Name of Site: Discussion Hub Site Genre: General Site URL:http://discussionhub.net Type of Review ( Full/Quick ): Quick Opening Date: 4 Months Ago Additional Notes: None 🙂
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User Features
I would like to commend the user features you offer for registered members. From awards, to shop, and the features I could see on mini info on the thread. I assume the currently-under-construction group will also be featured for members? Either way, looking around the forum a bit, I think you did well on these. General discussion forums emphasize much on the content and how to keep members interested to keep on generating content, and I think you explored these features well enough to entertain them. If there were points to add more, I would say that you expand the usage of the shop and awards to also cover fun regular events or contests instead of only achievements. It doesn't have to be something very grand; it can be accumulation of small quizzes every once in a while which can be exchanged for medals or points. Or it can also be offered in relation to the groups you're constructing, to achieve special features as a member of specific group, which will be shown everywhere around the forum. That hopefully can boost members' enthusiasm to play at the forum more. But still, up until now, those are great features you have implemented for the members. Thumbs up for you.
Overall Activity
I would like to commend your activity and content in general. The forum looks active with regular posts everyday made by your core active members. I wanted to highlight some points still because I think your forum has potential and can improve better on this aspect. One point you will need to explore more is how to invite more members and expand the active member base (from the statistics only 18 from 153 members are visiting the day I wrote this article). You also regularly have new threads started, which means you have quite a steady line of new content which can be used to drive activity and discussions. Some threads are lonely without replies, though, which is too bad. They need love and care from the staff members at least to drive a life into the discussions. By doing so, hopefully more replies will come in and make the activity even better. Also, try to provide new point of view or other opinions during the discussion to make members interested and they will always have things to reply to. Still, the forum has content on-going with the current small active member base, so imagine how much it would grow if you can add more names to the circle. Not an easy job indeed, so don't give up yet!
Weaknesses:
Elements of Appearance
You should know that I had a hard time deciding on where I should put this aspect about appearance: a strength or a weakness. I have things I like, but also some others I dislike. I eventually wrote it here, but no, I don't think your appearance is 100% a weakness. I put it here simply because I think there are still improvements to make to make your appearance even better. So without further ado, here we go.
Your current default theme has many lovely elements, in my opinion. Starting with your banner, which completely owns the header and reflects the content and the title of the forum well. You also have quite a nice theme built and modified just for the forum. My eyes are somehow uncomfortable with your font choice, but that's subjective. You have nice choice of widgets. Your footer is clean and tidy. Here comes the one negative feeling I receive upon my visit: those elements are yet to compliment each other. The blue you used in log in bar and the banner is different from the blue you used for the general forum theme. The favicon and the image/icon used in banner are not the same, not even in the same general category. (I mean, they don't have to be the same, but most websites/forums pick the same icon or at least choose something under same category, for example chat bubble and mouth, maybe.) The navigation menu can still be fixed more, especially for the "Home" link and the search bar, each at the very end of the menu. Guests still see the "Howdy" widget, which is not useful at all. Copyright widget is located at the top, which usually goes at the bottom of the forum. Thread icons are still standard, although thread appearance looks sexy. Those are some which I can write here. To me, color plays an important role here so I will suggest to make them in the same tone. Or, you can pick another complimenting color to make the overall theme more colorful (but I like your current color scheme, so to say, since I have always loved blue).
Content Variation
In terms of content variation, you have tried well by implementing awards and shop to make things merrier, and I commend you on that. What I wanted to touch more is more about the section organization. The typical general discussion forum will have more forums under "General Discussion" category. But you actually have same number of sections under other categories. That gives me the impression that you are more a game/technology forum than a general discussion one. I remember you changed names few times before, perhaps that was from the past. Not necessarily a bad thing, but I also think that more can be expanded for the "General Discussion" sections. For example, you can consider expanding "Debate" and "Sports" sub-forums to forums if both of them and the main section have considerable activity on their own. They are also broad topics so there are many ideas which can be transformed to activity. Or adding discussion about food/drink/cooking? Or talking about world culture? I also touched it a bit above, but what about adding regular quizzes to the forum? It can be questions about general knowledge or other fun moments. And so on. Brainstorm and keep on finding new ideas. Get a unique content which can give you advantages over other general discussion forums.
Final Remarks:
Discussion Hub is quite an interesting place, so to say. It's been going for a while, and I remember that you changed the name of the forum few times, maybe even changing the direction/genre of the forum to pursue a clearer objective. I forget the details, unfortunately. As I mentioned above too, I feel that you already have some lovely points which you can keep and add more, and there are also few things which can still be improved. They just need to be put on together in a more complimenting way, to make one overall good impression, not different feelings for different elements. All the best with the forum!
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