Need advice please - new Television theme Forums

[Talisman]

Maybe someone with more technical expertise can help figure out how to do the mpeg's and mouseover text. Wish I could be more help, technically, but I think of things I want to do on my forum and end up spending weeks trying to figure out how to do something that other folks would spend 15 minutes to do.

I definitely agree with you about keeping a forum free from ads if you can avoid them. Unless I open a commercial site someday where I'm selling goods or services, then I'd never use ads. I'd much rather run a small-ish (affordable) group than some big monstrosity I can't afford to sustain out of pocket by myself. Members get really tired of places that constantly harp about raising money to pay for the site... even when it's necessary.

The best way to get your site to grow is truly to be patient, give it time to build up and expand naturally, and make your members feel comfortable being there. There's really no shortcut to this. Informal, word-of-mouth recommendations from even a small, happy member base is the most reliable way to go. And don't be too quick to get rid of quiet members who "lurk" in the background, visit alot, but never post anything. You'd be surprised how often those people are your best recruiters for new members.

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Added:

Originally Posted by dan40

Re the page width: I view all my pages at 1024x768 and they seem to be OK. Not many people browse at 800x600 unless you have bad eyesight or an older monitor that won't display higher resolutions.

I meant to add earlier that I keep going back to the 800 resolution. If I don't set mine down to that resolution, I end up messing up my forum. Alot of users still view the board at that setting.

Either way, I always make sure my forum displays nicely when it's all scrunched up to 800 wide -- without invoking that annoying slider bar. Then all the expanded width views look even better, too.