Name of Site: Admin Village Site Genre: Admin/Webmaster Site URL:http://www.adminvillage.net Type of Review (Full/Quick/Questionnaire): Quick Review Opening Date: 24th January 2014 Additional Notes: Test account will be sent via PM when this is accepted.
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Sleek and Clean Look
At first glance, Admin Village looks very professional and spacious. The theme utilizes clean colors, with soft contours and textures throughout. All important links are carefully organized at the very top, as to be out of the way of viewing the forum's content. The theme is not custom, but it is a "premium" theme from Audentio Design. A very good investment in any community, if you ask me. The visuals are very easy to view over a long period of time and the view is soft on the eyes. There are no overly contrasting colors. In addition, the logo of Admin Village incorporated the colors of the theme into their logo! Great move; it ties the whole forum together. 🙂
However, there is a minor error that seems to be working correct, but it looks bad. At the bottom with the links "Log Out | Mark All Forums Read | Forum Team | Forum Statistics," it is sitting on a line. This looks pretty annoying, considering the rest of the appearance is smooth. I would suggest putting it in a container, such as that of the category names, so that it holds the feel of the forum together. I actually played around with Inspect Element a bit and worked this out.
So play around with it. I just made the text a "thead" class instead of a "tbody" and put <strong> tags around it. You'll have to find a way (perhaps make another thead2.strong class) to get the bold off, but I think this looks much better than having the text sit on the line!
True to the Topic
At first glance, I thought Admin Village would be another promotion forum disguised under the name of an administrator's forum. While Admin Village do offer some services, these are definitely not related to your average promotion forum. I was pleasantly surprised to see numerous categories and forums dedicated to topics that admins may actually want to talk about. There is plenty of space to talk about whatever and admin would want to talk about, and it's all related to the theme and name of the site. There are some off-topic sections, but that is natural for a forum. Sometimes members just want to chill and talk about something else, which is perfectly acceptable! My whole point here is that I'm glad Admin Village wasn't just another promotion forum; they actually offer plenty of space to discuss admin related topics without flaunting areas of promotion all around the forum.
Weaknesses:
Lack of Service Staff
Ahh, now this is a topic I rarely touch on; even when I do, it's a little awkward for me. At the moment, Admin Village employs one Administrator, two Community Staff, and a Graphic Designer. Decent numbers for a forum with 57 members! However, you are attempting to offer services without service staff. No biggie with the size of Admin Village, but that should be the forum's next move: to find a Service Team Leader (or whatever they want to call him). That way, he/she can get the services up and running which will attract a little bit more activity. I completely understand how staff can be hard to find (we are still looking for Supromote staff and we've been open a few months), so it's not too big of a deal.
Lack of Activity in Certain Areas
So, before I get started here, let me mention that I don't really have an accurate way to judge traffic in the past few days other than the posts made. There seem to be multiple forums with no posts since the 23rd, 26th, and 28th of last month. Now, while this may have been five or so days ago, that's still a forum without daily activity in all areas. Icky icky! The staff, Community Staff in particular, should be jumping on those forums and engaging people in conversation. It may feel like the forum is saturated in staff colors at first, and it could stay like that for awhile, but it generates activity and encourages other members to post as well. Having colorful forums looks a lot better than having no posts in a week for so!
Final Remarks:
Wow, this has to be the first review in awhile I'm proud of; heheh. Admin Village is a very beautiful forum that stays true to its name. There are a few minor hiccups along the way, but these are eaisly fixed as time goes on. Keep going with the forum, J Grieg! I hope this review has helped. 🙂
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