Has envato review process become a hoax ? And what do authors do about it ?

But why is no one talking about it ? Why are authors so mute and passive about it ?
I remember themeforest marketplace like 5-6 years ago, it was joy to work for this marketplace and to produce new products, the reviewers were engaged in the process of getting your product out, now is just postponing the release by constantly soft rejecting the item by simple digging infinitive “issues”, and I don’t see authors talking about it ?

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I think that’s because Envato killed the “middle class” (review times and review quality, products quality, ADP, USA move, Elements). There are the guys from the top and the rest that is thankful for a few sales.

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I agree , seams to me that they are a bit excessive, I got a hard reject with http://themes.webdesign-flash.ro/upt/ even though I agree with the reviewers points of view. This is not the case on codecanyon, I see all kind of bad projects approved.

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correct !!

if anyone know higher authority in forum then mention them here

While the frustration of rejection is understandable, the current approach remains the best solution for a complicated process

In no way am I suggesting that there is not room for improvement, but it is important (for everyone’s sanity and to prevent further confusion), to consider the wider picture, and that not everything negative is always just envato’s responsibility.

In the context of some of the above points:

Consistency between reviewers. I actually agree completely with this point however; I don’t see a solution. Ideally, you would always have the same reviewer for each round of amends made, but this would mean that the reviewer would need to wait for an author to make amends rather than risk taking on more reviews where the same situation could arise. What if it took 1 week? What if it took 1 month? What if an author simply decided not to bother? It would all add up and create an unworkable queue.

Removing/simplifying reviews. Sorry but this is a terrible idea for numerous reasons. For example, the standards implemented on envato are a major part of what sets them apart. Flooding the market with sub-standard items would mean less exposure for quality items, a worse customer experience and greatly reduced home page exposure, the only solution to which would be to create a max volume of items per day which in turn would create even longer delays.

Longer /more committed reviews e.g. 1 hour checks. We don’t know how many submissions happen each month but, in the past, it has been out at 10’s of thousands. Based on 1 hour to do 100 reviews would take 12 working days based on 7.5-hour days. It’s simply not possible.

Hire more reviewers. Realistically to make a visible difference would require fairly large numbers of hires. From a business perspective this may not be possible, would have to be paid for from somewhere, and probably only make a certain impact.

Not all reviewers have items for sale. Reviewers are hand-picked experts who are then given further training. Besides when reviewers do have items then more often authors get upset because they have the conspiracy theory that they are rejecting to give themselves greater chance (which by the way they do not).

The value of giving detailed reviews. This is speaking in general – obviously established authors like @pixelsharmony and @SkatDesign may be different. Just by looking in these forums we see rejected items which are a million miles from the standard. Based on these - if a reviewer told them to improve typography, resolve hierarchy etc. what % would realistically be able to action that effectively? If they fail to do so then will this not create more delays and even greater frustration for both reviewers and the author?

There is an elephant in the room here – again without trying to justify envato’s position, nor aiming this at any one case, if some authors took the time and respect to realistically review their items properly before submission and carry out even basic checks like validation, pixelated assets, then the review queue would dramatically reduce and submissions increase. The fact is that for everything anyone can expect envato to do there must be a level of responsibility on authors also

Just to reiterate - I am not trying to justify anything, suggesting that there are no areas where envato could potentially do more, nor think that there will not (regardless of the process) always be cases where things slip through the net.

I am 100% certain that envato would welcome a workable solution to improving the review process, but what would that look like?

FYI - I understand there are also pain points with aspects of elements etc. but wanted to keep this focused on the question at hand around the reviews.

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Yes, they will. Happened to me once, after contact support I got a new reviewer that more friendly than before and everything goes smoothly :slight_smile:

your site is running because of author like us maybe we don’t have established yet but we can be the most successful in the future but no one can say that and another one who are already established like @SkatDesign @pixelsharmony but if they find issues then there should be some things

If reviewers are hand-picked and trained then why you need to assign new reviewer? If they don’t have their items there they can’t understand the pain of authors :slight_smile:

if you can’t give detailed reviews then you should close this store because you are not supporting your authors even apple gives the detailed review of app with screenshot if there is anything though you are not bigger than apple.

I can understand you guys are flooded with worst items submitted by newbie authors but still, there are many authors who have potential and they have rejected by inexperienced reviewer without any help. Due to this issue many authors also left the themeforest and also lost customers.

Just by looking in Envato sites we see approved items which are a million miles from the standard and quality for that who is responsible? You are earning money due to authors and if you don’t help then you won’t be able to grow. In forum, more than 10 “established authors” find no issues to theme and your reviewer finds issue with it then there is something wrong :blush:

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Just to clarify:

  1. I do not work for envato and do not earn anything from items which are approved.

  2. the reference to ‘established authors’ was simply to stress that my comments are a general position (it’s impossible to comment on individual cases)

  3. envato is a two-way street - yes authors are at the heart of it but envato brings a great deal to the party too, and many authors would not come close to achieving what they do without envato’s support

Again, I am certain that envato would welcome solutions to the points we mentioned above, but unfortunately criticising reviewers or simply saying it has to be that every item is reviewed without giving a workable way to achieve this simply reinforces the complexity

What i would at least suggest is more engagement in the review process from people who are actually reviewing the products, don’t send authors rejections with 3 issues mentioned, and then on next upload there are 15 new issues, that’s just looks bad and it makes process of getting published into months and months of re-uploading the same product.

All that aside i’m aware there are also a lot of “bad” products being uploaded daily, and i reckon reviewing so many items is very boring at times, but uploading the same product over and over for months due to lack of review quality is no fun either.

You get couple of soft rejections, finally list of issues with just 2-3 issues to fix, usually very small and tiny issues that were fixed in less then an hour, you’re thinking ok, we’re there, and then a new rejection with 18 new issues (this actually happened ) - how?

I agree completely with that one. Was it the same reviewer?

If not then this is my point about consistency and again - trying to come up with a workable solution to it always being the same person checking things without the inevitable backlog

Yes same reviewer, in fact for one specific theme we had one reviewer the whole time, all 7 months now.

We’re preparing another upload, if it goes pretty much the same, i’ll contact support and ask for a different reviewer. I think 7 months is enough, in my 9 years here i never had this situation before, where one of our products is unable to be published for 7 months and more than 40 uploads.

This is kind of why we referenced you above - it’s impossible to comment on each individual case esp. as no one (us included) in these forums has full transparency on any individual review, however what you are describing there sounds like it’s grounds to query it at least

I also had the same problem that my theme was rejected in less than 15 minutes. I spent more time upload the theme. I think that this is not a bug, but an unwillingness to consider the theme.

Been there numerous times. The latest WP theme I tried to submit for sale was rejected and I’ve been told that the theme doesn’t meet “visual standards” and as such not allowed to be uploaded for review again. And if I try to upload it, my attempt will be considered as a violation of rules. Literally.
I don’t even bother uploading new items to TF.

I also wrote about subjectiveness of TF reviewers a while back. The freedom they are granted with is ridiculous. Is there anyone controlling their job? No. If there is, they wouldn’t behave like little Hitlers.

Just take a look at C.reative M.arket; authors have a full freedom. No one else but buyer/customer is judging your work there. If it’s crap you gonna have to refund people and lose customers.
For Christ’s sake, it’s in your best interest to sell something good! There are people who won’t like what you do and they are going to look for something else. But there are also people who love it - regardless what some smartass “reviewer” has got to say. They don’t speak in the name of the God but their own. And that’s what’s freaking wrong about.

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it could be made progressively , and a time to adjust would be required for sure but after a while to try to have a look daily at everything accepted and rejected , a coherent guideline could go out of it , though we are all aware that people are human and that naturally enough, their experience , taste, expectations and so on differ greatly

euh no no that many people indeed but envato would have to accept that people spend a bit time working at nt only reviewing the items they are given actually but the whole set of things accepted and rejected , it would probably increase their work time or gains

this is not that difficult to understand for anyone who has been working in the business though there are pros and cons for envato to have people reviewing with a portfolio , depending on what u are considering

well there are some guys who are newbies for here who turn out to be accomplished professionals by the time they join … and there are also geniuses , sometimes, guys who are shark at what they do despite they started a short while ago, as there is something innate for them … u can also have some long-experienced guys in town who are far from killers and who produce very average things … u can find it all in this world lol

From my experience, they won’t do anything but some sweet words. They are like parrots. They only know there will be spaces, these and those. that is why if you buy a template, you will indirectly buy every template. I found a reviewer who had his last product approved in 2015 and all products were in codecanyon and he is still reviewing themeforest products when he actually doesn’t have design idea at all.This is how themeforest is going on with reviewing items. I wish they would know designs should be treated according to the exact subject, not according to the categories or spaces and such things.

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Someone raised a very valid point in the past about reviews (and other pain points)…

As none of us have sufficient proven insight into the numerous things that influence these decisions - why if there was a way to improve a process and subsequently improve the image of envato and have both authors (and therefore indirectly envato) earn more, would envato not have adopted it in the past decade?

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sir can you help me my purchage code is lost so how can found and payed 2800 rupies for buying theme