Justin Tadlock

Yes, this decision is a “done deal” as you say, at least for the moment. We had a unanimous vote among team members to make this change to the existing theme settings guidelines. We’re all still in agreement. We plan to see it through. With that said, nothing is ever set in stone. Guidelines change over time as we see what real-world effects come into play. For example, with the upcoming WP API, a whole new world of possibilities will open up. I’m 100% certain that we’re going to see some innovative ideas that we haven’t accounted for yet. And, that’s OK. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

This decision was made based on the current evidence we have. That’s why our team agreed to this. We get to see so much more than just a single person or a single company. We’re certainly not “all knowing”, but we do get to see this thing from an entirely different perspective than others. We think this will benefit the themes in the WordPress.org repository.

I was actually one of the people to fight against this decision three years ago when it was first proposed. I didn’t think it was time. There’s not a single argument in any of the comments that I haven’t either thought of myself or haven’t heard in the last three years. Not a single one.

Guideline changes are rarely loved by all. This isn’t even the most controversial. It’s probably just the most public since it was broken here on WP Tavern. We regularly have debates (often much more heated than here in the comments) among the team. It’s fortunate that these take place over the Internet. Otherwise, some of them might have resulted in fisticuffs. At the end of the day, we all have one goal in common: we want users to have access to awesome themes from the directory.

Some of us have to take a little heat personally. It goes with the territory. You’d be amazed at the amount of hate mail sent sometimes (not just for this decision but others as well). That’s one of the reasons we kind of stand back a bit and let things settle down. The other reason is that it’s often a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation. It wouldn’t matter if we said nothing or presented the most rational arguments ever made in a debate. At least saying nothing at all means you’re not fanning the flames.

Before this turns into an entire essay, I just want to say that we read all comments. No one’s voice is going unheard.

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