Hi Matt.

I remember our talk back in Berlin, we wanted to encourage authors to be more creative, but there were always issues with how to do that. If we would have loosened the requirements, people would try to exploit the system, as some see .org repository as a marketplace. Which on its own isn't a bad thing (encouraging business), but coupled with a few bad apples could bring problems (which we experienced last year, unfortunately).

I'm all for encouraging people to be more creative. I actually wrote an article about it a while ago (https://infinum.com/the-capsized-eight/gutenberg-wordpress-themes) back when I was a rep. But the problem is that you may have 1000 authors putting blank themes to the repo with few patterns. In the end, you'd get repeating patterns in different colors. We also talked about curating a repo so that we feature the best-designed themes. But somebody has to do that. And in the end, the design is quite a subjective topic. Which is why the idea was kinda abandoned.

It's time to slowly deprecate the old themes. Make a separate repo for FSE themes only, and work with Themes Team reps on a pattern library. It would be loaded the same way WordPress loads the block plugins can through the admin.

I think that one of the focuses from the decision-makers should be how to handle themes. And I don't mean like: let's have a talk every 3-6 months. Take team reps and the shareholders of .org, sit down for a week and brainstorm the strategy of themes in the WordPress ecosystem. From goals to implementation strategy and a good timeframe so that people can prepare. Should there be a review process, and how would it look like? Pinpoint the pains and try to solve the problem.

We had tons of ideas, but nobody got the time for implementation. There needs to be somebody who will spearhead this transition. And take the fallout from the authors who don't want to change (and there will be such authors).

I guess I'm a bit frustrated at the lack of focus on themes on .org. GB development is changing things. Plugins got new block search, new page design (a few years ago, but still). And themes are always left behind. Only last month or so was there some movement with previewer changes using starter content (which should also be sorted to maybe use patterns). We need a strategy and a clear timeline...