Name of Site: Plethora Studios Site Genre: Roleplay/Discussion/Tech (Multi purpose?) Site URL:http://www.plethorastudios.com/forum/ Type of Review (Full/Quick/Questionnaire): Quick Opening Date: January 19th, 2014 Additional Notes: We were booming at the start, then all the sudden we just lost members and some people just stopped posting. Over 125k visists, 8k posts, and over 200 users
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Post Statistics
One of the biggest strengths that I can see with Plethora Studios is how many posts you have. In just one of you boards you have 3.6K posts which is really outstanding to be honest. You have thousands of posts spread out in your website and your members seem to be active enough to keep the posts flowing in. Posts are one of the biggest things other then activity that keep a website alive so having so many posts really shows how well your site has grown since day one. With the amount of posts that your site has accumulated since it first began, it is hard to believe that your site has died down. However, there are a few things that I can tell that may have driven them away after a period of time. We will get into that here in a bit. Overall, I think that your posts are by far the biggest strength going for you at this time and you should be happy with the amount of posts that you have gained, but those won't do you much good if you can't keep your members active in the long run. So let's move onto the 2nd strength of your website.
Unique Forum Host
The second strength that I see in your site is the forum software you are using. You are running your website off of Vanilla Forums. In all my years of being a webmaster, I have never before seen this software being used for a website. That is what interested me when I first visited your website. I was confused on what software you were running so when I found out what software it was, I was shocked to learn that there was such a software out there. However, I feel that even though it makes your site unique, I feel that this software is also something that may be bringing your site down. Due to other popular softwares out there such as XenForo, IPB, PhpBB, or MyBB, such softwares such as Vanilla Forums don't seem all that interesting when all these other amazing softwares are out there for use. So I also feel that your members aren't active anymore because they may have found another website with a better looking software & design which is key for bringing in members and keeping your site going. Overall, I am amazed at how far you have gotten with such an unknown forum software to me at least and needless to say, I wish you luck if you continue using this software.
Weaknesses:
Forum Design
Let's move on and focus on some of your weaknesses that your site has. One of the biggest ones, I feel is your design. You have a basic theme. All white. This does not bring in members. People want to see sites with color and shine, things that bring out the best of your site and really flourish. But when sites have a basic all black or all white design with no creativity in it, it really affects the site. That is the main thing that drove me away from your forum is due to the lack of creativity. You can find many better themes out there for free and make your site look better, or you can take one and just change up the style with basic coding knowledge. I feel that the biggest let down of your site is the theme itself. There just isn't enough creativity to make the site seem all that worth while to visitors, and that is something I feel is what drove your site down when you mentioned you were booming at the start but then died down. I feel that the lack of creativity is what drove your site down and caused members to leave and now it is taking it's toll. Overall, I feel that your site design has a lot of work to be done to it if you want to continue the progression of Plethora Studios.
Forum Organization & Layout
Looking at the organization of your site, I would have to rate this terribly. You have 0 organization of boards. There is just 1 category holding all of your boards, there is no organization to spread the boards out into different categories. This makes it hard for members to find posts or find areas that they may be interested in posting in. With the lack of organization, your site won't get very far because you won't know where tings are and if that happens, what will you be able to do? With no organization & your site design needing a lot of work, I feel these 2 things combined is what makes your site weaknesses over power your site strengths. So overall, Plethora Studios was nice to get to review as I got to learn a few new things but you still have a lot of work to do if you still want your site to grow and progress.
Final Remarks:
As I mentioned above, your site was great to get to review but sadly, I feel that the design & organization are the biggest weaknesses of your site. They seem to be what is dragging your site down and I feel that your site won't be able to grow much more if you don't get these issues fixed soon. You can find many free themes for Vanilla Forums by going to google. I am glad to be able to have done your review and I hope that some of the things I mentioned will help you make Plethora Studios a growing community in the future!
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