[April / May 2009] BOTM Nomination Thread

This is the nomination thread for Board of the Month of April / May 2009.

Please note the BOTM Rules here:
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/info.php?do=botm

Nominations will be accepted until the 31st of March 2009.

When nominating please post the site name, URL to the forum, a short description what makes your board stand out from default vBulletin, and a reason for nomination that will motivate others to second the nomination. If the staff feels that a nomination post is too promotional it will be edited accordingly.

Any sites without a name, URL, description and reason for nomination will NOT be entered into the poll. Please ensure that your nomination is in the format:

Originally Posted by Sample Nomination

Site Name: vBulletin.org
URL: www.vbulletin.org - this must be clickable
Description: Official vBulletin Modifications Site
Reason for Nomination: Not Nominated. This is an example nomination.

When seconding sites, please ensure that you use the same post for the maximum of 3 allowed seconds. Any seconds not located in your first seconding post will not be counted. Please also ensure that you quote the nomination post you are seconding in your post (Use Multi-Quote Option if you are nomination multiple boards). If there is no name or URL provided then the post will be ignored when the nominations are counted.

Also, please make sure that you are seconding a forum that has already been nominated by its forum owner. Any seconds for a forum that has not been nominated yet will be counted as null and void.

Please posts only nominations or seconds, no "Thank you" posts are needed, they clutter the thread and will be deleted.

Any queries regarding the BOTM Contests should be sent via PM to King Kovifor or an administrator.

Best of luck to all nominees!

[x3lite]

Site Name: Blank My Blank! Promote Your ____!
URL: http://blankmyblank.com
Description: Promote your website, blog, product, or service!
Reason for Nomination: We're offering a free service for everyone and hope to get the word out more. Thank you.

[Noosphere]

Site Name: The Noosphere
URL: http://www.thenoosphere.com

Description: A Discussion Forum for Grownups

Reason for Nomination: In an incredibly short period of time, we have built an aesthetically attractive, highly organized, unique place on the web for intelligent posters to discuss a myriad of topics, from science, music, and art, to politics, history, and pop culture. We hold our members to a higher standard than many places on the internet, and we encourage civility, respect, and thoughtful conversation from our members. The site is built around the concept of 'the noosphere', defined as the 'sphere of human thought' (the natural evolution of the Earth beyond the physical world's 'Geosphere' and 'Biosphere'). Despite having no IT training, we have implemented a number of innovative mods on the site, and upgrade content continuously. From the second a visitor visits www.thenoosphere.com, we believe they know it's 'not just another website'.

Feature List:

Home Page
Forums
Blogs
Photopost Galleries
Reference Library
Answer Board (new)
Avatar Project (sample)
TN Light (alternate template)
TN Radio
TN Chat (members only)
Videos
TN Sphere
Featured Musical Artist
PIC of the Week
Witching Hour

[BlackJacket]

Site Name: 1320LEGEND
URL: www.1320legend.com
Description: Brand new Online Drag Racing game coming soon!
Reason for Nomination: Great community and site!

[Ocean-Wonders]

Site Name: Ocean-Wonders
URL: www.ocean-wonders.co.uk
Description: On-line fish keepers community
Reason for Nomination: We are a true on-line community, with a fun, friendly, relaxed and inviting atmosphere. We actively encourage members to ask the questions they are to worried about asking on other forums of the same context. We have been established for little over 4 months and at the time of writing we have over 200 members, 1200 threads and over 12,000 posts. We have been visited over 100,000 times ! Customised forums integrated with vbadvanced. Lots of extra features

[tpearl5]

Originally Posted by beansbaxter

Site Name - Sin City Sportbikes

URL: http://scsportbikes.com

Description: Motorcycle rides and riders for the Las Vegas, Nevada region.

Reason for Nomination: Please take a moment to look at my site. I have spent a considerable amount of time giving vBulletin a unique, one of a kind, custom look in layout and colors. We have a large community of motorcycle riders in the Las Vegas area, and giving them a unique community to congregate and communicate on has allowed the site to grow and expand which has been beneficial to the area.

Second!

[get_nick]

Nominating....

Site name-Obamacies.com

url: http://www.obamacies.com

Description: Resource to Learn, debate, and discuss the Obama administration. Talk about his Cabinet, Policies, and News. You can read biographies, catch up with current events and watch videos of todays politics. There are even local and international sections for everybody to get involved.

Reason for nomination: I have worked with the developer to get a format that will help people learn. I feel people need to know about what impacts the U.S.A and even the world. We have biographies, speeches, videos, links, etc. of the current events.

It may have ads, but they are for operating costs. I would be happy not making $1 if I could get 1,000 people educated and involved in society.

[Mr-Moo]

Site Name: ExoMagic

URL: http://www.exomagic.com/forum (http://www.exomagic.com)

Description: ExoMagic[dot]Com - The premier place to teach, learn, and share magic freely.

Reason for Nomination: This is an exclusive online community dedicated to the learning, teaching, and discussion of magic. We have invested our time and money into creating the most unique custom forum around. From our unique skin to our custom modifications, this is truly a site worth a nomination.

Note: This is for magicians like David Blaine, Houdini, Paul Harris, etc... not the game.

Looking forward to your vote!

[F0xy]

Site Name: What's Your View?

URL: http://whatsyourview.net/forum/

Description: What's Your View? - Debate and Opinions on Celebrities, TV, Entertainment, Sport and Media news

Reason for Nomination: Just designed a new skin and have reached over 7000 new members in less than 9 months. Recently won board of the month on vbulletinsetup.

[Jaxel]

Site Name: 8WayRun

URL: http://www.8wayrun.com/

Description: Soulcalibur (Soul Calibur) for the hardcore enthusiast! A Tournament Competitive Community for the Soul Calibur series. 8WR is the home for the English speaking competitive community for this popular fighting game. With members all around the world; gamers get together to share ideas, strategy and good ole' competition. We are also the forefront of the Soulcalibur IV National Tournament series and supply event planning tools to tournament organizers.

Reason for Nomination:

• Fully skinned interface (multiple skins available). Each skin has custom header images; when you first visit the site, your header image will be randomly selected based on a character within the game. When you visit any character specific forum; the header image will be forced into the header image for that specific character. If you go to the Talim forum, Talim will be in the header; If you go to the Cassandra forum, Cassandra will be in the header, etc... With an account, you can even bypass the random selection and decide which character you wish to show by default.
• In depth video directory. I am the author of the Video Directory Remixed mod; so you can pretty much guarantee that I make use of it. The video section has videos from tons of players, including match videos for money matches, casual matches and even tournament matches. Some players have even uploaded combo and training videos.
• Weekly Online Ranking Battles. While the majority of the community cares little for online matches (we are a serious community, and online battles is to say "less than serious"); we still offer weekly tournaments through the online networks of Xbox Live and the Playstation Network. Players can also challenge other players; as well as TEAMS, to ladder matches to improve their rank.
• In depth move list WIKI. While the Wiki is still incomplete (since the competitive community gets ZERO support from the developers at Namco Bandai); all the information in the wiki is being discovered and implemented by the users. So each day, new information gets added to the wiki and soon it will be a central information cache for frame data and move lists.
• Event Forum with RSVP.
• Java based chatroom.
• Arcade with 20 games.

[MoMan]

This is a nomination for:

Site Name: PentaxForums.com
URL: http://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/

Description: Pentaxforums.com is currently the largest-growing community of Pentax camera users in the world, and is the largest English forum that's exclusively dedicated to Pentax. The site features a forum, gallery, article system, and multiple lens databases and uses a heavily-modified/customized, yet seemingly normal, installation of vBulletin. Nearly 500,000 posts.

Reason for Nomination:
This forum uses dozens of modifications, yet they are seamlessly integrated into the vBulletin installation! Not only are many PHP plugins installed, but there are also heavy template modifications in addition to custom styling.

Here's just a brief list of some of the customizations made to the forum:
>Custom notice for new users to activate their accounts via e-mail
>Custom forumdisplay layout (navigation controls on top; simplified footer) which changes for guests and registered users for SEO purposes
>Custimized Photoplog Pro installation
>Customized iTrader installation
>Postbit contents vary by forum; additional links visible when appropriate
>vBSEO installed
>Custom HTML listing form used for posts in the Marketplace
>"Who's Online" legend for logged-in users
>Modified user profile pages: links to iTrader (feedback system) and renaming of Visitor Messages to "guestbook"
>RSS Site Map
>Rearranged navbar for easier browsing
>Two highly customized installations of ReviewPost that serve as lens databases; manual vBulletin templace integration for the headers
>Article system integrated into the forum (using the Chief First Post mod)
>Links in the "Search" dropdown that indicate the number of new posts
>Customized quicklinks menu containing convenient links that are not present in the stock vBulletin
>Moderator statistics
>Keyword-based anti-spam system for new users
>Human User Verification question upon registration in addition to CAPTCHA
>JS script that verifies e-mail and password length during registration
>Hidden registration fields to prevent bots from registering successfully
>Hit counter for forums that serve as links
>Option for moderators to bump threads
>Inline prefix editing for moderators
>Cyb sub-forum manager
>Custom poll options: limit number of votes in a multiple-choice poll; hide results until the poll is closed
>Highslide JS integration for wide images using [imgwide] bbcode
>Custom user CP, complete with icons, custom PM layout, a donation progress bar, invitation system, personal notepad, and moderator log
>Extra thread fields for technical data for threads posted in the "Photo Critique" forum and when submitting photo contest entries
>Global announcement modification
>IP Info mod to detect multiple users using the same IP address
>Mass PM function for social group owners
>Separation of sticky and normal threads in select forums
>System for registered users to automatically mark their threads as "Sold" in the marketplace forum - this lets users move and lock threads with the click of one button, but only in a specific forum
>Cron task to remove thread redirection messages once a week
>vBadvanced links directory
>vBadvanced homepage (soon to be replaced by a custom homepage)

The site also uses a custom-built default site style, available in both red and green versions. There's also a "simple skin" available for dial-up users which is based on the standard vBulletin skin.

I originally wanted to post screenshots of all these features, but I decided that would take up way too much space - so you'll have to see them for yourself! Several of the features listed above can only be seen or used by registered users. Use the test account below if you'd like to try some of them out:

Username- testuser
Password- testtest