Please note: This is my opinion

Okay, so basically I find a deep flaw in the whole approval of themes and modification process. I find that it takes way too long to get a theme approved on SMF as compared to other sites like: vBulletin. I have looked into why you guys do it, and found some good lengthy threads explaining why you do it, but I believe your reasons do not over-weigh the reasons to allow for the free and instant releases of themes(and or mods).

For example,
I released a theme on vBulletin today. It got released instantly with no approval. I was able to see users downloading it the second after released and also comments posted by them to see feedback. In comparison, I've released a theme 5 days ago here on SMF, only to still not have it approved. vBulletin's method of (no approval) works quickly and efficiently. Furthermore, it allows for faster updates, more mods and themes being created.

-This slow process at SMF makes me cringe at the idea that every-time I release something I'll have to wait through an extremely slow, tedious, approval process. It makes me not want to release more themes based on the fact that the time it takes literally is frustrating. And I think other people have this same feeling as well. I can't be the only one. Like all developers/or designers, when releasing something, you get excited to see how well the release performs, you want instant feedback from everyone on how the theme/mod is. This instant feedback will help make the theme/mod become better rather than waiting for an SMF team member to fix it/make comments. I believe these SMF Reviewers could be better responding to this issue by taking a look at only "reported threads"

-Free releases should be free. Items being released shouldn't require the approval of anyone. If someone oversteps their boundaries when it comes to copyrights, or security, the thread should then be reported and then and only then moderators+/customizing team should step in and take action.

The things that are allowed to go free, and to expand without any boundaries are usually the ones that come in 1st.  

I guess I rambled alot. Sorry. Hope my point comes across.

The only reason SMF has approval process is to make sure there isn't any hard coded stuff in there, malicious code, errors don't occur, etc. The process use to be quick but unfortunately the Cust. team is understaffed for its work load.

There is one argument I would levy, and that is the team do actually do a surprising amount of checking in mod/theme reviews. It's not just checking that it's security issue free but for performance and that peoples' copyright is not being trampled on. Where does it say that mods are open source? Mine certainly aren't legally.

QuoteI believe these SMF Reviewers could be better responding to this issue by taking a look at only "reported threads"

Having actually been a reviewer, and reviewed far too many mods, I can tell you now that it's actually beneficial for them not to be released in the state they are in.

Virtually every single mod I looked at had issues that needed to be rectified. Virtually every single mod wasn't tested properly and some had basic fundamental issues. There is a definite quality control aspect.

That said I do fully agree with you on the release side. I lead development of SimpleDesk - a helpdesk mod, which is coming up for its first public release (1.0) after a private beta and two release candidates, and I know full well that it won't be approved for possibly a couple of weeks after we're serving it from our support site. But that's because we're outside the system, so to speak.

SMF's approval process only applies on initial release; mod/theme authors can update at will afterwards.

Going back to the quote, there is an unhealthy number of 'mods reported unsafe' already, 90% of which are actually support questions. I think I saw about 3 legitimate security reports in my time on the Customization Team. The majority of mods don't even have security issues when being reviewed; the vast majority are basically display hacks that IMHO don't even need to be packaged up.

Quote from: Arantor on March 29, 2010, 09:08:05 PM
tem, so to speak.

SMF's approval process only applies on initial release; mod/theme authors can update at will afterwards.

Hundreds of mods are released on vBulletin without being reviewed. Its through beta testing by members of the community that make a good mod. Basically the developer can click a checkmark that tells people "This mod is in Beta" Any user that wants to check it out, feel free too, but you'll experience problems. The upside is, you not only have a team of support, you have thousands of people testing it out.

If a mod developer had any intention of inserting malicious code to be downloaded by others, then they could still do it by releasing a non-malicious version to get it approved, and then a malicious one after. (renders the approval process pointless)

Nothing is ever completely secure thats connected to a line or wireless.  Didn't Google get hacked in China not too long ago. There will always be vulnerabilies. The more people using it, the faster it can get patched.

It's ironic that you have to be approved to release something for free especially when over 10+ hours was put into it.

daveaite, let me ask you do you work for vBulletin. I mean this in no disrespect to them, but I'm sure they get a lot of private support tickets/phone calls asking why there forum isn't working due to a bad mod install/just poor mod design.

With the team approving mods and themes, that number is reduced drastically. Mods can still always be checked up on and removed from the mod list to. Mod/theme makers can still warn all users that a mod is in beta process, they still get approved as long as they meet the requirements the Cust team lays out. When a mod is released it is then given to the community to provide support along with the mod author which happens all the time. I think this process is so much better in the long run and causes much less confusion.

 If I worked for vB why would I spend 10+ hours of my time to create a theme for SMF. I love the concept of SMF and the community, but I strongly believe SMF.org can be improved in this sense or else I wouldn't be posting about it.

Think about it:
Your placing some of the best programmers to review already created mods and themes when they could be building newer and more innovative stuff. Instead they are just using up there valued time reviewing the work of others. If they are needed, then they should review it.  Speaking only for myself, I will probably not develop more until this process gets expedited, or removed (no offense, do not take this personally please)

My intention is not to bring SMF down. I look at this as improving efficiency and expandability of simplemachines.org.

(It's how I'm trained think, Degree in Civil Engineering from Fsu, Go Noles.)

Nice gaming site btw (keagaming)

daveaite:
Thank you very much for the feedback.
Actually, I agree that this view you're presenting is a very interesting (and quite possibly very efficient) alternative to the current review process. It is, to my knowledge, the approach taken by what is named a forge, that is, an approach where the main project, if any, offers at most the infrastructure (for people to upload their customizations) and not much else (or even nothing else), while the community itself practically makes the review and lets good mods become popular and buggy mods forgotten in a corner. If I may say so.

I do agree it can be a very useful and after all, very correct approach. I mean there is nothing wrong with it. It's just not the approach SMF team uses, as you can see. We have an alternative approach, built upon the idea that it is the team's responsibility to try to assist the community interested to customize SMF, at least at the beginning, when starting to build their customizations. It's not that much about checking for malicious intentions of coders, no. It's about trying to be there to assist with common issues that happen, security mistakes, or a few coding guidelines intended to reduce common problems and increase maintainability.
Yes, it can be very time-consuming from the customize team members and helpers.
It is however the current policy, built, I think, on the belief that it is worth spending this time, in the hope that the result of it will be at least a bit better experience for the users of these customizations, and perhaps not only. Now, indeed, it is not intended, but it can obviously happen, for this to have the effect of delaying approvals for sometimes quite some time. We're humans, I hear, and they can be slow, forgetful, and making mistakes. Indeed.
There is work going on, however, to make sure that the review process will be changed in the sense of becoming more open to the community. (and by that, most likely quicker, too, besides other advantages).

All that said, I should honestly admit that IMHO, in the past the review process was even more restrictive, perhaps even nitpicking reasons that personally, I believe to be truly a problem between the author and his/her users. Personally, I am and will continue to be trying to make sure that the authors should not be restricted or being submitted to too many "rules" for their work. Unless we're talking about security bugs, the most basic maintainability requirements (like separating text messages from implementation or queries from templates) and working fine at a basic testing, authors should not, IMHO, be restricted by anything.

daveaite - I appreciate your feedback, but let's take it from the user standpoint for a minute (and since you're comparing us to vB, I will do the same).

Sure, we offer a free product (SMF), and all of the mods and themes on our sites are free as well, but keep in mind that *we* are hosting them, *we* are providing them to the public.  Part of our reputation stakes on what we allow to be downloaded from this site.  Just because things are free, does not mean there should be no scrutiny involved.  If anything, more should be.

If you look at vB users, and then look at SMF users (and by users, I mean admins, not end-users), you have two totally different clientele.  Due to SMF's free nature, you have *a lot* of 'fly by night' forums, young users, people have little to know clue about PHP, web hosting, FTP, mysql, databases, etc etc.  Versus vB... vB is a paid product... you have to invest your own time and money into it... this would entail that you have at least some knowledge of what you're getting yourself into.  I can't imagine vB's return policy is much to look at and not many people running fly-by-night forums are going to dive into vB right off the bat.

So with that said, you have to look at it from our standpoint to our users (our customers)... the biggest reason that we take the time to go through an approval process is to lessen the burden to our users of having something go wrong that they may have no clue how to fix or adjust.  As Arantor said, almost *every* mod or theme that comes through has issues, be it hard coded text that would cause translation issues, or xHTML validity issues that cause display issues, or broken code all together that simply breaks a forum because a mod author didn't bother to test their mod, or a theme that breaks the forum because the author had a typo and didn't test their theme.  We also respect the copyright of those who didn't give permission for redistribution.  We want to ensure that our community is not being ripped off and want to ensure that those who use the products available for download here will not end up in some sort of future trouble (copyrighted theme images, for example).

So yes, it is a tedious job, and sure it delays the process, but I'd rather have a 5-10 day wait on approval and know as a mod/theme author that I have someone double checking my work before it goes live to the public, rather than having something with bugs or issues that I somehow missed go out and create extra issues.

Will this process go away? -  As long as I'm the customize team leader, unlikely.  I prefer the process and extra security/awareness it provides our users.

Will it become easier and more streamlined? -  Absolutely.  Full plans are in place to automate the process as much as possible *and* allow for the community to help in approving before they are made live to everyone (similar to the program phpBB has in place)

Quote from: daveaite on March 29, 2010, 09:28:38 PM
Hundreds of mods are released on vBulletin without being reviewed.

so what your saying is vBulletin DONT check there mods and themes for things like hard coded text, validation errors, error log errors....... whereas SMF likes to ensure that themes and mods released to members attain a certain level of quality

your arguement just falls flat on its face and you are championing here the release of themes and mods WITHOUT ensuring they are safe to use, that they are of a certain standard and wont ruin peoples sites......

id rather wait 2 weeks for a theme to be approved and ensure i havent overlooked anything than my work be released with errors and problems

Note that there's absolutely nothing to stop you providing themes for free on your own hosting.

Quote from: Arantor on March 30, 2010, 07:38:27 AM
Note that there's absolutely nothing to stop you providing themes for free on your own hosting.

+1

(offtopic)

and why don't u start a smf theme site like dz ?

there are 5 smf theme sites i guess well i know 5 including stikkki's

if ur a good themer then go fr it smf is free nd i can tell ya some good free hosts (adfree) which supports smf now all u need to do is spent 7$ fr a domain wt do u think ? we do need good themers we only have bikken,mayday,crip&bloc these 4 ppl are the best IMHO oh nd mayday is a girl

-meko

I think that you need to go back to school and learn how to write in proper English.

Quote from: Kindred on April 05, 2010, 01:28:23 PM
I think that you need to go back to school and learn how to write in proper English.

different poster other than OP, but still agree. :p

I DID GO 2 SKOOL AND MAH 3NGLISH SI STIL NOT PARF3CT BUT IT SI STIL D3C3NT!!!!!!1 OMG WTF

On that note, that's exactly what we're doing. We're hosting SimpleDesk on our site, providing it today from our site even though it's not approved here yet. It's up to users whether they are comfortable using it or not.

I kind of like that idea I do no approval on smfhacks even though their any other submissions other than mine. Only thing I weed out every couple months is a spam submission.

Why I am waiting on pins and needles for someone to look at my several week old mod submission, I offer my mod externally at SMF Helper.

Quote from: Arantor on April 05, 2010, 01:49:07 PM
On that note, that's exactly what we're doing. We're hosting SimpleDesk on our site, providing it today from our site even though it's not approved here yet. It's up to users whether they are comfortable using it or not.

Great!! 

what is the next step ? translation or documentation ?

(sorry sorry, i go out)

Well, both are needed, very much so. The developer documentation needs finishing; that's something I want to do in the next few days hopefully, but both translation and user documentation are needed.

But who said 1.0 was the last step? We have plans for features for development well into 2011.

Thanks for the feedback to my query. I appreciate both the friendly and negative feedback responses. I don't expect everyone to agree but I'm happy you listened to what I had to say.

On a side relevant note:
It's been 2 weeks since I submitted my first theme, and it still hasn't been approved, rejected, or any note of it. I read the rules which said:

Quote
If your theme has not been approved or you have not been contacted about a theme within 2 weeks, then you may send a reminder about it.

The theme is called Pixels, the preview can be seen here:
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=373364.0

I was pretty shocked when I read this:

Quote
Quote from: daveaite on April 06, 2010, 09:49:16 PM

    Thanks. =) Still waiting approval....over 2 weeks now...

Quote from: Shortie April 07, 2010, 04:52:31 AM
I feel for ya

Been waiting 8 weeks and have given up

Now I just publish them on my site - so if you are interested give me a PM and I can check it out and see what we can do

Honestly? 8 Weeks and you haven't approved/rejected/responded to his theme? What's going on you guys...

Apologies for the double post.