Your Forum Review
First Impressions & Appearance - (Out of 20)As you will already know from me, not a fan of freeforums but saying that you have made a good job of it.
The default theme was nice simple colour variation of prosilver, the logo fitted with the theme but found it rather on the large size, as this is the second coming of gamefray after the old owner packed in, I would look at adding some thing like mk2 to the title so new and old users will know its a new admin carrying on from the old one.
The Portal needs sorting out as you have too much going on, I use a portal and limit what is shown, for example you have 2 donation boxes, you have still got the default welcome message, all this can be change via the ACP, remember 1st impressions are everything and this is the 1st page guests will see.
The forum itself is clean and generally looks good, but is let down by the adverts which I know can't be helped, you also need to see about adding some finishing touches such as a favicon and rank images, the last I know you are already got planned.
(Scored 13/20)
Site Layout - (Out of 20) I have already said the portal layout needs work, look at what you want and what is important to your guests and then disable the other boxes.
The forum layout has improved since I first visited but still needs work, the general discussion area should be at the bottom of the screen, your idea layout should be something like this:
Site Information:
-Announcements
--(subforum) Rules
-Feedback
--(subforum) Archived feedback
-Newbies
(New Catergory)General Gaming
-General Gaming
-Reviews
-Walkthroughs
-PC
Then have the different console forums as they are and then last have:
Off Topic Area
General Discussions
Random
This will then be a lot easier for guests to navigate round, as your a gaming forum look at adding some gaming icons to each forum (I can supply these). The descriptions are ok and informative
(Scored 11/20)
Statistics and Activity - (Out of 20)After the explantion with regards to activity, what you should have done is reset the boards start date when it was being used as all your stats will use november the 19th as your start date.
There is an SQL query you can run to change it, see if the support and freeforums will run it for your forum, if so I will send you the query with the correct date, as most guest will judge you on the stats in the portal for example:
Your posts per day is only 7 but if it was from feb would be 11.61 so a slight improvement. Anyway even though you start using it in Feb the stats are pretty poor for a new forum, you should be looking at a post per day of over 50, you and your new moderator should be posting like made, the user per day count is less than one this also needs working on.
You need to be using post exchanges, posting packages and affiliating with other gaming forums to but up your stats and activity.
(Scored 8/20)
Staff Moderation - (Out of 20) You have to the staff to user ratio spot on, you don't need anymore at the moment.
As a daily user I feel you both need to be a lot more active and have a better online presence, as already said you two need to be posting as much as possible with plenty of new topics etc.
Other than that the forum is well run and for a new admin your doing and ok job and always willing to learn
(Scored 12/20)
Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism - (Out of 20) All the forum descriptions were all spelt right. You need to always check your posts for errors as I found ½ minor spelling mistakes, the same for your moderator.
Other than your both very professional in your job, just take on board my points aboce
(Scored 14/20)
Total Score - (58 of 100)
Final Remarks:The score isn't great but it's easily change if you do the changes above, the thing that lets you down the most is your stats and activity and you need to really work at these.
What was most liked about the website/forums:The theme, software and logo
What was disliked most about the website/forums: The stats and activity
How could I get you (The Reviewer) to join my website? Already a member
After you have read your review, please click the following link and rate our service to help us make it better for you.... [
Click Here]
.
