Name of Site: FMSupport Site Genre: Webmaster/Promotion Site URL:www.fmsupport.net Type of Review ( Full/Quick ): Quick Opening Date: 22/2/13 Additional Notes: Could Jadster not participate in this review? He is staff member. :great:
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As you can see, Patrick is no longer apart of the ForumPromotion Review Team and this request will no longer be completed by him. If you still wish, we will try to get 2787cmt to do this review for you, or I can take this review and do it. Please let us know what you want to do.
We are truly sorry for the inconvenience and we hope you have a nice day.
No problem guys, we all know that you're doing your best! :great:
I would like 2787cmt to complete it, but if he doesn't have much free time, you can create the review. 😉
The theme.
To start things off, I would like to say that your forum has a very attractive theme. It is basic, but I think the color scheme is awesome. This is a Forumotion forum, but the theme is pretty cool. Honestly, I am surprised to see such a great theme on PunBB and Forumotion. PunBB and Forumotion would definitely not be my first pick as far as forum software and forum hosts go, but it makes sense for your forum to be on Forumotion since it is called "FMSupport." Anyways, is this a custom theme? Whoever designed it should be proud. I have a few minor suggestions though. First of all, I think that the header could be a little bit shorter in height. You will notice that websites like Facebook have very small headers. That seems to be the thing that is being done in web design now. I am not suggesting that you have your header that small, but I think it could be cut in half. Next, the scrolling table under the header looks kind of weird with the advertisement under it as well. It also makes the page longer. I think it would look better if you made the table smaller and then moved it to the right of the logo in the header. That would save space. Back to the positives, I love the rank images as well. They look fantastic.
The content.
Secondly, I think your forum has a lot of nice content. Even though your forum is not very active, I can see plenty of interesting posts. In particular, I am referring to all of the tutorials and guides you have on your forum. There is a lot of informative posts in the "FMService Coding" category. Also, the topics in the "General Discussion" board look good as well. Still, I think you should be trying to make more topics. I know it may be difficult to keep discussions going in the main boards, but at the very least, you should always have active discussions in the off topic boards. I recommend making a new topic every day or two. Obviously, topics in the on topic boards are better than topics in the off topic boards, but one is still better than none, even if it is a board that has little to do with the forum genre. Overall, the helpful content on your forum does not compete with the amount of content on the mainstream support forums, but that is not where your forum is at right now. You want to establish the forum before you worry about things like that.
Weaknesses:
The activity.
First of all, you need to try and work on improving your forum's activity. Looking at all of the boards, you have a lot of inactive boards. In fact, you only have two boards that have had a post today. That is something that you definitely want to work on. Not only does this make your forum look almost dead, but it does not appeal to potential members. Your forum has 1,196 posts, and considering how long this forum has been around, that is a frustrating statistic to anyone. I know FMSupport was revived recently, but the amount of posts still speaks of the struggles that the forum has faced while it has still been running. This is something that must be addressed. You have a board that has not had post in it since April. Since the board went that long without a post, maybe you should consider removing it. Inactive boards are not appealing. Also, you have seventeen boards, so removing a few boards might be a good idea. With the way your forum's activity is right now, it will be near impossible to keep the boards on your forum active all the time. Overall, the activity on your forum is unimpressive. This is not something you can fix with the snap of your fingers, so fixing this issue will require a lot of dedication.
The logo, favicon, and default avatar.
Finally, the logo, favicon, and default avatar should probably be changed. As far as the logo goes, it looks kind of strange. Like I said about the header, I think the logo should be smaller. The gigantic text is kind of unnecessary. Also, I dislike the font. Personally, I am having a lot of trouble reading it. It is a fancy font that is unique, but it is not practical. I recommend getting a font that is a bit easier to read. Next, there is the favicon. Why is the favicon a question mark? I know that it is a support forum, but the question mark does not really match anything else. The icon does match your forum's genre, but the design of the icon does not match. That is rather strange. Lastly, there is the default avatar. I think the default avatar looks nice, but it does not match the forum very well either. The color scheme is right, but the shape is kind of bizarre compared to the rest of the images on the forum. I recommend getting a custom default avatar made. That would be terrific. Overall, these are three simple aspects of your forum's appearance that could be improved.
Final Remarks:
FMSupport is a forum that I have watched struggle for a while now. I remember when it opened. I believed that the forum had a lot of potential back then, and I still believe the same today. Even though this forum is struggling, if you guys keep working on it, I cannot think of a reason for it to fail. With an excellent theme, a domain, a committed staff team, and a purpose, I would be shocked if things did not work out for this forum. I hope to see this forum succeed sometime soon.
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