Your Forum Review
First Impressions & Appearance
Tiny, that is the first word that comes into my head when I view your site. I don't know what exactly give it this feel, it may be the liquid flow playing havoc on my screen but everything feels so small and distant. It may also have something to with the darkness of the forum. I would love to see a bit more colour in your design, even a gradient would help to give it more character, it feels really boring right now. You could use the colours of your logo to help create a colour flow throughout your forum, even making some of the text, such as section headers, blue would help bring more life to your forum.
Your logo is nice and clean, I don't know how much it actually has to do with marketing though, it gives me more an impression of building and craftsmanship. The blue is a nice colour, the white clashes a bit with the darkness of the design though. The second word, forums, has a reflection, whereas the word Market doesn't. This makes the logo look odd and gives the impression it is two separate images. I would choose to have a reflection on both or none.
Your menu bar is very high compared to the buttons which are just plain text. I would either make the menu bar smaller or add some proper buttons to fill out the space more. Currently the hover over colour is a brighter white, it would be nice if you could replace that white with the blue colour in the header, this would tie in the header with the forum even more and create a natural flow.
You have added images next to each section, yet I don't see any connection between each image. What are they telling me? Why are they there? It doesn't even look like they all come from the same image set. I would suggest trying to use images that have some kind of feature in common, may it be a type of shadowing or a colour, it ties in the design better when the eye can recognise similarities between images. Another thing to look at is colour, choose a scheme and stick to it!
A custom Favicon always gives a professional impression, yet if your logo has blue and white text, maybe a blue M and a white F would tie the favicon in with the design more? Also, the font in the favicon doesn't match the rest of the design. It gives a more graffiti grunge look whereas the forum projects a sleek, professional business look.
(Score: 12/20)
Site Layout
You have four section which are quite large. The first section is the general forums information section. This area provides me with all the information I need about your forum. What I don't understand is why updates is in a sub-board under the category Announcements & News. Are news and updates not the same thing on a forum? I don't see any flaws with this first section, it fulfils its duty.
The second section is the general section. This contains everything from gaming to webmaster discussion. The section itself is well divided with a good post count in each category and a good spread of activity.
The third section, The Marketplace is also well divided and grouped, as is the fourth section, Graphics.
The feeling I get from your forum is a general forum, not a Market forum as your name suggests. You have much less market discussion than I would have expected and graphics seem to take a large space on your forum compared to everything else. I find this a let down as your forum is otherwise very well organised. I would suggest looking at your forum and considering what your goal actually is. Do you want a general forum or a market forum? If you want a market forum the Market section needs to take a bigger space on your forum. Minimise the general section and get your members posting more in the market. Place the general section at the bottom and give the market more coverage.
I am lowering the score due to the impressions given by the board.
(Scored 11/20)
Statistics and Activity
Date Forum Opened: February 2011.
Our members have made a total of 99,309 posts in 10,822 threads.
We currently have 4,217 members registered.
Well done. These statistics are amazing for a forum that has only been open for 6 months. You have a really good ppt ratio and a good flow of daily activity through your site, you should be proud of yourself. What does disappoint me is the ppm. You only have an average of 25 posts per member. This gives me the impression that members come, post, get what they need and leave. You really need to work on getting your members to stick around and keep posting.
(Scored 15/20)
Staff Moderation
Your forum is well moderated and seems to be free from spam and off-topic posts. I see good activity from all of your staff and good interaction with your members. Your staff are all active and posting around with good post counts, there is only one under 1000 posts. What I would like to address here considering your low ppm is that it seems your staff are the ones keeping the forum growing. You really need to get your staff to work on getting your members posting more and more on their own without having the staff stimulating all of the discussion. This is an important goal for a forum which wants to stabilise and become a mature and self running community.
(Scored 18/20)
Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism
Your site is professionally run and nearly all of your members have good grammar and spelling. This adds worth to your forum and means new members are more likely to join. You have done a good job building up your site and I hope that your good work continues
(Scored 19/20)
Total Score - 75/100
Final Remarks
You are on your way to creating a stable community, keep going strong!
Strong Points
Post count, staff
Things to Improve
Theme, PPM
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