A 'Professional' community: what do you envision?

[Mystis]

I've got a hypothetical scenario for you everyone. You've heard of this website. It's another one of those web design communities. But this one's a little different: it advertises itself as the 'professional' community.

Design-wise, what do you envision?? Do you see a yaxay or fexboards-esque site? Or do you see something more along the lines of a Marc Klein, Look and Feel, or http://www.cintara.com/ corporate look? Or even a crisp, clean vbskins style? Or did you picture something totally different? Content-wise, what would you expect? What kind of forums would you desire? What other features would you want?

I'd appreciate your input everyone! Thanks!

[Dean C]

I would envision a simple yet elegant style with intelligent people who give constructive-criticism

I don't really like OTT designs but it's always an added bonus to have a mooth look

- miSt

[Mystis]

By OTT you mean over-the-top, such as a yaxay type place, correct?

[Velocd]

Visuals are nice, but as mentioned by Mist, the atmosphere, interactivity, diverse and intelligent personality of the people within the community is what really crosses the line between a regular forum, and something exceptional.

Then it also boils down to what you're interested in and the target audience you're focused for. Yaxay.com may have a snazzy style, but I could really care less about graphix sites, there are such a huge crap load of them out there (usually all seeming to be prefixed with "pixel"), and I never really became interested in joining.

A good example of a really involving community (despite initially upon entering it seems like a graphix site) is such that of the one you moderate Mystis, Somethingleet.com. That community has a huge range of people with very intricate personalities, even though much of the language used around is typically vulgar, the people are intelligent (from those I have seen), and the discussions can get extremely involved (not to mention hilarious). Rarely do I see a forum that has threads with almost always replied to, never allowing one to slide down the list with zero replies.

Gamingforce.com, animeboards, and vBulletin.org are really the only other communities that I visit (other than my own ofcourse ), and enjoy the crowd around. The design is basic yet appealing on all of them (except maybe animeboards, which could use an upgrade).

[Chris M]

I invision a lightly-coloured slightly graphical site, with an easy to use structure, and clear-cut information...

Some sites, like for example, yaXay (im not knocking it), can be confusing for a large amount of people who have never used a vBulletin before...

By slightly graphical, I mean something like filburt's site...It is not overly graphics-based IMHO, but it looks nice, and the graphics it does have compliment it greatly...It is light, user friendly, and offer clear-cut information, something I would expect of a Professional site...But then again - Everyone's opinion will differ

Satan

[Dean C]

Yaxay is a very good show of graphical work but it's too much IMO - half the people there are little kids who have no idea what they're talking about and can't take constructive criticism.

That's one of the things that puts me off a site - if you give feedback on something and the person doesn't respect your opinion and take it into account.

webdesignforums.net and gfxart.net are two up-and-comin professional communities

- miSt