How can we improve?

[Chris J]

I agree. I like the blue, it's sort of become the BTTB colour, just like the reds and yellows that Ryan mentioned are The Neighbours Message Board's colours. If you really want different colours, offer a choice in the Skin Selector, as Cal F said.

I think the header should match BTTB.net, however, just so that the sites are unified.

The header matching BTTB.net is something that will definitely happen as part of the improvements.

You should definitely stick to one style for longer though, personally I think it's better to find a niche and stay with it, such as the 1996 credits style you had a few years ago, I know I'd much prefer more content on BTTB.net than a spate of new looks, it can get quite frustrating when things keep being moved around.

I'm the cause of all the new designs, but I agree too. The current design should stay as it is for quite some time. However, apart from the homepage, the most recent changes have only been slight, and to the colour scheme and header. The structure of the site has stayed pretty much the same since our major redesign in August.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that I like how you've widened the homepage, I agree everything had become a bit messy. The only thing I will say is that it might be a bit better if the content was all above the fold and instead of focusing too much on the news and the main feature, such as the best couple results, have just the three most recent headlines and a link to the news page and then links to various features around the site that a lot of people, particularly newcomers don't even know exist. You have some really good content on BTTB, make people aware to it.

The widening of the homepage was so that we can showcase more of BTTB's features. I agree that there are a lot of things that many people don't know exist, and now that the Best Couple feature has ended, we'll have plenty more room to do that.

It's hard to showcase all of the content without the homepage getting cluttered all over again, but I'll try my best to get in as much as possible. Our contributors have put too much work into the site over the years for it to go un-noticed.

[Elise]

Spot on SkyKat! Most posts that are one liners or just drivel (and hey, some of those posts that are long but have no paragraphs) I tend to ignore. Each to their own of course, I just tend to get annoyed because I have seen it so many times that people can be so judgmental and sometimes downright rude. Especially to the n00bs.

But again, a leopard will never change it's spots.

[Elise]

I agree. I like the blue, it's sort of become the BTTB colour, just like the reds and yellows that Ryan mentioned are The Neighbours Message Board's colours. If you really want different colours, offer a choice in the Skin Selector, as Cal F said.

I think the header should match BTTB.net, however, just so that the sites are unified.

The header matching BTTB.net is something that will definitely happen as part of the improvements.

You should definitely stick to one style for longer though, personally I think it's better to find a niche and stay with it, such as the 1996 credits style you had a few years ago, I know I'd much prefer more content on BTTB.net than a spate of new looks, it can get quite frustrating when things keep being moved around.

I'm the cause of all the new designs, but I agree too. The current design should stay as it is for quite some time. However, apart from the homepage, the most recent changes have only been slight, and to the colour scheme and header. The structure of the site has stayed pretty much the same since our major redesign in August.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that I like how you've widened the homepage, I agree everything had become a bit messy. The only thing I will say is that it might be a bit better if the content was all above the fold and instead of focusing too much on the news and the main feature, such as the best couple results, have just the three most recent headlines and a link to the news page and then links to various features around the site that a lot of people, particularly newcomers don't even know exist. You have some really good content on BTTB, make people aware to it.

The widening of the homepage was so that we can showcase more of BTTB's features. I agree that there are a lot of things that many people don't know exist, and now that the Best Couple feature has ended, we'll have plenty more room to do that.

It's hard to showcase all of the content without the homepage getting cluttered all over again, but I'll try my best to get in as much as possible. Our contributors have put too much work into the site over the years for it to go un-noticed.

I'm surprised you don't just match the decor of the forums to the homepage. A lot of sites do that these days, it might be feasible to do. It would link the site and forum a lot better, also provides consistency.

Just an idea.

[Chris J]

Actually, I think what would improve the site would be to remember that it supposed to be a Home and Away Discussion board.

Despite the increase in numbers, I think their is less discussion than a year ago and in a way is like a general hang out for teens with a slight interest in Home and Away

Removal or rethink of Character Appreciation Forum (which is promoting painfully little discussion)

The Removal of the majority of games in the games room, taking away some of the piffle that fills it at the moment.

I agree with that - we need to promote more Home and Away discussion. We've now got everything spread over 4 main forums (Aus Discussion, General Discussion, Spoilers and Character/Actor), and considering we're not getting gigantic amounts of discussion in any of them, this may require a re-think.

I think the Games Room and forums like that should stay, to keep the community feel and to allow members to have some fun when they don't want to post about Home and Away. However, we don't want to turn into more of a General Discussion forum, so obviously the more H&A discussion we can encourage, the better.

But how do we go about encouraging more in-depth discussion and prevent one-word or short responses, especially when we have a large amount of younger members? It's not an easy task, and I for one have no idea how to do it.

[Chris J]

I think post counts in the spoiler section should be scrapped. No offence to the genuine members who post in there but the large majority of posters in there regulary have only signed up for the spoilers and post useless one line comments in response. I don't think these people should be allowed to boost their post count in this way.

It wouldn't be fair on the genuine posters if we did that, and may even discourage some genuine posters from posting in there.

How about removing post counts completely?

[Chris J]

I agree with Elise,people should be a bit less judgemental and relax a bit more.

I also think the character/actor appreciation forum should stay,As mentioned this is a HAA forum but hello,there would be no show without the actors and characters!

That forum does actually get a lot of posts, so removing it probably wouldn't be the best idea. However, even if we did condense our forums down a bit, and did get rid of the Character/Actor forum (and this just hypothetical), the topics would still remain, they'd just be in a different forum (e.g. General Discussion).

[Chris J]

I'm surprised you don't just match the decor of the forums to the homepage. A lot of sites do that these days, it might be feasible to do. It would link the site and forum a lot better, also provides consistency.

Just an idea.

That's what I plan to do. However, as a lot of members seem to want variety, we'll probably have one theme in the Purple/Blue style of the main site, and some other character-based themes in other colours, as we used to.

The only problem is, I no longer have a large amount of H&A images, so making themes is more difficult.

I guess if I need to, I could always ask some of our more artistic members to design some headers for us

[Dan F]

The only problem is, I no longer have a large amount of H&A images, so making themes is more difficult.

Well I've still got practically the entire database from the last 3/4 years on an external, so just tell me which ones you want

Or I could always send you them on some DVD's

[~Lynd~]

I think post counts in the spoiler section should be scrapped. No offence to the genuine members who post in there but the large majority of posters in there regulary have only signed up for the spoilers and post useless one line comments in response. I don't think these people should be allowed to boost their post count in this way.

It wouldn't be fair on the genuine posters if we did that, and may even discourage some genuine posters from posting in there.

How about removing post counts completely?

Lol,I don't think that'll fix the problem of decent discussion,only add to it.Weather we think they should or not ,a lot of people do care about post counts.

Is it just me or has General Chat been a lot quiter since posts stopped couting there?

[Skykat]

No its not just you I think its been much quieter and in my opinion better without all the millions of ridiculous threads that were being posted.

Chris is it wrong that I got really excited at your idea for removing post counts?

I don't know, I just know I rarely venture into the spoiler section because I don't think much in the way of discussion goes on in there and the threads asking for spoilers or posting OMG and nothing else about the spoilers gets on my nerves. That's a personal thing though.