Re: smilies!
Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2009 1:19 am
It's pretty important to understand who posted a message when you go to answer it. Are they regulars, so you can assume they know certain things, or are they newbies? And for the regulars, by noticing what they have posted in the past you form an idea of what their background knowledge is. For instance, you don't want to insult a tech person by explaining how to set preferences in Firefox, but you don't want to lose a new internet user by just telling them to do it without explaining how. A vital forum has users of many skill levels joining and learning as they continue to visit.
I do kind of like the avatar-on-the-right setup, once I get used to it. If someone "breaks" the forum by posting a long line of code that makes posts run off the right of the screen, you may not have to side scroll as much to read the message text this way.
I prefer using the SkyLineBlue skin on another forum where I am a moderator because of the additional data it displays on the member list, but since I'm not a mod on this forum, it's not an issue. On the other hand, this skin makes it much easier to adjust type size for people who have trouble with tiny print.
I do kind of like the avatar-on-the-right setup, once I get used to it. If someone "breaks" the forum by posting a long line of code that makes posts run off the right of the screen, you may not have to side scroll as much to read the message text this way.
I prefer using the SkyLineBlue skin on another forum where I am a moderator because of the additional data it displays on the member list, but since I'm not a mod on this forum, it's not an issue. On the other hand, this skin makes it much easier to adjust type size for people who have trouble with tiny print.