Large Forum Review
First Impressions
First impressions are of a well organised forum, a MyBB theme which has been heavily customised to suit the genre, however I cannot make up my mind if the theme is right or wrong, there’s something about it which doesn’t ring true, I’ve looked at it several times and I cannot put my finger on it, it could be that you’ve called it the “Badge Society” that means something totally different in the UK to the US, like the word, (and I don’t mean to upset you) fag, in the UK it’s a cigarette, in the US it’s completely different.
(Score: 12/15)
Appearance
As I’ve said above the layout is very good, everything is well organised and threads are grouped well in the categories, I’m not too sure about the extra forum icons though, I’ve never been a fan of them and don’t really see what purpose they serve, tome they don’t add anything to an index page,I like the simplicity of the usual forum icons, they are good, less is more in a lot of cases, the side bar is a good tool as well, and you are using it to good effect, it’s use could be expanded to advertise gay marches, like the gay pride ones in the UK, I am sure you can think or know of more, than me. The graduated background I like, it’s unobtrusive and helps to lead the eye downwards as you browse the index. I’m not totally sure you need the forum stats panel, it’s a little confusing to the new user, like me.
(Score: 15/20)
Statistics and Activity
Posts are fairly evenly spread across the board, it’s expected that some will be quieter than others, but apart from the announcement types forums, the rest are well populated and well used.
Activity is very good, the times I visited there were quite few members posting and you had at least one MOD online as well, your PR is 1 on Google which is quite good for one PR update, if you wish to increase that further then the hard work has to start, by adding more relevant content, and using your keywords to get you ranked higher, because as I said “Badge Society” meant something else to me.
(Score: 17/20)
Ratios
I detected that you have two Admin and at least one MOD, I am assuming that Pseudo and PseudoK are the same person.
For any other forum, I would say that was adequate for the member base you have, in your niche though I would have expected you to need more MODS to cope with all the spammers and abuse a forum like yours would expect, you must cope very well with it, or get very little of it, this I feel may change as your forum gains popularity, so beware and have people in mind to promote.
(Score: 7/10)
Content
I must admit I didn’t delve too deeply into the content, as a lot of it is personal comments that I have no experience of, all I can say is that from what I did view, is that you have a mostly caring community of people, willing to share their views and experience, and I think such honesty deserves top marks in this category.
(Score: 20/20)
Navigation
Navigation is typical MyBB, so no problems there, it’s easy to find your way around.
The only thing I did find confusing was the login panel with the “search” “member list” “calendar” and “help” links, I would like to see these integrated into the main index, with the great buttons you have, the square panel detracts a lot from the rounded corners of the other panels.
(Score: 13/15)
Total Score
86/100
Final Remarks
You’ve achieved a good high score because you have developed a good and thriving community, your task now is to build the community and to encourage members from the gay/lesbian community to join. Concentrating on SEO and your content will help greatly with that, get out into the general forum community and leave backlinks to your forum, this will help with your PR, and membership base.
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