Forum Authority

[John]

Official Review of Forum Authority
by John
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First Impressions:
Forum Authority is not a forum that I'm new to. I've watched your forum progress since the day it opened. With that being said, you've grown a lot over the past year or so. I will say the name "Forum Authority" is rather interesting, though. When I first saw the name, I was assuming it was a promotion forum. Thankfully, its not. However, what Forum Authority is exactly is a tad bit confusing. Your logo alludes to this a tad bit; "All in One Community" is a pretty catchy tagline, and I personally like that you decided to use it.

Going back to your direction: it's unclear, but that's not exactly a bad thing. I'll attempt not to get into your structure yet (more on that later), but you would benefit from slimming down a little bit. There's nothing wrong with having something for everyone, but it is always a good idea to focus on things that your members would be the most interested in. This is almost just an introduction section, so let's dig in a little deeper!

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Activity Level:
Remember what I said about focusing on what your members are most interested in? That's what I'm going to dig in, rather deeply, in this section. Some of your sections seem a little inactive. Specifically the "Art & Design" and "Photography" forums seem to be a little underappreciated by your community. Your graphic design forum, however, is very active, which is strange considering how inactive the other forums in that section seem to be. Are these forums new? If they've been there any longer than a month, I'd recommend removing them, or perhaps posting in them more yourself. When it comes to new boards, I always recommend that you set a goal for your topic posting. Two topics per days is pretty solid. That's sixty topics per month, which can pretty easily result in 600 (or more) posts per month just from your topics!

Moving on: the rest of your boards seem to be doing reasonably well. I would be a little worried about how many posts your "Forum Authority HQ" section has, though. The forum has over 100 topics (!) and 600 posts (!). There's nothing wrong with having an active announcement section, but 100 topics in almost two years seems like overkill. Finally - try to do as I said in the last paragraph and set goals for yourself. Do it for more than just topics, though. Try to have every board on your forum have a new reply every 48 hours. This will help make your forum look as active as possible to new guests.

Average

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Spelling, Grammar & Professionalism:
Apparently, this isn't a part of the RT template anymore. I like grammar, however, so I'm happy to write this as a section in your review. Consider yourself special!

This section will be rather short, since you're already doing a solid job from what I've seen. The major thing I see is the major comma splice in the "Welcome to Forum Authority" section. It currently reads "You are currently browsing the site as a guest, if you would like to gain full access to the site and its features". The comma in between "guest" and "if" is a splice and should be replaced with a period. It isn't a huge deal, but it's something that can be improved upon.

You've done a good job writing announcements. They all seem to be grammatically correct and are written to an appropriate length. Good job on this! I always run my posts through Grammarly (which is free on Firefox and Chrome) because I literally can't spell anything. While you might not see commas as more confusing than calculus, it's always nice to have a second set of eyes on your work.

Good

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The thing I liked the best: I wasn't able to go into this, but I liked the theme lot.
The thing I liked the least: The overwhelming amount of boards on the forum.

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Overall Mark:

I do hope that someday you request a full review. You have a good forum, but there is quite a bit that could be improved upon. I touched on as much as I felt appropate, but I'm sure that there could be more that could be helped via a full review. That's for the future, though! Regardless, I enjoyed reviewing your forum. Best of luck with it in the future!
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[Twisted Sister]

Forum Authority is not a forum that I'm new to. I've watched your forum progress since the day it opened. With that being said, you've grown a lot over the past year or so. I will say the name "Forum Authority" is rather interesting, though. When I first saw the name, I was assuming it was a promotion forum. Thankfully, its not. However, what Forum Authority is exactly is a tad bit confusing. Your logo alludes to this a tad bit; "All in One Community" is a pretty catchy tagline, and I personally like that you decided to use it.

Going back to your direction: it's unclear, but that's not exactly a bad thing. I'll attempt not to get into your structure yet (more on that later), but you would benefit from slimming down a little bit. There's nothing wrong with having something for everyone, but it is always a good idea to focus on things that your members would be the most interested in. This is almost just an introduction section, so let's dig in a little deeper!

Hi, @John I would like to start off by saying thank you greatly for your review on my forum. I do apologize for the delay in this response, however, I appreciate the time and effort you put into creating this review on Forum Authority and including your opinions. With that being said, you mentioned that Forum Authority is a "tad bit confusing" is this referring to our niche or path? The slogan/tagline "All in one community" is to symbolize we are more than just a general discussion forum, we are a community of helpful, kind and enthusiastic individuals. Forum Authority's path is to be a go-to location for anyone and everyone, where the atmosphere is pleasant as well as there is plenty to discuss and engage in. In a way like a one stop shop, that houses everything for your wants and desires.

Remember what I said about focusing on what your members are most interested in? That's what I'm going to dig in, rather deeply, in this section. Some of your sections seem a little inactive. Specifically the "Art & Design" and "Photography" forums seem to be a little underappreciated by your community. Your graphic design forum, however, is very active, which is strange considering how inactive the other forums in that section seem to be. Are these forums new? If they've been there any longer than a month, I'd recommend removing them, or perhaps posting in them more yourself. When it comes to new boards, I always recommend that you set a goal for your topic posting. Two topics per days is pretty solid. That's sixty topics per month, which can pretty easily result in 600 (or more) posts per month just from your topics!

Moving on: the rest of your boards seem to be doing reasonably well. I would be a little worried about how many posts your "Forum Authority HQ" section has, though. The forum has over 100 topics (!) and 600 posts (!). There's nothing wrong with having an active announcement section, but 100 topics in almost two years seems like overkill. Finally - try to do as I said in the last paragraph and set goals for yourself. Do it for more than just topics, though. Try to have every board on your forum have a new reply every 48 hours. This will help make your forum look as active as possible to new guests.

Thank you for the advice regarding the posting goals, as my time is slightly limited at the moment I have not had the chance to create continuous threads every day on the website, however, I do plan on creating at least one thread in each category every one to two days. I do agree that some of the sections on Forum Authority are below on activity and popularity. Although I do plan on advertising these sections a lot more and hopefully keep them active, they are relatively new, I may implement the art section into the general section until popular demand of its own section. As for the overactive Forum Authority HQ section this would be due to our development sub-section, we are consistently working on improvements for the site and like to use that section as a test zone, this section is also invisible to guests and members, however I will have to set the configuration that posts within that zone don't count to the overall board statistics.

Apparently, this isn't a part of the RT template anymore. I like grammar, however, so I'm happy to write this as a section in your review. Consider yourself special!

This section will be rather short, since you're already doing a solid job from what I've seen. The major thing I see is the major comma splice in the "Welcome to Forum Authority" section. It currently reads "You are currently browsing the site as a guest, if you would like to gain full access to the site and its features". The comma in between "guest" and "if" is a splice and should be replaced with a period. It isn't a huge deal, but it's something that can be improved upon.

You've done a good job writing announcements. They all seem to be grammatically correct and are written to an appropriate length. Good job on this! I always run my posts through Grammarly (which is free on Firefox and Chrome) because I literally can't spell anything. While you might not see commas as more confusing than calculus, it's always nice to have a second set of eyes on your work.

Oh. My apologies, I wasn't aware that this was removed from the template, I do however appreciate you continuing with this. Thank you for the compliments, I have also taken your advice and installed Grammarly on Google Chrome, It's fantastic and I must admit it has made life a little easier.

 

[Kaynil]

Your Request has been Closed!​

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Thank you for using the Forum Promotion review service. Your topic has been closed, as it has been inactive for two months. Feel free to create a new thread or if you prefer to keep this one, contact a Review Team Member. Either choice will cost 30 FP$.

Thank you.

 

[Joshua Farrell]

Topic reopened for community reviews. 🙂

 

[Twisted Sister]

Hello everyone, this topic has been reopened for community reviews. I would love any opinions, suggestions, thoughts on forum authority. I would greatly appreciate them.

 

[Gizmo]

First of all in your OP I would make the link clickable.

Blue is my favorite color so first impression is AWESOME.

That popup 'Register with us' is a bit excessive. It almost made me turn away from the forum as I can't even view your forum without that popup coming up. Obviously I can close the popup but that's besides the point.

7/10

 

[Twisted Sister]

First of all in your OP I would make the link clickable.

Blue is my favorite color so first impression is AWESOME.

That popup 'Register with us' is a bit excessive. It almost made me turn away from the forum as I can't even view your forum without that popup coming up. Obviously I can close the popup but that's besides the point.

7/10

Hi there, thanks for pointing that out I wasn't aware that the link was not clickable.

I'm glad that you like the colour scheme of the website.

Thank you for your comments there yes I am proposing to remove that feature as it is a bit intrusive.

 

[Twisted Sister]

Hello,

I'm planning on bringing Forum Authority back alive in the near future. I was wondering if anybody had any suggests on what I can change or what you would like to see implemented.

If I use any of your suggests you will be credited respectively.