review my site

[CarpCharacin]

My site does not have a very good name. My friend came up with the name Dude Talk Forums and i could not come up with anything better. It is essentially a general discussion forum. Here is a link: http://dudetalk.info

[ForceHSS]

Skin colour is like someone was sick all over it. The banner needs to be smaller

[CarpCharacin]

Skin colour is like someone was sick all over it. The banner needs to be smaller

there are actually 5 other skins available in the style selector. The only one who was sick all over it was my other admin who is no longer an admin lol. I mean he tried to mess up the site. I designed the skin.

[HM666]

I'm sorry if this comes across harsh, but the other 5 skins are not really all that much better. Do yourself a favor and get a custom skin or if you cannot swing paying for one of those buy a premium skin online somewhere instead. The skins you have are really painful to look at, they are too bright and would be hard to look at for a long time.

When you have people sign up on your forums you want them to hang out for long periods of time to chat & post, not post one thing and run away or not bother posting at all if they cannot sit there and be blinded by the skin. You could even go back to the default skin and it would be better. Its hard to notice anything else because the skins are pretty distracting.

Things To Keep In Mind:

1. Remember you want to appeal to many people not just a few. By using super bright colors in your skins you will turn away some who may have stayed otherwise. Having a nice skin is important but having good content and members for a forum is more important. You will not get either if you blind them with the skin.

2. The name really will not matter much if you appeal to many people at once and if you have good content on your site. People will post and get involved if they are engaged.

3. People have all different tastes in what they like. Maybe try toning the skin colors down a bit and have them not be in your face like. Its better to have 1 or 2 good quality skins than 5 not so good ones.

Some Other Stuff To Make Sure About:

You said that you had an admin that left already, there are a few things that you should now do since this person no longer is on your forum to protect yourself.

1. Sounds silly but make sure you have deleted their account. Or at least change the password using a site like THIS (http://strongpasswordgenerator.com/), although I suggest you delete them totally.

2. Make sure that they are not the one who bought the hosting, the vBulletin license, and the domain name. If they did buy them from them RIGHT NOW. I've seen people and have had clients in the past that got totally burned by someone in an instance like this. If everything is in their name then you have absolutely no rights what-so-ever and would get screwed if they decided to pull everything out from under you.

3. Check the config.php file and make sure that they did not put their ID as an admin there. If they have delete it. In your config.php look for:

// ****** USERS WITH ADMIN LOG VIEWING PERMISSIONS ******

and then below that change the ID numbers to only reflect ones that you want to be there.

$config['SpecialUsers']['canviewadminlog'] = '';

// ****** USERS WITH ADMIN LOG PRUNING PERMISSIONS ******
// The users specified here will be allowed to remove ("prune") entries from the admin
// log. See the above entry for more information on the format.
$config['SpecialUsers']['canpruneadminlog'] = '';

// ****** USERS WITH QUERY RUNNING PERMISSIONS ******
// The users specified here will be allowed to run queries from the control panel.
// See the above entries for more information on the format.
// Please note that the ability to run queries is quite powerful. You may wish
// to remove all user IDs from this list for security reasons.
$config['SpecialUsers']['canrunqueries'] = '';

// ****** UNDELETABLE / UNALTERABLE USERS ******
// The users specified here will not be deletable or alterable from the control panel by any users.
// To specify more than one user, separate userids with commas.
$config['SpecialUsers']['undeletableusers'] = '';

// ****** SUPER ADMINISTRATORS ******
// The users specified below will have permission to access the administrator permissions
// page, which controls the permissions of other administrators
$config['SpecialUsers']['superadministrators'] = '';

Be sure to make the changes only inside the two '' like so:

$config['SpecialUsers']['canviewadminlog'] = '1,2,3';


4. Change ALL the admin passwords & your server passwords + FTP passwords if your old admin had those. Change them immediately.

I hope this information helps you and does not discourage you. Creating skins and getting a site launched is not extremely easy, the fact that you are trying means a lot.

[CarpCharacin]

the old admin never had root access to the forum. All he had was a full admin account. He just tried to mess up stuff in the admincp. His username was DudeGoodman. He actually turned out to be DudeBadman.

[HM666]

the old admin never had root access to the forum. All he had was a full admin account. He just tried to mess up stuff in the admincp. His username was DudeGoodman. He actually turned out to be DudeBadman.

LOL oh dear. I can relate, I've been there. One reason I usually never have another admin on my site. That is good that he did not have that kind of access. I've seen some real messes in the past on a person's site because of a disgruntled admin. :(

[ForceHSS]

there are actually 5 other skins available in the style selector. The only one who was sick all over it was my other admin who is no longer an admin lol. I mean he tried to mess up the site. I designed the skin.
All skins are bad

[CarpCharacin]

what makes them so bad?

[ForceHSS]

The skin colour and the bad made banner

You also have a space in the coding that needs fixed

[CarpCharacin]

no space shows up for me.

[ForceHSS]

You not see the space before admin I can even see it on that ss you posted you can even see below CarpCharacin

[CarpCharacin]

You not see the space before admin I can even see it on that ss you posted you can even see below CarpCharacin

It shows up fine for me

[ForceHSS]

In the ss you upload it shows it can you not see that you must when it is on the ss

[CarpCharacin]

what exactly is the ss

[ozzy47]

The screen shot you loaded, Force is talking about this.

[HM666]

The skin colour and the bad made banner

You also have a space in the coding that needs fixed

Yeah but that is because the usergroup legend is centered. That is a personal preference that has nothing to do with design.

What makes the skins bad?

1. The colors, they are too bright and blinding. There are some people who have problems viewing stuff with really bright colors. Its hard for them to read or see it and after a while it would give them a headache. Tone the colors down some. You can still have the same basic colors but its best for it to not be neon bright.

2. You have the same colored shading on EVERY skin it looks out of place either remove it or change the shading color to match the skin.

3. The logo looks bad and is a little too big. Make it smaller in size or width really. Too much drop shadow is on the logo as well, drop shadow is not really something that is done too much anymore in the manner you have done it. The extraordinary amount of drop shadow makes it look cheap and thrown together.

4. Change the border color in the various places in the skin. The border is all the standard default border color which looks bad in a skin of a totally different color.

5. Some of the skins have a really light font color on a really light background. This is a no-no. Some of your viewers will not be able to read that. The font will blend into the background making it impossible for some to read it at all. not everyone has a nice pretty monitor, some people are on laptops, some on desktops, some on tablets so you have different monitor types & resolutions to worry about. Having seriously light font on a light background is not good.

6. In for a penny in for a pound, if you are going to make a custom skin for your site change the icons and other graphics to match it and match them to the skin they are in.

7. You need to add space at the bottom of the breadcrumbs bar. It is right on top of the advertising you have. There should be a space in between that bar & the ads.

Quite honestly ALL 5 skins do not look like they are completely done. They look half done kinda like you just threw them together in an afternoon. Look at other forums and if you like something they did try and do something similar. Look at popular forums and you will see that their skins are FINISHED entirely.

[CarpCharacin]

The screen shot you loaded, Force is talking about this.
i centered it on purpose

[ForceHSS]

I see it looks more like there is a mistake in the code

[CarpCharacin]

ok i changed it

--------------- Added 1421031253 at 1421031253 ---------------

Yeah but that is because the usergroup legend is centered. That is a personal preference that has nothing to do with design.

What makes the skins bad?

1. The colors, they are too bright and blinding. There are some people who have problems viewing stuff with really bright colors. Its hard for them to read or see it and after a while it would give them a headache. Tone the colors down some. You can still have the same basic colors but its best for it to not be neon bright.

2. You have the same colored shading on EVERY skin it looks out of place either remove it or change the shading color to match the skin.

3. The logo looks bad and is a little too big. Make it smaller in size or width really. Too much drop shadow is on the logo as well, drop shadow is not really something that is done too much anymore in the manner you have done it. The extraordinary amount of drop shadow makes it look cheap and thrown together.

4. Change the border color in the various places in the skin. The border is all the standard default border color which looks bad in a skin of a totally different color.

5. Some of the skins have a really light font color on a really light background. This is a no-no. Some of your viewers will not be able to read that. The font will blend into the background making it impossible for some to read it at all. not everyone has a nice pretty monitor, some people are on laptops, some on desktops, some on tablets so you have different monitor types & resolutions to worry about. Having seriously light font on a light background is not good.

6. In for a penny in for a pound, if you are going to make a custom skin for your site change the icons and other graphics to match it and match them to the skin they are in.

7. You need to add space at the bottom of the breadcrumbs bar. It is right on top of the advertising you have. There should be a space in between that bar & the ads.

Quite honestly ALL 5 skins do not look like they are completely done. They look half done kinda like you just threw them together in an afternoon. Look at other forums and if you like something they did try and do something similar. Look at popular forums and you will see that their skins are FINISHED entirely.

I did just throw them together an afternoon :p lol

[HM666]

LOL well it looks like it man. :)

[CarpCharacin]

try the new DTF2 Style!!! I made it today. Hope it is better. It is not as blinding. The least blinding skin is DTF Brown.

[ForceHSS]

try the new DTF2 Style!!! I made it today. Hope it is better. It is not as blinding. The least blinding skin is DTF Brown.
Just as bad as the others at least try some of the free ones on here

[CarpCharacin]

are there any free online more advanced style generators?

[ForceHSS]

Why not install some from here

[CarpCharacin]

i have been looking and i can not find one that i like that works with 4.2.2

[ForceHSS]

There are plenty that do
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=312767
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=312640
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=284499
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=314966
And there are many more

[CarpCharacin]

what is wrong with making my own?

[ForceHSS]

Many have already given you reasons why your skin colours don't work is that not good enough reason to install something that looks better. Take some tips from post 16 if you want to make your own

[CarpCharacin]

then i will make something better.

[ForceHSS]

Good this is after all why you asked for a review of your site. Yes, sometimes the reviews can be not to your liking but we are here to help you to make your site better

[HM666]

Exactly!!! Its not a personal attack on your abilities to a make a skin, run a site or you. Everyone has to start somewhere, we are telling you these things from years of experience and having been there. My first vBulletin site looked HORRID lol but at the time I thought it was the bees knees, it was not. There is nothing wrong with taking the criticism and making the site better and making yourself better at doing this. But if you want to gain & keep members you have to do certain things in order to do that. There are literally tons of sites out there just like yours. I was lucky that my first site there was nothing at all like it online, but you have some stiff competition out there. Take the main keyword and one word to describe what your site is or should be about mostly Google that word with the word forum after it and take a look at your competition. It might give you an idea of what you are up against and what you need to do on your site to make it better than theirs & to make it more accessible for members and easier for members where they want to come back.