First Impressions: (7 out of 10)
When I first visited the forum recently, I found out that the forum had a nice change of theme. I like the theme change myself. I know I wouldn't have stayed too long on a forum that had the particular blend of orange and black that the previous theme had. Though I noticed you still have the older theme. I guess for those who liked it, could still use it if they want to.
I also noticed that your forum has a large number of your boards filled in pretty good with topics. Sure aren't lacking there for most of the forum, but the service boards are giving me the eye, with the little amount of topics in them.
As I started browsing the forum, I noticed that Devin has quite the signature size. I know that I personally don't like having to read past large signatures, unless I have to. And I know that with the size of his signature, if he posts more than a few times in a thread, that will create a massive page to scroll down. His own signature is 330px in height, and having that shown just four times, adds 1,320 px to the amount that you have to see, in order to get to other posts in a topic, which causes issues with those who have smaller screens (those with tablets, and small screens for their computers and laptops). If you can convince him to remove 1 of the two leaderboard ads there, or remove some of the extra text lines, that will reduce the amount of scrolling by enough, to not have to annoy people.
Number of Posts & Members: (4 out of 10)
The forum has a pretty good amount of posts and members on it, but is obviously not active enough to draw atleast half of them to the forum.
Also, I noticed that the forum had went through around a half a year, before going from 5,000 posts, to 8,000 posts, when the forum had obviously went up quickly in the other post milestones in comparison. You need to get your members to want to come on and talk more, so that your numbers looks better.
I never have seen a forum that old, only receive roughly 5 posts per thread, from a member base that large. Try getting a reward post competition going, or some sort of competition that will help people to come back and visit more often.
Activity Level: (4 out of 10)
As I mentioned above, you need to really get kickstarted in getting the forum active. It is a shame to have a forum like yours, have only 8,000 posts at it's age. One expects it to have gotten way over 10,000 by now, if it was still as active as it was a number of months ago.
Try sending out reminders to your memberbase, of what is happening on the forum, and to encourage them to visit.
Also, try to get your services to have more requests, as that will help with your overall activity that you need in the long run. The more that those services are used, the easier it will be to retain visitors who want to use those services.
Also, get some of those boards that have less than 100 topics, to have some fresh topics to reply to. Try to make them interesting too! That will eventually help with bringing back the activity the forum so desperately needs.
Site Structure: (10 out of 20)
Where are you focusing the forum on in particular? Is it services first, then discussion, or what? Since it reminds me somewhat of FP atleast, in the order of how things are displayed. Don't get me wrong, but I would have expected the Site Battles board, to not be with the webmaster discussion board, and the webmaster discussion to be a little bit more expanded, since that single board makes it look like you don't want to have much of anything about being a webmaster being discussed on the forum. Try moving a few boards around, and adding a few boards to your webmaster category, as that may help better increase your current post count.
Design Quality: (18 out of 20)
I personally love the design! I love how the social buttons are at the top of the page, and how the colors tend to blend so well!
Originality: (8 out of 15)
In all seriousness, the only two things that seem to be unique on the forum, is the graphics request service board, and the SEO Service request board. If you expand your RD service board a little more, offering more unique items that don't require their own individual board, I would give this a better rating next time around.
🙂
Spelling, Grammar & Professionalism: (9 out of 15)
Try expanding your board descriptions a little more, so that it appears as if you put thought into what is on the forum.
🙂 I also suggest making a height limit in signatures, so that people don't get annoyed at staff or members who have large signatures. As that tends to be rather annoying for most people.
Thing you liked best about forum: The Theme
Thing you liked least about forum: Big Signature Ad space on a couple of your member's signatures.
Overall Mark: (60 out of 100)
I am hoping that if you take a few things of the above into consideration, you may have a better forum yet! Good luck!
