Your Forum Review
First Impressions & Appearance
When I first visited your forum I had to look twice before I spotted the logo. You have chosen a light blue colour scheme for your forum, but you do need to use more colours and shades for it to work. Right now the logo colours are too similar to the background colour, I had to look closely to understand what the logo said. The font you have used doesn't make it any easier to read it and I don't really understand why you have .co.uk in there, especially as it is of another font and placed slightly away from the main title, maybe a slogan would be better?
The next thing I notice is the menu, it is very wide and looks to similar to the alert bar you have underneath. You really don't need the register button to be on its own on a row underneath, it takes up too much space. I suggest you add the register option to the first menu bar, remove the 2nd bar and make the menu bar thinner.
The New/No new icons look rather out of place, due to them being darker than the rest of the style. Having blue for new and green for no new would just confuse me, having some kind of marker on the letter makes it much easier. The idea of an "S" is fine, it just needs a little tweaking.
In the first section you have coloured titles for the categories, which is fine. But you don't have it for any other categories. Is there a reason for this, because it looks kind of odd right now.
I would suggest removing the Section moderators list under each category as it is the same for all sections.
You have a custom favicon, yet it doesn't tell me anything about what your forum is about and it also has white edges. I suggest a new favicon which is either an "S" to tie in with your style or an image that represents your forum.
There is nothing wrong with the style that you have chosen, but I do feel that it doesn't suit your forum. It doesn't tell me in any way what your forum is about and it definitely doesn't give me a reason to join your site. It needs some personal touches, such as images and a proper logo to give it the feel it needs to give your forum a good representation.
(Score: 13/20)
Site Layout
The first section contains the normal information categories. I don't see any issues here.
The next section, Swapit Deals, confuses me. The first two categories I understand, Buys and sells. But the third category, am I meant to be discussing the deals I am making in the buys and sells categories? Or am I talking about RL transactions? The same questions are created for the fourth category. I need a little clarification before I can make any suggestions for this section.
The next section seems to be a continuation of the section above it. What is the difference between them? I can't really comment negatively on any of the categories, but I don feel that some can be merged together, there are only 38 topics in one section.
The general chat section is huge, I really feel you could cut down on the amount of categories. Sometimes it is nicer for the layout of the board if you have sub-boards instead of a large amount of categories. I feel that the Marketplace section is the same as the Swapit Deals section, at least that is what your board descriptions are telling me. For this reason I feel you should merge these sections.
Your forum isn't about Teens or Roleplay, so why do these have their own sections? Put these in the general chat section.
Your forum layout seems to have started from a few boards and as the forum has grown, you have just added new boards instead of thinking carefully about that boards you are creating where. I like the touch of the members personal boards, but I would like to see more posts and activity in them. Your forum feels like a general discussion forum from the current layout.
(Scored 12/20)
Statistics and Activity
Date Forum Opened: 1st December 2005
Our users have posted a total of 586299 articles (I am assuming this is posts)
Our users have posted a total of 51480 Topics
We have 10039 registered users
At a glance these statistics are very nice. But I have done some counting. In the time your forum has been open you have had an average of 8143 posts per month, which is great. This shows an active community. With an average of around 11 replies to each thread, this shows that there is some kind of discussion going on. But for being open very nearly 6 years and having an average of 58 posts per member I am disappointed, and this is when I haven't removed staff post counts. This starts to get me thinking, why do members leave your forum and not come back. You mention a re-opening. This can obviously have an affect, have you sent out mass emails asking old members to return? What are you doing to encourage current members to stay? To boost your activity you need to ask yourself what type of people visit your forum, what are they looking for, how can you please them and fulfil their needs? If you can answer all these questions and implement them on your forum then you have a winning formula!
(Scored 16/20)
Staff Moderation
I see good activity from your staff and I can't find spam around the forum. However the discussions I read quickly go into a short post trend, with the moderators not seeming to do much to prevent this. You may wonder how this can be done. If your staff see that a topic is going downhill they can post a new question that furthers a discussion, or post a longer opinion that can't be replied to with I agree. You need to talk to your staff and discuss with them what they feel needs to be worked on and together draw up a plan for this. I do feel that for a forum of its size if activity continues to grow you will need a second admin and a couple more moderators.
(Scored 17/20)
Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism
The site doesn't really scream professionalism. The board descriptions are a prime example of this. They are short, boring, poorly written and demanding. There is a lot of room for improvement here. Never demand, write things in a friendly manner so your user feels like they are part of the community and equal with you, not being controlled by you. Even if they are in some ways...
There are small things all over your forum, your style one of them. This forum discusses things that handle real money, and for that a professional look and treatment of members is needed, this is what your forum lacks.
(Scored 6/20)
Total Score - 64/100
Final Remarks
Strong Points
Stats, Staff
Things to Improve
Activity, Style
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