The Mario Forums
Full Review by 2787cmt
Scoring:
First Impressions & Appearance – (15 out of 20)
To start things off, I would just like to say that I recall reviewing this forum back when I was a reviewer in 2011. You say that you opened this forum back on October 6th, 2010. It is awesome to see that this forum has been around for almost three years. That shows quite a lot of commitment, and I congratulate you on that. When I first look at The Mario Forums, I notice the blue color scheme. While I do like the color blue, I feel like the icy colors are not very welcoming to potential members that visit the forum. I know you have a few different themes available if a member does not like the default theme, but the default theme is what sets the tone when someone views the forum. Don't get me wrong, it is awesome that you have a custom theme, and I think all of the different elements (the header, logo, menu background, category background, topic icons, and more) to the theme look great, but the blue color scheme along with these things does not feel welcoming to me.
While a color scheme revamp might do the trick, I feel like it might be good to go ahead and get a new default theme. I am pretty sure I remember you getting the "Ice Kingdom" custom theme a while back, so maybe it is time to bring a new custom theme to The Mario Forums? In fact, I found
this topic, announcing the addition of the custom theme back in April 2012. It has been over a year since you added that theme and made it the default. I think a big theme change would be awesome to get things going on your forum once more, as I have noticed that things seemed to have slowed down a bit. Next, I feel like I should say something about the favicon. I feel like you should have the favicon matching the default theme, as that is what the favicon is seen with the most. If you are planning on keeping the default theme for at least a little while longer, I think the favicon should probably go along with the color scheme. Also, I feel the same way about the main affiliate banner you use for your forum. It would be best to have an affiliate banner that matches the default theme. Designs tend to work better when they have matching qualities.
Site Layout – (15 out of 20)
Your forum has twelve boards in three categories. I feel like your forum has a pretty good board layout, but I think things could be adjusted. As time passes, you can see which boards are kept active and which boards are not kept active, so then you can make changes when necessary. For example, the "Technology & Internet" board only has 2,290 replies in 92 topics. This board has the least amount of posts on the forum. The last post made in the board was nearly five days ago. I think something should be done with this board. With only 92 topics, it is clear that part of the activity problem may be that members are having trouble creating topics. If that is the case, it might be worth a shot to try and get activity going by trying to create a new topic in the board every couple days. If that does not work, I think you should probably make the board a sub-board in the "Entertainment" board.
Next, I feel like some changes to the categories could be good. Your forum is supposed to mainly a forum about Mario and general gaming, so I think there should be more than just two boards about these things. It might be a little difficult to expand the "Mario" board, but I think you could at least expand the "General Gaming" board. I think you should have a whole category for just gaming. Instead of adding a fourth category, I think the "Community" category could easily be taken apart. The two gaming boards would stay of course, but the "Introduce Yourself!" board could be moved to the "Mario Forums" category. I know that is the basic forum setup these days, but that is standard I feel like it would be best to go by. The "Toad's Coin Stores & Competitions" board could then be a sub-board elsewhere because it also appears that your forum is struggling to keep that board active. Lastly, maybe you could create a "Community" board in the "Off Topic" category that has the "Ask Me" board, "Personal Announcements" board, and "The Zone!" board all as sub-boards in it. I feel like this would work a lot better and make more sense, but keep in mind, it is just a suggestion. Only the members of a forum know what is best for it at the end of the day.
Statistics and Activity – (16 out of 20)
Your forum has 194,790 posts by 715 members. First of all, I would like to say that these are great statistics. Your forum has accumulated a lot of posts over the past couple years. According to the "Register now!" board that guests see at the top of the forum, it says that 300+ posts are made on your forum daily. The "Today's Top Ten Posters" page says differently though.
This page says that 74 posts have been made on your forum today. That is still a decent amount of posts, but it is definitely not 300 posts. Because of this, I am guessing that your forum's activity has dropped quite a bit recently? Hopefully, with a few changes and more promoting, you can get things going once again.
"The Zone!" board has over 50,000 posts in it. This appears to be the average forum games board, just with a unique name given to it. Over 1/4 of your forum's total posts are from the forum games though. In fact, nearly half of the total forum posts are in the "Off Topic" category. While it is great to keep the off-topic boards active, it would be good if there was more posting going on in the main boards that the forum is supposed to be about. When you take a look at the statistics, your forum actually appears to be more of a general discussion board. There is not a lot you can do about this, but you should try to promote the main boards. You can't really tell members to not post in the forum games boards as much, but it might be worth something to talk to your staff members about spreading out their posts.
Content – (16 out of 20)
Content is one thing that I do not have much to say about. Around the forum, the content looks pretty nice. In terms of content as far as posts go, there are various discussions going on that I find interesting. For example, I noticed "Too much Mario" as one of the topics with posts recently made in it. I think topics like this are great to attract other members. Gaming debates are awesome to potential members because if they have a set opinion and they like gaming, they may be tempted to register on the forum so they can express their opinions as well. Now, as far as the other content on the forum, I think things look very nice. I looked at my past review, and one of the things I did not like was the board descriptions you used to have on the forum. It looks like you have changed the board descriptions since then, because they look very nice. It is awesome to see that your forum has improved in content over the years. Another type of content on the forum would be the rules page. I think the rules page looks nice and simple. I think it would be better to have a rules topic instead of a rules page because it appears more personal and straightforward, but that may be based more on my opinion, and not on facts. I feel like it is a lot easier to ask questions about the rules when you see exactly who wrote the rules when you are viewing a rules topic though. Overall, I think the content looks pretty good.
Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism – (17 out of 20)
As said above, the spelling and grammar looks pretty nice in the board descriptions. I looked around the official things on the forum (important topics, board descriptions, site pages, and more), and there were not any spelling or grammar errors that stood out to me. I think this is because you have continued to fix errors as time has gone on. You have made it impossible for me to pick out spelling mistakes. I think that is good, but even if I did point out spelling mistakes, for them to have went unnoticed this long, it probably would not have mattered that much. After all, the typical potential member visiting your forum will not be someone who is going out of his or her way to find such mistakes. Next, I feel like professionalism is lacking on your forum. I think this has a lot to do with what type of community The Mario Forums is. The Mario Forums is not a forum founded on professionalism, but a forum founded by a group of people that are friends and gamers. So, I do not feel like professionalism is what you really should be worrying about with the type of forum you have created. All members seem to have built personal relationships with each other and they all seem to know each other pretty well, and that is an awesome thing. It may not be the most professional atmosphere, but it is a fun forum. Overall, the spelling and grammar on your forum is excellent. Professionalism is lacking, but I do not feel like professionalism is what you are aiming for.
Total Score - (79 out of 100)
Final Remarks:
The Mario Forums is an excellent forum! From what I can see, it is a very personal community. The forum seems to keep going because of the commitments a group of people have made to the forum over nearly three years.
Strengths:
- - The Mario Forums is an established forum.
- The spelling and grammar is very nice.
Weaknesses:
- - The activity seems to have dropped over the years.
- The board layout needs some changes.
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