Couple of suggestions

Hello! I have a couple of suggestions that would definitely make duel academy a better place for its users

Remove coloured names for users

The amount of different coloured text over the users list and forum in general makes it an eye-sore. As a first impression it comes across as messy, confusing and slightly unprofessional.

There's no need to be able to identify a user's dorm/rank every time you see their name in the chat or next to a thread so you wouldn't be causing yourselves any hastle or fuss by removing said colours. You'd also be able to keep the banners underneath their usernames and on their profiles that show their rank/dorm so when you do need to know a particular member's skill level the functionality is still there.

Not only that but with the site looking so much better and cleaner it's generally more attractive to new users, meaning you will have more members signing up and more signed up members sticking around and being active!

As an additional bonus, you would have more unused colours at your disposal to make the different moderator ranks clearer since right now they're all different shades of green which makes it hard to determine which position they're holding without first visiting their profile.

Remove the following fields on the registration page: browser, time zone, and gender.

None of these are needed by the site. The first two are a security risk since a hacker would have am much easier job of planting syware/adware in your browser if they know which browser you are using. Also, knowing someone's time zone tells you their geographical location which can be used against them and can risk the confidentiality of their irl identity.

Please value your users' safety online more than this useless data you're collecting about members.

Lastly, gender should be optional for obvious reasons. It has literally nothing to do with anything that goes on on the site and is also data that would help someone peice together your real identity.

Allow users to connect with spoofed IP address

While we're on the subjet of people's privacy and anonimity being jeopordised, you should not force users to connect to your site with their real IP. This one requires no explanation. A direct connection to the internet is a vulnerable connection.

Again, please prioritise the safety and privacy of your users and do these things


Promote activity in the war section

Your war section is a ghost town. Wars are literally the best thing about online YGO. They promote friendly yet competative play, bond users together through teams and not to mention give members more reason to sign up/stay active.

My suggestion is to promote wars and get members involved in the war scene. Lets not forget cross-site wars would be really fun too, and you're all about having a good time here right?

If you struggle with promoting it effectively or coming up with ways to do so I'd be more than happy to help out.

Implement a videa games section

I notice you have a games forum with sections such as dice games and duel puzzles yet no section for members to discuss video games.

Video games are something all of us enjoy and so such a section would be not only active but would also give the site more diversity. More diversity in the site's focus (within reason) means more stimulating discussion and more stimulated members. Again, it would be more reason for members to sign up/stay active. I bet the already active members would like a VG section too

Merge anime card discussion and manga card dicussion.

Too many subforums cause certain subforums to go dead due their specificity. I personally think that those two subforums could easily exist as one. Seems like a little change with notmuch benefit, but a cleaner looking site with all active sections is something I imagine you want.

Explanation of the dorm sections

I still haven't worked out the purpose of the dorm sections interms of what kind of thread is to be made there. I think it's nice that there's a sense of comradery among different skill-leveled duelists however the sections themselves seem quite confusing. A simple sticky thread in each one of a brief overview in the description instead of "X level duelists" would clear up this confusion and unclarity.

Rename "card questions" to "ruling questions"

Not much explanation needed here, it's just a more suitable and clear title. Card trivia (non-ruling card questions) could simplybe posted in already existing card discussion sections.

That's all I can think of for now, but if I think of anything else that will improve the site I'll be sure to let you know

Time zone is to help one get in contact with the other at a certain time

Video Games are discussed in the off topic section

There are users IP banned from the site

Other than this, I have no problem with what is here

Well if you needed to know such a thing you could ask them over PM what tmesthey're available? I don't think that warrants it being required data in order to register.

I didn't see "gaming area" in off-topic area, my bad

I guess that makes sense, but I'm pretty sure there are other ways around it. Maybe not. If I get bored enough I'll look into and re-suggest that part if I come across a method of keeping unwanted users out that doesn't prohibit users from using safer internet connections.

The browsers & Timezones are for the purpose of Dueling on Dueling Network and you will find the gender option on any site you sign up to so I dontdounderstand why you have a problem with that.

If your using a spoofed ID you obviously up to no good and if that's the case your not wanted here anyway.
Also there is no way of banning bad members if this isn't in place.

The war section is still new

The gaming section is under off topic with Al the other off topic forums

Manga cards and anime cards arnt the same hence why they have separate sections.

The Dorm are pretty self explanatory, there just for members of that Dorm to use for there own hang outs etc

The card question forum isn't just for card rulings, people may ask what card work good with 'x' card aswell as checking rulings.

We will evaluate them. 

Okay, I'll answer all your questions/suggestions i the same order you posted.

1. Colored Names:
As an academy its difficult to meet our purpose if we removed dorms. Since we cannot force people to wear red jackets, we give them red names, i believe it's a fair trade. The colors aren't bright, they're somewhat friendly to the eye.

2. I answered this one in your Intro topic.

3. Same, I don't understand your problem. Even though, to make this simple: We don't control such a date. It's our host forum; forumuotion, that controls who and who cannot use what and where.

4. We're attempting to. However, in case you haven't noticed, we're not one of these big communities, still, we try to make that section more active. Also, we try to have more events with other academies, in face, we have one on-going as we speak.

5. We already have one, It's a Sub-forum in the Off-Topics section.

6. Anime and Managa are two different things. It's more organized this way.

7. It's all explained in our Guide, you can find it here: http://www.duelacademy.net/h9-da-guide

8. This one is okay. If others are fine with it, we can change the name.

Dark ~ Templar wrote:

Hello! I have a couple of suggestions that would definitely make duel academy a better place for its users

Remove the following fields on the registration page: browser, time zone, and gender.

None of these are needed by the site. The first two are a security risk since a hacker would have am much easier job of planting syware/adware in your browser if they know which browser you are using. Also, knowing someone's time zone tells you their geographical location which can be used against them and can risk the confidentiality of their irl identity.

Please value your users' safety online more than this useless data you're collecting about members.

Lastly, gender should be optional for obvious reasons. It has literally nothing to do with anything that goes on on the site and is also data that would help someone peice together your real identity.

Allow users to connect with spoofed IP address

While we're on the subjet of people's privacy and anonimity being jeopordised, you should not force users to connect to your site with their real IP. This one requires no explanation. A direct connection to the internet is a vulnerable connection.

Again, please prioritise the safety and privacy of your users and do these things

If a hacker were to attack you to inject malware, your browser is the least of your concerns (unless you are running IE9 and below, at which point you should reconsider visiting the internet). Browser-specific exploits get patched as soon as possible by the respective company, and if a new one were to be found by a hacker and applied here, chances are your browser wouldn't matter anyway. Time Zone and Gender provide no security risk.

Proxy servers, VPNs and Tor are freely accessible on the net, it's up to every user to care for their own anonimity as we are just a subsidiary of forumotion and cannot alter the server's behaviour to accept modified HTTP headers. Once again, this is up to you and not to DA's administration.

Anzo wrote:

Okay, I'll answer all your questions/suggestions i the same order you posted.

1. Colored Names:
As an academy its difficult to meet our purpose if we removed dorms. Since we cannot force people to wear red jackets, we give them red names, i believe it's a fair trade. The colors aren't bright, they're somewhat friendly to the eye.

2. I answered this one in your Intro topic.

3. Same, I don't understand your problem. Even though, to make this simple: We don't control such a date. It's our host forum; forumuotion, that controls who and who cannot use what and where.

4. We're attempting to. However, in case you haven't noticed, we're not one of these big communities, still, we try to make that section more active. Also, we try to have more events with other academies, in face, we have one on-going as we speak.

5. We already have one, It's a Sub-forum in the Off-Topics section.

6. Anime and Managa are two different things. It's more organized this way.

7. It's all explained in our Guide, you can find it here: http://www.duelacademy.net/h9-da-guide

8. This one is okay. If others are fine with it, we can change the name.

1. You can keep the dorms without coloured usernames, including the "slifer red" or other dormname under their avatar and on thir profile. I wont argue with you if you don't see a problem with it, but trust me a lot of people will have decided to not sign up or stopped being active because of the overuse of colour. It really makes the place look messy.

2.  --

3. Fair enough

4. Well I only just signed up so I don't know much about how new the section is or how big the community is :p My main worry there was that people were just not interested. On DGZ the war section was completely dead for a very long time and it was rubbish, just felt inclined to mention it

5. Yeah foolist pointed that out, egg on my face etc.

6. I know they are, I'm not trying to say they're the same. Mypoint was too many subforums = inactive subforums. If you merge the two and simply askmembers to add "[anime] or "[manga] in the title of the thread concerning a card that is different in anime/manga then the sections would be more active. Just a suggestion though.

8. --

Irate wrote:

Dark ~ Templar wrote:

Hello! I have a couple of suggestions that would definitely make duel academy a better place for its users

Remove the following fields on the registration page: browser, time zone, and gender.

None of these are needed by the site. The first two are a security risk since a hacker would have am much easier job of planting syware/adware in your browser if they know which browser you are using. Also, knowing someone's time zone tells you their geographical location which can be used against them and can risk the confidentiality of their irl identity.

Please value your users' safety online more than this useless data you're collecting about members.

Lastly, gender should be optional for obvious reasons. It has literally nothing to do with anything that goes on on the site and is also data that would help someone peice together your real identity.

Allow users to connect with spoofed IP address

While we're on the subjet of people's privacy and anonimity being jeopordised, you should not force users to connect to your site with their real IP. This one requires no explanation. A direct connection to the internet is a vulnerable connection.

Again, please prioritise the safety and privacy of your users and do these things

If a hacker were to attack you to inject malware, your browser is the least of your concerns (unless you are running IE9 and below, at which point you should reconsider visiting the internet). Browser-specific exploits get patched as soon as possible by the respective company, and if a new one were to be found by a hacker and applied here, chances are your browser wouldn't matter anyway. Time Zone and Gender provide no security risk.

Proxy servers, VPNs and Tor are freely accessible on the net, it's up to every user to care for their own anonimity as we are just a subsidiary of forumotion and cannot alter the server's behaviour to accept modified HTTP headers. Once again, this is up to you and not to DA's administration.

Still, it would be helpful information and it is in no way important or even helpful information (only talking about browser choice here) to the site.

Unless you find someone knowing your irl identiy a security risk. Obviously that information alone isn't all that much to worry about but the less information about you online the better.

Dark ~ Templar wrote:

1. You can keep the dorms without coloured usernames, including the "slifer red" or other dormname under their avatar and on thir profile. I wont argue with you if you don't see a problem with it, but trust me a lot of people will have decided to not sign up or stopped being active because of the overuse of colour. It really makes the place look messy.

No offence but I think that is aload of crap about members not joining because of username colours and I think 13,483 members would agree

So because you have members, there are no people that decided to not sign up?
Awful logic tbh. I don't mean to come across as rude when I've just signed up but you really shouldn't disregard a legitimte off-put to some potential members.

Too much colour on one page = User does not want to look at that page. That's obvious.

I understand its nice for ordinary members to have a few extra bells and whistles to promote activity and simply give themnice things, but the fact of the matter is that it'd be better for the site to remove the coloured names on ordinary members (while keeping all the other ways of determining a dorm) since no functionality would be lost and the site would look a hell of a lot better.

Dark ~ Templar wrote:

Still, it would be helpful information and it is in no way important or even helpful information (only talking about browser choice here) to the site.

Unless you find someone knowing your irl identiy a security risk. Obviously that information alone isn't all that much to worry about but the less information about you online the better.

Browser choice is important for the most used dueling platform and to resolve issues based upon browser behaviour -- if you aren't aware what I am refering to, you should try running a site that looks perfect on every single browser.

Opinions and purposes differ, feel free to express yours, but the minute you take yours for granted, you invalidate it.

So One little section on the homepage with a few different colours makes the site off putting?
I believe that to be poor logic. Also it's a helps distinguish members easier.

But enough of this pointless arguing, you are entitled to your opinion and you have stated it.