After several months of discussion, WordPress.org’s Theme Review Team has decided to discontinue the Trusted Authors (TA) Program that launched in April 2018. The program, which was controversial from its inception, allowed certain authors to bypass the normal theme review queue after demonstrating an ability to submit themes with fewer than three issues. Trusted Author…
As part of its new onboarding experience for WordPress customers, GoDaddy has created a group of 10 themes to streamline the process of creating a business website. In order to host updates more effectively, the company is submitting the themes to WordPress.org and the first one is now live after less than 24 hours in…
Zerif Lite, one of the most popular themes on WordPress.org, has been suspended by the Theme Review Team for several violations of the Presentation vs. Functionality guideline. As a result, more than 300,000 users (including those on child themes of Zerif Lite) can no longer receive maintenance and security updates to the theme. Justin Tadlock,…
The WordPress Theme Review Team published an action plan today, summarizing the team’s consensus on moving forward to address bottlenecks in the review process. The queue is currently backed up with hundreds of themes waiting to be approved. “The Theme Review Team is aware that we currently have problems,” Tammie Lister said before introducing the…
Last April, WordPress Theme Review Team member Jose Castaneda proposed that the team adopt a standard change log format. Theme authors are not yet required to keep a change log but the general consensus is that it’s a good practice that benefits users. Castaneda revived the topic of change logs during the team’s most recent…
The WordPress Theme Review Team is now curating a library of code examples on GitHub for theme developers. The first section is devoted to customizer code with examples for panels, sections, basic controls, and advanced controls. “We will continue to add to the library, including more examples of custom controls, and more advanced examples, such…
The WordPress Theme Review team made a major decision this week to enforce the use of the native customizer on new themes submitted to the directory. Theme authors who want to include customization options will no longer be able to create their own settings panels but will be required to follow the new customizer standard,…
Emil Uzelac’s new WordPress Theme Review service is the first of its kind. As a four-year veteran of the WordPress.org Theme Review Team, he is uniquely qualified to operate a service that focuses on theme standards and quality control. Uzelac plans to assist developers with theme reviews for client projects, commercial themes, and free themes…
Emil Uzelac is a freelance WordPress designer and developer who has been reviewing WordPress themes for the past three years. He and other team members have been blazing through theme approvals and setting records this month on wordpress.org. Recently, I had the chance to chat with him about what it’s like to be on the…