Thank you
🙂
Your Forum Review
First Impressions & Appearance - (Out of 20)
When I first entered your forum, the first thing that I noticed was the theme. I like that shade of blue, it's not so light that you have to strain your eyes to see detail, but it's not to dark as to make things hard to read. I couldn't tell what the forum was about by its name (H5 Network), but the "we pioneer ProBoards" slogan underneath the banner makes me assume that it is some sort of coding, graphics, or ProBoards support forum (later as I wander around the forum I would realize I am correct in that assumption).
Speaking of your banner, I think that your banner looks rather nice with your theme. I'm not really a fan of that type of banner where the edges of the letters almost look like they're sewn into the background, but it really works with your theme. Though, I strongly dislike about how you can't click the banner and be directed back to the forum index. On most forums you can click the forums banner and it'll take you back to the forum index, which many people are accustomed to. That's not a big thing nor is it needed, but if you have the extra time and know how to (I'm pretty sure it's just editing a simple code) I would recommend you to make the banner clickable.
Something I
really don't like with your theme is your favicon. I'm all for favicons; they are great because if you do not have one then when a member or potential member of your site bookmarks your site the icon that will by default appear next to it will look like -
or in your sites case the default ProBoards favicon. Not very appealing. Think of how many other ProBoards forums that that one person could have bookmarked - would you want your to stand out in their bookmarks even slightly more than the others, or just be another site from ProBoards that they bookmarked? If your response to that was some variation of "I want my site to stand out, not be just another fish in the sea", then I would recommend you changing your favicon to something more unique.
This site (Freefavicon) is a nice place to get free favicons. I'd recommend that site if you can't get or make a unique favicon specially for your forum.
Moving right along, when I clicked the "chat" button in the navigation bar, I was directed to what seemed to be a forum chat box. (I wouldn't have guessed by the title). First, allow me to say that I'm more than glad that you decided not to use the popular "Xat chat provider". Next, above and below the chat box are two images hosted by Photo bucket, both of which are not actual images by a message from Photo bucket saying "This image or video has been moved or deleted". Both of those look terrible above and below the chat box. I'd recommend fixing or getting rid of them as soon as possible.
Next, allow me to mention the "We Welcome You to H5 Network! All arrivals are asked to enter here for the latest announcements and new member introductions.." forum description under the "network center" category. Why is that descriptions font and font size different than every other categories font and font size? I see that you're trying to emphasize that one because it's obviously important, but it makes the site itself look a bit unprofessional by having an unsymmetrical forum description. That's like having one navigation button be size 77 and blue -- just doesn't look 'right'.
So overall it's not a bad looking forum, but it most certainly has some places that could be improved upon.
(Scored 15/20)
Site Layout - (Out of 20)
One thing I immediately notice about your forums layout is that the general discussion area does not have its own category. That's a bit different, and I like that.
One thing that I don't particularly like about your forums layout is that above each categories name is H5 Network - Original ProBoards Forum", and then at the bottom of each category is "H5 Network - We pioneer ProBoards". Both are unnecessary and just take up space. All of that except "The Original ProBoards forum" is in the banner. It makes me feel like you're either afraid that I (as a potential member and guest) will forget that you pioneer ProBoards or that you're trying so hard to get the point across that you're the original ProBoards forum. Which by the way I feel is incorrect (feel free to prove me wrong), the ProBoards support forum I would feel is the original ProBoards forum.
Next, if you're trying so hard to get the point across that you pioneer ProBoards and are the original ProBoards forum, then under the main category which contains information and introductions, why not put the ProBoards learning center category? It seems appropriate since you have ProBoards in the banner as opposed to designing.
I can see the "Out-Dated & Replaced Posts" as both a guest and member. If you don't want regular members nor guests to see it then why have the permissions set to allow us to see that there is an out-Dated & Replaced Posts forum when (I'm assuming) you have to be a moderator or administrator to view it? I don't see any point in allowing members to see that there's a trash can on the forum when A) we wouldn't be able to contribute to it regardless B) we can't even see in it. I understand how you would want guests to view forum names and descriptions but not view topics, but there's no point in doing that with the trash forum on the forum.
Other than what I mentioned above, I think that your forum descriptions are good and helpful in explaining what each forum is are just the right length - not to short as to not cover anything, but not to long as to just look bad. The forums are nice too, not going completely off topic of what your forum is mainly for, but giving some extras (i.e. designing and advertising) to add to the forum. Nice job with that.
(Scored 14/20)
Statistics and Activity - (Out of 20)
On first glance your stats are very appealing and look great. As I go further though I see that at the time I view this forum you have three hundred sixty-six forum users and twenty-one thousand six hundred six posts. If you divide the amount of posts by the amount of users you will achieve the average amount of posts per user. On your forum specifically that comes out to about fifty-nine posts per user. On forums of your size I typically categorize fifty posts and over per user to be good - which classifies your as great. And it is, to have approximately fifty-six posts per user on a forum is pretty great.
Though, something that someone told me years ago comes into mind now as I type that - "Be happy, but not satisfied". That basically meaning that you should be happy that your forum is as active as it is, but that doesn't mean you should stop advertising and regularly contributing content to the community.
Since you have a decent member community now, I would recommend if you have not already to submit to search engines and directories and such to get into the search engines. You can advertise on forums in your signature and use word-of-mouth advertising, but using search engines help is a very good way to get some extra traffic. If you need some help with that, you can always PM me and I can help you a bit.
I do notice something though, the "
Proboards safety" forum has little posts in comparison to the others. I mention this because safety is such a big issue on forums these days. I would recommend that you add some content on how to keep accounts safe in general, make secure passwords, ect. not
just for ProBoards. That's just an opinion though.
(Scored 17/20)
Staff Moderation - (Out of 20)
According to the staff list, you currently have four moderators of different sorts and yourself as the administrator. I support your decision to only have yourself as an administrator (even if it's only for the moment being) as if you have two many people with that high-up access you could end up getting it thrown back at you resulting in one of their passwords being cracked and the whole forum being taken down.
Some of your staff are not active. It may just be because of the holidays, and if so excuse this. ǻñî§ђ™ has not been on since November 30th and Bejay since December 3d. It's unacceptable for staff to be inactive, as staff are supposed to set an example for the members..and if the staff are inactive then how do you expect the members to be? It may just be two staff, but you only have
five staff members, so those two could have a big impact on the outcome.
(Scored 10/20)
Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism - (Out of 20)
In the "Coders discussion" forums description I notice an error. The description is "Specific discussion of coders.". Unless I'm interpreting that wrong, the description makes it sound like that forum is for discussing people who create codes for ProBoards, whereas from what I see it's a forum to discuss general ProBoards coding and general coding.
In the first forum with the description "We Welcome You to H5 Network! All arrivals are asked to enter here for the latest announcements and new member introductions.." you have 'We', 'Welcome', and 'You' all capitalized. Why? You should only capitalize every word (excluding words like "and", "in", ect.) in titles and other important headings. That forum description isn't
that important, and the rest of the description doesn't have every word capitalized. You should change that.
The description "Request images, or animations, for your signature and other needs." in the design center forum should be - "Request images or animations for your graphic needs". A comma is basically where you would pause and take a breath in real life. Now, would you really say "Request images *BREATHBREATHBREATH* or animations *BREATHBREATHBREATH* for your signature or other needs" in real life? I think not.
The forum description "Codes, make an improvement on your board, by changing your headers and footers. Many are available to you here." in the code storage forum also has some incorrect commas. Please see the paragraph above for why it's incorrect. Here's an alternative to your incorrect description. You could just change the commas to make it correct, but I personally find this description to just generally sound better - "Make an improvement on your forum by adding some neat ProBoards codes to it! There are many different ones here for you to use"
All of the other forum categories were fine and I couldn't find any grammatical problems with them.
(Scored 10/20)
Total Score - 66/100
Final Remarks:
What was most liked about the website/forums: The activity and theme
What was disliked most about the website/forums: The favicon, forum descriptions, inactivity of staff.
How could I get you (The Reviewer) to join my website? Change the favicon, get the staff to be more active, and change the forum descriptions. Because other than those and a few other things your forum is really nice.
After you have read your review, please click the following link and rate our service to help us make it better for you.... [
Click Here]
.
