Archive recovery note

One media file was not preserved by the web archive. The surviving text and media appear below.

A few weeks ago, I found myself absolutely thrilled about creating WordPress themes. I was so pumped that I stayed up until 2am working on a project – a theme.json only child theme for Twenty Twenty Four with some awesome colorways. You can read more about it here.

During the process, I dove deep into color theory and the WordPress theme.json system, and it was an absolute blast. I was convinced that users would love this concept of extending default themes, and that it was something we should really encourage in the community.

Excited to share my work, I submitted the theme to WP.org, but the experience was far from ideal. On my first attempt, the theme was rejected because the changes were considered “too minor,” and apparently, the name went against their rules. I initially called it “Twenty Twenty Four (Dark Edition),” which, in hindsight, I can understand why it wasn’t acceptable.

In the commercial world, like with WooCommerce, you can use a trademarked term in a project name only if it falls under nominal fair use. Essentially, “Twenty Twenty Four (Dark Edition)” isn’t okay, but “Dark Mode for Twenty Twenty Four” is fine because it clarifies that it’s for Twenty Twenty Four but not an official “Twenty” product. This way, users won’t be misled into thinking it’s an official WP.org release.

I submitted the theme again, explaining why I believed that even though the changes weren’t massive, they still warranted a separate child theme and that adding styles was something we should promote. This seemed to persuade them.

However, they still had issues with the name. Despite me explaining that I understood the purpose of the rule and how my proposed name addressed the issue, I was rejected again. I know some readers might say, “Just do what they say, and they’ll let you in,” but I can’t do that.

Don’t get hung up on my specific issue, that’s not the point. The main problem is that the reviewer didn’t seem to care about adding my theme to the repo. Their sole focus appeared to be on closing the ticket to increase their ticket count. But that shouldn’t be the case. Those in charge of these systems should actively seek out people to contribute themes for the good of the community and do everything possible to ensure that all submissions make it through.

It seems they believe that keeping things out helps the user, thinking their job is to protect users from people creating things. In reality, their job should be to help bring more cool stuff into the WordPress world. How do we change this mindset?