• I will be naming every crap theme ‘developer’ who lists their ‘free’ theme on wordpress.org but doesn’t actually include any features.
    Plus 99% of these companies have TOS that violate GPU/GPL rules.

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
  • Theme Author Ben Sibley

    (@bensibley)

    Regardless of your ‘quotes’, Chosen is in fact a free theme by a real theme developer.

    It is a beautiful, responsive theme that you can use on your site forever, for free. It comes with essential features like social media icons, logo upload, and excerpt display options. I’m sorry if the presence of a paid version upsets you, but that doesn’t invalidate the quality of this theme.

    Secondly, bloatware is actually the opposite of what you mean.

    Thirdly, our TOS absolutely does not violate the GPL rules. Our TOS was reviewed before Compete Themes was listed as a commercial provider here on wordpress.org.

    Moderator Jan Dembowski

    (@jdembowski)

    Forum Moderator and Brute Squad

    You can leave a review as you see fit but keep in mind that theme authors are permitted to upsell. Unless something is deliberately broken then that’s fine.

    Plus 99% of these companies have TOS that violate GPU/GPL rules.

    Not here they do not. The Theme Review Team is very diligent. If you see an actual GPL violation then please be specific about what you mean. Having a lite version in the repo and a more feature rich version for sale elsewhere is not a GPL violation.

    keep in mind that theme authors are permitted to upsell. Unless something is deliberately broken then that’s fine.

    And when developers outright lie about their lite version features? Is that fine? I don’t mean this particular theme, sorry Ben. However, I’ve seen several examples in the wp.org rep, and there is no way whatsoever to do anything about it, maybe alert mods or something. The upseller can do whatever they please, list all the pro features the lite version doesn’t actually have, and the user can do nothing except grit their teeth and delete the theme.

    Sorry for hijacking this review, but it’s the first time I’ve seen an actual mod in one of those, so I couldn’t pass the opportunity. 🙂

    Moderator Jan Dembowski

    (@jdembowski)

    Forum Moderator and Brute Squad

    And when developers outright lie about their lite version features? Is that fine?

    Of corse not, but there’s outright lying and there’s “I thought the author meant X, Y and Z were in the free version”.

    The upseller can do whatever they please, list all the pro features the lite version doesn’t actually have, and the user can do nothing except grit their teeth and delete the theme.

    So where is that exactly? This is the entire text of from the theme page.

    Chosen is a bold and minimalist theme for publishers who want to get their visitors’ attention and keep it. Present your best content in a clean, uncluttered fashion on phones, tablets, and desktop computers with Chosen. See our fully-setup live demo here: https://www.competethemes.com/chosen-live-demo/

    Sorry, but that’s not outright lying. There is nothing on that verbiage that says anything about features at all.

    The demo site is using the same theme as in the repo.

    https://www.competethemes.com/chosen-live-demo/wp-content/themes/chosen/style.css

    Actually, it’s 1.10 vs the current 1.11. I’ve just activated the theme on my demo site. Not surprisingly it looks just like the demo site.

    Sorry for hijacking this review, but it’s the first time I’ve seen an actual mod in one of those, so I couldn’t pass the opportunity. 🙂

    At some point I am pretty sure I review all of the posts in the review section. 😉

    *Drinks more coffee*

    There is absolutely nothing wrong with opining on a review and you do not have to be a moderator to do that. BUT if you do chime in please take the time and check your facts. To someone casually reading your post may thing there is something valid to what you are saying for this theme. That’s not the case here.

    Edit: BTW it’s a nice theme. If I were not currently enamored with playing with a Twenty Sixteen child theme then I’d consider this one. Good fonts, single column, easy to read. 😉

    Jan, I’m not the original reviewer, and I said that I didn’t mean this particular theme. 🙂 If my wording was unclear on that, then I apologize. English is not my native language, so I can be what they call “tone deaf” at times. 🙂

    And this theme is nice. I don’t know what the original reviewer’s problem with it was. It doesn’t promise lots of fancy features to begin with, it has a completely different point.

    In fact, thanks to this negative review I’ve discovered another theme made by Ben called “Tracks”. 🙂 After spending a couple of hours on its child theme I can honestly say that it’s almost perfect for my writing website.

    All in all, Ben makes great themes and absolutely didn’t deserve this negative review.

    However, there are some developers on this site (not Ben) who tag their lite themes with features that are not there. And there is no procedure in place to call them out on it.

    This 1 star review needs to be removed. Troll, literally: https://wordpress.org/support/profile/beautymodel — look at all their similar “no features in free version” comments.

    They obviously don’t appreciate minimalism and don’t understand themes.

    And how can it be both bloat and no features?

    Sorry for the theme author having to deal with this one. Kudos, Ben.

    dannybrown

    (@dannybrown)

    Sounds like “beautymodel” needs a hug…

    This is a beautiful theme, very light and user-friendly. Upgraded to the Pro version, because the dev deserves support for the quality free themes they provide.

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
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