Draft of the Theme Directory Adoption/Takeover Guidelines based off the plugin ones. I’m not a theme expert so welcome any feedback from theme developers and others.
There are two types of themes which are available for adoption:
- Themes tagged by the developer as available for adoption.
- Themes which have been abandoned by their developer are eligible for adoption.
Theme Adoption
Theme developers who will no longer be developing/supporting a theme are encouraged to put the theme up for adoption; this is done by adding the Available to Adopt tag to the theme.To adopt a theme, you need to make reasonable attempts to contact the current developer and request to adopt the theme. The following methods may be avenues of contact:
- Send an email
- Leave a comment on the theme support page
- Open a GitHub issue
The current developer can request transfer ownership of the theme within the theme directory and transfer ownership of the theme on GitHub; once you have ownership of the theme you can work with it as you would a theme you started from scratch.
If you do not hear back from the developer in a reasonable time (such as three weeks) you can follow the Takeover procedure outlined below.
Theme Takeover
To takeover a theme, you need to make reasonable attempts to contact the current developer and request to takeover the theme. The following methods may be avenues of contact:- Send an email
- Leave a comment on the themesupport page
- Open a GitHub issue
The current developer can transfer ownership of the theme within the theme directory and GitHub; once you have ownership of the theme you can work with it as you would a theme you started from scratch.
If you have made a reasonable attempt to contact the developer and not heard back, the Theme Directory moderators can reassign ownership within the Theme Directory.
To be eligible for takeover via moderators, one or more of the following conditions must be met:
- Critical or important security issues exist which the developer has refused to fix.
- The theme has not been updated for more 2 years (updates include supported version number being updated).
- The theme is tagged with the "Available to Adopt" tag.
- No active developer is listed.
However, before you contact the moderators, you need to do the following:
- Create a new GitHub repository; it is required that this be a fork which preserves previous history.
- Update the code to current standards, fixing any issues (particularly security issues).
- Any major amendments to a theme must include upgrade steps for current users so that sites are not broken when upgrading.
- Submit your completed code to the new GitHub repository.
- Email details of the new repository and amendments to the Theme Directory reviewers at [email protected].
Moderators will review the changes and then make attempts to contact the current theme developer to enquire about allowing takeover using the developers contact information available in the Theme Directory. If the original developer does not respond in a 14 day period, the theme may be reassigned in the Directory by the moderators.
Takeover may be rejected for one or more of the following reasons:
- The requested theme is deemed too high a security risk; such themes may instead be removed from the Theme Directory.
- The theme contains a trademark, copyright or project name held by the current developer.
- The requesting developer does not have sufficient experience for the complexity of the theme.
- The requesting developer has had multiple rule violations.
If the original developer rejects the adoption request, this will be honoured, except in the following circumstances (when the moderation team reserves the right to reassign the theme):
- Critical or important security issues exist which the developer has refused to fix.
- The theme has not been updated for more than 2 years (updates include supported version number being updated).
If a theme takeover is unsuccessful, then a fork is an acceptable, and recommended, alternative.
Questions around adoption/takeover of themes can be made to the Theme Directory moderators via email at [email protected].