Your Forum Review
First Impressions & Appearance - (Out of 20)
I found your theme to be neither great nor horrible. Let’s start from the top. That banner has to go. It doesn’t match the rest of the header - at all, and looks tacky and out of place. I think you should definitely get a better fitting, more professional looking one done. Moving down, I like the color scheme. It’s very water-looking, which is definitely appropriate for your forum. I also like that you have a custom favicon, that is always good. I’m also glad your skin is fluid, it helps for larger monitors. Not everything was so great though. Your skin looks pretty old-school. It looks like a theme that could be for phpBB2. It needs more curves, it needs to be glossier, etc. I don’t know, it just isn’t visually pleasing.
(Scored 13/20)
Site Layout - (Out of 20)
Dang, you have a LOT of forums. It’s confusing. One thing I don’t get is your “Fish Profiles” section. If you’re going to have a bunch of locked forums with one topic in each in them, why not just put each topic in the parent forum and eliminate the need for the subforums? That would be much more user friendly, and it would help clear up your layout. Also, it seems strange to have your Announcements section right in the middle of your board. Shouldn’t it be at the top, where it’s noticeable? You really need a reorganization in general, and you need to eliminate the less popular forums. Remember, the less forums, the better.
(Scored 10/20)
Statistics and Activity - (Out of 20)
You’ve been open roughly a month. 32 members isn’t bad, but you really should have more than 300 posts. Most forums reach 1,000 posts within two weeks or so. I think you should step up your promotion efforts. A lot of your forums only have 1 or 2 posts, some even have 0. You really need to focus on either eliminating those forums or getting them more active.
(Scored 11/20)
Staff Moderation - (Out of 20)
I didn’t notice any problems in this area. Unfortunately, you didn’t provide me an account and so I couldn’t check out a lot of it. Your staff was pretty active, and you don’t appear overstaffed. However, some of your staff don’t exhibit professionalism, and that’s something you can try to work on with your team.
(Scored 15/20)
Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism - (Out of 20)
Your professionalism and spelling really needs a boost. Take a look at this announcement:
“Please do not give e anymore suggestions for the banner. I have gotten planty of them and i believe my head is spinning round lol. If you dislike the banner please pm me with the banner you would like and bmlbytes and i will chose to see if we like it better than the current one. thank you!”
It should be something like this to be correct:
“Please do not give me anymore suggestions for the banner. I have gotten plenty of them, and I believe my head is spinning around.
😛 If you dislike the banner, please PM me with the banner you would like and bmlbytes. I will choose to see if we like it better than the current one. Thank you!”
That’s just one example.
All your forums like this, “Learn about specific freshwater fish” lack periods at the end of the sentence. Also, you need to work on making sure to capitalize the beginning of sentences.
(Scored 10/20)
Total Score - 59 (Out of 100)
Final Remarks: Your forum could use some improvements.
What was most liked about the website/forums: Some theme elements, some staff elements.
What was disliked most about the website/forums: Layout, professionalism.
How could I get you (The Reviewer) to join my website? I would take into consideration some of the main suggestions I mentioned.
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