Free review for mindsConnected

[Bryn]

Site Name: mindsConnected
Date Opened: 9th June 2018
Review Requested (Quick/Advanced): Part of the "Free Review Week"
Notes: I know I've only just requested feedback about a week ago but, considering that it has a brand spanking new theme which had captured the hearts of many, I think a second look is much recommended 🙂

 

[Geoffrey]

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Your Official Review is In Progress!​

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Thank you for requesting our services. I have tagged your thread and will finish an official review in less than 5 days. In the meantime, you will receive informal feedback from other reviewers and members at Forum Promotion. Once your official review is completed, you will be free to ask questions and receive feedback so long as your website remains open. You will also be able to request another review in thirty days after this Official Review is completed.

 

[Bryn]

Any progress with this, @Geoffrey? It's been five days now. Still waiting, patiently 🙂

 

[Geoffrey]

Any progress with this, @Geoffrey? It's been five days now. Still waiting, patiently 🙂

I've resigned from the staff team. Someone else will need to do it.

 

[Bryn]

Sorry to hear that 🙁 Whatever was the reason, I'll respect it. Hopefully someone else can come in and do this. No rush.

 

[Ajay]

Official Review of «mindsConnected»
«https://mindsconnect.jcink.net»
by «Ajay»
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First Impressions:
site looks organized, and you have a decent number of visiting users each day. Has a good amount of activity with new topics being created along with regular replies.

Excellent

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Design Quality:
The design is very simple, but looks elegant. I've always been for simple designs and not going crazy. Each board has a unique image next to it, which i'm really liking! It has a sort of "techy" look to it because of this simplicity. I'm guessing that's what you were going for, based on the niche of the site.

Excellent

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Site Structure:
The structure could use some work. It seems that on certain resolutions, it requires a bit too much scrolling for it to be comfortable to browse. I would try to cut down on some of the boards, or combine categories to make it easier to search for a specific board. This isn't really a big issue, but just something that you might want to consider.


Average

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Originality:
Site looks good, and is unique. Most tech sites I've seen just try to go too crazy with their themes, and end up making it too bloated to view. I've never been a fan of those before, and i know several people who would agree with me.

Average

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Activity Level:
Excellent activity level. You have members coming back, and some with over 50 posts. This means you have great conversations, and I noticed that reading through some as I browsed the forum. You are also getting a good amount of guests for a forum near five months old.
Excellent

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The thing I liked the best: Niche, activity, and look. The topic is something that a lot of people will be interested in, and the activity and look of the forum should definitely attract more users.
The thing I liked the least: Just a bit too cluttered for my taste, but this might not be the issue for everyone.

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Overall Mark:
Great start to your forum, and I think it'll definitely go places! Good luck.

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[Bryn]

Thanks very much for this, @Ajay 🙂 Now, let me have my say on the points you covered... first off, I'm quite surprised for you to say that the forum is that active especially when I thought to myself that I was finding it hard to gain new members since about a few months ago but yes, I am happy that some of my members come in and out every day and at least that's something 🙂 As for the default theme, you can thank TuneableSumo876 for that but I didn't really see that each of the forum sections had their own icon. Not sure if you got that mixed up with something else.

Also, yes, I know there is quite a long list of forum sections and I have been thinking hard to try and condense it even for the benefit of mobile users that come on. Although, one other tech forum I'm on has lots of those, about treble the amount I have. I'll try to look into that again and possibly discuss it with my fellow staff.

I can also agree that from what you said, the forum does have a fair amount of potential and can definitely go places, as long as I spread the good word even further and more so, when Planet Nexus finally gets its new Nexus system rolled out. This had helped many forums in the past and even my old one and, would love for it make the community rise even further 😀

Once again, thank you

 

[Ajay]

but I didn't really see that each of the forum sections had their own icon. Not sure if you got that mixed up with something else.

I think it's just some of them, like the one for the Archive board.

Also, yes, I know there is quite a long list of forum sections and I have been thinking hard to try and condense it even for the benefit of mobile users that come on. Although, one other tech forum I'm on has lots of those, about treble the amount I have. I'll try to look into that again and possibly discuss it with my fellow staff.

Yeah, i just tried it out on my phone, and it's a bit difficult to browse the forum.

Glad you found my review helpful! 🙂

 

[Bryn]

Ah yes, the icon for the Archive. It's nothing special really because when you set a forum section to like a read-only archive, redirect or an RSS Feed, the icon changes for it accordingly. A different icon like for all sections would be lovely to have. Might consider it for the future 🙂