Vanity Edge

Forum URL: Vanity Edge - Powered by vBulletin

Forum Name: Vanity Edge

Launch Date: July 30th/August 1st 2009

Posts/Threads/Members: 1.6k threads, 27k posts, 360 members

Forum Software: VBulletin 3.8.2 (soon to be 4)

Description: A 'bit of everything'! As a forum, our main focus is music. But we also have a TV/Film forum, a Song Contest forum, World News/Gossip, Spotlight section, Games, members Lounge + more.

Other Info/Points of Interest: Please bear in mind that we've only just moved to VBulletin & will soon be upgrading to 4.0 so a lot of changes will be happening, mainly regarding the cosmetics of the forum (styles etc).

 

Looks default to me.

You may want to remove the "Powered by vBulletin" from your title.

Are you upgrading soon, or planning any major changes? Or do you really want a review of a site with a default vBulletin theme?

 

How do I do that?

Thank you in advance!

 

Vanity,

I was able to remove it thanks to these helpful instructions originally provided by Mr. Shelley.

Regards,

Kevin

 

Thank you very much!

Those of you that have checked out my site, would you say that shortening the width of my forum would make it easier on the eye?

 

As David said, looks very default. Seems you're doing great content wise and I can't wait to see what you have in store.

 

Aw thanks for that - I do try and make sure that I add a fair bit of content daily! I've installed a very average temporary layout (until we upgrade to VB4), but if you would...could people please give me their opinion on the forums?

http://www.vanityedge.com/index.php

i.e. do you think there are too many? Do you think that certain sections could sit pretty as sub-forums to make the home page smaller?

Also, I'd like to add that as a registered member, more sections become available (most notably the Forum Announcements' section and access to 'Downloads Central'). Do you think some of this is too much?

Input appreciated!

 

M'kay, well about the forums I don't think you have too much, just that some are redundant(imo). I think the 'What's on your iPod' one it's a bit unneeded, it could easily be a thread, also, if Survivor is a game, why is it in the music section? I think the genres could be merged as subforums with 'General Music Discussion'. I'm not very fond of the skin, maybe because you don't have a banner yet?

 

Yes, I agree about the 'Whats On Your iPod?' section - but I created that due to the posters wanting it; I created a poll, and it was 100% FOR the section, so really, that must stay!

There are some redundant sections - I'm thinking of putting Video Games back inside of the 'Games' section to make the home page less daunting. Survivors is a game - yes. But its a music game - one that revolves around an artist's career or a particular album or theme - ALWAYS music. We have TV Survivors too, in the TV section.

Sorry about the skin! :o Only temporary until we upgrade to VB4 - yes I'm looking for a banner.

Thank you so much for your feedback - I'll definitely be condensing some of the sections now that I know I'm not the only one! <3

 

Hi there,

Two months on from your last post so not sure if this still relevant. I just checked out your site.

I personally like the site at Vanity Edge but the main Vanity Edge which uses vBAdvanced doesn't seem to serve a purpose with 'impact' and rather confusing...... I don't quite know exactly what your site is about from the main (Vanity Edge) link and can only tell by searching around the forums and reading the posts. Perhaps you can put some kind of description or 'Introduction' somewhere about the site and what it covers?

I also think you should have some more on your Navigational Bar on the left as well so to easily access all parts of your site.

Just my thoughts anyway. All the best to you and the site.

 

^ Yes, after reading your post I decided to amend. And have since upgraded. Thank you all for taking the time to leave feedback!

 

Hey guys,

- I added a *NEW* 'Promote Your Forum' section to the site! As well as that, there has been a bit of a reshuffle, and we now operate VB4. All I need to complete the transition is a ruddy banner! And then I can continue promoting!

 

Okey Dokey.

I'll take a shot of reviewing this then now it's had a few changes made.

Design

I like the VB4 layout and have a live site myself though using the standard design for now as I think they'll be updating it quite a bit as it's still very buggy it seems.

Your style is clean on the eye though obviously lacking a custom logo, I'm sure you're aware of that though.

On the homepage your sidebar is quite a bit longer than the forum category listing bit. I had the problem and simply shortened the sidebar be decreasing each one by 1 topic, so for example you have 5 articles showing, 5 new posts, etc, If you made that 4 of everything I'm sure you'll get them to meet at the bottom of the homepage which should look a little cleaner. I suppose I'm nit picking there a bit but hey ho.

Activity

I noticed you have a pretty decent posts:user ratio. Well done. Though it does appear as though there were only 14 users online so perhaps you have a lot of regulars or something?

I'd consider emailing the people that haven't posted in some time to encourage them to do so. And perhaps email those that have zero posts to ask them to introduce themselves to the forum, this often gets them used to how to post and once they're logged in and have introduced themselves, the chances are most of them will have a look around and post some more somewhere.

It's something I do on a regular basis. I get a few 'get lost stop emailing me' type replies and I'm happy to remove those accounts if they're not being used at all. If they are being used but I'm annoying them with emails, I'll set their account to not receive admin emails so I can continue emailing bi-monthly without annoying anybody.

Functionality

I can't find anything that doesn't work per se. Though there are quite a few bugs in 4.0.0, though unfortunately if you upgrade to 4.0.1, although apparently over 200 bugs have been fixed, there are new bugs that exist in only 4.0.1. So I wouldn't know whether it's best to upgrade or not to be honest. They're both buggy.

BRB - have to reboot.

 

Thank you so much for the lengthy review! <3 Very kind of you Dan...

Yes, there's no denying my homepage is a bit of a calamity. I just worry sometimes that by spending time on the things that posters don't notice (i.e. fixing the little things), I am neglecting my site? I'm absolutely adamant that me whoring the site over the last few months is the main reason it has grown. So I get weary sometimes. But I definitely will look into addressing the homepage issues - I'm thinking of changing the whole layout of it. A poster called Lynne from vbulletin.com did a fabulous blog write up about how to redesign a homepage, so I might just look into that!

We do have a good posts/user ratio - and over the course of the week, we do get our regular posters coming back, and there is a fair few too. I recently did attempt the email thing (trying to get posters back) and I can vouch for what you did say - it definitely DOES work. So I'll do that again tonight - gives me something to do (I've been looking for something to put off these assignments!!:doh

I myself haven't updated to 4.0.1 yet, for the precise reasons you stated lol.

Thank you so much for your review!

 

Just to give a heads up, the site is now more styilised and has a custom banner