In my opinion, one should pay a lot of attention on the skin of the forum. A professional and good looking forum skin can really attract guest sign ups. One could be put off if he / she comes across a poor quality skin. How far do you agree with me?

Definatly agree with you.
You only have a few seconds to convince a visitor to stay on your site, and the design is the first thing they'll see

I don't think it's critical.

When I'm looking for a forum, I'm looking at the people, and community.

Even as a designer, sometimes it's comforting to see a standard PHPBB or VBulletin skin. A poorly hacked together or inconsistent skin is distracting and annoying.

A nice custom skin can really add something, though.

Yeah..skin is important...because its like the only thing which can give you a good feeling....and good felings always leads to action!
So, people who dont care about their website design they are loosing their clients and money...

I think custom skin is the most important factor now a days, if someone is visiting your site after content , skin is a thing which they consider. Skin should be developed in such a way that it should manage navigation easily. Thats a key of way towards success specially in case of forums.

Now if you are making a web site for Disney or Cartoons then yes targeted visitors will like the interface... but when ur visitors are on ur site for information... skin will never matter...

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b2b

I totally agree with that.

Less agree but not totally. It should at least make the color really dull. The brown shades are pretty fine to me yet the green ones... (gulp!)