Guilty as charged. Sponsored themes out. I would cut the chase and get straight to the point.
@ Those who think their career would go down the tubes because one site stops promoting them, I sincerely doubt if they ever had a career.
Let’s take a quick look at the holier-than-thou, so-called-ethical designers lauded by Matt and Mark.
- Designers like Julian Klewes and Lisa Sabin downrated themes using aliases. Instead of removing such designers, the entire rating system was removed. Why was no action ever taken against them? If such designers are going to be lauded, I would want to believe that Matt and Mark both think it was ethical to downrate themes. It would be just fair to remove “them� along with sponsored themes, if ethics is what we are fighting for, or we should remove sponsored themes alone and stop acting ethical.
- Designers like Julian Klewes (non-sponsored) have 32 outgoing links from some of his themes, talk about linkware. Maybe holy links from holy designers to holy sites don’t confuse users and increase PR, unlike those of sponsors which drop PR and confuse users. How many of you think mud-slinging posts would be written against Julian Klewes had he been a sponsored designer?
- Does someone like Julian Klewes have a right to say sponsored themes are ugly, when some of his themes have fonts big enough that even a blind man could probably see, leave alone the latest theme Rainbow, which looks great until you see it in IE? It’s not like I like picking on Jez, but he is quite a character.
- Milo claims all sponsored themes are butt ugly. Agreed, her themes might be better than some of the newbies’, but what did her themes look like when she was a newbie? Give designers time to learn Milo just like you learnt. Also, there are some sponsored themes which are better than yours, so please do not generalize.
- Ajay D’Souza has a sponsored designer’s link in his footer. Who is this unethical sponsored designer he is supporting on his site? Everton Blair, the guy who went on a downrating spree with close to 15 aliases. (Does that make him twice as unethical, one for downrating and one for being a sponsored designer?) If so, why do ethical people like Ajay need to join hands with select “unethical� people? Just curious.
Now let’s see more ethics in question, conveniently ignored so far:
Sadish Bala, the king of all, when it came to downrating themes is now one of the voluntary judges of the sandbox competition! Awesome. If Edwin A.K.A Sadish Bala, who downrated the maximum number of themes on Theme Viewer using 14 different IPs is to be a judge, then I seriously doubt the credibility of the competition itself.
@ Those of you who blatantly generalize that sponsored themes are not as good as non-sponsored themes
Can you explain to me why:
- Our themes get downloaded and used so frequently?
- Every Tom, Dick and Harry used aliases to downrate our themes?
- Why do copycats like Lorelei, Jamie, Todd Ridge, etc. copy Earthling, Redux Klein, Orange Sunrise over and over again?
It’s high time we discuss “design� and go case by case, instead of falling into the pitfalls of biases and generalizations. In trying to generalize, some have you have forgotten to rationalize.
@ All of the new sponsored and non-sponsored users who have contributed nothing but duplicates and ripoffs and flooded the theme repository, you collectively have given a bad name to all sponsored designers (the scapegoats). Thanks, but no thanks.
Is Thomas the Undersigned unethical because his themes are sponsored too?
No way. Anyone who says that will only show how ungrateful s/he could be. We cannot and should not forget his enormous contribution to WordPress. “Unethical� has become a loosely coined word and those who give others names without any qualms need to think again as to why they try to impose their opinions on others. Creating WordPress makes you a software genius Matt, but that does not in any way give you or Mark the authority to play God and decide who is ethical and unethical. We are educated and responsible people of the society too, and do have a right to have a different opinion. If Matt wants to remove sponsored themes, we respect his decision, however, it would be nice if he does not try to justify it, because there are various occasions where he has kept his eyes closed when the opinions about unethical practices were not even divided.
Examples:
- The same people who abused the rating system are his proponents today and judges and sponsors of the sandbox competition, as mentioned above.
- For more than a year, there were no TOS or guidelines for users to follow, although that’s the first thing any webmaster who distributes themes should have done. Hate us as much as you want, but I was the one to set up the FAQ for users to have some ground rules on the do’s and don’ts. I’ve spent close to 1-2 hours of my time everyday voluntarily in the past 4 months trying to work towards the betterment of the site. I wouldn’t be surprised if you Matt tell me “no one forced me to�, but I say this just so that people know that some sponsored designers like us actually provide a service, not only to our users, but for the betterment of y(our) site too. I call it “our� for the fondness towards it after being on it for more than a year now, I’m aware of your ownership rights, so please don’t get me wrong.
- On the contrary, what’s the contribution of the holy non-sponsored designers who apparently have been kissing your ass for long? When the thumbnails were down, Lisa Sabin and many other “ungrateful� users wrote irresponsible comments, Jez hates the moderator because his duplicate themes was removed, there might be many others who might hate us because we called them out. Most of your supporters kiss ass, but no one wants to do shit for free.. We could have revealed “headsetoptions� was the “moderator�, but we didn’t. That’s the difference between work and talk.
- Matt, are you aware of the ripoffs being promoted on http://codex.wordpress.org? What proactive steps have your moderators taken to check themes being listed there? On the other hand, I have managed to significantly control duplicates and ripoffs singlehandedly on Theme Viewer. I will send you a list of the violators if you care to respond to your own moderator. Inspite of providing a “ready-made� copyrights violators’s list to Michael H, the “stolen themes� continue being listed on Codex. How good is that?
- This is the reply I received from Mark Ghosh when I reported ripoffs and sponsored themes (in disguise as non-sponsored themes) to him:
“There is no good way to answer or approach these issues and copyright violations are a problem that all of us in the Intellectual property business face everyday. The authors of weblogtoolscollection.com go through too much data every day to check each and every theme for copyright issues and such and mistakes can and will happen. The same goes for sponsor link themes. So, I urge you to get in touch with us as soon as you notice a problem.� Is too much of data an excuse for promoting ripoffs on Codex or WLTC? Is that negligence not going to “confuse� users? If you yourself can’t tell between a sponsored theme and a non-sponsored theme, then what’s the ruckus about? Sponsored themes will continue to get listed as non-sponsored. If a few individuals at headsetoptions.org alone can spend two hours of their day everyday to check each and every theme for free, why can’t WordPress.org’s and WLTC’s HIRED EMPLOYEES do that much?
Of course, Matt and Mark, it is very time-consuming, and I do have a day job too, but if you want your monster sites to run efficiently, you need to find volunteers or you need to be ready to dole out a little money towards this specific job. Your ideology is great that the whole world should work for free, but you get what you pay for. Out of your 5000 users on http://themes.wordpress.net, not one wants to do shit for free, the only thing they do amazingly well is bitch endlessly for free.
When was the last time someone discussed design? My memory fails me, as far as I remember, people have only overtly exhibited their cheap thrills in pulling others down. Kissing ass is different, doing real work is different. Why should anyone work for free? Which world are we living in? Mark Ghosh, you are either an American or an Indian or both, if I am right? America and India are both capitalistic economies, I don’t think capitalism is bad or evil.
What is bad and needs to be controlled is individual wrong practices and for that, you have no choice but to check each and every theme, no matter how time-consuming and painful the process be. There are no excuses.
For more on this, read hso’s (moderator’s) post.
[...] more on this, read Marks post. One final note: We are partnering with wpSnap to promote our 100 or so themes. You will be able to [...]
I’m with you on this. You make some very good points. Work is underway this week to remove the Themes List from the WordPress Codex. It was started and barely maintained due to, as you know, the overwhelming number of Themes, before there were any good listings of Themes. Since the Theme Viewer developed, a much better option, this list has only been maintained for updated links and a few additions by Theme authors, not by people qualified to check and verify Theme quality.
With it gone, we are pointing to the Theme Viewer for Theme resources.
The issue of WordPress Theme ethics is one that has concerned me for a long time. I believe that any abuse should not be tolerated, but as you explain, this is easier said than done.
Your work on the Theme Viewer has been exemplary and I’m extraordinarily proud of what you’ve done, even if you have stayed in the shadows. It is much appreciated and invaluable to the WordPress Community and we don’t thank you guys enough.
Sponsorships for the SDC don’t have any influence on competition policies nor procedures. So anyone can sponsor, regardless.
Now, the other fellow you mentioned, well, I’ll look in to that.
@ Scott
I think what you are doing with the competition is a great idea. It’s the judge and sponsor that bother me (and Mark alike) as we have experienced their horrid sides a little too much.
@ Lorelle
It’s a big and pleasant surprise to see someone actually acknowledging our efforts. Thank you.
I would like to acknowledge my gratitude to Thomas, the Undersigned, for entrusting me with the responsibility in the first place.
For the record any link that Ajay may have to my site has been added without me asking becuase he is a friend. I have a similar link to his site from mine for exactly the same reasons.
As for me downgrading other sites – yes this was very stupid of me and I have already made ammends for this.
On to my final point. I see that your relationship with the WordPress themes site is now out in the open. In my view this means that if you have a problem with sponsored themes then you should just ban them outright from the theme viewer, rather than whinging about them on your personal blog. You can’t let themes onto the site that you don’t like, and then criticise them publicly on your blog. I don’t think that’s either ethical or very professional.
I’ve watched and commented on the sponsored theme issue for awhile. I also bore witness to the incredible lack of patience and understanding displayed by some users at themes.wordpress.net when its former administrator had difficulties keeping up with the site. Yep, there was plenty of bellyaching and precious little stepping up to the plate to help unburden him.
But isn’t that just proof that 10% of the people indeed do 90% of the work?
Mindful of the fact that the domain belongs to Matt and/or WordPress and he/it can run it as he/they see fit, if it is a site that is supposed to be for the benefit of the community, it should be run a little more like a democracy and less like a fascist dictatorship or kingdom.
Only then will WP users have true freedom of choice. Right now, they have what is doled out to them. But .. at least that beats a sharp stick in the eye.
And I am heartened to see a Report This button which will allow the community to help somewhat with housekeeping tasks, yet shudder at the same time to think that people will be hitting that button for reasons having nothing to do with reporting duplicate or infringing themes.
I’ll be under my rock if anyone needs me.
Good, good. Shouldn’t worried about the sponsors, since they’re simply providing the funds to reward the participating designers. They don’t have any input on competition policies or procedures.
I’m still looking in to the one judge you mentioned, trying to find out if there’s anything verifiable out there. I’ve also contacted Thomas (of Theme Viewer fame) and he’s gotten back to me. Let’s see.
@ Everton,
When did I say I’m against sponsored themes? I’m against poorly coded, duplicated themes and ripoffs.
Let me publicly tell everyone that you were the “only” one, who actually took the onus for down-rating and did make amendments and I appreciate your courage to come out clean.
I merely quoted you here just as a tongue-in-cheek remark to point out the double standards of those who criticize others all the time just because they are/were in a position of power, case in point, Ajay being an author on WLTC.
I’m not against anyone personally.
As far as the sponsored themes are concerned, if Matt wants to remove them, fine, you have to take it up with him, not me.
Joni,
I must tell you this that in the past 4-5 months, I’ve spent a lot of time along with hso removing so many duplicates and ripoffs even without a Report button.
So, I don’t think a report button is all you need, you need someone who will actually take action after reporting or have the willingness to help others and the ability to check ripoffs even without being reported, on a day-to-day basis.
Some of the ripoffs were so blatant that those who copied even copied the names of the original designers and commented it out.
I agree with democracy, though democracy without any checks and balances would be a place like Iraq.
When it comes to work, users who make so much noise do nothing, period.
@ Scott
You may also contact hso for verifiable information.
[...] If I could walk on water, you’d complain I can’t swim [...]
You provide some solid points; well worth the read.
Interesting and informative post. I blogged this morning with my thoughts on the sponsored theme debate but was unaware of some of your points when I did. I am a bit concerned about some of your points. You certainly have no problems naming names and stating their abuse of the system; however, I may have missed it, but I didn’t see any “proof.” I’m not trying to defend the alleged violators, I’m just trying to be fair. Some of your accusations are very strong, I just wish you would have shared the evidence for these claims.
I don’t see why it matters. Even if they remove them from the official sites, they’re still gonna be found on the author sites and they’re still gonna get used. So what’s the point in even trying?
[...] If I could walk on water, you’d complain I can’t swim [...]
@ Bret
The issue is not that of an individual, you don’t have to believe anything, however, the confessions made here alone should suffice as evidence. We have no vested interest in calling people out, we did at one point feel they screwed us, but we have put that past us and we only want to focus on the future. The points listed here are only to show there are other “real issues� that need to be looked into, lets try and address that instead on focusing on people.
I appreciate the nominees in the categories best ass, best linking and best person talked crap about. you know where you can read my take.
anyway, whatever..
@ Jez
You need to grow up before I can talk to you. We are having an adult conversation here.
The fellow in question was graceful enough to resign when the point was raised. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Situation diffused.
[...] a whole ‘nother picture doesn’t it? Add to the fact that the Theme Viewer has its share of unscrupulous designers and getting a true sense of what the numbers mean becomes infinitely more [...]
[...] a shame the whole debate went south. Scott, chris, HSO, mandarinmusing, and others turn out themes that make me wonder if i should give up web design, and leave it to the [...]
[...] a shame the whole debate went south. Scott, chris, HSO, mandarinmusing, and others turn out themes that make me wonder if i should give up web design, and leave it to the [...]
[...] a whole ‘nother picture doesn’t it? Add to the fact that the Theme Viewer has its share of unscrupulous designers and getting a true sense of what the numbers mean becomes infinitely more [...]