Musical Forums

[Mikey]

I am starting a new forum for the discussion of music. It runs vb 3.5, and i'm using a skin i bought from transversestyles.com on it.

Content is getting filled out slowly. I started it about two days ago. I've managed to work out some bugs with mp3 attachments so they're at an almost-functioning state.

You can view it at http://musicalforums.net . I'm considering developing a custom skin for it. We'll see how that goes.

Anyway, review me.

[DavidL]

I am in the same boat mikey. I am doing the music/movie type myself as you see below :) and I am still in the startup stages of it. I will also be doing a custom skin but not sure what type colors I want to go with yet. I got ways to go yet on it and I will continue taking my time. I want to do this right.
Good Luck with your new forum venture. :)

-Dave

[writespeak]

Are you going to make a custom skin that isn't a dark background? I'd like to give more feedback, but when I see a dark background that makes me have to strain to read it, you can count the seconds until I hit the Back button.

Since it's your forum, I stayed around a few more seconds. :) A couple of things I observed:

- The page doesn't fit the screen width at 800X600.

- There's a spelling mistake in the "How's This Sound?" description: "recieve" should be "receive."

Reading against a black background is like trying to read in the dark, so I can't help you more. If you decide to change the background colour to a lighter one, I'll look again. But don't change it for me, of course. ;)

Lois

[Mikey]

I wasn't diggin' the dark either, so i bought a new skin: http://musicalforums.net/forums/?styleid=4

I can't believe i misspelled receive. I guess I forgot the "Except after C" part of the I before E rule.

[writespeak]

I wasn't diggin' the dark either, so i bought a new skin: http://musicalforums.net/forums/?styleid=4

Much better. :) The page displays right at 800X600 too.

What do you think of having an intro? "Music" is a vast topic, and you're focusing on only some aspects and types of music, of course. Who is your target audience? What can you write to draw them in?

Is "The Listening Room" the right name for that category? It's catchy, but I had to look at it and the category below it to try to understand the difference.

"Creativity" has the line through the column headings instead of below them, but that will probably self-correct once you get even one post in this section.

I like the name "Generalville." :)

Lois

[Mikey]

I just did some hacking on the forum style. The header is more crisp and clean, and i fixed the width problem on the last post problem.

My target audience is anyone who is interested in music. What i'm gonna start doing is pick up albums from some small bands, write a review, post it, and send a link to the review to the band. Then the band would probably provide a link to the review on their website, and then fans of that band could show up at the forum, and discuss some of their favorite bands, and possibly do the same thing I did.

Listening room was just a title i came up with on the spot. It's made for discussion related to the listening side of music. Do you have any suggestions for a better category name?

[writespeak]

I just did some hacking on the forum style. The header is more crisp and clean, and i fixed the width problem on the last post problem.

It looks better. :)

My target audience is anyone who is interested in music.

Rock? Folk rock? New Age? Classical? Opera? Music from other cultures? How to play musical instruments? Being a performer? Writing music? All of these?

Being from a different generation than you are, I don't know much about the music that young people listen to today except that it fits into categories that I don't know. It looks like you're covering it with "Today's Music" and the music I know with "The Tracks of Yesteryear." That's plenty, and I doubt you're covering other types of music. You are covering writing music, though. You could include that in an intro, since it would attract different people than those who just want to discuss what they listen to.

Are you aiming for a specific age group or a range of ages? Because music tastes are highly influenced by the music we grow up with, it might be difficult to have a wide age range for this topic. Then again, maybe not.

What i'm gonna start doing is pick up albums from some small bands, write a review, post it, and send a link to the review to the band. Then the band would probably provide a link to the review on their website, and then fans of that band could show up at the forum, and discuss some of their favorite bands, and possibly do the same thing I did.

That sounds like a great idea. :pink:

Listening room was just a title i came up with on the spot. It's made for discussion related to the listening side of music. Do you have any suggestions for a better category name?

I like the title. To clarify things, "Creativity" is for discussing music that members create, while "Listening Room" is to discuss music that other people have created, right? You could say that in short cateogry descriptions.

Lois

[Mikey]

All music. New, and old. European, American, Latin, African, Australian. If in the future it grows to the point where we have members spanning multiple continents, I'll setup some location-specific forums.

No target age group. If the person is interested in music, they are welcome.

Creativity is for discussion of the creation of music. It could use a different title.. Perhaps "The Writers Block" would be a better comparison to "The listening Room".

[writespeak]

All music. New, and old. European, American, Latin, African, Australian. If in the future it grows to the point where we have members spanning multiple continents, I'll setup some location-specific forums.

No target age group. If the person is interested in music, they are welcome.

You're generating good material for an intro. :)

Creativity is for discussion of the creation of music. It could use a different title..

As I said, I like the title. I just had to look at it and the category above it to see the difference. "Reviews" and "Writing" sound similar, for example. IMO short category descriptions would avoid that by telling people what each category is about at a glance. See the descriptions for the categories at these forums, for example.

"The Writers Block"

:eek2: Those are not words that creative people want to even think about. I'd rather see more positive names.

Lois

[cyberturk]

very good forum i like it

[Mikey]

I worked up some category descriptions. they seem to work well.

[Jan]

What about having a music themed logo and buttons?

[Mikey]

I was thiking about some. But i'm not such a good drawer.

[Jan]

You could always post a request in the Bulletin Board and some aspiring graphic artist/s may help you out :fuheart:

[writespeak]

I worked up some category descriptions. they seem to work well.

They do! :) I can see right away now what each category is about.

Lois

[Mikey]

I cooked up some status icons. They're in use on the oivar skin now. I may make some for the underground skin later on. here they are:

new posts - http://musicalforums.net/forums/images/oivar/statusicon/forum_new.gif

no new posts - http://musicalforums.net/forums/images/oivar/statusicon/forum_old.gif

locked forum - http://musicalforums.net/forums/images/oivar/statusicon/forum_old_lock.gif

[SoftWareRevue]

Nice status icons! :agree:

[writespeak]

They look good. :)

Lois

[SoftWareRevue]

Well, they look good here. I think they're a little large for that skin.


/maybe it's just me. :blush:

[SoftWareRevue]

. . .
/maybe it's just me. :blush:I'd try 30px sq. :agree:

[writespeak]

I think they're a little large for that skin.

I was thinking that too, but I thought that maybe it was just because I was used to seeing smaller ones. Maybe Mikey might manage to minimize their magnitude for a minute or more for members to monitor.

OK, I ran out of m's, but I tried. ;)

Lois

[SoftWareRevue]

Maybe you meant to meter more m's momentarily for Mikey's majical musical musings.




. . . maybe

[writespeak]

Maybe you meant to meter more m's momentarily for Mikey's majical musical musings.

. . . maybe

Man, mate, you've memorialized Mikey's medley of monumental marks.

Me (my middle moniker makes its mark with "m")

[Mikey]

i sized down the icons. They're alright. I don't like designing on small mediums.

[writespeak]

i sized down the icons. They're alright.

Mikey, they're more medium-miniscule. ;)

Lois

[Jan]

This one is 75% of the original, try it on for size.

[Mikey]

No, they were bigger than that.

[Jan]

Yes Mike, I reduced that one for you to take a look at.

[Mikey]

I think it's the stroke on the note thingey that's making it look so crammed. i'll get something fixed up later tonight, or tomorrow.