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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,590
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,590
After entering a few of the earlier Members Spotlight Contests, then becoming a moderator and being involved with the judging, I had a new look on how forums are viewed by others. It was an awakening. I can't go back to entering the contests, but I can bring a bit of the insides of the judges thoughts to you. I've asked our Members Spotlight judges a series of questions. I think their answers will help those who enter the contest in the months to come. Let's get it on...

Question: What/where do you do first when viewing a Spotlight contestant's site?

Answers:
Judge 1: The first six things I do: Open the forum summary, a forum, and a topic in IE, then do the same in Mozilla.
Judge 2: I visit forum summary, forum page, topic page and a random page.
Judge 3: Open the three main views, then play with anything else that comes to mind.
Judge 4: I always check out what loads first. I hate member only entrances, so no dice for me. I check the forums, forum summary, topics in both Internet Explorer 6 and Mozilla. Sometimes Opera, not usually though.
Judge 5: I first open them all at once, especially if there's a great number of entrants and I need to cut down on the number to a more-manageable 12-15. After doing that, I then go through the summary, the forum page, and a thread. Whittling down the number to about 6-8 sites.
Judge 6: I visit forum summary, forum page and topic page first.
Judge 7: I take a look at the forum summary, in both IE and Netscape. Then from order of the best looking forum summary to the not so good looking I view the other important pages and a few topics.
Judge 8: First thing I do is check all of the three main views. First glance I'm looking at color schemes, graphics, styling. I'll open up a couple of topic threads and skim through. Then I'll go back and see what modifications the admin has made. Look for both off-the-shelf hacks as well as custom work. If the UBB is integrated with the rest of the site, then I'll usually poke around other areas of the site.

Question: How much do you judge on first impression?

Answers:
Judge 1: First impressions are *EVERYTHING* for me. If it renders incorrectly in either IE or Mozilla, it's instantly disqualified in my mind. If it looks ugly immediately, it's already been sentenced to "Eh, just another forum" in my mind.
Judge 2: A lot tipsy .
Judge 3: Almost entirely by first impressions.
Judge 4: A good deal of my judging is on first impressions... popups, banner ads that annoy the HELL out of me, and other javascripts and stupid stuff, no way..
Judge 5: See above, first impression is the difference when a new potential member comes to your site, judging here is the same. Once I get the numbers down, I look for site purpose and if it's trying to meet that goal. I also check out navigation from the front page and if the site is more than just a forum - content rulez wink .
Judge 6: First impression is almost everything. I don't base my final judgment on it but it may be the tie-breaker between sites.
Judge 7: First impression is what keeps the browser open.
Judge 8: If we have a large number of entrants, then first glance is critical in weeding out which ones that I'll take the time to examine more closely. Typically, I'll open up each site in a separate window, and will close those that don't dazzle me.

Question: Do some types of modifications annoy you? Which ones?

Answers:
Judge 1: Very few hacks really annoy me. The mods dropdown list, "hypercells", and compact headers are all contenders for that "ultimate annoyance" hack. Anything clichéd, overused, or otherwise poorly implemented is bad.
Judge 2: Hypercells, Moderator Dropdown, advanced UBB code (except color, font face, underline, center, size which are cool wink ), big boxes at the top, and especially - stuff that makes the site slow. Flash, huge images, the snow javascripts, etc. I'll _never_ vote for a site that includes it, even if the rest is pretty.
Judge 3: Stats hack, that 3 panel thing some people put at the top of their forum_summary, mod dropdown.
Judge 4: Yes! Mods that have no meaning, are useless, or make the community look cluttered.
Judge 5: Almost every modification can be done well, work as intended, and look good if time is put in and there is a use/need for it on the site in question. Some are resource hogs and really serve no purpose other than just being there, but not many smile If you only have one or no moderators, you really don't need the mod-drop down, it spoils the color scheme 9 times outta 10 smile Authority list is another "look at me!" mod - your forums should be more about the members, not the staff.
Judge 6: Nope, none really "bother" me because I feel each community has it's own needs. Modifications should enhance each UBB™ to fit those needs. The "hypercells" mod might not be popular with some people but perhaps for an administrator running a handicapped board it could helpful in his/her community.
Judge 7: Yes. Ones that are just there to take up space and are never actually used.
Judge 8: I like to see some originality, but I realize that a lot of the modifications catch on, and a lot of people will follow along. Things that slow down the board tend to annoy me. Sites that have page wide sig images or dozens of animated graphics also tend to annoy me. Crisp and clean with no caffeine is the way to go!

Question: How much does design and style matter?

Answers:
Judge 1: Design, style, and how it works with the community & site a CRITICAL. A flashy design but no community == worthless. A mediocre design but a thriving community == a major contender.
Judge 2: I thought that's what we're judging at wink .
Judge 3: Lots. I love design and style. I overlook hacks I don't like sometimes if the design is good enough.
Judge 4: A lot. Unique forums are usually good. If its a stock UBB with color changes I don't think they'll win much...
Judge 5: I try as much as possible to judge equally on all 5 criteria we look for, and those 2 are 40%, though I think they fall under design and color scheme smile .
Judge 6: Design and style does influence my first impression thus... it does matter when it comes to judging for the member spotlight. This is a contest after all... and it's important to see that some thought, time and effort went into the creation of an entrant.
Judge 7: Well, that is pretty much all of my first impression. So I would say it is very important. In numbers, that would be 87.3% importance.
Judge 8: Lots. The design and style of the forum should be a reflection of the site, and the individual expression of the admins. At a minimum each board should look different from others. It also has to be something that is pleasing to the eye. A site that has a nice warm and cozy look is more inviting that something that is cold and harsh looking. Content is king, but style goes a long way.

Question: How important is community size?

Answers:
Judge 1: Community size isn't as much a factor as community dedication and activity. A small but dedicated and active community is just as good, if not better than a large but only semi-active community.
Judge 2: A little, Mijae won the first prize when he was the only member wink .
Judge 3: Not very. My own community is tiny and for the most part silent, so I don't really care. As long as they took the effort to make their forum look good and work good, I'm fine with it.
Judge 4: Its sorta important. If you have 50 forums and 20 members... That's not good. Its better to have 20 forums and 200 members.
Judge 5: Somewhat - size matters to me only that it is a growing site - growth signals that your are meeting your goals for the site, and those goals meet the needs of your members. Doesn't matter if you have 10 or 10,000, as long as that is an increasing number... means you are doing most things right.
Judge 6: Community size doesn't matter as much as the quality of the community.
Judge 7: When judging I usually don't look into the community THAT much. However, if the community is pretty small, and forums are not being used that will bring you down a few notches.
Judge 8: It's not the number of registered members that counts, but the number of active members engaging in conversation. Larger boards have the potential to be more dynamic by nature, and a lot of smaller boards tend to be cliquish (or clannish as the case might be). What matters most is to have a living, vibrant community that is interesting.

Question: Does quality of host influence your vote?

Answers:
Judge 1: The speed of service (therefore the quality of the host) is a factor, but only secondary.
Judge 2: No, unless if the site's too slow for me to check forum summary, forum page, topic page and the random page wink .
Judge 3: Freeware hosts generally turn me off, especially if they have ads/popups. Other than that, I usually don't know the host so it doesn't matter.
Judge 4: Sort of. I hate slow sites.
Judge 5: Only when I have to wade through multiple pop-ups because you are on a free-hosted site. As long as server speed is decent, you don't want to chase away the 56k'rs due to no downloads smile .
Judge 6: The host doesn't matter unless it prevents me from viewing the pages.
Judge 7: If I get "page cannot be displayed" chances are your not getting my vote. Unless its the best page cannot be displayed I've ever seen. tipsy Loading times are also big, I have a very low attention span, and will most likely forget about your site if it takes to long to load.
Judge 8: Only if I can't connect wink
Seriously though. Things like slow loads and pop-ups can be annoying. If the admin is running a lot of resource intensive modifications, and the board performance suffers, then I consider that to be a poor implementation. To have a solid community you should aim to balance content, features, looks and performance. If performance suffers at too many gadgets than it is an issue.

Question: What browser(s) do you use to judge by?

Answers:
Judge 1: As mentioned above, I use IE and Mozilla. Netscape no longer has a grasp on the market and is almost ignorable.
Judge 2: IE, however if I know something doesn't work on Mozilla, I check Mozilla as well (but I don't change my vote only for newsfader - but for big stuff).
Judge 3: IE mostly. Mozilla too on really complicated layouts, just to see if they look right.
Judge 4: IE6 and Mozilla.
Judge 5: I use IE6 at first on all sites, then mozilla on the ones I am choosing between, and finally NS4.77 if the header/footer code is suspect - IE and to a lesser extent, mozilla, will render pretty much anything you throw at it. NS 4, though it is pretty much junk, will fail on bad tables, and that can make/break a close decision. I have a friend who will check on a Mac if I am thinking something is up as well. Validate your header/footer to xhtml 1.0 transitional specs and you won't have problems with a site rendering.
Judge 6: IE6 and sometimes NS4.5.
Judge 7: Netscape 6.2 and IE 5.5. I used to only use I.E 5.5 but I like the new Netscape now, and use it more often than IE.
Judge 8: Typically I'll check in IE 5.5 and Opera. I know I can count on others here to make it know who isn't rendering properly laugh .

Question: If there's a question I should have asked... well, spill it. smile

Answers:
Judge 5: You forgot "quality of user experience" - which is kinda an overall feel for how the site is meeting your members' needs. Activity, growth, and content content content are right up there with a pleasing color scheme and appropriate modifications... a dead site is a waste of your time - either spend the time building it, or close it and go outside for fresh air, sunshine, and building relationships with real-life people smile .
Judge 8: Often we will have sites entering in successive months, in these cases, I'm a bit more bias in evaluating a site that I've already seen. Typically I'm looking to see "what's new". When members enter the spotlight contest, we provide them with some feedback as to what our impressions are. If the site hasn't changed, even after providing feedback..generally my feeling is same old-nothing new here. I like to see the site improve over time, this is especially the case with GlassRattler and VHTrading, they worked hard over time to tweak their forums to be among the best. Evolution is a good thing!

Thank you all for your great answers. I hope they were as informative for our members as they were for me. laugh

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