Freelance Lounge

phiber posted this at 00:38 — 27th July 2006.

They have: 20 posts

Joined: Jul 2006

Hello all,

I would like to get your opinion on my community. Freelance Lounge is a community for freelance and contract workers.

http://www.freelancelounge.com

Any feedback you can give me is appreciated!

Thank you,

Johnny

Megan posted this at 13:43 — 31st July 2006.

She has: 11,421 posts

Joined: Jun 1999

You mean freelance and contract IT professionals then. Too bad, this would have been much more interesting if you had opened it up to freelancers in all professionals.

There's not much to say about this really. The design is nice, very professional, a little boring. I like the logo. It's very light looking. I think the rest of the design could match that feel a bit more. Putting more white space around the forum would help a lot. I'd also llike to see a second colour added to the design here to make things a little more interesting. A bright orange like the one in the Tidget ad that sometimes appears in our sponsors area might work.

The google ads as I'm seeing them right now are a bit of a problem because there's a big gap between the actual ad and the "ads by google bit", and it looks like it's not filling the space horizitonally as it shoudl be. It looks like it's off to one side. I think using a different colour scheme on those might help.

There is no welcome message or invitation to register at the top. It's good to have something that explains what this site is and why someone should join. Your target audience will probably understand but it's some text to feed the search engines too

I notice you've got a lot of stickies posted, at elast in the first forum. Those look to be more like articles that would be better placed in either an articles area or a separate CMS. They are very short and not very thorough. As discussion postings they really could be doing more to invite others to post their opinions about the topic. i.e. What are your favourite freelance resources? How do you determine your pricing?

The rules could be done as part of the FAQ or on a new page instead of as a sticky in every forum.

Megan
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msaz87 posted this at 19:52 — 1st August 2006.

They have: 68 posts

Joined: Jun 2006

Right off the bat, i like the design. It's very clean and not overly flashy.

I agree, the site could use more color variety. I like the orange you chose for the hover on links, maybe using that more would give the site a bit more spice.

I also agree there are too many stickies. When i open the first forum, i don't even see a regular post until i scroll.

Everything i want to say seems to have been covered by Megan, but i'll go on repeating anyways. For the logo, you could add some color, another graphic of sorts and maybe a description of the site. If you extend the image down, you wouldn't have to crowd it.

I like it. I've never used phpBB, only vBulletin, but what you've done looks good. But, as always, there's room for improvement.

Hope that helped.

worthyashes posted this at 22:41 — 1st August 2006.

They have: 7 posts

Joined: Aug 2006

Sorry can't really add much to the above except your topics are a bit general. I'd rather see fewer threads in more specific topics so I can get quickly to the info I'm interested in.

I do like the unfussy design though - and I wouldn't worry about it being a bit bland - it's a forum not a media site.

Tim

e-Smartz Developer

http://www.e-smartz.com

phiber posted this at 14:10 — 5th August 2006.

They have: 20 posts

Joined: Jul 2006

Thank you all for the great feedback! I am working on getting a sub forum mod added to the forum so I can move a lot the sticky threads into an "archive" sub forum. I really appreciate you guys taking the time to help me out here.

Johnny