State of the Union: ThemeForest review queues.

Envato Announcements
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I really wonder about this point the reviewer gave in the rejection. Why can’t we use “wp_register_script”? What is the solid reason for that?

What if I don’t want to load some scripts at the beginning the theme initialized? I just want to load them on demand only when the functionality requires them so I “registered” first and “enqueue” later, maybe in multiple areas.

For example, the homepage doesn’t require any Isotope JS script so it doesn’t need to be loaded. When a user opens the Blog page or Portfolio template that have a masonry layout that requires Isotope, then the script is loaded (enqueue) only on those pages using its handle name.

Do you think it makes sense?

*As a side note to my example here, the on-demand script is loaded using “wp_enqueue_scripts” action hook with conditional tags. I just use both “wp_register_script” and “wp_enqueue_script”.

@matthewcoxy - Could you please also forward my questions to the review team?

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Yes, imho that can’t be a requirement. As I wrote before, you can spend months trying to improve your code and you’ll probably never get the “perfect” code. Our job is providing a theme that respects the codex standards and doesn’t raises errors. That one is not an error.

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:cry: Review Turnaround For ThemeForest is more long time than before

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Im on 22/21 days for 2 temapltes at the moment, so I really hope this doesnt happen

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If it is WP multiple that number with 4 and you will get wait time which can increase more :slight_smile:

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Im in that queue too sadly :frowning:

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You definitely can use wp_register_script, you just shouldn’t use it if you are enqueuing the script right on the next line because in such case it’s redundant.

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This is the kind of thing we’d like to see more and more of.

I’m not sure if a checkbox list is necessarily realistic, as there’s just so much nuance in regards to what the reviewers are looking for. But I think in general, better communication in regards to what the bar is and the height that it’s set at will help everyone.

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@matthewcoxy
I contacted Envato support through a private ticket about my themes not being reviewed for 80 days +/-
What I was told that,

We most certainly don’t want these review times to continue as they are, and we are actively looking for creative ways to decrease the wait, beyond simply throwing more people at it (though we will if necessary!). Rest assured, we’re looking into it. Until then, I very much apologize for the inconvenience.

Never mind but any of these creative ways and an apology are not helping me. If I’m not able to receive the first review in 80 days, guess how long it is going to take with soft rejections, 6 months or a year to get an item live? (not including development time).

If there are too many submissions, you can simply raise the bar and hard reject items those does not meet the criteria. But keeping us waiting for 3 months for the first review is ridiculous ‘creative way’ to get this fixed.image

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We also use checklist (with checkbox of Themeforest known quality check points) for internal review.
Once 1 product is out and ready to be submitted, it should be passed after the developer/QA/leader checked all items and passed that checkpoint. Of course, we don’t know for sure since the checklist will be increased as review message are from different viewpoints (as I can see that) but at least we don’t see the old issues again.
When we got new soft reject issues, we would also add this to the list and so on…
(actually we expect to get those from updated version of Submission Requirement instead of updating by our own). Hope you can take this as one of the creative ways to get things done without throwing so many reviewers (or in fact spectacular manual works) to boost the review process.

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I agree that a checkbox might not be the ideal solution, but it’s at least a starting point for something. Something is better than nothing. There are a lot of points that can be added as a checkbox, and at least cutting those off is still going to do a lot of good.
For example, “This is quality design” checkbox isn’t realistic at all, but at least by checking off other points that we can check-off ourselves will free up the reviewers time to provide useful feedback for the more demanding issues.

Furthermore, - automation is key. So many of the issues can be detected with a bot, I’m surprised that Envato hasn’t built one yet. Kind of like the one that checks if style.css is present in the .zip file. I think there are a lot of tasks you can automate, but it all starts with a list. We need that list and we need it soon. I think think that “checkbox before submit” is step 2 or step 3. Step 1 would be publishing a public set of rules that reviewers use, so that we can stop wasting the most precious resource for us all - time.

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So maybe we can create a list of common soft rejections? It will help us to avoid repeated rejections and save some reviewers work at the same time.

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After talking to Envato at WordCamp Europe a few weeks ago, to fellow authors in person, my own experience and browsing through this endless thread, here are my key findings to address/improve the current state of the review times (in no particular order):

A more meaningful http://quality.market.envato.com

Both to set and manage author expectations upfront and to reduce your own Envato support load. Instead of stating a new WordPress theme submission takes 35 days on average, a range of 20 - 80 days would be more informative.

Priorizing Power Elite authors isn’t enough

Kudos to every Power Elite author, you guys deserve great respect, you inspire the rest of us, and you show us what’s possible. I don’t mind, if you receive auto-publishing rights for new items.

But whoever made it to Power Elite ($1M+ in sales) probably doesn’t depend on a priority review queue nearly as much as all the smaller authors, who are in some real existential crisis right now. The ones who need to submit new items on a regular basis not to go bankrupt. Current review times of 60 - 90 days aren’t just not acceptable, but disastrous for them. IMHO those people deserve priority #1 right now, they really need your help.

You can define them by status, as you already do. But bring it down to Elite level, or total amount sold, or monthly revenue. Any feasible criterium is fine, but do address it, please.

Stop accepting submissions from new authors, temporarly!

It’s drastic, but given the biggest author crisis in Envato history, correct me if I am wrong, it might just be the right choice. Only until the fire is under control. You said yourself that you can’t give even a rough estimate for when review times improve. Letting YOUR authors wait until the rest of 2016 isn’t a good move, because economically speaking, some just can’t wait that long. It’s in those times that you show who you stand for.

Envato, by all measures you are the #1 theme marketplace in the world. Nothing comes close to you. No WordPress.com, No Mojo, no CreativeMarket, no one. Not even combined. You don’t have to fear anyone, yet you publicly seem to avoid the choices that would benefit YOUR already established community the most.

The only justifiably reason I can think of is in the name of “growth”. Growth is great (so I have been repeatedly told) and new authors are definitely required for that, but if you hit the break for once and sort the review times out first, everyone, especially you will benefit from it greatly down the road.

I welcome your openness and interaction with us this time. It helps the discussion to become more constructive, at parts meaningful, as I can see from the many great posts here. Looking forward to your response.

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I agree with all points posted above.

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What will happen when Envato starts accepting new submissions again? Hundreds of new submissions at once and welcome to a new mess.

The only solution is to follow the steps below:

  1. Increase the quality threshold.
  2. Hard reject for more items.
  3. Disable submission rights of the author for at least 1 month after 3rd hard reject.
  4. Ban authors forever who try to submit a hard rejected item with a different account.
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This is spot on! :smiley:

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My psd have now 24 days on waiting for a review…really??? Theme forest is on vacation? Please notify us so we don’t have to check everyday your website. Have you all gone on a vacation? Where are you???

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Amazing!!!

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I agree with ThemeTrail. Growth is good & necessary, but there needs to be some kind of barrier to entry. New author signups/submissions should be paused until they can get a better handle on current submissions.

Personally, I think they should keep increasing the quality requirements as well - rather than attempting to lower the number of hard rejections. It only pushes authors to deliver their best work. I know hard rejections can be frustrating for authors. However, I also know some designers/users who, in the past, would check ThemeForest regularly for fresh new designs to use. Now it is way to time consuming for them as there are too many themes to sift through. As an author would you rather have countless themes earning very little or a few themes with very good earnings. That said, there is a big difference between a hard rejection after a week in the queue & one after 3 months of queue time.

So how is growth measured anyhow? Is it simply the number of themes? It seems to me that the fallout from unchecked ‘growth’ is both the average author and end user are being alienated.

Growth is good. But how about growing quality, customer & author satisfaction, traffic, usability etc. Not just an endless waterfall of themes.

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