I can’t swim at mandarin musing | July 14, 2007 #
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