Spring Clean Up in February

[Vladimir Marenus]

If you'd like a newbie perspective--

When I googled this page, I found the forums. Happy as a clam, I started reading them, and also participating in the chat. After a while in the chat, I noticed that people started referencing 'the site'. This confused me at first, and I remember asking in chat if anyone thought anvilfire.com - "Blacksmithing and Metalworkers Reference for Blacksmiths" was a good resource. The chat went dead, and I received a polite Private Message telling me that Anvil Fire was a competing site, so mentioning it was likely a faux-pas.

I was confused by this, as Anvil Fire didn't have much in the way of forums, nothing like you guys have here. So I shrugged, and decided to explore.... and eventually I clicked on the 'Home' button, which took me to the actual site. It was like Christmas all over again!

However, one thing I have noticed-- the logo in the top left that says IForgeIron-- on most sites, clicking that would take you to the homepage of the site, not to the frontpage of the forums. That's what made it so difficult for me... clicking the 'Home' button was a last-ditch effort.

So, either I'm a clueless newbie, or I have a neat idea-- make the IForgeIron logo point to the home page, for those luckless few of us who stumble upon this site via the forums.

[Andrew]

The responses have been good so far.
In general I'm looking at incorporating "New Posts", "New Threads", and "Auctions" into the home page. So the forum is more 'integrated'

Vladimir, thank you for your great feedback about the 'return home' button. I'll see how to address this when the forum is updated. As for you comment about Anvil Fire... Short Answer: Anvil Fire has chosen not to support any other site, especially IForgeIron.

[m_brothers]

I just thought of something for the forum though, what about giving the options of different skins. I know vBulletin can do it, just don't know if you have to get a special package or if it's just turned off. It's a nice clean skin, but not really blacksmithing related. Or if it matched the homepage. Just a thought.

[Glenn]

The IForgeIron home page contains a major portion of the information available on the site. The section on the home page (Iforgeiron.com) include Getting Started in Blacksmithing and IFI, Lessons in Metalworking, Stories, the You Might Be a ... series (blacksmiths, farriers, knife makers, tin smiths, copper smiths, machinists etc). Vulcan's Grill (foods), Ian Lowes World Tour with 30 reports of his world travels, a blacksmith location map, a calendar of blacksmithing and knife events, a list of blacksmithing groups throughout the world, AND the IForgeIron Blueprints, IForgeIron store, IForgeIron Auction site and more.

If you have not visited the home page of IForgeIron, your are in for a surprise. There is a bunch of information available over there.

Click here to go.

[Covforge]

I always come in through the home page and I still haven't seen all yet. anyone that doesn't look around is loosing out.
Travis