Me and Trunks have been talking about how to clean up the frontpage somewhat. We're both on the same page at least that the focus needs to be on the Forums, Sales, Articles and there's too much going on in the front page still, a lack of focus, it has features all over the place that don't really need to be there so I want to see what the community thinks in how the frontpage can be cleaned up more.

None of us are graphic designers, we do all this stuff in our free time and whatever capabilities we have, be kind, Lol.

Some of Trunks and mine ideas that we're talking about.

• The avatars displayed by threads either should all conform to the same size or should be deleted entirely because right now it's just a mess with a bunch of different sized avatars displayed all over the place, it looks unprofessional and so I ask, would you guys rather it be fixed to conform to the same size or would you guys rather they be removed completely?
  
  
• Me and Trunks think Poll of the Week (PotW) and Prediction League (PL) should both be removed from the front page, we think that PotW instead should simply have a Master Thread linking to all Previous Polls (See Here) and then every week for PotW as per usual a thread will be made but it will be marked as "Important" for the week which in case anyone is unaware, labelling something as "Important" will stick it at the top of the forums in orange text.
  
  The downside to this is that PotW will no longer be able to be voted on via logged-out accounts or based on IP, I personally don't see this as a downside as I was the one who pushed thread polls to be based on account rather than IP and I think PotW still being based on IP makes it inaccurate and not representative of the community's opinion we have here and easily cheated/botted, I also think we should be encouraging sign-ups as much as possible, Lol.
  
  We also think PL could instead be better served as an ongoing Master Thread and with how few people seemingly use it nowadays, I personally feel it is taking up unnecessary space. Instead with both PL and PotW we would be putting the focus back to Threads for them both and removing bloat from the front page. Personally I looked into PL and was a little lost. We can figure out a way to store the leaderboards somewhere else which can be directly linked to in the thread too and whoever is in charge of the thread can also link directly to where you place your betting as well.
  
  
• I'm debating whether we need Community Contributions too...Not many use GameDB and instead could we not just when someone makes a review, have it automatically post to their wall "I've just written a review for -Insert Game-" instead of on the front-page? For the "top rated reviews" I think we could simply whip up an area of the site which displays a leaderboard for various VGChartz stats, such as post count, like count, top rated reviews, top PL winner, etc. I've always wanted to create a master leaderboard somewhere on the site which displays dozens of different stats anyway, Lol.

And would you prefer something like this...(This image may delete itself since Discord doesn't host for long now).

Instead of the current scroll feature which cuts the rest off?

Feel free to post your own thoughts and ideas.

FWIW The purpose of deleting stuff isn't simply "ah we've deleted some stuff, it's sorted" but it's to actually get some sort of focus to the front page again on what we're about, then from there it would make actually making it look nicer overall be easier when we don't have to consider 20 different sections as well, Lol.

I don't think any of the stuff on the front page necessarily needs to be, but some stuff could be behind a click (imagine maybe some tabs). But that's probably way more effort than we're looking at right now, considering the available manpower?

Cut the avatars entirely, for all I care. I don't think they're worth much on the front page, especially since they indicate the creator of the thread instead of the latest poster. I would think the creator is typically important when a thread is new but loses importance as a thread ages. But I'm fine with either choice, really. Might also want to consider whether the forum section becomes too compact if you remove the avatars altogether, compare to all the other content (of course this could be resolved by adding more threads to the front page).

I personally think the Poll of the Week is fine on the front page, but I won't be very sorry to see it go either. I think it fits there well enough on PC, but on mobile it's probably a bit much. In fact, on PC I might even consider raising it above the forum section, but maybe that's just me.

I'm going to refrain from commenting on the Prediction League, since I don't really care about it. Of course I guess that's also one opinion: I certainly won't be missing it if it goes, but like I said, I don't use it, so of course I won't be missing it.

Community contributions almost certainly needs to go. I just don't see how it's front page stuff. It can be interesting, but I don't think it's worth cluttering the front page with. Additionally, it highlights how inactive the community is these days by default: the latest reviews section, which is what's displayed by default, shows reviews that are 9 months old at this point...

The scroller for the forum sections is horrible, but I don't really use it anyway, so whatever as far as I'm concerned. Would a dropdown, maybe a themed one, perhaps work? Of course that's two clicks versus the one of the two-liner. I'm not a fan of the two-liner either due to the space it requires, but it's much more usable than the scroller version we have now, so I don't think I would mind that change.

Would it make sense to combine Latest Charts with Latest Software Updates behind tabs?

One thing I noticed if you get rid of a lot of stuff on the front-page, the article/news section 'overflows' the other content, lengthening the page unnecessarily. That's not necessarily a proble, but it's not ideal either. Maybe use smaller images for some of the older news on the front page? Of course... That doesn't seem to solve anything on mobile devices anyway, so maybe not the greatest idea after all.

I don't see anything wrong with the front page.

But yeah, avatars could all be the same size when post on front page, sure. The poll of the week, is it used much? It could go.

I think it's nice that users who review games can be on front page, makes them feel special probably. It's a sales sitez sales should always be on top. Trunks works hard for this site for years and so do others, their articles should be next.

1 - Retain but make uniform in size. Identifying the author is fairly important. We got rid of the avatars during one redesign and it didn't go well.

2 & 3 - Keep all of these with the possible exception of Community Contributions, although if we ditch that I don't think anyone will actually write user reviews, sadly. If we keep it then the middle tab can go (Top-Rated).

I know Will's been gunning for PL for a while, but I'm very much against removing this. We should however look at the order in which the front page sections are displayed, so that articles and forums are placed above things like PL on mobile. Failing that we could move it to the bottom of the right hand column, because it's a mix of sales and community, so it could fit in the community column without looking too out-of-place.

4 - That forum display idea looks good.

5 - 'focus to the front page again on what we're about'. Left column - sales. Middle column - articles. Right column - community. Those three pillars *are* what we're about.

I haven't used the site on PC in a long time but I think the order of content on mobile at least is pretty weird and could do with a change if we want to encourage more forum activity.

To get to the forums you have to scroll past:

Console Hardware
Weekly Hardware
Monthly Hardware
Latest Charts articles
Latest Software Updates
Prediction League
More article banners (sales comparisons only section?)
Latest Stories

And then you get to forum threads lol...

Yeah, a good point about it only being important when a thread is new, take my Xbox OT for example which has been open for years, it's a bit useless to display my avatar there anymore. Good point about it being too compact, my core issue really is I think it looks messy as heck in the current implementation, I think I would be fine if they were all the same size but in the past when I asked about it, it seemed like it was suggested to me that it would be an awkward fix.

Using ResetEra as an example, every single avatar is displayed at the same size beside the threads themselves but I think the issue with VGChartz is that everyone has different sized avatars so you'd have to implement something to cut the avatars at a certain point and restrict them to a certain width/height (for the front page only).

Above the forum section?! That'd push forums down even further.

Let me ask you, is your objection to removing PotW based on visibility (you want to be able to see it), functionality (you like that PotW allows voting by IP) or something else? If the objection is visibility, do you not believe the example in the OP would be enough? By marking it as important it would stay in that position all week and be highlighted in orange.

This is a good point about Community Contributions, that it highlights how inactive the community is these days and it's one reason why I also thought about removing it, once I saw how inactive the latest reviews section is, I don't think it really needs to be there rather, the leaderboards can be placed elsewhere and whenever someone makes a review we can just create something that auto-posts to their wall.

Lets say we remove CC but keep PL/PotW then we could move PL to the right side which would (on mobile) put it at the bottom of the page rather than where it is right now which is above forums and articles, I don't really think it makes sense to be there, it's a community feature, it should be with the forum section and the first focuses of VGChartz should be Charts > Articles > Forums > PotW/PL Community Features.

Yeah, the two liner takes up more space in height but the scroller is a bit awkward and hides the rest without scrolling, I tried to trim it down because I think "Website Topics" shouldn't be its own section and instead moved it into "Off-Topic" section so that decreased the boxes from 6 to 5 but I don't know what else to do to streamline it further, Lol.

Dropdown? So something like this...?

But try to make it look nicer obviously

Good idea.

Aye we're fucked with mobile, we've never really had anyone with mobile experience, Lol.

It's not a bad idea for desktop.

Poll of the Week is used a lot, but I'm just wondering if it would simply be better for layout if it was marked as an "Important" thread for a week instead of having a big box on the front page too, it serves the same purpose, the PotW already gets a thread anyway, only difference is the thread would sit atop all other threads for a week marked in orange.

The only thing you lose is the ability for logged out accounts to vote because in-thread polls are based on account while the PotW on the front page is based on IP so nobody needs to login to vote for it, that also means it's more vulnerable to cheating though. Take the current poll, it has 494 votes, I really doubt those are 494 unique people...We barely have 50 people active on the forums nowadays, Lol.

And if it is then, why aren't they signing up?!

1. I swear I remembered avatars on return being criticised but it may be because they look messy in the current implementation.

Why is it important to identify an author before opening a thread? Is it solely down to "I want to know if the user is a troll before opening the thread"? (Lol) Or is it more "this user makes good threads, I will check this out" Do you agree with Zkup that it becomes fairly useless with long-running threads and that's kind of an issue lately with VGChartz, there's not enough new threads being made, it's largely longer-running threads and usually when someone starts making threads, it's the same user anyway, Lol.

2. We could probably ask those who make reviews, do they make them because they appear on front page, given how low-active it is, it won't be hard to gauge the reason why people make reviews in the GameDB and therefore make a judgement as to whether removing the CC tab would kill that entirely.

I think it it were to be removed then we need some sort of functionality where when someone makes a review on GameDB it will auto generate a post to their Wall which says something to the effect of "I just reviewed *insert game name*" with the score and a link to the full review.

The top rated thing, I've always wanted to create a leaderboard on the site somewhere, like a master leaderboard for all site stats; top posts, most likes, highest rated reviewers, most threads created, etc. So any "leaderboards" removed can be simply moved to there.

3. What's your objection to removing PL from the front page? Do you not believe a thread linking to the relevant sections and then updated each time a new bet is available would not be able to fulfil the same purpose? Perhaps even bring more discussion to the PL because it seems fairly light nowadays? If we had more space, maybe it could be moved to the top of the site in the banner? Next to "Forums" have a "Prediction League" tab.

5. I meant more, when you come into VGChartz, you're blasted with so much; Forums! Charts! Articles! Prediction League! Poll of the Week! Community Contributions! It looks unfocused and a bit like a Jack of All Trade Master of None. It's probably overwhelming to the new users.

Sales and Articles will always take priority over Forums but I agree they're down quite a bit of scrolling

Latest Charts and Latest Software could be tabbed together like Zkup suggested.

Prediction League if it remains should go to the bottom below Forums and PotW (if it remains).

I think it would be sensible to start with trying to restrict avatars to the same size on front page but I'm under the assumption it would be difficult. On VGChartz everyone has different sized avatars so on the front page I imagine you'd have to make some sort of feature that restricts avatars to a certain height/width but you'd also have to implement where the restriction starts, which ideally would be a Top-Down crop.