What information should be in every postbit?

[Soliloquy]

I'm using the legacy postbit on a couple of my vB templates (meaning the poster's information is displayed in a column on the left side of the post), and because I want to have extra long avatars I'm deciding what bits of user information can be cut to save room. What would keep and what would you dispense with?

[Chris]

If I were you, I'd keep the "Posts" field and remove the "Join Date" - or, the other way around.

[FullMetalBabe]

As you can see in my PSD's, I don't care about the Join Date, it displays it on their profile, not needed on the postbit, imo. I guess it varies from forum to forum, but I find Join Date sort of bleh.

[FullMetalBabe]

Originally Posted by Chris Martin

If I were you, I'd keep the "Posts" field and remove the "Join Date" - or, the other way around.

Kind of funny that we posted about the same thing xD

[Wayne Luke]

Only required information is the user's name and avatar. Maybe ranks. Nothing else is required and can easily be seen in the user's profile.

[David McHenry]

I agree with Wayne on this one, it should be kept to just username/rank/avatar

Everything else will give members a sense of entitlement, false knowledge, or an ego problem because of their join date or post count.

[Paul M]

Rank is certainly not "needed", neither is avatar really.

The only thing needed is username. However, its nice to have the other things.

[tryfuhl]

It depends on the community. Like on this one it makes sense to have the experience, number of forums (though I guess that could be removed and just put in profile), etc

on ours it's just the username, avatar, join month/year and post count

[Nick]

I usually can't go without having the user's first name in the postbit. On my forum, I have it in parentheses right below the username. It works well.

[Chris]

Originally Posted by Nick

I usually can't go without having the user's first name in the postbit. On my forum, I have it in parentheses right below the username. It works well.

Now that's interesting. Does this field replace the user title?

[Soliloquy]

Do users ever object to having their real first name displayed?

[Chris]

I wondering if it's a required field, Michelle. I'm assuming that it's not, but Nick is tricky like that...

[Nick]

Originally Posted by Chris Martin

Now that's interesting. Does this field replace the user title?

No, it doesn't replace the user title. It's just displayed above it.

Originally Posted by Soliloquy

Do users ever object to having their real first name displayed?

Originally Posted by Chris Martin

I wondering if it's a required field, Michelle. I'm assuming that it's not, but Nick is tricky like that...

The profile field is optional of course. If they don't enter it in their profile, then nothing is displayed in the postbit.

Here is a screenshot with a few posts so you can see how it looks:

[Soliloquy]

I like how you have the little medals lined up, I have larger shield-like awards that don't look quite as neat.

[Nick]

Originally Posted by Soliloquy

I like how you have the little medals lined up, I have larger shield-like awards that don't look quite as neat.

Yeah I think it's a nice touch. As you can tell, I like my postbit to be busy and highly-decorated.

What irks me is the white edges of the medals, which clash with the green background.