Michael

I fully agree with what Matt said, although I tend to believe that Vertex was a coincidence (an unfortunate one as it may be a good idea to actually Google a name before using it as a theme name because you may conflict with an existing brand which can be quite expensive), but others may not. Thinking that .org isn’t being used as an advertisement platform by commercial companies is honorable, but also extremely naive at the same time.

Just like with classic advertising, search engine optimization, social media marketing or content marketing, .org is a great way to bring a product in front of many WordPress users and the majority of high-quality themes on .org are being uploaded by developers with commercial interests, believe it or not. If the developer isn’t selling a product, then the free theme/plugin is being used to promote his company or drive traffic to a particular website where money is being made via advertisements or services.

Otto, I really respect your hard work and your authority, but assuming that this isn’t happening, or even saying that running a business while using .org as a marketing tool is wrong, isn’t that great. In my opinion using .org for promotion is absolutely valid, it’s just an obvious place for promotion because that is where millions of users are looking for their favorite plugin or theme. In fact, I would even say there is no better place for promoting a WP product than on .org – at least when starting a WP business to get some traction, especially with the high competition nowadays.

And like Matt said, many small business are depending on .org as their main source of income, you may find that questionable, but it’s just like it is and it isn’t a bad thing – if you are aware of the risks as a company. It’s basically the same like when app developers are depending on their revenue via the App Store / Play Store. Is there a 3rd party dependency or a business risk if a company is relying on that, surely there is, but it’s not your call if that is a good or bad decision as many companies are contributing to WordPress like that since years.

Like Matt said as well, the same companies are sponsering WordCamps, organizing WP meetups, contributing code, providing support in the .org forums or contributing in many other ways. This isn’t a bad thing, it’s actually a healthy environment and many WP businesses wouldn’t even exist anymore without some kind of promotion via .org.

With that being said, the current popular algorithm is actually encouraging to game the system. I’ve raised that issue already months ago (right after the new algo was introduced) and also mentioned it recently again on Slack because it simply doesn’t make sense to rank brand new themes without an actual user base (or track record) higher than well established quality themes with thousands of happy users and great reviews or even default themes (although it may be questionable as well to have the default themes actually included in the popular list).

However, I also understand the technical limitations on .org and that there is no way to solve this on short term, but still it’s good that the current issues are pointed out as it may contribute to a solution instead of being d’accord with it.

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