Your Forum Review
First Impressions & Appearance - (Out of 20) Well I started from your sites front page, the front page was basic in it's style but looked clean and gave a very good description of what your forum was all about. I then moved onto the forum index and the first thing that stood out was the excellent banner, the banner was well designed and fitted very nice with the forum's theme.
What I also like was you had a favicon as for me it's little things like that, that shows me the admin really cares about one's site. The site gave a very good first impression due to it having an excellent theme and also because on first glance the site looked very active, I'm not one for google ads but you have managed to make it blend in with the site's theme and it's does not attract away from the forum too much, I would though suggest you had it at the bottom of your site just above the who is online box. This would then not push your forums so far down the page.
(Scored 17/20)
Site Layout - (Out of 20) You have a modified subsilver theme and your are still using phpBB 2 which is now no longer supported by phpBB and as such you should look to move to phpBB 3 as soon as you can for security issues and new functions etc, the good news however is forumotion does allow you to swap to phpBB 3 and that you can use subsilver 2 themes on that software. The bad news is phpBB are looking to stop supporting the subsilver type themes from phpBB 3.1.0 so if do decided to move over look at getting a unique them done.
You have made good use of the subsilver theme and it comes across as very clean and laid out , I like the menu underneath the site logo as it makes it quick and easy to navigate around your site. Also I like the forum icons you have for each forum this make it easier for guest and users to know what that forum is about. The icon that appears when you hover over a forum is a very nice touch and not something you see very often and just adds to the sites uniqueness. One thing that I would suggest moving if your hosts allow it is the hits box at the top of the site, you do not need it there if it should be anywhere it should be at the bottom of the page with the copyright and icons.
The last thing is the Trash forum should not be on public display, especially if it has topics and post that have broken rules, it should be part of the staff area, look at altering viewing permissions for this.
(Scored 16/20)
Statistics and Activity - (Out of 20) You gave me the date of around the 10th of June last year for the date the site opened but it's in fact Friday the 8th May, 2:58pm (GMT). So will base your stats on that start day, what helped me was you had the stats mod installed on your forum which made it very easy to see your stats.
The first one I always look at is your post per day count and the sites stands at 378.98 which is a very good stat, although I noticed you only average 13 new topics a day. You need to look at upping your topics as the post stats proves that your users are posting so if they have more to post to your site will grow even faster. Your overall post count is fantastic for a site less than a year old, if you can keep this going there is no reason which Fuji Planet can not become a big board in the future. The user count is 290, out of them 75 have never posted and most have never even logged in, I recommend that every 3 months delete accounts that have not been used.
(Scored 18/20)
Staff Moderation - (Out of 20) You have a big staff count and I used your Fuji Planet Official Staff as point of reference. You have 3 admins, 5 moderators, 1 designer, 1 reviewer and 2 arcade managers, so 12 in total but I will for only count the admins and moderators as its these who run and maintain the forum.
All the staff are very active, as by looking at the last active page all the staff members have been online today, that is paramount for such an active site. What I can't see is the need for 3 administrators on the site and especially one this is run via forumotion as they do the majority of what an admin does behind the scenes such as software updates, hosting problems, mod installation. Because of this it should free up time for the admin to just run the forum itself as, so unless the 3 admins have specified roles on the site, I would demote at least one of them. Also there is no real need to have global moderators and moderators. You should merge the groups and appoint a moderator team leader, they can then oversea the group and delegate certain forums to different members. This will make the staff structure better and easier for users to understand who has what role.
The staff all seem to be doing their jobs and any issues seem to be sorted very fast.
(Scored 15/20)
Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism - (Out of 20) I will start with professionalism, I read one topic, where a moderator is asking if he is a good moderator or not, that to me is un-professional, be all means discuss it between staff members out of way of the general population but don't do it in the open. Further more also allowing staff and members to disrespect ex-members does not come across well, no matter what a user has done in the past, the moderators should not allow users to slag off other users as it could put of potential new members.
I picked up on a few grammar and spelling issues, a few of your topic descriptions were missing full stops at the end of the description. I also noticed one or two spelling issues by the staff, as staff members they should all check their post before posting as they should be leading by example. I would recommend asking the staff also not to write in text speak because not everyone likes to read it or understand it, if users can't understand post then they will leave. Again this is also down to professionalism you need to make sure you cater for everyone, so check your post are readable by all age groups not just the younger ones.
(Scored 14/20)
Total Score - (80 of 100)
Final Remarks: The first year of your site has been a very good one, you have only one or two minor issues that I have mentioned above that need to be considered, don't forget this is just from my point of view it is up to you if you what to make those changes or not.
I do however strongly advise you to upgrade to php3.0.7-pl1 which is the latest version of phpBB as you will get support over at phpBB and you will be using software that is a lot better that what you are currently using, it's like using windows98 when you have windows 7 installed
What was most liked about the website/forums: The sites stats and banner both were excellant.
What was disliked most about the website/forums: The fact you are using old software and you in my eyes over staffed.
How could I get you (The Reviewer) to join my website?
Just do what I've already suggested above.
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