Why Lorelle and the rest of the WP community are getting duped

July 17th, 200713 Comments

I’m editing this post to add “the argument” for people who can’t distinguish the core argument from the additional speculation, etc.

The Argument

1. Some of the best WordPress themes were built under the sponsored themes model
2. Good WordPress themes benefit the WordPress community
3. The real concern is with a subset of the sponsored themes that we might call “spammy” themes
4. There is a way to address the “real concern” without taking a blanket approach to sponsored themes

Since some sponsored themes benefit the WordPress community, and since the real target of criticism should be “spammy” themes, it would benefit the WordPress community to come up with a criteria for weeding out “spammy” themes while leaving high-quality sponsored themes.

That’s the argument. I hope it is reasonable.

Original Post

In the comment section of Me Pontificating Against the Powerful Lorelle insults my intelligence when she makes the following claim:

“If sensible and intelligent arguments can be brought to the table again to change this new policy, then I’m sure we’d all listen.”

In other words, she’s implying that my argument wasn’t sensible. But let’s forgive her. It’s common for busy people on the internet to not read what other people have said.

Since she’s called for a sensible argument, here it is (it’s what philosophers refer to as a counterexample to show the absurdity of another person’ view):

PressRow, Cutline, CopyBlogger

That’s my argument. Three great themes built on the sponsorship/linkbuilding model. Three great themes that have benefited the WordPress community.

My only point is this: smart people can find better-than-blanket approaches to tough problems. WordPress has lots of smart people. Why not focus on quality discernment over sponsorship discernment? Seems much smarter to me.

Why the WP Community is getting duped

It’s unfortunate. Sometimes well-meaning and thoughtful people get duped into doing what they perceive as good, while people in power are pulling the levers. I have very little doubt that the current state of affairs has everything to do with Matt Mullenweg getting things into shape for a partnership with Google. This is almost translucent.

The sad thing is that the WordPress community is smarter than this. And I have yet to hear a single person explain why the criterion for themes can’t just be *quality* – why is there this blanket policy against sponsorships? This is a question the WP community needs to wrestle with. Blanket policies are rarely good policies. The best policy on WordPress themes is to develop a way of filtering quality themes from poor quality themes, or even just good themes from spammy themes.

But no, Matt Mullenweg has convinced everyone that the best policy is a blanket policy against sponsored themes (which have produced many benefits for the WP community). Ask yourself this question: might Matt Mullenweg have any ulterior motives for getting rid of sponsored themes? Could Matt Mullenweg benefit in a profound way from the removal of sponsored themes? You bet. He could become a billion dollar partner with GOOG.

I’m not questioning that this was a democratic decision by the WP community, but I am asking the WP community to consider whether they’ve made the best most rational decision, or whether they’ve been “had” by the people in power.

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Why Lorelle and the rest of the WP community are getting duped

Kyle | July 17, 2007

Ryan, there are a couple glaring problems with this post:

1. I know for sure that Cutline did not start out as a sponsored theme. I am not sure about PressRow/Copyblogger: but in my experience, a theme’s debut accounts for 95% of it’s long-term popularity.

2. This is a problem the WP Community has wrestled with. As you can see, it’s an overwhelming “NO” to supporting sponsored themes. I do not understand at all how you seem to think Matt Mullenweg is responsible for this. You may not agree with their decision: but they’ve decided it.

From my opinion, as a theme developer, I cannot wait for this to be implemented. Most sponsored themes are crap, and all of them are insulting to free software. All of the most popular themes are the free-est of the bunch.

Your assumption that Matt is worth a lot of money, and that he may become a billion dollar partner (off of a free product) with GOOG is so ludicrous, I can’t stop laughing. WordPress.com? Maybe. WordPress.org? No way.

In the end, your blaming Matt is way off kilter. You should be attacking the WordPress users who have voted to have sponsored themes removed. If 4/5 of America voted to outlaw cowboy boots: we’d outlaw them. The problem is that you are at war with the very people you rely on. This is not a good situation, and thus you have chosen to find someone to blame: Matt in this case.

-Kyle Neath (Hemingway Author)

Ryan | July 17, 2007

Wrong. Cutline was created as a sponsored theme for Tubetorial. It was Matt Mullenweg who changed the link at WP.com to Pearson’s personal site, against Pearson’s wishes (from what I understand).

Ryan | July 17, 2007

“The problem is that you are at war with the very people you rely on.”

What? Please elaborate.

Kyle | July 17, 2007

Well, to re-quote myself:

You should be attacking the WordPress users who have voted to have sponsored themes removed. If 4/5 of America voted to outlaw cowboy boots: we’d outlaw them. The problem is that you are at war with the very people you rely on.

Ryan | July 18, 2007

Kyle. I asked for elaboration. This is another insult to my intelligence. Seems to be quite common from the WP community these days.

Do you think I don’t read what you’ve already written?

Who is it that I rely on? Who? Tell me please.

Lorelle | July 18, 2007

You’ve made a point, not an argument.

First, define “sponsored” Themes. One link, even two links, may not qualify. Themes paid for by a company which include a link to the company and the designer, or one or the other, may or may not qualify. A Theme stuffed with inappropriate links and ads does qualify. We still do not have a clear definition of what qualifies as a sponsored Theme for inclusion on WordPress official sites.

Second, one Theme is not justification of the action. Your statement that the world is a better place with sponsored Themes does not mean anything. There are plenty of non-sponsored Themes which are brilliant and lovely, and others ugly (in my opinion) but people love them. There are all kinds of Themes so saying one particular one justifies a rule for all Themes doesn’t make sense. It’s opinion that judges “good” Themes. And this isn’t the issue of the debate.

Third, if this was such an issue for you, why didn’t you fight harder, publicize the issue more, and be more definitive in your support (I’m still looking for support for your argument in your writings – and I read them thoroughly) for inclusion of sponsored Themes while this was an open debate. After the decision is a tough way to get something changed. Participation in the decision process is when things change.

Again, I’m looking for calm, rational discussions on the issue that are supported by evidence and clear opinion. That is not an insult to your intelligence. Such a claim implies personal knowledge and experience. I have none. This issue is obviously personal to you and I know not why.

The members of the WordPress Community, especially the users, let Matt and others know how they felt about sponsored Themes and he made a decision, as is his right. I voted. Did you? The community voted, and while some countries don’t honor the vote, Matt is doing his best to make sure that it counts with WordPress.

Ryan | July 18, 2007

“You’ve made a point, not an argument.”

No, I’ve made an argument by counterexample simply by pointing out that not all sponsored themes are bad and that in fact some of the best themes are sponsored themes. One version of the argument is this:

If some sponsored themes are good, and some are bad, then we should choose a filtering criteria besides “sponsored theme” to distinguish which themes to accept and which not to accept.

That’s all I’m asking. My argument is for compromise: you’ve identified the wrong criteria, now let’s fix it.

What you should focus on is weeding out spammy themes, which are a subset of sponsored themes. Instead, you’ve taken the blanket approach (which I call the lazy approach).

Kyle | July 18, 2007

Ryan, I’m pretty sure you edited your comment after I posted. You asked “Who exactly?” I responded with who exactly — the WordPress community.

Elaboration: You are at war with the WordPress community (they chose to ban sponsored themes). And the WordPress community are the ones who make sponsored themes profitable. Hence, you rely on them.

The entirety of your arguments revolves around assumptions (that Matt is partnering with Google or Matt Cutts, for example), completely unfounded claims, and insults.

Blanket policies are often most fair. For example, speeding is illegal. It’s not illegal for some people: it’s illegal for everyone. Even though most roads are more than capable of handling higher speeds, especially in the hands of better drivers and high-performance cars.

Can you honestly come up with an argument that benefits the WordPress community at large by using an absolute non-personal, non-biased scale? (What qualifies as “spammy”). We don’t post speed limits for what kind of car and driver you are: we post an absolute number.

Ryan | July 19, 2007

Kyle,
I did not edit your comments. I never edit comments and I never delete comments (unless they are spammy – something I can clearly distinguish, but apparently the WP community can not?)

Spammy is when you have links to about 5 porn sites, or 10 insurance sites in the footer of a theme.

What’s not spammy, is when someone is launching a new service (e.g. Tubetorial) and wants to commission a high-quality theme (e.g. Cutline) to help promote that service. I don’t think it is any different than a company sponsoring a quality TV program or a Baseball park.

“The entirety of your arguments revolves around assumptions (that Matt is partnering with Google or Matt Cutts, for example), completely unfounded claims, and insults.”

This is actually a mistake. My argument is simple: Not all sponsored themes are spammy themes. Some sponsored themes are very good themes. Good themes benefit the WordPress community.

That’s the argument. Now you can focus all your energy on my admitted ad homs and speculations, or you can address my argument.

I stand by the argument, since some of the best themes have been sponsored themes, we should not ban all sponsored themes but should find a better, more sophisticated solution.

Blanket solutions are for simple minded people. I don’t think the WP community is simple minded. But I do think they’ve been misled by simple minded people.

Ryan | July 19, 2007

To dismantle the “you’re motivated by money” counter-argument, let me just put it this way: I make over $6,000 per month. How much of that is from sponsored themes? Nothing. Zilch. I do sponsor themes myself. That’s true. But I make sure they are good themes before I sponsor them. But in the grand scheme of things I don’t make any direct income from sponsored themes. I work for a company that makes $500 each month off sponsored themes. But all of my arguments here are based on principal. I can assure you of that.

I don’t like blanket policies. I think they are for simple minded people. Especially when there are better solutions.

Kyle | July 19, 2007

Better solutions such as what? You’ve done nothing but bring negativity to this argument with problems and no solutions (other than claiming there is one).

Again:

Can you honestly come up with an argument that benefits the WordPress community at large by using an absolute non-personal, non-biased scale? (What qualifies as “spammy”).

Ryan | July 19, 2007

Here’s the solution:

Find volunteers (I’d be willing to help) to manually evaluate each theme that’s submitted (we’re only talking about a few each day) based on conditions of quality. Or even better, have the WP community vote on each theme (does it get to stay or not).

To me, it seems like a much wiser decision to discriminate based on theme quality.

No criteria for quality? Well consider how art studios select good art, or how dog shows pick best of the breed. While there’s a lot of subjectivity involved, when a community is working together to choose quality, they usually succeed.

Todd Harrison – LA Headshot Photography | July 31, 2007

I had a problem setting up my wordpress I had to hack the theme to get what I wanted. It would not work with the wiget plugin. I do have to agree with what your saying. Their should be a standard that themes should have to meet! I hope this will be fixed in time.

Share your thoughts!!!

Why Lorelle and the rest of the WP community are getting duped was written by Ryan on July 17th, 2007 at 6:04 pm and posted in Blogging, WordPress

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