ScottM - 1:58 pm on May 13, 2004 (gmt 0)

Pay particular attention to the layout. It needs to scream "Content here!"

If you have to scroll and scroll to read just 2 or 3 posts of one or two lines...forget it.

Go light on graphics and colors. Keep the focus on the community and less on the look and feel. The forum should be transparent. If the first look is, "WOW, cool looking!"....it probably is not going to work in the long run. It will be too noisy.

Keep it simple...forget most of the bells and whistles. They typically aren't needed and MOST (90%) won't even know they exist.

Example: I removed the "profile" link from one of my forums. It was nearly 2 months before I got one email asking how they could change something.