Your Forum Review
First Impressions & Appearance - (Out of 20)
The first thing I notice when I load your forum's index is your banner.. Your banner is
much too plain. I would recommend making yourself a banner (or having one made for you) that has images from Call of Duty. This would help make it look more like a gaming board. I would also recommend moving the shoutbox to the bottom of your forum if possible; it can be quite annoying to have to scroll through it just to view the forums on the index. The images on your navigation bar also don't seem to go along with the rest of the template very well. I would recommend obtaining some new images for your navigation bar that fit in with the color scheme of your template more. Scrolling down, though, the rest of the template looks fairly nice. Your dark theme is suitable for your gaming board. However, at the bottom where your forum's statistics are, the two images with the white ring around them don't seem to match your theme very well (they appear to be the same style as the ones at the top). Overall, though, your main problem is your banner at the top.
Your forum also has some things that make it look inactive at a glance. You have two empty forums on your index! Empty forums are off-putting to prospective members; they make a forum look inactive. You also have very few posts in your forums; you have so many forums on your index that the posts are spread out very thinly. Your statistics do look pretty solid, but the other flaws could deceive potential members into thinking your forum is inactive.
Overall, my first impression was very neutral.
(Scored 10/20)
Site Layout - (Out of 20)
Your layout is extremely long, disorganized, and unfocused. There are changes you can make just about everywhere to increase the efficiency of your layout. Firstly, I do not feel that you need to have a forum dedicated to your rules. You can post your rules in your "News Announcements" forum or make the rule topics global announcements (assuming you have that capability). Secondly, I do not see the necessity of having a forum dedicated purely to moderator applications. Your forum will not always be hiring; you could simply post a topic in your "News Announcements" forum when you require some extra staff members. Thirdly, I don't see the point in having a forum dedicated to competitions on your index. You only have three topics in that forum thus far, so I think that you could make it a sub-forum under another forum (possibly "News Announcements") unless you start having competitions constantly and feel that you need to have that board on the index. I also don't believe that you need a forum purely dedicated to polls; polls can simply be posted in the forum where they best fit. In your next category, you have a modding board for
Left 4 Dead at the top. That is very odd, as your forum is dedicated to modding
Call of Duty. Your
Call of Duty forum should most definitely be at the very top of that category. Since your forum is focused on
Call of Duty, I think that your modding forums for other games should simply be combined into one "Modding - Other Games" forum. This would help put the focus of your layout back on
Call of Duty, where it should be. Furthermore, I would recommend making "Request a Download" a sub-forum under "All Downloads" (primarily because "Request a Download" is empty). Lastly, I would recommend making "Call of Duty" (the one under "Tutorials") a sub-forum under "Call of Duty Modding," "General Tutorials" a tutorial under "Other Games" (modding), and "Other [Tutorials]" a regular forum under the "Gaming Board" category. These changes will not only make your index easier to navigate and more focused, but they will also make your forum look more active by "squeezing" the posts into fewer forums. These are also only a few suggestions; if you can find any more ways to condense your index, then that would be very helpful.
(Scored 4/20)
Statistics and Activity - (Out of 20)
According to my calculations, your forum receives about thirty posts per day on average. You have three posts for each of your 1128 members. There is a lot of room for improvement on these statistics. First of all, you need to focus on increasing your forum's appeal to prospective members; the other sections of this review may help you with that. Your forum is still fairly new, so post exchanges are still on the table to give your activity a boost. I would also recommend registering on other gaming forums and posting around a bit wearing your forum's signature banner (assuming you have one) to catch the eyes of some
Call of Duty gamers (be careful not to spam their forums, though). Services on Forum Promotion and abroad may also be helpful if you create a good-looking banner and affiliate button for your site.
(Scored 8/20)
Staff Moderation - (Out of 20)
If I can count, your forum currently employs twelve members of staff. This seems like a huge number for a forum of your activity level. I realize that you have over one thousand members, but the number of posts per day you are receiving doesn't warrant having twelve staff members. There are also about four members of your staff who aren't active in the least bit. I would recommend letting the more inactive members of staff go. Whatever you do, do not hire any more staff members unless your forum starts getting thousands of new posts every day. Your staff members could also do a better job of welcoming new members; most of the introduction topics I see have only one or two replies. When you have twelve staff members, every single introduction topic should probably have
at least six or seven replies. I even see some naked introduction topics (zero replies)! Overall, I think your staff members need to work to be a little more dedicated to the forum.
(Scored 5/20)
Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism - (Out of 20)
Your descriptions are bland and robotic. They don't make your forum sound like it's even fun to post on. You also have many grammar mistakes in your descriptions (I only see a few that are even complete sentences). You need some descriptions that make your forum sound useful and fun to post on. Since I want you to change your descriptions, I'm not going to talk about grammar right now. If you take my advice and change your descriptions, request a follow-up review. We can talk about grammar there.
(Scored 4/20)
Score - 31 (Out of 100)
Closing remarks: Don't let the low score discourage you; your forum has a lot of potential. You just need to put some more work into it.
Forum's strong points: You have a nice theme that complements the focus of your site.
Improvements to make: You need to improve your header, layout, activity, staff, and descriptions.
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