As you know, there are lot of cases when people remove footer links from sponsored themes.By creating blacklist and Quick Buck crew website, both sponsors and designers are more protected now than before. I think users of sponsored themes need to be protected too. Also designers and sponsors should be able to get to those lists too if they don't follow some rules. That is why I have written Rules of ethics for sponsored theme designers I gave my best to be as much objective as I could and to back up every "rule" with some facts. Nothing is final, so please feel free to suggest more rules or disagree with some. Your opinion is needed and appreciated.
Great article. Maybe you should also start some kind of "whitelist" it will be list of designers who stick to rules of ethic?
Pretty cool thanks and agree these type of releases are necessary to keep the sector ethical Well done Marko
@Pete:I agree with you. In order for sponsored themes to work as business model where everybody wins, all 3 sides(designers,sponsors and users) have to be protected. @Greg: I don't have plans for any kind of white list. I don't think one is needed. @dinosaur: I don't plan to be cop or anything. I just wish people will accept and remember this(in this or any modified form which turns out to be best). Going to sleep now and will be back to see what others think.
I am on your rule I am not going to release anymore templates with sponsor! Nice read Marko, a heads up for newbie and professional!
Thats why as a coder i ask the sponsor before bidding to see if how i have placed the link suits them or not, if not do not bid. does the trick, as per releasing time i again confirm with the winner if the release is good to go or not ? That does the trick too. As per end user, sponsor or myself cannot do much cause there is no way one can track who is using which template on which directory out of the zillion directories and templates. Unless someone spots something its really hard to keep up with where template gets used. So, end users should be responsible and mature enough to abide by the rules of free templates. What else can i say ?
Totally agreed with the rules. If we can implement these rules then there will be win win situation for designer, sponser and users. Thumbs up
Just excellent Balkanboy, even I was gonna write about this issue. Since lately I have started releasing many themes and keep getting request from some weird sites for sponsorships. I totally agree with what you have blogged about, Infact I feel there must be only 1 Designed by link and only 1 Sponsor Link (not even 2). Thanks for the brilliant article, I will soon blog about your article in my directory resource blog too.
a nice read for sure..i have bought into sponsorships before,but i can never know if my link is removed or not
Hi Balkanboy, I am using a sponsored template and that read very well for me. Although hopefully soon I will be upgrading to a custom made template. Great article. Thanks.
Great article. I enjoyed reading it and it and I wonder if my sponsored link in some of the directory templates are still around!
Excellent article! I was well aware of the idea of sponsored themes but I never released any with a sponsored link. I believe that you will find very less people using your theme if you fill the footer with sponsored links.
Why not simply have the designers and sponsors work with the script owners (Kev, David, etc) to place the sponsored links embedded within the script's code to make them uneditable?
Yes, I agree lot more people will decide to use theme with one required link only and that is the best option for users. However, if someone spend 15 days creating a theme, I feel it is not such a bad thing to put one sponsor link and get some money to survive that month. I don't think this is ok: Designer selling 3 sponsor links in WP theme-80$ each. Theme is crap modification of another free theme. At sitepoint you can buy decent looking unique WP theme for 150-200$. I understand each sponsor chooses 80$ over 150$, but results of links from those themes are crap. I think sponsors should follow same guidelines and be aware of "I am not rich to buy cheap stuff" saying. @YMC: This is not about protecting sponsors from link removal-it is about protecting sponsored themes users from unpleasant and unfair situations. Anyway, I don't think your suggestion would work.
If a sponsored template has too many footer links to a user of that template's liking, why not keep looking for another template? I've downloaded some wonderful templates here and there and I review the code before I use it - hidden/nodisplay links? - template's deleted before I even put a single piece of my content on it. Not sure what the problem is here - buyer beware - simple as that. As to having the signature somehow embedded and therefore unremovable... If the script owner was involved, there would inherantly be a single place where the "approved" sponsored templates could be inventoried - for lack of a better word. The script owner benefits as he/she has more templates to offer and the template sponsors and designers benefit as they can have a stamp of approval and perhaps additional exposure on the script's website. Folks looking for templates to use would KNOW the template 1 - works, 2 - is "certified", and 3 - would have a predetermined and limited number of footer links. The script owner and/or his staff would be able to tell if a new sponsored template is a knock-off of another one and could deny the footer protection for them thereby also denying the rip-off artist the benefits of being an "approved/certified" template design. Shoot, the scripts' home forums could help with this as most sponsored templates are announced in those same forums anyway. Someone pays for link removal? Simple, just send them the file that embeds the sponsored link without the embedded link(s) in it. I seriously doubt anyone removing the links doesn't know exactly what they are doing as those designers who are unethical are doing it intentionally. Seems some sort of certification process with the script owner is the best and easiest solution all the way around.
But isn't prevention of link removal like phpLynx have implimented http://www.cantufind.com/forum/showthread.php?t=718 protecting both the sponsors AND sponsored theme users? I read your suggestions for designers but what about links for the sponsors who pay the designers? No disrepect here but I put my money on it that YMC's suggestion would work far better than your suggestion to 'Clearly state theme usage requirements' the cretins who remove the backlinks are hardly likely to listen to this are they? They have no choice if the attributes are hard coded in. Sadly as well intentioned your code of conduct it's not the designers who abuse, its more often the users or should I say abusers of the designers work.
Pheonix, protecting designers and sponsors is bigger problem, but I felt both side need to be protected by some rules-not just one. I never discussed designers and sponsors protection in this article and you are missing the point.