I'm probably not the only person who thinks this, but maybe I'm the only one
picky enough to say something about it: the space between posts in this forum
is very annoying, especially compared to GotFrag.

First of all, the post information (who its by, the date of the post, etc) is all
stacked above the post, where in most forums it would be at left.

Also, some people using tall signatures with images or lines of text that isn't
content won't help, and it's sure to just get worse if these forums are to get
popular.

I'm all about having a new place to read and talk about TF2, and this seems like
the best competitor to GotFrag, but the content to fluff ratio is unacceptable.

I am suggesting a new theme or at least something that moves the post info to
the left of the post instead of above, and also a more strict limit on signatures,
to make this forum easier to read.

It seems fine to me...normal for a vBulletin forum. GotFrag is about as shitty/minimalist that forums come so I can see how anything other than that would seem 'fluffy'. I will let Ben know about this though and maybe we can adjust it.

I dunno, the style of this forum always seemed to personify the people here, same at gotfrag (I'm referring to the trolls :P)

That being said, I think voltj is probably right about signatures and the posting time (which I can never, ever find)

While I agree that something like GotFrag is too minimalist, I'd also have to agree that there is an awful lot of pointless fluff above all the posts. It's not uncommon to see posts that are shorter than (sometimes half the length) of the filler that goes around them (and we don't even have signatures!). It'd probably be more streamlined if they were to the left instead. Only very very long posts benefit from profile info placement going above instead of to the left.

i think that its fine the way it is.

but if i were to suggest something i'd say to make the "personal information" part of every post not be so tall. specifically, the Points and Activity portions could be moved from being underneath our names to the white space in the center or maybe not even there at all. i've never really been apart of a forum with that stuff and i don't really see it bringing any information to the table..

Here's a quick and dirty edit of what every forum I've visited looks like - and hopefully illustrates why I think the current layout is so annoying.

http://imgur.com/tfAaf.png

the only problem I have with the UI is it does not stretch fully to the browser resolution but likes to stick in the middle occupying only 50% of the screen, leaving the rest of the screen to blank white space.

maybe spread the personal info bars out into the blank space in the middle? (move the colored bars to the right of the name)

Or are you thinking of something else entirely?

I think a wrap-around of text would be more effective if possible.

d'oh ninja'd by neorussia
I was acutally asking voltj that question xD

as for your suggestion, I think it's great. I hate unused space, but I don't have that problem right now, so any patches are going to have to be done as to not screw up the current situation

I agree with volt, also make the font on the boards smaller.

I'd keep the fonts the size now, but allow the style sheets to toggle it's size.. Us old farts like the fonts a bit bigger :-)

I really don't mean to be a dick, stubborn, picky, anything... but the bloated feel is the only thing keeping me from bookmarking the forum and frequenting it (ie trying to move the TF2 discussion forum from GotFrag to here)...

... and I'm thinking that maybe a lot of people think the same thing, but don't care to take the time to post about it.

Me and Ben are working on a solution. Check your email btw volt about Alienware.

i agree with hawkeye about the font size -- i think its perfect just the way it is. i don't like that tiny crap at all. besides, if we did decrease the font size i'd feel like i was in gotfrag.

Just changed the style.

better, but 50% of my screen is still blank space. If I enlarge it, it is too big to view.

I prefer the commft forum lay out to the traditional style :biggrin:

I dunno if you're considering changing it, but if you are, I'm still not loving the XP bars and RPG items and whatnot. In addition to the white space it adds, it comes off as pretty juvenile for a competitive shooter site imo--the kind of thing you'd see on some guy's first invisionfree forum or something, if you get what I mean. People are strongly considering moving off GotFrag these days and I think we should try to avoid turning people off with gimmicky things like that.

I dunno if you're considering changing it, but if you are, I'm still not loving the XP bars and RPG items and whatnot. In addition to the white space it adds, it comes off as pretty juvenile for a competitive shooter site imo--the kind of thing you'd see on some guy's first invisionfree forum or something, if you get what I mean. People are strongly considering moving off GotFrag these days and I think we should try to avoid turning people off with gimmicky things like that.
Juvenile? It's rather simple psychology, you have those bars and some reward for filling them, people will work towards filling them because it creates a sense of worth to your posts. Basically it's just adding more incentives to posting and participating in the community. If you look at the Shop you're capable of getting a Core i7 920 (granted it's difficult but it's still possible.)

Juvenile? It's rather simple psychology, you have those bars and some reward for filling them, people will work towards filling them because it creates a sense of worth to your posts. Basically it's just adding more incentives to posting and participating in the community. If you look at the Shop you're capable of getting a Core i7 920 (granted it's difficult but it's still possible.)

Yeah, I know, I had things like that on a forum I moderated way back in '05. And for a bunch of teen newgrounds users it worked in filling posts. But almost everyone who was mature around there eventually left, and by the time they had gotten rid of the currency & items system it had become too late. Incentivizing real strategy talks with fruit badges just makes people post when they don't have anything important to say, needlessly clutters forum pages, and just looks silly to a lot of people who've been around long enough to no longer be motivated by forum items.

If everyone else likes 'em, I don't really expect people to cater to me. Just sharing my opinion and experience if the feature is under consideration.