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by Torrents 4698 days ago
Definitely...there are lots of forums I used to visit that I've now abandoned, since the subreddit for that topic is so strong, active, useful or well moderated.

Additionally I've heard this complaint so many times, but I don't find Reddit ugly at all. What do people want? Tag clouds, gradients and flash everywhere, or what? What's a less ugly forum/comment layout than Reddit?
3 comments
rhizome 4698 days ago
there are lots of forums I used to visit that I've now abandoned, since the subreddit for that topic is so strong, active, useful or well moderated

Not to mention commonly being saddled with a 10yr old model of PHPbb style boards.

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MitziMoto 4698 days ago
I will probably get eviscerated for this, but I've always been confused why Reddit was so ugly. I am absolutely NOT a designer in any sense of the word, but here's some things I would change.

1. Change the #0000FF links. Something, anything, slightly desaturated from pure blue would look better IMO. <Insert contrast comments here>

2. Whitespace. I can feel the function over form guys typing away furiously from here! BUT YOU CAN FIT MORE CATZ WITH LESS WHITESPACE! I like a little bit of extra whitespace, so sue me. I think an extra 20 pixels between submissions would go a long way. Maybe even a light HR too?

3. The "tabs" at the top are just flat ugly and dated. In fact, everything within the blue header just looks dated.

http://www.reddit.com/r/googleplus for example does a nice job of making Reddit look better without drastic changes. Although I think their titles could be slightly larger and I hate text-decoration: underline;

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ufmace 4698 days ago
I have to agree with that. There's real value in going to one site to see all of your threads and replies on 20 topics, rather than going to 20 different sites. Plus, the sheer size of the site and core quality of their engine makes it possible for lots of relatively tiny communities to thrive that are too small, devoid of tech skill, and undercapitalized to create forums of their own.

As for the ugly, I think it looks fine. At least, I'd rather have it be a bit on the plain side than have megabytes of garish colors everywhere like a 2003 Myspace page that takes 30 seconds for each page to load.

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