Your Forum Review
First Impressions & Appearance - (Out of 20)
Your homepage is nice. It’s simple, has content readily available, and looks really good. Unfortunately, the more important part, your forum itself, doesn’t. It looks like someone took subSilver, changed around a few colors and images, and then did nothing else. You’ve got black text on dark brown, which looks really out of place. Then you’ve got this bright yellow against a light blue. The posts alternate between a blue-gray and light-yellow. The light-yellow makes things way too bright. It’s hard to concentrate on the blue-gray posts. I think all the posts should be all the same color. Moving along, your banner image is good in the fact that it accurately illustrates what your forum is about. Plus, it’s just a nice picture overall. The bad part however is that it like runs over the header. Shave a few rows of pixels off. The other images have white pixels that decrease the quality. It’s just not a good skin.
(Scored 10/20)
Site Layout - (Out of 20)
I really like the Tip and Editorial thing at the top. I like little fun-facts like that. (Though, it would be nice if the tip was random each time.) As far as your actual forums and how they’re laid out, I really like it. You’ve got the stuff pivotal to the city, and seem to offer some neat features. It seems like your community is/will be very close-knit, which is a really neat thing to have in a forum. Your forums are categorized well. Nice job!
(Scored 19/20)
Statistics and Activity - (Out of 20)
This is really a tough one. Your forum is really only useful for people who live in one specific city, so it’s not really fair to judge you as if everyone in the world would be able to join. That being said, your stats are exceptional. 100+ members is always a good achievemtn, as is 1000 posts. Remember though, post count is more important member count. Having 5000 users would mean nothing if 4990 are inactive. Try to keep members active and posting. One thing you could do is impose a post limit on the advertising forums. That way people can’t come in, advertise, and then leave. Even if they planned to leave afterwards, they’d still have to make at least a few good posts. Just a suggestion. Overall though, you’re doing great.
(Scored 17/20)
Staff Moderation - (Out of 20)
Because I wasn’t provided a test account, this section is going to be difficult. (Your forum doesn’t allow me to see members of usergroups.) From what I can see, you’ve only got a few staff members. That’s good for smaller forums like yours. I also like that your post quality seems to be encouraged by members actually interacting well. A lot of your members seem to treat others as friends, which is great. Close-knit forum communities always do well, since members don’t want to leave and miss the members they’ve become buddies with. That’s partly because of the excellent choice of having your forum based upon one city. Your staff do a good job at moderating it with professionalism and kindness. However, try to make sure you don’t have more than 50% of the forum’s posts. It’s intimidating for newcomers to see every other post is pretty much by the same person.
(Scored 17/20)
Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism - (Out of 20)
I’m just going to do down your forum descriptions and point out the most prominent problems.
“News and developments @ Cincy Forums including biographical synopsis about Cincy Forums key players.” Don’t use “@” unless you’re talking about Twitter or something. It should be something like, “News and developments at Cincy Forums, including biographical synopsis about Cincy Forums’ key players.”
“If you are having problems logging into your account or other account related problems, post your issue here. We will have a response within 24 hours.” should be, “If you are having problems logging into your account, or other account related problems, post your issue here. We will have a response within 24 hours.”
“Do you want to become the next mayor of Cincinnati? Are you interested in joining City Council? Or do you just enjoy embroiling yourself into local politics? Well this is the forum for you.” Don’t start a sentence with the word “or.” “Do you want to become the next mayor of Cincinnati? Are you interested in joining City Council, or enjoy embroiling yourself into local politics? Well, this is the forum for you.”
“Employers post your help wanted ads in this forum for free. Browse this forum if you are looking for a job.” should be, “Employers, post your help wanted ads in this forum for free. Browse this forum if you are looking for a job.”
Those aren’t all of the mistakes. I just gave you some examples. Don’t get me wrong, though. It wasn’t horrible. It just wasn’t great. They need a proofread.
(Scored 15/20)
Total Score - 68 (Out of 100)
Final Remarks: With some improvements, you could have a great community.
What was most liked about the website/forums: Activity
What was disliked most about the website/forums: Appearance
How could I get you (The Reviewer) to join my website? Not applicable, since I don’t live in Cincy.
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