Update
Hello blade! I have a bit of free time now and can share some of my thoughts.
First of all, I have to thank you and commend your effort. Theme devs and Obsidian theming in general have always been seen as second-fiddle to plugin development, so it is nice to see that someone cares enough to create a reference like this. It puts people in the spotlight and makes it apparent that a lot of thought and criteria go into making even just a decent, good (and not great) theme.
Concerns about the scoring model
however I have to mention that a reference should generally be just that - a reference, totally impartial and factual in nature. It is for this reason I dislike the stats-based approach of the plugin statistics project and its scoring system.
I understand the rationale behind a scoring system, but in my opinion, it serves to reduce a dev’s work into mere numbers to be crunched and considered. This is especially concerning when the same approach is applied to theming - something which is inherently much more subjective in nature.
A theme cannot be reduced to a set of scores much as the life of a human being cannot be described only through their civilian records and personal information.
Tweaks and alternatives
What we can do instead is provide a system of unbiased, factual descriptors or ‘tags’ on a theme-by-theme basis.
What do I mean by this? Well, for example - instead of assigning score values to things like dark/light mode support, aesthetic quality and theme age, just leave those categories as is and set them as ‘tags’ for the purposes of grouping. Let those reading the reference decide for themselves how important a theme’s accessibility is or how pretty it is in their opinion.
Additionally, a reference should describe the overall style and character of a theme to at least some decent extent. For example, you could say that Primary is warm with beige tones and tricolor accents, but has tactility through button presses. Or Flexcyon is cool and techy with a retro vibe and clear TUI influences. This helps people gauge the nature of a theme even in the absence of images (though images should ideally be included!)
(bonus) My own wishes/plans
A community thrives on personal interactions and the sharing of passion and interest around a common topic. Both the plugin and theme dev communities of Obsidian have fallen away from what they were when the app was younger and the community more tightly-knit. We now have a situation where AI and tech-bro grifters take up a lot of noise in the plugin space, and cheap, trendy AnuPpuccin/Border setups dominate the notes-showcase in the discord. The way themes are presented in the store promotes the continuing dominance of a few themes at the expense of everything else.
The community is fragmented; Obsidian has become just a tool to mess around with, fine tune and optimize, not a vision of a environment that works for you and can become an expression of art itself. There was a time in the wild west of theme development where people really were experimenting and pushing the boundaries of Obsidian’s CSS - where themes like Sanctum, Yin and Yang, Prism, ITS and SF were born. I long for a return to such days, no matter how embellished or exaggerated my perception may be compared to the reality.
Back then there was also a person who regularly maintained updates on the status and happenings within the Obsidian community. Their project was known as the Obsidian Roundup, if I remember correctly.
I want to start a blog, maybe just my own or several of us together, where we can post and talk about theme development and gush about the design decisions of some of our favorite themes and snippets. A place where love for theme development can truly blossom.
Final notes
Once again I’d like to thank you for taking the initiative to do this. I hope you heed my advice and take a more neutral approach centered around description and not evaluation. As for what you asked about Velocity’s development - let’s just say that something big, a total overhaul is in the works.
I will link back to this long post when I make my own separate thread about redesigning the theme store page and the way it arranges themes.
