National Level Catfish Forum

[Armycatfisher]

Hey everyone,

I am completely new to Xenforo. I have been using it for about 4-5 months now with the help of
a friend. I own Operation Catfish which provides information from beginner to Pro level on how to catfish. I provide video how-to's, tournament coverage, guide trip coverage etc.

Please take a look at my forum and give me your thoughts on some things I can do or change.

Note: We're already removing the home page and we're going to go with XenPortal instead.

Thanks www.operationcatfish.com

-Zach

 

[Armycatfisher]

Anyone have any thoughts, critiques or even idea's of something that I could do to make my forum better?

-Zach

 

[MagnusB]

Well, it seems you have most of your content hidden to guests, yet they can see the topic titles. Many members lurk well before signing up, so you might want to consider opening it up a bit.

Other than that, it looks very nice...

 

[Armycatfisher]

Well, it seems you have most of your content hidden to guests, yet they can see the topic titles. Many members lurk well before signing up, so you might want to consider opening it up a bit.

Other than that, it looks very nice...

How much should I open up? Your speaking of allowing guests to view threads + thread content?

 

[MagnusB]

Yeah, pretty much. How much is up to you. I don't see a point in closing the view of threads when all you have to do to view them is registering. You also have to consider search engine crawlers, and traffic from search engines.

 

[Armycatfisher]

Yeah, pretty much. How much is up to you. I don't see a point in closing the view of threads when all you have to do to view them is registering. You also have to consider search engine crawlers, and traffic from search engines.

Alright, I opened it up and set permissions to allow the viewing of attachments as well.

I guess I have one more question for you.

How do I get the pop out messages that appear when you visit the site. I noticed when checking out some other xen forums that some had the option for boxes that popped out for a brief time
with some updates and than they faded away or had a x option to close them. Do you have any idea what im talking about. Sorry my description is horrible.

 

[MagnusB]

Probably Gritter Notifications by Chris, http://xenforo.com/community/resources/notifications-powered-by-gritter.870/

BTW, attachments are really necessary to open up, if you have allot of attachments, you might want to consider limiting viewing them (reduce bandwidth).

 

[Armycatfisher]

Probably Gritter Notifications by Chris, http://xenforo.com/community/resources/notifications-powered-by-gritter.870/

BTW, attachments are really necessary to open up, if you have allot of attachments, you might want to consider limiting viewing them (reduce bandwidth).

Limit size correct? I will keep that in mind for sure. Luckily I have a good friend that's knowledgeable with Xenforo helping me out. But I appreciate you taking time to provide suggestions and
answer my questions. If you think of anything else let me know.

-Zach

 

[Brent W]

I like the niche topic. Good luck

 

[Armycatfisher]

I like the niche topic. Good luck

Thanks, I appreciate it.

 

[iTuN3r]

Sup Zach

 

[Armycatfisher]

Sup Zach

. Luckily I have a good friend that's knowledgeable with Xenforo helping me out. But I appreciate you taking time to provide suggestions and
answer my questions. If you think of anything else let me know.

-Zach

iTuN3r would be that great friend!

 

[Armycatfisher]

If anyone has any idea's or anymore suggestions please dont hesitate to speak up. It's always a wise man who listens

-Zach

 

[Gabby]

Hi Army
Your site looks great and better than anything I could do, however, there is one thing. Your address implies the site is about catfishing but the design feels more like a Cammo/Business/military type of site. I do appreciate the veteran aspect of course but I always think of site involving fishing to have sort of a nature-ish type of feel, kind of like your "Port of Isles" banner. This is just my silly opinion.

 

[Armycatfisher]

Hi Army
Your site looks great and better than anything I could do, however, there is one thing. Your address implies the site is about catfishing but the design feels more like a Cammo/Business/military type of site. I do appreciate the veteran aspect of course but I always think of site involving fishing to have sort of a nature-ish type of feel, kind of like your "Port of Isles" banner. This is just my silly opinion.

I will definitely take that into consideration. In the catfish industry the large majority of enthusiasts are very "pro veteran" and I try to target that appeal. But as you stated, it can easily be overdone.
I have started working on different logo's that incorporate the "Targeting of Catfish".

This was one of my original logo's,

 

[Brett Peters]

Nice site indeed, About the only thing I would suggest is to center the google ads, and possibly place one ad in the second post instead of two at the bottom of the page.

 

[Armycatfisher]

Nice site indeed, About the only thing I would suggest is to center the google ads, and possibly place one ad in the second post instead of two at the bottom of the page.

My tech guy installed Xenporta, so check out my new home page and forum layout. Its all recent changes. I had to let go of my web designer unfortunately and so we decided to use Jasons
add on. I am working on making its appearance better by sorting and moving things around.

See what you think

www.operationcatfish.com - home page
www.operationcatfish.com/forum - community

 

[Armycatfisher]

Yeah, pretty much. How much is up to you. I don't see a point in closing the view of threads when all you have to do to view them is registering. You also have to consider search engine crawlers, and traffic from search engines.

As with the changes I mentioned in the previous post, I have opened up nearly the entire forum. Take a look and let me know.

Thanks everyone who has helped and I appreciate your time.

-Zach