Your Forum Review
First Impressions & Appearance - (Out of 20)
Your site looks pretty impressive for only been open for a short period of time, 700 members is pretty atsonishing as most forums hardly reach 100 members. Your banner looks like it was madevery quickly, looks like the designer got two pictures chucked them on and picked a font at random and slapped that on. You should considering getting a new banner that doesn't take 5 minutes to create and plant. Try adding a few more themes to select to as the baby green doesn't always look to impress, go for some blue, white, navy blue colours. Another thing that dragged me away was the smilies they are way too big, make them smaller so they don't take up half of the post.
(Scored 14/20)
Site Layout - (Out of 20)
Out of all honesty your actual board categories look squished with the side-bar. Try and somehow make this smaller or display it across the top of the page, definitely would put me off on joining your forum. The forums are layed out perfectly, but you should expand the ''Other'' category, so members can chill out and possibly learn more about other users hobbies and interests. I love how you have added a TV/Podcast feature, definitely would keep members interested or to generally burn their boredom. One thing I hated was that I was not allowed to view past video's and live podcasts and I am using IE(mums computer,not got my laptop) so I don't know if you can view them on a different browser or whatnot but you should definitely work on thisfor IE users as some users may like IE the way it is.
(Scored 12/20)
Statistics and Activity - (Out of 20)
As I mentioned above 700 members in less than 2 months is really impressive, you obviously knew the correct places to promote. One thing that disappointed me was the amount of posts, I would have expected 30,000 thousand post's or something but it comes to show you how much members are actually active, some how have a competition and they may come back but make sure the competition is interesting and they are lot's of good prizes up for grab,I recommend a posting competition.
(Scored 14/20)
Staff Moderation - (Out of 20)
You have three administrators when you only require 1 - 2 members, I suggest removing one or find a way to grow bigger and then invite the third administrator.Your VIP members seem to be the ones doing the hard work and posting as all your staff has under a thousand posts and VIP's have over one thousand, I suggest posting around more often but it isn't that big a deal. You don't have much to moderate on the forum, members are all safe and clean, but watch members post's as they don't all make sense and some have bad punctuation.
(Scored 16/20)
Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism - (Out of 20)
Staff's grammar and spelling seems pretty good but it all comes down to members, most of them don't capatalise, put a full stop at the end of their post, perhaps add a rule about spelling and grammar. You seem to be very laid back towards your members which is always a good sight but you need to toughen up on some of your posts. As said above, the side-bar makes the forums look squished and you use very small descriptions, you should make them bigger and more descriptive as some members may not understand them as I don't exactly know what Happy Room Acadamey is or City Folk Discussions.
(Scored 17/20)
Total Score - 73(Out of 100)
Final Remarks: You should work on the IE problems, but very good site.
What was most liked about the website/forums: The amount of members in a short period of time.
What was disliked most about the website/forums: The side-bar which squished the forums.
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