Your Forum Review
First Impressions & Appearance
I have just reviewed a forum that has the same skin as you, so it most be a very popular skin for IPB, if I have reviewed to forums with the same skin in less than 24 hours, so maybe you could have picked a less popular skin, but a skin what is still easy to read and look at. But I will not mark you down for it as it is not your fault that I have reviewed two forums with the same skin. However I would suggest next time you do an update pick a different skin or even try and buy a customized skin as members appreciate the more effort you put into your forum. Moving onto your banner it suit your theme however the banner is very similar to the forum I reviewed a few hours ago, I don’t know if the skin makes it grey and hazy like that but it looks exactly the same. The box saying sign in and register on top of your banner does not look good, it just looks like faulty programming on your skin as it just sits on top of your banner, I would suggest removing it. I don’t know if you should have an ad on top of your forum when you have just opened a lot of members or guests do not like to see ads.
To finish off in this section, if you want to be unique and successful, I would suggest moving away from the skin an becoming unique and a well know forum, as you have found a unique theme and there are not many of military forums out there so you have tapped into a good source.
(Score: 11/20)
Site Layout
There are 40 boards in your forum way too much for a 12 day old forum, I am going to suggest on getting rid of a few forums such as the validation problems board, if you leave this open for guest they can post unwanted material the best thing instead of this is a contact us button. I think all sub boards under branch info could be merged until you need extra boards because topics are getting cluttered, and I don’t think that they would become that full anyway. You should do the same for vehicle depot, and I would definitely suggest it for light weapons and maybe put the sub board heading in your descriptions for the board instead. There are just too many sub boards in that forum and it looks like a mess. There is only a limited amount of topics you could discuss under each heading. You are a military forum do you need an arts category, with 11 boards you are pushing your forum into theme which you board is not suited for, it may seem like a good idea but it never is maybe one board would suffice but not 11, the same could be said about the RPG category, your pushing into different genres and themes, I would suggest on removing them.
I think that you are trying to be a big forum, when you have just started out in this forum, it looks like you are trying to cater for over 100,000 members when you only have 17 members, you need to focus on making those 17 members lifelong members instead of creating boards that you don’t need.
(Scored 6/20)
Statistics and Activity
Total posts:1136, total members 17. These statistics are okay but they are not the greatest, with the amount of promotion forums and great advertising ideas I would expect more members. Your post count however is quite good, it seems that most of your staff has contributed the most, and your members have not really contributed that much. You really need to keep on advertising and don’t give up. You have an average of 94 posts a day which is a good average to have and keep up the good work. You posts on your board are not spread out that much and I would try and focus on the military boards and not so much in the graphics board.
(Scored 13/20)
Staff Moderation
You have 9 staff members, this makes your board over 50% staff, this is not acceptable, sometimes having so much staff frightens members off and you really need the members at this time. I would suggest on getting rid of 70% of the staff. You have two admins, you only need one, you have 7 mods, you really only need one, sk8 should really have more posts, as seven is not great I would suggest on maybe getting rid of him or her, as well as JKO having that low of a post count when all the other staff members have high ones is not acceptable. Your staff team grammar and spelling seems okay but there are a few mistakes.
(Scored 5/20)
Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism
In your welcome topic, there is one mistake “I am Kage, teh Head Admin here at AH. I would just like to formerly welcome you all! “ , the word “the” Your board descriptions are lacking a bit the grammar and spelling is fine but the descriptions are not complete or they are not exciting or original, I would maybe suggest changing some of them or at least completing all of the boards. Your rules are not your own I presume, I would suggest making your own, it looks nicer and more professional if you make your own and it looks like you care about your forum as well.
(Scored 14/20)
Total Score - 49/100
Final Remarks
Your forum has tapped into a theme or genre that what is not really out there, it is your job to make sure your forum is a success, however you have built forum too fast and you have made your forum like it has member base of 100,000, with the huge amount of boards and staff, size down your forum is my main thought on your forum.
Strong Points
Your statistics and activity is good and so is spelling and grammar.
Things to Improve
Layout and skin and staff.
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