SMF Customization Team - my feedback

[Urban Themes]

I honestly think that this team in particular needs more (harder-working) people. The process of theme approval is getting way to long, and the "Customization approval guidelines" barely have things for theme approvals.

You should get all the reasons why a theme won't be approved on one place.

For example, I uploaded a theme and it wasn't approved because of a default thumbnail. I couldn't find that anywhere on the forum/site. And I again need to wait for 2-3 days till you guys find precious time to click two buttons. 

[ARG01]

I honestly think that this team in particular needs more (harder-working) people. The process of theme approval is getting way to long, and the "Customization approval guidelines" barely have things for theme approvals.

You should get all the reasons why a theme won't be approved on one place.

For example, I uploaded a theme and it wasn't approved because of a default thumbnail. I couldn't find that anywhere on the forum/site. And I again need to wait for 2-3 days till you guys find precious time to click two buttons. 

WTF? Try to remember that everyone here is a volunteer and do have personal and working lives. You're griping about waiting 2 to 3 days? Are you kidding? Even sites that have a paid staff normally take more than a week for similar services.

Get real. 

[Eudemon]

i've seen other ppl's mods took few months to get approved 

[MrGrumpy]

You're griping about waiting 2 to 3 days?

Think that's very optimistic to expect ALL your themes approved in 2-3 days.

I would say a more realistic time scale would be 1-2 weeks, which if you are making themes, you have to bear that in mind when you submit them that you should expect to wait that sort of timescale, if it is sooner then that's a bonus.

[Urban Themes]

You're actually trying to make a big deal out of it. It's 20 min max, per theme. And i don't see even 5 new themes approved per day. Not a single theme was approved today.

And there are 9 customizers. Let's say 4 are approving themes only.

If they have no time, why are they in the customization team?


20 mins max, I said.
-download a theme
-install on a test forum
-run xhtml test
-check if there are files required
-approve/if not reply

I mean - what have the 9 of you doing today?

I do know they have private life. If they haven't got 20 mins a day, they should just quit SMF. And be real.



You didn't responded about the theme approval guidelines, though.

[Herman's Mixen]

And there are 9 customizers. Let's say 4 are approving themes only.

If they have no time, why are they in the customization team?

Maybe cause they have a real live and have a lot of work to do not only Themes/Mods what needs to be tested first !!

[Urban Themes]

The Burglar!, firstly read the post totally and then respond to it. As I said,

I do know they have private life. If they haven't got 20 mins a day, they should just quit SMF. And be real.

[Gary]

<personal view>
The community is right. This is a volunteer project, so our personal lives come above all else, we have jobs, university and family to worry about.

I'm a theme approver and I'm the one who looked at your theme, and I haven't done so since your reply because you bumped it, which is frowned upon. Further, I personally also take regular breaks away from approving because I want to avoid burning out.

Like the others have said, generally don't expect approvals to take less than a week, reason being is that there will be other themes in the line ahead of yours.

Also, you over simplify the theme approval process. There's a lot more to check, including but not limited to:

- Language strings
- Code readability
- Copyrighted images (this one is a real pain)
- Browser compatibility
- license issues

So theme approvals don't take 20 minutes at all, in the best case, it can take an hour at the minimum, and that's just the theme itself, not counting the rest of the time where we're handling other people's themes, general support, or personal issues that come above SM. Such as family, RL jobs or exams.
</personal view>

[Antechinus]

You're actually trying to make a big deal out of it. It's 20 min max, per theme. And i don't see even 5 new themes approved per day. Not a single theme was approved today.

And there are 9 customizers. Let's say 4 are approving themes only.

If they have no time, why are they in the customization team?


20 mins max, I said.
-download a theme
-install on a test forum
-run xhtml test
-check if there are files required
-approve/if not reply

I mean - what have the 9 of you doing today?

I do know they have private life. If they haven't got 20 mins a day, they should just quit SMF. And be real.



You didn't responded about the theme approval guidelines, though.

Translation: I want to advertise my theme club all over the place so I want you guys to approve my themes as soon as I submit them. I am the centre of the universe. Kthnxbai.

[Urban Themes]

Translation: I want to advertise my theme club all over the place so I want you guys to approve my themes as soon as I submit them. I am the centre of the universe. Kthnxbai.

I actually wanted to post this from my profile so I don't get bad reputation. And I have no idea how this could cross someone's mind at all.


I won't even bother to reply. You guys don't know what you say and repeat the same question, although i gave you an answer even before you asked.

[Matthew K.]

Not going to say more, because I feel like Gary summed it up pretty well and I don't want to get more frustrated with how inconsiderate people can be.

--> +1

<personal view>
The community is right. This is a volunteer project, so our personal lives come above all else, we have jobs, university and family to worry about.

I'm a theme approver and I'm the one who looked at your theme, and I haven't done so since your reply because you bumped it, which is frowned upon. Further, I personally also take regular breaks away from approving because I want to avoid burning out.

Like the others have said, generally don't expect approvals to take less than a week, reason being is that there will be other themes in the line ahead of yours.

Also, you over simplify the theme approval process. There's a lot more to check, including but not limited to:

- Language strings
- Code readability
- Copyrighted images (this one is a real pain)
- Browser compatibility
- license issues

So theme approvals don't take 20 minutes at all, in the best case, it can take an hour at the minimum, and that's just the theme itself, not counting the rest of the time where we're handling other people's themes, general support, or personal issues that come above SM. Such as family, RL jobs or exams.
</personal view>

[IchBin™]

I find it amazing that you assume we should spend at a minimum of 20 minutes of our day here to approve just themes. What about the code support topics? What about mod approvals? They certainly take longer than theme approvals. What about the PM's I get each day that ask me to transfer mods, or ask me about coding, or ask me about theme or mod approvals? What about mod reports that I have to respond to? (which nobody reports for the right reasons)....

Man I could go on and on about what kind of things I do on here that require more than 20 minutes a day. Volunteers do things because they like to. They don't do things because of "your perceived view" of what our responsibilities are. If we did that, it becomes a job and is not fun anymore. Then you'll stop seeing the volunteers around here. It's already hard enough to keep the team stocked up on knowledgeable people that don't mind giving up their free time to the project.

Is it really that big of a deal that you were asked to fix your thumbnail? Sure we have a few things that aren't written in the rules. That's because we consider them common sense....  Would we reject your theme if you couldn't fix the thumbnail? Probably not if you were nice in your reply with a decent excuse for the reason. But it doesn't hurt for us when we notice these things to ask the user to fix them. And it doesn't hurt for you to fix them either does it?

Man you'll be glad to know that our theme approval doesn't take as long as our mod approval. We have some mods in our queue that have been going on for months! Sorry to say, but volunteers are volunteers. If you can find someone that can spend every waking moment here to do the job and not get burned out, please let me know. They also have to be knowledgeable in SMF and coding. Oh, and they can't be a drama queen either. Not to mention being a team player... see how difficult in cat get?

sigh... posts like yours make me not want to volunteer.

[ARG01]

Personally I am not clear on what the big deal is? You call yourself, and your site "Urban Themes" but your "Demo" on your site only has one theme listed. You assume that the SMF team must jump at your request and serve you on the spot whenever you desire. To me that seems not only selfish but somewhat insolent.
What I am getting from this topic is a feeble attempt at free advertising for a "theme design" site that only possesses one theme.
Come up with some original ideas/designs instead of just one Curve variant and people may just take you a bit more seriously. 

[Matthew K.]

...sigh... posts like yours make me not want to volunteer.

Completely agree with this. Doesn't make me want to donate more time than I already do, which is quite a bit, feel free to look at my account stats which aren't even a third of what I do SMF related.

[Urban Themes]

Personally I am not clear on what the big deal is? You call yourself, and your site "Urban Themes" but your "Demo" on your site only has one theme listed. You assume that the SMF team must jump at your request and serve you on the spot whenever you desire. To me that seems not only selfish but somewhat insolent.
What I am getting from this topic is a feeble attempt at free advertising for a "theme design" site that only possesses one theme.
Come up with some original ideas/designs instead of just one Curve variant and people may just take you a bit more seriously. 

No, no, no, it's not about the theme. It was just an example. And it has nothing to do with the 10 days old theme club. You guys have hanged on the most unimportant part.

I'm just asking why don't these guys feel honored for being in such position as SMF Customization Team. I know guys who would give 3 hours a day for SMF, and they in fact have the quality. It's people's dreams to be in your position for a few weeks.

I think you guys are great for doing all those things for free, but SMF would be much better if you could do them just a bit more responsibly. 

If you can find someone that can spend every waking moment here to do the job and not get burned out, please let me know. They also have to be knowledgeable in SMF and coding. Oh, and they can't be a drama queen either. Not to mention being a team player... see how difficult in cat get?

I know a couple of them, actually.

Is it really that big of a deal that you were asked to fix your thumbnail? Sure we have a few things that aren't written in the rules. That's because we consider them common sense....  Would we reject your theme if you couldn't fix the thumbnail? Probably not if you were nice in your reply with a decent excuse for the reason. But it doesn't hurt for us when we notice these things to ask the user to fix them. And it doesn't hurt for you to fix them either does it?

It actually does hurts me after I spend hours on it, waited three days, and found out that because of one 150x150 gif have to wait 3 days more. It just eats me inside out.

I find it amazing that you assume we should spend at a minimum of 20 minutes of our day here to approve just themes. What about the code support topics? What about mod approvals? They certainly take longer than theme approvals. What about the PM's I get each day that ask me to transfer mods, or ask me about coding, or ask me about theme or mod approvals? What about mod reports that I have to respond to? (which nobody reports for the right reasons)....

And you never thought that you and another guy could do theme approvals, another two guys mod approvals, some of you just to answer the questions? Or something like that.. it's nine of you.

sigh... posts like yours make me not want to volunteer.

Sorry, but that's how it looks from my perspective.

[All Colours Sam]

@Urban Themes   If you don't like how the cust team handles themes approval, simply don't  submit your themes at all, it is certainly NOT a requisite to your theme to be listed at the theme site at all, many, many other great themes do not appear on the theme site,  that will solve all your issues as well as the cust team issues for having to answer your request and been burn out by your attitude instead on focused on their daily volunteer jobs...


If you're worry about promoting your site, SMF also does offer some board to do so, you have your signature field as well...

[Urban Themes]

Of course, but there will be less people to know about the theme. They first watch SMF's theme site.

I'm also a volunteer, am I? I'm also doing this for free, for people to use it, and i would have been the happiest to see my theme on any kind of forum...

[All Colours Sam]

You are volunteer only to your own work...    The cust Team have to handle not only your work but the work of other people, who, like you submit their work to the them or mod site, you seems to forget or not know or ignore this at all.

there's a queue list,  there are other themes that were submitted before yours...  again, the team has to handle other people work and not just yours...  please do not forge that.


If your themes are good enough, you will not need the them site at all.

[Urban Themes]

Ok, i get it. Thanks.

But still, I'll submit them..

[MrGrumpy]

Think you have to remember it was YOU that used the wrong image so it is actually YOUR fault you are having to wait so long, if you had used the right image you would of had your theme approved on the day the staff messaged you to rectify the image.

I've had to fix/change a few things on my own themes before they could be approved and I had to wait as just because your theme has been viewed already doesn't mean it sits at the top the queue and the staff stop doing anything else and solely wait for you to make the changes and then approve it before moving on to the next job.

It's just the way it's done, that's the system - maybe it's not perfect but we all have to go through the same system - count yourself lucky it only took 3 days to tell you there was a problem, it could of been a week or two.

Another point to take into consideration is that there are 3 customization staff currently on hiatus so there have been less staff doing the work - don't get me wrong it is annoying that it can take so long but just submit your theme and forget it and move on to making your next - I submitted a theme 5 days ago and haven't had a response yet so you getting a response in 3 days is quicker than mine but ******ing about it isn't going to make the staff inclined to rush to approve your theme, if anything you are more than likely going to get your theme pushed to the bottom, hell i would if you were ******ing at me.