Pre-Launch Review
Site Name: Cafe360
Site Type: General Discussion Forum
Age: ~3 days
Appearance
For appearance, starting from the top you have added a favicon which matches "Cafe360". The banner is very clean; I like the font you used. I think you wasted the header a bit too much; your forum name is only at the left and so much blank orange space next to it. You can try to center the text, give icons or pictures or background texture so the orange ground is not so bland. Try to experiment more with colors. I see you are brave enough to set different colors for header and the body of the forum, so why not add more to the logo? It will liven up things a bit, in addition to icons/pictures/textures. The navigation feels kind of... forgotten up there, even more since you put it on as "Submenu". For the sake of being tidy you can give image in front of "Submenu" to make it look similar with "Preferences" and "Inbox", or just set the submenu like usual ZetaBoards navigation menu, but replace the text with images or change the colors and fonts. Make them stand out so people will easily notice it.
The body of the forum is pretty good. Forum marker for redirection link I see as a guest is not as the same size with the other forums so the first column for icon looks smaller; better fix that. For other icons/images I think you've done great to match the theme. If you want to, you can experiment with colors again since your background is white; it gives you chances to play around with colors for your buttons/icons to make it look even more colorful. For footer, "Index Advertising" column is bigger than the body of the forum. Better make them look the same so they look tidy. As a guest I see two different links, but as a member I see the same picture/link. I think it's a bit too big for advertising given you are a general discussion forum. Perhaps affiliation bar/page works better.
Layout
I think Cafe 360's layout is quite good. As a general discussion forum, you may want to expand more related to various field, but I see that at the moment even with small number of sections the number of threads are quite low. Therefore at the moment I can't advise you any expansion in sections; what you need too focus now is to add threads and see which field is interesting for your community, and take that as idea for new section later in the future. I want to say that maybe it's better to merge your last two forums for forum/website promotion/discussion into one section. After all, you are a general discussion forum. For illustration, you didn't give separate section for various media, but you gave two sections for website advertising. It is kind of unfair to other sections not related to website advertising; webmaster/advertising forums are those with such responsibility, not general discussion forums.
First Impressions and Interest
"Cafe360" didn't ring a bell of any forum genre to me first time hearing it, though from the tagline I could indeed say it is a general discussion forum. Upon visiting the forum directly, I kind of like the whole theme. I think bright, light theme matches general discussion forums well. Also, the forums' sections are filled with quite some posts already, although upon deeper inspection only latest several threads are active, leaving some other threads with quite old last post given that you once closed the forums for a while. The only problem would be that I don't find many interesting things you offer which makes you different from other general discussion forums. It is indeed hard to be different in this niche, though.
Content
You have a nice number of posts from your board statistics. If I look deeper I see you have many replies, but not as many threads. Try to add more threads to the sections to offer a broader topic to discuss, thus can increase the statistics in a more balanced way. It is also to 'compensate' on how you lost activity during the time your forum was closed, so your sections will look more active despite its history.
Grammar wise, I think generally you've done great. I hope you can pay more attention to usage of sentence markers, such as dots or commas or apostrophes. Take note of using capital letters as well. Taking an example from some of your forum descriptions: "Welcome to Cafe 360
. Please come here and introduce yourself to the rest of the members
. Tell us a bit about yourself, hobbies, interests etc. We look forward to know what our newbies are like.". In that sentence my corrections are the bold and red parts. Similar mistakes can be found in other descriptions and some of your posts. In posts it might not matter much, but for forum names and descriptions, perfection is a must. There is also this inconsistency of your forum name. Is it "Cafe360" without degree sign, with degree sign, or "Cafe 360"? From your banner to your forum descriptions, I find so many variety. Stick to one name. One of your sections' name is "Poll - & - Discussions". What are the dashes and spaces before and after '&' for? You can just do it like other section names. These may be small details, but something big comes from small things, right?
Words from the Reviewer
Aside from few things to fix in terms of appearance and layout, I think your main focus should be in reviving the activity of the forum. The period of closure may cause some members to go away. Approach them (by forum e-mails for example), let them know what features you have now, and add more content. Catch attention of existing users as much as you can as you search for new members. Good luck!
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