Topic: A little info about this forum.

[The Chief]

Non-Staff members will achieve the following ranks based on post count.

• Bronze...              0 posts
• Silver...               5 posts
• Gold...             100 posts
• Platinum...        750 posts
• Purple Heart... 2000 posts

As members progress through the ranks, privileges are extended... for example, a bronze member cannot send more than 5 personal messages. A Purple Heart member can perform some self moderation tasks, such as moving, splitting our deleting his own topics.

You must be Silver (5 posts or higher) to upload avatars, or attachments. This is an anti-spam measure.

Maximum size of any one attachment is 900 kb.
Total attachment per post is 2000 kb.

Maximum avatar size is 65 x 65. Oversized avatars are automatically re-sized.

[Ronin RedFox]

Cool 

[-<WillyP>-]

How about a chart showing what permissions for each group?

[PyroJockey]

What are the power-ups?

[-<WillyP>-]

Karma. If you like someone's post, +1 them. If they are posting crap, neg them.

[Scyphi]

Now, that seems a little overkill. I can see where the use would be, but I'd doubt I'd ever really use it. 

[The Chief]

Ok, I gave you a +1 for your feedback

[Scyphi]

Now see, I wouldn't have ever noticed had you not mentioned it. I just don't go looking for that kind of thing.

And in a way, isn't it kind of demeaning to the poster? What makes one person's post better than another's? Has the world really gotten to the point where somebody's four sentences in an individual post in a forum is subject to such a rating system, where it can't be good enough for somebody? Is it really that important?

Furthermore, I can see this thing getting abused. Say somebody decides they dislike somebody. Couldn't they could track down every post the person has ever made and "power-down" each one just because they don't like the guy?

Okay, this is all probably really deep for something a trivial as this, but it's my two-bits, and you want input about the forums Commander and Chief...

[-<WillyP>-]

I don't like the two stars under your name. I'm gonna neg you for that Scy! ... Just kidding ... You're absolutly right, Except for one thing... It's all part of the fun...





hehe... Anyway I don't think it's by post. Why don't I think that? uhm... i don't know!

[Scyphi]

Guess the fun's lost on me, then. 

[PyroJockey]

Well, powerups aren't by post, they appear to be associated with the poster and you can power them up and down as much as you like. The only catch is you have to wait 1 hour between "Karma" events for a poster.

Scyphi, I gave you two power ups for that last post. 

[Scyphi]

See? Again, I didn't even notice. It's just not that big a deal to me.

[Zantor]

I have lots of feedback. I know that you use SMF which is an excellent forum system. All of my favorite forums to visit use SMF; it's powerful, secure, user friendly, and has a clean interface.

I'll start with the UI. When I go to modify my profile, I have to scroll all the way to the bottom and click on this tiny text to modify my profile, account, notifications, and other settings. Why must it use 6 or 4 point font? It's incredibly tiny and annoying to have to make sure I don't mis-click.  I also don't like that when I scroll to the bottom of a topic, I have to scroll back to the top to use the navigation tree/path (right below the nav bar) to return to the forum index. You can put the nav tree/path on the bottom of topics to avoid tedious scrolling and clicking. It would be great to see the links used for "show unread posts since last visit" and "show new replies to your posts." I use the latter most often on other forums, and it's very useful in not having to browse entire sections to see replies to my posts in topics where I'm active, and having to remember every topic I am active or have been active in. I also do not like the tiny font used in the topic summary below the text field; I like to be able to read it without having to get closer to my monitor. FYI I have a 19" monitor at a resolution of 1280x960, but I don't use Firefox (v3.5) maximized.

The home page is the first place I see whenever I come to this site. There are lots of scroll bars everywhere that move just a couple pixels; the DIV or TABLE tags--whichever is used--could use some tweaking to get rid of those so that it looks less tacky. I see the same thing with the stats plane on the right side of the forum. Use of proportional rather than absolute sizes will help. I am a 4 year user of various forums and forum setups (vBulletin, PHPBB, Invision, etc), and I like having a clean, bug-free and easy to use interface.


I hope this information is of use and thank you for your time.

----------------
Now playing: Ratchet & Clank: Gemlik Base, Oltanis Orbit; Main Theme - David Bergeaud
via FoxyTunes

[SaladBadger]

and I like having a clean,

A clean, and a what?

In general though the front page needs a LOT of work. It's nothing but a mess right now, especially compared to the PlanetDescent.com one, which has everything you need right at your view

Also, in the default SMF theme the forum index is WAY too tall, thanks to the giant post read/unread indicators, which are larger than most other forums I visit. PD.Com's index page fits on one screen 1024 pixels tall (not counting toolbars). From the top of the page only Mess hall - MPD show up here.

[Scyphi]

What themes are you guys using?