Full Review by phio_chan
Scoring:
First Impressions & Appearance – (11 out of 20)
Chat Socially, I remember you. It has been a long time since my last visit to the forum, and it is good to see changes being made, which hopefully can keep the community alive and have an enjoyable stay. I still remember the old appearance which was a plain white theme/skin. Although the changes are more towards color and images instead of complete new theme set, it is still a nice attempt and helps to bring new atmosphere around. The shop page seems to have code error at the top of the page, but aside that I did not find any other code errors so things are pretty tidy.
Let us start at the very top. I must say that I enjoy the new logo/banner very much. It is a great change compared to the banner I last remember, which was only a text with a curved handwriting style. I noticed the banner was replaced once while I was writing this review. I prefer the one you recently replaced better, mainly because of the color, bubble image, and font style to make it special but easy for the eyes. Usually a website’s banner also integrate its (fav)icon or tagline in one image so that can be the aim for the next banner, together with the theme. The newest one is not too bad, though. The one thing that still bothers me is how empty the header area is. I do not think that the current logo/banner will look good if it is made bigger to occupy more area. With a link of “User CP” at the right end when I logged in as a user, I think it may be a good idea to bring the whole navigation bar to the header area to make it more crowded. The width of the forum’s body can be enlarged slightly to accomodate this change, spaces between links can be removed, or to replace the menu text with images instead. I like the sound of the last suggestion because it can give a special and unique touch to the forum, though I am not sure of the technical difficulties it may cause. Same applied to the forum background. I do not think it poses a serious problem to leave it blank like that. It is possible, though, to add a motive or structured background to add more feelings to the atmosphere of a discussion forum, or to add images to the background area. It may be related to general discussion itself, or related to the event/contest/competition currently on-going at the forum, and so on.
Moving on to the body of the forum itself. The first change I noticed is the category/forum icons. They used be standard phpBB images, so I am really happy to see them changed into images which suit the title and topic of each section. My concern regarding this change is that they do not seem very useful to show whether the section has new posts or not. Upon logging in I tried to hit the “Mark all forums read” link and I did not see any difference to the images. This may sound like a minor thing. I, for one, am a kind of user which relies on those images to tell whether a section is worth visiting to check for new posts. It helps me to make my first tour quick before browsing around and look for threads to reply to. Hopefully this has not become a problem for you, although I think adding images which can show difference in new posts will benefit the community. Including adding images for the sub-forums, which do not shine as bright as the main boards because they do not have forum icons at all, not even the standard phpBB ones.
Unlike the complete face lift with category/forum icons, I wish the same could have been done to the topic icons and buttons. They still match the current theme and the new colors, they are still the standard phpBB icons and buttons. For example, they can be made to match the banner, which looks nice with the cloud and blue color. A simple touch, but it can be an interesting one.
One last point about the body of the forum is about some weird space at the right of the column. It seems like a space for avatar of the last poster, but nothing appeared for me there so it become a strange white space only.
Last but not least is the footer. I actually do not have much to say about footer as it is one of the tidiest footer I have ever seen. The statistics is not too big to bring troubles for browsing, and the credits part is also well-designed and tidy.
The final point I want to address in relation to appearance is about the theme, skin, and templates. I browsed back and I noticed the last two reviews for Chat Socially generally voiced the same concern. As Red Herring mentioned it, it is as if the colors are “sucked out” of the forum. The changes made have shown some of the colors returning, which is a good attempt. Yet I still feel more can be done. I once wrote that I noticed general discussion forums tend to “sell” their attractive and hyped-up themes to gain interest. It does not mean Chat Socially needs to do the same thing, but it may be wise to consider a more colorful theme. At least to add it as an option to choose under User Control Panel. You will also need to be careful with colors used. The new purple touch added is nice, but it does not compliment the banner, for example, which displays a strong sense of the blue color. It becomes my point of comparison because a banner usually summarize the identity of the forum.
Site Layout – (14 out of 20)
For layout, we will start with the navigation menu bar. From either a guest's or a member's point of view, the navigation menu bar is just at the right organization level. The menu are equally important and they do help to make navigation of important menu easier. It is somehow strange to see "User CP" menu being separated from the others due to lack of space. Hopefully my ideas above can help to bring them all together as one! You can also transform the "Search" menu into a search box, placing it at the space right before the body of the forum.
Next is about the forum sections and organization. What the forum has is basically the standard set-up for general discussion forums. During my experience and observation so far, general discussion forums are usually ones with most categories/branches to provide a large discussion coverage. Chat Socially, on the other hand, only has two categories. There are many sub-forums under the first category, though, as a compensation. It does not necessarily mean bad given that the activity seems to be going on quite good. You may want to consider to expand and experiment with more sections later to generate more interest and content for the forum.
One special point I want to address in this section is about the portal/home page of the forum. Perhaps this has been mentioned in previous reviews, but anyway. The idea of the portal is to give a summary of the forum for visitors before they do anything further; I am sure you already know of this more or less. The current setting is that there is another address for the home page that such function becomes rather hard to achieve. A possible solution is to make the home page as the default page for whoever clicks on the (default) link to Chat Socially, or to remove the page. It also means one link removed from the navigation menu bar, which can make some space for "User CP" link. If I were to choose, I would probably choose the second option. Not because I am not a fan of portal pages, but because the content shown in the home page is not very special. Special content for me, for example, are events or featured discussions. The portal mostly contains statistics details, which can be found at the bottom part of the forum index page. The statistics can be modified slightly to show more content like in portal if possible.
Statistics and Activity – (11 out of 20)
Upon reviewing, Chat Socially has a total of 5391 posts and 91 members, which roughly means a rate of 59 posts per member. They are distributed rather equally, with the main administrator having the biggest number of posts; a very understandable situation. I cannot technically count and see directly how many members are normally around every day, but as I stayed around for the review, I noticed there were not many members who come visiting every day and make some posts. It becomes a concern because the forum has been around for more than a year; is this a decline in activity or has it been like this since before? Which part is done wrong? Hopefully what being addressed in this review can help to improve the activity.
Shifting the focus to the ratio of staff members and regular members, Chat Socially has one main administrator, one administrator who seem to focus more on technical ends of the forum, and one moderator. Given the size of the forum and the rate of activity, it sure is enough to handle business around. Perhaps to support and help spark interest, you may want to add a moderator who specializes in generating discussion instead of moderation duties. Not to say that he/she should neglect moderation duties like dealing with troublesome members or posts. But dividing workload can help lessen the burden for everyone and make it more fun.
Content – (9 out of 20)
Upon visiting the sections of the forum, I have an impression that what seems to be the problem is lack of new discussion topics. "The General Area" and "Technology" may not match that sentence given how packed, busy, and active it is compared to the other sections of the forum. I could even count the number of new threads made in 2014 (and we are already half way through the year!) in few sub-forums. I am not sure what has been done to tackle this situation. The options are to pump it up by adding new threads and replies, or draw attention by holding a special event or contest related to those silent sections, or if all other attempts fail to merge them with other sections which are still alive. I also find one mistake of duplicate topic (
here and
here), but I did not find anything else and I doubt this is a serious problem.
I am also not sure if the new threads made are not interesting; I think the topics are not too bad, but they lack solid replies which can bring discussion further. I wonder if this is caused by lack of active members to visit the forum. The core active members seem to mainly consist of staff members, which is not necessarily a bad thing but obviously cannot stand just like that. I believe you have made attempts to fix this, by holding contests or sending newsletters to members' e-mails (I think I received one before), but as far as I could remember it was not too often. Perhaps you need to push more from this side.
Because technically speaking, Chat Socially's features for members are actually interesting. Money system, bank, shop, blog, social media pages, and customized user profile pages. I still think there are still rooms to explore for those features to make a stay more enjoyable. Adding variation to the items sold in the shop by asking the community members what they want to see, give more spotlight to blog entries to encourage members to make a blog and write articles, give a simple award to the best customized profile page for a month, and so on. This correlates to how the forum may lack something the community can do together besides posting. Things like events, board-wide fun activities, or contests. It does not always have to be a grand one with real life prizes. Perhaps medals or sparky username for a certain time period can bring attention and interest more than you can imagine. It also adds more color to the forum, so twice the improvement!
Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism – (16 out of 20)
There are not many spelling and grammatical errors around the forum. I notice in what seem like an automated private message and forum descriptions, "you're" is written as "your" instead, which makes the sentences look weird. Other than that there does not seem to be any serious errors. The word choices for forum titles and descriptions are very common; they are easy to understand but lack the unique feeling and special touch. It can definitely be varied more to show what kind of topic to be discussed. For example, description for "Food and Dining" can probably also cover recipes, reviews, or recommendations to help readers. Other than that, credits are written properly and there is not a problem with copyright.
Total Score - (61 out of 100)
Final Remarks:
Running a forum is not a simple business. Chat Socially has been around for a year, and that is something worthy of celebration. Unfortunately, much like many things in real life, the forum also needs unique and fun things to keep the balls rolling. Unique does not always mean a completely new feature; something old but recycled in your own style may work wonders. I feel that with stronger pushes from the staff team in all aspects of the forum, more serious attempts to experiment and try something new (without neglecting the community, of course), Chat Socially can persevere for yet another year and hopefully many years to come. I took my time checking old reviews for Chat Socially; some points had been mentioned previously. That's where more attention needs to come in. The chance is still there, the question is how are you going to use it? Good luck!
Strengths:
- - Simplistic design
- Active "core" group members
Weaknesses:
- - No option to have more colorful themes
- Sections provided may not cover all topics
- Moderate-to-low activity rate
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