Your Forum Review
First Impressions & Appearance - (Out of 20)
As I first click to your site, the thing that initially catches my eye is your banner, I like how it changes around whenever you click on it/refresh the page. That's a nice touch.
As I look down at your welcome message, I noticed some things that may need some work. You should reword it a bit: Your first paragraph is good, that mentions that your site is aimed for young adults all over the globe. That's fine. Below that, the message isn't so good. Especially using the word ' fave '. Not too professional. You should bold important parts of the welcome message.
I'll move onto to helping you correct the message in the spelling section.
Other than that, the skin is great, your advertisements are perfectly fine IMO, and your board layout may need another look, I'll delve more into that below.
Other than the welcome message, first impressions are exceptional. You score a good mark here.
(Scored 17/20)
Site Layout - (Out of 20)
Your layout isn't bad, not bad at all. You may want to condense the boards a bit though.
Your first category is fine, and it looks good. I would just delete that Community Rules and Disclaimers area and move those topics into the " Messages from the Staff " area as sticky topics.
As I scroll to General, I see you've got quite the selection of boards.
Your " The Lounge " area is good, and fits well- Your news feed area is fine, your relationships area is fine, but your
debate area is slow- I would recommend making it a child board of The Lounge until it gets more popular.
The rest of the General area is great, but you might want to change that ' Debate Area' thing.
Technology area is fine, but I see a problem with that bottom user support discussion category.
' Ask the Staff ' doesn't need to be there, I would make it a child forum of the ' Community Discussion ' area.
I also strongly recommend making your trash bin areas private. A topic is deleted for a reason, so members don't need to see it- it doesn't belong in an open archive area for anyone to access. I would move that area to your staff forums.
Overall, you've got a pretty good layout other than those tiny nitpicky things.
(Scored 16/20)
Statistics and Activity - (Out of 20)
Your board was created in April 2009, and you've got over 80,000 posts and 200+ members. That's amazing. I'd imagine since it's tightnit, there's a lot of daily posting.
(Scored 20/20)
Staff Moderation - (Out of 20)
Here's where I notice a little issue with your board. Two site managers is perfect, and you're both very active. No issues there. I'm guessing the Site Managers is the supreme leadership of the board, but I question your " Administrators " group..
You have 4 people in the Administrator group, and while they are active, I DO NOT recommend you have 6 people in total with Admin access on any forum, especially one with 80,000 posts- that's a lot, but nothing insane, and you certainly don't need 6 administrators, I would recommend changing the group name to Super Moderators and taking off their admin access- it doesn't look good to members when 6 people are in the top power seats.
You've got a bit too many moderators, aswell. 5 is a little much on a forum with 80,000 posts and 230 members.. you might want to stop hiring for now, I think you're set on staff.
You've got 11 staff members, 6 of them administrators, on a board with only about 230 members. This is overdoing it, don't pick up anymore staff until you've got around 500 members and 150k posts.
The upside is your entire staff team is very active.
(Scored 11/20)
Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism - (Out of 20)
This is also a little bit of a lowpoint of your site.
Let's start with the welcome message. The first paragraph is fine, but this one:
" Come and discuss whatever you like whether its your fave TV show, fashion advice, help with applying to university or even your favorite ice cream flavour! To get started click 'Register' "
Is unprofessional. " your fave tv show " especially, make it more appealing, fashion advice, and applying to university isn't going to draw in guests, as much as saying " Discuss your favorite movie " or " Discuss your favorite sports " would be. What I mean is that with what you have listed on your welcome message isn't appealing to the general mass, it's only appealing to a small amount of people. I Would reccomend bolding the discussion topics, in example- in your welcome message, bold " Discuss your favorite TV show " so it catches guests eyes.
Your board descriptions leave a bit to desire. No punctuation or grammar, and the descriptions are thin.
"Education threads here. " for example, isn't that appealing. Put in the description things like " Discuss university level education, high school level, middle school level, and other types of education topics " would be better than just " education threads here ".
Same with the sports and the motors area. Take another look at the descriptions on those.
(Scored 16/20)
Total Score - 80 (Out of 100)
Final Remarks:
Your site is very successful right now, but you've got yourself a few problems, namely the amount of staff and the welcome message. Take another look at those.
What was most liked about the website/forums:
How fast you've excelled in Activity, and how you organized your forum. Your banner is also very cool.
What was disliked most about the website/forums:
The amount of staff is unnecessary. Stop hiring for now, and the descriptions leave some to desire.
How could I get you (The Reviewer) to join my website?
I may check you guys out if you fix the welcome message, and the descriptions- I am not too into General Chat, though.
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