YAY! v....net is up and running!

[Ingmar]

I would like to say thank you to everyone here at vb.org!

I've found great hacks here which saved me from writing them from scratch!

Kind regards,

Ingmar

[Logikos]

Holy ++++! Dude you have WAY to many forums!

[BamaStangGuy]

Holy ++++! Dude you have WAY to many forums!

lol man that made me laugh...

[Guest190829]

Your design is nice, but I agree. You have alot of forums for a new board, new members would get lost! I would shorten it to maybe 5-10, even though 10 is alot too....

[Ingmar]

Yes guess I over did it a tad... lol !

Go big or go home eh? ... lol

Well I will be working hard this week to get at least one post in each forum and promote it... will see what happens :)

Thanks for your comments guys!

[Logikos]

What are the most common mistakes you see new admins making?


The biggest mistake made by new administrators and long-time administrators alike is trying to create too many forums on a board. Unless a board has an extremely active membership of several thousand people there is almost no point in having the board subdivided into lots and lots of forums. All too often I see boards that give the impression of being totally dead because there are a hundred forums, each receiving only a handful of posts per day. It is far better to have everyone post to just a small number of forums so that everyone can see what everyone else is doing. This mixing of topics and people is the fundamental essence of community. Once you have a million posts and a few thousand unique posting visitors every day, then you can think about adding more forums so that topics don't get lost.



I see many forums which are new and have a small number of members, but they have complicated sites with too many forums. Always start small, start simple, get a core group of members first, and build from there.


There is some Advice...

Sorce: http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/

[Marco van Herwaarden]

Moved to forum commenting. And please don't use promotional language, or ask members to join.

[Ingmar]

Live Wire - Thanks for the advice... I guess it is back to the drawing board for me :(

MarcoH64 - Sorry about inviting people to the forum... I did not know that was unethical :(

[Tony G]

Waaaay too many forums. You shouldn't have any more than 10-12 forums at the start.

As for your style, not much has been done, still looks too "default" to me, even in terms of colour.

[Ingmar]

Yes the forums, there are to many I know, like my last post says I am already planning to work on that.

As for the style I think it looks quite a bit different from the defaul actually only most colors I kept because they fit what I was going for so why change them? I am working on changing more icons and buttons as I think the default ones look a bit tacky but then again I only bought the board last week and these things take time.

Thank you for you comments anyway...

Cheers

[Tony G]

As for the style I think it looks quite a bit different from the defaul actually only most colors I kept because they fit what I was going for so why change them? I am working on changing more icons and buttons as I think the default ones look a bit tacky but then again I only bought the board last week and these things take time.

They sure do, so why did you put your forum up for commenting? Surely you expected comments like these about your uncompleted style. I'm not interested in your excuses, I'm simply offering my constructive critisism - it's up to you to adopt it or not.

[Ingmar]

Actually Tony G, I did not put my forum up for commenting... this thread was moved here and I think you are being a bit harsh when you talk about excuses, if you read my posts I take critisism quite well.

[Logikos]

I like the style, just all the forums scared me away..

Style is simple, and clean; Which is what I'm starting to like more and more nowadays.

[EFairy]

Just chiming in to say that I really like the status icons.

[Ingmar]

Thank you all for your excellent advice and nice comments too!

Thank you for making me realise about the forums being to many, I have drastically cut them back and agree it makes way more sense to start small!

Once again thank you for your comments! Please keep em coming...

Cheers!

[smacklan]

I won't repeat what some others have offered in the way of advice. I will say I like what you have so far...it all goes together well. Good luck with the site :)

[Tony G]

Actually Tony G, I did not put my forum up for commenting... this thread was moved here and I think you are being a bit harsh when you talk about excuses, if you read my posts I take critisism quite well.

That's all and well, but I didn't appreciate being shot down for offering critisism because your style is unfinished. I didn't know that, and it shouldn't look bad on my part.

[Marco van Herwaarden]

PS If you didn't put your forum up for commenting, then i should have considered it spam in the Lounge where you posted it. In that case it would have been agaisnt our rules, and would have been deleted.

[Ingmar]

Wow, you mods are tough here!

I was just excited about my very first board being up and wanted to share my excitement with the members here since I used some of there hacks to modify it.

I did not know inviting someone to it was against the rules and as soon as you mentioned it I immediately apologized and then edited my invite out right away!

Since the post was moved here I thought I thanked everyone for there comments... may be a lot is lost without voice but I certainly was not shooting anyone down...

[Tony G]

Then all is well. :p Just seemed like that to me.

[Princeton]

The LATEST THREAD marquee will most likely be ignored.
I like how you implemented your logo emblem throughout the forum (forum icons). This creates a sense of brand.
The search functions are hardly noticable - Add some padding / increase font size.
I recommend a different color scheme. The current colors are boring and dull.
I recommend a new logo. The emblem looks great; however, the tagline, "christian articles forums services" is unreadable and the title needs more contrast (between it and background). Just look at it - the only thing that stands out is the emblem.
good luck

[Ingmar]

Tony G - cool! glad we are on good terms!

princeton - I appreciate your comments, thank you! Indeed the tagline needs to stand out more and the colors scheme could uses more hilights here and there.

About the Latest Threads scroller... I was actually worried that the forums would get ignored because people might just check the latest threads bit and then not see any of the other posts. I am a member of a forum with a scroller similar to this and I have been guilty of checking in and just reading the scroller... either way we both might think it is not nessasary... I would love to hear more comments on this latest threads scroller as if the mayority feels it is a negative rather then a positive it will removed!

Thank you again everyone and please keep the comments coming - specially on the scroller...

Cheers!

[Princeton]

That's what usually happens when you have a LATEST THREAD addon. In most cases, people will miss out on many threads. If your are displaying a small number of 'latest threads' I suggest increasing this number.

The problem with your LATEST THREAD is that it's a marquee/auto-scroller - people usually ignore them. I also don't like the idea of having the LATEST THREAD on top of the forum -- I recommend adding a sidebar. Having all the contents visible. eg. not a marquee/auto-scroller

[Ingmar]

Sorry about the scroller again...

I agree with you but removing the scroller is kind of a big change so I would love to hear some other members comments on this before I remove it...

Please let me know what you think about the Latest Threads scroller guys!

Thanks again for all the help!