I am getting ready to launch forums as part of my website- The website is Listeningtoparents.org. The forum is accessed by clicking on "What parents say in your state". The goal of the website is to increase the adoption of children by making the child welfare system more receptive to adoptive parents. The website started out primarily as a way to promote my work, but then I hit on the idea of having a forum where adoptive parents can share their experiences. I had a very kind guy volunteer his efforts to integrate the forum with the style of the website. I know the NavBar is funky and the buttons in the discussion section are weird. We are working on that. I would be very grateful for any feedback people are willing to offer.
Just a cursory feedback as I didn't really want to sign up. It looks okay – fairly standard – and it's nice you have integrated it with the rest of the site. However, I don't see any forum buttons – discussions, categories, search – at all on the discussions/categories area (either disabled for non-logged-in users or invisible). Also the sign-in link on the top-right disappears behind the header if you make the window narrower.
I just took a look and noticed a couple of things. Shouldn't all of your links at the top fall withing a blue area? Also when I go to the "forum" and scroll down the page, the "What Parents Say" and other links remain in a fixed position. Is this by design?