I was visiting the forum for a video game, and I noticed that their forum is very similar to ours visually. I believe they use the same base programming (I don’t know how to refer to it, an engine, a template?) but their forum has some visual differences from ours that I think are superior. Take a look:
The first thing I noticed was, on the left side of every post, the different colors for different posters. I’m not quite sure what it indicates, but I think it’s quite…snazzy.
Another difference that I noticed that’s perhaps less abrasive, if you will, but perhaps even more relevant is that you’ll notice all the posts are outlined with a shade of blue noticeably darker from the shade of the post background. I think this is definitely worth considering, more so than the first one.
Idk what kind of work it takes to do this sort of thing, if it’s simple or time-consuming. So, I’ve made my suggestion. Accept or reject. Carry on.
The thing both fora have in common is the software: phpbb (version 3, unsure about the precise version, might 3,54 or 3,55 or something).
There are templates for the layout that one can download. On this forum I have only seen one template to choose from though. Perhaps you can ask the admin of the game forum for their template and then give it to Carleas (admin here) or something? Then Carleas can decide what to do with it.
It’s fairly easy to install stock styles templates, much less so to create custom templates (which I think that site has done).
A couple considerations:
-We have “one template” in that there is only one color scheme, image set, and general feel. We actually have six templates, in that there are six sets of templates files: three versions each (with ads, without ads, and with Plura Processing) for both right- and leftfixed profiles. Because it’s not free to host a site, we need to offer versions of the site that carry ads. The site doesn’t produce a net profit, but it does occasionally break even, and it’s nice for me when it does. Adding a new style means adding two or three new styles. It is a pain to set up, and it makes it harder to make changes. While it may be nice, satisfying everyone is well nigh impossible, and most people who want to talk philosophy will be content with any old style.
-Branding is important. Having a somewhat consistent look and feel makes user experience predictable, and makes planning for the future much easier. Branding will change over time, but having multiple branding schemes for the same product tends to fracture it and give people different impressions of the ideal.
Given these, I’m generally reluctant to add new styles, especially for purely aesthetic reasons. Even with the ability to remove ads (by far the most requested option), relatively few people actually take advantage of it. The vast majority of users keeps the default style (the most common change is actually to the leftfixed profile, and I would guess that’s mostly users who got used to the old version of the forum software, which put user info on the left by default; to me, that seems more functional than aesthetic).
Most users use ads anyway. And most of those who don’t choose to use Plura over nothing at all. Styles here use says great things about philosophers as a demographic
Humpty, what would you have the colored bars on the profile indicate, if we had them at ILP?
The colored bars on the other site actually represent unread posts…but that is redundant there, and would be redundant here, because we already have a system to denote new posts, as do they. I just think they look nice If we WERE to have them installed here, I would like to see them represent a ranking system of some sort, maybe just ranking by post number. 0-1000 posts is one color, 1000-2000 is another, 2000+ is the final color. That’s just my idea.
Anyway, if it’s too much to ask, then I won’t ask. Also, I use adblocker on firefox. No ads for me
If we WERE to have them installed here, I would like to see them represent a ranking system of some sort, maybe just ranking by post number. 0-1000 posts is one color, 1000-2000 is another, 2000+ is the final color. That’s just my idea.