Scoring:
First Impressions & Appearance – (16 out of 20)
When I first click the link to take me to your forum, I am greeted by a portal-type page. It's a big floating rock thingie with some text half way down my screen. This portal page is very nice looking, with the image being of medium quality, but I feel somehow it matches your roleplay atmosphere. I can't place the feeling though... I have mixed feelings about this portal. For one, it is a nice welcome screen for any first time viewers, but I don't know if your returning members enjoy clicking through it every time. BUUTTT, on the other hand, it serves as more than a portal page, it serves as a portal from reality into that of your roleplay realm. I normally would suggest removing this page, but I feel that it adds to the ambience of entering your site. It's like physically stepping into the realm. I like it. The only real problem I have with it is that I have to scroll down half a page to see the rest of the text. I'm sure that it wouldn't hurt to move the text on top of the rock. Would it?
After stepping into the portal, I am taken to your site. Not the index though, I have to click around a little until I log in and then go to the index. I did a little looking around and I can't tell if this is a free or custom theme, so I'm going to judge it solely on its appearance. Honestly, I think that your theme really adds to an ambience of your roleplaying subject. Many roleplaying themes have dark, renaissance looking themes, but yours is a little different. Your theme showcases dark colors, but has "light spots" scattered throughout. For example, your banner features dark colors, but there is an illuminated flower. For some reason, I just get the chills looking at your appearance.
One thing that didn't sit right with me about the style of your index was the semi-awkward placement of your category titles. I have a picture below, but see how they kind of sit high, a tab space over? I'm not sure what bugs me about this exactly. In addition to the placement, I feel as if the text needs to be a little different. I feel bad for pointing this out without reason as to why I don't like it, but it should be acknowledged.
Honestly, I can't find much else to say about my first impression and appearance. Just to conclude then, your forum gives off a very nice "vibe" and ambiance. A very nice ambiance, actually. As I navigate through your forum, I feel as if I'm in a cave with shimmers of light around me. This really creates a very nice role playing atmosphere, and I would bet that you see this reflected in the roleplays that go on in your forum. One aspect I would look at revising is the portal page, bringing the text up to the top of the page. This way, there is no chance that any new members would miss the link to enter your forum. I am scoring you a 16 (one of the best appearance scores I have given) based on how your forum has given me the chills with its appearance.
Site Layout – (13 out of 20)
Many of my comments about your site layout have been mentioned above in the first impressions & appearance. Your site layout is pretty solid, with your portal and index. One thing you may want to consider is showing subforums on the index. For one main reason in particular: I can see that there are subforums form the index because of the symbols, but I have no idea what the subforums are. If these are not displayed on the index, it makes it harder for the user to navigate to these subforums, and can limit activity in the long run.
One criteria for site layout asks if the index is cluttered or not. Your index seems to be well organized with correct forums in correct categories. The only comment I would make about your index is, once again about your descriptions, that your descriptions seem to be a tad to long. When I'm navigating your index, I feel drug down by the descriptions, and I just want to skip reading them. Consider shortening them, avoiding the first person, and getting straight to the point.
I apologize that I did not have much to say about your layout. Almost all of what I was going to say was mentioned in the first section of this review. To conclude though, navigation throughout the site is pretty simple. I mentioned how the portal was a tad confusing to new members, but that was the only navigation problem I ran into. Many of your forums are in good places, but their descriptions weigh the forum down a little from achieving fluidity. Based on these points, a score of 13 will be awarded for better than average site layout.
Statistics and Activity – (5 out of 20)
Currently, Midnight Lotus has 11221 total posts with 647 topics, as well as 160 total members. I quickly checked how many posts you have, and you currently have 1848 posts that make up about 16.5% of the total posts. This right here shows some serious activity and dedication on your part by staying active and keeping those posts coming.
But here comes the sad part... You said that your forum opened in 2011. So, your forum celebrated its second birthday this year. For a forum that has been opened almost two years, you are surely lacking the members and activity that I would expect from a super successful forum. Now, that being said, I honestly think that your activity should be your number one concern at this point. You seem to have some solid staff and a few regular members, so let's get that activity up! One of the most depressing things I have noticed from your site is your "Activity Over the Last 24 Hours" information (Image below for reference). In the last full day, you have had 4 new posts, no new topics, and no new users... From a totally reviewer perspective, I would recommend removing that counter because potential members could spot it and consider the forum dead, therefore not sign up. Something to think about!
Honestly, I hate saying this but your forum is barely holding onto life if there is any to be had at all right now... I can't really give you many suggestions on what to do in order to revive it. You have incredibly inactive staff, and only a handful of users that log on daily. Therefore, I have to give you a 5 for statistics and activity.
Content – (9 out of 20)
This section runs into statistics and activity pretty fluidly. Overall, you have a lot of space where users may post content. If I were to say, I think that every section you have would be ideal if there were users enough to post content for it. Since you seem to have a lack of users, most of the content space on your forum is dead. There really isn't another way to put it... Many of your forums just don't have the activity that they really should. At all...
🙁
It is very difficult for me to judge content when there is no activity around to post content. One thing I would like to mention though is how you have not contributed any content to your own forum in four days. Your last post is on the 1st of December. Before that, you had a huge break from the 6th of November, which is a very long time between official content posted.
I have read over a few of your RPs though, and I must say that they are of good quality. Most of your active members keep up with a good quality role play here and there, making the quality of your content better than average. However, due to the inactivity of such good quality content, I am rewarding you a score of 9 because of infrequent content that is of average or good quality. If you were to increase the activity of your site, content would most likely follow suit.
Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism – (12 out of 20)
Something that I noticed right off the bat when reviewing for spelling and professionalism were your forum descriptions. Let's take a look at the image I've pulled together below, shall we?
Now, there is nothing wrong here in terms of spelling, but grammar and professionalism take a bit of a hit with your forum descriptions. Specifically, you have a lot of repetition in most of your descriptions. "Here at," "Here you'll," "ideas here," are found all throughout your descriptions. I'll be completely frank with you: writing descriptions has always been the hardest part of a forum for me because I
always want to be simple and tell people what to put "here." Unfortunately, doing that really cuts down on how professional your forum looks and feels.
This repetition appears around your forum, on top of a few minor errors with capitalization such as "The Feedback station." Since this is the name of a forum, "station" should have a capitol S. Most errors are minor, and stay out of your official forum posts. Due to the constant repetition and the volatile nature of scores in this section, I'm going to award you a 12 in Spelling & Grammar / Professionalism. The one aspect holding you back would be the constant repetition that seems to cut deep into your forum descriptions and make them rather boring.
Total Score - (55 out of 100)
Final Remarks:
I was very excited when I first saw your forum and began to look around. It seemed like you had a very good theme that drew me into register and perhaps participate, but then I started to smell something bad... Your forum is on the verge of taking it's last breath, and I honestly believe it has something to do with your inactive staff and administration. You have a very appealing board, but your activity lacks, so the content fails as well. I really wish you luck on your forum, and I hope that you can get it revived, if that is your goal!
Strengths:
- - Your Theme - I love how it suits the board
Weaknesses:
- - Inactive Staff
- No concrete active member base
- Inactive forums / No new content
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