Your Forum Review
First Impressions & Appearance
This is a forum I have always enjoyed visiting, mainly due to the ease of use and the sleek design. I can see you have put a lot of effort into the style you have and it is very appreciated by all members of your forum, this is always nice to see. I really like the way you have the blue and black working together with a touch of green coming through on the announcement link. This is the only place you use this green on the whole of the index which I find a shame as it helps to break the design a little and is noticeable. If you have other things on the index you want to stand out and be noticed then this colour could really help you. Maybe using a bit of colour or increasing the size of the Log In button in the top right corner would be a good idea, on a large widescreen it is hardly noticeable up there, tucked out of the way.
The logo you use is nice and simple but it feels a little bit small, you have quite a wide header space for the logo and the logo doesn't even cover a third of the height, you can definitely make it cover at least a third of the headers height, if not slightly more. The thing I really like about your logo is the plain style that still tells the user what the forum is about. A nice logo that deserves to stand out and be shown a little more.
Usually sidebars can get quite annoying on forums but the sidebar you have on the index flows really well with the rest of the forum layout. What does worry me about the sidebar is how the forum appears on smaller screens. When i minimised my browser I saw that this really wasn't an issue, which makes me even more positive to your design as it is well adapted to all users.
The affiliate adverts at the bottom of the index page are a nice touch that show you have thought about every little detail of your forum. The only thing I feel I can suggest as an improvement apart from the logo size and login button size is creating new board markers that are a little more interesting. Maybe use screens instead of people, this would help to tie in the logo with the site more. Apart from that you have done a really, really good job with the layout and style of your forum. My first impressions were great, a nice, professional looking site that is bursting with activity and knowledge.
(Score: 20/20)
Site Layout
The first section, The Information Point contains exactly what I would expect this section to contain. Looking inside the community announcements boards I do feel that some of the announcements have been left there a bit too long, you have a board that you move old announcements too. It would be a good idea to take 10 minutes extra to move over the old announcements so the board looks fresh and updated. The suggestions and feedback thread is well handled and taken care of too.
The second section is entitled Website Related Dicussion. All of these boards contain a good amount of posts and are well split up. Looking at the sub-boards you have on the General Community Management board I do feel that the Social Networking Board belongs under the SEO board, as does the Website Marketing and Revenue board. It is nice to see a little service tucked away in the Reviews, Interviews & Articles board, but feel that you can give this service a little more credit and not hide it away so much. I can understand you may have it here so that it doesn't get too many requests, which is obviously good for your staff. Talk to your review team, if the flow of requests is lacking maybe giving the board more attention would help.
The third section, Forum Tech & Design also covers exactly what I would expect it to cover. These boards also contain a good amount of posts, the graphics board seems especially popular. I am however left wondering if every Forum Software needs its own board as the discussion on these sub-boards doesn't seem to be too excited or active. Maybe one board for paid softwares and one for free softwares or only having boards for the software that gets discussed a lot would be better.
The Community Exchange area is obviously an area where members can buy and sell and hire staff. All these boards also contain a good amount of posts and your Marketplace is very well managed with a system that seems to be working very well.
The Non Website Discussion contains a good deal of posts, the three sections all with a good amount each. Here I see a problem which is all too common on forums, the amount of posts in the Off Topic Discussion board compared to the amount of posts on the rest of the board. Around a third of your boards total posts are in this section, which is really disappointing. When you have a forum the off topic section is meant to be a section where members can post now and then, it does however seem that many of your members are practically living in this area. The best way to solve this is to discourage your staff from posting in this area and instead creating more discussion in the on-topic areas. This is an issue that can only be solved by you and your dedicated staff.
(Scored 17/20)
Statistics and Activity
Date Forum Opened: 24th Oct 2010
Messages:158,003
Members:6,699
Your forum has been open for around 14 months and has in that time had an average of 11200 posts per month which is great. I can't say anything negative about this post count. Your members have an average of 23 posts each. Now this number is not very impressive and tells me a very clear picture of how your forum has come about those 158000 posts. The problem with merging a large amount of databases into your forum is that you make one statistic look good and another look absolutly horrible. I have nothing against merging databases, but you need to do it to a point where it doesn't negativly affect your forums statistics. Another reason I don't believe these posts have all been made on your original database is due to the amount of members that are online and posting during the time I have been doing this review, there just isn't enough daily activity to get 11000 posts per month. Around 20000 posts of your total post count aren't visible on your board either, which starts to make me wonder how much your staff are posting on the actual board.
(Scored 12/20)
Staff Moderation
Now, as I mentioned above there are 20000 posts unaccounted for. If all of these posts are being made on the staff board then this shows me that your staff aren't working to support your forum and its activity, they are too busy posting around in their own private message board which really doesn't give me a good impression of your forum. What I am happy to say is that apart from this your forum is well moderated. Everywhere I look your staff are engaging well in discussion and are relating to members well with a good drive in the discussion.
I feel that you need to make sure your staff step up thier game a little. I know that adminforums builds on a relaxed discussion environment, but the staff still need to do the job they are hired to do.
You have two administrators, which is completely understandable for the size of the forum but not for the activity. The same goes for the moderators, had your forum been recieving 11000 new posts a month then 5 moderators is exactly what you would need. But for the actual activity on your site 1 administrator and 3 moderators is plently. Two of your moderators posts counts are very low compared to the rest of your staff, which isn't very good. However, I will overlook this as it may just be because they are new staff. The content team member I am not sure what his job is and the activity from his isn't very good compared to your other staff.
(Scored 17/20)
Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism
The forum looks very professional and is well laid out. All board descriptions are long and well-written. They aren't demanding in any way and they inform me of the board contents so it is easy for me to find exactly what I am looking for. There are no issues in this section on the board.
(Scored 20/20)
Total Score - 86/100
Final Remarks
Admin Forums is a great forum with a good community and a commited admin at the reins. However, first appearances are not always what they seem and I was disappointed when I started going into detail on each aspect of the forum. You have many strengths which will really help you, but you also have some areas to improve on, I wish you all the luck!
Strong Points
Your theme and the professional yet relaxed feel of the forum
Things to Improve
Your statistics and especially the activity from your members. You also need to give your staff a good talking to on engaging in the community and boosting discussion in the correct areas.
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