GFX Forums - Full Forum Review

Solidus

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Jan 15, 2011
Messages
215
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15
FP$
243
Name of Forum: GFX Forums
Forum Link: http://gfxforums.net
Type of Review: Full forum review
Date Forum Opened: April 28th 2010
Demo Account for reviewer (Supplied by requester): Yes it's available. Some sections require 10 posts to access, I'll create an account with 10 posts for the reviewer.
Additional Notes: None.
 
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Your Forum Review




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First Impressions & Appearance - (Out of 20)

The first thing that I notice upon entering your forum is that you have a really nice banner - but it doesn't really blend in with the background, making it look kind of awkward against the colorful background. Especially since the background of the banner is rather dark against the background. I would recommend that you make the banner blend in more or compliment the background more.

Speaking of the background, your background really is nice. It kind of reminds me of a desktop background that someone would have. Although there is one thing about it that I'm not fond of - a quarter way down the forum the background starts turning completely gray/ending and leaving a gray background in place of itself. I'm not sure if that's intended, but if it's not them perhaps resetting the background to "fixed" instead of "scroll" so that it doesn't show any gray?

I also think that you should have a default avatar for new users. Since you have a section in the header where the users individual avatar is displayed, it doesn't really look attractive if what looks like kind of a broken link image is there when I first login before I have a chance to upload my own avatar. A default avatar would also be great since you're a graphics forum, so you should be able to get/make one easily.

The forum width is off for me. The Top Posters Stats, Board Statistics, and Graphic of the weeks, and widgets width are larger than the forums, which makes the index page stretch.

Down at the bottom of the forum, I notice the graphic of the week. I think it's great that you have that competition, but in the case of larger images that win, perhaps just linking to the image or topic would work? It's not that it doesn't look nice, but it makes the index a lot longer and just generally takes up so much space for the size of the image -- if you feel that it's worth it to keep it there though for the community aspect of it, then ignore this paragraph.

I really like your forum theme in general, it flows together so nicely. In fact, when I first saw your forum I though that it was on VBulletin (a paid software) instead of MyBB. I don't think I've ever seen such a nice theme on MyBB.
(Scored 18/20)

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Site Layout - (Out of 20)

Something I noticed, was that when you click the "blog" and "image host" in the navigation bar, they open in a new tab. That can make them appear as popups and be disallowed for some people on some computers. I would recommend that you reset those links I mentioned to "_none" in the codes. And if you purposely did that because users like to be on both at the same time, they can just open a new tab instead of you having it that way in default for everyone.

In the image host, I think that instead of having an image for your forum you should have a navigation bar. Some people - especially new users/guests - may think that it's an advertisement for another site.

I think that your forum is laid out really well - it's really organized and easy to navigate for new users.
(Scored 17/20)

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Statistics and Activity - (Out of 20)

Your forum seems to have a really together community. The statistics are great. There's always ways you can improve - but I don't think your forum really needs much advertisement anymore. There is enough active forum members on your forum that it should be to the point of where the members invite friends to the forum because they like it there. One of the best things about your forum is the activity - "be happy - but not satisfied" which means that there's always room for improvement.
(Scored 19/20)

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Staff Moderation - (Out of 20)

According to the "the team" page you have seven staff/moderation team members and yourself as the sole administrator. I think that's a great amount of staff for a forum of your size - just enough so that your forum is well moderated, but not too much as to make it seem like the moderators and staff overpower the users. One more moderator wouldn't hurt though, but it's not needed for your forum to have any more staff.

I also really like your decision to be the sole administrator. That means that there's only one account that could really mess up the forum if gotten into. I hope you continue to be the only administrator for a while, because I don't really see the need for a second administrator.
(Scored 20/20)

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Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism - (Out of 20)

I actually couldn't find any problems regarding the spelling and grammar on the forum index - that's great for the obvious reasons of it can make your forum seem more serious and seem as though more time was put into it. Although, I did notice your descriptions. They're all nice and descriptive -- but I feel like they're missing something. I kind of like at least one or two forums in a forum to have a bit of humor in them. Maybe it's just me, but I think it makes the community seem more interesting. For example, I once saw someone have a technology forum in a general discussion category titled "Byte me". (That's not necessarily needed or important, nor will I deduct points for that - it's just a friendly suggestion)

In the rules box in the first forum on the index, I clicked the read in more detail box, and it keeps sending me to adf.ly? I think you should just have a topic that states the rules (I can't seem to find one except for the rules in the rules box in the first forum, and possibly something on adf.ly.)
(Scored 18/20)
Total Score - 90/100


Final Remarks:

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What was most liked about the website/forums:
The activity, the look.

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What was disliked most about the website/forums:
The off width of the forum.

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How could I get you (The Reviewer) to join my website?
Honestly, I would join right now how it is (if I knew anything about graphics).


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.
 
Thanks for reviewing. I'll post in the rate your review thread after I point out some things here.

Anathema said:


I would recommend that you make the banner blend in more or compliment the background more.

The banner is on a rotator, there's actually about 8 of them. If you're using Google Chrome, you wont notice because of the way it caches pages.

Anathema said:
a quarter way down the forum the background starts turning completely gray/ending and leaving a gray background in place of itself. I'm not sure if that's intended, but if it's not them perhaps resetting the background to "fixed" instead of "scroll" so that it doesn't show any gray?

That's intentional. Having it repeated looks bad, really bad. The important this is that you can see all the colours without scrolling down, making the first impression good.

Anathema said:
I also think that you should have a default avatar for new users. Since you have a section in the header where the users individual avatar is displayed, it doesn't really look attractive if what looks like kind of a broken link image is there when I first login before I have a chance to upload my own avatar. A default avatar would also be great since you're a graphics forum, so you should be able to get/make one easily.

This requires a plugin which isn't essential. I try to save as much memory of the server as possible.
Perhaps I could make some modifications to core files to do this.

Anathema said:
The forum width is off for me. The Top Posters Stats, Board Statistics, and Graphic of the weeks, and widgets width are larger than the forums, which makes the index page stretch.

As it should be. The side boxes are apart of the index page too, they're all aligned with the GOTW and top posters boxes.

Anathema said:
Down at the bottom of the forum, I notice the graphic of the week. I think it's great that you have that competition, but in the case of larger images that win, perhaps just linking to the image or topic would work? It's not that it doesn't look nice, but it makes the index a lot longer and just generally takes up so much space for the size of the image -- if you feel that it's worth it to keep it there though for the community aspect of it, then ignore this paragraph.

I do this for really large images, the image there now isn't so big, and it's on the footer so it's not a problem imo.

Anathema said:
I though that it was on VBulletin (a paid software) instead of MyBB.

Lol.. vB is horrible.

Anathema said:
One more moderator wouldn't hurt though.

There is one hidden staff member.

Anathema said:
In the rules box in the first forum on the index, I clicked the read in more detail box, and it keeps sending me to adf.ly?

That's a plugin which helps monetize the forum and pay for the server. Premium members do not see adf.ly links, and the links do not appear in important section such as rules, suggestions.

Thanks for reviewing.
 
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