That works well! I think it is a good idea.

Downside: It has no "dark theme" option (the toggle for light/dark in the menu doesn't do anything), and it isn't handled well by the Dark Reader add-on (the black-to-white gradient in the background stays as-is). If a "dark" color scheme were added to solve that (which could simply use the same dark background as the "Inspire Light Garden" theme), then I'd be persuaded until then I'll stick to "Inspire Light Garden" with Dark Reader.

Both screenshots taken with Dark Reader enabled. Upper: Default theme without welcome box. Lower: "Inspire Light Garden".

Quote from Cassius

or the Dashboard (pretty much the same as "Recent Activities, but gives a selection of latest graphics etc from other areas of the forum.

For articles, files, and gallery, I use the RSS feed, but I realise that fewer people nowadays use those, so the Dashboard does seem handy.

Quote from Cassius

I really expect the welcome video (and associated Welcome page) added this past weekend will constitute what most people will check out first. [ Underneath the video it says Click here for Self-Paced Slides of the above presentation, or here for the Welcome Page with the text of the narration. ]

Yes. When I think back, if the only option I'd have had to make first contact with Epicurean Philosophy were a wall of text, I'd have said "Oi, no!" instead of saying "Oinoanda!" If the forums are the hook, it's front page must be the bait, and our monkey brains love going to sponge-mode, being told how things are (rather than having to think for themselves; evolution made geared us towards energy efficiency), plus getting that dopamine trickle from a few pleasingly moving pixels (as in the video). The video is very important to lower the threshold.

Quote from Cassius

regular users definitely should bookmark one of the other pages as the best way to check in on the forum.

I agree.

Quote from Cassius

That "Eye" icon is not really a light-dark toggle

I meant the "Preferred Color Scheme" (which is probably what you called "native dark mode"). I don't think I ever used that eye toggle up there, but what it switches to (statistics about myself) seems kind of…odd. Not sure what the value in that could be.

Quote from Cassius

I am going to go over right now and cajole the developer to see if he will turn that Eyeball into a light-dark toggle in the next theme update.

Now that would be most excellent!

Quote from Cassius

I'll have to practice how to say "Danke"

"Dangke schee!" in Pennsylvania Dutch, "Merssi viumau!" in Alemannic, "Villmools Merci!" in Luxembourgish, and – drum roll! – "Danke schön!" in German. An approximate way to pronounce that would be to say "done-KE Shane", with "done" as in completed, "KE" as in baker, and "Shane" as in as in the George Stevens western. I'm sure the Internet can explain that better than I just did