DNForum layout - getting too bloated?

[flatt]

Hi,

I don't mean to step on any toes with this post but I've had a growing concern that just keeps getting worse here. I think the DNF layout has just ballooned too far.

If you want to know what I mean take a look at this screenshot of the standard front page at 1024x768 (personal stuff overwritten). Even after collapsing all of mozilla's toolbars and removing the tabbed-browsing line, there isn't a piece of paid-for content on the screen. And no, I'm not simply voicing concern about ads. I know DNF is mostly ad-driven now and I am happy that I don't have to pay a $50 fee every year to be here.

But consider the site logo, does it make any sense to have a logo taking up that much vital space? People who are here, know why they are here. What if the slogan "The Place to Talk Domains" was placed (in a smaller font) under the DNforum.com logo and the google ads were moved into the slogan/people talking on cell phones spot. Think of all the screen real estate that would be opened up.

Then there are the two nav bars, one on top of the logo ("HOME RULES...") and one on the bottom ("REFER FRIEND AUCTIONS..."). Why not save some bandwidth and screen space and convert those to something similiar to the membership nav bar ("USER CP MEMBERSHIP UPGRADE..."). If you need something flashy for a rollover, what not use a simple CSS text hover?

How about the forum navigation bar (where the folder icon is)? A effort could be made to reduce, "Welcome, blah. You last visited: blah at blah AM Private Messages: Unread 0, Total blah. Auction Questions: blah" down to a single line as opposed to four. Say maybe, "Flatt- Unread PM's: X, Auction Questions: X". People probably know when they were last here, what "PM's" are, and are really only interested in how may unread pm's they have (and could check their read pm's from there anyway).

I am also wondering if the "Preferred Partners" are going to be at their current location permanently? Again, while I am happy to have the opportunity to get good deals (e.g. I have signed-up with sedo because of the partnership), but it seems to push the meaning of the forums further and futher away from a domainer's forum. Platinum sales should always be listed first.

Why even show the exclusive forums header to platinum members? We know what we don't have... and can't afford

Though I'm getting away from that what's on that image, here's a couple concerns with the side collumn. Again it's ad related, but why not turn your "What's Going On" space into it's own page? I know money is being made there as well, but it seems so cramped in that most headlines don't even fit. This can render stories less interesting, thus losing clicks. On that note, I think a feeded DNF ads/news page would be very successful. I know I would read it.

Lastly, something really needs to be done about the "Currently Active Users" and "Number of Active Users" areas. These areas are absolutely huge. To make matters worse, they take a fairly signifigant amount of time to render in the browser while uncollapsed (a few seconds here). In the very least, these should be collapsed by default. The only problem with that is that they are still a waste of bandwidth. Otherwise, again, these are good candidates for having their own page. How often do we all need to know who ALL is surfing the forums? Especially within the last 24 hours? Not with every front page load, that's for sure.


Again, I appreciate all that is being done here. I just hope these ideas are taken into consideration. I think it would help out everyone.

[Mr Webname]

Moved to "Suggestions & Feedback".
Personally I think moving much of what you suggest would remove much of what makes DNForum a community forum.
I do agree that we probably don't need two auction links but most of the other information is very useful.

[Anthony Ng]

Nice that you have actually taken some time to write such an extended comment on DNForum's layout, flatt. To be frank, there are good reasons as to why the current layout comes into being, and some of what you don't like would probably stay the way they are, but you can rest assured that your feedback will be carefully read and seriously considered. Thanks.