dance-forums.com 1,000,000 Posts

[dvduval]

I don't think our design is that amazing, and somewhat have kept things simple at the request of our long time moderators. One of the biggest modifications is we have our own built in ad system the manages the ads on the right and top. Also we use phpLD for the photo album and directory so logged in users can add to either.

We just hit a million posts, and it took us 11 years, so excited about that. Any suggestions for improvement that would enhance traffic and increase activity for existing users?

 

[Matthew Hawley]

Link?

I realize the link is in the thread title but better to post it too.

Not a fan of the theme. Too much brown.

 

[Alpha1]

http://dance-forums.com/

 

[dvduval]

Link?

I realize the link is in the thread title but better to post it too.

Not a fan of the theme. Too much brown.

Ok, I'm already laughing. I don't love the theme either. It started out on phpBB self designed in 2002, and then over to vBulletin for a few years. Each time it was more of an attempt to keep it the same rather than make it better. I can't really do anything too disruptive to the layout itself, but I'll be a good designer could enhance what I already have there (open to offers).

 

[Matthew Hawley]

Ok, I'm already laughing. I don't love the theme either. It started out on phpBB self designed in 2002, and then over to vBulletin for a few years. Each time it was more of an attempt to keep it the same rather than make it better. I can't really do anything too disruptive to the layout itself, but I'll be a good designer could enhance what I already have there (open to offers).

I think a new layout would be good. Check the styles in the resource manager.

 

[Matthew Hawley]

Here is a style that uses similar colors and looks a lot nicer.

http://xenforo.com/community/resources/casual-pixelexit-com.1851/

 

[dvduval]

Here is a style that uses similar colors and looks a lot nicer.

http://xenforo.com/community/resources/casual-pixelexit-com.1851/

I was just looking through some designs and I like the idea of something responsive. You think it would be easy to take Pixelexit and make it the same overall brown color like my current forum?

 

[Matthew Hawley]

I was just looking through some designs and I like the idea of something responsive. You think it would be easy to take Pixelexit and make it the same overall brown color like my current forum?

Your site should be responsive. If your running 1.2. And yes it would be fairly easy. Also the theme is called casual.

 

[Num7]

Congratulations, you have a great community! It's encouraging to know that a forum can still thrive after 11 successful years.

Things I can think about to improve are the following: Regular community events like chat events, voice chat events. Video logs. Forum games such as role playing games threads. For big places, perhaps such as yours, a yearly convention to meet the members in real life. I assume you already use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and the likes, so I'll spare you that part. Also, do you have business cards? You could pin them here and there and give a chance to new people to find out your site.

Maybe make the signup now button a little more obvious, more flashy.

 

[dvduval]

Thank you for your valuable feedback. I think we need to look at some template updates for 1.2. For the role playing threads, I'd be interested in seeing what one of those looks like. The live chats might be cool, as we could maybe get a star dancer to join us. I'll give this some thought.