this has to be the uglies forum I have seen, I wish they wiped the dir and put vbulletin in with default skin and call it a day, or even punbb

Why is it ugly... I think it's better looking than many forums.

I like it.
I'm not sure why you feel it is ugly or why you would declare this on the Board Questions & Business board instead of using the Complain feature.

I agree, but all the diffrent colors make it pretty interesting and you cant forget it.
Did you ever think there was a point to all of these distracting things ? I like to hope
that the design choices have logic behind them.

It would be a good idea for you guys to allow a user to turn off adds perhaps ?
Also to change skins.

For you guys that like it, sure look how many times you have posted, you have been here a while. Its not so much that you like as much as it is you are used to it.

[edit on 15-8-2006 by R3KR]

Definately one of the better sites on the net appearance wise. I'd be very interested to hear of sites that are as professionaly laid out and user friendly.

CX.

Sorry, but that cracked me up! The Uglies Forum!

Anyway, thanks for sharing. I don't really think ATS is trying to be the Pretty Forum. More like professional, neutral, maybe? You get used to it after you've been around for more than a day. In fact, I actually like it. There are no pretty flowers on the curtains or colorful paint on the walls but it serves its purpose very well, which is to share the information.

I think of it as professional. Clean. Crisp.

Don't judge a book by it's cover

It's the information on this site that is important

I don't think it's an ugly forum, but I feel that the posts are quite hard to distinguish. It takes me some time to actually find where the text for each post is, because it's centered, and often times out of place, as well as having a signature which appears as part of the post.

All I have to say is...show me a better one.

Boy, I have to agree with that. I've been on a lot of forums in my day and I have not seen any that are as easy on the eyes or as easy to navigate than this one. To each his own, I guess. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I've known women who became more attractive the more I came to know them. Maybe you'll feel the same about ATS someday.

You should have seen it before. At least it's a little cleaner than it used to be. I agree, however, that the color scheme is a bit on the depressing side. Needs a woman's touch, perhaps.

Hmmm. Then how about me designing it, eh? Ill make it Look just like my blog.

What you say? My blog's sinister, creepy color combination of black background, purple text, and glowing pentacles gives you a headache?

Ok then. Be silent!

Snake Plisskin? I thought you were dead...?

Maybe ATS has just grown on me... it's easy on the eyes and easy to navigate.. al the mattes. I think skeptic should add an all pink purple and white scheme though...

????? With everything that this board and it's members has to offer that's all you the wisdom you have to share? Dude, poke around and look at the pretty avatars

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

The site is quite "pretty" by my standards.. if you think about it.. the color is representational of the site itself. Life; and even more to the point the truth is not often times black and white. It is more of somewhere in the grey area in the middle. That is where ATS lies... somewhere in the middle.

At least thats one interpretation..

Here's another kind of paranormal/parahistory site with a better look:

www.freedomcrowsnest.org...

ATS is relatively cluttered and unbalanced, and some of the common forum template features don't function like they do on similar sites. If you care.

If you take an overall view of ATS, there is an awful lot of the screen space devoted to statistics that I would bet most people don't care about. Such as the number of views, posts, when it was last posted to, etc. I know that none of that means anything to me. I generally look at what topics are hot, and which ones have been most recently posted to, according to the smaller indexes. Some of the forums that get one or two posts a month could easily be shifted to sub-indexes to free up more space.

I also think that the most user-friendly information should always be visible in the top page, without having to scroll. For me, that includes the recent post list, which is below the screen break. Overall, better organization of the forum trees would open up the site a lot more, and allow users to more quickly get to the forums they habitually visit. If they wanted to, for instance, they could just add "UFOs" to their favorites list and go there directly after log-in. The less "popular" forums would still be accessible, they just wouldn't take up so much prime real estate.

[edit on 15-8-2006 by Snake Pliskin]

tbh that forum does not look better than ATS or even that good all by it's self. I guess you just have to chalk up how you like to the layout of various sites to personal preferences.

It uses a standard template that someone else designed and has such great features as scrolling news? (Ok, that's a web designer joke)

Seriously though. It looks so plain-Jane vanilla that it hardly stands out. ATS is one of the most customized boards there is. There are more features, forums, options, etc, etc than most others.

Not everyone will like the look...true, but dig under the hood and check out the content. That's like our fourth ace. Game over.

Are you aware that you can configure MyATS just about anyway you desire, devoid of all that clutter you dislike? Maybe you need more than a couple of days to get the hang of things.

It is the most user friendly site I have been to, easy to navigate, easy to post, easy customization.

Sure, they could run it ina Java form or someting fancy like that.. but with the number of hits the site receives and the number of post I think it is more efficient to keep it as drab as it is, other wise we would not be able to enjoy the site for free.

Of course... if the 3 Amigos knew the truth.. that after a user post for more then 2 months they are officially addicted and check it every day and even, like me right now, log in at work. After the user is adicted with a 2 month trial they could charge the free per month and then use that money to upgrade to a Super Ultra Cool layout or something like that.. But don't listen to me I enjoy free!

A chat room would be cool though.. Maybe even with a voice communication system so we could really let eachother have it!

[edit on 8/15/2006 by Rockpuck]