Your Forum Review
First Impressions & Appearance - (Out of 20)
The second I click the link to your forum, I see your board background. It's pretty damn nice looking for a gaming forum, and that skin you've got isn't half bad at all. The banner leaves a bit to be desired, you might want to redesign it to include more gaming characters and use a more gaming-ish font on the banner, and just more style to it overall.
Overall, first impressions are nice. There are some board/category layout issues I'd like to discuss with you below, but other than that you're looking good. Main issue is that banner.
(Scored 18/20)
Site Layout - (Out of 20)
Your layout isn't bad. You've done OK with your board structure, but I noticed some flaws firstoff.
Your first category for site info/introductions is excellent. Can't suggest anything better for that myself.
As we go down to the community, I have some suggestions.
First of all, you have an area for " media " and an area for " entertainment " then an area for " general gaming ". This is no good.
Scrap media and general gaming, and move all of that into entertainment. Give entertainment it's own forum underneath The Lounge, rather than making it a child board. Make forum games a subforum of your General Chat area. By fixing this, it would appear this way:
Category---The Community
--Board: The Lounge
---Child Forum: Forum Games
--Board: Entertainment ( place in the description this board encompasses other games, TV, movies, etc.
That general area was really the only thing I had a problem with... looking down at your Gaming Discussions area, it's great TBH, and I don't see any problems other than your ' Computer Software' area. Change the name to " Computer Games " and just get rid of the paid games and free games child boards. You don't need so many boards with such a small site.
Your game database category is A-OK, and your Graphics area is OK, but I would suggest deleting that category entirely and putting it under The Community.
You lost points here mainly due to the issues I see in your The Community category, the rest is good.
(Scored 13/20)
Statistics and Activity - (Out of 20)
Your board opened on May 27th, that's not even 10 days ago and you already have 21 members and 250 posts. That's phenomenal! High mark here.
(Scored 20/20)
Staff Moderation - (Out of 20)
You have 1 administrator, which is all you want with a smaller, newer board. You have 2 super mods, which is fine for now. Don't hire anymore staff until you've got at least 5k posts and about 250 members. You simply don't need a lot of staff.
I'm not quite understanding the purpose of having a " Global Moderators " and a " Moderators " group when you have no one in the Moderators group. Since it is this way, I would suggest you delete the Moderators group and just leave your two guys in the Global Moderators group.
As for activity, Your global mods are pretty active, and your graphic designer is extremely inactive. With 5 posts, that is unacceptable to you as the Admin. I would tell him to shape up or kick him off your team.
(Scored 17/20)
Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism - (Out of 20)
You don't see a lot of gaming forums with perfect spelling and professionalism like yours. 20/20.
(Scored 20/20)
Total Score - 88 (Out of 100)
Final Remarks:
Your site has great potential, but you really need to get yourself real forum software ( you can get phpbb for free) and get yourself a domain name too ( you can get one for 10 bucks from godaddy )
I would recommend changing hosts too. Your site is extremely slow for me when I was reviewing it.
I wouldn't be suggesting this if I didn't think your board had some great potential, trust me on that.
What was most liked about the website/forums:
The professionalism and the theme
What was disliked most about the website/forums:
The bad domain name, and the forum software.
The layout of your off topic/the lounge boards.
How could I get you (The Reviewer) to join my website?
1) Get a domain name and SMF/phpbb
2) Fix that discussion layout up
And I might check it out. I am a gamer myself so your board appeals to me.
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