Core Features that could be Distrations

[Shawn Gossman]

What do you think about core features that are on most forum software being a potential distraction to the main forum feature itself?

I'm talking about avatars, the post bit, and signatures. These things are common on forums of all platforms. But how worthy are they actually? Could they be only distracting a member from immediately seeing the content of the post?

What do you all think about this?

What if all that was show was a username that linked to the user profile and then the avatar, post bit information, and signature only displayed there?

That would make your content more immediately shown without distractions. It could also keep members on the forum longer by not wanting to go click links and such.

Not thinking about promoting your own forum on a forum that's not yours, do you think this idea could actually be beneficial? Why or why not?

 

[Tracy]

Avatars are avatars. They've been around forever and I really do not think they distract, unless they are those dreaded animated ones (and when I find users on my site using them they get quickly removed). They also tend to make users posts quickly found, more-so than looking (and trying to remember) a name. Humans are generally more inclined to remember images than names.
As for the post bit... there are some things that definitely detract, but you can minimize them easily. It seems that way too many admins want to add all kinds of little awards to them and list all kinds of information that really most do not care about and it makes the postbit "trashy".



Only use the most important banner for the users even though most of the user groups they are members of have different banners.
Expandable postbit to reflect posts, classified ad created and classifieds feedback reputation.