Forum Den
Quick Review by Red Herring
Analysis:
Strengths:
- Aesthetically Pleasing
Well, today is quite a lucky day for me. This is the second time today I've been sufficiently impressed by a theme design. I hold a high standard for aesthetics and am quite the picky individual, so you've accomplished quite an impressive feat; not only was I impressed, but I'd even say that I was dazzled by this theme, even if it is a third-party design. It's been months since I've encountered a forum design I could find so much appreciation in.
I began my introduction to Forum Den greeted by a simple but magnificent header, amidst it a logo that stands resolute and fearless, but offers a kind hand to any visiting strangers that it may encounter. Above this logo were the navigation elements and the UCP area. Navigation elements were simple, almost disappointingly so, but offset by the attractive elements of the UCP area; in the form of handsome red buttons and a pleasing drop-down menu for the UCP proper.
The color blend is absolutely astounding. I had never imagined that beige, red and black could go so well together, but it's executed extravagantly. Category headers are perfectly designed, with a boldly styled line firing straight through the center while the category titles are wrapped in their own snug little CSS box; and lastly, these headers are topped off with a stylish red category collapse button, a button which is slightly large for my tastes, but nonetheless quite slick.
On the other hand, the forum boards themselves are complete with a blend of beige colors, the forumbit's shade being so subtle that it almost appears tableless, but not subtle enough to remain unnoticed, allowing for the forums to remain aesthetically separate; an truly admirable element in design.
This was all completed, to great effect, by by an impressive footer design, which made use of the same element used in the collapsible category buttons, making for a brilliant separator.
This design was the highlight of my day, in terms of internet browsing. The environment felt engineered, a shoe that perfectly fit for the genre of Forum Den. I can honestly say that I have almost no complaints.
If I had to offer any criticism, I would say that the forum icons are a bit banal for such a tasteful design and could use a facelift. If you're thinking about it, please do not use your FD logo for that task, I've always found logo forum icons to be rather crass and make the forums feel a bit narcissistic. The navigation elements also feel a bit bare, feeling as though they're lacking a certain touch I cannot place my finger on.
Otherwise, excellent work. Were I to rate this design by my personal rating system, it would receive a 70/100; a rating I do not give out lightly.
- Growth Rate
Most newly-created forums tend to have a rocky start when it comes to activity. Forums are often created by administrators without any online connections to establish the beginnings of a community. Therefore, such forums often remain a barren ghost town until the administrator works his arse off to generate a stable community; failing that, the forum often simply dies. This is a sadly common occurrence; over 80% of newly-created forums often end up completely dead by the end of their first year, often in six months or less.
Fortunately, Forum Den seems to be breaking free from the 80%. Activity within its first month has been quite stable and even rings a bit on the impressive side, although it could certainly improve. Nonetheless, growth rate is showing excellent progress, with with about two dozen members active within the past 24 hours while posts are being made across the entire board; not one single forum remains untouched by this community, which is very praiseworthy.
It's too soon to tell if these statistics will remain consistent throughout the months to come. The first five or six months of a forum are amongst the most unpredictable and unstable ones, and the administrator can never be sure who amongst their membership will remain a regular. As of now, however, Forum Den is making great progress and I feel it could have some excellent potential to establish a worthy and active community.
Greig, participate actively in your community, advertise like crazy and keep your membership interested, and we'll eventually see a regular Forum Den society arise.
Weaknesses:
- Lack of Content
Ah, the opposite side of the coin to aesthetics; much like how I've been impressed by design twice today, it's also today that I've been disappointed by sheer lack of content. Yes, this time by Forum Den itself, and I am not referring to lack of posts or statistics; we covered how I was actually quite pleased with those developments in the last section.
What I am referring to in particular is interactive content, unique elements that a forum could offer me; whether it be through interesting relevant topics of discussion or through services, events or activities. Forum Den is not suffering from lack of relevance, but I am offered very limited choice when it comes to discussion and services.
Well. "Limited" is probably an improper word to describe it. I'd say it falls more under "commonplace", "generic" and "universal." To be frank, the choices of discussion offered to me by Forum Den are ones I could get at practically any promotion or webmaster forum. And there are certainly no unique promotional services. In fact, the only service offered is your standard promotion directory.
To be fair, "Forum Den" seems less like an environment to promote your forum, rather, focuses more on the discussion of running it. It's also a very young forum, so lack of content and especially lack of services can be forgiven to an extent. But this is the "Forum" Den. And I'm only offered a single forum with a sub-forum for the discussion of forums in particular.
Personally, I'd like to see more discussion and resource categories involving forums; perhaps separate dedicated forums for the discussion of different forum software; a resource database for forum themes, graphics, tutorials, etc that could greatly assist a forum administrator in creating and running a successful forum.
At the current moment, there is nothing unique to be found about Forum Den, which makes bothering with it seem somewhat pointless to those looking for a unique experience and unique services, such as myself.
- Dull Writing
Once again, this is the second time I've been disappointed by an a forum's aspect today. And once again, Forum Den is indeed the offender in this regard, hence this section. It may seem to be a silly aspect to criticize (the majority of your users probably won't care), but it really does have and effect in deteriorating the allure of your forum index.
While the first offender today at least put slight effort into its writing, Forum Den hardly seems to try at all. The forum descriptions describe, but only describe and only just barely. There is no flair or creative writing to be found here. There is no form of excitement in the writing. Reading your entire forum index felt as though I were talking to an employee of a customer support call center who just got done dealing with several angry customers and is quite eager to be out the door.
Forum descriptions can not only describe the purpose of the forum, but with a little creative flair, can also remind the users about various topics available for discussion within that forum or notify the users of possible use for that forum that might not have been obvious. True, it's not going to give a gigantic boost to forum activity, but it just might inspire a little more discussion for that forum.
I feel a little more effort could go into fashioning the writing to be a little more enticing to match with your delightful forum theme. It does not need to be poetry-levels of quality, but a little more excitement would be welcome.
Final Remarks:
Going by first impressions alone, I'm sure many would be seduced into Forum Den's folds. The theme design is absolutely stunning, complete with excellent color blending and CSS design, and backed by a brilliantly audacious logo. The growth rate is quite impressive for its first month on the web, and displays a superb amount of activity thus far.
However, like most promotion and webmaster forums, it suffers from the flaw of having nothing truly unique to offer to the table. Those that care little for aesthetics will likely find themselves wondering why they should register to this particular forum when they can get the same, or even better discussion and better services out of another promotion/webmaster forum. This is definitely the flaw that currently stands as the most crippling to Forum Den, and should be alleviated through the addition of more unique discussion categories and perhaps the addition of standard or even unique promotion services.
The writing is also indeed very dull, but this is a rather minor complaint compared to the latter, but a little effort could still be made on this front; especially in regards to the forum index.
Forum Den has the aesthetic curves in all the right places, but lacks sufficient content to support it. I can't say whether or not this has the potential to
kill Forum Den, but it could definitely hurt it in the long run, and I hope steps are taken to give off a more unique signature experience to its memberbase.
Whatever road you take, best of luck Forum Den. Brace hard for your first uncertain months on the web, and hopefully you'll pull through.
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