Why do the forums use the default theme?

[jamestl2]

Not that it's *bad* or anything, but it tends to look a little bland. And different vBulletin themes are abundant (free and paid). Steve's blog doesn't use the default Wordpress theme, so the forums being plain just strikes me as somewhat odd.

[{aspiring_to_clarity}]

But blue is my favorite color !

[Dan.Linehan]

Originally Posted by jamestl2

Steve's blog doesn't use the default Wordpress theme, so the forums being plain just strikes me as somewhat odd.

I think this style is pretty nice. I've been on some other forums and found the themes to be confusing.

For me its all about how good the content is and how easy it is to access it.

[Angela]

The plain, default jamestl2 is perfect -- no special themes needed there. Just like here.

Are you experiencing some blandness in your life? Is there something you'd like to generate?

[Pegasus]

Most of what web developers consider to be professional, I consider to be boring and unimaginative (boring blue). However, I’ll try not to let that keep me away!

[KeithHandy]

I wouldn't mind if we could have avatars, though. A lot of people whose names contain similar collections of letters tend to blur together to me.

[impaul99]

Don't forget that Steve is color blind too, so everything is just shades of grey to him anyways.

I'm kind of split on this one too. I think the default theme is sufficient, but it would be kind of cool to have some identity on a forum that's different from the rest. I just installed vBulletin on my site recently and I haven't been able to find any themes out there that I like. I have no idea where to find a good one. All the ones I've seen are like crazy confusing.

Anyone have any ideas where to find a good theme that looks professional, easy to navigate, but kind of seperates you from the rest out there?

[jamestl2]

Originally Posted by Angela

The plain, default jamestl2 is perfect -- no special themes needed there. Just like here.

are you sure

Originally Posted by Angela

Are you experiencing some blandness in your life? Is there something you'd like to generate?

Nooooooooooo................

Originally Posted by impaul99

Don't forget that Steve is color blind too, so everything is just shades of grey to him anyways.

I'm kind of split on this one too. I think the default theme is sufficient, but it would be kind of cool to have some identity on a forum that's different from the rest. I just installed vBulletin on my site recently and I haven't been able to find any themes out there that I like. I have no idea where to find a good one. All the ones I've seen are like crazy confusing.

Anyone have any ideas where to find a good theme that looks professional, easy to navigate, but kind of seperates you from the rest out there?

I got my forum's theme from this vb testing site:
Free vBulletin styles 3.6.8 - Miner Skinz

you can cycle through the different theme demos at the bottom of here:
Forum-Lance -Largest collections of free vB skins on net...

Or else just go to vB's official selection:
vBulletin 3 Style Packs - vBulletin Community Forum

[Bruce Achterberg]

Originally Posted by jamestl2

Not that it's *bad* or anything, but it tends to look a little bland. And different vBulletin themes are abundant (free and paid). Steve's blog doesn't use the default Wordpress theme, so the forums being plain just strikes me as somewhat odd.

I see your point. I honestly don't think we need to make the current colour scheme more interesting, though. I don't think it's a bad idea, and I'd be open to experiementation, I just don't think a more interesting theme is really needed. I also think a new theme (ie. new buttons, etc) would be largely unnecessary and possibly even confusing to certain users. Personally, I like the simplicity of the default theme.

That said, I'd love to change the white background forum colour to something a little easier on the eyes. It may work well with the ads, but I care more about people then the ads, heh. I think the green Steve uses on his website background would be great, but that'd kind of mess with the adsense ads a bit too much. At least, a think a light grey would be good -- something to cut the nasty gamma. The other forum colours are fine, IMO.

The unofficial reason we haven't really changed the theme/colours is because (A) we (ie. the moderators) can't -- we don't have those privileges, and (B) Steve and Erin are busy, so they don't really have time to make those changes. They "could" do them, but then they'd be changing colour schemes instead of working on other, more important projects.

If/when Steve hires an admin for the forum, I'll try and press for more stuff like this. It's helpful when forum members express things such as this, because then they can be taken into consideration or stored in my crazy long-term memory for later admin-nagging reference. Also, as I've said in other posts like this, it's useful when forum members supply Steve with resources (such as ideas, themes, non-copyrighted smiley sets, etc) that (A) he likes, and (B) he can quickly apply (the "Pavlina LLC" logo is a good example of a user submission that was used). I can't give any guarantees, though.

What I will guarantee is that so long as I'm a moderator at the Pavlina forum, nothing "plain bad" will plague the forum -- at least not for very long ("pain bad" meaning things that are just nasty, poorly designed, and things that are not at all user-friendly). I don't have the ability to control Steve or Erin, but I can make super-long posts with lots of reasons about why we shouldn't subject people to the aforementioned "plain bad" stuff.