Testers needed over at test.lfgss.com

This is the first thing I noticed, particularly the way most elements are boxed up — most with a small border radius. (the main container, the main nav, the user information (when viewing on a larger screen)).

Were these elements put in boxes for UX clarity or because you intend to allow forums to add their own background images behind the main content/header?

Yes, site admins can choose header background and positioning, body background and positioning, logo, etc.

The colours on there at the moment resemble LFGSS loosely, but won't be what we use.

Sites could put photos in the background, or solid colours... whatever.

The listings and comments will all remain on a white background so text contrast is high, but the side bar (we call it the meta bar) has an opacity to it. So if the background is hot pink, the meta bar becomes a shaded softer pink and the main body area is still white.

There's nothing stopping a site admin putting a white background and letting the text float in the space.

I'd also be interested to hear your thinking on the start a conversation/event placement. On a smaller screen (<990px) they disappear into the sidebar and it becomes a little unclear on how to find the buttons again. Presumably mobile users don't create as many threads, but 990px is still quite large.

On the whole, it functions and looks great. Really good job!

Thread creation is a fairly rare thing. 50 times a day on a forum as large as LFGSS, and only by 1% of the users at all.

Posting comments is a fairly common thing, 2,200 times a day on a forum as large as LFGSS, by around 10% of the users.

That's pretty much why those actions are in the meta bar - the power users will find them and I hope that other people will discover them fairly quickly, but if not we'll move them out and put them somewhere more noticeable.

That said... it's far better to have people search and contribute to an existing thread than encourage them to create new ones all the time.