Hello Gentlemen,

I have been busy recently with a new domain and getting stuff set up to move my forum, AzHforum, to something new. Have a look and let me have your opinion/s.

http://lurkingmastermind.com

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Initial Impression

My initial impression was mixed. I personally do not like forums where there is light writing on dark backgrounds - although this is seemingly hip among gaming sites and some youthful forums - I find it difficult to read and in general I would opt to leave a site whose skin made me work hard to read the content.

That said, and personal preferences aside, you have a handsome board and a very clever tie-in between your graphic of the mysterious character holding his finger up as if to say "shhhh" and the title "Lurking Mastermind".

Your board title is "Lurking Mastermind - For Great Justice" which simply escapes me. I fail to understand without digging deep what your forum is about.

Organization and Feel

There are quite a few forums and the organization is a bit confusing though I thought of three random subjects that would seem to "fit" with your board and it only took a short while to determine that I could in fact find places to post those subjects (were I to post).

I did have a hard time with the grouping of forums, but it was not distracting or an annoyance - it was just a bit of work.

Skin and Modifications

I like the mods you have installed - they are not overwhelming and provide usefulness to the board: featured threads is nice and links and affiliates is pretty good from a webmaster (link sales) point of view.

The skin - as mentioned in initial impressions - is light text on dark background. You carry the theme well throughout the board though I personally have a hard time with it. I think the overall feel of the site as portrayed by the skin matches the community well.

Once I started reviewing the skin I decided to take a look at the other skin options and one thing I noticed is that the header graphics on all three are different. I would recommend you tie the skins together by maintaining the same header (with different colors) for all three options.

I note also one option (LM Blue) is dark text on light background (THANK YOU!)

One last thing I noted was the header graphic on the default skin does not link to the forum index - this is something most web users expect.

Guidelines and Staff

I could not for the life of me find posting rules. You probably need to either write some or make them more visible.

Staff all appear active and engaged and welcoming of new members.

Recommended Changes

• link header graphic to forum index
• consider changing light blue text on dark blue background for default skin
• either provide rules or make them easily found
• use same header graphic on all skins

Attached: Screenshot of forum at time of review

Attached Images

Lurking Mastermind -For Great Justice.png (109.4 KB, 4 views)

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Thank you for the review. It is appreciated. I will take on board the suggested changes, most notably the ones regarding linking the header to the index (on click) and the suggestion regarding making the rules easily accessible. We use the rules hack and for registered members the navbar contains a link to the rules. That, of course, is no good for guests and not something I was aware of until now.

Ideally I'd like to have a two skin option setting for the forum with one dark and one light to appeal to everyone, but this is difficult without investing in a custom skin which costs a lot of money (especially if I ask for two!!)

Overall though, thank you. I'm glad you (kinda/sorta) liked it.

Attached Images

header.JPG (40.1 KB, 2 views)

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Oh don't get me wrong - though the light/dark thing does not appeal to me - I am not turned off from your board as a matter of content - I think you have a good thing going!

BTW - where did you get the links/affiliates mod? I want that!

=)

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http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=135099

That's it.

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