[wp-forums] Support for non-repository-hosted Themes

[Chip Bennett]

All,

Apologies if this question has been discussed previously. I did find one
previous post here<http://lists.automattic.com/pipermail/wp-forums/2010-June/005602.html>,
that failed to generate any response or discussion. If it's been discussed
already, just point me to the appropriate archive so that I don't start a
re-hash of something that's already been discussed/settled.

I spend most of my time in the Themes and Templates forum. Anyone who does
also is familiar with this exchange:

"Help! I can't do X."

"What Theme are you using?"

"I'm using Some Commercial Theme"

"You need to consult Some Commercial Theme's developer for support"

"But I have to pay for support there!"


What are your thoughts on making it the official policy that the WPORG
support forums will only provide Theme-specific support for
repository-hosted Themes? This policy would address not only the issue
above, but would also eliminate issues with Themes downloaded from sketchy
third-party sites.

Would this be a good idea? A bad idea?

If we went this route, I would even suggest that we consider only allowing
topics to be posted through the Extend/Themes listing page for each Theme
(if such a restriction is even possible), to force topics to be auto-tagged
and subject-appended with the Theme Name. Doing so would eliminate another
round of basic questions, since Theme-specific support generally requires
looking at the Theme template files, and knowing what Theme is in use
up-front will help us provide better support, more quickly.

Chip