Fluid Gaming - A Gaming Community

[AK Houston]

Hey guys, check out my site!

ive been working on it myself an a few others on some projects like the gold member.

http://fluidgaming.com

and special thanks to Sarteck! - gold membership developer

tell me what you think of it!

[RobbieZ]

Gold member not viewable unless registered!

[setishock]

Yeah it's a little hard to evaluate if you can't navigate around. Everything I tried to look at is private.
What I could see looks pretty good.

[AK Houston]

Yeah. You kinda have to register to see everything xD

[Lazorbeam]

Make the forums public. Your site will never grow otherwise.

Remove clutter from CMS. Less is more:
Extra login box.
Quick moderation. I'm not a moderator.
Birthdays. Nobody pays attention to these.
Calendar. Nothing to see there.
The header image looks tacky. I see what you're trying to do and it's a good idea, but I don't think it achieves the desired effect.

Remove the breadcrumbs from CMS. Not needed.

Customize this message for unregistered users:

"If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below."

Fix your navbar, there are 2 colors in there that don't match. It looks like the second part of the navbar is only there for advanced search, consider moving that elsewhere completely.

Trim down your forums. It's a ghost town in there and empty forums just make things look worst. Expand your forum as your site grows.

"Mark forums read" item looks out of place. Consider removing it completely or fixing the color to blend in.

Remove unneeded information from "what's going on" box on forumhome (icon legend, users today, users registered today).

Forget the "agree to rules" addon. Nobody reads the rules and trolls will be trolls regardless of rules.

I'm obviously being hypercritical, the site is nice. The color scheme is great. How did you achieve those dropdown menus?

[leejohn02]

and on top of that dont spam other sites telling them to join your site

[AK Houston]

and on top of that dont spam other sites telling them to join your site

Didnt even spam. Just posted a single thread.

[setishock]

And there in lies the rub.
A good rule of thumb is to ask first if (A) There is a place to post about your website (B) ok to put a link to it in your sig (C) take no as an answer.
If you get permission to do either one don't just hit and run. I delete those and ban the member.
Be active at other forum where you have posts or a sig link. Being active like I am here gets your sig looked at more. More posts, more hits.
Let's go back to the post you made that leejohn02 commented about. How you word it can make or break a forum. "We needs members to sign up" can kill you. Remember content is king and that applies to posts advertising your forum as well. I have one floating around that goes something like this:

Hi, I'm SetiShock. Some of you may know me from ComputerVitals and many other places I hang my virtual hat.
I've started a forum on the subject of Anime. Having been a big fan for sometime I thought I would give it a go. We have fan and pro art along with an open discussion section and a section set aside just for you aspiring writers. I have some goodies in there that I've been working on.
If you have the time you can drop by and have a look. If you like what you see and want to be a part of our community, then click the registration button and join us.
We look forward to seeing you there,
SetiShock Owner/Admin of www.animeappeal.com

You tease people in to coming over and having a look at your forum. But no hit and run. The places that is posted I got permission first then kept up being an active member. Shoot I even belong to a camera forum. I'm a bit of a shutterbug so that worked out. But I hope you get the point.

[AK Houston]

And there in lies the rub.
A good rule of thumb is to ask first if (A) There is a place to post about your website (B) ok to put a link to it in your sig (C) take no as an answer.
If you get permission to do either one don't just hit and run. I delete those and ban the member.
Be active at other forum where you have posts or a sig link. Being active like I am here gets your sig looked at more. More posts, more hits.
Let's go back to the post you made that leejohn02 commented about. How you word it can make or break a forum. "We needs members to sign up" can kill you. Remember content is king and that applies to posts advertising your forum as well. I have one floating around that goes something like this:

Hi, I'm SetiShock. Some of you may know me from ComputerVitals and many other places I hang my virtual hat.
I've started a forum on the subject of Anime. Having been a big fan for sometime I thought I would give it a go. We have fan and pro art along with an open discussion section and a section set aside just for you aspiring writers. I have some goodies in there that I've been working on.
If you have the time you can drop by and have a look. If you like what you see and want to be a part of our community, then click the registration button and join us.
We look forward to seeing you there,
SetiShock Owner/Admin of www.animeappeal.com

You tease people in to coming over and having a look at your forum. But no hit and run. The places that is posted I got permission first then kept up being an active member. Shoot I even belong to a camera forum. I'm a bit of a shutterbug so that worked out. But I hope you get the point.

thanks man. i got your word.

[Princeton]

The rules popup thing (before viewing thread) is really annoying. Your site will never grow if you keep this.

I like what you are trying to do but it's a it too much.

For starters the header is too big and confusing. 'xbox360' stands our more than the site name.

The main page layout is old. Come up with something different.
- remove login block
- remove stats block
- remove online users block
- remove site navigation block

all of the above blocks are already available or add no value to the page

Why would anyone visit your page? stay on your page?
If you can answer that you will have a better main page.