Basic Review
Site Name: OpenCarnage
Site Type: General Discussion Forum
Age: 21 weeks
Appearance
Starting with the overall look of your forum, I think it is actually look good. Some members and visitors may not like dark themes, so an option for a second brighter theme could be a great idea although I know it costs a lot. From the top I see a solid banner that looks good. One other thing I feel is that it doesn't truly reflect what you are, what your forum is about. Perhaps it can stay like that, but you can add one line of short description or slogan of your forum below the big title of the banner. That way although you used space-related picture for the banner, visitors can still tell what exactly your forum is about. The favicon is already good. There seems to be double navigation menu line in the header: one above the banner (in the line of community guidelines) and one below it (in the line of search box). I think if you can integrate both lines, shortening the name of the links into "Rules" and "What's New?" for example, it will be easier for visitors and members to navigate around.
For the body of the forum, the category/forum icon doesn't really suit the idea of a general forum, in my eyes; perhaps something to reflect people or community or chat will be better. You may also want to consider the idea of having a customized graphics for each category/forum to spice things up. Deep inside, the usage of topic icons, buttons, and rank images are rather standard to the software or theme, just slightly customized to match the theme. If you have some time or resource to get new ones, I advise you to get new ones. The footer is tidy, nothing I need to say about.
Layout
The layout is quite good. I like how you make yourself small so that discussions can be concentrated properly. I'm just wondering about why you put "Carnage" category as the third one below "Talent". On my understanding you are a general discussion forum, slightly focused to gaming and technology. Even if that is the case, then it would have been better for you to make two separate categories, each for gaming and technology. Then you can include your current second category integrated with what they actually should belong to. My point is, I'm slightly confused with your forum's real discussion target when I look at the organization of your categories and forums. If you can specify it, along with the explanation through descriptions and such, it would have been easier for visitors and members to know what they can and want to find in your forum. That is, since the word "OpenCarnage" is still rather hazy and doesn't really point to one specific topic.
Statistics and Activity
OpenCarnage has 8,607 posts with 109 members. Roughly counting it means almost 80 posts per member, with around 400 posts per week. Staff members compose around 31% of total post count, which shows that you have active member base. However, upon checking post count of each staff member, I see that the balance is still a bit off, that the staff members' post count is slightly low compared to the total post count. This brings me to think if it really is necessary to have that many staff members.
Your three moderators are all responsible for one section only. Perhaps that is because they are news writer too, but for a forum as big as you currently are, two administrators and three global moderators would be enough for moderation team. In fact, one administrator with two global moderators will still be fine. It depends on the situation of your forum, too, indeed, so I will leave it up to you to decide since you know the situation of your forum better.
Content
For the content, I think it's going on pretty well. Several sections are less populated in terms of threads compared to the other, so you may want to add more there. You can ask help from fellow staff members to start more threads which encourage discussions to give the forum more friendly atmosphere (not just what-are-you-currently-listening-to type threads). Many replies are made at the sticky threads and some normal threads, leaving many others with less than 10 replies or 50 replies. Especially for the ones which have less than 10 replies, maybe you can try to bump them up with statement or question which may require further discussion. That way the number of posts you have will be spread in balanced, not just focused in several threads. It must start from the staff members, so the hard work is on you and your team. But as time goes by I believe it will be paid off, once you have got a bigger community with various opinions.
I see that sub-forums like "Dev Tools", "Art Tutorials", and "Sig of the Month" are not going well. If you have had them since the opening of your forum and still not going well, I think it would have been better to close them down and move the content somewhere else. That way you can concentrate on thinking what else to add instead of filling sections which are not interested enough for your audience.
I think your grammar is okay, from the rules link, forum names, and descriptions. They look good and tidy. For the names of the forums, I think you can be a little more unique than usual. After all, you are a general discussion forum. A catchy name may spark up some interest from visitors and members to click on that link and see what is actually inside. You can compensate with clear descriptions under the name if the name is too strange, for example.
Organization and SEO
On Google, OpenCarnage ranked three in first page as the result of searching 'open carnage'. I couldn't find your forum at Yahoo, though. As for using keywords related to general discussions, I tried ones related to gaming and technology since that seems to be what you focus on, but I had no luck. I suppose it is understandable given the competition in the niche. Your Google Page Rank is 0 and Alexa Traffic Rank is 11,195,066. You only have 4 sites linking in; you can fix this by visiting more forums in similar genre with yours and leave a link to your forum there (of course not by means of spamming). This can help to get the words out about you towards your target audience.
Words from the Reviewer
General discussion is another one of saturated niche. Therefore, lots of hard work needed. What I think you need to focus now is specificity. When someone visits a forum or website, they are looking for one thing or two -- never too many -- that make them interested in reading or joining, and that is supposed to be the focus of your effort. I think Open Carnage is not yet fully focused. Find what your community 'specialize' at, one thing you can offer to members who join.
Star Rating
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