The Help Me Code Club
Full Review by Lucky!
Scoring:
First Impressions & Appearance – (17 out of 20)
Ahh yes, good ol' IPB, nice! Although I haven't seen many forums these days, at least posted on FP, that are using IPB to power their community, so it is nice to see that here on THMCC. Starting out, the thing that I noticed was the theme, which I have seen before. There is nothing wrong with using a theme in which you either got free or pay for. However, the biggest thing that you run into is looking like every other forum using that theme, which makes it harder to establish a truly unique identity. I have faced this myself, and I am about offer something that may help, customize! Take the theme in which you have now, and make changes to it that reflect your community, make it truly yours! Now, am I saying you need to change just everything about the theme or make large edits, well not--unless you want to. However, make it look different from every forum using it, because then, you set the tone for being you, The Help Me Code Club. Another thing that would look good is different icons for each forum, instead of just using the same icon for all. Something that would look nice is a custom icon that matches your community niche or using a mod, that IPB offers, that would allow you to set different icons for each forum. Other than that, the colors blend very well together and offer a theme that is very easy on the eyes. This is the type of theme that I could look at for hours while posting around and not have any issues with how things look and my eyes hurting. Overall, I like what you have here and let's continue on to the rest of the review!
Site Layout – (12 out of 20)
Probably one of the most important aspects of a website, its layout! I normally start out by going from the top of the website and end up working myself down to the footer and organizing the review that way. However, I think I am going to do things a little different this time. Starting at the top, I have a few things to say about the navigation bar. The links that are there now seem like they should be hidden from guests, mainly because they don't pertain to them. Things such as: "The Credit Store", "Store", and "Apply" really doesn't serve a purpose to be in view of a guests. If guests aren't meant to be able to use a function, hide it from view. This is important because if you don't, and they receive an error, they will think your site is full of problems and will leave. Regarding your social links, why do you have two sets of them? You have two icons near the "Login" links and then the two larger ones to the right of the breadcrumbs. To be honest, you really don't need two separate locations and to further this, I think they look a little better next to the breadcrumbs, it just polishes the theme a bit better. I like the idea of having a message shown to guests needing to know what you have to offer and why they should register, however, I feel that you dropped the ball on this part. I only say that because you don't really state a good reason as to why I should be part of your community. You state the normal things that I would expect from a forum, so nothing is being gained there in your favor. Try changing it up and instead use some kind of mission statement or give more unique reasons as to why I should be a part of your community and not some other one that I found on Google. One thing that really got me was your forums, and it's easy. I feel that you are having an identity crisis and you do not know why you're on the Internet, so you just threw a lot of forums on the board to cover that void, and it's very noticeable to the keen eye. Going off your name, I would expect your community to cover...well coding. Things such as articles, tutorials, ideas, suggestions, and what else that you could cram in a coding forum. I would expect to register on your forum not knowing much about coding and hope to learn from it, it'd make sense. However, it's quickly understood that the reasoning that I have isn't true. It's sad to see that the "Webmaster" category has more content than the coding forums, why is that? Last time I checked, you were a coding forum, not a webmaster. If you ask me, you should just be a webmaster forum and ditch the coding aspect because it's obvious it isn't priority one. I am most hurt about this because I love the idea of a coding forum because it's rare and I would have enjoyed learning a thing or two. If I am joining a "coding forum", the last thing I would expect to see is a promotion area, and community reviews. If you are calling yourself a "coding forum", please make it so.
Another thing that I felt that was lacking was the forum descriptions. On top of the confused forums, I was also faced with some rather brief and incomplete descriptions that didn't translate what the forums truly were, which isn't good. Forum descriptions are one of the most overlooked aspects of a forum and it's depressing to think like that because it's such a little thing that has a large impact. Work on making them more inviting and making them more unique.
Statistics and Activity – (13 out of 20)
Things in this section is a little both sided. On one side, I like how many posts you have thus far, however, they could be a little bit higher. You have been open for 15 months and only have 5,266 posts. I would have expected this number to be higher in relation to the amount of time you have been open. When we do the math on those numbers, it breaks down like this:
- 5,266 / 15 = 351 average posts per month
- 351 average posts per month / 147 users = 2 posts per member
- 351 per month / 30 = 11 average posts per day
- 3 staff members total 1,367 posts = 25% of overall posting (not bad)
The one thing that really bothers me is the number of posts in the webmaster related forums and how little, in comparison, for the coding forums. To better show this, I took the time to add both topics and replies of each section and figured:
- There is 1,254 webmaster posts
- There is 126 coding posts
- That's a 9:1 posting ratio
If you intend to be a coding forum, why do you have a ratio of 9:1 webmaster topics per coding topic? In doing this math, I also saw that some forums have such few posts in them. If this is true, do they really warrant their own forum? For the time being, you should think about consolidating the forums into something that is easy to manage until you grow larger.
Content – (13 out of 20)
This is about be be a short section mainly because I have touched on a lot of these things already. The thing that gets me is the absence of content for your niche, coding. I would except to see some tutorials, some guides, tips and tricks and so on, but I didn't. I see you have a downloads section, but it only has six items in it, which is useless. To say you are a community that is, "My #1 Coding Community" is a long shot and you might make for a better webmaster forum than anything else. You need to focus on being a coding forum and not just a webmaster forum. That niche is so over saturated it isn't even funny. What you have here is a fine base for a coding forum because it's something that hasn't been done as much. Take what you have already forum wise, add a lot more downloads, guides and so on about coding and market that. Overall, I was not satisfied with the lack of content regarding coding.
Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism – (14 out of 20)
For this section, it's probably your best. I didn't really find any large issues with your spelling and grammar. Posts around the forum seem to be of somewhat quality, which is a good thing. About the professionalism of the forum, I just do not feel that vibe. My main concern is that your "Chatter" category is littered with posts, which far out weigh the content that actually matters. I feel as if your members, and maybe the staff, are more worried about posting inside those forums rather than the forums that are more geared to coding. It really bothers me that your "Forum Games" is the third highest posted forum, why? To me, that's not professional at all, and because of that, your forum wouldn't warrant my posts, nor my time. Because it's obvious that you're both lost in your niche and that you care more about making content in games than forums that matter in the forums.
Total Score - (69 out of 100)
Final Remarks:
Overall, my view on The Help Me Code Club is very dismal, at best. I get the feeling that you really don't know what you want to do with your community and it looks it. I don't get the feeling that you're a coding forum, it feels like any other promotion forum out there, not good. Work on the points that I brought up and I think you will be in your way to something that you will be more proud of to call a coding forum. As always, best of luck.
Strengths:
- - Theme is very nice and calming
- Niche is very rare to see, and to see it here is nice
Weaknesses:
- - Are you a coding forum or a webmaster forum?
- Lack of caring towards content in the "Coding" aspect and more in games
