In-Depth Review
Site Name: Midnight Lotus
Site Type: Roleplay
Age: >1 year
At the portal/splash page, the content was very creative. It was an unique way to introduce your site to your guests. I like the colors on it as well; not too harsh on the eyes, and it goes well with the site's theme. I like the fonts used. You could, though, just drop a slight hint of what your site's about in the portal page because you couldn't exactly point what the site was about on the first page, though the preceding page gave you enough information to tell what the site was about. Just do that and it would be perfect. I like how it's nice and simple and you have all the links you need right on the first page. It's very well developed and well suited.
Now onto the index page. The snow on the page could be distracting to some and not so distracting to others. I just think that it's a nice touch and I like how it's only on the top half on the page so it doesn't clutter up the entire index page. The style of the index page is very well designed and easy on the eyes. More work could be done to match the page to the portal/splash page. The logo looks excellent and doesn't fade into the background much and I like how the favicon matches it. The sliding affiliate buttons on the bottom do seem a bit distracting and would be a bit better if it could just stay in one place! Wonderful job with your appearance. The chat box is a bit large, make sure it doesn't take away from the activity of the forum. The banner suits the theme well.
You have over 7K posts from just over 100 members which is really good at a glance. Activity could be a bit improved since there's was a small number each time I looked at the number of new posts every 24 hours. Other than that, it looks like it's doing pretty good. The staff to member ratio is good and quite balanced. The layout of the forum is nice and there's plenty of forum categories to post in that makes people want to join. The forum names and category names are descriptive and unique.
The grammar is top notch, as it should be for a roleplay forum. There's nothing that is cluttered so the organization is looking pretty good. I like how there's another forum integrated into the site, Psychology of Writing, and there's a good amount of activity going on there. If anything could be done to improve this, I would say to take out the advertising. For one thing there's only 4 topics/posts in that section and it just stands out from the rest of what's going on in the forum. The content is great and lengthy. Very unique. It's interesting to read and there's a lot of discussion. Again, all the grammar is perfect so keep that up!
Upon first impression, it was attracting. The portal page was nicely and creatively designed and it made me want to know more. Since this is the first page your guests are looking at, you want to make sure that it hooks them in. The index page was also very attracting and the skin on it was designed very creatively and I like how you put a lot of your own personal touches to the forum to use it to full potential. Your site has an Alexa rank of 16,869,235 with 13 sites linking in. Some work could be done to add more backlinks to this site since it's been open for over a year. Keep up the promoting and really get your site out there. It's very appealing. You have a very good audience that you're attracting so keep up the consistency in that area. It has a lot going for it.
Words from the Reviewer
Overall, this site is very good. The pages are well designed and colors are all wisely chosen. You utilized the forum software very well and you did a great job in the work you put into it. Wonderful site, and get that rank up! Good luck.
Star Rating
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