Four Vices
Review by Cierra
Site Statistics
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Your current statistics are: Threads 560, Posts 4,433, Members52, Active Members 52, one blog post. Right off the bat, I am impressed to see that 52 members of your forum are active, as that is your entire member base. That looks good to a potential new member, it shows that your forum is active and everyone is participating. One thing I am disappointed to see is that you only have one blog post up. Try to be constituent with your posts, maybe make a schedule of posting on every Monday and Saturday for example. You can also ask your other staff members to submit posts as part of their staff duties.
Either way, you want to get the blog filled with content and make sure it is active. This might also help you gain some new registrations, if someone sees a blog post on the site they like they just sign up. The one post that is posted (The Nitrous World Of Velo City) on the blog is pretty short and is just a list of links.
Honestly, looking at it I am not sure what it is even about until clicking some of the links included in that post. Some post ideas I have that I think would be interesting to your members are: anime/manga reviews, forum happenings (what’s going on with your forum basically), pop culture, television/movies, and technology reviews. Overall, your statistics are not too bad for a new forum.
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Good
Originality
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I have seen many general and entertainment forums online, but not as many general
and entertainment forums. You are also running on the Vbulletin forums system, which not as many people use now a days and/or are moving away from it to other platforms.
You also have two themes that you have made unique to your forum, which I think is nice. It gives users an option of how they want to view the forum.
I like how you have balanced the theme out by having a light and dark theme, since not everyone likes dark themes or can’t use them for various reasons.
One thing that can be more unique is your “Affiliates” section. You could try having the affiliates posted on your portals or underneath the first post in at thread for example.
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Average
Site Structure
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Four Vices has a moderate amount of forums and sub forums. I find that the categories are well laid out and everything is where I expect it to be. I do notice the forum categories descriptions are very long, too long in fact. Shorten your descriptions to maybe two sentences each, at most, with the main point of the forum and any special instructions included there. With the way they are now, I doubt people are fully reading them thoroughly which is not what you want.
One example of a nice sized and informative descriptions your “Gaming” section (url-http://fvforums.com/forumdisplay.php?8-Gaming). Here is the description: “Gaming grows ever popular each year. More and more individuals find themselves succumbing to the fantastic creations spanned across the popular consoles.” Short, sweet, informative, and to the point. I like it. I think that the “Affiliates” section could be combined with the “Forum Broadcasts” section as it is not very used or active. I also believe that the “Reading Lists” (url-http://fvforums.com/forumdisplay.php?27) section could be removed entirely. Just have people post in the “Literature” forum instead.
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Good
Final Remarks
There are a lot of entertainment/general forums out there so your forum has to be different and unique in order to survive. You have a good foundation for only being open a month (approximately), but you need to continue to build and expand upon that. With a few fixes here and there, and some changes, you will be all set. Good luck with your forum! 😉
Your Score
