Forum Asthetics at DVinfo.net

Curtis T. Stoeber · July 21st, 2003, 06:04 PM

Edit: I know I misspelled "Aesthetics" on the topic. I tried to change it, but I can't. I really can spell... honest! :)

This forum runs on the vBulletin 2.3.0 software. It's a great forum program. But I gotta admit, DV Info is, by far, the ugliest vBulletin forum I've ever seen. It is hard to discern quotes and you can't even post image files. Perhaps it is time to tweak the settings a little?

For an example on the quoting, cut and paste the following URL into your browser:
http://207.168.10.82/oc/vbulletin.jpg
(This forum does not even give me an option to make a clickable link that I can see... usually is a URL button or similar in the post creation page. I had to guess that I could put the vb code and make it work. No documentation!)

The forum on the bottom with the nice looking quote is actually vBulletin 2.2.9. There is no question about which is the quote and which is the post. Here you can only tell by little << and >> symbols.

vBulletin also allows an option to either upload an image to the forum server for permanent display or display an image on the forum page itself that is hosted on another site. This could be useful from time to time. I could understand that the administrators wouldn't want people uploading porn or whatever, but I don't think that would be a problem as it's not on the other vBulletin sites I have seen.

Lastly it might be a good idea to have "avatars". These are pictures that go under the name of whoever is making the post. It would be great to see the faces of people here and also helps to quickly identify who is making a post. These would have to be uploaded and stored on the forum server, but vBulletin allows for that as well. Size restrictions can be set and it really doesn't slow down the loading of pages.

Anyway I know this is not my forum to set, but I think it could be a little more user friendly and less bland. I am not sure if these options are not set because the administrators don't think we could use them responsibly or what. But trust me, once you implement these features you'll never want to go back.

Robert Poulton · July 21st, 2003, 06:30 PM

not much change would go along way. This is the best forum on the internet. I have gone through several other sites and even though they look cool the content isn't there. Everyone always returns with criticism like cool or sweet. Nothing of practical value. This site is all about value.

Rob:D

Curtis T. Stoeber · July 21st, 2003, 06:42 PM

Well obviously we are adults here and we're not looking for flashy graphics or insane colors. But the quote thing and other minor changes really enhance the forum experience. Just 'cause we're old doesn't mean we have to be less functional. Actually I don't think we're THAT old. (This coming from a guy who turns 30 in a day). The big ol' database of information should be easy to peruse as well as contain all of the relevant info.

Imran Zaidi · July 21st, 2003, 07:17 PM

Personally, I enjoy the fact that this forum is clean and light and fast to load. I appreciate that more than anything else because I come here to DVInfo to just to get info about... um... DV.

I like that it uses light colors that make it easy to read, and that there are no excessive graphics and colors that disrupt the ease of reading.

Jacques Mersereau · July 21st, 2003, 07:18 PM

you've probably never met Mr. Hurd. I have several times,
and he is a very nice and very polite gentleman. I am a crude foul mouthed rocker by comparison. He is COOL as ICE!!!

That said, this is HIS list. He is the one who's built it from the ground
up to be one of the best. I truly believe that in his quest to provide
*high quality* information, he feels curse words, and yes, even crude
words, can be omitted without the quality of the information
disseminated being effected. He probably feels strongly that cursing and trash talking only serves to devalue the opinions of those who use them
and in the end devalue the list as a whole.

Even though I use words everyday that are unprintable here,
I have to agree with Chris as he has provided me a forum of information
that is almost impossible to match in *both quality and decorum*.

Curtis T. Stoeber · July 21st, 2003, 07:33 PM

I don't think the colors of the forum should be changed, but my quote example I provided would really make things nicer and easier to read. Can anyone give me an example as why it would not? I am not demanding picture uploads or avatars or anything like that. The quote thing would be first on my list of enhancements.

There are always room for improvements. I hope suggestions are not frowned upon here. Suggestions are a good thing! I offer suggestions.

Nathan Gifford · July 21st, 2003, 07:46 PM

I won't speak for Chris, but I like his board just the way it is. The reason so many people use it, is precisely because it lacks the "features" you mention.

Another problem some people fail to consider is that not everyone has DSL or a broadband connection. Why eat up valuable space and bandwidth to display images of little value? If the image is valuable it is easy enough to provide a clickable link as a number of subscribers have done.

Another very important feature of this board is that it is difficult harvest e-mail addresses. Its not impossible, its just requires a few more manual steps than other boards would.

If you think a boards with all those features is better, go start one. No one here will fault you if you do and may even offer you sincere encouragement.

As far as Chris and censorship goes, Chris allows a lot of lattitude in posts. I daresay that other boards would have long ago deleted AK, yet Chris has not. I think that speaks volumes about Chris.

Frankly, I think juvenile, vulgar speech adds little to content and more rarely, intelligence. It has its place, but so far not here!

P.S. It is also nice that you can discuss such subjects here too.

Matt Betea · July 21st, 2003, 08:35 PM

For what it's worth:
I have to remind myself sometimes at the calibre of people on this site because it's simply amazing. The vast amount of knowledge, ideas and suggestions that are in this forum is first and formost what this site is and should be about, in my opinion. I love the fact that there are not images plastered throughout a thread. Or signatures that are 3 times the size of a contributor's post. Or the distracting avatars.

Since I've been a member here I've found that 99.99% of the people on here are courteous, friendly and quite helpful. I think adding all these "features" would detract from all of the above. If I felt I really needed to see what so and so looked like I could easily email them and chat with them privately and ask for a picture. Sure if the opportunity arose and I could meet some of the people here I'd love to. But I think the main thing that drives this site is the knowledge and information. I think anyone really into what this site caters to will be more than happy with the amount of information here and not worrying about a certain "bell or whistle". Sorry for rambling.

matt

Chris Hurd · July 21st, 2003, 08:37 PM

Curtis

Suggestions are always a good thing! And thanks for making them.

Quote:

This forum runs on the vBulletin 2.3.0 software. It's a great forum program. But I gotta admit, DV Info is, by far, the ugliest vBulletin forum I've ever seen.

Heh. Well, form follows function, doesn't it? Seriously though, I'm about ready for a change in our color scheme at the very least.

Quote:

For an example on the quoting, cut and paste the following URL into your browser: http://207.168.10.82/oc/vbulletin.jpg

I agree there is a big inconsistency on the use of the quote function which we need to work out.

Quote:

(This forum does not even give me an option to make a clickable link that I can see...

Sure it does... this page shows how.

Quote:

vBulletin also allows an option to either upload an image to the forum server for permanent display or display an image on the forum page itself that is hosted on another site.

We've discussed this before in the past. I tend to be very conservative with about image upload privs. What we're currently doing is uploading images which are sent to forum moderators first for review and approval. This is very much a hands-on board, as you can tell.

Quote:

Lastly it might be a good idea to have "avatars".

Again, discussed before in the past. I've thought about avatars for the forum moderators, but the idea was pretty much voted down. If we did avatars at all, they'd be real photos to match our real names... head shots, or the like. But so far there hasn't been a great demand for this, and some of us have openly stated they do not want this feature because they view it as board clutter.

Quote:

Anyway I know this is not my forum to set, but I think it could be a little more user friendly and less bland.

It is your forum, though. It's everybody's.

We don't do smilies and never will, but I'm not opposed to adding a few more features into the board software. When vBulletin 3 is released, we'll be sure to implement those changes and additions into DV Info. Meanwhile, if we're all lucky, we might get a face lift in the form of at least a new color scheme before then. Hope this helps,

Benjamin Harrison · July 21st, 2003, 08:52 PM

Quote:

We don't do smilies and never will, but I'm not opposed to adding a few more features into the board software. When vBulletin 3 is released, we'll be sure to implement those changes and additions into DV Info. Meanwhile, if we're all lucky, we might get a face lift in the form of at least a new color scheme before then.

I think a better, higher-contrast color scheme would be very good. I also wouldn't mind having the ability to post images. I realize this opens the possibility of people putting big-annoying animated .gifs in their signatures, but I think folks around here are mature enough to avoid antics like those. A good way to deal with that though is to make a rule about the maximum size (both pixels and kilobytes) for a signature image. Something like 140x40, not bigger than 2.5 KB or something like that. Anyways, I just think that being able to post pictures would be a useful ability, and it would diversify the ways people can help each other here.

Zac Stein · July 21st, 2003, 09:26 PM

The only change i would like, is an ad url button placed when on the writing/posting page.

I think if the code allows for it, there will be a lot less errors around with people having to manually put the scripting in.

Zac

Curtis T. Stoeber · July 21st, 2003, 09:42 PM

It looks like your working on changing the quotes so I am pretty much a happy camper! Now if only that would happen when the "quote" button is pressed! I totally forgot about smilies, and I don't really care about those. If someone needs to indicate that they're being sarcastic or saying something tongue in cheek, then :) works fine.

I didn't know that the vbcode was turned on. Maybe a link to that page from the writing/posting page?

As for images and avatars, they were low on the priority list, but I definitely agree that they'd need to be real pictures of the actual member. Otherwise they are useless, in my opinion.

Ken Tanaka · July 21st, 2003, 09:54 PM

One of the positive attributes of this forum, in my opinion, is that members are faceless. By that I mean that the absence of personal appearance has a normalizing effect on general discussions. Fat or skinny, pretty or homely, pierced or unpierced, bald or curly, light or dark, glasses or sharp-eyed, tattooed or unblemished, big ears or small, everyone is just what they type here. (Recall that old cartoon whose caption read, "On the Internet nobody knows you're really a dog.")

Of course you -can- see some of our moderators here. (We is one ugly crew...ain't no avatar candidates there!)

Chris Hurd · July 22nd, 2003, 04:34 AM

Don't you think we should adopt the highly pleasing color scheme at AVS forums?

Federico Dib · July 22nd, 2003, 05:14 AM

Quote:

I think a better, higher-contrast color scheme would be very good.

From my modest GUI designing experience I happend to find this color scheme very pleasant to the eye.
I can spend a few hours reading posts in here without my eyes becoming "ilegally" red... just my thought.

It´s not the prettiest forum... but it sure is functional.. and does load very fast (compared to many others)..

July 21st, 2003, 06:04 PM	#1
Curtis T. Stoeber Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Lakewood Colorado USA Posts: 150	Forum Aesthetics Edit: I know I misspelled "Aesthetics" on the topic. I tried to change it, but I can't. I really can spell... honest! :) This forum runs on the vBulletin 2.3.0 software. It's a great forum program. But I gotta admit, DV Info is, by far, the ugliest vBulletin forum I've ever seen. It is hard to discern quotes and you can't even post image files. Perhaps it is time to tweak the settings a little? For an example on the quoting, cut and paste the following URL into your browser: http://207.168.10.82/oc/vbulletin.jpg (This forum does not even give me an option to make a clickable link that I can see... usually is a URL button or similar in the post creation page. I had to guess that I could put the vb code and make it work. No documentation!) The forum on the bottom with the nice looking quote is actually vBulletin 2.2.9. There is no question about which is the quote and which is the post. Here you can only tell by little << and >> symbols. vBulletin also allows an option to either upload an image to the forum server for permanent display or display an image on the forum page itself that is hosted on another site. This could be useful from time to time. I could understand that the administrators wouldn't want people uploading porn or whatever, but I don't think that would be a problem as it's not on the other vBulletin sites I have seen. Lastly it might be a good idea to have "avatars". These are pictures that go under the name of whoever is making the post. It would be great to see the faces of people here and also helps to quickly identify who is making a post. These would have to be uploaded and stored on the forum server, but vBulletin allows for that as well. Size restrictions can be set and it really doesn't slow down the loading of pages. Anyway I know this is not my forum to set, but I think it could be a little more user friendly and less bland. I am not sure if these options are not set because the administrators don't think we could use them responsibly or what. But trust me, once you implement these features you'll never want to go back.

July 21st, 2003, 07:18 PM	#5
Jacques Mersereau Trustee Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Ann Arbor, MI Posts: 1,334	you've probably never met Mr. Hurd. I have several times, and he is a very nice and very polite gentleman. I am a crude foul mouthed rocker by comparison. He is COOL as ICE!!! That said, this is HIS list. He is the one who's built it from the ground up to be one of the best. I truly believe that in his quest to provide high quality information, he feels curse words, and yes, even crude words, can be omitted without the quality of the information disseminated being effected. He probably feels strongly that cursing and trash talking only serves to devalue the opinions of those who use them and in the end devalue the list as a whole. Even though I use words everyday that are unprintable here, I have to agree with Chris as he has provided me a forum of information that is almost impossible to match in both quality and decorum. __________________ Jacques Mersereau University of Michigan-Video Studio Manager

July 21st, 2003, 07:46 PM	#7
Nathan Gifford Wrangler Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Tickfaw, LA Posts: 1,217	I won't speak for Chris, but I like his board just the way it is. The reason so many people use it, is precisely because it lacks the "features" you mention. Another problem some people fail to consider is that not everyone has DSL or a broadband connection. Why eat up valuable space and bandwidth to display images of little value? If the image is valuable it is easy enough to provide a clickable link as a number of subscribers have done. Another very important feature of this board is that it is difficult harvest e-mail addresses. Its not impossible, its just requires a few more manual steps than other boards would. If you think a boards with all those features is better, go start one. No one here will fault you if you do and may even offer you sincere encouragement. As far as Chris and censorship goes, Chris allows a lot of lattitude in posts. I daresay that other boards would have long ago deleted AK, yet Chris has not. I think that speaks volumes about Chris. Frankly, I think juvenile, vulgar speech adds little to content and more rarely, intelligence. It has its place, but so far not here! P.S. It is also nice that you can discuss such subjects here too. __________________ Nathan Gifford Southern Cyclist Magazine & Productions For quick answers try our Search! To see me and Rob Lohman click here

July 21st, 2003, 09:54 PM	#13
Ken Tanaka Retired DV Info Net Almunus Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 6,943	Addendum One of the positive attributes of this forum, in my opinion, is that members are faceless. By that I mean that the absence of personal appearance has a normalizing effect on general discussions. Fat or skinny, pretty or homely, pierced or unpierced, bald or curly, light or dark, glasses or sharp-eyed, tattooed or unblemished, big ears or small, everyone is just what they type here. (Recall that old cartoon whose caption read, "On the Internet nobody knows you're really a dog.") Of course you -can- see some of our moderators here. (We is one ugly crew...ain't no avatar candidates there!) __________________ Lady X Films: A lady with a boring wardrobe...and a global mission. Hey, you don't have enough stuff! Buy with confidence from our sponsors. Hand-picked as the best in the business...Really! See some of my work one frame at a time: www.KenTanaka.com

July 22nd, 2003, 04:34 AM	#14
Chris Hurd Obstreperous Rex Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: San Marcos, TX Posts: 27,368 Images: 513	Don't you think we should adopt the highly pleasing color scheme at AVS forums? __________________ CH Search DV Info Net \| 20 years of DVi \| ...Tuesday is Soylent Green Day!

July 21st, 2003, 06:30 PM	#2
Robert Poulton Major Player Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Portland, OR Posts: 245	not much change would go along way. This is the best forum on the internet. I have gone through several other sites and even though they look cool the content isn't there. Everyone always returns with criticism like cool or sweet. Nothing of practical value. This site is all about value. Rob:D

July 21st, 2003, 06:42 PM	#3
Curtis T. Stoeber Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Lakewood Colorado USA Posts: 150	Well obviously we are adults here and we're not looking for flashy graphics or insane colors. But the quote thing and other minor changes really enhance the forum experience. Just 'cause we're old doesn't mean we have to be less functional. Actually I don't think we're THAT old. (This coming from a guy who turns 30 in a day). The big ol' database of information should be easy to peruse as well as contain all of the relevant info.

July 21st, 2003, 07:17 PM	#4
Imran Zaidi Trustee Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Orlando, FL Posts: 1,315	Personally, I enjoy the fact that this forum is clean and light and fast to load. I appreciate that more than anything else because I come here to DVInfo to just to get info about... um... DV. I like that it uses light colors that make it easy to read, and that there are no excessive graphics and colors that disrupt the ease of reading.

July 21st, 2003, 07:33 PM	#6
Curtis T. Stoeber Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Lakewood Colorado USA Posts: 150	I don't think the colors of the forum should be changed, but my quote example I provided would really make things nicer and easier to read. Can anyone give me an example as why it would not? I am not demanding picture uploads or avatars or anything like that. The quote thing would be first on my list of enhancements. There are always room for improvements. I hope suggestions are not frowned upon here. Suggestions are a good thing! I offer suggestions.

July 21st, 2003, 08:35 PM	#8
Matt Betea Regular Crew Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: detroit, mi Posts: 187	For what it's worth: I have to remind myself sometimes at the calibre of people on this site because it's simply amazing. The vast amount of knowledge, ideas and suggestions that are in this forum is first and formost what this site is and should be about, in my opinion. I love the fact that there are not images plastered throughout a thread. Or signatures that are 3 times the size of a contributor's post. Or the distracting avatars. Since I've been a member here I've found that 99.99% of the people on here are courteous, friendly and quite helpful. I think adding all these "features" would detract from all of the above. If I felt I really needed to see what so and so looked like I could easily email them and chat with them privately and ask for a picture. Sure if the opportunity arose and I could meet some of the people here I'd love to. But I think the main thing that drives this site is the knowledge and information. I think anyone really into what this site caters to will be more than happy with the amount of information here and not worrying about a certain "bell or whistle". Sorry for rambling. matt

July 21st, 2003, 09:26 PM	#11
Zac Stein Major Player Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Melbourne, Australia Posts: 730	The only change i would like, is an ad url button placed when on the writing/posting page. I think if the code allows for it, there will be a lot less errors around with people having to manually put the scripting in. Zac

July 21st, 2003, 09:42 PM	#12
Curtis T. Stoeber Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Lakewood Colorado USA Posts: 150	It looks like your working on changing the quotes so I am pretty much a happy camper! Now if only that would happen when the "quote" button is pressed! I totally forgot about smilies, and I don't really care about those. If someone needs to indicate that they're being sarcastic or saying something tongue in cheek, then :) works fine. I didn't know that the vbcode was turned on. Maybe a link to that page from the writing/posting page? As for images and avatars, they were low on the priority list, but I definitely agree that they'd need to be real pictures of the actual member. Otherwise they are useless, in my opinion.