The-Unexplainable

[merk_aus]

Good evening ladies and gentlemen,
I would like to first of all thank you all for taking the time to view this thread, your time already is greatly appreciated.

I am in the process of working on my latest project - The-Unexplainable - which is a discussion board focused towards the worlds greatest unexplainable phenomenon.

The website will play host to discussion about aliens, ufo's, mythical creatures, conspiracy theories and general discussion about unexplainable phenomenon.

This is definately a WORK IN PROGRESS - I haven't advertised the board yet, and haven't added all of the content yet - I have many more articles, information and stuff to upload however I am mainly focused on the layout and set up.

I would like to get some of your feedback on the current layout and set up of the board to see if there is anything I can improve on before I focus on the content etc.

So if I could bother you for just a couple more minutes to ask you to look at:

http://the-unexplainable.com

As I said it is a WORK IN PROGRESS, and so although I appreciate the feedback if you could refrain from posting about our content it would be greatly appreciated as that is coming.

I would really appreciate you ideas/thoughts on the layout, set up, style, and the other features on the site already and your idea's on what I can improve on it would be greatly appreciated.

[Alfa1]

The AJAX tabs take long to load. You can tweak this by letting it all load at once. After the first load, all tab clicks instantly show the content.

I find the blue skin quite business like, while you are targeting playful, creative interaction. The changing logo looks great. IMHO your design misses mystery. And mystery is the central aspect of that site. Maybe some smokey effect.

What audience are you trying to attract? Those that seriously believe in these phenomenon, those skeptical of it, both, or just people who like to joke around? The cartoons may attract the latter.

I really like the TU logo/favicon.

Consider to spell magic as magick. The latter being used to differentiate between magician shows and occultism.

Regardless of the validity of any topic on your site, you know that if your site becomes successful, you'll attract a fair number of nutcases do you? Its just one of those territories, where moderation can be really difficult.

Anyway, I hope Ive added something useful.

[merk_aus]

Originally Posted by Alfa1

The AJAX tabs take long to load. You can tweak this by letting it all load at once. After the first load, all tab clicks instantly show the content.

I find the blue skin quite business like, while you are targeting playful, creative interaction. The changing logo looks great. IMHO your design misses mystery. And mystery is the central aspect of that site. Maybe some smokey effect.

What audience are you trying to attract? Those that seriously believe in these phenomenon, those skeptical of it, both, or just people who like to joke around? The cartoons may attract the latter.

I really like the TU logo/favicon.

Consider to spell magic as magick. The latter being used to differentiate between magician shows and occultism.

Regardless of the validity of any topic on your site, you know that if your site becomes successful, you'll attract a fair number of nutcases do you? Its just one of those territories, where moderation can be really difficult.

Anyway, I hope Ive added something useful.

Alfa1,
I would first off like to thank you for taking the time to look at the website, as I said it is definately a Work in Progress however I wanted people's input as sometimes I get stuck looking at what I think is good and I fail to look at my website objectively - and so I truly appreciate you taking the time to look at the site and to comment.

I will tweak the modification for the tabs and get them to all load at once to make it quicker loading - something I didn't realize was happening and thought it was just my computer so that is definately at the top of the list to tweak and something I will start on straight away.

I will also take a look into the design of the site, I am far from a graphics designer or even good at graphics and therefore those images presently on the site are about the scope of what I can do - however in saying that I will take a look and attempt to play with colors to add a more mysterious look/vibe of the site.

Honestly my target audience is both those who believe in it, and those that are skeptical. MY view for the site isn't for us to sit there and say the moon landing was a hoax (for example) rather it is to sit there and put to everyone what the conspiracy theorists believe, and what the official/skeptic view is to assist people in making their own minds up.

We would love to have people from all walks of life to be posting eg: A believer posts an image of what they believe is a ghost, however some skeptics - or people searching for the truth - posts what they think the image is thus creating discussions - it would be rather boring if we were only targeting believers and had a site of everyone agreeing that what is obviously dust mites was infact a photograph of orbs.

Thanks for the comment about the favicon. In my six years of running vbulletin based sites etc that is one thing that normally slips my mind and it's weird of all the images I have placed on the site that one took the longest to create - and so I am thankful that you actually like it.

And I know that IF the site becomes successful that it will attract some nutcases - but it should make for interesting reading shouldn't it? lol.

I know you probably weren't able to see as I forgot to create a member account for people to login to check but I have also created our own smilies (first attempt at them yay) and so here is a quick little picture of one of them: .

And another thing we have changed which I am unsure if people are able to see is in the statistics bit at the bottom on the forum home page it normally says x users online, x members and x guests - we have edited that to say x users online, x agents and x aliens.

On our site members are referred to as Agents while Guests/Lurkers etc are known as Aliens as they are unidentified beings Just attempting to customize as much as we can and give it that little bit extra.

Once again I appreciate the comments and will take everything on board and will go back in and attempt to find out how to fix the tabs and will work on the design a little bit - at first I was attempting to avoid "the norm" for sites like this with just a straight out dark theme however will play and see what else I can come up with.

Thank you for replying, and thank you to all of those who have currently read this thread and clicked on the site - please believe me when I say that this was not an advertisement for the site otherwise I would of made sure all of our content etc was up, this was reaching out to vbulletin owners to ask for their opinions on the current set up/layout etc.

UPDATE
Okay just an update I have changed the colors from the blue and black to a black and red color layout.

[Alfa1]

You could add a 9-11 conspiracy subforum.

The agents and aliens in WGO is visible to guests.

[merk_aus]

Thanks will add them, and thanks for confirming WGO is showing I wasn't sure and so wanted to outline that I have been working on changing/customizing as much as possible including the little things.