[AlexanderT]

Originally Posted by Tony G

Skin: The postbit is nice, but basically that is all you've done to the pre-made skin from what I see in terms of layout. I think you could work with it alot more and achieve some greater results. In terms of calling it 'heavy' modification of a skin, I don't think you're quite there. But basically, the skin does look quite good the way it is.

Tony, thanks for your honest comments. You are right, perhaps "heavy" was not the right word. Perhaps I was also referring to the frontpage when I had this vocabulary in mind. Beside that, most of my work (I am not really a designer, honestly) went into code hacking. For instance, I wrote a system where editors could pick any thread and "pin" them to the frontpage. In addition, they could add an frontpage image to this pinned article. The images can be managed from an editor control panel, where one can quickly see which images are linked to how many and what articles. Or the editor could check if there are any "orphans", i.e. unlinked images, or he could quickly prune all images of articles older than x months (without causing those ugly 404 image dummy picture in internet explorer).

I was looking for a more unique design by hiring a designer. But it turned out to be a greater struggle that I anticpiated. It is often very difficult to explain to a designer what exactly you are looking for. I wasted like 2 or 3 months looking around before I decided to stick to my own devices :ermm:

Forumwise I am not happy yet. I have a lot of daily hits, an ok page ranking (6/10), and new members join every day. I just cannot GET most of these lurkers TO TALK!

Greets
Alex