Advanced Review of Home Away From Home
Review by Joshua Farrell
First Impressions: (7 out of 10)
For my first impressions of the forum, as I landed my first sight of it, I thought that it has a good design, love the color blends. Love how the banner and menu has been made.
The ad and registration part at the top of the forum that appears to guests, makes things a little bit longer than needed, to be honest.
Though, if I may be so bold, the forum appears to have a little bit more forums that I typically see for forums growing from infancy. The good thing though, is the total amount of posts you have for the age of the forum. That is what I consider the good part out of the bad.
Number of Posts & Members: (8 out of 10)
For the number of posts you have on the forum, in relation to members, is a pretty good average amount. 43.67 posts per member registered has been made since you opened your forum a couple of months ago. I consider that a pretty good job. Though I would work on that, not just with staff posting a little, but encouraging your members to post a little more. I personally would be happy to see if you can get your average post per member up to 50 or more.
Also, I recommend upping the amount of posts and topics made in the majority of the boards in the Dinning Room Category, as that would personally help me to join, if I saw most of the forums had a similar high post count made in them.
Activity Level: (7 out of 10)
Your overall activity again, is great for being open for such a short time. I know that I would be very happy to have a forum get 2,100 posts in such a short time.
The only issues I am having here, is that you and teg combined, has made almost more posts than the 8 regular members on the top 10 posters list. I encourage you and Teg to see what you can do, to attempt to get the top 10 poster list to have more regular members having 100 or more posts made, so to help the forum out a little more.
I know you and teg have been working quite the bit on it, you especially, which shows in activity wise, but I think that if you can get your members to also share with that activity level, they will carry your forum more than how much you have put into it.
I also suggest seeing about getting the topic amount in a number of your boards, up towards 25 topics, since that will help more with activity also.
Site Structure: (17 out of 20)
The structure of the forum, atleast to me, seems a little odd. Generally speaking, the Front Door Category is usually up at the top. I know that it is personal preference and where you want your members to focus on posting, but it won't hurt to ask your members to see if they atleast want the news board up at top, and leave the introductions board at the bottom, or in your off-topic board as a sub-board.
Not entirely sure here, but I am assuming your forum is a General forum, mixed with Webmaster Services. If I am correct to assume, the way you designed the layout is made in such a way to focus on the discussion, with the services as an extra item? If so, that is probably how I would have set up the forum, atleast with the discussion boards above the service ones.
You also need to expand on the descriptions on a number of the forums. Half of them seem to be either too short, or needs to be a little bit more informative on what goes on in those boards.
Design Quality: (16 out of 20)
I love the simplicity of the design. I love the tiling background, which doesn't overwhelm me as a visitor. I love how you have your menu separated from your login links, but it does seem a little odd on the banner location though. That did throw me off a little, expecting the banner at the top of the page with the separator separating the menu from the banner, but I didn't expect the banner to be below the separator.
I love the Old and New Icons, as they fit with the default theme design.
Originality: (14 out of 15)
As originality goes, you certainly added boards I did not expect on a forum like yours. I did not expect the food board, where you can talk about recipes and such. And I also did not expect the naming scheme you used for the titles of each board and category, I am certainty giving you a plus for that!
In terms of originality, your forum gets better scores than what I probably would give out, for a forum that is a service forum, combined with a focus on the general discussion world. Though I probably would encourage you at a later date to add a webmaster board or two, as you grow above 5,000 or 10,000 posts, as that may help bring in a few more members, than what you probably would have.
Spelling, Grammar & Professionalism: (7 out of 15)
As for as I can tell, the spelling and grammar used by both staff members is good. Professionally you two are good with how you deal with your jobs on the forum.
My suggestion, is to format the guidelines a little bit better, to better signify what they are reading is guidelines, and not just an another topic. An example of a topic that needs a little bit of work is
this one.
Thing you liked best about forum: Design, general activity, and total number of staff on the forum.
Thing you liked least about forum: Guidelines - Need to work on a number of them.
Overall Mark: (76 out of 100)
I like your forum quite a bit, but I believe that if your forum is going to exceed a little bit more, you need to find ways to get your members more involved in topic making, and having your info topics a little bit better described.
