Glum: General-Purpose Forum

[Ken]

I'm working on a general-purpose forum called Glum.

There's only a General Discussion board (for now,) and I'm looking for feedback and criticism.

Feel free to drop in: glum.proboards.com/

[vank]

Why is it called glum?

Glum means depressed and sad. Is it a forum about depression?

I don't see any boards on your forum yet other than the board your forum came with. You should add more boards and categories so people know what your forum is about.

How about a custom banner? Maybe your own colors? What colors do you want it to be?

Right now I don't know what your forum is about or who you want as your audience. Maybe you can have a sticky post telling us about the forum and the rules of the forum.

If I join right now where do I put my intro post? You don't have a board for that.

I think you should make it clear what your forum is about and add some more sections to post.

[Ken]

Aug 19, 2023 7:05:13 GMT -8 vank said:

Why is it called glum?

Glum means depressed and sad. Is it a forum about depression?

I don't see any boards on your forum yet other than the board your forum came with. You should add more boards and categories so people know what your forum is about.

How about a custom banner? Maybe your own colors? What colors do you want it to be?

Right now I don't know what your forum is about or who you want as your audience. Maybe you can have a sticky post telling us about the forum and the rules of the forum.

If I join right now where do I put my intro post? You don't have a board for that.

I think you should make it clear what your forum is about and add some more sections to post.

No reason to expect something quick and easy to remember; the forum isn't about depression. What boards or/and categories do you recommend I should add? I'll admit I need to work on a custom banner. Thank you for your criticism.

[Ken]

vank , what do you think of this banner? I have made a board for introducing yourself.

[Kami]

Hello! Just wanted to pop by and see how things were getting on. Usually, I rate forums with a three-part method, but I think this forum is a bit too new / in development to do that so I'll just do a stream-of-consciousness type thing instead. Please let me know if you have any questions, or need me to expand on any of the below thoughts.

--

First things first, I am a little visually underwhelmed. I don't really see much of anything going on from an aesthetic perspective, and I actually almost completely missed your banner since it doesn't have any prominence to offset the length, as well as the colour, of your content. It's okay if you're not a web / theme designer! No one expects you to be; however, you do have to balance that with the expectation people have of contemporary websites. There are plenty of forums that get by with very simple colours and little to no other changes to PB's default aesthetic; however, the strength of those forums is in their age and large, established member bases. As a new forum, starting out now, guests / potential members have a slightly higher expectation for aesthetics.

If you want to learn some basic design principles / techniques, there are a lot of online resources to do so, or you can post in the Themes Board and create a general theme design/development thread and someone (probably me tbh) will be along to help you through it. In the meantime, you may be interested in the Theme Library as there are lots of premade themes (some with customiseable images) that you could use.

At the very least, however, if your intent is to use a banner, I would make one that is a bit taller -- I recommend a minimum height of 200px, but I generally make mine around the 350 mark.

I have to agree with vank, though, on the name. While you could, conceivably, have a very successful forum with a very unusual, and un-related name, I don't think that it makes the best first impression. It only takes potential members 10-30 seconds to decide whether or not they'll continue browsing a website. If the aesthetic isn't to their liking, if the information they need to know (what is this website about, and is it for me) isn't available at a glance, the less likely they are to explore, much less join. You don't have to change the name, but you do need to offset the choice of unusual/unrelated name with making sure you have everything a guest needs to decide if this community is right for them, such as (but not limited to / mix and match as you desire):

• A table, board, thread, or a tagline on your banner, that explains that this forum is a general chat forum / what your vision is for the community
• A board that shows the forum rules (I think you mentioned that the ProBoards Terms of Service and ProBoards Community Guidelines were sufficient for your needs; that's great, but I'd highly recommend a redirect board linking to the latter so that people can find it easily, placed at the top of your forum; alternatively, a board with a single thread titled "Rules" or "Forum Behaviour" or something that links out to these two sites).
• Something in the "Receptionist's Desk" board so that the introduction board isn't empty! If you expect your members to individually introduce themselves, you and your staff should lead by example.

I only have two additional thoughts, so bear with me as we wrap this thing up.

I don't think I've ever said this before, but I think you need more boards. Most people wind up splitting up their content way too granularly, but you've gone to the other extreme. Yes, it's a general chat board, but people do like dedicated places to discuss certain topics. While I don't recommend you have a tonne of boards since you're just starting out, I would recommend the following structure:

• A dedicated category for content regarding forum operations. 
  • The following boards:
    • [Rules board / redirect to Community Guidelines page]
    • The Bulletin Board
    • The Receptionist's Desk
    • [Something for any questions a member or guest might have about the forum]
      
      
• A dedicated categoryfor chatting about topics
  • The following boards:
    • The Daily Query 
    • (Suggestion) Media Discussion [Books, TV, Film, Music, etc]
    • (Suggestion) Daily Life
    • (Suggestion) News/Current Events
    • Grand Plaza (anything that doesn't fit the above)

I understand your reasoning for not wanting too many boards and I agree with you, but you have more boards about the forum as a construct than you do topics to chat about, and that board only has two threads! There are one of two blunders that new forum admins generally make; they're two sides of the same coin, so they have the same overall effect. Either a) the admin creates so many separate sections because they want a perfect place for anything a member might think about creating a thread about that it becomes too overwhelming; or b) the admin creates virtually no sections assuming that everyone will just put everything in the one place and get the ball rolling.

The actual "need" members have is more in the middle. You need to give them guidelines; too much freedom, or too much structure, leads to a sort of decision paralysis. As a group, people want the freedom to talk about what they want in a community (whether the community is generalised or a specific genre), but not so much freedom as to result in virtually anarchy. General guideposts and boards with "suggestive" topics (in the sense that if you have a "Post about whatever here" section, versus "post specifically about this particular topic here", the latter suggests a topic someone can talk about) will do a lot more for a new community than too few, or too many sections. Once you get the ideas flowing, activity will pick up. Active forums attract members who will also be active, and once that community gets going you're going to get suggestions from your members on other things they feel need dedicated boards for, like a games board, or a technology board, etc. I recommend looking at other, successful general chat forums -- not to steal from them, but to understand what people in your target demographic are generally looking for.

And last, and definitely least: make sure that your content, as a staff member, is beyond reproach both in content and structure. Your board description for the bulletin board section is a sentence fragment: "This is where anything important by the board moderation and administration." Feels like you should have at least one more word in there, no? Like, "This is where anything important by the board moderation and administration goes." as a for instance.

Phew, thanks for bearing with me! Let me know if you have any Q's or if you need me to expand on something I've said.

[Ken]

Thank you, Kami, for your criticism and feedback. I got to work imminently with a few things.

The first thing I did was work on a banner with a tagline. I plan on keeping the old one for the signature with the tagline and a direct link on top of it, similar to Bigballofyarn's.

The next thing I did was add some more boards, as requested by both of you. I have one as a redirect to the community guidelines, one for asking questions (guests can create threads there,) and two general forums for entertainment and current news. I'm not sure what daily life entails.

I plan on creating an introduction thread for myself later. Anything else I miss?

[Kami]

Ken - I think this already looks way better! Not a whole lot left at this time (once you get things going and feel more 'complete' as it were, I'd be happy to re-review), but a few bullet points / helpful(?) tips:

• While this is up to you, technically, I strongly encourage you to be mindful about web accessibility. What this means, in a nutshell, is that you should create content, aesthetics, and function while keeping in mind that various people may have disabilities or issues that may be impacted by your choices, like: colour blindness, low vision, no vision, epilepsy / photosensitivity, dyslexia, and so on. A very common "negative" for a lot of websites is imagery and colours being difficult to parse. In this case, having "glum" as this sort of, brighter overlay on a photo with a lot of different colours is a net negative for accessibility on reading your banner. Text should always be clear and easily readable; I know this looks cool, and lord knows I did a lot of it when I first started doing themes, but it's actually very difficult to realise it's there. 
  • Relatedly, my eye instead goes to your tagline. I don't think that's what the goal should be (it should be there, but your forum name should be more prominent than the tag line).
• The "don't be shy." is, imo, unnecessary. Telling people to not be shy in your banner presumes that they will be shy / inactive / not wanting to post. Start as you mean to carry on — assume people will be active! "A neighbourly general-purpose forum" is sufficient.
• I would recommend a sticky in the Help Desk section to outline what sort of questions you're expecting to get (eg: stuff about the forum / community, but if people need technical support you might want to redirect them here to PB Support).

Lastly, the "Daily Life" section was really meant to be about like, well, life. Maybe someone would want to vent about a frustration, talk about their job, share a recipe, ask for advice about relationships, etc. Totally up to you if you want that in its own place, it's just a suggestion

[Ken]

Thank you, Kami .

I'm doing my best to make my forum as accessible as possible. I won't know first-hand if it isn't, as I'm not impaired by hearing, sight, and more if that makes sense. I'll rework the banner for Glum being pure white and cut the "Don't be shy" part on the banner and the Recepist's Desk.

I'll make an introduction thread for both the Recepist's and Help Desk.

[Ken]

Are these better?

[Kami]

Aug 20, 2023 10:01:19 GMT -8 Ken said:

Thank you, Kami .

I'm doing my best to make my forum as accessible as possible. I won't know first-hand if it isn't, as I'm not impaired by hearing, sight, and more if that makes sense. I'll rework the banner for Glum being pure white and cut the "Don't be shy" part on the banner and the Recepist's Desk.

I'll make an introduction thread for both the Recepist's and Help Desk.

Oh absolutely! There are also some handy tools online to help guide you, for what it's worth? Small, incomplete list below:

• Contrast Checker (Check the contrast between the colour of foreground text, and background colour)
• Web Accessibility Content Guidelines (A quick bullet list of things to consider)
• Contrast Checker for colour-reliant links

Some other things to keep in mind: animated gifs and other animations are great, and I use a lot of them in posts (not in themes usually, but if so, then only sparingly), but broadly speaking try not to use anything that flashes rapidly and/or cycles through a lot of different colours in a short amount of time (this is a photosensitivity/epilepsy trigger).

Aug 20, 2023 10:11:38 GMT -8 Ken said:

Are these better?

Yep, definitely better! You might want to use a thicker text on the tagline, though, due to the fact that the background has a lot of colours, you'd need it to stand out a little more.

[Ken]

Aug 20, 2023 10:23:17 GMT -8 Kami said:

Aug 20, 2023 10:01:19 GMT -8 Ken said:

Thank you, Kami .

I'm doing my best to make my forum as accessible as possible. I won't know first-hand if it isn't, as I'm not impaired by hearing, sight, and more if that makes sense. I'll rework the banner for Glum being pure white and cut the "Don't be shy" part on the banner and the Recepist's Desk.

I'll make an introduction thread for both the Recepist's and Help Desk.

Oh absolutely! There are also some handy tools online to help guide you, for what it's worth? Small, incomplete list below:

• Contrast Checker (Check the contrast between the colour of foreground text, and background colour)
• Web Accessibility Content Guidelines (A quick bullet list of things to consider)
• Contrast Checker for colour-reliant links

Some other things to keep in mind: animated gifs and other animations are great, and I use a lot of them in posts (not in themes usually, but if so, then only sparingly), but broadly speaking try not to use anything that flashes rapidly and/or cycles through a lot of different colours in a short amount of time (this is a photosensitivity/epilepsy trigger).

Aug 20, 2023 10:11:38 GMT -8 Ken said:

Are these better?

Yep, definitely better! You might want to use a thicker text on the tagline, though, due to the fact that the background has a lot of colours, you'd need it to stand out a little more.

Thank you. I'll have those bookmarked for later. I'm going to relax for a moment, and I'll work on the threads I promise to create.

[Ken]

Kami , I have created the two threads.

glum.proboards.com/thread/8/hello-ken-forums-administrator

glum.proboards.com/thread/9/welcome-help-desk

Are these good? I can edit to change something

[Kami]

Aug 20, 2023 11:32:27 GMT -8 Ken said:

Kami , I have created the two threads.

glum.proboards.com/thread/8/hello-ken-forums-administrator

glum.proboards.com/thread/9/welcome-help-desk

Are these good? I can edit to change something

For what it's worth, I want to encourage you to have confidence in your content  You don't really need me or anyone dictating exactly how to do things, unless you really want to.

Since you have asked in this case, my feedback:

- Your intro thread doesn't tell me anything about you. Look at what you wrote, and then imagine the new member version of that: "Hi, I'm Bob, I am a member. If you need anything you can talk to me. I talk about stuff a lot."

Writing self intros is hard! I hate doing them. But you need to actually show yourself in them... so maybe something like:

Hey! Im Kami, and I'm the admin here. I'm in my mid 30s at the time of writing this post, and I've been running forums since I was a teenager. I love anime, lord of the rings, and murder mystery stories. I also love games, and am a game developer by trade. Fun facts about me: I have 3 cats, my fiancé and I met on a PB forum, and I am a classically trained singer (soprano, specifically). Let me know if you need anything! Otherwise, you can find me in the anime or games board

-- something like that, rather than something so clinical and detached. You gotta be able to be more colloquial / amicable, especially since text doesn't usually convey tone very well. I'd also take out the part when you mention you asked for advice. It's not wrong, or bad, but it's not necessary to add to introducing yourself. Imagine if someone was like, "Hi I'm Bob, I'm talking to you because my therapist said I should make friends." It's not bad, or wrong, just a little awkward and maybe a story for a later time.

- Sticky help thread is fine, but you may want to specifically call out technical support w/ proboards software.

[Ken]

Aug 20, 2023 11:53:12 GMT -8 Kami said:

Aug 20, 2023 11:32:27 GMT -8 Ken said:

Kami , I have created the two threads.

glum.proboards.com/thread/8/hello-ken-forums-administrator

glum.proboards.com/thread/9/welcome-help-desk

Are these good? I can edit to change something

For what it's worth, I want to encourage you to have confidence in your content :) You don't really need me or anyone dictating exactly how to do things, unless you really want to.

Since you have asked in this case, my feedback:

- Your intro thread doesn't tell me anything about you. Look at what you wrote, and then imagine the new member version of that: "Hi, I'm Bob, I am a member. If you need anything you can talk to me. I talk about stuff a lot."

Writing self intros is hard! I hate doing them. But you need to actually show yourself in them... so maybe something like:

Hey! Im Kami, and I'm the admin here. I'm in my mid 30s at the time of writing this post, and I've been running forums since I was a teenager. I love anime, lord of the rings, and murder mystery stories. I also love games, and am a game developer by trade. Fun facts about me: I have 3 cats, my fiancé and I met on a PB forum, and I am a classically trained singer (soprano, specifically). Let me know if you need anything! Otherwise, you can find me in the anime or games board :)

-- something like that, rather than something so clinical and detached. You gotta be able to be more colloquial / amicable, especially since text doesn't usually convey tone very well. I'd also take out the part when you mention you asked for advice. It's not wrong, or bad, but it's not necessary to add to introducing yourself. Imagine if someone was like, "Hi I'm Bob, I'm talking to you because my therapist said I should make friends." It's not bad, or wrong, just a little awkward and maybe a story for a later time.

- Sticky help thread is fine, but you may want to specifically call out technical support w/ proboards software.

How about this?

I have asked for ProBoards's support on feedback on my forum, and I was recommended to make an introductory thread for myself as an example. Hello, my name is Ken. I'm the forum's administrator. I don't mind any pronouns or how you address me.

I love music, film, and board and video games and don't mind most genres. I play the bass guitar and I'm learning how to produce music. I am fascinated by computers and casually program stuff. I want to be an educator or school teacher, and I plan on going to college as an Education major (with a music production, filmmaking, or computer science minor.)

Some achievements I have is: being top of my after-school computer science class and currently in the last grade at the time of writing this and beating Game Dev Tycoon's pirate mode.

I'm down to talk or do anything, but that isn't guaranteed. I'll do my best to run a welcoming, nurturing community. I'll make sure to read every post to moderate and engage to the point where it is fair to expect a like or quote.

May I ask what do you mean by "specifically call out technical support w/ proboards software."

[Kami]

For your intro: I would just remove that first line + take out the promises of what you'll do for the forum. You're introducing yourself, not trying to sell a product, so you don't need disclaimers and guarantees. Just be you.

For the help thread: Currently, you state, "If you need assistance for ProBoards" - I would specify this to "If you need technical assistance with ProBoards". I also would take out that last line -- the help desk is very clearly part of the "forum operations" type content of the forum, so people will intuitively understand that you're not offering help for other topics. As a general rule, members are smart, but like convenience. You don't need to hold their hands quite this much :)