Full Themes are going to start being featured on AMO

[KLB]

In addition to featured extensions on AMO, there are going to be featured complete themes. Since there are not as many complete themes as extensions, new featured themes will be chosen on a quarterly basis. We all know the frustration with the lack of exposure themes get on AMO. Having featured themes gives us a chance to get more exposure. As with featured extensions, which complete themes get featured will be chosen by a committee. If you would like to learn more about AMO featuring themes, would like to nominate a theme or would be willing to help choose which themes get featured, please see: https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2013/02 ... d-add-ons/

The idea is to feature the very best of complete themes. Not just with visual appeal, but completeness of theme and technical execution. One of my ideas for the selection committee is that maybe the developers who have their theme chosen one quarter would be willing to help choose the next quarter's themes that get featured.

[Sollet]

Couldn't they make a poll or use AMO statistics like the ones for addon usage (i.e. "most downloaded")? After all, users subjetive point of view is what determine which one is to be the most downloaded.

Since this issue concerns themes developers, because they are the most affected (just take a look at their concerns about deep download rates drop), I think they are the ones who should have the last word. I hope Mozilla doesn't decide that those members would be handpicked chosen by non-transparent non-democratic so called meritocracy methods who will have their own will "sneaked past everyone"; I beg that the people chosen for this comittee you propose are NOT part of Mozilla development team, no matter how meritable their contributions were.

An user that choses to use themes instead of the default one does it because he doesn't like the default one, so would you trust in an objective election someone related to a team involved in the decission that Mozilla needed a default "full theme" to be almost exactly like Chrome and caused this whole mess with the themes page? Just imagine their thoughts: "After three years of work and several sick to death developers Australis is finally developed, but you can choose over these other fantastic themes!, including several similar to ours or even better".

[KLB]

The goal is to have a committee made up of a variety of people, however, I expect it will primarily consist of theme developers and AMO editors. These two groups are the most familiar with the technical aspects of what make up an exceptional theme and would probably have the most personal interest in participating in the selection process. While they wouldn't be intentionally excluded, I doubt anyone who has been a major part of the development of the default theme would be participating in the process of choosing featured themes. I just don't expect anyone who was part of the product development team to be interested in being on the featured theme selection committee. I don't know how big the committee will be, it will mostly depend on the number of people who express an interest.

One of my hopes is for the make up of the committee to change on a regular basis to get different opinions. Anyone is welcome to submit themes for consideration. Granted, the process of s electing featured themes is a subjective process, but the overall goal is to bring more attention to themes in general and to showcase exceptional themes.

For a long time AMO has been featuring extensions, but themes do not get any extra prominence. A few months ago I lobbied to get themes featured from time to time. I wanted to do something to help improve the overall popularity of themes. With the support of Jorge Villalobos (Add-ons Developer Relations Lead for Mozilla) and Amy Tsay (add-ons community manager at Mozilla) featuring themes was approved. Since there are not as many themes as there are extensions, it was decided to start by featuring themes on a quarterly basis rather than a monthly basis.

As part of my lobbying efforts I agreed to help head up this effort (which obviously disqualifies my own theme from consideration). I'm not the most talented theme developer here. I could never create a theme that reaches the level of graphical beauty that other theme developers here achieve. As an AMO editor, I have reviewed most of the themes currently being maintained on AMO and I'm pretty familiar with the technical merits of most of the themes. I stand nothing to gain, other than the satisfaction of raising the profile of themes on AMO.

I am first and foremost a theme developer. I volunteered for the AMO editors team to help advocate for themes on AMO and to do my part to help improve overall theme quality. I have great respect for all the theme developers who have dedicated countless hours towards maintaining themes. I personally know how frustrating it can be to maintain a theme. My hope is that by featuring some themes we can raise the profile of all themes as well as provide a nice way to recognize exceptional themes.

In regards to the concerns that theme developers have the last say, keep in mind that the committee will be lead by a theme developer and I'd love to see other theme developers join the committee.

[dkgo]

unrealistic

[jivko]

If this really happens please try not to put featured custom themes on the bottom of the home page or at least put them before featured personas. What is the number of featured custom themes going to be? 4-5 featured till next cycle? Also there are still some nice looking themes out there and even though the number of theme developers has dropped over the last 1-2 years we still have talented people around.

[jorgev]

Couldn't they make a poll or use AMO statistics like the ones for addon usage (i.e. "most downloaded")? After all, users subjetive point of view is what determine which one is to be the most downloaded.

Part of the idea behind featured themes and extensions is to highlight add-ons that are not the most popular at the moment but maybe deserve more attention. If we only focused on the most downloaded add-ons, which is partly how we sort search results and how we determine popularity, then we would create a vicious cycle where good new add-ons get very little attention because they aren't popular.

[patrickjdempsey]

It took me forever to even find the "Start Exploring" button for "Complete Themes" and I actually knew what I was looking for:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/themes/

Is that what Mozilla means by "featured"?

[Aris]

...

Is that what Mozilla means by "featured"?

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... t=featured

Code: Select all

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/complete-themes/?sort=featured

[ShareBird]

...

Is that what Mozilla means by "featured"?

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... t=featured

Code: Select all

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/complete-themes/?sort=featured

ridiculous

[LoudNoise]

Anyone care to bet how long it will take them to feature a theme that has "This theme is incompatible with your version of Firefox"?