Please Review my Webmaster Forum

Jesuschrist !!! Is this serious ???

I just opened the page and this great bloddy banner got me stunned like a rabbit at midnight on route66 !

I cant stay focused on the text for the glare off the white banner (hope your getting paid a lot for doing that).

The thing I noticed though for the short moment I saw your page ... the text at the page top is not so easy to read ? can you not keep to sans?

im a big fan of white pages midtone backgrounds ... dark reds etc reminds me of the days when we first got a colour television (bloody colour screwed up to max) I think you should calm down and use a calmer colour scheme??

I just want to say ... if I had the cash I would give it just so you could get rid of the big bed sheet banner.

Sorry I was unable to deal with staying in your web site, for some reason or other im betting your site has great topics.

Wish your website well and good luck.

John
[Mod Edit: Please use your signature for personal links, cheers.
Saves you having to type it each time too]

The color looks dreary. Can you use something else besides gray? That color looks sad, like it's rain.

Why do you have two navigation menus with duplicated links?
Register, FAQ and Calender are all on the main red nav and that grey one right at the top.

The red main nav has tiny text too. I have to hover so precisely to be able to use them.

That "Notices" telling me I'm not a member is way too big and obtrusive. As it's there on all pages it becomes a total annoyance.
I guess it isn't there if I login, but if I'm annoyed by the site initially, I might never join to get passed that.

To be honest, I'd get rid of it, but the very least make it really small. Nearly everyone knows you have to register with a site or forum to use their services.
And that AD banner adds to the same annoyance the "Notices" creates, making them both twice as bad.

How about make the notice much much smaller, less text, and float the notice next to the banner. You have a huge header area, meaning I have to scroll down a lot before I get to any content. This is the same on all pages, even the FAQ.
So merging the ad and Notices would help with this.

If you log out of this site and view the "you are viewing as a guest" notice, it's small and out of the way. Doesn't block any content or cause me to scroll down to the posts.

On some pages you have this under the ad banner:
"Link Building Want help getting backlinks to your website or maybe you have some advice then post it in here."
Where's "here"? On the site, in the forums?
Again, this takes up valuable space at the top where all I want to do is see some content.

You also have another LARGE area dedicated to providing me a link to the FAQ, this is linked in the red nav and in the very top nav.
I'd have the red nav for site navigation, FAQ, Calender etc, and the grey top nav for member specific stuff.

There's certainly nothing wrong with the design itself though, the colour scheme and general layout is quite smart, and red and grey go fine with each other. I would say the text should be a lighter colour.
So from color: #A7A8A9, to maybe #CECFCF (as an example).
This is almost a MUST for the terms and conditions I cannot read on the registration page.

Overall the site is fine. But you really need to concentrate on serving people the juicy content without having to scroll past two navigations, a logo banner, an ad banner and all manner of other stuff.

What sets your site apart from all the other forums on the same topic using the same software? It's a competitive market. If you want to get anywhere you have to have something that sets yourself apart from the crowd (Unless you're happy with being smaller and less popular, which is fine).

I agree with others that the colour scheme is very dark - not my taste, but others might like it.

Thanks for your feedback. I tried to incorporate some of your feedback - duplicate menu items, reduce the google "stun glare"

I'll keep working at it.

nice managing of the site and layout seems to be really good i will have to make an account in your site i think