[wp-forums] We are not the theme police

[Chris Olbekson]

The reason I brought this up is because we as moderators should not be making judgements on how or where someone acquired a theme or plugin.  I didn't link to the specific topic or even mention who respond ed because I was speaking generally not specific.  When you say "We do not support stolen themes" you are telling someone they are using a "stolen" theme.  You may not be directly accusing them of "stealing" it but you are implying that they are doing something wrong.

The reason I mentioned the GPL is because when using GPL software there is no such thing as stolen or theft because the author of the code has given everyone and anybody permission to do what ever they want with that code (except re distribute it under a different license).  Now whether the theme in question is GPL or not doesn't matter because again it is not our place to even find out if it is.

And in my opinion the question was not theme specific.  The user wanted to know how to make their site responsive and the answer could have been "Remove the fixed width from the content tag and change to a percentage".  Now if the user came back and said "How do I change the css, I looked in the style.css file and there is nothing there"  Now the question becomes theme specific and we can politely tell them they need to get support from the developer via the themes support system at www.premiumthemesupport.com.  

There is no need to say we don't support stolen themes and tell them they need to legitimately purchase it. We don't know how they acquired it nor should it matter.

The only reason I bring this up to the list is because I care about our forum users experience and feel very strong about treating anyone that comes to the forums for help with respect and dignity.

my .02 thanks for reading.

Chris





On Aug 22, 2013, at 3:31 PM, Andrew2.Nevins <Andrew2.Nevins at live.uwe.ac.uk> wrote:

> Ø  One of our moderators accused a user of "stealing" a theme
> 
> That is your interpretation of what I said. I didn't actually say or accuse that.
> 
> 
> Ø  basically told the user "we don't support stolen themes"
> 
> Bingo.  We don't.
> 
> 
> Ø  We are not the theme police and shouldn't be judging or even questioning people on how they acquired a theme or plugin
> 
> 
> I did neither. There was literally now talk as to how the person acquired the theme.
> 
> 
> Ø  Stealing and GPL shouldn't even be used in the same sentence
> 
> Both "Stealing" and "GPL" were never used in that thread.  You are referring to things that I never wrote.
> 
> 
> Ø  The question was really a CSS question and could have applied to ANY theme or website
> 
> No. CSS questions are theme and site specific. If we actually want to provide some useful information then we need to be supporting the user's particular theme. As Mika mentioned, you can provide all the non-site-specific CSS you want but eventually the user will need to implement it into their theme and then you can run into troubles with the theme doing things weirdly. I've offered plenty of CSS support for WooThemes, for example, and people just cannot implement the CSS because WooThemes handles CSS specially.
> 
> 
> Ø  If you don't want to answer a question move on and let somebody else answer it.
> 
> What does the OP really want? In my opinion the OP wants the answer regardless of the source it comes from and what better than to ask the theme's author?
> 
> 
> Ø  I normally don't step over other moderators but I edited the response even though it was too late and the user saw it.
> 
> If that person didn't know that their theme's vendors distribute stolen themes then I am glad that the person does now. That person can make a judgement for him/herself as to whether to continue using it .
> 
> ~
> 
> Since I edited the original post and removed the theme's vendors pretty much as soon as the thread was created, I'm just surprised that you do not 'trust' moderators to make these judgements (not a dirty word) fairly.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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