Your Forum Review
First Impressions & Appearance
The first thing that catches my attention when viewing your forum is the contrast between the strong blue colour and the dark grey background. There is nothing really wrong with the blue, but it is clashes too much when used on a dark background. I suggest either toning it down or using a lighter background colour.
The logo itself isn't very interesting, the border on the letters is thicker than the letters themselves which gives the logo an odd feel and makes it a little hard to read. The colour choice for the letter border feels a little odd. It feels like you have pulled too many colours into the forum style. Using 3 colours in the way you have chosen to is a bit overpowering. Having the blue and dark grey as your main colours is fine, but tone down the amount of white and use it as a detail only colour instead.
The blue straight against the dark backgrounds of the category titles makes the titles hard to read. I would suggest just using the same white as used for the descriptions and make the text bolder. The same goes for the glow on the admin and moderator names, they are hardly distinguishable as does for the latest post texts. Alternatively, you could make the background lighter.
You have several small touches on your forum that are nice, such as the read/old markers and the avatar bar. The footer is a little high, but that is a preference.
(Score: 15/20)
Site Layout
You currently have 4 sections. The first section is the forums Information section containing Announcements, Introductions and Intellectual Chat. The first 2 I don't have any issues with, but having the Off Topic general chat in this section seems a little odd. Why is it not in the community off topic section with the other off topic categories?
The second section is all about StellarDawn. It contains 6 categories, where of each one only contains 1-3 threads. This needs a serious re-think. You could easily get away with a maximum of 2 categories here and really for the amount of posts you only need one.
The next section, Other Jagex, hardly has any threads in it either. You could easily merge all of these into one category. The same goes for the Off Topic Section which can all be merged into the Intellectual Chat category.
Considering the size of your forum you could easily get away with 2 sections. The first containing Announcements and Introductions and the 2nd containing 2 categories that are on topic, one discussing jagex and one off topic. That is really all you need at this time.
(Scored 9/20)
Statistics and Activity
Your forum has been open for around a month, in that time your stats are:
Our members have made a total of 830 posts in 87 threads.
We currently have 18 members registered.
This gives an average of 46 posts per member. For only being open a month this isn't too bad. But then, that drops to 37 when I remove the amount of posts made by the admin. This still isn't too bad for quite a new forum. But it can definitely get better. One thing I notice is very little threads. Your members seem to be only posting in existing threads instead of choosing themselves to start new discussions. This is where your staff need to be more active and direct them in the right direction. Make more threads and boost discussion. New threads will create new questions and topics, leading to more new threads. You really need to work on your stats, promote more, do some affiliate swaps and such.
(Scored 10/20)
Staff Moderation
As an admin your activity is good and you are doing well posting around the forum. Your moderator isn't doing as good a job. His post count isn't great and there is certainly more he can do. I don't see any spam, but your forum is small, so it isn't hard to moderate. I don' really see why you need a moderator at all at this stage, but if you are offline for days at a time this is a good idea.
The staff need to work on their interaction with members and boosting of discussions. I would like to see more members running their own discussions and starting their own threads, but this will only happen if they are encouraged by the staff.
(Scored 11/20)
Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism
The forum doesn't look very professional and I don't get a very professional feel from it. But it does feel like a relaxed community, which I am guessing is the aim of the forum. There are no issues with your spelling or grammar, but the board descriptions do feel a bit commanding and demanding. They are made up of questions and short sentences, I would prefer to see one longer, more friendly sentence.
(Scored 16/20)
Total Score - 61/100
Final Remarks
Strong Points
Spelling/Grammar and most of the style
Things to Improve
Small style edits and activity. Layout!
After reading your review, please click here to rate our service.
The Team Leader will deduct the cash from your account shortly.