Your Forum Review
First Impressions & Appearance - (Out of 20)
After clicking onto your site as a guest, I am taken to your homepage. I have got to say, it is pretty boring and non-vibrant. My first suggestions for your homepage would be to extend it a little bit, each one of those left and right sides are almost as big as your center page.
Your info box is too small. You need to make it bigger and more colorful ( perhaps a blackish lightlish blueish orangish, for a gaming community ). Also, consider making important parts of the message bolded, to attract guest attention. Example, ' any type of games ' should be '
any type of games ' to emphasize your site is about any type of game. Your navigation side panel is also very small, consider enlarging the size of it. Your banner is nice, but you should consider changing the font to a more gaming style font. Scrolling down on the homepage, I see you have your site news first. I see " member of the month: Yoshi " then directly under it says " Sig of the Week " which is confusing to me. You should have dedicated an area to your member of the month, and an area for your signature of the week. Moving to your forum, I see that you have a nice welcome message, again I suggest bolding important parts of it. You've got some work to do on your homepage, but your forum index isn't bad.
As a guest, I wouldn't be inclined to join, soley due to the homepage.
(Scored 8/20)
Site Layout - (Out of 20)
As I suggested, you need to make some changes to your homepage. The info box is too small, as is the navigation panel. You also need to take another look at your news area.
As I scroll down your index, I applaud you for the great job done on your boards. They are pretty much perfect. Looking at your gaming board, the board called " Common Gaming " is a little problematic. The word ' common ' doesn't fit at all. Perhaps you should change it to " Other Gaming " or " General Gaming ". Your description also needs another look- " If your interested in video games and what to discuss about them post the topics in here. Post about any type of video game for any platform. " has tons of grammatical and spelling errors, I'll get into that in the appropriate area.
Your general discussion area is pretty good. I would recommend you change the name of your " Movies, Music, Books, Computers " area to simply " Entertainment/Technology " I'm not sure what the clubs area is for, but it seems to draw a lot of posts, so that's fine. You don't need an entire board for Anime, especially with such a new/small forum. Move the topics in there to Entertainment. I have a strong pet peeve for spam areas, but it seems to work for you, so that's A-OK.
I don't see a need for an entire category for technology discussion, you can move all of that to your new " Entertainment/Technology board.
It is also confusing that you have a board for " Music, Movies, Books, Computers " but then have another category for computer discussion. You should combine the two.
Other than those flaws, your layout is pretty good.
(Scored 14/20)
Statistics and Activity - (Out of 20)
Your board has been open since September 2008, and only has 158 members and less than 9,000 posts. This isn't so good, you might want to do some more advertising and do some more post exchanges.
(Scored 10/20)
Staff Moderation - (Out of 20)
You have two admins, and 4 moderators. That's a fine amount for a board the size of yours, no complaints here.
The problem is their activity on your board. One of your staff members, has only
0.6 posts per day, that's absolutely ridiculous. Tell your staff to either post and stay active, or their gone. Another one has 1.7 posts per day, that's great, another has
0.9 and hasn't been active for five days, unless their on vacation, that's unacceptable for a staff member. The rest of the staff are quite active. There's just those two moderators that are extremely inactive.
(Scored 16/20)
Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism - (Out of 20)
The majority of your boards have great spelling and professionalism. There's two that have issues:
Your Nintendo discussion board, has the description : " Discussions about Nintendo Gaming and Games are found here "
" Gaming and Games " doesn't make that much sense. You might want to change it to " This board is for discussing Nintendo games, and all of the Nintendo systems as a whole.
Your ' Common Gaming ' area also leaves some to desire. Perhaps you should try " General Gaming " and change the description to " Discussion about all other games not relating to the other categories ".
(Scored 17/20)
Total Score - 65 (Out of 100)
Final Remarks:
Your forum isn't bad at all, it's really the homepage that is likely turning guests away. You really need to reconsider your homepage design, and maybe even pick a whole different template. Your boards are great pretty much, and other than those minor things I picked out ( and the homepage ) your site is pretty good.
What was most liked about the website/forums:
Your forums, you did a good job organizing them.
What was disliked most about the website/forums:
Your homepage, it needs a lot of work.
How could I get you (The Reviewer) to join my website?
By fixing your homepage, and maybe picking a more gaming-ish skin.
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