Justin Tadlock

Download counts are actually not a terrible way to do the popular list if those counts are done on a time frame. Previously, they were counted by a single week. This meant that during any given week a new or old theme would have a legitimate shot of moving up the ranks.

You might fall the next week, but at least you had those glorious few days where you were in the top. For a lot of theme authors, that’s a damn good feeling.

It wasn’t a completely level playing field (it’ll never be) because popular themes are still shown in the popular list. Being on that list gives your theme an advantage, making it easier to stay there. And, there were definitely people who would try to game that system (I’ve seen theme “updates” of popular themes that just had a readme.txt file change).

However, any given week a new theme could potentially take a spot.

I’m not sold on using active installs to handle the popular list because it means themes that were already popular will stay popular. A theme with 1,000 installs today doesn’t have a shot of competing with a theme that has 500,000 installs.

With all that said, I’d like to discuss other methods of showing off themes. There’s some really, really good themes in the repository that simply don’t get exposure. I’d love to get those themes out there a bit.

While we’re on the subject, I’d also love to separate things out like:

* TRT picks.
* Most downloads (week/month/year).
* Most installs (week/month/year).
* Highest rated.

And, I’d like to knock all the “Twenty” themes off the current popular list. In a few years, there won’t be anything but those themes there.

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