Large Forum Review
First Impressions
During my first visit, what I like from your forum is your overall design. The icons and pictures matched Mario very much. The big banner and forum icons please the eyes of viewer and telling visitors who you really are. It has decent activity as well with several members around when I was reviewing and lots of users. All in all it gives a positive vibe from the site and invite visitors to browse around and look deeper into the forums. What I was wondering about next is how the forum is doing. In the index page I didn't see anything showing latest happening to the forums, maybe competitions or fun contests or latest information about Mario or interesting featured topics or such. It makes you wonder if the site is really active. Let visitors know what you are up to and invite them more. Then I scrolled down, looked at the sections, and surprised at how there could only be one Mario-related section. I was just confused; you put the word "Mario" in the address and name of the forum yet the area truly related to Mario is only one. This makes me feel that the site's focus is unclear. I'm afraid it could be one of the bad things from your forum.
(Score: 11/15)
Appearance
As mentioned before, in general I like the images you used to complement your forum theme including the favicon. They match well with the style and the idea of the forum. The big banner is inviting and comfortable to look at. The category icons too are a good job. It is just unfortunate that the mushroom forum icon (I'm not sure what it means since there is no forum icon legend anywhere on ZetaBoards) but the mushroom forum icon is rather blurry. It would be a different case if you made it like that, but I think making it as smooth and lovely as the Mario icon will help to make your site even prettier. I also think you can work more on the buttons, such as "New Thread" button and "New Reply" button. The ones you have, while they match the current theme well, can use more customization such as adding icons or texture to make them better. The locked topic image feels rather out of range since it is very different from the other sets. Perhaps you want to consider getting a more matched one. Don't forget to add an icon for "AIO Links" menu if you can to completely customize the navigation bar.
Great job with the variety of theme with different dark, light, and color combinations. Definitely bring different sense of the forums. Nintendo Blue is rather outdated and does not reflect Mario site at all so maybe you want to modify it. The theme "Pink" is lovely; using Peach there is a good idea, but the white background of the category/forum icons is surprising.
This one is specific for the current default theme. My other concern is about how many blank space you have at the forum. To the right side of the banner, there is a blank/free space. The box for category/forum icons too, since you put the icons to the left of the box overlapping the left border, there is a blank/free space to the right side. I simply think it is rather unfortunate to waste such space where you could actually put more interesting space. You can shrink the banner a little bit to provide more space to put "Latest from Mario Forums" information there, for example.
One other strange thing I experienced earlier today was that the shout box always moved every time I refreshed the page. At a time it was at the bottom, at another time it was at the top. I didn't think this was possible with ZetaBoards, but it really happened. If this is not a glitch, I would say to fix it in either position only to make things simple and easy.
(Score: 15/20)
Statistics and Activity
Mario Forums have a total of 121,266 posts with 297 members at the moment I made this review. From all those posts, almost half of them, around 46%, are made at the off-topic area and board games. While it is understandable that those two sections would be loved by members the most probably, it means you also have space to work on, to drive more attention and activity at the on-topic forums. Roughly dividing the total number of posts and members, it means that each member has around 408 posts on their own. That is a good number, especially given how long your site has been around. Only a few members with 0 posts, which means that during your advertising period you might have hit the correct audience for your place. You yourself as an administrator made almost 14,000 posts. Added with your staff members, all of you composed around 47% of your forum total posts. Again, it signs another room of improvement to make other members more active, although it also shows that your staff members are dedicated ones.
(Score: 17/20)
Ratios
Your organization of categories and forums look okay to me. Not too many or too few, the site is set at right amount to concentrate on the discussions. No redundant or confusing sections. "Members Corner" category could perhaps be put together with "Community" since both are related to the website environment in general but the current organization is fine as well.
Regarding staff team members of your site, I see you are the sole administrator with four moderators helping you to run the site. Three of the moderators are on global level. I think moderation section has been covered up well. What I am unsure of is the administration level. With a forum so big, I don't think it would hurt if you have someone else to accompany you as an administrator. This is not compulsory, though; if you are confident you can run everything on your own then it is okay.
(Score: 9/10)
Content
Taking from what I mentioned on first impression, I'm still confused at why you only have one Mario-related section in the whole forum. Even the name of the category where that section is located in is "Nintendo". That makes visitors feel like they are looking at a gaming forum instead. My suggestion would be to do a renaming on the categories and forums, branch out more from Mario-related section, add content, encourage discussions, and let it flourish. You can create an independent category for the gaming and merge "Members Corner" category to "Community".
Another concern from your content is lack of something new. I was looking at your news section but I didn't find something really new. Nor do I see contests or something like that. Your site is quite old; two years is a lot of time to do many things and to make a forum big. You have proven to reach that level. In your current situation, your real challenge is how to keep members interested with various events, as well as inviting new members at the same time. I didn't see any kind of "advertisement" of contests, competitions, or latest news or fun information. Some kind of "Featured Thread", for visitors especially, so they know what exactly is going on in this big ad old forum.
(Score: 14/20)
Navigation
I have no problem with navigating around the site. Everything can be found easily. I couldn't find terms of services and privacy policy in your forum, but I don't think in this case you truly need one, so I will not deduct points on this. Any other important information such as staff list and rules at the navigation bars on the top and bottom of the page. Well done.
(Score: 15/15)
Total Score
81/100
Final Remarks
Mario Forums has proven itself to still stay around strong since it was built. From the site we can see dedicated members and staff team. For quite a long, old forum like this, the real challenge is how to keep things new and different so that members would always feel the enthusiasm and interest to post around as much as when they first registered. Keep the board updated and fresh to invite more attention.
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