Any idea's to make our site better?

[RCWF-AoD]

We've been working hard on the website to make it better for our members. We really want to increase members so in the last few weeks I've upgraded and modified a LOT of things dealing with our forums.

RCWorldForum Home (www.rcworldforum.com)

and

RCWorldForum Forum Home (www.rcworldforum.com/forumindex.php)

Our biggest challenges is to make it easier on the eyes and easier on the navigation for our users. I worked tirelessly on the new navigation bar, setup a lot of new features and the like and just would like an overall rating on the site.

I'd really like some ideas on how to make the place better for the users and ways that we could attract new users. There's two skins that the members can use, but they are identical in form aside from the color's and CSS setups.

Any ideas or comments are much appreciated.

Thanks,
Steve

[IdanB]

Getting more traffic doesnt nesseceraly means new skins or better layout.
Try recruit 2-3 active moderators on your forums, that will get active & lead community.
Perhaps open daily polls about "hot topics" that will be most intrest to your community.
Try to get user motivated to post, perhaps some kind of contest - all depands with what forums about.

[Beav`]

It could use a different skin from the default vb one for starters. I'm not that keen on the logo, it's a bit big for my liking and the colours clash a little, plus I think if your logo is a fixed width then your forum should be too. It makes it look a bit disjointed otherwise.

I'm not sure why you have the sub forums listed on the category strip like that. It makes them very hard to spot for new members. On first glance it looks like you only have 4 forum sections.

I'd ditch that 'metal' skin too, it doesn't suit your site's content at all, just stick with one good one.

[RCWF-AoD]

Thanks for your comment here. We're trying to make a community style forum based of the hobby of radio controlled models. We're not stressing on brands or model types like most of the forum sets out there, nor are we trying to be "RC only". We're trying to make a community where members can chit chat, talk about new models, and all truths be told, let the members talk about what they want.

I'll definitely have to talk to our staff about daily polls and the like and see if we can't get some contests started again.

Mainly, other then getting the new members, I just want this site to be different in it's own respects. Most of the RC forums I visit are pretty much the default VB layout. So, I wanted ours to to be a bit more, useful. The Nav Bar is my latest project, as it works a lot better for the users who've used it so far.

Does the redesigned navbar seem easier for you to use?

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It could use a different skin from the default vb one for starters. I'm not that keen on the logo, it's a bit big for my liking and the colours clash a little, plus I think if your logo is a fixed width then your forum should be too. It makes it look a bit disjointed otherwise.

I'm not sure why you have the sub forums listed on the category strip like that. It makes them very hard to spot for new members. On first glance it looks like you only have 4 forum sections.

I'd ditch that 'metal' skin too, it doesn't suit your site's content at all, just stick with one good one.


I'm working on the whole forum layout next. We had a LOT of forums that weren't at all useful and I simply cut it down for now. Working on the layouts.

Our Metal Theme (http://www.rcworldforum.com/forumindex.php?styleid=5) was added for the fact that many users that have come to our forum requested something darker and different and out of six candidates, it was a winner.

It makes it a pain for template upgrades and changes, but worth it. On average, our community uses almost 50% Default and 50% Metal, so I like to make those "dark lovers" happy as well.

The forum banner... It's old, doesn't match but the one thing that keeps it up there is that it was submitted by one of our members. The other thing.. Well I have the skill in photoshop probably equal of that to my skills in electrophysics. Yeah... I don't know the first thing about making a new one or even getting started on that.

[Beav`]

I can't really tell if your navbar's easier to use, to be honest I've never really found the default one that hard :D In fact I barely use the navbar at all on forums I visit. You're probably better off asking non vb users if they find it easy to get around. If your members like it, then stick with it.

[RCWF-AoD]

So far I've got good reviews on it. Quite a few members in the past have PM'd me telling me that they'd most like some things changed/added to the nav bars. :\