Now thats cool
Yesterday at 1:34am, holysmokes7 wrote:
I'm pretty confused by you asking all these coding and support related questions here. If you think you have problems you should get the proper help in the proper forum, in my opinion.
Note:,When I finally finished this rate I felt I should warn you - this may seem like a very harsh rate but in the end, I hope you'll at least take some advice and benefit from it. And sorry it is soooo long.
First Impression
Fair
(rate scale="Poor, Fair, Good, Very Good, Excellent)
The first thing I see is..... well a donate button, a vote for the Quaalude Board, the time which I don't need since it is in the corner of my computer to see any time I like, a banner (that confuses me) and the menu buttons. I do like the background somewhat but motorcycles and girlie backgrounds just don't seem to mesh. So, no, not a good first impression.
You need to get rid of those things that make all that empty space on the first page load so we can actually see some of the message board. I suggest you move them to the bottom of your site.
Banner
Poor
As I said, I don't get it. Is this a chat board about motor cycles? I do like the multi-colored text and I like that you have an intriguing sub-title. If I take the elements of your banner separately they are fine but the banner is the most important thing on your site and it doesn't tie in with your colors at all and the motorcycle just is odd. Plus the banner isn't large enough and you have black empty space on the sides.
So my suggestion is to start from scratch on the banner, make it the width of your forum and pull in colors from the background.
Layout and theme (colors)
Fair
I like purple. It isn't a perfect match to your background but it looks pretty good. The black is fine and I don't mind the huge contrast with the super pastel background and the black. The text colors you chose are pretty nice as well. and I think your on/off icons are kind of cute but it is a huge mistake having so many animations on the main page. The board highlight color is frightening! Please only subtle difference between the board color and the highlight like a dark gray. You also have way, way, way too many graphics on your main page and everywhere for that matter. Is it a graphics message board?
And your "make your own info center" isn't giving you the true numbers I don't think. Your numbers are just not making sense to me. 3,238 members and only 5,134 posts? Huh? I am an administrator on a site that has nearing 600 members and there are 32,452 posts. I can't see if your site is active because either the text color is wrong and it doesn't show or the info center just isn't working right. Either you need a different info center that tells guests how active your site is or change the text color if that is the problem.
If you are deleting and moving threads to an archive, don't do it unless they are total trash! I think most everyone looks at how many posts are in a board and if there are a lot, they are more likely to join. You are just shooting yourself in the foot. Having a lot of posts doesn't slow load time. Look at this site for an example.
All the graphics are so very distracting but keepers are the twinkling multi-colored text. I think they are darling and really go with your site nicely.
Content
Poor
Oh my gosh! You have 42 boards? Why oh why? No one likes to scroll and scroll and scroll. It is very difficult to find what one is looking for. I wouldn't have a clue where to go first. You need to majorly overhaul your whole layout of your boards. I'm going to try to tell you what I'd do but gosh....this may take a while. (And obviously, the names would need to be changed to suit you.
Blue=Categories
Teal=Boards
Purple=Sub-boards
General-This should be open to guests so they can read the rules and other info.
QUAALUDE NEWS AND COMMUNICATION BOARD
Forum Updates
Suggestions & TQB news
Polls
Contest Board
INTRODUCE YOURSELF BOARD- a board of it's own so new members know exactly where to go.
GUESTS BOARD
Guest posting -
Advertising &Affiliation
The Spam thread
CATEGORY=Members Only Board For Chit Chat and Discussion- I would close these to guests just for your members safety/privacy.
TALK BOARD
Serious Discussion
Quaalude's Board (main topics)
General
Guy Talk, Girl Talk
The Ranting Board
Quaalude Cadets
The Chat Room
Way Way Off Topics
GET TO KNOW EACH OTHER OR PERSONAL SHARING BOARD
Members Photos
Quaalude Critters
Birthday Wishes
Members Blogs
CATEGORY=Entertainment and News -open to members
MEDIA BOARD
Games
All things Music
Television Shows and Movies
Video Games and Game Consoles
Computer Stuff
Books
Radio DJ's
NEWS BOARD
The Daily Dose
Strange News
World Sports
Global and Celebrities News
Strange News
THE ARTS BOARD
Fan Fiction
Art Work and Graphics
Poetry
Stories
Food
MISC BOARD
Science
Buy/Sell
Administrative Area-hidden
Administrative Area
Staff Stuff
Honestly, I don't mind that you have so many different topics at all but it is just too much to take in all at once, as is. I would love to see all your honed down board titles in that colorful twinkling text. I think that would be adorable.
I think your grammar and spelling is excellent from what I can see which isn't a lot. I also look at the rules because it give me an idea what kind of atmosphere there is but I gave up trying to find them.
Coding
Poor
What I check: Visual load (are there codes conflicting with each other), actual load, any errors on IE or FF and how you site looks in all resolutions.
Visual load isn't good in FF. I see the forum resizing and looking as if it will settle at the top of the page but I end up in the middle. IE I see some resizing issues as well. You have some codes hosted but I don't see why, in the coding you have, that it is doing that. Sorry.
Actual load time is very poor
Connection Rate Download Time
14.4K 593.32 seconds
28.8K 305.76 seconds
33.6K 264.68 seconds
56K 166.09 seconds
ISDN 128K 63.49 seconds
T1 1.44Mbps 22.13 seconds
A good load time is 100 seconds for 14.4k and since your target audience is a whole range of people by your topics you got dinged pretty badly for that load time.
If you rearranged your site so it only had a few boards showing with a lot of sub-boards your load time would change a lot! You could still keep your graphics you love but the wouldn't all be on the main page.
I would suggest optimizing your graphics. I use this site because it gives you choices on just how optimized you want it.
You can also do little things to help load time like combining your styles like this:
<style type="text/css">
<!--
.catbg {background-image: url(http://yourimage.jpg); background-repeat: repeat;}
.menubg {background-image: url(http:/yourimage.jpg); background-repeat: repeat;}
.titlebg,.newstitlebg {background-image: url(http://yourimage.jpg); background-repeat: repeat;}
-->
</style>
and your script tags like so:
<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
document.getElementsByTagName('font')[1].style.display="none";
document.getElementsByTagName('td')[2].style.display="none";
//-->
</script>
You should also move all your CSS at the top of your headers with javascript below.
You have this error red-flagged on FF and IE. I believe if you just remove the part indicated in red the error should be fixed.
<script type="text/javascript">
/*hide poll answers until after voting*/
if((document.getElementsByName('action')[0] && document.getElementsByName('action')[0].value == 'pollvote') || pb_username == 'Guest') {
var img = document.getElementsByTagName('img');
}
}
</script>
FF has yellow-flagged a hosted code because it doesn't like "word wrap". Other than FF not liking opacity, things look good.
Over-all
Fair
You need a banner that works with your site both visually and topic-wise. You need to sub-board 3/4ths of your site for loading purposes and to make it look less overwhelming. You need to improve your load time a lot. And lastly, you need to get your posting verses members to look better. People will see how that ratio doesn't seem right and think this isn't a place they want to be. In other words, people join, find out what it is like and run for the hills.
I do really hope you try some of the things suggested and if I can clarify anything just ask.