Skin Discussion

Alright, so I'm all for transparency this time around and I really don't want to separate admins from non-admins. So I'd like to say right now I am 100% on board with open communication with rebuilding and managing the site from here on out. Should the forum get as popular as it once did in the hay days of PA that will change and the distinction will need to be made. But for now, we should all be collaboration and discussing what we all want. So the very first thing I've noticed some people in the discord have said is the skin.

Now, I think it's a decent skin but it honestly leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I have never been on good terms with Selwyn and it seems like near the end of their time with PA they were less than professional. So I would like to propose us going back to an older skin temporarily and eventually developing a new skin. A skin that signifies the rebirth of Potters Army and we should all have a say in that. This is why I have elected to post this out in public for everyone and not just administrators.

We have three older skins we can choose from all of which hold a special memory for me and several of you guys. At the moment I'm not sure how I can really get the image to you all but we have a light grey/blue skin, a brown/gold skin, and the ORIGINAL skin from the beginnings of PA. I just want to gauge interest in changing the skin and maybe if anyone has any suggestions we should take as far as what format we should use (phpbb2, phpbb3, etc.) or if we want to develop a larger minor site wide plot that we should adopt into the skin.

So, thoughts?

I am aware we all left for our own reasons, and some of us didn't get along with Selwyn. That aside, for me personally, I don't want to blur it all together and negate the fact that the current skin is really, I think, a great skin. Can any skin always be better? Of course.

However, there are merits in developing a new skin, and I'm not opposed to it. If you want to do that, then rather than tinkering with it here, we need to put a skin into development on the test site instead. Let's not bugger this up or launch something until it's ready, alright? I can get you a link to the test site.

Love the thoughts on transparency and open communication! Here for it.

I think this skin is super good looking, but I also feel like for a lot of us it's like... living in someone else's room? Seeing all their stuff and not feeling like its your own? Also, and I mentioned this before, a new skin energizes writing for some reason. So I'm all for a new one. I really liked all those old skins. Maybe once the bugs are worked out on the test site we take one of those skins until someone gets the nerve up to design a new one?

The issue is that the old skins need a LOT of work to make the formatting not look a right mess compared to this one. I'm all for people pitching in ideas about light vs. dark, what kinda vibes they want, etc. But for now the only real problem with this skin is the names disappearing, and I've done a quick fix for it that will last until we update the skin to something with less tweaks. Right now, with this few people, adding pips is manageable for me, and beyond that, folks don't need to do much besides sorting and lists and filling out profiles and things, which are hopefully not super time consuming, either. If we're going to be inclusive in this way then I'd hope we'd test it and make sure that when it launches we're doing it right.

You're right, Addie. It isn't a simple switch to just go back to the old skin. There will be issues with it. I'm not trying to force us into sticking with this skin. My own vote is that i'd like is to develop something that works for us. If this is going to be a fresh start, then let's not make it a rehash. Let's make it a fresh start. Even if it is a simple design that we can tinker with later.

There are a couple basic design points with this one that, if we can, i'd like to keep, but beyond that, i'm flexible. the biggest thing I like is the transparent board that slides over top of a background skin. I would really like to keep that. But colors, graphics, all the rest, that can change. I like the clean lines of this, but there are places where I think it went too clean and made it less user friendly. But that's just my opinion

I think we're all entirely on board with a new skin, but my theory is that if we switch back and the board is a weird, janky mess, it'll just make things more uncomfortable. Am I the only one who would be super hyped for a big reveal-style skin change where we're like "LOOK AT OUR NEW STUFF, YAY WE DID IT" ? Because that's 100% the vibe I would get if we all discussed or voted or whatever and then it went live and was awesome.

I mean you already know that I am all on board with a new skin. Selwyn aside, it leaves a lot to be desired to say the least. At least from what I know and remember of PA. Even if we could go back to an older skin that isn’t quite so (I hate to say thrown together, but thrown together) I think it will look much more neat and streamlined and be closer to what I am personally used to when it comes to looking at a forum. Just my personal experience and my two-cents on that.

Secondly, I absolutely love the idea of transparency, especially this early on because we are all actively collaborating and throwing out ideas of how to do things, as well as what things need to be done. It is literally become a mission of the people that wanted to start this back to make sure that this works and I think the transparency with that will be a driving force. Of course, I understand where things may have to only be admin only conversations and that’s fine. But I’m loving this open ended conversation that we are having in discord about what to do and how to go about getting it done. It’s actually really awesome to be included in those decisions frankly.

Finally, Matt, you know I am all about the ORIGINAL skin from 10ish years ago. There is something nostalgic about it that I can’t get past. In terms of phpbb2 or 3 would be the ones that I am most used to seeing aside from jcink. I think in terms of developing site wide plots, let’s make sure we at least have people posting and active. If we do we can totally go for it and adopt into the skin as needed.

I hear you, Christy, and I'm not opposed to transparency. That's fine. And, Addie, I agree with you, that when we get a new skin together, a big reveal we can all get excited about and behind because, perhaps, it feels like a community effort in its own way, then, yes. I think that really is the way to go. Our biggest surges in membership always came after a site cleanup that paired with a launch of a new skin. Besides, there are a lot of old admin forums the threads that have information that stay pretty static) that need, soon, to be refreshed to reflect current members. PA needs more major cleanup.

And just know I'm available to help do whatever I can since I'm pretty much home every day of the week outside of the rare doula call or drs. appointment. At least until school starts back and even then it will be classes and home so I'm available. I'm not opposed to revealing a new skin either. My actual thoughts getting back on yesterday after being gone for so long was wow, we need a massive site clean.

I think it’s fairly functional. I like the brick. I don’t like the brown. The brown makes me a bit edgy. But aside from that I don’t like the lack of info in our sidebars beneath the character icons. What’s that all about? I can’t even see who posts unless their name is in their sig or unless I click on them. Also, the ads are popping up everywhere now. I don’t know if it’s something we can control but they’re cropping up mid-post and screwing the formatting before they appear then DISAPPEAR?! I don’t know whether it’s just me bit it’s aggravating and I wish they’d all go away. Haha. I was always quite a fan of that pale blue skin. A brand new skin would be nice, though. And tbh a return to that old one would kind of round off the nostalgia in a nice way. But an updated version of it, maybe? I’ve almost forgotten what it looked like. Haha

But no preference really. Just want the sidebar info back. 😢