New look

Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Register Log in
I would like to add that although I prefer the old style, if this is what it takes for you to earn for the site, then so be it. I do enjoy coming here and think that the site should get whatever money it can.
 
GOD said:
I would like to add that although I prefer the old style, if this is what it takes for you to earn for the site, then so be it. I do enjoy coming here and think that the site should get whatever money it can.
Click to expand...

As long as it doesn't make the site unbearable to navigate through. BBF got horribly bad.
 
We'll never be anything like what BBF's become. We put up a couple of ads on a page to generate a few bucks, but it isn't our sole reason for being. VerticalScope is a former magazine business and they're in the business of running WWW sites to maximize their profits. We're technically in business (e.g. an LLC) for liability protection. VerticalScope runs a network of WWW sites, sells hosting services, and has a staff of employees to pay. S2 is entirely run by volunteers. The owners of VerticalScope don't post on their own sites. As you can see, the owners of S2 are consumers of our own service (e.g. we all post here). VerticalScope has a lot of overhead to cover, we have virtually none (just hosting and professional fees).

It drove me nuts to see VerticalScope complain to its users about how much bandwidth they use, or how they won't implement some feature because it uses more bandwidth. At S2, it drives me nuts to see people host avatars or signature graphics at photobucket or some other image hosting service; we have image hosting built into vbulletin and if it costs us a few dollars more for the bandwidth, so be it. It sure would make the site pages load way faster, since our servers and bandwidth are superior to those other services and all the content would be coming from one place.

We've never asked members to contribute $.10, and I don't think we should. At BBF, the premium membership program was implemented with good intentions. People realized that the founders were paying the costs of the site out of their pockets and offered to pay to use the site. The program generated a fraction of the costs, but promoted a kind of solidarity between the owners and the posters. When VerticalScope bought the site, they were originally going to axe the program but realized it was a way to generate a few extra dollars off the posters so they kept it.

More activity and members are a good thing for us. We look at the analytics for S2 and see that there's plenty of opportunity to gain more members. Improving the look of the site is something we can do to help that along. It's something we should do from time to time so the look isn't stale.

I'm not here telling you that we're going to have this new look, here it is, you're stuck with it. I made this thread so that however the site look is changed, you have a say. It's a collaboration between all of us.
 
Denny Crane said:
BTW, the whole point in this effort is to make the site a bit more graphically appealing to new visitors, with the hope they'll like it and stick around.
Click to expand...

If that's the whole point, you've missed the point with this whole fixed width thing.

Random visitors will come to this site because they want high quality Blazer content. Deliver it, and quickly. Who gives a fuck if it's fixed width or dynamic? You can design something with a dynamic layout that's good enough to get people to focus on content.

Now, you might argue it's up to end users to write good stuff so that it appears at the right time when visitors show up.

However, what if you use some of that wasted (IMO) banner space at the top to feature the top 5 posts of the week? Threads that were so insightful/controversial/interesting, that they'd immediately captivate somebody browsing to the site for the first time. It'd have the added benefit of giving regular posters an incentive to come up with a really great thread idea. I'm thinking something along the lines of how Digg.com operates.

I have no idea how to execute this idea at this moment. I'll think about it a little.

Anyway, my main point is that although I don't have access to your Google analytic account, I really doubt bounce rates, new visitor returns or average time on site will be impacted one bit by fixed or dynamic widths.

Don't believe me? Run Google website optimizer on your site and I bet you find the same thing.
 
Last edited:
BTW--Although I prefer a dynamic width, I'm not passionate. My bigger beef with this (and pretty much most) forums is that I have to scroll below the fold to actually see real content.

You force me to see the header with the RipCity logo.

Then you force me to see a navigation bar I never use.

Then you force me to see a banner ad (if I don't use adblock).

Then you force me to see currently active users.

Then you force me to see the OT and Landing Pages.

Then you force me to see Announcements.

Then I FINALLY get to fucking see if Hedo Turkoglu is a Blazer.

And people are bitching about the purple bars on the side? Who gives a fuck. I come to this site to find our if Hedo is a Blazer. And you put a bunch of crap in my way that I have to scroll through every damned time.
 
Geez. Don't take it so personal.

I think the new look/format is much more sophisticated.
 
Fez said:
Geez. Don't take it so personal.

I think the new look/format is much more sophisticated.
Click to expand...

I don't think anyone is taking it personal. We are voicing our opinion so that Denny has more information with which to make decisions. He posted this thread to elicit thoughts, not just to get blind approval. Denny is a big boy and can handle the criticisms. All of us want this board to succeed, god knows we have been through enough forums already. And I for one actually like Denny (what I know of him from this site) so I would rather help him earn a buck then some impersonal forum/media corporation.
 
One more complaint. I have to hit the check box every time I come here after closing my browser.
 
Uhhhh... OCD, but the banner is a pixel too short on either side. Heh...
 
mook said:
BTW--Although I prefer a dynamic width, I'm not passionate. My bigger beef with this (and pretty much most) forums is that I have to scroll below the fold to actually see real content.

You force me to see the header with the RipCity logo.

Then you force me to see a navigation bar I never use.

Then you force me to see a banner ad (if I don't use adblock).

Then you force me to see currently active users.

Then you force me to see the OT and Landing Pages.

Then you force me to see Announcements.

Then I FINALLY get to fucking see if Hedo Turkoglu is a Blazer.

And people are bitching about the purple bars on the side? Who gives a fuck. I come to this site to find our if Hedo is a Blazer. And you put a bunch of crap in my way that I have to scroll through every damned time.
Click to expand...

Ideally we would like it if you explored the site beyond just the Blazer forum. If that's all you want to visit for, then fine, but don't bitch about the features that other users find necessary in order to browse the whole site.
 
mook said:
If that's the whole point, you've missed the point with this whole fixed width thing.

Random visitors will come to this site because they want high quality Blazer content. Deliver it, and quickly. Who gives a fuck if it's fixed width or dynamic? You can design something with a dynamic layout that's good enough to get people to focus on content.

Now, you might argue it's up to end users to write good stuff so that it appears at the right time when visitors show up.

However, what if you use some of that wasted (IMO) banner space at the top to feature the top 5 posts of the week? Threads that were so insightful/controversial/interesting, that they'd immediately captivate somebody browsing to the site for the first time. It'd have the added benefit of giving regular posters an incentive to come up with a really great thread idea. I'm thinking something along the lines of how Digg.com operates.

I have no idea how to execute this idea at this moment. I'll think about it a little.

Anyway, my main point is that although I don't have access to your Google analytic account, I really doubt bounce rates, new visitor returns or average time on site will be impacted one bit by fixed or dynamic widths.

Don't believe me? Run Google website optimizer on your site and I bet you find the same thing.
Click to expand...

mook said:
BTW--Although I prefer a dynamic width, I'm not passionate. My bigger beef with this (and pretty much most) forums is that I have to scroll below the fold to actually see real content.

You force me to see the header with the RipCity logo.

Then you force me to see a navigation bar I never use.

Then you force me to see a banner ad (if I don't use adblock).

Then you force me to see currently active users.

Then you force me to see the OT and Landing Pages.

Then you force me to see Announcements.

Then I FINALLY get to fucking see if Hedo Turkoglu is a Blazer.

And people are bitching about the purple bars on the side? Who gives a fuck. I come to this site to find our if Hedo is a Blazer. And you put a bunch of crap in my way that I have to scroll through every damned time.
Click to expand...

Bounce rate is about 30% with 30,000 unique visitors/mo. Obviously a lot of people find some post of interest via search engines, read what they want, and then leave. That'd be the 70% who don't bounce. Otherwise we'd have 20,000 new members per month. I don't think 20,000 new members/month is a reasonable expectation, but it would be nice to convert 10% or even 1% of them into regulars here.

Over the past few years, a consistent comment we've seen from people is they don't like the look of the site, specifically the banners at the top (RipCityTwo, etc.).

All of your comments about what's above the fold are legit. But only from your POV, which is fine. I happen to click on the "New Posts" link in that nav area that you don't use. It's the page I bookmark to come to the site even. I also use the Home and User CP links a ton. It's also got my PM notifications, which is pretty important. The point being (and quite obvious from posts in this thread) that peoples' usage patterns are varied and what's important to one is a waste to another...

In my 15+ years of WWW site design and working with thousands of sites, it's always been a constant struggle to find ways to reduce the height of stuff at the top of pages so the content is easier to see (above the fold). When Chingy did the first banners for us to look at, I asked him to make them shorter (less tall) for this reason.

As for the rest of what's above the fold, vBulletin has been around a long time, and they get feedback (like I'm doing here) from a few million sites (last time I looked, there were maybe 1.5M vb sites in total). I assume they have both studied and evolved the layout of every page vb3 generates with all due consideration. Including the banner ad placement. The only thing I've changed is to move the "currently active users" bit from the bottom to the top, which is both advertising "we have all these users!" to potential new members, and I also think it helps improve community to see other peoples' names and that your pals are on right now, and it keeps the place from feeling like an "empty room."

If you read the announcements, they aren't displayed anymore.

One more thought on all this before I have to go to work. We could just go hire a professional vb3 skin designer to do a pro job on the site, but it's been more important to us that even the look of the site be member contributed. Chingy deserves kudos, IMO, for taking the initiative to make a lot of banners already.
 
Sorry--my other posts came off crankier than I actually was.

I realize my personal tastes are different from others, but that's what Google Analytics is for. What's it say when you do a site overlay? I would be pretty comfortable in betting that there are probably 3 or 4 links at the top that ever get clicked more than 2% of the time (my guess is search, user cp, the link to the home page of SportsTwo.)

The rest is just clutter that never gets clicked and is wasted above-the-fold space. If it were me, I'd leave those critical links up there, and then provide access to the rest with a drop-down menu.

I realize Vbulletin (and for that matter Simple Machines, which I use for my own forum) tend to clutter things up at the top. But Microsoft has done some pretty stupid things over the years repeatedly too. Just because a company is big doesn't make them right.

I don't think it's very compelling to put the number of users at the top, even in attracting new users. I look at a variety of bulletin boards, and I can easily spot an active one by looking at how many posts and threads there have been today. A site developer can fake how many users are currently active. But they can't fake a high volume of quality content.

Anyway, a bounce rate at 30% is really pretty good. If you use Analytics to benchmark yourself against others in similar businesses, I bet you find your are doing really well. You can always do better, but I'd focus on providing means to get posters to go to other boards on your site, if I were you.

One thought I just had would be do the following:
1. Keep it fixed width.
2. Aligh it left instead of centered.
3. Use the extra space on the right to add a new column called "Hot Threads." Make Hot Threads a place where the currently most active threads or the best ones of the week from throughout the site are pointed to. People like me and BNM who run really large monitors will see far more content from across the site. People who have small monitors will only see the content they are used to seeing, unless they scroll horizontally. Maybe add a check box to hide it if you worry that it'll be annoying to those on an iPhone.....

This idea would have multiple benefits:
1. It'd show new visitors that you've got a lot of great content, and not just in the Blazers forum.
2. It'd suggest to Blazers-only posters ways to explore other parts of the site.
3. It'd be a better use of monitor real estate, and quality content would be above the fold (at least for those with wider monitors).
 
Last edited:
mook said:
Sorry--my other posts came off crankier than I actually was.

I realize my personal tastes are different from others, but that's what Google Analytics is for. What's it say when you do a site overlay? I would be pretty comfortable in betting that there are probably 3 or 4 links at the top that ever get clicked more than 2% of the time (my guess is search, user cp, the link to the home page of SportsTwo.)

The rest is just clutter that never gets clicked and is wasted above-the-fold space. If it were me, I'd leave those critical links up there, and then provide access to the rest with a drop-down menu.

I realize Vbulletin (and for that matter Simple Machines, which I use for my own forum) tend to clutter things up at the top. But Microsoft has done some pretty stupid things over the years repeatedly too. Just because a company is big doesn't make them right.

I don't think it's very compelling to put the number of users at the top, even in attracting new users. I look at a variety of bulletin boards, and I can easily spot an active one by looking at how many posts and threads there have been today. A site developer can fake how many users are currently active. But they can't fake a high volume of quality content.

Anyway, a bounce rate at 30% is really pretty good. If you use Analytics to benchmark yourself against others in similar businesses, I bet you find your are doing really well. You can always do better, but I'd focus on providing means to get posters to go to other boards on your site, if I were you.

One thought I just had would be do the following:
1. Keep it fixed width.
2. Aligh it left instead of centered.
3. Use the extra space on the right to add a new column called "Hot Threads." Make Hot Threads a place where the currently most active threads or the best ones of the week from throughout the site are pointed to. People like me and BNM who run really large monitors will see far more content from across the site. People who have small monitors will only see the content they are used to seeing, unless they scroll horizontally. Maybe add a check box to hide it if you worry that it'll be annoying to those on an iPhone.....

This idea would have multiple benefits:
1. It'd show new visitors that you've got a lot of great content, and not just in the Blazers forum.
2. It'd suggest to Blazers-only posters ways to explore other parts of the site.
3. It'd be a better use of monitor real estate, and quality content would be above the fold (at least for those with wider monitors).
Click to expand...

Your post didn't come across as cranky to me.

What I can do is make the top bit collapsible. But I wonder with it hidden how you're going to get back to the blazers forum when you're reading a thread.

As for exploring the rest of the site, it'd be nice and appreciated if people did post all over the place, but it's in no way required.
 
Sorry to be late to the party, but I just wanted to say that aesthetically, the site looks much nicer !

I'm on a dell desktop with a wide-screen flat panel monitor. For me, it works great.
 
I preferred the usability of the old one better - but I am fine either way. Thanks for keeping this place humming and always trying to make it better.
 
Additional problems with the "New Look":

The checkbox does not work in all forums. For example, it works here, but not in the NBA General forum. So, my page width constantly bounces around when changing forums.

The layout gets screwed up when a poster has an image in their .sig that is wider than the fixed page width.

BNM
 
Denny Crane said:
What I can do is make the top bit collapsible. But I wonder with it hidden how you're going to get back to the blazers forum when you're reading a thread.
Click to expand...

I think making the Display Options/Currently Active Users/Moderators section collapsible would be a good idea. It can be visible by default, but allow users to click a little arrow to hide it if they don't care to see who's online and don't use the display options much.
 
Denny Crane said:
As for exploring the rest of the site, it'd be nice and appreciated if people did post all over the place, but it's in no way required.
Click to expand...

No, it's certainly not. But I think my Hot Threads idea could definitely help you to that end. Getting the best content from the entire site on the home page for every sports team can only improve penetration.
 
Boob-No-More said:
Additional problems with the "New Look":

The checkbox does not work in all forums. For example, it works here, but not in the NBA General forum. So, my page width constantly bounces around when changing forums.

The layout gets screwed up when a poster has an image in their .sig that is wider than the fixed page width.

BNM
Click to expand...

The first bit is because I've been too lazy to resize all the banners as of right now, so I'll take the blame for that one.
 
mook said:
No, it's certainly not. But I think my Hot Threads idea could definitely help you to that end. Getting the best content from the entire site on the home page for every sports team can only improve penetration.
Click to expand...

The original S2 was custom software I wrote. The Team forums had the team roster with links to individual player stats, links at the top for full roster and team stats and schedule, etc. People complained that it made the pages look too cluttered and we ended up doing away with all those features.

We'd be better off posting links to interesting threads outside the blazers' forum in posts in the blazers forum, IMO.

And thanks to Chingy, I have the pieces to put together a fluid width blazers banner. I'll try to make it work tonight after work.
 
Denny Crane said:
The original S2 was custom software I wrote. The Team forums had the team roster with links to individual player stats, links at the top for full roster and team stats and schedule, etc. People complained that it made the pages look too cluttered and we ended up doing away with all those features.
Click to expand...

I remember that. It was too cluttered. And redundant--there were other places most of us already went to access that data.

This idea is quite a bit different. It would neatly categorize the most popular current threads on the entire site and make them easily visible for everyone, with no maintenance involved. It wouldn't necessarily even have to be very big--just 5 or so links of the most popular threads.

Digg does something similar on the right side of their home page, although they do it in a much larger style than you'd use here. I'm always following links on it:
http://digg.com/
 
Thanks to Chingy, we now have dynamic width banners. You'll notice the Blazers and OT forums are now fluid width again, but with the nicer banner at the top and, IMO, better colors.
 
Is there any custom setting to allow people who prefer it to go back to the narrow column down the middle look?
 
Denny Crane said:
Thanks to Chingy, we now have dynamic width banners. You'll notice the Blazers and OT forums are now fluid width again, but with the nicer banner at the top and, IMO, better colors.
Click to expand...

This seems to work very well for me. Thanks to you and Chingy for continuing to work on improving the look and usability of the site!

Ed O.
 
Ed O said:
This seems to work very well for me. Thanks to you and Chingy for continuing to work on improving the look and usability of the site!

Ed O.
Click to expand...

Yeah this looks great. Nice job Chingy!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

SlyPokerDog
20 Years Ago Today: The First Website Is Published
Replies
8
Views
1K
BLAZER PROPHET
B
CelticBalla32
Official NBA 2k8 Information Thread
2 3
Replies
79
Views
8K
Universe
Universe
SlyPokerDog
Science 1491
Replies
2
Views
258
dviss1
dviss1

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 1 (members: 0, guests: 1)
Back
Top