Large Forum Review
First Impressions
There is nothing that gives me the WOW feeling when I first view your forum. In many ways the forum feels kind of shrunk, I believe this is due to the logo being so small. Your forum does feel very fresh and welcoming when I first arrive though which is a good thing. The green has been well used in the design but the default board markers are very off-putting for a new visitor. The welcome message at the top is a nice addition but I didn’t notice it straight away, maybe make it a bit bolder or with a colour that stands out more than the current one. It also feels kind of odd that you are letting a competitor advertise on such a prime place on your forum. The spot under the header is the first thing someone sees when they visit your site and honestly I would be very tempted to visit the other forum instead as that is the element that stands out the most to me when I first visit. Your forum loads very quickly though which is something you should be happy with.
(Score: 10/15)
Appearance
Even though this theme is pretty minimal I like it. It is very fresh and well designed making the forum easy to navigate and gentle on the eyes. What I do find a shame is that it feels a bit boxey and reminds me in far too many ways of prosilver, it may be the default icons doing this. I really can’t understand why you still have the default icons when you have gone to the trouble of getting a custom theme, it doesn’t look good at all. I like the menu, it is very clean and a little different from what you see on most forums. It doesn’t contain many options though; I would at least expect to see a link to some information about the forum or something.
Due to the minimalism of the theme there isn’t much more for me to say other than it is a very good theme for your forum. There is however an issue on the bottom breadcrumbs where the time information falls outside of the green bar. I am sure some right-padding would solve this for you. Again, the statistics area still reminds me a bit too much of prosilver though. All buttons are the standard prosilver ones, something you have to get rid of. The buttons would look so much better if they were in the same green style as the rest of the forum. It seems the profiles on the actual individual posts have some slight overflow issues as the links to Twitter accounts and such are leaking into the actual post area. A very clean forum that needs that last bit of attention and love I do believe. Good on you for going for green!
(Score: 11/20)
Statistics and Activity
Your forum has been open since the beginning of September 2011 which means it has been open for 6 months now. In that time you have gained 16000 posts which is an average of nearly 2700 posts per month which is great. With an average of 76 posts per member then you should be pretty happy. I would like to see some of your older members posting more but you have done very well so far. When I look at your currently online statistics I see you have a large amount of guests and not many members actually logging in, this is something you need to work on.
(Score: 19/20)
Ratios
You have 2 administrators and 1 moderator which actually surprised me a bit. If you three alone are coping then hats off to you, you are doing a very good job. I am impressed by the way your staff run the forum and keep it clean of spam and such.
Looking at the board I discover a very uneven spread of posts around the forum which isn’t as good. The first general information section looks fine and I don’t see any real issues here. The Admins Corner board has between 300 and 500 posts in each while the top board that contains management discussion has over 3000 posts. I have noticed that you have quite a few subboards in this section, maybe you should consider making one of these its own board if it has a large amount of posts. This would help to balance the boards a little more. The next section seems to be your services area which is very balanced apart from there only being 6 posts in the user packages area. I can’t work out if this is because you haven’t had more requests or if it is because you are moving the completed requests somewhere else. If its all the requests you have then you ought to work on promoting this service more. Finally we reach the off-topic section where I immediately see that the general discussion board has the 2nd most posts per board on the forum which is never a good sign. You hand your staff should be doing more to get members posting in the admin discussion boards instead of in the off-topic areas.
(Score: 7/10)
Content
I get the feeling that you are aiming for a very professional look and feel on your forum. In many ways you accomplish this with flying colours but now the content really lets you down. The first thing I am referring to is the board descriptions. Announcements and Community Things doesn’t sound very professional and is a bit tacky in my opinion. Community Announcements would work fine for this board. Most of the board descriptions are quiet short too and aren’t interesting in any way. The rules cover all the areas they should, but again, they aren’t very professionally written. Both admins are good at keeping members informed of happenings but the announcements are usually only a sentence long which doesn’t look very good. I have never understood the reason for admins making an announcement when the forum reaches a certain amount of posts. It gives me the impression that the admin is more interested in stats than in the community, just don’t do it. Another thread that really got at me was the Future of AH thread. This is really not something that should be discussed in public. If I were a new member looking to join your forum I would hit the X as soon as I saw that thread.
Your members are posting good and interesting discussions with good grammar and spelling. You do need to boost discussion more and keep threads going for longer but apart from that you don’t have much to worry about. This is why I find the Future of AH thread even more odd because this forum is still very much alive and kicking. Forums have their ups and downs, you may be going through a dip right now but as long as staff stay active and post then there is nothing to worry about.
(Score: 10/20)
Navigation
It is very easy to navigate your forum due to the clean layout and big buttons. The rules were located where I expected them to be and it is quite easy for me to find my way around. What irritates me when viewing your forum is that it feels much more like a promotion forum than an admin forum, these are 2 completely different things which many people seem to forget. While browsing I was unable to find the links to the important documents needed on a forum. There is nowhere I can read the ToS or a privacy policy. These documents are key for any site and I am surprised not to find them on an admin forum which I would expect to know about this type of thing. Apart from that you have done well.
(Score: 9/15)
Total Score
56/100
Final Remarks
In many ways a great forum that I can’t understand why you are so worried about. As I said, forums have dips and it seems yours is having one right now. Maybe hiring another moderator to post a bit, holding a couple of competitons or a free service week would help if you really feel you desperately want a boost. Don’t push it though, do what you do best and keep the forum growing slowly and in the same stable manner as it already has. You have had a great first 6 months, an unusally good one with a large amount of posts. Don’t be too hard on yourself, its nearly impossible to keep the level of activity you have had, be happy with 75% of it for now. Good Luck!
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