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Least Favorite Skin Trends


Morrigan
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As said before, giant banners. But giant category titles also annoy me. No I don't want to see a huge graphic in place of what should be a word or two.

 

It seems everything is becoming super large in general, whether it be banners, categories, or the individual forums themselves via custom layout structure. Measuring some, and they can be 400px tall! Sorry, but that's far too big if you've got 20+ forums on your site. And it's far worse with all these 'big' trends when you browse these sites on tablet or mobile and they've got mobile mode disabled. I just want to be able to navigate efficiently!

 

EDIT: Also despise it when you go to post on a forum and the fields where you enter topic title and such are all the exact same colour as the background. So I have to move my cursor around to find the box. Super inconvenient, can't believe how many sites do it.

Edited by Honorem
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On ‎1‎/‎26‎/‎2016 at 4:22 PM, SirenFox said:

I am a fan of dark with a mix of bright color themes. I never been a fan of a site being mostly one single color with very little range to that color, though anything earth themed steals my heart away. 

 

I have to agree with the hate of large signatures. I am a banner maker myself for years and I normally only do wide banners that normally never get wider than 500 px.  This is one trend that most people love that I have never liked... I do not like avis. I do not know why but I always wanted them just not to be there completely. I am very weird!

You totally reminded me of a period in time which featured 100x100 avatars. Avatars now might as well be 500x500 pixel pictures. Why bother putting an area for images in the application anymore? I like avatars at absolutely no larger than 150x150, anything larger is just way too big.

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5 hours ago, Honorem said:

EDIT: Also despise it when you go to post on a forum and the fields where you enter topic title and such are all the exact same colour as the background. So I have to move my cursor around to find the box. Super inconvenient, can't believe how many sites do it.

Ugh yesssss. So you blindly click around hoping you're in the general vicinity of where its at, but they also have that weird huge font so the box is actually somewhere floating in the middle of the lines and you have to just keep clicking and praying.

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  • One of my biggest pet peeves about certain layouts/skins is where people stuff all the essential information inside of a javascript banner. You either have to wait for that crap to scroll or sometimes you have to figure out how the damn thing works in order to navigate it. And don't get me started with the banner you have to hover your mouse over in order to view that information... Call me shallow but I've never joined a game where they have that kind of banner. :/ I'd like to navigate without searching for crap and be able to navigate the forum on my cellphone.
  • Another pet peeve is having large freakin' signatures. I know they were popular years ago, but I don't see any need for 200x500 signature graphics any longer. Not on a roleplaying game, at least. All the information the player needs to know about a character should be in account menu thing next to the post. @_@ And I'm not saying I hate the signature area, I'm just talking about giant pictures in the post bits. 
  • Fixed and toggle sidebar menus. A lot of people have different resolutions, so if it's not spanning the entire screen, then it's annoying. It's also annoying that when you're browsing online with your phone, and you need to be on the site (not in mobil view), then the damn thing gets in the way with everything. I'm just not a fan of them at all. 
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15 minutes ago, CandleJack said:

Fixed and toggle sidebar menus. A lot of people have different resolutions, so if it's not spanning the entire screen, then it's annoying. It's also annoying that when you're browsing online with your phone, and you need to be on the site (not in mobil view), then the damn thing gets in the way with everything. I'm just not a fan of them at all. 

 

What I find hilarious about this specifically? Is that there are ways to make it disappear and be mobile friendly. It's not hard and yet people don't do it.

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OMG so many things I do not like.... 

 

Anything fixed width; eg, in px rather than dynamic/% that wont stretch with my screen. I like my site windows on the smaller side; and I used to have a much smaller screen resolution, up until relatively recently. 

 

Colors that I have trouble seeing in excess: eg, yellows, golds, oranges, over-use of neon... and light skins in general... and low-contrast. This is a mix of personal preference, eye-strain concern, and also optic nerve damage related color vision problems in regard to yellows. 

 

gif-heavy sites, sites with 'snow' effects, and automatically playing sounds. Also, visually busy sites... ugh. No. Just nooooo. nope. nope. nope.I don't need extra distractions when I'm trying to play. 

 

I also do not like sliding sidebars that cover content / cannot be kept toggled out of the way. 

 

Additionally, I despite sloppy/poorly done mobile skinning. It makes me twitchy and irate and less likely to use a site if their mobile skin sucks. I am mobile A LOT so mobile function is very important to me. 

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I personally hate toggle chat boxes and sidebars that are floating over the forum itself and the boards. It's far too cluttery and messy and ugh. Just stop guys. I don't want to have to close lots of toggle boxes to actually see your forum.

 

I also strongly despise this trend of never using capital letters all over boards and board descriptions, and in OOC in posts. It doesn't look neat or nice or whatever you're going for. I see it all over jcink and, *laboured breathing*. 

 

But I think that's my ranting finished. xD

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11 hours ago, Raksha said:

I also strongly despise this trend of never using capital letters all over boards and board descriptions, and in OOC in posts. It doesn't look neat or nice or whatever you're going for. I see it all over jcink and, *laboured breathing*.

 

But I think that's my ranting finished. xD

Or the opposite, where uppercase is used on absolutely everything. I can understand using it for category headings and topic titles, but when it's forced forum wide, it just looks illiterate. Writing forums without proper capitalization, the irony. :P

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9 hours ago, Honorem said:

Or the opposite, where uppercase is used on absolutely everything. I can understand using it for category headings and topic titles, but when it's forced forum wide, it just looks illiterate. Writing forums without proper capitalization, the irony. :P

 

Yess, and then when the forum is advertised as a place for correct grammar and advanced/literate writing only. Ahem, uhh.. : p

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Oh, I thought of another one.

 

Weird emphasis on the staff. Like, their entire header is dedicated to THESE ARE THE STAFF or a massive chunk of the sidebar is the same. Sure, give us a section in the header or a section in the sidebar, but there's no reason why you should take up space that could be utilized for information (like WTF your site is about) and is, is, instead, names and no indication of who the play/what they do/who they are beyond "Sue" or what have you.

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+1 to giant headers for me. I especially dislike it when people make them hover too and cram all their important info into it.  (Half the time I miss that stuff because I don't mouse over it, I just scroll down.) Why not put that somewhere that doesn't require people to purposefully check for it or, more likely, accidentally mouse over it?

 

Another +1 to improper capitalization (of any part really). Roleplay is about writing. Not following the proper rules of writing looks messy and sends the message (likely unintentionally) that you don't care about actual good writing foundations. (As I've said in other topics, people notice these things and it turns them away.)

 

 

Speaking of hover... I just don't care for it in general. I've never seen a site which uses hover that makes me go "Wow, that's a great use of hover". Most times it's tolerated at best. At worst is when people go overboard on hover. I've seen boards where everything had hover applied. (Posts, postbit, header, forum descriptions, etc...) It was overkill and obnoxious. 

 

I'm also going to say grid layouts. I don't like them even if they are lined up perfectly simply because I find them more annoying to read. But when they don't line up properly is even worse. I mean even with a traditional layout if things aren't quite evenly spaced it can be hard to tell because it might gradually change or it doesn't look as jarring (as it probably doesn't overlap anything else). I've also noticed that grid layouts also tend to hide the statistics bits... Which if I'm looking to affiliate with a site (or rarer join) that's something I want to see.

 

 

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9 hours ago, VirusZero said:

I've also noticed that grid layouts also tend to hide the statistics bits... Which if I'm looking to affiliate with a site (or rarer join) that's something I want to see.

 

Ouuu this! I actually will refuse to look at sites that don't have the "Last Post date" on the board index. How in the world do people KNOW you're site is active if they can't see that? cBox activity is not the way to go for this!

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There are times when I might like grid layouts, but in general they're too chunky and just don't look good. I'm also going to agree with @VirusZero when it comes to hover. It's never appealed to me and annoys me more than anything. I like having information laid out in front of me. I don't wish to have to mouse over everything in case it's hover and I'm missing something. I actually don't think I've ever noticed a forum that hid its 'last post date' and stuff like that, but that would be a giant turn off for me as well if I did come across it.

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You both make me glad that DF offers both. ;)@Raksha @VirusZero

 

Yeah. It's the worst. I know it's more annoying when I'm doing directory checks to verify activity and I have to hunt down the IC areas and go through each one of them to find a recent post. :(

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On Friday, 5 February 2016 at 2:06 AM, Morrigan said:

 

Ouuu this! I actually will refuse to look at sites that don't have the "Last Post date" on the board index. How in the world do people KNOW you're site is active if they can't see that? cBox activity is not the way to go for this!

Heh heh, yep! This is one of those instances where you can't get mad when a guest asks "Is this site active?"

:D

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