Steve's Place.

[SteveL1990]

Hi, folks. Thought I'd showcase my own site, and get some ideas on how to improve the place.

Forum URL: stevesahplace.freeforums.net/

Forum Name: Steve's Place.(Formerly Steve's AH Place)

Description: This is a website that was originally intended to cater mainly to fans of the "Alternate History" literary genre, as well as to showcase some of my own original writings, though I've since expanded it's scope, to be more inclusive.

What I'd Like to See: Pretty much anything that helps me improve the site would definitely be appreciated.

(Edit: Thanks for the heads-up, Chibi! )

[rohan]

You have put the wrong URL ? I think this is the correct one ? : stevesahplace.freeforums.net/

1) Give your members some username colors. This makes your forum look attractive.

2) Choose a color layout other than the default theme. The Default theme is not very attractive.

3) General Board should not be at the bottom, it should be at the top as it contains the forum rules and introduction section.

4) Shorten some of the board's descriptions as they are meant to be short.

[Tumbleweed]

Hi SteveL1990

Typically, I never read anyone else's critiques so I remain unbiased but I did read rohan critique before I decided to give you my own critique.

But to touch on some of the points Chibi made.

1. To change your members username colors, if you so choose to do so, go to: Admin> Members> Member Groups>

2. To use something other than the default theme, you can do it several ways. There are great ProBoards premade themes you can try. Go to:

Admin> Themes> Colors & Theme Creator> Scheme>

The are also many member made themes in the library and you can find those the same way as above except select Library instead of Scheme.

3. As far as the board descriptions. I'm personally fine with somewhat long descriptions but I do think having them all about the same length in each board looks nicer but that is just a preference thing.

4. I agree with Chibi, anything that helps your members navigate your site or forum rules should probably be at the top but I don't see rules in General. Of course General doesn't have to have the rules. You can just make a board toward the top for your rules but I do suggest you have some at least basic rules.

O.K. Now for my critique and I'm not going to do a full-fledged one since you basically have just default, just some suggestions to get you started.

You may want to start with making a banner. If you aren't able to create your own, you can request one in the Graphics Request board. (Mind you, our graphic artists seem to be in short supply lately so have patience and bump every 24 hours .)

Another option would be to use a nice stylized font for the name. A great place to go is: www.google.com/fonts#

When you use Google fonts, hover over the little icons on the left and find "Quick Use" and click. That will give you the link to the font and you can just put it in your header: Admin> Structure> Headers & Footers>  Also in the quick use they show you how to use the font so just copy the font style (not the part that says font-family but the other part. Then go to: Admin > Themes> Advanced Styles & CSS> Visual Editor>Header(top)>Forum Banner>Banner Text and just paste the new style in there.

This might be picky but in your board titles, some have punctuation after and some don't. Since titles aren't really sentences, periods aren't really needed but I exclamations in that one is just fine.

Although in your post here, you describe what your site is about (sort of), but a visitor might not know that by the 30 second glance most visitors give a site. Is it a general chat site, a writers site, a gamers site or all of the above?  A possible solution would be to add a sub-tile to give a brief description of what you site is about. If you request a banner you could have then add it on the image or if you want to add it to your template, you could do it that way as well. I just helped someone with that so if interested I'll post the thread.

I'm not sure if having a board right at the top where people can rant about other sites is a good idea. Kind of a turn off. Maybe something like that should be at the bottom of your boards and I'd be sure to make it not viewable to guests.

I like that you don't have too many boards. No one like scrolling forever to see all the boards. After looking over your site I like that you have kind of a mixture of things one can talk about. I like that you got to posting in most all your boards. Keep it up! Since it is just the default theme I don't have a lot of good things to say but hopefully this will help a little. Keep in mind critiques are just suggestions and it is totally up to you what you want to do.

Best of luck with your site and if you need clarification on anything, just ask.

 
  

 
 

[SteveL1990]

Nov 23, 2014 5:31:29 GMT -8 Tumbleweed said:

Hi SteveL1990

Typically, I never read anyone else's critiques so I remain unbiased but I did read rohan critique before I decided to give you my own critique.

But to touch on some of the points Chibi made.

1. To change your members username colors, if you so choose to do so, go to: Admin> Members> Member Groups>

2. To use something other than the default theme, you can do it several ways. There are great ProBoards premade themes you can try. Go to:

Admin> Themes> Colors & Theme Creator> Scheme>

The are also many member made themes in the library and you can find those the same way as above except select Library instead of Scheme.

3. As far as the board descriptions. I'm personally fine with somewhat long descriptions but I do think having them all about the same length in each board looks nicer but that is just a preference thing.

4. I agree with Chibi, anything that helps your members navigate your site or forum rules should probably be at the top but I don't see rules in General. Of course General doesn't have to have the rules. You can just make a board toward the top for your rules but I do suggest you have some at least basic rules.

O.K. Now for my critique and I'm not going to do a full-fledged one since you basically have just default, just some suggestions to get you started.

You may want to start with making a banner. If you aren't able to create your own, you can request one in the Graphics Request board. (Mind you, our graphic artists seem to be in short supply lately so have patience and bump every 24 hours .)

Another option would be to use a nice stylized font for the name. A great place to go is: www.google.com/fonts#

When you use Google fonts, hover over the little icons on the left and find "Quick Use" and click. That will give you the link to the font and you can just put it in your header: Admin> Structure> Headers & Footers>  Also in the quick use they show you how to use the font so just copy the font style (not the part that says font-family but the other part. Then go to: Admin > Themes> Advanced Styles & CSS> Visual Editor>Header(top)>Forum Banner>Banner Text and just paste the new style in there.

This might be picky but in your board titles, some have punctuation after and some don't. Since titles aren't really sentences, periods aren't really needed but I exclamations in that one is just fine.

Although in your post here, you describe what your site is about (sort of), but a visitor might not know that by the 30 second glance most visitors give a site. Is it a general chat site, a writers site, a gamers site or all of the above?  A possible solution would be to add a sub-tile to give a brief description of what you site is about. If you request a banner you could have then add it on the image or if you want to add it to your template, you could do it that way as well. I just helped someone with that so if interested I'll post the thread.

I'm not sure if having a board right at the top where people can rant about other sites is a good idea. Kind of a turn off. Maybe something like that should be at the bottom of your boards and I'd be sure to make it not viewable to guests.

I like that you don't have too many boards. No one like scrolling forever to see all the boards. After looking over your site I like that you have kind of a mixture of things one can talk about. I like that you got to posting in most all your boards. Keep it up! Since it is just the default theme I don't have a lot of good things to say but hopefully this will help a little. Keep in mind critiques are just suggestions and it is totally up to you what you want to do.

Best of luck with your site and if you need clarification on anything, just ask.

 
  

 
 

Hello, Tumbleweed Dressing, and thanks for the advice.....and you too, Chibi. I'll definitely start working on those improvements you suggested ASAP. In the meantime, wish me luck.

[:~:Sarapha:~:]

Hello SteveL1990, I am Sarapha, a friendly reviewer of forums. I review a board is that I look it over as a guest, and write down what I see, in the order I see it. Then, I take another look, and see what details can be tweaked. I have 8+ years of experience with Proboards and its glory. Let us start

First Glance
....
Am I still on Proboards Support? Whoo, this one is going to be interesting. I don't usually critique sites that look like they just registered for it, but, hey, first time for everything

Short list of what you need
-Main banner
-Custom theme
-Member Group colors to jazz things up
-Custom Images
-Something that is you.

Not to discredit the Proboards main, because it's lovely, but it's also Proboards and tells me, as someone looking at this site for the first time, that there is exactly zero personal touch to it. On one hand, it looks like laziness. On the other, it shows me boring (again, I'm sorry PBS overlords T-T). Both of these aspects would instantly turn me off to the site and I would exit out fast (the main reason I don't critique them)

Second Glance
Pushing through...

Steve's Place
When I read this title, the first thing that comes to mind is that someone made this site to be about themselves and that I am not at all welcome there, because my name is Ashley. Your description states that it is about History, Arts, stuff like that, but the name only screams at me "private party". Without anything in the site to tell me otherwise, I already feel this site is not for me.

The Boards
-Site-Related Information
A big thing that I see that may be a mistake is having the Site-Related Feedback be the very first board that I see. In these instances, it feels less like you want me to be on the site (by telling me vital information about it), and more like you're fishing for compliments and critiques. It also goes a negative way, because if people are leaving you bad reviews, it is the first thing anyone else will see. The more successful sites that I've seen, the rules and information is the very first thing displayed. That way, you're more focused on the members that are actually there, then you are on guests only stopping by to give their two cents and never come back.
Rules; tell everyone up front what is expected of them in the site.
Information; tell them exactly what the heck the site is about, and why they should think about joining it. What do YOU have to offer them in return for membership?

-Administration
Now, I'm perplexed. A board called Administration could mean two things to me. It's either a board where Administration gather to discuss things about the site (which, if that is the case, it should be a hidden board, or password protected), or it means it's a board where the Administration introduces themselves to the members through a thread. However, you have a single thread in that board. "The General Feedback Thread". First two boards I see, you're asking for reviews. Not a good vibe for a potential member. I would move that thread to the "Site-Related Feedback" board.

-Other boards
Looking around, I still have not found a single thing that tells me what the site is actually about. This is intensely problematic, given that, if I don't know what it is, exactly how do I know if I want to join it?

The Interview Room
.... WHAT? Just... No... Really... What? I do not understand the purpose of this board. Why would you want to rally together a group of people that have been banned in other sites, and more importantly, what does it help on YOUR board to have that area? Having it there, you are doing one thing: You are INSTANTLY starting bad blood with the administration of the sites that you are letting people gripe about. I won't look, but I can guarantee you that if I saw my site listed in that area in any capacity, this entire review would be deleted and I would cease talk with you and anyone to participate in that trash-talk. Your board is about Art and things (I think), this board has absolutely no place.

Other boards (again)
What is this site about? There is no flow. There is no structure. You have an area for people to complain about being booted from other sites, you have a section for people to post fanfiction of any genre, and you have ample other areas for... What? There is exactly no theme to this site, and it really looks like something that was just thrown together on a whim because someone got booted from one site, so they wanted to rally together the others on another site. I'm honestly completely lost at this point, having no real concept of what is going on in any degree, so I must end this review.

[SteveL1990]

Nov 26, 2014 13:31:44 GMT -8 :~:Sarapha:~: said:

Hello SteveL1990, I am Sarapha, a friendly reviewer of forums. I review a board is that I look it over as a guest, and write down what I see, in the order I see it. Then, I take another look, and see what details can be tweaked. I have 8+ years of experience with Proboards and its glory. Let us start

First Glance
....
Am I still on Proboards Support? Whoo, this one is going to be interesting. I don't usually critique sites that look like they just registered for it, but, hey, first time for everything

Short list of what you need
-Main banner
-Custom theme
-Member Group colors to jazz things up
-Custom Images
-Something that is you.

Not to discredit the Proboards main, because it's lovely, but it's also Proboards and tells me, as someone looking at this site for the first time, that there is exactly zero personal touch to it. On one hand, it looks like laziness. On the other, it shows me boring (again, I'm sorry PBS overlords T-T). Both of these aspects would instantly turn me off to the site and I would exit out fast (the main reason I don't critique them)

Second Glance
Pushing through...

Steve's Place
When I read this title, the first thing that comes to mind is that someone made this site to be about themselves and that I am not at all welcome there, because my name is Ashley. Your description states that it is about History, Arts, stuff like that, but the name only screams at me "private party". Without anything in the site to tell me otherwise, I already feel this site is not for me.

The Boards
-Site-Related Information
A big thing that I see that may be a mistake is having the Site-Related Feedback be the very first board that I see. In these instances, it feels less like you want me to be on the site (by telling me vital information about it), and more like you're fishing for compliments and critiques. It also goes a negative way, because if people are leaving you bad reviews, it is the first thing anyone else will see. The more successful sites that I've seen, the rules and information is the very first thing displayed. That way, you're more focused on the members that are actually there, then you are on guests only stopping by to give their two cents and never come back.
Rules; tell everyone up front what is expected of them in the site.
Information; tell them exactly what the heck the site is about, and why they should think about joining it. What do YOU have to offer them in return for membership?

-Administration
Now, I'm perplexed. A board called Administration could mean two things to me. It's either a board where Administration gather to discuss things about the site (which, if that is the case, it should be a hidden board, or password protected), or it means it's a board where the Administration introduces themselves to the members through a thread. However, you have a single thread in that board. "The General Feedback Thread". First two boards I see, you're asking for reviews. Not a good vibe for a potential member. I would move that thread to the "Site-Related Feedback" board.

-Other boards
Looking around, I still have not found a single thing that tells me what the site is actually about. This is intensely problematic, given that, if I don't know what it is, exactly how do I know if I want to join it?

The Interview Room
.... WHAT? Just... No... Really... What? I do not understand the purpose of this board. Why would you want to rally together a group of people that have been banned in other sites, and more importantly, what does it help on YOUR board to have that area? Having it there, you are doing one thing: You are INSTANTLY starting bad blood with the administration of the sites that you are letting people gripe about. I won't look, but I can guarantee you that if I saw my site listed in that area in any capacity, this entire review would be deleted and I would cease talk with you and anyone to participate in that trash-talk. Your board is about Art and things (I think), this board has absolutely no place.

Other boards (again)
What is this site about? There is no flow. There is no structure. You have an area for people to complain about being booted from other sites, you have a section for people to post fanfiction of any genre, and you have ample other areas for... What? There is exactly no theme to this site, and it really looks like something that was just thrown together on a whim because someone got booted from one site, so they wanted to rally together the others on another site. I'm honestly completely lost at this point, having no real concept of what is going on in any degree, so I must end this review.

Hmm.....well, okay. First of all, thank you for stopping by.

I'll go ahead and give you a little background. I myself have not been banned from any forums that I can recall. I can say that, admittedly, I had borrowed the idea from another site that I frequented, whose owner offered a service like that; it honestly seemed like a decent idea at the time. However, though, Tumbleweed Dressing did have a good point: I realized that it could possibly be a turn off(not to mention the potential for some serious abuse), and the comments you made in that regard have confirmed that. With this advice in mind, I've recently gone ahead and deleted that section of the board entirely(better safe than sorry, am I right?).

As for the other stuff:

I know this may honestly sound a little strange, but a good part of the reason I set up this board, originally, as I mentioned in part, was to host some of my works in a way that would be independent from other sites, but that people could also readily give some feedback on them as well, without having to resort to e-mails(and, to be truthful, I don't get to check it as often as I'd like). Although I soon realized people would want to be able to actually do stuff, so I eventually branched out.

As for the Steve's AH Place name, it was just a simple name, meant to denote the purpose of the site. But I guess it might indeed sound a little too "private", to someone who might have just arrived on this site. I guess I'd like to see if I could have the URL changed at some point in time.
 
In any case, I'll continue working on the site whenever I can get the chance and I'll try to keep folks updated as much as I can, preferably every 12-24 hours or so. Once again, thanks.

[SteveL1990]

Well, alright. I apologize for the long wait, but I thought I'd let you all know that I recently downloaded the PB Basic theme and made it the default for my site. How does it look, in your view?

[:~:Sarapha:~:]

It looks, rather depressingly, exactly like what I described before. Very basic with 0 individualistic expression on your behalf. Had I not known the differences in the skins, I would not see a difference to the site.

[SteveL1990]

Nov 23, 2014 5:31:29 GMT -8 Tumbleweed said:

Hi SteveL1990

Typically, I never read anyone else's critiques so I remain unbiased but I did read rohan critique before I decided to give you my own critique.

But to touch on some of the points Chibi made.

1. To change your members username colors, if you so choose to do so, go to: Admin> Members> Member Groups>

2. To use something other than the default theme, you can do it several ways. There are great ProBoards premade themes you can try. Go to:

Admin> Themes> Colors & Theme Creator> Scheme>

The are also many member made themes in the library and you can find those the same way as above except select Library instead of Scheme.

3. As far as the board descriptions. I'm personally fine with somewhat long descriptions but I do think having them all about the same length in each board looks nicer but that is just a preference thing.

4. I agree with Chibi, anything that helps your members navigate your site or forum rules should probably be at the top but I don't see rules in General. Of course General doesn't have to have the rules. You can just make a board toward the top for your rules but I do suggest you have some at least basic rules.

O.K. Now for my critique and I'm not going to do a full-fledged one since you basically have just default, just some suggestions to get you started.

You may want to start with making a banner. If you aren't able to create your own, you can request one in the Graphics Request board. (Mind you, our graphic artists seem to be in short supply lately so have patience and bump every 24 hours .)

Another option would be to use a nice stylized font for the name. A great place to go is: www.google.com/fonts#

When you use Google fonts, hover over the little icons on the left and find "Quick Use" and click. That will give you the link to the font and you can just put it in your header: Admin> Structure> Headers & Footers>  Also in the quick use they show you how to use the font so just copy the font style (not the part that says font-family but the other part. Then go to: Admin > Themes> Advanced Styles & CSS> Visual Editor>Header(top)>Forum Banner>Banner Text and just paste the new style in there.

This might be picky but in your board titles, some have punctuation after and some don't. Since titles aren't really sentences, periods aren't really needed but I exclamations in that one is just fine.

Although in your post here, you describe what your site is about (sort of), but a visitor might not know that by the 30 second glance most visitors give a site. Is it a general chat site, a writers site, a gamers site or all of the above?  A possible solution would be to add a sub-tile to give a brief description of what you site is about. If you request a banner you could have then add it on the image or if you want to add it to your template, you could do it that way as well. I just helped someone with that so if interested I'll post the thread.

I'm not sure if having a board right at the top where people can rant about other sites is a good idea. Kind of a turn off. Maybe something like that should be at the bottom of your boards and I'd be sure to make it not viewable to guests.

I like that you don't have too many boards. No one like scrolling forever to see all the boards. After looking over your site I like that you have kind of a mixture of things one can talk about. I like that you got to posting in most all your boards. Keep it up! Since it is just the default theme I don't have a lot of good things to say but hopefully this will help a little. Keep in mind critiques are just suggestions and it is totally up to you what you want to do.

Best of luck with your site and if you need clarification on anything, just ask.

 
  

 
 

Well, okay. After a month's delay, I finally got around to finding a good font on Google Fonts.....only to find out that I couldn't get it to show up, despite following your advice to the best of my ability: I tried posting the link in both the global and main headers, and nothing happened. I also tried to paste the new style in "Banner Text", with the link.....and nothing happened there, either, as I still ended up with the same old text I've always had. Is there something I'm missing? 

[Tumbleweed]

SteveL1990,

You'll need to add this to the bottom of your style sheet to affect the logo text and change the oswald to whatever your google font was.

Admin > Themes> Advanced Styles & CSS> Style Sheet>

/* change logo font */

#logo{font-family: oswald!important;
}

Post back if you are still having difficulties.

Edit: Just gave your site a quick glance and I see you are using someone's theme which seems to have styled your logo or you already worked out the problem.

If it changed with the theme, go look for the id #logo in your style sheet as it may already be there and you'd need not add it.

[Former Member]

Plus: I like the layout and the color is easy on the eyes.
Plenty to chat about .
Just a suggestion:I would keep the topics up to date, even if no one is posting in them.

dislike: The long descriptions. Maybe try to shorten them.
I would also ad some rules.Not too strict, just so a member can't say well I didn't know that was not allowed.

Good luck.

[SteveL1990]

Dec 27, 2014 20:31:19 GMT -8 STLUEE said:

Plus: I like the layout and the color is easy on the eyes.
Plenty to chat about .
Just a suggestion:I would keep the topics up to date, even if no one is posting in them.

dislike: The long descriptions. Maybe try to shorten them.
I would also ad some rules.Not too strict, just so a member can't say well I didn't know that was not allowed.

Good luck.

Hi there, stluee!  Sorry it's been so long since I've come back;..

Nice suggestions, by the way. they really are helpful.
 
Anyway, having considered and mulled over the various pieces of advice here, I've decided that maybe the site could use a name change. 

Although this site is still, and always will be, focused on the particular Alternate History genre above all, there's also plenty of room for discussions of the "What Ifs" of the universes of other works(including published ones!), too, such as that of the Halo video game series, the "Fast and the Furious" movie, or even the Marvel Comics universe. The possibilities are actually virtually endless when you think about it.....(Mario & Sonic crossovers, anyone?)

So, with that in mind, does anyone have any suggestions in mind? One title that really sticks out to me in particular is "The Alternate Reality Portal", or something along those lines.

[SteveL1990]

Just bumping this to get the conversation going again. I'm still taking suggestions for any new names you can think of for the site.

[SteveL1990]

Hi folks. Does anybody have any alternate name ideas they'd like to throw out there? I'm still leading towards "The Alternate Reality Portal" myself, but I'll still be open to any suggestions that are posted.

[lordroel]

Oct 7, 2015 19:57:58 GMT -8 SteveL1990 said:

Hi folks. Does anybody have any alternate name ideas they'd like to throw out there? I'm still leading towards "The Alternate Reality Portal" myself, but I'll still be open to any suggestions that are posted.

while it is a good name you have to check first if it is not to long to be used as your new forum name.