All sponsored themes will be removed from themes.wordpress.net according to Matt (Wordpress creator) so theme sponsorships is going to die very soon.
Thomas is running themes.wordpress.net not Matt, duh! Matt is running wordpress.org and that discussion is too old. He decided to let them be.
I don't think they will do that, because if they do, the amount of new themes uploaded daily will rapidly drop to minimum.
Removing sponsored themes from wordpress.net wouldn't really be a nice idea imo. 1) The no of themes in the database would drop down drastically. 2) Not many more themes would come in. We the designers and coders take time and efforts to make a theme. Both out time and effort have some value. We aren't here just to make stuff and give it away for free without literally making even a single cent from it? Sponsors help us to get paid for our time and value which in turn provides people free themes. The people using our themes link back to the sponsors which help them to get their money invested in our themes back. I do NOT favour the decision of disallowing sponsored themes. I don't have any problems if they are willing to pay us $50-$200 per theme depending upon its quality. Oh and back to the topic now. I'd seriously recommend adding a Templates Sponsorship section out there. I agree that getting a bid is now dependant on luck and not quality. I've faced the same with the auction of Lush Greenz theme.
I am not talking about Wordpress templates only. There also are e.g. phpLD templates sponsorships threads. I think the subcategory could work well just like it works e.g. with the Adult subcategory in the BST > Sites forum (http://forums.digitalpoint.com/forumdisplay.php?f=52). So I would suggest a new subcategory to be added to the Link Sales forum for all templates sponsorships. I think we really need this, as there are just few template sponsorships thread in Link Sales forum and they are lost really quickly. I'm sending a PM to a moderator, so we'll see what (s)he will say.
Duh yourself! http://photomatt.net/2007/07/10/wltc-high-ground/ http://www.shoemoney.com/2007/07/11/no-more-sponsored-links-what-a-bunch-of-bullshit/ Matt is the "big boss", and calls the shots.... and he has said no to all sponsorship themes, they will all be removed.
They discussed the same thing before and no one actually removed them. I guess they're talking sh*t again. Come on they aren't stupid, if they remove all sponsored themes the site will immediately lose its popularity. Less popularity >> less visitors >> less money.
So. Is it official now.. huh? They going to remove sponsored themes from themeviewer.. They just dont understand that this step will leave the themeviewer nothing but just an empty shell with some age old basic themes. They are not doing justice to their users.. enough said
Um yea you don't know matt....he has too much power last time they wanted blgonetworks out tehy did it, and targeted Col (cheap seo services) like hell. No one can stop matt.
What has Col to do with all that? If they'll remove the themes, I'll open my own site and will advertise it as hell!
Im saying Matt wanted him out, and he did it. that shows matt can do anything he damn well pleases. And even if you do, you can't get to the 1k alexa that they have and all the authority they gained over the years. This will be the same as the whole "google killer" incident..
BTW i think that removing the theme sponsorships sucks too! But it his site and he can do whatever he wants with it.
So what is it gonna be.. Now I see some things which might happen in the future.. MAY BE Themeviewer is going to clean up all the sponsored themes. MAY BE then they are going to start a new site for sponsored themes alone. and MAY BE then they are going to charge the designer or seller to upload their themes( something similar to sitepoint about their marketing threads). Now that WILL enable Matt taking his bites on these sponsored cakes.. If I was matt..This is what I probably would have done.. but I am a designer..I am on the opposite team.. If I could afford some bigger bandwidths I would have started a new themeviewer for sponsored themes for free.. But I can't