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Every month we hold a contest here at UBBDev. A contest to see who has the best looking, best modified & best feeling UBB.classic™ around. We gather them up in front of a panel of judges. After a lot of browsing, reading and enjoying of the contestant's forums, we tally the votes and declair the winner. This month it's VH Trading.
UBBDev: Hi Scott. Congratulations on winning this month's Members Spotlight. What do you think about all this? ScottRoberts: I'm pretty flattered. I redesigned the site and just wanted to see how it would do in the contest, otherwise I probably wouldn't have entered with the older layout. I honestly didn't think I would win straight out.
UBBDev: Where do you get your inspiration for your new forum layout? Some people say it's very XPish.... in a good way. ScottRoberts: It was originally designed to be a cross between XP and the 2001 design of MSN.com. The first revamping of the site and forums had a darker look with a grayish-purple as its base color and icons across the top (similar to what it has now). I put off completing the redesign for a few months and when I came back to it, I found I hated those new colors. So I changed it to the current white, blues, and grays, and the rest is history.
UBBDev: What is your favorite color? ScottRoberts: Depends on the mood. I like "cool" colors like blue, purple, or green. But that doesn't necessarily mean I would use them for every web site I'd design.
UBBDev: You take a lot of care in not adding too many hacks. How do you decide on what to use? ScottRoberts: I just try to decide what's best for the site. It's easy to get carried away by adding every available hack on your boards, but one has to show some self-restraint. You have to ask yourself, "Does this modification help in any way? Does it make things easier? Is it going to add a legitimately useful function?" Sometimes you may add a hack or two and find out that they're not really being used, so you take them out.
UBBDev: What is the one hack that you would like to see as a standard feature? ScottRoberts: It's hard to say. It would have to be one of the many "smaller" hacks such as Last Post By (which would be very easy to include in the standard code). Maybe Sticky Topics.
UBBDev: Do you have any advice for people just starting out? ScottRoberts: Make sure your forums are based on a subject matter you're passionate about. Don't have a board for the sake of having a board. Don't be aimless and directionless with your board. Be sure it's "about" something and find others who are equally enthusiastic about it. Also make sure that your moderators are knowledgeable, mature, and trustworthy. Newbies should study the Community Development forum on UBBDev and the previous Spotlight winners' interviews on tips on how to create a better community, how to recruit new members, promote your site, and so on.
UBBDev: What drew you to UBBDev as one of your hangouts? ScottRoberts: The fact that it was a great community where people were very open to helping others out by not only creating hacks for a product we're all interested in but in answering questions and giving support to newbies.
UBBDev: Where do you see yourself and VH Trading in 5 years? ScottRoberts: Seeing as how the site was very small and static when it started almost five years ago, it sure has come a long way. I can only hope that it will continue to grow and evolve that much in the next five years. Who knows what new features and new ideas will spring up? And with the rapid advancements in technology, no one knows exactly how the trading community will evolve (although I have my theories). I will be certainly exciting to find out.
Thank you Scott. VH Trading is a great site.
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Interviewer: Stilgar![[Wink]](wink.gif)
I honestly didn't think I would win![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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