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

[Jane Wells]

That's not a bad idea, though there will always be more general 
questions too that are applicable to any theme. We'd also need to very 
careful not to create an us vs them situation, or to raise the barrier 
to entry too high for asking a question. Forcing someone to find their 
theme in the repo and ask from there doesn't sound like a great ux to 
me, but we could possibly achieve a similar end by having an 
interstitial before the forum post entry that has them choose 
(auto-complete/search) their theme to get the auto-append in action and 
remind them that commercial themes are just that -- commercial -- and 
are supported by their creators if the question is specific to that theme.
j


On 7/8/11 12:30 PM, Chip Bennett wrote:
> 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
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